The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

In The Mailbox: 02.22.19

Posted on | February 22, 2019 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Never Underestimate The Power Of Stupid
EBL: Here’s To Rita Hayworth – Have A Margarita Today!
Twitchy: Watching Brit Hume Drag Ana Navarro For Old, Ignorant Tweets Smearing Trump Supporters Is Beautiful
Louder With Crowder: Trevor Noah’s “Silver Lining” Of Smollett Story Is Perfect
According To Hoyt: Malice Or Stupidity, Now Scored For History
Monstr Hunter Nation: House Of Assassins Polar Vortex Book Tour (Now With Video & Picx!)
Vox Popoli: A Tale of Two Social Credit Systems

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Thinker: Beta O’Rourke Is A Democrat Media Chia Pet
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Fake Doctors Friday
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For 2/22
Don Surber: FBI Let Billionaire Rape Girls
Dustbury: Racked With Indecision
The Geller Report: NYU To Host Sarsour Despite Her Fanatical Jew-Hatred. also, Democrat Party Adopts Motion Calling For Renewal Of Obama’s Iran Deal
Hogewash:  Amalthea, also, Hating Haters Gotta Hate
Hollywood In Toto: Dragon – The Hidden World Spits Smoke, Not Fire
Legal Insurrection: IRS Employee Charged With Leaking Cohen’s Records To Creepy Porn Lawyer, also, Smollett Removed From Empire’s Final Episodes
Power Line: Remembering The Indispensable Man, also, Charles Barkley Still Dunking
Shark Tank: Bernie Sanders Says Guaido Not Legitimate President
Shot In The Dark: Next Wednesday
The Political Hat: Cultural Marxism is Real
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Fridays, also, Hate Crimes, or The Politics Of thought Policing
Victory Girls: Adam Schiff’s Letter To Republicans Is A Pearl-Clutching Trump Russia! Collusion Faceplant
Weasel Zippers: “Thin Blue Line” Flag Removed From CT State Capitol After Dems Whine It Could Be Offensive To Blacks, also, Patriots Owner Bob Kraft Arrested After Soliciting Sex At Spa
Megan McArdle: Why U.S. Healthcare Reformers Shouldn’t Use Other Countries As A Model
Mark Steyn: Reparations & Neo-Apartheid


Book Bomb: Sakura – Intellectual Property
Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

Is the Bible ‘Hate Speech’?

Posted on | February 22, 2019 | No Comments

 

Trigger warning: Homophobia and slut-shaming.

“There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.”
— Deuteronomy 23:17 (KJV)

What would happen if a student started quoting the King James Bible in an American university classroom nowadays? It’s frightening to imagine the riots that would probably ensue, with masked Antifa smashing windows and purple-hair fat girls marching around with protest signs.

We are living in an age of decadence and depravity, and Christianity is now so counter-cultural that any teenage rebel looking to cause trouble just needs to keep his Bible handy. It’s easy to joke about the insanity of the Left, but we must remember that Crazy People Are Dangerous.

Floyd Lee Corkins had a pistol and planned to kill everybody at the Family Research Center in 2012. He might have done it, had it not been for the heroic courage of Leo Johnson. That event was foremost in my mind Wednesday when the Southern Poverty Law Center issued its latest “Hate Map.” Make no mistake — if you disagree with the SPLC’s left-wing agenda, they want you dead. The whole point of their annual “Hate Map” is to dehumanize the people listed, to make them targets of reprisals (see “The Terrifying Rise of Financial Blacklisting,” by Allum Bokhari). If you become a dot on the SPLC’s “Hate Map,” it could cost you your life.

 

Years ago, I started my journalism career at the Cobb News Chronicle, a weekly paper in Austell, Georgia, that has since gone out of business. Our circulation was in the South Cobb area — Austell, Mableton and Powder Springs — and I got paid $4.50 an hour, including my Wednesday duties driving a van to deliver the paper on a route that took me up past the mill in Clarkdale to Powder Springs. In those days, McEachern High School in Powder Springs was a phenomenal force in football, having installed the “Chinese Bandits” offense of the Delaware wing-T, and so I knew that community very well. Growing up in nearby Lithia Springs — in eastern Douglas County, just across the county line from Austell — that whole area was my old stomping grounds. Well, imagine my surprise this week when I clicked on the SPLC map for “Anti-LGBT Hate Groups” . . .

 

That dot on the map is American Vision, a Christian conservative group I’d never heard of, but my curiosity was aroused, and I began researching. Research is a habit of mine, you know. Unlike a lot of journalists, I’m not content to regurgitate whatever propaganda is manufactured by the machinery of media hype — that wasn’t the way my editors taught me back in the day. So I started digging into everything I could find about American Vision and realized they are a very familiar sort of latter-day Calvinists — Rushdoony, “theonomy,” “dominion,” etc. — with a strong libertarian streak. If you know who Joe Morecraft is (he preached the sermon at Larry McDonald‘s funeral), you recognize this kind of hard-core Presbyterianism, which is not remotely as scary as the SPLC might have you think. The current president of American Vision has a Ph.D. in theology and has written several books, and it occurred to me — as it apparently never occurred to any other reporter in America this week — to give Dr. Joel McDurmon a call at his office:

Citizens of Powder Springs, Georgia, probably have no idea they are a dot on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s annual “Hate Map,” which was published this week and achieved its purpose, i.e., generating scary headlines: “Hate group count hits 20-year high amid rise in white supremacy, report says” (USA Today), “U.S. Hate Groups Rose 30 Percent In Recent Years, Watchdog Group Reports” (NPR), and “Trump ‘fear-mongering’ fuels rise of U.S. hate groups to record: watchdog” (Reuters). The journalists who supply the SPLC with this kind of free publicity seldom if ever bother to dig down into the details of these annual reports, so it’s unlikely that USA Today readers or NPR listeners in Powder Springs are aware that one of these “hate groups” has made their town a dot on the map.
Located in the prosperous Cobb County suburbs of Atlanta, Powder Springs has more than tripled its population in the 30-odd years since I worked there as a young newspaper reporter. However, I had no idea there was a “hate group” in Powder Springs until I clicked on the SPLC’s latest map and found that the town of 14,000 people is home to American Vision, a small 501(c)3 “Biblical Worldview Ministry” currently led by Dr. Joel McDurmon, author of such books as God Versus Socialism: A Biblical Critique of the New Social Gospel (2009) and Restoring America: One County at a Time (2012). A theologian by training, McDurmon’s views can perhaps be most easily summarized as Calvinist and libertarian, and the question is: Why is this Christian non-profit organization with an office in Powder Springs labeled an “Anti-LGBT Hate Group” by the SPLC?
“Merely because we have always stood by the Bible’s position on homosexuality,” McDurmon told me in a phone interview the day the latest “Hate Map” was published. . . .

You can read the rest of my column at The American Spectator (which got linked today by Professor Reynolds at Instapundit — thanks).




 

 

Category: American Spectator, Gays, Georgia, Racism, Religion

In The Mailbox: 02.21.22

Posted on | February 22, 2019 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Peter Tork, RIP
Twitchy: Charles Barkley’s Trending For Hilarious NBA Halftime Riffs On Jussie Smollett
Louder With Crowder: Chicago Police Superintendent Johnson SPANKS Smollett, Rips Celebrities Who Supported Faker

