The Other McCain

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

Left’s ‘Tent Truthers’ Claim Union Attack on AFP in Lansing Was an ‘Inside Job’

Posted on | December 14, 2012 | 13 Comments

Steven Crowder is being targeted for smears and terroristic intimidation by the radical Left, possibly including Anonymous/Occupy anarchists who have come under suspicion for targeting Americans for Prosperity during a Lansing protest this week. This is the outlaw fringe of the anti-business movement, even more dangerous than thugs like Tony Camargo, identified as the union member who sucker-punched Crowder.

Joe Newby at the Examiner reports how the Left is now blaming AFP just like 9/11 Truthers blamed the U.S. for terrorist attacks:

According to an article at Talking Points Memo, AFP spokeswoman Annie Patnaude said protesters “threatened to blow up propane tanks inside the tent, potentially creating a deadly conflagration.”
Patnaude also suspected that at least one mask-wearing protester was an anarchist possibly connected with Occupy Wall Street.
“I don’t know if this was a union person or not. I think there’s a good possibility it was an Occupier or a radical anarchist,” she said.

AFP is now trying to get police to investigate this criminal attack, and Joe quotes Twitchy’s sarcastic response:

“But by taking its case to the police, doesn’t AFP open itself up to an investigation? Won’t authorities uncover AFP’s plot to smear peace-loving union protesters by destroying its own tent and hitting people’s fists with Steven Crowder’s face?”

Expect further developments in this story today.





 

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Category: Crime, Labor Unions, Michigan, Terrorism

LIVE AT FIVE: 12.14.12

Posted on | December 14, 2012 | 6 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Susan Rice Withdraws As Candidate For SecState

UN Ambassador Susan Rice and SecState HIllary Clinton

Lies about Benghazi made it impossible for her to be confirmed; way now open for John F’ing Kerry*


Direct Talks On Fiscal Cliff Yield Same Result
White House refusing to budge on top tier rate increase, entitlement preservation


Russian Foreign Ministry Walks Back Bogdanov’s Speech On Syria
Says DFM just quoting opposition, not expressing policy



POLITICS
Booker: Acclaimed Nationally, Still Slogging In Newark

Newark Mayor Cory Booker with a constituent

Potential candidate for governor still putting out political fires at home in Newark


Army Sergeant Sentenced To Life In Stockade After Colorado Killing


Friday Throwdown: Massachusetts State House Dominoes

Hagel Tops Obama’s List To Replace Panetta At Defense

Florida Supreme Court Strikes Down Noise Law

Deposit Insurance Bill Blocked In Senate

Senate Takes Steps Toward Banning Stalking Software

Hillary For Mayor? Not So Fast, Say New Yorkers



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Prices Dip As Traders Take Profits: NYMEX $86.15, Brent $109.02
Euro Stocks Edge Higher As PRC Data Inspires
Yen Slips To Nine-Month Low On Anticipated BOJ Easing
Sprint Offers $2.1 Billion For Clearwire And Its Spectrum
Walmart, Kroger Among First-Round Bidders For Hostess Brands
Barcode Co-Creator Norman Woodland Dies, 91
US retail Sales Up 0.3% In November, But Department Store Sales Tumble
Wheat, Cattle Close Higher; Corn, Soybeans Dip
New Google Maps Boasts Big Improvements
CANUKUS Powers Refuse To Sign UN Internet Treaty
iPhone 5 Officially Goes On Sale In PRC
App Turns Video Clips Into Instant Movie Videos
Best Buy Joins Staples In Flogging Surface



SPORTS
Bengals Keep Pace In AFC Playoff Hunt, Bury Eagles 34-13

Bengals QB Andy Dalton gets sacked

It’s unanimous: Bengals didn’t win, Eagles gave it away


Josh Hamilton Signs With Angels For Five Years, $125 Million

Carmelo Anthony Injured As Knicks Beat Lakers 117-106

Dempster Reportedly Signs With BoSox For Two Years, $26.5 Million

Big East Hoops Breakaway On The Horizon?

