The Other McCain

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

ObamaCare: The Liar-in-Chief Throws Kathleen Sebelius to the Wolves

Posted on | October 30, 2013 | 32 Comments

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today displayed the classic combination of dishonesty and entitled arrogance we have come to expect from the monstrously selfish people who insist that we call them “public servants,” although Sebelius could scarcely conceal her contempt for the public she claims to serve.

Not a single Republican voted for ObamaCare, and the responsibility for its massive failure therefore lies entirely with Democrats. Therefore, the task assigned to Sebelius (and to Democrats on the committee) was to convey the impression that the failure is not actually failure, that contrary to all evidence, ObamaCare is successful, and that it is only the mean-spiritedness of Republicans that is the problem.

Even as Sebelius was compelled to embarrass herself in defense of President Obama’s indefensible failure, however, the president is busy trying to make her his designated scapegoat:

An agitated President Obama has expressed frustration to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about the faulty ObamaCare enrollment website.
A visibly annoyed Obama behind closed doors has made clear to Sebelius that it’s her responsibility to fix what has become an unwanted second-term blunder, according to senior administration officials.
White House officials say the strong words from Obama don’t mean Sebelius is necessarily in the doghouse but that she’s responsible for fixing the problem.
In the words of one senior administration official, “She’s in a tough spot. She’s on the hook.”

These petulant children deserve each other.

 

Category: Barack Obama, Health Care

Marriage, Success and Feminism

Posted on | October 30, 2013 | 48 Comments

Bradley Wilcox has an excellent article at The Atlantic showing the data that correlates marriage to economic outcomes for children. This is reminiscent of one of the most best articles ever published by The Atlantic, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s 1993 “Dan Quayle Was Right.”

You may remember the controversy referenced in the title: Vice President Quayle criticized the CBS comedy Murphy Brown for glamorizing unwed motherhood. There was fierce feminist criticism of Quayle who, supposedly, was against Progress and Equality. But the social science then, as now, was perfectly clear: Marriage is a good thing, and is especially beneficial to children.

Whitehead expanded her thesis into an excellent book, The Divorce Culture: Rethinking Our Commitments to Marriage and Family, which I strongly recommend to anyone who wants to understand the social, economic and cultural forces that hurt families.

Divorce and unwed parenthood are correlated with bad outcomes for children, but we must remember that correlation is not causation and that a demonstrable statistical trend — e.g., higher incomes for children of intact marriages — does not mean that every child from a broken home is doomed to a life of poverty. Something else to remember: Trends do not make people. Rather, people make trends.

What causes divorce? Most often, selfishness is the reason. Marriage requires generosity and patience, because any two people will inevitably have conflicts. The normal human tendency in any conflict is to blame the other person, and it requires an unselfish spirit to say to ourselves, “Maybe this is my fault or, even if it isn’t entirely my fault, it’s better to just take the blame and end the argument.”

The selfish person is the one who insists on winning every argument, merely to satisfy his or her pride. Such a selfish spirit is unsuited for marriage, because if you insist you are always right, this turns your marriage into a constant humiliation for your spouse.

A domineering personality — a selfish bully who enjoys the humiliation of others — does not want a partner in marriage so much as he wants a handy target, someone he can push around, just to prove to himself his own superiority. A good marriage requires respect and trust. We should strive to deserve the admiration and cooperation of our spouses, rather than seek to coerce or trick them, which is what the domineering, controlling or manipulative spouse does. And because all of us are imperfect, voluntary cooperation within marriage requires an unselfish, forgiving and patient temperament.

We have to know our own needs, and to be able to discern between our actual needs and our mere wants. I sometimes joke that I married a woman mean enough to keep me in line, and there is truth in humor. My wife is a sweet and generous woman, but she is nobody’s doormat. She is ferocious when angry and always willing to tell me when I am out of line — which, of course, I occasionally am.

OK, probably more than just “occasionally.”

My goal in life is to make her happy, and I succeed in this goal far less often than I would wish. As I am proud to have her as my wife, I want to make her proud to have me as her husband. This requires a constant striving, and that in turn requires a determined commitment — the mental will to stick it out, no matter what, even when she’s so angry that she is ready to pack my bags and kick me out.

“If Americans can be divorced for ‘incompatibility of temper,’ I cannot conceive why they are not all divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible.”
— G.K. Chesterton, 1910

My defense of the traditional family and my criticism of feminism have, I fear, created the impression that I am some kind of Archie Bunker stereotype of a husband, a perception that is quite the opposite of truth. Actually (as my oldest daughter’s husband could certainly testify), our daughters have been raised to be confident and independent. A good woman is not timid or helpless and, in fact, one of the reasons I despise feminism is because it fosters a victimhood mentality that cripples women’s capacity for happiness.

