The Other McCain

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

You Stay Classy, @CharlieSheen!

Posted on | November 3, 2013 | 29 Comments

Charlie’s Twitter message the day after Halloween:

last night was awesoem!
I went as an officer from
DCFS
(child protection srvc)
because that’s about as sane as these inept and retarded
doosh bags seem when dealing with my sons bob and max.
it’s an abhorrent dick dance that has NOTHING to do protecting any child.
instead they are swayed by the evil and pathetic über loser
whore that calls herself Brooke.
there will be a reckoning.
there will be a whirlwind,
that they will all reap while
desperate begging for my forgiveness.
you’ve all been warned.

Hey, Charlie, you misspelled “awesome” and “douchebags,” so at least you got that going for you, “über loser.”

Publicly calling your ex-wife a “whore”? When you’re kinda notorious for screwing prostitutes and porn starlets less than half your age?

Really mature, Charlie. Really grown-up.

But what the heck, huh? You’re rich and famous and you’ve been rich and famous forever, and so you’re entitled to treat other people like dirt and never be held accountable for all your bogus bullshit.

Just don’t be surprised that when you’re old and ugly and broke, nobody is gonna love you anymore, and you’ll die alone.

 

Category: Celebrities

Obama and the New York Times Decide Which Health Plans Are Worth Keeping

Posted on | November 3, 2013 | 38 Comments

Be grateful for enlightenment from Our Moral Superiors:

Congressional Republicans have stoked consumer fears and confusion with charges that the health care reform law is causing insurers to cancel existing policies and will force many people to pay substantially higher premiums next year for coverage they don’t want. That, they say, violates President Obama’s pledge that if you like the insurance you have, you can keep it.
Mr. Obama clearly misspoke when he said that.

Doug Ross: “These people make Chris Matthews look objective.” Letting ordinary Americans have choices is acceptable to Our Moral Superiors, as long as they get to decide which choices we have.

 


Category: Barack Obama, Health Care, New York Times

‘A Long Twilight Struggle’

Posted on | November 3, 2013 | 43 Comments

That phrase from John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address came to mind this morning as I was reading an e-mail from a friend lamenting the continuation of the war against Diana West and her book, American Betrayal. Busy with other matters, I had forgotten about the unfortunate internecine conflict that developed after Ron Radosh and David Horowitz attacked West in August.

Alas, ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Conrad Black has repeatedly taken up the cudgel against West, and she responded this past week with a letter to National Review, including this remark:

No comment from the commentariat at the larger outlets over this heated clash, however, which is noteworthy in itself. A battle royale is joined over a book with “names” on both sides — not your everyday occurrence — and none of the capital-p pundits says (dares say?) a word about it, not even to write a book review.

That’s strange, isn’t it? Diana West has many influential friends, and her adversaries also have many friends, but most people — especially those she calls “the capital-p pundits” — seem determined to stay as far away as possible from this ugly fight. And who can blame them? Nobody wants to get themselves muddied up in a mess like this.

At any rate, the e-mail this morning from a mutual friend reminded me that Diana is still under fire in a battle that is out of sight of most readers. It is easy to ignore other people’s problems. Knowing how I have relied on the encouragement of friends to sustain me during some of my own struggles, however, and having defended Diana West since this controversy began, I felt a burden to take notice and to let her know she still has my sympathy and support.

Diana has been kind enough to include my commentary — along with that of  Andrew Bostom, Vladimir Bukovsky, Donald Douglas, M. Stanton Evans and others — in her new e-book about this controversy, The Rebuttal. You can show your support by visiting her site, DianaWest.net, and by following Diana on Twitter.

 

 

PREVIOUSLY:

 

Category: Books, History

@TedCruz At Heritage On Bond v. U.S.; Slate‘s Eric Posner Hardest Hit

Posted on | November 3, 2013 | 41 Comments

by Smitty

Ted buzzes Heritage to talk about Bond v. United States, and manages to piledrive Eric Posner’s shrill objections:

Cruz is a treasure. He offers simple, lucid arguments. Cruz says more cogent, intellectually stimulating things in 43 minutes of video than #OccupyResoluteDesk has offered in 5 miserable years.

