Is This Guy Completely Nuts?!

President Barack Hussein Obama ventured into the topic of our international competitiveness over the weekend, this time speaking in Kapolei, Hawaii at the APEC CEO Summit, and asserting:

“We’ve been a little bit lazy over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted — ‘Well, people would want to come here’ — and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new businesses into America."

Lazy? The problem is we've become lazy?!

Here is the architect of our ruination, whose party presided over driving the nation over the cliff, and after finishing the job by sinking nearly a trillion dollars into worthless pension bailouts for Federal and State employee unions and throwing all kinds of money at so called "green energy" firms that went under before they could even produce a product, we have this guy saying the problem is we've become lazy?!!

What is the current business climate here in America, Mr. President? What about the United States makes it attractive for business? Say oil exploration and development - that's an excellent international business. What did we do to BP? Or, how about the oil industry in general in the gulf? No, huh? Well, how about aircraft manufacturing? What become of Boeing's efforts to open the plant they built in South Carolina? What about corporate tax policy? Environmental regulations? Drug research and development? Auto industry? Banking? Is the Untied States of America a place where people would want to come to do business?

It's not laziness, Mr. President. People here in the United States are as keen to succeed as they have ever been. But when you make a point of putting your boot on our necks while you spend the nation into oblivion, word gets around.

Christmas Festival!

Tis the season once more to sit by the fire, get a warm blanket and watch our favorite Christmas shows!

See if you can identify the movies from which the photos below are from, and put in your pick for this season's Chrsitmas spectacular!

And now the answers to our Christmas movie quiz:

The Magnificent Ambersons

It's A Wonderful Life

The Bishop's Wife

A Charlie Brown Christmas

The Family Man

A Christmas Story

Love Actually

Little Women

While You Were Sleeping


Get out a warm blanket, pull up the big sofa chair, and come share with us in our holiday cheer!

With A Smear Campaign Here Today, Can David Axelrod Be Far Behind?

Ann Coulter is not one to be taken for a ride. Wise to the ways of Chicago politics, she finds one too many coincidences in the Cain Conundrum:

After a week of conservative eye-rolling over unspecified, anonymous accusations against Cain, we've suddenly got very specific sexual assault allegations from an all-new accuser out of ... Chicago.

Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek.

Bialek's accusations were certainly specific. But they also demonstrated why anonymous accusations are worthless. Within 24 hours of Bialek's press conference, friends and acquaintances of hers stepped forward to say that she's a "gold-digger," that she was constantly in financial trouble -- having filed for personal bankruptcy twice -- and, of course, that she had lived in Axelrod's apartment building at 505 North Lake Shore Drive, where, she admits, she knew the man The New York Times calls Obama's "hired muscle."

Throw in some federal tax evasion, and she's Obama's next Cabinet pick.

Excellent. Perhaps a position of czar might be better for Ms. Bialek... a presidential appointment as Czar of Nontraditional Revenue Streams or some such. Spares us all that unnecessary trouble with congressional oversight. Coulter goes on to recount the various miraculously fortuitous Obama campaigns, from primary obscurity to national front runner, and all from a guy with no real life experience.

That's one lucky guy.

Accuser #4 Tearfully Comes Forward With Her 'Story'

Gloria Allred's latest political client has come forth for her tearful (?!) press conference in which she accused Herman Cain of having an untoward interest in her. However, the UK Daily Mail has probed a tad deeper, and curiously the woman that Allred painted as having a solid education and respectable employment history has not actually held a job for over two years and twice has filed for bankruptcy.

The Cain campaign responded immediately, releasing a statement stating unequivocally that the allegations were untrue. The nominee went on to appear on the Jimmy Kimmel show late last night:

'This is a lady who lives off the system. She is hellbent on finding a way of never having to work and living the lifestyle she wants to live, a very affluent lifestyle'
'I was listening very closely and then when it was all over with, I said, well I know what we got to do because there's not an ounce of truth in all of these accusations and my team is putting this stuff together. That is why I'm willing to do a press conference tomorrow to set the record straight. I'm in it to win it and I'm not going to be discouraged.'

Those are mean things to say, Mr. Cain. How could you say that?

Meanwhile, a friend of Ms Bialek, from Chicago, told the New York Post: 'She has a very infectious personality. It’s easy to see how she won [Cain] over. But the reality of her situation is -- she’s a complete gold digger. It’s all about the money.'
Adding that she was from a middle-income family but lives in a posh house while running from bill collectors, the source said: 'Most of her jobs ended in termination. It’s always the employer’s fault, not hers. 'This is a lady who lives off the system. She is hellbent on finding a way of never having to work and living the lifestyle she wants to live, a very affluent lifestyle.'

What?!

A fifth woman has come out to talk about some suspect activity at the hands of Cain. Former employee of the United States Agency for International Development Donna Donella, 40, from Arlington, said the Republican presidential candidate asked her to help arrange a dinner date for him with a female audience member following a speech he delivered nine years ago. She told the Washington Examiner: 'After the seminar was over. Cain came over to me and a colleague and said, "Could you put me in touch with that lovely young lady who asked the question, so I can give her a more thorough answer over dinner?"' When she declined to, saying she didn't feel comfortable doing it, he then invited her to dinner. She accepted and brought two colleagues with her. Though she said Cain exhibited no inappropriate sexual behavior during the dinner, he did order two $400 bottles of wine and left the women with the bill.

