The Other McCain

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

Rule 5 Sunday: Queen Victoria Eugenie Of Spain

Posted on | October 25, 2021 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Queen Victoria Eugenie Of Spain

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.
Being royalty isn’t always a fairy tale life, but with the exception of the very unfortunate Romanovs, few royals had it harder than the Queen Consort of Spain, Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, granddaughter of England’s Queen Victoria and first cousin to King George V. As the wife of King Alfonso XIII, she converted to Catholicism, but her reign began badly with an attempted assassination, and became worse when her son the Infante Alfonso proved to have inherited hemophilia from her. Estranged from the King, who embarrassed her with numerous affairs, she devoted herself to hospital work, education, service to the poor, and the reorganization of the Spanish Red Cross, for which she was decorated by the Pope (the first time an English princess had been so honored since the reign of Queen Mary I) and honored by having a number of landmarks in Madrid and San Sebastian named for her. Things got worse in 1931 when the royal family left the country after the municipal elections ushered in the Second Spanish Republic; Alfonso XIII hoped to avoid a civil war between his supporters and the Republicans. She remained in exile for the rest of her life, except for a brief return in 1968 for the baptism of her great-grandson the Infante Felipe, who would become king after the abdication of his father, King Juan Carlos. She died in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 15, 1969, 38 years to the day after going into exile, and her remains were eventually reburied in the Escorial outside Madrid next to her husband’s grave. This is a picture of her taken early in her reign.

Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1512, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

Animal Magnetism: Rule 5 Useless UN News, and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: MAGA- Baldwin Karma & Jetpack Joe, Thank God It’s Friday, Dune 2021, Guns Don’t Kill People, Alec Baldwin Kills People, Counter-Protester’s Sign Is Triggering, I Am The Monarch Of The Sea, Tchaikovsky, Acapulco, and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.

A View From The Beach: Jessica Chastain Demands ‘Equity’ in Nudity, Virginia Striper Recruitment Holding Up, Fish Pic Friday – Darlene Grattet, MD Increases Bribe for Farmers to Protect Streams, Election 2020: Manchin to Bail from Democrats?, Tattoo Thursday, Gone Fishing, The Wednesday Wetness, Latin Moon, MD Sets First Fish Consumption Advisory for PFAS, The Annual Maryland Striped Bass YOY Index is In, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Lesko Brandon!, Palm Sunday and When You Hear Hoofbeats . . .

And to wrap up, Brian Noggle brings us Julie Newmar as a guest star in a couple of Route 66 episodes. 

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

‘Ain’t Going Back to Jail’

Posted on | October 24, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘Ain’t Going Back to Jail’

Say hello to Christian Redwine and, while you’re at it, you can also say good-bye, because he got shot dead by a police officer in 2016.

Although he was only 17, Redwine already had an extensive criminal record in November 2016 when he decided to steal a car and go joyriding with two friends. Redwine “had a lengthy juvenile record, including an 18-month sentence in a youth development campus,” a federal judge wrote in a recent court ruling related to the case. “He had also recently been charged as an adult with first-degree burglary, spent two months in jail, and been released on bond less than a week before the shooting.”

Maybe releasing criminals from jail is a bad idea, but on the other hand, keeping them in jail is expensive, compared to the cost of buying 21 rounds of pistol ammunition for a police officer, who can thereby guarantee that the hoodlum won’t steal any more cars.

Since the #BlackLivesMatter riots last year, I’ve done a lot of blogging about crime and law enforcement, mainly in an effort to counterbalance the anti-police narrative whereby activists magically transform criminals into victims of injustice. Because most of the cases I’ve highlighted involve black suspects, it may seem racist — “RAAAAACIST!” — to defend police against charges of “excessive force,” so I am grateful for those occasions when white criminals get themselves shot by cops. This gives me the opportunity to point out that I have no sympathy for criminals of any race — I am pro-police even when cops are killing white people.

Certainly, Christian Redwine deserved to be shot, as did the two other teenagers who were his passengers that night in November 2016.