I want to see Ted Cruz run for President in a few years, if only for the joy of watching him calmly, pleasantly, rhetorically disassemble all other contenders.

He alludes to a report published by the Senate, which appears to be this under-reported gem, “The Legal Limit: the Obama Administration’s Attempts to Expand Federal Power”.

Still more at Breitbart.

Category: Republicans, Texas

Did Roger Shuler Violate Alabama Law by Impersonating an Attorney as ‘RogerS’?

Posted on | November 2, 2013 | 62 Comments

Portrait of a Kook: Roger Shuler

On Oct. 24, Patterico called attention to a commenter using the name “RogerS” at BreitbartUnmasked.com, a site rather notorious for attacking enemies of Brett Kimberlin and Neal Rauhauser. Conspiracy theorists won’t believe it was just a coincidence that, the day before Patterico published that post, authorities in Shelby County, Alabama, arrested blogger Roger Shuler on contempt of court charges.

Speaking of coincidences, however, when Brett Kimberlin fanboy Bill Schmalfeldt reported the arrest of Schuler, he described Shuler as an attorney — and Shuler is definitely not an attorney, so we have to wonder where Schmalfeldt got that mistaken impression.

Oh, Patterico, can you please tell us what “RogerS” was doing?

One of the cast of little transparent sock puppets at Breitbart Unmasked is a fellow who goes by the handle “Roger S.” This “Roger S” was recently on the site talking up the high quality of Kimberlin’s recent RICO lawsuit. My God, Roger S says, the defendants ought to be scared. And Roger S should know! He himself is a lawyer who has handled RICO lawsuits himself! With devastating results!

Hmmmm. So it seems that “RogerS” was presenting himself at a pro-Kimberlin site as an experienced attorney, and pro-Kimberlin blogger Bill Schmalfeldt erroneously “reported” that Alabama blogger Roger Shuler is an attorney. Just a coincidence?

Aaron Walker examines the evidence suggesting that this is not a coincidence, that Schmalfeldt and “RogerS” were in frequent communication, and that Schmalfeldt knew that “RogerS” was Roger Shuler of Alabama and, apparently, believed the bogus claims by “RogerS”/Shuler that he was indeed an experienced attorney.

Readers may examine that evidence and decide for themselves what to believe. Roger Shuler’s got himself a whole heap of trouble down in Alabama nowadays. Having frequently (and unsuccessfully) gone to court as a pro se litigant, Shuler is now on the defense against some very experienced attorneys, including the formidable Bill Baxley.

One might pity Shuler, were it not for the type of atrocious defamation that has been Shuler’s ouevre as a blogger. And if Roger Shuler was indeed “RogerS,” what about this comment?

RogerS on September 20, 2013 at 5:29 pm said:
Well, I think Kimberlin has it correct in his suit, saying that Mr. McCain is not a “legitimate journalist.” Legitimate means that the journalist follows legitimate rules of ethics established by legitimate governing bodies. As you have made abundantly clear, Mr. McCain refuses to follow these legitimate rules of ethics. Instead, he engages in what is obviously malpractice journalism, just as a lawyer who violates the rules of ethics on a wholesale level engages in malpractice lawyering.
I would go even further, and say that Mr. McCain could never be hired by a legitimate media or news company because of his serial violations of the rules of ethics. I believe that he knows this and that is why be engages is his smear blogging tied to tip jar donations.
Mr. McCain is a blogger, a smear blogger, but he is not a journalist as that term is used in the profession. As an attorney, I have no doubt that a federal judge will agree with Kimberlin’s portrayal of Mr. McCain.

Ahem. What horribly false things to say about me, “RogerS.”

Sitting your ass in the Shelby County Jail now, aren’t you, “RogerS”?

Maybe I should just let bygones be bygones, and work myself up some sympathy for Roger Shuler’s constitutional rights.

Trying.

Trying real hard.

Gosh, this is embarrassing.

Despite my profound commitment to the First Amendment, and my concern about “prior restraint” issues in the Shuler case, for some reason I’m unable to work up any sympathy at all for Roger Shuler.