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: I Don’t Like Thursdays
American Thinker: Jussie Smollett’s Hate
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Homophobic Trump News
BattleSwarm: Pretender – Endgame
Camp Of The Saints:
CDR Salamander: So Long, First Navy Jack, It Was A Good Run
Da Tech Guy: George Washington Warned Us, Unfortunately We Didn’t Listen, also, Five Silly Twitter Thoughts Under The Fedora
Don Surber: Bleak Week For The Swamp
Dustbury: Hem But No Haw
First Street Journal:
Fred On Everything:
The Geller Report: UNC Hosts Talk By Linda Sarsour, Ignoring Jewish Students’ Concerns, also, NY Imam Says “Islam Forbids Alliances With Jews & Christians”
Hogewash: Following The Money Through The Swamp, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Celebrities Make Smollett’s Arrest All About Trump
Joe For America: Collapsing Illinois Wants To Steal Private Retirement To Pay For Public Pensions
JustOneMinute: Better Gun Law Enforcement, And Better Fact Checking
Legal Insurrection: Lara Logan under Fire For Calling Out Liberal Bias In Media, also, With Bread Line Bernie Rising, Expect Michelle-mentum
The PanAm Post: Former Venezuelan Intel Chief Declares For Guiado
Power Line: Is Bernie Sanders A Communist? also, Judge Rules Acosta Broke The Law In Epstein Case
Shark Tank: FL AG Investigating Fake Fundraising Account
Shot In The Dark: Tide Pod Evita, Pettifogger
STUMP: Pity The Poor Congressmen
The Political Hat: Bernie Bust – Big Brother Taxes, Failed Trial Runs, & Not Even Medicare
This Ain’t Hell: Airborne Museum’s Statue Vandalized, also, Gun Maker Calls Marines “Crayon Eaters”
Victory Girls: “Tax The Rich” Democrats Will Destroy Our Country
Volokh Conspiracy: Prosecutors Violated The Rights Of Jeffrey Epstein’s Victims
Weasel Zippers: Never Pay For Your Hate Crime With A Check, also, Conservative Activist Beaten At Berkeley
Mark Steyn: You Say Wilkes-Barre, I Say WILK-Barsky, also, Fake Hate Crimes & Fake Resignations


Category: Linkagery

‘There Is No Deep State’

Posted on | February 21, 2019 | No Comments

So says Ace of Spades, remarking on the astonishing report that an IRS bureaucrat has been charged with leaking Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s bank records to reporter Ronan Farrow and attorney Michael Avenatti last year. The bureaucrat, based in the IRS San Francisco office, was evidently in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome, telling Farrow: “To say that I am terrified right now would be an understatement. This is a terrifying time to be an American, to be in this situation, and to watch all of this unfold.”

Yeah, and you know what else is terrifying? The idea that our government hires criminals to spy on the financial records of their enemies.

Also terrifying: Federal prison. Bon voyage!

 

 

Category: Corruption, Crime

What Counts as a ‘Conspiracy Theory’?

Posted on | February 21, 2019 | No Comments

Liberals would have you believe that any facts or arguments that support conservative beliefs are either “myths” or “conspiracy theories.” Take Christianity, for example. Every liberal will tell you that the Bible is false and that Christianity is simply a “myth.” You will notice, however, that liberals never say this about Islam. Why? Because liberals are not interested in attacking Islamic beliefs, whereas Christianity is highly correlated with support for the Republican Party, as exit poll data show.

 

Among Protestants, Trump won by a 17-point margin, whereas among voters with “no religion,” Hillary won by a 42-point margin. Trump won voters who attend church weekly by a 14-point margin, whereas Hillary scored a 32-point margin among voters who never attend church. Is it even necessary to explain why, therefore, liberals make a habit of insulting Christians and mocking Bible-based beliefs? Democrats can read these exit poll numbers as well as I can, which is why Democrat billionaires pour contributions into the coffers of organizations like the SPLC to smear Christian ministries as “hate groups.”

It is not a “conspiracy theory” to point out the obvious political motives behind this anti-Christian agenda: Democrats want to destroy the Republican Party and, having identified Christians as a core constituency of the GOP, Democrats are attacking Christianity. “SJWs Always Project,” as Vox Day says, and the accusation that conservatives are promoting “conspiracy theories” is a projection of liberals’ own paranoid fears about their “right-wing” adversaries. Consider the reaction when a supposedly objective news organization hired a Republican:

