Brain Farts and Other Things...

Wow. That was certainly a must-see TV debate last night. Usually politicians can come up with something clever to divert a brain fart like Perry's, but he was just left with "I'm sorry". Awful. Hannity was defending him today on the air but there's really no defense when talking about a presidential candidate. Look at what the left/media/hollywood did to Reagan and Dubya--just imagine how Perry would be treated.

No, he's done. Maybe not officially yet, but unofficially.

Yes it's true that Obama mispronounced 'corpseman' and stumbled and bumbled through a stump speech without TOTUS (you've all seen the video) but he was always 'on' when it really mattered--on the national stage.

The rest of the debate was very entertaining. Perry had done alright to that point, although he wasn't getting many questions. Newt, Romney and Cain all got off some great zingers at the expense of the zealous moderators. Still, it's hard to see a front runner yet.

Speaking of Ann Coulter (you'll see), her latest column seems to suggest a wild conspiracy to get the goods on Cain back before he got serious, emanating from the Chicago machine. It is weird, even if Coulter herself has bashed the conspiracy wing of the GOP.

Libs are predictably pushing back with a birther analogy, ie, just as Obama's parents couldn't have known he would run for president in 1961 when the ads appeared in the Honolulu newspaper nobody could know in 1998 that Cain would be leading in the polls now. Just more rantings of teh crazy wingnuts!

But Cain was already on the political stage in the 90s. He ran for president in 2000, albeit briefly, and the video surfaced of his 1993 rebuttal to Bill Clinton on a televised Hillarycare debate, leaving Bubba stumped and Hillarycare dumped.

So not only was he on the Chicago radar in the 90s but he also CROSSED BILL CLINTON, the first black president, on TV. No wonder he's in trouble.

Lowering Cain

Look, there's Gloria Allred on TV again. Hey, was that illegal alien maid she used to take down Meg Whitman ever deported or in the least, audited? Oh well, she's got a new client, who finally puts a face to the anonymous Cain sexual harassment pile on:.

"Mr. Cain instead decided to try to provide her with his idea of a stimulus package," Allred said.

And apparently just as effective! Forget for a second the client is from Chicago--which almost makes this event cartoonish--she's a self-described life-long Republican. Wait, doesn't that also make her evil and un-trustworthy?

Let's face it, we live in a liberal-controlled media universe of political correctness and dumbass conventional wisdoms where Snooki, Paris Hilton and Kimmy K are more famous than Cain and most other politicians aside from Obama. So if Herman has done what they say he's done, he's done.

And we on the right can't keep supporting him if it's true. How can we mock and ridicule Clinton's bimbo eruptions and maintain any ideological purity otherwise? Yes, the media is not fair and didn't vet Obama and many of the lefties who supported Clinton are now bashing Cain, but they also have few scruples when it comes to politics and couldn't care less about being hypocrites as long as ends justifies means. Results count in that world, and their main goal is taking down the GOP and anyone in it, especially a "house N".

About the only thing to be said for Herman--assuming some truthiness to these smears--is that he didn't track down the women beforehand and pay them off or threaten them somehow as others have surely done. Non-conventional and fly by the seat of the pants indeed. Of course, he might have thought they were already wrapped up under non-disclosure agreements. Then again, this lack of action could also suggest his innocence. Perish the thought, that black man is guilty until proven innocent in white America 2011!

Up til now he's been surviving but the challengers are already heel-nipping in the politest of ways (with Grinch-like smirks when they turn their backs) and if the gals keep comin the numbers will start plummeting and the politeness will go away. He's already on record of saying that if anyone else comes out they will be "making things up" so he's left himself in position to call her a liar here, but that only perpetuates the outrage and the he said/she said (and makes Gloria Allred an even fatter member of the 1 percent). If he stays silent the pressure will keep mounting and he'll never face another debate in peace. Whatever the strategy his message has now been totally derailed. Which actually isn't the worst of his worries at the moment, surely.

