The Other McCain

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

Just in Time for Halloween: ‘The Evil Baby-Killing Monster From Hell’

Posted on | October 29, 2013 | 24 Comments

Otherwise known as “choice”:

The mother accused of suffocating her newborn then dumping the body in the tank of a bar toilet will go on trial for the child’s death.
On Monday, Northampton County Magisterial Judge David Tidd ruled that Amanda Catherine Hein should go on trial for criminal homicide.
Hein was charged in August after a baby’s body was found in a restaurant toilet.
Police say that the 26-year-old Allentown, Pa. resident suffocated her baby with a plastic bag and then put the baby in the tank of a toilet in the woman’s restroom inside Starters Pub in Lower Saucon Township. . . .
She could end up facing the death penalty if she’s found guilty of the charges against her. The intentional killing of a child under the age of 12 is a capital offense.

Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics:

Why are the nation’s pro-choice organizations not rushing to the defense of this woman? Remember, two of their standard arguments in support of abortion is that (a) women are the ones who get to determine when life begins and (b) the government has no legal right to tell a woman she has to have a baby she doesn’t want.
Well, if those things are true, Ms. Hein fits the pro-choice model to a tee. . . .
The fact is, if the body of this little boy had been found in the bathroom of an abortion clinic instead of in the bathroom of a bar, the country would have never heard about it and Ms. Hein would just be another enlightened woman exercising her constitutional right to choose. . . .

 

Category: Abortion, Crime

Inmate Number 288928

Posted on | October 29, 2013 | 42 Comments

Roger Shuler, Shelby County Jail inmate No. 288928

“Shuler is his own worst enemy. . . . He seems to enjoy being his own lawyer. He has given his only client some bad advice.”
— U.S. District Judge William Acker, Jan. 28, 2011

“At some point during the eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency, a substantial segment of the Democrat Party went nuts. Or maybe they were always nuts, but during the Bush years all these liberal kooks logged onto the Internet, and they have been plaguing America with their lunacy ever since.”
— “Crazy in Alabama,” The American Spectator

It’s all fun and games until you get fired from your job, get sued for defamation and land your ass in the Shelby County Jail, eh?

The weirdness of Roger Shuler is perhaps not a subject of general interest, as editors would say, and the Kook Rights Movement is still a fringe phenomenon, but as an example of a social trend, I think there’s something to see here that is worth contemplating.

Rather than to front-load this post with a lot of navel-gazing and pontification, however, let’s update you with some actual news:

A court injunction that led to the arrest of an Alabama blogger last week could imperil free speech rights, a national organization said Monday. “Legal Schnauzer” blogger Roger Shuler was arrested Wednesday and held without bond in the Shelby County, Ala., jail on a contempt of court charge after he refused to comply with a preliminary court injunction that prohibited him from continuing to repeat accusations against the son of former Alabama Gov. Bob Riley.
“Unfortunately for bloggers and free speech advocates, the injunction in the Shuler case could have a chilling effect,” Ali A. Akbar, president of the National Bloggers Club said in a press release Monday. “As a result, the National Bloggers Club believes the injunction, not the case itself, poses the real threat to bloggers.” . . .

Read the whole thing at Viral Read, and ask yourself this important question: Was Roger Shuler sane before he started blogging?

It’s a question I occasionally ask about myself. A certain minimal level of craziness is probably necessary for success in this racket, but as wildly gonzo as this trip sometimes gets — and hey, I’m being sued for RICO, along with Glenn Beck, Simon & Shuster and a deputy D.A. in Los Angeles County — you don’t want to spin out of control.

My remarkable success in monetizing insanity depends on keeping a close eye on the mental tachometer. If it ever goes beyond the sort of hypomanic range where the “good crazy” happens, it could turn into a full-blown psychotic meltdown and, fun as it may be to watch that kind of total freakout as a spectator, it’s never much fun for the performer.

