Minor Disagreement With VodkaPundit

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by Smitty

In an otherwise agreeable post on the possiblily of Texas Governor Perry running, Iron Liver remarks:

. . .good candidates can be dismissed for trivial reasons. Ask Jeb Bush about that some time.

Not to say that Jeb is a bad candidate in the slightest, but the anti-dynasty sentiment is non-trivial.
As good as Jeb may be, I just don’t see him as so overwhelmingly better than the other possibilities as to overcome the dis-interest in YAB (Yet Another Bush).
More, not less variety is key to recovery.

Quantitative Easing Is Not Default!

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by Smitty (h/t World’s Only Rational Man)

I am nearly tempted to defend the Federal Reserve in the strongest terms. If I felt any more strongly that making money appear by piles of half a trillion was not theft, I would lay down a firm argument. Clearly, ‘Quantitative Easing’ has six syllables; ‘default’, a mere two. Look at Ben Bernanke:

thief
How can a face like this be less than honest?

Would you trust a face like this with protecting the value of your currency? Trick question! You’ve got no choice. Somebody else decided, by Progressive fiat, that in order to keep the Federal Reserve free of tawdry politics, they’d just, you know, appoint him. OK, that notion is a trifle whiffy when set beside the U.S. Constitution proper, but when has the Congress ever blown off the Constitution?
We really have to help these humorless Chinese. Note what a real thief looks like:

small potatoes compared to the Federal Reserve
A real thief

Is not he difference between good and bad blatantly obvious to even the most casual observer? Bernanke is wearing a necktie. The good guys always go that extra fashion mile.

Washington had already defaulted on its loans by allowing the dollar to weaken against other currencies — eroding the wealth of creditors including China, Guan said. 

See, now, that sounds like something Ron Paul or Sarah Palin would say. And have they not both been declared hopelessly out of touch by The People Who Matter?
It’s high time for all these grouchy, pedantic Chinese and conservatives to just relax. Trust your Federal Reserve. Let them run stuff. We should thank Ben Bernanke for sparing us the gory details of, say, bailing out his chums in Greece. We really have been relieved of a lot of stress there. Thanks, Ben!
It really is cool of him to permit us to retain the fiction of sovereignty and valid currency. Let’s not make Mr. Bernanke mad. Who wants to see Mr. Hand turn into Mr. Fist? Not me.

CNN’s Toobin on May 31: ‘What Andrew Breitbart Was Insinuating About [Weiner] With Young Girls Is Outrageous’

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There’s no possible way Breitbart could be right, right, right, while CNN’s “senior legal analyst” was wrong, wrong, wrong — or is there?

“This is a silly little thing that happened”? “Not a big deal”? Yeah, idiot: Tell that to the cops who just interviewed the teenage girl in Delaware!

Maybe some of the numbskulls at CNN should go read what “senior legal analyst” Ace of Spades has to say tonight — Ace doesn’t have a network contract, but he’s been right, right, right all along.

UPDATE: Jennifer Preston of the New York Times actually has a pretty solid story about the latest development:

Representative Anthony D. Weiner said on Friday that he had exchanged at least five private messages on Twitter this spring with a 17-year-old Delaware girl who became an admirer of his after hearing him speak during a high school trip to Washington.
Mr. Weiner’s spokeswoman, Risa Heller, did not provide copies of the messages, but said they were not inappropriate.
“According to Congressman Weiner, his communications with this person were neither explicit nor indecent,” Ms. Heller said.
A member of the girl’s family who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her identity characterized the messages as “harmless” but expressed concern that Mr. Weiner had communicated privately with the teenager, a high school junior.
The family was aware that there had been exchanges between Mr. Weiner and the girl but assumed that all of their conversations had taken place on a public Twitter feed. Then a scandal erupted last month over a photo Mr. Weiner sent of himself in his underwear to a college student.
Last week, Mr. Weiner acknowledged that he had sent other explicit photos and messages to at least six women he met over social media.
The family member said: “I am angry. This is surreal and unbelievable. It is absolutely crazy. We are just regular people who go to baseball games and basketball games, as ordinary and plain as can be.”
In the past few days, the girl and her family have become subjects of intense interest in the news media. On Friday afternoon, the local police arrived at their home and asked the girl and her mother to bring the girl’s phone and computer to the police station so they could be checked to make sure no crime had occurred.
The family member said the family complied, and did not expect any further action to be taken.

The important thing here is: Weiner admits he sent this teenage girl “at least five” DMs.

Does the phrase “grooming” ring a bell?

