The Other McCain

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

Say Good-Bye, Dick; Orrin’s Next

Posted on | May 9, 2012 | 23 Comments

Sen. Dick Lugar lost the Indiana GOP primary to challenger Richard Mourdock and it wasn’t even close: 61% for Mourdock, 39% for Lugar. The response from Republican leadership? RINO-tastic:

Looking toward the November election, National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said two weeks ago that “it will probably make it more of a contest if Sen. Lugar is not the nominee, but I’m confident we’ll hold the seat.”
In a statement Tuesday night once the outcome was clear, Cornyn said Mourdock “has the NRSC’s full support and we are committed to helping elect him as Indiana’s next U.S. Senator in November.”

The NRSC is a corrupt incumbent-protection racket, and they don’t know how to cope with conservative challengers. Speaking of which, Orrin Hatch has just agreed to one debate with his primary opponent Dan Liljenquist:

Sen. Orrin Hatch and former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist have agreed to one debate before the Republican primary election June 26.
Hatch’s campaign manager Dave Hansen told KSL Radio on Tuesday that the senator has accepted an invitation a debate Liljenquist on the Doug Wright Show in June. A date and time has not been set.
“This will be the last one,” Hansen said.
And the only debate since Liljenquist narrowly forced the six-term senator into a primary at the state Republican Party convention last month. Hansen said Hatch isn’t doing any other debates.
Liljenquist is attempting to turn the tables on Hatch, saying that when Hatch first ran in 1976 he called for eight debates so that Utahns could see the candidates side-by-side and hear their positions.
“We expect the same courtesy from Sen. Hatch,” Liljenquist told KSL Radio. . . .
“Why does Sen. Hatch feel he is entitled to run out the clock as he runs for his seventh term and simply refuse to debate?”

DAN LILJENQUIST for U.S. SENATE

Category: Election 2012, Indiana, Republicans, Senate, Tea Party, Utah

LIVE AT FIVE – 05.09.12

Posted on | May 9, 2012 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Mourdock Defeats Lugar

Insurgent GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock

Lugar loses 40-60, Tea Party claims another scalp; omens for Orrin Hatch not looking too good right now

Suicide Bomber Was Double Agent
Al-Qaeda bomber actually agent for Saudi intelligence; infiltrated AQ and volunteered for bomb mission to steal new type bomb

NC Votes For Ban On Gay Marriage
Passes 53-47; ballot count in favor of ban exceeds Obama’s 2008 total



POLITICS
Milwaukee Mayor Will Face Scott Walker After Winning Democratic Primary

Richard Barrett

Walker wins GOP primary easily against token opposition

Speechwriter: John Edwards Knew About Coverup

Obama Denies Presiding Over Bloated Government; Data Say Otherwise

GOP Blocks Senate Debate On Student Loan Bill

GOP Fumbles Hispanic Outreach

Federal Court Strikes Down Illinois Eavesdropping Law As It Applies To Recording Police



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Drops Again On Saudi Comments, Weaker Euro; NYMEX $97.26, Brent $112.73
Disney Shares Pass All-Time High On Earnings
Dow Sinks For Fifth Day In A Row
German Patience With Greece On Euro Wears Thin
Greece Could Be Out Of The Eurozone As Early As This Summer
BofA Offers Home Loan Modification
Gasoline Price Outlook Revised Downward
Ten Key Issues To Follow In Google v. Oracle Case
Twitter Downplays Reports Of 55,000 Hacked Accounts
MySpace Settles FTC Privacy Investigation
Portable Fuel Cell Charger Offers Weeks Of Smartphone Power
India Snaps On Gloves, Bends Google Over For Antitrust Probe



SPORTS
Hamilton Clubs Four Dingers As Rangers Rout O’s

Teammates congratulate Josh Hamilton after his fourth homer

First player to hit four homers in a game since the Blue Jays’ Carlos Delgado in 2003

Devils Oust Flyers From Playoffs In Game 5, 3-1

Andy Pettitte Starting On Sunday For The Yankees

Hawks Edge Celtics To Stay Alive, 87-86

Royals Rally Past Red Sox On Butler’s Three-Run Homer

Billy, Cal Ripken Agree: Hamels Hitting Harper Wasn’t “Old School”

Pirates Edge Nationals 5-4 On Barajas’ Sayonara Homer In 9th



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Travolta Hit With Second Sexual Assault Claim

John Travolta - serial groper?

