The Other McCain

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

Lunch With Noah Rothman

Posted on | April 7, 2015 | 83 Comments

by Smitty

You may have seen this a few years back:

That ad comes to mind reading Noah Rothman over at Hot Air as he surveys a few recent URLs concerning the Convention of States notion. Rothman makes a fair point: there is no risk-free way to revisit our founding document:

For conservatives who ostensibly venerate the Constitution, it is odd to see so many of them fail to acknowledge that proposing it’s[sic] complete revision undermines their political position dramatically. Displaying respect for the Founders’ ideals and creating the conditions whereby their work might be entirely demolished are mutually exclusive.

Do you mean the way Wilson planted the IED in the form of Amendments 16 & 17, plus the Federal Reserve Act back in 1913? Or do you mean the way the size of the House froze in 1910, making our government substantially less representative?

Many on the right have contended that a Convention of States is distinct from a constitutional convention. What’s more, they might say, that process could be the only way to rein in the unelected elements of the federal government, like the judiciary or the nation’s unwieldy and proliferating regulatory agencies. Some on the right contend that the Constitution has been so perverted that it is already essentially defunct. But these same conservatives, who often lament the fact that Republican lawmakers are so regularly rolled by left-wing organizations and liberal politicians, would be foolish to vest in these GOP officeholders the authority to remake the system entirely. They would quickly find that conservative politicians who regularly fail to outmaneuver liberals in Congress don’t find their luck has improved on the convention floor.

OK, so: do the homework. Got it.

From a conservative perspective, the ideals and priorities of those who came of age in the Enlightenment are vastly superior to the self-obsession that masquerades as political principle today. The document that emerges from a modern convention would not look anything like the 18th Century accord that harnessed human imperfection and utilized one man’s basest impulses to check another’s. That divinely inspired document, while perhaps flawed and frequently misinterpreted, remains preferable to the technocratic, anti-federalist charter that would emerge from a 2015 convention (presuming that anything at all could possibly pass such a body).

Perhaps I’m putting too fine a point on it, but I wouldn’t go further than “divinely informed”, and even that’s a stretch. The Constitution is a secular product. Full stop.
“preferable to the technocratic, anti-federalist charter that would emerge”
Again, that’s precisely where Wilson’s Folly has taken us. The guy at the table is choking. Technology is seeing progressively oppressive use. Technology should liberate, instead.

When liberals like Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gush over national charters like South Africa’s 19-year-old constitution, they are often only fetishizing the new and the foreign. That’s a nagging and unattractive trait that conservatives laudably fail to entertain. The right’s frustration with the current state of affairs cannot be satisfied by attempting to change the rules of the game. To convene a Convention of States is to open a Pandora’s Box.

And you, young apprentice, are caught between the Scylla and Charybdis.

It’s time for some bold, Tea Party-driven Heimlich action to dislodge the Progressive projectile currently choking our politics. Lead, follow, or get the focaccia out of the way, Noah.

Category: Constitution, Hot Air

Feminists Against Heterosexuality

Posted on | April 6, 2015 | 70 Comments

Jenika McCrayer (@JenikaMc) has “a BA in Women and Gender Studies from The College of William and Mary” and is currently working on her master’s degree in the same field. This means she understands feminist theory, e.g., the “social construction” of the gender binary within the heterosexual matrix. To translate this to plain English, if you are a normal (feminine) woman who feels normal (heterosexual) attraction toward normal (masculine) men, this means that you have been brainwashed by society into accepting your own oppression under the system of male supremacy. Feminists believe that heterosexuality is imposed on women by the patriarchy — women are “coerced into heterosexuality,” as Professor Marilyn Frye explained — and feminine behavior is simply the performance of inferiority. Gender “glamorizes the subordinate status of females” and creates an artificial appearance of male-female difference in order “to clearly mark the subordinate class [i.e., females] from the privileged class [i.e., males].”

Thus, there are no natural differences between male and female, according to feminist theory, only the oppressive hierarchy of “gender” by which society enforces male supremacy.

“The threat of violence alone affords
all men dominance over all women.”

