The Other McCain

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

Liberals: ‘There Is No Cancel Culture’; Also Liberals: ‘Let’s Cancel This Comic’

Posted on | June 17, 2023 | Comments Off on Liberals: ‘There Is No Cancel Culture’; Also Liberals: ‘Let’s Cancel This Comic’

Marvel Comics now imitates Mao’s Red Guards:

A year ago progressive news outlets were calling the idea of the culture war a “right-wing conspiracy theory” that had no basis in reality. . . .
Why would leftists target something as frivolous as comic book heroes? Because pop-culture is first and foremost a playground where children grow up, and by rewriting heroes as social justice crusaders and communists they hope to indoctrinate the next generation.
However, one hero figure in particular is seen as so egregious and so triggering that leftists want him memory-holed altogether – The Punisher.
The Punisher character (Frank Castle), originally created by writer Gerry Conway in 1974 with artists Ross Andru and John Romita, was a product of a chaotic era; a reaction to the rise of war, stagflation, instability and exploding crime rates in the US. The Punisher’s story is a tragedy of a returning military veteran whose family is killed during what seems to be a gangland hit. With federal agencies doing little to arrest the perpetrators, Castle takes matters into his own hands and begins systematically assassinating the criminals. . . .
The Punisher as an icon has been highly popular among conservatives, military veterans and law enforcement officers in recent years. The trademark skull symbol can be found everywhere, with patches, gear and flags sporting the image, often as a representation of citizens taking matters into their own hands. The symbol was also seen at the January 6th protests.
This has made leftists at Marvel Comics livid. . . .
Marvel writers, including original Punisher creator Gerry Conway, specifically cite the popularity of the character among conservatives as the reason for his virtual elimination. As Newsweek noted, the Punisher was “problematic” for Marvel because conservatives liked him too much. . . .
Much like the Cultural Revolution in China, leftist movements in America are systematically tearing down all opposing beliefs from our cultural catalog, and this includes any positive representations of vigilantism. They openly admit why they are doing it; conservatives aren’t allowed to be the good guys. They aren’t allowed to have heroes.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)



 

 

Category: Culture

The Ontological Error of ‘Gun Violence’

Posted on | June 17, 2023 | Comments Off on The Ontological Error of ‘Gun Violence’

Gloria: “Daddy, did you know that sixty-five percent of the people murdered in this country in the last ten years were killed by handguns?”
Archie Bunker: “Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they was pushed out of windows?”

That exchange from a 1972 episode of All in the Family always comes to mind when I here politicians and the media discussing “gun violence.” My guns have never perpetrated any violence, and probably your guns are equally innocent, but liberals have a quasi-religious belief that criminals are not responsible for crime. No, it would be wrong to blame the criminals and put them in prison, according to Our Moral and Intellectual Superiors™ in the Democratic Party.

At the root of this mentality is an unwillingness to accept that some people are just bad — irredeemable, a net detriment to society, genetically inferior, social failures, a waste of oxygen. In this, the attitude of liberals toward the criminal class is something akin to the attitude of abused women toward the violent men they love: “I can save him!” Or perhaps we might compare it to Victor Frankenstein who, when the enraged villagers show up, tries to defend the murderous monster he has created. Liberals who lament “mass incarceration” seem willing to ignore the victims of the crimes perpetrated by prison inmates.

Liberals do not want to deal with the reality of recidivism. Most crime is committed by repeat offenders — career criminals who, unless they are put behind bars, will continue perpetrating crime more or less continually. The consequences of the “turn ’em loose” mentality are repeatedly demonstrated in news accounts of murders committed by repeat felons, like 16-year-old Dawnta Harris of Baltimore, who killed a cop by running over her after he was caught during a spree of home invasions. When Harris was arraigned, District Court Judge Sally Chester denied bond and put the teenager in adult jail, telling his lawyer: “In the last six months, no offense, but your client is a one-man crime wave. I’m not certain any juvenile facility is secure enough to hold him.”