Reps deny all charges, calling them “frivolous” and “fictional”

“The Voice” Torn Apart By Aguilera/Levine Brawl

Meet Charlize Theron’s Boy Jackson

Mila Kunis Saves Man’s Life

Careful With That Dress, Duchess

Maurice Sendak Dies, 83

Universal In Talks To Continue “Kick-Ass” Franchise

“Avengers” Joke Jacks Up Shawarma Sales In L.A.



FOREIGNERS
New Elections Looming For Greece?
Cracks Appear Even As UK Coalition Government Relaunches Itself
Kofi Annan: “Last Chance” To Avoid War In Syria
What the fsck does he think is going on there now?
Clinton Wraps Up Trip By Pressing Pakistan On Terrorism
Netanyahu Solidifies Power With Supermajority
Summit Canceled As Ukraine Isolation Deepens Over Treatment Of Tymoshenko
PRC Ignores Questions On Expelled Correspondent
PRC Slams Philippines For Worsening Scarborough Shoals Standoff



BLOGS & STUFF
Power Line: Lugar Routed
American Power: Lugar Concession Speech Slams Mourdock
Campaign 2012: Obama Waves Goodbye To “Friend” Lugar
LifeNews.com: White House Says Abortion OK, But Visitors Must Register Unborn Children
Legal Insurrection: Cruel Irony In Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee Saga
Lonely Conservative: Interesting Twist In The Liz Warren Cherokee Heritage Story
Kathryn Lopez: The Bullies Win
Hit & Run: Chronicle Of Higher Education Fires Blogger For Questioning Seriousness Of Black Studies Departments
Weekly Standard: Obama Might Lose WV Delegate To Prison Inmate
Marco Rubio: Student Loans Are A Burden, But The Lack Of Jobs Hurts America More
Just One Minute: Lessons In Leadership From The NYT
Ed Morrissey: No Soros Money For Obama Campaign?
Bret Stephens: To The Class Of 2012

Category: Live at Five

#AskMichelle

Posted on | May 8, 2012 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Way too much fun. Click the image for my full, unexpectedly caustic spleen dump:

Update: more via Twitchy

Update II: Still more via Just a Conservative Girl

Category: Barack Obama

Stacy McCain’s Email May Have Been Hacked

Posted on | May 8, 2012 | 19 Comments

by Smitty

If you get email from him with a link to www.onenews15.net, or similar, it is suspect.

I use Chrome & “Do Not Track Plus” to keep my browsing from becoming a bummer.

Category: Blogging

Wow. This Almost Never Happens.

Posted on | May 8, 2012 | 6 Comments

Betsy Rothstein writes something I agree with:

Were these so-called practices ever thought out or spelled out in the first place? Was Riley ever told what she could or couldn’t write? Or was the outcry of online observers — and there are a lot of them these days with loud, shrill, threatening voices — so great that McMillen collapsed under her own lack of direction and standards that were never conveyed to Riley in the first place?

This is probably a sign that the Apocalypse is upon us. On the other hand, it could be that writers who frequently piss people off have a common perspective that transcends politics. That is to say, we expect our editors to be on our side in any conflict, even if it’s a conflict the editor might have preferred to avoid.

The way Liz McMillen threw Naomi Schaefer Riley to the wolves is one of those acts of craven spinelessness that make you shudder. Having been called on the carpet and read the Riot Act a few times in my career, I’m OK with getting chewed out if I screw up.

“Watch your step” or “Don’t ever let this happen again.” — that kind of warning might be appropriate. But to just suddenly dump a writer, the first time they piss somebody off? No, uh-uh.

This was my problem with the way Rich Lowry handled the situation with John Derbyshire, who for years had been allowed to write inflammatory stuff for other outlets until one day — bam! — suddenly it was a problem and Derb got fired. Was there no point in the preceding years where Lowry could have sat down with Derbyshire and had a little chat? “Hey, Derb, about this race stuff you’ve been writing . . .”

Anyway, last time I checked, Betsy Rothstein was still an Evil Left-Wing Bitch From Hell, but she’s absolutely right about this:

In most newsrooms editors fiercely protect their reporters. Most editors don’t let strangers in the door and watch as the reporter gets bloodied. Maybe McMillen could be a real editor, hold strong and “improve” their ways instead of essentially letting a wild flash mob determine Riley’s fate.

So either Rothstein’s evil is diminishing, or I’m getting soft in my old age, or else the ancient Mayans were right about 2012 being The End.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll has been aggregating like a mofo on this story while filling in for Instapundit today, and links this item by Jonathan Tobin at Commentary:

McMillen’s note is doubly offensive because its characterization of Riley’s post is incorrect, and because she also chose to grovel to the mob by apologizing for a previous editor’s note in which she invited readers to debate the author’s opinion. Though she now says her previous note was wrong to “elevate Riley’s post to the level of informed opinion,” the only thing that is clear from reading her obsequious apology is that in allowing Riley’s critics to dictate editorial policy, she has debased the Chronicle and herself to a point where neither can be taken seriously.

Feeding the tiger, hoping to be eaten last. Elsewhere, the ubiquitous Driscoll calls our attention to James Taranto’s take at the WSJ: “A lesson from an editor in how not to do journalism.” Still further — again, following Driscoll — we have reactions from Jonathan Last at the Weekly Standard, Victor Davis Hanson at National Review and Ron Radosh at PJM.

Category: Journalism

Gaffe-Tastic!

Posted on | May 8, 2012 | 12 Comments

Joe Biden continues to demonstrate his gravitas:

“When we took office, let me remind you, there was virtually no international pressure on Iran. We were the problem,” Biden said. “We were diplomatically isolated in the world, in the region, in Europe.”
Biden continued, “We were neither fully respected by our friends nor feared by our opponents. Today is it starkly, starkly different.”

And Sarah Palin wasn’t qualified to be vice-president?

Category: Iran, Joe Biden

Commissars Sacrifice Naomi Schaefer Riley to the ‘New Gods of Diversity’

Posted on | May 8, 2012 | 31 Comments

You might think that being a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard, an accomplished journalist and published author, would be the kind of impeccable credentials that would offer some protection against the occasional eruptions of intellectual cannibalism on campus.

Alas, no. Naomi Schaefer Riley is a former Wall Street Journal editor, the author of God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America (2006) and The Faculty Lounges: And Other Reasons Why You Won’t Get the College Education You Pay For (2011). Until this week, Riley had also been a contributor to the Chronicle of Higher Education‘s “Brainstorm” blog.

On Monday, April 30, Riley took notice of a Chronicle feature article about “A New Generation of Black-Studies Ph.D.’s.” Riley examined the doctoral dissertations produced by these scholars and pronounced them “a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap”:

The best that can be said of these topics is that they’re so irrelevant no one will ever look at them. . . .
[T]opping the list in terms of sheer political partisanship and liberal hackery is La TaSha B. Levy. According to the Chronicle, “Ms. Levy is interested in examining the long tradition of black Republicanism, especially the rightward ideological shift it took in the 1980s after the election of Ronald Reagan. Ms. Levy’s dissertation argues that conservatives like Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, John McWhorter, and others have ‘played one of the most-significant roles in the assault on the civil-rights legacy that benefited them.’” The assault on civil rights? Because they don’t favor affirmative action they are assaulting civil rights? Because they believe there are some fundamental problems in black culture that cannot be blamed on white people they are assaulting civil rights?

Well, these are the sort of obvious truths that no one in American academic life can ever be permitted to speak aloud, and by publishing them under the aegis of the Chronicle of Higher Education, Riley had broken the silent taboo. Everybody knows that black studies, like women’s studies, is an academic ghetto. These programs owe their existence to political considerations, including the need to provide lucrative sinecures to radical faculty members who might otherwise be unemployable. Anyone who expects intellectual rigor from these programs is a fool.

These are facts universally known, but at the same time, no one within the academic community is permitted to call attention to this phenomenon. Riley is a professional journalist, and was under the impression that the Chronicle of Higher Education was a journalistic enterprise devoted to, y’know, facts and stuff like that.

Instead, as Riley discovered too late, the Chronicle is like 21st-century academia, devoted to rigid ideological dogma which must be fiercely protected against critical scrutiny. You can probably predict what happened next:

In reaction to Riley’s criticism, liberals “flipped out” and “lost their ever-living minds,” as Riley’s friend Mollie Hemingway says.
Her editor at the Chronicle “asked me to respond to the criticisms,” Riley told me. Evidently her response provoked even greater outrage and, Riley says, she got a call from an editor Monday informing her that her contributions to the Chronicle were “no longer welcome.” In an editor’s note, Liz McMillen informed readers of the Chronicle that Riley’s contributions “did not conform to the journalistic standards and civil tone that you expect from us.” Washington Free Beacon managing editor Sonny Bunch remarked on Twitter: “The liberal mob has spoken. The expiation has occurred. The new gods of diversity are satisfied. The sun will rise tomorrow.”
What have we learned from this incident? “The ivory tower is an inflated bubble and they don’t take criticism very well,” Riley told me.

Read the rest. Fortunately, Riley said, this wasn’t her full-time job, just a gig where she collected a “nominal amount” for two blog posts a week. But the principle of the thing — firing a blogger for offending “the new gods of diversity” — is worth fighting about, and I predict you’ll hear a lot more about this in the near future.

UPDATE: More at Memeorandum with commentary by New York Post, National Review, American Thinker and Legal Insurrection.

UPDATE II: Nick Gillespie at Reason magazine calls “the Chronicle’s response absolutely breath-taking and craven in its censoriousness. . . . This is plainly a politically correct response to a thug’s veto and should be owned up to as such.”

American universities have for so long operated on the principle of compulsory consensus that most academics now consider criticism of the consensus to be an illegitimate expression of “hate.”

UPDATE III: Oh. My. God.

Riley’s article is just the latest in an increasing wave of open bigotry from (occasionally conservative) White female political and cultural commentators.  Many of these women have come down with an acute case of Privileged White Woman’s Rage, or PWRR for short. The disease has been around for years, but there has been a steady rise of cases since Obama beat Hillary in the primaries four years ago.

The person who wrote that is a Ph.D. professor at an Ohio college.

 

Category: Education, Intellectuals, Racism

Gunny Ermey Unavailable, Yale Students Stuck With General McChrystal

Posted on | May 8, 2012 | 3 Comments

by Smitty

Ivy League jackwagons hoping for a clue will have to click this image to get at Gunny Ermey’s soundboard app, where they might find one: 

Get calibrated, maggot!
Students at Yale will also have the option of taking a course from General Stanley McChrystal.

“There is almost no antimilitary bias among students,” said John Lewis Gaddis, a Yale history professor and the recipient of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for biography, who has welcomed General McChrystal to Yale. “I wouldn’t say it’s true among the faculty.”

It’s kind of hard to be among the ilk of those who’d claim 1/32nd Cherokee heritage for a prime spot in academia, and then stand next to a full-on badass like McChrystal, who knows 14 ways to hospitalize you using only his ring finger.

On the other hand, MrChrystal, like most of academia, is an Obama voter. Oh, to be a fly on the wall if Gunny Ermey infiltrates the classroom and asks  McChrystal how the bus tires felt when the General went under them after the Rolling Stone interview, while the cretinous Eric Holder still rides tall in the saddle.

Category: Education
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