The Other McCain

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

VIDEO: Herman Cain on Sean Hannity Show: ‘The Sleeping Giant Has Awakened’

Posted on | January 21, 2011 | 9 Comments

From Fire Andrea Mitchell:

Steve Foley at Citizens for Cain looks at polls indicating the GOP needs a “fresh face” for 2012. Meanwhile, Herman Cain will join Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann at a Feb. 7 forum in Iowa — but Mitt Romney isn’t returning calls from the organizers.

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain

You’re Not Disgusted Enough Yet

Posted on | January 21, 2011 | 18 Comments

“Bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses were scattered throughout the building. . . . A row of jars containing severed feet lined a shelf. . . . Untrained, unsupervised workers injected dangerous drugs into women undergoing illegal late-term abortions.”
— Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams

Everybody blogged about this Wednesday, but I don’t think it should be a one-day story, a blip that pops up on the news and is then forgotten. However, some people evidently want us to forget it: Ken Shepherd notes that none of the three broadcast networks mentioned this atrocity on Thursday’s morning news programs.

“The left has made abortion the highest good that trumps every other concern, and the resulting real-world policies border on the surreal.”
— Shannon Love, Chicago Boyz

This morning I was checking the trackbacks and found Scared Monkeys saying, “Hair salons probably have greater oversight than abortion clinics. . . .Where is their outrage on this?” That post included this video with the district attorney’s press conference that you must watch:

Indeed: Where is the outrage? What Dr. Kermit Gosnell did in Philadelphia is, as the district attorney said, “barbaric.” However, it’s something that’s been happening every day in America — legally, protected by those “penumbras formed by emanations” discerned by the Supreme Court — for more than 30 years. It’s happening today, and will happen tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and it ought to make us sick with grief for the heartless cruelty it represents.

“As long as we’re discussing the conditions that lead to murderous behavior, let’s talk about million-dollar industries which profit from a process they won’t describe as death, with targets they refuse to identify as human beings. Freshly minted presidential candidate Herman Cain has been calling for the government to defund Planned Parenthood, which he regards as a holding a ‘racist agenda,’ since ‘75% of their clinics are located in black neighborhoods.’ Why should anyone be surprised that we get more of what we subsidize?”
— John Hayward, Human Events

Abortion is already subsidized with taxpayer dollars and we must prevent it from becoming even more subsidized under ObamaCare:

The No Tax-Payer Funding for Abortion Act, introduced Thursday as H.R. 3, aims to codify the Hyde Amendment, which has long barred federal funding for abortion and must currently be renewed every year. The legislation was introduced in tandem with the Protect Life Act, sponsored by Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee Chair Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.), that would specifically bar any federal funding for abortion under the health reform law.
“This common sense legislation reflects the will of the people and deserves the support of the House,” House Speaker John Boehner said at a Thursday morning press conference. “It’s one of highest legislative priorities and as such I’ve directed it receive the designation of H.R. 3.”

Pro-life leaders are urging citizens to contact Congress and make clear that that you support repeal of ObamaCare.

UPDATE: “Ask Them What They MEAN By ‘CHOICE‘ Blog Day.”

Category: Abortion

Patterico: ‘Charles Johnson Doesn’t Care About Context or Truth Any More’

Posted on | January 21, 2011 | 41 Comments

“I was such a small fish at the time. I realized I was basically committing blog suicide by going against him. But he was wrong.”
— Pamela Geller, January 2010

It’s interesting how easy it has become to ignore Charles Johnson and Little Green Footballs. A couple weeks ago, Diary of Daedalus or the Blogmocracy had a post with a graphic showing the decline in LGF’s traffic since Johnson began his mad purge of commenters who didn’t cooperate with his site’s leftward shift. And I would have blogged about that, but why bother? Nobody cares about LGF anymore.

Johnson has tried to re-invent LGF as an amateur Media Matters, and Patterico caught LGF doing a phony “gotcha” wherein Glenn Beck last June supposedly told his viewers to shoot people in the head.

Patterico links the transcript of the program which makes clear that Beck never said or intended any such thing. What Beck was talking about was a “civil war” within the Democratic Party between pragmatic, mainstream liberals and the revolutionary True Believers who are intent on radical change By Any Means Necessary:

You’ve been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You’re going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you.
They are dangerous because they believe. Karl Marx is their George Washington. You will never change their mind. And if they feel you have lied to them — they’re revolutionaries. Nancy Pelosi, those are the people you should be worried about.

You will recall that after the 9/12 March on Washington in 2009, Nancy Pelosi gave a press conference warning about rhetoric that “created a climate in which violence took place” in San Francisco in the late 1970s:

And what Beck was trying to say on his June 2010 program was that Democratic leaders, who believed they could co-opt and use the radicalism of the Left for their political advantage, should worry more about extremism from their own allies than from the conservative opposition. You don’t have to believe that assertion — or be a Beck fan — to see that what the LGF post did was to twist Beck’s meaning into the exact opposite of what Beck intended.

What’s stunning is how easily Johnson — or rather one of his second-banana henchpeople, “Conservative Moonbat” — was gulled into that error. The Beck transcript was available online the whole time. The transcript was located by the third commenter on the LGF post and the fourth commenter observed:

So he says that Dems will have to shoot left-wing radicals “in the head”

So even LGF’ers quickly discovered that the headline on the post and the context-free video clip were misleading. What remains to be learned is whether “Conservative Moonbat” got this video from Raw Story, or vice versa. But it appears that Johnson’s second bananas are increasingly third-rate. What this episode highlights is the cause of LGF’s decline. At some point in 2007, Charles Johnson decided that his conservative allies were unworthy of his allegiance and needed to be destroyed. His war against Pamela Geller was the opening salvo in that campaign. But as Da Tech Guy once advised Joe Scarborough, “Sooner or later you have to join the side you’re on.”

In coalition politics we often find ourselves allied with people with whom we disagree, with people we don’t like, with people who we find in some way embarrassing or obnoxious. It may even be the case that prominent leaders and spokesmen of “our side” appear to be exactly the sort of people with whom we normally can’t stand to associate. We may feel that these leaders and spokesmen are in some way discrediting the cause we support. Nevertheless, when push comes to shove, these people are contending for the same cause and are therefore not our political enemies.

Charles Johnson has cut himself off from conservatives and made them his enemies, without actually bothering to declare himself a liberal. Liberals were happy to celebrate Johnson’s defection from the Right, but the one-time dividend of a New York Times profile hasn’t yielded any lasting benefit.

No blog is an island. If you aren’t linked by other blogs, you can’t increase your readership. That which does not grow will eventually begin to die. When Johnson decided to make war on erstwhile blog allies, he also cut himself off from their readers, and without a readership — beyond the dwindling cult of sycophants — he has become irrelevant.

And Pamela Geller “was such a small fish,” y’know? It’s amazing what a “small fish” can accomplish.

She’ll be at CPAC next month with a world-premiere movie.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

Category: Atlas Shrugs, Charles Johnson, Diary of Daedalus, Glenn Beck, The Blogmocracy, The Flemish Menace

LIVE AT FIVE – 1.21.11

Posted on | January 21, 2011 | 8 Comments

TOP NEWS
House GOP Seeking To Cut Budget Back to 2008 Levels

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.)

Republican Study Committee proposes cut to 2006 budget levels over the next decade

Surprise Over Nork Offer Of High-Level Military Talks
Also, PRC warned to rein in Norks

Obama Moving Political Offices To Chicago
First moves to start up re-election campaign already underway



POLITICS
Feds Make Record Mob Sweep

Hundreds arrested throughout the Northeastern states


Largest roundup in organized crime history

Gulf War Symposium Draws Thousands to Texas A&M



Kennedy Center Opens JFK Commemoration

Liberal Group Common Cause Whines About Scalia, Thomas Not Recusing Themselves



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Google’s Eric Schmidt To Cash Out With $335 Million Stock Sale
Walmart, First Lady Team Up For Healthier Groceries Initiative
SEC To Require Disclosures On Asset-Backed Bonds
Verizon Challenges FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules
Are Android Tablets Vapor? Or Just Not Here?
Breakthrough In Navy Laser Weapon Technology



SPORTS
Red Wings Sign Evgeni Nabokov

Last year, Nabokov and the Sharks knocked Detroit out of the playoffs

Red Wings now wait to see if the former Sharks goalie clears NHL waivers

Brady’s Foot Surgery A Success

Bulls Defeat Mavs In Defensive Struggle, 82-77


Stars Beat Oilers 4-2 For Record 8th Road Win

Nyets GM Apologizes To Team For Carmelo Anthony Trade Talks



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Swift & Gyllenhaal: Together Again?

Jake & Taylor: why would she?

Maybe not: onlooker says couple were “cordial, but not affectionate”.

Clint Eastwood To Direct Beyonce In “A Star Is Born”

Britney Shows Fierce New Look In “Hold It Against Me” Video

Ke$ha’s Big Lie

Sacha Baron Cohen To Play Saddam Hussein In “The Dictator”

“American Idol” Premiere Ratings: Biggest Drop Yet



FOREIGNERS
Israel To Disconnect Gaza From Infrastructure Grid
Over 700 Dead, Hundreds Still Missing In Brazilian Landslides
Baroness Warsi: Tory Party Chair Is First Muslim Woman To Become UK Cabinet Minister
Ivory Coast’s Gbagbo Running Out Of Cash As Sanctions Bite Down On Ivorian Economy



BLOGS & STUFF
Greg Mankiw: Give Me $1 Billion To Cut The Deficit
Fausta: One Million Jobs Went To Aliens, Most of Them Illegal
Megan McArdle: Department Of Awful Statistics
Liberty Pundits: ABC News Needs To Shut Up About Rush

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Jesse Walker on Loughner and Zeitgeist

Posted on | January 20, 2011 | 4 Comments

In the immediate aftermath of the Tucson massacre, the mainstream media went chasing after “right-wing” phantoms, as the managing editor of Reason magazine explains:

In the meantime, people who actually knew the killer were talking to the press, dropping clues about what Loughner really was reading and viewing. Loughner’s friend Zach Osler, for example, told ABC that while the killer wasn’t interested in mainstream political debates, he was a fan of Peter Joseph’s 2007 documentary Zeitgeist. Joseph’s movie is one-third arguments that religion is a fraud, one-third 9/11 trutherism, and one-third conspiracy theories about bankers.
Loughner’s interest in Zeitgeist clears up the currency question a bit. . . .
Zeitgeist . . . belongs to the old money-crank tradition, a venerable worldview that stretches from the Greenback Party to the Social Credit movement and from the fascist poet Ezra Pound to the pop Buddhist Alan Watts. Joseph’s critique does overlap with the arguments offered by gold bugs, and if you download the study guide he offers online you’ll find them among the rainbow coalition of sources that he cites: libertarians (William Anderson, Ron Paul), leftists (John Kenneth Galbraith, Ferdinand Lundberg), Birchers (Gary Allen, G. Edward Griffin), even a cameo by Lyndon LaRouche. But his movie’s chief argument against the Fed is that it is a private institution that profits by lending money at interest; and it praises the old money-crank remedy of an “interest-free independent currency” that isn’t created by private banks.
In 2009 Peter Joseph founded a full-blown Zeitgeist Movement, with a platform heavy on futurism, sustainability, and utopian economics. There’s no sign, as of this writing, that Loughner’s love for the Zeitgeist movie extended into a love for the Zeitgeist Movement. . . . ABC unfortunately doesn’t seem to have asked Osler any follow-up questions about what exactly the killer liked about the documentary and what ideas he took from it. . . . But whatever he got out of the video is obviously just one element of the great big crazycakes combination that is the mind of Jared Lee Loughner.
My own guess is that Loughner’s interest in alternate realities was at the core of his worldview, and that he was attracted to those elements of fringe politics that might reinforce his suspicion that the waking world is a lie. . . .

Read the whole thing.

Category: Arizona, Conspiracy Theories, Crime, Economics, Zeitgeist

Remember When MTV Played Music?

Posted on | January 20, 2011 | 16 Comments

Some youngsters might find it hard to believe that, in the misty dawn of primitive cable programming, MTV stood for “Music Television,” and they played videos by popular bands and singers. That was before they decided that teen sex was where the big money is:

MTV executives have a new hit drama on their hands, featuring the sexual and drug-fueled exploits of misfit teenagers. They also have something else — a fear that coming episodes of the show may break the law.
In recent days, executives at the cable channel became concerned that some scenes from the provocative new show “Skins” may violate federal child pornography statutes. . . .
The youngest cast member on “Skins” is 15.

C’mon, you other cable networks! Why let MTV have a monopoly on this action? Surely the producers at Disney can see the ratings bonanza to be reaped with “Zack and Cody’s Cougar Threesome Fantasy,” and you guys at Nickelodeon need to get to work on “Dora the Explorer’s Muy Caliente Cancun Spring Break Adventure.”

Category: Hollywood, Sex

Howard Dean: ‘Fight to Stop Right-Wing Republicans From Rolling Back Progress’

Posted on | January 20, 2011 | 6 Comments

It’s helpful sometimes for conservatives to take a peek inside the echo chambers of liberalism, which is why I subscribe to a few mailing lists, including Democracy For America (DFA) which sent me this e-mail from Howard Dean:

Robert –
We’ve come a long way together over the years. We’ve had many victories and our share of setbacks. The next few years aren’t going to be easy either. It’s going to be a fight to stop right-wing Republicans from rolling back progress and forcing gridlock in Congress. We’ll need to work harder than ever to accomplish real change and reelect President Obama in 2012. But we’ve never been afraid of hard work.
We’ve never sat back and hoped for change, we’ve always done what it takes to make it happen.
Which is why it’s time to discuss the State of our Progressive Movement. How we can move forward to unite our country for a better future and take stock in how far we’ve come. We must decide together where we go from here.
The question is still what kind of country do we want to live in?
Republicans often play to the worst impulses in human nature and separate people from each other, scapegoating minority groups and dismantling our community support systems. We have a better answer.
We know what we believe.
We believe in community. We care about our neighbors and we help each other. We can provide a bright future to our children with a quality education and we can provide a secure retirement free from poverty and dependence for our grandparents. And we can accomplish it within a reasonable budget so we don’t leave a burden of debt on the next generation. Democrats are responsible and balance budgets. Democrats lift up the community and make sure that everyone has a chance for a future.
We believe in security. We will foster strong partnerships with other nations to ensure the secure and safe prosperity for all. We will reduce our dependence on resources that make us vulnerable to attack. We will use our American ingenuity to strengthen our own economy and our environment. We won’t start wars of choice and then perpetuate them to keep the military contractors in business. We will fund schools and investment in green jobs over funding bombers and missile defense our military doesn’t need or even want.
We believe in liberty. We respect every American’s right to practice their own religion and to live a life free from bigotry, abuse, and harassment. We will fight discrimination and deliver on the promise of equality for all Americans. We believe that no one, not multinational corporations nor the government, has the right to your personal information to keep tabs on you for profit or unwarranted policing.
We believe in community, security and liberty and we will never back down.
We will fight to live in a country that values those things we hold dear. Whether we are fighting corporate greed or right-wing attacks, we will stand up for what we believe.
So what does that mean for us in the next two years? That means that we must fight for our values against Republican attempts to dismantle any progress we have made. It will be our mission to make sure Americans know the difference between our values and Republicans — a choice between strong communities, security and liberty — or Republican division, greed, and fear.
President Obama said it best at the memorial service for those who were tragically gunned down in Arizona, “As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let’s use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.”
I know we will fight even harder in 2011 and 2012 than we did in 2008 to make sure no Republican can turn back the clock on the advances we’ve made so far. We will defeat those who stand against the advances we have yet to make. We will not compromise our values in the name of political expediency. We will always fight to move America forward against those who are determined to force us back.
I want to hear from you. What do our shared values mean to you? What should be our priorities for the coming year? How will we work together to move America forward in 2011?
Our movement is best when it’s a conversation. You just heard from me and I want to hear from you. Please take a moment to a let us know your thoughts at DemocracyforAmerica.com or join me live at Daily Kos tonight at 9pm eastern for a live chat. I’ll answer questions and discuss with you what you care about most and your ideas on how to move forward on our shared values.
The State of the Progressive Movement is strong. This is our time to recommit to our work for a better America. You are the reason why we have come so far.
I look forward to working with you, Robert, in 2011 and beyond.

-Howard
Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
Founder, Democracy for America

According to Howard Dean, then, Republicans are “rolling back progress . . . play to the worst impulses in human nature . . . scapegoating minorities.” Republicans “start wars of choice . . . to keep the military contractors in business,” and represent “corporate greed” as well as “division . . . and fear.”

CIVILITY — or ELSE!
Because Republicans Are Evil

Category: Democrats, Liberals, Progressivism

Fear of a Republican Uterus

Posted on | January 20, 2011 | 28 Comments

James Taranto gets very close to the core of the dynamic behind Palin Derangement Syndrome: 

Why does their hatred of her burn so hot?
Ask them, and they’ll most likely tell you: Because she’s a moron. But that is obviously false. . . .
They say she is uneducated. What they mean is that her education is not elite — not Harvard or Yale, or even Michigan or UCLA. They resent her because, in their view, she has risen above her station. . . .
For many liberal women, Palin threatens their sexual identity, which is bound up with their politics . . .
It used to be a trope for liberal interviewers to try to unmask hypocrisy by asking antiabortion politicians — male ones, of course — what they would do if their single teen daughters got pregnant. It’s a rude question, but Palin, whose 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy coincided with Mom’s introduction to the nation, answered it in real life. . . .
Liberal women are the active, driving force behind hatred of Sarah Palin, while liberal men’s behavior is passive and manipulative.

Taranto is very close to something here, and I wonder if the reason he doesn’t push the argument to its logical conclusion is because he is afraid that he would be denounced by hysterical women — yes, even Republican women, even some “conservative” women — if he spoke the blunt truth.

One of the necessary consequences of the Modern Professional Feminist Career Woman Lifestyle is that it tends to limit women’s procreative capacity. It isn’t merely that feminism’s embrace of the Culture of Death elevates abortion to sacramental status. Rather, it is that feminist notions of Progress require that women foresake (or at least postpone) the love-marriage-motherhood model of happiness in pursuit of careerist equality. Read more

Category: Feminism, Sarah Palin
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