Another $100 million month for Romney.

Mitt RomneyÂ’s presidential campaign is expected to have raised more than $100 million last month, according to two people familiar with the matter, marking the third straight month the RepublicanÂ’s money effort has crossed the nine-figure threshold.

The final number will be announced next week, but the total shows that Mr. Romney’s fundraising network – so far relying heavily on large donors from the financial sector – has not tired as the general election approaches.

President Barack ObamaÂ’s re-election bid has not yet announced its fundraising total for August. Still, Mr. Romney and the Republican National Committee have outraised Mr. Obama for the three months prior. Mr. ObamaÂ’s monthly fundraising record this election is $75 million.

$25 million here, $25 million there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

Romney and allied groups are not buying ads in Michigan or Pennsylvania-- yet. But they're about to hit the airwaves in other swing states.

Senior Romney-Ryan campaign officials tell Fox News the campaign will launch an enormous media offensive on Friday, the day after President Obama accepts the Democratic PartyÂ’s nomination for a second term. The push will include ad buys in several states that will cost tens of millions of dollarsÂ…

Romney-Ryan officials did not repudiate such talk; indeed, one official, in speaking to Fox News, likened the offensive that will begin Thursday to the “daisy cutter” bombs used in the Iraq war.

I'm glad for that, because my optimism swings up and it swings down, and currently it's down.

Yeah, when I said the election was over? I was on crack or something. It was probably because I overpleasured myself or something. I was jack-wacky.

Depressing me right now is the fact that only 20 million tuned into Ryan's dynamite speech but over 25 million watched former President Clinton's.

And his was, alas, very good. Deceptive as hell, but it all sounded reasonable, didn't it? Yeah, that's why he got elected and convinced the country that when he lied under oath about a tawdry affair with an intern, he was the victim.

Posted by: Ace at 03:44 PM | Comments (184)
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The book uncovers ”an explosive mix of dysfunction, miscommunication, and misunderstandings," as ABCNews puts it.

Obama didn't have a Plan B in the debt negotiation crisis.

That's telling for a couple of reasons. For one, Obama continues to greatly overestimate himself. He seemed to think his charisma would be enough to secure Plan A (a massive tax increase). He was apparently so taken with his ability to convince people that he didn't bother drawing up a Plan B.

For two, this was an extremely important thing. Not having a Plan B was reckless disregard for the financial health of the country.

In the end, the "Adults in the Room" -- and I use that term advisedly -- had to simply exclude Obama from the process and come up with the godawful sequestration compromise we now have.

Obama got snippy about it.

As the nation's leaders raced to avert a default that could have shattered the financial markets' confidence and imperiled the world's economy, Obama convened an urgent meeting with top congressional leaders in the White House. According to Woodward, House Speaker John Boehner pointedly told the president that the lawmakers were working on a plan and wouldn't negotiate with him.

Obama, surprised, told Boehner and the others that they could not exclude him from the process, Woodward reports.

"I've got to sign this bill," he is quoted as saying.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid then said the four leaders wanted to speak privately, asking Obama to leave a meeting he had called "in his own house," in Woodward's words. The president, fuming, agreed to let them talk.

"This was it," Woodward writes. "Congress was taking over."

Another juicy tidbit is that Nancy Pelosi put Obama on mute as he yapped long-windedly on the phone about his General Theory of Everything or whatnot. She denies this, but Woodward has a source from other people in the room.

First decision of hers I agree with.

He also alienated people with his arrogance (BREAKING!), and thought Joe Biden was a capable enough persuader to be called "The Republican Whisperer."

Now, notice the wide gulf between Obama's belief in his ability to communicate effectively with people and his actual lack of most such ability. And notice that NYT hack Kristof gives Obama a B on the economy (a B!) but an "F" in communications.

Communications, the one thing Obama will admit to not having a godlike competency about.

But now revisit his certitude that simply jawboning Boehner would cause him agree to raise tax-breaks -- and he was so certain he didn't bother with a fall-back position.

Isn't part of competency knowing your actual areas of strength and areas of weakness?

Now consider this: Obama kind of sucks at everything, including golf and basketball, and also quitting smoking, but the one thing he's supposedly good at is communicating.

Compare that to the Great Liberal Meme that "messaging" is the one and only area in which Obama fails.

Doesn't this mean he's a failure at everything? He's even a failure at the one thing he's supposedly so amazing at.

Oh: Big speaker at DNC's (non-televised) panel on job creation?

The Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am.

People defend this by noting he's a businessman. Um.... not really. When you consider a business, the defining feature of it is the Force Multiplication factor. Things that are really "businesses" are involved in the systematization of services and crafts so that quality goods or services can be provided by its employees -- who are not necessarily craftsmen or highly skilled themselves.

