The Other McCain

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

Could You ‘Never Forget’ Folks Choose Not To Remember Until, Say, Feb 2013?

Posted on | September 15, 2011 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

Drudge’s headline puts the question front and center:But is this phenomenon just Jewish? Is there any constiuency that still thinks the dampness on their back is rain?

Without drawing any line connecting the dots between this century and the last, one wonders to what degree the leadership of other communities, as a sin of omission, let ‘things’ go too far?

Enough of that. Let us be positive. The citizens of the U.S. are in at least the early stages of coming to grips with the wreckage of Progressivism. The ones arguing against liberty are fairly well-known crapflooders. We just have to be willing to return government to its proper, Constitutional role of managing events occuring above State level (i.e. federal), and emancipate the people from the Progressive noose about the neck, hand in the wallet, crap in the culture. Yes, there is some cruft that’s built up during the decades of federal over-reach, but: is it self-justifying? Can we look at that debt and say it was worth it? Does a tradition of economic folly since FDR somehow lock us into perpetuating the folly?

These are the sorts of things I hope go through the minds of the leaders of every constituency that supported BHO in ’08. Don’t let me do more than encourage you both to think and to vote.

Shifting the topic slightly, Zycher is worth quoting:

Class warfare is not pretty, and I see little evidence that it works politically, but there is a more fundamental issue that arises in the wake of the president’s ongoing demonization of millionaires, billionaires, oil companies, owners of private jets, ad infinitum. To wit: The constitution — the basis for the preservation of American liberty — is antidemocratic, that is, it is structured to defend unpopular minorities against the whims and passions of political majorities. No public official, far less the president of the United States, can campaign against unpopular groups that have broken no law, without undermining the fundamental principle that the rule of law shall prevail over political lynch mobs, and that the rights of the least popular or powerful are an essential component of the rights of all. This general point seems rather obvious, and I am surely not the first to make it. But I have not seen it elsewhere, perhaps because I have failed to look in the right places.

The other aspect of class warfare is that it runs contrary to the idea of private property. I’ve no interest in your wallet. I may be a little less materialistic about my wallet than some, but this is not an open invitation to pilferage. The Tenth Commandment about not coveting should answer the mail for those of any serious Judaism or Christianity, as far as I can tell.

Category: Uncategorized

James Carville Brings The Funny

Posted on | September 15, 2011 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

Carville at CNN says that the White House should panic, emphasis mine:

2. Indict people. There are certain people in American finance who haven’t been held responsible for utterly ruining the economic fabric of our country. Demand from the attorney general a clear status of the state of investigation concerning these extraordinary injustices imposed upon the American people. I know Attorney General Eric Holder is a close friend of yours, but if his explanations aren’t good, fire him too. Demand answers to why no one has been indicted.

Mr. President, people are livid. Tell people that you, too, are angry and sickened by the irresponsible actions on Wall Street that caused so much suffering. Do not accept excuses. Demand action now.

Carville writes as though this were some traditional political problem. As though BHO wasn’t well aware of what’s afoot. As though putting any pressure on Holder wouldn’t bring the Administration crashing down with a dull, rotten-wood thump. RTWT.

Category: Barack Obama

The Todd Palin Legal Defense Fund

Posted on | September 15, 2011 | 147 Comments

Todd Palin helps his wife sign autographs after her Sept. 5 rally
in Manchester, N.H. (Photo by Peter Ingemi.)

A source who doesn’t need to hide behind a cloak of anonymity:

“This is a man who has been relentlessly stalking my family to the point of moving in right next door to us to harass us and spy on us to satisfy his creepy obsession with my wife. His book is full of disgusting lies, innuendo, and smears. Even The New York Times called this book ‘dated, petty,’ and [said] that it ‘chases caustic, unsubstantiated gossip.’”
— Todd Palin

During my trip to Wasilla last year, I told Todd Palin that if he had shot Levi Johnston, no jury in the world would have convicted him, and his wife’s poll numbers would have gone up.

Our conversation was informal and off-the-record, so readers are left to imagine Todd’s reaction, but certainly the Palins can’t be held responsible for every crazy thing a journalist says. (It was, after all, merely a hypothetical.) And neither can the Palins be blamed for what I’m suggesting now.

Joe McGinniss deserves The Mother of All Ass-Whuppings, and Todd Palin ought to give him exactly what he deserves.

