FMJRA 2.0: Day Late & A Root Boy Slim Short

Governor Palin endorsed 22 candidates for various offices during the midterm finals, including senators, governors, lieutenant governors, congressmen, and attorneys general. Of those so endorsed, an incredible 20 were elected – contrasted with, for example, Hillary Clinton’s record of 8 wins out 24 endorsed candidates.

Beyond the success of her endorsed candidates lies a much deeper reason for Palin being seen as “Achiever of the Year”: those Palin endorsed in their respective primaries who then went on to win the general election battles. As in the past with, among others, senators Ted Cruz, Kelly Ayotte, and Deb Fischer, and Governor Nikki Haley, who owe their elections in their primary campaigns to Palin’s endorsement at a critical juncture, so too could new senators Ben Sasse and Joni Ernst, and new Alaska governor Bill Walker (and, remarkably, his Democrat lieutenant governor Byron Mallott) be considered to owe all or a substantial part of their nominations to Palin’s endorsement.

For all her detractors’ cries of “irrelevance” and “she’s just a reality show entertainer” (those two being among the nicer epithets), Palin goes on, election cycle after election cycle, populating Congress with her endorsed candidates in a cost-effective manner, and in such numbers that the likes of Karl Rove with his 1% success rate can surely view only with hidden admiration, if not downright envy.

She seems an acknowledged ambassador to the conservative base:

If former Alaska Gov. and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin enters the 2016 presidential election, she will face stiff competition from a wide field of qualified Republican candidates. However, she may face greater challenges from her numerous detractors, especially those in the liberal media whose vitriol towards Palin knows no bounds.

Many believe that Palin is most powerful as a conservative spokesperson who has a remarkable ability to motivate and inspire her base. In fact, she has been confirmed as a speaker at the Iowa Freedom Summit in January 2015. She will be joined by at least nine GOP presidential hopefuls and whether her purpose at the event is to motivate or throw her hat in the election ring is uncertain.

It remains to be seen if the base’s contempt for the Vichy GOP can be overcome by dread of Her Majesty, the way the dread of the Goreacle led to (barely) enough support for a Republican “triumph” in 2000. All I can say is that I’m not voting for another Bush. Should Sarah Palin opt to run (and, in all candor, I’m more of a Scott Walker fan) she could well play the Ross Perot role in a Bush/Clinton ’92 re-run.

And I don’t care, Rove. You and any other Progressive jackwagons on the False Choice Express can tell me that failure to vote for candidate B is really a vote for candidate C. Screw you, to the wall, with a large diameter drill. IF the Vichy GOP foist Jeb on the base, AND we suffer eight years of Her Majesty, it’s YOUR flipping fault for nominating the chap.

I don’t actually bear any personal animus toward Jeb. I’m just not playing along with this anti-American dynastic noise. The argument that the Commies are cheerfully doing so via Her Majesty is strangely non-compelling. If Jeb wants to earn some respect, how about calmly announcing that he’s declining a run in a few months, and offering his talents in service of his country a la the Koch brothers, and funding outfits like Heritage and AFP? Such a move would do more to advance the needed reforms in this country than actually running for the sake of polishing his ego.

I cannot support Jeb at all. I could support Sarah, in the same vein I supported Romney in 2012. I’d sooner support a third attempt at POTUS from Ward Cleaver than I would seeing Jeb on the ticket. No, no, a thousand nos, and again: get lost with the dynastic politics => “CNN/ORC Poll: Bush surges to 2016 GOP frontrunner”

via Hot Air and Instapundit

Update: Memeorandum thread

Category: Hot Air, Instapundit, Republicans, Sarah Palin

True Love Is Always an Exception

Posted on | December 28, 2014 | 11 Comments

“She was 15 and he was 28 and her teacher at the Ferrer Modern School in New York, when they met, and married, in 1913.”

That sentence, from the 1981 obituary of Ariel Durant, is an important historic note to keep in mind when considering prohibitions against professors dating their students. Kelly Anders, an administrator at the University of California-Davis, writes at Prawfs Blog:

In several law schools where I have worked, there are professors or employees who are happily married to former students, whom they began to date while they were students. Perhaps schools turn a blind eye because law students are adults — in contrast to undergraduate students — and, in theory, they are thus freer to make decisions about whom to date, much like people who date co-workers. But what about unwanted attention or a perceived inability to say no?

