Mitt Romney continues to display competence and confidence, but his rhetoric doesn’t soar and the base is inherently skeptical of his record, so he hasn’t quite put this thing away.

Last time I wrote about these debates, I said the vaudeville cane should have dragged Perry away, and his cerebral flatulence tonight proved me right. His inability to remember the three federal departments he would cut was easily the most awkward moment of the primary season thus far. The “SNL” staff writers are eternally grateful, I’m sure.

Herman Cain has planted his—to quote Perry—big ole flag with 9-9-9, and he’s going to sink or swim with it. In what seemed to be a heavily coached performance, Cain pivoted nearly every answer to the merits of his proposed tax plan. Cain has been arguably the most articulate candidate on the stage when it comes to having an inspirational vision for America’s future in the context of its past, and it’s beyond me why he would rather singularly focus on a specific policy (which may not pass, let alone work) than on that vision. Thankfully, it looks as though this debate will mark the moment where America began to move on from the sexual harassment claims leveled against Cain. That is, of course, unless more details emerge or another accuser steps forward…

But the winner of the debate was Newt. I mentioned last time that he’s my sleeper pick to challenge Romney, and he did a lot to improve his chances tonight.

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We’ve been talking about the anarchist faction behind #Occupy Wall Street for weeks now but despite the mounting evidence, liberals and the mainstream would like you to believe that it’s just some right-wing fantasy and that the #Occupy movement are a well meaning bunch of idealists.

The MSM and liberals really don’t want you to listen to what the revolutionaries themselves have to say. This video is from radical #Occupy supporter stimulator.tv and it’s a frightening yet entertaining montage of news clips, movie scenes, rap music and cursing.

Interestingly enough, they might hate mainstream liberals even more than you do.

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Liberals have concocted yet another method to get around the founders’ Constitution. They plan to elect the President in 2012 on the basis of the national popular vote, rather than by a majority of the electoral college.

Although earlier progressive innovations have confused the process, the Constitution is quite clear that the President is chosen by electors, appointed by each state “in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct.” Like the bicameral Congress, the presidency was infused with federalism—the states as states would have a role to play in the choice of the chief executive.

Indeed, the framers expected that, after George Washington, few men would have sufficient stature to command an electoral college majority. Thus the President would be chosen by the House of Representatives, by a special method in which each state delegation would cast one vote. But in time, the political parties produced a system in which the popular vote majority almost always was the electoral vote majority.

More important, the founders wanted to make sure that the President could not claim to embody the people. The presidential election would not be a plebiscite, of the kind that produced Caesar, Napoleon, or other demagogic dictators.

In short, the Electoral College would keep the President a constitutional president—limited and balanced by the other levels and branches of the constitutional system.

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The vote on Senate Joint Resolution (S.J. Res) 6 – the Resolution of Disapproval to undo the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s illegal, unilateral Network Neutrality Internet power grab – is a watershed moment for the members of the Senior Circuit.

The FCC – in fact no federal Agency, Department or Commission – can do anything unless and until Congress writes a law that says “Yo – do this.”

As a unanimous D.C. Circuit Court pointed out in April of 2010, Congress has never done this for the FCC with regard to the Internet and Net Neutrality.

The Commission clearly, simply doesn’t have the juice to do what they again did last December.  It is an egregious overreach, and it must be undone.

Senators – not agencies like the FCC – write laws.  That’s their gig.  Each and every Senator that votes against S.J. Res 6 is giving up on what they asked their constituents to send them to Washington to do.

To vote No is to give up on being an elected representative of We the People.

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Actions have consequences. Winning games matters little if you lose your moral compass. For 9 years, Joe Paterno has gone to bed knowing a child rapist was on the loose and, yet, did nothing. Perhaps Hell has a football team.

Yes, this really happened.

Occupy Denver’s General Assembly voted on a leader and chose a three-year-old border collie named Shelby to head the group.

According to the group’s website, this was done after Denver Mayor Michael Hancock insisted that Occupy Denver choose leadership to deal with city and state officials.

An uploader on YouTube said Shelby was elected because “she is more of a person than a corporation is and less corrupt than most people.” Shelby is the first elected “leader” of the Occupy protests.

Now, some may say they were “clever” by electing the dog as a slap in the face of the Mayor, but they also set themselves up for criticisms and jokes directed at them by electing a…dog. (more…)

The fun starts at 8pm EST on CNBC. The business news network has titled the event, “Your Money, Your Vote,” focusing questions on the economy. We’ll see how that works out. For several candidates, this could be the final elimination round. Enjoy!

The St. Cloud Regional Airport is banking on a recently announced $750,000 federal grant to land an airline at the airport that’s been virtually deserted since Delta terminated service in and out of St. Cloud in late 2009. Despite a $5 million makeover of the terminal two years ago, St. Cloud’s airport has mostly sat idle as the city desperately seeks new commercial airline partners. St. Cloud received $750,000 in federal stimulus funding to assist with a portion of the renovation, but the project has thus far amounted to a passenger boarding bridge to nowhere.