Thus saith the feminists. Quod erat demonstrandum.

So, Jenika McCrayer wrote an article for Everyday Feminism, which was called to my attention by Aurelius Pundit:

Indeed, it’s a special slice of crazy:

Jenika McCrayer explains why men who are sexually attracted to women with breasts are misogynists.
McCrayer explains that “under a patriarchal system… we’re taught to believe that the female body exists solely for a man’s sexual pleasure and entertainment.” She then explains several reasons why liking breasts is a bad thing.
First, “It Dangerously Conflates Attraction and Fetishization.” She explains, “breasts are not solely for aesthetic or sexual purposes. They have a function. And there are painful consequences to fetishizing body parts associated with womanhood.”
More than that, “it’s cisnormative to equate breasts with femininity and womanhood. Not everyone who has breasts is a woman, and not all women have breasts.”
Second, “Fetishization Leads to Objectification and Dehumanization.” McCrayer writes, “Reducing people to their anatomy creates this space that some if not most of us exist outside of because we don’t fit into the male gaze’s narrow categories of what it means to be attractive or a woman.” . . .
McCrayer wrote this article because she received a letter from “a reader” whose husband wants equal rights for her, but also finds her breasts attractive, which she found “problematic.”

Normal men like normal women in a normal way. Normal women take this for granted, but feminists aren’t normal women.

Feminists want to abolish gender, because gender oppresses women. Therefore, normal male attraction to normal females is “objectifying,” “cisnormative,” “fetishizing,” etc. Male sexuality is phallocentric and heterosexual intercourse is male violence against women, according to feminist theory. Thus, the only reason any man could ever want to have sex with a woman is because he hates her.

Feminists believe normal sexual desire is dehumanizing to women.





 

Category: Sex Trouble

The Standards of Liberal Journalism Are Every Bit as Real as ‘Haven Monahan’

Posted on | April 6, 2015 | 25 Comments

How about we start speaking some blunt truths?

Rolling Stone magazine perpetrated a hoax against the University of Virginia, doing “journalism” about an alleged gang rape that evidently never happened. The source of the dramatic tale Rolling Stone published last November, “A Rape on Campus,” was a UVA student named Jackie who has been proven to be a liar. Her freshman year at UVA, Jackie invented a make-believe boyfriend she called “Haven Monahan” as part of an unsuccessful attempt to inspire the jealousy of her friend Ryan Duffin, on whom she had a romantic crush. This deceptive scheme apparently led to Jackie’s subsequent claim that she was gang-raped at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house during a date with this non-existent boyfriend on the night of Sept. 28, 2012.
We didn’t learn the truth behind Jackie’s lies, however, until after Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s sensational article in Rolling Stone described in lurid detail how Jackie was allegedly raped by seven men at the Phi Kappa Psi house her freshman year. One of the first journalists to raise questions about the article, Richard Bradley wrote, “Something about this story doesn’t feel right,” and cited the obvious problems that any veteran editor would have noticed about the story. To believe the Rolling Stone story, Bradley argued, “requires a lot of leaps of faith. It requires you to indulge your pre-existing biases.” Yet these biases — a willingness to believe the worst about fraternity members, and about men in general — were precisely what led Erdely and her editors to publish the 9,000-word article that, they believed, would expose once and for all the reality of what feminists have claimed is a “rape epidemic” on college campuses.
Rolling Stone’s story was a lie and there is no such “epidemic.”
A lengthy examination of Erdely’s article by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has exposed the inexcusable lapses in editorial judgment that resulted in Rolling Stone’s gross libel of UVA’s Phi Kappa Psi fraternity chapter. It is a near-certainty that the fraternity will sue for defamation, and it is difficult to imagine how Rolling Stone could successfully defend itself against such a suit. The magazine’s founder, Jann Wenner, told the New York Times that his staff was taken in by ”a really expert fabulist storyteller.” Yet as the Columbia review makes clear, Erdely and her editors did not take the most basic steps needed to verify (or debunk) Jackie’s tale.
Rolling Stone was grossly negligent, but this has been true of the entire profession of mainstream journalism in dealing with the claims made by feminists about the “rape epidemic” on America’s college and university campuses. These claims are as fictional as Jackie’s imaginary boyfriend “Haven Monahan.”. . .

Read the whole thing at The American Spectator.





 

Category: American Spectator, Crime, Education, Journalism, Media Bias, Sex Trouble

Rule 5 Monday: Easter Weekend Double-Dip Edition

Posted on | April 6, 2015 | 22 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

After a fifteen-day delay imposed by a visit to family and friends in Minnesota (the weather was actually better than it was in DC) and illness contracted on the return flight, here’s your double scoop of Rule 5 for Easter Monday. To introduce our lineup of links, here’s the appropriately endowed Miss Gemma Atkinson.

As usual, some of the following links feature women in a state of (un)dress normally considered NSFW. Exercise discretion in your clicking, dear readers.

(Not So) Average Bubba leads off this week with Linette Beaumont, followed by Goodstuff with Hayley Atwell, Randy’s Roundtable with Valerie dos Santos, and Ninety Miles from Tyranny with Hot Pick of the Late Night, Girls With Guns, and Morning Mistress. We also heard from Animal Magnetism with Rule Five Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon, to say nothing of First Street Journal and Basic Training. Second helpings were served by Goodstuff with the new SPECTRE chicks, Average Bubba with Tessa Fowler, Ninety Miles from Tyranny (Hot Pick, Morning Mistress, Girls with Guns), Animal Magnetism (Rule 5 Friday, Saturday Gingermageddon), and First Street Journal with military blondes.

EBL’s thundering herd included Christina Hendricks, March Madness Tears, Beau and Blaze Berdahl, Thunder Thighs, Sand Snakes of Dorne, Dagmar, and Melissa Benoist. Also, vintage Hollywood Easter Rule 5, Panda Sex, The Searchers, Alyssa Marino, Sinatra and Shirley, and On, Wisconsin!

A View from the Beach checked in with Bai-Lingual Rule 5, Killer Mermaids, Iceland Celebrates “Set Them Puppies Free” Day, “Georgia on My Mind”, Dreamer Charged in “Top Model” Killing, Live Action Review of “50 Shades of Gray”, The Perfect Guacamole Recipe, French Propose to Ban Thin . . ., A New Must See Movie Series?, and Did an Italian Eruption Kill Off Neandertal Man?. Easter additions included Brooke Shields, Drained!, “Maybeline”, The Best Thing About St. Barts?, Bring Back the State Sponsored Pirates to Fight ISIS?, Operator, Could You Help Me Place This Call?, “Gimme Shelter”, Move Over Hillary,, and Midnite Music – Featuring Heather Maloney.

Soylent Siberia’s single serving is a big one: your morning coffee creamer, Monday Motivationer Masterpiece, Overnighty Awesome Diffused Fur, Tuesday Titillation Trophy Taker, Evening Awesome Linky-Love Contender, Humpday Hawtness Rockin’, Evening Awesome Busy, Fursday Fantastic, Corset Cataract, T-GIF Friday – Or, How I Lost My Teeth, Overnighty Awesome Vanda, Weekender in Heels, and Bath Night Turbulence.

Proof Positive celebrated his 7th blogiversary with some vintage Marilyn, and also posted Friday Night Babe Bregje Heinen, vintage babe Alice White, Sex in Advertising with Blush, and Women of PETA XLII. For seconds, it was Khloe Kardashian, Doris Merrick, and Victoria’s Secret. Dustbury offered Nena, Carly Simon, and Cindy Crawford, and Loose Endz remarked on criticism of Gal Gadot’s boobs. Also, Lucy Lawless, Avril Lavigne, and Big Fashion.

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox for inclusion in next week’s Rule 5 post is midnight on Saturday, April 11.

