The Other McCain

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

Senate Poll Wars

Posted on | September 17, 2014 | 54 Comments

Less than seven weeks before Election Day 2014, the epic struggle to control the media narrative continues:

Democrats are now (very slightly) favored to hold the Senate majority on Nov. 4, according to Election Lab, The Post’s statistical model of the 2014 midterm elections.
Election Lab puts Democrats’ chances of retaining their majority at 51 percent — a huge change from even a few months ago, when the model predicted that Republicans had a better than 80 percent chance of winning the six seats they need to take control.

What this is about is managing expectations, preventing Democrats (and their reliable allies in the media) from becoming demoralized by the more likely prospect that Republicans will capture control of the Senate in November. Last week, poll wizard Nate Silver gave the GOP a 65% chance of winning the Senate majority, and I cautioned at that time a lot could change between early September and Nov. 4.

A mid-term election is not like a presidential campaign, where there are two candidate engaged daily in a single contest. A Senate campaign is fought in multiple states, and a shift in any one of those races could have a significant impact on the Big Picture, where the question is whether the Republicans will make a net gain of enough seats to displace Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader. Can Republican Sen. Pat Roberts halt his slide in the polls in Kansas? Can the GOP do something to torpedo Democrat Sen. Kay Hagan? These are the kind of questions that will be answered over the next 49 days, and we don’t know what the answer will be.

My hunch — and it is only a hunch — is that we will wake up on the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 5, with the issue still in doubt. There will probably still be two or three Senate races within the range of a recount, and all eyes will quickly turn to Louisiana, where the runoff to decide Mary Landrieu’s fate will be the tiebreaker.

 

Category: Election, Polls, Senate

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.17.14

Posted on | September 17, 2014 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Obama Urges Global Effort To Stem Ebola As Virus Spreads

MGEN Darrell Williams, tapped to lead the fight against Ebola in Africa

Pentagon requests approval for $500 million budget shift
Global peril cited as US prepares to send troops to Africa
CDC ramps up Ebola worker training

Ukraine Parliament Approves Special Status For Lugansk, Donetsk Regions
Also approves amnesty for rebels

Investments On The Agenda As PM Modi Greets President Xi
The Prime Minister will spend his 64th birthday at a private dinner with China’s president



POLITICS
JCS Chairman Opens Door To Ground Troops In Iraq, Despite Obama’s Promise

SecDef Hagel, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs GEN Dempsey

Dempsey says he’d recommend using American troops if the anti-ISIS coalition proves ineffective; administration flacks scramble

House Passes “No Welfare For Weed” Bill


NY Man Indicted For Attempting To Support Islamic State

Curtain Closes On Taxpayer-Funded Climate Change Musical

KS SecState Kobach Says He’ll Force Democrats To Name Candidate Even If State Supreme Court Allows Taylor’s Withdrawal

Healthcare.gov Still Has Security Issues, Say Watchdogs

EPA Grants Extension On Power Plant Regulation Plan



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Drops From NY Close: WTI $94.77, Brent $98.92
Financial Markets Awaiting Fed Signal On Rates
China’s Central Bank Injects $81 Billion Into Banks
Sears Could Be Gone If Slump Lasts Through Christmas
Corinthian College Sued For $500 Million Over Student Loans
Microsoft Boosts Dividend, Adds Two New Directors
Developers Seek Next Minecraft At Tokyo Game Show
Apple Confirms iPhone 6 NFC Locked Into Apple Pay
Nvidia Taking Preorders For 32GB 4G LTE ShieldTablet
Facebook Reportedly Working On New Private Sharing App
Chromecast Bulks Up On Content



SPORTS
O Say Can You See – O’s Clinch First Division Title Since 1997

Jimmy Paredes congratulates Steve Pearce on his three-run dinger in the first inning of last night’s game

O’s clinch with decisive 8-2 drubbing of Blue Jays

Vikings Reverse Course, Suspend Adrian Peterson

Padres Hold On, Edge Phillies 5-4

NFLPA Appeals Ray Rice’s Indefinite Suspension

Flores Leads Mets In Crushing Fish 9-1

Tony Stewart Case Goes To Grand Jury

Kluber K’s 14 As Tribe Tops Astros 4-2

Cards’ Lead In NL Central Shrinks With Loss To Brewers In Extras

Nationals Clinch As Roark Blanks Braves 3-0



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Rihanna Furious With CBS For Pulling “Thursday Night Football” Intro

“You pulled my song last week and now you want to slide it in this week? NO, [expletive] you! Y’all are sad for penalizing me for this!”


CBS dropped the song last week because of Rihanna’s abuse by Chris Brown.

Eva Mendes, It’s A Girl!

