The Other McCain

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

Possible T-Shirt Slogan?

Posted on | July 23, 2011 | 28 Comments

When I Tweeted that out this afternoon, I’d just done a minor rattle of the tip jar in my Oslo update, which brought responses from three readers: Mike in Ardmore, Stephen in Texas and Richard in Missouri.

That’s three Good People, out of more than 9,000 visits Saturday. Of course, many others have hit the tip jar at least once over the past three years, thereby permanently exempting themselves from the category of Ungrateful Sons of Bitches Who Never Hit a Blogger’s Tip Jar.

This little experiment in reader-supported journalism has been remarkably successful, but there are occasional moments of frustration: Nine hours of aggregation Friday, with more than 14,000 visits and — counting Richard in Cohocton who hit the tip jar yesterday — that makes exactly four readers who’ve hit the tip jar, out of some 23,000 visits in two days.

Lots of Ungrateful Sons of Bitches out there, y’see.

But here’s their chance to redeem themselves: Our buddy Pete Da Tech Guy finds himself about $1,800 short this month. He’s raised more than $600 in two days, and still $1,200 to go.

I gave Pete $10 myself — he wouldn’t be asking if he didn’t need it — so thanks in advance to the Good People who I know are going to help Pete in his hour of need, and to hell with the Ungrateful Sons of Bitches.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds is not an Ungrateful Son of a Bitch.

UPDATE II: Joel in Nebraska is a Good Person who hit my tip jar while I was writing this post, and so I went and hit Da Tech Guy’s tip jar for another $10. C’mon, Good People!

UPDATE III: The list of Good People grows longer: Pete reports he got another $600+ overnight and has been busy writing thank-you e-mails. Just another $500 to go.

UPDATE IV: Now, thanking my own tip-jar hitters: Peter in Wisconsin, John in Annapolis, Philip in Englewood, Krista in North Carolina, Ross in Lakeland, Peter in Tennessee, Chris in Texas, William in Iowa and — as always — Jeff in Walla Walla.

Special message for Kevin in New Hampshire: I’d love to take you up on the offer to let me crash on your sofa when I come up to cover the primary campaign, but when I replied to the e-mail address on your donation, it bounced back. Please send me an e-mail!

Ask any blogger: Revenue from other sources — and we’re still seeking an Amazon buyer for that $120,000 7-carat diamond ring  — is deeply appreciated, but nothing in the world is so encouraging as that “Notification of Donation Received” e-mail from PayPal. Every $10 or $20 helps and some of the Good People send much more than that. (You know who you are.)

Some of y’all saw my response Friday to John Hawkins’s “Death of Blogging” post. As I said, my previous attempts to reply had been interrupted by the need to report breaking news, and I just took a moment out of my nine hours of aggregation on the Oslo bombing to dash off a quick reply Friday.

What I said to John was that, despite all discouragement — e.g., the idiocy of the GOP Establishment — the main problem isn’t a failure to attract readers (we’re doing OK in that regard), but rather “the damnable and eternal problem of monetization.” And then, just about the time I’d rattled my own tip-jar Saturday, I learned to my horror that Pete Da Tech Guy was $1,800 short.

How can I expect readers to encourage a wretched sinner like me, when a nice guy like Pete’s hurting so bad?

Here’s the really galling fact: During the 2010 election cycle, the major Republican Party national committees (RNC, NRSC, NRCC) raised $589.6 million. Averaged over the 24 months of the two-year election cycle, that’s more than $24 million per month.

A mere 1% of that total would be $245,667. And with a quarter-million bucks a month, you could pay $1,800 monthly to 136 bloggers.

Now, $1,800 a month is only $21,600 a year — scarcely a lucrative income — but what would that kind of money mean to a lot of those who are blogging part-time?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting that the GOP put conservative bloggers on their payroll. (That would tend to impede our ability to call them idiots when they screw up, which they so often do.) Rather, what I am expressing is my frustration that Republican donors — people who are giving more than $24 millon a month to the official GOP — can’t see the value of providing a small measure of support to the conservative blogosphere. That’s just shameful.

OK, so much for griping. Last time I grumbled like this, it gave James Wolcott a reason to gloat, and we wouldn’t want that to happen again.

Go hit Da Tech Guy’s tip jar!

