The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 12.23.22

Posted on | December 24, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.23.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Since Christmas is on Sunday but everything’s closed on Monday, Rule 5 Sunday will therefore be on Monday this weekend. Deadlines for tomorrow’s FMJRA remain the same.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Your Santa this year is…Attila the Hun?

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Tom Cotton, you disappoint us.
Twitchy: Rachael Ray Admonishing Americans That It’s Their Moral Imperative To Stand With Ukraine Goes Wrong, also, Occasional Cortex Complains About Chip Roy’s Earmark Criticism, Gets Served
Louder With Crowder: Little girl gets stuck in a claw machine when her sister dared her to climb in and it’s hard not to laugh, also, UFC fighter Jake Shields shows what happens when you call someone a Nazi IRL as opposed to on Twitter
Vox Popoli: The Null Factory, also, The Evil of this World
According To Hoyt: On Christmas Day In The Morning, Everything Is Broken – Riding the Catastrophic Change Wave, Part I, and The Christmas Cat
Monster Hunter Nation: WriterDojo S3 E23: How to Approach an Author
Stoic Observations: The Sand Pit Story
Gab News: Gab’s 2022 Accomplishments & Plans For 2023

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The Christmas 2022 edition
American Conservative: The Gift Of Margit, A Servant Of God, also, Once More, Neocons, Into The Breach!
American Greatness: Biden’s Christmas Address Fails to Mention Jesus, Instead Turns Political
American Thinker: It Must Always Be ‘Merry Christmas’
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five War on Cars Friday
Babalu Blog: Video of the Day: Communist Cuban doctor lectures colleagues to be like the Nazis, Cuba’s socialist elites party on ‘as God requires’ while starving Cuban children slaughter cats for food, and Tourism dropped by 65% in Cuba this year; the worst loss sustained by any country in the Americas
Baldilocks: How To Defend Yourself, also, The World Is A Ghetto
Behind The Black: Perseverance experiment generates new record of breathable oxygen on Mars, NASA requesting proposals for raising Hubble’s orbit, Newly passed Senate bill requires consultation between industry and government on space junk, and Today’s blacklisted American: Professor fired by a North Carolina school for having opinions
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Under the Fedora Thoughts
Don Surber: Just do what Trump did, 20 people attend Brittney Griner’s homecoming!, and The war on the middle class is old
First Street Journal: As bitterly cold weather hits the United States, we’re not totally dependent upon electricity
Gates Of Vienna: The Closing of the Imanskolan, also, Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
The Geller Report: 13 US States Warn that Giant Climate Activists Funds Are Buying Up Public Utilities, also, Democrats’ Obscene $1.7 Trillion Spending Orgy Includes Extra Funds for DOJ to Pursue More Illegal Jan. 6 Political Prosecutions
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, NGC 7469, A Busy Day, and Blognet
Hollywood In Toto: Guess What NY Times’ Late Night Year in Review Left Out?
The Lid: Kwanzaa- A Fake Holiday With A Racist Goal, Created By A Criminal Madman
Legal Insurrection: Dem Mega Donor Crypto King Released From Jail On Personal Recognizance Bond, The Ideological Capture of Our Scientific Institutions Accelerates, UNC-Chapel Hill Drops Criteria Excluding White People for a Fellowship After Civil Rights Complaint, NBC “Historian” Michael Beschloss Demands to Know Why Some Lawmakers Didn’t Applaud for Zelenskyy, and Victor Davis Hanson Wonders if Universities Are Doomed
Nebraska Energy Observer: It’s beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Outkick: Utah-Penn State Will Be The Last Traditional Rose Bowl Matchup Ever, You Don’t Say?! Anthony Davis Is Out Indefinitely For The Lakers, College Football Hall Of Fame Considering Exception For Mike Leach On Induction Requirements, Rams, Broncos Pranked With Ugly Christmas Uniforms, and Tennessee QB Joe Milton Unleashes A Howitzer, Throws An Orange 100 Yards
Power Line: Jack Clifford: Lake v. Hobbs, day 2, The Other Blue State, The Daily Chart: Long COVID Labor Market?, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Protein Wisdom Reborn: Patrick J. Carroll truly IS a sad, embittered psychopath
Shark Tank: Another Win For DeSantis – Fla. Supremes Empanel Grand Jury On The Jab
Shot In The Dark: Merry Christmas!
STUMP: Merry Christmas! Have Some Finalized 2021 U.S. Mortality Stats!
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2022 (Day 11)
This Ain’t Hell: Russians warn on increasing aid to Ukraine, Digital evidence points to Russian Military as being behind the Bucha killings, Valor Friday, Russia’s only aircraft carrier experiences fire, and Paraphrasing the Bible is “hate speech”?
Transterrestrial Musings: The FBI’s Response, What A Shame, Just What We Needed, and Linux Problem
Victory Girls: Jan 6 Report: Liz Cheney’s Lecture
Volokh Conspiracy: Marines Must Exempt Sikhs from Boot Camp Shaving Requirements
Watts Up With That: BOOK REVIEW: The Unpopular Truth about Electricity and the Future of Energy, also,  Japan Embraces Nuclear Power, Cancels Phase Out Plans
Weasel Zippers: Biden EPA Chief Claims “Racism” In Environmental Laws, Pelosi Praises Media As “Guardians of Democracy” In Final Press Conference, Biden Chief of Staff Fumes: Americans More Concerned About Gas Prices Than Having “Free Pre-K”, and Complete Lack of Self-Awareness: Biden Complains, “Our Politics Has Gotten So Angry”
The Federalist: It’s Time To Tell The Truth About Colonialism In Africa, As Christians Face Death Sentences, Nigerian Court Can And Should Overturn Its Dangerous Blasphemy Law, South Dakota University Regents To Protect Kids, But Not Adults, From Explicit Shows On Public Property, and 50 Years Later, We Still Remember The ‘Immaculate Reception’ And The Great Roberto Clemente
Mark Steyn: Live Around the Planet: Friday December 23rd

