The Other McCain

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

Will the Last Democrat Leaving Missouri Please Turn Out the Lights?

Posted on | July 28, 2012 | 41 Comments

The state that once gave America such powerful Democrats as Harry Truman and Dick Gephardt is now turning deep, deep Republican red:

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) trails all three of her potential Republican rivals, according to a new survey conducted for two Missouri news outlets, cementing her status as this cycle’s most vulnerable incumbent.
Businessman John Brunner (R) holds the largest advantage over McCaskill, leading by a 52 perent to 41 percent margin. Former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman (R) leads by a 49 percent to 41 percent margin. And Rep. Todd Akin (R) leads by a 49 percent to 44 percent margin.
McCaskill’s big problems come among independent voters. She scores just 40 percent among independents against Akin, and she’s mired in the mid-30s when she’s matched up with Brunner and Steelman.

Doug Powers points out that Romney leads Obama by nine points in Missouri. In 2008, Obama came within 4,000 votes of winning Missouri.

So if Obama is running eight points behind his 2008 margin in Missouri, what are his chances of carrying other Midwest states like Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa? Not too good, I’d guess.

(Hat-tip: Memeorandum.)

Category: Uncategorized

Florida: The Creepy State

Posted on | July 28, 2012 | 13 Comments

Shaped like a flaccid penis, this geographical appendage has apparently become the receptable of all perverse weirdness on the East Coast.

Exhibit A — The Creepy Puppeteer:

A Florida puppeteer known for community involvement was arrested and charged with conspiring to kidnap a child and possession of child pornography, according to a criminal complaint filed in a federal court in Tampa court on Friday.
A day earlier, federal and local agents arrested Ronald William Brown, 57, after uncovering graphic Internet chats in which he talked about abducting, murdering and cannibalizing children, referring specifically to his interest in a boy attending his church, the complaint says.
In a search of Brown’s computer investigators came across pornographic images of children, including some of boys in bondage and others in which the subject appears to be dead, according to the 29-page complaint.
Brown, who lived alone in the Whispering Pines mobile home park in Largo, had ties to many organizations in the Tampa Bay area, including the Gulf Coast Church, the Pinellas County School District, the Christian Television Network, the city of Largo, and Gulf Coast Jewish Family & Community Services, the Tampa Bay Times reported. All said Brown had been hired or volunteered as a performer, instructor or mentor, according to the report.

Exhibit B — The Creepy Cop:

A South Florida police captain has been arrested on charges that he forced a  15-year-old girl to disrobe so he could check whether she was having sex.
Broward County prosecutors say 46-year-old Miramar police Capt. Juan De Los  Rios is facing two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct by an adult against a  minor. Each count carries a potential 15-year prison sentence.
Authorities say De Los Rios encountered the girl and a 19-year-old man in the  back seat of a car. The two told him they were just talking and not having sex.  But prosecutors say De Los Rios told the girl to take off her clothes so he  could make sure.

Are these extreme examples? Perhaps, but about what you’d expect from a place that put creepy Jim Greer in charge of the state GOP.

Category: Florida

The Suspicious Mr. Williams

Posted on | July 28, 2012 | 22 Comments

Quote of the Day:

Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, said, “In more than 15 years of investigating political corruption, I’ve never seen a more suspicious set of facts.”

The circumstances definitely raise questions.

Category: Corruption

Tax Cuts Are Not ‘Spending’

Posted on | July 28, 2012 | 26 Comments

Another reminder that they don’t teach economics at Harvard Law:

“Republicans in Congress and their nominee for President believe that the best way to create prosperity in America is to let it trickle down from the top,” said Obama. “They believe that if our country spends trillions more on tax cuts for the wealthy, we’ll somehow create jobs — even if we have to pay for it by gutting things like education and training and by raising middle-class taxes. They’re wrong.”

This little bit of economic disinformation sticks in my craw. Who would be “spending” these alleged trillions? According to Obama, it’s “our country,” which indicates that in his mind, “our country” is a synonym for the federal government, so that every penny of private income not collected by the federal government is said to be “spent” on whoever has that penny. Beyond promoting that distorted perspective, Obama’s weekly address completely misrepresents the issue at hand.

The Bush tax cuts are due to expire this year. The Democrat-controlled Senate passed a bill that would raise taxes on households earning $250,000 a year or more. Republicans oppose those tax increases, which is the basis for Obama’s bizarre accusation that the GOP plan “spends trillions more on tax cuts for the wealthy.”

Democrats want to raise taxes. Republicans don’t. Period.

Obama apparently believes that the federal government is the rightful possessor of all wealth, so that any reduction in taxes — or even opposition to tax increases — is morally equivalent to theft, taking from “our country” what is not rightly ours.

Furthermore, Obama’s belief that “our country” must “pay for” lower taxes by cuts to federal programs is demonstrably false, ignoring the dynamic understanding of economic growth, the so-called “supply-side” principle and the Laffer Curve.

Economic growth results in greater tax revenue to the government, because more people have jobs, earn more income, purchase more goods and services, and increase the value of assets. Just one tiny example: Much of the fiscal woe in California is a result of the collapse of real-estate values, with a resulting decline in property tax revenue. The only thing that can cause real-estate values to increase again is economic growth, and economic growth requires . . .?

CAPITAL!

This is the essential insight of supply-side economics that Obama’s ignorant class-warfare rhetoric and his sneering dismissal of “trickle-down” overlooks: You can’t make capitalism work without capital.

Capital is what we nowadays more commonly call “investment.” If you’ve got stocks or mutual funds in a 401(k) account, you’re a capitalist, like it or not. Your 401(k) money is invested on the basis of your speculative belief that the value of the assets — stocks, bonds, whatever — will increase over the course of time. You hope that by investing, say, $5,000 annually over the course of 20 years (for example) the accumulated profits will result in you finishing that period with an amount much larger than the $100,000 of capital you’ve invested.

Investment always involves risk, as many Americans learned during the 18 months when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted from 14,093 (October 12, 2007) to 6,627 (March 6, 2009). Also, if you invested in Greek bonds, good luck with that, eh?

Income derived from investment is a reward for taking risks with your money. You could bury your money in a coffee can in the backyard, but instead you invested it in speculative ventures that make possible economic growth — Amazon, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Apple, Ford Motors — and in the process provide employment for millions of people and the innovative production of goods and services.

Rich people own more capital than do poor people — this is obvious enough, right? The hobo sleeping on a park bench doesn’t have much use for a mutual fund prospectus. Not a lot of folks watching CNBC in trailer parks. Not many Wall Street Journal subscriptions are delivered to public housing projects. Read more

Category: Barack Obama, Economics, Taxes

FMJRA 2.0: Sign Of The Times

Posted on | July 28, 2012 | 12 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

What A Breathtakingly Stupid Thing To Say, @AmandaMarcotte

Making ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Scandalous

The Daily Disgrace

A Chick-Fil-A Gun? Pluck Poultry Pistols!

In the 17th Paragraph, She Mentions That the Corrupt Mayor Is a Democrat

Colorado Massacre Caused by Heated Rhetoric and Kinky Sex Freak With 6,000 Rounds of Ammunition …

FMJRA 2.0: In The Rain

No, Richard Kim, The U.S. Is Not As Jacked Up As Syria, Despite Your Ilk

Obama Campaign: Money for Nothing

Chicago Woman Dies After Abortion

The ‘Too Good to Check’ Glitch

British ‘Page Three’ Model Shocked to Find Herself in Colorado Killer’s Picture

Romney Slams Obama: ‘An Upside-Down Philosophy That Does Not Comport with the American Experience’

Obama: Republicans Hate U.S. Military; Poll: U.S. Military Hates Obama

#RomneyPreferredBy Liberty Lovers. #ObamaPreferredBy Those Who’ve Found You Can Find Happiness In Slavery.

Axelrod’s Nixonian Manipulations: Tax Flap Is About Mitt’s Mormon Millions

2012 Not The Most Important Election Ever–It’s A Constitutional Referendum

Old and Boring: ‘Safe Sex’
New and Hot: ‘Let’s Make Babies’

Not Surprising: Tina Brown’s ‘Newsbeast’ Still Losing Millions of Dollars a Year

Is Barack’s “I Didn’t Do That” Reclama Of His 13 July Roanoke Speech Worthy?

If Mitt Romney Used A Dog Whistle, Would A Bitch Hear It?

Like a Jeff Foxworthy Joke

Bucket List: @JonahNRO Retweet For “You didn’t do that”

‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran Has The Right Of It: Audit the Fed Passes House, 327-98

It’s Homophobolicious!

A Series Of Substantive Presidential Debates #YouDidntBuildThat

LIVE AT FIVE (CENTRAL TIME EDITION): 07.26.12

Tina Brown to Newsweek Staff: ‘Don’t Worry, We Can Lose Millions Forever’

Michael Moore: Can I Out-Stupid @AmandaMarcotte? Why, Yes, The Founders Might Say That I Can

Barack Obama Is the Antichrist — and Other Neutral Objective Facts

Romney Busted? No, Obama

#YouDidntDoThat Because You Were Buried In Jacked-Up Regulations

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.27.12

CNN President Jim Walton Resigns; Network Stuck in Third Place

NYMag Plays The Race Card On #YouDidntDoThat

‘Abysmal Failure’

Top linkers for this week:

  1. (tied) Hogewash and Daily Pundit (10)
  2. Lonely Conservative (8)
  3. The Camp of the Saints (6)
  4. Zion’s Trumpet (5)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! If you’re on Blogger or some other platform WordPress hates, please have your links in the e-mail to me by Friday, August 3.

