The Other McCain

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

Bizarre NFL Sex Scandal

Posted on | March 30, 2012 | 40 Comments

Authorities in Kentucky say a teenager has been cruelly victimized by the 26-year-old captain of the Cincinnati Bengals cheerleading squad.

UPDATE: Thanks to Pagan Temple in the comments for calling attention to this potentially relevant angle about the alleged perpetrator:

“Sarah Jones gained national attention in 2009 when she sued online gossip site TheDirty.com and its operator, Nik Richie, after unflattering pictures of her appeared with allegations that she’d had sex with Bengals players and had two sexually transmitted diseases. The photos and comments had been provided anonymously.”

Remember: These are merely allegations. Don’t jump to conclusions. And whatever you do, don’t call her a “slut.”

Category: Crime, Football, Scandal, Sex

In Response To The Recent Unpleasantness

Posted on | March 30, 2012 | 38 Comments

by Smitty

The comment threads are getting a bit dodgy on Stacy’s last two posts. Have your opinions, but please don’t soil yourself with ad hominem.

The FedoraCon idea is interesting. “Success is the best revenge,” someone once told me.

The Quotes of the Day post at Hot Air grabs the NYT:

“If the administration loses its argument [on ObamaCare], one early strategy is to run squarely against the Supreme Court. Democrats believe that Mr. Obama could fashion himself as a modern-day Franklin D. Roosevelt, trying to convince voters that a majority of the justices are in the pocket of the Republicans. A Democratic senator on Wednesday referred to that as the ‘martyr strategy.’

One of the crucial lessons we all have to learn about being online is that this exuberantly free speech we enjoy is totally non-binding. I don’t owe you a link, you don’t owe me a link. If I have time to respond to comments, or read your posts, great. It’s all best effort.

Also, I can rail at you all day and night about you not paying attention to my work. Laughing at my jokes. Tweeting my posts. And you really don’t owe me the time of day. If I’m not paying you, I have no real cause for complaint. And if you go on Twitter and call me everything but a white man, what cause have I for complaint? I could say you’re wrecking me professionally, but, over time, the truth will out. If there is no basis for your finger pointing, you look a Charles Johnson.

We could plan do some kind of ‘FedoraCon’, perhaps as an in-joke attached to CPAC, I’m all for it.

Just keep in mind that the ‘martyr strategy’ is not a creative one, and, ultimately, impresses nobody.

Update: linked by The Catholic Bandita!

Category: Uncategorized

John Hinderaker, Optimist

Posted on | March 30, 2012 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Let us be aware of the magnitude of the problem, as we look back at the ObamaCare testimony before the SCOTUS:

The more one considers the implications of this week’s arguments, the more likely it appears that the Court’s decision, if it does strike down Obamacare, will be a milestone that sets the United States back on the path to constitutional government.

Progressivism ain’t dead: it’s just restin’. Via Ace, we’re talking about a group of people characterized thusly by Podhoretz:

Thus, the strength of the conservative arguments only came as a surprise to Toobin, Greenhouse and others because they evidently spent two years putting their fingers in their ears and singing, “La la la, I’m not listening” whenever the conservative argument was being advanced.

The Progressives are as convinced that it’s unfair to water to segregate the water to the outside of the hull as the conservatives are that keeping the boat dry on the inside is crucial for buoyancy. Progressivism, like poverty, will always be with us; the crucial task is separating Progressives from the levers of power before they drown us all in idiocy.

And yet, that most Progressive beast, the Federal Reserve, is likely gearing up for more “quantitative easing” (theft). I guess I am moving in the direction of being ashamed of my country; we all see what’s going on, and yet this purportedly exceptional country has precious little political will to affect the outcome. Unexpectedly, the black swan will arrive in the form of a failed bond auction, or whatever, and then we will be collectively shocked, SHOCKED! to discover that giving vast power to un-elected, unaccountable officials was a miscarriage of the spirit of our Constitution.

That stranglehold on our economic vitality is precisely why ObamaCare stands a good chance of rising, zombie-like, from the ashes of whatever the SCOTUS has to say. The entitlement mentality has been bred. People demand health care from the government. The 57 states, unable to steal the way the Federal Reserve can, are not likely to fund the desired programs. Thus, the system fails upward. Progressives, who really want the Logan’s Run level of control present in Single Payer, are not unhappy about that result. It’s worth throwing a Solicitor General or two under the SCOTUS bus to get to Single Payer. A cost of doing business. It’s all for the cause, man: Holy Progress.

Short of major reform of the Federal Reserve, all the talk of returning to  constitutional government is just so much Tea Party dreaming. It’s ultimately about the frogskins ($).

The other point here is that the SCOTUS, in the case of rejection, probably would want to exercise enough restraint to halt ObamaCare while not jeopardizing any of the rest of the Progressive project. As a conservative, I think it’s all false, and the entitlement sophistries should be clubbed down in the baby seal fashion. By which I really mean we should have the shortest politically feasible transition plan off of the dependent mindset.

Update: the silly WR Meade:

But even if the Supreme Court doesn’t pull the trigger and kill the law in June, the darn thing won’t fly. The public hates it, and the longer it’s on the books the less popular it gets. This isn’t like Social Security, a program the public fell in love with early on and still cherishes today.

Cherish? My dad, just in zone, says “Well, if they had just run it the way it was originally intended. . .” When, ever, has that occurred?
Our Federal Constitution was enacted to tackle multi-state and international challenges. If DC ever knows about any individuals that are not employees, it has over-achieved.

Update: linked at Dyspepsia Generation

Category: Uncategorized

LIVE AT FIVE (CDT) – 03.30.12

Posted on | March 30, 2012 | 6 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Live at Five will return Wednesday, April 3.


Thread is open for comments. Behave yourselves.

Category: Live at Five

I Write for Money

Posted on | March 30, 2012 | 89 Comments

When I quit the blog Thursday morning, some people attempted to persuade me to reconsider — and I resented their efforts.

If I am not a fit judge of whether this enterprise has succeeded or failed, I am a fool. Why would anyone want to read a man who is both a fool, and an acknowledged failure? To ask me to continue my ritual ordeal of public humiliation by the Friends of Tabitha Club was to impugn my judgment that I had already suffered more than anyone should be expected to tolerate.

So my friend Dan Collins just pissed me off by arguing for my return.

What no one can seem to understand is that the value of this blog as a commerical enterprise was damaged by Tabitha’s decision in 2010 that the author of “How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year” had nothing to say about blogging that anyone might want to hear.

Someone today suggested that I should be sensitive to Tabitha’s feelings. While she is attempting to put me out of business? Seeking to impair my livelihood and destroy my professional career?

When, in September 2010, I wrote “Where All the Important Bloggers Will Be,” Tabitha was put on notice that I resented my exclusion. Despite her public advertisement of my unworthiness, I was persuaded by my friend Chris Renner to attend the inaugural BlogCon. I suppose that this seeming acceptance of my initial humiliation was what emboldened Tabitha to insult me again in October 2011 (“Major National Gathering of Conservative Bloggers Will Include Everyone But Me“), and I resolved then not to attend an event where I was obviously so unwelcome.

So when the Friends of Tabitha Club announced its 2012 agenda, and my various friends began celebrating their acceptance into the club, it did not particularly improve my mood, already darkened by the evident popularity of the “Roll Over for Romney” movement.

Am I the only one who perceives that my lack of influence — my inability to persuade others to resist Romney — might be correlated to my persona non grata status with FreedomWorks and the Franklin Center?

This is what is being missed by those who have interpreted this as a mere personal spat: Tabitha Hale acts under authority of major conservative non-profit organizations, so that the donors, executives and board members of those organizations are all united in officially endorsing Tabitha’s judgment that I am unworthy of notice. It is they who have assigned her to mock me:

Am I to be publicly insulted, and take no notice of it? Is this how the Franklin Center expects Tabitha Hale to promote “citizen journalism”?

If I am a person of such trivial insignificance in the political blogosphere that not once in the past three years have I done anything to merit inclusion in the BlogCon agenda, why should anyone pay attention to what I have written about the 2012 presidential campaign — or anything else, for that matter?

Such are the thoughts that have troubled me.

Nevertheless, as I have always proudly proclaimed, I write for money, and you may thank two readers (one in Elmhurst, Illinois, and another in El Cerrito, California) for hitting the tip jar, burdening me with the sense that further services are due.

This is not my choice, and I continue under protest that nothing good is likely to come of it, yet continue I will.





Category: Blogging

Rutherford B. Hayes Responds To Pelosi

Posted on | March 29, 2012 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

On the topic of Bobby Rush beclowning himself:

On the topic of writing ObamaCare Constitutionally:

“I’m a supporter of judicial review, I honor the Constitution in that regard,” Pelosi said to reporters. “That’s why we wrote our bill in a way that was Constitutional. I still feel pretty confident about it. And if and when — this game is not over. In March Madness, what happens when your team doesn’t win one — well wait a minute, let’s have the game.”

Many thanks to Political Clown Parade!

Update: linked by That Mr. G Guy.

Category: Democrats, Health Care

I Can Tell You It Smells Like Joy

Posted on | March 29, 2012 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

No one’s complaining about the seating arrangements in this photo.

Category: Uncategorized

Forget WI Lt. Gov. Kleefisch: She May Be A ‘Man With Breasts’

Posted on | March 29, 2012 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

Via Breitbart, Michelle Malkin reports:

The outlook for the unhinged Left’s secondary targets, however, is not so bright. Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, a tea party candidate who is not part of the GOP establishment, is being treated as collateral damage by the party. Outside of Wisconsin, most conservative activists are not even aware that she may be booted from office for simply doing her job. Kleefisch told me that on a recent fundraising swing in D.C., national GOP leaders were shocked to learn of her plight.
While Democratic femme-a-gogues continue their plaintive wailing about a “war on women,” Kleefisch has battled vile misogyny from liberal detractors. When lefty Wisconsin radio host John “Sly” Sylvester accused Kleefisch of performing “fellatio on all the talk-show hosts in Milwaukee” and sneered that she had “pulled a train” (a crude phrase for gang sex), feminists remained silent.

From The Blaze comes word of new-tone failure PA State Rep. Babette Josephs:

The controversial “Women’s Right to Know” bill under consideration in Pennsylvania would require that a woman have an ultrasound before being permitted to have an abortion. The notion has so enraged Democratic State Rep. Babette Josephs that she has openly lashed out at Republican women who support the measure.
At a rally on Monday, Josephs wondered aloud if the women who had co-sponsored the contentious bill were simply ”men with breasts.”

Perhaps the shabby treatment of women in politics is some left-handed indicator that they have ‘arrived’. But do politics have to go all Alinsky, and be an exercise in misogyny and misanthropy?

More to the point, are conservatives going to let Wisconsin turn into a full-on debacle?

Update: more at Granite Grok.

Category: Uncategorized
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