The Other McCain

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

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.25.13

Posted on | July 25, 2013 | 8 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
House Narrowly Kills Move To Rein In NSA

The snooping will continue until his morale improves

The snooping will continue until his morale improves

Unlikely alliance of Republican libertarians, Democrat civil rights hardliners falls just short, 217-205

CCP Charges Bo Xilai, Clears Way For Trial
Former party boss charged with bribery, abuse of power and corruption

Pope Francis: Resist “Idols” Of Money, Power, Pleasure
Also urged Catholics to keep their values of faith, generosity, and fraternity in first Mass of his visit to Brazil



POLITICS
Federal Judge Halts Legal Challenges To Detroit Bankruptcy

Heather Lenox presents the bankruptcy case for Detroit

Bankruptcy Court Judge Steven Rhodes rules that the Bankruptcy Court has exclusive jurisdiction


Tulsa May Rename Landmarks Named For Klan Member, City Founder


Federal Agents Raid Washington Pot Dispensaries

Senators To Discuss Reforms To End Military Sexual Assaults

Obama Talks A Lot About The Economy, Not Much About Actually Doing Anything About It

NYT Editorial Board Has Had Enough Weiner, Calls For Pullout

DOJ Begins Probe Into Wall Street Metals Warehousing

Buzz Building On Bernanke Successor At Fed

Obama Nominates Caroline Kennedy As Ambassador To Japan



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Extends Losses In Asian Trade: NYMEX $105.10, Brent $106.97
European Markets Flat Awaiting UK, Germany Data
Facebook Earnings Soar: Live Blog Recap
Visa Returns To Profit In 3Q As Revenue Grows
Unilever First-Half Profit Up 13%
Hanes To Acquire Maidenform For $575 Million
Google Launches Chromecast Low-Cost Streaming Dongle
Zuckerberg: No Ads On Instagram – Yet
Beats Remasters Original High-End Studio Headphones
Microsoft To Allow Developers To Self-Publish XBox One Games
Google Starts Sticking Ads Directly In Your GMail Inbox



SPORTS
Braves Beat Mets 8-2, Hudson Snaps Ankle In Play At First

Hudson in agony from broken ankle

Ace pitcher to have surgery, out for rest of season


Yankees Tired Of A-Rod Drama: “At Some Point, It Has To Stop”


Kevin Love, Durant Commit To Team USA

Alfonso Soriano OK With Yankees

RGIII Feels Good, But Redskins Won’t Allow Hasty Return

Tribe Romps: Beats Mariners 10-1

Royals Overcome Errors, Edge O’s 4-3

Fine Outing By Strasburg Wasted, Nationals Fall 4-2 As Pirates Sweep



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Sex Ed With Aubrey Plaza

Aubrey Plaza, from “Parks And Recreation”

The sarcastic, disaffected GQ interview

“Fruitvale Station” Duo Coogler & Jordan Team With Stallone On “Rocky” Spinoff “Creed”

Puddle Of Mudd Singer Arrested For Buzz Saw Vandalism

Nicole Ari Parker To Recur On “Revolution”, Roger Cross Joins FX Pilot “The Strain”

Lifetime Greenlights “Flowers In The Attic” Movie With Ellen Burstyn, Heather Graham

Christopher Walken To Play Mobster Gyp DeCarlo In Eastwood’s “Jersey Boys”

Roman Polanski Rape Victim Unveils Startling, Disturbing Photo For Book Cover

Amanda Bynes’ Parents Reportedly Seeking Conservatorship

Cory Monteith Seemed “Happy And In Love” During Visit To Mexico For Lea Michele’s Marie Claire Cover Shoot

Abigail Breslin To Star In Schwartzenegger Zombie Film “Maggie”

The Queen Visits Her Great-Grandson

Joe Jonas Ranks Demi, Miley And Selena

Kenya Moore Gets $600K For Fifth Season Of “Real Housewives Of Atlanta”

