Herman Cain’s unfortunate statement in response to an accuser going public today

Politico published an email that went out late today from Herman Cain to his list. It's a bit odd. Here are a few key excerpts, with my emphasis added:

Unfortunately, the media-driven process by which one must seek this opportunity is fundamentally unserious. I have touched on this before - the emphasis on "gaffes," gotcha questions and time devoted to trivial nonsense - and everyone knows the process only became further detached from relevance this week as the media published anonymous, ancient, vague personal allegations against me.

Claims of sexual harassment, and today's claim of a sexual assault, are not gaffes, gotcha questions or unserious trivial nonsense. They're rather serious charges on their face. No one is alleging that Herman Cain got the number of states wrong. They're calling into question his number one qualification for office, his business stewardship.  That is per se relevant.

So once the editors of Politico started looking for people who would make claims against me, their chances of finding a few takers were probably about 100 percent. These people will not give their names. The so-called "witnesses" who purportedly corroborated their stories also will not give their names. That's about what you would expect when people are engaging in a "hatchet job," as it's been described by Joseph Fassler, who was chairman of the National Restaurant Association board when I was there.

It's easy to make accusations when, by virtue of your anonymity, you don't have to be held accountable for the claims you're making. It's easy to publish them when, like Politico, you don't follow basic rules of journalism by naming your sources or giving any details whatsoever about what supposedly happened.

The women aren't anonymous. At least one filed a claim at the time, and a second went public today. Second, they didn't "take up" Politico's offer to make up lies about Herman Cain. They made the accusations 12 years ago. They're simply repeating them today.

Contrary to the belief of experts, so wise and learned in the ways of politics, I do know what the established rules say I am supposed to do. I simply refuse to do it.

Clearly. Read the rest of this post...

Ohio looks likely to repeal anti-union bill

There's little doubt GOP governor and former banker John Kasich overreached with this ridiculous attack on unions. The GOP can spin it however they like, but people in the Buckeye state aren't buying the lie that unions are the cause of the states financial problems. Telling blatant lies to the public is why Kasich's support has plummeted in the last year.

Ohio voters favored repeal 57 percent to 32 percent, an Oct. 25 Quinnipiac University poll showed. But Mauk said the law's backers are still cautiously optimistic they can win, and will continue through the weekend to carry the bill's tea party-friendly message to voters.

"People are tired of government spending more than it makes, more than it collects, and they're frustrated by the debt and deficit problem in Washington," Mauk said. "Voters clearly sent a message of concern (in 2010) and they're demanding that government get its house in order, and that's the platform John Kasich ran on. This is an effort to try to eliminate government excess and get spending under control."

Polls show Kasich is ranked among America's least popular governors, thanks in part to his fight against the unions. The former congressman, investment banker and Fox News commentator has traveled the state to rally voters to keep the law and appeared in pro-Issue 2 commercials paid for by Make Ohio Great, a project of the Republican Governors Association.

Read the rest of this post...

Report: Sarkozy calls Netanyahu a liar, Obama seems to sympathize

UPDATE: And it's confirmed by Reuters.

UPDATE: For those who pooh-poohed the story, Le Monde hints at it as well:

Auparavant, les deux dirigeants se sont affligés à huis clos de leurs relations difficiles avec le premier ministre israélien Benyamin Nétanyahou.

Translated, more or less: "Earlier, the two leaders commiserated privately over their difficult relationship with Israelian Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."

A story on a French new site claims that while Obama was at the recent G20 meeting in Cannes, he met with President Sarkozy of France and the two talked privately.  Well, something reportedly went wrong and half a dozen reporters overheard Obama's and Sarkozy's "private" talk which, at point, turned to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  It went something like this, according to ArretSurImages.net:

Sarkozy: I can't see him anymore, he's a liar. (This might also translate to "I can't stand the sight of him" or "I can't stand to be around him anymore")

Obama: You've had enough of him? (Also translates as "you're tired of him?") I have to deal with him every day!

Here's the original French:

"Je ne peux plus le voir, c'est un menteur", a lancé Sarkozy. "Tu en as marre de lui, mais moi, je dois traiter avec lui tous les jours !", a rétorqué Obama.