When CNN recently hired Sarah Isgur, Jeff Sessions’ former spokeswoman, to be a political editor at its Washington bureau, the predictable backlash from left-dominated media types and activists followed. Even the allegedly unbiased CNN newsroom was reportedly “demoralized” at the mere thought of a Republican on staff. No word on how former Obama official, now CNN’s chief national security correspondent and co-anchor of “CNN Newsroom,” Jim Sciutto, felt about the development.
Isgur was accused of holding various right-of-center positions. And when a former political activist-turned-Vox writer claimed that Isgur “pushed Planned Parenthood conspiracy theories that were grounded in misleadingly edited videos,” the talking point quickly gained popularity with Isgur’ detractors.
The alleged proof of this conspiracy theorizing resides in a single retweet of a Federalist piece written by my colleague Mollie Hemingway, praising Isgur’s former boss Carly Fiorina for highlighting a series of undercover videos released in 2015, clearly catching Planned Parenthood executives and doctors admitting to illegally profiting from the sale of the fetal tissue of aborted babies.
The only conspiracy theory attached to the incident was spread by pro-abortion activists and Planned Parenthood apologists, which included CNN’s news division and other major media outlets, who either ignored the shocking videos or falsely and repeatedly claimed that videos of executives breezily discussing the harvesting and illegal selling of baby parts had been “heavily” and “deceptively” edited. . . .

Read the rest by David Harsanyi at The Federalist. The reaction to Isgur’s hiring shows that liberals consider CNN their political fiefdom, where Republicans are deliberately excluded from employment.

Even though the videos about Planned Parenthood clearly showed what conservatives say they showed, liberals falsely accused Isgur of promoting a “conspiracy theory” by retweeting a column about the videos. Major media organizations employ numerous partisan Democrats (e.g., George Stephanopoulos at ABC, Chris Matthews at NBC) while enforcing a “no Republicans allowed” policy, but if anyone points out this bias?

Oh, that’s just a right-wing “conspiracy theory.” Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

 

Category: Media Bias

Chicago PD: ‘Shameful … Despicable’ How Jussie Smollett ‘Smeared This City’

Posted on | February 21, 2019 | No Comments

 

America just got a lesson: Don’t ever mess with Eddie Johnson.

The Chicago Police Superintendent was visibly angry in a press conference this morning, denouncing the “shameful” and “despicable” way Jussie Smollett “smeared this city” with a hate-crime hoax Johnson said was motivated by the actor’s desire for a higher TV salary.

UPDATE 11:12 a.m. ET: The superintendent and Chicago’s top detective Edward Wodnicki laid out the case of how Smollett, “dissatisfied” with his salary on the Fox series Empire, first mailed a fake hate letter to himself and, when that failed to get the reaction he had hoped for, paid Nigerian brothers Abimbola “Abel” Osundairo and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo to stage an attack on him in the wee hours of Jan. 29. Even though police had “questions” about Smollett’s tale from very early in their investigation, Johnson said, they gave Smollett “the benefit of the doubt” as a potential victim until the Osundairo brothers confessed their role Friday.

“But when we discovered the actual motive, quite frankly, it pissed everybody off,” Johnson said in the press conference.

UPDATE 11:26 a.m. ET: There was never a chance that Smollett could have gotten away with the hoax, as Wodnicki detailed how Chicago detectives examined hours of video surveillance, interviewed more than a hundred potential witnesses, and executed more than than search warrants and subpoenas to solve the crime. Tracing the movements of the Osundairo brothers before and after the staged “attack,” investigators were able to locate the cabs and ride-shares they had used, which led them to identify the suspects, who had boarded a flight to Nigeria from O’Hare Airport hours after the incident. One of the Osundairo brothers had been an extra on Empire, and both were acquainted with Smollett.

UPDATE 11:41 a.m. ET: While detectives in Chicago had to wait for the suspects to return from Nigeria Feb. 13 before questioning them, Smollett’s fake hate crime received nationwide attention.

“Celebrities, news commentators and even presidential candidates weighed in on something that was choreographed by an actor,” Johnson said at the press conference, contrasting this publicity with the usual indifference toward Chicago’s violent crime problem. “I wish the families of gun violence [victims] got this kind of attention.”

