The Other McCain

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

LIVE AT FIVESEVEN: 01.08.14

Posted on | January 8, 2014 | 6 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS

Gates: Obama Didn’t Believe His Own War Strategy

President Obama and then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates


Former SecDef delivers scathing critique of President Obama’s handling of the Afghan war in new memoir

Janet Yellen Confirmed As Fed Chairman
Fed vice chair moves into the top slot

Former Miss Venezuela Slain In Highway Robbery
Five-year-old daughter wounded but survived



POLITICS

NYC Disability Insurance Fraud Damage May Reach $400 Million

Photo from Facebook page of one of the accused

Former police, firemen accused of faking stress to cash in on Social Security disability payments

Poverty Level Under Obama Breaks 50-Year Record

Pro-Clinton Super PAC Raises $4 Million In 2013

Illegal Aliens Still Get Medicare, But Crackdown Vowed

Satanists Unveil Design For Oklahoma State Capitol Statue

Senate Okays Unemployment Extension; House Wants To Know Who’s Paying

Montana Judge Criticized In Rape Case To Retire

Tea Parties Launch Counterattack On IRS Nonprofit Rules

Rep. Radel Returns To Capitol Hill After Cocaine Plea



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Rises Ahead Of Stockpiles Report: NYMEX $93.89, Brent $107.42
Ford’s Mulally Won’t Take Microsoft CEO Job
Eurozone Unemployment At 12.1%
Wall Street Snaps Three-Day Skid As Hospitals, Insurers Gain
Natural Gas Rebounds As Record Cold Increases Demand
Kraft Announces Velveeta Shortage
$10 Billion Spent In App Store Last Year, Apple Says
Sony Promises Console Gaming Without The Console: Playstation Now
Facebook To Buy Android App Monitoring Tool Maker
With Sprint’s New Plan, Friends And Neighbors Can Be Your “Framily”
FLIR ONE Case Gives Your iPhone Thermal Vision



SPORTS
Lindsey Vonn Withdraws From Sochi Olympics

Lindsey Vonn in Vail, November 2013

Damage to skier’s injured knee worse than originally thought

Hall Of Fame Vote Sure To Draw Wrath Of Fans

Jeff Ireland Out As Dolphins GM


Bulls Trade Deng To Cavs, Beat Suns Anyway

Predators Edge Sharks 3-2

LeBron’s Big Third Quarter Lifts Heat Over Pelicans 107-88

MASN To Show Six Spring Training Games



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Jessica Simpson Shows Off Slimmed-Down Body On “Good Morning America”

#weightwatchers

Just fourteen months after second baby

Unspeakable Armenian Alleged To Have Photoshopped Her Butt Selfies

Former “Bachelorette” Emily Maynard Engaged To Tyler Johnson

Jake Gyllenhaal, Alysa Miller Break Up After Six Months

Young Jeezy Busted For False Imprisonment, Battery

“Paul Blart: Mall Cop” Sequel Finds A Director

Shakira: “I’m Not On Earth Just To Shake It And Shake It Endlessly”

Cougar Attack! Madonna’s New Toy Boy Revealed

It’s Official, Stan Lee To Appear On “Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Candace Cameron Bure Defends “Submissive” Role With Husband

Rozanda “Chilli” Thomas: I’m Not Dating Wayne Brady

Matt Reeves To Helm “Planet Of The Apes 3”



FOREIGNERS
Morsi’s Trial Adjourned Until February 1
Dennis Rodman Sings “Happy Birthday” To Great Successor After Outcry
No Truce In Turkey As Erdogan Sees Graft Probe As Coup
India Moves To End Expat Privileges At US Embassy As Diplomatic Row Escalates
PRC Ship To Pick Up Syrian Chem Weapons Materials
Thailand On Verge Of Declaring State Of Emergency
French Comic Seeks To Overturn Performance Ban
Spanish King’s Daughter Suspect In Financial Crimes
Grauniad Claims Website Blocked By PRC’s Great Firewall