Sept. 12, 2012: Barrett Brown rants about his plan to ‘destroy’ an FBI agent

But why bring up Barrett Brown at this point, really? There is a parallel between what happened to Barrett and what happened to Shuler. Both of them had underlying personal issues that, while obvious enough to the observer experienced in dealing with kooks, were not apparent to those who saw them as heroic crusaders for certain political causes.

Let’s face it: A lot of the people involved with Anonymous were (and are) dangerously crazy and among the hacker groupies, the fanboys and wannabes, there wasn’t a lot of the kind of objectivity that would lead them to ask, “Is Barrett Brown a lunatic?”

Glory days: Barrett Brown interviewed by Michael Isikoff, 2011

With his boyish appearance, his rumbling baritone “Take Me Seriously” voice and his innate penchant for pretentious bullshit — he loved to throw around SAT-prep words like “erudite” — Brown was able to convince a lot of unskeptical people that he knew what he was talking about and had it all under control. But he was a mentally disturbed junkie the whole time, cleverly faking his way through the media charade, hiding his personal grudges behind a lot of paranoid political gibberish and slowly sliding toward a state of complete desperation:

“I know what’s legal, because I know what’s been done to me and if it’s legal when it’s done to me it’s going to be legal when it’s done to f**king FBI Agent Robert Smith, who is a criminal, who is involved in a criminal conspiracy. . . . Uh, anyway, so that’s why Robert Smith’s life is over. And when I say his life is over I don’t say I’m gonna go kill him, but I am gonna ruin his life and look into his fuckin’ kids, because Aaron Barr did the same thing, and he didn’t get raided for it. How do ya like them apples?”
— Barrett Brown, Sept. 12, 2012

Maybe you’ve never watched that video, the third and final episode in the Barrett Brown YouTube Epic Meltdown Series (Part One and Part Two), and maybe you’ve never read the transcripts (Part One, Part Two, Part Three) to see just how insane he really was. The fact that his deluded admirers have tried to depict him as a First Amendment martyr doesn’t change the basic truth: Barrett Brown was crazy.

And something else to notice: There is nobody on the Right who is (a) as crazy as that, and (b) celebrated as a hero for being that crazy.

No, not even me.

If you ever go off the deep end and threaten to “destroy” an FBI agent, vowing to kill any cops who try to stop you, your only hope to be embraced as a hero is to do so in the name of a left-wing cause. There certainly are some dangerous kooks who could be politically categorized as “right wing,” but they’re not getting sympathetic write-ups in The Weekly Standard, whereas you can see Barrett Brown depicted as a sort of romantic renegade in Rolling Stone.

This creates an incentive for bad behavior on the Left that has no parallel on the Right, and it’s time we stop pretending that there is a moral equivalence, because there really isn’t. When you see a kook like Barrett Brown or Roger Shuler spin out of control and get himself arrested, there is a certain logic to them doing this in pursuit of a left-wing agenda, because the Left offers incentives to such behavior, especially the hope of becoming a Heroic Martyr for the Cause.

OK, enough with the pontification, for now at least, and let me get back to the serious business of pimping my latest column:

Roger Shuler runs a blog in Alabama called “Legal Schnauzer.” To be more accurate, Shuler was running that blog until he got arrested last week for violating a court order. As of Monday afternoon, Shuler was still being held without bail in the Shelby County Jail as inmate number 288928. The charge that landed Shuler in jail was contempt of court, to which was added a resisting arrest charge. Maybe he should change the name of his blog to “Illegal Schnauzer.”
The contempt of court charge against Shuler stemmed from a defamation suit brought against him by Robert R. “Rob” Riley Jr., a prominent Birmingham attorney whose father, former Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, is a Republican. Shuler seems to believe all Republicans are “corrupt,” engaged in “fraud,” and conspiring against him. After getting fired from his university job in 2008, Shuler has spent the past several years clogging the courts with lawsuits — filed pro se, which is to say, with Shuler acting as his own attorney — and filling the Internet with accusations against those corrupt and fraudulent Republicans he insists are out to get him. What windmills were to Don Quixote, Republicans are to Roger Shuler. His weird obsession might be harmless, if it weren’t for the fact that he keeps publishing defamatory claims on his blog. . . .

