The Nightowl Newswrap

by: Blue Girl

Fri Nov 04, 2011 at 00:00:00 AM CDT

• @THEHermanCain has given an "exclusive interview" to Ginni Thomas -- let the drunk dialing of his victims begin! "In a bizarre twist, Herman Cain discussed the sexual harassment allegations leveled against him in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller's Ginni Thomas. Thomas, of course, is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who faced his own explosive sexual harassment scandal 20 years ago. ... In the interview, Cain professes his innocence, and says the story is just another example of how Washington has a totally different mindset from the rest of the country. ... "That is the D.C. culture: guilty until proven innocent," Cain says."

• They're losing, they're desperate, and they're lashing out. It's going to get really, really ugly out there over the next year. "An unemployed supporter of the the tea party lost his cool at an event for Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D) Wednesday night, calling her a "socialist whore." ... "Can I ask you a question before you begin?" the man asked just as Warren began speaking to volunteers at the VFW in Brockton. "I've been out of work since February of 2010 and I understand that you are -- according to several print media and I think I saw you on television -- taking credit for the Occupy Wall Street movement?" ... "I'm very sorry to hear that you've been out of work," Warren replied. "I'm also very sorry that the recent jobs bill that would have brought 22,000 jobs to Massachusetts did not pass in the Senate." ... "I also, since you asked, I also want to say about Occupy Wall Street, I've been protesting what's been going on on Wall Street for a very long time. It is as I've said, an independent, organic movement. They must, of course, obey the law like everybody else, but they will develop it as they develop." ... "Yeah, so has the tea party," the man said. "If you're the intellectual creator of that so-called party, you're a socialist whore. I don't want anything to do with you." ... Before turning to leave the room, he added that Warren's "boss" was "foreign born," referring to President Barack Obama. ... After the meeting, the candidate told The Huffington Post that she "actually felt sorry for the guy." ... "He's been out of work now for a year and a half. And bless his heart, I mean, he thought somehow it would help to come here and yell names.""

• Kids who get into Harvard aren't easily bullied, cowed or led astray. It's nice to be reminded of that from time to time. "Harvard students who participated in a walk-out of economics professor Greg Mankiw's class on Wednesday issued an open letter accusing Mankiw of pushing a biased view of economics that perpetuates inequality. ... "As Harvard undergraduates, we enrolled in Economics 10 hoping to gain a broad and introductory foundation of economic theory," the students wrote. "Instead, we found a course that espouses a specific -- and limited -- view of economics that we believe perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in our society today." ... The students also wrote that because Harvard routinely churns out future world leaders in government and business, the school had to be especially cautious to provide students with a fair, solid education. ... "Harvard graduates play major roles in the financial institutions and in shaping public policy around the world," they wrote. "If Harvard fails to equip its students with a broad and critical understanding of economics, their actions are likely to harm the global financial system." ... Mankiw served as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under George W. Bush, and he's now advising Mitt Romney's presidential campapign. Given his affiliation with conservative economic ideology, students targeted him as a symbol of the inequity protesters nationwide have been railing against."

• GOP candidates who oppose ending the war in Iraq are playing with fire, since Americans have been done with that hot mess since 2006. "Almost immediately after President Obama announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year, his reelection rivals ripped into him for that decision. ... However, a Gallup poll released this week shows the danger of attacking the Iraq drawdown, as it found that fully three-fourths of Americans support the president's decision. ... According to the poll, 75% of adults nationwide support bringing nearly all U.S. troops back from Iraq by 2012, verus 21% who oppose that move. Among independents, 77% said Obama made a good decision, while just 17% he did not. ... In the wake of Obama's withdrawal announcement, every GOP presidential candidate except Ron Paul condemned the decision. (Though Paul, who advocates an end to all foreign occupations, said the Iraq withdrawal was only a first step in the right direction.) ... Mitt Romney said Obama's decision  was an "astonishing failure" that showed, "naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude." Michele Bachmann echoed that sentiment, saying it was a "political decision" as opposed to a "military one.""

• We are NEVER going to get used to this side of the looking glass. "Eighteen activists were arrested on Tuesday for using cameras in the gallery of the Wisconsin General Assembly. The arrests were part of a "Concealed Camera Day" event, planned to coincidence with the implementation of a new law that allows Wisconsinites to a concealed firearm, including inside the Assembly building. The Assembly does not allow cameras in the gallery, which the protesters -- including the editor of a local progressive magazine -- say is a violation of the First Amendment and of Wisconsin's open meeting laws."