Now, it's not clear from the article how many of the reporters actually heard this alleged back and forth - at least one said he put the head phones on to listen to the exchange after this was discussed - the but the story does say "several" confirmed hearing it.

Okay, I just understood one more part of the story.  The reporters didn't report on this because they felt they had cheated.  Why?  Because they were given some kind of box that they were to use to listen to the two presidents when they were doing their statements/press conference. Someone told them that they weren't being given headsets yet because then they'd be able to hear the presidents right now during their private off the record talk.  So what did some intrepid reporter do?  They used their cell phone head set in the box and it worked.   So that's why they felt they cheated.  I'm not sure I'd consider that cheating. Read the rest of this post...

Video: No one expected... the Unicorn Pug

I feel sad for the poor thing. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Oakland Police appear to shoot a guy for simply filming them from 30 feet away

This is from Thursday, November 3.

Oakland: Come for the sun; stay for the rubber bullets. Read the rest of this post...

Will the GOP hold accused sexual assaulter Herman Cain to the "Clinton Standard"?

As John points out, you can never quite tell if Republicans are going to let a scandal sink one of their own.

But the GOP treatment of Herman Cain needs to be judged according to their treatment of Bill Clinton, who they impeached over a consensual affair. Neither Monica Lewinsky nor Hilary Clinton ever made a public complaint about the sex, so why was it ever anyone else's business?

If Sharon Bialek's claims are true, she is doing her party a big favor by stepping forward now (she's a Republican). One of the reasons that the GOP suffered such devastating losses in the 2006 midterms was the Mark Foley scandal that broke only days before the election. Then- GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert's attempts to achieve a cover-up compounded the disgust the public already felt for the failed Bush administration and the war in Iraq. Better to have bad news come out now than a week before the election.

Until today, the only indication of the seriousness of the allegations against Cain came from the fact that the National Restaurant Association had paid a significant sum in at least one settlement. But did that really mean that the harassment was serious, or even real? (After all, settlements are sometimes paid simply because they're cheaper than litigation, even if you're innocent.) If Sharon Bialek's claims are true, the complaints were quite obviously about much more than some mildly inappropriate banter. It was not so much an allegation of sexual harassment as sexual assault.  And that makes these allegations far more serious than anything of which Bill Clinton was accused.

Another angle on the scandal that does not seem to have been considered is the fact that Cain is an associate minister at a Baptist church, and has made his faith a significant part of his campaign. I have no objection to consensual adultery: If it improves his presidential job performance, let him recruit a harem via Craig's List, for all I care. Hypocrisy is another matter entirely. If a politician is preaching family values by day and philandering by night then throw him to the wolves. In this case, Cain is a minister and he is quite literally preaching family values, both in church and on the campaign trail. Read the rest of this post...

Krugman on Solyndra: Not a scandal, but victim of success

There's a lot to like in this Monday column by the Professor, including his takedown of fracking (just read; I'm not going to get into it here).

I want to focus on his point about Solyndra, the failed energy company that Movement Conservatives are failing to turn into Obama's Whitewater, though not for lack of trying.

Here's Krugman on what really happened to Solyndra (in his opinion, of course; my emphasis):

Solyndra’s failure was actually caused by technological success: the price of solar panels is dropping fast, and Solyndra couldn’t keep up with the competition. In fact, progress in solar panels has been so dramatic and sustained that, as a blog post at Scientific American put it, “there’s now frequent talk of a ‘Moore’s law’ in solar energy,” with prices adjusted for inflation falling around 7 percent a year.

This has already led to rapid growth in solar installations, but even more change may be just around the corner. If the downward trend continues — and if anything it seems to be accelerating — we’re just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal.

And if we priced coal-fired power right, taking into account the huge health and other costs it imposes, it’s likely that we would already have passed that tipping point.

Moore's Law is the technology principle that the cost of computing power (technically, transistors) is cut in half about every two years. (For most of us, it means we can buy double the computer at the same price, since software never needs less computer to function. GP's Law: However big your computer, your software will use all of it and then some.)

The point Krugman makes leads thinking types in several directions.

