The Other McCain

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

Gay Movie Director Drugged, Raped Teenage Boy in 1999, Lawsuit Alleges

Posted on | April 17, 2014 | 59 Comments

Bryan Singer, the openly gay film director best known for X-Men movies, has been accused of molesting a teenage male model in 1999. The lawsuit is described by the Hollywood Reporter:

Bryan Singer, director, producer and writer of more than two dozen productions including the X-Men films, was accused Wednesday in a federal lawsuit of having sexually abused a 17-year-old boy at estates in Los Angeles and Kailua . . .
According to the suit, the Los Angeles parties were held at a mansion in Encino referred to as the M & C Estate, whose residents were Marc Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley, whose younger brother Scott Shackley was in [victim Michael F.] Egan’s high school class. Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley were principals of Digital Entertainment Network, an early online streaming video company. The complaint asserts that Collins-Rector sexually abused Egan and threatened him with a gun, but does not name him as a defendant.
(Collins-Rector subsequently was charged and pled guilty to transporting minors across state lines for sex, and is a registered sex offender.)

Details from the federal lawsuit:

The parties were typically sordid and featured sexual contact between adult males and the many teenage boys who were present for the parties. Further, the parties included the distribution of drugs and alcoholic beverages to the teenage boys at the party. Upon information and belief, the nature of the parties was well-known and notorious among many men in the Hollywood entertainment industry. . . .
During the infamous and degenerate parties at the M & C Estate, the adult males engaged in sexual contacts with the Plaintiff, as well as the other boys present. Plaintiff never freely, voluntarily, and knowingly consented to these sexual interactions, and often resisted them. . . .
Approximately 2–3 months after Collins-Rector began sexually abusing Plaintiff, Defendant Singer was socializing with Collins-Rector around the estate’s swimming pool and Plaintiff was in the pool. In compliance with the “rules” imposed by Collins-Rector that people in the pool area were not allowed to wear clothes, Plaintiff was nude as was Defendant Singer. Collins-Rector ordered Plaintiff out of the pool, and Defendant Singer hugged Plaintiff and grabbed his bare buttocks. They then went to the jacuzzi where Collins-Rector had Plaintiff sit on his lap and fondled Plaintiff’s genitals. Collins-Rector then passed Plaintiff to Defendant Singer and Plaintiff was made to sit on Defendant Singer’s lap. Defendant Singer provided an alcoholic beverage to Plaintiff and mentioned finding a role for him in an upcoming movie that he was directing. Defendant Singer told Plaintiff how “this group” controls Hollywood, and that he was sexy. Defendant Singer masturbated Plaintiff and then performed oral sex upon him. Defendant Singer solicited Plaintiff to perform oral sex upon him which Plaintiff resisted. Defendant Singer flagrantly disregarded Plaintiff’s unwillingness to submit, and forced Plaintiff’s head underwater to make Plaintiff perform oral sex upon him. . . .
Defendant Singer visited the estate regularly and continued to sexually assault Plaintiff. He coerced Plaintiff to masturbate him and to acquiesce to his masturbating Plaintiff, and to each performing oral sex on the other. Defendant Singer also continued to anally rape Plaintiff. . . .
On more than one occasion, Plaintiff was flown to Hawaii when he was 17 years old. Two of these trips took place on or between August 1, 1999, and October 31, 1999, during which times his stay lasted roughly one week. Plaintiff stayed in the Paul Mitchell estate in Kailua, Hawaii, with Collins-Rector, Shackley, and others, including a number of other juvenile males. . . .
On each occasion when Plaintiff was in Hawaii, he was required to interact with Defendant Singer while at the Paul Mitchell estate. On more than one occasion, Defendant Singer provided him with drugs, including cocaine, a pill identified as “green triangle” which is believed to be a reference to the drug Ecstasy, Xanax, Rohypnol, pain pills believed to be Vicodin or Percocet, and alcoholic beverages. . . .
Defendant Singer put a handful of cocaine against Plaintiff’s nose and forced him to inhale it. Defendant Singer then provided Plaintiff with a beverage which he drank which significantly impacted his consciousness and his motor skills. Defendant Singer then entered the pool where he nonconsensually masturbated Plaintiff and performed oral sex upon him. Defendant Singer caused Plaintiff to rub his erect penis against Defendant Singer’s buttocks. He forced Plaintiff’s head underwater and made Plaintiff orally copulate him. He then caused Plaintiff to get out of the pool and lie face down on a lounge chair. To continue the sexual assault, Defendant Singer spit on Plaintiff’s buttocks, spanked him, and forced a handful of cocaine onto Plaintiff’s face. He then anally raped Plaintiff. He subsequently caused them to go to the jacuzzi where he provided another beverage to Plaintiff. Defendant Singer attempted to insert his penis into Plaintiff’s mouth which Plaintiff resisted, but he ultimately was able to force his penis into Plaintiff’s mouth. Defendant Singer then assisted Plaintiff to their room where he again anally raped Plaintiff. . . .