BLOGS & STUFF
First Street Journal: It Wasn’t Working Anyway
Dead Republican Party: To Those Celebrating My Upcoming Demise
Proof Positive: Follow The Wampum
Doug Powers: Meet The Freudian Slip – David Gregory Interested To See How Obamacare “Unravels” In The Coming Year
Twitchy: Meteorologist Slams GMA, Hysteria-Pimping Media For “Polar Vortex” Science Fail
Laura Rosen Cohen: Another Delicious Victory For Team Steyn And Free Speech
American Power: Obsessed Hate-Troll Walter James Casper Attacks Mad Jewess With Despicable “Racist” Smear
American Thinker: They Will Lie To Your Casket
Blackfive: Special Forces Mortar Fire
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: #Occupy Celebrates Crony Capitalist De Blasio
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Obamacare Watch – Don’t Let Them Move The Goalposts
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, January 7
Jammie Wearing Fools: On Coldest Day In Decades, Loony Biden Lashes Out At Global Warming Deniers
JustOneMinute: Obama Quit In Afghanistan
Pat Dollard: 1000 Kilos Of Irony – CNN Hilariously Brings On Two Black Guys To Defend Smoking Weed Against Nancy Grace’s Stereotypes
Protein Wisdom: Everything Old And Sucky Is New And Sucky Again
Shot In The Dark: It’s Almost As If They Don’t Consider Perverse Incentives Perverse…
The Jawa Report: Fauxtography – The Syrian Massacre That Wasn’t
The Lonely Conservative: If You Want Decent Health Insurance Skip Obamacare And Get A Job At Walmart
This Ain’t Hell: Speaking Of Guns In Chicago…
Megan McArdle: Tweeting My Way Out Of Amtrak Hell


Amity Shlaes’ The Forgotten Man: Kindle edition is on sale for $2.99.

Category: Live at Five

Sociopathic Sadist Bill Schmalfeldt Vows: ‘One Way or Another, They Will Pay’

Posted on | January 7, 2014 | 19 Comments


John Hoge noticed Tuesday that (a) Bill Schmalfeldt is conveying a sense of panic, and (b) Schmalfeldt is claiming that “wingnuts” have damaged his “good name.” This is why he says we “will pay.”

Delusions of persecution  and grandiose revenge fantasies are typical of certain personality disorders and, although I have no specialized training in psychology, I know crazy when I see it.

One of Bill Schmalfeldt’s most noticeable traits is his love of making threats — The Dire Warning of Terrible Consequences — which seems closely related to his sadistic tendency. Schmalfeldt evidently enjoys trying to frighten people and relishes the thought of harming or humiliating others, as Ken White observed:

“Bill Schmalfeldt doesn’t have principles. Bill Schmalfeldt doesn’t have values. Bill Schmalfeldt doesn’t have beliefs. Bill Schmalfeldt has enemies, and then nothing, a black and dank and empty void of sullenness.”

Schmalfeldt is not only sadistic, but also exhibits two key traits of sociopathic personality: Habitual dishonesty, and an utter lack of empathy toward the feelings of others. He is irresponsible, externalizing blame for his failures on scapegoats, and this impairs his ability to avoid repeating mistakes. If you can’t accept responsibility for your own failures — if you refuse to recognize your own self-destructive tendencies — improvement is impossible.

This lack of self-awareness explains Schmalfeldt’s “double down” reaction to every conflict. No matter how clearly he is in the wrong, his fragile ego prevents him from backing away. Instead, he exaggerates (or creates from thin air) reasons to despise his antagonists, so that their wrongness, whether real or imagined, is always large enough in his mind to justify his sense of superiority.

Schmalfeldt’s deliberate escalation of his conflict with John Hoge is the pluperfect example of this tendency. And yet now — some 11 months after the events that started the escalation — Schmalfeldt presents himself as the hero-martyr, the sufferer of injustice, and acts outraged that no one is buying into his victimhood claims.

But why should they? His allies, no less than his enemies, have watched Bill Schmalfeldt boast and bully, threaten others with harm and gloat over their anticipated suffering. And now this tiresome braggart claims that he is a helpless victim? Puh-leeze.

No one could ever pity Bill Schmalfeldt as much as he pities himself.