One is, where did that lowering of the cost come from? Answer: Economies of scale caused by increased manufacturing — in China (because, you know, the ignorant and easily led at home have a never-ending need to beat back hippie culture).

The other is a little harder to say briefly, so I'll probably expand on it in another post. The short form is that the mark of a dying empire is that it clings to the source of energy that once made it great (Holland and wind; Britain and coal; America and ... well, oil).

In contrast, the mark of an emerging empire is that it embraces the next great source of energy, since it usually has no great ties to the last one (that would be China and solar).

In the final stages, the dying empire becomes heavily nostalgic for those good old-energy days. At that point, you can start baking for the funeral after-party.

Krugman's take on this is less historical and more immediate: A "large part of our political class, including essentially the entire G.O.P., is deeply invested in an energy sector dominated by fossil fuels" and that could sink us. (Unlike Obama and that pesky Koch-Bros Keystone pipeline decision ... ahem.)

There is a way out of this mess, but it involves activism. Maybe we could Occupy the Road to the Future, while we're at it. Happy motoring!

GP Read the rest of this post...

Does it matter that Cain’s accuser is white?

I'm intrigued, and actually even somewhat mystified, about a discussion taking place on TV and on Twitter about the race of Herman Cain's accuser. She's white (and blonde). And several folks are saying that that is the nail in Herman Cain's coffin.

Here's what one (black) pundit had to say on MSNBC a few hours ago:

"It's very jarring for I think for the GOP, for anybody, to see a black man be sexually aggressive in an unwanted way to a blond white woman"

I honestly did not have the same thought when I saw that she was white.

The argument about why her (white) race matters tends to be multi-fold, and I'm just summarizing what I've heard:

1. A lot of people tend to believe white women who accuse black men of things. (You can call this the "To Kill a Mockingbird" argument.)

2. Especially in the GOP, and the south, there's an illogical fear/concern about black men being sexual predators towards white women. (Again, I'm just summarizing what I'm reading and seeing on TV.)

3. Some in the black community may not be thrilled that Herman Cain was trying to fool around with women who weren't black. (There was a quick reference to, I think, this on MSNBC by a black pundit a bit ago.)

I wonder how this case might be handled differently than the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas situation, since now the accuser is white. @Patricialicious on Twitter commented on that:

These situations are an interesting mix of race and gender dynamics in this country. Anita Hill is black. A black woman making these types of allegations are typically viewed different from a white woman making these allegations.

And Anita Hill was 20 years ago. One hopes society has advanced somewhat since that time. Read the rest of this post...

Cain accuser: "He suddenly... put his hand on my leg, under my skirt, and reached for my genitals"

Game over (though this is the Republican primary, so you never know):

He suddenly reached over and he put his hand on my leg, under my skirt, and reached for my genitals. He also grabbed my head and brought it towards his crotch.

I said, what are you doing, you know I have a boyfriend, this isn't what I came here for.

Mr. Cain said, you want a job right?

More from Political Wire.

UPDATE: From the NYT we learn that a lawyer for another accusers says today's details are "very similar" to what this client alleges.

In an interview after Ms. Bialek’s news conference, Joel P. Bennett, a lawyer for one of Mr. Cain’s anonymous accusers, said that Ms. Bialek’s claims were “very similar” in nature to the incident that occurred between his client and Mr. Cain.

Read the rest of this post...

Video: Brilliant way to move people who are hogging the sidewalk

Granted, you may get punched after the walker figures out what you did. Read the rest of this post...

Inside the Schneiderman and Biden investigation of the foreclosure crisis

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden have a joint op-ed in Politico yesterday. The dynamic duo have lead the charge to investigate the nation's largest banks around robosigning, foreclosure fraud, and mortgage securitization fraud. They've also resisted a deal being worked out by Iowa AG Tom Miller and the Obama administration to grant a broad release of liability for matters connected to foreclosure fraud which haven't even been investigated. They have been joined in that effort by a few other Justice Democrats, including Nevada's Catherine Cortez Masto, Minnesota's Lori Swanson, and Kentucky's Jack Conway (Kamala Harris of California has left the Miller/Obama talks, but not joined the independent investigation of Schneiderman and Biden).