Brazil’s Soccer Image Licked In The Shins With Violence-Marred Copa

Rutgers Suspends Hoops Coach Three Games For Bad Behavior

Plenty Of Laughs As Braylon Edwards Rejoins Jets

Duncan Fletcher Can’t Escape Criticism For India’s Disastrous Performance

Franchise-Based T20 League Coming To West Indies

MASN/TV Revenue Argument Update From The WaPo’s James Wagner



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Olivia Wilde, Jason Sudeikis Secretly Engaged

Jason Sudeikis, Olivia Wilde

Planning wedding in Kansas City

Liam Hemsworth Unleashes Beatdown In Street Brawl

L.A. Reid Not Returning For Third Season Of “X Factor”

LiLo Owes $16K For Storage Locker, Faces Auction

Taylor Swift & Harry Styles Get Far, Far Away For Her Birthday

Bon Jovi Ecstatic Over Golden Globe Nomination

Garrett Hedlund To Star In “Tron 3”

Jenni Rivera’s Remains Identified, Turned Over To Family

Baba Wawa Names David Petraeus Most Fascinating Man Of 2012

Daniel Radcliffe: Harry Blotto?

Amar’e Stoudemire Marries Longtime GF Alexis Welch In Secret Ceremony At Home

In Truth, Ravi Shankar Couldn’t Stand The Hippies



FOREIGNERS
Norks Mark Rocket Success With Huge Rally
IAEA Confident Of Nuclear Deal With Iran
Egyptians Speak Out On Constitutional Referendum
Knife-Wielding Man Slashes 22 Children In PRC’s Henan Province
Reuters Journalists Accuse Israeli Troops Of Assault
Brawl Erupts As Ukraine Parliament Tries To Pick Speaker
Israeli Foreign Minister Faces Indictment On Lesser Charges
LDP On Course To Win Majority In Japanese General Elections
Russian Protest Leader Navalny Faces New Charges
Thai Red Shirts Protest Leaders Go On Trial
Hmas Cry Of Victory Rings Hollow For Battered Civilians



BLOGS & STUFF
Allahpundit: Susan Rice Withdraws From SecState Consideration
AmSpecBlog: What Really Sank Susan Rice?
Weasel Zippers: Obama Likely To Nominate Anti-Israel RINO Chuck Hagel As SecDef
Israel Matzav: Bad News For Israel – Obama Wants Hagel At Defense
NR Online: Hagel For Defense?
John McCormick: Purge-Worthy?
Jawa Report: Democracy Win! Death Star Petition Reaches Critical Mass
NRO Corner: Some Spending In Sandy “Emergency” Bill Doesn’t Start Until 2018
Allahpundit: Cavuto Cuts Off Dem Rep When She Won’t Offer Any Spending To Cut
Glenn Reynolds: Where Big GOP Bucks Could Matter
Power Line: A Modest Proposal
NRO Agenda: Kate Zernike’s Unflattering Portrait Of Cory Booker


*Who apparently served in Vietnam.

Category: Live at Five

‘Through a Plate Glass Window’: How Liberal Media De-Legitimize Dissent

Posted on | December 13, 2012 | 27 Comments

Patterico did a post yesterday about the “Accuse the Accusers” strategy that I meant to link and discuss at length, but I didn’t get around to it because new outrages were piling up quicker than I could keep track. In just the past couple of days:

  1. Stephen Crowder got sucker-punched in the head by Michigan union goon Tony Camargo;
  2. Hot dog vendor Clint Tarver was called the “n-word” when the Americans for Prosperity tent in Lansing was attacked by allies of the same goons who punched Crowder; and
  3. The son of Virginia Democrat Rep. Jim Moran pleaded guilty to an assault charge after police say Patrick Moran broke his girlfriend’s nose and fractured her skull during an argument outside a D.C. bar.

Perhaps you see a pattern here: Democrats and their political allies engaging in thuggish violence which no one could possibly defend or endorse. And in each case, liberals used a variation of the same distracting “Accuse the Accusers” defense: Whatever wrong was done by Democrats was minimized or dismissed as irrelevant in comparison to some greater wrong that liberals alleged had been done by the conservatives involved in calling attention to these incidents.

Call it “Wheelerization,” in tribute to the way Marcy Wheeler deliberately smeared Crowder as having somehow faked his own beating, simply because . . . well, James O’Keefe! Breitbart!

This magic incantation automatically de-legitimizes any story. Also, “selective editing,” as if there is such a thing as non-selective editing.

Today, the Left decided that Patrick Moran’s brutality toward his girlfriend was not a legitimate story because . . . Ace of Spades!

Leftwing Blogs Discover The Real Culprit
Behind Pat Moran’s Woman-Beating: Me

This Wheelerization of the Moran story was expertly performed by the ridiculous Tommy Christopher:

It’s a horrible story that highlights an important, serious issue, but shortly after the news was reported, Michelle Malkin‘s Twitter repository, Twitchy.com, had decided that the real villains were Rachel Maddow, Sandra Fluke, the media, Rep. Moran, and, somehow, me, while using Ms. Hoffman’s injuries as inspiration for pop-culture riffs. . . .
Finally, the folks at Twitchy chose to highlight a series of tweets that featured domestic violence-related riffs on Meadowlark Lemon, Star Wars, and even the headline from one of my columns.

Seriously, notice how this works: The story is not about the heinous brutality of Patrick Moran or the preposterously lenient sentence handed down to the son of a Democrat congressman (who, of course, has his own lengthy history of brutality). Nor is the story about the hypocrisy of liberals who routinely ignore or excuse such misconduct by Democrats while simultaneously accusing Republicans of being anti-woman.

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

Because the story can never be about the wrong done by Democrats, when Democrats do wrong, the media need some excuse to ignore it, or some pretext to make Republicans the bad guys: “Ken Starr is on a witch hunt! Everybody lies about sex! McCarthyism!”

And, unfortunately, Fox News functions as a foil for this tactic: As soon as Media Matters, Crooks & Liars, Firedoglake, DailyKos and others in the merry band of disinformation blogs find some connection between a story and Fox News — “Crowder and Malkin are both hired stooges of the Murdoch empire!” — then no journalist at CBS, NBC, ABC or the New York Times can possibly treat the story as serious and important, or else his inbox/Twitter feed will blow up with angry messages accusing him of betraying the cause by repeating right-wing lies.

Did I ever mention that studies have shown journalists vote Democrat by margins of at least 7-to-1? And that most reporters, editors and producers are therefore emotionally predisposed to tell stories that favor Democrats and avoid stories that favor Republicans?

This is why, in the Patrick Moran case as in so many other cases, the Left endeavors to distract from the facts of the story by focusing on the political orientation of those telling the story: “Twitchy is run by Malkin and Malkin works for Fox — not a legitimate story!”

Also, Twitchy quoted Tweets by Ace of Spades in which he made sarcastic reference to Tommy Christopher, and therefore Tommy’s a victim, because conservatives hate Legtimate Journalists.

Logic so sharp it could split atoms.

We are watching the Spencer Ackerman idea of smashing conservatives “through a plate glass window” — never mind the truth, just win.

This brute-force approach to Narrative Management is astonishingly successful. Allahpundit is in such a fugue of despair about it that he has resorted to linking me to prove his case:

If you’re a reporter and you’re taking conservatives seriously, you’re doing it wrong. [Chris] Matthews goes so far as to identify Romney’s utterly benign aside in the second debate about “binders full of women” as one of the reasons the media should move, en masse, even further to the left. That’s not a serious critique; it’s a fig leaf of outrage designed to apply pressure towards the desired political outcome. And it works.