Cara Delevingne Lands Lead In “Paper Towns”


“Facts Of Life” 35th Reunion

Tom Hiddleston To Star In King Kong Origin Pic “Skull Island”

Rosie O’Donnell Reveals Downside Of 50-Pound Weight Loss

Taylor Swift Has New Tits And A Tumblr Account

Cheryl Burke To Quit “Dancing With The Stars” After Season 19



FOREIGNERS
Australia Promises $6.4 Million To Fight Ebola
Welsh Politicians Join Final Push For Votes In Scotland
Gaza Widow Offers Insight Into World Of Spies
South Africa Says Unknown Number Of Citizens Missing After Nigerian Church Collapse
Pak Politicians Ejected From Plane After Causing Delay
French Government Survives Vote Of Confidence
Heavy Security As Chicoms Put Uighur Scholar On Trial For Separatism
Fiji Holds Election After Years Of Military Rule
Canada Set To Strengthen Ukraine Ties With Loans, Humanitarian Aid
Bangladesh Court Commutes Islamist Leader’s Death Sentence



BLOGS & STUFF
First Street Journal: Housing Prices
Proof Positive: Mark Twain On Obama’s Coalition Building
Valley of the Shadow: Out From The Heat, The Valley Opens!
Doug Powers: Former Diplomat Describes Effort To Scrub Damaging Benghazi Docs
Twitchy: Angry Mob Tosses Ukrainian Politician In The Trash
American Power: What’s Behind Germany’s New Anti-Semitism
American Thinker: How Illegal Immigrant Youth Will Serve The Democrat Party
Conservatives4Palin: Politico Poll – GOP Has Edge On Immigration In Midterms
Don Surber: Go Away, Hillary
Jammie Wearing Fools: Desperate Democrats Unveil Benghazi Website To “Drown Any Potential Leaks In A Flood Of Information”
Joe For America: Jihadist In The USA
JustOneMinute: Boots On The Ground In Liberia
Protein Wisdom: Obama – Rubber Boots And Gloves On The Ground
Shot In The Dark: Trulbert! Part XI – Rumors Of Warp
STUMP: Public Pensions Watch – Calpers Pulls Out Of Hedge Funds
The Gateway Pundit: Code Pink Activists Disrupt Senate Hearing, Protest US Attacks On ISIS
The Jawa Report: NYC – Muslim Day Parade 2014
The Lonely Conservative: Economic Recovery – More New Food Stamp Recipients Than Jobs Created
This Ain’t Hell: The Grauniad’s New Military ANALyst
Weasel Zippers: CAIR Demands Oklahoma Law Enforcement Protect Them From GOP State Rep
Megan McArdle: Big Oil Vs. College Kids, Part 2


Category: Live at Five

‘Erection Equals Consent’?

Posted on | September 16, 2014 | 84 Comments

This is a phrase I never expected to encounter and, when I saw the headline, I misunderstood what the writer meant by it:

The flesh is weak: On the
Erection Equals Consent rape myth

What I expected, based on that headline, was an argument by a feminist “deconstructing” the common claim that men are unable to control their physical urges, so that male arousal obliges women to consent to sex. Bracing myself to engage with such a feminist argument, I clicked the link, and found something completely different:

Whenever an article appears about the sexual abuse of men and boys – especially abuse perpetrated by women – you can almost guarantee that a comment will appear saying something like: ‘well he couldn’t have been that unwilling if he got a boner.’
It is an incredibly damaging and harmful myth . . .

WHOA! What strange argument is this? Tell me more, Ally Fogg:

Contrary to popular belief, many men can get an erection when they are too drunk to speak or to remember what they have done the next day. A man in a drunken stupor can sometimes be stimulated to erection without even waking up. . . .
Perhaps more pernicious is the belief that even if a man did not want to have sex before he got an erection, he certainly will once it is in place. This is patently untrue. Men are sentient beings who (mostly) have conscience and self-restraint and make decisions about who they want to have sex with all the time, independently of their erectile engorgement . . .
The academic literature describes how all of the above can play out in abusive situations. A study of 22 male-on-male rape victims by Nicholas Groth and Ann Burgess (1980) found that half of the victims maintained an erection throughout their assaults. The original, ground-breaking paper on adult male victims of female molesters by Sarrel and Masters (1982) described some of the assaults perpetrated on their subjects . . .

You can and should read the whole thing.