The Politico op-ed looks at the investigation that Schneiderman and Biden have undertaken.

The key to our strategy to root out the conduct that triggered the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression is recognizing that a comprehensive effort requires an attack from both sides — looking at harm both to borrowers and to investors. So we are investigating four distinct, but interdependent, areas of abuse. Only one of those areas is being discussed in the negotiations now under way among the banks, the administration and some of our colleagues.
...

The American people deserve a full investigation and public exposure of the conduct that got us into the economic quagmire we face today. We must ensure that it never happens again. And we must restore public confidence that ours is a nation committed to the goal of equal justice for all.

This is a critically important investigation and one that should be conducted by all fifty state attorneys general, as well as the federal government. But sadly it hasn't happened. Schneiderman and Biden have shown tremendous leadership in this area, as has Masto in Nevada. If there's ever going to be accountability for actions which helped create the need and energy around Occupy Wall Street, it's going to come through the work of Biden and Schneiderman. Read the rest of this post...

Poll: Mods and Indies think GOP is playing politics with jobs, economy

An interesting poll the Washington Post shows that the President's effort top pin the blame on the GOP is working.  From the Post's Greg Sargent:

[Poll question]: “President Obama is making a good faith effort to deal with the country’s economic problems, but the Republicans in Congress are playing politics by blocking his proposals and programs.” Or this: “President Obama has not provided leadership on the economy, and he is just blaming the Republicans in Congress as an excuse for not doing his job.”

The toplines: Americans agree with the first statement over the second one, 50-44. According to numbers sent my way by the Post polling team, this is more pronounced among moderates and independents:

* Independents favor statement one over statement two by 54-40.

* Moderates favor statement one over statement two by 57-37.

Those are damn good numbers.  We've been saying for a while, a few years now actually, that the President needed to define for the American people who was blocking his proposals.  In the past, he at most mentioned "congress," but didn't' want to blame Republicans generally, or any Republican in particular. A few months ago, when someone clearly got to the President and told him he was going to lose re-election if he didn't start fighting back, the President started fighting back.  And it's working.

I disagree with both Greg and Steve on the rest of this - the people are correct on both accounts:

In the same Post poll, 53 percent of independents give Obama a negative rating on whether he’s a strong leader!

Steve Benen put it very well:

Voters’ understanding of the political process is severely limited, and many Americans likely fail to appreciate the role Congress must play in policymaking. There are no doubt plenty of voters thinking, “Sure, Republicans are sabotaging the economy, but why can’t Obama just go around them?” unaware of the fact that, on a grand scale, this isn’t an option.

That's not entirely true.  As I've noted before, George Bush never had more than 55 Republicans in the Senate during his entire 8 year tenure, and he did pretty well for himself.  It is simply untrue that the President is powerless to influence Congress, and I think that kind of "woe is me", "gosh I'm only the President of the United States, what can I do?" talk only reinforces President Obama's natural predilection towards submission.

I shudder to make a Nazi comparison, but the logic of the argument is relevant here: "We all can agree that Hitler was a bad man. Does that therefore mean that it's naive of us to think that Neville Chamberlain was a weak leader?"

It is possible for a leader to face a nasty enemy, and do it in a weak way.

I would submit that that is exactly what President Obama has done for much of the past three years. And the public, rightly, clued in to it. I've said for a while now that President Obama's "problem" has not been simply that the Republicans lie and obstruct. It's that the public perceives him as a weak leader. I think that the more he stands up to the GOP, as he has done these past few months, the more that perception can change in time for the election. But he has to keep it up. Read the rest of this post...

Economics and politics are intertwined in the Greek crisis

I'm back!! After 24 years at Cornell, I finally took a sabbatical and took the opportunity (among other things) to do a massive mental reset while engaging in a "politics fast." I recommend a major break to anyone who can do it and even better if you can do it somewhere far away. I found on my return that, unlike me, the world has continued both in politics and economics. Not only that, but John A. actually still thinks occasional thoughts on economics might be worth putting on AMERICAblog - So here goes.