• So the Founders were wrong when they chose E Pluribus Unum as our national motto, then? The infallible, indefatigueable founders, were wrong? Say it ain't so, or we'll have teabags exploding all over the place..."A member of the Congressional Prayer Caucus insisted on Thursday that House Republicans were forced to pass a resolution reaffirming that "In God We Trust" is the national motto as a reminder to President Barack Obama. ... "This was a priority because the president himself had stated that the motto of the country was E Pluribus Unum," Prayer Caucus member Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) told Fox News host Bill Hemmer. "So, we thought we'd remind him." ... "Are you suggesting that there is a crisis of identity?" Hemmer asked. ... "Well, the resolution was necessary because we felt it was appropriate to remind the president what, in fact, the motto of our great country is," Price explained."

• Here is reason enough for any sentient being with two neurons firing in sequence to run as far and as fast from Herman Cain as possible -- hate-blogger and masturbatory fantasy of Norwegian terrorist Anders Brevik, yes we're talking about uber-skank Pamela fucking Gellar -- is endorsing him, saying that what he doesn't know, she and her ilk will "teach him." "Cain has now picked up a top endorsement from the right-wing blogosphere: Pamela Geller, the anti-Islam campaigner and Birther. ... Geller posted an entry on her blog Wednesday evening, declaring her support for Cain. In the past, Geller has criticized Cain, when he backed down from his statement that local communities should be able to ban mosques. She had also hoped that Sarah Palin would run, a dream that came to naught when Palin declared a month ago that she would not run. ... But now, recent developments have put her on board. Specifically, the allegations of past sexual harassment against Cain -- and the counter-accusation from Team Cain that the Rick Perry campaign was behind it -- have changed her mind. Geller has long detested Perry, calling him soft on "stealth jihad" by Muslims in America."

• This Herman Cain mess is going to blow up like that tortoise in Breaking Bad and take a bunch of repugnant-ones with it, like so many DEA agents. "Iowa Rep. Steve King said the women who accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment are likely "liberal activists" and "official hyperventilaters of the first order." ... In a brief interview with POLITICO Thursday, King said news outlets were wrong to report on the story. ... "I think that unless we have one, two or three Anita Hills stand up and say 'this is what I say he did,' then it should've never been a story," King said. "What are we talking about? We're talking about a story about a story, we don't know what the story is, we don't know what the allegations are.""

• Time -- and details -- will tell. For now, GOP primary voters either don't believe the accusations of sexual harrassment against Herman Cain, or they don't care. But how long will that last? That depends on the race of the women who accused him. If they are African American or Latina, the base won't care -- but let just one of them be white, and he will be history so fast he'll think he woke up late in the afternoon in a sundown town. You read it here first.

• Mitt Romney: Koch-whore. "Tomorrow, billionaire David Koch and presidential candidate Mitt Romney are set to speak at the a Tea Party conference financed by the same Koch brother's fortune. The Defending the Dream Summit, a conference funded by Koch and sponsored by his Americans for Prosperity group, is a yearly event where Republican politicians come to praise the Koch brothers and their political network. For instance, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), as he was seeking the Republican nomination, paid tribute to the Koch's political network at the same event in 2007. ... Meanwhile, the Washington Examiner, which happens to be owned by an allied billionaire named Phil Anschutz, obtained a Romney campaign memo that details its outreach effort to the Koch brothers and the Tea Party. The memo acknowledges what ThinkProgress has reported for two years now -- that the Kochs are the "financial engine of the Tea Party," as the memo put it. Moreover, the memo expands on Romney's courtship of the billionaire petrochemical brothers, including a meeting in January at an elite social club in Manhattan and an August meeting that had to be canceled because of Hurricane Irene."

• David Williams wants everyone to know that he's cool with religious free-dumb, so long as it's evangelical, protestant, Christianity. Weirdo Hindu idolatry, however, need not apply. "David Williams responded to the controversy over his statements about the Hindu ceremony Beshear attended at a groundbreaking in October. ... Williams issued a statement on Wednesday afternoon: "To be clear, I very much support economic development and strongly believe in freedom of religion. What I cannot understand is why Governor Beshear has a long pattern of opposing outward displays of the Christian faith such as Christmas trees, prayers before high school football games, and posting the 10 Commandments but apparently has no problem personally participating in displays of non-Christian religions. ...  "I see nothing wrong with a governor attending a religious gathering and respecting other cultures. But for him to engage and participate in a Hindu religious ceremony where prayers are being offered to gods in which he does not believe is not only disrespectful of Hinduism but stands in direct opposition to his own expressed Christian faith which recognizes but one God. It also flies in the face of his previous record of stamping out religious displays in governmental settings, which all happened to be Christian in nature.""