UPDATE 12:03 p.m. ET: Smollett claimed he was attacked by two white men who called him racial and homophobic slurs and shouted “This is MAGA country!” — a reference to President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan. This claim of a political motive sparked suspicion by Michelle Malkin and other conservative commentators, who wondered why two white Republicans would be in downtown Chicago at 2 a.m. on a night when a “polar vortex” brought sub-zero temperatures to the city. As I wrote in my Monday column for The American Spectator:

Anyone with common sense could see that Jussie Smollett’s story didn’t add up, but evidently none of the Democrats running for president in 2020 has any common sense. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and California Sen. Kamala Harris used almost identical language in proclaiming Smollett the victim of “an attempted modern-day lynching.” Former Vice President Joe Biden declared: “We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts.” Smollett was the victim of “the latest of too many hate crimes against LGBTQ people and people of color,” said New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, adding: “We are all responsible for condemning this behavior and every person who enables or normalizes it.” Other leading Democrats joined this chorus of condemnation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the “racist, homophobic attack… an affront to our humanity,” while New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez asserted that the attack on Smollett was indicative of “the rise of hate crimes.” No Democrat more explicitly pointed the finger of blame than California Rep. Maxine Waters who said “this is happening for a reason.… It’s coming from the President of the United States. He’s dog-whistling every day.”

UPDATE 12:21 p.m. ET: During his Thursday morning press conference, Chicago’s top cop focused his anger on the perpetrator of the hoax. “I’m offended by what has happened and I’m also angry,” Johnson said, condemning Smollett for faking a “publicity stunt” that had dragged “Chicago’s reputation through the mud.”

“We do not, nor will we ever, tolerate hate in this city,” the superintendent said, expressing outrage that Smollett “took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career.”

UPDATE 12:34 p.m. ET: The final word, from the Commander-in-Chief:




 

PREVIOUSLY:

 

 

Category: Chicago, Crime, Racism

America’s Dog Rape Epidemic

Posted on | February 21, 2019 | No Comments

 

In the middle of a long Wednesday night post, I made mention of two recent cases — in Oldsmar, Florida, and South Euclid, Ohio — in which men were arrested for having sex with dogs. But these are not isolated incidents. There is a nationwide trend of dog rape.

PORTLAND, OREGON:

A Portland man was arrested [Feb. 13] after authorities say he admitted to raping his fiancée’s dog, which later was euthanized after the sexual assault caused internal injuries.
Fidel Lopez, 51, told Portland police that he and the dog, a Lhasa Apso mix named Estrella, were lying in bed last November while his girlfriend was out, and he got upset when she wouldn’t respond to his calls and texts, according to a probable cause affidavit. Lopez said he’d been drinking alcohol at the time and “out of anger” sexually assaulted the dog, the affidavit said. . . .
According to the affidavit, the girlfriend later brought the dog to DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital after she heard Estrella whining while hiding under the couch and discovered blood and injuries to the animal. She told staff that her fiancé “displayed some potential bestiality tendencies,” mentioning that he showed his genitals to dogs and bragged about watching another person sexually assault a dog.
The girlfriend said Lopez had asked her if she’d consider getting a dog bigger than Estrella, the affidavit said.
A necropsy was performed on Estrella after she was euthanized. Traces of Lopez’s DNA were found in the dog, the affidavit said.

HOUSTON, TEXAS:

A Houston man has been charged with three counts of bestiality after allegedly offering up three of his dogs for sex to an undercover police officer, according to the Houston Police Department.
Juan Pablo Tschen, 31, was arrested [Feb. 14] and has since been released after posting $3,000 bond.
Three of his dogs believed to be used for bestiality were also seized during his arrest, police said.
Tschen was collared during an undercover sting conducted by the Houston Police Department’s major offenders and animal cruelty units. He’s accused of participating in several online forums surrounding the illegal act, which grabbed the attention of investigators.
At some point, he offered up his dogs to an undercover officer, according to court documents.

