The Other McCain

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

Police Charge Career Criminal in Wisconsin Planned Parenthood Bombing

Posted on | April 4, 2012 | 29 Comments

Jim Collar of the Appleton (Wisc.) Post-Crescent reports:

Police and federal investigators suspect a Brillion man who has an extensive criminal record was responsible for planting the homemade explosive that ignited a Sunday fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic.
The 50-year-old man was jailed early Tuesday morning for violating terms of his probation, though police have not yet recommended charges related to the bombing at the clinic at 3800 N. Gillett St. The man’s criminal history includes convictions for cocaine possession and delivery, resisting or obstructing police, bail jumping and disorderly conduct, court records show.

The Associated Press reports:

The FBI says 50-year-old Francis Grady is charged with arson of a building used in interstate commerce and intentionally damaging a facility that provides reproductive health services.

The “bomb” was reportedly “built of a plastic bottle and chemicals that included an incendiary agent,” and was previously described as a “small device” that did “minor damage” to the empty office.

Grady seems to have the proverbial police record “as long as your arm,” and we don’t know what inspired him to commit this particular crime. The dope-dealing bail-jumper would seem to be an unlikely agent of a Republican “War on Women,” as MSNBC portrayed this crime.

Not your typical “Values Voter,” IYKWIMAITYD.

So the whole jumping-to-conclusions method of media analysis has once again failed, and I must now also confess that my own hunch about the case was wrong. Read more

Category: Crime, Planned Parenthood, Wisconsin

WISCONSIN, MARYLAND REPUBLICAN PRIMARY RESULTS HQ

Posted on | April 3, 2012 | 95 Comments

UPDATE 10:50 p.m. ET: Chris Moody of Yahoo News writes about Santorum’s campaign in Wisconsin, which included visits to seven bowling alleys and more than a few beers:

He has arguably been one of the hardest working candidates in the race, having labored his way up from the bottom of the polls when he held events in Iowa that literally no one showed up for, to becoming the lead rival to the frontrunner. The man has only taken five days off the campaign trail since last summer, and spent most of that time eking his way along financially. With weak organization to speak of and an entourage that consisted of little more than the candidate and a friend with a Dodge Ram, Santorum went from being the candidate who could hardly get his name on the ballot in some states to becoming a household name.

Chris, you’re wrong: Santorum is not “arguably . . . one of the hardest working candidates,” he is the hardest working candidate, period. There is no argument. Nobody has out-worked this guy, and if it wasn’t for his hard work, he never would have won Iowa, let alone Missouri, Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Dakota, Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

UPDATE 10:40 p.m. ET: In my local congressional district, Maryland’s 6th, incumbent Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett survives with 45% against 21% for David Brinkley, one of seven GOP challengers on the ballot.

In Wisconsin, it’s Romney 42%, Santorum 38% with 65% of precincts reporting. Remember that Romney spent more than $3 million airing attack ads against Santorum in Wisconsin, outspending the Santorum campaign 4-to-1 in advertising.

UPDATE 10:30 p.m. ET: Some good news: In the Maryland GOP Senate primary, with 60% of precincts reporting, Dan Bongino leads with 32% to 29% for Richard Douglas. A total of 10 candidates on the ballot in that primary, the winner facing Democrat Ben Cardin.

UPDATE 10:20 p.m. ET: Latest from Wisconsin: Romney 43% to Santorum’s 38%, with 42% of precincts reporting.

UPDATE 10:15 p.m. ET: Notice that Michelle Malkin directs her readers to “Latest MSM coverage of the D.C. and Maryland results here” — the link is to MSNBC. Their coverage of the Repubican presidential campaign has arguably been more fair and balanced than the Romney News Network.

Malkin endorsed Santorum in January.

BTW, according to an analysis by the New Yorker, when all is said and done, Romney will fall short of the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch.

Linked by Bob Belvedere at the Camp of the Saints — thanks!

UPDATE 9:50 p.m. ET: Fox News cut away from Rick Santorum’s speech tonight after a couple of minutes. With 19% of precincts reporting now in Wisconsin, it’s Romney 42%, Santorum 39%. The networks have already called Wisconsin for Romney, who is now giving an extraordinarily lame victory speech in Milwaukee.

Excuse the long delay in reporting. Got a late deadline tonight, so I took a brief nap.

UPDATE 8:30 p.m. ET: In early results in the Maryland GOP Senate primary, Dan Bongino leads Richard Douglas 34%-26% so far.

UPDATE 8:20 p.m. ET: The networks called Maryland for Mitt Romney as soon as the polls closed. With  5% of precincts reporting, it’s Romney 53%, Santorum 27% in Maryland.

PREVIOUSLY (7:56 p.m. ET)

Today, after covering the Republican primary campaign for months, I finally got to vote in a primary, casting my ballot here in Maryland for Rick Santorum and U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino.

Of course, Maryland is a very liberal state and, as such, is considered a shoo-in for the former governor of Massachusetts, so Mitt Romney will pick up 37 delegates in a state he’s got zero chance of winning in November. Because he’s inevitable! And electable!

Polls close at 8 p.m. ET in Maryland. Meanwhile, all eyes will be on Wisconsin, where polls close at 8 p.m. Central, 9 p.m ET. If you’re a Santorum supporter in Wisconsin, make sure you vote. If you’re a Romney supporter in Wisconsin, don’t bother — he’s a shoo-in! Inevitable! Electable! All that crap the talking heads on Fox News say!

Rick Santorum will have his election night event in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mars, Pa. The next round of primaries is three weeks away, April 24, and if Santorum can win his home state of Pennsylvania, he’s still in the game, no matter what the Fox News talking heads say. Santorum has already announced his Wednesday campaign schedule in Pennsyvania.

Category: Election 2012, Maryland, Wisconsin

Republicans Engage in Shameful Hate Attacks: ‘Jewbags … Jew Cash Money’

Posted on | April 3, 2012 | 9 Comments

Oh, wait — no, this story is about Democrats:

The Democratic Party’s newly appointed Jewish outreach liaison is pictured on Facebook in a series of provocative photos with her friends holding dollar bills and referring to themselves as “Jewbags” and the “Jew cash money team.”
Dani Gilbert, who has been a staffer in the office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.), was recently appointed as the Democratic National Committee’s Jewish outreach liaison, according to her Twitter feed. . . .
In one photo, Gilbert is seen kissing paper currency of undetermined denomination. The caption at the bottom of the photo reads “JEWBAGS.” A comment left on the posting refers to Gilbert and a coterie of female companions as the “Jew cash money team.” Other photos depict Gilbert as a bit of a party girl, including one featuring an assortment of condoms.

(Via Ace of Spades and the Shark Tank.) They called her “a bit of a party girl,” because you can’t call Democrat women “sluts” anymore.

Category: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Democrats

GOP Budget Is Social Darwinism?

Posted on | April 3, 2012 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

Breitbart has the clip. What I want to is, given that assertion about the GOP, does that make #OccupyResoluteDesk’s budget Progressive Creationism? Or was it just a lousy fairy tale?

Category: Barack Obama

BREAKING: Police Arrest Suspect in Planned Parenthood Bombing

Posted on | April 3, 2012 | 52 Comments

A man with a criminal record — he was out on probation — has been taken into custody in connection with the incident in Grand Chute, the Appleton (Wisc.) Post-Crescent reports:

Police say they have identified the person who placed a homemade explosive device that went off Sunday and damaged Planned Parenthood’s Gillett Street clinic.
Police said today they identified the man after reviewing surveillance footage.
The man was booked into the Outagamie County Jail on Monday evening on a probation violation. No charges have yet been referred to prosecutors. . . .
Police say a witness saw a white sport-utility vehicle leave Planned Parenthood at the same time flames were seen coming from the building.
Detectives corroborated that information through security video, which also showed distinctive markings on the vehicle.
Investigators learned a similar vehicle was involved in a crash in a neighboring community after the Planned Parent incident was reported and was towed from the scene. . . .

UPDATE: The same information is reported by Green Bay’s WLUK-TV, but no name of the suspect yet. If we have any readers in Wisconsin — especially Outagamie County — who can help provide information in the comments, your assistance would be appreciated.

UPDATE II: The Green Bay Press Gazette runs the same story as the Appleton paper (both are part of the Gannett chain) and still no name of the suspect anywhere online?

UPDATE III: Just spoke to Sharon Froberg, an assistant editor at the Appleton Post-Crescent, who says their policy is not to name suspects until they have been charged. Their cops reporter is working to track down the suspect’s age, etc., and also to find out what he was on probation for, Ms. Froberg says. The newspaper’s staff have noticed the increased traffic to their site and are working to update the story as soon as possible.

