The Other McCain

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

The Times, They Are A-Faking

Posted on | July 31, 2012 | 8 Comments

Imagine you’re a handsome young up-and-coming journalist with a Columbia University neuroscience degree.

Imagine you write for prestigious publications — the Wall Street Journal, Wired, the New Yorker — and land a book deal that seems destined to make you the next Malcolm Gladwell.

Imagine your third book starts with a chapter about Bob Dylan.

Imagine you decide to just make up some quotes from Dylan.

Imagine you get caught.

Imagine you get fired.

Advice to journalists: Don’t make up stuff about Dylan. Make up stuff about Sarah Palin. “Nobody will ever fire you for that,” said Joe Maginniss.

Yeah, I just made up that quote. Sue me.

Category: Journalism

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.31.12

Posted on | July 31, 2012 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Inside Aleppo: Rebels Kill Loyalist Armor…

An Aleppo family flees past a rebel soldier in a doorway

…as civilians flee Loyalist artillery bombardment

Holmes Charged With 24 Counts Of Murder
Could be a year before Aurora shooting perp starts trial; courtroom full of victims and families


Ted Cruz Poised For Texas Triumph
Stench of defeat lies heavy on Dewhurst camp



POLITICS
Five ATF Officials Singled Out In House Report On “Fast & Furious”

The Attorney General

Two more reports to follow, outlining failures at DOJ

Democrats To Back Gay Marriage In Platform For First Time

McCain Defends Palin After Cheney Criticism


Senate GOP Uses Filibuster To Block Judge Appointment

Army Sergeant Acquitted Of Negligent Homicide In Soldier’s Suicide

Battle Over Sequestration Heads To Campaign Trail

Mitt Romney’s “Jewish Culture” Remarks Offend Palestinians
Grauniad fails to note that nobody in GOP cares



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Prices Drop As Natural Gas Prices Continue Climb; NYMEX $89.92, Brent $106.20
Small Farmers Struggle As Drought Kills Vegetables
Euro Stocks Fall, Euro Pares Gains As Earnings Disappoint
Corn Prices Hit Record As Crops Shrivel
Chrysler Earns $436 Million In Second Quarter
Fed Expected To Take Small Easing Step
Post Office Nears Default On $5 Billion Pension Payment To Treasury
Jury Selected In Apple V. Samsung Patent Case
Microsoft Confirms Surface Tablet To Ship 10/26
Taiwan University Sues Apple Over Siri Patents
Bing Improves Facebook Integration With Friend Tagging
HTC Abandons ROK To Samsung, LG



SPORTS
Dustin Pedroia Pulls Red Sox Together
Pulling together (Video)
Buchholz goes eight, Pedroia jacks two-run homer to break tie as Tigers lose third straight game 7-3

Cubs Trade Three For Prospects

Mets Rally Last, Make Hairston’s Homers Hold Up In 8-7 Win Over Giants

Blue Jays Trade Snider, Thames For Bullpen Help

Astros Bullpen Melts Down In 8-7 Loss To Brewers

A’s Edge Rays In 15-Inning Marathon

…And Then Stuff Happened At The Olympics



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Emma Stone To Star In New Cameron Crowe Movie

Emma Stone

Sony bought the script for the as-yet untitled movie

Bristol Palin Returning To “Dancing With The Stars”

Kristen Stewart Moves Out Of House She Shared With Rob Pattinson

Adrienne Maloof From “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” To Divorce

Bret Michaels Calls Off Engagement

Elizabeth Berkley Welcomes Son Sky Cole

$400K Hamps Heaven For Ivy

Nick Jonas, Pharrell Williams In Talks To Join “American Idol”

Delusional Fan Threatens Sheryl Crow

Olivia Munn Battles Anxiety As Acting Career Takes Off



FOREIGNERS
PRC Rejects US Report On Religious Freedom
India’s Power Grid Fails For Second Day
Typhoon Dumps Torrents Of Rain On Philippines; 7 Dead, 20K Displaced
UN Visits North Korea After Heavy Rains, Flooding Devastate Country
Romney Hails US-Polish Ties In Visit To Warsaw
Aussie Police Find Massive Haul Of Drugs In Pots
Turkish FM Says Intervention In Syria Possible
US Faces Dilemma In South China Sea Response
Peru Overtakes Colombia As Top Cocaine Producer
More Than 200 Weapons Handed Over In Tajikistan Amnesty Deal



BLOGS & STUFF
Power Line: The Most Striking Thing About Mitt Romney’s Trip…
Brietbart: How AP & NPR Lied About Romney’s “Jewish Donor” Speech, Using Palestinian Propaganda
Legal Insurrection: If Mitt Had Talked About Palestinians They Way Obama Spoke About Pennsylvanians
Right Angles: Newsweak’s Cover For Next Week?
Ed Morrissey: Newsweek Claims That Heartless Vampire Capitalist Is Now A Wimp?
Rush Limbaugh: Pathetic Liberals At Newsweek Recycle Wimp Cover, And Drag Me Into It This Time
Lonely Conservative: Is Wall Street Rallying Because It Expects A Romney Win?
Jawa Report: IOC Will Allow Saudi To Compete In Hijab
American Thinker: New Book Alleges Obama Delayed OBL Strike Three Times On Valerie Jarrett’s Advice
Blackfive: Killing Bin Laden – The 4th Time’s A Charm?
Kevin Williamson: DEA Gone Wild
Protein Wisdom: What Life Is Like In Post-Constitutional America, #14
Weasel Zippers: DNC Panders To Far-Left Base, Makes Gay Marriage Official Plank Of Party Platform
GayPatriot: Another Symbolic Gesture To Scare Up Gay Votes And Cash
Clayton Cramer: New Black Panthers In The News Again
Moe Lane: You Know, Anyone Harry Reid Hates This Badly (And PROFANELY)…
Fire Andrea Mitchell: ABC’s Latest Faux Conspiracy
Beltway Confidential: Obama Defends His Negative Campaigning
Newsbusters: Mitch McConnell Says The NYT Monopoly Is Over

Category: Live at Five

SHOCKING: Justice Department Accused of Failing to Pursue Sex Traffickers

Posted on | July 31, 2012 | 8 Comments

An article in the August issue of Townhall magazine describes disturbing failures by the Department of Justice in investigations of human traffickers, including cases involving the sex slavery of minors. FBI informant Brandon Darby said he and human trafficking expert Dottie Laster “presented dozens of cases to the FBI,” but that the agency failed to investigate the cases.

“Many of the cases involved minors who were being forced to have sex with adults for monetary reasons under the threat of violence from human traffickers,” Darby writes in the article entitled, “FBI Informants Speak Out: Eric Holder’s DOJ Is Ignoring Child Sex-Trafficking Victims.”

“We felt assured by our research that it was a matter of law and a matter of internal policy that the FBI had to investigate and act on cases where minors were identified as being involved,” Darby writes. “But the majority of the cases . . . never turned into investigations for the FBI –even the ones involving children that the FBI was mandated to act on.”

Darby writes that an FBI Special Agent with whom he and Laster worked to initiate investigations of such cases was subsequently transferred.

Category: Corruption, Crime

If Obama’s Lost the Secular Humanists …

Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 13 Comments

. . . this could be the last straw:

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is praying for drought relief in the midwest farmlands, but what he’s getting in return is criticism from environmentalists for not linking the dryness to climate change and from atheists for actually praying.
“I get on my knees everyday and I’m saying an extra prayer right now,” Vilsack said. “If I had a rain prayer or a rain dance I could do, I would do it.”
Vilsack’s comments were met with condemnation from Tom Flynn, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, who said the cabinet official should not be asking for divine intervention.
“It sends the wrong message to distraught farmers when the Agriculture secretary suggests that the best response is to pray,” Flynn said.
“For a cabinet official to recommend prayer as a solution or call attention to his own devotions may violate the Constitution’s prohibition against establishment of religion. Most important, though, is that prayer doesn’t work. But if you want to test the power of prayer yourself, consider this. Apparently Secretary Vilsack’s been praying for rain every day; how’s that working out?”

On the other hand, by alienating the Democrat Party’s crucial secular humanist constituency, Secretary Vilsack may have answered our prayers: “Please, dear God, not another four years of Obama!”

Category: Barack Obama, Religion

USA! USA! USA!

Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 16 Comments

U.S. water polo team members, including Melissa Seidemann (3rd from Left)

I am immune to “Olympic fever.” I covered the Atlanta Olympics in ’96 and, as far as I’m concerned, the whole thing is just a bunch of made-for-TV commercialized hype. However . . .

The United States defeated Hungary 14-13 today in women’s water polo. I happened to glance up at the TV as the victorious Americans climbed out of the pool and I was like: Whoa! Who’s that?

Advanced research skills soon yielded the answer: Melissa Seidemann, six feet tall, 22, a recent graduate of Stanford University, where she twice led the team in scoring. Readers may remember my complaints about the scrawny little girls of Olympic gymnastics.

No such complaints about Melissa Seidemann.

Having alerted my colleague Dan Collins, I declare women’s water polo the Official Olympic Sport for Guys Who Like Full-Grown Women.