Good heaven's! He left them with the bill?! Oh, this is too much. He has gone too far!!

Details of a number of legal and financial difficulties belonging to Ms Bialek also emerged today, with the Chicago Tribune listing a long history with tax evasion and late or missed credit card payments. The paper reported that Ms Bialek has filed for personal bankruptcy twice, first in 1991 and then again in 2001. In 2001, she claimed $5,700 in assets and more than $36,000 in liabilities. Among the creditors seeking payment was a management firm demanding back rent of $4,500, four credit card companies and a lawyer asking for his legal fees. She is also said to have accused a former boyfriend of harassing her for money he had loaned her after she borrowed $4,500 from him.

Her boyfriend hasseled her over the $4,500 she borrowed but didn't pay back? What a jerk!

The IRS filed a tax lien against her in 2009 for nearly $5,200. In August, the Illinois Department of Revenue claimed Ms Bialek owed the state more than $4,300, including penalties and interest, relating to income taxes from 2004, according to county records. Court records also show creditors took legal action against her during the past decade, including at least one lawsuit filed in Cook County.

She is also said to have spent two-and-a-half years at CBS radio as managing director for nontraditional revenue.

I'll say.

The single mother, who worked for the National Restaurant Association under Cain from 1996 to 1997, made an appeal to the embattled nominee saying: 'I really didn't want to be here today, but I want you, Mr Cain, to come clean. Just admit what you did. Admit you were inappropriate to people...and then move forward. Mr Cain, I implore you, Make this right.'

And how is he going to do that, exactly. Even if we were to concede what you say happened did happen, which we do not, what do you expect will make it right? Make it right and move forward? Where? How? The plea in and of itself makes no sense.

'Possession' Open Thread

 

   What did you think?

Politico Features Cain Campaign

The Politico has taken a decided interest in anything having to do with Herman Cain. Well, actually, they're not so keen on the candidate so much as they are the vague ineundos and thus far empty allegations of wrong doing. It's all Cain all the time. Ninety two articles have been generated by the Politico on Mr. Cain over the past six days, but they're aren't geared toward Cain's 9-9-9 plan or his other thoughts on addressing the nations stagnate economy. Instead, it is all about whispers and shadows of things unproven.

The reasons someone would allege wrong doing by another are myriad, and the mere allegation proves nothing. Thus it is curious the intensity of interest on the part of the Politico for what otherwise would be the stuff of tabloid journalism. In their latest piece they confirm the following:

“Based upon the information currently available, we can confirm that more than a decade ago, in July 1999, Mr. Bennett’s client filed a formal internal complaint, in accordance with the Association’s existing policies prohibiting discrimination and harassment,” the group said in a statement.

The group said that Cain disputed the allegations and that the settlement did not include “any admission of liability.”

“Mr. Cain was not a party to that agreement,” the association’s statement reads.

For my part, I'm with Ari Fleischer:

If Cain was the same type of skilled politician who has made Washington what it is has largely become -- an assemblage of smooth-talking, gifted experts in creating a massive debt that risks our future, while being seemingly incapable of doing anything about it other than blaming the other guy -- he might have acted differently.

But he's not an insider. He said what came naturally. He remembered more facts -- a very human development -- and said them. Scandal experts will tell you not to remember more information. Stick to your denial and say nothing else, they would advise. Cain didn't do that because he's not like that. He genuinely is different. And because he's different, he's being pilloried for how he has handled the allegations.

Exactly. Time will sort this little drama out, and if my hunch is right, we will end up discovering there is no 'there' there. Regardless, as a nation we still are in a huge amount of hurt. Let's see if we can't all try to focus on things a little more pressing.

Pippa Middleton

Blog fav Roxeanne de Luca has drawn our attention to CafeMom writer (don't ask - look, I would know nothing of the the UK Daily Mail's gossip columns if it weren't for being a devoted Hyacinth Girl reader) Maressa Brown, who is irked that the fashion police have drawn out the long knives for Queen Kate's little sister, Pippa Middleton:

But the initial "hey shiny object!" reaction seems to be wearing off, and people are getting a bit testy about her every little misstep. Like, okay, she had what could barely be classified as an almost-"wardrobe malfunction" last month at London Fashion Week. Tongues clucked. Now, she's getting grief for a gorgeous red satin Temperley gown she rocked this past weekend at the Boodles Boxing Ball charity event (I'm not sure what that is, but it sounds like a load of Brit fun!).

Why yes, Maressa, it does sound like a lot of fun, and I'm glad you're game. As to the fashion police, I am with you on that score as well. Pippa looks like a nice girl to me. She wants to go off for the boxing ball or what have you, why say no? And the dress, well look, these famous people trapped in the public eye are expected to wear sensational clothes, and always a different gown, and never something anyone else has ever worn, ever.

Right.

Look, who cares? She has a nice smile, she seems like a supportive sister, it's not her job to be royal. She has her own life to live... let her just get on with it. And if you fashion wonks want to follow her around and photograph her, spare me the fashion critique. I don't care.