The Daily Caller:

Two women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year.

In interviews, the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000 acre resort in the Dominican Republic. They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.

Has this man learned nothing from the Secret Service? Don’t short-change the foreign prostitute.

His spokesholes are calling the women liars:

Asked about the allegations, Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright refused to answer any questions on the subject. “We’re not going to respond to a completely false accusation,” she wrote by email.

OK then.

THE REAL OUTRAGE: I’m less offended by the payment for sex than I am by his breaking his word. Why, if he can’t keep a promise made to a hot prostitute from the Dominican Republic (there are no pictures, but we all have our mental images from the Secret Service incident), how, I ask you, can he be expected to keep his promises to the voters, with whom he doesn’t even want to have sexual relations (with the admitted exception of a handful of housewives in Trenton)?

Again: I ask you.

These Senators. They woo you with compliments (you’re “beautiful”; I need your vote), get you to compromise yourself, and then you get only 20% of what you were promised.

And then he short-changes you to boot! (Rim shot.)

Discussion of polls, principles, and polemics is welcome.

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal via Hot Air Headlines about people who refuse to date folks who don’t share their political ideology:

Eight hundred miles from Ms. Davis’s side, in Winston-Salem, N.C., Charles Rawlings is a neurosurgeon, attorney, deep-sea diver and published photographer. Like Ms. Davis, Dr. Rawlings, 53, is from Tennessee, and he is divorced with three children to whom he is devoted. He leads underwater photography expeditions when he isn’t driving his daughter to cheerleading practice and representing patients in medical malpractice cases.

Each time he operates on someone’s brain, he recalls that “84,000 people die each year because of medical malpractice,” he says. He travels widely, yet enjoys the South, where his children “love their town,” he says.

Winston-Salem has offered slim pickings for a liberal thinker who says his new book, “It Really Is That Complicated,” “grabs the reader and propels them through the exotic (and erotic) landscape that is the foundation for male/female relationships.”

The city is “extremely conservative, politically and in its view on life,” he says. There are plenty of eligible women, with one problem: “They could be Miss America or a member of Mensa, but as soon as they say ‘I’m a Republican,’ probably in five minutes we won’t be talking.”

My wife was raised a Democrat and typically cancels out my votes for political office. Funny, though, on some propositions we agree, even though she or I might be bucking the party line. The thing is, she’s not a hard-line dogmatic liberal. I can see how it would be hard to live with someone who was constantly running down the free market, espousing group identity political views in a hostile way, and so forth. But Mrs. P. simply isn’t very political. We agree on a lot of issues, but she pulls the lever for the D and I pull it for the R.

(Does anyone actually pull a lever any more? That would be cool.)

I have to think we’re like a lot of families that way, and I think the world would be a poorer place were it otherwise.

There is more to life than politics. There are shared interests and values. You might like the same music; admire the same principles; have similar attitudes towards what makes a person worthwhile.

And you might think the other person is cute.

It seems to me that it would be a shame to throw all that out the window over politics.

That said, I would have no desire to date Sandra Fluke, were I not married.

Discuss.

Our first moronic ad features ultra-unenthused kids droning absurd lyrics about how Republicans will end the world:

Newsbusters has the lyrics. They’re worth reading in full to soak in the stupid, but here is an excerpt:

Imagine an America
Where strip mines are fun and free
Where gays can be fixed
And sick people just die
And oil fills the sea

We don’t have to pay for freeways!
Our schools are good enough
Give us endless wars
On foreign shores
And lots of Chinese stuff

We’re the children of the future
American through and through
But something happened to our country
And we’re kinda blaming you

Having abused children in the first ad, it’s time to MoveOn.org to seniors. The second one features cursing old people. If you’re offended by the f-word, other profanity, or just idiocy in general, don’t watch it:

Make it stop.

Genius:

Political analyst Meghan McCain, daughter of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is challenging widespread GOP skepticism about climate change in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

“So are we still going to go with climate change not being real fellow republicans [sic]?” McCain wrote, via Twitter, around midnight as the storm was slamming ashore.

Makes as much sense as claiming climate change to be true or false based on a really hot or cold day.

As in: no sense at all.

Ah, to be the large-breasted offspring of a failed presidential candidate. I wonder what it’s like to earn one’s living by uttering nonsense all day.

Speaking of which, here’s David Brooks endorsing Romney. It’s almost enough to make you consider voting for Obama.

I’m joking of course. But you know what I mean.

Big Peace reports:

Over the weekend, Facebook took down a message by the Special Operations Speaks PAC (SOS) which highlighted the fact that Obama denied backup to the forces being overrun in Benghazi.

The message was contained in a meme which demonstrated how Obama had relied on the SEALS when he was ready to let them get Osama bin Laden, and how he had turned around and denied them when they called for backup on Sept 11.

The fellow who posted it reports:

We created and posted this meme on Saturday after news broke that Obama had known and denied SEALS the backup they requested.

