The Other McCain

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

Al-Qaeda Takes Tikrit?

Posted on | June 11, 2014 | 100 Comments

When Donald Douglas told me this news, I was stunned. Iraq is falling apart and the terrorists are taking over:

BAGHDAD (AP) — Al-Qaida-inspired militants pushed deeper into Iraq’s Sunni heartland Wednesday, swiftly conquering Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit as soldiers and security forces abandoned their posts and yielded ground once controlled by U.S. forces.
The advance into former insurgent strongholds that had largely been calm before the Americans withdrew less than three years ago is spreading fear that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, struggling to hold onto power after indecisive elections, will be unable to stop the Islamic militants as they press closer to Baghdad.
Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militant group took control Tuesday of much of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, sending an estimated half a million people fleeing from their homes.

Again — “militants,” “insurgents,” the media won’t call them terrorists:

The insurgents are from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).
ISIS, which is also known as ISIL, is an offshoot of al-Qaeda.
It controls considerable territory in eastern Syria and western and central Iraq, in a campaign to set up a Sunni militant enclave straddling the border.
There were also reports on Wednesday of fighting further south, in Samarra, 110km north of Baghdad.
Separately, at least 21 people were killed and 45 hurt by a suicide bomber at a Shia meeting in Baghdad, police said. . . .
The US has condemned the militants, but BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Adams says the West’s response is not going to be military, as there is no appetite to return to a battleground that claimed thousands of British and American lives.

The terrorists control “considerable territory in eastern Syria,” so this is just a bonus dividend of the “Arab Spring.”

Way to go, Barack Obama.

 

 

PREVIOUSLY:

 

Category: Iraq, Terrorism

Libertarians Are Hitler or Something

Posted on | June 11, 2014 | 87 Comments

Eric Cantor was the only Republican Jew in Congress, so when he lost a GOP primary to economics professor Dave Brat, the Left instantly created a narrative that this represented some kind of neo-Nazi tendency of Brat’s libertarian-leaning Tea Party supporters. There are a few obvious problems with this claim, of course:

  1. Libertarianism is the exact opposite of Nazi totalitarianism;
  2. It is the Left that supports terroristic Jew-haters in the Middle East and it was the Left that spent eight years claiming that the Bush administration was in the thrall of Jewish “neocons” who allegedly promoted the Iraq War for nefarious purposes;
    and
  3. Some analysts say that Brat beat Cantor because of a surge of Democrats voting for Brat in Virginia’s “open” GOP primary.

But the Left doesn’t care about facts, and neither do the mouthpieces of the GOP Establishment at the Wall Street Journal.

 

Category: Election

‘Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, But George Will’s Column Raped Me’

Posted on | June 11, 2014 | 57 Comments

Peter Paul Rubens, Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus (1618)

“Feminism is, among other things, a totalitarian attempt to tell us what to think by controlling what we are allowed to say.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, May 4

Who is turning rape into a joke? Feminists, by their counterfactual insistence that American university campuses are now plagued by an epidemic of sexual violence unprecedented in human history. When an unfortunate incident between between a girl and her ex-boyfriend is rhetorically magnified into a horrific crime — a U.S. Senator goes on national TV to claim Dan Kopin “brutally raped” and “nearly choked to death” Lena Sclove — it cheapens the meaning of the word “rape.”

Yet the totalitarian Thought Police tolerate no criticism of feminist tactics, which is why George F. Will cannot be allowed to say this:

Colleges and universities are being educated by Washington and are finding the experience excruciating. They are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous (“micro-aggressions,” often not discernible to the untutored eye, are everywhere), and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate. And academia’s progressivism has rendered it intellectually defenseless now that progressivism’s achievement, the regulatory state, has decided it is academia’s turn to be broken to government’s saddle.
Consider the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. “sexual assault.”

From that beginning, Will went on to examine the “rape culture” phenomenon both anecdotally and statistically, considering it in terms of law and policy, focusing on how the Obama administration is using this as an excuse to impose new federal mandates on universities. But it was his opening paragraphs which made him a Thought Criminal.

