The Other McCain

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

The ‘Emerging Awareness’ Continues

Posted on | January 14, 2014 | 105 Comments

Same-sex marriage was illegal in all 50 states as recently as 2003. That was the year in which Justice Anthony Kennedy invoked the “emerging awareness” doctrine in the Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas ruling:

In all events we think that our laws and traditions in the past half century are of most relevance here. These references show an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex.

From this decision — premised on the oddly arbitrary claim that “laws and traditions” antedating 1953 are invalid or irrelevant “in matters pertaining to sex” — it was a swift race to the point at which a federal judge appointed in 1994 by President Clinton could declare that a state constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage was unconstitutional:

A federal judge in Oklahoma ruled Tuesday that the state’s constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage violated the federal Constitution, the latest in a string of legal victories for gay rights and one that occurred in the heart of the Bible Belt.
The state’s ban on marriage by gay and lesbian couples is “an arbitrary, irrational exclusion of just one class of Oklahoma citizens from a governmental benefit,” wrote Judge Terence C. Kern of United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, in Tulsa, deciding a case that had languished for nine years. The amendment, he said, is based on “moral disapproval” and does not advance the state’s asserted interests in promoting heterosexual marriage or the welfare of children. . . .
The Oklahoma amendment under question, stating that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman,” was adopted by referendum in 2004 with 75 percent of the vote.

So, the votes of 75 percent of Oklahoma’s citizens are invalid, because the “emerging awareness” doctrine declares that 5,000 years of human tradition constitute “an arbitrary, irrational exclusion.”

 

Category: Gays, Marriage

Another Community Organizer Non-Victory In New York

Posted on | January 14, 2014 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

Via Insty, Richard Epstein alludes to a bummer of a tale in New York:

“After Winning a Raise, 175 Workers At a Queens Casino Lose Their Jobs.” That result would never have happened if the workers had won their raises by demonstrating higher levels of productivity to their employer, The Resorts World Casino. Instead, these wage increases were dictated by a labor arbitrator who doubled the base wages for workers in the casino under the living wage arrangement that he imposed on the firm.
No one should be thrilled that restaurant workers have to settle for wages of $5 per hour plus tips. But a steady job at that level is better than no job at the $12 base pay ordered by the arbitrator. The casino sought to raise food prices to compensate for the increased costs, but the law of demand applies to consumers as well. In hard times, they won’t stand for the increased prices, so the casino closed a food operation that could only operate at a loss, leaving 175 union members to scramble for jobs.

I’m no fan of casinos, not being bothered even to play the lottery. For a better rebuttal, and lest you think me too pious, allow me to introduce a bit of Frank Zappa, with a reggae-driven rebuttal for union idiocy everywhere. This is FZ, which is short for NSFW for those not In The Know.

You can enjoy the tune before or after reading the whole of the article.

Category: Unions

The Rocky Horror Dating Game: Translesbians Encounter Queer Hate

Posted on | January 14, 2014 | 86 Comments

Radical egalitarianism is a sort of philosophical insanity, premised as it is on the idea that everything is equal, even things that are fundamentally different. When you begin with an obvious falsehood as the premise of your argument, the conclusion will necessarily be madness.

Ten days ago, I brought you up-to-date about an emerging controversy on the extremist fringe. Radical feminists who wish to exclude trannies from their events are accused of “transphobia”:

RadFem 2013 was a conference in London, which resulted in a gigantic controversy because radical feminists insisted on excluding the “transgendered” from their female-only event, and one of the featured speakers, Australian lesbian feminist Professor Sheila Jeffreys, was about to publish a new book, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism, that was deeply offensive to the “T” people represented in the LGBT acronym.
How crazy did that conflict become? At one point in April, the venue tried to cancel the event after discovering that “certain language was used and some statements were made about transgender people that would go against our equalities and diversity policy.” Another RadFem conference organizer, Cathy Brennan of Baltimore, was meanwhile all over Twitter announcing “transwomen are men” and comparing them to MRAs (men’s rights advocates).

 Brennan’s outspoken hostility to “transwomen” — including those she calls “Pretendbians” — takes it to a whole new level of crazy:

Basically, Cathy Brennan is the Fred Phelps of radical lesbian feminists. Brennan’s message seems to be, “Feminism is for man-hating socialist homosexual perverts and we don’t want to associate with a bunch of surgically mutilated psychotic freaks.”

Gosh, it’s kind of hard to choose sides here, isn’t it?

