The Other McCain : Page 2157 : "One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up."

DENISON, Iowa
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain today denounced as “pathetic” the response of President Obama and other Democrats to the recent downgrade of U.S. credit.

“Today, the president, Senator [John] Kerry and other Democrats now want to blame somebody for the credit downgrade – other than themselves,” Cain told a standing-room only crowd at Crunk’s Café here. “They control the Senate. They control the White House. Obama’s Treasury secretary [Tim Geithner] is in charge of the Treasury. Now they are trying to blame the Tea Party movement for the downgrade. How pathetic is that? That’s not leadership, folks – that’s not leadership.“

Cain’s campaign team was pleased with the strong attendance for the event here on the second stop of the Atlanta businessman’s “Common Sense Solutions” tour of Iowa leading up to the Aug. 13 Ames Straw Poll. After filling up the banquet room where Cain spoke, attendees sat outside the door of the room in the main dining area of Crunk’s, a local landmark here in Denison. Cain’s Iowa campaign director, Larry Tuel, credited Crawford County coordinator Gwen Eckland for the overflow crowd.

A longtime restaurant executive and former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, Cain’s remarks at Denison echoed criticisms of the Obama administration he made in his latest column:

Immediately following the debt ceiling debacle, the White House announced that the president will take a three-day bus tour through the Midwest to hear people’s concerns about the economy, and talk about measures to boost economic growth and job creation.
Is President Obama that out of touch? . . .
After the president’s tour, we will get another speech. He will once again promise his laser-like focus on economic growth and job creation. We have heard this speech many times before only to get the same results. More talk, talk, talk.
I have been traveling the country and listening to people for the last year, and I can tell you their concerns and fears. Namely, the economy is stuck in neutral and the president’s policies of spend, spend, spend are not working. Since the president has not put forth any new ideas to boost economic growth and job creation, people also know that nothing is going to change simply because he is going to do another tour and give some more speeches.
Mr. President, speeches do not fuel the economic engine of this economy, which is the business sector. And speeches are not going to reduce the latest unemployment rate of 9.1 percent, nor will they ease the pain of the nearly 15 million people who can’t find jobs because your administration wants to raise taxes and continue your regulatory onslaught on American businesses. . . .

Cain will speak this evening during a rally at Bayliss Park in Council Bluffs. The complete schedule for his “Common Sense Solutions” bus tour is here.

‘Awfully Nice For The Professors Who Don’t Have To Grade’

Posted on August 8, 2011August 8, 2011Comments

by Smitty

Althouse points to Western Governor’s University, where there is a notion of hiring adjuncts to do the grading.

Should we feel for the adjuncts who have a job consisting of the part of the job that the regular professors are freed from? The photo at the link depicts “Emily Child, an evaluator at Western Governors U., [who] grades 10 to 15 assignments a day, six days a week, working at home before her three children are up or while they nap.”

So… that’s either awfully nice for Ms. Child, who gets to work at home and arrange her hours around household responsibilities… or a restoration of the subordination of women. (Yes, yes, there are some men who keep house and take care of children… especially they’ve trained in an academic discipline that affords few career opportunities and their spouses have out-of-the-house jobs.)

I can’t picture law schools adopting this method of grading, partly because I’m habituated to the burden, which balances what is otherwise the overwhelmly pleasure of teaching law. In law schools, we avoid grade inflation by imposing a curve, with a restricted range for the average and a required distribution of grades (forcing you to at least give some Cs, even if Ds and Fs are optional). We also “blind grade,” identifying the students with code numbers, and it is, in fact, easier to be critical when you don’t have an individual’s name on the paper.

Listen for the squeals when, after enough data are collected to filter out grader bias, when the results are used to show that certain teachers really just suck.

The lure of academia is tenure, which is nearly civil-service level cushy. I expect much dismay, weeping, and gnashing of teeth to come from this practice, if wider-spread.