The Greeks are my favorite topic of the moment, and not just because I have Greek ancestors on my mother's side (my father keeps telling me that "your people" are going to bring down the EU). The Greek mess is my favorite example of how politics and economics really are two sides of the same coin, and ignoring one side can get you into deep trouble with the other. This is true not just for the Greeks themselves but also for the powers that be in the EU who dream up and impose the "stabilization packages" that are supposed to lead to a happy life for Greece.

Let me be clear right up front. I believe it is only a matter of time before the Greeks leave the euro. They might do it sooner or they might do it in a couple of years but the reasons will be both economic and political, which is why I thought it was a fine idea for Papandreou to actually think of asking the people who will have to pay for it whether or not the proposed bailout was a good idea.

The EU promoted "bailout" wasn't all that generous. It merely recognized an obvious fact: the Greeks aren't going to pay all of that debt. But in return, the Greek people are supposed to endure at least 10 years of austerity and depression in order to get to a situation that is merely bad instead of awful. Why wouldn't the EU offer something better? Because it might set a bad precedent for the banks and the other members of the EU who are looking a bit shaky right now, such as Spain and Italy. In other words, the main reasons have nothing to do with the Greeks themselves and a lot more to do with the rest of the Euro zone and their banks. Apart from that there seems to be a sort of schoolmarmish desire to punish the misbehavior of the profligate Greek government.

There is no question that there was misbehavior on the part of the Greek government. But there is seemingly no recognition that the people who did well over the past 10 years are not at all the same people who are being asked to pay over the next 10. Even worse, there is little recognition that it takes two to tango, and the Greeks didn't contract all of that debt without a bit of help from outside. All of this makes for a very difficult political situation. You can't very well insist on an austerity program that can only be implemented at the point of a gun. And that is, in my opinion, exactly what they are in danger of trying to do right now.

There is a vast difference between embarking on a path like that because the Germans made you do it (and make no mistake, that is how many Greeks see it), and embarking on it because you chose it yourself as the least bad option in front of you. Even if the new national unity government can make the first bailout stick and force agreement to the current second bailout, there is no guarantee that the volatile Greek political system will take it lying down. Far more likely is what the newspapers politely call "civil unrest", a.k.a., fighting and rioting in the streets, either now or in a few years when the grinding down of Greek wages and prices enters its third or fourth year with no end in sight.

The alternative isn't too wonderful either (and is definitely worse for the rest of the EU). If the Greeks default on their debts, leave the Euro, go back to their own currency, and devalue drastically, they will suffer a major recession made even bigger by the suspension of EU aid payments. But they will have the chance to grow from that point rather than stagnating (at best) for a decade or more. And whether or not that is technically a deeper recession than what they are already going to get, the fact that they can hope to see a positive trend within a year or so makes it by far the more attractive course of action from a political point of view. Perhaps not for the current leadership or for their soon-to-be-formed unity government, but very likely it is better for whoever ends up in charge of Greece in a year or two.

Interestingly, there is a good example for Greece to follow if it decides to leave the euro. Argentina faced a similar problem a decade ago, and solved it by abandoning its formerly cast iron link to the US dollar and repudiating most of its debt. The horrified international banking community forecast disaster but in fact Argentina is far better off now than any of them imagined it could be. While Argentina exports beef and wheat, the Greeks certainly have their own potential foreign exchange earning industries and could promote them effectively if they devalued and in effect cut their prices in half. (Wouldn't YOU like a Greek vacation if I gave you a 50% discount? I know a lot of Germans would.)

So here is the question: Is it better to take the hit now and get it over with by leaving the euro and devaluing, or is it better to try to engineer an adjustment over the next decade, knowing that the Greeks are very unlikely to be able to stay the course? Economists will wrangle over this but politics is what will decide it in the end.
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Poll: Cain support finally dropping after harassment allegations

Interesting, since earlier polls showed he hadn't taken a hit in Iowa. He's taking one nationally, even amongst Republicans. Reuters:

Allegations that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain sexually harassed women in the 1990s have begun to damage his bid for the White House, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

The poll showed the percentage of Republicans who view Cain favorably dropped 9 percentage points, to 57 percent from 66 percent a week ago.