Hunter Tillis (left); Hannah Wuenschel (right)

Redwine had just gotten out of jail, and was back home in Columbus, Georgia, with his grandmother, who had raised him. His grandmother’s live-in boyfriend had a small business selling used cars, which he kept parked at the house. Redwine’s 19-year-old cousin, Hunter Tillis, came over and the two of them began a two-day drug binge of over-the-counter cold medication, Xanax, marijuana and cocaine. Redwine’s girlfriend was at the house babysitting for the infant child of 19-year-old Hannah Wuenschel, but then there was an argument, and the girlfriend left with Wuenschel’s baby. So when Wuenschel arrived, the grandmother drove them to the girlfriend’s house “where Wuenschel got her son and brought him back to [the grandmother’s] house. She put the child to bed and smoked marijuana with Tillis and Redwine.” About 11 p.m., Redwine’s grandmother and her boyfriend went to sleep, and then Redwine got the keys to a Pontiac G-6 belonging to the grandmother’s boyfriend. Redwine had no driver’s license and no permission to take the car, but he took it, with Tillis and Wuenschel along for the ride.

The teenagers then apparently broke into two cars, stealing jewelry, a purse and other items. About 3:30 a.m., 911 got a call from the grandmother’s boyfriend, reporting the Pontiac stolen and identifying the three teenagers, saying he wanted them arrested:

The teens were on Gentian Boulevard when Redwine stopped at a shopping plaza, turned off his headlights, and tried to call his girlfriend.
He’d chosen an area rife with business break-ins. At 4:25 a.m., police Capt. Bill Turner, driving an unmarked Chevrolet Impala, saw the Pontiac and followed when Redwine pulled away.
Tillis told Redwine police were behind him. When Redwine confirmed an officer was tailing him, he raced away to the neighborhood around Hardaway High School, speeding so recklessly he had to use the emergency brake to turn.
The 911 center informed officers the Pontiac was reported stolen.
Tillis and Wuenschel later said Redwine was desperate to escape because he’d just been released from jail and swore he would not go back.
Redwine led police down Talbotton Road to Veterans Parkway and briefly lost them near Ashley Station Apartments. He stopped there and told Tillis and Wuenschel to get out if they wanted. Both refused, and police soon were back on Redwine’s tail as he headed into downtown toward the 13th Street Bridge to Phenix City.
[Columbus Police Officer Allan] Brown was at the Public Safety Center on 10th Street when he heard the chase was close by. He joined it, and was the lead police car when Redwine crossed into Alabama, speeding up to 98 mph as he headed west to U.S. 280 and turned back toward Columbus on the J.R. Allen Parkway.
The Pontiac hit 107 mph before Redwine abruptly exited onto Riverchase Drive and ran off the road into bushes in a front yard, with Brown right behind him.

Did I mention that Redwine’s cousin, Hunter Tillis, also had a criminal record, including charges of arson and burglary? Probably neither one of them should have been out on the street, but there they were, flying down the road at over 100 mph, with a teen mom in the front passenger seat, and multiple cop cars in their rearview mirror. They’d crossed the Chattahoochee River into Alabama, then doubled back, exited the freeway and ran off the road. Officer Brown pulled his car up behind and to the right of the Pontiac, which seemed to be stuck on the side of the road. Inside the Pontiac, Redwine told Tillis, “I ain’t going back to jail”:

Brown thought the Pontiac was wrecked and the driver would run away, so he quickly got out, anticipating a foot chase.
Brown drew his .45-caliber semi-automatic. Redwine looked at Wuenschel and said, “It’s them or me,” though she pleaded with him to give up.
“Nah, f—k that,” Redwine said. “You can either jump out or stay the f—k in the car.”
He shifted to reverse. Brown said he saw the white reverse lights come on, and believing Redwine would run him over, started shooting, firing 11 shots in three seconds as the Pontiac passed by.
Having emptied the gun, he put in a fresh clip.
Two of the first shots killed Redwine as the Pontiac backed across the road. Brown said he was blinded by the headlights, and believed the driver would try to run him over again. He fired 10 more shots, leaving Redwine with multiple wounds. Wuenschel was wounded in the first barrage, and Tillis was hit in the second. Both were hospitalized and arrested upon their release.