Sioux City: Herman Cain Begins Iowa Bus Tour With Noon Speech to Jewish Group

Posted on August 8, 2011August 8, 2011Comments

SIOUX CITY, Iowa
Herman Cain just arrived at Eldon’s Restaurant aboard his spiffy new tour bus:

This event is sponsored by the Sioux City Jewish Coaliton. I asked one of the staffers, “Do they have a significant Jewish population in Sioux City?” But the answer was a mystified shrug. Anyway, here is a video tour of the Cain “Common Sense Solutions” bus, inside and out:

I’ll have a report on Cain’s speech later. Right now, he’s meeting backstage with local supporters. Here are a few photos:

Dale Petersen, Cain’s agriculture issues adviser, and Larry Tuel, Cain’s Iowa state director, in the parking lot of the hotel before the start of the bus tour. The hotel was actually in South Sioux City, Nebraska, so you could say that Cain is the first 2012 Republican candidate to visit Nebraska.

Cain’s chief of staff Mark Block behind the scenes at the Sioux City event. I said, “Mark, you look worried.” He said, “The’s just my game face.”

Volunteers staff the welcome table at the Sioux City event.

The compelete schedule for the “Common Sense Solutions” Iowa bus tour is here.

UPDATE: Cain was greeted with a standing ovation by the 60-70 people in attendance. Discussing the tour schedule — which takes a day off Thursday for “debate prep” for the Fox News debate in Ames — Herman Cain said, “You know what I do when I prepare for a debate? I pray.”

You can support Herman Cain at “A Real Leader.”

UPDATE II: Some more photos:

The attendance at the Jewish Coalition luncheon was impressive.

Cain starts his speech. While he was discussing his opposition to the 2009 financial regulation legislation, sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, Cain said: “Here’s two other problems I have with the Dodd-Frank bill — Dodd and Frank.”

Cain talks to an Iowa newspaper reporter while, at left, his campaign staffer Nathan Naidu waits. The speech ran long and dozens of people wanted to have their photo taken with the candidate, which had the staff slightly panicked about keeping on schedule to their next event in Denison.

Speaking of schedules, I’m running late myself, so that’s it from Sioux City. Hit the freaking tip jar!

PREVIOUSLY:

Aug. 8: Fear and Loathing: From Sioux City to Council Bluffs With the Herman Cain Bus
Aug. 8: VIDEO: ‘Who Is Herman Cain?’
Aug. 8: Santorum’s Hope
Aug. 7: Are You Ready for Tonight’s ‘CainCast’?
Aug. 7: Liberal Head-Explosion Warning VIDEO: Michele Bachmann Testifies for Jesus
Aug. 7: ‘The Lunatic Derby’
Aug. 7: The Santorum Family’s Iowa ‘Vacation’
Aug. 6: Rick Santorum’s Iowa Barn Party
Aug. 6: ‘Streets’ and ‘Avenues’ in Rural Iowa
Aug. 6: I Got Iowa, They Got the Virgin Islands
Aug. 6: On the Scene in Iowa
Aug. 5: Fear and Loathing at the Quality Inn
Aug. 5: Long Knives in Iowa
Aug. 5: Cain, Corn and … the Phantom Menace
Aug. 4: Fear and Loathing on Highway 193; Pawlenty Aiming at Bachmann?
Aug. 4: Michele Bachmann Touts ‘No’ Vote on Debt Ceiling Deal in Latest Iowa TV Ad
Aug. 3: ‘Neo-Confederate Sex Panic’ Becomes the Biggest Political Punchline of the Year?
Aug. 3: En Route to Des Moines
Aug. 2: ‘That Evil Hour …’
July 31: News: Herman Cain Beats Rick Perry and I Just Bought My Ticket to Des Moines

Fear and Loathing: From Sioux City to Council Bluffs With the Herman Cain Bus

Posted on August 8, 2011August 8, 2011Comments

SIOUX CITY, Iowa
OK, no more messing around. Time to get seriously into gonzo as I hit the road following Herman Cain’s “Common Sense Solutions” bus tour across the state. Three stops today, covering 150 miles:

11 a.m. Eldon’s Restaurant
3322 Singing Hills Blvd., Sioux City, Iowa
Sioux City Jewish Coalition meeting

2:45 p.m. Cronk’s Cafe’
812 4th Ave. South, Denison, Iowa

5:15 p.m. Bayliss Park
530 1st Ave., Council Bluffs, Iowa

You can read the complete schedule here. My opportunities for Internet access may be limited, so just in case I don’t have the opportunity to say it again today: Hit the freaking tip jar!