Read the whole thing at The American Spectator, because I’m just crazy enough to explain this kind of insanity to normal people.




 

 

PREVIOUSLY:

 


Category: Barrett Brown, Roger Shuler

‘Sooner or Later …’

Posted on | October 29, 2013 | 25 Comments

“. . . you run out of other people’s money.”

Post by Mike Smiley.

 

 


Category: Economics

The Liar-in-Chief

Posted on | October 29, 2013 | 54 Comments

How bad is the failure of ObamaCare? Bad enough that MSNBC’s Morning Joe can’t ignore it, says Pete Da Tech Guy. While they cannot ignore it, however, the liberal media must find some explanation that makes this failure look less predictable than it was, and how to make President Obama’s deliberate lies look like innocent errors:

President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.
Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.” . . .

So all those promises — that rates would go down and that people could keep their existing plans — were deliberate lies. And all the conservatives who tried to warn that ObamaCare was doomed to failure were correct. But the liars were all Democrats, and the people who told the truth were all Republicans, so there will be no apologies and no repentance. Instead, they’ll just come up with new lies.

 


Category: Barack Obama, Health Care

LIVE AT FIVE: 10.29.13

Posted on | October 29, 2013 | 11 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Federal Judge Strikes Down Key Elements Of Texas Abortion Law

Pro-death protester

Strikes down admitting-privilege and strict drug protocol requirements

US Spy Chiefs Face Congress Amid Euro Snooping Fury
DIRNSA, DNI Clapper, Deputy AG Cole to testify today


Obama Campaign Links Hacked
Syrian Electronic Army claims credit for hijacking OFA Twitter, Facebook followers to propaganda websites



POLITICS
Former Representative Ike Skelton Dies, 81

Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), 1931-2013, RIP

Former House Armed Services Committee chairman lost his seat in the 2010 wave; had been in Congress since 1976

Obama To Campaign For McAuliffe On Sunday

Cuomo Casino Push Seeks To Return Catskills To Past Glory

Detroit Bankruptcy Trial Veers Off Course As Gov. Snyder Takes The Stand

Want To Know How Good Your ObamaCare Coverage Is? Too Bad.

San Francisco Floats Tax On Sugary Drinks

House Passes Bill To Cut Bonuses At VA

Ex-Rep. Renzi Gets Three Years For Corruption, Money Laundering

Tubby Troops Turn To Liposuction To Beat Body-Fat Requirements



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Oil Drops In Asian Trade As Traders Await Word From Fed: NYMEX $98.47, Brent $109.11
Apple Profits Slip Again Despite iPhone Launch
S&P 500 Ends On Record High On Fed Hopes
Toyota Keeps Top Spot In Sales, Beating GM, VW
Burger King Reports Strong Growth In Third Quarter
Factory Slowdown Shows US Economy Has Little Traction
The Mystery Of Google’s Floating Barges
Motorola’s “Project Ara” Modular Smartphone Switches Out Hardware Like Apps
Brit Charged With Hacking NASA, US Military Computers
Why Samsung Needs To Woo Developers
Play-i Robots Teach Kids To Code



SPORTS
Red Sox One Win Away From World Championship

Jon Lester: in command

Lester shuts down Cardinals, and another unsung hero delivers the winning hit for the Sox

Seahawks D Snuffs Rams’ Final Drive For 14-9 Win

Habs Ruin Rangers’ Home Opener With 2-0 Shutout

Pens’ Defense Stifles Hurricanes In 3-1 Win

Canucks Rally In Third Period, Upset Capitals 3-2

Stars Hang On For 4-3 Win Against New-Look Sabres

Tigers Interview Ausmus As Search For Leyland’s Replacement Continues

Strasburg Has Bone Chips Removed From Right Elbow



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Britney Spears Songs Used To Scare Off Somali Pirates

The Merchant Marine’s secret weapon

“These guys can’t stand Western culture or music, making Britney’s hits perfect.”