Twenty-one shots, dead car thief. I score that a “win” for the good guys.

 

You watch the dashcam video, and you’ve got to say that reloading the weapon and firing an extra 10 shots seems . . . excessive. If any Georgia cop had done that to a black teenager, Ben Crump would have been on CNN 24/7, and the looting and arson would have gone on for days. However, because the dead car thief was white, nobody outside the Columbus area has ever even heard of Christian Redwine.

A grand jury cleared Officer Brown of wrongdoing, but there was a civil lawsuit and last month a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Officer Brown, so he’s now in the clear, legally. The court ruling could be considered a precedent, establishing that cops have the right to shoot white car thieves. But I’m not a lawyer, and maybe I’m misinterpreting it.

Americans should be grateful to Christian Redwine, who boasted, “I ain’t going back to jail.” No, son, you’re going to hell. Bon voyage.




 

Category: Crime, Georgia

FMJRA 2.0: Floating Sequence

Posted on | October 24, 2021 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Floating Sequence

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Split my two-game series with the Braves this week, so at least I broke the losing streak. Also, a Kate Upton Rule 5 post placing third? Is it a sign of the End Times?
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

‘Containergeddon’: California Emissions Law Caused the Supply Chain Crisis
First Street Journal
Dark Brightness
The Locker Room
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Democrats Desperate in Virginia
Gregor Mendel Blog
Headline of the Day
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Late Night With Rule 5 Sunday: Kate Upton
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Walmart Workers = ‘White Privilege’?
EBL
357 Magnum

A Letter of Introduction
EBL
357 Magnum

JAPANESE HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS IN TROUBLE!
EBL

Joe Biden’s Supply Chain Disaster
Bacon Time
EBL
A View From The Beach

FMJRA 2.0: Neuronengesang
A View From The Beach
EBL

‘Social Justice’ as Fashion Accessory
Animal Magnetism
EBL

In The Mailbox: 10.19.21 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 10.19.21 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

McAuliffe Campaign Implosion Continues
EBL
357 Magnum

The Buckhead Lamborghini Murder
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 10.20.21
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Just Say No
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 10.21.21
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Violence Against Women Update
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

UPDATE: Union Crew Walked Off Alec Baldwin Film Set Before Fatal Shooting
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Why Terry McAuliffe Is Losing
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 10.22.21
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending October 22:

  1.  EBL (20)
  2.  357 Magnum (14)
  3.  A View From The Beach (12)
  4.  Proof Positive (7)

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Category: FMJRA Award

“And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good – need we anyone to tell us these things?”

Posted on | October 23, 2021 | Comments Off on “And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good – need we anyone to tell us these things?”

— by Wombat-socho

Well, yes, Socrates, in this decadent and depraved age we do indeed need people to point out what is good, because Our Moral SuperiorsTM have spent the last couple of decades trying to sell us polished turds masquerading as good literature. This is especially evident in science fiction, where the once-prestigious Hugo Awards have been reduced to nothing more than a feeble marketing device for Tor Books’ parade of Pink Goo writers. Nobody with any sense relies on the Hugos as a guide to what is good in SF, any more than anyone thinks the Oscars are a good guide on where to spend your movie money. This brings us around to this regrettable article by Major General Mick Ryan and Duke postgrad student Nathan Finney, which is chock-full of Hugo & Nebula Award winners and horribly short on actual combat SF writers. Tl;dr: John Scalzi and N.K. Jemisin get twelve mentions on this list, while David Drake, Gordy Dickson (who pretty much invented the subgenre, ffs), David Weber, and Robert Heinlein get five – and Heinlein gets mentioned not for Starship Troopers, which was the direct inspiration for two of the books that are on the list, but for Stranger In A Strange Land.