One radical feminist (who evidently rejects capitalization as misogynistic oppression) offers this diatribe against “transwomen”:

whereas transwomen’s “problems” would not be solved if feminism succeeded — that means transwomens problems are male problems, and do not implicate male power or womens oppression by men, which are the kinds of problems feminists are interested in solving.  post-patriarchy, transwomen would definitely not be let into female-only space, for example.  and insofar as transwomen depend on global female oppression to define and maintain their identities, and depend on subjugated females on which to model their feminine behaviors, and insofar as born-women not coddling transwomen is a “problem” for transwomen, transwomens problems will actually be made worse when and if patriarchy falls, because they would not be able to express their gender properly, the entire concept — or the parts of which are dependent on female oppression — having been abolished.  and because NO ONE would put up with their shit.

In the vocabulary of “gender studies” intellectuals, the prefix “cis-” has been popularized as the antonym of “trans-,” so that someone who is born female and identifies as such as is a “ciswoman.” That explanation is necessary to understanding — insofar as the rantings of a deranged lunatic can be understood by sane people — the romantic complaints of translesbian Julia Serano:

About two years ago, my ex and I split up after being together for nearly a decade. She was a cis queer woman who was supportive when I transitioned a few years into our relationship, and we were monogamous during the lion’s share of our time together. This meant that for the first time in a decade, I would be re-entering the dating scene. This could be somewhat disconcerting for any person, but there were a few compounding factors that made it especially . . . well, let’s say “interesting” . . . for me. First, this would be the first time that I would be dating people as a woman. Furthermore, while I had dated queer women before my transition, this would be my first time formally dating within the queer women’s community. On top of that, around this same time, after years of identifying as a lesbian, I came out as bisexual, so I also planned on dating men.

To clarify: Julia Serano was born a man. His/her ex-girlfriend is a lesbian “who was supportive when I transitioned,” but now they’re split and so the bisexual post-transition shemale is looking for love “within the queer women’s community.”

And you thought your love life was complicated, eh?

One trans woman friend told me about how she recently met a cis dyke, and they were really hitting it off, until she realized that this person was misreading her for a person on the trans masculine spectrum. When my friend told the cis dyke that she was in fact a trans woman, the cis dyke seemed to immediately lose interest.

Oops. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

On numerous occasions I have looked over the “w4w” [i.e., women for women] section of Craigslist, but it inevitably leaves me traumatized. There is so much trans hate speech on that site, and the very few ads that mention being open to trans are specifically looking for trans men or tranny bois, not trans women.

Isn’t that wonderful? After you get a sex-change operation, you’re allowed to describe romantic rejection as “hate speech”!

 I also find it ironic that cis dykes — many of whom pride themselves on their progressive politics and subversive sexualities — tend to be far more conservative and conforming to our culture’s yuck-dating-a-trans-woman-is-gross mindset than their cis male counterparts, at least here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am also embarrassed as a queer for the fact that so many straight cis men have worked through, or are beginning to work through, their own issues regarding trans women, whereas most cis queer women refuse to even consider the possibility that they even have an issue.

In other words, if you are a lesbian who doesn’t date trannies, you have “issues” you need to “work through.”

Sexual attraction is a complex phenomenon, and of course there is lots of individual variation. I certainly do not expect every cis queer woman to swoon over me. And if it were only a small percentage of cis dykes who were not interested in trans women at all, I would write it off as simply a matter of personal preference. But this not a minor problem—it is systemic; it is a predominant sentiment in queer women’s communities. And when the overwhelming majority of cis dykes date and fuck cis women, but are not open to, or are even turned off by, the idea of dating or fucking trans women, how is that not transphobic? And to those cis women who claim a dyke identity, yet consider trans men, but not trans women, to be a part of your dating pool, let me ask you this: How are you not a hypocrite?
I did not write this piece to vent about my dating life. I go out on plenty of dates, and I’m having lots of super-fucking-awesome sex, just not with cis women at the moment. My purpose in writing this piece is to highlight how cis dykes’ unwillingness to consider trans women as legitimate partners translates directly into a lack of community for queer-identified trans women.

Stop the presses! Queer-identified trans women are suffering from “a lack of community”! And if you don’t agree that this is the most important issue in the world, you’re obviously a hater.

The good news? Even radical lesbian feminists can be haters now.

“All is proceeding as I have foreseen.”