Conrad Murray To Jackson Family: Mark My Words, I Will Destroy You



FOREIGNERS
At Least 77 Dead In Spanish Rail Crash
Snowden Still Stuck At Sheremetyevo
Narendra Modi Visa Row: 9 MPs Deny Signing Letter To Obama; Gov’t Asks Why Involve The U.S.?
Pakistan ISI Office Bombed, At Least 30 Casualties
Sri Lanka To Reduce Troops In Former Northern War Zone
Jailed Pussy Riot Member Maria Alyokhina Denied Parole Again
PRC Scraps Turnover Tax, VAT For Small Businesses



BLOGS & STUFF
Looking Spoon: Is It Too Early To Joke About Helen Thomas Returning From The Dead?
Michelle Malkin: Nancy Pelosi, Creep Enabler
Hit & Run: The Powerless President
Stephen Kruiser: GOP House – The Media’s Built-In Excuse For The Miserable Failure Of All Things Obama
Althouse: NYC women Don’t Understand Or Like Weiner’s Wife’s Behavior
Weasel Zippers: Carlos Danger Still Leading Race For NYC Mayor
Gateway Pundit: “If You Think Education Is Expensive, Wait Until You See How Much Ignorance Costs In The 21st Century”
Conservatives4Palin: Poll Says More Americans Than Ever Want Obamacare Repealed
PJ Tatler: President Jobs Pivot To Drop Almost $700 Million To Sell Obamacare In Next Few Months
Legal Insurrection: New Public Planning Approach – Less Service, More Tracking
Volokh Conspiracy: Court Orders Nebraska Police To Return $1 Million Seized From Former Exotic Dancer By Asset Forfeiture


Category: Live at Five

#BooksWithOneLetterMissing S.A.V.E: Shameless Acts of Vandalism & Ent.

Posted on | July 24, 2013 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

My favorite, referencing John Updike and “Chariots of Fire”:

The post title references an actual volume, which is more of a monument to my non-command of prophecy than anything else:

Or, on Kindle:
Category: humor

Who Tipped BuzzFeed About Weiner’s Cyber-Girlfriend Sydney Leathers?

Posted on | July 24, 2013 | 116 Comments

My friend Donald Douglas this morning was rather shocked at how quickly I jumped onto the Sydney Leathers story, but I explained on Twitter what I said on the blog Tuesday night: Before I ever heard of Sydney Leathers, the BuzzFeed article was already a banner headline at Drudge, so there wasn’t really anything left to debate. Certainly I wasn’t “outing” her. Ezra Dulis at Big Journalism was all “[redacted] this” and “[redacted] that,” as if ignoring the news could make it less newsworthy, but the news business just doesn’t work that way.

What I added to the story — on the basis of tips from a keen-eyed Twitter buddy — was that (a) Sydney Leathers is a former Obama campaign worker and (b) Sydney Leathers authored a 2011 petition that condemned Sarah Palin for “inciting violence.” That’s news.

If anyone wants to criticize BuzzFeed, they ought to ask: Where did they get the ID of Sydney Leathers? Was this just  a case of clever “investigative journalism” or was it — as I strongly suspect — the result of a tip from a source allied with Team Weiner?

This is not to say, however, that BuzzFeed should not have run with the story once they got that tip. Once you know somebody is shopping around that kind of info, you’re confronted with a kind of devil’s dilemma: “If I don’t take this scoop, somebody else will.”

Such dilemmas occur all the time in political reporting, where people with obvious motives offer you oppo-research materials.

Do you really want to turn up your nose at the offered dossier, knowing that if you do, you’ll probably find it reported in all its tawdry glory somewhere else? Remember that in 2008, there were reporters for major news organizations who knew about the reports of John Edwards’ extramarital affair, but wrongly dismissed them as “tabloid gossip.”

