The Other McCain

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

Shorter Ryan: I’m Gonna Kick Tomorrow

Posted on | December 11, 2013 | 39 Comments

by Smitty

It maybe be that Paul Ryan sincerely believes that Congress is EVER going to reduce spending of its own volition. In the same vein, Obama has stated that he believes his own BS. Gently as it can be put, Paul, CONSERVATIVES DO NOT. We don’t believe Obama. While some might be swayed by you confident tones, the last time a Congress successfully bound a subsequent Congress was when the follow-on Congress borrowed more money, not when that future Congress actually cut spending. All I can say is that, sometimes, you need to step away from the problem to gain some perspective.
Erick Erickson calls this budget deal the BOHICA Act of 2013.

I am old enough to remember when the GOP said not to worry about it caving on Obamacare funding because, by God, it would hold the line on sequestration.
Hell, that was a month ago.
Amazing how much can change in a month. Congressman Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray have decided to give up the last thing the GOP was fighting for — spending restraint. “Don’t worry,” Paul Ryan says with his boyish charm designed to induce sweats and heart palpitations among conservatives, “it’s only a little less restrained.”
The budget deal puts discretionary spending over $1 trillion, which is higher than the sequestration deal of 2011, which was at $967. This is, in fact, a spending increase.
It funds Obamacare.

It gets worse as you read RedState from there.
New rule: all talk of future spending cuts is rejected, in advance, as pure hooey. Don’t bother with it, Paul. No amount of poker face, boyish good looks, and irresistible masculine charm can sell something we know is fundamentally not gonna happen. Peddle those wares to a more gullible audience.
Going with this Jane’s Addiction cut, since “Been Caught Stealing” is probably too pejorative, if also more accurate.

Category: Budget

A Scoop That Was Not a Scoop: The ‘Spying on Gamers’ Story Is Old News

Posted on | December 11, 2013 | 20 Comments

You perhaps saw the headlines:

Spies Infiltrate a Fantasy Realm of Online Games
— New York Times

Xbox Live among game services targeted
by US and UK spy agencies
— The Guardian

World of Spycraft: NSA and CIA Spied in Online Games
— Pro Publica

Don’t believe the Greenwald/Snowden media fanboy hype, says Paul Hair at The Security and Culture Intelligencer:

Virtual worlds interest the Intelligence Community (IC). That’s the news coming from the latest leak of classified material that’s part of the Russian-backed subversion and espionage operation that Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and the Media continue conducting against the U.S.
But this “news” isn’t news at all.
The New York Times, ProPublica, and The Guardian published their latest stories as if they were revealing to the world that virtual worlds interest the IC. They failed to make clear that the IC has long acknowledged the basic (and unclassified) information regarding its interest in virtual worlds.
The online version of WIRED published, “U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft,” during February 2008. WIRED published its story based on unclassified information that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) published about its data mining activity. A version of that data mining report remains available on the ODNI website.
Furthermore, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA—a component of the ODNI) explicitly acknowledges its interest in virtual worlds with an entire program about it. The program and related documents are readily available to everyone. The specific program is called, “Reynard,” and one of the documents is a 50-page, “Reynard Proposers Day,” PDF that provides a wealth of information.

How is it that a program which was first reported by Wired more than five years ago should suddenly be treated as front-page news?

Many of my blogger friends on the Right have joined the media’s breathless enthusiasm for Edward Snowden’s leaks: “Obama’s spying on us! Big government out of control!” Excuse me for courting unpopularity by dissenting from that viewpoint. The work done by our intelligence agencies is both necessary and necessarily secretive, and we seem to be entering an era like the mid-1970s, when Watergate-era revelations created a widespread hostility toward the CIA, the FBI and the entire concept of “national security.”

I’m one of the few journalists who has consistently regarded Snowden skeptically. See my June article at Viral Read, “Who Is Edward Snowden? Background on NSA Leaker Emerges.”

America has real enemies, and don’t expect me to applaud the willful disclosure of the classified means by which we keep track of America’s enemies. It is one thing to denounce specific abuses — which, admittedly, the government tried to conceal — but there is no need to buy into the mindset of the Left, which cheers every new “leak” because the leaks hurt America and the Left hates America. Paul Hair again:

It also remains to be seen if politicians, pundits, bloggers, private citizens, alternative media outlets, the tech industry, and gamers will begin to examine the motives and veracity of Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and the Media as they continue conducting a Russian-backed subversion and espionage campaign against the U.S.

You can follow Paul Hair on Twitter.

