Monday-Catch-up:Too Much Going On!

Why am I having such a hard time focusing, today? Maybe I’m overwhelmed by the influx of tips in my inbox – maybe it’s the scrabble game I have going on Facebook – maybe it’s the recorder that’s sitting next to my computer, (the instrument – not recording device) beckoning me to play it – maybe it’s the fact that I’m putting off some online shopping that I need to do before it’s too late. Or it’s the laundry that I’m also putting off…

I give up. I’m doing a linkfest, and then I’m playing “When John Baptized By Jordan’s River” on the recorder.

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The oped piece to read today is by Charles Krauthammer:  Mitt vs. Newt:

…Romney has profited from the temporary rise and spontaneous combustion of Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain. No exertion required on Romney’s part.

Enter Gingrich, the current vessel for anti-Romney forces — and likely the final one. Gingrich’s obvious weakness is a history of flip-flops, zigzags and mind changes even more extensive than Romney’s — on climate change, the health-care mandate, cap-and-trade, Libya, the Ryan Medicare plan, etc.

The list is long. But what distinguishes Gingrich from Romney — and mitigates these heresies in the eyes of conservatives — is that he authored a historic conservative triumph: the 1994 Republican takeover of the House after 40 years of Democratic control.

Which means that Gingrich’s apostasies are seen as deviations from his conservative core — while Romney’s flip-flops are seen as deviations from . . . nothing. Romney has no signature achievement, legislation or manifesto that identifies him as a core conservative.

Read it all – – you may not like his conclusion, but I challenge you to tell me where he’s wrong. I’m resigning myself to the inevitability.

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Every time I see a  Rince Priebus interview, I think, “Eh – could have been better”.

I had the same reaction with his Sunday appearance on MSNBC’s Meet The Press, but I have to admit he’s hitting all the right notes when he says, “Obama “Has Been A Disaster For This Country”:

I just wish he didn’t make it look so obvious that he’s operating out of the Republican playbook, page by page….

A MUST READ at Maggie’s Notebook: The Other Pennsylvania Child Molestation Story: Democrat Donor Pedophile Ed Savitz Story Told by Victim Greg Bucceroni

Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is tied up in this filth, too.

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Here’s how Nancy Pelosi thanks Newt Gingrich for sitting on that stupid couch with her: Pelosi: I’ve Got Dirt on Gingrich.

When “the time is right” she’s gonna unleash, she tells TPM.  How quaint. As we all know, there’s never been a more ethical Speaker than Nancy Pelousy.

The Right Scoop: Newt fires back at Pelosi: Bring it on! :

First of all I’d like to thank Speaker Pelosi for what I regard as an early Christmas gift. If she’s suggesting she’s gonna use material she developed while she was on the ethics committee, that is a fundamental violation of the rules of the House and I would hope members would immediately file charges against her the second she does it.

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Noisy Room, never ones to over react to events, are saying…Apocalypse Nowish. Looking at recent events in this country and around the world it’s hard not to agree.

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I wanted to throw this out there because there has been so much handwringing about the McCain-Levin amendment in the otherwise unremarkable  defense-authorization bill currently under congressional consideration.

Andrew McCarthy tries to set the record straight at NRO:

Claiming the “constitutionalist” mantle, Senator Paul is currently crusading against the concept of indefinite detention for enemy combatants under the laws of war. It is a deprivation, he claims, of the Constitution’s guarantee of due process. And once the government succeeds in rolling back such guarantees, he insists, they are never restored.

As a matter of constitutional law and of history, this is nonsense on stilts. The framers would have been appalled by Paul’s premise that the Constitution endows alien enemy combatants with the due-process rights of American citizens, particularly combatants who are detained outside the United States, where the writ of neither federal nor state judges runs. The only thing the framers might have found more appalling is the notion that the Constitution licenses lawfare — i.e., that it permits the American people’s courts (which, other than the Supreme Court, are creatures of statute not required by the Constitution) to be used by foreign enemies to put on trial the armed forces of the American people over the manner in which they conduct wartime combat operations that have been authorized by the American people’s representatives (indeed, overwhelmingly authorized, because after almost 3,000 of us were slaughtered on 9/11, the public broadly demanded that the enemy be subdued).

Paul is attacking the McCain-Levin amendment as if it broke new ground. But the amendment only reaffirms what the Constitution has always provided: Congress has the power to authorize combat operations against foreign enemies, and when it does so, the law of war governs those operations — except to the extent Congress modifies that venerable corpus. Under the law of war, enemy combatants may be detained indefinitely, which is to say, until either (a) hostilities have concluded, or (b) Congress withdraws the authorization of military force, effectively returning us to peacetime conditions.

