Let the pre-criminations begin! Clive Crook asks why on earth Obama ceded the center to Mitt Romney by running a class-warfare-based campaign. Crook sees Obama as a centrist mysteriously cowed by his party’s leftist base. I think we can clear this mystery up. Obama ran a leftist class-warfare campaign because…well, he’s a leftist class-warrior.QED.
Heather Fredenberg, 22, said she and Dan [Fredenberg] were passionate about each other, but also bickered about child care, bills, fixing the car and other stresses amplified by having two infants and not enough time or money. The county attorney’s report said they were “mutually abusive with each other, both verbally and physically.” More than once they considered divorcing.Read it all at the link.
About three months before the shooting, Ms. Fredenberg started seeing Mr. [Brice] Harper. She has called it a flirtation and an “emotional affair” that was intimate but never sexual. She told her husband about the relationship, and the two men once clashed at Fatt Boys Bar & Grille in Kalispell.
Although Ms. Fredenberg said she and her husband were committed to each other despite everything, Mr. Fredenberg’s father said his son believed the marriage was breaking apart. The day before he died, he told his father, “I’m giving up on it. I just can’t put up with it anymore,” his father said.
On Sept. 22, Mr. Harper called Ms. Fredenberg and asked a favor: He was moving out of town the next day, and could she come over and help him clean the house? She took her 18-month-old twin boys and spent the afternoon at his home, a five-minute drive from hers. She swapped tense text messages with Mr. Fredenberg and talked on the phone around 8:30 p.m. He asked whether she was with Mr. Harper. She said she did not answer. He cursed and hung up.
As she was strapping her sons into their car seats and getting ready to leave, she said, she asked Mr. Harper to circle the block with her to diagnose a clunking sound in her car. As they drove, she saw headlights in her rearview mirror. Her husband had come looking for her, and he was behind them.
Ms. Fredenberg said she dropped Mr. Harper off at his house and told him to go inside and lock the doors. She said he told her that he had a gun and was not afraid of her husband. Mr. Fredenberg, close behind, parked his car and followed Mr. Harper into his garage, its light spilling onto the driveway.
Consumers may finally be feeling more optimistic about the economy, but corporate America is not sharing the sentiment.
A host of market bellwethers reported disappointing results Tuesday and cut their outlook for future growth, sending stocks into a tailspin and highlighting the divide between companies and consumers.
It was Wall Street’s second big drop in the last three trading days, with household names like Xerox, 3M and DuPont leading the way down as the Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 240 points. The Dow is now down 3.7 percent from its high for the year reached earlier this month.
The concerns among business leaders extend well beyond earnings — a Federal Reserve regional survey released Tuesday showed new signs of weakness in the domestic manufacturing sector, even as global growth slows.
Corporate executives also reiterated the danger posed to the economy if Washington cannot avert sharp tax increases and spending cuts in early January, the fiscal cliff that many economists say heightens the risk of recession. This uncertainty is compounded by the prospect of a new Fed chairman by early 2014.
The pessimism is all the more notable because after years of wariness, consumers are feeling more buoyant. Consumer confidence is at its highest point since before the financial crisis. The housing market is showing signs of life. And retail sales actually sped up in the third quarter, fueling the hopes of retailers for a robust holiday season.
“Normally, you think of consumer confidence as more important,” said Ethan Harris, chief United States economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “But the business sector is a quarter or two ahead this time.”
One reason for the disparity is that businesses are much more focused on conditions abroad than consumers in the United States. With growth in China slowing and parts of Europe in recession, cooling international sales are weighing on corporate earnings. The prospect of slowing global demand for oil generated a sell-off Tuesday, as crude fell 2.2 percent, to $86.67, its lowest level since July.
Indeed, the sectors that rely more on international sales have been among those hit the hardest. Xerox, 3M and United Technologies each lowered their outlook.
While the fiscal cliff looms large in boardrooms, consumers are less concerned about whether Congress will extend Bush-era tax cuts set to expire in January and whether it will come up with a deal to cut the deficit and avert automatic spending cuts.
