Two Dominican hookers have come forward, represented by a lawyer, to say that Senator Bob Menendez paid them for sex. However, he only paid them $100 for sex acts after promising $500.

Senator Menendez is known to travel frequently to the Dominican Republic.

The sex acts, they say, happened around Easter of this year.

On at least one occasion, according to a news account, Menendez has been a guest at the Casa de Campo home of a friend and campaign donor named Salomon Melgen, an ophthalmologist and owner of an eye clinic in Florida.

...

Melgen also appears to have lent Menendez the use of his plane on several occasions.

MenendezÂ’s 2012 public schedule shows no events listed for Easter or the following three days. On Easter Sunday this year, aircraft records obtained by TheDC show that MelgenÂ’s plane left Florida the morning of Easter Sunday, stopped at the Teterboro private airport near MenendezÂ’s home in New Jersey, and flew on to the Dominican Republic.

Easter sex. Nice.

Via Twitter: "So he taxed them at 80%. What's the big deal?!"

"If the facts are true, they should all be fired... They represent the United States of America..."

Video via @johnekdahl and @moelane.

"Fighting Back For Women:" He sure is. He sure is.

Posted by: Ace at 09:54 PM | Comments (352)
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Happy Halloween all.

Drunk and on a sugar high is no way to go through life - but it is fun for a few nights a year though.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:34 PM | Comments (737)
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I've heard the story, but I don't want to say what it is because, well, I have no idea if it's true.

But in the interests of sparing you 1 heart attacks and 2 overly optimistic guesses: What it's about, rumors say, is a Senator.

I have no idea if this is true, though. But that's the chatter.

It really bothers me that that that Drudgetaposition is so bang-on. Not only does he have a picture of Obama, but specifically a picture of Obama with his wedding ring in forefront of the picture.

One of the cobs pointed that out. Man, is that a sweet hint.

But, alas, the hint is inaccurate, if what I've been tipped is true.

Well... As Drudge is now saying it's a Senator, I feel that my rumors might be more than rumors.

Here's what I'm hearing. And bear in mind, I'm merely hearing it.

The story involves a Senator flying down to a big donor's place in the Caribbean for orgies. Hookers are involved.

The One Big Snag in the story is that the story comes from hookers -- a couple of them, I hear -- and their credibility is, well. They're hookers. It's not Gold Standard.

Well, I guess I shouldn't call them "hookers." Let's say "escorts."

Escorts, for your penis.

They're miffed because they didn't get fully paid for services rendered.

Always pay your foreign hookers for services rendered at big donor sex orgies.

Always pay your foreign hookers for services rendered at big donor sex orgies.

Don't they teach nobody nothin' no more?

Posted by: Ace at 05:24 PM | Comments (618)
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The kids don't seem to agree with the principle.

They use blunt language about it: They call it stealing. more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:43 PM | Comments (137)
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There is no additional information. Drudge doesn't specify what campaign, on what level, so it could be any of 400 people.

(Although: Drudge has a picture of Obama below the slugline, for no good reason. The story below the Scandal slug is about Gallup beginning polling again tomorrow. Given Drudge's Photo Placement gags...)

Update [JohnE.]: As Ace noted, Drudge does like to play around with image placements as hints and the Gallup story doesn't quite fit with an Obama picture, really. But note what's front and center in the picture he chose: Obama's wedding ring.

He's probably just having fun with us. Good troll if it's something relatively minor, which I suspect is the case. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:54 PM | Comments (486)
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Before the election.

There are three parts to this scandal: Before, During, and After.

Before, Stevens and others were begging for more security. Three weeks before the attack, Stevens warned that an attack was coming from the groups which did wind up attacking the base and killing him.

During, two brave former SEALs went to the consulate's rescue and begged for air support to help them disperse attackers. Who would have run like cockroaches had a single jet fighter roared at them.

The Administration ordered possible rescuers to stand down.