 

Category: Feminism, Gays, Sex

Up Through the Ranks, Under the Bus

Posted on | January 14, 2014 | 24 Comments

Have you heard about Clint Lorance? In 2002, the Texan enlisted in the Army on his 18th birthday, and was promoted to sergeant in two years. In 2005, he earned his Airborne wings at Fort Benning. Sgt. Lorance was deployed to Iraq with the 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team from September 2006 to November 2007. Upon returning stateside, Sgt. Lorance enrolled in an officer training course and in 2010 was commissioned a second lieutenant. Assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, Lt. Lorance deployed to Afghanistan in March 2012:

During his deployment, Clint was the squadron’s liason officer to the commander until selected to become a platoon leader.
On July 02, 2012 while conducting an Afghan-Led dismounted patrol into an afghan village, the Afghan Army element on the joint patrol began to engage what they thought were Taliban. Worried that the Afghan Soldiers are poor marksmen and would likely cause collateral damage, Clint ordered his gun truck to fire two precision shots at the Taliban. As the platoon moved through the village, the intelligence analysts intercepted several radio transmissions indicating the Taliban could see the Platoon in plain view. There was an existential enemy threat in the area. From the beginning of the patrol, US helicopters were radioing LT Lorance’s patrol indicating confirmed enemy activity in the area, the description of the enemy matched exactly the enemy combatants the patrol initially engaged with the two precision shots. A few moments Later in the patrol in the same village, Clints Soldiers captured one Afghan on a motorcycle who was later confirmed as a Taliban.

Lt. Clint Lorance was subsequently charged with murder and in October 2013 was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Here was a soldier who had devoted nearly 10 years of his life to his nation’s service, who had come up through the ranks from private to lieutenant, whose previous record as a soldier was unblemished.

However, in a situation of extreme danger — a battlefield environment in which guerrillas and terrorists were a menace to the lives of Americans and Afghans alike — Lt. Lorance was accused of violating the rules of engagement and convicted of murder.

“He made the statement to his soldiers that
he would bring them home to their families
and that’s what he intended to do.”

Does this seem right to you? It sure as hell doesn’t seem right to me.

His family has a Web site devoted to this issue.

 


Category: Military

The IRS Scandal Cover-Up

Posted on | January 14, 2014 | 20 Comments

Use of the Internal Revenue Service to harass the President’s political Enemies List? That’s not a crime. Entrusting investigation of the IRS scandal to Attorney General Eric Holder? Nothing suspicious about that. Most Transparent Administration in History™!

The DOJ lawyer who’s heading the investigation is an Obama donor and the FBI, after seven months of supposedly investigating this, only recently contacted tea-party groups targeted by the IRS. But other than that, everything here seems legit.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

 

Category: Corruption, Scandal, Taxes

Diversity, Ethnic Studies and Phone Sex

Posted on | January 14, 2014 | 16 Comments

Rounding up the escalating madness, That Mr. G Guy asked, “What the hell is wrong with these people?” Indeed, the craziness has become ubiquitous, especially among our nation’s intellectual elite:

The University of Colorado at Denver does not plan to seek the dismissal of an administrator who was placed on leave after the revelation that she was running a phone sex service, CBS Denver 4 reported. The TV network has also found that she ran an escort service. The administrator — Resa Cooper-Morning, cultural diversity coordinator in the university’s ethnic studies department — has declined to comment, and her lawyer has denied any wrongdoing.
A spokesman for the university said: “We’ve been unable to establish that Ms. Cooper-Morning engaged in criminal activity nor have we been able to determine that she operated her outside businesses while on the job. The university does not condone Ms. Cooper-Morning’s activities, but under the law, there are limits on actions that employers can take regarding off-duty conduct of employees. In the absence of additional information, Ms. Cooper-Morning remains employed by the university.”

There is apparently no rule in the university’s policy that prevents administrator’s from running escort services or selling phone sex, so long as they engage in these activities “off-duty.” It’s merely a hobby, no different than Professor Glenn Reynolds’ blog.

 

Category: Education, Sex

LIVE AT FIVE: 01.14.14

Posted on | January 14, 2014 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Dozens Of Tradeoffs In $1.1 Trillion Budget Bill

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY)

“Slashing spending” with “only a 13% increase”; Tea Party Caucus expected to oppose


Pope Says “Throwaway Culture” Behind Abortion And Famine
Says this mindset is a threat to peace