OK, that last sentence was probably not what you’d call responsible, professional, ethical journalism. But I have sources I could contact, experts in such matters, and I’m reasonably sure that if they were to take a long, hard look at the available evidence here, their responses would include something like the phrase “warning flags.” Here is Weiner, recklessly cybersexing with complete strangers, sending photos of his junk to people he’s never met — clearly driven by some sort of wild sexual compulsion — and this man is sending DMs to teenagers?

Like I said: “Warning flags.”

URGENT: Police Visit Delaware Teen in Connection With Weiner Twitter Scandal

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* * * BREAKING NEWS * * *

NEW CASTLE, Del. — Police on Friday afternoon came to the home of a 17-year-old high school junior to ask her about direct online communications she has had with Rep. Anthony Weiner.
Two officers from the New Castle County Police Department arrived at the girl’s home around 4:30 p.m. and asked to speak with the girl’s mother about the daughter’s contact with Weiner. Another officer appeared at the home a short time later. A FoxNews.com reporter was at the home when the police arrived.

(Via Drew M. at AOSHQ — now with flaming skull alert.)

UPDATE: Just hours ago, I summarized the background on this case:

Did Anthony Weiner Send Obscene
Messages to Teenage Girls Online?

UPDATE II: Linked by Fire Andrea Mitchell — thanks! It is important to note at this point that we don’t whether Weiner actually did anything illegal.

UPDATE III: Michelle Malkin:

Nancy Pelosi doesn’t seem to care — and declines to back resignation calls from other Democrats.

UPDATE IV: Linked by William Teach at Right Wing News — thanks! As to Pelosi’s expression of seeming indifference, “Let’s see how long she sticks with that position,” says my American Spectator colleague John Tabin.

UPDATE V: Now Patterico is blogging about the story, which he pushed hard on Thursday. Allahpundit at Hot Air is also on the story, which has its own Memeorandum thread. I’ll try to provide complete aggregation, but it seems everybody is blogging it now.

UPDATE VI: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE VII: Big Government and Bryan Preston at PJ Tatler are now blogging the latest news.

UPDATE VIII: Politico got an e-mail statement from Weiner’s spokesman: “According to Congressman Weiner, his communications with this person were neither explicit nor indecent.” But Politico‘s Ben Smith adds: “Sexting with an underage girl would push the Weiner scandal out of the realm of embarrassing consensual conduct and give House leadership reason to credibly threaten expulsion.”

UPDATE IX: Linked by Ed Driscoll — thanks! I first mentioned (but did not name) this teenager on May 30. She has been named elsewhere online. Some blogs that previously named her have since redacted her name. You will see that this angle of the WeinerGate scandal was reported almost immediately (i.e., on May 28) by Verum Serum and Ironic Surrealism.

UPDATE X: New York Daily News:

“She was not targeted in any way and did not receive any inappropriate messages or photos or anything from the congressman,” a source close to the Delaware girl told the Daily News. “If she had, her family would have filed charges.” . . .
“The blogs have taken a few tweets from a 17-year-old kid and put their own twist on messages that were just kid stuff,” the source said. “Her family has gone through all her accounts and not found any inappropriate messages.”

That is a strong denial, although only a thorough law-enforcement investigation — getting access to all records from Twitter — would reveal any messages that the teen previously deleted from her account.


A Special Kind of Stupid: Only ‘Culturally Backward’ People Find Weiner’s Conduct Objectionable, Chris Matthews Says

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The Stupidest Man in TV News™ — the Ted Baxter of MSNBC — has perhaps outdone himself with his latest astonishing foray into the frontier of brain-addled commentary:

This is, to me, the stakes here. If [Anthony Weiner] stays, [Democrats] never get the leadership back. They never get the Speakership back because the people in the rural areas of this country who are Christian conservative culturally – you can say backward if you want – but they don’t like this kind of stuff at all. They’re not part of that 56 percent in Brooklyn and Queens who say, “okay, we can live with this guy.” Your thoughts, Ben? Isn’t that the cutting edge of this?

What did Ben Smith of Politico say in reply? I don’t know. But I hope when he left the studio, Ben sent an e-mail to an MSNBC producer asking, “Exactly why do you continue permitting this babbling fool to host his own TV show?”

Given the evidence suggesting that Weiner was cybersexing teenage girls, is it really true that 56 percent of Weiner’s constituents “can live with this guy”? Or is it rather the case, as I suspect, that many of them are not fully informed about what Weiner was up to online?

The weird thing here is, Chris Matthews is one of the few people at MSNBC who even acknowledges WeinerGate as a legitimate and politically significant story. Ace of Spades observes:

Most of MSNBC’s hosts . . . are on a campaign of minimziation.
See, especially, Rachel Maddow, who insists there’s nothing to see here and it’s all a laugh.

But how the hell is it, I ask, that the people who know the most about what Weiner has actually done — including Andrew Breitbart — are those who find it most objectionable? And why would Chris Matthews suggest that the “culturally backward” people in “rural areas” might be offended?

Is Breitbart a dimwitted backwoods clodhopper? Are 56% of voters in Queens and Brookly really more sophisticated than Breitbart?

Permit me to suggest that anyone attempting to “minimize” WeinerGate consider how the story has unfolded to date, and ask themselves: What new surprising revelations await?

(Hat-tip: Memeorandum.)

PREVIOUSLY:

Arne Duncan: What?

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by Smitty (via BlogProf)

The BlogProf has video of the Secretary of Education saying “My Commitment To LGBT Students Is Unequivocal”. Really:

  • Why does you commitment to ANY student, as an educator, require mention?
  • What does sexuality have to do with education?

Yet another creepshow aspect of this administration. I shall ensure that my offspring enjoys both better education and protection from the likes of this fellow.

Update: linked by Lisa Graas.

Did Anthony Weiner Send Obscene Messages to Teenage Girls Online?

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“Just perfectly innocent. A married 46 year old Congressman private messaging a smitten, hero-worshipping, bad-girl-talking 17 year old girl who ‘loved’ him. What could be more innocent than that?”
— Ace of Spades

Before proceeding to examine the really troubling question here, let’s begin by reviewing what we already know:

  • Anthony Weiner’s “online relationships” (as he called them in his June 6 press conference) apparently “fit a pattern,” according to the New York Times: “[I]n rapid and reckless fashion, he sought to transform informal online conversations about politics and partisanship into sexually charged exchanges, at times laced with racy language and explicit images.”
  • A transcript of Weiner’s Facebook exchanges with Lisa Weiss (the accuracy of which has not been disputed) shows Weiner asking if “your p**** [is] still tight and w*t for me baby?” and talking about “my rock hard c***.”
  • Weiner admitted at his press conference that the May 27 Twitter message including a link to a photo of his bulging crotch, which began the so-called WeinerGate scandal, was accidentally sent as a public message, when he intended to send it as a private direct message (DM).
  • The intended recipient of that May 27 message, 21-year-old Gennette Cordova, has repeatedly denied having had any “inappropriate” private communications with Weiner.
  • Another of Weiner’s “online relationships,” porn performer Ginger Lee, says Weiner urged her to lie about their communications, sending her an e-mail suggestion that she issue a statement saying, “‘This is silly. Like so many others, I follow Rep. Weiner on Twitter. I don’t know him and have never met him.” (In fact, Ms. Lee says she and Weiner “exchanged scores of sexual emails over a long period of time.”)
  • Among the messages Weiner sent to 26-year-old single mother Meagan Broussard was a nude photo showing his erect penis.

From these facts it seems obvious that Weiner’s online sexual adventures were so recklessly indiscriminate as to demonstrate an out-of-control compulsion. This is particularly true if we accept Cordova’s assertion that none of her private communications with Weiner were “inappropriate,” so that the congressman would have been sending her that bulging-crotch photo unsolicited, without any previous indication from Cordova that she had a sexual interest in him. (Broussard has also said that none of her communications with Weiner could reasonably have been viewed as an invitation for the congressman to send her the penis photo of himself.)

Weiner’s complete disregard for the dangers of sending these kinds of photos and messages to women he never met is important to note because, by his own public admission, he also disregarded other dangers:

Q: These were young girls, very young, 21 years old. Does that bother you, that they’re — the youngest —
REP. WEINER: I don’t know the — I don’t know the exact ages of the women, and they —
Q: Young enough to be your children.
REP. WEINER: I don’t know the exact ages of the women, and I don’t know if you do. I’m going to respect their privacy. But they were all adults — at least to the best of my knowledge they were all adults — and they were — and they were engaging — and they were engaging in these conversations consensually.
Q: But if you don’t know how old they are, how do you know they’re adults?
REP. WEINER: Well, all I know is what they publish about themselves in social media. Someone could theoretically be — have been — have been fibbing about it, and that’s a risk.

A close reading of that brief exchange raises real problems. Weiner seems to believe that, in light of the graphic content of his online communications, all that matters is whether “to the best of [his] knowledge” the recipients were adults. Continue reading Did Anthony Weiner Send Obscene Messages to Teenage Girls Online? →