“Clearly, there is something going on, with consumers going one way and businesses going the other,” said Paul Ashworth, chief United States economist at Capital Economics.
Looking ahead, optimists say the new willingness of consumers to spend will ultimately bolster corporate results, but there is a lingering fear that the struggles of American companies may be pointing the way.
“The heads of the large corporations have their fingers on a lot of information,” said Bernard F. McGinn, president of McGinn Investment Management. “The decisions they make are of a scale many times what the consumer does.”
In the 1998-9 survey, more than 35 percent of faculty members identified themselves as middle of the road, and less than half (47.5 percent) identified as liberal or far left. In the new data, 62.7 percent identify as liberal or far left.More:
Neil Gross, a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia, has written extensively on faculty political issues. He is the co-author of the 2007 report that found that while professors may lean left, they do so less than is imagined and less uniformly across institution type than is imagined, and that many are in the political middle.I don't know why folks like this guy Gross try to sugarcoat it. It's bad. It doesn't just "look bad." It's just bad. We are dumbing down students by denying them critical thinking skills. We're turning them into far left-wing robots ready to rubber stamp the latest far left-progressive rage, whether it's supporting stupid shit like "Israeli Apartheid Week" or the reelection of our hopelessly dishonest, Communist-trained President Eye-Candy Clusterf-k.
He said that he couldn't be sure why more professors were identifying as far left, but that "during periods of significant economic downturn, and significant rise of inequality, it's not surprising" that such a shift would take place, especially given that in academe, "radicalism is still a live possibility."
Gross said that the "optics" of the data could lead to criticism of higher education. "From the vantage point of some folks, that will make academe look bad. For others, it will make academe look like a place concerned with the country."
Some Democrats are apparently not waiting for Barack Obama to lose the presidential election before starting the inevitable recriminations about whose fault it was. Whether writing strictly on his own hook or as a result of conversations with campaign officials, New York Times political writer Matt Bai has fired the first shot in what may turn out to be a very nasty battle over who deserves the lion’s share of the blame for what may turn out to be a November disaster for the Democrats. That the Times would publish a piece on October 24 that takes as its starting point the very real possibility that the president will lose, and that blame for that loss needs to be allocated, is astonishing enough. But that their nominee for scapegoat is the man who is almost certainly the most popular living Democrat is the sort of thing that is not only shocking, but might be regarded as a foretaste of the coming battle to control the party in 2016.More at the link.
The White House this morning attempted to down-play the significance of emails sent to top national security officials during the attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, one of which suggested a known terrorist group claimed credit for the attack in its immediate aftermath.Not a pre-planned attack? That's what they've been saying for weeks. It's an alternative reality for these people, but the public eye-opening is coming. It's going to be hard to watch.
As obtained by ABC News’ John Parkinson and posted last night, the emails seem to be ones sent by the State Department Operations Center to distribution lists and email accounts for the top national security officials at the State Department, Pentagon, the FBI, the White House Situation Room and the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
One of the emails reported that officials that Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility for the Benghazi attack on Facebook and Twitter, and had threatened to attack the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli.
In the first couple weeks after the attack, the White House and Obama administration generally blamed the attack on a demonstration an anti-Muslim video that got out of control. On September 14, White House press secretary Jay Carney asserted that “we have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack.” Only later would the Obama administration say the attack was planned.
White House officials maintained that the emails don’t contradict what the White House believed at that point, based on the intelligence community’s assessment of the attack.
You can argue that sometimes a nation should apologize for some past conduct. You can argue that this is appropriate, but not on foreign soil. But to insist that Obama hasn’t apologized repeatedly for the United States both here and abroad is simply wrong. Frankly, he has done more of this self-flagellation in more places than any other president. It is a record that should never be broken.And see Gateway Pundit, "Mitt Romney Camp Releases “Apology Tour”."