So, was this an action film or Bryan Singer’s idea of a romantic comedy?

For the record, the director’s attorney says none of it ever happened.

Who ever heard of a Hollywood director being into drugs and sex, right?

Remember: Corey Feldman said pedophiles are “everywhere” in Hollywood.

 

Category: Crime, Gays, Hollywood, Sex

In The Mailbox, 04.17.14

Posted on | April 17, 2014 | 11 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
First Street Journal: The Professional Media Are Trying To Normalize Transsexualism
Aewl’s Abode: Fifth-Grader Brings Airsoft Gun To School, Panic Ensues – Wait…Nope.
Michelle Malkin: Debunking The Blame Righty Propagandists – Again
Doug Powers: It’s Official – Philanthronanny Michael Bloomberg Announces He’s Bought His Way Into Heaven
Twitchy: “Choom & Chump” – Biden/Obama Selfie Captioned, Critiqued
Monster Hunter Nation: Larry F. Correia, International Lord Of Hate


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Epic Blog-Traffic Fail At Chuckles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs
American Thinker: The New Iron Triangle
Blackfive: Free Book For You
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Trigger Warning – You Put Your Assumption In My Self-Esteem
Conservatives4Palin: Ed Rogers – Democrats’ Koch Distraction Won’t Save Them In November
Don Surber: Governor Tomblin Can Rescue The Nation’s Retirees
Jammie Wearing Fools: Brain Patient Can’t Find Doctors Thanks To Obamacare
Joe For America: Issa Launches Investigation Into Obama/Reid Involvement In BLM Land Grab
JustOneMinute: Who Will Explain The Explainers?
Pat Dollard: “I Don’t Want To Waste My Life Any More” – Glenn Beck Announces He’s Getting Out Of Politics
Protein Wisdom: On Federal Land Management, Desert Tortoises, And Range Wars
Shot In The Dark: Front Runner?
STUMP: Public Pension (And Public Policy) Enemies List: John Arnold And IPI
The Jawa Report: Israeli Hackers Expose Anonymous Members
The Lonely Conservative: “Why Is Noone Going To Jail?”
This Ain’t Hell: The Duffel Blog Gets Another One
Megan McArdle: Is Obama Cooking The Census Books For Obamacare?


Category: Linkagery

IRS Scandal: Smoking Gun?

Posted on | April 17, 2014 | 19 Comments

Using the tax agency to criminalize conservatives?

Judicial Watch today released a new batch of internal IRS documents revealing that former IRS official Lois Lerner communicated with the Department of Justice (DOJ) about whether it was possible to criminally prosecute certain tax-exempt entities. The documents were obtained as a result of an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the agency refused to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to May 2013.
The newly released IRS documents contain an email exchange between Lerner and Nikole C. Flax, then-Chief of Staff to then-Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller discussing plans to work with the DOJ  to prosecute nonprofit groups that “lied” (Lerner’s quotation marks) about political activities.