While it's true that artists sign licensing agreements and such, the heart of what they do is a craft. Only they can do it. The Black Eyed Peas cannot franchise themselves. (Bands have tried something like this; it doesn't work.) They cannot set up a systematized, automated process to produce more anodyne, disposable commercial jingles. Well, I mean, they do do that, but it's not automated; they personally do this.

So he's not a "businessman" in any real sense. He's an artist, like many others, who knows how to sign the shit out of a contract.

That's not really a knock on artists. But their skills are personal-level crafts, and are not systematized so that lots of workers in farflung factories can replicate them.

A craftsman can be a businessman, too. But just because you make money at a craft doesn't mean you know a lick about business.

Posted by: Ace at 02:34 PM | Comments (406)
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Via @benk84 in the sidebar. It's a very neat idea, very sci-fi.

I have no idea if this is feasible. The sum of my knowledge of such ventures derives from RoboCop. And, Bioshock. Apparently the artistic community isn't a fan of the concept.

But it will be a fascinating experiment.

An international group of investors and government representatives signed the memorandum Tuesday for the project that some say will bring badly needed economic growth to this small Central American country and that at least one detractor describes as "a catastrophe."

The project's aim is to strengthen Honduras' weak government and failing infrastructure, overwhelmed by corruption, drug-related crime and lingering political instability after a 2009 coup.

...

The "model cities" will have their own judiciary, laws, governments and police forces. They also will be empowered to sign international agreements on trade and investment and set their own immigration policy.

...

"The future will remember this day as that day that Honduras began developing," said Michael Strong, CEO of the MKG Group. "We believe this will be one of the most important transformations in the world, through which Honduras will end poverty by creating thousands of jobs."

I'm curious about the legal charters here -- do judges have the power to compel the managing corporation to do this and that -- like, "spend $45 billion more right now! I mean it, guys!" -- or is it built into the charter that they don't? I assume the latter, otherwise who the heck would risk the whim of a judge who decides to start running your company for you?

Very neat idea.

Seems Marx had it backwards. Socialism isn't the answer to the internal contradictions in capitalism; capitalism is the solution for the contradictions -- and massive humanity-crushing failures -- of socialism.

As they say of democracy: People try it once all other possibilities have been proven to have failed.

But What I Don't Get... Is how sovereign authority can be passed to private hands in a democracy.

And if it's not passed, then the private corporation really doesn't run the city.

I don't know how they worked out this problematic contradiction at the center of the scheme.

Posted by: Ace at 01:58 PM | Comments (146)
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Rove runs some numbers.

In October 2008, 78% of voters 18-29 told Gallup they would definitely vote that year. Now it's 58%.

There's also evidence that fewer younger people are registered. A November 2011 study from Tufts University found that 43% of the decline in Nevada's voter rolls since 2008 came from voters ages 18-24. Similarly, while North Carolina's rolls rose by 93,709 over that period, more than 48,000 younger voters were dropped from the rolls, 80% of them Democrats.

Mr. Obama's lead over Mr. Romney in the latest JZ Analytics poll among voters ages 18-29 is 49% to 41%. If young voters turn out this fall in the same numbers as in 2008 and give Mr. Obama this eight-point margin, it will take 2.8 million votes from Mr. Obama's total and add more than 3.3 million to Mr. Romney's tally.

He cites a poll that 53% of adults 18-24 agreed with the statement that they were living with their parents, or had moved in temporarily with them, to take shelter from the ravages of the Obama Economy.

But he'll give a good speech! That's what matters.

Posted by: Ace at 01:33 PM | Comments (136)
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Allah has some notes & links on the idea.

Also good: A coupla-days old Reason video on the DNC delegates' devotion to choice -- in precisely one vector of the human experience.

Everything else, they want laws to compel people to "make good decisions."

This is scary stuff. The totalitarian mindset is composed of two parts ego, one part ignorance, one part simple stupidity (the stupid never realize their limitations), and four heaping spoonfuls of moral vanity.

When you conceive yourself as Above fellow adult citizens in terms of moral education and intellectual development as a teacher stands above a child, then it occurs to you, quite naturally, that you should, as a teacher, have full sovereignty and control over your legally-incompetent inferiors.

I mean, look: We have fat people here on tape gushing about their competency to pass laws to compel people to be healthier.

What is always amusing -- this is scary, but there is amusement here too; comedy and horror are closely linked -- is that most of those who are so dead-certain of their superiority seem to be... pardon my lookist, classist, educationist, intellectist, elitist leanings here... to be frankly very marginal people only barely capable of making decisions for themselves, let alone hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens.

