The Other McCain

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

SHOCKING REPUBLICAN SCANDAL!

Posted on | January 5, 2011 | 3 Comments

Expect that kind of reaction from the media whatever Republicans do in the 112th Congress. My latest American Spectator column:

Even before they were sworn into office, Republican freshmen in the 112th Congress had already shocked the political press corps in the nation’s capital.
A group of the incoming GOP representatives scheduled a fundraiser with country singer LeAnn Rimes as the star attraction and this event was treated by Politico reporters Ken Vogel and Marin Cogan as the biggest scandal since Teapot Dome.
How dare those Republicans try to raise money to get themselves re-elected?
This kind of ginned-up controversy typifies the political double standards that suffuse the work of America’s political journalists. Anything can be portrayed as scandalous as long as it involves Republicans, because the GOP is presumed to be The Party of Wrong and Evil. Yet no Democrat’s words or deeds, not even the most heinous crime, can ever qualify as evidence that the Democratic Party is anything but a force for all that is Good and Right. . . .

Read the whole shocking thing.

How dare Republicans host a concert by notorious bikini-wearing Leann Rimes? There are even scandalous rumors that Republicans may keep their promise to repeal ObamaCare. Shocking!

Category: American Spectator, Congress, Republicans, Scandal

RINO No More: Dede Scozzafava Appointed to Job by Democrat Cuomo

Posted on | January 5, 2011 | 14 Comments

She finally gets her 30 pieces of silver:

Former North Country Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava — who became a household name across America during a tough 2009 congressional race — was appointed today by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as deputy secretary for local government at the state Department of State.
Scozzafava, a Republican, dropped out of the 23rd Congressional District race three days before the 2009 election and infuriated some Republicans by throwing her support to Democratic candidate Bill Owens – not Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. . . .
In late December, Scozzafava told The (Syracuse) Post-Standard she was still a Republican.
“I’m still a Republican. I felt an obligation to the people that elected me to the state Assembly to stay in the party that I’ve been enrolled in for my entire life, at least throughout the end of my term in office. We’ll just see from there,” she said.

What Dede Scozzafava did can never be forgiven, nor should it ever be forgotten. Let her name be known to history as an epithet, a synonym for betrayal: Judas. Benedict Arnold. Quisling. Scozzafava.

Category: New York

LIVE AT FIVE – 1.5.10

Posted on | January 5, 2011 | 1 Comment

TOP NEWS
Navy Removes Captain Of The Enterprise Over Raunchy Videos

Captains Owen Honors (L) and John Moore (R) last year in Poti, Georgia

Because everyone knows combat readiness and morale aren’t as important as sensitivity.

House GOP To Move Fast In Undoing Obama Agenda
Many early votes will be symbolic

Governor of Pakistan’s Punjab Province Killed By Own Guard
Slain governor a close associate of President Zardari



POLITICS
Federal Investigators Probe NYC Snow Plowing Slowdown

(Generic snowplow picture)

Union bosses could face Federal conspiracy charges

Appellate Judges Want Guidance From California Supremes On Prop 8 Defense

Birthright Citizenship: Next Immigration Battleground?

GOP Freshmen Kick Off 112th Congress With Glitzy Fundraiser; Predictable Whining From Leftists Ensues



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Major Shift In Auto Industry Underway
Big Three being replaced by Gang of Seven
Asian Stocks Slide As Stronger Dollar Drives Commodities Down
Asus’ New Eee Tablets Include Both Android, Windows Options
10-Year-Old Canadian Youngest To Discover Supernova



SPORTS
Raiders Fire Cable

Raiders coach Tom Cable

Third-year option not picked up despite team going 8-8 for first non-losing season since 2002

Knicks Cool Off Spurs With 128-115 Victory

Bengals Re-sign Coach Lewis (Video)


The Big Ten Meets Dante’s Inferno



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Lohan Out Of Rehab; Out Of Trouble, Not So Much

LiLo: out of Betty Ford frying pan, back into fire?

Police refer battery charges to DA for prosecution
Meg Ryan, John Mellencamp Quietly Dating


Gwyneth Paltrow To Host SNL – With Musical Guest Cee Lo Green

LeAnn Rimes Gets Bolt-Ons

Justin Bieber: The Vanity Fair Interview

Vivica Fox Engaged To Young Concert Promoter

Victoria Beckham Confirms Implants Are Out



FOREIGNERS
Amid Massive Security, Egypt’s Copts Protest Peacefully
Australia On Edge As Floods Test Rockhampton’s Defenses
Ivory Coast Tensions Grow Despite Negotiations (Video)
Greece To Build Controversial Wall On Turkish Border
Slain Filipino Councilman Had Gun, Didn’t Draw It, Says Wife
Japan Seeks Closer Military Ties To ROK To Forestall Looming Nork Threat
Youngest Son Of Former Iranian Shah Commits Suicide, 44
Italy Increases Pressure On Brazil Over Battisti After Outgoing Lula Refuses To Extradite Leftist Murderer