The thing that jumps off the page at me is that Lerner said Richard Pilger, director of the Election Crimes division at the Justice Department official was acting on a suggestion by Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. There are other important revelations, as Peter Roff at U.S. News observes:

In a rash of documents provided under the Freedom of Information Act to Judicial Watch, a non-partisan public interest law group, is an April 2013 email written by David Fish, acting manager of IRS Exempt Organizations Technical Guidance and Quality Assurance and sent to, among others, former IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner. It was part of a thread discussing a recent U.S. Senate hearing on the potential for the abuse of the 501(c)(4) tax status by organizations intervening inappropriately or improperly in candidate elections. . . .
Fish responds, “Tell Ruth she needs to get on the stick and that the next election cycle is around the corner. This is obviously a wonderful idea (that’s why we suggested it). I think you told Greg all you can tell him, unless you want to tell him that we’re taking guidance plan suggestions.”
The email is dated April 15, 2013 — well after initial allegations that the IRS had “slow-walked” the applications of conservative groups had been made and, by the agency, denied.
The “Ruth” mentioned in the message refers to Ruth Madrigal, an official at the U.S. Treasury Department. The “Greg” mentioned in Fish’s message is apparently a San Francisco-based attorney named Gregory Colvin, who started this chain with an e-mail to Lerner and Madrigal letting them know he has just testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism on the issue of whether officers of (c)(4) organizations who made false statements under penalty of perjury on tax returns “could be criminally prosecuted.”
The particular mention by Fish of the idea that “the next election cycle is around the corner” seems to any reasonable person to confirm or at least suggest higher-ups at the IRS including Lerner knew exactly what they were doing, had used their positions for partisan political purposes, and were continuing to do so even though the word about what they were doing had leaked out.
“The David Fish email proves the IRS originated and fed to Senate Democrats the idea of threatening conservatives with criminal prosecution for engaging in political speech — specifically with an eye towards the 2014 cycle. It’s the strongest proof yet that there should indeed be criminal prosecutions, not of conservatives but of the IRS bureaucrats who conspired to suppress them,” said Phil Kerpen, the president of American Commitment and one who has followed this issue closely since it first become public knowledge.

Read the whole thing. The point is that the IRS scandal isn’t over — it’s barely begun, because the real scandal is the cover-up.

There are so many subpoenaed documents that have yet to be produced, and the clearly evident pattern of stonewalling by administration officials cannot possibly be coincidental. The IRS, the Treasury Department and the Justice Department were all clearly acting at the behest of Democrats, including Sheldon Whitehouse and Elijah Cumming, to target conservative groups. And then, when that pattern of targeting became apparent, all of these officials started conspiring to conceal evidence of their wrongdoing.

 

Category: Scandal, Taxes

MSNBC’s War on Women: Why Has Network Abandoned Wendy Davis?

Posted on | April 17, 2014 | 15 Comments

Simple answer: Because she’s an embarrassing loser!

The liberal journalists at MSNBC have been quite enamored with Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, constantly promoting her Democratic campaign. Yet, a new poll showing her trailing by 14 points has gone unmentioned on the network. Even more interesting, Republican candidate Greg Abbott is beating Davis even among women, 49-41. The Public Policy Polling survey was released on Tuesday.

You’d think Rachel Maddow, at least, would still remember her erstwhile feminist girl-crush. But Rachel doesn’t love losers.

 

Category: Abortion, Election, MSNBC, Texas

New York Times: Not Fit to Line the Cage of Any Self-Respecting Parakeet

Posted on | April 17, 2014 | 16 Comments

What associations of a mass murderer are most important? In the case of the Boston Marathon bombers, the New York Times didn’t seem to think Islamic extremism was very important, but in the case of the Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooter . . .

The New York Times resolutely refused to see a pattern of jihad on the part of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in its sympathetic front-page Tuesday profile of his prison conditions. Yet on Wednesday the Times ran an op-ed that used an anti-Semitic killer in Kansas to represent the hidden domestic terror threat of military veterans. . . .
Kathleen Belew’s op-ed on anti-Semitic killer Frazier Glenn Miller appeared Wednesday under an offensive headline and illustration, “Veterans and White Supremacy.”

When Frazier Glenn Miller shot and killed three people in Overland Park, Kan., on Sunday, he did so as a soldier of the white power movement: a groundswell that united Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other fringe elements after the Vietnam War, crested with the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, and remains a diminished but potent threat today.
Mr. Miller, the 73-year-old man charged in the killings, had been outspoken about his hatred of Jews, blacks, Communists and immigrants, but it would be a mistake to dismiss him as a crazed outlier. The shootings were consistent with his three decades of participation in organized hate groups. His violence was framed by a clear worldview. . . .
The number of Vietnam veterans in that movement was small — a tiny proportion of those who served — but Vietnam veterans forged the first links between Klansmen and Nazis since World War II. They were central in leading Klan and neo-Nazi groups past the anti-civil rights backlash of the 1960s and toward paramilitary violence. . . . Its members carried weapons like those they had used in Vietnam, and used boot-camp rhetoric to frame their pursuit of domestic enemies. . . .
Before his 1979 discharge for distributing racist literature, Mr. Miller served for 20 years in the Arm, including two tours in Vietnam and service as a Green Beret. . . .

Belew backtracked two decades to bring up Tim McVeigh — make that “Army veteran” Tim McVeigh, before concluding that veterans don’t get sufficient scrutiny as domestic terror threats.

Read the whole thing at Newsbusters. The 9/11 hijackers who killed nearly 3,000 people and took down the World Trade Center? To blame their religion for that act of terrorism would be unfairly prejudicial, you see. But smearing military veterans for the act of a hateful criminal? That’s perfectly acceptable to the New York Times.

Exit Question One: Has the New York Times ever examined Jared Loughner’s obsession with the conspiracy video Zeitgeist?

Exit Question Two: What about terroristic violence — such as the 1981 Nyack armored car robbery — committed by those associated with 1960s left-wing radicals like the Weather Underground?

 

Category: Media Bias, New York Times, Terrorism

For Which He Cannot Be Forgiven

Posted on | April 16, 2014 | 51 Comments

The sordid details of the Doug Phillips sex scandal have so disturbed me that I am tempted to say some very un-Christian things.

You might want to go read this article at World Magazine — be sure to read all four pages — which references the fact that last month, Phillips had the effrontery to threaten legal action against Peter Bradrick, Jordan Muela, and Bob Renaud, three Christian colleagues who attempted to hold him accountable.

Forgive my un-Christian thoughts about that, OK?

Go read what Doug Phillips wrote about Lourdes Torres in 2003.

Now go read what (allegedly) he did to Lourdes beginning in 2007.

Perhaps you are also having un-Christian thoughts about Doug Phillips now. Extremely violent un-Christian thoughts.

Some of his deluded followers refused to recognize that Phillips “isn’t just an adulterer, he’s an abusive narcissistic sociopath”:

Sadly, there remain thousands of home schoolers who just don’t get it. They’ve learned nothing from the example of the disastrous life of Doug Phillips. They don’t recognize they were conned by a huckster, a carnival barker, a facile manipulator.

Professor Donald Douglas is likewise disgusted with all this, and calls attention to the very worst thing Doug Phillips did: He gave Amanda Marcotte a reason to gloat. Maybe Jesus can forgive that. Not me.