Protest marches against “gun violence” are not going to solve the problem, unless the protests are aimed at impeaching Soros-funded “progressive” district attorneys whose turn-’em-loose approach results in dangerous felons roaming the streets of Democrat-controlled cities.

Consider the case of Chicago. One of the tools that police use to “stop gun violence” — because that’s what liberals claim to want, right? — is ShotSpotter, a network of audio sensors that automatically alert police to locations where gunfire happens. Would it surprise you to learn that Our Moral and Intellectual Superiors™ are against this?

In July 2022, the MacArthur Justice Center brought a class action lawsuit against the City of Chicago, the Chicago Police Department, and several individual police officers for constitutional violations in connection with the use of ShotSpotter. The lawsuit alleges that more than 90% of the time police respond to a ShotSpotter alert they find no indication of a gun-related incident and instead use the alerts to justify scores of illegal stops and arrests. The lawsuit also alleges that Chicago’s ShotSpotter policy is racially discriminatory because the system was only implemented in areas with the highest concentration of Black and Latino residents.

The “racially discriminatory” location of ShotSpotter sensors might have something to do with THIS IS WHERE ALL THE SHOOTINGS KEEP HAPPENING, but Our Moral and Intellectual Superiors™ don’t care.

Meanwhile, recently-elected Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “commemorated the milestone [of his first month in office] on Twitter with a thread detailing what he has focused on thus far”:

Notably, there was only one mention of public safety — and it did not even reference a specific policy. This is significant because new data show Mayor Johnson has presided over a 38% crime spike over his first month in office when comparing it to the same period last year.
Vehicle thefts spiked by 153%, aggravated battery is up 17%, burglary jumped by 12%, and even shootings rose 5%. A few weeks ago, carjackings got so bad the Chicago Police Department had to issue a “community alert urging residents to be more vigilant about their surroundings and to always be on the lookout for suspicious activity when entering or leaving vehicles.”

Mayor Willie Wonka is living in “a world of pure imagination”:

Johnson is a man in serious denial bordering on delusion. He says there needs to be a better “characterization” of Chicago’s young people.
“There has been a lot of mischaracterization of our young people in the city of Chicago,” Johnson said. “Do we have individuals who have lived out their pain in the most violent ways? Of course, but the vast majority of our young people need and want opportunity.”

(Hat-tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) We must note Mayor Johnson’s expression of the long-held liberal belief that criminals are really victims of society, so that murderers can be said to “have lived out their pain in the most violent ways.” Again I think of Repo Man:

Toward the end of the movie, Otto is in a convenience store when one of his punk buddies, Duke, bursts through the door and tries to rob the place.
The store clerk pulls a pistol and fatally shoots Duke. As Duke is bleeding out, Otto goes to comfort him, and hears Duke speak his last words: “I know a life of crime has led me to this sorry fate, and yet, I blame society. Society made me what I am.”

Some people just can’t deal with reality.



 

 

Category: Chicago, Crime

In The Mailbox: 06.16.23 (Punditocracy Edition)

Posted on | June 17, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 06.16.23 (Punditocracy Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Sick and busy is not a good combination, but the usual weekend deadlines will be in effect for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

See if you can find all the cats in the fourth frame.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Comics Aren’t Dead, DC/Marvel Are Dead – Isom #2
EBL: Hero Marine Daniel Perry Railroaded By NYC Persecutors, Penn State Professor Themis Matsoukas, Alleged Dog Molester, Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful, and Biden’s Response to Difficult Questions
Twitchy: LA Dodgers Face Protests From Christians For Honoring Phony Drag Nuns, LGBT Clown Tries Picking A Fight With MI Muslims Who Banned Pride Flags And YIKES, and Tweep Schools Pramila Jayapal On “Fair Share” With Crayons & Puppets
Louder With Crowder: “Doing awful things to The Cross”: MLB pitcher obliterates Los Angeles Dodgers for honoring anti-Catholic drag nuns, South Korean dude rejects being called racist for hating Little Mermaid: “You keep asking us to watch sh*tty movies”, and Fox News producer responsible for Biden “wannabe dictator” chryon speaks out: “Today was my last day at FOX”
Vox Popoli: Not Even Hot Girls, Disney Adopts Zero History, A Purge, Long Overdue, A General’s Prediction, and Sorry Not Sorry
According To Hoyt: Sniffing The Air, Divide and Conquer, and Paying the Piper
Monster Hunter Nation: Gun School Fun: Pistol Shooting Solutions from Gabe White
Gab News: Embracing Truth & Defying Fear

