The Other McCain

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

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

Posted on | July 17, 2015 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

God’s purposes could be mysterious, he thought, gazing at the photo of his hand in his mother’s as she passed from the trauma of bringing him into the world.
When old enough to understand, he sardonically thought it a reverse abortion.
He’d fallen in love rapidly with his darkly beautiful wife, Zorha. Their passion was intense, but mirrored by her rejection of him. In a weeping phone call, she’d confessed soul-deep guilt over an old, dark deed.
He realized the symmetry with his birth situation. He offered her forgiveness, if she could forgive him.
Elsewhere, mother’s fingers curled.

via Darleen

Category: Friday Fiction

Web Site Everybody Hates Reminds Everybody Why We Hate Them

Posted on | July 17, 2015 | 42 Comments

Gawker is to journalism what Pol Pot was to Cambodia:

Last night, a writer at Gawker outed and gay-shamed someone at the behest of an unnamed (for his safety!) source. It was a story steeped in sex, fame, cash, and blackmail, which made it a perfect target for today’s salacious clickbait culture.
Today, Gawker’s managing partners voted 5-1 (with the lone dissenter being the editor who approved the story) to take the story down—but the damage has already been done.
Sorry, Nick Denton—you don’t get to take this one back. . . .
Long story short, Gawker allegedly received a series of text messages and photos showing a planned liaison between Condé Nast CFO David Geithner (his name sounds familiar because he’s Tim Geithner’s brother) and a gay porn star and escort. Gawker claims that the escort, whose story is told under the pseudonym “Ryan,” sent them the photos and text messages after Geithner (who is married to a woman) was unable to meet him as planned during a Chicago business trip. Major money was involved: $2500 plus airfare for “Ryan’s” plane ticket from Texas to Chicago. Geithner forwarded a chunk of the cash to “Ryan” in advance, and sent his photo and lodging plans to “Ryan” via text . . .

You can read the whole thing by Amy Miller at Legal Insurrection, and let me be the first to say how shocking it is to learn that a male Conde Nast executive is married to a woman. A white heterosexual man working in the magazine industry? Is that even legal in 2015?

It’s not surprising that David Geithner turns out to be a closet homo, allegedly. What’s surprising is that he’d be paying $2,500 for a night with a rentboy. Couldn’t he find a gay “executive editor” to satisfy his occasional cravings for manmeat?

Everybody’s angry at Gawker for doing, in a particularly egregious fashion, what Gawker always does, i.e., publish crap stories. Are we surprised by Gawker’s lack of moral integrity? No, of course not.

He probably just hires them as “executive editors.”

Tommy Craggs could not be reached for comment.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! In case you didn’t realize it, #GamerGate has been at war with Gawker for months.

 

Category: Journalism

In The Mailbox: 07.17.15

Posted on | July 17, 2015 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
Louder With Crowder: “Microaggression: A Beginner’s Guide”
EBL: Tell It To The Marines
Doug Powers: It Depends On What Your Definition Of “Historic And Successful Nuclear Agreement” Is
Twitchy: “Whopper Lies” – WH Spin On Why The Iran Deal Didn’t Include Hostage Release Is Laughable