After, the Administration lied repeatedly about every element of the attack. Obama's current stance is that he cannot answer questions about what he himself knew and what he himself ordered until an "investigation" is concluded.

He needs an investigation into his own actions and knowledge? I think Steve Hayes put it like this: Obama is currently claiming he won't know he knew until he finds an email telling him what he knew.

Obama knows what happened. He doesn't need an investigation to determine what he ordered or what he knew.

He only needs an investigation to discover what he can be proven to have ordered or known.

Right now, he's just not answering questions. Someone with the Truth on his side does not have to avoid answers.

People who refuse the answers only do so because they know the true answers are harmful, and they're wondering if false answers -- which would be more helpful -- can be disproven.

He's trying to find out what his alibi can be.

"Nonsense on stilts," Mukasey says about Obama's nonanswers.

It's worse than that. It's a guilty man waiting for "all the evidence" to find out exactly what the cops -- the American people -- know and what they don't know before venturing a false story.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:26 PM | Comments (177)
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A little insight into the creative process here: think of the following as liner notes from me to you. (I'm actually not old enough to remember liner notes, but Dave in Texas tells me they used to appear on the inside of sleeves containing black vinyl discs called "records." I'm thinking he's bull-shitting me tho.)

I originally wrote: "Music to Trick or Treat By." But that damn preposition bugged me. Knowing that y'all expect full value for your money on posts here at the HQ, I then switched it to "Music By Which To Trick or Treat."

Then I realized I could substitute "WITCH". It's that kind of value that I bring to this blog, and it's why Ace still hasn't eliminated my privileges despite my not having contributed a meaningful post in 7 and a half years. Or ever.

Anyway, now that we've dispensed with the studio chatter, let's check out some Halloween-appropriate tunes that y'all should listen to as you ensure that the neighborhood children get their fair share of candy, and that they remain safely outside of 500 feet from Greg's house.

Your "Trick or Tracks"/"Tracks or Treats" (see...more of that cleverly phrased added value thing) await you beneath the jump.

more...

Posted by: Jack M. at 02:42 PM | Comments (79)
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Via @nkronos, a gem.

Well, I guess the strict definition of "incredible" is "not credible." Maybe that's what he meant.

I don't think he was using the strict definition, though.

Drew notes that, in addition to being absurd, the lights are on in the subway, despite it being flooded to the ceiling.

Maybe someone should throw in a giant squid and really pop open Toure's eyes.

Posted by: Ace at 02:40 PM | Comments (239)
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What?

Did you say you were losing Wisconsin? Because I thought you said something insane like "We're losing Wisconsin." No non-lunatic Obama surrogate would go out and tell a rally and then a newspaper that Obama is losing a must-have state.

But he did.

He says that, as of right now, Republicans are winning the state in early voting, and Democrats just aren't turning out.

Hancock even broke news on that Wisconsin trip, telling voters if the election were to be held right now the president would lose Wisconsin and its coveted 10 electoral votes.

...

“We have not turned out the vote early,” Hancock told the newspaper. “The suburbs and rural parts of Wisconsin – the Republican base – are voting. President Obama’s base has yet to go vote. We’ve got to get our people to go vote.”

The Obama campaign rushed out to say that while they appreciated Hancock's urgency about getting out the vote, his numbers were wrong.

Eh. Maybe. Or maybe he saw some inside information that Team Obama didn't approve for publication.

Meanwhile, Obama is giving away election night tickets to Illinois residents... but only if they do Get Out the Vote work in Wisconsin.

Posted by: Ace at 01:35 PM | Comments (363)
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Posted at Hot Air, Sean Trende crunches some numbers in an attempt to determine if the state polls and the national polls could both be right.

His conclusion: They can't both be right. One series of data must be wrong. (Or, actually: At least one series of data must be wrong. They could both be wrong.)