Like all other radical egalitarian movements, feminism degrades the individual in order to promote a sense of collective grievance (on the part of the alleged victims) and collective guilt (on the part of their alleged victimizers). The ordinary unfairness of life — which we all experience routinely, no matter who we are — is rhetorically magnified into systematic Social Injustice, and the radical crusade for collective Equality is promised as the utopian solution. Anyone who buys into such a mass movement mindset thereby surrenders responsibility for their own life, and this is in fact the basic incentive: “You are not responsible! Your unhappiness is not your fault!”

Damn you, and damn your miserable victimhood movement.

Marriage requires mutual respect and cooperation. I refuse to endorse the degradation of women inherent to the feminist mentality.

 

 


Category: Feminism, Marriage

LIVE AT FIVE: 10.30.13

Posted on | October 30, 2013 | 11 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
DNI Clapper Contradicts White House

Protesters (including Medea Benjamin, left) look on as DIRNSA testifies before Congress

Says Obama was aware of NSA snooping on allies

A Year After Sandy, Public Housing Tenants Still Waiting
Storm-damaged apartment buildings still not fixed

Narendra Modi Keeps Up Fire On “Shahzada”
No respite in attacks on Rahul Gandhi



POLITICS
Oklahoma Supreme Court Sustains Strikedown Of State’s Abortion Law

Pro-abortion protesters at a February rally in OKC

Law limited how medications could be used to induce abortions


White House Knew Obamacare Claims Were False

Senators Bicker Over States’ “Stand Your Ground” Laws


Federal Appeals Court Postpones Decision On Delay Of Stop & Frisk Ban

Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Junior Finally Starts Jail Term

Health Agency Chief Refuses To Disclose ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers

Charlie Rangel Gets It Wrong Again; Claims No Republicans Voted For Social Security

White House Asks Congress To Find A Way To Keep Aid Flowing To Egypt

House Attempts To Block “Illegal” IRS Checks, But Reid Says System Working Fine



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
WTI Declines For A Second Day As US Stockpiles Gain: NYMEX $97.40, Brent $108.59
Wall Street Listens For Cooing Of Dovish Fed
Strong Growth At LinkedIn, But Sober Forecast Sends Shares Down
US Retail Sales Fall Slightly In September
JP Morgan’s $13 Billion Settlement With Justice Department Could Be Falling Apart
Sears’ Lampert Broadens Breakup Plans As Sales Slump
Barnes & Noble Unveils New Nook GlowLight
Apple’s iPad Air Raises The Tablet Bar
New Innings For Nokia
MongoHQ Goes Into Lockdown After Detecting Breach
EA: “Titanfall” To Remain XBox/Windows Exclusive “For The Life Of The Title”



SPORTS
Derrick Rose Returns, But Heat Beat The Bulls Anyway

Rose drives by the Heat’s Mario Chalmers

Miami coasts to 107-95 win in season opener

Gold Gloves Are Pirates’ Final 2013 Strikeout

Toronto Knuckleballer R.A. Dickey Wins Gold Glove


Rangers Ice Islanders In Frantic Finish

Ducks Win 3-2 Against Flyers, But Selanne Loses Teeth

Pacers Open Season With 97-87 Victory Over Magic

Habs Edge Stars 2-1

Leafs Rout Oilers 4-0



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
“The Only People Who’d Understand Are Brad And Angelina”

VF cover girl

Nicole Kidman dishes on her marriage to Tom Cruise

Harrison Ford Answers Dumb Questions From GQ About “Ender’s Game”

“The Walking Dead” Renewed For Fifth Season

“NCIS” Star Michael Weatherly: It’s A Boy!

Jonas Brothers: “It’s Over For Now”

New Jack Nicholson Bio Reveals He Banged Meryl Streep In A Trailer


“Orange Is The New Black”‘s Laverne Cox Not Offended By Julianne Hough’s Blackface Costume

Mike Tyson Tells Chris Brown “Stop Punching People Or Else!”

Pink Goes On Twitter Tirade After Fan’s Criticize Baby’s Ride With Dad On Motorbike

Tori Spelling: I Have A Sex Tape With Sean McDermott

Camille Grammer Claims BF Brutalized Her, Wins Restraining Order

Chris Brown Enters Rehab For Anger Management



FOREIGNERS
PRC Police Hunt Eight Suspects In Tiananmen Crash
Prisoner Release Sparks Conflict In Netanyahu’s Coalition
Arab League envoy Warns Of “Somalization” Of Syria
Syrian Refugees Overwhelming Jordan
Saudi-US Rift On Middle East Causing Severe Diplomatic Strain
ROK Lawmakers Visit Reopened Kaesong Industrial Park
Russia Used USB Pen Drives To Spy On Leaders At G20 Summit
Kenyan Soldiers Jailed For Westgate Looting
Aussie Bureaucrat Loses Case For Worker’s Comp From Sex Injury
Three Of Six Suspects Arrested In Patna Bombing Case



