The Other McCain

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

Everybody Keeps Getting a Busy Signal at the Blogger Burnout Hotline Nowadays

Posted on | April 29, 2012 | 31 Comments

Professor William Jacobson laments Don Surber’s recent decision to quit blogging. It is probably just a coincidence that Don, one of the most valuable members of the conservative blogosphere since 2005, was never invited to speak at BlogCon. Instapundit grimly holds on.

UPDATE: Pat Austin is also grimly hanging on in Shreveport. She offers to chat over beer, and I’d love to take her up on the offer, as long as I don’t have to drive through Livonia.

UPDATE II (Smitty): Welcome, Instapundit readers! Let us link each other, to beat back burnout banshee!

Category: Don Surber, Instapundit, Legal Insurrection

Ashley Judd Makes Cruel and Tasteless Jokes About Abortion in Political Video

Posted on | April 29, 2012 | 116 Comments

Barren middle-aged actress Ashley Judd in scene from
‘Rick Santorum Aborts Presidential Campaign’ video

When last we heard from bitter, childless, menopausal Ashley Judd, the over-the-hill ex-starlet gave us a feminist lecture about how she was being victimized by the oppressive gossip-blog patriarchy.

Last week, however, Judd joined forces with three more attractive actresses — fellow Hollywood liberals Michelle Trachtenberg, Katy Mixon and Eliza Coupe — in a video mocking Rick Santorum’s decision to end his presidential campaign by comparing it to an abortion:

“Oh, Mr. Santorum, take a seat. I understand you’d like to terminate your candidacy. . . . If you weren’t mature enough to carry your candidacy to term, you shouldn’t have engaged in the risky behavior that began it.”

Jennifer Hartline at Catholic Online is outraged:

The stars of the “choice” universe have gone way beyond their worn-out euphemisms and are now embracing shameless mockery. Ashley Judd and crew have made a video that mocks the act of killing babies in the womb. They mock the violence of stopping the heartbeat of a child. What a hilarious analogy they’ve drawn by comparing an abortion to Rick Santorum’s suspended Presidential campaign, if you’re someone who finds dead babies and wounded mothers hilarious. Apparently they do. . . .
So this is what we’ve come to? This is the present and future of “feminism” in America? Women openly mocking the deaths of their own children; deaths fought long and hard for; deaths campaigned and paid for; deaths celebrated as “freedom” and “rights” for women? I’d say that’s officially the bottom, folks. There’s nowhere lower to sink. That’s as pathetic and wicked as it gets.

It is customary, on certain feminist blogs, to include “trigger warnings” before discussion of topics such as sexual assault that may prompt emotional reactions caused by psychologically traumatic memories. Therefore, in consideration of the millions of women suffering from Post-Abortion Syndrome, I offer a “trigger warning” Read more

Category: Abortion, Celebrities, Election 2012, Feminism, Hollywood, Rick Santorum, Video

Boehner: Obama ‘Picking a Fight Where One Doesn’t Exist’ on Student Loans

Posted on | April 29, 2012 | 10 Comments

“No one wants student loan interest rates to go up,” House Speaker John Boehner told Candy Crowley in an interview aired today on CNN’s State of the Union. “For the president to politicize this for his own re-election is picking a fight where one doesn’t exist.”

Boehner pointed out that President Obama signed “the payroll tax cut, that included $4 billion worth of reductions in this same program,” and that the administration’s own budget proposal calls for reductions in the student-loan program. Here’s video:

Category: Barack Obama, CNN, Education, Election 2012, John Boehner

Administration’s Counter-Terrorism Chief Does Three Network Sunday Shows

Posted on | April 29, 2012 | 10 Comments

Coming up on the first anniversary of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, it will be victory-lap time on Fox News Sunday, CNN’s State of the Union and ABC’s This Week, with counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan as the guest. Andrew Malcolm writes:

You remember Brennan as the one rushed out to the White House briefing room the next day to provide the hungry media with their cherished tick-tock account of the commandos’ penetration into Pakistan and the slaying of the instigator of 9/11.
Unfortunately, so eager was the administration to tell its story quickly, that Brennan’s premature enunciation of the event contained numerous details later adjusted or contradicted, detracting from the anticipated accolades.
By now, however, most of the raid confusion is cleared. And everyone knows that the successful killing was mainly the result of Obama’s brave decision, although the SEALs, the stealth helicopter pilots and the Air Force electronic cloaking crews probably helped a little.
Oh, look, it’s an election year!

Sarcastic much? Allahpundit says you should skip the three-network BrennanFest in favor of Bob Schieffer’s lineup on Face the Nation:

CBS looks like the better bet for OBL coverage, though. They’ve got David Ignatius, whose new column argues that the Islamist trend in the Arab Spring has given Bin Laden the last laugh, and Peter Bergen, who interviewed OBL four years before 9/11 and has a new book on the manhunt for him out on Tuesday.

From that David Ignatius column:

Egypt is a case in point: This has been a year of mostly nonviolent democratic revolution. But it has brought to power some Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood groups that share common theological roots with bin Laden. And the al-Qaeda goal of driving the “apostate,” pro-American President Hosni Mubarak from power has been achieved. . . .
What we’re seeing now in Egypt is something that might be called electoral bin Ladenism. Take the group Gamaa Islamiya, which under its spiritual leader, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, made the first unsuccessful attempt to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993. Today, the organization has formed a Salafist political party with the benign name Building and Development Party. This organization, which like al-Qaeda traces its roots to the Islamist theorist Sayyid Qutb, has 13 seats in the new Egyptian parliament.

You might also want to check William Jacobson’s argument: “Obama got Osama, but lost the Middle East.”

While you browse your local TV schedule for Sunday show times, a couple more points: CNN’s also has House Speaker John Boehner, while NBC’s Meet the Press goes straight to the presidential campaign, with Ed Gillespie for the Republicans and Robert Gibbs for the Democrats — plus Hilary Rosen and Rachel Maddow!

If any of these people make actual news, I’ll let you know.

Category: ABC, CBS, CNN, Election 2012, Fox News, John Boehner, NBC, Terrorism

My Son’s Not Brain Dead; That’s His Obama Impression

Posted on | April 29, 2012 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

Via Daily Pundit and All American Blogger comes a creepy tale from Old Blighted of some ‘doctors’ who, for whatever reason, didn’t seem interested in doing their job:

The Mail reports that Stephen Thorpe, then 17, was placed in a medically-induced coma following a multi-car pileup that had already taken the life of his friend Matthew, who was driving the vehicle.
Although a team of four physicians insisted that his son was “brain-dead” following the wreck, Thorpe’s father enlisted the help of a general practitioner and a neurologist, who demonstrated that his son still had brain wave activity. The doctors agreed to bring him out of the coma, and five weeks later Thorpe left the hospital, having almost completely recovered.

This will be our ObamaCare future, when those without the resources find legitimate care will become pray for lazy doctors. Brave, brave new ObamaCare world.

Update: animals are getting into the act. Here, via American Power, a black bear does an impression of Obama’s popularity:

Update II: linked at The Daley Gator.

Category: Health Care

Ruh-Roh: Watchdog Warns of ‘Red Flags’ in Gingrich Campaign’s Financial Reports

Posted on | April 28, 2012 | 30 Comments

Newt Gingrich campaigns in Fort Myers, Fla., Jan. 30, 2012

Before we get to the news, let me make a disclaimer: Every time I criticize Newt Gingrich’s disastrous presidential campaign, some of Newt’s supporters get angry at me and seem to miss the point of my criticism. From my perspective, the person Gingrich’s admirers should be most angry at is Newt himself, because if you thought he was the best candidate, the mismanagement of his campaign is a grievous fault.

In my mind, however, the two phenomena are inseparable: Good candidates do not run bad campaigns. Trying to explain this point of view — that of someone who is a longtime student of campaign tactics and strategy — is difficult, because most people don’t look at the political process the way I do. Ali Akbar keeps bugging me about an idea for a book I once suggested, to be called Operatives, about the people behind the scenes of campaigns. Spend enough time with operatives, the hired guns whose job is win elections, and it changes the way you see politics.

All of that is sort of an apology in advance to Gingrich supporters for returning to a theme I’ve been pounding since Feb. 21 when, reacting to the release of Newt’s FEC report for January, I declared that his campaign’s “burn rate” was unsustainable. (For that matter, Mitt Romney’s burn rate in January was also unsustainable, but Romney began the year with cash reserves Newt didn’t have, and Mitt had much greater fundraising potential.) Gingrich’s failure to win in the weeks after South Carolina, especially his fourth-place finishes in Minnesota (Feb. 7) and Maine (Feb. 11), suggested a campaign that was much weaker than anyone might have gathered from watching TV coverage.

Then there were the reports that Newt spent a lot of time leading up to the Feb. 4 Nevada caucuses “dialing for dollars,” trying to raise money. Those reports didn’t make headlines; they were buried deep in longer articles (e.g. a Feb. 2 Washington Post story) but I noticed them and was puzzled. Given that Gingrich had out-raised Rick Santorum more than 10-to-1 in the third quarter of 2011 (Newt $9.8 million, Santorum $924,000), and Gingrich had raised $5.6 million to Santorum’s $4.5 million in January, this seemed bizarre. Why this evidence of financial desperation at Team Newt, while the Santorum campaign — which had raised far less money up to that point — showed no sign of a cash crunch?

Subsequent reports have clarified the picture: Gingrich’s contributions, which had surged before and immediately after his Jan. 21 win in the South Carolina primary, declined noticeably after he stumbled in the Jan. 23 debate in Tampa and the Jan. 26 debate in Jacksonville, then fell dramatically after he lost the Jan. 31 Florida primary by 14 points. We didn’t know that until after the February FEC reports were published March 20, but there was a telltale clue in the silence from Team Newt in early March. The Santorum campaign announced on Feb. 29 that they’d raised $9 million in February, and a few days later, Romney’s campaign said Mitt had raised $11 million in Febuary, but you could hear the crickets chirping at Gingrich HQ, as far as finances were concerned. So on Tuesday, March 13, I suggested two important questions:

Question 1: How much did Newt raise in February? Question 2: What was his campaign’s cash-on-hand and total debt as of March 1?

Something seemed very suspicious about the situation, and those who have closely examined the Gingrich campaign’s more recent FEC reports are now asking some troubling questions:

As the presidential campaign of Newt Gingrich persevered despite no realistic prospect of victory, the former House speaker spent lavishly on the trappings of a more-successful, high-profile campaign, spending more on travel and security in March than Mitt Romney did, records show. . . .
Watchdogs said the fact that the numbers are so high raises questions about whether Mr. Gingrich might be profiting from the funds.
“Hopefully, the Federal Election Commission will do its job and, to the extent red flags are raised by these extraordinarily high travel fees, investigate,” said Paul S. Ryan, a lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center.
Campaigns are required to disclose the ultimate destination of campaign funds, not merely note they are “reimbursements” for unspecified expenses — a requirement that specialists say places the Gingrich campaign’s accounting at odds with federal law.
“It’s clearly illegal to convert funds to personal use, and the disclosure requirements are intended to enable enforcement … but we don’t have that disclosure,” Mr. Ryan said, noting that it would take an audit to determine whether Mr. Gingrich was profiting from the $271,000 he was paid. . . .
[Gingrich campaign spokesman R.C.] Hammond said the $1.1 million debt to Moby Dick Airways, reported as “incurred” during March, actually covered a longer time, despite the fact that the campaign has reported a running and steadily increasing tab with the airline each month.
If true, that practice has mischaracterized the campaign’s standing for months, making Mr. Gingrich seem more viable than he was early in the campaign and allowing the campaign to suddenly plunge deeply into debt later.
Mr. Ryan said such back-loading also violates FEC rules, which require goods and services to be recorded as debts or expenditures during the month the campaign benefited from them — “not when a bill is received.”

Read the whole story by Luke Rosiak at The Washington Times.

While I had suspected the Gingrich campaign of mismanagement, it hadn’t occurred to me that they might actually be violating federal law, and this suggestion that Newt himself was skimming the till — well, let’s hope that’s not true. Otherwise, the “Road to the White House” could become the “Road to Federal Prison.”

(Hat-tip: Lisa Graas on Twitter.)

Category: Election, Newt Gingrich

Obama Ad: If Romney’s Extremities Get Any More Extremely Extreme, His Limbs Gonna Fly Off And Hit Somebody

Posted on | April 28, 2012 | 18 Comments

by Smitty

This Obama campaign ad is kind of a hoot:

I suppose the point here is to terrify the ‘hen-house’ with the notion that Mitt is some big, bad wolf. Thoughts:

  • Are women, in general, the kind of dupes implied by this ad, who can easily be driven about the chicken coop with plays to fear? Not the likes of the ladies who link this blog, that’s for sure.
  • How is, exactly, anything on the social conservative agenda even a little bit extreme, in relation to Shari’a Law?
  • This ad risks making Romney more appealing to SoCons than it does stir up trepidation among Independents.
  • What kind of loser is #OccupyResoluteDesk that, instead of making a positive case for the swell job he’s done the last 3 years, he has to focus on demonizing the opposition? I’m guessing the three dimensional sort:He's just a loser no matter how you look at him.

via Breitbart

Update: linked at The Lonely Conservative who has an extremely long post. Well, actually average-sized post on extremism.

Update II: Heh: “Da Preezy of the United Steezy“

Category: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney

Media Matters: Tax-Exempt Group’s Perverse Obsession With Fox News

Posted on | April 28, 2012 | 8 Comments

David Brock, founder of Media Matters for America, promotes his
anti-Fox News book in March C-SPAN “Book TV” appearance

What is the annual budget of Media Matters for America? Why is MMFA considered a tax-exempt charitable organization?

What “charitable” purpose is served by paying people to attack Fox News all day long, every day, 365 days a year? MMFA’s Web site has an entire category devoted to Fox News, and on a single day this week — Thursday, April 26 — they posted no fewer than 11 such items:

How can MMFA possibly defend its status as a 501(c)3 charity, when so much of its effort is devoted to criticizing a single entity? As I have mentioned before, Fox News accounts for barely 1/8th of the total national TV news audience. Ratings for March 30-April 4:

NBC Nightly News ………………. 7.9 million
ABC World News ………………… 6.8 million
CBS Evening News ………………. 5.8 million

Total “Big Three” evening news audience …. 20.5 million

Fox News Channel The O’Reilly Factor ……… 3.3 million

O’Reilly is the top-rated show on Fox, so his numbers represent the maximum estimate of Fox’s average audience. Add in MSNBC (about 1.1 million viewers for their highest-rated program, The Rachel Maddow Show) and CNN (about 600,000 for their highest-rated program, Anderson Cooper 360), and you get a combined national TV news audience (NBC, ABC, CBS, FNC, MSNBC, CNN) of 25.5 million, of which the Fox News Channel’s share is a mere 12.9 percent.

Why, then, is this multimillion-dollar “charity,” Media Matters, devoting such enormous attention to this one cable TV channel?

Providing employment to demented left-wing moonbats whose only “journalism” skill is their venomous hatred of Republicans?

Well, yeah, I guess that could be considered a charitable endeavor, but how does MSNBC manage to do it on a for-profit basis?

 


Category: Fox News, Media Bias
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