Glenn Reynolds yesterday noticed a case in which a 240-pound woman broke into a house and raped a sleeping man. Such cases are obviously exceptional. Where Ally Fogg’s argument is more typically relevant is in understanding cases of adult women (usually school teachers) who sexually abuse underage boys. When we read of these crimes, our instinctive reaction is to discount any claim that the boy is truly a victim. This reaction is particularly common if the perpetrator is young and attractive like Debra Lefave, so as to fit the popular “Hot for Teacher” fantasy. Our jocular reaction — “Oh, yeah, victimize me, baby!” or “Where were teachers like her when I was in school?” — ignores many moral and psychological issues involved, and risks setting up an “equality” argument that would justify underage sex in any case where (a) the perpetrator was attractive, and (b) the underage victim was “consenting.” That is to say, if we argue that Debra Lafave’s victim wasn’t actually a victim because Lafave is a pretty blonde, a logically consistent extension of such an argument would invalidate all statutory rape law in any similar circumstance, regardless of whether the perpetrators or victims were male or female, gay or straight.

Teacher-turned-predator Debra Lafave

Once you stipulate that sex with minors can be acceptable under specific circumstances, you open the door to a stampede of perverts who will use that premise in arguments you never meant to make. Statutory rape laws are often criticized on the basis that they are arbitrary in setting a specific age as the limit of legal consent when, as everyone knows, young people mature emotionally, mentally and physically at different rates. There are 15-year-olds who are more “mature,” in some sense of that word, than the average 17-year-old, yet if the age of consent is 16, the 17-year-old is fair game, whereas having sex with the 15-year-old could put you in prison. Such a limit is arbitrary and therefore, critics of statutory rape laws frequently argue, these laws should not be enforced.

Those arguments completely misrepresent the reasons we have statutory rape laws, although my purpose here is not to mount a thorough argument in defense of these laws, except to say (a) such laws are intended to set a minimal age below which consent is invalid as a legal defense; (b) this prevents prosecutors from having to put the underage victim on the witness stand, if there is evidence that sex occurred or if the perpetrator admits having sex with the minor; and (c) the discretion of prosecutors and judges will tend to ameliorate punishment in circumstances where leniency may be merited.

Furthermore, I will say — as I kept saying during the Kaitlyn Hunt saga — that most incidents of statutory rape never make headlines either because the perpetrator is discreet about their relationship with a minor or else, if caught, they take the plea bargain. Only because Kaitlyn Hunt rejected the plea deal offered by prosecutors, and her supporters tried to turn her crime into a political crusade, did she make national headlines.

Myth, Reality and the Assault on Innocence

Every parent, I hope, understood the danger involved in arguing, as Hunt’s “Free Kate” supporters did, that the law which criminalizes sex with minors (the age of consent in Florida is 16) should be disregarded because Hunt was “only” 18 when she engaged in sex with a 14-year-old girl. Nor could any parent fail to be angered by the claims made by Hunt’s supporters that she was a victim of homophobia, a claim that had the effect of impugning the motives of the 14-year-old’s parents. The effect of all arguments of this kind is to undermine the basic right of parents to protect their minor children. (Let me recommend Neil Postman’s 1994 book The Disappearance of Childhood and Dana Mack’s 1997 book The Assault on Parenthood as useful explorations of this theme.) It is possible to have ideals of youthful innocence that are unrealistic, perhaps even in some ways harmful, but those who criticize statutory rape laws are attacking a legal basis of parental authority in a crucial matter. If we wish to prevent another “Rotherham Horror,” we must take this threat very seriously.

Returning, then, to the “Erection Equals Consent” myth that Ally Fogg examines, we must ask what this tells us about women predators who take advantage of teenage boys. When I call attention to these cases, the same issues are raised by commenters: Here is a female teacher in her late 20s or early 30s (the typical perpetrator) who is at least moderately attractive and in many cases married, yet who has engaged in sex with a boy (or sometimes multiple boys) as young as 13 or 14. “Why can’t she get a grown man?” commenters will ask or, raising the same point from the obverse angle, “Why does she want to have sex with boys?”

These questions plague the minds of sane normal people who take for granted that everyone views sex in a sane normal way. We assume, for example, that people prefer (and believe they should prefer) an approximate parity of age in their romantic partners.

We view as creepy the middle-aged executive who divorces his wife and acquires a much younger girlfriend. It’s not just that the 25-year-old female is young enough to be the 50-year-old executive’s daughter (triggering our crypto-Freudian suspicion of symbolically incestuous ideas lurking in the old man’s depraved psyche) but that we assume, without need for any evidence, the young girlfriend is a selfish gold-digger who is cynically trading sex for money and status. Certain other assumptions are involved in the case of an older woman who goes into “cougar” mode, pursuing sex with virile young studs.

Many reasons (moral, political, anthropological) could justify our negative attitudes toward relationships between consenting adults of widely varying ages. People who engage in such relationships are guilty, at least, of disregarding common opinion that disapproves of wide age differences between sex partners. We are prone to suspect that people who flout social conventions are not trustworthy.