UPDATE: You may want to read Jennifer Epstein’s long but very informative first-person account of what church governance was like under Doug Phillips’ leadership. Let me stipulate that, if I were trying to build a harmonious congregation, I might be reluctant to have Jennifer Epstein as a member. On the other hand, the church governance under Phillips was autocratic and unhelpful to a couple in need. The worst of it was when Phillips had his attorney send Epstein’s husband a letter threatening legal action for slander, libel and blackmail. There is simply no need for such behavior among Christians. If reconciliation is impossible, just walk away and be done with it, but threatening a lawsuit? Crazy.

 

Category: Religion, Scandal, Sex

‘Repeated Requests for Phillips to Stop Masturbating and Ejaculating on Her’

Posted on | April 16, 2014 | 89 Comments

Doug Phillips and his wife Beall (left); Lourdes Torres (right)

“This kind of behavior is so bizarre — no matter which version of the story you believe, even if you take Doug’s own version of the story — it’s so bizarre and inappropriate that he needs to get his life in order and not be thinking about how quickly he can come back into leadership.”
— Michael Farris, Home School Legal Defense Association

Doug Phillips is an attorney by training and you might suppose he would have considered a settlement at any price preferable to the detailed lawsuit filed this week by Lourdes Torres-Manteufel.

Last fall, when Phillips confessed to an “inappropriate relationship” with his family’s babysitter, and resigned from the Christian homeschool non-profit Vision Forums Ministries, I wrote that “her identity must already be known by everyone who knows the Phillips family,” and predicted:

So she will no doubt eventually step out of the shadows and tell the whole sordid tale.
Or maybe collect a large payment to keep her mouth shut.

Let’s be honest, OK? There must be a lot of publishers who would pay good money for a Shocking Sex Scandal story like this, and if you don’t want to see the Sympathetic Victim crying on TV while she’s interviewed about her tell-all book, you gotta pay.

Alas, the same arrogance that made Phillips think he could get away with his double life — hypocritically posing as a “family values” spokesman while sexually pursuing this young girl — now evidently leads him to think he can escape the obvious consequences.

The woman was 15 when she met Phillips in 1999 through her parents’ involvement in the homeschooling movement. She was 23 when she said the relationship became sexual. She recently married Nolan Manteufel. In response to an article published at WorldNetDaily, Phillips’ attorney sent an e-mail that blamed the victim:

While it may be true that Mr. Phillips had an intermittent relationship with Mrs. Lourdes Torres-Manteufel, they never had the physical intimacy of touching and/or the exposure of genitalia, nor did the intermittent relationship escalate to sexual intercourse. Furthermore, the evidence demonstrates the relationship was consensual and often initiated, encouraged, and aggressively perpetuated by Mrs. Torres-Manteufel. It was welcomed, consensual and one in which Mrs. Torres-Manteufel repeatedly requested money, trips, jewelry, and numerous special favors from Doug Phillips.

The attorney’s e-mail said the accuser’s claims are “false, defamatory and made with malicious intent to destroy Doug Phillips, his family and his ministry.” And yet Torres-Manteufel makes these claims in a lawsuit, which suggests she intends to prove them in a court of law. Do I claim to know what transpired between her and Phillips? I do not. But I can report what she alleges in her lawsuit:

Douglas Phillips used Ms. Torres — against her wishes and over her objections — as a personal sex object. Douglas Phillips repeatedly groped, rubbed, and touched Ms. Torres’s crotch, breasts, and other areas of her body; rubbed his penis on her; masturbated on her; forced her to watch him masturbate on her; and ejaculated upon her. This perverse and offensive conduct repeatedly took place over the course of several years. . . .
Douglas Phillips — standing in a position of influence and prominence within patriarchy — methodically groomed Ms. Torres so that she would eventually participate in illicit sexual rendezvous with him promising that she could one day marry him. This grooming began when Ms. Torres was a fifteen-year-old child. . . .
Phillips promised Ms. Torres that he would marry her and that she would be the person who would have the great privilege of being his wife. . . . Phillips repeatedly told Torres that this was possible because his wife, Beall Phillips, was going to die soon. . . .
While Ms. Torres was living with Douglas Phillips and his family in October of 2007, Douglas Phillips entered Ms. Torres’s bedroom and without her consent began touching her breasts, stomach, back, neck, and waist. Phillips then began to masturbate and ejaculated on her. Ms. Torres asked Phillips to stop and broke down crying. Despite Ms. Torres’s repeated requests for Phillips to stop masturbating and ejaculating on her, Phillips proceeded to return and repeat this perverse and offensive conduct. Each night that Phillips returned, Ms. Torres requested that he stop. Defendant blatantly disregarded her requests but continued to masturbate and ejaculate on her each night.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think one request — “Hey, Mr. Phillips, stop masturbating and ejaculating on me” — should be enough.