 


Category: Bill Schmalfeldt

FMJRA 2.0: Once More Into The Tax Mines

Posted on | January 7, 2014 | 7 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

‘Pajama Boy’ as Rorshach Inkblot

Rule 5 Sunday: On Presuming To Be Modern

Gay Student Charged With Felonies in Weird Sexual Extortion Scheme

In The Mailbox, 01.01.14

A Lesson in Efficient Dictatorship

Facts the ‘Experts’ Never Mention

‘Descent Into Madness’

Four U.S. Troops Released in Libya

If He’s Lost Lawrence O’Donnell …

Another Fake Hate Crime? Arrest Discredits Tennessee Anti-Gay Case

Are You Ready for BBW Barbie?

FMJRA 2.0: 2013 Finale

Keep The Resistance Alive

Russia: 15 Killed in Suicide Bombing

Welcome Our New Robot Overlords

Success Is Its Own Defense

Kaitlyn Hunt’s Probation Page

Second Terror Bombing in Russia

In The Mailbox, 12.30.13

‘Unusually Thick Ice’ in Antarctica Traps Scientists With Unusually Thick Heads

Ten Years of AOSHQ Awesomeness

Game Hackers Launch DDOS, Target @PhantomL0rd for SWATting
UPDATE: In Video, Gamer Describes Police Raid With Automatic Weapons

In The Mailbox, 12.31.13

Unpopular Personality @MHarrisPerry on Obscure MSNBC Network Apologizes

‘U.S. Hate Preacher’?

Motions, Motions, Motions — Judge Grants Brett Kimberlin a Delay

REVEALED: Who Was On The Boat That Called The German Coast Guard?

Because @Deanofcomedy Isn’t Funny

‘The Central Prob. of Obamacare Will Not Yield to Technical or Rhetorical Solutions’

Prediction: 2014 Will Be Even Crazier

Holiday Tradition, Texas-Style

Bill Schmalfeldt’s Poor Judgment

In The Mailbox, 01.02.14

New Ads Target Senators: ‘It’s Time to Be Honest: ObamaCare Doesn’t Work’

Gas Leak Suspected Cause of Minneapolis ‘Little Mogadishu’ Explosion, Fire

Matt Yglesias: Solving Non-Problems

Florida: The Crazy State

In The Mailbox: 01.03.14

Lenient Drug Policy Yields Bad Result

In Which @alternatekev and @jaydot Conspire to Suppress Free Speech

Mental Illness and Radical Feminism

Late To The Antarctic Rescue News, But I Brought Beatallica

Top linkers this week:

  1. Rick’s Rants (40)
  2. EBL (33, including 20 from Batshit Crazy News)
  3. Dead Citizens Rights Society (13, including 1 from Dead Republican Party)
  4. Regular Right Guy (12)
  5. A View From The Beach (7)
  6. Blackmailers Don’t Shoot (6)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links for next weekend’s FMJRA will be noon on Saturday, January 11.


Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals

Category: FMJRA Award

In Which @AmandaHess Locates the Problem of Online Harassment

Posted on | January 7, 2014 | 37 Comments

She wants to believe that it is about sexism or misogyny, but as a guy who has experienced online harassment myself, I know this is false. Yes, women are in many ways particularly vulnerable to this — ask Michelle Malkin, Dana Loesch, Ann Coulter or Katie Pavlich — but the fundamental problem isn’t really about that:

On the one hand, it seemed unlikely that I’d soon be defiled and decapitated at the hands of a serial rapist-murderer. On the other hand, headlessfemalepig was clearly a deranged individual with a bizarre fixation on me. I picked up my phone and dialed 911.
Two hours later, a Palm Springs police officer lumbered up the steps to my hotel room, paused on the outdoor threshold, and began questioning me in a steady clip. I wheeled through the relevant background information: I am a journalist; I live in Los Angeles; sometimes, people don’t like what I write about women, relationships, or sexuality; this was not the first time that someone had responded to my work by threatening to rape and kill me. The cop anchored his hands on his belt, looked me in the eye, and said, “What is Twitter?” . . .
Andy Trotter, a communications adviser for the British police, announced that it was Twitter’s responsibility to crack down on the messages. . . . Police “don’t want to be in this arena.” It diverts their attention from “dealing with something else.” . . .
Abusers tend to operate anonymously, or under pseudonyms. But the women they target often write on professional platforms, under their given names, and in the context of their real lives. Victims don’t have the luxury of separating themselves from the crime. When it comes to online threats, “one person is feeling the reality of the Internet very viscerally: the person who is being threatened,” says Jurgenson. “It’s a lot easier for the person who made the threat — and the person who is investigating the threat — to believe that what’s happening on the Internet isn’t real.”