A LITTLE CRISP 11/8/11

Cain was unequivocal in his presser today but his earlier release targeted Bialek's financial troubles, which was bush league. And this evening on Haniity his chain-smoking campaign guru falsely accused ex-Politico reporter Josh Kraushaar of being related to the newest woman scorned, Karen Kraushaar. If he wants to stay in this race he needs to get a serious staff and stop shooting from the hip. I'm starting to wonder if the left is right about his long-term intentions. There's a debate tomorrow, should be interesting.

John Adams on our Problems Today

These quotes, taken largely from the early 19th century, are just as apt today as when written...

The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.

Yet this is what most of the OWS folks are trying to accomplish with their consensus groups and refusal to appoint leaders. There is danger in such a system, which is the reason the Founders created a representative democratic republic instead of a participatory democracy.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Again, showing the genius of the checks and balances ingrained in every part of our government--to protect ourselves from ourselves. Everyone sins and is capable of malice, especially after becoming drunk on power.

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

Such is why we have a republic. But even a republic is not infallible...

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

In other words, even with the safeguards put in place the population has to exercise personal restraint to make things work. These restraints are most often derived from the moral and ethical pathways common to all religions.

The above are of course from John Adams, circa early 1800s. There really isn't anything new under the sun.. aside from the latest iPhone.

Side Tracks

No feature on The Cars would be complete without vocal performances from both Ric Ocasek and the late Benjamin Orr.

VP Biden, Get Your Papers Ready!

Who can forget our incorrigible VP back in 2007:



Fast forward to now and what's whistling in the wind overseas...

The Guardian reports that the UK has begun preparing to support the US in a strike on Iran, thanks to a new IAEA report that concludes — very much belatedly — that Tehran has been working all along to develop nuclear weapons:

Biden best get the papers ready because there's no way Obama will go to Congress for any attack on Iran.

Really, it's amazing how things change from one administration to the next. Anything related to Iran's terror as mentioned by the Bush administration elicited shock and awe from the radical left and Democratic congressmen. Not so anymore.

Maybe it's partisan, or maybe just a simmering reality sinking in. Here's a report about the alleged Iranian-backed plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to the US, suggesting the Qods Force was behind it along with the leadership. Take it for what it is.

And here's a look back at a rather prescient article from 2009 regarding the fate of UBL and his son Saad, who spent time under "house arrest" in Tehran, where some thought he was acting as a messenger between the Qods Force and UBL in Pakistan. That would be the same Qods Force that has been implicated in the US plot. Saad's death has never been confirmed nor has the fate of the other Emir-in-training Hamza bin Laden. Where are they? Then there's the lawsuit.

In other words, a lot of dots connect through valleys, down alleys and around corners to the Mullahs in Iran, and they have for years. Bush's hands were tied for political reasons--Obama's are not.

CNN on OWS Oakland: Success!

They seem to be pleased..

Demonstrators in Oakland, California, appeared to carry out a successful strike of downtown businesses Wednesday, as most merchants and retailers shuttered their doors during a largely peaceful protest.

They went on to mention that police were nowhere in sight, and..

Despite the absence of police officers, the department pledged to protect life and property "in the event the demonstration becomes unlawful, threatens public safety or incites vandalism or property damage," according to a statement.

So apparently since the report mentioned nothing other than protesters writing in chalk on downtown streets and called the event 'successful' there must have been no property damage, right?

OK then:

Various sympathizers and observers are tweeting live. Mother Jones reports that the Oakland Whole Foods store — after being falsely accused of threatening to punish workers who walked out on the job today — has been vandalized.

One person on scene writes: “Straight into window breaking and street furniture smashing at whole foods. #generalstrike #occupyoaklandwindow breaking and street furniture smashing at whole foods.”

Whole Foods is defending itself online. To no avail.

A big mob dressed in black is roaming around the streets. They’ve sprayed graffiti on the walls of businesses.

Wells Fargo windows have also been reportedly smashed.

Chase Bank vandalized.

Unless all those tweets are disinformation from Karl Rove's twitter deflection machine, shouldn't normal people wonder about CNN's reportage of anything OWS? OK yes, that was redundant.

SUCCESS? 11/3/11

Perhaps CNN should question their sources or their objectivity. Somebody on the mid shift seems to have awakened to find..