Visit Amazon’s Intimate Apparel Shop

Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Sometime To Return

Posted on | April 5, 2015 | 14 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

TV Reporter’s Cheap ‘Gotcha’ Story Incites Hate Mob Against Indiana Pizza Shop
Zion’s Trumpet
Batshit Crazy News
Political Rift
Regular Right Guy
Liberty News
Dyspepsia Generation
A View from the Beach

Death Toll 147 After Muslim Terrorists Target Christians at University in Kenya
Bert Powers
First Street Journal
Batshit Crazy News
Constantinople (Not Istanbul)
A View from the Beach

What the #EllenPao Verdict Actually Means About the ‘Rights’ You Don’t Have
Dyspepsia Generation

Asian Infrastructure Development Bank
Regular Right Guy
Batshit Crazy News

Nuance For Scalia: It’s The Commie Takeover Of Liberal Arts We Hammer
Batshit Crazy News

British Student’s Message for White Males: ‘It Is Time for You to Bow Down’
Political Hat
Regular Right Guy
Batshit Crazy News

‘Emerging Awareness’ Update
Regular Right Guy
Batshit Crazy News

Police: Middle School Teacher Had Lesbian Sex With 14-Year-Old Girl
Regular Right Guy
Batshit Crazy News

Did Mobsters Beat Harry Reid?
Lonely Conservative
Regular Right Guy
Batshit Crazy News
A View from the Beach

Do You Want to Be a ‘Male Feminist’?
Regular Right Guy
Living In Anglo-America
Batshit Crazy News

Two Men Dressed as Women Ram Their Vehicle into Gate at NSA Headquarters
Batshit Crazy News

Study: Lesbians in U.S. Earn 20% More Than Heterosexual Women
Megyn Kelly
Dyspepsia Generation
Lonely Conservative
Batshit Crazy News

Poll Confirms Public Education Has Corrupted the Morals of America’s Youth
Batshit Crazy News

‘Peak Hipster’ in San Francisco
Dyspepsia Generation
Lonely Conservative
Batshit Crazy News
A View from the Beach

Meet ‘Tony’; Senator Reid’s Occasional 6’2″, 225lb, Taciturn ‘Retirement Advisor’
Political Rift
Batshit Crazy News

The Tyranny of ‘Equality’
Zion’s Trumpet
Batshit Crazy News

Poll Finds ‘Clear Majority’ of Americans Are Hopelessly Gullible Fools
Batshit Crazy News

Is Sexual Desire Dehumanizing?
Regular Right Guy
Something Fishy
Batshit Crazy News
Living In Anglo-America

When Tony Scambilloni Brings The Chin Music, It Is Not Just “Mere Cash”
Batshit Crazy News

Feminism Requires a Theory of the Moral and Intellectual Inferiority of Males
Batshit Crazy News

Gender Insanity for $45,078 a Year
Living In Anglo-America
Batshit Crazy News

Rick Santorum on Tolerance
Batshit Crazy News
Regular Right Guy

How Irrational Is ‘Islamophobia’?
Batshit Crazy News
A View from the Beach

BREAKING: Lefties Flock At Poultry Farm, Say Chickens Refusing Event Support ‘A Bigoted Bunch Of Peckers’
Regular Right Guy
Batshit Crazy News

‘Islamophobia … Baseless Hatred’?
Regular Right Guy
Dyspepsia Generation
Batshit Crazy News

Who Are These Creepazoids?
Regular Right Guy

‘Recovery’ in the Obama Age
Batshit Crazy News
A View from the Beach

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge
Batshit Crazy News
Regular Right Guy

Top linkers:

    Batshit Crazy News (26)
    Regular Right Guy (13)
    A View from the Beach (6)
    Dyspepsia Generation (5)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery!


Hang Time

Category: Linkagery

President Jarrett Says: #NoMoreGOPWar

Posted on | April 5, 2015 | 64 Comments

by Smitty

Category: Democrats, Iran

Crazy People Are Dangerous

Posted on | April 5, 2015 | 79 Comments

Attorney Paul Pfingst said Thursday: “My client has a history of depression and has been undergoing treatment for some time.”

Before we talk about Mr. Pfingst’s client, let’s talk about the fact that for decades, liberals have tried to convince us that the mentally ill are victims of society’s unfair prejudice. If only we were more compassionate and understanding, liberals say, we could alleviate the suffering of these pathetic nutcases.