It is impossible, really, that the 28-year-old teacher who engages in sex with a 15-year-old boy is not aware that what she is doing is (a) against the law, and (b) strongly disapproved by society. She knows there will be terrible consequences if she is caught, but she wants to do it so badly that she convinces herself she can get away with it. Her willingness to engage in this illegal and socially disapproved behavior implies a risk-taking attitude that can only be explained by the perpetrator’s profound interest in the sexual attributes specific to a very young partner. We therefore are tempted to categorize any person caught in such crimes as perversely abnormal — that loathsome creature, the pedophile.

Defendants in these cases, however, quite understandably try to avoid this implication. They made a mistake, they showed poor judgment, they understand what they did was wrong, but please — please! — don’t put them in the same category with predatory perverts.

These typical defenses represent a belief that sex offenders can be clearly divided into two categories, one of which is the dangerous pedophile that everyone should hate and fear, and the other category (in which the pleading defendant always includes herself) of basically good people who are well-meaning and harmless, but just sort of accidentally happened to engage in sex with a minor.

That 15-year-old boy’s penis in her mouth? A random coincidence!

Such defenses involve at least three myths about these crimes:

  1. There is no significant number of adults who might seek sex with teenagers, if they thought they could get away with it;
  2. There is no objective or rational reason why any person would ever prefer an adolescent sex partner; and
  3. Laws against sex with minors were enacted by people who were ignorant of facts regarding Myth 1 and Myth 2.

Let me suggest (contra Myth 3) that lawmakers who established legal limits on consent, going back to Roman law and English common law, were as fully familiar with basic human nature as any latter-day sociologist or psychologist. Furthermore, contra Myth 2, it does not take much imagination (perhaps no imagination at all) to see why someone seeking to satisfy their sexual urges might select a 15-year-old as the object of their desire. And, contra Myth 1, if society did not exercise its legitimate authority to protect juveniles by enacting laws against sex with minors, the number of adults who might seek adolescent partners could prove much larger than anyone now imagines.

This is the “Sexual Anarchy” scenario that Matt Barber has warned about: People who want to normalize pedophilia typically claim that only bigotry and ignorance can explain society’s strong disapproval of underage sex. They ask us to believe that there is no real danger involved in a lenient attitude toward sex offenders.

The pro-pedophile activists accuse their critics of exaggerating these dangers and fostering a climate of irrational fear, so that when we point to a clear trend — e.g., the frequency of child pornography arrests, the discovery of organized child-prostitution rings, etc. — this evidence is denounced by pro-pedophile activists as an attempt to stir up a “sex panic,” a “witchhunt,” a hateful “hysteria.”

The Swiss Army Knife of ‘Consent’

Yet how do these arguments appear in light of the “Erection Equals Consent” myth as explained by Ally Fogg, and in the context of the typical “Hot for Teacher” scenario, where a reasonably attractive woman in her late 20s or early 30s is having sex with her 15-year-old male student? If we set aside all moral, legal, social and ethical objections to such behavior, must we pretend that we are unable to explain why a woman would be interested in a 15-year-old boy? Oh, hell, no.

Having once been a teenage boy, I know exactly what she enjoys in this activity. If erection equals consent, I was in a condition of permanent consent from the time I was 13 years old. A teenage boy is capable of sexual arousal with the least provocation, or no provocation at all.

Any adolescent male’s penis is, so to speak, the sexual equivalent of a Swiss Army knife — a tool that can be adapted to any purpose.

Furthermore, even if we ignore whatever aesthetic appeal there might be in the youthful appearance of an adolescent, there are other attributes typical of youth that might lead an adult woman to desire a 15-year-old boy as a sex partner. The teenage boy is more or less a tabula rasa, a lump of unmolded clay, an empty page on which she can inscribe whatever she wishes. Suppose that the teacher, attractive as she may be, is dissatisfied with the quality of her relationships with adult men. There in her classroom is a teenage boy, who is ready, willing and able to attempt any sexual act his teacher may desire him to perform. Not only is the boy’s impetuous eagerness flattering to her ego — adult men are probably less impetuous and more demanding — but as the teenager is less experienced in sexual activity by comparison to her adult male partners, the teen may be more easily tutored to perform sexually in the precise manner that pleases his teacher the most. The boy is more eager to please, more cooperative and less judgmental, and probably far more grateful to have her as a sex partner than any adult male would be.