Earlier Wednesday, police said a small group of protesters vandalized five businesses, including banks and a Whole Foods. The incidents involved graffiti and smashed windows, authorities said.

Now it's the lead story on Drudge. They just couldn't root any harder without being completely run out of the business. And for you libs, yes Fox News rooted for the Tea Party but you call them Faux and constantly berate their objectivity. CNN's coverage of OWS proves them the as the other side of the same coin. Such is American cable news in 2011.

MORE 11/4/11

Again, this is not man bites dog stuff, but check out the WaPo and NY Times apologizing for the otherwise successful protest in Oakland by relegating the damage to those on the fringe, and only late at night after closing down the port. Guess they don't read Twitter or Malkin. What does OWS have against transportation, anyway?

Hard to recall those rags coming to the rescue of the Tea Party in such an overt manner when they were accused of being racists and fascists. Meanwhile a continuing source of hate from the left, Malkin, has another post up showing some of the things the mainstreamers won't show--basically because these protests are better left as a movement 'against Wall St' rather than a protest on the essence of the American system. After all, we might start getting visions of Bill Ayers. Speaking of Obama's pal, where is he with all this juicy revolution stuff going on? Oh, there he is.

As to these OWS fridge, the movement seems every bit like Wisconsin, pitting socialists, communists, unions and kooks with a small fringe contingent of genuinely ticked off people who want change within the system. If an OWS protest starts and gets hijacked by 'anarchists' (actually socialist anarchists--the oxymoron of the millennium) then what stops it from being an OWS rally after the violence breaks out? Don't both groups really feel the same about things in general with one a little more rambunctious than the other?

The Harassment of Cain

Not quite sure how deep this Herman Cain sexual harassment thing goes but at least on the surface it appears to be about an inch thick. The two women in question aren't talking--we assume at least--since they signed confidentiality agreements.

Nevertheless it's not good for Herman because it throws him off message and hatches a kind of "corporate groper" image that doesn't sit well with women. Since he has no past political record from which to cherry-pick, his business career is the Achilles Heel, so that's where they are attacking.

Whodunit? Feel free to choose your leaker targets from either side. Both have motive. Who gains in the short term? Any GOP challenger aside from Romney. Who gains in the long term? Obama. Which side would be more likely to have the Politico (or someone in the know) drop the name(s) of the leakers at some critical later date? Any Republican leaker. A leak from Axelrod would be guarded like the gold in Ft. Knox, that is, until the book came out late in Obama's second term.

Meanwhile, the question once again arises about whether the story should have been published at all without voices from the mouths of the horses. Let's get in the wayback machine and take a look at what Pigeon O' Brien, the leaker of the John Edwards affair, told the Huffington Post (who for some reason disappeared the story):

Oddly, within hours of my call to the Enquirer, the bigger coverup -- the one that a grand jury in North Carolina has now been investigating for more than a year -- began. With pregnant Rielle in North Carolina, Edwards denied and decried the largely true article, which did contain exaggerations (and an "accidental" use of materials I'd provided to verify our identities), as "tabloid trash and lies." Soon followed the tales we hear now, of private jets, cash transactions, fevered calls to media to shut down the rumors, and a phalanx of people working on whitewashing the issue. The mistress story had just broken. The coverup story was just beginning.

Surprisingly, the evasion worked. As did Elizabeth Edwards's passionate, private appeals to the media that "the Enquirer writes about planes on the moon." The media wavered as Rielle was hidden. In July 2008, a memo went to the LA Times bloggers asking that they not cover the "rumors or salacious speculations."

According to her the big paper she talked to already knew but wouldn't go to press without her revealing herself. No so in this case. And there are many more examples of selective scandal and MSM subjectivity of late: the Marco Rubio family narrative investigation compared to the pass given to Obama's nativity story; the largely negative coverage of the Tea Party compared to largely positive coverage of OWS; the suppressing of the Edwards scandal compared to the Times inventing one about McCain in the same political cycle.

Cain may be guilty as sin and someone who doesn't need to be in the race--it's the media's job to bring us those facts. But one thing we do know: the same media entrusted to bring us the facts are clearly invested in doing so in only one direction, and therefore cannot be trusted.