The Other McCain

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

Aspiring Rapper Update: ‘Baby Cino’ Gets Out of Jail, Immediately Gets Shot Dead

Posted on | March 27, 2022 | Comments Off on Aspiring Rapper Update: ‘Baby Cino’ Gets Out of Jail, Immediately Gets Shot Dead

Timothy Starks, a/k/a “Baby Cino,” was only 20 years old when he died Wednesday, shortly after getting bailed out of a Miami jail:

Minutes later, as the red Nissan he was riding in turned onto the Palmetto Expressway, he was suddenly ambushed by a gunman in another car in a wild daylight shooting in the middle of traffic.
Starks died in the hail of gunfire, shot in the head. He was still wearing the wristband given to inmates at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
Miami-Dade police on Thursday publicly identified Starks and a friend who picked him up from jail, Dante’ Collins Banks, 20, who also was wounded in the attack. Detectives have not identified a suspect, but did say “a dark-colored vehicle was seen fleeing the area at a high rate of speed.”
The shooter fired at least 40 times.
Multiple law-enforcement sources say the shooting is being probed for links to a series of public ambushes in recent months believed connected to Miami street gangs. That includes the January ambush murder of rapper Wavy Navy Pooh, who was shot to death in his car near Zoo Miami, and the murder of Brianna Sutherland, who was ambushed while driving on Interstate 95 on Valentine’s Day. Investigators do not believe she was the intended target.
As for Starks, he was associated with a Little Haiti area gang known as “Boss Life,” according to one source.
Online, where many local rappers can rise to fame quickly, Starks did not have a major presence. His main song, entitled “Big Haiti Shottas,” features him and a crew rapping about violence at an apartment building on Northwest Third Avenue and 56th Street.
The video, which has over 21,000 views, is also dedicated to Gary “Melo” Laguerre, an 18-year-old gunned down in a drive-by shooting in 2020 outside a Brownsville market.
Starks had been arrested in Opa-locka on Tuesday night by members of Miami-Dade Police’s Robbery Intervention Detail unit.
According to an arrest report, a RID detective pulled Starks over on Opa-locka Boulevard and Northwest 19th Avenue, for having an obstructed tag. When he was stopped, he was moving “as if he was concealing an object consistent with the shape of a firearm,” the report said.
Officers searched the car and found a fully loaded Glock 32, the report said.
According to jail records, Starks was booked into TGK just before 2 a.m. Wednesday. After posting bond, he was recorded as released at 2:10 p.m. The shooting happened within the hour, starting on the Palmetto near Hialeah, with the Nissan slamming into a concrete barrier wall.
Investigators are now trying to determine if Starks and Banks were followed from the jail — and how the attackers knew they were being released.

Maybe if you keep these hoodlums in jail, they won’t be getting shot dead on the streets. Just a suggestion. Not that I actually care.




 

Ukraine: Combat Reported at Borodyanka

Posted on | March 27, 2022 | Comments Off on Ukraine: Combat Reported at Borodyanka

Just a single mention of fighting in a key crossroads town 45 miles northwest of Kyiv in this report from regional police, and we have no further details. However, as I mentioned Friday about reports of fighting at Nemishaeve, if the Ukrainian counter-offensive that recaptured Makariv were continued successfully, we would soon hear about fighting at Borodyanka, about 15 miles north of Makariv.

The same regional police report also mentions that fighting continues at Makariv, which may mean that Russian forces are dug in near there and trying to hold on, but if Ukrainians are also attacking at Borodyanka, the Russians remaining near Borodyanka would likely be cut off from supplies and reinforcements. Last night after we did our podcast, I was grumbling about the difficulty of getting timely accurate reports about the tactical situation near Kyiv, and John Hoge made the observation that the Ukrainian command could be limiting this information because of operational security concerns. Apparent confirmation of that can be found in this New York Times report, where several journalists made a tour of villages near Kyiv where the Russians had been driven out: “Russian forces were still just four miles away, but the commander asked that the village names not be published to safeguard his positions.” So we don’t know what areas the journalists toured, but if I had to guess, I’d point to Myla, 20 miles west of Kyiv on the E40 highway, and 8 miles south of Irpin. We know the Russians are holed up in a “pocket” around Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel, all of which are still contested, although the Ukrainians claim to have recaptured most of Irpin.