I’ve got a particular interest in the question of who ID’d Sydney Leathers because, for months, Ladd Ehlinger Jr. has entertained the possibility that the harassment of Brett Kimberlin’s enemies was somehow being funded by supporters of Anthony Weiner.

Speculation isn’t my business, but when you observe extraordinary behavior, you can’t preemptively rule out extraordinary motives.

One of the bloggers who did the most damage to Anthony Weiner during the 2011 scandal was Patterico who — just coincidentally, FYI — was also a target of relentless harassment by the obscure alliance of forces that we call Team Kimberlin. Today, Patterico returns to the saga with a devastating timeline of how Weiner’s enablers made this latest scandal possible, and don’t miss this:

And, disturbingly for a guy who was talking about “cape and tights” to a high school girl in Delaware — a grooming line he had used with an adult woman with whom he had sexted — Weiner asks Sydney Leathers if her “pussy” is “smooth” . . .

Oh, my goodness. That seems rather weird, eh?

And while the New York Times sees a pattern, they apparently can’t be bothered to notice that pattern.

Do we know anyone else reputed to have a similar interest in young girls? Seems to ring a bell for some reason . . .

UPDATE: Linked at American Power — thanks! — and welcome, Instapundit readers! Since this involves a mass readership who may be unfamiliar with the background to which I’ve alluded, let me briefly rehash what regular readers of this blog already know:

The seeming convergence of (a) Brett Kimberlin’s Enemies List and (b) a number of bloggers — including Ace of Spades and Lee Stranahan — who had written about WeinerGate could be explained as entirely coincidental. But there were reports that Team Weiner, in planning his political comeback effort, had engaged the services of various lawyers, researchers and consultants. Those of us who know how politics works behind the scenes are well aware that money is fungible: If Politician W hires Consulting Firm X for $20,000, this firm may then hire Freelance Researcher Y for $5,000 and Internet Operative Z for $3,000 on a basis of confidentiality, so that the activities of Y and Z cannot be traced to X, and Politician W then has clean hands (and plausible deniability) if Y and Z get caught red-handed.

Also: Progressives into young girls? Probably just a coincidence.

 


Category: Anthony Weiner, Ladd Ehlinger, Patterico, Scandal, Sex

Is McAuliffe Taking One For The Team, Or Do Dems Think Virginians That Stupid?

Posted on | July 24, 2013 | 29 Comments

by Smitty

Virginia is for lovers of elections, but it’s not clear whether Terry McAuliffe is the kind of Anthony Weiner that Virginia needs in the Governor’s Mansion. His main claim to fame, or wealth, was Global Crossing, right?

In 1997, McAuliffe invested $100,000 in Global Crossing, a telecommunications company providing fiber-optic networking services worldwide. After the company went public in 1998, McAuliffe sold his shares for a large profit. The company later filed for bankruptcy on January 28, 2002. Global Crossing reemerged from bankruptcy in late 2003 and in 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission, after a four-year investigation, ruled that no wrongdoing occurred at Global Crossing and no enforcement action was necessary.

Oh, and then there is his whole GreenTech boondoggle, detailed over at Fairfax Free Citizen.
What is it that keeps this zombie fop twitching, then?

McAuliffe has had a prolific fundraising career within the Democratic Party, and has used his political career to make a personal fortune. McAuliffe has had a long personal and political relationship with Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton.

Ah, the Aristocracy of Pull. While not seeming to be any more effective than, say, President Barack Obama, one can say that McAuliffe has at least done a better job of faking showing up to work, to look at Global Crossing and GreenTech. But what is the point of running for Governor of Virginia, then? Does Terry think that there is enough media artillery available to blow away Ken Cuccinelli? Even if you don’t fancy Ken’s conservative slant on issues, nobody with at leas one good eye would deny that Cuccinelli’s résumé is a full essay, compared to McAuliffe’s sad little tweet to #UniteBlue.

