The Other McCain

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

Mayor Bloomberg’s Sexy Teen App

Posted on | March 31, 2013 | 5 Comments

New Yorkers are so sophisticated, aren’t they?

The Bloomberg administration has launched an app intended to reduce teen pregnancy called “Teens in NYC Protection+” that provides a wealth of health data for kids who are — or are thinking about becoming — sexually active, The Post has learned.
Information about everything from free clinics for HIV and STD testing to receiving condoms and emergency contraception is just a touch away on a smartphone. . . .
Parents who visit the site are in for a surprising lesson about state law.
“Teens in New York state have a legal right to get sexual-health services without the permission of parents, guardians, boyfriends, girlfriends, relatives or anyone else,” the site advises.
By comparison, a teen is not allowed to go on a school trip without parental consent. . . .
“While the percent of high-school teens who have had sex declined by 26 percent over the last 10 years, there are more than 19,000 teen pregnancies each year and most — 87 percent — are unintended,” the Health Department said.

Perhaps teens would not be so careless if they didn’t have a gigantic Nanny State welfare apparatus constantly ready to intervene between them and responsibility. The helplessness of the populace — who presumably can neither pay for their own condoms nor find where to get them free without a special smart-phone app — becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you start with the assumption that people are in constant need of guidance and aid from government, then spend millions to provide such “help,” you will eventually produce a certain clientele who are as helpless as you thought them to be.

Mankind survived for thousands of years without smart-phone apps to tell teenagers where to get free condoms. I’m not sure how long we can survive Bloomberg-ism.

Also, isn’t the description of teenagers “who are — or are thinking about becoming — sexually active” kind of all-inclusive? I mean, what teenager doesn’t think about becoming sexually active? What did we do before we had an app for that?

 

Category: New York, Sex

World’s Youngest Blogger:
The Cuteman Cometh

Posted on | March 30, 2013 | 14 Comments

Category: World's Youngest Blogger

Will Folks: ‘My Sacred Honor Requires Me to Endorse DCCC Fundraising Poster Boy’

Posted on | March 30, 2013 | 20 Comments

CHARLESTON, S.C.
Surely everyone remembers how the gallant gentleman Will Folks tried to derail Gov. Nikki Haley’s campaign by asserting that “his sacred honor” required him to claim that he had a sexual affair with her when he worked as a political consultant to her.

And now Folks, whose career in South Carolina politics included a stint as press secretary to Mark Sanford, employs his bizarre habit of first-person plural references to himself — “our founding editor” — to provide an “unenthused” endorsement to his former boss in Tuesday’s primary runoff. In the 16-candidate GOP primary, Folks had endorsed state Sen. Larry Grooms, who finished third behind Curtis Bostic on March 19.

In the Byzantine world of South Carolina politics, a corrupt cesspool of power-crazed backstabbers that is to Republicans what Chicago is to Democrats, Folks is a local legend. He went from playing bass in a rock band to working for Sanford, but got thrown under the bus in an ugly scandal; some still insist Folks was the victim of a “honey trap” set-up.

The subject of Will Folks came up over dinner with sources Friday at R.B.’s Seafood (where I had grilled flounder with hushpuppies, fries and collard greens to die for). One veteran South Carolina politico told me that Folks is dangerous because he is loyal to no one: “He’s his own man.” My observation that Folks seems like a narcissistic sociopath drew only a shrug in response. Evidently, narcissistic sociopaths are so commonplace in GOP politics here that nobody even notices.

Are these people indifferent to the public interest, or just blind to the downside risk of backing Sanford? Having seen the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in more than a few special elections, I think South Carolina Republicans might be underestimating what kind of political hell is about to be unleashed on the 1st District. Sure, Cook rates it R+11, but when the entirety of the Democrat machinery concentrates on one district — and keep in mind, OFA has got nothing better to do between now and the May 7 special election — it’s hard to say that any district is “safe.” Plus, there’s the fact that Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch (who’s raised $3 million for the race) has a celebrity-media connection.

While the Sanford forces talk about “redemption” and “forgiveness,” the unforgiving Democrats will make his past a national issue — reviving the “war on women” meme — which is why Ann Coulter endorsed Curtis Bostic:

Already polls show Sanford tied with, or losing to, the Democratic nominee. MSNBC has barely been able to conceal its glee. This is one they hadn’t even counted on!
Win or lose, MSNBC will be able to gloat nonstop about Republicans being a Party of the serial adulterers. So it’s win-win-win for the Democrats.
There’s no “win” for the GOP with Sanford, except that Mark Sanford is bored and no one will hire him. So the country has to take one for the team — Team Sanford!
The country is important, but Mark Sanford thinks his redemption is more important.

Of course, the Sanford campaign is doing a “kitchen sink” attack on Bostic, accusing him of everything from RINO-dom to international human trafficking, in order to create the idea that Bostic — a Marine veteran and married father of five — is as scandalous as the Appalachian Trail hiker.

Will voters here join the gallant gentleman Will Folks in backing Mark Sanford? Or will they rally behind Curtis Bostic?