You can and should read the whole thing, because Amanda Hess has located the basic problem: Police are either ignorant of social media — “What is Twitter?” — or can’t comprehend the reality of a type of threat that has never been aimed at them.

Unless and until you have been targeted by obsessed hate-trolls, you really can’t understand what it’s like. And the inherent imbalance between anonymous harassers and their targets — “who write on professional platforms, under their given names, and in the context of their real lives” — is not a problem that is limited to women. When your livelihood is in large measure dependent on using Twitter to obtain information and promote your work, whereas the anonymous hate-troll uses the Twitter platform only to engage in harassment, you quickly discover that your ability to counteract the harassment is quite limited.

Amanda Hess should ask Patrick “Patterico” Frey how difficult it is to get law enforcement to take online harassment seriously. The dangerous tactic of “SWATting” is dismissed by some journalists as a “prank” and, despite the fact that some people have been sentenced to prison for SWATting hoaxes, so few perpetrators are prosecuted that SWATters believe (quite correctly) that they are unlikely to face serious consequences for their actions.

Part of the problem — and perhaps Hess hasn’t thought about this — is that many journalists actually celebrate online harassment.

What else were the crimes of “Anonymous,” except orchestrated online harassment of designated enemies? The fact that this criminality was done in the name of a political cause, and that the targets were corporations like Sony and Amazon rather than individuals, does not change the fact: Crime was committed, and many journalists have treated Anonymous hackers as heroes.

“The time for talk is over, it’s time for collective refusal, civil disobedience, and direct action.”
— Jeremy Hammond, Anonymous hacker

Why is it acceptable to target PayPal with DDOS attacks, but not to target journalists with personal threats? Why have some people tried to make a hero of former Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown, who threatened to “destroy” an FBI agent’s family?

Why didn’t Amanda Hess take notice of Mandy Nagy’s harassment by Anonymous supporter “Occupy Rebellion”? Here you have a gang of vicious cyberterrorists whose very name, Anonymous, is intrinsic to the problem of online harassment, and whose claim of “civil disobedience” in defense of their crimes is a direct challenge to the rule of law. And, in case Amanda Hess has forgotten, it was the defense of Julian Assange’s Wikileaks that was the rallying cry of Anonymous in 2010.

Julian Assange is an accused rapist. Kinda relevant.

Law enforcement must take online harassment more seriously. Amanda Hess has that exactly right. But we cannot expect law enforcement to prosecute harassment if we ignore (or endorse) the lawless anarchist impulse of digital terrorists. Nor can we expect online harassment of women to be taken seriously when liberals like Amanda Hess tolerate the constant obscene harassment of conservative women:

The C-word and the F-word, and various combinations thereof, are somehow acceptable political discourse when liberals do it. Eventually, Amanda Hess managed to overcome the problems of anonymity and of law enforcement not taking online harassment seriously:

My harasser finally acquiesced to the protection order when my lawyer showed him that we knew the blog comments were coming from his computer—he had made a valiant attempt to obscure his comments, but he’d slipped up in a couple of instances, and we could prove the rape threats were his. When the judge approved the order, she instructed my harasser that he was not allowed to contact me in any way—not by email, Twitter, phone, blog comment, or by hiring a hot air balloon to float over my house with a message, she said. And he had to stay at least 100 feet away from me at all times. The restraining order would last one year.
Soon after the order expired, he sent an email to my new workplace. Every once in a while, he re-establishes contact. . . .
A few days before I received the threats in Palm Springs, he sent me a link via Twitter to a story he wrote about another woman who had been abused online. Occasionally, he sends his tweets directly my way—a little reminder that his “game” is back on.