Then there is the debate drubbing McAuliffe took from Cuccinelli last Saturday. While it’s likely that McAuliffe will do well amongst the junior Gollums infesting Northern Virginia, who keep re-electing the likes of ‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran and ‘Merry’ Gerry Connolly, is the rest of the state so decadent as to send a no-talent clown like McAuliffe to Richmnod? As we research more of McAuliffe’s rather whiffy record, one wonders how he will do at the next debate, in September. One does not expect Cuccinelli to get any less Irish or Italian in his onslaught. One also does not expect McAuliffe to be “packin’ the gear” enough to pick up his end. It would cut into his fundraising time.

This is not to say that Cuccinelli can afford complacency. One turns one’s back on a friend of the Clintons at one’s peril. Just ask Ambassador Stevens. Oh, wait.

No, the real point of Terry McAuliffe’s candidacy seems to be an attempt to blunt the rise of Cuccinelli, who, while by no means perfect, does seem to play a solid, methodical hand.

Cuccinelli for Governor

Let McAuliffe take his carpetbagging ways back to New York

Category: Democrats, Virginia

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.24.13

Posted on | July 24, 2013 | 12 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Weiner Sticks It Out

Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin speaks during a news conference

Caught sexting again, former congressman not withdrawing from mayor’s race

Fight Over Detroit Bankruptcy Begins In Federal Court
Law professors agree federal bankruptcy law trumps Michigan state law

Pope Francis To Visit Shrine Where He Called For Change
First event of World Youth Day



POLITICS
Governor McDonnell Apologizes, Repays Campaign Donor Loans

Bob McDonnell at CPAC

No laws broken; most voters say it doesn’t affect current election for governor

Obama Trying To Pivot To Jobs Again

First Lady To Speak To Radical Hispanic Group La Raza

House Prepares To Vote On Amendment Curtailing NSA Surveillance

Marquette Law Wisconsin Poll Shows Approval Slipping For Both Gov. Walker, Obama

Shipment Of F-16s To Post-Morsi Egypt Delayed

General Carter Ham Says “Quickly Apparent” Terrorists Behind Benghazi Attack

Judge Orders Halt To Prayers At NC County Meetings



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Slips On PRC Factory Data: NYMEX $106.96, Brent $108.20
PRC Manufacturing Weakens As Slowdown Deepens
Challenges Remain For Yahoo Despite Short-Term Success
Discover Profit Beats Estimates As Credit-Card Spending Climbs
Ford Boosts Engineer, Computer Worker Hiring
Starbucks To Introduce Greek Yogurt Parfaits
AT&T Misses Expectations As Costs Increase
Apple Wobbles In PRC As Competitors Offer More For Less
Leap Motion: Control Your PC With Handwaving
Oculus Planning VR Game Jam With IndieCade
Google Bigger Than Facebook, Netflix, And Instagram Combined
Flipboard Brings Its Mobile Magazines To The Web
Do People Really Want To Touch Their PC Screens?



SPORTS
Jaromir Jagr Officially Devil – Devils Officially Old

Returning from Russia

Can the 41-year-old vet replace Kovalchuk?


NASCAR Returning TO NBC In 2015

Red Sox Extend Pedroia For Seven Years, $100 Million


Lillibridge Atones For Error, Helps Yankees Steal Game In 9th

Balfour Blows Save, Takes Loss For A’s Against Astros

Former Boxing Champ Emile Griffith Dies, 75

Bochy Notches Win #1500 As Giants Beat Reds In Nightcap

Brewers Trade K-Rod To Birds For Minor Leaguer

Jays Commit Five Errors, Johnson Shelled In 14-5 Loss To Dodgers

Nationals Drop Fifth Straight With 5-1 Loss To Pirates



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Amanda Bynes Placed On Psychiatric Lockdown After Fire Incident

Playing with fire?