Tell you what: Have yourself a look at the various comments of “RogerS” at BreitbartUnmasked.com and tell me what you think.







Now, it just so happens — lo and behold! — that on Oct. 31, “RogerS” showed up in the comments at BreitbartUnmasked.com to deny that he is Roger Shuler. “Xenophon” vouched for this and, of course, we can always trust what an anonymous blogger says when vouching for the veracity of an anonymous commenter, right?

See, there are coincidences and then there are coincidences. As anyone can see from the comments I’ve screencapped, “RogerS” had been commenting quite frequently: Oct. 17, Oct. 18, Oct. 19, Oct. 21, Oct. 23 and then . . . silence, beginning the same day Roger Shuler was arrested in Alabama, continuing for a full week until, after Aaron Walker pointed out that it is a crime in Alabama to impersonate a lawyer, suddenly “RogerS” pops up to say he is definitely not Roger Shuler.

What kind of coincidence do you think that was? And don’t you think that authorities in Alabama, who seem to be very zealous in their enforcement of the law, might be able to get a subpoena to determine whether Roger Shuler was indeed the phony lawyer “RogerS”?

Because it seems to me that if there were probable cause to suspect Roger Shuler of actually committing a crime — as opposed to a mere contempt of court problem regarding civil litigation — they could get a search warrant for Roger Shuler’s computer.

However, that’s just common sense talking. I am not a lawyer, and I sure as hell would never impersonate a lawyer on the Internet.

 


Category: Aaron Worthing, Patterico, Roger Shuler

Carol Shuler, Mrs. Kook Blogger

Posted on | November 2, 2013 | 25 Comments

Roger Shuler is the Alabama blogger who has been smearing those corrupt! fraudulent!! Republicans!!! who are in a conspiracy!!!!

Anyway, the Karl Rove-led GOP conspiracy — ELEVENTY!1!1! — against Roger Shuler involved the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department, which arrested the paranoid kook Oct. 23 on a bench warrant for contempt of court after Shuler skipped an Oct. 18 hearing in one of the several defamation lawsuits against him. Here is a video in which the kook’s wife, Carol Shuler, describes her husband’s arrest:

Watching that video, do you feel a certain sympathy for this woman? Her life has been upended because, unfortunately, she married a kook, and doesn’t seem to realize what a kook her husband is because, frankly, she’s not quite the sharpest tool in the shed herself.

Being dimwitted is not a crime, of course, and neither is being crazy, but when you let people like that have Internet access, you have to expect a certain number “running with scissors” injuries.

That video was posted by the heinous Karoli Kuns. In justification of the adjective “heinous,” I’ll let my fellow defendant Kimberlin Unmasked explain why Karoli is part of “Team Kimberlin.”

And did I ever mention that Andrew Breitbart despised Karoli?

Look, I’ve never made a secret of my political beliefs: All liberals are wrong about everything at all times. But there is a difference between being merely wrong and being actively evil. Karoli and her Team Kimberlin comrades are actively evil. Attorneys tell me that calling people “evil” is a constitutionally protected expression of opinion. Attorneys laugh when I say, “No, it’s a Neutral Objective Fact.”

And speaking of attorneys, the eminent First Amendment champion Ken White of Popehat has a few words for Karoli:

Monday, Karoli felt comfortable letting the court sort it out when Brett Kimberlin sues people for blogging, and not drawing conclusions about whether Kimberlin’s complaint is political or his targets’ speech is protected:

I don’t write any of this with an intention to hold blog court, nor is this post intended to take up the cause of justice for Brett Kimberlin. That’s the province of Popehat and his gang of libertarian lawyers. The court will decide this case, and as part of that decision they’ll have to decide what constitutes free speech and what does not.

Friday, Karoli felt comfortable saying that the court’s contempt order in Roger Shuler’s case is wrong, that the case against him is political, and that his speech is protected:

Blogging is not a crime, and having bloggers tossed in jail because you’re the son of a powerful politician with your own ambitions is a dangerous precedent that has not escaped the scrutiny of many, without regard to whether we are right or left.

I’m tempted to be uncouth.

No, sir, Mr. White — leave that job to me! And this is probably a good place to mention that Ken’s a liberal, which means he’s also wrong (as a matter of Neutral Objective Fact) but not evil, thank God.

 

BomberSuesBloggers.com

 

Category: Alabama, Conspiracy Theories, Roger Shuler

Gasp! ‘Nerdgasm’ Spoiled by Discovery of Homophobia Behind ‘Ender’s Game’?

Posted on | November 2, 2013 | 88 Comments

One of the most annoying habits of liberals is their tendency to confuse their political agenda with moral virtue.

It’s never about the efficacy of policy with them. Instead, it’s about voting your way to Heaven: Blessed are those who vote Democrat, for they shall be called the children of Gaia, or something.

So . . . homophobia.

Why is it that (a) opposition to specific policy ideas is routinely conflated with (b) irrational fear and hatred of homosexuals? And why do liberals have to run around pointing the finger of accusation at others, even where no one is remotely in danger of discrimination?

Consider the new movie Ender’s Game, which co-blogger Wombat briefly reviewed earlier. My general antipathy for science fiction aside, I only rarely go out to see movies, and therefore don’t really much care what’s playing at the shopping-mall multiplex.

Perpetual adolescents, however, can’t let go of their childishness, and the first thing you should know about Huffington Post contributor Seth Taylor is that he’s a 43-year-old dude who wears his baseball cap backward, a la every Gen X slacker circa 1993.

If I were wearing shiny polyester shirts, bell-bottoms and platform shoes, I could scarcely be more ridiculously obsolete.

The second thing you should know about Seth Taylor is that he divorced the mother of his child and “came out,” and brandishes his Gay Dad badge like it was the Congressional Medal of Honor, and he’s going to question your patriotism if you don’t salute.

Just wanted to make clear who we’re dealing with here before I share with you Seth Taylor’s bizarre reaction to Ender’s Game:

Last fall, I read a press release announcing that Hollywood was finally making an Ender’s Game movie. I proceeded to have an immediate nerdgasm.
But shortly after the movie announcement was released to the far corners of the Internet, I started seeing more news stories, unexpected ones, about [Ender’s Game author Orson Scott] Card himself, and the fact that he’s widely reputed to be a major bigot. More specifically: a big-time homophobe.
Thanks to the magic of the Internet, several articles and statements have emerged since then, all authored by Card over the years. In a 1990 article, Card postulated about the dangerous “homosexual agenda.” In 2004, he claimed that gay people are the result of child abuse and molestation, and that gay marriage will never count as “real marriage.” And in 2008, he wrote an article for the Mormon Times, arguing that gay marriage will result in the end of American democracy.

Dude, it’s a science fiction movie.

If we all started requiring political litmus tests on cultural products — songs, books, movies, TV shows — what would pass the test? I mean, what if conservatives went back to the Golden Age of Hollywood and started denouncing every movie where the screenwriter or director was subsequently exposed as a Commie or a fellow traveler? Crap, even Ronald Reagan himself couldn’t pass that test, given how he signed up for certain Commie front groups back in the day.

What Seth Taylor unwittingly reveals is how the gay-rights agenda is less about policy than it is about compulsory approval.

There can be only one opinion about homosexuality, namely, whatever opinion Official Gay Leaders™ consider acceptable.

It’s very much akin to the way the NAACP arrogates to itself the authority to dictate acceptable opinions on race or, for that matter, the way certain Official Climate Scientists™ consider it their prerogative to declare the scientific truth about global warming.

Is this kind of Cultural Marxist thought-control stuff  “the end of American democracy”? Call me a hater, but maybe you can see why I’m not prepared to say Orson Scott Card was entirely wrong.

 

Category: Culture, Gays, Movies

Slimy Dishonest Scumbag Todd Purdum Compares ObamaCare to Brown v. Board

Posted on | November 2, 2013 | 51 Comments

Ace of Spades dismantles the preposterous nonsense whereby Todd S. Purdum tries to blame Republicans for the failure of ObamaCare.