The reference to “unwanted attention,” of course, brings us onto the legal battleground of sexual harassment. It has always struck me as absurd that anyone could be expected to know their attention was “unwanted” prior to actually expressing that attention. It is one thing if Employee A continues to make overtures toward Employee B after the latter has made clear that the interest is not reciprocated, but it is not rarely the case — and one hears horror stories about these cases — that the very first attempt at flirtation lights the fuse on a powder keg of resentment that leads to a sexual harassment complaint.

One typical scenario is that you have a male and female who are friendly co-workers until the moment when the male says or does something to indicate that he would be interested in being more than friends. This suggestion — and it may be conveyed indirectly, by a joke or a gesture — suffices to poison the friendship, at least from the female’s perspective. She had believed her workplace friendship with this man to be a strictly platonic and professional relationship. The moment he hints at a romantic interest, however, she suspects that the whole “friendship” was just an angle, a scam, a Trojan Horse ploy to get close to her so he could make his move. She feels deceived and betrayed, and perhaps rightly so. But if you are familiar with how sexual harassment complaints are handled, you see how what is basically a personal misunderstanding can turn into a Kafkaesque nightmare, where a guy finds himself accused of a civil rights violation for what seems to him entirely innocuous behavior.

In some cases with which I am familiar, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that the complainant is just an opportunist looking for an easy payday, because it has become standard practice in corporate policy — and everybody knows this — to pay “go-away money” to sexual harassment complainants. Basically, if a woman can make a remotely plausible claim of discrimination or harassment, and she has any evidence at all (e.g., a rudely worded e-mail) to support her claim, the lawyers will always advise clients to settle the case. It doesn’t matter if the woman suffered no actual harm, or if the person accused of harassment insists his innocent actions have been unfairly interpreted. The cost of defending against a discrimination suit is simply an expense no company wants to pay, and so standard practice: Pay the complainant a lump sum (usually a year’s salary) in exchange for her leaving the company and signing an agreement not to pursue further litigation.

Everybody in business knows this kind of stuff happens and, because everybody knows it, the potential threat of a sexual harassment complaint casts a large shadow over the 21st-century workplace. It is not merely that male-female interactions tend to become almost ritualistic in their androgynous formality — for no male with half a brain would dare even acknowledge a female co-worker is female — but that every managerial decision has to be second-guessed as to whether it might inadvertently suggest discrimination against females. A sort of tokenism creeps into personnel decisions. If the last two employees you hired or promoted were male, the next time you have an opening there will be a certain amount of pressure to hire or promote a female in the name of “diversity.” And there are innumerable ripple effects of that mentality.

We return, then, to what Kelly Anders says about law professors dating their students. One reason for my low opinion of academia in general is my knowledge of ulterior motives of the “permanent student.”

Well do I remember from my own college days those graduate students who had apparently realized that staying in school forever — which seemed to involve a lot of time hanging out at the off-campus pub — provided them with sexual access to a continually renewed supply of undergraduate females. The graduate teaching assistant, or the newly-minted Ph.D. striving to attain tenure, was quite often involved in furtive affairs with students. These affairs were seldom entirely secret; friends of the students involved would at least suspect what was happening, even if the student did not tell them; and rumors about such affairs fostered widespread suspicion of favoritism. Any reasonably attractive female student who seemed friendly with a male instructor was presumed to be either having an affair with him, or else dangling the bait in front of him with the hope of getting a better grade.

When “male feminist” Professor Hugo Schwyzer was revealed to be a womanizing psychopath, I was not really surprised, and I suspect similar (but not so egregious) behavior is far more common among university faculty than is generally acknowledged. As far as I know, for example, I’m the only journalist who noticed that Professor Lisa Johnson apparently married a “butch” lesbian who was formerly her student.

Anyway, Professor Glenn Reynolds says about the student-professor dating question: “The interesting discussion is in the comments,” and I will quote some of those comments here:

Professors should not date students. Schools, including law schools, should forbid this behavior, full stop. . . .

My official stance is that faculty and students should not date — period. . . . Regardless of age, students are students, and the teacher-student relationship should be held in the highest esteem, without being diluted or prejudiced by non-professional (and unprofessional) feelings. . . .

No one should think he/she has a right to use the workplace for romantic pursuits, and in a situation of older adults having authority over younger ones, there are lots of potential issues that could arise which would complicate consent issues. . . .

I agree with those comments, and view with profound suspicion anyone who is arguing to the contrary. A policy that generally forbids romantic involvement between faculty and students makes sense in so many ways that you have to wonder why anyone would be trying to carve out loopholes and exceptions in such a wise policy. However . . .

There are cases which seem genuinely exceptional, and the amazing love story between Will and Ariel Durant is one of those. Where these truly exceptional cases occur, there is no need to create a loophole in a policy that generally forbids faculty-student romance, because even if the faculty member were immediately fired under such circumstances, this would seem a small price to pay to have obtained true love. And I think that’s really the appropriate standard: If you really love somebody in that happily-ever-after way, you’d quit your job to be with them if the rules of your job stood in the way.

Category: Education

‘Operation Stalk My Girlfriend’

Posted on | December 28, 2014 | 10 Comments

Kevin D. Williamson has a column about NSA employees who were caught using the agency’s surveillance technology for personal purposes:

Thanks to a Christmas Eve document dump, we learn that agents of the National Security Agency, the spookiest spooks in all our vast spookocracy, are a bunch of stalkers, using the effectively boundless surveillance powers of their organization to spy on husbands and wives, overseas girlfriends, and sundry romantic partners. . . .
In a free and open society, there is a generally unspoken understanding between the citizens and the intelligence forces: We the people understand that they’re going to necessarily conduct themselves in a nefarious fashion from time to time, bending or breaking some laws along the way. We know this: That’s what spies do, being a necessary evil that is no less evil for being so acutely necessary. The spooks’ end of the bargain is: being good at what they do, not comporting themselves like a bunch of jackasses, and getting really bendy with the situational ethics only when doing so advances some legitimate national-security interest. Operation Mincemeat we can live with; Operation Stalk My Girlfriend we cannot. . . .

Read the whole thing. Kevin’s a brilliant writer.

Category: Corruption, Crime

Your Future (or Lack Thereof)

Posted on | December 27, 2014 | 60 Comments

“Male and female created he them” (Genesis 5:2) seems obvious enough. “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) is not a difficult commandment to understand or obey. However, in the modern world, so many people actually think they’re smarter than God that they manage to persuade themselves that extinction is “progress”:

A survey by the Japan Family Planning Association reported that over a quarter of men aged 16–24 “were not interested in or despised sexual contact.” For women, it was 45 percent…
Forty-nine percent of women under 34 are not in any kind of romantic relationship, and nor are 61 percent of single men. A third of Japanese adults under 30 have never dated. Anyone. Ever. It’s not that they’ve stopped “having sex”… It’s bigger than that: It’s a flight from human intimacy. . . .
The Japan Times . . . quotes the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research as saying that the country’s population is expected to decline between 26% and 38% by 2060.

That information comes from Mark Steyn, whose ancestors were on a first-name basis with the author of the commandments previously cited, and here’s more of the same:

“See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil . . . I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”
— Deuteronomy 30:15, 19 (KJV)

It’s really simple, but some folks think they’re smarter than God.

Category: Abortion, Contraceptive Culture, Japan, Planned Parenthood, Religion

Are You Certain You Don’t Want to Consider Homeschooling Your Kids?

Posted on | December 27, 2014 | 26 Comments

If you think it’s a good idea to send your children to public schools, you probably aren’t really paying attention to what’s happening in public schools and who is in charge of public schools. Saturday, I searched Google News for the words “teacher + arrest” and — in addition to the usual stories about teachers raping and molesting their students — found an interesting variety of criminal mayhem:

Georgia: Middle school teacher arrested for giving marijuana to kids. http://t.co/laeSLIsxM1

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 27, 2014

Nevada: Elementary school teacher arrested on drug charges. http://t.co/NAMDlLIw6p

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 27, 2014

Connecticut: High school teacher arrested for being drunk at school. http://t.co/GK4noRyFHF

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 27, 2014

California: Elementary school teacher arrested for DUI after crash. http://t.co/lGi9pjJsxK

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 27, 2014

Kentucky: Elementary school teacher arrested on methamphetamine charges. http://t.co/6ZB9tyyv9N

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 27, 2014

North Carolina: Two teachers arrested on child pornography charges. http://t.co/JWkkhNsxIn

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 27, 2014

New York: Middle school teacher left her kids alone to go out drinking. http://t.co/ElKJkQ9Mvg

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 27, 2014

Virginia: Elementary school teacher charged with distribution of heroin. http://t.co/aDKtIwOJiq

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 27, 2014

Ohio: Middle school teacher arrested for domestic violence. http://t.co/k8wL4sz9F4

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 27, 2014

Indiana: Middle school teacher charged with recording video of boys in shower. http://t.co/e4AO8iToZV

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 27, 2014

Ohio: Elementary school teacher arrested on drug charges. http://t.co/swubJSy4s9

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 27, 2014

Just a small sample of what you’re getting for your public education tax dollars — and what excellent role models for your kids!

Category: Education

Worse Than Dinkins

Posted on | December 27, 2014 | 10 Comments

The tenure of David Dinkins as mayor of New York City is universally remembered as the absolute nadir of that city’s history, but Bill de Blasio is making a strong claim to the title Worst Mayor Ever:

NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of officers outside the church where a funeral was held for a policeman killed along with his partner in an ambush shooting turned their backs on the mayor as he spoke during Saturday’s service.
The reaction from officers watching Officer Rafael Ramos’ funeral on giant TV screens followed comments from police union officials who had said Mayor Bill de Blasio contributed to a climate of mistrust that contributed to the killings of the two New York Police Department officers.
Inside Christ Tabernacle Church in Queens, however, mourners gave de Blasio polite applause before and after his speech.

(Via Memeorandum.) Oh, he got “polite applause” from people mourning a dead cop. Way to go, Mayor Golf Claps!

Category: Crime, New York

No, The Homo Bureaucratus Infestation Is Not A Representative Sample

Posted on | December 26, 2014 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

USA Today is closer to being part of the problem than part of the solution:

Yet to look around the USA is to see fear and anxiety. If you didn’t know better, you’d think this was a nation of wimps.

Take, for instance, the response to the Ebola outbreak. Millions of people worked themselves into a panic over a disease that has claimed the lives of fewer Americans this year than unsanitary caramel apples.

Or take the many universities so afraid of offending people that they have muzzled the very debate that is reputed to be one of their hallmarks.

You’ve had Godless Commies attacking our institutions for decades, and there are some external effects. The President is incontinent in the face of, well, anything job-related. Brian Williams sounds like a voice of authority, for all he lacks hair #1 anyplace that matters. At UVA, Teresa Sullivan practices fact-free fascism with a Nurse Ratched smile.

However, as Senator Mike Lee noted, the recent shenanigans with CROmnibus aren’t going unnoticed. While it would be silly to think that the country is going to escape at least a partial crash before the No-Talent Rodeo Clown leaves his final mess on the carpet, total collapse seems kind of Chicken Little.

Sure, the Commie twerps are doing everything they can to get a race war going, but pesky facts keep revealing them for liars, right, Sullivan? Lies have a transient effect at best. The fallout of the lies may take longer to clean up. Indeed, unwinding a century of Progressive collapse is going to be the ultimate test of American Exceptionalism.

via Instapundit

Category: Culture, Instapundit

« go back — keep looking »

About

This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

The Other McCain

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

FMJRA 2.0: Day Late & A Root Boy Slim Short

Sarah Palin Is Doing A Far Better Job Of Not Running For President Than Jeb Bush

True Love Is Always an Exception

‘Operation Stalk My Girlfriend’

Your Future (or Lack Thereof)

Are You Certain You Don’t Want to Consider Homeschooling Your Kids?

Worse Than Dinkins

No, The Homo Bureaucratus Infestation Is Not A Representative Sample

THE FULL METAL JACKET REACH-AROUND AWARD

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Search

Recent Posts

RSS reader subscription

MEMEORANDUM

Recent Comments

THE AMAZING GONZO FEED

Major Leagues

Archives

Free Agents

SHAMELESS CAPITALISM

Triple-A Franchises

Blogroll

About

Subscribe to our feed

Search

Admin