This raises a question: Why doesn’t Amanda Hess publicly name the monster who is perpetrating this harassment? Crime is a people problem. Identifying the perpetrators is essential to preventing and discouraging crime, but perhaps Amanda Hess is afraid of being sued by her harasser. That can be a problem, too.

BomberSuesBloggers.com

UPDATE: Credit where credit is due:

As I say, I mostly agree with Hess’s analysis of the online harassment problem, but I don’t think turning it into a Women’s Studies candlelight-vigil take-back-the-night rally is the solution. That kind of “consciousness raising” solidarity protest may feel good, but is no substitute for law enforcement locking up criminals.

 

Category: Crime

Al Gore and the Big Climate Lie

Posted on | January 7, 2014 | 49 Comments

Sometimes my hatred of lying liberals inspires me with a vitriolic rage that is very difficult to restrain. They lie with such arrogant impunity because liberal dominance of the intelligentsia means they can always count on their lies being applauded. And indeed, there are vast segments of the culture — academia, journalism, entertainment — so overwhelmingly liberal as to constitute a cocoon.

Within these cocoons where only liberal ideas are expressed, categories of “truth” and “error,” “right” and “wrong,” “fact” and “myth” are distorted beyond recognition, creating an alternative reality unrecognizable to those outside the cocoon.

So it is with the alleged “science” of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), also known as “climate change.” The means by which a scientific consensus was created in favor of AGW theory involved (a) advanced methods of propaganda, and (b) lots of money.

Last month, Al Gore tweeted out an article from The Daily Climate that bore this description:

Digging into the underpinnings of the climate denial movement, a Drexel University study finds a large slice of donations funneled through pass-through organizations that conceal the original funder.
Koch Industries, ExxonMobil disappear from traceable public databases after 2007.

Knowing what I know about the AGW movement’s sources of funding, this imputation that critics enjoy lavish secret funding — “climate denial” researchers are all rolling in Koch bucks, we are led to believe — absolutely enraged me. But what can I do?

If you’ll take a second look, you’ll see that The Daily Climate is a publication of Environment Health Sciences:

The Daily Climate is published every morning (US East Coast time) by Environmental Health Sciences, a global nonprofit media company with headquarters in Charlottesville, Va.

Oh, “a global nonprofit media company”? What can we learn about Environmental Health Sciences?

Today, EHS’s budget is at $2 million — largely supported by major foundation grants — and Environmental Health News and The Daily Climate see 25 million page views per year. A team of 36 people work for its two publications . . .

Yes, “largely supported by major foundation grants,” EHS gets $2 million a year to run a couple of Web sites with a staff of 36.

So an organization that gets funding from major tax-exempt foundations publicizes a study by Drexel University (annual tuition $43,135) suggesting that critics of the AGW “scientific consensus” are unfairly enriching themselves. Isn’t that special?

Meanwhile, in the real world:

About 500 passengers aboard three Amtrak trains were stranded overnight in a remote part of northern Illinois because of blowing and drifting snow, Amtrak officials said today.

The nation is gripped by one of the most severe cold-weather systems in recorded history — “It’s So Cold in the Midwest that Antifreeze Could Freeze” — but somehow, this evidence does not affect “major foundation grants” for the 36 lying liberal propagandists employed at Environmental Health Sciences.

I’d love to laugh at that, but yesterday the dog escaped and, while chasing him down the road, I slipped on the ice, fell hard on my right side and injured my ribs so severely that it hurts to laugh — or sneeze or cough, for that matter. And I know damned well that I’m not getting any “major foundation grants,” so please hit the tip jar.





 

Category: Environmentalism, Global Warming

In The Mailbox, 01.07.14

Posted on | January 7, 2014 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Neither the spirit nor the flesh were terribly willing this morning. Apologies.