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: How To Make The West Coast USNR A War Winner, Diversity Thursday, and Fullbore Friday
Don Surber: End Trade With Red China, Victory Over Pollution Parade Needed, and Should We Trust The Polls?
Protein Wisdom Reborn: Another Hump Day Shrapnel Post, 

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Category: Linkagery

Do Ghouls and Witches Count for ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ at Harvard?

Posted on | June 16, 2023 | Comments Off on Do Ghouls and Witches Count for ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ at Harvard?

Clockwise from top left: Cedric Lodge, Jeremy Pauley, Katrina Maclean

The manager of the morgue at Harvard Medical School somehow got involved with a macabre collection of death-obsessed weirdos, and now all of them are facing multiple felony charges:

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Cedric Lodge, age 55, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, Katrina Maclean, age 44, of Salem, Massachusetts, Joshua Taylor, age 46, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania, Denise Lodge, age 63, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, and Mathew Lampi, age 52, of East Bethel, Minnesota, were indicted by a federal grand jury on conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods charges. Additionally, Jeremy Pauley, age 41, of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, was charged by Criminal Information, and Candace Chapman Scott, of Little Rock, Arkansas, was previously indicted in the Eastern District of Arkansas.
According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, the indictments and information allege that a nationwide network of individuals bought and sold human remains stolen from Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary. The charges allege that from 2018 through 2022, Cedric Lodge, who managed the morgue for the Anatomical Gifts Program at Harvard Medical School, located in Boston, Massachusetts, stole organs and other parts of cadavers donated for medical research and education before their scheduled cremations. Lodge at times transported stolen remains from Boston to his residence in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife, Denise Lodge, sold the remains to Katrina Maclean, Joshua Taylor, and others, making arrangements via cellular telephone and social media websites. At times, Cedric Lodge allowed Maclean and Taylor to enter the morgue at Harvard Medical School and examine cadavers to choose what to purchase. On some occasions, Taylor transported stolen remains back to Pennsylvania. On other occasions, the Lodges shipped stolen remains to Taylor and others out of state.
Maclean and Taylor resold the stolen remains for profit, including to Jeremy Pauley in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Jeremy Pauley also purchased stolen human remains from Candace Chapman Scott, who stole remains from her employer, a Little Rock, Arkansas mortuary and crematorium. Scott stole parts of cadavers she was supposed to have cremated, many of which had been donated to and used for research and educational purposes by an area medical school, as well as the corpses of two stillborn babies who were supposed to be cremated and returned as cremains to their families. Scott sold the stolen remains to Pauley and shipped them to Pauley in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Pauley sold many of the stolen remains he purchased to other individuals, including Matthew Lampi. Lampi and Pauley bought and sold from each other over an extended period of time and exchanged over $100,000 in online payments.
“Some crimes defy understanding,” said United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam. “The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human. It is particularly egregious that so many of the victims here volunteered to allow their remains to be used to educate medical professionals and advance the interests of science and healing. For them and their families to be taken advantage of in the name of profit is appalling. With these charges, we are seeking to secure some measure of justice for all these victims.” . . .
“The defendants violated the trust of the deceased and their families all in the name of greed,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Jacqueline Maguire. “While today’s charges cannot undo the unfathomable pain this heinous crime has caused, the FBI will continue to work tirelessly to see that justice is served.”

