The Other McCain

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

Netanyahu Wins, Obama Loses

Posted on | March 18, 2015 | 45 Comments

It was profoundly weird to watch coverage of the Israeli elections Tuesday. At one point, I saw CNN’s John King doing exit poll results as if this was a U.S. presidential election and I was like, “What the hell is this?” What it was, of course, is that American Democrats (including members of President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign team) had launched an enormous effort to defeat Israel’s conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Predictably, the liberal media jumped aboard this Democrat-driven anti-Netanyahu bandwagon, and yesterday there was a palpable excitement from the media talking heads as they anticipated the imminent defeat of the Dreaded Right-Wing Jew.

Israeli voters, however, decided that Democrats and their liberal media friends must cry the tears of unfathomable sadness:

Barack Obama might have hoped for a leadership change that would reboot his poisoned relationship with Israel’s government. But he didn’t get it on Tuesday, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 00 thanks in part to a hard lurch right — appeared to make a dramatic comeback after trailing in pre-election polls.
As votes were counted Tuesday night, Netanyahu claimed a dramatic comeback victory. “Against all odds: A great victory for the Likud. A major victory for the Israeli people,” he posted on Facebook.

In the Obama Age, everything is about Obama, even the elections in Israel. Steven Kruiser at PJMedia comments:

The last few days were absolutely polluted with stories about Netanyahu’s imminent political demise, with the most popular version of the tale being that he ruined his chances by angering great and powerful thin-skinned consumer of canines currently occupying the Oval Office.
One does not hurt Barack Obama’s feelings without some backlash.
Now that Obama has once again been revealed impotent in helping candidates not named Barack Obama to victory, his media petting zoo is out of sorts. They will be expending a lot of effort to explain exactly why this victory wasn’t really a victory.

(Via Memeorandum.)

 

Category: Barack Obama, Israel, Media Bias

‘Wearing Murdoch’s Leash’

Posted on | March 18, 2015 | 75 Comments

Thus does Vox Day headline this troubling media news: Blogger Mickey Kaus has resigned as a blogger at The Daily Caller “after the conservative site’s editor-in-chief, Tucker Carlson, pulled a critical column about Fox News from the site”:

“It’s pretty simple,” Kaus said in an interview, “I wrote a piece attacking Fox for not being the opposition on immigration and amnesty — for filling up the airwaves with reports on ISIS and terrorism, and not fulfilling their responsibility of being the opposition on amnesty and immigration. … I posted it at 6:30 in the morning. When I got up, Tucker had taken it down. He said, ‘We can’t trash Fox on the site. I work there.'”
Carlson, who co-founded The Daily Caller in 2010, is a conservative contributor to Fox News and the host of its weekend edition of “Fox & Friends.”
Kaus says when he told Carlson he needed to be able to write about Fox, Carlson told him it was a hard-and-fast rule, and non-negotiable.
“He said it was a rule, and he wouldn’t be able to change that rule. So I told him I quit,” Kaus explained.

(Via Memeorandum.) On the one hand, I understand Tucker’s position: “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.”

On the other hand, there has been a perceptible drift in Fox’s coverage over the past few years — not just on immigration  — that does deserve scrutiny. For example, during the campaign for the 2012 Republican nomination, it seemed obvious to me and others that the network was playing favorites among the candidates. If you were not a Mitt Romney supporter, you had to grit your teeth during Fox’s coverage of the GOP primary campaign, especially when Karl Rove was on. So the indication that Fox is now indirectly influencing coverage in other conservative media . . . Well, it’s troubling.

 

Category: Fox News, Immigration

CASE DISMISSED!

Posted on | March 17, 2015 | 56 Comments

Just got the news that Brett Kimberlin’s federal lawsuit against myself and 20 other defendants has been dismissed with prejudice.

UPDATE: For reasons I don’t understand, the court has ruled that one count of Kimberlin’s case against Patrick “Patterico” Frey can proceed to discovery. Troubling.

UPDATE II: From Judge Hazel’s ruling:

For the reasons stated above, the Court will GRANT all of Defendants’ motions to dismiss, except that it will DENY Defendant Frey’s motion to dismiss as to Count II, which will proceed into discovery. Thus, Count I (RICO) and Count III (§ 1985) are dismissed, with prejudice, as to all Defendants. The remaining state law claims (Counts IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X) are also dismissed as to all Defendants, without prejudice to Kimberlin’s right to re-file in state court, should he so choose.

