The Other McCain

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

Is Thurmont Ready for the Occupiers?

Posted on | May 17, 2012 | 28 Comments

When the decision was announced in March that the G-8 summit would be moved from Chicago to Camp David, the “Occupy” movement claimed it as a victory, saying that their planned protests had frightened away the summit organizers. Yesterday, I noted that the Occupiers have announced plans to descend in force on tiny Thurmont, Maryland, the town nearest Camp David (and just 15 miles from my home). Folks in Thurmont say they’re prepared for the anti-capitalist mob, and the Occupiers say they intend no mischief. But have they forgotten the dangerous madness that Occupy DC inflicted at last year’s AFP “Defending the American Dream” conference?

Is Thurmont ready to handle that kind of psychotic frenzy? I don’t think so. My column today at The American Spectator previews the G-8:

HAGERSTOWN, Maryland — They don’t teach economics at Harvard Law School. That’s the only explanation I’ve been able to offer for President Obama’s consistently wrongheaded policies for the past three years. Of course, we’ve never seen any of Obama’s transcripts, so we can only speculate what courses he took at Occidental College, Columbia University or Harvard Law. Being therefore compelled to judge his familiarity with economics based entirely on his record and public rhetoric, we are reminded of Ronald Reagan’s famous quip: “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.”
Whether the result of ignorance or misinformation, Obama’s economic incompetence has made him a laughingstock. Yesterday, the Senate rejected his budget by a 99-0 vote. The joke might be funnier, were it not for the 23 million Americans who can’t find a job. The pathetic blunder that is Obamanomics — record deficits, an inflationary monetary policy and an alleged “recovery” that has scarcely dented persistently high unemployment — undermines our international prestige. If the United States can’t get its fiscal house in order, what claim can the president make to world economic leadership?
America’s weakness in the Obama era will be on display Friday as leaders from seven nations arrive at Camp David for the G-8 Summit: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minster David Cameron, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihido Noda, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and France’s newly-elected president, Francois Hollande. Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t attend the summit, sending Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in his stead. Putin’s absence is widely viewed as a deliberate snub, evidence of worsening U.S.-Russian relations.
The economic crisis that threatens to engulf Europe will be the prime topic of discussion at the G-8, but there isn’t much the United States can do to help. . . .

Please read the whole thing. My plans to visit Thurmont today and check out their preparations has been cancelled, so that I can concentrate on Aaron Worthing’s shocking revelations about the Kimberlin/Rauhauser connection.

Still, I hope to get to Thurmont for the G-8 Friday and Saturday. Frankly, I expect a full-scale riot this weekend. Anyone familiar with the Occupy movement must anticipate vandalism, chaos and mass arrests. Hit the freaking tip jar!

Category: #Occupy, Barack Obama, Fear and Loathing at the G-8 Summit, Maryland

Is Democrat Operative Neal Rauhauser an ‘Associate’ of Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin? (And Why It Matters)

Posted on | May 17, 2012 | 55 Comments

Former Patterico co-blogger Aaron Worthing details the efforts of convicted “Speedway Bomber” Brett Kimberlin to shut down conservative bloggers through a strategy of legal intimidation. Why am I not surprised that the notorious Democratic Party operative Neal Rauhauser’s name turns up in Worthing’s account?

As I have shown before, Kimberlin has at least two people — Ron Brynaert and Neal Rauhauser — who at the very least have proven to be willing conduits for any information that Kimberlin wants to put out in the public sphere. For instance, in regards to Brynaert (a former editor of Raw Story), when Seth Allen was arrested, Brynaert knew of this within twenty-four hours, even though this had not appeared in any public record at the time . . .
Indeed, Brynaert is only one degree of separation from Brett Kimberlin. He has guest blogged at Brad Friedman’s “The Brad Blog” and Mr. Freidman is an admitted business partner of Mr. Kimberlin . . .
Turning my attention to Neal Rauhauser, whom Kimberlin has described in court as his “associate,” he has obviously served as a conduit for information only available to Brett Kimberlin. . . .
And this crew — Brett Kimberlin, Neal Rauhauser and Ron Brynaert — had a long history of stalking and harassing others, and I expected the same to happen to me if Kimberlin got my real name.

