The Other McCain

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

LIVE AT FIVE – 12.10.10

Posted on | December 10, 2010 | 3 Comments

TOP NEWS
House Democrats Defy Obama As Senate Schedules Tax Vote

President Obama confident tax compromise will pass

Obama on NPR: “Here’s what I’m confident about, that nobody, Democrat or Republican, wants to see people’s paychecks smaller on January 1st because Congress didn’t act.”


Wikileaks Gets Its Own “Axis Of Evil” Alliance
Hacktivists attack several corporate websites as “payback”, but effects are mixed

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Repeal Thrown Into Doubt By Senate Vote
GOP Senate caucus holds firm in determination to block any measures other than the budget

POLITICS
NYT: Illegals Without Drivers Licenses Risking Deportation, Waaaaah!

Felipa Valencia: homeowner, parent - illegal alien.

Georgia cracking down hard on unlicensed, uninsured illegals; Gray Lady apparently thinks this is raaaaacist

Senator Jim Bunning Bids Farewell To Congress


Governor Christie, Democrats Reach Agreement On Salary Arbitration

Texas Film Commission Refuses Payment to “Machete” Producers



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Stocks Decline, Euro Trades Near One-Year Low On PRC Concerns
Bernanke’s Christmas Present: Chairman Ron Paul
Friend or Foe? Google Teams Up With Independent Book Sellers
Android Sees 300,000 Daily Activations, Rubin Says



SPORTS
Rangers Up The Ante For Cliff Lee

Starting pitcher Cliff Lee, probably the most popular free agent loose at the moment

Managing partners hand Lee menu, ask him to choose as many as he wants from Columns A, B and C

Colts Snap Three-Game Skid, Edge Titans 30-28

Auburn QB Newton Collects Two Postseason Awards

Red Sox Sign Carl Crawford (Video)

Sixers Lose Heartbreaker To Celtics

No Big Signings For Dodgers, But Plenty Of Solid Roster Filling

Temple Tops Hoyas For Dunphy’s 400th Win

Winter Meetings More Like Victory Lap For Giants

RB Maurice Jones-Drew Carries Jaguars To First In AFC South



Rusty Rask Regains Role In 33-Save Effort Behind Bruins 5-2 Win Over Islanders



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
The Return Of Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon

Two-year break from movies not planned: “I just didn’t read anything I liked,” she says. “There are a lot of really, really, really big movies about robots and things — and there’s not a part for a 34-year-old woman in a robot movie.”

Wesley Snipes Reports To Prison; Will Do Three Years For Tax Evasion

Captain Jack’s Crew Has Jumped Ship From “Pirates 4”

Mel Gibson’s Chapel Shutting Down Due To Unauthorized Pix

Brenda Starr To File Last Story January 2



FOREIGNERS
PRC Media Whines That West Putting PRC On Trial With Nobel Peace Prize Award
Prince Charles, Horse Attacked By Student Mob
PRC’s Top Diplomat Meets With Norks
U.S. Threatens Sanctions Against Ivory Coast; African Union Suspends Ivorian Membership



BLOGS & STUFF
Ed Morrissey: Conservative Dems Accuse Liberal Comrades Of Holding Tax Deal “Hostage”
Allahpundit: Oh Noes! Fox Called “Public Option” The “Government Option”!
Newsbusters: Barbara Walters Slams “Uninformed” Sarah Palin
NRO Corner: Palin Heading For Haiti, Not England
Jawa Report: Youssef al-Khattab – Reformed “Moderate” Muslim?
Hit & Run: Where’s The [Stimulus] Multiplier?


— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Reader E-Mail: ‘I Live in Reality’

Posted on | December 9, 2010 | 17 Comments

Image from the Art Renewal Center

Regular readers will remember that earlier this week I found myself tangled up in flame-wars and attacked in the comments after I criticized a feminist’s attempt to use the Julian Assange case as a “teachable moment” to lecture about the protocols of condom use in the context of “no means no.”

Having kicked a hornet’s nest, I was tempted to hunker down like U.S. Grant when he famously declared during the Battle of Spotsylvania: “I intend to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” But I’d clearly gotten off on the wrong foot in that argument and endless flame-war vendettas become tedious after a while. So, even while the negative comments continued to pile up (as of this writing, we’re up to 81 comments on that one post), I just let it go, rather than risk a violation of First Law of Holes: When you’re in one, stop digging.

Before I quit that argument, however, I put up an essay in the Hot Air Green Room, and a reader responded to that essay with an e-mail which she has given me permission to publish:

I am a volunteer facilitator for a non-profit domestic batterers’ group. Once a week I meet with men who have typically been court-ordered to attend because of domestic violence charges. One of the topics is on sexual respect. And a good portion of the curriculum seems like it could have come straight from Filipovic’s “Yes means yes.”
And it all sounds hunky-dory. But as I sit there and try to communicate the concepts with the men, even the ones there out of their own volition to improve their relationships, they often give me a puzzled look — especially when it comes to defining consensual sex, coercive sex, and rape. I’m supposed to encourage them to see that there are actually no set delineations between the terms. It’s all shades of gray, no black and white. Read more

Category: Crime, Culture, Feminism, Sex, The Flemish Menace

A. You Really Don’t Want to Know

Posted on | December 9, 2010 | 16 Comments

Q. How do you artificially inseminate a killer whale?

You might think the tricky part of this procedure would be getting the female orca to cooperate.

But you’d be wrong — at least according to a letter that Motley Crue rocker Tommy Lee wrote to Sea World:

Rocker Tommy Lee is attacking SeaWorld over what he alleges is the inhumane treatment of its killer whales. . . .
In his letter he claims that trainers “masturbate” the whale and said SeaWorld would not release Tilikum because he is their “chief sperm bank.”

OK, now you’re asking yourself, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Exactly how do these trainers supposedly ‘masturbate’ a killer whale?”

Are you sure you want to know the answer? Read more

Category: Sex

Olbermann: ‘My God, You’re a Buffoon’

Posted on | December 9, 2010 | 16 Comments

Last night, I got Tweeted by Keith Olbermann:

Of course, I wasn’t offended. It’s impossible to take Olbermann seriously. Who takes him seriously, besides Democrats and Olbermann himself?

He’s not a political commentator, he’s a performance artist — a Method actor starring in his own imaginary melodrama. Too bad I didn’t see Olbermann’s Tweet earlier, as I might have been able to incorporate it into my latest column for The American Spectator:

The key ingredients to any “Special Comment” include outrageous hyperbole and impressive-sounding adjectives of the sort one might find on an SAT-preparation vocabulary list, as well as a frequent resort to historic and literary references, all of which is permeated with Olbermann’s contempt for conservatives. Consider as a typical example how Olbermann responded in August, when New Yorkers were protesting against plans to build a Muslim cultural center two blocks from the site where the World Trade Center towers were destroyed by terrorists on September 11, 2001. Olbermann began by quoting the four sentences for which Pastor Martin Niemöller is best known (“They came first for the Communists . . .”) en route to accusing Newt Gingrich of having a “lurid imagination,” declaring that the Iraq war was an expression of America’s “naked vengeful blindness,” and condemning opponents of the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” for allegedly urging Americans “to sell our birth-right, to feed the maw of xenophobia and vengeance and mob rule.”
Listening to such overblown rhetoric delivered with all the well-rehearsed seriousness Olbermann can muster (which is quite a lot) serves to reinforce liberals’ sense of their own intellectual superiority, to confirm their belief that anyone who disagrees with them is not merely evil — on Countdown, the evilness of Republicans is indisputable — but also hopelessly stupid. You might think Olbermann’s audience, believing all this, would be at a loss to explain exactly how the party of evil stupidity managed to win an overwhelming victory on November 2. But if you watch Countdown regularly, you know that this result was made possible by the greedy rich, whose ill-gotten wealth was spent to help Republicans appeal to the intractable ignorance, racism and homophobia of the American electorate. . . .

Please read the whole thing.

In an entirely unrelated development, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker reports that Olbermann “was ‘called on the carpet’ by his bosses for declaring Bristol Palin ‘the worst person in the world’ on his show last week — calling it ‘tacky’ and ‘a cheap shot that was uncalled for.'”

Uncalled-for cheap shots from Keith Olbermann?

I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

Related: Matt Schneider has compiled a brief history of Olbermann’s use of the Nazi meme.

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: Uncategorized

BREAKING: Tax Deal Falling Apart?

Posted on | December 9, 2010 | 9 Comments

Here’s the situation: In order to get the deal, Obama needs Republican votes in the Senate. If the Senate GOP filibusters, there’s no deal. But the House Democrats don’t give a damn:

House Democrats have passed a resolution saying they’ll reject President Obama’s tax deal with Republicans. . . .
The House Democratic Caucus passed a resolution by voice vote saying members will vote against Obama’s tax deal in its current form. . . .
“If it’s take it or leave it, we’ll leave it,” said liberal Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a statement saying House Democrats will continue to work with Obama and the GOP “to improve the proposal before it comes to the House floor for a vote.” . . .
Meanwhile, a group of 53 House Democrats led by Vermont’s Peter Welch sent a letter to Pelosi and urged her to hold their ground against the White House. The letter called the deal “fiscally irresponsible” and “grossly unfair.” . . .

UPDATE: Text of Welch’s letter to Pelosi:

Dear Madam Speaker,
We oppose acceding to Republican demands to extend the Bush tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires for two reasons.
First, it is fiscally irresponsible. Adding more than $900 billion to our national debt, as this proposal would do, handcuffs our ability to offer a balanced plan to achieve fiscal stability without a punishing effect on our current commitments, including Social Security and Medicare.
Second, it is grossly unfair. This proposal will hurt, not help, the majority of Americans in the middle class and those working hard to get there. Even as Republicans seek to add billions more to our national debt in tax cuts to the wealthy, they oppose extending unemployment benefits to workers and resist COLA increases to seniors.
Without a doubt, the very same people who support this addition to our debt will oppose raising the debt ceiling to pay for it.
We support extending tax cuts in full to 98 percent of American taxpayers, as the President initially proposed. He should not back down. Nor should we.
Sincerely,
PETER WELCH
Member of Congress

Looking at the list of more than 50 House Democrats who signed the Welch letter, I see several names — including Paul Kanjorski, Jim Oberstar and Alan Grayson — of Democrats who got beat in the mid-term election. Their careers are over and so they’ve got a political free-pass for these lame ducks to take a stand on “principle,” possibly resulting in a no-deal meltdown that results in Americans paying higher taxes next year. And maybe, as Larry Summer warns, pushing the economy into a double-dip recession.

Because of hate.

Liberals hate rich people, and they don’t care if the rest of us suffer, just so they get to inflict some pain on the rich. Read more

Category: Barack Obama, Congress, Taxes

You’ll Never Forgive Me for This

Posted on | December 9, 2010 | 18 Comments

Of all of the sick, disgusting, offensive things I’ve ever blogged, nothing can top this one. But remember: Nobody can force you to click the link. It’s a free country, and I am not responsible for the result. Read more

Category: Celebrities, Sarah Palin

Awesome Awesomeness Update: MSNBC Host Rips Into Democrat Alan Grayson

Posted on | December 9, 2010 | 14 Comments

Given that Alan Grayson is one of the most vile pieces of filth ever elected to Congress — but not re-elected, as he got stomped 56%-38% by Republican Daniel Webster last month — there can be no doubt that he deserved this abuse from MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(Via Hot Air Headlines.) First Olbermann smacks Obama, then Maddow smacks Obama, now O’Donnell smacks Grayson — clearly someone at MSNBC has figured out which way the political winds are blowing.

Category: Florida, MSNBC, Taxes, Video

OUTRAGE: Wisconsin Strip Club Denies Equal Rights to Nude Lap Dances

Posted on | December 9, 2010 | 6 Comments

“I have a dream that some day all God’s children will be stuffing dollar bills into the garters of meth-addicted skanks . . .”

The shocking story:

An Abbotsford business man is under fire for posting a ‘No negroes allowed’ sign in his future gentlemen’s club. The sign excluding black people is enraging residents of this small town in Wisconsin.
The Clark County business man, Mark Prior, says its his right to discriminate. “If I‘ve got a problem with you it’s going to be on the front of my store,” he says.
The gentlemen’s club Prior wants to open is in a building next to the Abbotsford city hall and library. A city official asked him to remove the sign, which was previously outside the establishment but he kept it and placed it inside the club instead. . . .

Can we expect Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to organize a pole-dancer protest march? Will this become the 21st-century equivalent of the Edmund Pettus Bridge? Does Troglopundit know about this? Then again, this is a human rights issue, and I’m not sure the Supreme Court has recognized troglodytes as human . . .

Shouldn’t you hit my tip jar so I can fly to Wisconsin and do some investigative reporting into this shameful discrimination?

Category: Racism, Video, Wisconsin
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