 

Category: South Carolina

#SC01 UPDATE: Mark Sanford Cites His Vote for DOMA in Local TV Roundtable

Posted on | March 30, 2013 | 8 Comments

Campaign signs outside Thursday’s debate venue

CHARLESTON, S.C.
Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford cited his vote for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) during a TV appearance with Republican rival Curtis Bostic, three days before their runoff in the 1st District special congressional election.

Appearing in a televised half-hour debate Saturday morning on Charleston NBC affiliate WCBD-TV’s “Beyond the Headlines” program, both Bostic and Sanford expressed their opposition to same-sex marriage. Sanford, who represented the 1st District for three terms beginning in 1995, referred to his own 1996 vote for DOMA, which President Clinton signed into law.

“I think that ultimately, you know, marriage is a sacrament and, you know, it is something that is ultimately in the purview of faith rather than civil authority,” said Sanford, whose 2009 sex scandal resulted in his own divorce, as well as a censure by the state legislature and a $74,000 ethics fine. “I voted, when  I was in the United States Congress, for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. It is not say, tragically, that every marriage makes it, but that this is the ideal we ought to be aiming for.”

DOMA was the subject of a Supreme Court hearing Wednesday, with several justices voicing skepticism about its constitutionality. In Saturday’s TV forum, Bostic called for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman under federal law.

 


 

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: Congress, Election, Gays, Marriage, South Carolina

Why Did Those Racist Crackers at CNN Keep Roland Martin From Being a Star?

Posted on | March 30, 2013 | 18 Comments

Just by way of historical context, let’s remember that CNN was a trailblazer in this regard, making Bernard Shaw their primetime news anchor back in 1980. Keep that in mind in appraising the sour grapes rationalization by axed commentator Roland Martin:

Roland Martin on Thursday blamed racism for his inability to get his own show  at CNN.
“You have largely white male executives who are not necessarily enamored  with the idea of having strong, confident minorities, who say, ‘You know, I can  do this,'” he told HuffPostLive.
“I am simply saying ‘give folks a shot,’” he added. “We deliver, but we never get the big piece, the larger salary, to be able to get from here to there.”

(Hat-tip: Memeorandum.)

Update (Smitty): welcome, Instapundit readers!

Category: CNN

Teaching by Example

Posted on | March 30, 2013 | 21 Comments

“The cheating had been going on so long. . . .
We considered it part of our jobs.”

The New York Times tells the story of the Atlanta teacher cheating scandal. Teachers systematically changed students’ answers on standardized tests, erasing wrong answers and changing them to the right ones, and the deception went all the way to the top: Dr. Beverly Hall, the Atlanta superintendent, was hosted at the White House and named superintendent of the year by the American Association of School Administrators. She collected more than $500,000 in performance bonuses.

And now Dr. Hall has been indicted by a grand jury on charges that could send her to prison for the rest of her life.

Pay attention, kids. This might be on your final exam.

Category: Education

Chris Cassone Strikes Again:
‘My Baby Loves Barbecue’

Posted on | March 30, 2013 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

Hot cars, a cool girl, some rockabilly, and intense eats. How much more American could this song be?

Meanwhile, my baby loves a paycheck, and I must apologize to the loyal readers for my general absence the last week. There is a new job, which is pretty much the same old technology contracting I was always doing. The commute may be slightly worse, and the pressure a little higher. This is going to confine me to popping in on Twitter occasionally, and helping to promote criminally underrated geniuses like Chris Cassone, and maybe the occasional World’s Youngest Blogger update.

Category: Chris Cassone

Why John Avlon Hates Sarah Palin

Posted on | March 29, 2013 | 75 Comments

Prominent among the clueless douchebags who thought Rudy Giuliani could be elected president, John Avlon by 2009  was faced with a problem: How could a pro-Obama liberal Republican hireling find work in a political environment where the Tea Party uprising demonstrated that the Charlie Crist collaborationist Vichy wing of the GOP  had no natural grassroots constituency?

So in 2010, Avlon co-founded the “No Labels” movement, funded by liberal donors and assigned the mission of helping Democrats destroy the Tea Party. And if Avlon’s constant smearing of conservatives as “winguts” damaged the Republican Party, so what? Nobody involved in “No Labels” gives a damn.

OK, so the other day Sarah Palin’s PAC came out with an awesome new video declaring Mama Grizzly’s intent to continue being a major force in Republican Party politics, and naturally John Avlon decided this was a fine occasion to defecate all over Palin’s name.

Would it be possible to do a point-by-point rebuttal of Avlon’s ignorant arguments? Yes. Is it necessary to do so? No.

Once you understand the motives of people like that, their methods are mere details. If Avlon ever wrote anything that hurt Democrats, the Daily Beast wouldn’t publish it.

UPDATE: Noticing some chatter in the comments, let me clarify that I am not “anti-Giuliani,” but anybody who thought Rudy was going to be elected president just doesn’t understand how modern politics works. I mean, never mind the primary campaign “path to the nomination,” or even questions of ideology or issues. Just ask yourself: Who was the last bald guy elected president?

There’s this thing called “TV.” Maybe you heard of it . . .

 

Category: Vicious Backstabbing Crapweasels
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin