The Other McCain

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

4 Dems Vote to Repeal ObamaCare?

Posted on | January 7, 2011 | Comments Off on 4 Dems Vote to Repeal ObamaCare?

Kinda. It was a procedural vote:

[T]he new Republican-led House took a first step Friday toward a symbolic vote to repeal his landmark health care overhaul law, which would provide coverage to more than 30 million Americans without health insurance.
But the 236-181 largely party-line vote is unlikely to amount to more than a political message, since Democrats who still run the Senate have promised to block efforts to scrap the law and Obama has veto power. . . .
The House action set the rules for a debate next week that will culminate in a simple for-or-against vote on repeal, scheduled for Wednesday.

That’s from an Associated Press story that’s so busy trying to tell you What To Think that they barely tell you What Actually Happened.

More from The Lonely Conservative and Gateway Pundit.

Like I said this morning, it’s important that Republicans force a vote on this issue so that “moderate” Democrats can’t hide.

Make Democrats the ObamaCare Party. The American people hate ObamaCare. Because the American people are raaaaacist!

Category: Congress, Health Care

Best. Republican. Scandal. EVAH!
UPDATE: Is ‘Lurid’ Photo a Hoax?

Posted on | January 7, 2011 | 43 Comments

The Party of Faith, Family and Freedom — and Famous Congresswomen Getting Their Breasts Licked by Disgraced Bankrupt Ex-Billionaires Reportedly Under Federal Investigation.

Left Coast Rebel is among the bloggers commenting on this story. I’m thinking maybe Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Larry Craig, Mark Sanford, David Vitter and Mark Foley should form a new 527 organization, perhaps with G. Gordon Liddy as their honorary chairman:

Republicans for Reform
Bring Back the Good Old Days
When GOP Scandals Were
Slightly Less Embarrassing

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE II: In the comments, some readers raise the related questions (a) is this a PhotoShop? and/or (b) does the “exclusive . . . lurid photo” posted by Radar Online actually show what it claims to show?

While I don’t want to turn this into a full-on RatherGate-style photo-fisking, one commenter who suspects fakery writes: “If you really *look* at it, Mary is leaning back, and the other woman is at least a foot closer to the camera and sticking her tongue out at somebody out of frame.”

There’s definitely something odd about the lighting/perspective of the photo. And here’s Radar’s description of what it claims to show:

In a scandal set to rock Capitol Hill, RadarOnline.com has learned the image was taken at an out-of-control event four-years-ago, at Blixseth’s $75 million Porcupine Creek estate in Rancho Mirage, California.
With her head thrown back, Bono’s plunging bra is exposed as Blixseth — who now dates Dallas actor Jack Scalia after splitting from her husband Tim in 2008 — is seen diving into the politician’s cleavage with her tongue out.
“Mary was partying hard,” one source, who was at the event, told RadarOnline.com. “She was blitzed and clearly having a great time.”

This description is not, however, proven by the photo. Bono appears to be sitting on a sofa, engaged in conversation with someone seated to her left. What is described as a “plunging bra” actually looks more like a swimsuit. Was this taken at a pool party? Was Bono wearing a brown sundress over a black swimsuit? So as evidence that Bono was “partying hard” or “blitzed,” this photo just doesn’t work.

Darn it.

Mary Bono was one of the “Cap-and-Trade 8” House Republicans who voted for that job-killing Waxman-Markey bill, so I’d have no problem with her resigning from Congress. But other than getting a $1,500 contribution from Blixseth and having her on the campaign’s fund-raising committee, this scandal seems a tad overblown.

Another point: Blixseth is the one reportedly under FBI investigation, not Bono. Lots of people give money to political campaign and, while it may be embarrassing when a contributor is caught in shenanigans, this does not automatically implicate the recipient of the donation in whatever it was the contributor did wrong. See my recent American Spectator column, “The Scandal of Being Republican.”

UPDATE II: Linked by Threedonia, Uncoverage and Little Miss Atilla — thanks!

UPDATE III: Guest-blogging at Michelle Malkin’s site, Doug Powers offers a good example of how the foreground/background photo illusion works.

Category: California, Republicans, Scandal, Sex

The Blog Post in Which I, Stacy McCain, Defend Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller

Posted on | January 7, 2011 | 4 Comments

You never expected this day would come and, frankly, neither did I. But Mary Katharine Ham just Tweeted this:

BREAKING: DailyCaller gets story tip, looks into it, decides not to publish. http://bit.ly/ihrWnr Escandalo de hermanos de Koch!

That shortlink is to a Salon story in which Alex Pareene tries to gin up a scandal story based on reports that the Daily Caller tried to . . . uh, gin up a scandal story.

It’s what you’d call a “long run for a short slide,” so I’ll summarize it: Jane Mayer of The New Yorker wrote a story about the Koch brothers’ funding of various free-market operations that have supported the Tea Party movement. Someone sent a tip to Jonathan Strong of the Daily Caller claiming that Mayer had committed plagiarism. He spent a week investigating the allegation, which didn’t pan out. End of story.

That is to say, it would be the end of the story, except that Pareene tries to turn it into something sinister:

According to a knowledgeable source, Tucker Carlson was heard saying that the reason the story needed to go up this week, specifically on Monday or Tuesday, was because the National Magazine Awards submission deadline was on Thursday. Apparently, Carlson wanted to throw the New Yorker into enough of a panic that they wouldn’t submit the Koch story for an Ellie.
If this is true, the Caller story looks a lot more like a political smear campaign than “traditional” reporting.

Whoever Pareene’s “knowledgeable source” is, Tucker Carlson needs to hunt them down and beat them to a bloody pulp. The editorial decision-making process of a news organization is proprietary information.

What you publish is what you publish, and nobody outside the newsroom should ever learn what goes on behind the scenes — the sausage-making process of journalism, as it were — except when the boss decides to make it public. If you’re going to go blabbing newsroom secrets in such a way as to expose your employer to ridicule, you are the lowest form of scum on earth.

Staffers who go telling tales about whose story got spiked, et cetera, are working against the organization that pays their salaries, and such treacherous insubordination cannot be tolerated or it will destroy newsroom morale.

If you’re gonna work for Tucker Carlson, you had best by God be working for Tucker Carlson.

UPDATE: Let me explain a bit about how stories sometimes don’t pan out. In the newspaper business, you get used to dealing with The Nut in the Lobby — somebody who walks in with a crazy story they expect the newspaper to investigate. Some of these people are mentally ill, and some are just “concerned citizen” types. But all of them have seen a few too many TV dramas where “investigative journalists” are portrayed as superhero crusaders for justice. Read more

Category: R.S. McCain School of Journalism

BREAKING: Bomb Scare in D.C.
UPDATE: Napolitano Was Target

Posted on | January 7, 2011 | 4 Comments

This is beginning to annoy me:

At least one package has ignited at a D.C. postal facility, D.C. Police tell WTOP.
Police say one or two packages ignited at a facility in the 3300 block of V Street in Northeast shortly after around 2:45 p.m. Friday.

If this is the same dude that sent yesterday’s incendiary packages in Maryland — allegedly because of road signs — I hereby dub him The Douchebag Bomber, because he keeps interrupting me while I’m working on important stories. And when I get annoyed, I start making jokes on Twitter:

UPDATE: Ed O’Keefe at The Washington Post is liveblogging the developments.

UPDATE II: The package was reportedly addressed to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. What kind of sick freak would want Napolitano to see his package? I guarantee you, criminal profilers at FBI headquarters are now telling their investigators: “Be on the lookout for a ginormous douchebag.”

UPDATE III: Video from Associated Press:

Full story from the Washington Post:

A package addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ignited in a District postal facility Friday, authorities said, a day after two similar parcels containing low-grade incendiary devices flashed in Maryland government buildings. . . .
The incendiary parcel confirmed fears that Thursday’s packages in Maryland were not the only ones in the mail and gave heightened urgency to an already large investigation involving myriad local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

The perpetrator is obviously not an actual terrorist: Real terrorists would never target Janet Incompetano. She’s their only hope!

Category: Crime

My Adorable 8-Year-Old Daughter Just Thanked Me for a Turkey Sandwich

Posted on | January 7, 2011 | 16 Comments

Turkey and cheese on a croissant, to be more specific. It happened that Reagan and I were the only ones at home at lunchtime today, so when I went up to the kitchen to pour myself another cup of coffee, she came to me and said, “Dad, could you please fix me some lunch?”

Sure, I said, and she answered, “Thanks! You’re the best Dad ever!”

Perhaps you’re a parent and you’re saying to yourself, “My children have never thanked me for a turkey sandwich. What’s this McCain guy’s secret?”

Two words: Read more

Category: Family, Instapundit

A. Two Famous Politicians Who Make Headlines But Will Never Be President

Posted on | January 7, 2011 | 6 Comments

Q. Who are John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani?

Politico has to rely on the National Enquirer as a source for their “John Edwards to Marry His Baby Mama” story. As the man famously said, there are “Two Americas,” and in the liberal America where people used to take Edwards seriously, he’s now just the punchline to a preposterous joke. Of course, out here in the other America, where people have common sense, Silky Pony was always a joke.

As to this “Rudy 2012” nonsense — well, that’s what it is, nonsense. It was also nonsense in 2008, yet there were enough idiots who took it seriously that Rudy collected $59 million to win zero delegates. (Give me $59 million so I can run for president, and I’m pretty sure I could get at least one delegate, maybe in South Carolina.)

Other than providing employment to opportunistic GOP operatives willing to collect a paycheck from a big-name campaign, what did Giuliani’s 2008 presidential candidacy accomplish? It sucked up a lot of media and money and debate time just so Rudy could remind people that Republicans don’t like terrorists and dictators. And sucked up just enough votes to help John McCain win Florida.

I got nothing against Giuliani, honestly, but I’ve got $20 that says Herman Cain will get more Iowa caucus votes than Rudy, and I doubt there’s anyone who knows anything about politics who’ll take that bet.

UPDATE: Ace of Spades:

“The Republican Party is a right-side party, period, and this idea that a moderate ‘savior’ is going to come in and win is silly.”

In that post, Ace expresses a moderate pro-choice position that tempted me to write a separate post with the headline, “Why Does Ace ♥ Baby-Killers?” or maybe, “Why Is Ace of Spades Promoting ‘States Rights’ Like Lester Maddox?”

But the traffic suckage hasn’t reached the stage where I feel the need to gin up a phony flame war just to get hits.

Yet.

Category: Election 2012

Knocked Up and Sexy

Posted on | January 7, 2011 | 10 Comments

Yeah, we’re talking about Natalie Portman again. Princess Amidala is now famously pregnant with her own little Luke Skywalker, and People magazine has the latest:

Pregnant Natalie Portman kept her hand on her growing baby bump at Wednesday’s People’s Choice Awards in L.A.
For her first awards show appearance since announcing her pregnancy and engagement to dancer/choreographer Benjamin Millilpied, Portman, 29, wore a loose-fitting, frilled short blue Jason Wu shift dress and mesh Dior pumps.

Some people hate it when I use “knocked up” as a term to describe pregnancy. They consider it coarse and vulgar. They’d prefer I use a more polite term like “got a bun in the oven.”

Of course, Portman’s still in the morning-sickness phase of pregnancy, which sucks. The best part of pregnancy — let me hear you testify, people! — is third-trimester sex.

BTW, I got that story about Portman via today’s “Live at Five,” which is a feature Wombat produces every weekday morning. “Live at Five” is a great round-up of essential headlines that goes online at 5 a.m. Eastern so readers begin each day with the news they need to know.

“Live at Five” is a good reason to subscribe to The Other McCain via Wikio so you don’t miss a thing. Because when Natalie Portman starts squeezing out that puppy . . .

Category: Celebrities

Lisa D on the Herman Cain Bandwagon?

Posted on | January 7, 2011 | Comments Off on Lisa D on the Herman Cain Bandwagon?

CPAC director Lisa DePasquale profiles Herman Cain in her latest “De Pasquale’s Dozen” column at Human Events.

CPAC starts Feb. 10 — just 34 days from now — so go register now.

Category: CPAC, Herman Cain
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