The reader knows very well that I am not arguing in favor of such criminal activity. Instead, I am saying that if we are willing, for the sake of argument, to look at the situation outside of a moral framework, we can easily imagine why a Debra Lafave (or any other woman who was less than fully satisfied by her relationships with adult men) might find a teenage boy particularly appealing as a sexual partner. And we can extend or adapt this reasoning — in terms of objective incentives to illegal sex with minors — without regard to whether the victim is male or female, whether the perpetrator is male or female, whether the criminal behavior is heterosexual or homosexual. Once we are willing to recognize that the underage partner might have qualities that are sexually desirable to an adult, we can stop pretending to be mystified by these crimes.

Beyond that, if we can put aside our moral sensibilities for the sake of argument, we don’t have to pretend that the legislators who enact statutory rape laws — or the police or prosecutors or judges who are charged with enforcing these laws — are ignorant of the fact that a large number of adults might seek sex with young people, who might enthusiastically consent to those acts, if it weren’t for widespread social disapproval and strong legal sanctions against such activity.

We don’t have to pretend that sex crimes against minors are only perpetrated by a tiny group of predatory weirdos. We don’t have to pretend that minor victims of sex crimes are always helpless, unwilling innocents who were coerced or brainwashed into sexual activity. There is no need for us to prefer a convenient mythology to inconvenient reality. All we need is to agree that adult/minor sex is wrong, and that the laws against it should be vigorously and fairly enforced, and we can then reject as dangerous every nitpicking criticism made by moral relativists who want to squawk about how “arbitrary” these laws are.

Finally, let me point out (as if it were not already apparent) some reasons why this is relevant to my critique of radical feminism.

Readers of the “Sex Trouble” series are by now familiar with my contention that feminist theory has been decisively shaped by arguments put forward by radical lesbians, whose anti-male/anti-heterosexual biases have pervaded the field of Women’s Studies. Insofar as any woman’s attitudes are influenced by feminist theory, her attempts to live in accordance with these doctrines will make it difficult for her to find happiness in a life of men, marriage and motherhood. Let me further explain (again, as if it were not already apparent) that after more than 40 years of feminist activism, these ideas have been dispersed so widely through our society and culture, it is possible for a woman to have internalized feminist beliefs simply by conforming to what she is taught in school, what she absorbs through watching TV and reading popular magazines, and what she is told by her peers.

Therefore (and yes, you have now finally reached the conclusion) it is not surprising that many women are unhappy in their adult relationships with men, which are in many ways sabotaged by the influence of feminism. Nor is it surprising that these unhappy women, who have been told that sexual “empowerment” is an ideal goal for women — a goal thwarted by the compromises women must necessarily make in their relationships with adult men — should seek to exercise their “empowerment” in relationships with teenage boys.

You may be certain that somewhere a Gender Studies major is examining cases of female teachers caught in sex crimes against minors, and theorizing a way to blame these crimes on the patriarchy.

Of course, as every feminist knows, the patriarchy is always to blame for everything, especially anything that involves an erect penis.

(Mic drop.)




 

 

Category: Crime, Sex Trouble

Kirsten Gillibrand’s Phony ‘Courage’

Posted on | September 16, 2014 | 33 Comments

Kirsten Gillibrand is a Democrat and a liar, but I repeat myself. In her new book, she claims that male Senate colleagues sexually harassed her, but refused to name names, which means either:

A. The harassers were Democrats, and Gillibrand is protecting these sexist swine for partisan reasons;
or
B. She’s lying.

You can believe what you want to believe, but I never believe anything any Democrat says, unless it is independently corroborated, and we have no way to corroborate Kirsten Gillibrand’s stories:

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is giving more details, and dropping f-bombs, about her experience with sexist comments she’s received about her weight, saying she couldn’t tell a male colleague “to go f—- himself.”
“At that moment, if I could have just disappeared, I would have. If I could have just melted in tears, I would have. But I had to just sit there and talk to him. And I switched the subject and I didn’t hear another word he said, but I wasn’t in a place where I could tell him to go f—- himself,” Gillibrand told HuffPost Live in an interview posted Monday. . . .
Talking to to HuffPost Live, Gillibrand said of the comments, “It’s all horrible” adding that women “get comments like this all the time.”
She said the comments are “undermining” to women’s careers and she pushed back against critics who questioned why Gillibrand hasn’t named names, saying it’s not just about “any one insult or any one person.”
“It’s more important to elevate the debate, to have a national debate about how are women treated in the workplace,” the senator said.

Oh, I see: Not naming names — which might make it possible for us to verify or disprove what Gillibrand says — is a way to “elevate the debate,” which is not about the specific truth of what Gillibrand says, but “about how are women treated in the workplace.”

What she’s trying to do is to get “courage” points, offering herself as the Heroic Victim in the feminist narrative of what happens to women “all the time,” soliciting admiration by telling stories about how brave and strong she is, Speaking Truth to Power — and yet preventing us from verifying that she is actually speaking the truth.