 


Category: Journalism

LIVE AT FIVE: 12.11.13

Posted on | December 11, 2013 | 9 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Budget Deal Averts Shutdown, Cuts Federal Workforce

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sena. Patty Murray (D-WA)

Budget replaces $63 billion in sequestration cuts with more targeted savings, more fees


BJP, AAP Prepare For Another Round Of Elections
Neither party has majority in Delhi; neither will budge from Opposition


GM No Longer Government Motors
Feds sell off last of GM shares, take $10.5 billion loss



POLITICS
Rep. Steve Stockman To Challenge Sen. Cornyn In 2014 Primary

And in this corner…

Tea Party favorite going after Cornyn after latter undermined Ted Cruz on Obamacare

Poll: Obama Gets No Credit From Majority As Economy “Improves”


White House Gun Control Push Loses Steam As Newtown Anniversary Approaches

NY Court Won’t Compel Reporter To Testify, Boosting Shield Law

Local Meth Laws Illegal, Tennessee AG Says

Former Clinton Aide John Podesta To Join Obama White House



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Brent, WTI Converge As US Crude Inventories Fall: NYMEX $98.41, Brent $109.26
Wall Street Exhales As Volcker Rule Seen Sparing Market-Making
GM To End Production In Australia, New Zealand
Asian Stocks Down On Prospect Of Fed Stimulus Cut
S&P 500 Slips From Record High
Lucky Brand Apparel Sold For $225 Million
Windows “Threshold” Leaks Point To Return Of Start Menu
Ubuntu Touch OS Wins First Smartphone Partner
Twitter Adds Photos To Direct Messages For Mobile, Web
Google Chromecast Gets Ten New Apps
Nokia Moves Ahead With Plans For Low-End Android Phone



SPORTS
Paul George Leads Pacers’ Second-Half Rally To Beat The Heat

Paul George is guarded by LeBron James

15 of his 17 points came in second half of Pacers’ 90-84 win


Is The Angels/Snakes/White Sox Trade A Menage A Blah?

Ovechkin Scores Four As Caps Edge Bolts 6-5


With Latest Mack Brown News, Let The Saban To Texas Rumors Begin

Knicks Lose Again, Thumped 109-94 By Cavs

Blue Jackets Tip Devils With Last-Minute Goal

Forty Favorite College Cheerleaders Of 2013

Rockies Trade Two To A’s For Brett Anderson

Kings Score Six, Shut Out Habs

Cubs Interested In Nationals’ Storen, Clippard?



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Rhymes With Possum…And With Awesome

Emmy Rossum

The Esquire interview.


Kate Winslet: It’s A Boy

Demi Lovato On Her Past Drug Use: Couldn’t Go More Than An Hour Without Cocaine

Justin Bieber Being A Jackass Down Under

Bette Midler To Play Mae West In HBO Biopic

Tom Cruise Developing Another Jack Reacher Movie


NBC Gets Boost From “The Sound Of Music”, Considering Follow-Up

 Victoria Justice Breaks Up With BF Ryan Rothman

Madonna’s Daughter Lourdes Stars In High School Production Of “Grease”

Britney Spears Talks Pregnancy Sex, Defends The Unspeakable Armenian

Julia Roberts Expecting A Lot Of Pregnancy Questions

Paris Hilton’s Brother Giving NYPD No Cooperation In Alleged Lohan-Linked Attack

Adam Shankman Checks Into Rehab

Angelina Jolie’s Plane Grounded By FAA

Carol Lawrence Returns To NYC



FOREIGNERS
South Africa Overlooked At Mandela’s Funeral
Ukrainian Police Clash With Protesters In Kiev
Uruguay Okays First National Market For Legalized Pot
India’s Supreme Court Reinstates Ban On Gay Sex
Thai Protesters Claim Authority Over Government
Senator Schumer Bucks Secretary Kerry, White House; Will Call For Tougher Iran Sanctions
President Of Firm Responsible For Defective Breast Implants Gets Four Years
Japan Aims To Expand, Revive ASEAN Swaps At Weekend Summit
Uneasy PRC Hopes For Stability, Friendly Relations With Norks After Recent Purge
Us Pins Hopes On India To Persuade Karzai To Sign Pact



BLOGS & STUFF
The Looking Spoon: As If Obama’s Handshake With Raul Castro Wasn’t Bad Enough…
Michelle Malkin: Two Big Announcements – Book Deal And Twitchy Deal!
Twitchy: Truth-Boom! Brit Hume Crushes Obamacare With One Question, Devastating Answer
American Power: Vulgarity – The New Normal
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, December 10
Jammie Wearing Fools: Panetta Revealed Classified Info To “Zero Dark Thirty” Filmmaker
JustOneMinute: Income Taxes, Excluding Social Security And Medicare
Pat Dollard: Leo Tyrrell Loses His Mind On Hannity
Protein Wisdom: I Can’t
Shot In The Dark: A Memorial To Remember
The Jawa Report: Air Force Band’s Flash Mob Concert At The Air & Space Museum
The Lonely Conservative: Bipartisan Budget Deal Does Nothing To Solve Budget Problem
This Ain’t Hell: To Be…Or To Do?
Megan McArdle: GM’s First Female CEO Has An Incentive Problem


Category: Live at Five

Have You Forgotten?

