The Other McCain

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

Rule 5 Sunday: Lobo Town

Posted on | April 8, 2012 | 7 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Short notice this week for a Rule 5 roundup that’s actually on time this week, but the usual suspects are serving up the linkalicious lovelies, so who am I to slack off?


Fishersville Mike informs us that not only do the Miami Marlins have a new stadium, they also have a new dance line. Laughing Conservative escalates the boob war (his words not mine) with Keeley Hazell (NSFW) while Reaganite Resistance maintains decorum with Miss Portugal 2011, Laura Goncalves. Eye of Polyphemus this week goes with Jennifer Love Hewitt, while Jake Finnegan’s Burkalicious Babes this week come from People Of Walmart. I dunno, Jake, with some of those gals a burka might be an improvement, if only esthetically. Back in the burka-less present time, Jerseynut is hot for teacher – Cameron Diaz as Bad Teacher, that is. Maggie’s Notebook has Beyonce, and Three Beers later serves up a musical extravaganza of hot rockin’ ladies.


Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Katherine Jenkins; his vintage Babe is Barbara Shelley, and Sex in Advertising this week is all about Victoria’s Secret. At The Camp of the Saints, it’s Amiee Rickards, the Rule 5 News, and Kelly Carlson.


Soylent Green’s Monday Motivationer is all about the kismet, and Tuesday’s Titillation is all about Famke. Humpday Hawtness is brought to you by Jessica Lorin, while on opening day, the count is two balls on Johnson. There follows some palate cleansing with Julia B, while on Saturday there’s a recommendation for Tiger’s new caddy. Also, winning the Easter egg hunt!


A View From The Beach offers transforming Jennifers, science discovering beer goggles, hot peppers for heart health, something about a cutie who makes a rainbow & kills a leprechaun, the question of whether women are predisposed to be liberal, and a Frank Cho rendition of a cavegirl offing a velociraptor.


The DaleyGator’s DaleyBabes include Adrianna Lima, Kokomi Sakura, AnnaLynn McCord, Aya Takigawa, Kana Yume, Kana Tsugihara, Gaby Espino, and Haruka Itoh.


Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline for next Sunday’s Rule 5 roundup will be Saturday, April 14; please make sure your links go to
Rule 5 Wombat and not to the link at the top of the page.

Category: Rule 5

Predictable: Gingrich Admits He Owes More Than $4 Million Campaign Debt

Posted on | April 8, 2012 | 22 Comments

“In January, Gingrich spent everything he raised, and more, and finished the month with debts nearly equal to his cash-on-hand figure. Newt’s campaign was essentially broke after the Florida primary Jan. 31.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Feb. 21

“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?”
— Robert Stacy McCain, March 13

If you haven’t been reading this blog regularly, you may have been shocked by Newt’s confession today on Fox News Sunday:

“Unfortunately, our guys tried to match Romney,” Gingrich said of the Florida match-up. “It turned out, we didn’t have anything like his capacity to raise money.”
Gingrich said he has a little less than $4.5 million in campaign debt, and he’s operating on a shoestring budget.

I was there when it happened, although nobody realized it at the time, and it took another seven weeks to learn the truth.

On Feb. 21, the day after his January FEC report became available, I said Gingrich’s spending was “unsustainable,” and when his February report became public March 20, I said he was bankrupt.

There are ways of billing expenses so that a campaign can push forward its obligation. The invoices delivered on March 1 won’t be made public until the March FEC report goes online April 20. Yet was obvious from the February report that Newt’s campaign had spent the entire month trying to maintain an expensive illusion of financial viability, an illusion that did not dissolve until three weeks into March. Apparently, many people still don’t comprehend what a rotten scam it was.

A veteran political observer to whom I spoke by today said, of course, it has become “standard operating procedure” for campaigns to conceal the reality of their finances by agreeing with consultants and vendors to delay invoicing. “Hell, that’s what the RNC was doing under Michael Steele,” said the veteran political observer.

On Feb. 29, Santorum’s campaign announced it had raised $9 million in February. A week later, Romney’s campaign said it had raised $11.5 in February. Newt’s campaign kept silent about its February fundraising, and I knew they were hiding bad news. After I saw the March 20 FEC report, I paid attention to three little items:

  1. Days before the March 24 Louisiana primary, Gingrich’s campaign entourage was rolling across the state in a 10-car motorcade;
  2. Newt didn’t announce staff layoffs until March 27; and
  3. The day after the layoffs, we learned Gingrich had met secretly with Romney in New Orleans before the polls opened in Louisiana.

For most of March — from the week before “Super Tuesday” all the way to his closed-door meeting with Mitt in New Orleans and beyond — Gingrich’s campaign was a money-gobbling mirage, already “under water” on its debts, like a homeowner living large on money obtained through a re-finance deal on a house appraised in excess of its actual value.

Gingrich, however, is still in denial about what he did, as witness the quotes buried in a story by Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post:

“It never occurred to me — and this is one of the lessons I’m contemplating for some future memoir — it never occurred to me the scale of the Romney fundraising capability,” Gingrich said. “I was fully prepared to be outspent 2-to-1, even 3-to-1. But when you’re up to 5- or 6-to-1, you’re being drowned. You’re not going to be able to match it.” . . .

(Whoa. The “scale of the Romney fundraising capability” “never occurred” to Newt until his own campaign was blowing through $980,000 a day in late January in an ill-advised effort to win Florida, despite all the evidence that the effort was already doomed?)

He will find money to pay off the seven-figure debt “the same way I did in 1978 [when he was first elected to Congress after two losing campaigns], the same way I did in 1999 [after resigning the speakership]. You work and pay it off,” Gingrich said. “Whatever shape we’re in when this is over, you look at it, you take a big swallow and go to work.”

Yeah, he’ll “go to work,” all right: As Mitt’s rent-boy.

Category: Election 2012, Newt Gingrich

World’s Youngest Blogger: I Pledge Allegiance

Posted on | April 8, 2012 | 16 Comments

Category: World's Youngest Blogger

Lefty Blogs We Love: ‘The Blogistan Polytechnic Institute’

Posted on | April 8, 2012 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

NCrissieB linked yesterday’s “Contrary To The 2008 Campaign? I Think Not” in a genuinely fun way (i.e., I may have to #OccupyFormat at some point) at the BPI, and is, well, nearly engaging in the comments section. I say “nearly”, as she is recycling Lefty points, instead of admitting we’re broke and have 3rd world leftovers occupying the Resolute Desk.

Because, why face reality when you can point fingers?

At any rate, those who’d like to head over and offer cogent, fact-based responses may find some welcome.

Category: Progressivism

The Con Science Of A Liberal

Posted on | April 8, 2012 | 32 Comments

by Smitty

Easter Sunday is probably inappropriate to use Paul Krugman as a punching bag. But it’s not a sin if Krugman does it himself, and this blog merely provides a communications path, is it?

Here, Krugman attempts to go after Paul Ryan:

In my next life I want to be a conservative policy scammer. Think of how much nicer it would be. Instead of constantly being accused of having evil motives, I’d be presumed to have noble intentions no matter how much the actual content of my policy proposals was at odds with such claims. Instead of being accused of saying bad things I never said, I’d be given credit for supporting good things I’ve never supported. Life would be great!
OK, I’m whining. But the continuing defense of Paul Ryan is a remarkable phenomenon. He’s still being treated by many pundits as a man deeply concerned about deficits, when the fact is that his policy proposals are all about redistributing income upward, and make no serious effort to curb debt. He’s even given credit for advocating higher taxes on the rich when he has more or less specifically rejected the things for which he’s given credit.

Krugman, if it’s respect you crave, give up being an e-clown-omist and offer some reality-based advice! Anything you say which does not begin with the confession that the United States is broke, and has to go cold turkey on the social welfare state idiocy of the last century just isn’t serious.

via Memeorandum

Category: Economics

Profiles in Narcissism: Charles Johnson Blinded by His Own Self-Righteousness

Posted on | April 7, 2012 | 84 Comments

Among the books I most often recommend are The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (Thomas Sowell, 1995) and The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (Christopher Lasch, 1979). Thoughtful readers familiar with both books will understand how the phenomenon described by Sowell — liberals enacting disastrous social policies that serve mainly to make liberals feel good about themselves — is related to the narcissistic impulses described by Lasch.

In a society where traditional institutions of moral authority are decadent or discredited, individuals engage in self-righteous political gestures to demonstrate (to themselves, if to no one else) their own superior virtue. Liberal policies appeal to such impulses, e.g., Dick Durbin: “I may be a corrupt swine, but I drive a hybrid!” or Alec Baldwin: “I may be a vicious bully, but I’m all about a woman’s right to choose!”

The politicization of morality is not a new phenomenon, but it has gained a new vehemence in recent decades as the traditional sources of moral authority — the church, the family, the local community, etc. — have declined in influence, and as bourgeois virtues (sobriety, chastity, industry, thrift, etc.) have been undermined by the counter-culture.

When people turn to politics seeking affirmation of their own virtue, the results are often disastrous for the people directly affected by the policies enacted. To cite just one example, the AIDS crisis of the 1980s spiraled out of control in part because liberals were unwilling to shut down the gay bathouses that profited by facilitating the anonymous promiscuity which spread the pandemic. (David Horowitz and Peter Collier include an amazing chapter on this in their 1989 book, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties.) The AIDS issue became a moral crusade for liberals, who saw themselves defending the “rights” of an unpopular minority in a battle against oppression, as if the “right” to commercialized sodomy trumped legitimate public health concerns.

Controversies that involve race, even indirectly, have often been hijacked by this sort of liberal crusader mentality, as in the infamous Duke University lacrosse team “rape” scandal, where certainty of the guilt of the accused was a kind of moral litmus test. People who had nothing to do with Duke University, people who had never been within a hundred miles of Raleigh, N.C., nevertheless presumed to know that the lacrosse players were guilty and excoriated anyone who did not join them in denouncing the perpetrators of this alleged atrocity.

What you learn, if you observe this tendency long enough, is that the people who delight in pointing the accusatory finger — racist! sexist! homophobe! — are generally engaged in an exhibition of moral narcissism, trying to fill the “hole in their soul” with self-righteousness by gestures intended to prove their own superior virtue. Not only are they not racist (or not sexist, etc.), but they are anti-racist (or anti-whatever) and are courageously donning their shining armor and mounting their horses to lead a crusade against the Evil Menace.

Heroism on the cheap, as it were.

When the Trayvon Martin case became a national controversy, it was certain to attract swarms of such moralistic finger-pointers, demanding that everyone join them in Standing Up to Hatred, etc. I’ve had little to say about the case, but one thing I did say was this:

The first time I talked to anyone about the Trayvon Martin case, I cautioned against the urge to jump to conclusions based on media accounts.

The federal Justice Department was involved and a special investigation was underway, and there was no need to engage in furious debates over every detail of a case about which we had no direct knowledge, and in which we were not directly involved. Insofar as I have since commented on it at all, I’ve mainly called attention to the way people were making fools of themselves over the case. (Damn, how I wish Keith Olbermann were still on TV!) So in the wee hours this morning, when I noticed people on Twitter giving Dave Weigel grief over something written by John Derbyshire, my reaction was, “What the hell is this about?”

After investigating, I wrote a post:

While it is impossible to imagine any scenario in which Lowry won’t be forced to fire Derbyshire now, I’m actually more fascinated by the Left’s attempt to bully Weigel for failing to denounce Derbyshire in strong enough terms.

This is a familiar ritual, The Denunciation Derby, in which liberals demand that everyone compete for the Sweepstakes Prize offered for whoever can express the most indignant outrage against the target. It seemed obvious that Derbyshire was doomed, and there was no point even trying to defend him, but Weigel — who has never been accused of being a racist — was under attack for having blogged about Derbyshire with insufficient outrage.

National Review editor Rich Lowry tried to distance himself from Derbyshire — “needless to say”! — and I reacted to that this afternoon:

“Needless to say,” however, they don’t pay you the big bucks to waffle in times of crisis, Rich. Your executive authority must be exercised and, with this howling Internet lynch mob demanding Derbyshire’s scalp, you must either satisfy the mob or deal with the consequences.

While I was aggregating further reaction in updates, I was being stalked by a creepy Twitter troll. Pay careful attention to the sequence:

CHARLES JOHNSON 2:24 p.m. ET:

CHARLES JOHNSON 3:27 p.m. ET:

CHARLES JOHNSON 4:23 p.m. ET:

Charles Johnson is doing his “Race Detective” bit: He accuses me and Dan Riehl of being “the first to defend Derbyshire,” then he writes a blog post using Riehl’s name to connect the “racist” meme to Breitbart.com. And then — exhibiting a stunning lack of self-awareness — Johnson complains to Pam Spaulding that right-wingers “spend so much time & energy trying to smear & discredit me.”

Got it? Charles (a) writes a blog post to “smear and discredit” Dan Riehl and Dan’s employers, then (b) engages in psychological projection to claim that his enemies are doing to him what he is doing to them.

This kind of blame-shifting rationalization is typical of narcissistic personalities: Nothing is ever their fault. Whenever anything goes wrong, some scapegoat must be blamed for the failure.

You see why paranoia is so closely related to narcissism, in that the damaged ego, being unable to accept responsibility for failure, eventually exaggerates the evils of scapegoated enemies to the point where contact with reality is lost amid persecution fantasies of an all-powerful “them” conspiring against the grandiose self.

Grandiosity — the unrealistic inflation of personal significance — is necessary to the delusion: Why would all these powerful forces of evil be conspiring against an obscure nobody? The damaged ego must inflate the imagined power of scapegoated enemies in order to explain how the grandiose self has been thwarted.

During a three-year purge that began in 2008, Charles Johnson banned more than 15,000 commenters from Little Green Footballs, destroying his own traffic, alienating his friends and making himself the laughingstock of the blogosphere. The only person responsible for this was Charles Johnson, yet he continues to seek out “racists” and other scapegoats to blame for his self-destruction.

Good luck turning your paranoid delusions into a career, Charles.

Meanwhile, Lowry has fired Derbyshire, describing the offending column as “so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation.”

This was exactly what I’d predicted in the wee hours when I commented on the “get Weigel” sideshow. How that amounted to me joining Dan Riehl as “first to defend Derbyshire” is perhaps something that Charles Johnson can try to explain when the nice men in white coats show up to take him to the Funny Farm.

Remember: Charles Johnson tried to destroy Pamela Geller by smearing her as a crypto-fascist. After I defended Geller, CJ tried to destroy me as a “white supremacist.” By now, CJ’s list of right-wing enemies is so long as to include just about everyone who ever voted Republican. But CJ’s crazy crusade was never really about the evil of his enemies — Geller, Robert Spencer, Diana West, Melanie Phillips, Geert Wilders, Michelle Malkin, Jim Hoft, Ace of Spades, Dan Riehl, et al., ad finitum — it was always all about Charles Johnson.

And it still is.

Happy Easter, everybody. Go hit Da Tech Guy’s tip jar.

 

 

UPDATE: Does anyone remember “Liberal Avenger,” a/k/a Sirkowski, a/k/a Sébastien Fréchette? If we can believe his own online bio — alas, he is a notorious and habitual liar — Fréchette is a 35-year-old illustrator specializing in (NSFW) “Loli” cartoons. NTTAWWT.

During his most notorious years weeks, Sirkowski/Fréchette/”Liberal Avenger” was best known for slinging hateful slurs at Republican women, including Condi Rice and Mary Cheney, as well as altering comments and other such stunts as sociopathic trolls do with their own blogs. (See, “Sirowski Watch.”)

Patterico had a go-round with “Liberal Avenger” back in the day. Sébastien still seems to have a problem with Republican women:

Some people’s political reactions are like a Rorshach inkblot test, inexorably exposing their inner freak. Sirkowski/Fréchette spent Saturday re-Tweeting Charles Johnson and then showed up in the comments on this post screeching about racists and fascists.

Sébastien: Go back to doing dirty drawings of girls, OK?

LGF is scraping the bottom of the barrel these days . . .

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: Charles Johnson, Culture, Dan Riehl, Racism

‘Win Just One For The Zimmer’

Posted on | April 7, 2012 | 1 Comment

by Smitty

I can’t embed the latest Day by Day effectively, but Muir does a great job of alluding to Airplane! Well worth your time.

Here is the reference:

Category: Day By Day

FMJRA 2.0: Some Other Time

Posted on | April 7, 2012 | 6 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Shocking Republican Sex Scandals!

WISCONSIN, MARYLAND REPUBLICAN PRIMARY RESULTS HQ

I Write for Money

LIVE AT FIVE (CDT) – 03.30.12

John Hinderaker, Optimist

In Response To The Recent Unpleasantness

Bizarre NFL Sex Scandal

Trayvon Martin Rashomon

Mandatory Whittle

‘Hot Mic’ Admittedly Not As Hot As Conservative Women, Yet Still Toasty

The Worlds Youngest Blogger: ‘Relax’

Olbermann’s Career: The First Time as Tragedy, the Second Time as Farce

Are Nancy Pelosi And Harry Reid Racists, Or Something?

‘Due to Her Excellent Reputation Among California Democrats …’

The Riot Ideology

Piers Morgan: ‘What a Load of Fatuous Nonsense You Speak, Touré, Don’t You?’

It Is Not Often One Locates An Oversight In Professor Jacobson’s Reasoning

Call Me a Cynic

Flaming, Multitudinous Jeremiads Retard Advances (FMJRA)

Rick Santorum And The Traditional Justice System

No Bowlder Man Than Dennis Walcott Ever Lived

A Comment On Comments, Served Up As A Post

‘A Portrait of a Dysfunctional Alliance That Was Doomed From the Start’

Ron Paul Supporter Challenges Romney Over Mormon Doctrine in Wisconsin

BRILLIANT IDEA! Have The RNC Hire George Obama And Put Him On Tour!

Newt Neutered: Gingrich’s Pathetic Shadow Campaign Stumbles Onward

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

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

Dear 5th Circuit …

Police Charge Career Criminal in Wisconsin Planned Parenthood Bombing

How Wrong Was Michelle Goldberg About Wisconsin Planned Parenthood Bombing? UPDATE: ‘I Lit Up the Clinic,’ Suspect Told Police; Offers Guilty Plea at Hearing

Jesus Knew Fear?

Mean RNC Pokes Fun At BHO’s Sincere Efforts To Save Gaia

NEWS: Michelle Malkin Joins Board of Directors for National Bloggers Club

Mark Levin and the Omens of Doom

Ain’t I Done Told Ya So? (Part II)

Check Your Water Wings

Framing the Narrative: Using Evangelicals as Hook for MSM ‘Mormon Mitt’ Meme

They Know Which Side They’re On

The Last Nail in Newt’s Coffin
UPDATE: Conservative Leaders Huddle With Santorum, Seek Deal With Newt

Rule 5 Thursday

MA-4 Blogger Call With Sean Bielat

Top linkers this week:

  1. Lonely Conservative (11)
  2. (tied) The Conservatory, Daily Pundit, and The Camp Of The Saints (9)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links for next week’s FMJRA is Friday, April 13.

 

Category: FMJRA Award
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