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Category: Linkagery

The Shame of Adam Kinzinger

Posted on | December 23, 2022 | 1 Comment

Last week, Tucker Carlson bid a mocking farewell to Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger who, like Liz Cheney and many others, wrecked his career by succumbing to Trump Derangement Syndrome. As much as I enjoyed Carlson’s mockery — and as much as Kinzinger deserved to be mocked as a “male menopause” sufferer — it does not fully explain what happened to Kinzinger, and mockery will not prevent others from emulating such errors in the future. A “teachable moment” was missed.

Begin with this: You and I are different from those who harbor political ambitions. For most of us, political parties are a matter of choosing between two different policy agendas; we may not like everything that our party does, but in general we think our party represents our interests and ideals better than the other party does. In point of fact, most conservatives are more or less permanently exasperated with Republican politicians, who seem like a gang of bumbling clowns, cowards and knaves. But then we look at the Democrats, who are even worse, and figure we’ve got no other choice. Republican voters are like fans of a lousy NFL franchise — the Cleveland Browns or Detroit Lions, for example — who suffer endless disappointment, but nevertheless continue showing up at the stadium and rooting for the home team.

Most of my readers have been voting Republican all your adult lives, and don’t ever expect to stop voting Republican, no matter how futile and frustrating your experience may be. You are a loyalist, and consider it a duty to vote for the GOP, and that’s why people like Adam Kinzinger piss you off so much. If you can be loyal to the team, despite so many years of disappointment and frustration, why can’t Republicans like Kinzinger reciprocate your loyalty? Why can’t they be “team players”?

Ah, but politicians are different from you and me. For them, a political party is a machine by which to advance their own ambitions. And while they speak with apparent sincerity of their “principles,” it should be observed that these are difficult to distinguish from their career interests. Once upon a time, in the earliest era of our Republic, political careers were not particularly lucrative, and our legislatures were not occupied by careerists without any other employment opportunities. Being a state legislator or even a congressman or U.S. Senator, was not a full-time job, and these seats tended to be filled by wealthy landowners or prosperous lawyers, for whom serving a few years as a legislator was a sort of social obligation, as leading citizens of their communities.

As politics has become a full-time career, however, the character of our legislative representatives has changed, and thus we have such personalities as Adam Kinzinger, a former wunderkind who first got elected to Congress during the Tea Party year of 2010 and thus instantly became part of the governing GOP majority in the House of Representatives, when he was still just 32 years old. Republicans won a landslide in 2010, gaining a net 63 seats for a 242-193 majority, with John Boehner replacing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. Kinzinger had first won office as a county commissioner while a 20-year-old college student and then amid the patriotic fervor of the “War on Terror” in 2003, joined the Air Force, becoming a pilot flying aerial refueling planes. Endorsed by Tea Party darling Sarah Palin, Kinzinger easily won the 2010 GOP primary in the 11th District of Illinois, then won the general election by a 15-point margin. He was a young superstar.

Alas, things immediately started going downhill for the GOP, as Mitt Romney won the 2012 Republican presidential nomination and thus helped reelect Barack Obama. Meanwhile, Kinzinger got redistricted. As recently as 1990, Illinois had 22 House seats, but they lost two seats after the 1990 Census, and have lost one seat in every subsequent census, so that when Congress convenes next January, Illinois will have only 17 representatives in the House. When Kinzinger was first elected in 2010, Illinois had 19 congressional districts, but in the next election, that number shrunk to 18 and, in the ensuing game of “musical chairs,” Kinzinger ran in the 16th District, defeating fellow Republican Rep. Don Mazullo in the 2012 primary, then cruising to a 62%-38% win in November. So far, so good for Kinzinger, but in the aftermath of Obama’s reelection, Boehner went sideways in budget negotiations with the White House, pissing off the fiscal conservative Club for Growth.

Kinzinger had supported Boehner’s deal with Obama and, subsequently was faced with a Club for Growth-backed challenger in the 2014 GOP primary. Kinzinger had no trouble fighting off that challenge and was reelected, but this seems to have been the pivotal episode that turned Kinzinger — originally elected amid a populist Tea Party surge — into an enemy of conservatives. After all, self-declared conservatives had tried to prevent his reelection and this threat to his personal ambition was intolerable to Kinzinger: How dare they oppose him?

Things then went bad to worse. As the Republican field began assembling for the 2016 presidential campaign, Adam Kinzinger endorsed . . .

Go ahead, take a wild guess.

Betcha can’t guess, but give it a try.

I’ll wait.

If you guessed Jeb Bush, you’re a winner!

Was there ever any campaign more obviously doomed from the outset than the 2016 Jeb Bush campaign? America had gotten thoroughly sick of Bushism, and Jeb’s performance in the GOP primary campaign was a sort of asterisk in the final result. Jeb got less than 3% of the vote in the Iowa caucuses, getting exactly one delegate of the 30 chosen. In New Hampshire, Jeb got a whopping 11% and three delegates out of 23. Then came South Carolina, a winner-take-all primary where Jeb got less than 8% of the vote and then quit the race, at which point Kinzinger jumped ship to endorse Marco Rubio, but it was already too late to stop the Trump juggernaut. With the benefit of hindsight, everyone has since realized what I foresaw from the beginning: There were too many candidates vying to be the anti-Trump in that crowded primary field. If you go back to the New Hampshire primary, you see that the combined votes of the three “moderates” — Jeb (11%), John Kasich (16%) and Chris Christie (7%) — were nearly equal to the 35% that Trump got in New Hampshire. If the RINO Caucus had been able to coalesce behind one candidate, they might have stopped Trump, but the selfish ambition of these three candidates prevented that from happening. Likewise with the two “Conservative But Not Trump” candidates, Rubio and Ted Cruz. If one or the other had been willing to drop out early, perhaps their combined support would have exceeded Trump’s, but individual ambition prevented that, too. And, in that crisis of the Republican Party, you see, Kinzinger was always endorsing the wrong candidates.

Me, I’m a team player.

From the moment Trump came down that escalator, I realized he was going to be hard to beat and, a few weeks later, I got a call from my buddy Pete the Tech Guy, who was covering Trump’s first big rally in New Hampshire: “Stacy, this Trump thing is for real.” It was a genuine grassroots phenomenon, and when National Review subsequently published its “Never Trump” issue, I became concerned about a potential nightmare scenario: If the GOP Establishment somehow contrived a way to prevent Trump from getting the nomination, Trump might go third-party, and thus ensure Hillary’s election. We were, in a way, caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea. Trump was able to energize a segment of the electorate that had long felt neglected, and with this energized grassroots base, he ultimately overcame every obstacle, including the opposition of GOP Establishment types like Kinzinger, and thus saved America from the worst of all evils, President Hillary Clinton.

Being a team player, it was easy to see it this way, and the problem for Kinzinger and so many others is that they let their own ambitions blind them to the reality of what this choice meant. Whatever you think of Trump, there could be nothing worse for America than putting Hillary Clinton in the White House. We just barely avoided that apocalyptic catastrophe and, as bad as the subsequent imposition of Joe Biden has been, I’m sure it would have been much worse if Hillary had won in 2016 — but Kinzinger doesn’t seem to grasp this.

Something else Kinzinger doesn’t get: Congressmen are supposed to represent their constituents. In 2016, Donald Trump won the 16th District of Illinois by 17 points, with 55% to Hillary Clinton’s 38%. In 2020, the voters of the 16th District chose Trump by a 16-point margin, 56% to Biden’s 40%. In other words, the district that sent Adam Kinzinger to Congress voted for Donald Trump twice, by overwhelming margins, and you might think this would oblige Kinzinger to defend the man his constituents embraced, rather than to constantly attack Trump.

Who is it, really, that is the threat to democracy?

Why do Republicans like Kinzinger hate their own constituents?

This is what’s really wrong with the Republican Party, that so many politicians elected by the party apparently don’t feel any obligation to reciprocate the loyalty of GOP voters. If you are elected as a Republican, you ought to be enough of a team player that you don’t do what Adam Kinzinger has done, directly insulting his own party’s voters.

Fortunately for Republicans — not just in Illinois, but everywhere — the Census took care of our Adam Kinzinger problem. After the 2020 Census, Illinois again lost another House seat, and after the subsequent redistricting, Kinzinger would have had to face off against another Republican, Rep. Darin LaHood, in a very conservative district. Kinzinger decided to retire instead, and nobody — absolutely nobody — in the Republican Party will miss that selfish bastard. Good riddance.

Let this be a warning to all Republican politicians. Never forget that you are a representative of the people who elected you. If you had not first won a Republican primary, you never would have been a candidate in the general election, so that party loyalty is a prerequisite to success in politics. While philosophers may speculate on the existence and nature of a generalized public interest in political affairs, no speculative theory is necessary to understand the symbiotic connection between a politician’s success and the strength of his party in the community that elects him. That is to say, while a congressman or senator indeed is elected to represent all his constituents, he must always keep in mind what his own party’s grassroots voters want, in terms of his policy agenda. You may be able to fool voters to some extent for a while, but in the long run, politicians who don’t understand the reciprocal nature of party loyalty are doomed to destruction. If you cannot in good conscience represent your own party’s grassroots voters, honor requires you either to quit your office or to switch parties. What Adam Kinzinger has done is dishonorable, and he can posture all he wants as a Courageous Man of Principle, but he’ll have to do so somewhere else besides Congress, because the voters of his district rightly hate him.

Kinzinger betrayed the people who elected him, and ought to be ashamed of himself, but if he had any capacity for shame, I guess he never would have endorsed that loser Jeb Bush, would he?



 

Category: Congress, Illinois, Republicans

In The Mailbox: 12.22.22

Posted on | December 23, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.22.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Our favorite Sumerian death goddess discovers Christmas.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Concealed Carry Stops Michigan Carjacking
EBL: Thank you, Senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul, Bail for Bankman, and Clap Comrades Clap
Twitchy: Not Everyone Is Inspired By This Recolored American Flag Posted By Ukrainian Official, also, Mom Who Paraded Drag Queen Son On TV Whines About Pervert Posting A Pic Of Child
Louder With Crowder: O.G. Ice-T (original gangster) comes to Elon Musk’s defense and tells haters what to do with their Twitter
Vox Popoli: There Are No Bank Reserves, also, Suddenly in Norway

 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Feliz Navidad From Groomer Grandpa, also, Zelensky Takes Washington
American Greatness: Kari Lake Expert Witness: Missized Ballots That Caused Election Day Chaos Could Not Have Been An Accident, also, Kari Lake Trial: Election Day Chaos in Maricopa County Was Enough to Change the Results, Pollster Testifies
American Thinker: 5 Freedom-Based Solutions to Mass Shootings, also, Orwellian Language and Democrat Doublethink
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily West Coast Meltdown News
Babalu Blog: Another repressive thug for Cuban dictatorship is identified, along with some accomplices, U.S. court decides in favor of Cuban dictatorship in trademark dispute over Cohiba brand cigars, and No Feliz Navidad card from Peru to Mexico
Baldilocks: If He Can Do It So Can I
BattleSwarm: Russian Atrocities Earn Ukraine New Kit
Behind The Black:  Perseverance deposits first core sample for pickup later, India buying land for new spaceport on India’s southern tip, Bursting lava bubbles on Mars, and Today’s blacklisted American: The FBI’s purge of conservatives forces one agent to sue
Cafe Hayek: John Tierney Explains and Decries the Covid-Fueled Further Politicization of Science, also, On Mapping Onto Reality Our Theoretical Understanding of Comparative Advantage
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: The Three Dangers of the Frank Pavone Case: Danger Two: the Sin of Pride, also, The Progressive war on the Holiday that Must Not Be Named continues unabated
Don Surber: Bidenana Republic, also, The war on Americans from within
Gates Of Vienna: Who Would Have Thought Climate Change Could Kill So Many People So Soon?, also, Excess Mortality in Germany, Part Four
The Geller Report: 8th Century B.C.: Discovery of King Hezekiah Inscriptions Among ‘Most Important’ Archaeological Finds Ever
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, IC 443, and Gaming the Supreme Court
Hollywood In Toto: James Cameron Learns Hard Lesson – You’re Never Woke Enough
The Lid: The FBI Destroyed Its Once Great Reputation
Legal Insurrection: Former NYU Finance Director Charged With $3.5 Million in Fraud, Israel: Prime Minister Netanyahu Announces Formation of New Coalition Government, Three DEI Staffers Resign From Princeton University, Accusing School of No Support, and Omnibus Bill’s Monstrous Linkage of “Family Planning” to “Biodiversity”
Nebraska Energy Observer: There’s a balance
Outkick: Trevor Bauer Will Be Immediately Reinstated, LeBron James Makes It All About Himself With Ridiculous Photo Edit Despite Lakers’ Loss To Kings, Undrafted Washington Commanders Player Breaks Down After Pro Bowl Selection, Juwan Howard Loses His Cool, Again, Yells ‘Don’t F-cking Touch Me’ At His Own Player Holding Him Back From Official, and Former Broncos RB Ronnie Hillman Dead At 31 After Battling Cancer
Power Line: Was January 6 Pelosi’s Fault?, High in the Upper Valley, and The Daily Chart: The Shocking EU Energy Subsidies
Protein Wisdom Reborn: When Gender Theorists Attack
Shark Tank: Harmeet Dhillon Poised To Pull Of Major RNC Election Upset
Shot In The Dark: I’m Old Enough To Remember, also, The Final Word
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2022 (Day 10)
This Ain’t Hell: The Russian military must tackle problems it faces in Ukraine, Twitter + Pentagon = Information Ops, and Army veteran initiates federal lawsuit against police officers who punched him during stop
Transterrestrial Musings: Vega C, Mitch McConnell, and James Cameron
Victory Girls: FTX Fallout: Guilty Pleas And Extradition
Volokh Conspiracy: Did The Ways & Means Committee Play The Supreme Court On Trump’s Tax Returns?
Watts Up With That: Academics Pursue Project to ‘Decolonize Physics’
Weasel Zippers: Woke Film Critic Accuses New Avatar Movie of “Cultural Appropriation”, Marines Receive Woke Report Which Says To Stop Calling Drill Instructors “Sir,” “Ma’am”, and Omnibus Bill Earmarks $750K For Trans Group That Wants To Inject LGBTQ “Discourse” In Elementary Schools
The Federalist: No, AOC, Abortion Is Not A Jewish Sacrament, Get Crafty This Christmas! These Easy, Low-Cost Holiday Poppers Will Add Joy To Your Table, In States That Limited Abortion After Dobbs, Biden’s Federal Agencies Are Pushing It Anyway, and Want To Cure Your Screen Addiction? Form A Luddite Club
Mark Steyn: Tmss Do not Use, Latkes and Prayers, Rotherham Reject, and As Ye Give, So Shall Ye Receive

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 12.21.22

Posted on | December 22, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.21.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

¡Verdad!

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1938
EBL:  Extraordinary Attorney Woo, also, Franco Harris, RIP
Twitchy: House Republicans Release Report On J6 Security Failures, also, Actor/Rapper Ice T Has Refreshingly Sane & Sensible Opinion About Twitter Under Elon Musk
Louder With Crowder: Elon Musk responds to stepping down as Twitter CEO, and…BAH GAWD, that’s MySpace Tom’s entrance music
Vox Popoli: Free Speech is Anti-Christ, The Importance of Engagement, and Another Warning Signal

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The End of the Peterson Fraud
American Conservative: ‘The Most Dangerous Show on Netflix’?
American Greatness: Sen. Rick Scott Demands Explanation For Biden Regime’s Wildly Inflated Q2 Employment Numbers, also, Twitter Files: ‘Special Protection’ Given to Pentagon Propaganda Accounts
American Thinker: The Problem With Voting Machine Certification In Arizona, A Fool’s Game on Climate, In Elections, It’s Not The Votes That Count, It’s The Ballots That Count, and Is America Falling Like Rome?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Republicans warn Biden about concessions to Cuba’s communist regime, Cuban YouTuber threatened with being fired from her teaching job for videos exposing reality in Cuba, and Reports from Cuba: The absurdities of Cuba’s revolutionary bureaucracy
BattleSwarm: Biden Administration: You’re Not Exporting Any Of That Dirty, Sinful Natural Gas! Ted Cruz: Guess You Don’t Need Any Of These Department Of Energy Nominees Approved, Then. Biden Administration: [Folds]
Behind The Black: The Wuhan panic underlines how scientists have abandoned the search for truth, SpaceX and the Ukraine resolve funding issues for Starlink terminals, ISS spacewalk postponed because controllers had to maneuver station to avoid space junk, and InSight mission ended
Cafe Hayek: Let’s Amend the U.S. Constitution
CDR Salamander: Mines for All My Friends
Da Tech Guy: The Three Dangers of the Frank Pavone Case: Danger One The Errors of the Church
Don Surber: Biden investigates school library for removing child pornography, also, Walt Disney helped launch Toys for Tots
First Street Journal: You can’t make poorer people wealthier by making wealthier people poorer, If the Tridentine Mass brings more Catholics to Mass, why would the Church ever restrict it?, and The left want to blame normal people for suicide of a transgender person
Gates Of Vienna: Excess Mortality in Germany, Part Two, Clearing the Roadway, and Excess Mortality in Germany, Part Three
The Geller Report: OBSCENE SPENDING, Democrats Dump Trump Tax Data In Tuesday Night Release After They Voted To Release His Tax Returns To The Public, and Biden to Send Patriot Missiles to Ukraine Which Means Deploying US Troops
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, A Summary of Today’s News, and Westerhout 5
Hollywood In Toto: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Is the Antonio Banderas Show (And Little Else), The Best Movies of 2022 (And a ‘Maverick’ Shall Lead Them), Jane Fonda Is Right. Really, and ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ Checks All the Biopic Boxes (Yawn)
The Lid: $1.7 Trillion Spending Bill Has Funds for Border Security (For OTHER Countries), also, Stanford Eliminates Harmful Language Such As “American”
Legal Insurrection: CA Regulators Make Controversial Move to Reduce Incentives to Homeowners with Solar Panels, Stanford Language Guide Considers the Word ‘American’ Harmful, Ronna McDaniel Overwhelmingly Rejected for RNC Chair in Turning Point USA AmericaFest Straw Poll, Ordinary Americans Can Save the Country at the Local Level, and #TwitterFiles Part 7 – FBI and DOJ Worked To Discredit Reports of Hunter Biden’s Foreign Business Dealings
Nebraska Energy Observer: The Aftermath of Canada’s Freedom Convoy
Outkick: Eagles Gift Jaguars Cheesesteaks As Thank You For Their Win Over Cowboys, Ex-Broncos RB Ronnie Hillman Revealed To Be Battling Liver Cancer In Hospice, Mets, Steve Cohen Steal Carlos Correa From Giants, Agree To 12 Years, $315M Following Collapsed Deal With San Francisco, Arch Manning Officially Signs With Texas, and Steelers’ Legend Franco Harris Passes Away Just Days Before 50th Anniversary Of The Immaculate Reception
Power Line: What’s Happening With the Job Numbers?, Thrown under the omnibus, and A cancer on the presidency
Protein Wisdom Reborn: Another Hump Day Shrapnel Post
Shark Tank: Florida Republicans Choose Sides In Contentious RNC Election
Shot In The Dark: Lethal Force Authorized, A Mostly Peaceful Year In St. Paul
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2022 (Day 9)
This Ain’t Hell: Army gives one of its rarest awards to 5, Academy grads can’t play pro until they serve! Ha, J/K, Twitter assisted U.S. Military PSYOP contrary to policy, and The VA’s budget could top $300 billion for fiscal 2023
Victory Girls: Mom Kicked Out of Rockettes Show Because of Where She Works, also, Omnibus Bill Puts Coal in Stockings for Christmas
Volokh Conspiracy: Should Justices Sotomayor and Kagan Retire?
Watts Up With That: German Officials Blame Gas Shortage on Consumers, warn “People Will Feel the Cost of The Energy Crisis Hard”, also, Don’t Let “Green” Grinch Absurdities Steal Christmas
Weasel Zippers: Taliban Closes Afghan Universities To Women, MSNBC Reporter: Illegal Immigrants Told Me “They Just Walked Right In” To The United States, Occasional Cortex Says Pro-Life Christians Views On Abortion Are “Theocratic,” “Authoritarian”, and Kamala Harris Blames Republicans For Border Crisis
The Federalist: GOP Can’t Be Successful Until Mitch McConnell Is Gone, Heart Failure Kills ‘Body Positivity’ Activist At 37, For Conservatives To Win, Republicans Must Get Comfortable Using Power, House Republicans Expose Pelosi’s Culpability In Jan. 6 Riot, and A Catholic College Just Gave Its First Ethics Award To A Pro-Abortion Journalist
Mark Steyn: Transspotting, also, Bootleg Bûche for Christmas

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Category: Linkagery

Gone To The Dogs

Posted on | December 22, 2022 | 1 Comment

— by Wombat-socho

10/10, would borf again

O, the shame. O, the embarrassment. While compiling the last book post, I inadvertently omitted The Best Tweets From Actuary Problem Dog, originally recommended by In The Mailbox’s Favorite Actuary, Mary Pat (“Meep”) Campbell. While this may seem to be an extremely niche joke book, a lot of what Actuary Problem Dog is tweeting about will be immediately familiar to not only actuaries, but accountants, tax professionals, randos using Excel, and just plain socially awkward folks. Highly recommended.

Speaking of socially awkward folks, Komi Can’t Communicate is up to volume 22, but since that’s still in the shipping pipeline (Amazon claims they delivered it, but it’s not in my mailbox) we’ll talk about Volume 21, wherein Komi’s class goes to New York on a trip and Komi reunites with her friend Rei Natsukido, who’s acquired an uncommunicative American friend of her own. I’m really happy with this manga, since it’s slowly evolving from a high-school slice of life series (with some seriously weird characters) into a romance between the main character and her first friend, the “completely average” Tadano Hitohito. 

Spy x Family also continues to progress in interesting ways, as the Forger family gets a dog – but not just any dog, a dog that’s been subjected to experiments and can now see the future. This immediately becomes an issue when Bond (the dog) shows Anya a future in which Loid dies in a terrorist bomb attack, and she rides to the rescue with Bond. Having solved that issue, we then get an amusing pair of issues in which Yor’s brother Yuri (an agent of Ostanian State Security) visits and is very suspicious of his sister’s husband – and then Loid’s protégé Nightfall drops by to assist with the mission, while futilely attempting to break up Yor and Loid’s marriage because she doesn’t think Yor is good enough for her old teacher. People are already pairing Yuri and Nightfall  for the sole reason that neither one of them wants the Forgers to remain a couple, though for entirely different reasons. Highly amusing. 

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Category: Books

People Never Ask Me for Advice

Posted on | December 21, 2022 | 1 Comment

My brother Kirby and I had just finished eating lunch at Primanti Brothers and were enjoying a post-prandial smoke when, for no apparent reason, he brought up the subject of the New England Patriots. But why bring it up? This is obviously a painful topic for me to think about, especially after The Dumbest Play in NFL History.

Anyway, so Kirby was sermonizing on the subject of what Patriots owner Robert Kraft should do — i.e., give Bill Belichick an ultimatum to get rid of Matt Patricia, who is hated by New England fans like God hates sin — until finally I interrupted: “You know why I don’t think in terms of what people should do? Because nobody ever asks for my advice.”

In writing about politics, I try to avoid being one of those dime-a-dozen pundit types who presumes to offer election strategy or policy guidance. If politicians want my advice, they can pay me for it, and as no Republican has offered to hire me to be the right-wing James Carville, it’s safe to assume that any advice I offered — unsolicited, as a voluntary contribution — would be ignored. So what’s the point?

And it’s the same thing with the Patriots. Every sports talk-radio personality in New England is calling for Matt Patricia’s scalp, so what’s the point of adding my voice to this deafening chorus? Like, last night I was watching Greg Bedard and Nick Cattles discussing this disaster, and Nick is talking about a situation where the Patriots had the ball first-and-goal at the Raiders one-yard-line, saying that there were six-year-old children shouting at their TVs: “Give the ball to Rhamondre!”

Exactly — everybody can see what’s wrong with the Patriots, and they’re shouting it from the rooftops, with no apparent impact on the situation.

Politics is the same way. Like, WTF, Mitch McConnell?

Helping Ukraine is our Number One priority? Are you kidding me with this? As much as I want Ukraine to defeat the Russian invaders, that’s probably not even a Top Five issue for me, in the grand scheme of what the Republican Party needs to prioritize. And I can’t believe the voters of Kentucky — you know, the people who actually elected Mitch McConnell to the Senate — share his sense of priorities. But again, what’s the point of complaining? Ace of Spades, who has a lot more readers than me, has been hammering Mitch McConnell five days a week, and is running out of new ways to say the same basic thing: “Mitch, you bitch.”

The more you care about politics, the harder it becomes to escape feelings of helpless despair, a sense of futility caused by your inability to influence events, because nobody seems to be listening. You understand what Ecclesiates is getting at: “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!”

It’s not just politics and football that cause wise men to decry the carnival of folly to which we bear unwilling witness. Every day, people are ruining their own lives by doing foolish things, which is why I feel compelled to offer my kids advice like, “Heroin is a bad drug. Stay away from heroin.” Or, “Don’t send people pictures of your penis.” Stuff like this should be obvious, and yet there are apparently people who didn’t get the memo, so I feel an obligation to warn my kids against such behavior.