BOSSIER CITY, LOUISIANA:

A state district judge has refused to lower bond for a Bossier City police officer accused of performing sex acts with a dog.
Terry Yetman, 38, will remain jailed under a $350,000 bond. . . .
Yetman, a four-year veteran of the Bossier City Police Department, was arrested in December on 40 counts of sexual abuse of an animal.
Prosecutors said Yetman engaged in sexual conduct with a dog and possessed pornographic images of a person and an animal engaged in sexual conduct. . . .
The dog, a Belgian Malinois, is being moved from the local animal shelter to an animal rescue in Texas, prosecutors said.

SUFFOLK, VIRGINIA:

Police in Virginia say a couple who owned a dog kennel engaged in bestiality caught on video.
Citing [an Oct. 15] release from Suffolk police, The Virginian-Pilot reports 42-year-old Christina Patterson was charged with multiple counts of bestiality and animal cruelty more than a year after the investigation began.
Police say any state charges against 47-year-old Richard Allen Patterson cannot proceed until his federal firearms charges from July 2017 are resolved.

BELLMEAD, TEXAS:

A Bellmead man was charged with trespassing, evading arrest and bestiality after officers responded to a report that a dog was being sexually abused [July 7] in the backyard of a home, police said . . .
Philip Mercon, 27, was arrested without incident, police said.
He was taken to the McLennan County Jail.
His name did not appear on the jail’s online roster late Monday morning.
Officers were sent just before 2 a.m. . . . to the 2000 Block of Montrose Street in Bellmead where a witness told them he observed a man “sexually abusing a dog,” police said in a press release . . .
When the man spotted the officers, he let go of the dog and tried to run, police said.

These cases are the tip of an iceberg of America’s dog-rape epidemic because, of course, most of these sick fiends are never caught. And while it’s impossible to estimate how common these heinous crimes are, they certainly are more common than MAGA-hat-wearing racist homophobes assaulting black actors at 2 a.m. on the streets of Chicago.

Think about that. The press conference is scheduled for 10 a.m. ET.

 

Category: Crime

Chicago Police Arrest Jussie Smollett in the Dumbest ‘Hate Crime’ Hoax Ever

Posted on | February 21, 2019 | No Comments

 

Stupid is as stupid does:

“Empire” star Jussie Smollet was charged Wednesday night with lying to cops when he claimed to be the victim of a racist and homophobic attack — and authorities want him to surrender, police said.
Chicago PD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Smollett was charged with filing a false police report, a felony, after the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office approved the criminal complaint. Cops were seeking to have Smollett turn himself in as soon as possible, Gugliemi said.
“We’re trying to get in touch with his lawyers,” he told The Post.
Under Illinois law, Smollett, 36, could face up to three years in prison if convicted of the crime.
The development came hours after Smollett was formally classified as a suspect and followed a stream of recent reports that increasingly cast doubt on the TV actor’s story, including that two brothers told investigators Smollett had paid them $3,500 to stage the Jan. 29 incident.
Siblings Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo were escorted into the grand jury offices at Chicago’s Leighton Criminal Court Building about 30 minutes before Smollett was formally named a suspect.
The two men were surrounded by about a half-dozen people in civilian clothing as they walked into the secure area on the fourth floor of the courthouse around 3:45 p.m. local time.
A little over two hours later, 16 members of the grand jury were escorted out of the area and into a pair of elevators while reporters were kept at bay.
The brothers also left the building minutes later. Their lawyer, Gloria Schmidt, told reporters, “Jussie’s conscience is probably not letting him sleep right now.’’

Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Gugliemi announced on Twitter that Smollett was taken into custody this morning and that police superintendent Eddie Johnson and chief detective Edward Wodnicki will hold a press conference at 9 a.m. CT today. The obvious question: How stupid did Jussie Smollett have to be to think he could get away with this?

Well, he’s apparently stupid enough to violate 18 US Code 1038 — mail fraud, a federal crime that could earn him more time than the four years he’s facing under Illinois law. His lawyers insist that Smollett deserves the presumption of innocence, however, despite the fact that he is accused of a crime that was intended to defame innocent white males.




 

 

Category: Chicago, Crime, Racism
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