The Other McCain

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

‘Mike Used Bad Judgment’: Top LAX Official Resigns in Sexting Scandal

Posted on | June 16, 2011 | 2 Comments

Little Miss Attila lives in LA and caught this interesting story:

CBS Investigative reporter David Goldstein has learned that a top LAX official has resigned his post after allegations surfaced that he was sexting and sending sexually explicit messages on his LAX-issued phone.
Goldstein tracked Michael Molina down at his house but Molina had no comment.
LAX CEO Gina Marie Lindsay confirmed the resignation to Goldstein late Wednesday afternoon. . . .
Molina was with LAX for three years. His reported salary: $192,400. . . .
Prior to working for LAX, Goldstein reports that Molina was a chief of staff for council member Janice Hahn. She told Goldstein, “Mike used bad judgment. I asked him about it and he resigned…and I can’t say more.”

So the Democrat running for Congress had a sex-texting pervert as chief of staff, and she was also the patron saint of L.A.’s gangster community.

Category: California, Scandal

BREAKING: Weiner to Resign

Posted on | June 16, 2011 | 71 Comments

It is being reported that Anthony Weiner has told Nancy Pelosi he will resign from Congress.

UPDATE: New York Times:

Representative Anthony D. Weiner has told friends that he plans to resign his seat after coming under growing pressure from his Democratic colleagues to leave the House in the wake of revelations of his lewd online exchanges with women, said a person told of Mr. Weiner’s plans.

UPDATE II: Today is the day:

NBC News confirms that Weiner called Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Rep. Steve Israel last night to inform them he had decided to resign on Thursday.

UPDATE III: “The Fall of the House of Weiner,” quoth Instapundit. From start to finish — beginning with the telltale Tweet late at night on Friday, May 27 until confirmation of Weiner’s resignation — this scandal unfolded in less than 20 days.

For the first 10 days, Weiner lied, lied, lied, and the liberals who believed Weiner were wrong, wrong, wrong, while conservatives were right, right, right. In the past 10 days, since Weiner’s June 6 press conference, liberals have tried to forget that their credulity in believing Weiner’s lies, and the idiotic conspiracy theories they proffered in his defense.

Now is the day when Jeffrey Toobin, Joan Walsh and a lot of other liberals must be called to account.

UPDATE IV: Linked by Fausta Wertz and Don Surber — thanks!

A massive Memeorandum aggregation, including a report from CNN’s Dana Bash, whose questions at an impromptu May 31 press conference with Weiner — Worst Press Conference Evah! — provided key momentum for the scandal narrative.

Nancy Pelosi is about to have a press conference in D.C.

UPDATE V: All Pelosi had to say at the press conference was that she was not going to comment on Weiner. And then . . . let’s talk about the real issues! Blah, blah, blah.

Linked by Bob Belvedere at Camp of the Saints — thanks! Moe Lane is in the Gloat Zone:

Nice job reinforcing Andrew’s reputation among the media as being somebody that the media has to take seriously, by the way.

Ed Morrissey notes a Tweet from Luke Russert: Weiner’s Capitol Hill office is shut down and his staff were seen “leaving with their belongings.”

UPDATE VI: Publius at Big Government first broke this story in the wee hours of May 28. And now Publius reports Weiner’s resignation. So it comes full circle.

Weiner will hold at 2 p.m. ET press conference today, but I’ll have to miss that. I’ll be on my way to the airport to catch my flight to Minneapolis to attend the Right Online conference, where I’ll be hanging out with Andrew Breitbart, Herman Cain, Michelle Malkin and many more.

You should hit the tip jar. Three weeks of Weiner? “Combat pay.”

UPDATE VI: Genette Cordova has deleted her Twitter account.

UPDATE VII: Da Tech Guy: “Do you remember when we were told this was a non-story and a Breitbart invention?”

PREVIOUSLY:


Category: Anthony Weiner, Congress, Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, New York, Scandal

The Dow Goes Greek

Posted on | June 16, 2011 | 11 Comments

Since late April, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost more than 850 points and fell by 178.84 Wednesday, below the 12,000 threshold. Reuters reports:

U.S. stocks tumbled on Wednesday, driven lower by escalating Greek debt woes, while troubling U.S. data pointed to further losses ahead.
Financials came under fire after Moody’s Investors Service said it may cut the credit ratings of French banks, citing exposure to Greek debt.
U.S. data showed the U.S. economy is facing a troubling mix of higher prices and weak growth. …

Here’s an Associated Press video report on the increasingly ugly situation in Greece:

And of course: UNEXPECTEDLY!