UPDATE IV: Here is the manifest of inmates currently held at the Outagamie County Jail, which lists the following male inmates booked into the jail since 7 p.m. Sunday:

BASTIAN, FREDERICK DANIEL M W 4/2/2012 2:32:00 PM
BELGUM, JUSTIN JAMES M W 4/1/2012 7:55:00 PM
COOPER, JEREMY MICHAEL M I 4/3/2012 12:47:00 PM
FELTON, TIMOTHY DWAYNE M B 4/2/2012 5:05:00 PM
GRADY, FRANCIS GERALD M W 4/3/2012 1:19:00 AM
JACKELS, ROBERT LEE M W 4/2/2012 10:12:00 PM
JOHNSON, TROY LEON M W 4/3/2012 12:32:00 PM
KHATIB, KAMEL MOHAMED M A 4/2/2012 1:30:00 PM
LESKO, ROBERT WYATT M W 4/2/2012 10:35:00 AM
ROBINSON, ANDREW ALEXANDER M B 4/2/2012 12:16:00 PM
SIRTOFF, SCOTT JAMES M W 4/3/2012 12:21:00 PM
STAPLES, SIDNEY SCOTT M B 4/2/2012 3:19:00 PM
TODOROV, HRISTO RUMENOV M W 4/2/2012 12:15:00 PM
VANCE, CHARLES ADRIEN M W 4/2/2012 6:50:00 PM
VANDENBERG, RANDY JOSEPH M W 4/2/2012 12:26:00 PM

So it would seem the suspect must be one of the 15 names on this list.

UPDATE V: An Associated Press story repeats what we already know, and there is this additional tidbit at Huffington Post:

Police located the suspect on Sunday night and have detained him at Outagamie County Jail. They did not release details about his age or appearance and said no charges have been filed.

UPDATE VI: This is perhaps as good a time as any to remind readers that I first became aware of this crime while watching Ed Schultz on MSNBC depict it as part of the Republican “War on Women.”

Because we do not yet know the name of the suspect, nor any information about his motive, it is impossible at this point to say whether the alleged bomber is actually a Republican. Meanwhile, TPM Muckraker notes the mystery surrounding the unnamed man:

Authorities have not released many details of the person they arrested except to say he was a man and was currently being held in a local jail on a probation violation. They stopped short of calling him a suspect in the bombing.

Uh, yeah. Hasn’t been charged, but they say he and his SUV with “distinctive markings” match video at the crime scene. Call me crazy, but I’ve got a hunch maybe the perp’s not a Republican.

UPDATE VII: Now a Memeorandum thread. I’ll be looking forward to the “Republican War on Women” update on MSNBC tonight.

UPDATE VIII: Wisconsin Radio Network interviews the police chief, and gets this: The suspect was involved in a crash in the nearby town of Kaukauna about an hour after the report of the incident at Planned Parenthood. The white SUV “had very distinctive markings,” said Grand Chute Police Chief Greg Peterson, and the suspect had “physical characteristics that were similar in nature . . . general physical characteristics” that matched the surveillance video at the Planned Parenthood office.

Category: Crime, Planned Parenthood, Wisconsin

Why Is the U.S. Justice Department Monitoring the Wisconsin Primary?

Posted on | April 3, 2012 | 31 Comments

Dan Collins at The Conservatory calls attention to a news item:

The U.S. Justice Department says it is dispatching observers to watch over Wisconsin’s presidential primary on Tuesday.
The Justice Department said Monday its poll watchers will be in Milwaukee to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other federal voting rights laws.

Did I miss something? Is Milwaukee in 2012 like Selma in 1965?

Are Romneyites trying to intimidate Santorum voters in Wisconsin? As if all those endorsements and more than $3 million in attack ads weren’t enough to do the trick?

First, there was that made-for-MSNBC bombing at Planned Parenthood — a “small device” that caused “minimal damage” at an empty office — and now, for the first time in the 2012 campaign, the Justice Department decides that a primary election requires federal election monitors?

Why Wisconsin? Why now?

The word you’re looking for is “shenanigans.”

Category: Election 2012, Wisconsin

The Corpse Of Trayvon Martin Has Lost Propaganda Value; Fortunately, Sandra Fluke Still Has A Pulse

Posted on | April 3, 2012 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

One nearly can empathize with the poor Lefties, seeing that the Trayvon Martin tragedy is moving from simple tragedy to propaganda farce. In the (gang)green spirit of recycling, then, we have Hillary telling Andrea Mitchell;

Today, Hillary Clinton told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell in a pre-taped interview that Rush Limbaugh’s comments about Sandra Fluke constituted a “verbal assault.” She continued:

We, as a nation, have every right — and in fact I welcome it — to engage in the kind of debate and dialogue that is at the root of who we are as Americans. But lets not turn it into personal attacks and insults. We’re beyond that. We’re better than that and people in the public eye have a particular responsibility to avoid it.

I can agree with SECSTATE’s opinion, in general. Back in 2008, I was prefixing her name with ‘Ct-‘, as a Lovecraft reference, to show my affection for the lady. It occurred to me that derogatory ‘games with names’ are childish. Repenting, I have since sought higher forms of snark.

But, really, Hillary? Has anyone on the Left, e.g. Maher, ever been taken to task for potty mouth? I guess Don Imus got a wrist slap for some hairstyle remark a couple of years back. But let’s not kid ourselves here. This is:

  • An attempt to control the media cycle in general, deflect attention from the ObamaCare disaster.
  • A retreat from the disaster the Trayvon Martin tragedy is becoming.

One is nearly, but not quite, tempted to record the actual interview and see if the good SECSTATE actually mentions anything work-related. I Reckon Anything National is more fun to discuss than that one important thing over there on the right side of the map thing on the office wall.

November cannot arrive quickly enough, so we can usher these jokers out of power. OK, for the Brietbart trifecta, Hillary is aware of Iran. Reset button.

Category: Hillary Clinton, Rush Limbaugh

Tom Maguire’s Excellent Idea: Let’s Pretend We Take Rod Dreher Seriously

Posted on | April 3, 2012 | 17 Comments

This kind of thing never works out well for Dreher, whom Maguire catches accusing George Zimmerman of being “paranoid,” which is doubly hilarious given that Dreher was writing in the context of being cautious about the facts of the case.

In fact, I have said all along that we have to be wary of trying the case in the media, so I agree with Dreher on that — as does Maguire, for that matter — but the way Dreher jumps to a diagnosis of paranoia totally defeats his point. (Evidently, Dreher had seized on an Orlando Sentinel typo about the frequency of Zimmerman’s 911 calls.)

What is amazing to me is how people have gotten so riled up about this case, as if their personal opinion about this incident in Sanford, Florida, had some kind of tangible purpose, without regard to the actual facts or the ultimate legal outcome. It’s as if they are trying to appropriate to themselves a sort of secondhand righteousness, based on their judgment of a case in which they are not directly involved and which in no way impacts their own lives.

I remember having a similar feeling of disbelief at how people became so emotionally involved in the O.J. Simpson trial. What was that all about, huh? I mean, if you’re in Los Angeles, I could see it being a big local news story, what with the slow-motion highway chase tying up traffic. But there were people who lived nowhere near California, who had never heard of O.J. before then, who nonetheless got glued to the TV, watching every minute of the trial, evidently feeling that the fate of this football-player-turned-movie-star was the most important thing in the world.

It’s mystifying, and I feel silly even wasting 300 words on it.

Anyway, for people who never heard of Rod Dreher, I’d say he’s a well-known idiot except that he’s not really very well-known anymore. He used to work at National Review, then he wrote a stupid book, and now he’s reported to be working on a sequel that I believe is tentatively titled, If You Thought My First Book Was Stupid, Wait ‘Til You See This One!

I’m sure Jonah Goldberg can hardly wait.

Dreher was raised Southern Baptist, converted to Catholicism, then decided he’d rather be Russian Orthodox, and then he got himself in trouble by creating an online alias to muck around in an obscure intramural Orthodox dispute. Oh, yeah: He hates Rush Limbaugh.

It’s probably only a matter of time before Dreher goes Hare Krishna or Zoroastrian or something. He’s tediously serious about everything, which makes him all the more laughable. At least Andrew Sullivan has AIDS-related brain damage as an excuse. Speaking of which . . .

Andrew Sullivan Blames Catholic Church
For Politicizing Contraception

Oh, boy, I bet this is gonna be good!

Yes, indeed: Whenever CNN needs a leading expert on contraception and women, they turn to Dr. Andrew Sullivan MD, OB-GYN!

Category: Crime, Florida
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