Category: Da Tech Guy

CAIR Loves ‘Em Some LGF: ‘Glad to See That Chaz Is Now Marketing the Caliphate’

Posted on | July 23, 2011 | 27 Comments

Doug Ross: “It’s come to this: CAIR now tweeting links to LGF.”

“Breivik was deeply involved in the ‘counter-jihad’ blogosphere and UK far right groups . . . Breivik boasted online of his discussions with the English Defence League (the anti-Muslim group praised and supported by US bloggers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller), and with ‘Stop the Islamisation of Europe’ — the European branch of Pamela Geller’s ‘Stop the Islamization of America’ (listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center).”

Johnson’s dhimmi-fication could not be more complete if he joined the Gaza flotilla and composed a jazz-guitar anthem, “Ode to St. Pancake.” The fact that he’s citing the SPLC and getting re-Tweeted by CAIR pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

Of course, tu quoque: “Norway Shooter a Charles Johnson Fan,” Pamela Geller says, and she also notes that Oslo massacre suspect Anders Behring Breivk had been rejected from Stop Islamicization of Europe, as SIOE’s founder told Reuters.

Pamela further notes — and screen-caps, in case CJ tries to put it down the memory hole — Johnson’s own comment (about 11:30 a.m. PT/2:30 p.m. ET Friday):

“The simultaneous attacks sound like Al Qaeda to me, as does the scale of the bombing.”

And that was after some witnesses had already been quoted in the press saying the Utoya shooter was blond. Read more

Category: Atlas Shrugs, Charles Johnson, Doug Ross, Norway, Terrorism

Obligatory Hollywood Teen Bride and ‘OMG! Bristol Palin! Scandal!’ Blogging

Posted on | July 23, 2011 | 17 Comments

Don’t know about you, but two days of blogging about Norwegian terror attacks exceeds my recommended dosage. It’s time to get get back to blogging about real news.

And by “real news,” of course I mean teen sex scandals.

You might have thought this morning’s post about Rep. David Wu (D-Oregon) would have filled the teen sex scandal news quota. However, as everyone knows, it’s not an actual scandal for a teenager to be sexually assaulted by a congressman if (a) he’s a Democrat and (b) she’s the daughter of a major campaign contributor.

So that’s not exactly what we call “news.” Dog bites man.

Sex is always scandalous, however, when it involves a Republican, which is why Bristol Palin went on the “Dr. Drew” show to talk about losing her virginity to Levi Johnston while drunk on wine coolers:

“Instead of waking up in his arms, I awakened in the cold tent, alone. . . . That was the first of many bad decisions to come.”

Where I come from, the only reason any young fellow ever buys wine coolers is if he’s trying to have sex with a teenage girl. It’s almost like a redneck cultural tradition, a rite of passage or something.

So, once again: Dog bites man. Not exactly “news.”

Moving on, then, we find Hollywood teen bride Courtney Stodden and her 51-year-old husband appearing on the “Father Albert Show,” and the host asks her about her future plans:

Father Albert: “College? Continuing education?”
Courtney: “He’s my college! He’s my acting coach! I have this built-in acting coach right here. How many girls . . . that’s their dream, y’know? And I fell in love with my dream!”

Maybe Glenn Reynolds would consider this as Courtney helping fight the “higher education bubble.” Or maybe not.

Finally, we find famed “momblogger” Danielle Smith addressing the Courtney Stodden scandal:

“So we’re going to go ahead and file this into the ‘Are You Kidding Me?’ category. . . . I’m not one for objecting, generally speaking, to age gaps in marriage. You could fall in love with someone who’s 15 or 20 years younger than you. My objection comes with the age of one of the parties: Sixteen years old — 16!”

OK, ma’am. Objection registered. But let’s ask a hypothetical question: Suppose that your daughter was determined to have sex at age 16. Given the choice, would you rather her first time be . . .

A. Drunk on wine coolers in a pup tent with Levi Johnston, or
B. On her wedding night, in a luxury hotel suite, with her movie star husband.

Just a hypothetical, but if you want my advice, I’d say if you don’t want your 16-year-old daughters having sex, keep them away from movie stars, Democratic congressmen and teenage boys with wine coolers.

Movie stars and Democratic congressmen are kind of rare.

But those teenage boys with wine coolers? They’re everywhere.

Category: Bristol Palin, Celebrities, Scandal, Sex

FAA Shutdown Goes Mostly Unnoticed; Really Futile And Stupid Gesture Required

Posted on | July 23, 2011 | 2 Comments

by Smitty (h/t Instapundit)

The partial FAA shutdown was about as effective as an Obama Administration budget negotiation. Desperate times, lads. My recommendation: up the ante. Load-shed the entire Transportation Safety Administration. That’ll get some attention. We all sort of know it was about as useful as a punctured prophylactic, anyway.
No offense to the sincere people who were doing what they felt paid to do. It’s just time to admit that the TSA dog didn’t hunt.

Update: linked at The Camp of the Saints.

Category: Uncategorized

A: Have You Considered Tendering Your Resignation, Sir?

Posted on | July 23, 2011 | 28 Comments

by Smitty (via Memeorandum)

“Obama: Can They Say Yes to Anything?”

Gerard noted this great typo, figures that the phrase ‘Hope and Change‘ may have engendered a reassignment of meaning as a result of the debt limit negotiations:

“I’ve been left at the alter now a couple of times,” Obama said of the talks with Boehner.

I don’t know the age of that typo, but it’s still in place as I write this, a day later. Bwahaha. Back to the Atlantic:

The president spoke at an unannounced appearance in the White House briefing room shortly after Boehner informed his Republicans colleagues that he was pulling out of negotiations to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling in an agreement to cut spending, overhaul the tax code and avert a government default.

“It is hard to understand why Speaker Boehner would walk away from this kind of deal,” Obama said. “Can they say yes to anything?”

With the clock ticking down toward a potential national default, both sides quickly blamed the other.

“I want them here at 11 a.m. tomorrow,” Obama said sternly. “We have run out of time and they are going to have to explain to me how we’re going to avoid a default.”

Sure, Mr. President: want in one hand; your administration in the other. See which is more fragrant next Autumn, sir.
One simply does not see how this ends well for BHO. The Left has to figure out Real Soon Now whether the WamperDyne Extreme 2008 Propaganda Crapflooder that BHO rode to electoral triumph has enough mileage remaining for a repeat performance. As noted elsewhere, I think the answer is not only a firm negative, but the rest of the shenanigans of this administration are of such a stench that something like a medical retirement, or a high drama exit over the debt limit, replete with accusatory finger-waving at the GOP, seems increasingly likely.
How much dread can we have of a Biden Administration, however brief? Seriously. The state of U.S. foreign policy, like that of domestic, could best be summarized as: shambles. Biden at least affords occasional comic relief.
To paraphrase Monty Python: “Bring out your Joe! Bring out your Joe-oh!”

Other reactions:
Adrienne’s Corner compares BHO to Captain Queeg, inviting the question: why do you hate Bogart?

Category: Barack Obama

Death Toll Now Reported at 91 in Norway ‘Christian Fundamentalist’ Terror Attack UPDATE: Video Added; Gunman Posed as Policeman and Boasted, ‘I’ll Kill You All’

Posted on | July 23, 2011 | 184 Comments

The New York Times reports:

The Norwegian police on Saturday charged a 32-year-old man, whom they identified as a Christian fundamentalist with right-wing connections, over the bombing of a government center here and a shooting attack on a nearby island that together left at least 91 people dead.
The police said they did not know if the man, identified by the Norwegian media as Anders Behring Breivik, was part of a larger conspiracy. . . .
“We are not sure whether he was alone or had help,” a police official, Roger Andresen, said at a televised news conference, adding: “What we know is that he is right-wing and a Christian fundamentalist.” So far Mr. Breivik has not been linked to any anti-jihadist groups, he said. . . .
“Compared to other countries I wouldn’t say we have a big problem with right-wing extremists in Norway,” Mr. Stoltenberg told reporters at a news conference. “But we have had some groups, we have followed them before, and our police is aware that there are some right-wing groups.”

(Via Memeorandum.)

UPDATE: Details of the bloody rampage:

A GUNMAN boasted “I’ll kill you all” as he hunted teenagers on an idyllic island, shooting 84 of them dead – just two hours after he detonated at least one bomb killing seven office workers.
The home-grown terrorist showed no mercy as he used at least two guns, including a machinegun and a pistol, to massacre the teens who were enjoying a summer camp on a Norwegian island.
Posing as a policeman, Right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik beckoned people towards him on the Utoya Island and without warning pulled weapons from a bag and opened fire. . . .
The killer continued his carnage for up to two hours, hunting down teens and adults on the island and chasing them into the icy waters as he fired on them, killing at least 84. Some pretended to be dead, but Breivik returned to some victims to shoot them again with a second weapon. . . .
Breivik, 32, was described as a “madman” and was thought to have acted alone, targeting Norway’s ruling Labour Party. The party’s youth wing had organised the summer camp.

UPDATE II: Video news report from Britain’s SkyNews:

UPDATE III: Now that I’ve got you up-to-date on the latest news, while we wait to learn the identities of the victims and everyone is still absorbing the horror of this atrocity, let me turn aside to address some of the political blowback. Read more

Category: Conspiracy Theories, Michelle Malkin, Norway, Religion, Terrorism

Democrat Sex Scandal: Teen Accuses Oregon Congressman David Wu

Posted on | July 23, 2011 | 20 Comments

Several of Democrat Rep. David Wu’s staffers quit his re-election campaign last year amid reports that the Oregon congressman was behaving erratically. Now a teenage girl — a recent high-school graduate who is the daughter of one of the congressman’s friends — has reportedly said the 56-year-old Wu molested her last year:

A distraught young woman called U.S. Rep. David Wu’s Portland office this spring, accusing him of an unwanted sexual encounter, according to multiple sources.
When confronted, the Oregon Democrat acknowledged a sexual encounter to his senior aides but insisted it was consensual, the sources said.
The woman is the daughter of a longtime friend and campaign donor. She apparently did not contact police at the time.
One person who heard the voice mail described the woman as upset, breathing heavily and “distraught.”
In the voice mail, the young woman accused Wu of aggressive and unwanted sexual behavior, according to sources with direct knowledge of the message and its contents.
Reporters could not verify the young woman’s age. Notes on Facebook over the past 18 months indicate she graduated from high school in 2010. . . .

Read the whole thing at the Portland Oregonian. Wu’s 1st District is heavily Democrat. He won re-election last year with nearly 55% of the vote, even after his campaign practically shut down in the week before Election Day. However, re-districting this year has slightly reduced the partisan tilt of the district — from a D+8 to D+5 according to the Cook Report — and if Wu was brought down by a sex scandal, Republicans might have a shot at winning a special election.

(Via Memeorandum.)

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin:

When last I wrote about the bizarre behavior of Democrat Rep. David Wu of Oregon, it was February of this year.
I said he needed a Democrat leadership intervention after he freaked out his staff . . . and engaged in other inexplicable antics. As I noted, Wu’s behavior has caused Capitol Hill concern dating back to 2003. But none of the swamp-draining Democrat leaders bothered to do anything about it. And Wu went on a national media tour asserting he can continue to hold office.

We can blame this on the failure of national media to regard Wu’s mental illness — he is both liberal and insane, if you’ll pardon the redundancy — as a serious issue. Every “gaffe” by Michele Bachmann or Allen West instantly becomes Big News, thanks to what Andrew Breitbart calls the “Democrat-Media Complex,” while here we have a Democratic congressman having a quite public nervous breakdown and the media have almost completely ignored it for months, if not indeed for years.

Dan Collins at The Conservatory says Wu “should be in a mental institution, but Congress will have to do for now.”

Don Surber links and calls me “the relentlessly interesting Robert Stacy McCain,” although I hasten to add that I’m not “interesting” in a Wu-like way.

Crazy, yes, but not that kind of crazy.

Well, OK, there was that unfortunate psilocybin-induced freakout incident when I was a sophomore in college. but (a) it was the ’70s, man, and (b) I was a Democrat then.

Just Say No, kids.


Category: Congress, Oregon, Scandal, Sex

The United Nations: Time To Eject?

Posted on | July 22, 2011 | 28 Comments

by Smitty

PJTV still doesn’t provide embed code, but watch this interview with Larry Greenfield of the American Freedom Alliance:

Is It Time for the US to Quit the UN?

It’s great to see the issues summarized so succinctly and cleanly. My opinion is that the UN is slightly better than no UN. How, precisely, we articulate a consistent position between Team America, World Police on the one hand and Isolationism on the other extreme is the priceless question.
More subtle than that is the question of how we get along nicely with other cultures whose notion of liberty means submission to an ideology. These paradoxes just don’t generally resolve, alas.

Category: Uncategorized
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