He attempts to discover if it's possible -- as some liberals analysts suggest -- that Romney might actually be ahead in national polls owing to overperformance in non-swing-states, lightly polled states, both Blue and Red. This theory postulates that Romney could be closing the gap in Blue states where he'll lose anyway, and running up the score in Red states where he'll win away, but is still stubbornly behind in swing states. Thus, his national poll lead, while nice, is owed to good performance in states where it really doesn't matter. Where it does matter -- the highly polled swing states -- he's behind.

But he crunches numbers to see if that sort of scenario is likely. His finding is that it just isn't likely that Romney could plausibly have high enough margins in noncompetitive states to give him the national vote lead while simultaneously losing the competitive ones.

Trouble is, he's not able to say which data set is more reliable. Though he does knock Nate Silver (not by name, but it's implicit) for the unwarranted assumption that of course the state polls, mostly conducted by firms that haven't been around all that long so we have little idea of their accuracy, must be right.

So this is what it is, ultimately: Both sides have reason to think they're ahead. Both sides, it seems, really do think they're ahead. Neither side is actually blowing smoke (as a losing campaign like McCain's did in 200 .

One side is going to be crushingly disappointed on Election Night.

Something just terrible is about to happen to somebody. I sure hope it's not us.

Now, I would take solace for my preferred take on things from the fact that everyone is now going to Wisconsin.

And when I say "everyone," you know who I mean?

I mean EV-ER-Y-ONE.

Ryan Stumps in Wisconsin; Clinton, Biden, Romney and Obama Follow Suit

That's kind of a good sign, but then, if Obama thought he was ahead in Ohio, and Wisconsin became Romney's only possible hope, it would make perfect sense for him to go up there to make sure Romney didn't create a new avenue of victory.

So that doesn't really clarify things.

From the beginning of this campaign, I've been thinking it comes down to one thing: 5% of the voters defecting from Obama, to either flip to Romney or, at least, simply not vote (or vote for a third party candidate).

Obama got 53% of the vote. If 5% of the voters -- about 10% of his total voter pile -- flip to the challenger or stay home, Romney should win.

Since the polls are conflicting on this point, let's look at newspaper endorsements.

Today came another flip: The Nashua (NH) Telegraph flipped from its 2008 endorsement of Obama to endorsing his challenger Romney in 2012. From that endorsement:

Four years ago, with little hesitation, we endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama to become the 44th president of the United States, saying it was a time for “new leadership, a new approach to governing, a new way of conducting the people’s business.”

So the basic question facing The Telegraph editorial board when it met last week came down to this: Did the former Illinois senator do enough to live up to those admittedly high expectations to warrant a second term?

After several hours of spirited debate, not unlike conversations taking place in kitchens and living rooms across America, we reached a consensus that he had not. Perhaps more importantly, when we identified the key challenges facing the nation – jobs, the economy and the national debt – we concluded he was not the best candidate to meet them.

That person is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and we hereby endorse him to become the 45th president of the United States.

I've written earlier that these flips in newspaper endorsements are somewhat helpful for Romney, as a direct matter, as they will tend to sway some undecided voters.

But they're also important indirectly as proxies for, as the Telegraph says, the "conversations taking place in kitchens and living rooms across America." Editorial staffs aren't kitchens and living rooms, of course-- but they're actually more liberal, and more likely to buy into Obama's brand of progressivism than most families talking about the question.

Now, looking at newspaper endorsements, has Obama lost that game-changing 10% of his 2008 support?

Actually, looking just at newspaper endorsements, it's closer to twenty percent. Almost one in five of the major metro dailies which endorsed Obama -- most with a long, long history of endorsing Democrats for President -- have now flipped to support Mitt Romney.

I don't know what that says, exactly. Obviously I'm casting about for confirmatory data.

Still. If you've lost 20% of the liberal-leaning newspapers which enthusiastically supported you in 2008, and which endorse Democrats almost as a reflex, then you just can't be doing all that well with the voters.

Posted by: Ace at 12:59 PM | Comments (257)
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