Posted on | December 10, 2013 | 60 Comments

It’s weird how easy it is to forget things. My wife and I just watched the documentary Hating Breitbart together, and the pivotal centerpiece of the movie is the claim by Rep. Andre Carson, Indiana Democrat, that Tea Party activists shouted the n-word at him and other members of the Black Congressional Caucus. Have you forgotten?

That was March 2010. What was the occasion?

Oh, yeah: It was the day of the final congressional vote on ObamaCare, and the Tea Party crowd at the Capitol was shouting, “Kill the bill!”

Andrew Breitbart offered a reward of $10,000 — subsequently raised to $20,000 and then to $100,000 — for anyone who could produce evidence that anyone shouted the n-word that day. Nobody ever collected the reward, because the narrative was a lie.

Breitbart pointed out that there was a “sea of New Media” outside the Capitol that day. Everybody had video cameras or cell-phone cameras going, and if anyone actually had shouted the n-word, certainly someone would have collected that reward.

Nobody ever did. More than three years have gone by. Now ObamaCare is law, and very unpopular, and one of the biggest lies of our time — that the Tea Party’s opposition to ObamaCare was motivated by racism — has been conclusively debunked by the shameful silence of the Democrats who could not produce the proof of their lie.

Oh, but the Democrats never apologized, did they?

The media never apologized, did they?

And what has the passage of ObamaCare meant to America?

“If you’re covered and you like your insurance, you can
keep it,” said Congressman Gary Peters in August 2009.
Gary Peters made that pitch knowing it was false, and
it cost at least 225,000 people in Michigan their
health care. Despite these facts, Gary Peters
has refused to admit his deception or
apologize to the people he hurt.

That’s just one Democrat in Michigan, but is true of all Democrats everywhere. They rammed ObamaCare through Congress on a party-line vote. Not a single Republican voted for the bill. The Democrats and their media allies lied and lied and then lied some more.

And they’re still lying now.

President Obama just brought John Podesta onto the White House staff. Andrew Breitbart despised John Podesta — if you have seen Hating Breitbart, you know how much he hated him. But maybe you’ve forgotten that there ever was a guy named Andrew Breitbart.

You can buy Hating Breitbart now.

It would be a wonderful Christmas gift for your kids.

 

Category: Andrew Breitbart, Health Care

Ryan Almost Blows The Reform Trumpet On The Budget

Posted on | December 10, 2013 | 30 Comments

by Smitty

Former GOP VP candidate and all-around Centrist got out the Kazoo of Compromise in attempting to sell his budget deal with Senator Patty Murray:

“In divided government, you don’t always get what you want,” he said. “We eliminate waste. We stop sending checks to criminals. We cut corporate welfare. We start making real changes to these autopilot programs that are the real drivers of our debt.” Twice, he was asked how he would defend the plan to Republicans in the House and to conservative groups.
Answer one: “As a conservative, I think this is a step in the right direction. The deficit will go down more if we pass this than if we did nothing.”
Answer two: “As a conservative, I deal with the situation as it exists. I deal with the way things are, not the way I may want them to be. I’m not going to go a mile in the direction I want to go, but I’ll take a few steps.”

And later:

The condemnations would roll in from the various good-government groups that had been demanding entitlement cuts, and from the conservatives who had attacked the idea of a budget that broke the spending caps. But first, Murray and Ryan shook hands.

For example, Senator Rubio:

“We need a government with less debt and an economy with more good paying jobs, and this budget fails to accomplish both goals, making it harder for more Americans to achieve the American Dream. Instead, this budget continues Washington’s irresponsible budgeting decisions by spending more money than the government takes in and placing additional financial burdens on everyday Americans.
“In the short run, this budget also cancels earlier spending reductions, instead of making some tough decisions about how to tackle our long-term fiscal challenges caused by runaway Washington spending. I voted against sequestration because of its effect on key programs, including the defense budget, but higher spending and more revenue are not the appropriate ways to address that problem.
“The American people should not be asked to choose between a strong military and responsible budgets that encourage job creation and reduce debt. They deserve better than this.”