You should read the whole thing because, after all, it’s not every day year I get linked by Allahpundit. Meanwhile, returning to the original model of Wheelerization, Patterico recounts this colloquy:

Wheeler: You said Crowder shouldn’t report the assault!
Me: Except I didn’t say that. Prove I did!
Wheeler: Incredible that an ADA doesn’t think crimes should be reported!
Me: Except I didn’t say that. Prove I did!
Wheeler: Wow. I think I’ll tell your boss that you don’t believe in reporting crimes.
Me: Except I didn’t say that. Prove I did.
Wheeler: Sheesh. A law enforcement officer saying crimes shouldn’t be reported. Can you believe it?
Me: Except I didn’t say that. Prove I did.
Wheeler: Looks like it’s time to ask your boss why their ADA thinks crimes should not be reported.
Me: Except I didn’t say that. Prove I did.
Wheeler: [more of the same, ad infinitum]

Marcy Wheeler’s narrative involved the argument that Crowder should have filed an assault charge against his attacker before reporting it as news, and she got it in her mind — an idée fixe — that Patterico had somehow discouraged Crowder from filing charges. Because he is by trade a prosecuting attorney, it might somehow be construed as wrongful for him to be “saying crimes shouldn’t be reported,” and so Wheeler began repeating this allegation as if the repetition proved it was true, and as if Patterico had an obligation to prove himself innocent.

“Accuse the accusers,” see?

As for Marcy Wheeler’s absurd claim, let me offer this example: Hunter S. Thompson was once brutally stomped by the Hell’s Angels, and never reported it to the police. Thompson was a journalist writing a book about the Hell’s Angels, and it might not have been altogether ethical for him to be trying to put several of them in jail for assault as a complainant while he was also being paid to tell their story.

And let’s face it, Thompson was on shaky ground from a legal standpoint, because he witnessed a good deal of other criminal behavior by the Angels that he never bothered reporting to police.

The story you’re covering is more important than whatever hassles you suffer as a consequence, and if those hassles involve getting your head bashed in — well, hey, that’s part of the coverage, too. In that sense, Crowder’s big day in Lansing was totally gonzo.

Speaking of hassles and important gonzo stories, I was intrigued yesterday by that Pastebin file in which Ron Brynaert mentioned Marcy Wheeler in connection with Neal Rauhauser and Patterico and SWATting and the Anthony Weiner scandal. Just happened to find that when, on a crazy hunch, I Googled “Marcy + Wheeler + Rauhauser.”

Maybe just a coincidence. Maybe not.




 


Category: Ace of Spades, Crime, Fox News, Labor Unions, Media Bias, Michelle Malkin, Patterico, Twitchy

World’s Youngest Blogger: My Cuteness Outweighs Being A Chocolate Snob?

Posted on | December 13, 2012 | 5 Comments

Category: World's Youngest Blogger

United States Denied Analytic Acumen Of Susan Rice As Head Of Dept. Of State UPDATE: SECSTATE Kerry,
SECDEF Hagel?

Posted on | December 13, 2012 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Via preciseBlogs, Rock Center reports:

Embattled U.N. envoy Susan Rice is dropping out of the running to be the next secretary of state after months of criticism over her Benghazi comments, she told NBC News on Thursday.
“If nominated, I am now convinced that the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive and costly – to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities,” Rice wrote in a letter to President Obama, saying she’s saddened by the partisan politics surrounding her prospects.
“That trade-off is simply not worth it to our country…Therefore, I respectfully request that you no longer consider my candidacy at this time,” she wrote in the letter obtained by NBC News.

This is kind of a shame, as I’m sure she bought that position fair and square.
This seems to re-open the door for the Senator who isn’t always clear on which state he’s mooring in:

To Democrats worried that a possible secretary of state nomination for John Kerry would clear a path for Republican Scott Brown to run for his Senate seat: Keep worrying.
Brown, beaten by liberal darling Elizabeth Warren on Nov. 6, certainly seemed to hint on Wednesday that he won’t be gone long—even as he gave what officially was his farewell speech.

This blogger just hopes that whoever relieves Hillary reinstates RSM as the Potential Future Ambassador to Vanuatu. Or at least Bulungi.

Now a Memeorandum thread

Update: via Drudge, the Examiner has:

The growing possibility of President Obama naming Democratic Sen. John Kerry as secretary of State and former GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel to run the Pentagon is being embraced by Senate Republicans who predict confirmation.
“I think both of them will be questioned vigorously but confirmed,” said a top GOP Senate aide, meaning the GOP won’t put up a fight in the Democratically-controlled chamber. That will be a key selling point as Obama considers his choices.
Reports emerged Thursday that Hagel, a Vietnam vet from Nebraska, was the frontrunner to replace exiting Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

This doesn’t put the DoD in a good position for the Battle of Super-Orbital Ridges.

