The Other McCain

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

I Earned Peanuts For Pulling An 18-Hour Day On Tuesday

Posted on | November 8, 2012 | 17 Comments

by Smitty

Now, maybe I just have more skin in the game:

. . .but I feel a driving need to explain to the World’s Youngest Blogger that I actively sought to keep the Republic. Sure, I could have done more, even running for office.
The notion that people aren’t stepping up to the plate and making sure that there are enough observers is a real disappointment. Sins of omission are not helping anything. Do what you can.
Via Insty
Category: Instapundit, World's Youngest Blogger

“We’ll Fight Again Tomorrow”

Posted on | November 8, 2012 | 91 Comments

— by Wombat-socho


The post title, of course, is from Michelle Malkin’s morning after column, which was a bright torch amid the gloom of Obama’s victory. Indeed, conservatives must stand tall, resist the siren songs of “moderation” and “compromise” and continue to present America with a choice, not an echo. We must take note of things that went wrong, but keep in mind that there were things that went well; these are both summed up well by Dana Loesch. So, to echo Lenin, what is to be done?


We can start with Bill Quick’s angry post-mortem. As much as I respect Ed Morrissey, Bill is absolutely correct to savage him for the “messaging” nonsense he’s spouting, which is no different from the kind of crap we used to mock Thomas Frank for pooting forth. We’re dealing with people that would rather be hip than smart, and “fairness” has always been an easier sell than the fable of the Little Red Hen, especially if you’re one of the hipsters who wants their bread and circuses for free. Bill also makes the point that we were wrong about the polls and Nate Silver was right; our desire to believe that America was still a center-right nation blinded us to the ugly reality of the polls, and as happens every time you wish away bad news or unpleasant facts, they come back to bite you.


We can then look to Mark Levin, who called for Karl Rove to get off the stage, and linked to this Bloomberg article that openly mocked Rove as “Biggest Super-PAC Loser”. Stacy and others have been saying for years that the Establishment GOP and their consultant pilot fish need to be forcibly retired, and this massive failure on the part of the Establishment calls for not just retirement, but a wholesale application of wooden stakes and decapitations. This is the second Presidential election in a row that we have lost thanks to The Powers That Be anointing a “moderate, electable” candidate who was promptly painted as a soulless monster by the Democrats and the press (BIRM); in the end, they turned out not to be so electable after all. Worse, their much-vaunted ad spending didn’t buy us victory in the places we needed it the most, while Obama’s Operation Narwhal identified marginal voters and got them to the polls.


I think the conflict between the Washington Establishment and the TEA Party needs to come to a head, and we need to make sure the TEA Party wins. We need to build on those populist networks and rebuild local GOP party organizations from the ground up, allying with the Ron Paul libertarians to take power away from Washington and return it to Richmond, Austin, Nashville, Raleigh, Salt Lake City and the rest of the state capitals. We need conservative precinct captains and volunteer cadres who know the territory (and their neighbors) far better than any last-minute PAC-sponsored crew of door-knockers ever could. For too long, we’ve allowed the party of Main Street to be run from K Street, and now in this moment of defeat, we have a chance to reach out to the Stewart Adelsons and Bob Perrys and convince them that they can get more bang for their buck by supporting the little grassroots platoons instead of the big, plush headquarters that spent so much and accomplished so little.


This local emphasis also addresses the problem of culture change. We have a Kulturkampf on our hands and have had for decades, but we’re beginning to fight back effectively. This is another area where we have an advantage over liberals. On balance, we tend to be more polite and friendly, less snarky and prone to hectoring and preaching. We can use those advantages to reach out one on one to disaffected minorities and other people who are getting hosed by the seemingly endless misery of the Obama Depression. We may not change enough minds in two years, or even four, but we have to remember we’re playing the long game. It took the progressives most of the last century to get their hooks into education, entertainment, and news media, and it may take us just as long to take them back or (more likely) supplant them with schools and media of our own. That doesn’t mean we should give up; this is a #WAR, and we are all Breitbart’s soldiers in it.