Once the meme was up it garnered 30,000 shares, approx. 24,000 likes, and was read by hundreds of thousands of people — all within 24 hrs. On Sunday, I went into the SOS Facebook page to post something else and found a warning from Facebook that we had violated Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities with our meme. So I copied the warning, put it on the meme as as caption, and re-posted the meme to the Facebook page.

Here’s what Facebook found problematic:

Over time, people have sent me examples of annoying liberal postings on Facebook. Here are just four examples of things that Facebook has found totally hunky-dory:

Thank God there’s no double standard there.

FIGHTING BACK: Some SEALS are airing an ad about Obama and Benghazi during Harvey Weinstein’s pro-Obama ad film about Obama’s Courageous Decision to kill Osama bin Laden (one of Obama’s most committed supporters, according to Michelle Obama).

So says the L.A. Times.

Hope all Patterico readers are staying safe.

The only way readers of the L.A. Times are going to get a clue that Benghazi might be a big deal is from reading Jonah Goldberg:

Last week, Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that sources on the ground in Libya say they pleaded for support during the attack on the Benghazi consulate that led to the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. They were allegedly told twice to “stand down.” Worse, there are suggestions that there were significant military resources available to counterattack, but requests for help were denied.

If true, the White House’s concerted effort to blame the attack on a video crumbles. Yet, last Friday, the president claimed that “the minute I found out what was happening” in Benghazi, he ordered that everything possible be done to protect our personnel. That is either untrue, or he’s being disobeyed on grave matters.

This isn’t an “October surprise” foisted on the media by opposition research; it’s news.

This story raises precisely the sort of “big issues” the media routinely claim elections should be about. For instance, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week that the “basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on, without having some real-time information about what’s taking place.” If real-time video of the attack and communications with Americans on the ground begging for assistance doesn’t constitute “real-time information,” what does?

Read it all. Thanks to MD in Philly.

Another person you might see moving in next door if we pass Proposition 36, the proposition to gut Three Strikes:

LUPE ESCOBEDO

Escobedo was been convicted of 17 robberies he committed in 1986 and 1987. Fifteen of those robberies were accomplished while he was armed with either a handgun or a knife. During several of these robberies Escobedo and his accomplices threatened to kill the grocery store employees he was robbing. Escobedo was sentenced to prison for these robberies; but his life of crime continued after his release, with convictions for resisting an officer, possession of controlled substances, and driving under the influence.

Prior to his commitment offense, Escobedo was arrested for felony child abuse. He was released pending further investigation. Next, he was arrested and charged with possession of stolen property, but his 17 priors were undiscovered. Escobedo was released on his own recognizance and failed to appear. Thus he was a fugitive when Escobedo was spotted in a stolen vehicle parked in front of a motel. He resisted arrest, fighting and threatening the officers who apprehended him. In his motel room officers found a sawed off shotgun. When Escobedo was informed that his shotgun had been located, he stated: “It’s good that I didn’t make it back to the room. … I’m going to be doing 150 years, what difference would it be to take out a cop.”

Escobedo was convicted of a felony failure to appear, receiving stolen property, and resisting or delaying an officer. Based on his numerous strike priors for robbery, he was sentenced to 50 years to life in state prison.

If Escobedo were re-sentenced pursuant to Proposition 36, his new maximum potential sentence would be no more than seven years and six months in state prison, reduced further by custody credits since it would be a determinate-term sentence.

Hi, Mr. Escobedo. Welcome to the neighborhood! What do you do?

Oh.

Previous entry here.

The California District Attorneys Association has done an excellent study (.pdf) of the horrible Proposition 36 to gut three strikes. In the study they have several examples of people who might be released if this turkey passes. I’ll be featuring several in an ongoing series, starting with this one:

ERVIN COLE

In 1984, Cole was convicted of robbery using a firearm. In 1991 he was convicted of burglary. A year later, Cole was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. Cole was sentenced to prison for each of these convictions. After his release, he violated parole five times from 1989 through 1997. During this same time, Cole was also convicted of two misdemeanors.

In 1999, Cole was observed driving a stolen vehicle, and police officers attempted to stop him. Instead of stopping in response to police lights and sirens, Cole accelerated rapidly and led police on a chase. He swerved in and out of traffic, reached a speed of more than 85 miles an hour on a residential street, ran two red lights and three stop signs, swerved into opposing lanes of traffic, and nearly crashed into several other cars. Cole finally collided with another vehicle, spun out of control, and his vehicle rolled over. Cole’s passenger and the driver of the other vehicle were injured. Cole fled on foot and was tackled by a police officer.

Cole pled guilty to felony evading arrest, car theft, and felony hit-and-run. He admitted two strike priors, and was sentenced to prison for 25 years to life.

If Cole were re-sentenced pursuant to Proposition 36, his new maximum potential sentence would be no more than eight years and eight months in state prison, reduced further by custody credits since it would be a determinate-term sentence.

We learn a few things here — things I already knew, but that (perhaps) you didn’t. Felony evading is not a “serious or violent” felony. Nor is felony hit and run. Nor, obviously, is car theft.

Remember that the next time you think that non-strikes are no big deal.