Unclear why she was in Thousand Oaks, much less setting fire to a driveway

Jimmy & Nancy Fallon Welcome A Daughter

Beyonce Gets Hair Caught In Fan At Concert

Steven Soderbergh Pledges $10K To Spike Lee’s Kickstarter

Chris Brown Pleads Not Guilty To Hit & Run

Topher Grace Tapped For “Interstellar”


Michelle Forbes From “True Blood” Joins NBC’s “Chicago Fire”

Timur BekmambatovTo Reimagine “Wizard Of Oz” As Fantasy-Action Series For Syfy

“Twilight” Star Kellan Lutz In Talks To Join Stallone For “Expendables 3”

Lady Gaga’s Cocaine Confession Exposed In Tell-All Book

Jay-Z, Madonna, Other Idiots Joining Sharpton’s Florida #Trayvon Boycott



FOREIGNERS
Four Dead After Australia-Bound Asylum Boat Sinks
Qatar Joins Calls For Morsi’s Release
Bulgaria: Police Break Siege Of Parliament
Pakistani Parties Nominate Presidential Candidates
Narendra Modi Visa Talk Heats Up, 65 MPs Write To Obama
Nazi “Wanted” Posters Spark Controversy In Germany
Canada Beefs Up Rail Safety Rules



BLOGS & STUFF
Doug Powers: Illinois Awarded $4.1 Million Federal Bonus For “Only” Misspending $51 Million On Food Stamps
Twitchy: It Takes A Village Idiot – Hillary Clinton Offers Absurd Advice To Royal Couple, Gets Schooled
The Looking Spoon: Seven Liberal Reactions To The Birth Of The Royal Baby
Victor Davis Hanson: Facing Facts About Race
Breitbart: Media Fall For Hoax Racism At Pro-Zimmerman Rally
Jawa Report: Racist “Pro-Zimmerman” Protester Outed As Leftist Plant
Gateway Pundit: Family Rescued By George Zimmerman Terrified Of #Trayvon Mob
Protein Wisdom: “The Family Rescued By George Zimmerman…Terrified They’ll Become Targets For Hate Mobs
Kathryn Jean Lopez: The Francis Factor And The Challenges It Presents
Power Line: Cornelia Pillard, Obama’s Radical Feminist Judicial Candidate
Byron York: Are Republicans Fooling Themselves About Obamacare?
Ed Driscoll: Suicide By Government
Zero Hedge: SEC Revolving Door Leads To $5 Million Payday For Former Enforcer
Ralph Z. Hallow: Aide’s Resignation Heightens Rand Paul’s War With Neocons
Long War Journal: American Passport Found At Al Qaeda Base In Syria
NRO Corner: Carney Tells GOP “Pay Attention To Spanish-Language Media”
Legal Insurrection: Stand Your Ground – The “New Doctrine” That’s 136 Years Old
Questions And Observations: Joe Scarborough Is A Blooming Idiot
Hot Air: Pelosi Rolls Out A Democratic Economic Agenda…For Women
Via Meadia: Democrats Turning On Obamacare


Category: Live at Five

‘Carlos Danger’ Is a Democrat’s Fake Name, But Sydney Leathers Is Real

Posted on | July 23, 2013 | 87 Comments

In 2011, Sydney Leathers created a Change.org petition, “Tell Sarah Palin to stop inciting violence,” blaming the former Alaska governor for the Tucson massacre. Sydney Leathers subsequently worked as a field organizer for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Tuesday evening, BuzzFeed outed Sydney Leathers as the woman whose revelations of “sexting” have effectively destroyed Anthony Weiner’s political comeback and, by the time a Twitter friend called my attention to it, the BuzzFeed item was already a Drudge headline, so no one can blame me for outing her, and the ViralRead headline is a bit more specific:

BREAKING: Ex-Obama Campaign Worker
Identified in Weiner Scandal

Frankly, I think it was Weiner’s slime machine that tipped her identity to BuzzFeed, but who cares about such reprehensible creatures?

Wiener “lured” the young woman “via Facebook,” wrote Nik Richie of TheDirty.com, saying that the online relationship — “sending sexually explicit pictures of each other and having sexual conversations via phone” — between the married 48-year-old politician and the woman continued for six months. The damage of the revelations will likely destroy Weiner’s hope of winning the New York mayoralty, Mara Liasson of National Public Radio said Tuesday evening on Fox News: “I just don’t see how he can survive this … This has to be the end.”
The woman who told her story to Richie said, “I was 22 and in a bad place. … I really admired him. … I thought he was misunderstood. Until I got to know him. I thought I loved him. Pretty pathetic. … I was young and dumb. I just want people to really know he’s lying when he acts like he has changed.”
The woman said Weiner offered to get her a condominium in Chicago, and offered to recommend her for a job at the D.C.-based liberal news site Politico.com. “So they are looking to create a panel of bloggers … can I give him your deets?” . . .

Read the rest at ViralRead. “I thought I loved him”? Yuck.

UPDATE: Jeff Dunetz has a selection of photos of Sydney Leathers displaying her progressive cleavage and so forth. Exactly why girls engage in this kind of online behavior is something worth discussing. “The New Normal,” I guess? But we shouldn’t really be surprised when Democrat girls end up being “in a bad place” because, after all, they’re working on behalf of Satan’s Own Party.

 


Category: Anthony Weiner, Democrats, Scandal, Sex

E.W. Jackson Refutes Making The Zimmerman Case A ‘Racial Confrontation’

Posted on | July 23, 2013 | 29 Comments

by Smitty

E.W. Jackson isn’t having any of the Racism Industrial Complex’s noise about the George Zimmerman case. Today he was on WMAL “Mornings on the Mall” in DC. The audio is over at Fairfax Free Citizen.

This is why, among a field of great talent for Lieutenant Governor, I am pleased to have supported E.W. Amidst his other great talents, he throws the race noise right back at the foe.

E. W. Jackson for Lt. Gov.

Jackson makes the Godless Commies sweat.

Via Breitbart

Category: Racism, Virginia

Breaking News: MSNBC’s Ed Schultz Is Still an Angry, Dishonest Partisan Liar

Posted on | July 23, 2013 | 97 Comments

The important background facts you should know about Ed Schultz: He was a sportscaster until he was 38 and began his talk-radio career attempting to be a conservative Rush Limbaugh imitator, failed at that and then re-invented himself as a “progressive” host, which provided the platform by which Ed got an MSNBC show in 2009.

Ed’s basic problem is that he’s not very bright, nor is he well-educated, and he is essentially phony. His father was an aeronautical engineer and his mother was an English teacher, which means that Ed grew up in middle-class comfort, and his whole “populist” blue-collar shtick is just that, a shtick. Anyone who has ever watched or listened to Ed Schultz understands that he is a very angry man — he reminds you of every angry drunk you ever knew — and this is basically the selling point of the shtick. If you are the type of person who hates Republicans and rich people and “Corporate America,” then Ed Schultz will give voice to your anger.

Did I mention that Ed Schultz failed at MSNBC, too? Yeah, he started out in the 6 p.m. time slot, then moved to 10 p.m. after Keith Olberman quit in 2011, before moving to the 8 p.m. slot, where he accomplished the remarkable feat of actually placing fourth — behind Bill O’Reilly on Fox, behind Anderson Cooper CNN and even behind Nancy Grace on HLN — and was eventually bumped to the weekend shift.

If you think MSNBC has a tiny audience during the week (Chris Hayes doesn’t even hit half-a-million viewers at 8 p.m. weeknights), their weekend schedule is almost viewerless. It’s not broadcasting, it’s narrowcasting. Anyone could have predicted that Schultz’s shot at the TV big time would end in failure; his exile to oblivion is not really surprising. The market for Angry Ed’s rants is quite small.

TV is like real life that way. Suppose you’re at a bar watching your favorite sports team on TV and you feel like they’re getting cheated by the refs. Ed the Angry Drunk shares your anger, and at first you welcome his bellicose outbursts: “Hell, yeah, Ed! That ref is a blind fool!”

As the night wears on, however, and Angry Ed keeps drinking, you realize his obstreperous rage is not merely a response, it’s a condition.

He’s not angry at something, he’s just angry in general.

There is no perspective, no rationality to that kind of anger. Angry Ed rants about everything, and when he’s finished with that, he starts ranting about nothing. His anger is not a reaction to any particular wrong, but is in fact the symptom of a personality disorder.

So you’re there in the bar, watching the game and after a while, you stop laughing at Ed the Angry Drunk’s outbursts — “Goddammit, he was safe! The tag missed him by a mile! That f–king umpire should be shot!” — and instead, after excusing yourself to use the restroom, when you come back you sit as far away from Angry Ed as possible. Maybe you stop paying attention to the game altogether, because your viewing experience is ruined by the constant ranting of this belligerent drunk.

People who are angry all the time are not the sort of people you enjoy hanging around a lot, and this is as true on TV as anywhere else. But those afflicted with Permanent Anger Syndrome (as we might call it) can never accept that their unpopularity is their own fault. There is a chicken-and-egg aspect to this: Which came first, the failure or the anger? Usually, by the time people get so far gone that we begin asking that question — e.g., after they’ve killed or seriously injured someone — it’s difficult to untangle the chain of causality.

However, if you ask the angry person, you can be sure that they will blame someone else. It’s never their fault they’re angry, you see, but always they have some rationalization that excuses or justifies their rage, and instead externalizes blame onto a scapegoat.

All of which is a preamble to something incredibly stupid Angry Ed said Sunday on his MSNBC show that nobody watches:

Michigan used to be a symbol of industrial strength in manufacturing in this country. But thanks to a lot of Republican policies, the city is now filing for bankruptcy. Now, it’s the largest public sector bankruptcy in U.S. history, and the consequences could be devastating if you care about people. The already small force of police, firefighters and EMTs are in danger of future layoffs, that’s only going to make it worse. Roughly 30,000 retired workers are concerned about their pensions. You know, what they’re counting on.
Make no mistake, Detroit is exactly what the Republicans want. They outsourced manufacturing jobs, attack unions, cut public services, and this is the result. Now they can wipe the slate clean because now they can start privatizing city assets.

This is so wrong, it cannot be accidentally wrong, and can only be described as a dishonest partisan lie. The decline of the U.S. industrial economy, and the related decline of urban America, is a subject that has been exhaustively studied, and neither ignorance nor partisanship can be an excuse for the kind of mendacious disinformation Ed Schultz foisted upon his handful of ignorant angry viewers. In 2006, Lynn Vincent and I co-authored Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime and Corruption in the Democratic Party, and I was responsible for Chapter 8, “Scene of the Crime: Creating the Urban Nightmare,” which I briefly excerpt:

Meanwhile, the cost of government was further increased by public employee unions. The very existence of such unions turns the logic of the labor movement on its head. The purpose of unions is to represent the interests of workers against the interests of the owners of businesses. But government workers are ultimately employees of the taxpayers, so that government worker unions are fundamentally opposed to the public interest — in the words of one New York liberal activist, “not extracting a share of the profits but rather a share of the taxes.”
This inexorable logic has had a devastating impact on America’s cities. Under Democratic Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., New York became the first U.S. city to grant collective bargaining rights to city employees. The public employee unions relentlessly negotiated for higher wages, shorter hours,and more benefits, including health insurance that did not require co-payments from the workers (a policy unheard of in the private sector). Contract negotiations were a farce, since unions used membership dues to fund political campaigns to elect pro-union candidates. “During labor negotiations, the unions would be on both sides of the table.” This translated into forcing governments (which is to say, taxpayers) to pay above-market labor rates. By 2005, journalist Steve Malanga observed, “Wages average a hefty 37 percent higher in the public sector, but the differences in benefits are even more dramatic. Local governments pay 128 percent more, on average, than private employers to finance workers’ health-care benefits, and 162 percent more on retirement benefits.”
Fewer private-sector jobs, more welfare recipients, more public employees, higher government costs, higher taxes — by the mid-1960s, Democratic policies had sent the nation’s biggest cities into a downward spiral that could only end in bankruptcy. For Detroit, already devastated by deadly riots, the worst days were ahead. . . .

See, there is a pattern here. It’s not just Detroit, it’s New York or New Orleans or any other place where the power of Democrats and their union allies is so unchecked by any opposition that they can basically dictate policy. This has failed everywhere it’s been tried.

The underlying problem of industrial decline is more complex, because what happened was that for the first 25 years after World War II, the United States enjoyed advantages that could not possibly be sustained. The industrial capacity of our major competitors — especially Germany and Japan — had been devastated by the war and the task of rebuilding the postwar world created a massive demand for goods and services that the United States, relatively unscathed by the war, was uniquely prepared to fill. Once that advantage began to fade, and especially after the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 made Detroit’s high-powered low-mileage cars less desirable than little Volkswagens and Toyotas, the easy profits and high wages of U.S. industrial workers faded pretty quickly, too.

Nobody has yet figured out how to reverse that decline — or, if some ideal policy prescription could be imagined, it has not been implemented — but to blame this on “a lot of Republican policies” is so demonstrably false as to be absurdly implausible.

The Democrats controlled Congress for 40 consecutive years, from 1955 to 1994. The industrial decline occurred after Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson implemented the most sweeping set of liberal policies (“The Great Society”) since the New Deal. During the 48 years from 1933 to 1981 — from FDR to Jimmy Carter — Democrat presidents occupied the White House 32 years, compared to 16 years for Republicans, and by the time Ronald Reagan took office, the American economy was in its worst crisis since the Depression. Anyone who studies this history and says “a lot of Republican policies” caused the problems is just plain lying.

No intelligent or well-informed person could believe Ed Schultz’s lie, but then again, his audience is made up entirely of Democrats, eh?

It ought to be pointed out, also that this latter-day liberal nostalgia for the “Good Old Days” is hypocritical bullshit. All during the “Good Old Days” of the 1950s and ’60s, liberal intellectuals constantly excoriated the capitalist greed that they blamed for the plight of the poor. Democrats always demanded more concessions to labor unions, and the unions themselves kept going on strike to demand more concessions from the companies that (little did anyone suspect) were then just decades away from going bankrupt.

You don’t have to take my word for any of this. You could go back and read the newspapers and magazines of the 1950s and ’60s and see for yourself the scathing indictments of the U.S. free-market system that liberals published during the Good Old Days that this bullshit phony “populist” Ed Schultz now uses as a club to beat Republicans, claiming that their policies were to blame for the decline.

Democrats do this all the time: Find a problem and then conjure up some way to blame the problem on Republicans, and invite all their liberal buddies in the media and academia to climb aboard the Big Bandwagon of Blame that will help elect more Democrats.

Hint: Whatever your problem is, “vote Democrat” is never the solution.

Democrats never seem to learn the lesson Margaret Thatcher so eloquently summarized: “The problem with socialism is that sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.” Problems caused by the “success” of Democrat policies are always worse than whatever problems are caused by the “failure” of Republican policies.

Having expended 1,800 words explaining to you why Ed Schultz is completely full of shit — yeah, you knew he was full of shit, but maybe you didn’t really know why — it is now perhaps safe to embed the video, without risk that anyone will be deceived by his lies:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

Shut up, Ed. Nobody really likes you, and that’s not their fault.

 

Category: Economics, History, MSNBC
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