“Fifty Shades Of Grey” Start Date Pushed Back To December 2

50 Cent Cops Plea, Domestic Violence Charges Dismissed

Charge Against Chris Brown Reduced To Misdemeanor Assault

Kelly Osbourne/Lady Gaga Feud Continues Despite Peace Offering Cake


Jennifer Hudson Chops Off All Her Hair, Debuts Chic Pixie Cut

NBC Developing Sitcom With Lesbian Lead From Ellen DeGeneres

Lisa Kudrow – Therapy For Peanuts

Kendra Wilkinson’s Secret Rendezvous With Ex-BF

Joan Jett Rocking Indie “Undateable John”

Emile Hirsch To Play John Belushi In Indie Biopic

Katy Perry Tells “Naked” Pop Star Peers To “Put It Away”



FOREIGNERS
Uighur Muslims Sought After Five Die In Fiery Tienanmen Crash
Death Toll From European Storm Hits 13
US Peace Talks On Syria Over Before They Begin?
Polish PM Tadeusz Mazowiecki Dies, 88
Obama, Netanyahu Discuss Iran
Saudi Women Defy Authorities Over Driving Ban
Aussie PM Abbott Declares “End Of Longest War” In Surprise Visit To Afghanistan
Minority Support: A Bridge Too Far For Narendra Modi



BLOGS & STUFF
Dead Republican Party: The Tapestry Of Rights And Obligations
Proof Positive: Mitt Romney: The Nicest Guy You Don’t Want to be President
First Street Journal: Is Inflation On The Horizon?
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: New York Times Says Not Enough Bros Signing Up For ObamaCare
Michelle Malkin: What Happened To All Of Obama’s Technology Czars?
Twitchy: “Didn’t Know He Didn’t Know What Was Going On” – Blissfully Unaware President Sparks Mockery
American Power: Valerie Jarrett Blames Insurance Companies For Millions Of Cancellations Under #ObamaCare
American Thinker: Provincial Coastal Media Cover The World Series
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Obamacare Watch – Dude, Where’s My Healthcare?
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, October 28
Jammie Wearing Fools: Strategist With “Close Ties” To White House Says “Dem Party Is F****d” Thanks To Obamacare
JustOneMinute: What Will Dick Cheney Say?
Pat Dollard: Megyn Kelly Snaps At Democrat Guest Over Obamacare – Don’t Go To Your “Happy Place”, Answer The Question!
Protein Wisdom: Dear Democrats – If You’ve Lost David Frum…
Shot In The Dark: The Original Wrapper
The Jawa Report: The Lost Return Of The Jedi Laserdisk
The Lonely Conservative: Terrorism Hit An All-Time High In 2012
Megan McArdle: Obamacare’s Big Thinkers Forgot To Bring In The Doers


Category: Live at Five

Loose Cannons And Enthusiastically Violent AIs

Posted on | October 28, 2013 | 26 Comments

— Wombat-socho


Apologies for the lack of book posts lately, but frankly, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to spend between the covers of a book while playing Dad Taxi while my daughter was in town. Since I’m not going to be doing much else this week, you may wind up getting two book posts, but no promises. We’ll see how it goes.


First, the leftover recommendations by commenters from the last book post: L. Neil Smith’s The Nagasaki Vector got some love, as did Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson, Roger Zelazny’s Roadmarks, and in the How The Hell Did I Manage To Forget These category, Tim Powers’ Three Days to Never and The Anubis Gates. Both of those are most excellent, as is pretty much everything Powers has written. Man deserves his own post, and one of these weeks I’m going to have to slap it together. Also, Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions.