WV Begins Lifting Tapwater Ban
Bans lifted in several areas of West Virginia



POLITICS
FBI Doesn’t Plan Charges Over IRS Harassment Of Tea Party

Rep. Michele Bachmann addresses a Tea Party rally in June 2013

WSJ reports Feds not finding political bias or enemy hunting

Journalists Flock To Jobs In Obama Administration

Supremes Skeptical Of Obama’s Recess Appointments

Proposed Spy Phone Record Shift Draws Resistance

Obama Dodges Questions On Gates Book

Government Spends Millions On Penis Pumps, Paid Twice Retail Price

“Octomom” Charged With Welfare Fraud In California



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Continues Slide Despite Iran Nuke Deal: NYMEX $91.81, Brent $106.68
Insurers Raise Cost Concerns After Obamacare Demographics Released
Japan Stocks Suffer Worst Day In Five Years After Weak US Jobs Report
Charter Offers $61 Billion For Time Warner Cable
Suntory To Buy Jim Beam For $13.6 Billion Cash
Pizza Hut To Offer Pizza By The Slice In Two Test Markets
Google Buys Wi-Fi Thermostat Company Nest For $3.2 Billion
Microsoft To Launch Windows 9 In 2015?
Huawei Readies Android Game Console For PRC Market
Ubuntu Touch Device Support Dwindles
Facebook Buys Social Media Startup Branch



SPORTS
Rodriguez Sues MLB, Players’ Union To Overturn Ban

Not content with arbitrator’s reduction to 162 games

Accuses MLBPA of bad faith
Seven Random Sports News Items More Interesting Than A-Rod

Howard, Rockets Pocket Win In Boston

Jets Rout Coyotes, Halt Five-Game Skid For New Coach’s Debut


#1 UConn Women Snap Baylor’s 69-Game Home Streak

Blue Jackets Win Fourth Straight On Letetsu’s Late Power Play Goal

#15 Kansas Beats #8 Iowa State, Remains Unbeaten In Big 12

One Goal Enough As Kings Hold Off Canucks In Chippy Game

Are The Nats Done Adding Lefties To The Mix?



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Jennifer Lawrence Photobombs Taylor Swift At Golden Globes

Us Magazine awards her the red carpet


Shouldn’t the theme from “Jaws” be playing?
Ryan Seacrest: “Single most important photo from 2014 Golden Globes”

Man Killed After Dispute Over Texting In Theater

Sorkin’s “Newsroom” Renewed For Third & Final Season

Ashlee Simpson Engaged To Evan Ross

Disney CEO Bob Iger: “Frozen” Shows Disney Animation Back In The Groove

MTV’s Much-Derided “16 And Pregnant” May Resonate As A Cautionary Tale

Remainder Of “Glee” Season Five To Be Set In New York

Jessie Williams Welcomes Daughter Sadie

Charlize Theron Convinces New BF Sean Penn To Give Up His Guns

Justin Bieber’s Bad Egg Caused $20K In Damage

Kanye West Allegedly Assaults Teenager Who Shouts Racist Slur At Unspeakable Armenian



FOREIGNERS
Egypt Goes To The Polls to Vote On Constitution
Eulogies Praise Former PM Ariel Sharon
At Least 200 Die In Ferry Sinking As Refugees Flee South Sudan
PRC Court Sentences Doctor To Death For Baby Trafficking
Charities Pledge $400 Million To Syria Aid
Revealed: The Dying Remorse Of Mikhail Kalashnikov
Nigeria Bans Gay Marriage
US Journalist Claims He’s Been Expelled From Russia



BLOGS & STUFF
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Queens Principal Marcella Sills Has A History Of Aggressive Incompetence
The Looking Spoon: The Story Of American Decadence Hollywood Will Never Tell and Obama’s Support (Even Among His Base) Dwindles For A Simple Reason
Michelle Malkin: Beware The Left-Wing Funded “Main Street Republicans”
Twitchy: “OMFG The Pope Is Catholic!” Unreal – Is This The Most Absurdly Unreal Reuters Headline Ever?
American Power: Warehousing Students At New York’s PS 106
American Thinker: Obama’s Internal Devaluation Causes Income Inequality
Blackfive: Heroine – Brit Army Medic Kylie Watson Receives The Military Cross
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Get What’s Not Yours
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, January 13
Jammie Wearing Fools: Pew Poll – Christie “Scandal” Draws Little Public Interest
JustOneMinute: It’s The Best That Could Happen
Pat Dollard: Benghazi Transcripts Show Top Defense Officials Briefed Obama On Terror Attack, Not Video Or Protest
Protein Wisdom: “Supreme Court To Weigh Constitutionality Of Obama Power Grab”
Shot In The Dark: One Day At Independence Party HQ
The Jawa Report: Stunning Snowden Revelation – Racist Aliens Behind US Power
The Lonely Conservative: Hillary Has An Enemies List Too
This Ain’t Hell: Clint Cleaver, Phony Army And MC Clubber
Megan McArdle: You Can’t Have A Conversation About Sexism At Gunpoint