Forget all that silly boohooing about Jordyn Wieber not making the gymnastics all-around finals. Big girls don’t cry, and our water polo ladies are going for the gold. Melissa Seidemann is on Twitter, where this is her profile avatar:

Yeah, I know what you guys are thinking: “Lucky dog.”

UPDATE: Bob Belvedere shares my newfound enthusiasm.

UPDATE II: A British columnist finds an honest photographer:

“It’s a three-letter word. It’s not complicated.” David Hoskinson, a photographer who has been covering Olympic events for 20 years, has firm opinions on why women’s beach volleyball is so popular with corporate sponsors. “You know this, you’re a bright girl,” he sniffs. “Sex sells.” . . .
“The appeal is obviously fabulous bodies,” says Hoskinson. “They’re all tall, they’re all athletic, they have hard bodies. Use your imagination.”

Of course, everybody knows this, but you’re not supposed to say it out loud.

Category: Rule 5, Sports

Rule 5 Monday

Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 11 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

For the benefit of those reading Rule 5 compilations for the first time, or who have forgotten since last time: some of the links below are most definitely Not Safe For Work and could contribute to the pollution of your precious bodily fluids.

EBL is back with a bang, or at least with Brigitte Bardot. Also, some Olympics Rule 5, more of the same, ditto, ditto. and one more for the obligatory five. Also also, a reader poll. Fishersville Mike also went with the Olympic theme, while IMNSHO decided to do a portfolio of Comic Con cosplayers instead. Reaganite Republican pays tribute to Megyn Kelly, Laughing Conservative has Peta Todd, and the Rio Norte Line spotlights Bollywood actress and (soon) Playboy Playmate Sherlyn Chopra. WyBlog offers some Tim Tebow for the ladies, and the First Street Journal’s Rule 5 this week: They Left The Makeup At Home. Then there’s Three Beers Later, which examines women with horses and Joan Jett.The POH Diaries, meanwhile, finds a pic of Katy Perry in what appears to be  normal bikini.Randy’s Roundtable takes a  midweek break with Maria Menounos and Anett Griffel, while Dustbury turns its attentions to Helen Mirren and Rachel Sweet.

El Opinador Compulsivo turns road warrior this week, but still delivers with Antonia Misura, Lady of the Lake, and Eye of the Tiger. Proof Positive has Amanda Seyfried, vintage babe Irish McCalla, and men coming out on top in the Sex In Advertising feature. At The Camp of the Saints, it’s Neha Dhupia, The Rule 5 News, Maribel Verdu, and Hot Rod Fashion For Ladies.

A View From The Beach has Mena Suvari, our Olympic swim team doing the “Call Me Maybe” lip-sync thing, some fishing with the wife, the obligatory cave girl post, tree-rats waging war on womens’ volleyball, the “Girl From Ipanema” turning 50, and raccoons raising the flag of war. This blog easily captures the flag for weirdest applications of Rule 5, bar none; please, dear linkers, do not consider this a challenge.

Soylent Green kicks of the week with Jessika as the Monday Motivationer, followed by Giorgia for Tuesday Titillation, Denise Milani’s Tits and Science, Scarlett for Humpday Hawt, a prediction of Olympic Gold, too many P-words surrounding pentathlon, Corsetcare: The Return, Evening Awesome Nakita and AM Awesome Nina.

The Daleygator’s Daley Babes this week were Eri Kamei, Tanisha Marshall, Yui Koike, Katie Holmes, Heather Rene Smith (leading us on a Rule 5 Tour), a salute to Pirates Cove with Bikini Blogging, Shiva Negar, Ashley Ann Vickers, and Ayaka Sayama.

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Links for next week’s Rule 5 Sunday, which may actually get done on Sunday for once, are due to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox by Saturday, August 4.

Category: Rule 5

Is Anyone Surprised by This News?

Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 17 Comments

Neutral objective journalist George Stephanopoulos must be shocked:

A deputy press secretary for Barack Obama’s reelection campaign married an ABC reporter over the weekend. The ABC reporter, Matthew Jaffe, “covering the 2012 presidential campaign,” according to his biography on the website of ABC News. “For the past year he traveled around the country covering the Republican primary, from the Iowa Straw Poll to the various debates to this year’s primaries and caucuses.”
The deputy press secretary Jaffe married is Katie Hogan. Many members of Obama’s reelection team and the press celebrated the wedding together Saturday.

Really, can anyone tell where the Obama campaign ends and the mainstream media begins? Is there even a line left to blur? Andrew Breitbart called it the “Democrat-Media Complex.” He was right. And when Bernie Goldberg called it A Slobbering Love Affair, it was more than a mere figure of speech.