This is a classic bullshit artist technique: Tell a story in such a way as to make it difficult to confirm or disprove; when people then ask for the kind of details that would make it possible for them to confirm it, you change the subject. “The details don’t matter.”

You see this technique, for example, in “Stolen Valor” cases, where bullshit artists fraudulently claim to be combat veterans and either (a) they were in the service, but never saw combat, or (b) they never were in the service at all. This kind of evasiveness about details — the unit they were in, the names of their commanding officers — is your clue that something is wrong with their story.

Have people said rude and obnoxious things to Kirsten Gillibrand? I don’t doubt that, but people say rude and obnoxious things every day without anyone claiming to be victimized or harassed. What Gillibrand is claiming, however, is that she was the victim of a pattern of sexist comments and behaviors by members of the United States Senate. This is a very serious accusation, and Gillibrand cannot be permitted to make such accusations, refuse to name names, and then try to change the subject by saying she wants to have “a national debate about how are women treated in the workplace.”

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND IS LYING.

But she’s a Democrat, so that’s not actually news.

 

Category: Democrats

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.16.14

Posted on | September 16, 2014 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
How Kira Kazantsev Went From Cronut Blogger To Miss America

Third consecutive New Yorker to win the crown

Has always been an overachiever; speaks three languages and triple-majored at Hofstra
Happy red cup leads to happy new Miss America
Why the Miss America pageant can’t save Atlantic City

Obama Dispatching Military, Medical Aid To Africa For Ebola Fight
About 3000 troops to train, build medical facilities, and handle logistics

Poroshenko Offers Rebels Major Concessions To End Fighting
NATO members begin arms deliveries to Ukraine



POLITICS
Clinton Aides Scrubbed Benghazi Files Before Review, Former Official Says

“At this point, what difference does it make?”

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Richard Maxwell blows the whistle; State denies accusations

Ayatollah, Kerry Spar Over Iran’s Role In Fighting ISIS


De Blasio, Cuomo And Christie Meet With Homeland Security Head For Threat Discussion

Insurance Providers Widely Ignoring Obamacare Abortion Provision

Dems Hope To Make Campaign Fodder As GOP Blocks Equal Pay Bill

House GOP: No US Ground Troops In Mideast Plan



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude’s Dead Cat Bounce Moderated By Weak Demand: WTI $92.77, Brent $97.91
Nikkei Drops As Investors Await Fed Outcome; Softbank Soars
Calpers To Exit Hedge Funds, Divest $4 Billion Stake
United To Offer Up To $100K Severance In Effort To Thin Flight Attendant Ranks
NASDAQ Slumps To Worst Day Since July; S&P 500 Dips
Olive Garden Defends Breadstick Policy
Authors United May Not Want To Admit It, But Most Books Are Consumer Goods
iPhone 6 Sparks Record 4 Million Pre-Orders
Four Months And Three Million Comments Later, The Public Has Spoken On Net Neutrality
Microsoft To Preview Windows 9 On September 30
Steve Jobs Was A Low-tech Parent
Facebook Forces Drag Queens Out Of The Closet



SPORTS
Angels First To Clinch Playoff Berth

Mike Trout (#27) is going to the playoffs for the first time in his career

Blowout 8-1 win against Mariners puts them 10 1/2 games up on Oakland in the AL West

DeGrom Fans 8, Mets Fall To Fish  6-5 Anyway

Cashner & The Padres Shut Out Phillies 1-0

O’s Magic Number Is One After Topping Jays 5-2

Yankees Eliminated From AL East After Rays Rally In The Ninth For 1-0 Win

Phillies Closer Papelbon Gets Seven Games For Grabbing Crotch, Bumping Ump*

Tigers Rally In Ninth, Twins Can’t Answer, Lose 8-6

Astros Beat Fading Tribe 3-1

Royals Rally, Beat White Sox 4-3

Strasburg Throws Seven Scoreless Innings, Nats Beat Braves 4-2: Magic Number Now 2

*But mostly for grabbing his crotch.



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
First She Was All Like “RAAAAACISM!!!!111oneoneone!!!” But When The Tape Came Out She Was Like “Okay, We Were Doing It In The Car”

Daniele Watts: race card declined

Turns out it wasn’t her husband, either. Did she tell the truth about anything?

Unspeakable Armenian Cuddles Koala On Family Trip To Zoo In Oz

Robin Thicke Admits To Drug Use, Lying To Media In Wild “Blurred Lines” Deposition

Kanye West Not Apologizing For Joe Biden Impression: “I’m The Victim!”