So enjoy the cavalcade of the barely educable sub-trogs who insist that they've got such a great bead on things they should be given the position of your Government-Appointed Instructor and Caretaker.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:58 PM | Comments (235)
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Cheerleaders.

This is from CNN, the "most trusted name in news."

As Bill Clinton walked out onto the stage of the Democratic National Convention last night, there was love in the air. Television cameras scanned the faces in the crowd and it was as if each man and each woman, regardless of their ages or where they came from, was seeing again the person who first stole their hearts. But however deep their affections, however dizzying their passion, it was clear that it was at least equaled by the love of the speaker for the crowd he faced, for the role he was playing and for the limelight he once again commanded.

Throughout Clinton's 49-minute address, at turns both masterful and meandering, the intensity of the love affair grew. At times, it was almost too much to watch. One woman on whom the cameras lingered for a moment was so close to a swoon that I thought she would topple over at any minute and that, in any event, she would never again look at her husband or lover again in the same away. They would always be second best.

By the way, that's not a quote. The woman didn't say that. If she had said that, it would be hackery to report on it, but at least she would have said it.

That's this guy projecting all of his own sexual jones into this woman. He's just making this up.

...

But, as David Gergen said on CNN shortly after the speech, "Clinton told the Obama story better than Obama has." That is saying something, of course: Obama is a gifted speaker. Sometimes, he even soars. But as he himself noted recently when asked about his weaknesses during his first term, he has failed to effectively communicate why people should support his policies at critical moments.

Yes, the one shortcoming he acknowledges. He didn't explain it well enough.

...

On some level, Barack Obama must have wondered, "have I unleashed the reverse Clint Eastwood? A guy who will upstage me not with ill-conceived clownishness but with genius?"

The guy's one non-hacktastical idea is that Obama will have to outdo himself in order to not appear small by comparison to Clinton.

However, that is hacktastic, because we all know the Democratic Machine Media has already agreed that that shall be the Narrative of tonight -- Clinton killed, but Obama was so amazing he's made people forget all about Clinton.

They're setting up Obama for a low hurdle they already know they'll assist him over.

Incidentally, I've written about this before, but the media shifts The Crucial Test according to Obama's needs.

One would think that a president seeking reelection would have to have accomplishments and a good economy. One would think that was the test of whether he should be reelected.

But of course that is now impossible, so the Democratic Machine Media has decided Obama's True Test is whether or not he can give a good 50 minute speech.

Update: Romney's pushing back.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:18 PM | Comments (248)
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I really forget the details of this, except he sure seemed to like murdering his wives a whole heck of a lot.

Just a stub, but I assume Greta will add a little more.

A longer article.

A neighbor found Kathleen SavioÂ’s body on March 1, 2004, face down in a dry bathtub of her suburban home outside Chicago. Her thick black hair was blood-soaked and she had a 2-inch gash on the back of her head.

The drowning death of the 40-year-old aspiring nurse was initially deemed an accident — a freak slip in the tub. After Peterson’s fourth wife, 23-year-old Stacy Peterson, went missing in 2007 was Savio’s body exhumed, re-examined and her death reclassified as a homicide.

This was the trial that I sort of half-read about, where the jury was apparently dressing in coordinated colors with each other. I don't know what that means. I suspect it will be a grounds for appeal. Peterson will claim they judged the case in advance of it being submitted to them and they used color coordination to signal this.

Which I doubt. But juries shouldn't act strange if they want their verdicts to hold up.

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (164)
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If you can follow this, someone Tweeted to Dana Loesch that she should s*** a f** d*** or something like that. As Andrew Breitbart used to do, she RT'd it to broadcast the unhinged hatred and breathtaking hypocrisy of the left.

Well, BuzzFeed, being incompetent, thought that was being RT'd about Sandra Fluke, and made a big stink about it. "Hate" and such.

When it was pointed out to them that was actually directed against Dana Loesch, they simply deleted it from the story, without revealing that it had been uttered by someone on the left towards a woman on the right.

You see? It was hateful and worthy of mass repudiation when directed at Sandra Fluke; when it turned out to be directed at Dana Loesch, it promptly ceased being worthy of rebuke, or even worthy of mention.

Here's the extent of their correction: "We've removed a Tweet that was aimed at someone other than Fluke." No acknowledgement whatsoever that it undermined the Narrative they were trying to get going.

Posted by: Ace at 11:21 AM | Comments (171)
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Actually, I'm pretty sure he'll just say what he's said a thousand times before.