BLOGS & STUFF
Dead Republican Party: Cultural Marxism And The “Diversity” Hoax
First Street Journal: Just Who The Hell Is In Charge Around Here?
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: #Obamacare Is Textbook Bad Economic Policy
Doug Powers: Sebelius Touted “Silver Lining” In O-Care System Right Before It Crashed
Twitchy: Tommy Christopher Sez If You Like Your Health Care Plan, You Don’t Know Sh!t
American Power: Breaking Barack – Obamacare Lies And Obama’s Lies
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Obamacare Watch – While There’s Breath, There’s Hope
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, October 29
Jammie Wearing Fools: NY Doctors Resisting Obamacare Mess
JustOneMinute: You’re Damn Right We Ordered The Code Red
Pat Dollard: McCain Says They’ll Try To Pass Immigration Changes After GOP Primaries
Protein Wisdom: Precious Concern Trolling
Shot In The Dark: Watching The Astroturf Grow – Money Changes Everything
The Jawa Report: Group Behind Mumbai Massacre Openly Raising Money In Pakistan
The Lonely Conservative: New Democrat Talking Point – You Can Keep Your Insurance If It’s “Good” Insurance
Megan McArdle: Would You Buy Groceries On Amazon?


Category: Live at Five

Creepy Criminal Sex Freaks Planning Halloween ‘Wedding’ on Prison Island

Posted on | October 29, 2013 | 58 Comments

Washington State has a facility for convicted violent sex offenders called the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island near Tacoma.

And speaking of “special commitments” . . .

When Hank Pollock and his transgender bride Rebecca Elmore tie the knot Thursday, they will become the first two residents [of the Special Commitment Center] to marry each other.
“Just because you’re in there, you don’t lose your civil rights,” said Chris Case, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social and Health Services, which operates the SCC. “Washington law says they can get married so they can get married. . . .
Pollock, 47, and Elmore, 57, say their day-to-day lives might not change much but they hope their marriage will pave the way for others, including fellow sex offenders . . .
The friendship between Pollock and Elmore reaches back a decade to when Pollock moved to the SCC.
Elmore was already there after pleading guilty in 1995 in Clark County to second-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault with sexual motivation. When Elmore petitioned to be released in 1999, the state Attorney General’s Office persuaded the judge to deny it based on Elmore’s “sexually-motivated cannibalistic fantasies.”
In 2002, Elmore changed his first name from Keith to Rebecca as part of his transgender transformation.
Pollock, who changed his name from Andrew Drescher in 2002, was convicted of five counts of sex crimes against children in Kitsap and Thurston counties from 1987 to 1993. He was committed to the SCC for being a repeat sex offender. . . .

Wait a minute! A tranny kidnapper with “sexually-motivated cannibalistic fantasies” marrying a serial child molester on a prison island? Is this a news article or a Bravo network reality series we’re talking about? Oh, and it’s going to be a lovely ceremony:

To find a pastor to conduct the ceremony, they wrote the nonprofit organization Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays. A Seattle Christian pastor agreed to officiate at their wedding free of charge.
They chose Oct. 31 to be wed, because it is Samhain, the start of the Wiccan New Year. Not only is it an important date for their religion, they said, but it also symbolizes a new start for the couple. The ceremony will take place in the visiting room at SCC and be limited to two hours. Seven residents will be allowed to attend, not including the pastor and his partner.

“. . . the pastor and his partner . .  .”

(Hat-tip: Pundit From Another Planet.)

 

Category: Crime, Gays, Marriage, Sex

Parents Permitted Teen Daughter’s Relationship With Sex Offender

Posted on | October 29, 2013 | 24 Comments

Here’s some cheerful, positive, upbeat news:

Authorities are asking for the public’s help in finding a convicted sex offender who had been having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a teenage girl while living with her family.
The Starr County [Texas] Sheriff’s Office is looking for 42-year-old Jorge Luis Dominguez on a sexual assault with a previous conviction charge.
Investigators told Action 4 News that Dominguez is a convicted sex offender but had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl for about four weeks time.
Deputies said Dominguez was living with the girl’s family at their Rio Grande City area home and that her parents consented to the relationship.
Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) records show that Dominguez is a sex offender who was sentenced to seven years in prison for a sexual crime back in 1999.
Investigators said Dominguez is a Mexican national and was deported but came back to the United States illegally.

Immigrants: Screwing teenagers American sex offenders won’t screw.

 

Category: Crime, Immigration, Sex

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.




 

 

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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
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