So, no RICO, and all defendants except Patterico dismissed, he still at jeopardy on one count. As for the rest of us, Kimberlin could still sue everybody in state court. The problem there that Kimberlin has already sued four of us in state court and lost. Without the conspiracy claim to tie us all into a bundle of racketeers (absurd, I know, but such was the theory of Kimberlin’s RICO claim), we would all be individual plaintiffs. I doubt very seriously state court action will follow, but who knows what the Perjuring Pro Se Pipsqueak might do next?

UPDATE III: One of John Hoge’s commenters scanned through the judge’s ruling and culled out the following highlights:

he has failed

Kimberlin has failed

his § 1962(c) claim would still fail

Kimberlin has failed

Kimberlin has failed

his § 1962(c) would still fail

Kimberlin has failed

Finally, Kimberlin has failed

Kimberlin has therefore failed

and, as a result, has failed

he has failed

As discussed, Kimberlin has failed

Kimberlin has not been prejudiced in any meaningful way by his failure

Because Kimberlin has failed

Yeah. I think you get the point.




 

Category: The Kimberlin Files

In The Mailbox, 03.17.15

Posted on | March 17, 2015 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
Louder With Crowder: Allen West Goes Nuclear On Obama In Transgender Debate
First Street Journal: Oh, I So Hope This Is True!
Proof Positive: The Blue Stained Helmet
Doug Powers: John Kerry Expresses “Great Respect” For Iran’s Anti-Nuke Fatwa
Twitchy: #HandsUpDontShoot Mob Turns On WaPo’s Jonathan Capehart For Admitting “Wilson Was Justified In Shooting Brown”


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Family Of Jeffrey Williams Confirms Cop-Shooting Suspect “Had Taken Part” In Ferguson Protests
American Thinker: Jew-Bashing 101
BLACKFIVE: Airborne Girl’s Guide To Iran And Nuclear Weapons
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Advice For Prospective English Majors
Conservatives4Palin: Sarah Palin Tells Kathy Griffin “It’s Called Karma, Dear”
Don Surber: The Hollowness Of Dowd’s Rant
Jammie Wearing Fools: Afraid Of Merciless Booing, Loathsome Mayor DiBlasio To Skip St. Patrick’s Day Parade
Joe For America: Islamists In Toledo Caught Laundering Money For Jihad
JustOneMinute: Holy Shit.
Pamela Geller: Obama Removes Iran, Hezbollah From List of Terror Threats
Protein Wisdom: Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage Takes Effect April 1. Restaurants Closing. UNEXPECTEDLY!
Shot In The Dark: Trulbert! Part XXXI – Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Apocalypse?
STUMP: How Not To Look Like A Complete Ass When Doing Your Job…AS A REPORTER
The Gateway Pundit: Missouri Lt. Gov Says There’s More Racism In The DOJ Than Anywhere In St. Louis
The Jawa Report: Oklahoma Democrat Wants Christian Businesses To Identify Themselves With Signs In Windows
The Lonely Conservative: Clintons Cashed In On Former Presidents Act To The Tune Of $16 Million
This Ain’t Hell: Fort Hood Pimp Sentenced
Weasel Zippers: ISIS-Like Body Count – Twenty People Shot In Chicago Over Last 24 Hours
Megan McArdle: The Smart Way To Keep People Out Of Prison
Mark Steyn: Phonewall Stonewall


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Category: Linkagery

The Riot Ideology in Ferguson

Posted on | March 17, 2015 | 62 Comments

Ginning up racial strife is bad for business:

Fusion, a Website that’s an, err fusion between Univision and ABC/Disney is shocked that Ferguson real estate prices are “Down nearly 50 percent since Michael Brown’s death.” There’s more than a hint of bias in that subhead, as the cause wasn’t Brown’s death after he slugged a convenience store clerk and attempted to steal a police officer’s gun, but the riots and looting that followed — which were another kind of media fusion, ginned up by via the minicams of CNN and fueled further by NBC anchorman Al Sharpton’s corrosive presence . . .

Read the whole thing by Ed Driscoll, who includes a quote by Manhattan Institute urban policy scholar Fred Siegel. Two years ago, when the itinerant race hustler Sharpton was inciting hatred in Sanford, Florida, I mentioned Siegel’s The Future Once Happened Here in connection with the Trayvon Martin case:

Siegel’s book is one of those timeless classics — like Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed — that I frequently recommend as guides to understanding important social phenomena more deeply.
The Future Once Happened Here recounts how liberal policy turned three once-great American cities — New York, D.C. and L.A. — into dangerous urban nightmares, and one of the things Siegel describes is the “riot ideology” whereby organized violence (or the threat thereof) is used to intimidate officials into doing the bidding of “community leaders.”

