The Other McCain

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

Had A Blast Out Knocking On Doors

Posted on | August 14, 2010 | 14 Comments

by Smitty

What a good time. Extroversion really isn’t a preferred mode for someone who’d rather sit around and blog.

Nevertheless, supporting Patrick Murray, or whoever the local anti-fascist candidate in your district may be, is crucial.

Thus, it’s hard to be happy with the Peter Schiff in the crowd:

Connecticut Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, Peter Schiff, could tolerate mockery when he foretold the economic collapse, but he’s having trouble coping with his imminent primary loss to professional wrestling CEO, Linda McMahon.
“I’m the best candidate but unfortunately I’m not going to be the nominee,” Schiff said in an interview by phone as he criss-crossed the state in an RV… “I’m not saying I’m not going to win. I can still possibly pull it off. But if I end up not being the nominee, it’s just really unfortunate, because not only am I the only person that can deliver the kind of change that the country needs, but I actually have a better chance of beating Dick Blumenthal,” he said.
At first glance, it’s easy to believe his loss will be because of McMahon’s oodles and oodles (a KT-nomics term) of money. But a closer look shows his weak campaign and the fact he’s a single issue candidate are also factors (although, if there’s going to be single issue voting right now, the economy is the issue).
And if you’re going to run on economics alone, Linda McMahon is a formidable opponent. She has that real world experience the Teaparty cherishes. McMahon’s spokeperson, Ed Patru:
“(McMahon) has never claimed to be an academic theorist or a celebrity cable talk show economist. She spent 30 years in the real world building a global enterprise from a company that started with one desk… She was the CEO of an NYSE traded billion dollar company that employs nearly 600 people. She understands how jobs are created and how budgets are balanced in the real world, and she clearly has a firm grasp of economic principles.”

Come on, Peter. I’d have supported Matthew Berry for VA-8 just as strongly, had he bested Patrick Murray in the primary. Only, that’s how history unfolded.

Granted, it takes a certain bit of ego to run for office, but what good is ego if houses divided against themselves cannot withstand liberal fascist tyranny?

Go, Linda (via Libertarian Republican):

And go, the rest of you patriots. Go out there and phone bank and precinct walk and invest time and treasure in getting the country back on course!

Now you sunny beaches know how I feel.

Category: Connecticut, Piece of Work in Progress, Video, Virginia

‘Liberal Ethics’ and Matthew Yglesias

Posted on | August 14, 2010 | 22 Comments

By Any Means Necessary:

Liberal blogger Matt Yglesias likes to call his political opponents “dishonest,” but in a revealing exchange on the website Twitter Friday he advocated lying for political purposes.
“Fighting dishonesty with dishonesty is sometimes the right thing for advocates to do, yes,” said Yglesias.
The exchange, with Washington Examiner writer Mark Hemingway, came on the heels of a debate between the two on transportation policy.
Yglesias pressed his point with another conservative writer, saying, “Do you really think deception is immoral in all circumstances?”

Read the rest. I’m recalling a chapter title in Hayek’s Road to Serfdom: “Why the Worst Get on Top.”

Category: Corruption, Progressivism

Slight FMJRA Delay

Posted on | August 14, 2010 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

I’m off to support my local candidate, Patrick Murray, in the Retire Jim Moran effort. Will get the FMJRA finalized and posted early this afternoon. You’re encouraged to submit links if it looks like my flawed system for crediting our awesome readers is flawed to the point of having flaws.

Remember: it’s important to back up great candidates like Joel Demos with the frogskins. Props to Right Klik for leading such a great, simple effort.

Also important: grunt work. There are no limits beyond 02 November, the 24 hour rotation of the planet, and what you can physically take in support of American renewal.

Fear ye not the war chest. Yeah, VA-8 may be among the tougher races, but thriving on adversity is what the country is about, so Bring It On.