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Facebook Blocking Posts On Planned Parenthood Fetal Harvesting?
American Thinker: Will Nuclear Panic Trigger Political Backlash?
BLACKFIVE: Chattanooga
Conservatives4Palin: Mexican Elites Secretly Agree With Donald Trump
Don Surber: Scott Walker – I Defunded Planned Parenthood When Defunding Wasn’t Cool
Jammie Wearing Fools: Dem Rep Luis Gutierrez Calls Murder Of Kate Steinle “A Little Thing” On Telemundo
Joe For America: Obama Celebrates Muslim Holiday With Death Of Four Marines
Pamela Geller: Chattanooga Jihadi Murderer’s Sister Complained Of “Anti-Muslim Sentiments”
Protein Wisdom: Evolution Of A Scandal – Planned Parenthood Apologizes For “Tone”
Shot In The Dark: Disproportionate
STUMP: Deal Or No Deal – Wrangling In Chicago
The Gateway Pundit: Guns Pulled On Confederate Flag Waving Families In Georgia, Florida
The Jawa Report: France Arrests Four Muslims Plotting Beheading
The Lonely Conservative: Why Are Military Bases Still Gun-Free Zones?
This Ain’t Hell: VA Inspector General Finds Your Claims In The Shredder Bin
Weasel Zippers: Disgraced Planned Parenthood Official Caught Selling Body Parts Works On White House Staff
Megan McArdle: Beware Of Evidence You Really, Really Wanted To Find
Mark Steyn: The Enemy Within


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Category: Linkagery

Daily Pundit Is Just Insufficiently Cynical Regarding Donald Trump

Posted on | July 16, 2015 | 24 Comments

by Smitty

Bill Quick’s analysis is true as far as it goes:

I’ve been thinking about this ever since Trump rode the White Horse of conservative hatred for open borders and scamnesty to the top of the polls, and in the process, spread terror and loathing throughout the GOP establishment.
I mentioned a couple of days ago that the strategy of the Gentry GOP uses to co-opt the votes of the Republican conservative base (even though they despise almost everything that base so desperately wants) is to make sure that, in the end, that base has only three choices – vote for an establishment crap sandwich GOP candidate the base can barely stomach, vote for a Democrat, or don’t vote at all. And they combat that last option by trumpeting at every opportunity that refusing to vote is a vote for the Democrat, knowing that voting for a Democrat is anathema to most members of the base.

Read the whole thing. Bill posits that the GOP is going to fold like the Whigs it supplanted in antebellum America.

I don’t think that this captures the evil of the GOP in its fullness. My take is:

  • there is a single, Progressive party in the United States that has carved up the electorate along various fault lines, then assigned the chunks to the Demmican and Republocrat parties;
  • the conservative urge for reform is threatening the starboard, Republocrat shock absorber, due to Tea Party fanatics;
  • the Donald and his ridiculous hairstyle will have some glorious meltdown around the time the JEBbage is anointed the clear GOP leader by the Codpiece Media;
  • the Trump card of going Independent will be played with flair and panache;
  • the #NoMasBush crowd cheerfully votes for Donald;
  • Her Majesty cackles maniacally all the way to the coronation;
  • Bush, Clinton and Trump (privately, so as not to give up the game) #PartyLikeIts1992 and laugh all the way to the bank, since they are all hedged to win financially, irrespective of the symbolic electoral results.

I’m all for Scott Walker, but my faith in the GOP is relatively cratered. I have the gnarly suspicion, for example, the IRS emails are taking so long to drag out because the Vichy GOP would stand revealed as having certain strange familiarities with the details of what Lois Lerner was up to.

Or not. I have not idea what the ground truth is. Just sayin’.

Category: Bill Quick

Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez: Islamic Terrorist Kills 4 Marines in Tennessee

Posted on | July 16, 2015 | 43 Comments

Just the quick facts:

A gunman unleashed a barrage of gunfire at two military facilities Thursday in Chattanooga, killing four Marines, officials told CBS News. The suspect also was killed.

He was a 24-year-old immigrant:

NBC News reports that Abdulazeez is a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Kuwait. . . .
The Associated Press says he lived in Hixson, Tennessee, which is a few miles from Chattanooga. . . .
He was arrested on April 21, 2015 for driving under the influence in Hamilton County, Tennessee, according to the Chattanoogan.com. . . .
The case is being investigated as possible “domestic terrorism” and the FBI is leading the probe.


UPDATE: Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit reports that ISIS-affiliated Twitter accounts are celebrating the Chattanooga attack and promising more, including one threat aimed at Berlin.