So I’m asking readers to go make a $25 donation to SarahPAC to help defray Todd’s legal expenses when he shows up at McGinniss’s first book signing and pounds that scurvy worm into a bloody pulp.

Please give $25 to SarahPAC, so that we can bail Todd Palin out on that assault charge — and then fly him to the next Joe McGinniss book signing to deliver yet another brutal ass-whupping.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Just give $25 to SarahPAC, you see, and we’ll cover Todd Palin’s legal expenses and fly him to wherever Joe McGinniss appears in public, turning McGinniss’s book tour into a nationwide beatdown tour.

After McGinniss gets out of the hospital from his first ass-whupping, he’ll probably get a restraining order against Todd. Still, Random House will be forced to hire armed security to protect Creepy Joe because, hey, what’s a restraining order to an insulted husband who’s got thousands of loyal supporters donating $25 each to cover his legal expenses?

Bonus suggestion: Sarah PAC should hire a documentary crew to chronicle Todd Palin’s “One Nation Joe McGinniss Ass-Whupping Tour.”

Proceeds from sales of the DVD would go to defray Joe McGinniss’s medical bills. “Compassionate conservatism” and all that.

TODD PALIN FOR FIRST DUDE
Because Once His Wife Is President, He Can Start
Whupping Asses in the White House Press Corps

UPDATE: Linked by Da Tech Guy, God’s Own Crunk, Republican Redefined and Jay Tea at Wizbang — thanks!

Meanwhile, dismayed by the number of commenters who think I’m (merely) joking: TODD PALIN DEFENSE FUND UPDATE!

Category: Media Bias, Sarah Palin

Somebody’s Taking My Advice?

Posted on | September 15, 2011 | 12 Comments

One hesitates to presume influence, especially when what one advises is just common-sense stuff that seems obvious. So yesterday I wrote that Republicans should “relentelessly expose the Solyndra scandal” and added:

GOP presidential candidates can help maximize the impact of exposure by making Solyndra the focus of their attacks on the incumbent’s policy agenda. We ought to hear the phrase “Solyndra scandal” in every stump speech, every press release and every Republican debate.

And that post ended with the suggestion that readers “e-mail it to your favorite local or national talk radio host, or Republican presidential candidates.” And about three hours later . . .

Joining GE in the pantheon on crony capitalism is another Obama favorite that has been in the news of late: Solyndra. The President hailed this “green energy” company in a speech last May as “the true engine of economic growth.” When he announced the $535 million guarantee to Solyndra, Vice President Biden said that investments like this are “exactly what the Recovery Act is all about.” (Dear God…If the failed Solyndra venture has been what it’s “all about,” then that explains a lot.) As I pointed out in my speech at the Reagan Ranch Center last February: “History has proven again and again, when government picks the winners and losers, we’re stuck with the losers, and we the taxpayers subsidize failure!” And that’s what we’re seeing now, as the FBI raids the solar energy company’s headquarters to glean more information after the company was handed half a billion dollars in “green energy” Stimulus funds from the American taxpayer only to later declare bankruptcy. More than one thousand Solyndra workers lost their jobs. Now as the truth comes out, we discover that the White House was heavily involved in the Department of Energy’s rushed decision to give the Stimulus funds to Solyndra, and they tried to move the money through so quickly they seem to have ignored concerns that the company was not viable. Why would they do this? Perhaps it’s because a large investor in the company (about 35%) is Obama campaign bundler George Kaiser. And with the way the deal is structured, Kaiser will get his debts paid before we the taxpayers see any relief. That is sickening. And that’s how it works: workers lose their jobs, wealthy political cronies stand a good chance of getting their money back, and the U.S. taxpayer gets the shaft. Again. . . .

You can read the whole thing. My silly suggestion that it was inspired by a blog post here was meant for laughs. Like I said, it’s common-sense stuff that seems obvious. So maybe this is just one of those “great minds think alike” situations. But remember that my advice was offered to “GOP presidential candidates,” which means . . .?

Category: Barack Obama, Corruption, Sarah Palin

AttackWatch: HR2911 Thugs The Title ‘American Jobs Act’

Posted on | September 15, 2011 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert, in a nearly IowaHawkean bout of tee-hee-hee,

President Obama repeatedly asked members of Congress to pass the American Jobs Act last week. But when no Democrat filed Obama’s bill after he presented it to Congress, a conservative congressman swiped the name for his own legislation.

See, if you were to have somebody submit the legislation first, things like this may not happen. Alternative titles for the President’s legislation:

  1. The Steamer, Formerly Known As The American Jobs Act
  2. S^*t My Union Owner Says
  3. @AttackWatch Bait

In related Texan news,
Whoops! Looks like I was scooped by The Lonely Conservative.

Oh, and the AttackWatch dead pool? It’s a late Friday afternoon data dump on the way to the bar.

Update: linked at Daily Pundit.

Update II: Surber-lanche!

Category: Uncategorized

LIVE AT FIVE – 09.15.11

Posted on | September 15, 2011 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Obama Pushes Jobs Plan As Good For Hispanics

President Obama brandishes recycled ideas, paper in Rose Garden

Makes pitch during Congressional Hispanic Caucus awards gala, gets polite applause

House To Vote On Bill Targeting NLRB
Bill would bar NLRB from forbidding relocations or shutting down plants

GOP Wins In Special Elections Sound A Warning
House Dems seriously worried about re-election prospects in 2012



POLITICS
WaPo, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Push Perry Crony Capitalism Line

Texas Governor Rick Perry

AP article claims governor supplemented salary with legal (though ethically questionable!) deals

Mass. House OKs Casino Bill

Obama Debt Plan Spares Social Security



Judge Orders End To Tacoma Teachers Strike

Underwear Bomber Cops Attitude In Court

Florida SAT Participation Up, Scores Down

In Tucson Stop, Romney Calls Obama Clueless On Economy

Former Wyoming Senator Malcolm Wallop Dies, 78



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
UBS Loses $2 Billion To Rogue Trader
European Stocks Seen Higher On Greek Hopes
Groupon Back On Track For IPO
Administration Looking To Pour More Money Into Questionable Solar Companies
Foreclosures Post Increase In August
Oil Declines On Lack Of Demand, Increased Stockpiles In US
Google Buys Over A Thousand Patents From IBM
Intel’s Haswell Chip Completes Ultrabook Revolution
Facebook Rolls Out New Features
Microsoft Confirms XBox Live Coming To Windows 8
Apple Withdraws “Jew Or Not Jew” App In France



SPORTS
Halladay Leads Phillies To Playoffs With Shutout

Phillies celebrate 1-0 win over Astros last night

1-0 win puts NL East champs in the playoffs again

NBA Players Union Facing Not Just Owners But Also Agents

Delabar, Rodriguez Key In Mariners’ 2-1 Win Over Yanks



Fielder Says This Is His Last Season With Brewers

Trial To Settle McCourt Divorce, Dodgers Ownership On Hold Until Next Year

Snakes Fall To Dodgers In Season Finale, 3-2

Pirates Clinch 19th Straight Losing Season With Loss To Cardinals

Nats’ Bullpen Holds On To Earn First Win For Peacock As Mets Fail, 2-0



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Scarlett Johnson Taps FBI In Nude Photo Leak

Scarlett Johansson, obviously not nude

Mila Kunis’ mobile also hacked, lawyers & FBI already on the case. It’s a good day to be a G-man. 🙂

More Stupid “Real Housewives” Drama, This Time Involving Journey

Kirstie Alley Drops 100 Pounds

The Other Olsen Sister

Charlie Sheen: I’m “Absolutely” Sober Now

Cameron Diaz, Alex Rodriguez Split

Nicolas Cage Awoken By Naked Man With Fudgesicle

Jerk From “Jersey Shore” Blocks Handicapped Spot

Jay-Z’s Child With Beyonce Not His First

Jennifer Garner, A Pro In Heels

Disney Star Brenda Song Not Pregnant, Says Mom



FOREIGNERS
Islamabad Blows Off US Warnings On “Pakistan-Based” Militants
Sarkozy, Cameron To Visit Libya
Iraqi Envoy: Us Prisoners To Be Freed Soon From Iran With Talabani Help
Russia’s Kremlin-Friendly Business Party In Chaos
Teams Eschew Politics As Israeli Maccabee Tel Aviv Plays Season Opener Against Besiktas In Istanbul
Denmark Goes To Polls As Economy Falters
Colombia’s Spy Scandal Turns Former President Uribe Against Former Ally Santos



BLOGS & STUFF
Howie Carr: Massachusetts Fights Its Own Warren Terror
Weasel Zippers: Rep. Louie Gohmert Nabs Name “American Jobs Act” After No Democrat Files Bill For Obama
Allahpundit: Gohmert’s One-Line Jobs Act Calls For Complete Repeal Of Corporare Taxes
Liz Flock: New Obama Campaign Site To “Fight Smears” Becomes Laughingstock Of Internet
Legal Insurrection: #Attackwatch Tweets Of The Day
Sarah Palin: Crony Capitalism On Steroids From GE To Solyndra
Lonely Conservative: Nothing Like Politicizing A Personal Tragedy
NRO Corner: Perry Lassos Old Dominion, Cozies Up To McDonnell
Michelle Malkin: Fast & Furious Update – Three More Deaths Tied To Gunwalker
Jawa Report: In The Future, Ranting About Your Local Drug Lord On Facebook Will Seem Like A Bad Idea
Proof Positive: Stripper Lawyer Raises The Bar
Troglopundit: Dammit, Somebody Leaked The Genius Plan To Beat Obama In 2012 To Mother Jones!
Peter Wehner: Has Obama Learned Anything?
ZeroHedge: Blast From Paul Krugman’s Past – “Social Security Is A Ponzi Scheme And Will Soon Be Over”


SOTD: Slave To The Grind

Category: Live at Five

The Recklessness of Joe McGinniss

Posted on | September 14, 2011 | 21 Comments

Having already discussed his unspeakably vile “Jungle Fever” smear on Sarah Palin, now we learn — via Ace of Spades — that McGinniss expended considerable effort pursuing a story that depicted her father Chuck Heath as having created “a lynch mob mentality.”

Rob Port at Say Anything was contacted by McGinniss because Port’s father was an Alaska State Trooper involved in the investigation of a case where a school teacher molested several girls. The school board fired the principal of the school for failing to take action after receiving accusations against the teacher. Chuck Heath, himself a teacher and evidently a friend of the principal, felt that the principal got a raw deal and protested against the career-destroying termination.

When Rob Port declined to discuss the case (Rob’s father remains good friends with Chuck Heath and the Palin family) McGinniss then forwarded to Rob someone else’s e-mail account of the controversy that including the “lynch mob” accusation, as well as the claim that “Chuck Heath resorted to violence — death threats, veiled threats, verbal violence, the complete disregard for the welfare of the affected children — against board members (women only) who were trying to protect the children of the district.”

McGinniss then told Port that, unless his father was willing to give his side of the story, he would “have to pay attention” to that “version of events.” (Rob has posted the e-mail exchange in PDF form.)

Now, what McGinniss is doing here is a familiar reporting trick, using information gathered from one source as leverage to get further information from another source. But the way he’s going about is reckless and irresponsible. By transmitting a lengthy written account of this story from someone he says was “deeply involved” in the controversy, McGinniss risks exposing his source’s identity. He further runs the risk of a defamation accusation, by transmitting to a third party an accusation against Chuck Heath made to him by his original source.

McGinniss’s publisher will certainly have a lawyer go over his manuscript to ensure that it doesn’t put the publisher at risk of a libel claim. But I guaran-damn-tee you any competent lawyer would have a screaming fit to know that McGinniss had e-mailed to someone else this “lynch mob” story about Chuck Heath. Such things are not done.

Let me explain with a hypothetical example:

Suppose that someone tells me that Joe McGinniss has a habit of purchasing stray cats at the local animal shelter and then ritually torturing the cats to death. Now, if I want to pursue an article about Cat-Killer McGinniss, I can contact the animal shelter and ask if, indeed, he’s made multiple purchases of stray cats. But if the clerk at the animal shelter asks why I want to know this, I can’t tell the clerk about the allegations that McGinniss has inflicted heinous torture on the poor creatures at the Satanic altar in his basement. Because to repeat such unsubstantiated accusations might put me at risk of a slander suit.

OK, so I go down to the county courthouse and try to look up police reports, to see if maybe Joe McGinniss’s neighbors have filed any nuisance complaints about the pitiful howls of stray cats being hideously mutilated during the midnight coven gatherings where McGinniss and his fellow Servants of Darkness offer their bloody ritual homage to Beelzbub. But if the court clerk asks me why I’m searching the archives, I can’t say, “Oh, just trying to find the documentation of the ghastly crimes committed by Joe McGinniss, the Satanic Cat Torturer.” Again, this would put me at risk of a slander suit.

Perhaps the layman might say to a professional journalist in such a (hypothetical) situation, “Why not just start out by asking McGinniss himself if the accusations are true?” And my answer would be, “Of course, he’d deny it. Satanic cat-killers are all notorious liars.” Besides, asking McGinniss himself would tip him off to the effect that someone had spilled the beans on his cult’s rituals, and he’d orchestrate a cover-up which might involve the brutal murder of anyone suspected of breaking the Servants of Darkness oath of silence.

From this hypothetical example, you see what I’m talking about. By forwarding to Rob Port that e-mail chock-full of potentially actionable defamatory statements about Chuck Heath, Joe McGinniss may have put himself in serious legal jeopardy. Beyond that, McGinniss may have compromised his source’s anonymity. If Chuck Heath is the violent lynch-mob leader the source claims, there’s nothing to stop “Lynch Mob Chuck” from putting two and two together, figuring out who this “deeply involved” source is, and then leading his posse of Wasilla thugs on a rampage of violent vengeance against the source.

Rob Port doesn’t seem to get the wild recklessness of McGinniss’s actions in this instance. Instead, Rob reaches a more mundane conclusion: “The moral of the story, though, is that McGinnis is a slime ball.”

And I wouldn’t trust him around cats. IYKWIMAITYD.

Category: Books, Journalism, Sarah Palin

Did You Know the Word ‘Miscegenation’ Was Invented by Democrats as a Smear?

Posted on | September 14, 2011 | 53 Comments

Nineteenth-century American newspapers were, in general, partisan in their politics, and the New York World was a Democrat paper. In 1863, two writers for the World, George Wakeman and David Goodman Croly, wrote a 72-page pamphlet that was published anonymously with the title, Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro.

The title term of the pamphlet was a new coinage, from the Latin words for “mix” and “race,” and the subject was decidedly inflammatory. During his 1858 debates with Democrats Stephen Douglass, Abraham Lincoln had been forced to stipulate that while he was opposed to slavery, he was not an advocate of “social equality” and certainly not in favor what that loaded phrase implied, “amalgamation” as it was then commonly termed. Republicans were very sensitive to such accusations, since even those whites who adamantly opposed slavery were in general horrifed by the thought of “amalgamation.” (Indeed, there was a strong element of white separatism in the “Free Soil” movement, and some Midwestern states had antebellum laws forbidding free blacks from settling there.)

Such was the context, then, within which the Miscegenation pamphlet was anonymously published. Though written by two Democrats, the argument was a sort of deadpan satire, written as a political hoax. The pamphlet argued in favor of interracial unions, asserting that mixed-race nations were actually superior to mono-racial nations, and put that argument into an explicitly political context:

It is idle to maintain that this present war is not a war for the negro … It is a war, if you please, of amalgamation … a war looking, as its final fruit, to the blending of the white and black… Let the war go on… until church, and state, and society recognize not only the propriety but the necessity of the fusion of the white and black—in short, until the great truth shall be declared in our public documents and announced in the messages of our Presidents, that it is desirable the white man should marry the black woman and the white woman the black man.

To further their hoax, Wakeman and  Croly sent their disingenuous pamphlet to leading abolitionists, requesting their endorsements, which some of them willingly supplied in letters. The pamphlet was also advertised in abolitionist journals, and then the authors — whose identities were not discovered until years later — sprang their trap.

They provided copies of Miscegenation and of the abolitionist letters praising the pamphlet to an Ohio Democratic congressman, who gave a February 1864 speech in Congress denouncing the pamphlet’s doctrine and its advocates, suggesting that it expressed the Republican Party’s secret radical policy goals. A month later, Horace Greeley of the Republican paper, the New York Tribune, replied to Cox’s speech in an editorial that conveyed a laissez-faire attitude toward interracial marriage. In response, the World — the Democrat paper for which the pamphlet’s anonymous authors worked — published its own editorial, declaring that “the leading Republican journal of the country is the unblushing advocate of ‘miscegenation,’ which it ranks with the highest questions of social and political philosophy.” Thus began a national controversy that continued for months. Read more

Category: Books, Democrats, History, Racism, Sarah Palin
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