Yet these pleas for compassion and understanding have an effect of blinding us to the fact that mentally ill people may pose genuine risks to public safety. Think about the Creepy Little Weirdo who committed the Sandy Hook massacre. Think about the Creepy Little Weirdo who committed the Isla Vista massacre. It was after Gus Deeds stabbed his father, Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds, in November 2013, that I put it bluntly: Crazy People Are Dangerous. And since then we have seen numerous stories that confirm this basic truth, including the German co-pilot who killed 150 people when he crashed a plane into a mountain.

Every time we see this kind of story — the murderous lunatic with a known history of mental illness — the media goes into hand-wringing mode, reporting on the “warning signs” that were overlooked before the kook committed his atrocity, yet at the same time striving not to stigmatize the mentally ill. It’s important not to hurt the delicate self-esteem of the deranged, the demented and the disturbed, you see, and then one day we see the headlines about Paul Pfingst’s client:

Police in Southern California say the son of a San Diego Padres minority owner attempted to kidnap a 7-year-old girl at an elementary school last week.
Jack Doshay, 22, was arrested late Wednesday night by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office and charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment with violence and child cruelty.
Doshay’s father, Glenn Doshay, is a philanthropist and former investment manager who maintained his minority stake in the Padres after the franchise was sold to a new ownership group in 2012. Sheriff Bill Gore said at a news conference that Jack Doshay has been living with his parents.
The San Diego Union-Tribune has more on Jack Doshay’s arrest:

The arrest of Doshay came nine days after the brazen and violent midday incident on March 23 at Skyline Elementary that put the Solana Beach community, particularly parents of young children, on heightened alert.
According to sheriff’s officials and the girl’s parents, the intruder on campus lured the girl to the back of the school through a tree-lined courtyard, then tried to wrap packing tape around her head, and was attempting to pick her up when she kicked and screamed, alerting teachers. . . .

Jack Doshay’s lawyer, Paul Pfingst, helped coordinate his client’s arrest and said he’s suffering from depression.
“My client has a history of depression and has been undergoing treatment for some time,” Pfingst said in a telephone interview with the Union-Tribune on Thursday.

Oh, he was undergoing treatment before he tried to kidnap a 7-year-old girl. Guess the treatment didn’t work out so well, huh? Perhaps this Creepy Little Weirdo can get effective help with his “suffering” after they convict him and send him to state prison.

Here’s an idea: Crazy people are dangerous. Maybe we should try locking up more of these lunatics before they hurt somebody.

 

Category: Crime

‘Revenge Porn’ Operator Kevin Bollaert Sentenced to 18 Years in Prison

Posted on | April 5, 2015 | 19 Comments

Clearly the judge intended to send a message:

A San Diego man convicted of identity theft and extortion after posting more than 10,000 sexually explicit photos of women to his so-called “revenge porn” website was sentenced on Friday to 18 years behind bars.
The sentencing of Kevin Bollaert ended an all-day hearing where a number of victims told of the humiliation inflicted by his website. . . .
The sentence was at the high end of the range; Bollaert faced a maximum of 20 years. In explaining his punishment, the judge noted that he stacked the sentencing terms based on the multiple victims. . . .
It was the first case of its type in the United States, and California was the first state to prosecute someone for posting humiliating pictures online. . . .
Once they were published, Bollaert would then demand hundreds of dollars from individuals to remove their photos through a second website he owned.
Prosecutors called Bollaert “vindictive” and claimed he took pleasure out of hurting his female victims with the internet being his “tool of destruction.” . . .
The case centered on a now defunct website called YouGotPosted.com, created by Bollaert so ex-husbands and ex-boyfriends could submit embarrassing photos of victims for revenge. The photos also linked to victims’ social media accounts.
Prosecutors say those who wanted to get the pictures taken down were redirected to another one of Bollaert’s sites, ChangeMyReputation.com. There, the victims were charged $300 to $350 to have their photos removed.

This kind of sadism-for-profit scheme probably seemed like a clever idea to Bollaert. He’ll have lots of time to reflect on his error.

 

Category: Crime
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