UPDATE II: Donald Douglas at American Power:

Islamic State Tweeted Warning Ahead of
#Chattanooga Terror Attack: ‘O American Dogs!’

The FBI official statement:

The FBI’s Knoxville Field Office, along with the Chattanooga Police Department and other law enforcement partners, are working jointly to investigate today’s shootings at a military recruitment center and a reserve center in Chattanooga, Tennessee in which four individuals were killed and three injured. The shooter, Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, is also deceased. While it would be premature to speculate on the motives of the shooter at this time, we will conduct a thorough investigation of this tragedy and provide updates as they are available.

And via Memorandum, more blogging at Legal Insurrection, National Review, American Spectator, Patterico, The Jawa Report and Jihad Watch.
 

Category: Terrorism

In The Mailbox, 07.16.15

Posted on | July 16, 2015 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
Da Tech Guy: The Tragedy Of Detroit
EBL: Why Scott Walker Will Win
The Camp of the Saints: The House Of Special Purpose
Doug Powers: Hillary Claims Iran Will Never Have A Nuke On Her Watch
Twitchy: Don’t Look Now, Planned Parenthood, But #PPShoutYourStory Has Been Hijacked With The Monstrous Truth


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Cecile Richards Throws Deborah Nucatola Under The Bus In Response To Baby Harvesting Allegations
American Thinker: Disaster – Today’s Warrior Purge In The US Military
BLACKFIVE: Exclusive Interview With Former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren
Conservatives4Palin: If Liberals Really Cared About Black Lives
Don Surber: King Camp Gillette, Trail Blader
Jammie Wearing Fools: Obama – “Any Civilized Country Should Have No Tolerance For Rape”; Flashback – Top Obama Bundler Charged With Rape
Joe For America: Muslim Brotherhood Mafia OWNS America’s TOP Security Agencies – Is A Purging Too Late?
JustOneMinute: John Roberts Delivered The Iran Deal?!?
Pamela Geller: Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez Identified As Mass Murdering Jihadi In Chattanooga Ramadan Killathon – Four Marines Dead, One Policeman Wounded
Shot In The Dark: It’s Only a Conundrum If You Have A Soul
STUMP: Bastille Day Roundup – Greece And Hints Of History
The Gateway Pundit: Susan Rice Says No Americans Will Be Allowed To Inspect Iranian Nuclear Sites
The Jawa Report: 28 Dead Taliban In One Shot!
The Lonely Conservative: DHS Released 260 Illegal Alien Criminals In One State In Three Weeks
This Ain’t Hell: San Francisco’s Answer To The Kate Steinle Murder
Weasel Zippers: Islamic State Account Tweets Warnings About Chattanooga Moments Before Shooting Began
Megan McArdle: Hillary And Jeb Agree, But Are Both Mostly Wrong
Mark Steyn: Serious Times, Unserious People


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Category: Linkagery

What Feminism Is

Posted on | July 16, 2015 | 29 Comments

“Feminism lies about domestic violence. It lies about rape. It lies about families. It lies about fathers. It lies about little boys. It lies about girls. It lies about women. It lies about history.
“Feminism bullies. It bullies women who won’t toe the line. It bullies men who won’t toe the line. It bullies children who question its precepts.
“Every time a feminist repeats racist hateful lies about ‘patriarchy’ or ‘rape culture’ and you don’t identify both those ideas as toxic pseudoscience based on hateful, bigoted preconceptions, you enable that toxic, bullying, pseudo-scientific hate movement.”
— Dean Esmay, A Voice for Men

There comes a point at which you get tired of having the same argument over and over, and you just stop talking to people who seem to enjoy arguing for the sake of argument. I reached that point in March 2011 when my friend Joy McCann (the blogger Little Miss Attila) insisted on arguing that Sarah Palin is a “feminist.” Joy had an attachment to the word “feminism” and evidently hoped to rescue that word from its rightful owners, i.e., the radical women who are the feminist movement.

It quickly became obvious that Joy knew less about the history of feminism than I did; my mistake was in thinking that mere facts counted for anything in such a discussion. Words mean things, and definitions cannot be infinitely elastic. The history of feminism, and the words of actual feminists, must be taken seriously if we are ever to understand the phenomenon defined by the word “feminism.” And I address this issue directly on the very first page of my book Sex Trouble:

What do we mean by the word “feminism”? This question has become increasingly crucial to the way that we talk about men, women and sex in the 21st century. Almost everyone claims to accept feminism if they can be permitted to define it in the most commonly accepted understanding of “equality” as basic fairness. Especially in terms of educational and employment opportunity, no one argues in favor of discrimination against women. Yet this widely accepted idea of feminism, as a concern for equality in the sense of fairness and opportunity, is not the goal of the feminist movement today, nor was this the goal of the movement when it began in the late 1960s. The leaders of the Women’s Liberation movement were radicals — many of them were avowed Marxists — who advocated a social revolution to destroy the basic institutions of Western civilization, which they denounced as an oppressive system of male supremacy, often labeled “patriarchy.” Women are oppressed and men are their oppressors, feminists declared, calling for the destruction of this systematic oppression: “Smash patriarchy!”

This movement and this ideology define “feminism” in the 21st century, and this has been the case for more than 40 years. Any attempt to define feminism as something other than what the organized feminist movement believes is futile. We must abandon the delusion that feminism can be reformed. The poisonous tree always yields a poisonous fruit. Every day we see further confirmation that feminism is what it has always been, a radical movement waging a War Against Human Nature.

“Marriage means rape and lifelong slavery. . . . We reject marriage both in theory and in practice. . . . Love has to be destroyed. It’s an illusion . . . It may be that sex is a neurotic manifestation of oppression. It’s like a mass psychosis.”
— Ti-Grace Atkinson, 1969

“We identify the agents of our oppression as men. . . . All men have oppressed women.”
— Redstockings, 1969

“In terms of the oppression of women, heterosexuality is the ideology of male supremacy.”
— Margaret Small, “Lesbians and the Class Position of Women,” in Lesbianism and the Women’s Movement, edited by Bunch and Nancy Myron (1975)

“I think heterosexuality cannot come naturally to many women: I think that widespread heterosexuality among women is a highly artificial product of the patriarchy. . . . I think that most women have to be coerced into heterosexuality.”
— Marilyn Frye, “A Lesbian’s Perspective on Women’s Studies,” speech to the National Women’s Studies Association conference, 1980

“The radical feminist argument is that men have forced women into heterosexuality in order to exploit them . . .”
— Celia Kitzinger, The Social Construction of Lesbianism (1987)

“Institutions construct systems of inequality in a variety of ways. . . . Such institutions engage in practices that discriminate against women, exclude or devalue women’s perspectives, and perpetuate the idea that differences between women and men and the dominance of men are natural. . . .
“For example, a complex social system throughout much of the world — what feminist poet and scholar Adrienne Rich called ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ — exerts strong pressures on women to enter into heterosexual marriages.”
— Verta Taylor, Leila Rupp and Nancy Whittier, Feminist Frontiers (ninth edition, 2011)

“There are politics in sexual relationships because they occur in the context of a society that assigns power based on gender and other systems of inequality and privilege. . . . [T]he interconnections of systems are reflected in the concept of heteropatriarchy, the dominance associated with a gender binary system that presumes heterosexuality as a social norm. . . .
“As many feminists have pointed out, heterosexuality is organized in such a way that the power men have in society gets carried into relationships and can encourage women’s subservience, sexually and emotionally.”
— Susan M. Shaw and Janet Lee, Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions (fifth edition, 2012)

This remarkable consistency of feminist rhetoric and ideology over the course of several decades — a radical hostility toward men, marriage and motherhood, carried forward from the earliest days of the Women’s Liberation movement into the most widely assigned textbooks in Women’s Studies programs today — simply cannot be ignored. Attempts to deny, limit or mitigate the actual meaning of feminism can never change that meaning. Feminism Is a Totalitarian Movement to Destroy Civilization as We Know It, and anyone who refuses to recognize this reality is living in a world of illusion. Unless and until we are willing see feminism as a “pseudo-scientific hate movement,” to use Dean Esmay’s description, this poisoned tree will continue yielding its poisoned fruit in the form of young women who have been indoctrinated to view all men as agents of their oppression. Radical feminism now exercises hegemonic control within America’s colleges and universities, where the movement’s power is protected by federal law (Title IX) that effectively prohibits criticism or opposition, and where Women’s Studies programs function as the Feminist-Industrial Complex that trains activists as advocates and enforcers of the movement’s dogmatic beliefs. Examples of how this system operates are not difficult to find.

Sandra M. McEvoy has a Ph.D. in Women’s and Gender Studies from Clark University in Massachusetts. She is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Political Science and Global Studies program at Boston’s Wheelock College (annual tuition $32,830). Professor McEvoy “is active in several professional associations, including the International Studies Association, where she is former Chair of the Women’s Caucus and founding Chair of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Allies Caucus.”

What sort of education do you suppose Professor McEvoy provides her students? We need not speculate, for we have testimony from her student Emily Hart, who is “double majoring in American Studies and Political Science and Global Studies”:

Walking into Sandra McEvoy’s Introduction to Feminist Theories the first day of class, I was confident in my knowledge of the feminist movement. I was well versed in the different type of feminists and knew exactly where I fit in on the spectrum of feminism. I believed that much of women’s oppression could be owed to capitalism, and the huge profits inextricably tied to keeping women in their place. I knew the origins of the patriarchy, and had my ideas on how I thought it could be dismantled. But even with all of my prior understanding, I was hardly even breaking the surface of feminism. This class has flipped all of my notions of feminism upside down. . . .
Feminist Theories has completely transformed my understanding of the world around me, has made me rethink such important institutions as motherhood and marriage.

Another testimonial from Wheelock student Jessica Kuhn:

I am currently in the course Feminist Theories (HDS 322) with Dr. Sandra McEvoy. The course is challenging because topics that are unique to academics such as sexualities, education, and motherhood are discussed throughout feminist theory. . . . Modern society inherently imposes a threatening nature on woman resulting in oppression. . . .
Dr. Sandra McEvoy exposes students to topics that trigger emotions such as sexual violence and rape. . . . Feminist theory can serve to uncover what defines women’s subordination in culture and create global prevention and awareness of women’s oppression in a patriarchal society. A major take-away from this course is to challenge society’s social norm in order to combat women’s oppression.

What these young women are taught — what their parents are paying more than $30,000 a year for them to learn — is to view men with contempt, hatred and suspicion, to regard male sexuality as inherently dangerous to women, and especially to despise marriage and motherhood as oppressive “institutions” of male supremacy. Although neither Ms. Hart nor Ms. Kuhn identify themselves as anything other than heterosexual, we must wonder how any woman could ever experience happiness in a relationship with a man once she has internalized the lessons taught by radical feminists like Professor McEvoy.

“Fear and Loathing of the Penis — a paranoid resentment of men, characterized by irrational suspicion — is the underlying mental condition that feminism turns into a political ideology. What disturbs me, after months of studying this phenomenon, is that this madness is both contagious and incurable. Feminism is a sort of cultural virus that, once it takes hold in a woman’s mind, makes it impossible for her to relate to men in a normal manner and, because misery loves company, she feels compelled to share her hateful anti-male attitudes with other women.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Sex Trouble: Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature (page 108)

Wishful thinking cannot change what feminism actually is. Those who ask us to imagine a “feminism” that is something else are inviting us on a snipe hunt, and nothing can be gained by joining them in their pursuit of an impossible fiction. It is a frightening thing to realize how few Americans know anything about the toxic ideas being poured into the minds of our nation’s young people. There are more than 700 Women’s Studies programs at U.S. colleges and universities, employing thousands of instructors to teach this hateful ideology to tens of thousands of students every year. We can see the result — a weird mixture of anxiety, anger and confusion — emerging daily from the fetid emotional swamp that is Feminist Tumblr. (Hello, Wheelock College Tumblr!) Yet in researching this phenomenon, I find myself quite nearly alone.

