Nikki Haley Wins GOP Runoff!

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The Associated Press goes straight into the “historic” race-and-gender identity-politics stuff:

Nikki Haley, an Indian-American woman, won the Republican nomination for governor and Tim Scott, a black lawmaker, grabbed a commanding lead in his bid for the GOP nod for a House seat in South Carolina primary runoffs Tuesday, a measure of racial progress in the Deep South and the GOP.

Really? I mean . . . really? Why wasn’t the Associated Press all about “racial progress in the Deep South” for Alvin Greene?

Never mind, the key point here is that the scumbag axis of Will Folks, Larry Marchant and Jake Knotts has been defeated.

UPDATE: More good news Tea Party-backed Trey Gowdy beat Rep. “Bailout Bob” Inglis, who voted for TARP.

World Cup: ¡Va La Argentina!

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Argentina got second-half goals from Martin Demichelis and Martin Palermo to defeat Greece 2-0, advancing to a round-of-16 match against Mexico. Your average Argentine soccer fan hates Mexico in a way that would horrify Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Argentina totally dominated Group B — scoring 7 goals to their opponents’ one — and against Greece, controlled the ball by a 2-to-1 margin and outshot the Greeks 22-to-7. 

So,  congratulations to my daughter’s beloved El Romantico. The United States will play Wednesday against Algeria:

Oh: France was eliminated after losing 2-1 to host South Africa.

UPDATE: Remember when I said that American soccer fans tend to be neurasthenic wienies? Gentlemen, I present Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated:

UPDATE II: Argentina fans today celebrate the 24th anniversary of Diego Maradona’s historic “Hand of God” play: “Un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano de Dios”

Judge Blocks Obama Administration Offshore Drilling Ban; UPDATE: Text of Ruling; Obama Vows to Appeal Decision

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Instapundit links the news from Bloomberg.

UPDATE: Judge Martin Feldman sides with the people against the powerful:

A New Orleans federal judge lifted the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling imposed by President Barack Obama following the largest oil spill in U.S. history. . . .
More than a dozen Louisiana offshore service and supply companies sued U.S. regulators to lift the ban. State officials claim 20,000 Louisiana jobs are in jeopardy if the deepwater drilling suspension lasts 18 months. . . .
Lawyers for the drilling companies told Feldman the moratorium illegally sidesteps a required industry comment period. They also said regulators failed to tell Obama that all active deepwater rigs passed an immediate re-inspection after the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank, with only two rigs reporting minor violations and the rest getting approval to continue operations.

Video background from the Associated Press:

UPDATE II: Judge Feldman’s findings:

  1. that plaintiffs are substantially likely to prevail on the merits of their claim for the government defendants’ violations of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and its implementing regulations;
  2. that, in the absence of the relief requested, plaintiffs will incur immediate and irreparable harm to business including the irretrievable loss of vessels’ useful life, loss of crews that have long been associated with their particular vessels, loss of shore-side teams and disruption of longstanding contractual relationships with offshore service vendors and other satellite services for the operation of its fleet, all of which is not subject to calculation;
  3. that the irreparable harm to plaintiffs should the Court decline to grant the application for the relief requested outweighs the harm which the granting of such relief may cause to any legitimate interests of defendants; and
  4. that the entry of this Order will serve the interests of justice and the public interest.

    5.  

You know who doesn’t give a damn about “the interests of justice and the public interest”? Barack Obama:

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Obama plans to appeal a federal judge’s ruling to strike down a six-month moratorium on deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Obama believes “that continuing to drill at these depths without knowing what happened does not make any sense and potentially puts the safety of those on the rigs and the safety of the environment in the Gulf at a danger,” Gibbs said.

UPDATE III: Michelle Malkin has much more, including the full text of the judge’s ruling. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is in deep doodoo.

UPDATE IV: Ace of Spades adds some discussion of evidence that BP went cheap on its safety mechanisms, kind of like Miley Cyrus conveniently “forgetting” to wear underwear.

Killgore Trout Beclowns Himself

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Dave Weigel of the Washington Post contacted me seeking a denial of an assertion by one of Charles Johnson’s LGF henchmorons that I was the anonymous “Tea Party consultant” who wrote the Playboy article:

“I’m almost certain it’s him. He’s making up a lot of the details and probably exaggerating his influence . . .”

Fool. You missed three telltale clues:

  1. The Playboy article disses Eric Odom. Eric’s a friend of mine and I specifically criticized the consultant for taking an unnecessary and unfair shot at a good guy.
  2. The consultant writes like a consultant. Compare the consultant’s Playboy article to some of my recent long-form work, e.g., “The War on Watchdogs” and especially “Battle Cry in the North Country.” The styles are entirely different.
  3. A good reporter never burns his sources. Never publish anything that might enable someone to discover the identity of an anonymous source. At this task, the consultant failed.

I don’t know the identity of the consultant, but my sources do, and I can’t say anything more about the consultant without risk of compounding the damage he’s already inadvertantly done.

Killgore Trout overlooked obvious evidence that contradicted his thesis, but what else do we expect from a moron who worships at the shrine of Charles Johnson and thought it was “clever” to plant racist slurs in the comments at Hot Air?

OMG! Scandal! Miley Cyrus Crotch Shot Published by Perez Hilton Reuters

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Reuters offers the Mother Of All Excuses:

A Reuters representative speaking on background admitted that the photo had caused concern in the photo department because of Miley’s age, but that was weighed against the fact that it occurred on stage in front of hundreds of people and other cameras, as well as the fact that the teen sensation is transitioning away from “Hannah Montana” and into a more grown-up performer.

I became aware of this latest scandal when I checked SiteMeter and discovered a sudden surge in Google-search traffic for “Miley Cyrus upskirt photo.” Journalistic investigation led me to check the celebrity news aggregator WeSmirch and . . .

Well, I’m not going to link the photo, which is disturbingly creeptastic. As easy as it would be to dish out a lot of snark about Miley Cyrus’ wardrobe choices and/or her apparent embrace of the trend toward extreme depilation, the issue raised by this photo is far too serious for mere snark. Three suggestions:

  1. The photo editor at Reuters who approved this image for distribution needs to be fired;
  2. Miley Cyrus needs to be advised against traveling down this ex-Disney Princess road to Britney/Lindsay burnout; and
  3. Someone at the Justice Department’s Innocent Images Task Force should make a friendly phone call to Reuters, and a slightly less friendly call to Perez Hilton, just to let them know that they’re in the danger zone.

If ever there was a place where a “chilling effect” would come in handy, this is it.

‘Unexpectedly’ — Again!

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Purchases of U.S. Existing
Homes Unexpectedly Fall
Sales of U.S. previously owned homes unexpectedly fell in May, a sign demand was probably pulled into prior months before a June tax-credit deadline. . . .
The decline raises the risk the retrenchment following the expiration of the tax credit will be deeper than anticipated. . . .

Instapundit has noted the increasing recurrence of this phrase. At what point will financial journalists begin to realize that nearly all this happy-talk about “recovery” is generated by Obama administration officials and their allies engaged in politically motivated spin?

Peter Ingemi observes that there is no substitute for reality, and this is especially true in economics. If reporters want to expect or anticipate something, let me offer a three-word suggestion.

In Praise of Populist Rowdiness

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T.L. Davis employed a fine phrase, “The Soft Treason of Civility,” to describe what he sees as a problem with mainstream conservatism:

Upon my happy travels I have run into a few frustrating and annoying examples of intellectual cowardice. These are so-called conservative blogs and/or radio shows so terrified of being perceived as anything other than calm, rational voices of reason in the din of shouted demands that they really forfeit any weight at all. The left has had their way with them and turned them into sissies, too afraid to fight and not smart enough to just shut up.

Which is to say they’ve been punked. Turned out. Davis then goes on to describe an example:

There is a well-known conservative radio host in the Denver media market who is just this type of person. He never wants to be seen as desperate, or radical, or I guess gullible, and so without knowing it, or caring, he helps to march the conservative base over the cliff all the while pleading for reason and above all calmness.

While I don’t know which radio host Mr. Davis is referencing here, this is merely an example of a larger problem, namely the willingness of some conservatives to allow their opposition to determine the rules of debate.

“Civility” has been defined in such a way that Democrats routinely get away with rhetorical overkill, while Republicans are compelled to limit their discourse to terms acceptable to liberals.

You don’t win arguments that way. I’m all in favor of conservatives trying to keep to the discursive high ground, but I’m sick of watching Republicans being thrown under the bus by conservative pundits for speaking out bluntly.

Also, I’m tired of pundits trying to act as amateur P.R. gurus to the GOP. If you want to get a job as a Republican communications consultant, go hire yourself out to a client. But don’t sit on the sidelines preening for public admiration by offering nothing more helpful than erudite after-the-fact second-guessing.

The post by Mr. Davis was, we might suppose, inspired by watching Joe Barton being raked over the coals for his apology to BP. Without regard to any particular criticism of Barton, this points to a general problem with conservative worry-warts who devote their main efforts to fretting over Republican “gaffes.”

And to hell with that. When you’re in a fight, you need fighters.

Go read the rest of “The Soft Treason of Civility.”

If McChrystal Is McArthur . . .

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. . . in this analogy, then I guess Barack Obama is trying to be Harry Truman:

The top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has been summoned to the White House to explain biting and unflattering remarks he made to a freelance writer about President Barack Obama and others in the Obama administration.
The face-to-face comes as pundits are already calling for McChrystal to resign for insubordination. . . .

Ed Morrissey summarizes the general’s gaffes:

McChrystal’s team called National Security Adviser Jim Jones a “clown” stuck in 1985, according to Politico’s report from the Rolling Stone article. They called VP Joe Biden “Bite Me” over his opposition to the surge. As Allahpundit noted last night, however, the big bombshell came from McChrystal himself, who accused Obama of being unprepared for their meeting and describing it as “disappointing.”

Jules Crittenden says that McChrystal has mastered “advanced petard hoistmanship.” War as an exercise in politics or public relations is certainly different than war as . . . y’know, war.

More at Memeorandum.

UPDATE: One of my Twitter buddies:

Gen. McChrystal symbolizes the open contempt our military feels for this ridiculous administration.

Yeah, but you’re not supposed to say it out loud, troop — and you’re certainly not supposed to say it out loud in a conversation with a reporter from Rolling Stone. If you’re a senior commander and you feel the civilian leadership is screwed up, the thing to do is to announce your retirement, and then write a book about how screwed up the civilian leadership is.