If the world was organized on a basis of what I think people should do (and not do), we certainly wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in. Last night, Tucker Carlson interviewed a woman named Camille Keifel who has filed a lawsuit against the people who inflicted a double mastectomy on her as “treatment” for her “gender” problem. And I turned it off because it was too painful to watch, like the last play of the Patriots game.

Young women experiencing “gender” issues don’t solicit my advice on their problems, of course, but just imagine if they did.

“What do you think, Mr. McCain? Should I start injecting myself with testosterone and get my breasts amputated?”

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS?

Nevertheless, there are licensed medical professionals who think this kind of “treatment” is a splendid solution to “gender” problems, and who are getting paid to butcher confused young people like this, and if you question the wisdom of such procedures, they’ll accuse you of hate.

Thousands of people are being chemically altered and surgically mutilated the way Camille Keifel was, and this is even being done with taxpayer money in some cases, but no one can be allowed to object — Libs of TikTok got banned — because criticizing “gender treatment” is considered dangerous hate speech. But of course, I don’t hate people or wish harm to befall them. Except maybe Matt Patricia, but even in his case, if he got murdered by an enraged Patriots fan, I’d consider that to be . . . unfortunate. Certainly I would never advocate or endorse criminal violence against Matt Patricia, and if a gang of deranged season-ticket holders were to kidnap him, murder him with a chainsaw and grind up his dismembered corpse in a wood chipper, then feed the remains to a pack of hungry pitbulls . . . Well, as I say, this would be unfortunate.

However, the world is not organized according to my preferences, and nobody ever listens to my advice, or else on first-and-goal, Matt Patricia would have called Rhamondre left, and if that didn’t work, he’d have called Rhamondre right on second down, followed by Rhamondre up the middle on third down. If they end up settling for a field goal on fourth down, OK, but I completely agree with that six-year-old kid shouting at his TV: “Give the ball to Rhamondre!”

They don’t ask for my advice, so we’ll keep spending billions on Ukraine, women will keep getting mutilated as “gender treatment,” and the Patriots will keep losing football games until, inevitably, Matt Patricia gets kidnapped by a gang of chainsaw-wielding season-ticket holders.

It’s just so . . . unfortunate.



 

Category: Football, Mitch McConnell, The Transgender Cult

In The Mailbox: 12.20.22

Posted on | December 20, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.20.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Sadly, This Is Not Babylon Bee Or The Onion
EBL: Harvey Weinstein found guilty regarding one victim in California criminal trial, It’s A Wonderful Life, and The Murder Turtle Sells Out the GOP Base (again)
Twitchy: Man With WW1 Explosive Lodged In Rectum – Jokes Write Themselves, Twitter Files #8 Reveal How Twitter Helped The Pentagon Run Covert Online PsyOps, and Tranny At Center Of Wi Spa Protests Arrested For Indecent Exposure After Going On The Run
Louder With Crowder: Feds paid Twitter MILLIONS to suppress news, and Elon Musk claims they aren’t the only ones
Vox Popoli: Gammacaust on Gab, On Thought Leadership, Debt Bubble Close to Popping, and The Chinese Listened
Stoic Observations: When I Look At The World