Category: Uncategorized

Naked Celebrity News Update (Or, the Parable of the Prodigal Upskirt)

Posted on | December 13, 2012 | 32 Comments

Because I’m trying not to offend the Pope — he’s on Twitter now, and I’m still hoping to get a “Follow Friday” shout-out — I resisted the temptation to headline this item “Anne Hathaway Upskirt,” although I decided it wouldn’t hurt to use that as the URL. It seems that at this week’s premiere of Les Misérables, Anne accidentally displayed for paparazzi what the New York Daily News calls “the Full Hathaway”:

“I was getting out of the car and my dress was so tight that I didn’t realize it until I saw all the photographers’ flashes,” she told Vanity Fair writer Ingrid Sischy.
“It was devastating. They saw everything. I might as well have lifted up my skirt for them.”

If this incident was important enough to be reported by the New York Daily News, why shouldn’t a Hayekian public intellectual notice it? Meanwhile, in important news from the tech sector, Google has made it somewhat more difficult to search for porn photos, including the suddenly popular “Anne Hathaway Upskirt” photo. (No, that link won’t show it. I’m just linking back to this post to Google-bomb myself.)

Here’s my thought: Guys are going to be searching for that photo anyway, and why shouldn’t some percentage of that traffic lead to my site, where maybe these sick freaks will be inspired to feel some twinge of regret for wanting to see what Anne Hathaway’s naughty parts look like.

Because the Pope’s on Twitter now, guys, and don’t you feel ashamed that you have nothing better to do with your pathetic lives than to Google “Anne Hathaway Upskirt” photo? Read more

Category: Catholics, Celebrities, Culture, Hollywood, Scandal, Sex

On Journalism and Walter Duranty

Posted on | December 13, 2012 | 12 Comments

Jennifer Rubin, who used to be “just a blogger” with PJMedia, is now a journalist with the Washington Post, and interviews her former boss, Roger Simon, about the new play he and his wife wrote about infamous New York Times reporter Walter Duranty:

Big business is always portrayed as evil in Hollywood, but mainstream journalism (which is run by big companies) gets glowing portrayals. Why?
That cuts to the very heart of the question of bias. We start with an assumption that the goal of “big business” is to make money. And from that in a kind of shorthand, we draw all sorts of negative connotations. The stated goal of journalism is to tell “the truth.” That also leads us to make a series of positive assumptions. There remains a widespread, though diminishing, belief that journalism can be objective, when, by its very nature, it requires a selection of which facts to report and what level of importance to give to these facts.

You can and should read the whole thing. The idea that “big business” is inherently evil because its goal is to make money overlooks the obvious fact that the goal of small business — and of just about everybody, really — is also to make money. “Big business” is just more successful at it.

Wal-Mart was not a demonized villain when Sam Walton was running a single five-and-dime store in Arkansas, nor when Walton’s company grew into a relatively minor chain of discount stores, mostly located in small Southern and Midwestern towns. There were larger and better-known discount chains in the 1970s and ’80s, when most of the Left’s anti-commercial rage was still focused on shopping malls.

It wasn’t until Wal-Mart’s innovative methods and super-low prices made them the nation’s largest retail firm that the Left decided to forget about shopping malls and make Sam Walton’s erstwhile five-and-dime operation the hated symbol of Corporate Greed it is today.

Have you ever heard any left-winger railing against, say, Dollar General? No, you haven’t, even though Dollar General runs a nationwide chain of more than 10,000 discount stores with annual revenue of nearly $15 billion. For some reason, Wal-Mart is demonized and Dollar General is ignored, which tells you something about the irrationality of the Left’s selective outrage, as does the lack of leftist outrage against Big Media.

NBC/Universal, CBS/Viacom, ABC/Disney, CNN/Time-Warner — the highly profitable conglomerates that run Big Media are seldom called out by the lefties that rant deliriously against “Wall Street.” And whatever the idealism of their employees, there is something quaintly naive in the notion that the goal of Viacom is to tell the truth.