I did find time to finish David Drake’s Loose Cannon, the Tom Kelly anthology. I thought I’d read Fortress, the second novel in the collection, before but guess I thought wrong – either that, or it was so long ago that I completely forgot about it, which is pretty unlikely considering that I can still remember plot summaries of stories I haven’t read since junior high school. Anyhow, in the unlikely event either Fortress or Skyripper get made into movies, Bruce Willis is a cinch to play Tom Kelly. No idea who’d they get to play Gisele, the German belly dancer, though. Anyway, as to the plot of Fortress: it takes place in an alternate history 1985 where the US did things right and got to the moon in 1963, in which year McNamara instead of Kennedy ate a bullet in Dallas, and American troops wound up in Lebanon instead of Vietnam. In this alternate 1985, Tom Kelly is an aide to a Congressman recruited by the CIA to find out what the hell is going on with some former Kurdish assets and some ex-SS men in Turkey…to say nothing of the aliens. There are references to an alt-history version of the USS Liberty incident and Kelly’s exposure of Israeli involvement, which is the reason he got turfed from the NSA, as well as what looks an awful lot like a rework of Drake’s short story “The Last Battalion”, which also involves Nazis and aliens. The first half of the anthology, of course, is the technothriller Skyripper – although Skyripper only fakes being a technothriller until you realize that the Soviet scientist raving about aliens isn’t raving*. Between the two novels, you really ought to pick up Loose Cannon if you don’t already own both novels.


The other book I managed to finish last week was Iain Banks’ Surface Detail, and I was surprised that it ended as happily as it did. This has not been my experience with other Culture novels by Banks, most of which feature the bulk of the POV characters dying in fairly unpleasant ways (and for no good reason to boot) but this one was a pleasant surprise, with the [deleted] dying a miserable and painful death while [deleted] get their [deleted] handed to them as they so richly deserve, and [deleted] as well as [deleted] get to live happily ever after. Which is a long, long time in the Culture. The story takes a while to get rolling, but is worth the time you spend on it. Some nice space battles in this one, too, although you might argue they’re more like deep-space ambushes where the ambushers don’t realize just how much trouble they’re about to get into. Bwahahaha!


Currently reading Threat Vector and already getting the feeling I missed a couple of books in the Jack Ryan universe, since the last one I read was The Teeth Of The Tiger.


So what have y’all been reading?


*This isn’t exactly a spoiler since whatever genius at Baen wrote the back cover blurb already SPOILED IT FOR EVERYBODY. Nice job there, spud.

Category: Books

A New York Times Columnist Even Worse Than David Brooks and Paul Krugman?

Posted on | October 28, 2013 | 30 Comments

As impossible as it may seem, apparently it is true:

The New York Times earlier this month announced “an important expansion” of its opinion offerings, adding more than two dozen new contributors from around the world slated to write monthly columns.
Among them is Egyptian best-selling author Alaa Al-Aswany, quoted frequently in the English-language media and described as a “liberal” Egyptian voice . . .
According to Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Aswany is “among Egypt’s most prolific conspiracy theorists, and he often uses his very public platform to reinforce some of Egypt’s most popular bigotries,” The New Republic notes.
Because Aswany voices his more controversial opinions in Arabic, the Western press doesn’t notice.
For example, Aswany told Egyptian television that a “massive Zionist organization rules America,” thus “Obama is not able to go against Israel’s desires.”

More from Eric Trager in the New Republic:

In August, when Senator John McCain visited Egypt to encourage negotiations between the military and the Brotherhood, Aswany tweeted, “The Zionist John McCain, one of the biggest defenders of Israel, threatens Egypt if it does not release [Brotherhood leader] Shater immediately. The only explanation is that Brotherhood rule is in the interest of Israel.”

So yes, Aswany is worse than David Brooks and Paul Krugman.

But not worse than Tom Friedman. Nobody is worse than Friedman.

