The Other McCain

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

AFL-CIO OMG WTF?

Posted on | December 12, 2012 | 19 Comments

Lee Stranahan returned my phone call today. He was in Lansing, Michigan, to cover this week’s union goonfest for Breitbart.com, and he told me the story of what happened to Clint Tarver.

Clint is a beloved local figure, his hot dog stand across from the Michigan state capitol being a sort of institution, a landmark. “This is not a guy who’s about politics,” Lee explained. “He’s about hot dogs.”

Americans for Prosperity hired Clint to serve hot dogs at their tent on the capitol grounds, where AFP officials were presenting the pro-freedom side of the right-to-work argument. And when the union goons decided to assault the AFP tent, Clint became a target.

Union Thugs Shouted Racial
Slurs At Hot Dog Vendor While
Trashing His Business

Good Lord. Of course, they have no sense of shame, but are they also completely lacking a sense of irony? I mean, the Left has spent nearly four years building their “Tea Party is racist” meme, and the AFL-CIO brutes — who were nearly all white, as Stranahan reports and video verifies — decide they’ll just waste all that liberal media propaganda in order to terrorize a guy whose only “crime” is serving hot dogs?

ABC, NBC, CBS, KKK — “civil rights” means whatever liberals say it means, and if you question their judgment, you’re the racist.

UPDATE: Those racist right-wing teabaggers have already raised more than $17,000 to help Clint Tarver.

UPDATE II: Well, I’d been planning a separate blog to comment on Patterico’s further explanation of the accuse-the-accusers strategy, but then a despicable progressive Michigan blogger did a “Marcy Wheeler” on Clint Tarver which can be briefly summarized: His wife is a Republican and he was selling hot dogs to wingnuts, so he deserved it and besides, Breitbot distraction!

Will the last honest liberal leaving Michigan please turn out the lights?

Category: Labor Unions, Michigan, Racism

#WarOnWomen Democrat Congressman’s Son Pleads Guilty to Assaulting Girlfriend

Posted on | December 12, 2012 | 8 Comments

Normally, it’s co-blogger Smitty who brings us news about his congressman, the Disgrace to Virginia’s Good Name That Is Jim Moran (D-Thug). But today Jeff Quinton informs us of this impressive example of hereditary influence, Patrick “Girl-Basher” Moran:

Moran and his girlfriend were fighting outside 14th St. bar The Getaway around 1:23 a.m. on Dec. 1, according to a police report, over Moran talking to another woman at the bar. Suddenly, Moran allegedly slammed his girlfriend’s head into the bar’s metal trash can cage.
After the attack, police described Moran’s girlfriend as “bleeding heavily from her nose nose and also observed that her nose and right eye were extremely swollen.” One of the ambulance technicians who transported her to Howard University Hospital told police that Moran appeared to have broken her nose and given her a skull fracture under her right eye.
Moran was arrested for felony domestic violence assault, but pleaded the charge down to simple assault today. He was sentenced to probation.

See, it’s just a misdemeanor when Democrats beat up women. Because (a) Democrats are so “progressive”and also (b) lady parts!

Michelle Malkin has much, much more about Moran.

Category: Uncategorized

Accuse the Accusers: @scrowder Gets the Left’s ‘Plate Glass Window’ Treatment

Posted on | December 12, 2012 | 90 Comments

After yesterday’s incident in which labor union activists tore down an Americans for Prosperity tent in Lansing and sucker-punched Stephen Crowder, this headline zoomed up the Memorandum aggregation:

Breitbart Folks Appear to Fake Violence in Lansing

Huh? This was a decidedly odd piece of blogging: The claim that somehow the union thug clobbering Crowder was part of a right-wing hoax, based on such “evidence” as the event having been reported by “James O’Keefe’s buddy” Lee Stranahan — because, hey, if anybody at Breitbart thinks it’s actually news, that means it must be phony, right?

Also, the video was edited. Anybody who edits a video is obviously engaged in some kind of evil conspiracy.

What the hell is this silly gibberish? Are these people crazy?

No, they’re engaged in a systematic effort to create confusion and discourage mainstream journalists from reporting on the incident.

“Accuse the accusers!” Re-arrange the narrative of events so that a story that obviously makes the Left look bad is, instead, a story about the Right unjustly trying to make the Left look bad.

This perversion of the narrative makes the teller of the tale (“Crowder works for Fox News! Stranahan works for Breitbart!”) the pre-demonized focus of the story, the villain whose tale can’t be trusted by any mainstream, legitimate journalist. And you can bet that any MSM reporter who does try to report honestly on what happened in Lansing will be brutally excoriated by Media Matters and others on the Left for taking this incident seriously as actual news.

Crowder is being smashed “through a plate glass window,” so to speak. If conservative New Media and citizen-journalists call attention to such an incident, that very fact — the involvement of conservatives, and their interest in the incident as news — will be leveraged by liberals as part of the counter-narrative to discredit and de-legitimize the story.

So it doesn’t matter to Marcy Wheeler at “Emptywheel” whether her bizarre version of what happened in Lansing is true or even rationally plausible. She has no interest in truth.

She only cares about “winning.”

In this case, “winning” means providing reporters with some flimsy pretext for ignoring what actually happened yesterday: Union thugs physically attacked their opponents in broad daylight.

This should frighten us. The Left has rejected any notion of objective truth. Instead, there is only political truth. And political truth is judged by the Marcusean axiom of “liberating tolerance.”

Look: Jim Hoft says the goon who punched Crowder is Tony Camargo of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 876.

Does that fact check out? Is there actually such a person?

Was Camargo actually in Lansing as part of the labor union protests?

If so — if Camargo exists and is an actual IBEW member — then this is not a “hoax” or a “sting” or any other kind of right-wing artifice.

If the basic facts of the story check out, then does this not also prove that Marcy Wheeler at “Emptywheel” is a contemptible liar?

And, strange to say, when I did a Google search just now, it led me directly to a Pastebin file by . . . Ron Brynaert.

Maybe this is just a coincidence. Or maybe not.

UPDATE: Patterico blogged about Marcy Wheeler yesterday without, apparently, wondering where she learned the “accuse the accusers” trick.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

The question of whether to blame sloth, stupidity or liberal bias for media malfeasance is always a tough one.

Generally, I prefer to think of bad reporters as just being stupid and lazy. They might get angry if you accuse them of being biased liberals.

These varying explanations are not, of course, mutually exclusive.




 


Category: Labor Unions, Media Bias, Michigan

LIVE AT FIVE: 12.12.12

Posted on | December 12, 2012 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Union Thuggery Erupts In Lansing – Three Arrested

Steven Crowder gets punched by IBEW thug Tony Cummings

State police don riot gear against union members protesting Gov. Snyder’s signing right-to-work legislation


Nork Rocket Actually Reaches Orbit
Much handwaving and flaming from diplomats


Three Dead (Including Killer) In Oregon Mall Shooting
Gunman kills two before apparently committing suicide



POLITICS
Scott Considered Front-Runner Among Replacements For DeMint

Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC)

Reportedly favored by Washington GOP

No Deal: GOP, Democrats Trade Barbs As Clock Ticks Down To “Fiscal Cliff”

KIPP DC Wins $10 Million Grant Competition

Accused Terrorist Arrested In Georgia

Justice Scalia Defends “Anti-Gay” Legal Writings

Vietnamese Blame Hollywood For Making US Politics Scary

113th Congress: This Time, It’s Out With The New

Buffett Joins Calls For “Strong” Estate Tax



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Edges Up As Germany Seen Dodging Recession: NYMEX $85.56, Brent $108.20
SolarCity Postpones IPO As Solar Sector Struggles
Amazon To Begin Charging Sales Tax In Massachusetts
Us October Trade Deficit Up As Slowing Global Economy Cuts Demand For US Goods
Small Business Optimism Took Hit In November
Twinkie Madness Grips Chicago As Last Shipment From Hostess Hits Shelves
Staples Becomes First Retailer To Sell Microsoft Surface Tablet
Facebook Helps FBI Bust International Crime Ring
Microsoft Wants A Discount To Bring Office To The iPad
FCC Approves Dish Network’s Plan For High-Speed Wireless
Facebook Could Earn Up To $1 Billion From Gifts Now That Rollout Is Complete



SPORTS
Ancient Yankees Building For Yesterday

New Yankee Kevin Youkilis

Youkilis signs for one year, $12 million; Ichiro to re-sign?

Kobe Scores 42, Lakers Still Lose To Cavaliers

Saints’ Bounty Suspensions Vacated (Video)

Griffin Leads Streaking Clippers Past Bulls, 94-89

Indians Trade Shin-Soo Choo In Nine-Player, Three-Team Deal; Get Matt Stubbs From Reds And Three Pitchers

Nyets Unable To Maintain Hot Start, Fall To Knicks 100-97

Contract Impasse Darkens Dickey’s Mood

Dodgers Won’t Apologize For Spending Spree



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Sitar Master Ravi Shankar Dead, 92

Ravi Shankar, 1920-2012, RIP

Popularized Indian music in the West, pioneered rock benefits with the Concert for Bangladesh, father of singer Norah Jones

Anne Hathaway Flashes Photographers At “Les Mis” Premiere

Lindsay Lohan Facing Eight Months In Jail For Probation Violations

How “Storage Wars” Faked Show And Tried To Hide It

Amanda Seyfried: January’s InStyle Cover Girl

Lindsay Skips Court, Follows The Wanted To London

Jenna Bush Hager Expecting

Brooke Mueller’s Twins Left With Denise Richards

Charlie Sheen Drops $75K To Obliterate Little Girl’s Cancer



FOREIGNERS
US recognizes Syrian Opposition As Government
Hugo Chavez Emerges From Six Hours Of Surgery
ECOWAS Condemns Military For Forcing Mali PM’s Resignation
Israel To Withhold 1.6 Billion In PA Taxes To Recoup Advances
Nelson Mandela Responding To Treatment For Lung Infection
Cayman islands Premier Busted For Corruption
IKEA Monkey’s Owner Seeks His Return
C of E To Be Exempt From Gay Marriage Law



BLOGS & STUFF
Bryan Preston: ABC’s Devin Dwyer Lies In Fiscal Cliff Story
Hot Air: Boehner Asks “Can We Just Be Honest About This? We’re Broke”
Weasel Zippers: Teamsters Boss Jimmy Hoffa Threatens “Civil War” Over Michigan’s RTW Law
Patterico: Civility Now!
Gateway Pundit: Thug Who Punched Steven Crowder ID’d As Tony Camargo (Cummings?)
Legal Insurrection: Michigan RTW Protests And Vote Live
Conservatives4Palin: Politico Quotes Buffett – “Nobody Believes Obama’s Tax Hike Will Help The Economy”
Power Line: Democrats Admit ObamaCare Is A Job-Killer
The Jawa Report: MSNBC Claims AFP Sabotaged Own Tent

Category: Live at Five

Rule 5 Tuesday

Posted on | December 11, 2012 | 8 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Apologies for the delay in posting; in addition to the stress from moving, I evidently got some kind of cold/flu last week and spent most of yesterday asleep. At any rate, here’s your Rule 5 links for last weeks; don’t be clicking them out in the street and frightening the feminists and children.


Valley of the Shadow likewise has the health problems, but rattles the tip jar with the assistance of Lisbeth Salander. Laughing Conservative has the less Gothic (but still quite attractive) Kat Kelley, Fishersville Mike notices that iCarly is iContinuing, and Animal Magnetism debuts with their own Rule 5 Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon. Reaganite Republican spotlights Michelle Malkin, Randy’s Roundtable tarts it up with Barbara Palvin, and A Trainwreck In Maxwell pays tribute to the A Girl And Her Gun blog. Grumpy Old Man shares some black & white goodness, Blessed Blasphemy offers Page 3 Girl Rosie Jones, First Street Journal looks at a different aspect of ladies in uniform: haute couture,  and the Rio Norte Line offers age-appropriate sexiness with Shania Twain (47? No way!).


EBL has some 1941-vintage Rule 5, the Marilyn Monroe Holiday Exercise Program, the Ultimate Fail Girls competition, and the best of Mae West.


A View From The Beach offers Miranda Kerr taking granny’s advice, a soft-core porn actress thinking about challenging Mitch McConnell, toasted marshmallows, women staring at boobs, a huge green spider, Crystal and Hef (again), and a vampire terrorizing a Serbian village.


El Opinador Compusivo has Sylwia Wojciech, Jessica Jane Clement (and an encore!), and Natalia Velez. Also covered: please tie your shoes (with bonus Bill Whittle video!) , Nighty Night, Biker, and nothing good on TV.


Soylent Green starts off with Sunday Snoochski, followed by Monday Motivationer Aureli, Overnighty Capri, Tuesday Titillation Gabriella, Humpday Hawt Chrissy, Peruvian Pulchritude Lourdes, Falconsword Friday on Thursday, Corsetcare oubliette, and AM Awesome Bella Cole.


Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Courtney Henggeler, vintage babe is Amanda Donohoe, and in the Sex in Advertising department, it’s the Perfect Woman, followed by the obligatory 49ers cheerleader. Dustbury submits Raquel Welch and Felicity Huffman for our consideration, while Three Beers Later reassures us he’s all about taste. At The Camp of the Saints, it’s Anastasia Harris and the Rule 5 News.


The DaleyGator’s DaleyBabes this week included Wendy Gonzalez, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Andrea Tarantos from “Red Eye”, Karen Miyauchi, Natalie Eve Marie, Minami Haduki, Tatiana Harvey, Seifuku Kuzan, a salute to Hooters, and Erin Gray with a Rule 5 roundup!


Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Links for next week’s Rule 5 Sunday (and it WILL be on Sunday) are due to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox no later than Saturday, December 15.

 

Category: Rule 5

SHOOTING AT OREGON MALL UPDATE: Eyewitness Tells TV Station Shooter Was Teen in Hockey Mask

Posted on | December 11, 2012 | 14 Comments

There are reportedly at least two people dead — including the shooter — after a gunman opened fire at Clackamas Town Center Mall near Portland.

UPDATE: The Oregonian reports:

The Clackamas Town Center shooter has been “neutralized,” a spokesman for the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office confirmed shortly before 5 p.m. [Pacific Time]
Lt. James Rhodes, a sheriff’s office spokesman, declined to say whether “neutralized” meant a suspect was dead, immobilized or in custody. Unconfirmed reports suggested that the assailant may have taken his own life after shooting multiple people at the mall. Two are confirmed dead with more injured.

UPDATE II: The Oregonian has interviews with witnesses. Still waiting for ID of shooter and other information.

UPDATE III: OK, we now have it confirmed that the shooter is dead. Two others are dead, and at least one other person “seriously injured.”

UPDATE IV: The sheriff’s department is apparently waiting to name the gunman and, without a name, it is impossible to know the motive except (speculatively) he was a homocidal psychotic. A local resident informs me via Twitter that the mall is officially a “gun-free zone,” with signs at every entrance declaring “Firearms Prohibited.”

Homicidal psychotics aren’t real big on obeying signs like that.

UPDATE V: The Associated Press is reporting that the gunman shot himself.

UPDATE VI: The search for political scapegoats has become one of the unseemly yet predictable aspects of tragedies like this. Twitchy reports a rather unusual twist in the Oregon shooting:

Details of the mall shooting are still forthcoming, but many on Twitter reported that the shooter was wearing a white mask. Some called it a hockey mask, while others cited an emergency dispatcher referring to a Guy Fawkes mask — the mask made famous by the movie “V for Vendetta” and now associated with Anonymous. Concern for the shooting victims was put on hold in favor of speculation over a mask crackdown.

Let’s not jump to conclusions either way. If the shooter had been a Tea Party activist, I’m sure Brian Ross would have told us about it by now, but I’m not going to commit Ross-ism in reverse by speculating on a possible left-wing motive without any clear evidence. Homocidal psychotics don’t necessarily fall into clear political categories.

Meanwhile (a) we still don’t even have the name of the shooter, so it’s impossible to speculate on his motive, and (b) the Oregonian updates to report that one of the victims — wounded in the chest, but not killed — is a 15-year-old girl.

UPDATE VII: Fire Andrea Mitchell: “The fact that the media has been so silent on the description of the shooter makes me suspicious.”

Well, yeah: If the guy had been wearing a Gadsden Flag T-shirt, MSNBC would have a reporter on the scene doing round-the-clock coverage.

The fact that liberals aren’t yet claiming a right-wing motive may tend to make us supect the shooter was associated with the Left, but we can’t substitute mere suspicion for actual facts.

UPDATE VIII: KATU-TV has an interview with an eyewitness who says (a) the shooter was wearing a hockey goalie’s mask, and (b) the shooter appeared to be a teenager. So the Occupy/Anonymous anarchists apparently can relax about the Guy Fawkes mask angle.

Hat-tip: Seattle Six on Twitter.

Category: Crime, Oregon

BREAKING VIDEO: MI Union Thugs Greet Right-To-Work Law With Thuggery And Cupcakes, But Mostly Thuggery

Posted on | December 11, 2012 | 53 Comments

by Smitty

It seems that the Americans for Prosperity tent was a hotbed of raaaaacism, and the 1% were using it as a base for #WarOnWomen attacks. So I guess you can sympathize with the need for ‘honest’, State-fearing Union Goons to protect the turf on which the tent sat, and the power that the Union had accumulated through years of graft.

Elections have consequences, but only when they further Holy Progress. Otherwise, elections seem to have side-effects, mostly thuggish. Help me understand this in the comments.

Update: Liberty News Network has Steven Crowder reaching for the cupcakes, and getting thugged.

Also at RedState.

Update II: the mighty Dana Loesch interviewed Crowder here.

Update III: more at Jackie Wellfonder.

Update IV: Cue the Orwellian crapflooders:


Wait, so we’re to believe, after Kenneth Gladney, that AFP destroyed its own property? That Crowder assaulted himself? Really? The Unions are the good guys, and AFP is just engaging in a publicity stunt? Lord have mercy on these perfidous ones.

Update V: much more at Legal Insurrection.

Update VI: White House spokesman goes Full Postmodern Clown:

White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to condemn the increasing violence and threats by union members in Michigan, merely telling reporters Tuesday that “the president believes in debate that’s civil.”
When asked by a reporter about a claim by Michigan state Democrat that “there will be blood” should Republicans pass a union-choice law in Michigan, Carney professed ignorance and then downplayed the comment.
“I haven’t see those comments, and I’m not sure they mean what someone interprets them to mean,” he said.

I guess if Barack Obama had had a son, he wouldn’t have looked like Steven Crowder. Carney, you are a disgusting piece of work. Lord bless your heart, after He replaces that lump in your chest.

Update VII:

Update VIII: via Tony Katz & WatchDogWire:
That should help dispel the notion that this was some kind of AFP-staged affair.

Update IX: linked at The Camp of the Saints:

This is exactly the kind of behavior the Left wants to see. Ever since Leftism came into being in the mid-18th Century, they have believed a necessary first step in bringing about Revolution is to sow Chaos in all areas of the society. They want the populace to break into tribes of competing grievance groups, ready to. To achieve this, the Left needs many groups from various fields it can count on to do it’s dirty work — bureaucrats, elected officials, academics, etc. These minions of the Masterminds lay the ground work by sabotaging all of the institutions of the Society from within and without, working to pervert and, thus weaken, the existing Culture.
At some point, however, the Leftist Masterminds need to move to the next phase of the march to Revolution: violence. We have entered the phase in the last few years in The United States Of America. Barack Hussein Obama and his comrades have encouraged and nurtured and unleashed forces designed to tear this country apart.

Yep. Read the whole thing.

Update X: linked at Da Tech Guy and Notion Tidbits.

Update XI: linked at the Daley Gator.

Update XII: linked at American Power and The Political Hat.

Category: Uncategorized

No, We Can’t.

Posted on | December 11, 2012 | 23 Comments

Memeorandum features this headline from Think Progress:

We Could End Homelessness With The Money
Americans Spend On Christmas Decorations

This is false. It could only be true if the complex problem known by the misleading label “homelessness” were just a matter of money, but it’s not.

Homelessness made headlines in the 1980s and was exploited for purposes of partisan propaganda by liberals who saw an opportunity to dramatize what they construed as consequences of “Reaganomics.” In fact, as researchers discovered, homelessness is primarily caused by non-economic factors: mental illness, substance abuse and family disruption.

Insofar as homelessness resulted from public policy, it was not the Reagan administration’s budget policies, but rather the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill — a liberal priority during the 1970s — which had done most to aggravate the problem.

Prior to the 1970s, people with serious chronic mental illnesses like schizophrenia were for the most part incarcerated in psychiatric wards at state institutions. (For example, when I was a kid growing up near Atlanta, a common synonym for “crazy” was “Milledgeville,” the town where Central State Hospital was located.) As a result of court rulings, new ideas about the nature of mental illness and governmental policy, in the late ’70s long-term involuntary committment became much less common. Unless it could be proven that a patient was an immediate danger to himself or others, the mentally ill could not be hospitalized against their will.

As a result of these policy changes, many thousands of seriously deranged individuals were turned loose in society. While these patients were eligible for (and, in some cases, under court order to participate in) outpatient psychiatric treatment, many were unwilling or unable to cooperate with the outpatient process. This is, by the way, how the phrase “off his meds” entered our language as a slang for craziness.

If these liberated lunatics were off their meds — not taking the anti-psychotic drugs needed to control their symptoms — they were not incapable of self-medication, and many of them resorted to alcohol, marijuana and other drugs that did nothing to improve their condition. And as strange as it may seem, liberals in many instances actively assisted in keeping such people on the streets.

The most infamous case was Joyce Brown, alias “Billie Boggs,” a schizophrenic in New York City who in the 1980s defecated and urinated on the sidewalks of Manhattan, yelling obscene gibberish and harassing passersby. The American Civil Liberties Union went to court to protect the crazy woman’s right to live in this manner and, when authorities tried to have her involuntarily committed for psychiatric treatment, her ACLU lawyers actually described Brown as a “political prisoner.” During one 1988 hearing, the ACLU represented Brown as having established “a fearless, independent life style.”

A junkie, a drunk or a schizophrenic may be “homeless,” but this isn’t a problem that can be solved with the money you could save by not decorating your home for Christmas. And the same is true of violent criminals, who make up a larger portion of the homeless population than most people are aware. Joyce Brown had a criminal record, including an assault charge in New Jersey, and so too did another notorious homeless drug addict who terrorized New Yorkers, Larry Hogue, the “Wild Man of 96th Street”:

He was big and he was bad, regularly mugging people to support his drug habit.
He set fires under cars, heaved rocks through stained glass church windows, masturbated in front of kids, stalked seniors and threatened children with nail-studded clubs.
Cops would arrest him and take him to the psychiatric ward, where he would be cut off from his crack supply.
After a few weeks his demons would disappear and he’d be back to his old tricks on W. 96th St.

Hogue’s case illustrates why money can’t prevent homelessness: Hogue received a $3,000-a-month disability check from Veterans Affairs, but his mental illness and drug abuse made him incapable of spending this responsibly, and his dangerous violence finally got him committed to Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens.

There was never any shortage of housing or other assistance available to people like Joyce Brown and Larry Hogue. The problem was a set of government policies and court rulings that made it impossible to incarcerate them for their crimes, rescue them from their drug addiction or institutionalize them for their insanity.

Despite these facts, however, the Grinches at Think Progress want to guilt-trip Americans this holiday season by insinuating that Christmas decorations are the cause of homelessness.

To which I reply: “Bah! Humbug!”

 

Category: Christmas, Liberals
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