It’s kook stuff: “calculated sabotage by Republicans,” a phrase redolent of Stalin-era Soviet propaganda blaming problems on “saboteurs,” and then totally throwing down the rhetorical gauntlet:

The GOP faithful then kept up their crusade past the president’s reelection, in a pattern of “massive resistance” not seen since the Southern states’ defiance of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.

Whoa! Hold on there, Sparky! The Department of Bad Analogies just issued a recall on that sentence, which is part of an emerging pattern of Wrong History as Political Journalism. First it was James Fallows invoking John C. Calhoun, then it was Colbert King invoking Jefferson Davis, and now Purdum goes all Brown v. Board on us?

Instead of trying to gin up invidious racially charged comparisons like this, maybe liberals could actually enlighten their readers by making the apt comparison to FDR’s National Recovery Administration, an unworkable anti-competitive price-fixing scheme that was eventually struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

But Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States isn’t taught in schools the way Brown v. Board is taught, and our nation’s press corps is full of clever half-educated liberal fools like Todd Purdum who can’t distinguish between their partisan prejudices and objective fact.

By the way, you may be wondering, who is this Todd Purdum guy?

The name rang a bell, and he only joined Politico three months ago, but he had a long, rich history of liberal bias before then. Of course, he’s an Ivy Leaguer (Princeton, ’82) and worked for the New York Times, becoming White House correspondent in the 1990s before marrying Bill Clinton’s first press secretary, Dee Dee Myers. Purdum left the Times in 2005 and joined Vanity Fair as national editor, where he established a reputation for blatant unfairness. His savage attack on Hillary in 2008 inspired Bill Clinton to denounce Purdum:

“He’s a really dishonest reporter,” Clinton said during the tirade that followed, according to Fowler’s report. “And I haven’t read (the article). There’s just five or six blatant lies in there. But he’s a real slimy guy.”
Reminded that Purdum is married to his former press secretary Dee Dee Myers, Clinton responded in part: “That’s all right — he’s still a scumbag.” The former president added: “He’s just a dishonest guy — can’t help it.”
Clinton went on to observe: “It’s all politics. It’s all about the bias of the media for Obama. Don’t think anything about it. But I’m telling ya, all it’s doing is driving her supporters further and further away — because they know exactly what it is — this has been the most rigged coverage in modern history — and the guy ought to be ashamed of himself. But he has no shame. It isn’t the first dishonest piece he’s written about me or her.”

The Slimy Dishonest Scumbag Todd Purdum — hey, just quoting a Democrat because I’m all about bipartisanship, see? — went on to publish one of the most hateful Palin Derangement Syndrome outbursts ever to make print, notorious for this paragraph:

More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy” — and thought it fit her perfectly.

Whatever you think of Sarah Palin, she’s a paragon of humility compared to our thin-skinned self-regarding Narcissist-in-Chief.

As I’ve previously noted, however, in career fields where liberalism enjoys hegemonic dominance — including academia, the entertainment industry and especially journalism — being a liberal is an acceptable substitute for any virtue. In such environments, if a coward wishes to be praised for “courage” or a liar wants to be lauded for his “honesty,” he need merely be a dutiful outspoken liberal, and he will be showered with encomiums. Just as the wretched drunken womanizer Ted Kennedy was awarded laurels as a heroic champion of women’s rights — Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment — so it was that Politico‘s hiring of the utterly despicable Todd Purdum was celebrated in July by editor-in-chief John Harris:

Todd S. Purdum, who over 30 years in journalism has fashioned a deserved reputation as one of the most perceptive reporters and elegant stylists of his generation, is coming to POLITICO in September.  . . .
Todd will maintain a strong affiliation with Vanity Fair. As a contributing editor, he will continue to write longer profiles and historical essays on its pages. POLITICO will be his home for the wealth of more in-the-moment reporting and observations that are in Todd’s head and his notebook at any time. Todd, Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair, and I all believe this will be a winning arrangement from every perspective.

It’s magic: Any mendacious scumbag can be transformed into a “perceptive reporter” and an “elegant stylist,” merely by being liberal.

 

 


Category: Ace of Spades, Health Care, Media Bias
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