No, the goal of Viacom is to make profits for their stockholders, and they do so handsomely, turning more than $2 billion in profit last year on revenues of about $15 billion. If the executives at Viacom ever lose sight of that goal — if they start piling up losses and bleeding capital — then the high-minded idealists in the newsroom of CBS are liable to find themselves out of a job.

Most journalists never think of their jobs in terms of profitability. They don’t think of what they do in terms of “value-added” or consider how easily they could be replaced, if their productivity and efficiency don’t meet the cost/benefit standards of their profit-oriented employers.

When Walter Duranty was filing his dishonest dispatches about Stalin’s regime in the Soviet Union, the profitability of the New York Times was a factor he could afford to take for granted.

No more — earlier this month, the Times announced its fourth round of staff cutbacks in five years, and times are tough all over in the news business. Newsweek is also reportedly preparing to lay off staff, and employees of the Washington Times are reportedly braced for another round of layoffs. (When I quit the Washington Times nearly five years ago in January 2008, some of my co-workers thought I was crazy; most of them have since been laid off, and several have subsequently told me I was smart to get out while the getting was good. It’s looking like a very gloomy Christmas at 3600 New York Avenue this year.)

The anti-“Big Business” attitudes of some journalists are directly related to their inability to think of their jobs in terms of practical economics, because so many of them are insulated from the realities of competition. That insulation has been fraying — New Media erodes the profit margins and increases the scramble for the big scoop — but most people inside the Old Media tent still don’t have any real appreciation of the emerging entrepreneurial model of journalism.

Profit? Isn’t that a bad thing?

Screw ’em. They’ll learn, sooner or later.

 

Category: Journalism

Mad Scientist Calls for ‘Murderous Rampage’ Against Watchdog Group

Posted on | December 13, 2012 | 24 Comments

“I gotta be me, as the douchebag credo goes.”
— Ace of Spades

In November, the Franklin Center’s Tori Richards and Earl Glynn did a Colorado Watchdog report on National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. Richards and Glynn revealed the exorbitant salaries paid to top officials of this little-known Carter-era “green energy” boondoggle:

NREL’s top executive, Dr. Dan Arvizu, makes close to a million dollars per year. His two top lieutenants rake in more than half a million each and nine others make more than $350,000 a year. . . .
NREL’s taxpayer-funded management company has seen its budget more than double since 2006. That’s when one of its most ardent supporters, Rep. Ed Perlmutter D-Lakewood, was first elected to Congress. The lab sits in the middle of his district.

Read the whole report. This exercise in investigative journalism did not please 34-year-old NREL employee Kerrilee Ann Crosby, who used her Twitter account (@crosbolicious) to make disturbingly violent suggestions about the organization that published the report:

“Have you ever felt like going on a murderous rampage? Start at @WatchdogCO‘s offices. They perpetuate lies like this,”  Kerrilee Ann Crosby tweeted last month while working at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
“You guys are f***ing retarded. You are the Fox News of blogs. At first I thought I was reading The Onion, but no not the case,” Crosby continued. . . .
Crosby started working at NREL two years ago and now has a job in the technology department where she is a faculty member. . . .
“The person who wrote the tweets in question is employed at NREL in a non-supervisory staff position,” NREL spokesperson George Douglas acknowledged in an email to Watchdog.org. “Her opinions do not represent those of the Laboratory. She has been found in violation of NREL’s policy on social networking and appropriate action is being taken.” . . .
[Crosby’s] Twitter feed is filled with dozens of tweets per day that appear during the business hours. They detail graphic sex, love of alcohol, and the Denver music scene, and bemoan her lackluster dating life. . . .
[S]he posted this about her job at NREL: “In our weekly meetings I play this lil game called How Much Can I Fart In This Leather Chair And Get Away W/ It. Works best with a hangover.”
Crosby did not respond to requests for an interview and has since deleted her Linkedin profile and set her Twitter page to private.

Read the whole thing. This civil servant is employed with your tax dollars. Her Twitter account is still online, if you’d care to send greetings:

(Hat-tip: Gateway Pundit.)


Category: Colorado, Environmentalism, Science
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