How do we weigh her claims against the assertion by Phillips’ lawyer that this relationship “was consensual and often initiated, encouraged, and aggressively perpetuated” by the girl? Does it make any sense that she would have “initiated” this kind of behavior?

Despite the effort by Phillips’ attorney to intimidate reporters by labeling Torres-Manteufel’s allegations “false, defamatory . . . malicious” (implied: “Don’t report her claims or we might sue you”) she had been telling her tale privately for months before she sued. And from versions of the story that have emerged online, we can get an idea of how the situation was handled:

In 2007, illicit relationship became sexual…the victim began spending more time in the Phillips home and with the Phillips family. She was considered a close family friend…Phillips employed Victim to write Jonathan Park radio drama scripts with his daughter in an effort to spend more time with her. This was a paid position and provided Doug more opportunities to spend more time with Victim in his home after his children had gone to bed.
In 2009, Victim’s mother caught Doug Phillips and Victim having sexual-based chat sessions in the middle of the night. Doug, his wife, Beall, and Victim’s parents met. This was the first time Doug and Beall and Victim’s parents met together. Doug confessed to having romantic feelings for Victim, but there was no acknowledgement of any sexual impropriety.
In October 2010, Beall Phillips was made aware of the adulterous nature of the relationship when Victim’s mother informed her that Doug and Victim had been kissing.
Summer 2011 Doug told Victim they were soul mates. He told her he loved her and had promised they’d eventually get married and have children together.
In December 2012, Doug’s double life began to unravel when he was caught trying to climb in Victim’s bedroom window…followed by another private meeting between Doug, Beall, and Victim’s parents. They agreed to keep things quiet.

That is a secondhand version of the story and I cannot vouch for its accuracy. However, if it is true that the girl’s parents became aware of the problem in 2009, that his wife knew about it in 2010, and if Doug Phillips was caught trying to climb through the girl’s window (!!!) in 2012, then the specter of this sordid sex scandal has been looming like a shadow over him for at least five years.

Perhaps this train wreck could have been averted, but the same arrogance that originally caused Phillips’ behavior also caused him to think he could somehow keep the whole thing from becoming public.

And now that it has become public, Phillips has his lawyer sending threatening letters to journalists who report on the story?

“Hey, Mr. Phillips, stop masturbating and ejaculating on me.”

He should have listened the first time.

 

Category: Religion, Scandal, Sex

How @ClaireShipman Ironically Proves Phyllis Schlafly Right About the ‘Pay Gap’

Posted on | April 16, 2014 | 27 Comments

The Left has been going nuts over an argument veteran conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly made about the “pay gap” between men and women. Schlafly referred to the pervasive phenomenon of hypergamy, i.e., “women typically choose a mate (husband or boyfriend) who earns more than she does.” Sociologists would say it is not merely higher income, but higher socio-economic status in general — including such factors as educational background — implicated in hypergamy. Women’s preference for high-status husbands is indisputable, as Schlafly says:

While women prefer to HAVE a higher-earning partner, men generally prefer to BE the higher-earning partner in a relationship. This simple but profound difference between the sexes has powerful consequences for the so-called pay gap.
Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate.
Obviously, I’m not saying women won’t date or marry a lower-earning men, only that they probably prefer not to. If a higher-earning man is not available, many women are more likely not to marry at all.