Category: FMJRA Award

#YouDidntBuildThat But You Still Went There (Sarah Palin Edition)

Posted on | July 28, 2012 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

Not exactly a ‘build’ per se, but Sarah Palin has certainly built an enviable reputation as a traditional American. God bless the lady and her family.

I hope Doug Mataconis reads this post and notices this Easter Egg

Hopefully we overcome the raaaaacism and misogyny of the Left and put this lady on a ballot someday.

via Twitchy

Update: OK, Daily Pundit: everybody Left of me. 🙂

Category: Sarah Palin

Standing By For ‘Lefties Decry Money In Politics’ In 3…2…1…

Posted on | July 28, 2012 | 2 Comments

by Smitty

Oh, wait: this is 2.5 mil to defend the Left’s position, so it’s casual:

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announced Friday they are donating $2.5 million to the campaign to defend Washington’s same-sex marriage law.
With the gift, Washington United for Marriage has raised more than $5 million for its referendum campaign.
“It’s a game changer for us,” said campaign manager Zach Silk in Seattle. “It puts us in unique position to win.”

A few points:

  • I don’t live in Washington any longer. I truly love Seattle, as a Franklin High alumnus. So this is not my particular fight, and I respect the political capacity of Washingtonians to legalize goat marriage. And why not? Surely, one must COYOTE, no?
  • What Bezos does with his legally garnered geld is just not my business. If he’s buying a little insurance from the rabid Left, so that they don’t drown him in Koch-a-cola, or lay on a Chick-Fil-A-buster, that makes sense. Not everyone can be Rush Limbaugh. Non-Rush people, in fact, have trouble being Rush.
  • The Blaze: “But, his group is still the underdog, he said. In 32 previous elections nationally, same-sex advocates have lost.” or, the common-sense opinion that the symbol “marriage” is long-since “settled-law” and should continue to mean what it has mostly always meant, for the societal Pareto optimal outcome. I mean, with an 0 and 32 record, maybe skating on the other side of the ice isn’t a swift plan. Just sayin’.
  • Even given a “win”, those who’d alter “marriage”, which is as foundational to society as “man” and “woman” (two more symbols under relentless Postmodern attack) the proponents of the change aren’t going to fare well in the Court Eternal. You can extend the term “marriage” to support binding a human with an entire kindle of cats*, if you want. For my common-sense reading of scripture, the Almighty shan’t be too impressed with your foolishness. I merely need to know to stay out of range when any potential doom befalls.
  • If the Koch brothers have some spare change, maybe they can support the traditional position. I guess the Kochs are kind of libertarian, and probably don’t care, but it’s always a pleasure to drop a quarter in the Screechy Chorus to hear their Fred Phelps inversions, as the Left offers their own flavor of lousy, un-persuasive preaching.

Hopefully Washington extends the track record for common sense on the matter. However, the population of California ex-pats there, I fear, may have reached critical morass.

*Don’t kindle your Kindle, kids: unkind.

Category: Culture

The FBI and ‘Fedora’

Posted on | July 28, 2012 | 15 Comments

Wow. OK, I just finished reading Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald, a 1978 book by Edward Jay Epstein, and as soon as I finished it, I got on Google to solve the mystery.

This is complicated. The mystery at the heart of Epstein’s book is this: Why did Oswald defect to the Soviet Union in 1959, and then re-defect to the United States in 1962? What did Oswald do while in the Soviet Union and what was his relationship with the KGB?

There is no evidence that Oswald’s assassination of John F. Kennedy was part of a conspiracy. We have no reason to believe that the Soviets (or anyone else) ordered Oswald to commit the assassination. The evidence clearly shows Oswald’s motives were idiosyncratic, the product of a defective personality exhibiting a hostility to authority, profoundly alienated from society and thus adopting an anti-American ideology.

However, we do have good reason to believe that the Soviets were worried that they would be blamed for Oswald’s act, and that in order to prejudice the conclusions of the Warren Commission, the KGB deployed an elaborate deception: They assigned a KGB officer to defect to the U.S. in early 1964, claiming to have been in charge of Oswald’s case at the KGB, and to deny that Oswald had been of any value to Soviet intelligence.