The latest federal subsidy comes under the little-known Small Community Air Service Development Program (SCASDP), which provides temporary help to small airports to attract and maintain local air service through marketing and revenue guarantees. St. Cloud officials said the taxpayer gift would go a long way toward courting a new carrier, mostly by offsetting the financial risks involved with getting new service off the ground. In other words, the federal government is subsidizing the airport so the airport can subsidize the airlines. “One hundred percent of it will go towards what we call a minimum revenue guarantee. It’s really putting a pot of money somewhere set aside that in the event that airline loses money or has some start up costs or whatever it might be that they’re able to pull from that and make themselves whole,” airport director Bill Towle told the St. Cloud Times.

While increasing St. Cloud’s chances of attracting air service, analysis by the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota suggests the program fails to deliver for communities more often than not. In fact, a federal audit found that half of SCASDP grants failed to meet their objectives or failed to continue to provide air service capable of competing in the marketplace after the subsidies dried up.

Federal auditors have consistently raised questions about the overall lack of effectiveness of the $20 million per year FAA program. An Office of Inspector General 2008 audit revealed that just 30 percent of subsidy recipients were successful in achieving and sustaining their desired results for at least one year. The 40-page report concluded that “70 percent of the grants in our review failed to fully achieve their objectives. Specifically, 50 percent of the grants were unable to achieve any of their articulated grant objectives or were unable to sustain grant benefits beyond the grant horizon.”

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From Sean Hannity’s show:

Latest update on the lack of progress for Dems and Republicans to reach a tax deal. Yesterday Democrats of the Super Committee rejected Republicans’ offer to “raise federal tax collections by nearly $300 billion over the next decade.”

Senator Rand Paul exclusively has JUST told Sean that not only are Democrats rejecting offers put on the table, but now they won’t even continue to negotiate and have “walked away from the table…refusing to talk to the Republicans.”

Paul warns the American people that this is all about Obama’s reelection, and the taxpayers livelihood is of no concern to Obama and the Democrats.

Audio verbate: Senator Rand Paul (KY) on the Sean Hannity radio show Nov. 9, 2011:
P:Sean can I make it up to you by giving you a scoop, that maybe people don’t know yet?

S: Yeah what you got it

P: I have news straight from sources close to the SuperCommittee that the Democrats have walked away from the table and they’re refusing to talk to the Republicans about a deal and they will not counter any offers and basically there’s an impass and it’s starting to look like they don’t want any deal at all.

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From The Hill:

House Republicans released emails Wednesday that show a major fundraiser for President Obama discussed the $535 million loan guarantee for the solar company Solyndra during a meeting with White House officials.

George Kaiser, a “bundler” for Obama’s campaign whose foundation invested in Solyndra, said the issue “came up” during a spring 2010 meeting with White House officials. Ken Levit, executive director of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, also attended the meeting.

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Five years after Cook County, Illinois, last hiked cigarette taxes, it has emerged that revenues from cigarette taxes have substantially declined, contributing to the county’s budget challenges.

In 2006, the county collected about $200 million in cigarette tax revenue, but that dropped to about $126 million last year.

The County reportedly faces about a $300 million budget gap heading into next year. Locals say the decline in cigarette tax revenue is not the result of smokers quitting using tobacco products.  According to Sheriff Tom Dart, “There’s probably some people who have given up smoking, but I don’t think that accounts for $74 million [less].”  Rather, it seems to be the result of smokers looking to save money on tobacco however they can — including buying from sellers who offer cigarettes without relevant tax stamps, buying cigarettes in neighboring Indiana, and even rolling their own or switching to non-cigarette types of tobacco.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is now looking to raise taxes on tobacco users who take the latter routes in an effort to keep their costs down, as well as purchasers of alcohol:

Like it or not, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle says her cash-strapped county needs higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco to solve a deep deficit.

[...]
Preckwinkle also wants to close the loophole on the current cigarette tax to include loose tobacco, rolling papers and snuff.

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OMAHA, Neb. – An annual poll regarding the U.S. public education system shows that teachers’ unions are losing support among Americans, while the percentage of people that support school reform has reached a record high.

The results underscore the growing momentum behind efforts to expand school choice programs, improve the quality of instruction, and inject accountability into teacher evaluation and compensation.

The 43rd annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools is a fair measure of public opinion, experts agree, with the exception of a poorly framed question on school vouchers which produced questionable results.

Union Power

The poll results show that nearly half of the 1,000 American adults polled about the influence of unionism in schools believe it is hurting public education.

“In 1976, the PDK/Gallup Poll asked Americans if teacher unionization helped, hurt, or made no difference in the quality of public school education in the United States. Back then, only one in four Americans believed teacher unions helped, but a relatively large number (13%) were undecided,” according to the report.