This set off all kinds of shrieky reactions on the Left, with Think Progress headlining their item, “Prominent Republican: Women Need To Be Paid Less So They Can Find Husbands.” But this distortion of Schlafly’s meaning only shows (a) the dishonesty of the Left and/or (b) their willful ignorance of social science. The truth of her observation — that any policy aimed at closing “the so-called pay gap” would diminish women’s prospects for finding higher-earning husbands, and thus make marriage less likely — cannot be disputed by facts or logic. But this is not the same as Schlafly saying “women need to be paid less.” Schlafly rightly regards the “pay gap” as evidence of how men and women make different choices that reflect their personal preferences. The gap is not explained by sexist discrimination, Schlafly says, but by human nature.

Well, ABC’s Claire Shipman shows up on the cover of The Atlantic, along with the BBC’s Katty Kay, presenting a feature, “Closing the Confidence Gap: Even successful women lack self-assurance at work. Men have too much.” Leaving unexamined their thesis, let’s focus in on certain biographical data Shipman supplied:

Claire . . . had a habit of telling people she was “just lucky” — in the right place at the right time — when asked how she became a CNN correspondent in Moscow while still in her 20s. And she, too, for years, routinely deferred to the alpha-male journalists around her, assuming that because they were so much louder, so much more certain, they just knew more. She subconsciously believed that they had a right to talk more on television. But were they really more competent? Or just more self-assured?

Check Wikipedia: The daughter of an Ohio State University law professor, Shipman graduated from Columbia University, where she studied Russian before landing an internship with CNN. So if she was “just lucky” to be posted to Moscow, she was highly qualified.

Ah, but what about those “alpha-male journalists”? She married her boss: CNN Moscow bureau chief Stephen Hurt was 44 and Shipman was 28 when they married in 1991. After she returned to the United States, Shipman and her first husband separated in 1996, and soon she began dating Time magazine White House correspondent Jay Carney, whose Russian language studies at Yale University had also helped him land a Moscow bureau assignment in the 19990s. Shipman went from one “alpha-male journalist” husband to another.

Perhaps many older professional women like Claire Shipman, now 51, take for granted the availability of high-achieving husbands. Perhaps she does not consider the advantages — not to say privilege — conferred on her by her father’s status as a university law professor, nor does she think of the career advantage she might have gained by marrying the CNN Moscow bureau chief. No one need disparage Shipman’s abilities and hard work in saying that her connections with high-status males (first her father, and then her two husbands) have been beneficial to her.

So, what about that “pay gap”? As Phyllis Schlafly says, any policy that could eliminate the “pay gap” would, of necessity, reduce the number of men in higher-paying jobs. Young women in the future would have less opportunity to access the kind of advantages that Claire Shipman derived from her association with high-status males.

Schlafly, a very influential and successful woman, cannot be stereotyped as someone who is opposed to female achievement. The rhetoric coming from the Left in regard to the “pay gap” instead reflects feminist hostility to male achievement, and proposes to inhibit male achievement by coercive government policies to bring about an artificial regime of “equality” — a condition that could only be implemented by discouraging the hiring and promotion of men.

Such policies probably would not much harm the children of the elite — Claire Shipman and Jay Carney’s son and daughter — but what would be the effect on the middle and lower classes?

Answer: The policy-making elite don’t give a damn about them.

As long as liberals can congratulate themselves on doing their part for Equality and Progress — Shipman and Carney decorate their  home with Soviet-era posters —  they are indifferent to the actual impact of their policies on the lives of the toiling masses.

And of course, there is a “pay gap” at the White House, as if anyone needed further proof of liberal hypocrisy.

 

Category: Economics, Feminism
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