Maclean owned a business in Salem — yes, that’s right, Salem, Massachusetts — which appealed to morbid obsessions:

An artist from Salem who has been accused of buying and selling stolen body parts had posted on Instagram about having a “real human skull” and offering to sell human body parts to the public, in a picture with one of her creations from February 2020.
Katrina MacLean, the bone art, doll-creating and oddity-collecting artist behind Kat’s Creepy Creations, was named in an indictment against Cedric Lodge, who officials said supplied MacLean and others with the body parts, according to court documents. . . .
Officials stated Lodge allowed MacLean and another named in the indictment, Pennsylvania man Joshua Taylor, to enter the morgue and choose the body parts MacLean and Taylor wanted, or that Lodge would ship them parts by mail.
MacLean was vocal about her artwork on social media and especially on Instagram, where she routinely sold the baby dolls she reworked, according to a comment she responded to on her account.
The Salem artist also sold her art at “oddities markets and expos,” she had said, and had “two cases at Witch City Consignment and Thrift” in the city. Additionally, she is the curator of Freaks Antiques Uniques, a pop-up dark art and oddities market located in Salem, according to her account. . . .
In a post on Feb. 9, 2020, during the time MacLean was believed by officials to be receiving and selling human body parts from Lodge, the Salem woman posted an image of a reworked, “killer clown”-style doll with a skull between its fingers.
The caption on her post read, “Throwback to the set of Hubie Halloween. This doll has been sold and yes that is a real human skull. If you’re in the market for human bones hit me up!”
Even after the FBI searched MacLean’s home in March, according to multiple reports, MacLean continued to post on her Instagram about her reworked dolls and bone art with no apparent signs of issues happening in her personal life. Her most recent post was May 28.
In several other posts, MacLean gave insight into who she is as a person.
From a March 23, 2020 post, MacLean said, “Meet the maker! I’m Kat, I like to turn regular porcelain dolls into nightmare fuel. I started painting horror dolls back in September of 2018 in an attempt to decorate the store windows @witchcitythrift.
“Everyone wanted to buy the dolls so I began selling them….. I have sold 239 dolls since then! I also make dark art, bone art, human bone jewelry and shadowboxes,” the post went on.
“I joke with my friends and say that my super power is ‘the ability to creepify’ Art and creating is my passion and my therapy. I am also the curator of Freaks Antiques and Uniques dark art and oddity market in Salem MA. Please give my page a follow @freaksantiquesuniques to check out our talented crafters, vendors, artists and creators,” MacLean said.

Think maybe those Salem witch-hunters had the right idea?



 

 

Category: Crime, Massachusetts, The Ivy League Is Depraved and Decadent

‘All I Wanted Was a Pepsi’

Posted on | June 15, 2023 | Comments Off on ‘All I Wanted Was a Pepsi’

Former Biden administration official Sam Brinton

So you’re gonna be institutionalized.
You’ll come out brainwashed with bloodshot eyes.
You won’t have any say.
They’ll brainwash you until you see their way.

For many years, I’ve complained about the “Compulsory Approval Doctrine” of the gay-rights movement, which seeks to forbid anyone from expressing disapproval of homosexual behavior or, for that matter, criticizing any public policy favored by LGBT activists. This is a lot of what “cancel culture” is really about — the coercive enforcement of a false consensus in public opinion. News flash: People don’t like being told what they’re permitted to say. And another news flash: Forcing people to shut up (by threatening to get them fired from their jobs, for example) is not an acceptable substitute for persuasion. Most people have a “live and let live” attitude toward homosexuality, but this is not the same as approval, and when they find themselves being bullied on the subject, they’re apt to resent it, resulting in a backlash.

Why have Bud Lite sales plummeted? Why is Target being boycotted? Why are all these lousy “woke” movies bombing at the box office?

Because STOP TELLING US WHAT TO THINK, that’s why.

Educated, responsible, taxpaying adults do not enjoy being lectured as if they’re misbehaving third-graders, which is what we’ve been getting from the Tolerance Mafia lately, and we’re long past sick and tired of it.

So anyway, I was pondering this early Wednesday morning when I was reminded of a song that used to crack me up:

Many years ago, when I was just out of college, my friend George Hall introduced me to a punk rock song from the soundtrack of the 1984 film Repo Man. “Institutionalized,” by the group Suicidal Tendencies, is the darkly comic saga of a teenager named Mike who finds himself committed to a psychiatric facility merely because he asked his mother for a Pepsi. The chorus of the song contains this frantic refrain:

I’m not crazy. (Institutionalized!)
You’re the one that’s crazy. (Institutionalized!)

