One of the two women also alleges that Cain made a pass at her.

Several other association board members Politico interviewed were unaware of the sexual harassment complaints, and said that such behavior was “not within his character” and that Cain was “extremely professional” and “fair” to female staffers. Politico notes that “almost all board members remember Cain fondly and say he left on good terms.” Mary Ann Cricchio, who has served on the board of the restaurant group since 1998, told Politico that when Cain spoke before the group in January to float the idea of a presidential bid, “he had unanimous support in the room.”

† Media Irrelevancy – A Self-Inflicted Wound: Writing for Bloomberg News, Jonathan Alter(nate Universe) proclaims that going into the 2012 election, President Barack Hussein Obama “has one asset that hasn’t received much attention: He’s honest.” Oh, and his biggest weakness is that he works too hard and is a perfectionist. Alter(nate Universe) continues:

Although it’s possible that the Solyndra LLC story will become a classic feeding frenzy, don’t bet on it. Providing $535 million in loan guarantees to a solar-panel maker that goes bankrupt was dumb, but so far not criminal or even unethical on the part of the administration. …

[T]he president’s Teflon is intriguing. How did we end up in such a scandal-less state? …

For starters, the tone is always set at the top. Obama puts a premium on personal integrity, and with a few exceptions (Tim Geithner’s tax problems in 2009) his administration tends to fire first and ask questions later. The best known example is Shirley Sherrod, the Agriculture Department official who was mistakenly fired by her boss over a miscommunication that led higher-ups to believe – wrongly – that she had made inappropriate racially tinged remarks. In several other cases, the decision to give staffers accused of wrongdoing the boot was made within hours, taking the air out of any possible uproar. …

The vigilance about wrongdoing has worked better when it comes to oversight of the $787 billion stimulus program. The money might not always have been spent on the right things. But a rigorous process supervised by Vice President Joe Biden, and made transparent with the help of recovery.gov, has prevented widespread fraud and abuse.

Where to begin? How about the fact that that several of Solyndra’s investors just happened to be Obama bundlers, and a member of his administration lobbied for the loan guarantee even though he had a conflict of interest and had signed an ethics pledge promising not to involve himself in any decisions regarding the company (third item on the page)?

And then there is this one (of too many to count) examples of wasted or misspent stimulus funding: A $500 million stimulus grant to a program that trained just 1,033 of 53,000 people whose skills were supposed to be re-tooled for “green jobs” – and these 1,033 people were placed in already-existing jobs that had not been considered “green” until the Obama administration needed to show that such jobs actually existed (second item on the page).

Finally, if Obama is so quick to throw people accused of wrong-doing under the bus how come Attorney General Eric Holder has survived the fury over Fast and Furious and his misleading (if not perjurious) Congressional testimony this long?

Poor Jonathan Alter(nate Universe). He is floating in a most peculiar way, and the stars look very different today.

† Romney: The Sequel: At a campaign event in Pittsburgh, former MA Gov. Mitt Romney said “we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet, and the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.” And he does not “believe” in cap-and-trade. Yes, folks, this is another of Romney’s patented flip-flops, as Mediaite reports:

ThinkProgress’s Brad Johnson noted that Romney made a completely opposite statement in June: “I believe that humans contribute to that,” Romney said. “I don’t know how much our contribution is to that, because I know that there have been periods of greater heat and warmth in the past but I believe we contribute to that. And so I think it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases.”

Grist’s Christopher Mims also slammed Romney. “If there’s one thing Mitt Romney’s good at, it’s turning directly into whatever political winds are blowing through the Republican base.”

Which brings The Stiletto to George Will’s devastating column about Romney, whom he calls “a recidivist reviser of his principles”:

In May, in corn-growing Iowa, Romney said, “I support” – present tense – “the subsidy of ethanol.” And: “I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country.” But in October he told Iowans he is “a business guy,” so as president he would review this bipartisan – the last Republican president was an ethanol enthusiast – folly. Romney said that he once favored (past tense) subsidies to get the ethanol industry “on its feet.” (In the 19th century, Republican “business guys” justified high tariffs for protecting “infant industries”). But Romney added, “I’ve indicated I didn’t think the subsidy had to go on forever.” Ethanol subsidies expire in December, but “I might have looked at more of a decline over time” because of “the importance of ethanol as a domestic fuel.” Besides, “ethanol is part of national security.” However, “I don’t want to say” I will propose new subsidies. Still, ethanol has “become an important source of amplifying our energy capacity.” Anyway, ethanol should “continue to have prospects of growing its share of” transportation fuels. Got it? …

A straddle is not a political philosophy; it is what you do when you do not have one.

The coup de grâce: “Has conservatism come so far, surmounting so many obstacles, to settle, at a moment of economic crisis, for this?”

† The Sounds Of Silence?: If you watch the "Fourteenth Annual Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize" ceremony on PBS Monday night – The Stiletto is planning to wash her hair or something – keep in mind that the award is meant to honor artists liberals who “use humor, as Twain did, to skewer hypocrisy and injustice.” The Washington Times reports:

Of the 14 Twain prize honorees, Bill Cosby is the only one who has publicly expressed anything approaching a conservative view. …

In 2004, Lorne Michaels even won the thing, for goodness sake, meaning it's easier for a Canadian to be named America's top humorist than it is for a conservative born in the U.S.A.

In fact, a little Republican-bashing seems to be a shortcut to the Twain prize. …

Defenders of the Kennedy Center will claim the pickings are slim on the other side of the ideological divide. All the funny people are liberal because, at least one argument goes, humor is an inherently subversive medium. …

The creators of "South Park," Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are equal opportunity offenders. Much of their consummate lampoonery, though, has been aimed at liberal scared cows, like Michael Moore and Rob Reiner, government-mandated diversity, and the often appalling smugness of environmentalists. …

Or why not Mike Judge and Greg Daniel? Mr. Judge is now working on the resurrected "Beavis and Butthead." Mr. Daniels, as the showrunner for NBC's "Parks & Recreation," is the wit behind that Big Government-hating government official and consummate man's man, Ron Swanson.

Together the pair spent ten years making Fox's "King of the Hill," an incredibly effective communicator of common sense conservative values.

Indeed, anyone who’s read Twain would know that his favorite targets were intellectual vanity (“'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read”); preachiness (“Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits”); do-gooding (“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example”); and smugness (“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so”).

Twain would have had a field day with the organization that bestows this eponymous humor award, beginning with the admonishment, “Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”

† Multiculturalism: Jihad By Other Means: The Second District Court of Appeals will not stand in the way of Judge Richard Nielsen invoking "ecclesiastical Islamic law" in a contractual dispute involving the Islamic Education Center of Tampa (related article, fifth item on the page). The appellate court denied without comment a petition by the mosque to apply FL civil law to the case, St. Petersburg Times reports:

Like everything else in the litigation, the meaning of the appeals court ruling is in dispute.

Attorney Paul Thanasides, representing the mosque, said an appeals court decision without a written opinion means the court wasn't addressing the merits of the case.

Thanasides said the U.S. Constitution and Florida law prevent Nielsen from following Islamic law.

[H]e filed a motion with the judge asking him to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.

"Florida law is clear that courts may not decide corporate governance disputes involving religious organizations," the motion said.

BTW, Nielsen was appointed to the bench by former Gov. Jeb Bush (R).

† Philly Abortionist Charged With Murder Of Seven Newborns: Two women without medical training who worked at the Philadelphia abortion mill run by Dr. Kermit Gosnell where seven babies who survived late-term abortions (allegedly) were killed with scissors and a Bhutanese immigrant died from a drug overdose (related article, third item on the page), have pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, The Associated Press reports:

Andrea Moton admitted her involvement in the death of one baby. Sherry West pleaded guilty in the February 2009 death of Karnamaya Mongar …

Moton and West each pleaded guilty to related charges, including taking part in a corrupt organization.

West, 52, of Newark, Del., was charged with third-degree murder, drug delivery causing death, illegally performing an abortion after 24 weeks, conspiracy, participating in a corrupt organization, evidence tampering and other charges. She has been in custody since her January arrest on $2 million bail.

West, a long-time Gosnell patient hired in October 2008, worked as a medical assistant. She had no formal training but performed ultrasound exams, administered anesthesia and monitored patients in the recovery room, according to prosecutors.

She also had hepatitis C, but she took no precautions to protect exposing patients to the disease, authorities said.

† They’re Not Working On The (Long Island) Railroad All The Live- Long Day: Eleven people have been charged in a massive scheme to defraud the federal Railroad Retirement Board of “unwarranted occupational disability benefits” that could top $1 billion dollars if fully disbursed, The New York Times reports:

Ten of the defendants were taken into custody early Thursday at their homes by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and state investigators, officials said. They included seven former railroad workers, including a former union president; a former federal railroad pension agency employee who helped the workers file claims; a doctor; and a doctor’s office manager. A second doctor is expected to surrender on Friday.

The United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, said, “Employees, in many cases, after claiming to be too disabled to stand, sit, walk or climb steps, retired to lives of regular golf, tennis, biking and aerobics.”

The charges involving the railroad come at a time when public workers’ unions across the country have faced heavy criticism for negotiating pension obligations that led many government agencies to slash services and lay off teachers, police officers and other workers.

A sampling of hundreds of cases approved by two doctors showed that $121 million had been paid to workers whose disabilities were either fabricated or exaggerated, according to court papers, though the total was quite likely more. It was unclear if officials would try to stop the payouts, or could even legally do so, before the disbursements hit $1 billion.

The Times also reports that “[w]hile the number of disability claims … has fallen since the abuses came to light in 2008, the sheer volume of applications remained conspicuously higher than those from any other train system in the country, including the Metro-North Railroad, which is comparable in size”:

Furthermore, nearly all of the claims – 95 percent over the past three years – continued to be approved by the Railroad Retirement Board, the federal agency that is the equivalent of Social Security for railroad workers.

The agency’s officials had promised to use greater oversight in assessing disability claims from employees of the Long Island Rail Road. …

After The New York Times reported in 2008 that virtually every employee of the Long Island Rail Road had applied for and received federal benefits for occupational disability, the retirement board said it would enact new measures to protect against fraudulent claims.

† The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II: A new Gallup poll suggests that gun ownership is not a “guy thing” – or even a “Republican thing,” The Washington Times reports:

The Second Amendment has truly gone mainstream.

Overall, just under half of Americans said they have a gun at home, which is 6 percent more than had them in 2010. Not surprisingly, the highest ownership percentages are found in the South and the Midwest, and Republicans are the group most likely to be packing heat – up 3 percent. By comparison, Gallup found the number of Democrats willing to come out and admit to having a sidearm jumped 8 points from 32 percent to 40 percent. Since Mr. Obama's inauguration, the ranks of gun-toting women swelled by 10 points to 43 percent.

This change has significant impact on policy. Nearly three out of four respondents opposed handgun bans – an all-time high. There are now more Democrats with guns than there are liberals who want to take them away.