VIDEO: ‘Who Is Herman Cain?’

Posted on August 8, 2011August 8, 2011Comments

This is the best video they’ve done yet:

Santorum’s Hope

Posted on August 8, 2011August 8, 2011Comments

From my American Spectator column today:

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Perhaps 50 voters showed up Saturday for a campaign event held in a barn on a dirt road amid cornfields near Roland, about 20 miles north of Ames. While a few dozen voters isn’t much of a crowd by Republican presidential campaign standards, the audience inside the barn was enlarged — and enlivened — by the presence of scores of children, the offspring of several Christian homeschooling families in attendance. One family brought eight kids, another brought nine, and the hosts, Scott and Susan Hurd, have seven of their own, as did the guest from Pennsylvania whose “Road to Ames Barn Bash” was the occasion of this gathering.
Rick Santorum has been campaigning across the state for months and, as he told the voters (and their numerous children) during his speech in the barn, he has visited 51 cities in Iowa by now. Despite his dogged persistence, however, Santorum’s candidacy has yet to strike the kind of sparks that garner major national attention — a problem the former Pennsylvania senator blames on the media. “The national media has done a very good job of ignoring Rick Santorum,” he said, lamenting the fact that polls show him as the only GOP candidate whose name-recognition hasn’t increased in recent months. “Everybody else was being covered and promoted by the national media, even people that are below me in the polls, even people who most people say have no chance of ever getting the nomination.” The reason for this, he explained, is that the liberal media knows he is a conservative who can win and have decided “maybe the best way to get rid of this guy is to simply suffocate him by making sure that nobody talks about him?” . . .

Please read the whole thing.

And you should also read today’s profile of Santorum in the Des Moines Register, which quotes one of Santorum’s longtime friends:

“Rick is a very devout Catholic guy, and he believes in the principles of the founding fathers of this country. . . He is not willing to compromise on that. He will stand for his beliefs and his principles above any political expediency.”

And he’s never embraced global warming theory, unlike some other Republicans I could name.

Hate to Say I Told You So, But …

Posted on August 8, 2011August 8, 2011Comments

You should have listened to Glenn Beck!

Bullion strikes record above
$1,700 on S&P downgrade

By Lewa Pardomuen/REUTERS
Bullion roared to record highs above $1,700 an ounce on Monday as an unprecedented downgrade to the U.S. credit rating sent investors scrambling out of riskier assets, hammering equity markets and the dollar.
Both U.S. gold futures and cash gold could rise further if pledges by the Group of Seven nations to support battered financial markets fail to bear fruit as investors turn their attention to the Federal Reserve’s policy-setting committee, the FOMC, meeting on Tuesday.
The one notch downgrade by Standard & Poor’s of the U.S. long-term rating on Friday added to the threat of contagion from the euro debt crisis, fears over recession in the United States and even the possibility of a third round of U.S. quantitative easing.
Spot gold touched a lifetime high around $1,702 an ounce, its 11th record in 19 sessions — lifting the price of silver by more than 5 percent. The U.S. December gold contract earlier hit a record about $1,704 an ounce.

Remember: On May 20, 2010, the first time I mentioned Rep. Anthony Weiner’s attack on Glenn Beck for promoting gold sales, the price was $1,192.60 per ounce. Your investment in gold on that day would have yielded a 42% profit in less than 15 months.

Yet every time gold hits a new high and I say, “You should have listened to Glenn Beck,” somebody always says in the comments that the price has already peaked. But gold just keeps going up, up, up, doesn’t it?

PREVIOUSLY:

July 18: You Should Have Listened to Glenn Beck
April 24: Gold Tops $1,500 Per Ounce: Now Don’t You Wish You’d Listened to Glenn Beck?
Nov. 11, 2010: You Should’ve Listened to Glenn Beck
June 17, 2010: Gold Price Hits Record High
May 20, 2010: Everybody Should Buy Gold, Even If Glenn Beck Gets Paid to Tell You So