Lots of Americans are feeling that way these days. We live in an increasingly crazy world, and yet it is we — those of us still stubbornly clinging to reality — who find ourselves accused of mental disorders by the maniacs who are now running the asylum. This madness is everywhere, including the White House, which saw fit to celebrate “Pride” month by inviting a transgender social media personality, Rose Montoya (who boasts more than 100,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 800,000 on TikTok), to an event where Rose exposed his/“her” surgically enhanced breasts on the South Lawn. When this stunt provoked widespread criticism, the Biden administration quickly issued a statement condemning Montoya’s “inappropriate and disrespectful” behavior, promising that Montoya would “not be invited to future events.” Unspoken was the question every sane person must have been asking: Who in the administration thought this event — with its guest list of assorted weirdos — was a good idea to begin with? . . .

Read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.



 

 

Category: American Spectator, Gays

In The Mailbox: 06.14.23

Posted on | June 15, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 06.14.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: San Francisco Has Morphed Into East Germany
EBL: Anime Girl, also, Indictment Day in Florida
Twitchy: Lefty Loser Threatens Conservatives That Come To His Tattoo Shop – It Doesn’t Go Well, also, Biden’s Preferred Parish Celebrating An LGBTWTFBBQ Pride Mass
Louder With Crowder: TikToker celebrates trans joy, takes “her” t*ts out after meeting Joe Biden as LGBTQ conquers the White House, also, Garth Brooks doubles down on his (kinda) Bud Light support
Vox Popoli: The Evacuation of Taiwan, Why Clown World Fears Russia, Waving the White Flag, Urban Death Spiral, and Africa in the UK