OVER THE TRANSOM
First Street Journal: There Are Reasonable Savings In The Defense Budget!
Proof Positive: Obama – “If You Like Your Jobs, You Can Keep Your Jobs”
The Looking Spoon: If The Obamas Posed For An Imperial Portrait
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Prediction – Yes, Bill De Blasio Will Get Away With This
Michelle Malkin: Obama’s Afghanistan Mess
Twitchy: Chief Justice John Roberts Denies Stay On Obamacare; SCOTUS’ Alternate Universe Noted
Fausta: The Triple Package Stirs The Pot


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Rachel Maddow Wears The “Ideological” Pants At MSNBC
American Thinker: Obama’s War Against The Elderly
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Obamacare Watch – Medicaid Enrollment Even More Screwed Up Than Previously Thought
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, January 6
Jammie Wearing Fools: “Mom, There’s An Old Guy In The Jacuzzi With This Girl, And She’s Topless, And She’s Got Her Legs Wrapped Around Him”
Pat Dollard: FBI Changes Its Primary Mission From “Law Enforcement” To “National Security”
Protein Wisdom: Your Friends, The Establishment Republicans
Shot In The Dark: This Spring At The Session…
The Jawa Report: Super Greedy Rich Bastard Al Gore Lays Off 90 Poor Struggling Workers From Green Jobs
The Lonely Conservative: Dem Reps Invited Terrorist Group To Brief Them On National Security
This Ain’t Hell: William Derek Church, The Round Ranger
Megan McArdle: Can Unions Save Adjuncts?


Kindle Countdown Deals

Category: Linkagery

It Is Not Often That I Greet A New Federal Reserve Chair. . .

Posted on | January 6, 2014 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

Cultural references, alas.

Before it ends YOU!

Category: End The Fed

Will De Blasio Get Away With This?

Posted on | January 6, 2014 | 95 Comments

“You’ve got a group of people who are being fed nonsense. The guy who’s funding all this is a real estate guy. . . . He’s interested in buying the land. The stables are located right by the Javits Center and they want to put hotels up in there.”
— David Koch, New York carriage driver

Real estate developer Steve Nislick

“The bad guy in this drama, according to the carriage drivers, is Steve Nislick, chief executive officer of a New Jersey-based real-estate development company, Edison Properties. The company ’employs legions of lobbyists to influence city decisions on real estate and zoning in its favor,’ journalist Michael Gross reported in 2009, pointing out that two of Edison’s businesses ‘have multiple locations in the same Far West Midtown neighborhood as the stables where the Central Park horses are housed.’ An anti-carriage pamphlet Nislick circulated in 2008 made this interesting observation: ‘Currently, the stables consist of 64,000 square feet of valuable real estate on lots that could accomodate up to 150,000 square feet of development. These lots could be sold for new development.’
Gross asked the obvious question: ‘What are the odds that good neighbor Nislick, the out-of-state real estate developer, simply covets those valuable, underdeveloped New York lots — and has teamed up with ambitious pols to use the emotions of animal rights activists as fuel for their own agendas?'”
— Robert Stacy McCain, The American Spectator, “DeBlasio’s Horse-Drawn Carriage Ban: Is It Really About Campaign Cash?”

It was right there in the open: A story that, if it didn’t exactly “write itself,” as they say, was not very difficult to put together. All you have to do is go to SaveNYCHorseCarriages.com and start clicking links. Everything is right there, including links to news coverage of the shady background of the anti-carriage crusade:

It’s Parkingtown, Jake
— Michael Gross, Feb. 11, 2009

Secret tape: how to spin council
— David Seifman, New York Post, Jan. 1, 2012

Top de Blasio supporters funded anti-Quinn group
— Chris Bragg, Crain’s, Oct. 3, 2013

Anyone can go see the “Timeline of a Scandal,” and anyone can find out how to contact carriage industry supporters for interviews. So why isn’t this sleazy hustle — real-estate money bankrolling politicians to push a phony animal-rights issue — front-page headlines in the New York Times? They won’t do it, so we’ll have to do it ourselves.

 Linked by Instapundit and a Memeorandum thread. Let’s roll.

 

Category: Corruption, New York
« 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.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin