The Other McCain

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

Scratch Newt for 2012

Posted on | December 3, 2010 | 45 Comments

He lost me at “not”:

“We are not going to deport 11 million people,” Gingrich said Thursday as he kicked off his first forum on Latino issues. “There has to be some zone between deportation and amnesty.”

We are also not going to be able to kill or capture every terrorist in the world, but we don’t go around proclaiming that in public, do we?

What Newt is saying here is simple: Surrender.

Raise the white flag, forfeit national sovereignty and admit that we are no longer a nation of law — issue a free pass to foreign lawbreakers who are, and of right should be treated as, criminals.

Every dime donated to a Newt Gingrich presidential campaign is a waste — but it’s worse than a waste, because it distracts attention from candidates who might possibly win. If the Great Maverick Debacle of 2008 proved nothing else, it proved that when Republicans nominate a two-faced backstabbing weasel who supports amnesty, disaster ensues.

No amnesty. Ever. And no more backstabbing weasels.

Hasta la vista, Newt!

Category: Immigration

LIVE AT FIVE – 12.03.10

Posted on | December 3, 2010 | 3 Comments

TOP NEWS

House Votes 333-79 To Censure Rangel For Ethics Violations

Congressman Charles Rangel, D-NY

Long history of violations weighed heavily against him

Lame Duck  Congress Does Tax Bill Kabuki

Symbolic vote by House to preserve tax rates for lower & middle-class taxpayers unlikely to pass Senate


Troopers Report Slow But Steady Progress In Clearing NY State Thruway
Highway blocked for hours by first lake-effect blizzard of the winter



POLITICS

Senate GOP Blasts Pentagon DADT Repeal Survey

Senator John McCain (R-AZ)

McCain to Gates: “You think it’s a good idea to replace 264,000 troops across the force at a time of war?”

Judge Denies Request To Close Great Lakes To Carp



Coburn, Crapo Endorse Deficit Commission’s Plan

With Budget Crisis Over, Congress Turns To Quieting Loud Ads On TV



THE ECONOMY, STUPID

Amazon Invests In LivingSocial; Google Talks With Groupon Continue

Jump In Holiday Retail Sales Sends Stocks Higher

Google: Judge, Jury…Online Shopping Executioner?

Kinect Poses Real Threat To Wii



SPORTS

LeBron James Greeted With Chorus Of Boos In Return To Cleveland

LeBron James does his pre-game rosin cloud ritual

Bitter Cavs fans are very bitter

UK Loses Out To Russia In 2018 World Cup Bid

Chisox Sign 1B Adam Dunn For 4 Years, $56 Million

Yankees Increase Bucks But Not Years For Jeter



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS

Hey Kanye I Know You Got This New Album…

Taylor Swift struts her cover stuff

…and we’re really happy for you, but Taylor Swift is the youngest Entertainer of the Year ever!

Nope, Those Nude Pics On 4chan Aren’t Miley

Heidi Klum  And Seal Scoop Up Foreclosed $13 Million Brentwood House

Winona Ryder: “I Gotta Bag Me  A Husband!”

“Dexter” Renewed For Sixth Season

Eminem, Lady Antebellum Lead Grammy Nominees


TV Guide Denies Lightening Padma Lakshmi’s Skin

Kurtis Blow Busted For Weed …wait, what?

Suspect In Chasen Slaying Kills Self As Police Close In



FOREIGNERS

Ivory Coast Army Closes Borders As Election Unrest Continues

Scotland Yard Arrest Of Wikileaks Leader Imminent

Snow & Freezing Weather Disrupt Travel In Europe For Fifth Day

Iraqi Interior Minister Calls For Prompt Hanging Of Terror Suspects



BLOGS & STUFF

Weasel Zippers: Bachmann – “There Needs To Be An Insurrection Against Leadership GOP Doesn’t Hold Straight Vote To Repeal Obamacare”

iOwnTheWorld: Tea Party Caucus Earmark Requests?

Allahpundit: Is Pence The Primary Threat To Sarah Palin?


Please remember to send in your Rule 5 Sunday submissions to Rule5Wombat, as I’m going to try and get that back on the rails for Hanukkah.

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

For the Ladies: Peter Doherty, British Rock Star Who Dated Kate Moss

Posted on | December 2, 2010 | 7 Comments

Maybe you don’t remember that irresistibly sexy pop singer with the famous international supermodel girlfriend, so here’s a story from 2005 to refresh your memory:

Kate Moss and Pete Doherty had a fight in the Eurostar train in front of the shocked passengers. . . .
An eyewitness told The Sun “He was accusing Kate of being a psychopath and complaining that she was back with [former boyfriend] Jefferson [Hack].”
It seems everything started Tuesday in Paris, when Jefferson attended a party where Kate Moss and Pete Doherty were also invited.
Pete Doherty failed to turn up at the Oasis concert with his band, Babyshambles. Oasis are reportedly furious and kicked the band from their tour.
Meanwhile, after the Live 8 concert ended, Pete Doherty, who sang in duet with Sir Elton John, was criticized for his lousy performance. Pete was suspected of taking drugs just before he entered the stage, because he could barely stand up.
But Pete Doherty has slammed the accusations, insisting he was seduced by Bob Gedolf’s daughter, Peach, seconds before he went on stage.
He says, “I wasn’t lost for words and I wasn’t out of it on drugs. Just before I went on stage, Peaches squeezed my bum hard and whispered something rather suggestive to me. It left me in such shock, I didn’t know where I was.”

There were even reports in 2007 that Pete and Kate were married:

Kate Moss and Pete Doherty are set to have an official wedding this month after reports that they have secretly “married” in a Buddhist ceremony on a beach in Thailand.
The wedding was, by all accounts, a romantic affair, with Moss, 32, wearing flowers in her hair as the couple exchanged vows on the island of Phuket. . . .
[S]trong rumours are circulating which suggest that Kate and Pete, 27, are planning to get married on 18 January at a London register office . . .

You may wonder what Pete Doherty’s been up to lately. Lucky for you, ladies, we’ve got a new picture of that super-sexy hunk: Read more

Category: Celebrities, Great Britain

Internet Consultant to the Stars

Posted on | December 2, 2010 | 1 Comment

Given my vast experience with online media and famous celebrities, I’m sometimes asked, “Stacy, what’s the best way for international superstars to conduct themselves on the Internet?”

While obviously I can’t share all my secrets here on the blog, here’s a little lesson in how not to use Twitter:

Explanation:

The sentiment was prompted by a tabloid report that Spears – who turned 29 Thursday – was abused by boyfriend Jason Trawick.
The allegation came from Spears’s one-time husband, Jason Alexander, whose 55-hour Las Vegas marriage to her was annulled in 2004. In the report, Alexander says Spears told him Trawick “beat on me,” and RadarOnline posted an audio clip of the alleged conversation between Alexander and Spears. The singer’s reps, however, deny the woman’s voice on the tapes belongs to the pop star.
Spears, who announced she has a new album coming out in March, also Tweets she is “off on a romantic weekend with Jason for my birthday. xoxo Brit.”

Category: Celebrities

9 p.m. ET: Live on Blog Talk Radio

Posted on | December 2, 2010 | 4 Comments

Click here to listen to Barbara Espinosa’s “Hair on Fire” program tonight at 9 p.m. ET.

Barbara is a tremendous Tea Party activist and has been a great friend since I first met her in August 2009. (See “Grandma Is an Angry Mob.”) I’m not sure what we’ll talk about tonight, but I expect to discuss the incredible ass-whupping the Democrats took in the mid-term election. You can call-in at  (347) 857-4081.

Category: Uncategorized

WikiLeaks and the Totalitarian Impulse

Posted on | December 2, 2010 | 10 Comments

“The dissolution of the distinction between the private and public spheres was one of the great aims of totalitarianism.”
— Theodore Dalrymple, “What’s Really Wrong with WikiLeaks”

Coincidentally, last night I was thinking along very similar lines not only in regard to Julian Assange’s info-terrorism, but also in regard to what Betsy Rothstein does at FishbowlDC.

Those who delight in prying into the privacy of others are shocked when the tables are turned. The feature on Rothstein points out that she — who played a key role in the “Journolist” revelations — becomes quite flustered when people want to make her life the subject of inquiry:

By the next campaign season she had left [a congressional staff position] for The Hill, where she worked for a decade until leaving abruptly for (highly un-salacious) reasons about which she did not want to elaborate on the record. Before I learned most of this I gleaned that, despite the Adams Morgan residency, she spends many days blogging from a coffee shop in Bloomingdale. When I asked if she had a boyfriend in that neighborhood, it caused a mild freakout. . . .
This elusiveness only serves to reinforce Rothstein’s “agenda vacuum,” the unexplained motivations behind her posts that rankle her critics the most.

Exactly: What ax is she grinding? What’s she all about? What makes her tick? The kind of curiosity that drives Rothstein’s exposure of other people’s secrets feels distinctly uncomfortable to Rothstein when it’s directed at her.

And likewise, as Dan Riehl pointed out, while Julian Assange is subjecting massive amounts of U.S. national security materials to total disclosure,  the details of Assange’s own operation — Who’s paying the bills at WikiLeaks? Where’s he getting these leaks? What’s his motivation? — are unknown.

What would we discover if somebody hacked Assange’s e-mail account? What would happen if someone tapped his phone and released the recordings? What might be concealed in the financial records of WikiLeaks?

Dalrymple’s observation about the totalitarian impulse to eradicate privacy is relevant here because, of course, totalitarian governments are always intensely secretive about their own activities. And this inherent double-standard of totalitarianism was something that crossed my mind last night, as I pondered the WikiLeaks revelation of State Department secrets.

During the Russian Revolution, a major propaganda claim by the Bolsheviks was their repudiation of “secret diplomacy,” which they portrayed as the “imperialist” cause of the World War:

[I]n an attack on imperialism, [the Congress of Soviets] called on the nations of the world to abolish secret diplomacy. It promised that the Soviet government would conduct all negotiations in the light of day before the people. And it promised to publish all of the secret treaties to which Russia had been a party.

As the historic record shows, as soon as Lenin’s Bolsheviks gained power, they entered into secret negotiations with Germany that led to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. With similar secrecy, the Kremlin sent Comintern agents everywhere to subvert “capitalist” governments and foment labor unrest in an effort to spark revolutionary uprisings. The U.S. and other governments for some years refused to grant diplomatic recognition to the Soviet government, in part because of the concern — entirely warranted, as subsequent events proved — that Soviet embassies would become hubs of espionage and subversion.

Most notoriously of all, in 1939, after years of Communist propaganda about the need to maintain a “common front” against the fascist menace, Stalin reached a secret treaty with Hitler that provided for the partition of Poland and the liquidation of the Baltic states — the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that was the necessary and immediate precursor to World War II.

So now, while the democratic government of the United States finds its diplomatic messages turned into front-page news through the crimes of Julian Assange and his accomplices — and this action is defended by some who call themselves “libertarians” — WikiLeaks seems to pose no threat to the secrets of North Korea, Cuba, Iran and other terror-states.

As the communists used to say, “This is no accident.”

Category: Crime, WikiLeaks

Elsewhere on the Blogosphere

Posted on | December 2, 2010 | 3 Comments

Jimmie Bise calls this process “clearing the browser tabs.” Just some things I saw in the past day or so and wanted to link:

Category: Blogging

Calling B.S. on Ed Rollins

Posted on | December 2, 2010 | 20 Comments

Dan Calabrese has had it up to here with the anti-Palin crowd: 

it seems that just about everyone else is obsessed with Palin’s presidential prospects, and that includes a certain Ed Rollins, who holds forth today on CNN.com with a piece titled, “Palin, I knew Reagan. You’re no Reagan.”
Well.
There is much to mock about a piece on Gov. Palin’s supposed lack of presidential qualifications, especially coming from a man who once tried to help win the presidency for H. Ross Perot, who was not only unqualified but also insane.

Jennifer Caballero at Liberty Pundits asks the all-too-obvious question:

“Why is Huckabee’s ex- campaign manager
telling us who’s worthy of Reagan’s mantle?”

Bingo, Jen. Whatever your opinion of Sarah Palin, the problem is that nearly all her most prominent critics are professional operatives of one sort or another. If they are not already on the payroll of some prospective 2012 GOP presidential candidate, then they are presumably seeking such work. And they know they can get headlines and ingratiate themselves to those prospective employers by publishing anti-Palin rants.

The real danger here, as I’ve said before, is that this relentless Palin-bashing from within the GOP can have no good result. Either (a) Palin wins the nomination anyway, in which case the GOP 2012 nominee will have been damaged by all these friendly-fire attacks, or (b) someone else will win the nomination as the beneficiary of a none-too-subtle “Anybody But Sarah” campaign in the primaries. And then good luck getting those people energized for the general election.

Rush Limbaugh did a great segment Wednesday on the anti-Palin crowd, featuring this quote from GOP operative Nicolle Wallace:

Only Sarah Palin can beat Sarah Palin.  And let me tell you why no one will take her on.  Her defenders and supporters, the likes of Rush Limbaugh and people I admire, are so powerful on the right that nobody wants to anger any of those people, nobody wants to end up in the crosshairs, and nobody wants to look like they are unwilling to let her do her thing.  I don’t think people should be, you know, uptight and angsting about Sarah Palin.  I think she’ll reveal herself, and people will love her or hate her.  I really believe that if it looked like she were about to become the nominee, or, heaven forbid, the leader of the free world, a whole lot of people would stand up and say a whole lot of things.

Understand one thing: Nicolle Wallace is Team Bush all the way. She is speaking for, and serving the interests of, the Bush wing of the GOP. I’ve long warned that there is a Jeb 2012 bandwagon geared up and ready to roll at a moment’s notice, if Jeb decides to take a shot at it. If that doesn’t happen, the Bushies are trying to keep their thumb on the scale, to make sure that whoever gets the 2012 nomination, it’s someone acceptable to them.

But the Bushies know that, whatever else happens, it’s all over for them if Sarah Palin gets the 2012 nomination. Establishment phonies like Nicolle Wallace will be persona non grata to a Palin-led Republican Party. 

Just keep that in mind. There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes of the GOP than most grassroots conservatives suspect.

P.S.: Ed Rollins? Dude worked on the Huffington ’94 Senate campaign.

Category: Election 2012, Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin
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