The battles in the east and south of Ukraine — Kharkiv, Mariupol, Kherson — may be larger than the ones near Kyiv, and in some ways equally important, but the fight to drive back the Russians near Kyiv is crucial to the war’s ultimate outcome. Putin and his commanders expected in the beginning (and many Western intelligence estimates agreed) that the Ukrainian capital would fall within a week, after a “shock-and-awe” attack that included an airborne capture of the Hostomel air field. Those expectations of a quick capture of Kyiv proved misguided, because the Ukrainians fought with more determination and skill than anyone had thought they would, and because the Russian army was so surprisingly inept. As recently as a week ago, however, it still seemed that the Russians might be able to bring forward their heavy artillery and begin raining down shells on Kyiv.

Now, however, it seems the tables have turned. The Ukrainians are now counterattacking, the Russians are on the defensive, and if Ukraine can maintain the momentum, they could either force a Russian retreat or perhaps even surround and destroy the invaders near the capital.




 

Podcasting World War III

Posted on | March 26, 2022 | Comments Off on Podcasting World War III

Tonight on The Other Podcast (7 p.m. ET), my good friends John Hoge, Dianna Deeley and myself will be discussing the news of the week, including the latest blunder by Bumbling Joe Biden:

The White House was forced to once again clean up highly problematic remarks made by Democrat President Joe Biden during his trip to Poland this week.
“A dictator, bent on rebuilding an empire, will never erase the people’s love for liberty,” Biden said on Saturday at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness. For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
The White House had to quickly clean up the president’s remarks after they were widely interpreted in reports as him calling for regime change in Russia.
“The President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” a White House official said. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.) It seems to me that Biden was reading off the teleprompter and just decided to add the “For God’s sake” thing, as part of his tough-guy take-’em-out-behind-the-school act. This was the second time in two days that the White House had to clean up Joe’s mess; on Friday, he told troops from the 82nd Airborne, stationed in Poland, that they were going to Ukraine.

In other World War III news, yet another Russian general has been killed in Ukraine, bringing their total to seven. We’ll talk about all this and more, so please tune in to The Other Podcast.




 

‘Alexa, What Is an Ideologue?’

Posted on | March 26, 2022 | Comments Off on ‘Alexa, What Is an Ideologue?’

This week’s Judiciary Committee hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson were eye-opening in a lot of ways. Sen. Marsha Blackburn — whom I’ve considered a 2024 presidential contender for a long time — managed to embarrass Jackson with a very simple question:

Blackburn: “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?”
Jackson: “Can I provide a definition?”
Blackburn: “Mhmm, yeah.”
Jackson: “No, I can’t.”
Blackburn: “You can’t?”
Jackson: “Not in this context — I’m not a biologist.”

The “not in this context” part has been somewhat overlooked in the general point-and-laugh reaction to her “not a biologist” reply. As someone said, I’m not a veterinarian, but I know what a dog is. Nevertheless, as Byron York notes, the “context” is important because Blackburn prefaced her question by referencing the 1996 Supreme Court case of U.S. vs. Virginia, which declared that the all-male status of Virginia Military Institute was unconstitutional on Fourteenth Amendment grounds. It so happens that I believe that case was wrongly decided — a legal travesty, as the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment obviously had no such intent at the time the amendment was ratified.

In the hands of ideologues, the Fourteenth Amendment becomes an omnivorous predator that swallows whole the rest of the Constitution, like a great white shark gobbling up baby seals in shallow water. If you want to know how we got to the point that Will “Lia” Thomas is NCAA women’s swim champion, you can look back to U.S. v. Virginia as a milestone on the road to this madness of “equality.”

Anyone who directly opposes the radical egalitarian agenda can expect to be smeared as a “racist,” etc., as I remarked earlier this week (see “The Problem With ‘Equality’”), and it is therefore scarcely surprising to hear Democrats attacking Marsha Blackburn (“Can we just go set Marsha Blackburn on fire?”). Neither should we be surprised that academic “gender experts” rushed to defend Jackson.

Cited as “experts” by USA Today were Rebecca Jordan-Young, “a scientist and gender studies scholar at Barnard College,” Sarah Richardson, “a Harvard scholar, historian and philosopher of biology,” Juliet Williams, “a professor of gender studies at UCLA who specializes in gender and the law,” and Kate Mason, “a gender studies professor at Wheaton College who studies social inequality.”

The prestige of their positions as professors is thus thrown into the balance on Jackson’s side, and we are supposed to be so awed by this display of academic prestige that our critical faculties simply cease to function and we mutely accept the assertion that only “experts” are qualified to tell the difference between male and female. This consensus of academic “experts,” however, is an artifact of the ideological conformity that prevails in our nation’s education system which, in turn, is enforced through federal Title IX authority. Any university employee who expressed skepticism toward contemporary “gender theory” would face severe career repercussions, and might even become unemployable in academia. An ambitious young scholar is not going to find many opportunities to publish research that doesn’t support the prevailing gender theory narrative, so the artificial consensus of “experts” is maintained by the simple mechanism of silencing (or excluding from membership in the professorial guild) any would-be dissenters.

This regime of conformity has been enforced with increasing rigidity for the past three decades. Back in the late 1980s and early ’90s, there were still university professors who were outspoken in opposition to the ideology of radical egalitarianism, but those dissenters have retired, and the growing conformity of the academic system has prevented them from being replaced by like-minded scholars. Meanwhile, the fanatical beliefs that once were shocking when expressed by elite university professors (e.g., Judith Butler at Cal-Berkeley) have trickled down and become pervasive among nearly all college-educated young people. This is why, for example, you have elementary school teachers promoting LGBTQ ideology and telling them to keep it secret from their parents.

It is almost certain that the Senate will vote to confirm Judge Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court. If Joe Manchin won’t vote against her, that more or less guarantees her seat on the court. But we have learned something valuable about the beliefs of those who would rule over us.




 

In The Mailbox: 03.25.22

Posted on | March 25, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.25.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Finally, the end of the week.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: I Hope You’re Able To Accept Freezing In The Dark
EBL: The Solemnity Of The Annunciation Of The Lord
Twitchy: White House & “Fact Checkers” Try To Clean Up Slow Joe’s Latest Ukraine Mess
Louder With Crowder: Donald Trump Sues Hillary Clinton & Many Others Over The Russian Collusion Conspiracy
Vox Popoli: Preparing To Back Down, also, The Jab Kills More Than Corona-chan
According To Hoyt: Socialism Causes Incompetence
Monster Hunter Nation: WriterDojo S2 E12 – How To Tell A Story In 5000 Words
Urban Scoop: The Right To Disagree

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Biden To Prioritize Journalists & LGBT Among Ukrainian Refugees
American Greatness: Rep. Issa Demands Facebook & Twitter Records Over Suppression Of Hunter Biden Story
American Power: Catherine BeltonPutin’s People
American Thinker: Ketanji Brown Jackson Is A Trojan Horse
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Evil Vs. Stupid Friday
Babalu Blog: “Free Education” In Communist Cuba, also, A Medical Power Without Doctors
BattleSwarm:
Behind The Black: Pushback – Lawsuit By Professor Fired For His Opinions To Be Heard By Virginia Supremes, The Absurd 2nd Century Space Opera You’ll Never Read, and FAA Delays Decision On Environmental Reassessment Of SpaceX Boca Chica Facility – Again
Cafe Hayek: And WHY Do They Not Know? also, More On Oren Cass’ Misunderstanding Of Adam Smith 
Chicago Boyz: Russia & Ukraine
Da Tech Guy: Under The Fedora – Logistics & War, Manchin, Pot, Reality, & Other Thoughts
Don Surber: Be The Party That Protects Kids, also, Biden’s Sanctions Hit America Hardest
Gates Of Vienna: Of Eyeballs & Face Masks, also, Mene, Tekel, Perish!
The Geller Report: Hunter Biden Firm Secretly Funded Bioweapons Labs In Ukraine, also, European MPs Slam PM Zoolander For Human Rights Violations
Hogewash: Mercury & The Solar Wind, also, Maryland’s Gerrymander
Hollywood In Toto: Anne Tyler Slams Cancel Culture & Triggers The Left
The Lid: Home Deport Canada – White People Are All Racist
Legal Insurrection: Gov. Hair Gel Proposes $400 Gas Cards For Car Owners, Sen. Sasse Won’t Vote For Judge Jackson But Manchin Will, and Slow Joe Tells 82nd Airborne They’re Going To Ukraine
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Arkansas Saw Gonzaga Dancing In Pregame – Saved Last Dance For Hogs, The Ringer Claims ESPN Discriminates Against Black People, and Fla. State Player Sits Out Practice Because Of NIL, Then Transfers
Power Line: What Happened To Roland Fryer? also, The O’Keefe Project – Not All Is Well
Shark Tank: Rubio & Sabatini Comment On Democrat COVID Ideology
Shot In The Dark: There But For The Grace Of God, Truth In Advertising, and Just Another Day On The Vomit Comet
The Political Hat: Artificial Neurons Mean One Thing – Bioroid Dryads & Cyborg Catgirls, also, Firing Line Friday
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, Navy Officer Busted For Sex Trafficking, and Feelgood Story – Neither Confirm Or Deny
Transterrestrial Musings: The Real Racists & Sexists, What Is A Woman?, and Coffee Again
Victory Girls: Judge Jackson & The Progressive War On Women, also, Is Putin’s Power Crumbling?
Volokh Conspiracy: More On Students’ Disruption Of The Yale Law Event
Watts Up With That: MSM Panics, Confuses “Unprecedented” Climate Model Temp Spikes With Actual Temperatures, also, A Modest Proposal, SEC Edition
Weasel Zippers: Biden Econ Advisor Not Confident U.S. Won’t Go Into Recession, Biden Compares Ukraine To Tiananmen Square, and SecTreas Yellen Dismisses High Gas Prices – “They’re Not As High As Earlier This Century”
The Federalist: Gov. Hair Gel’s Gas Card Giveaway Is A Subsidy For The Rich, J6 Committee Claims It’s Above The Law, and Utah Legislature Overwhelmingly Votes To Override Governor’s Veto Of Trans Ban For Girls’ Sports
Mark Steyn: Spinning Ginni

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Ukraine: Fighting in Nemishaeve?

Posted on | March 25, 2022 | Comments Off on Ukraine: Fighting in Nemishaeve?

The biggest hint of what’s happening in the fight northwest of Kyiv, where Russian forces hold Bucha and Hostomel, is this report:

Bucha, Irpen, Hostomel, Makariv are the most fierce points in Kyiv region . . . head of Kyiv Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Pavliuk has said.
“Over the past 24 hours, the enemy has not been successful in any of the directions. There is a fight against sabotage groups. The defense forces have been able to improve positions in some areas. The most violent points are Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, Makariv, the villages of the Nemishaeve community. Constant mortar and artillery shelling,” he wrote on his Telegram channel on Friday.

Now, it happens that I have seen a Radio Free Europe video in which a reporter accompanied a Ukrainian reconnaissance crew to Makariv and, as far as I could tell, there were no Russian forces there. But if you look at the map, you see that Nemishaeve (also spelled Nemishajeve) is 20 miles northeast of Makariv, and six miles northwest of Bucha. So if Ukrainian forces have retaken Makariv, and are now fighting near Nemishaeve, the Russians around Bucha are now facing a threat to their western flank and rear — the “encirclement” that was widely discussed in news accounts earlier this week. Another report I saw today said Kyiv itself is no longer being shelled, which suggests either that (a) the Russians have been pushed back out of artillery range or (b) they’re saving their limited supply of ammunition to fend off the Ukrainian counterattacks.

Of course, it is impossible to ascertain exact information about a battlefield situation on the other side of the globe, but these limited reports indicate that the Ukraine counter-offensive is making progress. If that is the case, we should soon begin hearing about fighting around Borodyanka, a key crossroads that would logically need to be taken by Ukrainian forces seeking to surround the Russian force at Bucha.

PREVIOUSLY:




 

Tax Dollars: ‘Six Porsches, Six BMWs, Two Mercedes-Benzes, a Ferrari, and a Tesla’

Posted on | March 25, 2022 | Comments Off on Tax Dollars: ‘Six Porsches, Six BMWs, Two Mercedes-Benzes, a Ferrari, and a Tesla’

Remember “free” COVID-19 testing? Kind of like the “free” vaccine? All of that “free” stuff was actually funded by taxpayer money, as the federal government ran up trillions of dollars of new deficit spending for the pandemic emergency. Whenever government makes something “free,” it’s always taxpayers footing the bill, and you can trust that well-connected people are getting rich from the transaction:

The owner of a lab that made hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money for running COVID-19 tests has amassed a fleet of luxury cars and at least two private planes, WGLT has learned.
Aaron Rossi of Bloomington is CEO at Reditus Labs in Pekin. Rossi was recently indicted on federal tax fraud charges and faces a lawsuit from a business partner who accuses Rossi of “pillaging” Reditus to fund a “nouveau riche over-the-top lifestyle,” court records show.
Rossi’s vehicle collection certainly points to a spending spree.
There are 28 vehicles registered in Rossi’s name or that of his company, AJR MD Consulting, according to state records obtained by WGLT through the Freedom of Information Act. That includes six Porsches, six BMWs, two Mercedes-Benzes, a Ferrari, and a Tesla, records show. Almost all of them are model years 2020, 2021, or 2022, suggesting they were purchased recently.
Separately, there are 59 other vehicles registered to Reditus Laboratories, which Rossi owns. That includes nine BMWs, a Porsche, and a Tesla. . . .
Public records also show that Rossi or his companies own at least two private planes.
One of those planes is a Beechcraft King Air B200GT, registered to AJR MD Consulting – the same Rossi company that many of the luxury vehicles were registered to, according to FAA records. The second plane is a jet (a Mystere Falcon 900) that’s registered to Pekin-based RLL Aviation LLC, another Rossi company. . . .
Rossi, a 39-year-old entrepreneur who grew up in the Morton and Peoria area, rose to prominence during the pandemic. Rossi quickly became a high-profile businessman in central Illinois — even appearing alongside Gov. JB Pritzker in 2020 — when Reditus won hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts to run COVID-19 tests, including from a testing site in Bloomington.

Keep this in mind if the question ever arises why politicians sought to make COVID-19 vaccine mandatory. Pharmaceutical companies made billions off the “free” vaccine. They make big contributions to politicians, and employ obbyists in Washington. “Follow the money.”

(Hat-tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)




 

In The Mailbox: 03.24.22 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | March 25, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.24.22 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Where we’re at with the Narrative.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Bureaucracies Protect Themselves – UK Edition
EBL: Jackass Forever, also, Pope Francis Consecrates Russia To The Immaculate Heart Of Mary
Twitchy: Comedian Dana Gould Thinks Rush Limbaugh Created Nothing Of Lasting Value, also, Here’s A Look Inside A Kid’s Book That Defines “Coming Out”, “Drag”, and “Pansexual”
Louder With Crowder: Joe Rogan Blasts SNL For Turning Into Woke Crap
Vox Popoli: The Intoxification Of Success, Convergence & Crime Statistics, and Ukraine Resorts To Black Magic

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Greasy Pole Episode #20 – The Cut & Paste Episode
American Conservative: The Bright Ages
American Greatness: The Real “Reset” Is Coming, also, Hindsight Is 20/20 Unless You’re A Democrat
American Power: Biden’s State Department Not Rising To The Occasion, also, Vindication For Neoconservatism?
American Thinker: The Power Of Terrible Ideas, also, The Democrats Need COVID To Stay In Power
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Alaskan Representation News
Babalu Blog: Communist Cuba’s New Phantom Hotels
BattleSwarm: Just How Screwed Are Russian Airlines?
Behind The Black: Blue Origin Delays First New Glenn Launch Again, Administration Demands All NASA Grantees Hire Minorities/Women, and Today’s Blacklisted American
Cafe Hayek: Rein In The Administrative State
CDR Salamander: What’s Wrong With The Anglosphere’s Merchant Fleet? also, Scratch One Russian Alligator-Class LST
Chicago Boyz: Bearing False Witness
Da Tech Guy: Told Ya, also, The Regime, The Media, & Big Tech Are Suppressing The Truth About The Jab
Don Surber: Globalist Says Putin Killed Globalism
First Street Journal: Some Truths Just Don’t Fit Teh Narrative
Gates Of Vienna: “The Federal Constitutional Court No Longer Protects Our Basic Rights”, also, Michael Mannheimer’s Final Post?
The Geller Report: Airline CEOs Tell Biden To Drop The Mask Mandate, also, GHOST TOWN – NYC Unemployment Twice The National Average
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, Is The DNC A Racketeering Enterprise? and A Kilonova
Hollywood In Toto: Man Of God Recalls A Grave Injustice Met With Christian Piety, also, Lost City Has A Trick Up Its Silly Sleeve
The Lid: Rasmussen – Voters Say Hunter Biden’s “Laptop From Hell” Is Important Story
Legal Insurrection: Vassar Student Newspaper Apologizes For Mostly Quoting White Students, Parents Furious With Colo. School District For Abolishing Valedictorian Recognition, and Murder Turtle Won’t Support Judge Jackson’s Nomination
Michelle Malkin: Unstifling Savanah
Nebraska Energy Observer: Caring Fatigue
Outkick: Second Grand Jury To Hear Evidence Against DeShaun Watson, ESPN Analyst Charged With 11 Counts Of Battery, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver Claims Enes Kanter Freedom Hasn’t Been Blackballed
Power Line: The Freeport Question Of Our Time, Joe Biden – Liar, and Down Memory Lane With The NYT
Shark Tank: GOP Congressional Primary Getting Ugly In FL-7
Shot In The Dark: One Way Ukraine Matters, The Last Karen On The Island Has Yet To Walk Out Of The Jungle, and Let Them Eat Beans
The Political Hat: Euthanasia Madness – Suicide Pods, Mandatory Vaccinations, & Suicide Begets Suicide
This Ain’t Hell: New Army AFCT Set In Stone. Again, Navy Vet Scams Government For Over $1 Million, and Bad Day For The Russian Navy
Transterrestrial Musings: Space Assembly, The Russian Offensive, and The Cratering Democrats
Victory Girls: Cory Booker Don’t Know Much About SCOTUS Confirmation History, also, Billions In COVID Relief Spent On Perks Instead
Volokh Conspiracy: “A Social Media Platform May Not Intentionally ‘Fact Check’ A User’s ‘Religious Or Political Speech'”
Watts Up With That: With The Ukraine War, The Green Chickens Have Come Home To Roost
Weasel Zippers: Ted Cruz – “Judge Jackson Had No Explanation For Why She Was Lenient In Sentencing Pedophiles”, Biden Lies Again, Claims Sanctions Weren’t Meant To Deter Putin, and Rapper Ice T Robbed In New Jersey
The Federalist: Democrats Aren’t Just Extreme Any More – They’re Weird & Gross, Sen. Johnson Blasts CDC & FDA For Not Complying With Senate Oversight On COVID Treatments, and Trump Sues Hillary & Other Collusion Hoaxers 
Mark Steyn: The Great Unmasking, also, Starkey On Slavery

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