A series of email alerts sent as Obama administration officials monitored the attack on the U.S consulate in Benghazi last month are the latest to shine light on the chaotic events that culminated in the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.And that's a compelling interview with Sarah Palin at the clip. I haven't seen her this animated ---- literally angry ---- in quite some time. Here's Greta's report, "BREAKING NEWS: Emails show the Obama administration knew Ansar al Sharia was behind the attack in Benghazi."
The names of the individual recipients of the emails, first reported by CBS News but independently obtained by ABC News Tuesday evening, are redacted. A source who requested anonymity said it appears they are sent by the State Department Operations Center to distribution lists and email accounts for the top national security officials at the State Department, Pentagon, the FBI, the White House Situation Room and the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
It was a little much when President Barack Obama said that he was ”offended” by the suggestion that his administration would try to deceive the public about what happened in Benghazi. What has this man not deceived the public about?Neither the Los Angeles Times nor the New York Times had this breaking at their websites as of 10:15pm Pacific time, as this post was being scheduled for overnight, although Huffington Post and Reuters had the news. I'll have more on this later.
Remember his pledge to cut the deficit in half in his first term in office? This was followed by the first trillion dollar deficit ever, under any President of the United States — followed by trillion dollar deficits in every year of the Obama administration.
Remember his pledge to have a ”transparent” government that would post its legislative proposals on the Internet several days before Congress was to vote on them....
As for what happened in Libya, the Obama administration says that there is an ”investigation” under way. An ”on-going investigation” sounds so much better than ”stonewalling” to get past election day. But you can bet the rent money that this ”investigation” will not be completed before election day. And whatever the investigation says after the election will be irrelevant.
The events unfolding in Benghazi on the tragic night of Sept. 11 were being relayed to the State Department as the attacks were going on, ”in real time,” as they say. So the idea that the Obama administration now has to carry out a time-consuming ”investigation” to find out what those events were, when the information was immediately available at the time, is a little much.
The full story of what happened in Libya, down to the last detail, may never be known. But, as someone once said, you don’t need to eat a whole egg to know that it is rotten. And you don’t need to know every detail of the events before, during and after the attacks to know that the story put out by the Obama administration was a fraud.
The administration’s initial story that what happened in Benghazi began as a protest against an anti-Islamic video in America was a very convenient theory. The most obvious alternative explanation would have been devastating to Barack Obama’s much heralded attempts to mollify and pacify Islamic nations in the Middle East.
To have helped overthrow pro-Western governments in Egypt and Libya, only to bring anti-Western Islamic extremists to power would have been revealed as a foreign policy disaster of the first magnitude. To have been celebrating President Obama’s supposedly heroic role in the killing of Osama bin Laden, with the implication that al-Qaida was crippled, would have been revealed as a farce.
Osama bin Laden was by no means the first man to plan a surprise attack on America and later be killed. Japan’s Admiral Yamamoto planned the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II, and he was later tracked down and shot down in a plane that was carrying him.
Nate Silver continues to lead the Democrat Graveyard Whistling Choir, raising Obama to a 70.3% likelihood of victory based on . . . what?Keep reading.
I dunno. I’m not an expert with a New York Times column or anything, much less a Magical Forecasting Model™ that can divine future events with the precise scientific exactitude of 1/10 of one percent.
This morning, Silver told us that Ohio might be a crucial battleground, which might be news to a victim who just escaped from an underground rape-dungeon after nine months of being held hostage and tortured by a sociopathic sex offender. But to everyone else, it’s not news at all.
My apologies for the bizarre word-imagery. Debate-night aftermath, a shortage of sleep and other psychological stress sometimes have this effect on my prose. But don’t worry. After 24 debates in 16 months, I’m used to it by now. And speaking of bizarre word-imagery, Ace of Spades:
“It’s going to be a grim affair, grim and horrible and just sad, but there’ll be lots of alcohol.”That’s in reaction to unmistakable evidence of doom and gloom in Obama’s increasingly desperate fundraising e-mails. The plural of “anecdote” is data, as they say, and you don’t need a Magical Forecasting Model™ to see the dots in this emerging gestalt pattern, including the Gloria Allred “October surprise” gambit. Never heard a peep about this until after Obama got his ass kicked in the first debate, did ya?