 

Category: Uncategorized

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Ninety-Nine Days Until November 6

Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 19 Comments

The Republican National Convention begins Aug. 27, which is now just four weeks away. More importantly, we are now inside the final 100-day window of the 2012 presidential campaign. This is as good time as any to ask, “Where does the race stand?”

Today on Morning Joe — I watch MSNBC so you don’t have to — Chuck Todd got under my skin by asserting that Mitt Romney “lost” June and July by failing to establish his narrative or something. This assertion struck me as preposterous, so I checked the Real Clear Politics average of national polls to examine the trend:

On Feb. 18, while Romney was in the midst of the toughest part of the GOP primary fight, Obama stretched out to his biggest lead of the year, 6.1 points (49.3% to 43.2%). Obama continued to lead Romney by a sizeable margin through the spring campaign: 5.2 points (49.5-44.3) on March 7,  and 5.3 points (48.5-43.2) on April 10, the day Rick Santorum quit the race, effectively ceding the nomination to Romney.

In the aftermath of Santorum’s exit, as might be expected, the race quickly tightened, as GOP-leaning voters rallied to Romney. By May 8, the race was nearly tied: Obama 46.2, Romney 46.0.

Since May, the RCP margin has widened slightly: Obama is at 46.6 and Romney is at 45.0. That’s mainly because the Obama campaign unloaded tens of millions of dollars of negative ads against Romney, an early spending spree that has caused Democrats concern because (a) it is so clearly unsustainable and (b) June FEC numbers showed Romney and the GOP are now strongly out-fundraising Obama and the Democrats.

Thus, the minor gain for Obama in the past two months — moving the RCP average a net 1.4 points in his favor — was a good news/bad news scenario for him: Yes, the barrage of ads raised Romney’s negatives, rallied Democrats and established the predicate for future attacks. However, this success came at a steep cost, and a price that Obama simply can’t afford to keep paying. When the stretch run begins after Labor Day, Obama won’t be able to outspend Romney, certainly not at the 2-to-1 pace of June. Furthermore, once you start digging down in the internals of polls, you see that Obama’s attacks didn’t do much to move independent voters, who still have very negative views about Obama’s handling of the economy — the No. 1 issue, and one that seems to be going from bad to worse for the incumbent.

Everybody understands the basic strategies of each side: Republicans want the election to be a referendum on Obama’s first term, while Democrats want to make the election a choice between the incumbent and the (demonized) Romney.

This referendum-or-choice battle to shape the narrative is really what the 2012 campaign comes down to. So who is winning that battle?

Forget Romney for a minute and look at the president’s numbers in the RCP average: He has steadily drifted downward from nearly 50 percent in February-March to below 47 percent now. These are perilous numbers for an incumbent because (as everybody knows) late-deciding voters tend to break toward the challenger. Having checked the numbers, I sent a few Twitter messages to Chuck Todd:


Now, let me make clear: I like Chuck Todd. He is a solid political reporter and less biased toward Democrats than many other major-media journalists. But to say Romney “lost” June and July? Sorry, Chuck: Doing stenography for David Axelrod isn’t reporting.

The latest Gallup tracking poll has the race a tie, and the latest Rasmussen tracking poll has Romney up by 3 points. If Romney keeps “losing” at this rate, he’ll “lose” all the way to the White House.

UPDATE: Here’s Scott Rasmussen in his latest weekly column:

Regardless of what the economists say, most Americans believe we are in a recession and have been for more than four years. Despite that dismal starting point, just 40 percent think things will get better in five years.
This suggests that underlying perceptions of the economy have taken a darker turn. Back in 2009, most Americans thought the country was experiencing a normal business-cycle recession. It was harsher than most but expected to be a short-term matter. Throughout 2009, a plurality of Americans thought the economy would be better within a year.
Now, a plurality believes it will get worse over the next year, and many Americans are wondering if our nation will ever make it back. Only 14 percent now believe today’s children will be better off than their parents. That’s an all-time low.

Hope of a recovery under Obama is fading. All Romney needs to do is convince voters he would not be worse than Obama, and Mitt wins.

UPDATE II: OK, let’s suppose Chuck Todd wants to shrug off Rasmussen’s analysis. How about Jeff Jones of Gallup?

Creating good jobs, reducing corruption in the federal government, and reducing the federal budget deficit score highest when Americans rate 12 issues as priorities for the next president to address. Americans assign much less importance to increasing taxes on wealthy Americans and dealing with environmental concerns.

Issues that favor Republicans easily outrank issues that favor Democrats. You cannot look at numbers like that and say Romney is losing.

 





 

 

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Category: Barack Obama, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Polls
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