I guess we should have seen this coming — Gloria Allred is now representing Jill Kelley’s twin sister, Natalie Khawam, in the Paula Broadwell-Gen. Petraeus-Gen. Allen scandal.
Both Gen. Petraeus and Gen. Allen wrote letters in support of Natalie in her custody battle with her ex, Grayson Wolfe, or, as I call him, Gray Wolfe.
The menacing emails sent by David Petraeus’ ex-mistress to a Florida socialite promised to make the apparent rival “go away” and boasted of her friends in high places, the Daily News has learned.
Jill Kelley is the Tampa woman whom Paula Broadwell warned to stay away from her lover, Gen. Petraeus. Everything unraveled when Kelley went to the FBI about Broadwell’s emails. Now we learn that Kelley tried to cash in big-time from her friendship with Petraeus.
From “Jill Kelley, key figure in David Petraeus scandal, led lavish life,” Shashank Bengali, David Cloud, Joseph Tanfani, L A Times:
At the Republican National Convention in Tampa in August, New York energy entrepreneur Adam Victor was introduced to [Jill] Kelley. She was described as “a very close friend of Gen. Petraeus,” who had helped Kelley become South Korea’s honorary consul.
Victor, who was looking to establish a major coal project in South Korea, invited Kelley to New York in mid-September. There, she again played up her Petraeus ties. Victor then flew Kelley to Hawaii to meet with a South Korean delegation to help pave the way for negotiations.
But then, Victor said, Kelley asked for 2% of the gross cost of the project for her compensation. Informed that would mean a fee of about $80 million, Kelley persisted until Victor ended the relationship. An industry standard compensation would be no more than $1 million, Victor said.
“It was such an astronomical figure that it suggested she had no experience in negotiating these types of deals,” Victor said. “Gen. Petraeus had a lapse in judgment in using his influence to put her in that position.”
Watch the results in Hillsborough County in Florida (where Tampa is). That county has predicted the winner of the state since 1960.
Mitt can’t win the election without winning Florida.
So if you hear that Obama has won Hillsborough County, you can assume the election is over, and you don’t have to stay up late. If Mitt wins it, you know Mitt has a shot.
You’re welcome.
From “Conventional Warfare: Why Democrats Won,” Joe Scarborough, Politico:
| Which is why Republicans should be particularly glum this weekend. The further Democrats progressed into their convention this week in Charlotte, N.C., the more glaring the shortcomings of last week’s GOP convention became. By the time the last of the confetti fell on the Democratic convention floor, it became frustratingly clear that the most compelling speaker in Tampa, Fla., had been Clint Eastwood’s chair.Michelle Obama connected her family to the American Dream in a way neither campaign has managed all year. San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro offered a joyous takedown of Mitt Romney while wearing a smile as wide as the West Texas sky. And Bill Clinton. Oh my. Convention speeches rarely reach that level.
If there was any letdown this week it was that Barack Obama’s speech sounded recycled at times and resembled a State of the Union address more than a soaring acceptance speech for president. But while Obama said nothing new, he said it much better than when Gov. Romney said nothing in Tampa. And you could tell by the boisterous reaction of Democratic delegates who left the arena Thursday night looking fired up and ready to go. Maybe there seemed to be such a disparity between the two conventions because the Republican Party has never been the least bit excited about its nominee. Or maybe it’s because Democrats were simply blessed with a deeper bench of political athletes in 2012. But whatever the reason, Republicans were lapped by their rivals and may ultimately pay in November for botching Mitt Romney’s debut. Emphasis added.
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From George Packer, “Just Forget It,” The New Yorker:
“If the Republican argument for firing Obama were to be broken down, it would consist of equal parts truth, omission, chutzpah, and lies. Unemployment remains high and the recovery has been sluggish at best, and that may well get the President defeated. But, the moment that Obama was sworn in, the Republicans united to thwart his every effort to stimulate demand and create jobs, in order to lay responsibility for the recession at his door. The Party’s silence about its own obstruction can be heard in every pause of the campaign. The Republican answer to Obama’s policies — deregulation, tax cuts, limited government — has been the conservative position for decades.
“As for falsehoods, they are a staple of campaign politics on both sides. But the flow of distortions and lies came so thick and fast from the podium at the Tampa Bay Times Forum that it seemed as if the Republicans required them to justify the full measure of their contempt for the President.
“At one point, Ryan movingly told the Convention that, after his father’s early death, his mother ‘got on a bus every weekday for years, and rode forty miles to Madison. She earned a new degree and learned new skills to start her small business.’ An ideologue like Ryan doesn’t let himself trip over the thought that a bus, a road, and a public university helped his mother build it.
“But the [Ryan] speech was written without benefit of shame or fact-checking.
“Ryan will be the Party’s next leader because his style is perfectly suited to its demands: purist, inflexible, combative, and untroubled by any complicating fact.” Emphasis added.
From “Strip clubs, prostitutes don’t expect much of a business boom from Democratic convention,” Callie Moran, Capitol Hill Blue:
While the sex and pornography business thrived in Tampa during last week’s Republican convention, strip clubs and escort services in Charlotte don’t expect much of an increase during the Democratic confab in their city.
“Democrats aren’t so upright about sex so they don’t have to sneak around and pay for it,” Connie Allerton, a sexual therapist, tells Capitol Hill Blue. ”If a Democratic delegate wants sex, he or she will just seek it with another delegate.”
A telephone survey of escort services in the Charlotte area finds no plans to bring in “extra talent” to serve the Democrats when they come to town this week.
“Honey, it’s business as usual,” says Danielle, who answered the phone at Uptown Cabaret in Charlotte.
In Tampa, escort services brought in “talent” from Miami and New Orleans to handle increased business and some services told Capitol Hill Blue they were booked solid during the convention.
But a spokesman for Charlotte VIP Escorts said they had “plenty of openings” for the week.
“Looks like a normal week,” said a woman who answered the phone but refused to give her name.
So much for the GOP “family values” hypocrites when the media aren’t watching.
The Dems had a great first night. It was nice to see delegates who actually look like this country instead of all the pasty faces at the GOP. The music was a whole lot better, and the crowd was enthusiastic and moved.
It was a night of excellent speeches. Michelle Obama was just wonderful — very powerful, very personal. She wore a glamorous dress, as opposed to Ann Romney’s June Cleaver 50’s shirtwaist.
Fired-up Deval Patrick, over-the-top Ted Strickland, earnest Julian Castro — all very effective in building the anti-Mitt, pro-Obama case.
Comparing Tampa and Charlotte, it’s clear who “The Other” is in this election, and it’s not the guy in the Oval Office.
It was a pleasure to hear some truth after all the lies of last week. It was a pleasure to be addressed as a middle class person with genuine concern rather than condescension. It wasn’t Bill Clinton’s night yet, but there was a lot of “We feel your pain,” as opposed to the “We’re pretending real hard to feel your pain, but it’s tough when you’ve been rich your whole life” we got in Tampa.
The expected Romney convention bump appears to have come — and gone.
On Thursday, Mitt led Obama by two according to Reuters/Ipsos, then by one on Friday. By today, Obama was back up by one, 44-43.
The Obama bump awaits.
From “Before Eastwood’s Talk With a Chair, Clearance From the Top,” Michael Barbaro and Michael D. Shear, NYT:
“For all the finger-pointing about Clint Eastwood’s rambling conversation with an empty chair on Thursday night, the most bizarre, head-scratching 12 minutes in recent political convention history were set in motion by Mitt Romney himself and made possible by his aides, who had shrouded the actor’s appearance in secrecy.
“Mr. Romney privately invited Mr. Eastwood…to speak after the actor had given him a gravelly, full-throated endorsement at a star-studded fund-raiser at the Sun Valley Resort Lodge in Idaho this summer.
“Behind the scenes, Mr. Eastwood’s convention cameo was cleared by Mr. Romney’s top message mavens, Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens, who drew up talking points that Mr. Eastwood included, in his own way. They gave him a time limit and flashed a blinking red light that told him his time was up. He ignored both. The actor’s decision to use a chair as a prop was last-minute, and his own.
“Romney advisers so trusted Mr. Eastwood, 82, that unlike with other speakers, they said they did not conduct rehearsals or insist on a script or communicate guidelines for the style or format of his remarks.” Emphasis added.
I’ve posted before that Mitt had a lousy staff in 2008, that he has a lousy staff now (many of them the same), and that he needs to “enjoy firing” some of them. It’s a little ironic that this gang that clearly can’t shoot straight got taken down by Clint.
Embattled Farmers 