Among all registered voters, Cain's favorability declined 5 percentage points, to 32 percent from 37 percent.

Read the rest of this post...

IAEA says Iran on verge of building a nuke

I remember hearing several years ago that it would be very difficult to take out all of Iran's nuclear program, things are (literally) buried so deep in the earth. We'd need men on the ground, not just planes in the air. That's the reason there were rumors a few years ago that Bush was contemplating using bunker-busting tactical nukes against them. I don't see how the world lets Iran get a nuke.  (And yes, I believe the intelligence.  We knew it was only a matter of time before Iran would be technologically capable of this. We simply hoped it might take longer, and we might be able to thwart it.)

Washington Post:

Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings.

Documents and other records provide new details on the role played by a former Soviet weapons scientist who allegedly tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction, the officials and experts said. Crucial technology linked to experts in Pakistan and North Korea also helped propel Iran to the threshold of nuclear capability, they added.

This takes us back to Myrddin's post of last week asking if Israel was preparing to bomb Iran.  And news on the same day that Britain was preparing a contingency plan for conflict with Iran.  Hard to imagine this news today is unrelated.  I'm sick and tired of wasting all this money on so many wars, but I don't know how we can just ignore this.

And thanks to George Bush, we don't really have the money to fight a war, lest we go broke Soviet-style.  I remember back in 2001, when Bush proposed his budget-busting tax cuts, saying that you don't spend your rainy day fund because it's sunny out - i.e., just because we finally got the budget in surplus is not a reason to put it into deficit again.  But Bush did it anyway, with the tax cuts, with Iraq, and more. And now that we need that money for a possible necessary military action, it's not there because the GOP already spent it.  Democrats need to remind Americans of this fact, every day. Read the rest of this post...

Greece forming unity government

The details have not yet been announced but it is expected to be released soon. The Guardian:

But with no firm details on who would take over, the markets are braced for more volatility, ahead of the eurozone finance ministers' meeting at which the politicians will begin a search for new sources of capital to boost the area's main bailout fund to €1tn after the US and emerging powers refused to commit fresh funds at the G20 summit last week.

The two-hour meeting at the presidential palace was the first real breakthrough in the political deadlock that has gripped Athens since Papandreou met Papoulias on Saturday, and announced that he would try to form a broad-based administration that would steer the country through its worst crisis in modern times.

The new government would pave the way to "immediate elections" once it had achieved its goal of securing last month's €130bn bailout package for Greece – an aid deal that has been greeted furiously by austerity-weary Greeks but is widely seen as the eurozone's main weapon against the debt-stricken nation defaulting and bringing down the rest of the union with it.

Read the rest of this post...

Chicago trader mocks Occupy movement, dumps McDonald's applications on crowd

Let's remember that this is the same group of half wits who cheered on CNBC's Rick Santelli and the teabagging rant that launched the Tea Party. It's also the same group who proudly embraced being the 1% last month. There's a reason so many Americans support OWS and detest the people who caused the recession. Read the rest of this post...

It was a gorgeous day for a walk with the dog

Click the photo to see a larger version.

The leaves are in full fall color and it was pretty nice day today in DC, after our near snowstorm the other day, and weather in the 60s expected for this week.  I took Sasha for a walk in a park near my place that's very grand "old DC."  The park is coming back, as is the neighborhood around it (it's been coming back for forty years).  Sasha has become my great defender of late, all 12 pounds of her. Nearly every time she sees another dog she lunges like she's going to attack them, snarly and growing, only to have the leash stop her just in the nick of time.  Of course, those rare times that I don't stop her, she meets her prey muzzle to muzzle, the other dog looks back at her, usually bemused, and Sasha quickly runs for cover behind either my legs or the owner of the other dog.  That's my little Cujo.

Speaking of which, here she is, earlier this evening, resting with her head buried underneath my couch pillows.  She's half bichon and half yorkie, and loves loves loves to burrow.  Pillows are her friends.  I got a kick out of this one, however.  She quite literally just stuck her head under the pillow and fell asleep.

And here are a few more shots from the park today.  Just a lovely day.

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