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Nefarious
American Conservative: A Forgotten History
American Greatness: Veterans Rip Into Biden Administration for Pride Flag Display, Multiple Target Stores Nationwide Receive Bomb Threats From Left-Wing Terrorists Over ‘Betrayal of LGBTQ+ Community’, and GOP Senators Blast FBI Deputy Director During Senate Hearing on FISA Reauthorization: ‘You’re Stonewalling and Covering Up Evidence!’
American Thinker: Four More Startling and Uncomfortable Ways Today’s Leftists Emulate the Nazis, Foretelling America’s Descent into Totalitarianism, and The Nuclear Theory You Never Knew Was Nonsense
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Technology News
Babalu Blog: Cuban Peso-U.S. Dollar exchange rate sinks to record levels, China to sink its claws more deeply into Honduras after state visit from President Xiomara Castro, and Cuban nun dares to criticize abysmal failure and ‘evil’ of so-called Revolution, sale of country to Russia
BattleSwarm: Why Disney Fails: Their Blindness To Real Geek Culture
Behind The Black: Japanese government adopts revised space policy emphasizing defense, Arianespace signs deal to study the possibility of using Orbex’s commercial rocket for launches, Boeing gets NASA contract to develop new airplane wing design, New House bill proposes giving FAA responsibility for monitoring space junk, and Today’s blacklisted American was arrested for quoting the Bible
Cafe Hayek: Social Security and Medicare Are Going Broke, also, On the Relevance of Economics
CDR Salamander: “Optimal Manning’s” International Disgrace – Norwegian Edition
Da Tech Guy: Tom Hagan Math in Canada, …And Faith in Louisiana, and The forest vs. the trees
Dana Loesch: The White House Only Condemned Trans Activist’s Topless Pride Stunt Because It Made Them Look Bad
Don Surber: What Is DeSantis Thinking?
First Street Journal: The #ClimateChange activists want more people to move to large cities
Gates Of Vienna: We Are the Carbon They Want to Remove, Burned Alive by a Culture-Enricher, The EU Welcomes the Youth of the Muslim Brotherhood, Must be Something in the Water, and Was the Knifeman of Annecy in Reality a Muslim?
The Geller Report: Biological Man Wins Female Cycling Race by FIVE MINUTES
Glenn Reynolds: Making The Problem Bigger
Hogewash: That Didn’t Age Well, Eta Carinae, I’ll Bet This Won’t Age Well, Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, and Moons Across Jupiter
Hollywood In Toto: Rob Schneider Tackles Woke, Womanhood (and Trump) in FOX Nation Special, More Artists Self-Censor to Avoid Woke Mob, and Unwelcome Rolls Out Blood-Red Carpet for Genre Fans
The Lid: Grassley Exposes Christopher Wray’s Cover Up
Legal Insurrection: Lawsuit Claims Dartmouth College is Misusing Millions Left by Donor in His Will, California Assembly Bill 957’s Co-Author May Be Aiming to Replace Nancy Pelosi, ‘Schizophrenic’ Trans Student Admitted to Northwestern Law Published Bizarre Rants in Law Journal, Trump Pleads Not Guilty in Classified Documents Case, and Statue of Revolutionary War Hero Philip Schuyler Removed From City Hall in Albany, NY
Nebraska Energy Observer: Explain this
Outkick: Shannon Sharpe Says Goodbye To Undisputed After 7 Years, Paige Spiranac Hops Into A USA Bikini For The U.S. Open, Nikola Joki? Completely Uninterested In NBA Championship Parade, NASCAR Star Bubba Wallace Suggests Double Standard In Reaction To His Antics After Middle-Finger Drama, The Empire Is Back! LSU Baseball Dynasty Returns To Omaha, and Omaha Bound: Texas Loses To Stanford In The Most Brutal Way Possible, Following Crazy Non-HR Celebration
Power Line: Corruption case against the Bidens is on the verge of exploding, The Democratic Party Is Run by Graduate Students, Why Aren’t Red States Red?, and The Age of Proprietary Truth
Shark Tank: Salazar Introduces Venezuelan Adjustment Act With Bipartisan Support
Shot In The Dark: You’re Being Gaslit, Heads You’re Racist/Tails You’re Destroying The Climate,
STUMP: Suicide: Trends 1999-2022 (provisional) by Sex and Race/Ethnicity
The Political Hat: The Irrelevance Of Innocence
This Ain’t Hell: Article suggests lessons to be learned from Ukraine conflict
Transterrestrial Musings: The Allure Of Ruins, Law-School Lunacy, Engineered White Blood Cells, and Woodrow The Terrible
Victory Girls: DA George Gascon Uses Star Chamber Against Critics
Volokh Conspiracy: Why Legal Immigration is Almost Impossible for the Vast Majority of those Who Want it, also, How America’s Growing Diversity Weakens the Case for Racial Preferences in Education
Watts Up With That: CO2 Pipelines in the Midwest: The Brewing Conflict Between Energy, Environment, and Property Rights, also, Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie: Power Grid is Facing ‘Dire Consequences’ Due to Coal & Gas Retirements
Weasel Zippers: Report: Multiple Target Stores Across U.S. Hit With Bomb Threats For “Betraying The LGBTQ+ Community”, House Dem Chair Says He’s “Not Concerned” About Biden Corruption Allegations, Biden State Dept DEI Officer Wants $76 Million, and Senator: Secret Recordings Allegedly Exist As “Blackmail” On Joe, Hunter Biden
The Federalist: This Is Your Sign To Peel Your Kids Away From Their Screens And Send Them Outdoors, Support For Transgenderism Is Cratering, Grassley’s ‘17 Recordings’ Bombshell Brings Bidens And Burisma Back Into The Spotlight, R.I. Dad Files Complaint Against Pediatrician For Using ‘Thuggish Force’ To Give His Daughters Covid Jab, McCarthy Torches CNN For Hiring McCabe, Clapper To Weigh In On The Ongoing ‘Get Trump’ Op They Helped Run, and A Pregnancy Care Center Helped Me Become A Mom And Follower Of Jesus
Mark Steyn: The Ministry of Counter-Disinformation

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Category: Linkagery

Another Day, Another Deadline

Posted on | June 14, 2023 | 1 Comment

“There was never enough time. Every deadline was a crisis. All around me were experienced professional journalists meeting deadlines far more frequent than mine, but I was never able to learn from their example.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

MEMO FROM THE NATIONAL DESK
This morning, at precisely 6:09 a.m. ET, I created a Word document with the idea of whipping out a quick column for The American Spectator. When I took a break about 7:30 a.m., it was already more than 700 words long, so I sent the top to my editors with an inquiry as to when the deadline was for me to send over the finished product for online publication Thursday. Back in the day when I was campaign-trail road warrior, Wlady Pleszczynski was always the guy on the editing desk. Wlady’s a night owl, so my usual deadline was midnight, but even that was often a challenge, as for example my frenzied pounding away at 1 a.m. to file from the 2012 Republican National Convention.

Anyway, Wlady’s health has caused him to cut back his duties, so that he only works the weekend shift now, and The American Spectator now has two young women working as editors on the weekdays, so my habitual last-minute midnight blitz to deadline won’t do. Six o’clock, they said, and I thought, “Piece of cake.” Just finish up my work for the day job in the morning, then there’d be plenty of time to leisurely proceed to that evening deadline. The Journalism Gods laugh at my hubris.

 
Throwing in The Big Yellow Button because I suspect some nearsighted readers may overlook the regular-size PayPal button with the imperative verb “DONATE.” Otherwise, I’d have to entertain the possibility that you don’t enjoy my work as much as you used to, or perhaps the recent paucity of output perturbs you. Honestly, I do have a day job now, one I never discuss on the blog because . . . Well, the Cancel Culture mob is always looking to make trouble for us Thought Criminals. And since we’re now on the topic of crime, how about this dangerous felon?

Say hello to Michael “Norah” Horwitz:

On Saturday, Michael Horwitz was arrested after fatally stabbing his father, Dr. Abbey Horwitz, at their home in Virginia Beach.
The 34-year-old, who identifies as a transgender woman and goes by the name Norah, has been charged with second-degree murder and stabbing in the commission of a felony.
According to the Virginia Beach Police Department, officers were called to the 1300 block of Wren Place just before 9 am Saturday. When they arrived, they discovered Dr. Horwitz, 68, suffering from “multiple stab wounds.” First responders performed emergency medical treatment, but to no avail. He was pronounced dead at 9:13 am.
In their release, the VBPD noted Horwitz’s full legal name, but added “Norah” in parentheses. Horwitz was also listed as female and authorities noted that “she” was being held in custody at the Virginia Beach Jail.
According to Reduxx, Horwitz appeared in court on Monday and was assigned a public defender after expressing that as a low-income worker, hiring a lawyer was too expensive.
Dr. Horwitz was a dentist and served as President of the Hebrew Academy of Tidewater and President of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. The Art of Dentistry, Dr. Horwitz’s practice, said in a biography that he was married to his wife for over 25 years, with the two having three children.
Michael Horwitz was also a drag performer under the name “Menorah Horwitz” in Portland, Oregon. Horwitz wrote a series of stories for the Portland Mercury in June 2017 regarding Pride month.
In 2016 Horwitz performed alongside drag queen “Sharon Needles,” who was on the fourth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Horwitz also published a book titled “The Diary of Menorah Horwitz,” which describes his combination of “Judaism and a love of drag in all the wrong ways when he becomes Menorah, Portland’s premiere Anne Frank impersonator,” according to a synopsis of the book.

Don’t you feel sorry for him/“her”? He/“she” is now an orphan!

Sarcasm aside, the story of “Menorah Horwitz” actually turned out to be relevant to the topic of my American Spectator column, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise too much. At any rate, after wrapping up my day-job work and taking a shower, it was 4 o’clock before I headed down here to Sheetz, where I could use their WiFi and concentrate on finishing that column which, as always, took longer than I’d expected. How is it that after all these years, I’m still plagued by this problem?

Hunter S. Thompson never solved his Deadline Crisis Syndrome either, but I would hate to follow his example too closely, consider how that ultimately worked out. Anyway, I managed to file 1,900 words before 6:30 and the girls on the desk said that was OK, so it should be online tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ve been paying for coffee here at Sheetz to legitimize my use of their WiFi and, believe it or not, next week I’ll be blogging with an Alaska dateline, for reasons that I’ll explain once I get there, but that trip won’t be cheap, so for now, I’ll just ask readers to recall the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!



 

 

Category: Fear. Loathing., Shoe Leather Fund, Uncategorized

Approaching the Nadir of Wokeness

Posted on | June 13, 2023 | Comments Off on Approaching the Nadir of Wokeness

How far down the slippery slope of “woke” craziness have we slid? Well, California is evidently ready to mandate insurance coverage for gay men hiring women to be surrogate babymakers:

California lawmakers are advancing a bill that would redefine the inability of men to get pregnant as “infertility” and entitle them to insurance-covered fertility treatments.
The legislation, which passed in the Senate late last month and is about to be taken up by the Assembly, would require employer-sponsored insurance plans to cover all nonexperimental fertility treatments, including artificial insemination of pregnancy surrogates. Supporters of the legislation have touted it as an overdue step toward “fertility equality” for LGBT people.
Freshman state senator Caroline Menjivar (D.), who coauthored the bill with Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D.), said: “It will ensure that queer couples no longer have to pay more out of pocket to start families than non-queer families. … This bill is critical to achieving full-lived equality for LGBTQ+ people, as well as advancing well-rounded and comprehensive health care for all Californians.”
In liberal California, opposition to the bill, S.B. 729, has been mild and focused on concerns about ballooning insurance premiums. But the measure is part of a nascent campaign by LGBT rights advocates that could open a new front in the national culture war over gender.
California already requires health care insurance providers to cover fertility treatments other than in vitro fertilization for policyholders who are medically infertile. The law defines infertility based on a physician’s diagnosis or according to the widely accepted definition of not being able to have a child after a year or more of trying.
The fertility insurance bill would expand the coverage mandate for employers to include IVF and expand the legal definition of infertility to include, “A person’s inability to reproduce either as an individual or with their partner without medical intervention.” Infertility would no longer be defined only as a disease or medical condition but also as a “status,” such as being in a gay or lesbian relationship or being single.
California business and insurance groups have objected to the bill’s projected price tag for employers, even as they have been careful not to criticize its intent. According to an analysis by the California Health Benefits Review Program, the coverage mandates would raise annual premiums for employer-sponsored plans by more than $330 million a year. The California Association of Health Plans said the coverage mandates are the most expensive of 16 that the legislature is considering, which together would add about $1 billion to the premiums. . . .
One of the bill’s nonprofit sponsors, Men Having Babies, describes its broader goal as “to remove financial barriers to surrogacy parenting for gay men worldwide, a cause which we refer to as Fertility Equality.”
“Central to our fight for more equitable access to parenting options is what we know from our combined experiences: The anguish and yearning that same sex couples and singles feel due to their inability to reproduce without medical intervention is equal to the anguish of heterosexual couples who suffer from ‘medical infertility,'” the group says on its website.
Men Having Babies—along with another S.B. 729 sponsor, LGBT powerhouse Equality California—successfully lobbied to insert key language into the bill. The groups also claim to have added LGBT-friendly wording into infertility insurance mandates in Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. California would be the second state, following Illinois in 2021, to adopt a version of their redefinition of infertility.

You really have to give them credit for coining these euphemisms. “Fertility equality” and “more equitable access to parenting options” — phrases like these function as a sort of rhetorical sedative, lulling the listener into a stupor where they can ignore the stark madness of forcing people to subsidize such craziness. Because that’s what this is really about — money. In order to achieve this “equality,” everybody will be forced to pay more for health insurance, to subsidize “access to parenting options” for men disinclined (or unable) to do what men otherwise do to become parents. And if you complain about this, of course, you’re a dangerous extremist and the FBI will soon be wiretapping your phone.



 

 

Category: California, Gays
« go back — keep looking »