Category: Uncategorized

California Reporter Nick Green Says He Is ‘Victim of an Andrew Breitbart Wannabe’

Posted on | August 13, 2010 | 70 Comments

“So imagine my surprise today to find I’m the victim of an Andrew Beitbart wannabe, a blogger with a clear agenda of his own who has decided in his hypocrisy I have one of my own.”
— Nick Green, Torrance (Calif.) Daily Breeze

He’s the victim, you see. Nick Green was just minding his own business, cheerfully ignoring the congressional election that he’s paid to cover, blowing off the Republican challenger’s campaign as too insignificant to merit his attention and then — without notice or warning — somebody called him on it.

Sucks to be you, doesn’t it, Nick?

Let’s begin by clarifying the chronology of Nick’s alleged journalistic victimhood:

  • Tuesday, Aug. 10 — In a story headlined, “South Bay officials welcome passage of jobs bill,” the Daily Breeze treats the $26 billion legislation as a godsend to the California economy, citing a teachers union estimate that the measure “will provide $15.4 million and save 215 jobs in Rep. Jane Harman’s district.” (Hey, when it comes to economic analysis, nobody can out-estimate the National Education Association.)
  • Wednesday, Aug. 11 — Campaign consultant John Thomas e-mails Breeze reporters Nick Green and Art Marroquin, asking if they “have a second to chat today about Jane Harman,” to discuss Harman’s statements about the area economy.  When Green replies, “No,” Thomas asks, “Tomorrow then?” Green e-mails that he is “busy all week,” and Thomas then replies, “Are you covering this race or is there someone else I should talk to at the breeze?” It is in reply to this query that Green sends the now-infamous “we’re not interested” e-mail. (The entire colloquy was posted as a PDF at Mayor Sam’s blog.)
  • Thursday, Aug. 12 — Under the headline “Officials hope to extend temp jobs program,” Daily Breeze reporter Douglas Morino quotes Rep. Harman, who is featured in a staff photo showing her “at a press conference to highlight the success of a Los Angeles County employment program.” To say that this article was favorable to Harman and the Democrats is an understatement on the order of saying that Triumph of the Will was pretty good P.R. for a certain German political party.

See the picture? St. Jane of the Blessed Bailout gets adulatory coverage from the Breeze and, when a Republican tries to get some notice for Harman’s GOP challenger, Nick Green is “busy all week” and “not interested.”

Now, sources close to the Fein campaign (nudge, nudge) tell me that the Republican challenger felt like she got reasonably fair treatment from former Breeze political reporter Gene Maddaus (e.g., “Republican Mattie Fein makes run aganst Harman official“). But Maddaus has since departed for L.A. Weekly, and lately the GOP candidate feels like she is being purposely ignored by the Breeze.

Er, sources say.

All of this was unknown to me when, at the behest of my filmmaker friend Ladd Ehlinger Jr., I boarded a flight to LAX expecting to cover Ehlinger’s astonishing ascent as a producer of attention-getting campaign ads. Insofar as I had any interest in California politics, per se, it was to find an answer to the question, “What the #$%* is wrong with the California Republican Party?”

What I’m trying to get across here is that I was utterly unaware of Nick Green’s existence until late Thursday when sources close to the Fein campaign — hey, did you notice my elbow jabbing you in the ribs? — forwarded me Green’s e-mail to John Thomas. Let us now consult Nick Green’s lecture on the subject of “news judgment” :

It’s the job of newspaper reporters and editors to decide what to cover when and how. . . .  It’s a matter of news judgment, time and resources.

Indeed. And here, according to my own news judgment, was a great story served up on a silver platter:

California Reporter to Republican
Candidate: ‘We’re Not Interested’

Piece of cake. The story “wrote itself,” as they say. It took me barely an hour Friday morning to compose the original post, which was then extended with a series of updates aggregating the blogospheric reaction.

This was not the only reaction, however. A lady who happens to be a subscriber to the Daily Breeze forwarded me her e-mail correspondence with the newspaper’s editor:

Dear Editor,
Will you be addressing this issue in your newspaper?  I’m a subscriber and would appreciate a response.