Maybe Ryan just needs to study some Zappa, and get some of that tenor saxophone in his system, for better justice:
Here is the link to a summary of the deal:

FEDERAL CIVILIAN AND MILITARY RETIREMENT

Federal Retirement

These sections increase federal-employee contributions to their retirement programs by 1.3
percentage points. The proposal affects new employees hired after December 31, 2013 with
less than five years of service.

Annual adjustment of retired pay and retainer pay amounts for retired members of the
Armed Forces under age 62

This provision modifies the annual cost-of-living adjustment for working-age military retirees by
making the adjustments equal to inflation minus one percent. This change would be gradually 3

phased in, with no change for the current year, a 0.25 percent decrease in December 2014, and
a 0.5 percent decrease in December 2015. This would not affect service members who retired
because of disability or injury. Service members would never see a reduction in benefits from
one year to the next.

Awesome. The military reserve retirement I haven’t got yet will gradually evaporate, even as I sneak up on it. Glad I’m not actually including that pension in my retirement planning.

Update: Ryan has an actual interview with Mark Levin on the topic.

Category: Budget

‘Teacher of the Year’ Learns a Tough Lesson: Always Take the Plea Bargain

Posted on | December 10, 2013 | 47 Comments

Ethel Anderson, 31, was once voted “Teacher of the Year” in Riverside, Florida. You might have thought that when prosecutors offered her a 15-year-sentence, the former language arts teacher at Mango Elementary would have known it was the best she could hope for:

A female teacher found guilty of having sex with a 12-year-old student has been sentenced to 38 years in prison . . .
Judge Chet Tharpe told Anderson in court that she manipulated the boy’s parents into believing he was safe and groomed the child for sex.
Anderson was charged with nine counts of molesting a student after it was discovered that she was having sex with a boy who was 12-years-old at the time. . . .
Anderson had denied the charges but her victim, now 14, took the stand in September to testify that the alleged abuse started four or five weeks into their tutoring sessions when she would kiss him and perform oral sex on him in her home.
He told the court: ‘I felt like she was a girlfriend, I loved her and she said that I was her boyfriend and she loved me.
‘She would rub on my legs, kiss on my ears, neck and stuff like that… We would tongue kiss.’ . . .
[T]he boy’s mother showed no signs of forgiveness.
‘Anger and hatred don’t even begin to explain how I feel about what you took from my son,’ the boy’s mother said in a statement read at the sentencing by prosecutors.
‘His innocence is lost forever.’

Thirty-eight years. Could have been just 15 years, if she had taken the plea deal, but the “Teacher of the Year” just wasn’t very smart.

 


Category: Crime, Education, Sex

Now @MikeElk Calls @betsyscribeindc a ‘Racist,’ Because … Journalism!

Posted on | December 10, 2013 | 64 Comments

My apology for treating you to more of this kook’s kookiness, but these nutjobs just fascinate me. Mike Elk responded to Betsy Rothstein’s Monday article with a series of typically bizarre e-mails:

[C]riticize him at your own peril — he’ll charge that you’re against people with conditions like Asperger’s and write your boss and insist on your termination. He wrote in 16 times today to tell me why I’m not a journalist and he is. . . .

11:53 a.m. Mike: Reporter with tact for saying racists things against asians [sic] writes story downplaying the racist behavior of Eli Lake – no wonder it was a hit piece. Betsy: I do hope you have a Happy Holidays. And p.s. go fuck yourself. . . .
11:54 a.m. Mike: Quite the solidarity of racists Betsy. Betsy: Okay Mike. You keep believing whatever stupid shit you want.
12 p.m. Mike: [sic] Its not just me. I mean Lee Fang other asians believe it, but you downplay serious life or death issues. People like Eli Lake a racist fascists not actual reporters. Betsy: Great, strangers believe something. I don’t give a shit, Elk. Your thinking is very twisted and weird and I’ll have no part of it. . . .
Mike: Hey Betsy, There is a difference here. The difference is that I am coming after you hard over what you do, you guys mock and make fun of people over how they were born – their race, neorological impairments etc. Learn what real journalism is Betsy. melk Betsy:  Interesting. You have the same pattern again and again with everyone. You are the king of journalism, of course. You are seriously demented. And no, that’s not a slam on your mental illness or your dyslexia, it’s a slam on you personally for being such an idiot. And you’re coming after me hard? Oh, also interesting. Thanks for sharing.
12:13 p.m. Mike: Betsy, You work at the Daily Caller enough said? melk Betsy: And your point is what? I’ve never read your magazine. You work at In These Times. Are we just going through our resumes now?  You’ve tried to disparage and get three reporters fired in about 7 weeks. Let me fill you in … you’re not some warrior. Your thoughts and accusations don’t add up. Enough said, Mike Elk. . . .