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Canadian Lives Unworthy Of Canadian Life, also, See, Here Is Water
American Greatness: ‘Buckle Up America’: Kari Lake’s Election Challenge Will Go to Trial, also, Appeals Court Blocks Biden Vaccine Mandate for Federal Contractors
American Thinker: Why Did the FBI Want Joe Biden to Become President?, also, Reflections of a Baby-Boomer
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Party Flipping News
Babalu Blog: DHS tips off the Castro dictatorship on Cuban refugees in the U.S. claiming persecution and torture, Cuban activist living in Bolivia expelled from that country for criticizing the Castro dictatorship, and Pro-dictatorship agricultural lobbyists meet with diplomats at Cuban embassy in Washington, D. C.
Baldilocks: I Am The Door
BattleSwarm: What If Russia’s Partial Mobilization Is Actually A General Mobilization?, also, Another Cold Blast Heading To Texas
Behind The Black: InSight fails to respond during scheduled communications session, Russians preparing replacement Soyuz for launch to ISS, Rocket Lab reschedules first Wallops launch to January, and Pushback: Blacklisting Virginia Tech soccer coach loses effort to get lawsuit dismissed
Cafe Hayek: David Henderson on “The Abject Failure of Central Planning During Covid”
CDR Salamander: Japan Rising
Chicago Boyz: Nuclear News
Da Tech Guy: I Have No Idea What Musk is Doing, Off-label use of diabetes drug as a weight loss tool, Under the Fedora, and Pittsburgh: Is downtown at a crossroads?
Don Surber: Biden prescribes transgender surgery, also, NYT attacks the Supreme Court
First Street Journal: Killadelphia
Gates Of Vienna: Excess Mortality in Germany, Part One, My Kingdom for Horse-Paste!, It’s Nobody’s Business But The Turks‘, and Is the Pope Catholic?
The Geller Report: TWITTER FILES 7: Treasonous FBI Was Directly Working As An Asset For The Biden Crime Family, Analysis of RNC Spending Since 2017 Shows Millions Were Spent on Private Jets, Limousines, Luxury Retreats, Broadway Shows, The Nazis Over at NY Times Publishes Swastika Shaped Puzzle on First Day of Chanukkah, and South Dakota Gov. Noem Proposes Legislation to Restrict Chinese Purchase of US Farmland
Hogewash: A Crater on Mercury, Follow the Money, and Ho Hum, Another Possible Government Shutdown
Hollywood In Toto: Tim Robbins: ‘Orwellian’ COVID Rules Based on Politics, Not Science, Elf Beats Woke Empire of Light (and Other Hollywood Horror Stories), and Hollywood Must Learn from Tom Cruise … or Else
The Lid: White House Struggles to Define ‘Border Czar’ Harris’ Role in Immigration Policy
Legal Insurrection: Energy Groups Suing Biden Administration for Failing to Hold Mandated Gas and Oil Lease Sales, Arizona Judge Allows Two of Kari Lake’s Election Challenge Claims to go to Trial, Holy Names University in Oakland Closing After Spring 2023 Semester, and U.S. Postal Service to Spend Almost $10 Billion for Electric Vehicles and Infrastructure
Nebraska Energy Observer: Steam Airplane Drivers and American Guys, also, No politics today…too much
Outkick: Eagles QB Gardner Minshew Skips Practice To Deliver Heartfelt Tribute At Mike Leach Memorial, 4 Penn State Players Get Teslas As Part Of NIL Deal, Pittsburgh’s Pat Narduzzi Hears North Carolina QB Drake Maye Was Offered $5 Million To Leave But Doesn’t Name School, Booger McFarland Drank ‘A Little Whiskey’ To Stay Warm During NFL Games, and A Grand Total Of 20 People Showed Up To A Brittney Griner ‘Homecoming’ Celebration In Waco, ESPN Doesn’t Seem Happy About It
Power Line: Welcome to Stanford Kindergarten, Sorry About Those Jobs, and The Post on the Twitter Files
Protein Wisdom Reborn:
Shark Tank: DeSantis Takes Aim At Teachers’ Union Dues, also, Is Anthony Sabatini The Real “Enemy Of The American People”?
Shot In The Dark: NPR’s War On Things That Just Work, also, Twitter – Not The Only Fed Sock Puppet
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2022 (Day 8)
This Ain’t Hell: Keeps his job, even promoted, Tuesday with the Libs of Tik Tok, and The Marines are sexist!
Victory Girls: Marjorie Taylor-Greene & Lauren Boebert – Stoopid Mean Girls, also, Sam Bankman-Fried Gets Extradition Deal And More Details
Volokh Conspiracy: Congress Moves Forward on Electoral Count Act Reform
Watts Up With That: Attention Poor People, Step Away from The Fuel. It’s Not for You. And Stop Using It Anyway. Thank You, also, Space Based Solar Power: Like Terrestrial Solar, but More Expensive
Weasel Zippers: House GOP Leader Calls For Investigation Into Past FBI, CIA Abuses, Supreme Court Blocks Biden Admin From Lifting Title 42, and Proud To Be An American? Stanford Says That’s Offensive
The Federalist: Latest ‘Twitter Files’ Bombshell Shows FBI Neck-Deep In Russian Disinformation Lie To Kill Hunter Biden Laptop Story, Top Lessons Investors Should Take Away From The Collapse Of FTX, For Falsely Accusing Bakery Of Racism, Oberlin College Finally Coughs Up $36M Settlement But No Apology, House Republicans Threaten Legislative Gridlock For Senate Colleagues Who Support Reckless Omnibus Bill, and King Charles Can’t Refute Meghan’s ‘Racism’ Charges Because He Is A Self-Flagellating Globalist
Mark Steyn: Rolling in Doha, I’ll Be Holmes for Christmas, Room at the Inn…for Migrants, and Fowl Play

Very Merry Deals
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Category: Linkagery

Why Was the Department of Justice Spying on Republican Congressional Staff?

Posted on | December 20, 2022 | Comments Off on Why Was the Department of Justice Spying on Republican Congressional Staff?

Something for Jim Jordan’s committee to investigate:

In an extraordinary intrusion on congressional oversight, the Justice Department used grand jury subpoenas to secretly obtain the personal email and phone data of at least two top House Intelligence Committee investigators back in November 2017 just as they and their boss, then-Chairman Devin Nunes, were assembling bombshell evidence of FBI abuses in the Russia collusion probe, Just the News has learned.
The subpoenas, obtained by Just the News, show the DOJ demanded that Google turn over personal email and phone data from the two senior staffers on Nov. 20, 2017 and that responsive materials were to be returned to DOJ by Dec. 5, 2017.
The subpoenas were delivered during a critical time frame in the committee’s effort to expose the Donald Trump-Russia collusion investigation as having been driven by an uncorroborated political opposition dossier funded by Hillary Clinton. Nunes’ committee was locked at the time in a bitter struggle to force the FBI and DOJ to turn over records to the committee.
The DOJ subpoenas came to light in the last few days when the former committee staffers were informed by Google that their records had been taken, consistent with the Big Tech company’s policy of alerting customers five years after law enforcement takes such actions.
One of the subpoenaed staffers, former Intelligence Committee senior counsel Kash Patel, told Just the News that the DOJ’s subpoenas were an extraordinary intrusion on congressional oversight and raised serious concerns about the separation of executive and legislative branch powers guaranteed in the Constitution. . . .

And they told me “The Deep State” was a myth . . .



 

Category: Congress
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