First, Will observed that the campus climate “make[s] victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges,” and then he referred to “the supposed campus epidemic of rape.” In doing so, he violated a 21st-century commandment: Thou Shalt Not Doubt a Feminist.

The privileges conferred by the Cult of Victimhood are never to be skeptically examined, no matter how many examples — hello, Meg Lanker Simons! — of the phenomenon we may observe. And if feminists say rape is an “epidemic” on campus, we are all supposed to nod in agreement, rather than doing what George Will did, namely calling attention to evidence that this “epidemic” is a matter of statistical voodoo and elastic definitions. Rude gestures and clumsy hugs are categorized as “sexual assault,” and the claim is made that 1-in-5 college girls suffer sexual assault, despite data indicating that the real number is probably less than 1-in-30 — “too high,” Will hastened to add, “but nowhere near 20 percent.”

Creating a phony “epidemic” by statistical inflation and rhetorical exaggeration is dishonest, yet liberals always expect us to accept their lies at face-value, bristling with indignant outrage that intelligent people refuse to be bullied into mute acquiescence.

On MSNBC — America’s Least Trusted News Source™ — professional outrage peddler Michael Eric Dyson leaped atop the barricade:

“When he used phrases like so-called rape epidemic, doesn’t that trivialize the trauma that women have to endure in the face of the rape that they’ve endured, and then they’re re-raped, they’re re-traumatized again verbally and rhetorically by insensitivities like the ones Mr. Will exhibited?” Dyson asked, in typical absurdly leading fashion.
For her part, liberal guest Zerlina Maxwell said Dyson was “absolutely 100 percent” correct in that assessment.

Victims are “re-raped” and “re-traumatized” by newspaper columnists! One imagines thousands of teary-eyed women, bruised and disheveled, brought in for the police line-up. They peer at the suspects on the other side of the one-way mirror and then, pointing the accusatory finger at the septuagenarian pundit in owlish glasses, the victims scream: “That’s him! He’s the columnist who re-raped us!”

If mocking this feminist nonsense is “rape,” the sarcastic commenters at Ace of Spades HQ are turning it into a gang-bang.

 

Category: Crime, Education, Feminism, Intellectuals, MSNBC, Sex

LIVE AT FIVE: 06.11.14

Posted on | June 11, 2014 | 12 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Majority Leader Eric Cantor Crushed By Tea Party Insurgent In Shocking Upset

Cantor delivers his concession speech in Richmond

Defeated despite spending $1 million on primary campaign

Oregon Shooting Features Gun Controllers Exploiting Tragedy Again
Teenage gunman shot himself after killing fellow student


Jihadis From Syria Drive Iraqi Army Out Of Mosul
PM Al-Maliki declares state of emergency, calls on friendly governments for help



POLITICS
California Judge Rules Public School Teacher Tenure Unconstitutional

Silicon Valley entrepreneur David Welch talks about Judge Treu’s decision; his non-profit, Students Matter, filed the lawsuit that led to the ruling

Judge concludes that tenure and seniority laws affect students’ constitutional right to equal education, cites disparate impact on poor & minority students

GOP Warns That Obamacare Rules Tweak Could Trigger Taxpayer Bailout Of Insurers

Education Secretary Duncan Says Politics Forced OK Gov. Fallin To Repeal Common Core

Lindsey Graham Wins SC GOP Senate Primary

House Unanimously Passes VA Treatment Bill

Weed Tax Collections Booming In Colorado

NYC Settle Occupods’ False Arrest Lawsuit

Senate Votes $2 Billion For Child Illegals



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Up Slightly From US Close: NYMEX $104.46, Brent $109.75
Best Buy Boosts Dividends For First Time In Two Years
World Bank Shaves 2014 Growth Expectations For Global Economy
Dow Hits Record For Fourth Day Although Wall Street Finishes Flat
United Airlines To Overhaul Frequent-Flyer Program
Radio Shack Reports Wider 1Q Loss
The Old Is New Again At E3 For Sony And Microsoft
Google Buying Satellite Company Skybox For $500 Million
Sony Touts Streaming, Nintendo Reveals Amiibo
Alamo Drafthouse Bans Google Glass
Legend Of Zelda For Wii U Coming In 2015



SPORTS
Spurs Come Out Shooting, Hand Heat South Beach Beatdown

Danny Green, one of the “other” Spurs, plays a leading role in tonight’s win with 15 points and five steals

San Antonio hands Miami first post-season loss at home, 111-92

Former A’s Pitcher, Cy Young Winner Bob Welch Dead At 57

Cubs Spoil Polanco’s Debut, Thrash Pirates 9-3

Snakes Beat Astros 4-1

Wainwright Delivers Third Consecutive Shutout For Cards, Rays Fall 1-0

Fish Rally Late, Top Rangers 8-5

Workman One-Hits O’s, BoSox Win 1-0

Royals Hang On To Defeat Tribe 9-5

Matt Williams Fondly Recalls Days With Giants



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Rumors False: J-Lo To Be At World Cup Opening Ceremonies

The cameltoe – er, show – must go on!

Will be performing with rapper Pitbull, Brazilian singer Claudia Leitte


Kelly Rowland Is Expecting!

Gwyneth Paltrow, Beyonce Planning A Retreat Together

Jason Schwartzman Welcomes Daughter #2

Shailene Woodley Is Vanity Fair’s July Cover Girl


Kris Jenner’s Instagram Hacked

“Love & Hip-Hop” Star Stevie J Busted – Owes $1 Million In Child Support

James Franco Writes A Short Story About Lindsay Lohan

Sandra Bullock’s Alleged Stalker Owns A Machine Gun

Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams Fuel Dating Rumors

Ice Cube’s Son, O’Shea Jackson Jr., To Play Rapper In Biopic “Straight Outta Compton”

Bryan Singer Could Lose “X-Men: Apocalypse”

R. Kelly’s Youngest Child Comes Out As Transgender

Keira Knightley’s July Glamour Cover Shoot



FOREIGNERS
Friendly Fire Kills Five Americans In Afghanistan
Brazil’s President Defends World Cup In Speech
Syria Begins Freeing Prisoners Under Assad Amnesty
Likud’s Reuben Rivlin Elected President Of Israel
Red China Announces Roundup Of Alleged Cult Members
Six Thousand Police Raid Korean Religious Compound To Find Aides Of Ferry Owner
On The Hunt For Boko Haram
Colombian President Announces Talks With ELN Rebels
Merkel Cites “Threats” In Warning To Cameron



BLOGS & STUFF
Doug Powers: Hillary Relates To The Working Class – We Were “Dead Broke” After Leaving The White House
Twitchy: Laura Ingraham Has Question For “Double Amnesty, Extra Hot” Obama
Monster Hunter Nation: The Naive Idiocy Of Teaching Rapists Not To Rape
American Power: “This Woman, Marie Larf (Harf) Seems To Be The White Susan Rice, Only Dumber And More Preposterous”
American Thinker: Are Most Mass Murderers Really White?
BLACKFIVE: Big Apple Run – AAR And Apology
Conservatives4Palin: The New Regressives
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, June 10
Jammie Wearing Fools: Shootings Up 43% Last Month In NYC, But At Least There’s No More Stop & Frisk
Joe For America: Obama’s Cloward-Piven Immigration Strategy
JustOneMinute: Showing The Common Touch
Pat Dollard: Border Agents Warn Of Chicken Pox, MRSA From Illegal Child Crossings
Protein Wisdom: And I’m Never Going Back/To My Old School
Shot In The Dark: This Is A Spree Killer’s Brain On Lead
The Jawa Report: ISIL Jihadis Capture Armored Hummers Given To Iraq
The Lonely Conservative: Your Tax Dollars At Work – Helping Planned Parenthood Teach Teens The Joy Of S&M
This Ain’t Hell: So, How’s It Feel To Be Thrown Under The Bus, Mr. Secretary?
Weasel Zippers: Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) Compares Taliban To American Revolutionaries
Megan McArdle: A Little Student Loan Debt Never Hurt Anyone