Read the whole amazing story. The partnership between Brad Friedman and Kimberlin is shocking enough in its own right. That they have been so clumsy as to enable Worthing to document a connection between them and Rauhauser is the sort of foolish error that all such arrogant monsters can be expected eventually to make. Rauhauser is an online menace, and the fact that Kimberlin — a convicted and infamous felon — claims Rauhauser as an “associate” should not surprise anyone. This demonstrates the unscrupulous and vicious tendencies of Democrats who will employ any means, including outright lies and terroristic harassment by known criminals, in pursuit of their corrupt political aims.

UPDATE: Headline by Dan Collins at The Conservatory:

Speedway Bomber Brett Kimberlin Harassed,
Tried to Frame Blogger Aaron Worthing

Rauhauser has described himself as a consultant to Democrat Party officials, boasting Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva among his clients. This came to my attention in October 2010, when Rauhauser evidently created a sort of Twitter troll army he called “Beandogs” to harass Tea Party activists online. One of the “Beandog” accounts Tweeted that conservative blogger Greg Howard had “sexy, f***able children.” See, for example, these posts:

This became known as “TwitterGate,” which some liberal media outlets at the time dismissed as mere “pranks,” but the fact that Rauhauser is claimed as an associate by a convicted terror-bomber demonstrates that this conspiracy is far more dangerous than that.

Again, I refer you to Aaron Worthing’s thorough exposition of the connections between and activities of these deranged online stalkers.

UPDATE II: As I say, Rauhauser’s involvement as an alleged “associate” of connected terrorist Brad Kimberlin is not exactly surprising, because Rauhauser’s “Beandogs”/”TwitterGate” activities showed him to be utterly dishonest and despicably cruel. Nor am I really surprised that Rauhauser would permit his alleged “associate” Kimberlin to drag him into a legal proceeding so that Rauhauser’s online activities might now be subject to criminal investigation or civil complaint. People as arrogant as Rauhauser inevitably destroy themselves.

What is perhaps more surprising is Kimberlin’s claim that Brad “Bradblog” Friedman is his business partner. Friedman has long been treated as an entirely respectable and responsible member of the progressive Democrat blogosphere. For example, Friedman was prominently mentioned in a 2005 New York Times article, “Liberal Bloggers Reaching Out To Major Media.”

If Kimberlin is Friedman’s business partner — for so Kimberlin has claimed — then this would seem to be very damaging to Friedman and, by indirect association, to the liberal blogosphere.

UPDATE III: What kind of heinous creep is Brett Kimberlin? In addition to being a terrorist bomber — who by all rights should still be rotting in a federal prison — Kimberlin has been called “a world-class liar,” by award-winning journalist Mark Singer. Here is the Publisher’s Weekly review of Singer’s 1996 book, Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin:

After Garry Trudeau in “Doonesbury,” the New Yorker’s Mark Singer was possibly the most prominent journalist to sympathetically report allegations that convict Brett Kimberlin had sold marijuana to Dan Quayle when the Vice-President was a law student. Indeed, Singer signed a contract with Kimberlin to write a book, but Kimberlin turns out to be a top-flight con man — as the author reveals with dismay and near admiration. So this picaresque detective story has a mea culpa at its heart, an effort to explain how certain things — such as former Harvard Law dean Erwin Griswold’s support for Kimberlin’s court appeal and Kimberlin’s muzzling by federal officials — helped build an edifice of sand. Singer conscientiously reconstructs Kimberlin’s history of crime — he was a drug smuggler and, mostly likely, the man behind some vicious bombings in Indianapolis. Some of this narrative gets tedious, yet it’s part of Singer’s effort to contrast facts with Kimberlin’s confident but “apparitional” explanations. Leavening the story are Singer’s tales of Kimberlin’s charmed life behind bars: he wangled unlimited long-distance phone service, became the jailhouse lawyer for numerous Mafiosi and snared an impressive legal support group. Now free, the former dope smuggler helps ship commodities to Ukraine; but when Kimberlin (with Singer in tow) had a chance to meet Quayle at a book signing, he refused to confront him. Quayle, it now seems, deserves apologies.

You can call Kimberlin a sociopath or a “progressive,” but whatever you call him, he can never be accused of honesty. He is a proven liar, and everything about him is tainted by his evil lies.

UPDATE IV: “Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin Received $70,000 From Tides Foundation, $10,000 From Streisand, $20,000 from John Kerry’s Wife.”

 

Category: Blogging, Corruption, Crime, Democrats, Terrorism, The Kimberlin Files

Counter-Factual Assertions

Posted on | May 17, 2012 | 14 Comments

Dylan Byers of Politico promotes (or at least calls for a discussion of) the Left’s latest propaganda campaign: The assertion that the polarization of American politics is entirely the fault of extremists who allegedly have pulled the Republican Party rightward. This is both (a) untrue, and (b) a transparent effort by the Left to scapegoat its antagonists for a problem the Left and its Democratic Party allies have caused.

Do not permit yourself to be deceived by this humbug, and do not trust any “conservative” who cedes an inch to this vicious lie.

Category: Media Bias

The Myth of Gay-Rights ‘Tolerance’

Posted on | May 17, 2012 | 50 Comments

Any conservative who has ever tried to have a rational discussion about what progressives call “marriage equality” understands the problem: The very fact of your opposition to this radical policy becomes the basis for attacks on your motives and character.

Never mind that you are defending 5,000 years of civilization, while your antagonist is a deranged fanatic demanding that a fundamental social institution be altered (some would say, abolished) to conform to a theoretical abstraction of “equality.”

No, it is you — standing on the side of settled custom and common sense — who will inevitably be accused of “hate” you do not feel and diagnosed as suffering from an irrational “phobia.”

The fact that your accuser (volunteering also as an amateur psychologist) is demonstrably a fool, unfit to judge the morality and mental health of others, ought to serve as adequate evidence that any “debate” is a futile waste of time and effort. One might as well debate heroin with a junkie as to debate gay rights with Andrew Sullivan or Dan Savage.

They don’t want to debate, they want to lecture, and their preferred method of “argument” is to silence critics. So when conservatives post a video critical of same-sex marriage, what happens?

Did you try to watch that video against gay marriage that we posted yesterday?
You can’t. Now.
If you try, you’ll instead see this: “This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube’s policy prohibiting hate speech.”
So much for the free expression of ideas. . . . .
[T]here is an element of gay fascism behind the whole gay marriage movement.
The fact of the matter is that these gay rights extremists believe in censorship. They will attempt to remove from public discourse anything that calls into question the morality of their behavior.

Such tactics ought to cause concern. If these are the means, what are the ends? What does it say about a cause, that its advocates endeavor to silence opponents as practicing “hate speech”?

Part of the problem, it seems to me, is that conservatives are making the wrong arguments. Defenders of tradition should not stoop to the level of their foes by engaging in “debate” with frothing lunatics who routinely resort to the tactics of totalitarianism. Rather, resolve yourself calmly to convey a simple determination: They are wrong, and we are right; therefore, we must win, and they must lose.

For a careful exposition of this problem, please see my article, “Gay Rights, Gay Rage,” The American Spectator, Nov. 17, 2008.

Category: Gays

The Politics Of DirecTV Advertising

Posted on | May 17, 2012 | 1 Comment

by Smitty

Via email from Maggie Thurber, we have an epic WSJ comment:

When you vote for Obama based on “Hope and Change” you get suckered. When you get suckered you cry in front of your girlfriend during acceptance speeches.
When you cry in front of your girlfriend during acceptance speeches, she questions your manhood.
When your girlfriend questions your manhood she has doubts.
When she has doubts, she leaves you.
When she leaves you, you question why you voted for Obama.
When you question why you voted for Obama, you surround yourself with other delusional people with degrees in theatre who voted for Obama.
When you surround yourself with other delusional people with degrees in theatre who voted for Obama, you crap in the streets, destroy property, and live in your parents basement.
When you crap in the streets, destroy property and live in your parents basement, you lash out. When you lash out, you ignore facts and reason.
When you ignore facts and reason, you blame others for your failures.
When you blame others for your failures, you post stupid comments on chat forums.
When you post stupid comments on chat forums your ex-girlfriend reads them.
When your ex-girlfriend reads them she thinks “I am glad I matured and dumped that loser”.
Don’t get suckered again — switch to Mitt Romney.

This is clearly in the form of recent DirecTV ads, e.g. this one with blog favorite Charlie Sheen:

Update: naughty Paco is naughty.

Update II: linked at Mental Recession

Update III: linke by WyBlog amidst a post on Jonah Golberg’s new book, which is great.

Category: Barack Obama, humor

LIVE AT FIVE – 05.17.12

Posted on | May 17, 2012 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Greece Gets Caretaker Prime Minister Until Next Vote In June

PM Pikrammenos (r) poses with outgoing PM Papademos (l)

Possibility that rejectionist SYRIZA will take the most seats next month and form coalition high

White House Warns GOP Over Debt Limit Standoff
Speaker Boehner refusing to allow rise in limit without spending cuts


Trayvon Martin Autopsy Report Disclosed
Zimmerman’s attorney moves to have murder charge dismissed



POLITICS
Romney Moves Into Dead Heat With Obama In NC

All out of chewing gum

PPP shows Obama 48/Romney 47 +/- 3.8%; Rasmussen 51-43 Romney +/- 4.5%

Judge Approves Class-Action Lawsuit Over NYPD Stop & Frisk Tactics



House Grudgingly Passes Violence Against Women Act

Perfect Timing Buoys Fischer

Even With Brown’s Tax Increase, California Could Face Chronic Deficits

Kucinich Decides Against Running In Washington State, Will Retire

FBI Confirms JP Morgan, Al Qaeda Bomb Plot Leak Probes

Army Opens Wide Review Of PTSD Diagnosis System



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Oil Prices Continue To Slide; NYMEX $92.81, Brent $111.71
WTO Rules Against US “Dolphin Safe” Tuna Rules
Greek Turmoil Spreads Pessimism Across Markets
Dimon Shows No Retreat
Asian Shares Steady After Sell-Off, Greece Fears Weigh
JC Penney Stock Plunges 20% On 1Q Earnings News
Limited Brands 1Q Net Income Falls As Sales Slip
US Unlikely To Condemn Argentina’s Seizure of YPF…Yet
Verizon Wireless To End Unlimited Data Plan
Paralyzed Woman Moves Robotic Arm With Her Mind
Nielsen’s “Top Five Smartphone Apps” Data Raises More Questions Than It Answers
Report: Google To Begin Selling Nexus Smartphones, Tablets Directly
Facebook IPO Stirs Privacy Fears
HALO 4 Spawns Live Action Series, New Weekly Missions
Study Says Google+ Is A Ghost Town



SPORTS
Garnett Refuses To Show His Age As Celtics Roll

Kevin Garnett being dominant

Garnett, Pierce Rondo all have double-doubles in 107-91 flogging of Sixers

Rangers Suffer Another Game 2 Letdown; Devils Win 3-2

Citi Field To Hold 2013 All-Star Game

Pacers Focus On Keeping Pressure On Heat

Toronto Buries Yankees 8-1 As Bautista Leads 4-Dinger Attack

Marlins Continue Hot May Behind Stanton, Trounce Braves 8-4


Bodemeister 8-5 Favorite To Win Preakness

Junior Seau’s Restaurant Closes Its Doors

Twins Beat Sloppy Tigers 11-7

Nats’ Wilson Ramos To Undergo Season-Ending Knee Surgery

The Seat Of Power: Five Of Seven Nats’ Hits Go For Extra Bases In 7-4 Win Over Pirates



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Jennifer Lopez Leaving “American Idol”?

Steve Tyler, J-Lo, Randy Jackson

Wants to spend time with kids while touring

RFK Junior’s Estranged Wife Is Dead

Nick Stahl Reported Missing; Played John Connor In “Terminator 3”

Man Up, Bieber

Elisabetta Canalis “Killed”  At Cannes



Another Travolta Groping Victim Comes Forward

Joey Lawrence Joins The Chippendales

Robert Downey Jr. Pay From “The Avengers” Could Top $50 Million

Linda Hogan Splits With Younger BF

“Anchorman: The Legend Continues” First Official Poster



FOREIGNERS
Contagion Threat To Irish Banks If Greece Exits Euro?
Ratko Mladic War Crimes Prosecution To Focus On Srebenica Massacre
UN Team Witnesses Clash Between Government Forces, Syrian Protesters
Pakistan Clears Way For NATO summit, Reopening Supply Routes
President Hollande Names His Cabinet
Leader Of Egyptian Junta Promises A Fair Election
Philippines Beginning To Feel Economic Cost Of Standing Up To PRC
EU Team To Probe Tymoshenko Case
It’s Make Or Break Time For The Euro, Says Cameron



BLOGS & STUFF
WyBlog: As Obama Goes Gay, More States In Play
Riehl World View: Politico’s Dylan Byers Calls Buzzfeed’s Zeke Miller A Whore?
Legal Insurrection: Walker, Kleefisch Ahead In Polls, Job Numbers
Lonely Conservative: Obama Tells Boehner He Wants Debt Ceiling Increase With No Spending Cuts
Power Line: Senate Dems Achieve A New Standard In Irresponsibility
Ed Morrissey: Hot Air Interview With Mitt Romney
Just One Minute: Keeping Hate Alive At The Times
Conservatives4Palin: Dave Weigel’s Predictable, Pathetic Response To Deb Fischer’s Win
Gateway Pundit: Wikileaks Document Led To Death Of Western Spy In Teheran
James Pethokoukis: The Three Economic Charts That Could Crush Obama’s Re-Election Hopes
Weasel Zippers: Poll – Traditionally Blue Wisconsin Up For Grabs
Ed Driscoll: CNN’s Ratings Collapse
Catholic Bandita: Archdiocese Of Washington Condemns Georgetown’s Invitation to SecHHS Sebelius As Speaker
Via Meadia: OWS RIP
Jawa Report: Van Jones Admits Environmentalists Kept Quiet During Gulf Oil Spill Because Obama Was President

Category: Live at Five

Is ‘Morally Repugnant Political Whores’ an Acceptable Synonym for ‘Democrats’?

Posted on | May 16, 2012 | 16 Comments

Apparently, Mike Huckabee doesn’t think so, because he’s asking Citizens United to pull a fundraising letter he “wrote” that used that phrase to describe Obama’s advisers.

Our First Gay President Who Ate a Dog is the target of a $25 million TV advertising campaign by a conservative super-PAC:

Isn’t it weird how that ad completely ignores all the wonderful economic progress Obama has made? All the jobs he “saved or created” through the most reckless deficit-spending spree in history?

Category: Barack Obama, Election 2012, Mike Huckabee

Shaken, Distraught @MichelleMalkin On The End Of Dennis Kucinich’s Career

Posted on | May 16, 2012 | 19 Comments

by Smitty


Destiny,
Lamentably,
Trumps
Dramatic
Hearts
Yearning
Only
To
Warble
On

More at Twitchy.

Category: Democrats, Michelle Malkin
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