The story told by the defecting KGB agent, Yuri Nosenko, aroused suspicion among Soviet experts at the CIA, in part because Nosenko falsified elements of his own biography. However, Nosenko’s description of his handling of Oswald’s case was also highly dubious.

Oswald had been a Marine radar operator whose unit had worked with top-secret U-2 spy aircraft. Surely the Soviets would have debriefed Oswald on that highly valuable information. Nosenko denied this, claiming that at no time during Oswald’s nearly three-year stay had Soviet intelligence sought or received any such information from the avowed Marxist.

Oswald defected to the Soviets in October 1959. Barely six months later, in May 1960, the Soviets shot down a U-2. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton shared the suspicions of the agency’s Soviet experts that Nosenko was a KGB plant. Nosenko was confined and subjected to hostile interrogation. Although repeatedly caught in lies, Nosenko never “broke.”

Meanwhile, the FBI got involved. The FBI had its own Soviet source, code-named “Fedora,” who worked in the Soviet U.N. mission in New York and was so highly valued by J. Edgar Hoover that the FBI director sometimes sent information from “Fedora” directly to the president, without even attempting to verify it with other sources.

“Fedora” vouched for Nosenko’s authenticity as a sincere defector.

Well, that raised eyebrows at the CIA, for obvious reasons: They had solid circumstantial evidence that Nosenko was actually a KGB spy, and if “Fedora” said Nosenko was legit, this was a pretty big clue that “Fedora” was also a KGB agent, feeding disinformation to the FBI.

So the CIA didn’t trust Nosenko, and they believed his mission was to cover up whatever connections there had been between Oswald and Soviet intelligence. But the FBI’s source “Fedora” said Nosenko was legit, and J. Edgar Hoover had a special reason to want to keep the Warren Commission from getting too curious about a possible KGB-Oswald connection.

The FBI had badly mishandled Oswald’s case. As a former defector to the Soviet Union and an avowed Marxist, Oswald should have been under surveillance as a security risk from the time he returned to the United States in June 1962. Beyond that, Oswald’s wife Marina — who was in fact the niece of a Soviet official — should have been viewed as a security risk in her own right. Oswald subsequently engaged in numerous suspicious activities, staging pro-Castro protests on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and traveling to Mexico to visit the Cuban and Soviet embassies, seeking to immigrate to Cuba. Yet the FBI never created a “Security Index” on either Oswald or his wife.

Hoover was furious about the failures of his agency, remarking at one point that “no one in full possession of all his faculties” could have failed to see that Oswald was a security risk. For their failures in the Oswald case, Hoover censured five field agents, one field supervisor, three special agents in charge, four headquarters supervisors, two headquarters section chiefs, one inspector and the assistant director of the FBI.

However, Hoover took these unprecedented disciplinary actions secretly, because he feared that if the full extent of the FBI’s mishandling of the Oswald case became public, the bureau would be entirely discredited. Therefore, Hoover was very happy to learn that the KGB defector Nosenko said that Oswald wasn’t a Soviet agent or of any serious interest to the KGB — and was glad that the FBI’s own Soviet source, “Fedora,” vouched for Nosenko.

Espstein’s book was published in 1978, when no one outside the FBI knew who “Fedora” was. So when I finished the book, I immediately did a Google search and learned that “Fedora” was Victor Mechislavich Lesovski and was — you guessed, didn’t you? — “among the most successful Soviet KGB agents of the Cold War.”

“Fedora” was feeding the FBI disinformation, which means Nosenko was almost certainly also providing disinformation on behalf of the KGB, in order to cover up . . . what? We still don’t know.

This is one of those Cold War mysteries that may never be solved. It’s possible, as Epstein clearly suspected, that Oswald did provide classified military information to the Soviets, but once he returned to the United States, there is nothing to indicate the Oswald was acting under the control of the KGB. As a repatriated defector, he would have been a very risky “asset.” Nosenko’s mission seems to have been to act as sort of an insurance policy to undermine any official suspicion that Oswald was a Soviet agent.

And whatever became of “Fedora”? There’s an ironic denouement because it was “Fedora” who, in 1971, told J. Edgar Hoover that a copy of the so-called “Pentagon Papers” had been sent to the Soviet embassy in Washington. Hoover reported this to President Nixon, resulting in a national-security panic that ultimately helped lead to the Watergate scandal.

The aftermath of the Watergate scandal, of course, devastated the ability of both the FBI and the CIA to conduct domestic surveillance against suspected national security risks, and you can blame it all on J. Edgar Hoover, who trusted the wrong Russian.

 

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Category: Books, Crime, History
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