First of all, he'll discuss, as Clinton did, his "plan" in which each $2.50 of "real cuts" is matched by $1.00 in tax increases.

The Democrats -- like Clinton -- are fond of telling tales of woe of what horrors the Republican cuts will bring. "They won't even tell you the details of what they'll cut," they often say.

Meanwhile, the media doesn't seem to notice that when Obama speaks of his 2.5+ trillion in cuts, he doesn't specify what will be cut, either. Here's one thing he plans on cutting: Medicare.

Now, Romney and Ryan plan to cut that too. But the Democrats are fond of describing Republicans' necessary reforms to the social welfare system as catastrophic, while the media apparently thinks that Obama's own planned cuts (and who knows if they'll ever happen; he's shown no courage thusfar) are a sort of "magic" cut which doesn't hurt anyone.

We saw this in Clinton's pulsating, squamous speech, wherein he described the Parade of Horribles that would flow from Romney/Ryan's cuts, but was very silent on the harm caused by cuts when he spoke of Obama's planned 2.5 trillion cut.

Similarly, Clinton claimed Obama's cuts to Medicare-- $716 billion! -- were not in fact "cuts" at all. In fact, he claimed, this "strengthened" the system.

Look, if cutting programs "strengthens" them then Democrats and Republicans have little left to argue about. Then let's "strengthen" all of them.

But of course this is nonsense on stilts. The Democrats do not believe that cuts "strengthen" programs. They scream that cuts "destroy" programs. They make this one claim with respect to one cut -- Obama's $716 billion cut to Medicare, because it's politically potentially catastrophic. So this one cut has the remarkable quality of actually "strengthening" the system.

Suppose you put aside $100 a month for your retirement. And suppose I want to sell you a pricey widget you don't need. I tell you to just pay $50 a month for my widget for 10 years, and take it out of your retirement savings.

When you object, saying that that would deplete your retirement savings in favor of a widget, I counter that cutting that money actually "strengthens" your retirement account.

Is this plausible? At all? Taking money out of an already badly underfunded program "strengthens" it?

Again, if so, let's similarly "strengthen" all Washington spending programs.

Sounds to me more like a huckster trying to convince you to abandon your prudent retirement plan in favor of his Shiny New Piece of Shit.

The other thing Obama will talk about is a "balanced approach," by which he means raising taxes.

Will this move the needle? I don't think so because he's said this crap already about 100 times by my count. I don't see how much fresher and novel he can make this very old material sound.

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Comments (271)
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I goofed on this purple prose -- or rather blue-model blather-- on Twitchy, using Snoopy's "It was a dark and stormy night" novel as a guide.

It was a dark and stormy night. Bill Clinton took the podium. The hall became an organism, breathing, sensing, knowing as one.

A shot rang out. The maid screamed. The undifferentiated protoplasm of the DNC extended one tentative pseudopod out to the world.

RAF Major @rickklein observed the shimmering, quavering jelly of the DNC with one eyebrow arched. "By Jove, this thing pulses with life!"

Meanwhile, in Scandenavia, a dreamy-eyed scut-girl sensed a new life aborning across the salty ocean.

The scut-girl, a bonny lass named Agmar Akennokker, wistfully thought of her absent husband, a strapping young gimp by the name of Knarl.

Meanwhile, RAF Major @rickklein alerted the National Center For Detection & Study of Living, Breathing Organisms, One.

A horse whinnied. A meteor shined. Various parts from the end of "Knights in White Satin" occurred around now.

The crowd thrilled. Then each member of it began extending polyps of nervous tissue into each other's brains, becoming one with The Speech.

Meanwhile, in Scandenavia, Agmar thought wistfully of her handsome, gog-eyed pinhead Knarl.

She thought of how she could stare into his confident, reassuring wall-eye forever.

The viscous strands of NuFlesh that now connected each delegate to one another began to undulate and thrum. A mighty Gloppening was at hand.

Suddenly, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon! Agmar hoped her handsome husband, the ruggedly mutated Knarl, was safe at the helm

The convention became a hot mass of pulsating hyperfecundity, sprouting a torrent of neoplasms in a riot of shapes and dimensionalities.

Agmar cast her gaze to the ship's deck– beautiful Knarl, with one arm so strong and hale, the other shaped like a bowling pin, was absent.

Bill Clinton stood at the podium, proud. Unbowed. Defiant. Squamous.

I think what annoyed me the most about this foray into Junior Poet Appreciation Society excess was that Andrew Sullivan trotted out a very similar bit of doggerel to gush over Obama.

And More Over-the-Top Gushing: They're not reporters, they're smitten teenagers.

Posted by: Ace at 09:26 AM | Comments (285)
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