Talk about the sullen presage of a campaign’s decay. Something was wrong with President Obama last night, to judge by his performance. Was Ohio on his mind? An AP story says that the Obama campaign is now talking about a way to win without taking the state....And check this great piece from Daniel Horowitz, at Red State, "The Current Electoral College State of Play":
That the Obama camp is even talking about losing Ohio is a stunning turn of events.
No wonder, then, that Romney seemed like the man who was winning last night. When he spoke, you thought “energy in the executive.” When Obama spoke, the words that came to mind were “fatigue,” “apathy,” “frustration.” In his closing statement the president was clearly rattled, lamely reciting talking points we’ve heard too often before, not even pretending to care about what he was saying — simply wanting it to be over. It was as though a light had gone out. Was he disconcerted by the smoothness of Romney’s performance? Or is his campaign’s internal polling in Ohio less pretty than his people are letting on?
Two weeks before Election Day, all signs point to this being a very tight election. Romney clearly seized the momentum with his debate win two weeks ago – one which Obama failed to stop with his stronger performance last week. Most national polls show Romney with a 2-3 point lead; however, the state polls show an even tighter race.
One thing has not changed in terms of the Electoral College; the election will still boil down to Ohio, Ohio, Ohio. However, there is one major development over the past two weeks that has strengthened Romney’s hand in the Electoral College. The national surge in support for Romney has created such strong momentum in Florida, Virginia, and Colorado – both in the top line numbers and internal numbers – that it’s hard to see him losing any of those states.
So who cares? Well, once we allow for the assumption that Romney wins those three states, it is absolutely impossible – not just improbable – for Obama to win the election without Ohio. Even if he were to run the table in the rest of the battleground states (NH, IA, NV, and WI), he would still come up short. Take a look at how that would work.
Perforce, Obama cannot win without Ohio.Continue reading.
A bride-to-be was left “humiliated” after trying to book an exclusive hotel for her £10,000 dream wedding, and instead receiving an email saying she and her fiance were not the right "type of people".But now here's the update, "Bride-to-be snubbed in 'wrong type of people' hotel row is part-time glamour model":
When a five-star hotel sent Pauline Bailey an email saying that she and her fiancé were “not the type of people we want here”, she pointed to her partner’s pierced eyebrow as a possible explanation for the snub.Not to be outdone, London's Daily Mail has photos, "The bride who's not exactly blushing! Law graduate snubbed by wedding hotels turns out to be star of adult TV."
It emerged yesterday that Miss Bailey, 27, had not been entirely forthcoming about her own background while insisting that she and Paul Carty, 51, were “a respectable, middle-class, hard-working, well-educated couple”.
Although Miss Bailey does, as she pointed out, have a master’s degree in medical law and plans to study for a PhD, she failed to mention that she also works part-time as a glamour model on a late-night soft-porn television channel.
Calling herself “Rachel T”, she wears skimpy outfits as she takes live premium-rate phone calls from men watching her on Red Light Central TV.
Miss Bailey, from Luton, had described herself as “mortified” to receive the email from the wedding planner at the Stoke Park Hotel in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. She said that she and Mr Carty were left feeling like “undesirables” after Michele Connelly accidentally forwarded the message, in which she asked her boss how she could “put off” their wedding.
Yesterday, Miss Bailey confirmed that she had been working as a glamour model for five years.
So that improves Obama chances in the Electoral College by a gazillion-ty times!!
There is, obviously, some disagreement on the magnitude of Mr. Obama’s advantage — the polls surveyed different types of voters and applied different methods to do so.
But averaging the results from the CBS News, CNN and Google polls, which conducted surveys after all three presidential debates along with the one between the vice-presidential candidates, puts Mr. Obama’s margin at 16 points.
That compares favorably to Mr. Obama’s average 10-point margin after the second debate, and Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s 6-point margin against Representative Paul Ryan, but is smaller than Mr. Romney’s average 29-point win in Denver.