Category: Live at Five

#UniteBlue In Which @7serf7 Denies Being Convicted Felon Bill Talley

Posted on | January 13, 2014 | 11 Comments

Background: In April 2013, liberal blogger Matt Osborne — someone I hate nearly as much as he hates me — wrote a long post exposing the fact that Bill Talley, who had been an activist in the #UniteBlue progressive online group, had recently pleaded guilty to multiple felonies, including possession of child pornography. Osborne’s “burn notice” of Talley was part of an internecine fight among two groups of liberal activists. Osborne was allied with Matt “Shoq” Edelstein’s #StopRush boycott network which, evidently, viewed #UniteBlue as illegitimate rivals. That aspect of the story is interesting, but ultimately irrelevant to claims by some #UniteBlue activists that Osborne got certain important facts wrong, e.g., these claims about @7serf7:

Talley’s known Twitter accounts:
@Political_Bill
@Strategic_Bill
@Healthcare_Bill
@Sleeping_Bill
@Politaire
@7serf7 . . .
William Talley has outed himself as @7serf7, an account that is still wearing a Unite Blue twibbon (see slideshow below). @7serf7 has doxed and harassed Twitter users who exposed Talley or criticized Unite Blue over him. . . .
The Twitter account @7serf7 has been identified as a sock puppet account of William Talley by multiple independent observers. While insisting this identification is not true, the account does engage in pedophilia advocacy. . . .
Two of [Talley’s] sock puppet accounts, @7serf7 and @politaire, both actively conversed with users who made a great show of unfollowing @Political_Bill. On Tuesday, @7serf7 and @politaire indicated they may be “taking time off” from Twitter; the next day, the accounts were alternately protected or tweeting with new voices.
At this time, Steven Hatlestad, a key figure in the doxing and harassment activity that characterized the flame war over William Talley, appears to be running @politaire; Aurora Grajeda aka @cihuamexica was clearly tweeting through @7serf7.

When the Talley story came to my attention, I cited Osborne’s post at length and used the word “reportedly” to describe the association Osborne alleged between Talley and various Twitter accounts, including @7serf7. Now, @7serf7 has claimed that this was libel — which it quite obviously was not. Nevertheless, because Bill Talley is now in prison and therefore not likely to have access to online social media accounts, it seems self-evident that whoever is currently operating the @7serf7 account is not Bill Talley.

You cannot libel a pseudonymous Internet account, because pseudonyms are just that, pseudonyms — fictional identities.

“George Spelvin” can’t file a libel suit. Q.E.D.

For that matter, as Brett Kimberlin is learning vis-a-vis “Kimberlin Unmasked,” trying to figure out who is actually behind a pseudonymous Internet account is actually quite difficult. There had been much speculation among Kimberlin’s allies about who was behind that account, but when Kimberlin went to court to get the person’s identity, the information provided didn’t point at anyone who had previously been a subject of their speculation.

This demonstrates the folly of most such speculation. For several weeks in 2012, I was lashed to and fro by people speculating that various Twitter accounts were sockpuppets for Neal Rauhauser who has at times boasted about his use of online “personas,” but who obviously cannot be behind every troll account on Twitter. There was similar speculation about other accounts, including the now defunct @OccupyRebellion. It is quite a popular game among some people to create online personas, and an equally popular game to try to “out” the people behind such personas.

All of which is relevant to the situation complained of by @7serf7 who, according to Osborne, “doxed and harassed Twitter users who exposed Talley or criticized Unite Blue over him.” In other words, @7serf7 was clearly an active ally of Talley and from this it was deduced that @7serf7 was in fact a Talley sockpuppet. If that deduction was incorrect, it was not illogical, and it can only be disproven by @7serf7 publicly identifying his or herself.

Finally, if @7serf7 has a complaint, it is against Matt Osborne, and not against me. If another blogger gets their facts wrong, and I link and quote that blogger, I do not thereby become responsible for their errors. Major news organizations also make mistakes, but I do not commit defamation by quoting Rachel Maddow’s lies.

People need to stop using the words “libel” and “defamation” every time somebody says something nasty about them. If I sued everybody who ever defamed me, I’d never have time to do anything else and, frankly, lawsuits are against my religion.

 

Category: Journalism, Liberals
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