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Category: Live at Five

Virginia Shocker: Cantor Canned

Posted on | June 10, 2014 | 101 Comments

by Smitty


Virginia is for lovers of elections and political gymnastics. Since its 2009 inception, the Tea Party had run an insurgency to force conventions for state-wide elections, which resulted in (what I thought) was a dynamite slate for last November’s elections: Cuccinelli/Jackson/Obenshain. Alas, the GOP elite didn’t seem to care much about this off-year contest, as Her Majesty’s favorite, Greasy Terry, schmoozed in to take the governor’s mansion.

Of course, the first thing T-Mac wanted was some fat Medicaid cash to cement the bluing of the state. Virginia law precludes governors running for re-election. That’s a feature, though: all the “federal” dollars (how, exactly, they differ from traditional frogskins exceeds this blog’s knowledge) wouldn’t be running out until McAuliffe was artfully exiting.

The GOP still controls the Virginia House, though, and has been fighting a delaying action to preclude the fiscal calamity of expanding the Medicaaid rolls without, you know, the economic foundation to pay for it when the day of reckoning arrives. Raaaaacist arithmetic, and all.

Recently, the GOP regained control of the Virginia Senate through means that are greasy enough to make Terry McAuliffe take notice. The sudden, convenient resignation of a Democrat Virginia State Senator could derail the Medicaid expansion and force McAuliffe to deal with a record in office that isn’t an Obama-esque fiscal disaster.

Within that context comes the news that the U.S. House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, got whacked.

A solid, double-digit delivery for Brat. But what’s it all about? Politico reports:

Cantor is the second House incumbent to lose this primary season — Texas GOP incumbent Ralph Hall was defeated by a tea-party backed challenger at the end of May.

There were warning signs that kept piling up. In April, Brat supporters vastly outnumbered Cantor allies at local GOP meetings. Then in May, tea party fueled activists knocked off Cantor’s choice for local GOP chair in Cantor’s home base of Henrico County. But Cantor’s aides consistently brushed off the challenge, telling reporters and fellow GOP aides that the contest didn’t merit the media coverage it was getting

Brat severely trailed in fundraising, pulling in $200,000 this cycle compared to Cantor’s $2 million.

The AP gets to the heart of it:

Much of the campaign centered on immigration, where critics on both sides of the debate have recently taken aim at Cantor. Brat has accused him of being a top cheerleader for “amnesty” for immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally. Cantor has responded forcefully by boasting in mailers of blocking Senate plans “to give illegal aliens amnesty.”

And so the toppling of Cantor will lead to a gut check for the GOP: go all “scorched earth” and run amnesty through despite the base, or deal with the reality that those spiffy Progressive ideas have all the appeal of a dirty diaper outside the Beltway.

It would be great to say I’m confident that the latter will occur. The GOP will recognize the need for reform. The GOP will at least borrow some fortitude and ignore the Graham/McCain/Boehner Axis of Deadwood.

I don’t think that’s how this works. The Tea Party has to root out incumbents one at a time. The resources just don’t exist to start an entirely new party, much less blow away all the incumbent deadwood at once.

This will be a slow and steady effort. Congratulations to Brat, and a toast to avoiding becoming that which he despises.

Category: Republicans, Virginia

Facts Are the New Hate

Posted on | June 10, 2014 | 66 Comments

The #YesAllWomen hashtag has been going crazy all day because of a Washington Post column by Brad Wilcox and Robin Wilson which demonstrates — as a matter of social science — what all social scientists already know: Marriage is highly correlated with good outcomes for women and children. This isn’t really controversial, if you have paid attention to the research, but feminists don’t give a damn about research if the facts contradict their theories, and feminist theory has been implacably hostile to marriage for more than 40 years. Here are two charts from the Wilcox/Wilson article:

As you can see, (a) rates of domestic violence against women are highest for single mothers and (b) child abuse rates are lowest for children living with married biological parents.