Almost no one else is paying attention to how academia serves as the headquarters of the feminist movement, with Women’s Studies faculty functioning as the General Staff in taxpayer-funded boot camps for the training of young feminist soldiers. Think about this: Where else have you seen any in-depth examination of the faculty and curricula of Women’s Studies courses? Who else has actually taken the trouble to purchase these textbooks and quote what they say? Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions is edited by two Oregon State University professors and published by McGraw-Hill, which calls it a “leading introductory women’s studies reader.” Feminist Frontiers is edited by three lesbian professors, two at the University of California-Santa Barbara and another at Smith College, and is also published by McGraw-Hill, which  describes it as the “most widely used anthology of feminist writings.”

Meanwhile, here I am, a mere blogger who was double-dog-dared by his readers to write a book about this. Seven months after I published the first “draft chapter” (“Radical Feminism and the Long Shadow of the ‘Lavender Menace’”), I produced the 120-page first edition, and next month I will publish a revised and expanded second edition. That is, I plan to publish a second edition, unless I am overwhelmed by existential dread caused by staring too long into feminism’s vast abyss of despair and insanity. Your prayers are most earnestly solicited.

Loyal readers have been funding my research, thanks to the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Like I keep saying: People need to wake the hell up!




 

Category: Sex Trouble

In The Mailbox, 07.15.15

Posted on | July 15, 2015 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Spent all day at the VA yesterday getting tests done. Back at it today.


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: The Cult Of Celebrity
Da Tech Guy: Decision Time In The Middle East
Michelle Malkin: The Wine-Sipping Butchers Of Planned Parenthood
Twitchy: Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader McCarthy Call For Congressional Hearings On Planned Parenthood’s “Grisly Practices”


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: The Sad And Worn-Out Shakedown Shtick Of Ta-Nehisi Coates
American Thinker: The “Fundamental Transformation” Of America’s Neighborhoods
Conservatives4Palin: Gov. Palin – “How Much Longer?”
Don Surber: Iran Deal Is Anti-Constitutional
Jammie Wearing Fools: Ghoulish Planned Parenthood Doctor Says “Our High Standards Rival Those Of Any Top-Tier National Health Care Organization”
Joe For America: Illegal Alien Kidnaps, Rapes 13-Year-Old – Also Known As Thursday
JustOneMinute: Okay, Jeffrey Goldberg Is Terrifying
Pamela Geller: Obama’s Historic Lies
Protein Wisdom: Obama’s Tell On Unconscionable Iran Deal
Shot In The Dark: You’re Crazy To Dissent!
STUMP: Chicago/Illinois Watch – Shenanigans! Shenanigans For Everybody!
The Gateway Pundit: MSNBC Laughs Out Loud At Hillary’s Bizarre Robotic Response To Question On Iran Deal
The Jawa Report: A Convergence Between Liberal Commies And Islamic Terror
The Lonely Conservative: Networks Ignore Obama’s Plan For The Suburbs
This Ain’t Hell: VA Wants To Close Hospitals, Raid VA Choice Funds
Weasel Zippers: Planned Parenthood PR Firms Claims Harvesting Organs Of Aborted Babies A “Humanitarian Undertaking”
Megan McArdle: Reddit’s Ellen Pao Can Only Blame Herself
Mark Steyn: Far Worse Than Munich


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Category: Linkagery
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