Confidence among U.S. homebuilders slumped in June to the lowest level in nine months as executives turned more pessimistic on the outlook for sales, a sign that any pickup will take time to develop. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo sentiment index unexpectedly fell to 13 from 16 in May, the biggest drop in a year, data from the Washington-based group showed today.

Category: Economics

CA-36: The Facts of the Case

Posted on | June 16, 2011 | 62 Comments

 The New York Times is on the story:

Ms. Hahn, a Los Angeles City Councilwoman and a Democrat, released a statement deeming the ad “degrading to women in the worst way.” . . .
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out a fundraising e-mail, calling for $150,000 in donations to help fight “vile right-wing attacks like these,” while Ms. Hahn, in her statement, urges supporters to “help Janice fight back with a $25, $50 or $100 donation.”

The “vile right-wing attack”? Yeah, that’s Ladd Ehlinger Jr.’s latest viral video in the CA-36 special election.

Last night on MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell and Ed Schultz both discussed it. So, when it comes to reporting on “vile right-wing attacks,” this blog is at least 36 hours ahead of the mainstream media. The Democrats are demanding an investigation:

Hahn’s campaign believes there was coordination between Huey’s campaign and Turn Right USA PAC, the group that launched the ad. The Hahn campaign is calling for a Federal Election Commission investigation into the ad . . .

Hey, geniuses: There was no coordination. You can ask Ladd Ehlinger Jr., who is on Twitter.

But once everybody is finished jumping up and down and screaming about the video, how about somebody do some reporting on Janice Hahn and LA’s “anti-gang intervention” program? Because that looks like a pretty interesting story, as you can see in this excerpt from my latest American Spectator column:

Hahn’s support for the “gang intervention” program was the subject of an investigative report by KTTV in Los Angeles in April 2008. That report focused on Steve Myrick, a member of the Crips gang who told police  he was “working with Janice Hahn” and even had a certificate of appreciation from the councilwoman for his work with a summer job program. “That’s why I’m out [of jail] right now,” Myrick told police after he was arrested on a drug charge in 2006. “Miss Hahn got me out, like, three weeks ago.” He said he violated a police order banning him from a public housing project because Hahn “sent me over there to do some work. She got me off, so it was cool.” In 2007, Myrick was sentenced to life in prison for rape.
Hahn told KTTV it was “blatantly false” that she had made “direct payments” to Myrick or other gang-intervention workers, but defended the program’s hiring of convicted criminals: “I do know that it does take a different kind of person to be able to speak the language that convinces the shooters to not retaliate…. I see it as keeping the peace in a community that has been plagued by violence.” The report also exposed the case of Brandon Bullard, another Crips gangster who told police he was paid to work on Hahn’s gang-intervention program. Hahn spoke at Bullard’s funeral after he was murdered in February 2008.
That 2008 report also named gangsters Marlon “Bow Wow” Jones and Demarco “DC” Chaffold among those who had claimed Hahn as a patron, but KTTV did not mention other notorious examples of how LA’s anti-gang efforts have funded criminality. Mexican Mafia gangster Hector “Big Weasel” Marroquin, whom federal agents of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms arrested in May 2007 on gun-trafficking charges, headed a group that received some $1.5 million in city anti-gang money. In February 2009, former Long Beach gang-intervention worker “Crazy John” Kennedy was convicted in the murder of a couple who were tied to an anchor and thrown off their yacht to drown. And in May 2009, a federal racketeering indictment named Alex “Rebelde” Sanchez as a top leader of the ultra-violent MS-13 gang. Sanchez had been one of the most high-profile gang-intervention activists in Los Angeles. . . .

Please read the whole thing. As I noted last night, some have disputed the accuracy of the KTTV report, but the larger question — Is this “gang intervention” program an effective approach to fighting violent crime? — is entirely legitimate.

Just for starters, it’s kind of hard for Hahn to deny her connection to Bullard, given that she spoke at his funeral. And it is impossible for Hahn to deny that she has spent year supporting this crazy program, even calling for a tax increase to fund its expansion.

So once you major media genius types are through recycling Democratic Party talking points about “vile right-wing attacks,” you might want to try reporting, y’know, facts and stuff.

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: American Spectator, California, Congress, Crime, Democrats

LIVE AT FIVE – 06.16.11

Posted on | June 16, 2011 | 9 Comments

TOP NEWS

US/Pakistan Security Cooperation Worst Since 2001

Pakistan's Chief of Staff, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani

Pakistani army chief Gen. Kayani facing intense pressure from the ranks to reduce ties with the US after raid on bin Laden compound

Obama Report On Libya Stokes Bipartisan Anger Over War
Administration sophistry on War Powers Act unites antiwar Democrats, Republicans in opposition to Libyan operations

Representative Giffords Released From Hospital
Will continue therapy in Houston from husband’s home on outpatient basis


Parties Clash Over Muslim Radicalization Hearings
Democrats whine about “unfair targeting” of Muslims



POLITICS
Wisconsin Unions Sue Over New Collective Bargaining Law

Protesters return to Wisconsin capitol

Suit claims law causes unequal treatment of workers

Former Mass. Speaker DiMasi Convicted In Kickback Case

Gingrich Pounces On ABC, NBC Over Hit Piece


Bachmann: Obama Has Secret Plan To End Medicare

GOP Shifting On Anti-Tax Policy, Going After Deductions?

California Drought Drives Up Energy Costs



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Euro Falls To Three-Week Low On Greek Bank Concerns
Foreclosures Fall In May Due To Processing Delays
IBM Celebrates 100th Anniversary
Indian Central Bank Raises Rates For 10th Time In 15 Months As Inflation Fight Continues
US Stocks Fall As Evidence Of Weak Economy Continues
Pandora IPO Feeds Fear Of Another Dot-Com Bubble
Citigroup: 360,000 Accounts Hacked In May
LulzSec Hacks CIA, FBI, Other Government Sites
Yahoo Releases Search Tools For iPhone, Android Apps
Wired: The Nook Nails It



SPORTS
Bruins Bring Home Ice To Vancouver, Skate Away With Stanley Cup

A long series ends badly for the Canucks' Luongo

Boston wins Game 7 and the Cup 4-0; riots erupt in Vancouver

Dodgers Still Owe Manny Ramirez $25 Million

Red Sox Over Rays 3-0 On Beckett 1-Hitter, Youkilis Home Run



Pirates Top Astros, Move Above .500

Teixeira, Yankees Rout Rangers

Phillies Rally In Extra Innings To Sweep Marlins

Progress In NFL Talks Puts Deal Within Reach

Morse’s Homers & Livan’s Wiles Combine In Nats’ 10-0 Crushing Of Cardinals

FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Adding Insult To Injury: Crystal Harris’ “Mrs. Hefner” Playboy Cover

Hef's runaway bride stars on July cover

Us magazine: “Well, this is embarrassing.”
Hugh Hefner’s Sad Breakup Tweets

Vanessa Hudgens Strips Down For Candie’s Ads

Christina Finds Her Voice

Russell Crowe Flies To “Man Of Steel”

Mavericks Guard Busted For Public Drunkenness

Ginger Lee’s Strip Show: Wieners Only

35 Million Reasons J-Lo Won’t Be Back On “American Idol”


Tobey Maguire The Unlikely New Spokesman For Prada

The Leann Rimes “Sex Tape” Doesn’t Have Any Sex In It

Charlie Sheen Case Won’t Go To Trial

Zooey Deschanel Covers “Self” July 2011



FOREIGNERS
Pakistan’s Military Chief Fighting For His Job
Syria Arrests Hundreds In Northwest Province
Mad Max’s Army: The DIY Weapons Libya’s Rebels Are Using To Defeat Qaddafi
Indonesian Cleric Jailed For 15 Years On Terrorism Charges
Fighting Flares Up In Abyei Region Of Sudan
US “Gunwalking” Operation Exacerbated Mexican Agony
Turkish Group May Quit Gaza Flotilla



BLOGS & STUFF
Atlas Shrugs: Lawmakers Sue Obama Over Libya
Don Surber: ATF = Gun Runners
Allahpundit: Dem Caucus Meeting Turns Angry Over Weiner
Victor Davis Hanson: A Curious Insularity
JammieWearingFool: Indeed, The Rich Are Getting Richer
American Digest: If She Keeps This Blather Up…
Stop Andrea Mitchell: Nothing More Impeachable Than War Without Congressional OK
Daily Mail: The Breast Cancer Patients Too Old To Save
Weasel Zippers: NC Third State To Defund Planned Parenthood
The Lonely Conservative: Get Ready For Stagflation

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

CA-36: Hahn’s Bad Rap?

Posted on | June 15, 2011 | 60 Comments

The Torrance (Calif.) Daily Breeze has an article that would appear to exonerate Democrat Janice Hahn of accusations that her “gang-intervention specialist” program abetted violent felons. I say it “would appear to exonerate” her, because the article leaves unanswered several questions raised by previous reports about Hahn’s involvement in the program. In an attempt to clarify the issue, I sent an e-mail to the Daily Breeze reporter:

I just saw your story about the Ehlinger video and, having previously scanned the Breeze’s reporting about the Fox11 story from 2008, I am having trouble reconciling the two stories. In addition to convicted rapist Steven Myrick, Fox11 named three other individuals — Brandon “BL” Bullard, Marlon “Bow Wow” Jones and Demarco “DC” Chaffold — as having told police they were involved in the LA anti-gang program, specifically mentioning Janice Hahn’s name.
Is it now your contention that NONE of these individuals were actually paid through the program? That is to say, have the police reports been proven false?
Reading your own newspaper’s reporting from 2008, I gather that Bullard, Jones and Chaffold were all connected to Unity One, a non-profit anti-gang operation that received city money, and they had interacted with Hahn through her role in the anti-gang task force. So while the Fox11 report may have sensationalized the accusations, are we to doubt that Myrick, Bullard, Jones and Chaffold all viewed Hahn as a sort of political patron saint, and dropped her name when talking to police as a way of signaling that they were “connected” and/or “protected”?
More generally, there have been other examples (including Alex Sanchez and Hector Marroquin) of “gang intervention specialists” who evidently continued gang-banging while involved in these programs. Isn’t it fair to suspect that these programs are being exploited by the gangs as a sort of non-profit “legit” hustle, so as to access charitable contributions and government grants for their own benefit? And aren’t voters entitled to ask why, when it comes to fighting gang violence, the city is hiring gangsters instead of hiring cops?
Beyond the narrow matter of how this controversy affects the current congressional campaign, it seems to me that the efficacy of LA’s anti-gang programs is certainly a matter of dispute, and that further reporting on this subject is warranted. I write to you in the hope that you will clarify the facts, which your latest story does not seem adequately to address.

— Robert Stacy McCain
correspondent, The American Spectator

From a strictly common-sense perspective, there is an awful lot of smoke here for there to be no fire. I’m grateful to Richard McEnroe of Three Beers Later for calling my attention to this 2007 report about the arrest of Hector “Big Weasel” Marroquin:

FEDERAL ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS AGENTS knocked first, then entered the Downey home of purported anti-gang activist Hector Marroquin on Wednesday, arresting him for selling silencers and weapons — including three assault rifles and a machine gun — to an undercover ATF agent.
The gun sales, some of which Marroquin, the founder of the gang-intervention group No Guns, transacted at his bar in the city of Cudahy, were captured on videotape and audiotape, said police officers present at his arrest.
Inside the house, the 51-year-old veteran of the 18th Street Gang surrendered as his daughter’s boyfriend, David Jimenez, a parolee at large, jumped out a window, tossed a gun into the backyard pool and climbed on the roof, authorities said. Officials said ATF agents then confronted him, he climbed back inside and was arrested and charged as a felon in possession of a gun.
Marroquin, an alleged associate of the prison-based Mexican Mafia, has grown accustomed to such intrusions, having been arrested many times over the years while at the same time being the founder and CEO of No Guns, which has received $1.5 million from Los Angeles City Hall via the much-criticized L.A. Bridges program designed by the Los Angeles City Council to keep youth out of gangs. . . .
Along with his wife, son and daughter, who police say is a member of the Hawthorne L’il Watts Gang, the Marroquins made more than $200,000 a year in salaries — public funds paid by L.A. taxpayers — to steer children away from gangs and help active gangsters escape the life.

You see what I’m talking about? The Daily Breeze seems to be quibbling over details in the KTTV report about Hahn and gangsters, and let’s grant that the KTTV (Fox11) report may have factual errors or a sensationalistic presentation. Yet the Breeze‘s approach to the story overlooks the much larger and general issue of whether LA’s “gang intervention” effort amounted to a taxpayer subsidy for thugs.

Meanwhile, Newsy had a video report about the controversy over the anti-Hahn ad by Ladd Ehlinger Jr.:

pp

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

We have to distinguish between (a) criticism of Ehlinger’s ad, and (b) the significance of the facts about Hahn’s record on the LA City Council. Ladd’s ad has already passed the 125,000-views threshold, BTW.

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: California, Congress, Crime, Democrats, Election, Ladd Ehlinger, Video

Weiner’s Teen Tweeter

Posted on | June 15, 2011 | 19 Comments

Today’s big story about embattled Rep. Anthony Weiner focuses on the fact that his wife, Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton, has returned home to deal with the scandal. (Also, the National Enquirer has published a photo of Weiner, as an 18-year-old college student, wearing a bra as part of some sort of dorm prank.) Some Democrats say Weiner could resign “in a couple of days.”

 

Meanwhile, another aspect of WeinerGate is long overdue for an in-depth examination: What kind of “fan” was the 17-year-old Delaware girl with whom the New York Democrat admits he exchanged private messages on Twitter? Prudence Paine writes a long post in which she observes:

Boy, can she cuss. She drops the F-bomb and the C-bomb and the S-bomb and all the other bombs. Sometimes that’s all a tweet is, just a single curse word; sometimes she strings it oooouuuuuuuutttttttt for emphasis on the frustration or agony or whatever inspired the unladylike blast. Some pages of her tweets are just F, F, F, F. F this, F that, i hate F-ing this, F, F, FFFFFF.

Read the whole thing. As Prudence says, it’s “troubling” that Weiner would be following this girl on Twitter even if, as the congressman says, his communications with her weren’t “indecent” or “explicit.”

Category: Anthony Weiner, Scandal

CA-36: Anti-Hahn Video Draws More Than 75,000 Viewers in First 18 Hours

Posted on | June 15, 2011 | 54 Comments

Janice Hahn, Los Angeles City Council member and
Democrat candidate in CA-36 special election

An online attack ad highlighting a Democratic congressional candidate’s support for a controversial “gang intervention” program has generated more than 75,000 views at YouTube.com since its release Tuesday afternoon. 

“It will probably hit 100,000 [views] by the end of today,” video director Ladd Ehlinger Jr. said in a brief interview Wednesday morning. Ehlinger noted that the video now requires an 18-and-older age verification after it was repeatedly flagged as offensive by liberal blog readers. “I don’t see them going and flagging any other rap videos,” the director said.

Funded by a conservative political action committee, the rap-themed video focuses on the record of Los Angeles city council member Janice Hahn, a Democrat who faces Republican Craig Huey in a July 12 special election for California’s 36th District congressional seat, vacated by the retirement of Democrat Jane Harman.

The video has drawn almost universal condemnation, not only from Democrats, but also from California GOP officials and the Huey campaign. Ehlinger has refused to apologize for the online ad, which one leading liberal blog called “Willie Horton on steroids.”

As David Weigel of Slate reports, Ehlinger’s objective was to “create something so shocking that it would get people talking about a spot on the Hahn record that no one had paid attention to.”

Justin Elliott of Salon claimed that the ad relies on a “debunked” 2008 TV news report. However, the Torrance (Calif.) Daily Breeze article cited by Elliott did not address other evidence that the controversial “gang intervention” program aided criminals. 

Criticizing media he accused of being “too lazy to do research,” Ehlinger posted three further items about the scandal:

The indictment of Sanchez was also reported by the New York Times. In May 2008, Hahn urged a tax increase to expand funding for L.A.’s gang intervention program to $40 million. Here is the 2009 report by KTTV in Los Angeles about Crips gangster Steve Myrick, a career criminal who received a certificate of appreciation from Janice Hahn, and other gangsters who collected checks from the program:

And here is Ehlinger’s ad for the conservative Turn Right USA PAC:

As of 11 a.m. ET Wednesday, both the PAC’s main Web site and its “Hahn’s Homeboyz” site were non-operational due to unusually heavy Internet traffic.

Category: California, Congress, Crime, Democrats, Election
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