“Today, one in four Americans still believe teachers unions help, but almost one of two Americans believes that teacher unions hurt public schools.”

In other words, the undecided have decided that unions are a toxic influence on public schools. A total of 47 percent of those polled said teachers unions have hurt schools. (more…)

On Monday, the MacIver News Service reported that a death threat had been made against Governor Scott Walker on a recall Walker Facebook page. The page was advertising the upcoming Walker recall kickoff rally hosted by We Are Wisconsin, one of the leading leftwing conduit groups that channeled millions of dollars in out-of-state money into the summer recall elections. Regan Cowan, a Dane County resident, was the one who made the threat. Shortly after the threat was brought to light, the comment was deleted from Facebook.

Regan Cowan (Left)

Cowan, who suggested that Walker be killed instead of recalled, said that she was willing to make use of the state’s new concealed carry law to carry out her idea. Her personal Facebook page was unavailable Tuesday morning and an initial search of Facebook did not reveal any other comments made by Cowan. Media Trackers did, however, review Ms. Cowan’s court records and found that she has a long history of civil and criminal issues.

In her record, which spans 25 different incidents, Cowan has pled guilty to two felony charges. The first one came in 2003 when she failed to report to jail, a Class H felony. The second one came in 2007 when she was found guilty of committing forgery, also a Class H felony.

Along with her felony in 2003, Cowan was found guilty five different times in incidents ranging from twice being found in possession of drug paraphernalia to damaging property, and then disorderly conduct and operating a vehicle on a revoked license. Perhaps one of the more disturbing cases came in 2004 when Cowan was involved in a hit and run incident that took place while she was driving with her license revoked.

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The kids at #OccupyWallSt have had another really rad idea:

The Outreach Group of the NYC General Assembly has an idea inspired by this story of unity between strangers using the original social media: chalk. It’s a creative, anonymous and exciting way for supporters of all ages to show support everywhere.

To join in:

1. Draw on your sidewalk a cool message about support for Occupy Wall Street, strength in the 99%, etc.
2. Leave chalk (maybe in a box) and write a note asking people to write on other parts of the sidewalk.
3. Take before and after pics, and send them to OccupyYourBlock@gmail.com
4. Outreach Group will make a music video montage of all the pics sent in, post it and share it widely on for the new Occupy Your Block coming up in one week.

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From The Daily Mail (UK):

Attempts to set up a protest camp in Trafalgar Square failed today as police quickly swooped on tents and demonstrators.

The camp had been set up by protesters who had broken away from a student march to demonstrate against tuition fees and spending cuts.

Marchers were outnumbered by police as only around 2,500 attended the protest, which was overseen by 4,000 officers.

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From Asheville’s Citizen-Times:

City police have put a department employee under investigation following accusations she called Occupy Asheville protesters “nasty” in a Facebook post and complained they left “stinky belongings” on a sidewalk.

Police acknowledgment of the investigation Monday continued a string of developments tied to an Occupy Asheville demonstration last week.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by David P. Goldman to discuss demographic changes in the Muslim world, their impact on policies, and how the US can best deal with evolving Islamic societies.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Novembers during off-election years in Washington, D. C. are typically pretty serene. The autumn colors stream up and down Georgetown by the Potomac, while lawmakers gingerly ease into the holidays, knowing full well the next year will have them in complete campaign mode — not so for 2011. In their infinite wisdom following a contentious budget showdown just a few months prior, Congress and the White House silently swore they didn’t want to face that political debacle again. So 523 elected “responsible” lawmakers surrendered their roles as committee chairs, appropriations cardinals and oversight hawks to an intrepid 12 colleagues to begin the work they so eagerly avoided. That shifting sound you hear is our Founding Fathers turning over in their graves.

The die is cast, and for reasons I will explain, there is ample evidence that leads to but one conclusion: For the good of the Congress, the President, and the nation writ large, this band of 12 can not fail. To be clear, it’s entirely possible the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction can fail to meet its mandated purpose of recommending reductions from $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion from the federal budget by Thanksgiving. That’s a tall order. But they must not fail if we expect our governing institutions to retain what little credibility that remains among them.

The first casualty of an empty Super Committee is our nation’s economic health. Set aside for the moment the sheer need for austerity. If the panel were to miss its mark, economic chaos could ensue. Moody’s Investor Service has already lowered our nation’s stellar credit rating. And just last week, the credit house said that, while no downgrade is automatic, the Super Committee would serve it and Congress well by tackling big budget busters such as entitlement reform. Put another way, Congress should get out of its own way. Not long ago, Democrats led by the President blamed consumer demand as the key inhibitor to economic growth in 2011. Then Republicans piled on and said it was looming uncertainty that paralyzed investors and businesses alike, freezing precious capital. Even Obama later subscribed to that reasoning. So why is it now, when they are singularly responsible for that very uncertainty, they refuse to execute the steps to end it?

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