 

Category: New York Times

‘Seize This Opportunity to Cripple the Tea Party’s Political Power for Good’

Posted on | October 28, 2013 | 52 Comments

One of the things you learn is that if you ever sign up online for any liberal or Democrat operation — even as a reporter trying to get campaign information — your e-mail address will be sold and resold until eventually you’re on every liberal mailing list.

Which I don’t mind, actually, because it gives you a glimpse into what kind of messages are turning up in Democrat inboxes. Eight days before the gubernatorial election in Virginia, this is what was sent out by Democracy for America this morning:

Robert —
“Beat the snot out of them.” — former Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-OH
“If they refuse to fight for us, we must fight them.” — Erick Erickson, RedState
Those aren’t Republicans talking about what they are going to do to Democrats next year. Those are Republicans talking about what they want to do to each other — just as the GOP’s approval ratings implode in the aftermath of the government shutdown.
I assume you’ve heard the phrase, “strike while the iron is hot.” Well, if you want to hold the Tea Party accountable, irons don’t come much hotter than the upcoming election in the purple state of Virginia — in just one week. With voters livid about the government shutdown and Republicans embroiled in a civil war, progressives are in prime position to shock the political world in Virginia, setting the stage for Democrats taking back the House in 2014.
Do you want to seize this opportunity to cripple the Tea Party’s political power for good? Then join fellow DFA members to Call Out the Vote in Virginia.

Yes, I can volunteer to make calls from home into Virginia on Wednesday.
No, I can’t make calls but I can chip in $5 to support DFA’s Call Out The Vote program in Virginia — and in states all over the country in 2014.

DFA went into Virginia early, endorsing and supporting bold Democratic candidates across the state. The polls are extremely tight, and our Purple to Blue endorsed candidates have never been in a stronger position to win.
Our volunteers know that the frustration and fatigue with obstructionist Tea Party tactics is real. Not only is it reflected in the polls — it is reflected in the daily conversations DFA members are having with voters in Virginia. In recent Call Out The Vote phone banks to Virginia, I’ve spoken with several Democrats and independents who can’t wait to run out and cast a ballot for our endorsed candidates on November 5. And I’ve even spoken to Republicans for whom the government shutdown was the last straw.
This isn’t just about one state or one election. This is about seizing an opportunity to change the congressional campaign landscape for 2014. Can you volunteer to help Call Out the Vote in Virginia this week?
Yes, I can volunteer to make calls from home into Virginia on Wednesday.
No, I can’t make calls but I can chip in $5 to support DFA’s Call Out The Vote program in Virginia — and in states all over the country in 2014.
Thank you for helping us win,

Karli

Karli Wallace, Campaign Organizer
Democracy for America
P.S. As an added incentive, the top caller from each COTV shift will receive a signed copy of Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform. Click here to sign up now.

What this tells me is that “Tea Party” is a bogeyman phrase for liberals, the way “Halliburton” and “Religious Right” used to be.

As for Virginia, as incredible as it seems to say, the Old Dominion may actually be about to elect Terry McAuliffe governor.

The Real Clear Politics poll average has McAuliffe leading Republican Ken Cuccinelli by nearly 10 points, and by 8 points (50-42) in the latest Quinnipiac survey. Why? It’s not Cuccinelli’s fault — he’s a good candidate who has run a good campaign. The problem is that Republicans seem so demoralized and apathetic after their defeat in 2012 that they couldn’t raise enough money to enable Cuccinelli to compete effectively with McAuliffe’s money machine.

Also, since 2010, the GOP has gradually backslid into a cautious, timid and unprincipled “Me Too” posture. If you’re for gay marriage and amnesty for illegal immigrants, you can vote Democrat, but if you’re against gay marriage and amnesty, Republicans won’t dare appeal for your vote by speaking out on these issues, because their consultants tell them your opinions are marginal and disreputable.

You can’t win if you’re afraid to fight. Nobody admires cowardice, and the GOP nowadays marches under the white flag of surrender.

 


Category: Democrats, Election, Tea Party, Virginia
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