BLOGS & STUFF
Protein Wisdom: New Speaker Vows To Share Power – A Tricky Proposition
The Sundries Shack: When Reality Meets “The Family Guy”
Allahpundit: Et tu, Gibbsy?
Daily Caller: Santorum Knocks Romney, Palin
Tammy Bruce: A Few Brief Thoughts On A Sarah Palin Retweet
Gateway Pundit: Speaker Pelosi’s Final Insult


— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Walpin’s Appeals Rejected

Posted on | January 4, 2011 | 4 Comments

You may remember IG-Gate:

A three-judge panel rejected appeals Tuesday by Gerald Walpin, a former federal watchdog fired by President Obama in 2009, likely ending his attempts to get back his old job.
Former Corporation for National and Community Service Inspector General Gerald Walpin. (AP)Walpin was appointed inspector general for the agency overseeing AmeriCorps during George W. Bush’s administration and filed suit in July 2009 shortly after his dismissal.
But in a unanimous seven-page ruling issued Tuesday, judges with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously affirmed a previous district court decision, stating that Walpin “does not have a ‘clear and indisputable right’ ” to reinstatement.
In an interview, Walpin said he was disappointed by the decision, “not for myself but for the institution of inspectors general,” because the court decision “has effectively removed any meaning” to a 2008 inspector general reform law.

Above and beyond the individual issue of Walpin’s firing is this question: What have Obama’s appointees been getting away with at AmeriCorps in the past year-and-a-half? And the White House lawyer who fired Walpin? He’s now ambassador to Czechoslovakia.

Category: Barack Obama, Scandal

The Fatherhood Deficit

Posted on | January 4, 2011 | 22 Comments

“I find it far-fetched that women are having abortions because no one is willing to help them give the baby up for adoption — there are lots of people and agencies that will not only help them, but pay a substantial portion of their expenses until they deliver. They’re having abortions because pregnancy is physically uncomfortable, and there’s still a social stigma on women who carry a baby to term in order to give it away. . . .
“The means to (almost always when used correctly) prevent pregnancy is quite widely distributed through our nation’s drugstores, and adoptions are quite well facilitated through the current network of adoption agencies. Yet nonetheless, one in five pregnancies ends in an abortion.”
— Megan McArdle, “Abortion, Adoption, Supply and Demand,” The Atlantic Monthly

And 40% of babies carried to term are born to unmarried women. What does this reveal? I think it reveals less about women’s preferences than men’s. Aren’t the prevalence of abortion, the popularity of contraception and the pandemic of unwed motherhood all largely the result of men’s declining interest in fatherhood?

Men are nowadays increasingly eager to avoid commitment to wives and children, to keep their options open, to evade responsibility for the welfare of others, to live only for themselves, their own pleasure, their own advantage. The word “duty” no longer has any positive meaning in a culture of selfish entitlement, a society devoted to abject and unapologetic hedonism.

The guy who pays his own bills, raises his own children and sleeps with his own wife is scorned as a chump, presumably too stupid to figure out a way to escape such an unglamorous life. As a society, we have de-stigmatized bastardy and thereby let the “baby daddies” off the hook, shifting their obligations to taxpayers — except where we can create work for lawyers who’ll sue the unwilling dads into permanent poverty to subsidize the single motherhood of their ex-girlfriends.

Where no stigma is attached, nor any punishment due, to those who do the wrong thing (for that would be judgmental, after all) neither can anyone expect praise or reward for doing the right thing. We should not be surprised, then, that people act as if they are at best agnostic toward — if not contemptuous of — old-fashioned virtue.

If men can scarcely be compelled to support their own flesh and blood, why should we expect them to volunteer to support other people’s offspring through adoption? This is just another symptom of a widespread disease, the spiritual decay of a demoralized nation.

“To live for the moment is the prevailing passion— to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity. We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future.”
—Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (1979)

As Ed Driscoll says, “Oswald Spengler, please call your office.”


Category: Abortion, Family, Marriage

You Stay Classy, Kathy Griffin!

Posted on | January 4, 2011 | 16 Comments

Hollie McKay reports at Fox News:

Kathy Griffin announced her New Year’s resolution to continue a verbal assault on the Palin family. Only in 2011, the comedian said she intends to target Sarah Palin’s 16-year-old daughter, Willow.
“I’ve already gone for Sarah, Todd and Bristol obviously,” Griffin told The Hollywood Reporter. “But I think it’s Willow’s year to go down. In 2011, I want to offend a new Palin.”

Nothing is sacred and no one is safe, as I wrote a month ago:

Griffin and [comedian Margaret] Cho, like the members of the liberal media who applaud and encourage them, are engaged in a political search-and-destroy mission that began the moment Sarah Palin was announced as the 2008 GOP vice-presidential candidate. The threat she posed to Obama was clear from the outset, and was quickly proven by a phenomenal poll surge for the Republican ticket, and they embarked on an unrelenting anti-Palin campaign that continues to this day.
There are no rules to this warfare, no boundary of decency the liberals will not transgress in pursuit of their intended prey. Everything is fair game to them, so long as they think it can hurt Palin.

Read the whole thing, in case you haven’t read it before.

Category: Celebrities, Liberals, Sarah Palin

Pakistani Official Who Opposed Sharia Law Killed by His Own Bodyguard

Posted on | January 4, 2011 | 7 Comments

Not an encouraging development:

The governor of Pakistan’s most populous province was gunned down Tuesday at an upscale marketplace in Islamabad by a member of an elite police security contingent, officials said. The brazen killing threw an already teetering U.S.-backed government into even greater turmoil.
Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province and an avowed opponent of religious extremism, was shot to death at an open-air shopping center that is frequented by foreigners and the Pakistani elite. He was a prominent political ally of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Aaron Goldstein at The American Spectator:

Taseer’s assassination comes scarcely 48 hours after the liberal, secularist MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement) withdrew from the coalition government led by the Pakistan’s People Party (PPP).
Taseer was part of the PPP . . .
The PPP is trying to form an alliance with the main opposition party led by former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. . . .
[W]hat happens in Pakistan has a direct bearing on the War in Afghanistan as well as on the broader War on Terror . . . Let’s also not forget they have nuclear weapons. As we all know, nukes and a jihadist ideology mixed together does not bode well.

UPDATE: Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch:

Why we don’t see more Islamic reformers, chapter 489. Taseer dared to oppose the blasphemy law that Muslims in Pakistan have used for years now to victimize Christians, and so he has been murdered.

UPDATE II: The BBC has video and reports:

Many were angered by [Tajeer’s] defence of a Christian woman sentenced to death. . . .
Mr Taseer made headlines recently by appealing for the pardon of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
Friends of the governor say he knew he was risking his life by speaking out.

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs:

Consistent with Islam’s 1,400 year history, the moderate, reasoned voices are eliminated. Always. Moderates have no theological leg to stand on in Islam. Period.

This is exactly the problem, isn’t it? Anyone who takes the sacred texts of Islam seriously can see that Islam commands death for both Salmaan Taseer and Asia Bibi. And thus there is a Darwinian effect in Islamic socieities as the unbelievers and the moderates are slaughtered, those who perpetrate jihadist violence are celebrated as heroes, and doubters are intimidated into silence.

Yet anyone in the West who points out these disturbing truths about Islamic culture is denounced as an intolerant bigot, as if Islam’s peaceful critics were more dangerous than Islam’s murderously faithful practicioners.

UPDATE III: Reliapundit:

Is Pakistan collapsing in front of our eyes? Yes!

Now a Memeorandum thread, with further reports from the Associated Press and the New York Times.

Category: Islam, Pakistan, Terrorism

Drew M. Nails It

Posted on | January 4, 2011 | 12 Comments

“If Captain Honors goes down for this, expect some guys with stars on their shoulders to take a hit as well . . .
“If Honors is relieved . . . you have to wonder if the top brass of the Navy really get that we are a nation that has been at war for almost a decade. Yes, this looks bad to civilians and yes, the videos show some questionable judgment but the bottom line is . . . what’s best for the war effort?”
— Drew M., “NBC News: Navy Will ‘Temporarily’ Relieve USS Enterprise Captain Over Videos,” Ace of Spades HQ

Following up on this morning’s post, I think that despite the cogency of his remarks, Drew M. has perhaps overlooked the true significance of this controversy: The Ace of Spades Lifestyle™ is under attack.

UPDATE: Speaking of the AOSHQ Lifestyle™ . . .

UPDATE II: Sarah Palin re-Tweets Tammy Bruce and this is a huge controversy! 

This is part of a seldom-noticed MSM motif: Anything is automatically controversial — nay, scandalous — when it’s done by a Republican. For example, newly-elected GOP House members schedule a fund-raiser in Washington and this is a SHOCKING OUTRAGE!

How dare those Republicans try to get re-elected?

Next thing you know, those tricky Republicans might actually vote against ObamaCare . . .

UPDATE III: In this video, notice how the CNN anchorette deems herself an authority to pronounce Capt. Honors “totally inappropriate for someone who commands an aircraft carrier.”

Just to be clear about the rules of the New Navy in the post-DADT era: An admiral can dress in drag and march in the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, but any sailor who makes a wisecrack about such behavior will be drummed out of the service.

Category: Ace of Spades, Military
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