Fools can’t be bothered to learn a damned thing about history, however, so disgraced charlatans like Sharpton are always able to find a mob of fools who buy into their bankrupt ideology. These fools are always mystified by the result. The race hustlers get rich off their “social justice” scam, but when the media spotlight turns away and the protest carnival leaves town, the people left behind are in no better condition than they were before the protests began. In fact, as in Ferguson, communities suffer more harm from the riot ideology than they did from whatever “oppression” the race hustlers were supposedly protesting against.

Alas, some fools never learn, and so hate remains a lucrative industry from which vicious liars like Al Sharpton get rich.

UPDATE: When Jeffrey Williams was arrested and charged with shooting two cops in Ferguson, liberals tried to claim Williams was not one of the protesters. Yet now the suspect’s own family confirm he was: “After Michael Brown, he was out there protesting. . . . He had his shirt on. He had his signs up.” Williams, 20, has a criminal record, a pregnant girlfriend and “made money by placing bets on the basketball and football video games he played with others, relatives said.” Which is to say, he is an outstanding example of the Obama Age lifestyle.




 

Category: Al Sharpton, Books, Crime, Ed Driscoll, Liberals, Missouri, Racism

Feminist Wonders: Why Do Christofascist Godbags Keep ‘Dehumanizing’ Hillary?

Posted on | March 16, 2015 | 57 Comments

Melissa McEwan channels her inner Dworkin:

This is the most basic, primitive, unapologetic misogyny: Dehumanizing a powerful woman by calling her a monster.
A devil. A witch. A beast. A castrating fiend.

What set her off on this moonbat rant? Evidently, Kurt Schlichter and Kevin Williamson said Mean Things About Hillary. Now, let’s quickly flash back to February 2007:

[Democrat presidential hopeful] John Edwards . . . hired Amanda Marcotte of the blog Pandagon to be his blogmaster and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister to be his online communications person. If personnel is policy, let’s just say those two hires reflect the Edwards campaign’s desire to be “Queen C—of F—k Mountain” and “F—k BushCo.”
It’s not exactly the winning populist message John-Boy was shooting for, I reckon, and bloggers on the right side of the aisle recognized that immediately. . . .
By Wednesday, the Edwards campaign was fighting push-back on the picks that were supposed to grant him great Netroots power. Marcotte and McEwan were slammed for being anti-Catholic, outside the mainstream, and just plain vulgar. Edwards fired the two bloggers. . . .

Read the whole thing. The suggestion that Melissa McEwan has credibility to criticize others for “dehumanizing” rhetoric is laughable, but I did mention she’s a feminist, didn’t I?

“Especially important is the warning to avoid conversations with the demon. . . . He is a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien, and powerful. So don’t listen to him. Remember that — do not listen.”
— The Exorcist (1973)

Feminists are Satan’s craven slaves. Do not listen to them.

UPDATE: Crazy? Who you calling crazy?




 

Category: Feminism, Hillary Clinton

‘Sickening Desires’

Posted on | March 16, 2015 | 27 Comments

Shakyla Wilson is charged with aggravated sexual abuse.

Political correctness is bad for the news business. Cops and prosecutors give you quotes that are solid gold? Headlines, baby.

Lesbian Coach ‘Preyed on the Innocence
of Young Girls,’ Police Chief Says

Alternately:

Prosecutor Condemns Accused Lesbian
Molester’s ‘Sickening Desires’

Do you want to sell newspapers or don’t you? The late Hunter S. Thompson said, “Nothing grabs an editor’s eye like a good rape.”

Here you have public officials offering Headline Gold, but political correctness prevents editors at the Chicago Tribune from making the most of this lurid and lucrative material:

A Naperville volunteer youth basketball coach has been charged with having inappropriate contact with one of her players at a sleepover, according to DuPage County prosecutors.
Bail was set Friday at $100,000 for Shakyla Wilson, 22, of Naperville, who is charged with one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, authorities said. . . .

(In my mind, I hear the voice of a grizzled city editor: “What the hell is this ‘inappropriate contact’ bulls–t? Stop dancing around the facts and write the g-dd–d story!”)

Wilson is charged with having sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl from Hill Middle School, where Wilson was volunteering as a girls basketball coach.
The abuse allegedly occurred Feb. 20 during a sleepover at a player’s residence, according to police. Wilson accompanied some of the girls on the team to a movie that night, and she then spent the night with them at the sleepover, authorities said. . . .