• Another damned socialist, just like that capitalist-hating commie Warren Buffett..."While Republicans resist any attempt to address growing income inequality, more and more of America's wealthy are asking to pay their fair share. Joining billionaire Warren Buffet, Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently issued his support for "millionaires and billionaires" paying more in taxes. ... Now, Gates is taking it a step further and traveling to the G-20 meeting in Cannes, France today to champion the "Robin Hood tax" -- a small financial transaction tax on each stock and bond trade -- in order to help financially strapped developed nations meet their global aid pledges to the poor. Aware that countries like the U.S. are not currently receptive to this or any taxes, Gates told the Guardian that hopes his "credibility" lends credence to the idea that such taxes work."

• We finally figured out what Herman Cain is -- he's a political greenhorn and a dumbass who doesn't have a lick of common sense if he thinks he can win a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel and bandwidth by the terabyte. "A Herman Cain aide said Thursday that the Cain campaign is considering its legal options over the original Politico story, which revealed that the former head of the National Restaurant Association was accused of sexually harassing at least two women during his tenure in the 1990s. ... "This is likely not over with Politico from a legal perspective," a campaign official told the Post, stopping short of explaining what exactly he meant by taking legal action against the publication. ... The Cain campaign has had an attorney advising it since Saturday on crisis management, which hasn't gone particularly well for Cain since the story broke Sunday night. ... On Thursday night, Politico reported more details of the allegations against Cain, saying that the former NRA head made a "sexual overture to [one of the women] at one of the group's events." ... Politico cited "multiple sources independently familiar with the matter" and said the woman in question was "livid" and reported the incident that night to an NRA board member. She left the trade group soon afterwards."

• Glaxo will pay $3 Billion in Avandia settlement. "The British drug company GlaxoSmithKline said Thursday that it had agreed to pay $3 billion to settle United States government civil and criminal investigations into its sales practices for numerous drugs. ... The settlement would be the largest yet in a wave of federal cases against pharmaceutical companies accuse of illegal marketing, surpassing the previous record of $2.3 billion paid by Pfizer in 2009. In recent years, drug companies have been prime targets of federal fraud investigations, which have recovered tens of billions of dollars for Medicaid and Medicare. ... The cases against GlaxoSmithKline include illegal marketing of Avandia, a diabetes drug that was severely restricted last year after it was linked to heart risks. Company whistle-blowers and federal prosecutors said the company had paid doctors and manipulated medical research to promote the drug."

• The Newscorp phone-hacking scandal keeps growing. "In July, police said they had gathered material containing 3,870 first and second names of people whose phones could have been illegally accessed. ... The NoW was shut down in July after it emerged phone hacking could have been more widespread than initially thought. ... News of the World (NoW) journalist Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed in 2007 after admitting the practice, which was portrayed at the time as the work of a rogue reporter. ... In a statement issued on Thursday, the Met said: "Operation Weeting continues to analyse relevant material. ... "It is not possible to give a precise figure about the number of people whose phones have actually been 'hacked' but we can confirm that as of today's date the current number of potentially identifiable persons who appear in the material (and who may therefore be victims), where names are noted, is 5,795.""

• Good call. "Bowing to political pressure, the Justice Department abruptly dropped proposed revisions to Freedom of Information Act rules Thursday that would have authorized the government to inform the public that requested records do not exist even if they do. ... The proposal would have granted the government a new option to state that documents relevant to a FOIA request did not exist. According to the Justice Department's proposal, if the government believes records should be withheld, the government agency to which the request was made "will respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist." ... Under normal practice, which seems Orwellian enough, the government may assert that it can neither confirm nor deny that relevant records exist if the matter involves national security."

• Ah, the power of numbers -- it multiplies exponentially when there are dollar-signs involved. "One of the tactics the 99 Percenters are using to take back the country from the 1 percent is to move their money from big banks to credit unions, community banks, and other smaller financial unions that aren't gambling with our nation's future. ... Now, the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) reports that a whopping 650,000 Americans have joined credit unions since Sept. 29 -- the date that Bank of America announced it would start charging a $5 monthly debit fee, a move it backed down on this week. ... To put that in perspective, there were only 600,000 new members for credit unions in all of 2010. "These results indicate that consumers are clearly making a smarter choice by moving to credit unions where, on average, they will save about $70 a year in fewer or no fees, lower rates on loans and higher return on savings," said CUNA President Bill Cheney."