Once we control the local parties, from townships to state committees, WE will be the ones deciding who the candidates are. We will have the ability to block another “moderate” like Mitt Romney or Stacy’s Crazy Cousin John from the nomination. We will take our government back at every level. It all starts with us, in our precincts and wards, building a political force of extraordinary magnitude, purging the Karl Roves and any other talking head who thinks they can control the party from a K Street office. It starts with you. It starts today.

Category: Election 2012, GOP, Karl Rove, Michelle Malkin, No More Bushes, Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

Great One From Erickson

Posted on | November 8, 2012 | 68 Comments

by Smitty

There is no permanence in politics. All is fleeting. All is cyclical. We find comfort in our cycle and distress when others rise to the top.

Right now, conservatives are bitterly disappointed. Some choose to check out mentally. Some have decided to throw in the towel. A few blame the American people. Many think the gig is up, the show is over, and destiny is undone.

Demography is not destiny and neither is the ever growing leviathan. Many think so now, but they forget the ebbs and flows of the tide of history. Conservatism is not done. The message of freedom and opportunity is not done.

No immigrant comes to the United States wanting to be on welfare. They come for a better life of hard work and success. What conservatives forget is that people forget.

And conservatives have done a terrible job reminding people.

Read the whole thing, as it’s a needed dose of perspective.

In a way, the results are Obama’s best possible punishment. The bad news is that there will be substantial collateral damage, and damage to your collateral. Great time not to be too attached to your toys.

My worry is that, as FDR II rolls us on through the Even Greater American Depression (EGAD), the saga climaxes in WWIII.

Category: Barack Obama, Blogging

LIVE AT FIVESIX: 11.08.12

Posted on | November 8, 2012 | 7 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
After The Election, A Deal To Avoid The Fiscal Cliff?

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH)

Don’t get your hopes up.

More Misery Incoming For Sandy Victims As Storm Bears Down On NY/NJ Area
More rain, snow, flooding from nor’easter to pound areas already ravaged by Sandy

All Change In PRC As Delegates Gather To Choose New Leaders
Hu Jintao says nation, CCP threatened by corruption; promises political reform



POLITICS
How’d That Happen?

Romney and Obama

Go ahead. Wallow in the exit poll data.
Small improvements in the economy enough to aid re-election


Colorado Governor Warns Pot Smokers To Hold Off On Cheetos After Marijuana Measure Passes

Man Behind Anti-Muslim Film Gets 1 Year In Prison For Parole Violation

California Proposition Results Mixed

Nate Silver Gets A Boost From The Election

Little To Show For Cash Flood By Big Donors?

Obama’s Big Margins Among Hispanics Worry GOP

West Still Fighting As Palm Beach County Continues To Count Ballots

Just What New York Needs: More Weiner



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Rises In Asia After Earlier Plunge; NYMEX $85.02, Brent $107.38
Obama Victory, Grim Europe Forecast Forces Dow Below 13,000 As Stocks Plunge
PRC Shares Have Worst Day In Two Weeks
Trade Panel Approves Five-Year Tariff On PRC Solar Products
Renewable Energy Subsidies Seen As Winners In Iowa
Boeing Defense Unit To Cut Managers, Slash Costs
US Cellular Leaving Chicago
Apple Bailed Out Sharp To The Tune Of $2 Billion Last Quarter
Judge Denies Injunction Against Dish’s Ad-Skipping Feature
Microsoft Office For iOS, Android In The Works
Verizon Waives Voice, Text Charges For Sandy Victims
AT&T To Plow $14 Billion Into Wireless, Wired Networks Over Next Three Years
Microsoft Mulling “XBox Surface” Slate For Games
B&N Drops Prices On Older Nook Tablets
Amazon Tests $7.99 Monthly Subscription Plan For Amazon Prime



SPORTS
Walt Weiss Named New Colorado Rockies Manager

Walt Weiss

Rockies pass over Giambi, Williams, Runnells to pick former shortstop, high school coach

Jazz Drop Lakers To 1-4

James, Wade Lead Heat In Rout Of Nyets 103-73

Winter Meetings Might Be Lively This Year

Clippers Hand First Loss To Spurs, 106-84

Could The NBA Provide A Solution To The NHL Lockout?

Snakes Want A Rangers Shortstop For Justin Upton

Rizzo Expects Johnson To Continue As Nats’ Manager In 2013



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Carrie Fisher Says Damn Right I Want To Be In The New “Star Wars”

You know it to be true.

Also thinks Disney low-balled George Lucas
Harrison Ford open to return of Han Solo (h/t Troglopundit)


Stacey Dash’s Epic Rant About Election Depression



Ariel Winters’ Mom Denies Abusing “Modern Family” Star

Kirstie Alley Claims John Travolta Not Gay

Diane Sawyer: Drunk, Flustered, Or Tired?

Why Taylor Swift Can’t Find Love

Suicide Complicates “Top Gun” Project

J-Lo Denies Getting Hotel Maid Fired



FOREIGNERS
Quake Kills Dozens In Guatemala’s Mountain Villages
Finance Minster Slams Former PM Olmert For Claiming Netanyahu Openly Backed Romney
Greek Parliament Approves Austerity Cuts
Obama To Visit Burma This Month
Ahmadinejad Ridicules Expense Of US Vote
Syrian Rebels Attack Loyalist Strongholds In Damascus
Merkel Hits Out At British Isolationism
Five Tibetans Immolate Themselves On Eve Of PRC Peoples’ Congress



BLOGS & STUFF
American Power: Democrat Partisan Realignment
Just One Minute: The Era Of Big Government Is Over
NRO Corner: Romney Adviser Blames The Messaging
Allahpundit: Chris Christie Says He Did Not Embrace That President
Atlas Shrugs: Obama Supporters Celebrate “No More Israel”
Lonely Conservative: Harry Reid Wants To Change The Senate Rules
Gateway Pundit: Harry Reid Reaches Out To Republicans – “You Can’t Push Us Around!”
Power Line: The Meaning Of Yesterday’s Defeat
Michael Walsh: Nice Guys Finish Second
Maggie’s Farm: Ouch
Mary Matalin: Mendacity And Malice Won
Rush Limbaugh: In A Nation Of Children, Santa Claus Wins
Jim Treacher: Chris Matthews Thanks Hurricane Sandy
Sarah Palin: Don’t Lose Heart, America
Rick Moran: About That Obama “Mandate”

Category: Live at Five

You Stay Classy, Luis Cortez!

Posted on | November 7, 2012 | 32 Comments

Unless [email protected] is a parody account, I think the e-mail he sent me eloquently refutes certain Republican arguments for “Latino outreach”:

Nice article pal. Let me simply explain what happened to your pathetic white party. yes, white party. not white republican party, just white party. it all boils down to laziness. first, you jackasses brought the black as slaves to work your fields because you were too fucking lazy to do it yourselves. what happened? the slaves fucked your white women and multiplied their population while the white man was getting drunk and fishing. then, incredibly, after not learning your god damm lesson the first time, you import latinos in the latter part of the 20th century to work your construction and blue collar jobs. and what happened, they fucked your white women and multiplied their populations while you were getting drunk and watching Nascar. But worse for you, this time you really did yourselves in! why!!?? because the last time, you imported slaves from Africa. A long ways from here. This time you imported them from Latin America!! Now they are not only coming to America to work, they are bringing their whole families and starting families here!! When will you jackass white people learn???!!! Mccain, you are not “The other Mccain”. You are just another fucking idiot white man! Now get the fuck out of the country and let the latinos lead you jerkoff!

Thank you for explaining this, Mr. Cortez: Hispanics who vote Democrat don’t do so because of policy issues, but because they identify the Republican Party with white people and a lot of Hispanics hate white people.

This is of course not limited to one group. The Democrats are adept at making Republicans proxies for whatever anyone happens to hate: If you hate rich people, Republicans are the party of the rich.  If you’re gay, Republicans are the party of homophobes. If you’re female, Republicans are the party of that jerk ex-boyfriend who dumped you because your thighs are too fat.

Democrats are the party of organized hatred, and the fact that key constituent groups within the Democratic coalition openly hate each other — e.g., most black people aren’t really down for the whole “LGBT” agenda — does nothing to distract from their unifying principle: Hating Republicans as symbolic scapegoats for whatever aggrieves them.

Who taught this “Blame the Gringo” ideology to Luis Cortez? Democrats.

To people like Luis Cortez, “Forward” means stick it to the gringo, just as to the disgruntled union worker, “Forward” means stick it to the boss man.

The problem is that hate doesn’t work as a policy. And when you let your personal resentments persuade you to vote for Democrats, you will eventually discover — if you aren’t entirely stupid — that the policies of the Democratic Party don’t actually make your life better. In fact, Democrats actually end up enacting policies that hurt their own constituent groups. Yet the culture of hate propagated by Democrats prevents many people from seeing through the lies.

The Lonely Conservative observes: “I don’t know how any Republican wins in this culture the left has created.”

Ace of Spades has some interesting thoughts about the 2012 wipeout.

Category: Uncategorized

What Klavan Said

Posted on | November 7, 2012 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

Read it all, but emphasis here:

Religion for intellectuals. Normally, I would have said number three was “reforming the academy,” but I believe this is where the fight for the academy is centered. Recently, a number of books by secular intellectuals have noted the disaster that is postmodern relativism—the nihilist philosophy that has corrupted and gutted Western liberal education. Education’s End, by Anthony T. Kronman, Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians, by Marcello Pera, and What Ever Happened to Modernism?, by Gabriel Josipovici, come to mind. All lament the abandonment of our commitment to the Great Conversation—the intellectual’s belief that the creative tension of the uniquely brilliant Western literary and philosophical canon can lead us in the direction of moral truth.

But the authors cannot fully grasp the nettle of the solution. Many assume that the Great Conversation depended on the sort of open mind only secularism can provide. As Kronman puts it: “Every religion insists, at the end of the day, that there is only one right answer to the question of life’s meaning,” thus rendering the pluralism of the Great Conversation impossible. I would contend the opposite: only the existence of a God in whose image we are created can support the notion of moral truth at all. It was always Judeo-Christianity, and that alone, that made the Great Conversation possible. Pera understands this intellectually, but cannot really plunk for faith. And therein lies the problem. The triumph of science, the comfort of Western life, and a sophisticated elite virulently hostile to religion have all contributed to an intellectual atmosphere of unbelief—a sense that atheism should be the default mode of reasonable, thinking people. That is a mere prejudice and needs to be answered in the culture, not with Bible-thumping literalism and small-minded judgmentalism—nor with banal happy-talk optimism—but by sound argument made publicly, unabashedly, and without fear. John Adams and the other Founders were right about this: an irreligious people cannot be free. Liberty lives in the palace of moral truth, and you can’t build that palace on the empty air.

via Instapundit

Category: Uncategorized

Vengeance

Posted on | November 7, 2012 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

Deuteronomy 32:28-35

28 For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.
29 O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
30 How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?
31 For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.
32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
34 ¶ Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?
35 To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

“Voting is the best revenge.”–Barack Obama

I quote the President in the broader Biblical context because BHO has claimed Christianity. It’s one thing to screw up and be vengeful; that is sin. It’s another to be caught up in a moment, and blurt something, as I’m sure apologists will contend.

It’s quite another to actively encourage others to sin, for a Christian. I should hope that the good President would repent of his remark, and do so publicly.

Not holding my breath. Also, hoping nobody asks me for my opinion of the state of BHO’s Christianity, as I’m not a qualified judge. Also escaping certainty; that the fuller context offered from Deuteronomy here relates at all to Obama’s supporters. I’m just pointing out some dots; you’re free to connect as desired.

More scriptural input from Michelle Malkin

Category: Barack Obama

On the Encroaching Gloom: ‘We Are Permanently and Irretrievably Screwed’

Posted on | November 7, 2012 | 43 Comments

GAHANNA, Ohio
Sitting here sorting through the debris of last night’s utter catastrophe, I saw an e-mail from a friend in Colorado, who wrote to say that he shared my dark mood. So I sent him a brief reply:

Yeah. The full implementation of ObamaCare — how can we possibly recover from that? And it pains me even to think about the intractable stupidity of the electorate. The future looks a lot like “Idiocracy.”
Anyone seeking words of encouragement can look elsewhere today. The best I can offer is dark sarcasm.
— RSM

Here’s the thing: Conservatives warned that the re-election of Obama would have disastrous and irreparable consequences. In the wake of what happened, it ill behooves us to say now that the future offers anything but a descent into squalor and despair. If our arguments before Election Day were correct, we can scarcely enhance our credibility after Election Day by pretending that we can prevent what we previously said would be inevitable. The re-election of Obama heralds the advent of the post-American era.

Buzzfeed pays Rosie Gray mock us, while Melissa McEwan does it for fun. We fully deserve the mockery, for the folly of hoping that America might come to its senses. Ed Morrissey writes at Hot Air:

Many conservatives — myself among them, to be sure — operated on the assumption that the 2008 election had been the anomaly, driven by the fiscal crisis, and corrected in the 2010 midterm elections. The Left assumed that the fiscal crisis in 2008 had realigned the electorate toward greater government interventionism, and that the 2010 cycle was the anomaly, driven by a partisan fight over health care and the lack of a presidential contender at the top of the ticket. . . .
The partisan split in the electorate was 38/32/29, nearly identical to 2008. We argued that Barack Obama and Democrats couldn’t win a base turnout election again, but they did, as evidenced by Mitt Romney’s five-point win among independents, 50/45. Romney even lowered the gender gap from an Obama +14 in 2008 to Obama +4 in 2012, but that clearly wasn’t enough to overcome what now looks to be a significant realignment four years ago towards Democrats and not an anomaly.

A “significant realignment,” indeed, and in the worst possible sense of the term. Remember that it took the conservative movement 16 years to recover from the landslide defeat of 1964. Think of what a carnival of errors might ensue with another 16 years of Obama-style “progressive” governance, and what a desperate wreckage any future conservative leadership would be left to attempt to salvage. And of course, Rachel Maddow “making cream pies in her shorts.”

Remember what I said on Election Day?

Keep an eye on Loudoun County, which George W. Bush won with 56 percent of the vote in 2004, but Obama won with 54 percent in 2008. Should this affluent Northern Virginia county tip back toward the GOP column, it would not only likely mean a Romney win in Virginia, but could be a bellwether of results in other similar upscale suburban communities that shifted from Republican to Democrat four years ago.

Obama won 51-47 percent in Loudoun County, and Obama won Virginia 51-48. A Memeorandum thread I’d rather not have? Yeah, nothing to be done about it now. I hit my deadline at 1 a.m.:

Late Tuesday night, the pundits on TV began jabbering incomprehensibly along the lines of, “What does it mean?”
The American people — or, at the very least, a sufficient plurality of them — decided that they want another four years of clumsy policy failures and vengeful “progressivism,” as Democrats nowadays describe their agenda for wrecking what remains of our constitutional republic. Even before the unmitigated political disaster of November 6, 2012, a date that will live in infamy, the prospects of salvaging the United States were not particularly hopeful. Now, however, we are permanently and irretrievably screwed.
Let’s not mince words, eh? It was one thing, obviously, for the electorate to choose Barack Obama in 2008, when Bush-era “brand damage” was still a fresh irritant in the wounds of a war-weary nation. Four years ago, Obama was untested and enshrouded in the glowing mantle of Hope. No intelligent person could possibly believe that “Lightworker” crap anymore, but then again, it’s been a long time since any intelligent person believed anything a Democrat said. The cretins and dimwits have become an effective governing majority, and the question for conservatives at this point is perhaps not, “What does it mean?” but rather, “Why should we bother ourselves resisting it any longer?”
Alas, as always, the duty of the Right is to manfully endure, to survive the defeat and stubbornly oppose the vaunting foe, and so this brutal shock, this electoral catastrophe, must be absorbed and digested. At some point next week or next month or next year, then, we shall recover our morale and plot some new stratagem for the future. In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s debacle, however, it is difficult to see any glimmer of light amid the encroaching gloom. Surely, there are many Americans who now sympathize with that New York infantryman who, in the bleak winter of 1862, when the Union’s Army of the Potomac was under the incompetent command of Gen. Ambrose Burnside, wrote home in forlorn complaint: “Mother, do not wonder that my loyalty is growing weak.… I am sick and tired of the disaster and the fools that bring disaster upon us.” . . .

Read the whole depressing thing at The American Spectator.




 

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Category: Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption, Election 2012, Fear. Loathing., Ohio, Virginia
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