(OK, so we have now reached the fourth paragraph of the story. What then follows are another 10 paragraphs in which school officials discuss their policies for screening employees and we get all the details of Wilson’s basketball career. It is not until the 15th paragraph that we get to the good stuff.)

Naperville police Chief Robert Marshall said he was “deeply disturbed” by the allegations.
“Ms. Wilson purposely put herself in a position of influence and trust in order to prey on the innocence of young girls,” Marshall said.
State’s Attorney Robert Berlin called the allegations appalling.
“A coach’s role is to motivate and inspire athletes to be the best they can be, both on the court and off it,” he said. “Coaches are there to help athletes attain their goals, not to take advantage of the trust their position holds just to satisfy their own sickening desires.”

Read the whole thing. Never mind the sarcasm — and set aside the lesbianism for the minute — it infuriates me to see such confounded laziness in journalism. Writing is re-writing. Back in the day when I was working as a news editor, it wouldn’t have taken me maybe 20 minutes to completely re-write a story like that, which looks like the first draft submitted by a college intern. Here, try this:

A Naperville volunteer youth basketball coach satisfied her “sickening desires” by molesting a 14-year-old girl on her team during a sleepover at the player’s house, police and prosecutors say.
Shakyla Wilson, 22, “purposely put herself in a position of influence and trust in order to prey on the innocence of young girls,” Naperville Police Chief Robert Marshall said after Wilson was charged Friday with aggravated criminal sexual abuse. . . .

And so forth. Maybe the phrase “college dropout” would have appeared somewhere in the fourth or fifth paragraph. After editing the story, I would have taken a smoke break with the reporter — if I was in charge of the newsroom, smoking would be more or less mandatory — and told him to compare his original draft with the edited version. You don’t become a better writer without that kind of instruction from experienced editors when first you’re starting out. Most newsroom staffs have been stripped to the bare minimum by layoffs during the past decade, but there is no reason why shoddy efforts should be tolerated.

Now, what about the words “lesbian” and “gay” in such a circumstance? Are these words an accusation, or merely a description? Is it ethical to use such words in a headline to describe a sex crime? Ethics, shmethics. Stop pretending journalism is a Priesthood of Correct Thought. Try to remember that you are in the business of selling newspapers. Good crime reporting doesn’t have to be sensational, but there is no reason it has to be boring. The purpose of a headline is to get the reader’s attention.

‘SICKENING’ LESBIAN SEX CHARGE: COACH
PREYED ON ‘INNOCENCE’ OF GIRL, 14, COPS SAY
Law Professor Urges ‘Teach Women Not to Rape’

Obviously, you won’t win any GLAAD awards for that kind of headline, but you might sell some newspapers. Just sayin’ . . .

(Hat-tip: Aaron Walker on Twitter.)





 

Category: Crime, Gays, Journalism, Media Bias, R.S. McCain School of Journalism, Sex

Band Idea: The Alpha Epsilon Stigma

Posted on | March 15, 2015 | 17 Comments

by Smitty

Let’s just add our voices to the ‘duh’ chorus for Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Hopefully the rank stupidity of a song invoking the Bigger Digger Trigger will lead to a general purging of all such moronic material from two centuries ago. We want to flatter ourselves that these United States got past this trash; thanks for giving Eric Holder ammunition. You don’t give Eric Holder ammunition. He wets himself, literally and orally. Instapundit writes in USA Today:

You may think it’s unfair for me to treat [the racist chants and the subsequent expulsions] as comparable, and if you do think that you’re right: The difference is that David Boren broke the law, while the [Sigma Alpha Epsilon] brothers merely behaved badly.
As a state institution, the University of Oklahoma is constrained by the Constitution. Among other things, that means that it must respect the free speech guarantees contained in the First Amendment, even if that speech is repugnant. Just because the university doesn’t like what students say, thinks it’s hateful, or worries that it will produce an unpleasant atmosphere on campus, doesn’t grant it the authority to punish people for speaking. One would think that Boren — a former U.S. senator who took an oath to uphold the Constitution when he was sworn into office — would know better. Apparently not.

Here’s the idea: form a gangsta rap cover act, and go on tour. Cover well-known outbursts of racism, misogyny, anti-police hatred, and generally Holder-esque stupidity. For a sample of the desired form, see:

Let the Left figure out how to deal with the dissonance of such a rank stream of foolishness, which Commie rags like Rolling Stone have been giving five stars for years, coming from the bad boys of OU.
Meanwhile, The Alpha Epsilon Stigma can be just the kind of extended self-denunciation we need to keep the Racism Industrial Complex at bay.

Category: humor, Racism
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