Holly Montag Ties The Knot

“I Know What You Did Last Summer” In Season Again At Sony

Mindy Kaling Reveals She Was Up For Maya Rudolph’s Role In “Bridesmaids”

Universal Reuniting Matt Damon & Paul Greenglass For Another Jason Bourne Film

Pete Davidson Joins SNL As New Featured Player

Beyonce & Jay-Z’s Bonnie & Clyde Short Film Trilogy Released

Miss Nebraska Flashes The Cameras

Jimmy Fallon Celebrates 40th Birthday In The Hamptons

Joan Rivers Complains Of Voice Trouble In Her Last Recording

Surprise Party For “Orange” Star Gets Silly



FOREIGNERS
Scottish Expats Excluded From Independence Vote
Odile Batters Mexico’s Baja Resorts, Knocks Out Power To Most Of The Area
Donetsk Separatist Leader Says Cease-Fire Signed To Avert Humanitarian Catastrophe
Convoy Hit In Kabul Bomb Attack
700 Illegals Feared Dead After Traffickers Deliberately Scuttle Boat
UN Peacekeepers Deploy In Central African Republic
US Trying To Rekindle Anbar Awakening Against ISIS
Thais Hunting Western Backpacker In Murder Of British Tourists
Typhoon Kalmaegi Sweeps Past Shut-Down Hong Kong
Irish Troops Withdraw From Syrian Posts
Poll: Silva Would Tie Rousseff In Brazilian Election, Force Runoff
Nigerian Soldiers Sentenced To Death For Mutiny



BLOGS & STUFF
Michelle Malkin: The Deadly Attack On Camp Bastion, Two Years Later
Twitchy: Salon Tool Says “Nothing Scares A White American More Than Someone Who Isn’t A White American”
American Power: Obama Vs. The Generals
BLACKFIVE: White House Press Brief – Disgustipated By Ransom Threats, Etc.
Conservatives4Palin: Gov. Palin Endorses Tom Emmer For Congress (MN-6)
Don Surber: Do Democrats Care About Dead Black Men?
Jammie Wearing Fools: Texas Sheriff Says Reports Warn Of ISIS Terrorist Cells Coming Across The Border
Joe For America: Senators Have Time To Be Reality TV Stars?
Protein Wisdom: Hillary And Obamacare – “Her Fingerprints Are All Over That Legislation”
Shot In The Dark: The Good Guys Win Another
The Gateway Pundit: Study Finds FLOTUS’ Healthy Food Program Elitist, Sexist, And Shames Working Mothers
The Jawa Report: Jawa Report Congratulates Gary Cass On His CAIR Fatwa
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Category: Live at Five

HIV-Infected Music Teacher Arrested for Sex With 15-Year-Old Boy

Posted on | September 15, 2014 | 48 Comments

McKinney, Texas:

Police have arrested a Richardson music teacher and charged him with sexual assault after he was found sneaking out of a home in McKinney.
The homeowners called police on Sept. 10 to report what they thought was a burglary, police said in a press release Friday.
They found Roger Kessler, 43, trying to run away from their home and detained him until police arrived.
“The homeowner saw a male suspect fleeing the residence and the homeowner was able to detain the suspect until police arrived,” said Sabrina Boston, of McKinney police.
It was determined that Kessler wasn’t a burglar and was at the home to have sexual relations with a 15-year-old resident who lived there. . . .
An affidavit states that Kessler was using the app Grindr to meet the teen, and the pair had met about four times.
The affidavit also stated that Kessler told police he is HIV positive, but had used protection with the teen during all encounters except one. He also admitted that the teen didn’t know about Kessler’s condition.

Notice how the reporters go out of their way to avoid saying that Kessler was having sex with a boy, instead referring to the victim as a “teen.” Hint: You don’t meet girls on Grindr.

 

Category: Crime, Education, Gays, Sex

Rotherham Update

Posted on | September 15, 2014 | 12 Comments

Sarfraz Mazoor, a Briton of Pakistani ancestry, has an op-ed column in today’s New York Times about the Rotherham Horror:

What has gone wrong in Rotherham, and what is wrong with its Pakistani community, are questions much asked in recent weeks: How could this small, run-down town in northern England have been the center of sexual abuse of children on such an epic and horrifying scale?
According to the official report published in August, there were an estimated 1,400 victims. And they were, in the main, poor and vulnerable white girls, while the great majority of perpetrators were men, mainly young men, from the town’s Pakistani community. Shaun Wright, the police commissioner who was responsible for children’s services in Rotherham, appeared before Parliament after his refusal to resign over the scandal. The scandal has cost both the chief executive and the leader of the council their jobs, and four Labour Party town councilors have been suspended.
A popular explanation for what Home Secretary Theresa May has described as “a complete dereliction of duty” by Rotherham’s public officials is that the Labour-controlled council was, for reasons of political expediency and ideology, unwilling to confront the fact that the abusers were of Pakistani heritage. Proper investigation, it is said, was obstructed by political correctness — or, in the words of a former local M.P., a culture of “not wanting to rock the multicultural boat.”

Mazoor mentions the attempt of Pakistani immigrants to maintain their own cultural identity: “The custom of first-cousin marriages to spouses from back home in Pakistan meant that the patriarchal village mentality was continually refreshed.” Mazoor adds:

The Labour politicians who governed Rotherham in the last decade came into politics during the anti-racism movement of the ’70s and ’80s. Their political instinct — and self-interest — was not to confront or alienate their Pakistani voters. Far easier to ally themselves with socially conservative community leaders, who themselves held power by staying on the right side of the community.
These dynamics help explain why so few spoke out about the culture that produced the crimes — a culture of misogyny, which Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a Conservative politician who was raised near Rotherham, criticized in 2012, saying that it permits some Pakistani men to consider young white women “fair game.” It would be a brave leader, Pakistani or otherwise, who would tell the Pakistani community that it needed to address such issues, or that the road to progress required Pakistani parents to relax their strictures and allow their sons and daughters to marry out.

Hmmm. Is this about Pakistani prejudice against exogamy? An interesting claim. Meanwhile, in Rotherham, a 28-year-old woman who says she was victimized by the rape gangs confronted a man on the street who she accused of exploiting her as a teen. She was “arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offences.”

Doesn’t it seem that this kind of political correctness — “racially aggravated” crimes — is a basic part of the problem? Wouldn’t it be easier to get rid of such ridiculous kid-gloves sensitivity about race than to expect Pakistanis to change their culture?

 

Category: Crime, Great Britain

‘I Was Drunk. After That, It All Gets Kind of Blurry. … I Know We Had Sex.’

Posted on | September 15, 2014 | 45 Comments

The headline is a quote from atheist Alison Smith, describing her hookup with atheist Michael Shermer at a 2008 atheist conference in Las Vegas, in a BuzzFeed article headlined:

Will Misogyny Bring Down The Atheist Movement?

My headline is better. Just sayin’ . . .

Also, the BuzzFeed headline is asking the wrong question. It should be, “Will Feminism Bring Down The Atheist Movement?” The problem is not necessarily that atheist men are feral swine — are we surprised? — but rather that women are attending conferences with these feral swine and expecting to be treated like ladies. Or treated like “equals,” even if they are manifestly not equal.

Men started this atheist conference — known as “The Amazing Meeting” — paying their own money to fund it, and then the women showed up and wanted to change the rules. The atheist women complained that they were not adequately represented on the panels, despite the fact that, y’know, the big-name attractions were all men who had done actual work that mattered to the atheist movement.

And then, in 2008, this “incident” happened: Alison Smith, 26 at the time, met the eminent atheist Michael Shermer, 54 at the time, at a party during this conference in Las Vegas. Even among the feral swine of atheism, it seems, Shermer has a reputation as an aggressive lecher. Anyway, Smith and Shermer left the party at the Flamingo, when to another party at Caesar’s Palace and then, after Smith got sloppy drunk, she and Shermer returned to the Flamingo and ended the evening in Shermer’s hotel room, where he boned her.

As I said, are we surprised?

The BuzzFeed article goes on and on about how this drunken Vegas hookup  in 2008 is emblematic of A Larger Problem, namely the “misogyny” in a movement which is and always has been male-dominated. But some men in the movement wanted to attract more women (so they could get them drunk and bone them, obviously) and it seems that, when young atheist women did begin showing up at these events, they did not consider it particularly flattering that feral swine like Michael Shermer wanted to bone them.

Having written about this last year (“No Love for the Godless,” American Spectator), I don’t have much more to say, except to point out the obvious question: Why would these women assume that an egalitarian ethos must prevail in the atheist community? Doesn’t this egalitarian assumption reflect the pervasive influence of feminism in our culture — especially in our higher education system — so that every “movement” must now also be a feminist movement? Every institution is expected to operate on a de facto feminist quota system so that unless a certain percentage of seats are filled by women, the accusation of sexist discrimination is automatic.

These egalitarian assumptions are illogical and, while I certainly don’t endorse the misbehavior of feral swine like Michael Shermer, I’m amazed that these atheists — who pride themselves on their strictly scientific view of the world — don’t have the brains or courage to challenge the quota-minded radical feminist assumptions that some atheist women are attempting to smuggle into their movement.

Of course, all these atheists are going to hell, which will be a very equal place, because there will be so many feminists there.

 

Category: Feminism
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