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Chris Friend at The Daily Times: Made in America not as simple as it sounds

In the latest segment, Sawyer states that the average American family will spend $700 this Christmas season, and that if each just spent $64 on American-made goods, over 200,000 jobs would be created.

If that’s the recipe for success, then why stop at just $64? Well, ABC thought of that. Reporting that total Christmas spending would total more than $465 billion, it stated, “..if that money was spent entirely on U.S.-made products, it would create 4.6 million jobs.” Great idea, if you’re playing make-believe. But in the real world, things don’t work that way.

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Herman Cain at North Star Writer Group: Brokenhearted, but not broken:

You’re not defeated as long as you never stop fighting. And while my presidential campaign is suspended, it’s important to remember that my pursuit of the presidency was only a means to an end. As long as the end is achieved, victory will be at hand.

My incredible army of supporters, whom I can never thank enough for all they have done so far, have not labored in vain. The real prize is still ours for the taking.

I did not want to become president just for the sake of being president. I’m perfectly happy with what I’ve accomplished in my life and I don’t need the ego boost. Rather, I sought the presidency because our nation has some big problems to deal with, and it’s clear that our political class has neither the will nor the ability to solve them.

For that very reason, I was not surprised that I was viciously attacked once I rose in the polls. I was surprised by the nature of the attacks. Me, a womanizer? I would never have thought they’d come up with that one. But I knew the establishment would not like the idea of my success, because I will not get along by going along like so many do. I will not kick the can down the road to the next generation of leaders, because our problems are serious and they need to be solved now.

That threatens people who know there may be a political price to pay for enacting solutions that will work, and would rather wait things out and let someone else take the heat. That would not have been possible during a Cain presidency.

Keep reading…

I feel bad for him. We may never know how much truth there was to any of the stories. But I know I always got a good vibe from him, if that means anything at all.

See also: RS McCain: They Don’t Pay Extra for Tears:

All the pundits who low-rated Cain’s presidential prospects never seemed to see what Foley and I and so many other Cainiacs saw. For all his gaffes and blunders, for all the ineptitude of his campaign staff, Cain had something special that appealed to ordinary Americans sick of the cynical rhetoric of establishment politicians. Once the Cain Train gained momentum, pundits like Karl Rove seemed to find it personally offensive that an inexperienced outsider running an amateur campaign could win the enthusiastic support of millions. Two polls in October showed 30 percent of Republican voters ready to vote for Cain. By Oct. 20, despite all his mistakes and all the criticism from naysayers, the amateur outsider moved ahead of establishment favorite Mitt Romney in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. And it was just about then that reporters began contacting the campaign’s recently hired communications director, J.D. Gordon, to ask about accusations of sexual harassment made more than a dozen years earlier during Cain’s tenure at the National Restaurant Association. Were the accusations true? We still don’t know and may never know. But to borrow Shakespeare’s famous phrase from Marc Antony’s funeral oration for Caesar, “If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Herman Cain answer’d it.”

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Weekly Standard: Climategate (Part II):

How many of you are aware that the latest batch of ClimateGate emails are even more damaging to “the cause” than the first? Global warming hysteria is finally getting its just rewards – getting relegated to the ash-heap of history where it always belonged.

Before anyone had time to get very far into this vast archive, the climate campaigners were ready with their critical review: Nothing worth seeing here. Out of context! Cherry picking! “This is just trivia, it’s a diversion,” climate researcher Joel Smith told Politico. On the other side, Anthony Watts, proprietor of the invaluable WattsUpWithThat.com skeptic website, had the kind of memorable line fit for a movie poster. With a hat tip to the famous Seinfeld episode, Watts wrote: “They’re real, and they’re spectacular!” An extended review of this massive new cache will take months and could easily require a book-length treatment. But reading even a few dozen of the newly leaked emails makes clear that Watts and other longtime critics of the climate cabal are going to be vindicated.

Don’t worry, the gullible simps who latched onto the AGW scare-mongering from 1995-2011 will be talked into some other horror that needs big government solutions in no time at all.

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Ever notice how Ace’s headlines almost tell the whole story:

Economic Reportage Under Bush: Don’t Fall For Illusory Reductions in Unemployment Rate; That’s Just People Leaving the Workforce In Frustrated Agony
Economic Reportage Under Obama: Ka-Effing-Ching!, Baby!

(See David Gregory’s interview of Rince Priebus, above, for example.)

Jesse Jackson: I Am Disgusted That Christmas Is Currently A Celebration of Consumerism, With People Forgetting The Real Reason For The Season, Which Is, Of Course, Hardcore Leftist Class Warfare Political Agitation

I mean that pretty much covers it, doesn’t it? There’s almost no need to go on. But please, do – more LOLs at the links.

Jeremy Lott of The American Spectator obviously on the wrong email list: You’re Starting to Creep Me Out, First Family.