The Other McCain

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

Big Mistake: They Never Hit My Tip Jar

Posted on | July 30, 2010 | 7 Comments

Karma catches up with two Texas Republican bigwigs:

Sam and Charles Wyly, Dallas billionaire investors known for their support of conservative candidates and causes, made $550 million in undisclosed profits through 13 years of insider trading, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit filed Thursday. . . .
Using this offshore system, the Wylys were able to sell stock worth more than $750 million in four public companies where they served as corporate directors. They also committed an insider trading violation at one of the companies that resulted in an unlawful gain of over $31.7 million, according to the complaint. . . .
In March, Forbes magazine estimated Sam Wyly’s net worth at $1 billion. He has given generously to Republican causes and candidates, including the Swift Boat campaign that helped re-elect President George W. Bush in 2004 by tarring his Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry.
The Wyly brothers, with their wives, have donated almost $2.5 million to more than 200 Republican candidates and committees at the federal level over the past two decades . . .

If you are a Republican billionaire, go ahead and hit the tip jar for a few thousand. Otherwise, bad things could happen.

UPDATE: The Washington Post plays the Wyly indictment as front-page news. However, two weeks ago, when top Democratic fundraiser Hassan Nemazee was convicted of fraud, the Post “printed an Associated Press item on the third page. Nemazee had defrauded almost $300 million and was a major contributor and fundraiser to John Kerry’s presidential campaign and Hilary Clinton’s campaign to be 2008’s Democratic nominee.”

Category: Crime

True/Slant, R.I.P.

Posted on | July 30, 2010 | 22 Comments

Donald Douglas notes the passing of an online venue that published such luminaries as Charles Johnson and Conor Friedersdorf. Dan Riehl blames the “Culture 11” albatross factor.

Donald and Dan neglect to mention the most notorious article in True/Slant’s brief history: Rick Ungar’s “Send the Body to Glenn Beck” screed, which blamed the death of a Kentucky census worker on Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, etc. 

Unfortunately for Rick Ungar’s credibility, Bill Sparkman’s death turned out to be suicide.

True/Slant editor Michael Roston reports that the site has been acquired by Forbes — does Steve Forbes know what they’re doing with his money? — while David Kaplan reports that True/Slant CEO Lewis D’Vorkin, a former Forbes staffer, is returning to the mothership.

Category: Blogging, Neutral Objective Journalism

William Astore Makes Lindsey Graham Sound Macho

Posted on | July 30, 2010 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Bio:
William Astore teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. He retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 2005, having taught at the Air Force Academy as well as the Naval Postgraduate School. He writes regularly for TomDispatch.com and History News Network.

He has a post entitled “Our Military’s Disturbing Transition to Warriors” with:

A subtle change has been happening right before the eyes of Americans. Our troops are being told they’re no longer primarily citizen-soldiers or citizen-airmen; they’re being told they’re warriors. Indeed, they’re reminded of this linguistic turn in “creeds” that many of them (and often their families) display with pride.

Zounds! What a doof! Take the airbrush down the hall to the Art Department dude: military == warrior. Sure, the emphasis on peace through superior firepower frees up substantial time for community relations work and disaster relief.

One commanding officer I served under briefly stated his command policy as “Rounds on target. Everything else is supporting.” Oh, is that insufficiently nuanced for you Astore?

Don’t make me sic Ralph Peters on you, man. They say he makes origami of your kind before breakfast.

Category: Uncategorized

That Would Be A Maybach, Gibbs

Posted on | July 30, 2010 | 6 Comments

by Smitty (via Drudge)

Purely Reprehensible Egotistical Slimy Sycophant (PRESS) Secretary Gibbs has nothing better to do than make personal attacks on citizens, e.g. Rush Limbaugh, who fail to agree with the atrocious policies his boss carries out and for which he gleefully carries water. In particular, attacks on the foul policy of bailing out the automakers.

To clarify the point of what Rush drives, American Digest has reported the brand would be Maybach. My next set of wheels will likely be either a Ford or something else lacking a government taint.

No one other than a tool like E. J. Dionne thinks Gibbs has shred #1 of credibility anyway.

Category: Rush Limbaugh

When Phyllis Schlafly Speaks the Truth, Democrats Call It ‘Extremism’

Posted on | July 30, 2010 | 166 Comments

Phyllis Schlafly is one of conservatism’s great heroines. Both Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter acknowledge Schlafly’s influence as a role model. Forty-six years after her rallying cry for Goldwater, A Choice Not an Echo, and three decades after she led the crusade to stop ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, she’s still driving liberals nuts:

“One of the things Obama’s been doing is deliberately trying to increase the percentage of our population that is dependent on government for their living. For example, do you know what was the second-biggest demographic group that voted for Obama? . . . Unmarried women. Seventy percent of unmarried women voted for Obama. And this is because, when you kick your husband out, you’ve got to have Big Brother government to be your provider. . . .”

This is what we in the journalism business call a “fact”:

Those numbers are from an exit poll conducted by a notorious right-wing extremist group — CNN — and Schlafly’s explanation of why single women vote overwhelmingly for Democrats is neither new nor “extreme” nor uniquely hers. Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women’s Forum in National Review, April 10:

Take a recent report entitled “Advancing the Economic Security of Unmarried Women” by the Center for American Progress, the “progressive” nonprofit run by Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff John Podesta. The report reviews the problems of a growing segment of our society: unmarried women. They are poorer, more likely than other women to be unemployed, have less access to health care, and often struggle to care for children without support from fathers.
What’s CAP’s solution? More government at every turn. Among the recommended proposals are more generous unemployment benefits, more job-training and job-placement programs, greater subsidies for child care, more generous child-nutrition programs, direct welfare payments for those with children, government intervention to prevent foreclosures, expanded low-income-housing programs, an increased minimum wage, government intervention to increase the pay of occupations dominated by women, mandatory paid family and sick leave, and, of course, government-provided health care. In other words, complete cradle-to-grave, taxpayer-provided government support.
It’s tempting to call this paper sexist: Women — especially unmarried women — are portrayed as barely able to subsist without extra protection. One could also ruminate on CAP’s view of family formation, which seems willing to substitute a dependent relationship on the government for marriage. A woman without a man is encouraged to depend on Uncle Sam.

One might disagree with that analysis, but it is hardly “extreme,” and yet the Schlafly speech making the same basic point is being seized as a campaign issue by Democrats:

Democrats aim to exploit the comments to pressure the more than 60 Republican candidates who have earned Schlafly’s endorsement. . . .
Democrats plan to jump on the 75 Republican candidates for federal office that Schlafly’s Eagle Forum has endorsed and donated to — a list that includes Todd Tiahrt in the Kansas Republican primary for Senate, Ken Buck in the Colorado Republican primary for Senate, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and his Senate Conservatives Fund and Sen. David Vitter. Already, reporters in Vitter’s home state of Louisiana are getting releases from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee pressing them to ask Vitter if he agrees with Schlafly. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is doing the same thing to Eagle Forum-endorsed House candidates, painting Republicans on dozens of ballots — including Rep. Michele Bachmann and Scott Rigell in the competitive VA-02 race — as “extreme” and saying the candidate should refuse Schlafly’s endorsement.

I plan to renounce any Republican who renounces Phyllis Schlafly.

UPDATE: Linked by Da Tech Guy and liberal feminist Taylor Marsh, and there’s a Memeorandum thread.

UPDATE II: Linked by Virginia Right and Scipio 62 at Red State, and featured by Red at Caught Him With a Corndog.

UPDATE III: Professor Donald Douglas suggests that Rocky Raczkowski is inviting renunciation. I’m not going to be hasty, like Vilsack throwing Sherrod under the bus.

The Blog Prof offers a primer in the techniques of liberal bias, as demonstrated by the Oakland (Mich.) Press News.

For the benefit of any Republican confused by all this uproar, let me explain the basic problem: The way to tackle feminism is head-on.

Feminism is a left-wing phenomenon. It is a radical egalitarian ideology based upon a fallacy, and should never be endorsed or appeased in the erroneous belief that, by kowtowing to ideologues, Republicans can win “The Women’s Vote” (capital-T, capital-W, capital-V, denoting a dubious category that is reified by feminist ideology).  A brief explanation:

Insofar as men and women are different, they are not equal.
Equality implies fungibility — that two things are perfectly interchangeable, so that one thing may be substituted for the other without any difference in value. Only a fool could believe that men and women are equal in that way, and yet this is what feminists would require us to believe. And any man who dares contradict this egalitarian dogma is a sexist, an oppressor, a reactionary representative of the patriarchy.
All the other errors of feminism flow from this one fundamental error, a counterfactual insistence on the equality of the sexes. Men and women are not the same, and therefore are not equal.

Do not think that you, a Republican, can benefit by attempting some sort of “me-too” feminism, nor should you fall into the error of thinking that there is some sort of “conservative feminism” which can be mobilized to elect you. Such foolish behaviors and atttitudes only betray your lack of judgment and courage.

Most of all, do not think that you can benefit by throwing Phyllis Schlafly under the bus. Do you know how Phyllis Schlafly earned her way through college? Working in a munitions plant during World War II, when her job was test-firing .50-caliber machine-gun ammunition.

Think about that, gentlemen.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! BTW, did you hear what happened to the Republican billionaires who didn’t hit my tip jar?

Category: Conservatism 101, Feminism, Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

Arizona Fed Judge’s Critics ‘Expressed Their Displeasure in a Perverted Way’

Posted on | July 30, 2010 | 12 Comments

The people aren’t happy with Judge Susan Bolton:

Authorities say a federal judge in Phoenix has been getting some threats since her ruling on Arizona’s controversial immigration law.
David Gonzales, the U.S. Marshal for Arizona, says U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton has received thousands of phone calls and e-mails since her preliminary injunction Wednesday that put key provisions of the state’s immigration law on hold.
Gonzales says some of the messages sent to Bolton are positive, but others are “from people venting and who have expressed their displeasure in a perverted way.”

I’m guessing at least one of those calls was from Mel Gibson.

Category: Arizona, Immigration

Laugh Your Head Off At Christianity

Posted on | July 29, 2010 | 2 Comments

by Smitty

Get a copy of the King James Translation of the Bible, and a friend.

Turn to John 3. Read the dialog with Nicodemus aloud, as if the Carpenter and Nicodemus are from New York City. Loudly, accurately, with lots of body language. It’s an entirely new dimension.

Here’s this bit about Islam, courtesy of Saberpoint:

Back over in the New Testament, you can have nearly as much fun with the Parable of the Talents. Read aloud, but give the servant with the 1 talent the voice of a Socialist deadbeat who, in another setting, blamed Bush, capitalism, Rush Limbaugh, a the vast right-wing conspiracy for his non-approach to success.

Category: The Flemish Menace

Free Movies You’ll Probably Skip

Posted on | July 29, 2010 | 34 Comments

Without comment:

Thursdays this summer at the Atlas Performing Arts Center [in Washington, D.C.] will be Gay 101 – a series of films one must see to be a card-carrying gay man. While most are not gay-themed, all are embraced by the gay and lesbian community. Classics such as All About Eve, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? will share the screen with campier choices including Mommie Dearest and Valley of the Dolls.

The films will be screened in the Sprenger Theatre, the Atlas’ largest black box space. . . . “We want the Atlas to be a fun destination for the Capitol Hill and H Street Northeast community this summer. We like to think of it as an indoor version of an outdoor movie festival.” said Scott Kenison, Chief Operating Officer of the Atlas. “Only our festival will have air conditioning and best of all, no mosquitoes!”

Schedule:

July 1   Breakfast at Tiffany’s
July 8   Auntie Mame
July 9   Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
July 15   La Cage Aux Folles
July 22   Valley of the Dolls
July 29   Where the Boys Are
Aug 5   All About Eve
Aug 12   Suddenly, Last Summer
Aug 19   Cabaret
Aug 26   Mommie Dearest
Sept 2   Steel Magnolias

Category: Culture, Gays, Movies
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