• Occupy Wall Street has done the seemingly-impossible -- it has changed the narrative of the M$M. "Part of the reason economic policymakers have failed to properly address the poor economy is because the nation's news media has not properly covered the unemployment crisis. For example, at the beginning of August, when Washington, DC was debating the debt ceiling crisis, the national debt dominated the airwaves. While it was appropriate for the media then to be covering the deficit due to the debt ceiling debate at the time, there was a stunning lack of coverage of the jobs crisis. A ThinkProgress review of the media coverage of the last week of July found that the word "debt" was mentioned more than 7,000 times on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, and "unemployed" was only mentioned 75 times. ... Yet now, things have changed. With the debt ceiling debates behind the country and thanks partly to the pressure being brought upon politicians and the media by the 99 Percent Movement and the occupations taking place all over the country, it looks as if the press is finally focusing on the jobs crisis and the behavior of Wall Street instead. A ThinkProgress review of the same three networks between Oct. 10 and Oct. 16 finds that the word "debt" only netted 398 mentions, while "occupy" grabbed 1,278, Wall Street netted 2,378, and jobs got 2,738."

• Yeah, that'll satisfy the desperate Greeks rioting in the streets. "The Greek prime minister has announced he will scrap the idea of a referendum on a vital bailout package and hold talks with the opposition to resolve the country's political and economic crisis. In a speech to his cabinet on Thursday, George Papandreou said he would assign the task of discussions with the opposition to two senior party members and praised their support of the bailout deal. If the opposition agreed to back the deal in parliament no referendum would have to be held, he said. "I will be glad even if we don't go to a referendum, which was never a purpose in itself. I'm glad that all this discussionhas at least brought a lot of people back to their senses," he said in the text of his speech released to media."

• We told you Assad wouldn't stop the killing. "At least 19 people have reportedly been killed in the flashpoint city of Homs, as Syrian security forces bombarded residential areas with tanks. This comes a day after the government approved an Arab League plan  to completely halt its violent crackdown.The reported deaths occurred in the Bab Amro district of Homs on Thursday, the Local Co-ordination Committees of Syria, an activist group monitoring the country's uprising, said. On Wednesday, Damascus had agreed to several measures, including the removal of a military presence from cities and residential areas, The agreement was announced at an emergency meeting in Cairo, where the regional body gathered to discuss plans to ease the violence and end the unrest in Syria."

• As huge as the Oakland protests were for the General Strike, soon they'll be even bigger, thanks to the bottomless stupidity of Oakland cops. "Police in Oakland have left the scene of earlier overnight clashes with Occupy Oakland protesters, firing tear gas to disperse demonstrators lingering in the streets after a day of large demonstrations that paralised the fifth largest port in the country. Just after midnight on Thursday morning, hundreds of officers from at least six cities lined up shoulder to shoulder and donned gas masks, then declared the crowd to be an unlawful assembly and fired volleys of tear gas as protesters turned and ran. A few activists paused to pick up canisters and hurl them back at officers as they fled. "This was peaceful until you came!" a protester shouted at police. Police later charged the plaza with batons and more tear gas to push protesters farther into center of the square."

• If he doesn't surrender to the UN or NATO, the revolutionaries will get him. "The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said the court is still receiving information that Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam may try to flee Libya with the help of mercenaries. "We are ... receiving information that a group of mercenaries may be endeavouring to facilitate his [Saif al-Islam's] escape from Libya," Luis Moreno-Ocampo told the UN Security Council on Wednesday. "We are calling upon states to do all they can to disrupt any such operation." The prosecutor did not say where Saif al-Islam was hiding in Libya."

And finally...

• A new iceberg the size of Manhattan. "Scientists are monitoring the birth of a monster iceberg in West Antarctica. A rift has formed in the shelf of floating ice in front of the Pine Island Glacier (PIG). The crack in the PIG runs for almost 30km (20 miles), is 60m (200ft) deep and is growing every day. US space agency (Nasa) researchers expect the eventual berg to cover about 880 sq km - an area the size of Berlin. It should break away towards the end of the year or early in 2012. Pine Island Glacier is one of the largest and fastest-moving tongues of ice on the White Continent and drains something like 10% of all the ice flowing out of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet into the ocean. In recent years, satellite and airborne measurements have recorded a marked thinning of the PIG, which may be related to climate changes. But the team working on Nasa's Icebridge project say this latest birthing of a giant berg is part of a natural cycle seen every 10 years or so on the glacier. "The last big calving event occurred in 2001 so in general people have been expecting something like this to happen fairly soon, and for us it is very exciting to see this while it is happening," said Icebridge project scientist Dr Michael Studinger."