You can read the whole thing — yes, there’s lots more crazy where that came from — and keep this in mind: I have no especial reason to like Betsy Rothstein, or Eli Lake or Rosie Gray, for that matter. It’s not as though we’re all best buddies and ideological soul mates. The story here is quite simple: Mike Elk is dangerously crazy.

But you probably figured that out by now, you racists.

 


Category: Journalism

Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply

Posted on | December 10, 2013 | 80 Comments

An e-mail arrived at 9:50 a.m. today:

Subject: u still sore you lost the civil war?

From: Mike Elk ([email protected])
To: Robert Stacy McCain

Shit son, I am about to go visit some Civil War battlefields where we kicked the fuck out of you degenerate Confederate bastards. I bet you are still sore you guys lost that one Bobby.
—
Mike Elk
In These Times Staff Writer
Cell: (412) 613-8423
Twitter – @MikeElk

Simple courtesy required a polite reply:

Sir:
You have an obnoxious habit of making your personal superiority the point of every argument, and you always seem disappointed that others do not admire you as much as you admire yourself. Declining your invitation to join the Mike Elk Fan Club, I will also waive the opportunity to tutor you in grammar, but must make a few additions to your pathetically small store of historical knowledge.
My Alabama ancestors were not degenerate, and were certainly no less patriotic than my wife’s ancestors from Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio who fought for the Union. However — and perhaps this touches also on your erratic grammar — your first person plural pronoun would seem misplaced: “we kicked the fuck out of you,” et cetera.
To whom does your “we” refer in that context?
In an e-mail to Eli Lake, you said your grandparents were “the children of Russian Jewish immigrants.” In which Civil War regiment did your ancestors serve?
My own paternal grandmother was the daughter of Private Winston Wood Bolt, who served in the 13th Alabama Regiment, Company K. The colonel of my great-grandfather’s regiment was Birkett Davenport Fry, and they were brigaded under A.H. Colquitt (at Seven Pines, South Mountain and Sharpsburg), then under J.J. Archer at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Both General Archer and my great-grandfather were captured in the first day’s fight at Gettysburg when the Union’s famed “Iron Brigade” turned their right flank. I’ve walked the ground where Winston Bolt was captured — just east of Willoughby Run, a hundred yards or so from where Union General Reynolds was killed — but regret that I’ve never had an opportunity to visit Fort Delaware, where my great-grandfather spent the next two years as a prisoner of war.
At any rate, it seems quite likely your ancestors never fired a shot at any of my ancestors, and so your use of the first person plural “we” is wrong. But you’ve never let being wrong stop you before, and I doubt you’ll let it impede you in the future. All you ever do is boast and threaten and insult, then claim to be a helpless victim when someone calls attention to the symptomatic traits of your warped and sadistic personality. My confident prediction is that these habits of yours will eventually bring you unhappiness and misfortune in life, and that in the near term you will be deeply offended by anyone’s effort to counsel you against continuing in your present course of conduct. Your conceited sense of superiority has the effect of alienating you even from those would-be friends who might dissuade you from your doomed folly.
You will excuse me if I take the liberty of publishing our correspondence immediately, as I consider it a waste of time to respond privately to a deliberate insult.
— RSM

 Don’t expect Mike Elk to appreciate such courtesy. Fools never do.

UPDATE: It took six minutes for Elk to reply:

Subject: Re: u still sore you lost the civil war?

From: Mike Elk ([email protected])
To: Robert Stacy McCain

By we I mean boys from my home state of Pennsylvania. Look at this monument, those keystone boys sure cleaned up at orchad’s knob — makes me proud to be a Pennsylvanian think of the slavers ass that they kicked
Sent from my iPhone

He’s proud to be from the same state as Jerry Sandusky? The mere accident of having been born in Pennsylvania instills in Mike Elk such fierce emotion? Exactly where this “orchad’s knob” is located, I’m not sure. No photo was attached to his e-mail.

UPDATE II: A Google search for “Mike + Elk +Pennsylvania” turns up this typically demented rant against Penn State:

“As a native Pennsylvanian, I never once considered attending Penn State University. Penn State always seemed like a place full of cliquish white people recalling their glory years of making fun of the dorky kids in high school. More progressive white people and people of color went to big city state schools like Pitt or Temple while whiter, more conservative types tended to dominate the settings of the rural, fraternity-heavy Penn State campus.”

Read the whole thing to get an idea of exactly how long Mike Elk has been a blustering fool (i.e., his entire life).

 

Category: History, Journalism
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