The very worst environment for children, in terms of abuse, is to live with an unmarried parent and that parent’s live-in boyfriend or girlfriend. You’ll also notice, interestingly, that rates of domestic abuse are slightly higher for married women who have children, as opposed to childless married women; however, the rates are still far lower for married moms than for single mothers.

Of course, correlation is not causation, and all such social-science data require analysis and contextualization. However, the data clearly contradict the feminist dogma which blames “patriarchy” — i.e., the social norms of the traditional family — for abuse. But the influence of feminism in academia and in the media is now so powerful that when social scientists try to call attention to research that shows the traditional family in a favorable light, the denunciations are loud, emotional and deliberately vituperative:

WaPo Editorial Page Goes Neanderthal
For Second Time In A Week
— Caitlin McNeal, Talking Points Memo

Being pro-marriage is now “Neanderthal,” no matter how much research data you produce in support of your argument.

Feminist theory is utterly impervious to evidence. If there is anything feminists hate more than they hate men, it’s facts and logic.

 

Category: Feminism, Marriage

‘The Child Within Me Is Truly Gone … I Hate You, But I Loved You’

Posted on | June 10, 2014 | 59 Comments

Dance teacher Nichol Marie Phelps molested 15-year-old girl.

Readers may remember the case of Nichol Marie Phelps, the married 30-year-old dance teacher in Florida who said she would leave her husband for the “hot” 15-year-old student she molested in 2012. Phelps was sentenced to prison last week:

Though she’s only 17, the young dancer testified Friday that her childhood ended long ago.
“The child within me is truly gone and has been for a really long time,” the teen told her former dance instructor, Nichol Phelps. “With your selfish games, you stole someone’s childhood, their innocence.”

(“Innocence”? Isn’t that an oppressive patriarchal concept?)

The testimony came during a four-hour hearing Friday at the Orange County Courthouse, during which Circuit Judge Mike Murphy sentenced Phelps, of Cape Coral, to 8 1/2 years in prison, followed by sex-offender probation. . . .

(Eight-and-a-half years? Homophobia!)

Friday’s hearing featured emotional testimony from both families. Phelps’ husband and mother described her as a devout Christian and loving mom of two, whose children rely on her presence and care.
“I am so sorry,” Phelps told Murphy. “Please, think of my family.”
Phelps and her defense portrayed the teen as the aggressor. Phelps testified that the girl made advances which “should have been handled in a mature manner, and they were not.” . . .

(Uh, the 15-year-old was “the aggressor” who “made advances”? How many sex offenders in Florida prisons tried that excuse?)

“I hate you, but I loved you,” the teen told Phelps in her testimony. “That’s what I struggle with the most…. You hurt me.”
She added: “You will not take from me who I am today, because today I love myself… I am no longer a victim, I am a survivor.”

Kaitlyn Hunt could not be reached for comment.

 

Category: Abortion, Crime, Sex

Al-Qaeda on the Offensive in Iraq

Posted on | June 10, 2014 | 36 Comments

This was entirely predictable:

Insurgents seized control early Tuesday of most of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, including the provincial government headquarters, offering a powerful demonstration of the mounting threat posed by extremists to Iraq’s teetering stability.
Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda offshoot, overran the entire western bank of the city overnight after Iraqi soldiers and police apparently fled their posts, in some instances discarding their uniforms as they sought to escape the advance of the militants.
Iraq’s speaker of parliament, Osama Nujaifi, said the city that ranks as the capital of northern Iraq is now entirely in insurgent hands.

Much more, including video, at Hot Air. Notice that they’re “insurgents,” “extremists” or “militants” — not terrorists, because terrorism has been defined out of existence in the Obama Age.

 

Category: Iraq, Islam, Terrorism
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