To which the editor replied:

I just learned of it a little more than an hour ago. I will handle it internally as a personnel matter. And yes, I will be addressing. We don’t tolerate this type of behavior.
Linda Lindus

OK, so now the relevant questions are:

  • Is Nick Green, as he says, a “victim”?
  • Am I, as Nick Green says, “an Andrew Breitbart wannabe”?
  • Has Nick Green heard of Denis Healy’s First Law of Holes?

Let’s start with Nick’s claim to victimhood. Having some direct personal experience with the dangers of hitting the “send” button on e-mails I subsequently had cause to regret sending, I certainly feel Nick’s pain. And my buddy Dave Weigel can probably relate, too. Anybody can have a bad day on the Internet.

Andrew Breitbart is someone I admire and consider a friend but, in point of fact, I was working full-time as a reporter when Andrew was still in high school, so the “wannabe” accusation is kind of ironic. No hidden cameras or young Republicans posing as pimps were employed in this story. The complete e-mail exchange between Nick Green and John Thomas has been online at Mayor Sam’s all day, so there’s no Shirley Sherrod “gotcha” editing involved.

Obviously, however, Nick Green is a stranger to the First Law of Holes: “If you are in one, stop digging.” His attempts to justify and defend his churlish response to John Thomas constitute “digging” in this context.

And allow me to point out something that perhaps Nick Green hasn’t considered: Former Breeze staffer Gene Maddaus (a) treated the Republican candidate with evident fairness and (b) has now moved on to a more prestigious gig.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc?

Call me a “wannabe,” if you like, but if Andrew Breitbart himself decides to take notice of Nick Green . . .

Well, it sucks to be you, doesn’t it, Nick?

UPDATE: In the comments, Thane Eichenauer says liberals are now playing “the Breitbart card.” And in this case, it’s decidedly misplayed. There’s just really no comparison.

When I first met Breitbart — at CPAC 2007 — I sat for hours listening to him talk about his experiences in New Media. The guy is an authentic genius. Some people talk in sound-bites.  Andrew talks in paragraphs. If you ever get a chance to catch him when he’s off-the-record, relaxed and in a mood to tell stories, it’s an adventure you don’t want to miss.

Being  the guerrilla leader of an epic struggle against liberal bias in media and pop culture, however, is above my pay grade. Oh, I have my moments, but my focus for the past couple of years has been on chronicling (and cheering on) the grassroots insurgency against the GOP Establishment and its defeatist mentality. In a word, “WOLVERINES!”

The problems of the Republican Party are systemic and rooted in what sociologists might call “selection effects.” It’s a matter of organizational dynamics. Personnel is policy, as they say and, in the final analysis, the GOP has a personnel problem. 

Over the years, the Republican Party has attracted to itself — at both the operational and managerial levels — certain types of personalities, so that the style and content of Republican politics tends to be predictable. This is a problem that people who’ve lived their lives inside the GOP “bubble” can’t accurately perceive, and so change must come through outsiders who challenge the status quo.

Andrew Breitbart is one such outsider, Dan Riehl is another, and many of the candidates and campaigns I’ve covered — including the “Not One Red Cent” rebellion and the Hoffman campaign in NY-23 last fall — have been outsider/insurgent operations.  The fact that Ladd Ehlinger is now working in California is one indicator that some Republicans in this state are adopting that outsider/insurgent stance, and it’s about damned time.

As for media bias, we need not wonder why polls show a declining trust in major news organization, and Mark Goluskin has further thoughts on the Martyrdom of Nick Green.

Category: Andrew Breitbart, California, Media Bias

How Much Contempt Will Americans Suffer?

Posted on | August 13, 2010 | 51 Comments

by Smitty

BHO, ‘unexpectedly’, does about the worst possible thing he could do on a given topic, in this case endorsing the Ground Zero Mosque.

If there is any interest in expressing remorse for the 9/11 fallen, I’d suggest building two inter-faith community centers, with styling similar to the destroyed structures. One in Mecca, the other in Medina.

Nothing says ‘equality’ like treating places equally, no?

What’s the book on how low the approval index will go? Does he break -30%, one wonders? This bit of idiocy may make it happen.

Update: For posterity, the Drudge masthead.

Obviously, Bernanke was talking about a Federal Reserve policy, not the GZM

Category: Barack Obama

Socialist Opiates Are Addictive Indeed

Posted on | August 13, 2010 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

The Tenth Amendment Center reprints a fine overview of the Social Security disaster:

If the words “general welfare” and “United States” are put in their proper context, then the general welfare provision grants Congress the power “[t]o lay and collect Taxes… to provide for the… group well being of all the United States.” The “entire group” being referenced is not the people, as comprising a single nation, but the several States in their united capacity. Since the Constitution is a compact or contract between the several States, and the States are only united within the scope of the powers enumerated in the Constitution, this composition of the general welfare provision is in totally harmony with the intent and construction of that document.

Alexander Hamilton sustained this fact in his writings on the Constitution. In Federalist No. 83, he reduced this principle to a single sentence:

“The United States, in their united or collective capacity, are the OBJECT to which all general provisions in the Constitution must necessarily be construed to refer.” [Emphasis not added]

The general welfare clause, being but a part of a general provision of the Constitution, applies solely to the States “in their united or collective capacity.” If the Constitution had established a social compact or union between the American people, and they were the object of the general powers delegated to the federal government, then it would have been an absurdity to reference the States, in their united capacity, as the object of the general welfare phrase. In addition, if the Constitution had been established for the well being of the American people, then that same people would have been the “whole group” referenced in the general welfare phrase.

Based on the above definitions, Social Security should have been struck down because Congress used a provision of the Constitution that applied to the States, in their united capacity, and unconstitutionally applied it to the people. When Congress inserted the words “[a]n Act to Provide for the General Welfare” at the beginning of the Social Security Act, that body took a clause that granted Congress the power “[t]o lay and collect Taxes… to provide for the… group well being of all the United States” and twisted it into a power that granted Congress the power to tax and appropriate money for the general welfare generally. This was a gross usurpation of power.

RTWT for a short overview of how diabolical the notion of Social Security was and remains.

FDR’s infamous Second Bill of Rights enjoyed none of the thought and debate that went into the first round, have been implement piecemeal through Federal over-reach while blowing off Article Five, and, ultimately, cannot be supported other than by loads of pixie dust delivered by golden hover ponies.

The real question is the path to restoring the proper, Constitutional Federal role for dealing with individual citizens. Rep. Paul Ryan’s Roadmap tacitly accepts the current situation. This may be a crucial compromise in terms of Doing Something, but, let’s face it: Socialism is the opiate of the bureaucracy, and leaving a lot of dope laying around will result in it being used.

What Smith Would Do is announce a gala 100 year anniversary celebration of the 16th & 17th Amendments, plus the Federal Reserve Act, and publicly set them on fire. Whoever is President in 2012 should announce a three year preparation period, so that in 01 January 2015, the States pick up the tab for caring for such social services as they’re inclined to fund.

Congress would invoice the States for remaining Federal tasking, letting these United States tax farm their citizens to fund the Federal budget, which is not allowed to run a deficit with the exception of an actual, formal, documented, Constitutional, proper declaration of war.

States missing their funding goals have a simple VAT applied to handle the delta.

Past the vomiting from opiate withdrawal, the wisdom of such a system would be the negative feedback loop. Forced to deal with budgetary realities, Pete Stark’s head would ‘splode, and we’d quickly stop funding absurd, non-essential noise. Returning the Senators to State appointees, while probably not decreasing the net corruption in the Senate, would return a voice in Federal affairs to the States.

With the Federal opium fields not yielding so much, incumbency might not be such a big win for those Ruling Class Clowns currently mooching from the future via Federal largesse.

Of course, if I was elected and could carry off such a plan, something odd and final could likely happen. Addiction therapies which are fatal to the patient are sub-optimal. But now you sunny beaches know how I feel. Having marked out the edge of the debate, let’s see what others can do in the way of a workable compromise.

Category: Congress, Conservatism 101, Corruption

Da Tech Guy Interviews Mattie Fein

Posted on | August 13, 2010 | 9 Comments

The local newspaper can’t be bothered, but she scores big with New Media:

“There are serious issues in the district and the voters deserve the issues on the table.”

Read the whole thing. Remember it was Da Tech Guy who loaned me the Famous Fedora of Objectivity, which made another celebrity appearance today:

Yeah, Mattie Fein has joined the Axis of Fedora. You can follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

Category: California, Congress, Da Tech Guy, Election

California Reporter to Republican Candidate: ‘We’re Not Interested’

Posted on | August 13, 2010 | 40 Comments

A reporter for the Torrance (Calif.) Daily Breeze sent an e-mail to a political consultant saying the newspaper is “not interested” in covering Republican candidate Mattie Fein, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Jane Harman in California’s 36th District.

In the e-mail sent Wednesday (see text below), Daily Breeze reporter Nick Green told consultant John S. Thomas of Thomas Partners Strategies, “Don’t call or e-mail us – we’ll call you if we’re interested. And if you haven’t got it yet, we’re not interested.”

Green also told Thomas not to send Fein campaign communications to his Daily Breeze colleague, Art Marroquin.

According to sources with the Fein campaign, Thomas had contacted the Daily Breeze staffers seeking coverage of the Republican challenger’s response to a recently passed bill that the newspaper reported would “save 215 jobs in Rep. Jane Harman’s district.” A subsequent Daily Breeze story Thursday featured Harman’s statement that a jobs program was the “best thing out there to keep and create jobs in Los Angeles County,”  included no reponse from Fein or any other Republican.

Since winning the GOP nomination in June, Fein has been strongly critical of Harman’s record on defense and intelligence issues, calling for the incumbent to “divest in shares of Harman International that have business ties to Iran.”

TEXT OF NICK GREEN E-MAIL
TO JOHN S. THOMAS
Sent: Aug 11, 2010 12:58 PM
John:
Don’t call or e-mail us – we’ll call you if we’re interested. And if you haven’t got it yet, we’re not interested. And stop sending the same messages to my co-worker Art as well
Thank you.
Nick

The popular L.A. politics blog Mayor Sam wrote:

South Bay Daily Breeze writer Nick Green has decided to check out of covering the Congressional race where controversial incumbent Jane Harman is being challenged by Mattie Fein. At least as much that he has refused requests from Fein’s consultant John Thomas (yes that John Thomas) to discuss remarks Harman has made about the local economy.

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with John Thomas who said he was shocked by the “outrageous” refusal of the Daily Breeze to cover Harman’s GOP challenger. Here are screencaps of the e-mail exchange between Thomas and Nick Green:


UPDATE II: Da Tech Guy: “And people wonder why the newspaper industry is having trouble staying afloat?”

UPDATE III: Stix Blog on the “Jedi mind tricks” at the Daily Breeze. These aren’t the biased droids you’re looking for . . .

UPDATE IV: Steve Bartin at NewsAlert:

No word yet on whether the Daily Breeze is looking to join Jane Harman’s husband’s emerging media empire. Nick Green would made a fine addition to the Harman controlled Newsweek!

“If this surprises you, you are not paying attention.”

UPDATE V: Joe Fein of Valley of the Shadow got on the phone with the Daily Breeze city editor: “What do you want me to say?”

UPDATE VI: Ed Driscoll: “If I was Fein’s campaign manager, I’d call up Newsweek and say, ‘Have I got a story for you!’ Oh, wait . . .”

Heh. And here’s a new Web site: BoycottNewsweek.net

Category: California, Congress, Election, Media Bias, Republicans
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