Now, I will grant you that Ryan and Finney are not confining themselves to combat SF but are more broadly concerned with using SF as a tool to get officers to think, but do Jesus, this is an awful list of generally awful books. The whole point of combat SF, as Gordy Dickson and others have often said, is to show the effects of war on the people fighting the war and the societies involved. So why drag in a bunch of SF books (for example, The Left Hand Of Darkness and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?) that have nothing to do with war? The commenters on Instapundit’s post have ripped on the heinous omissions from the list, and I will mention some of their suggestions, but let’s just burn the list to the ground, save some of the useful stones from the foundation, and compile our own list of useful and edifying (mostly military) SF. 

In The Beginning
We’ll keep Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, even though it’s an expy of Gibbon’s much longer Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire, because it’s a (sorry) foundational part of the whole SF genre and does a decent job of covering the economic, political, and social changes that change the Foundation from a bunch of scholars off in the middle of nowhere into a galactic power. It also introduces the notion of psychohistory. Dickson’s Tactics of Mistake also stays; it is chronologically the first of what came to be called the Dorsai books, though it was published long after The Genetic General, because it shows how Cletus Grahame started the Dorsai mercenaries down the road to becoming super-soldiers. Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War also stays; Joe meant it as a Vietnam vet’s bitter rebuttal of Uncle Bob’s Starship Troopers and was genuinely surprised that Heinlein actually liked it. I didn’t care for H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, myself, but the Big Idea of humanity nearly helpless before the invading aliens was one that stuck, along with the notion of aliens invading because they wanted our stuff. Another building block of the SF field. In place of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, let’s go with The Man In The High Castle; the latter is one of the great alternate-history novels and quite possibly PKD’s best book, even if he let the I Ching tell him where the plot was going. Finally, it would be silly to omit the anthology that really created the idea of combat SF and made it a subgenre of its own: Combat SF, edited by Gordy Dickson and unfortunately out of print, but the paperback is well worth having, since there’s some excellent writing by authors ranging from Poul Anderson to Gene Wolfe. 

Because it doesn’t fit neatly into the list of basic books or the categories to follow, the There Will Be War anthologies edited by Jerry Pournelle & John F. Carr get their own separate paragraph. These include some of the legendary stories of the field and some excellent tales from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s along with a lot of late Cold War history, and articles on what became the Strategic Defense Initiative. The final volume, published in 2015 by Castalia House, deals with more contemporary issues but still upholds the standard set by the earlier volumes in terms of fiction. 

This is already getting lengthy, and I’m going to break the rest of it up into two parts: combat SF on planetary surfaces, and combat SF in space.

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Category: Books, Military

‘Jetpack Joe’ and the CNN Town Hall

Posted on | October 23, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘Jetpack Joe’ and the CNN Town Hall

There were many weird moments during this week’s CNN town hall event with Joe Biden in Baltimore, but the one that attracted universal comment was the “Jetpack Joe” episode. CNN host Anderson Cooper was asking Biden about inflation, which took about 20 seconds, during which time Biden stood with his fists clenched and his elbows locked at a 90-degree angle, as if piloting an imaginary jetpack, causing the hashtag #JetpackJoe to trend on Twitter. Others compared Biden’s posture to the Beavis & Butthead character Cornholio: “TP for my bunghole!”

It was pointed out in real time that this clenched-fist posture is symptomatic of Alzheimer’s, but even if you didn’t know that, you could see how Biden was struggling to concentrate on the (prescreened) questions as he attempted to remember his (scripted) answers.

You might be wondering why Team Biden would risk exposing the elderly dementia patient to such ridicule, but this limited exposure — let’s face it, any bright seventh-grader could field those softball questions from Anderson Cooper — is part of the overall “Hiding Biden” strategy.

They did the same thing during their 2020 basement campaign. If your frail and feeble-minded septuagenarian candidate lacks the stamina and presence of mind to handle a full public schedule, part of the secret of successfully shielding him from scrutiny is to have him do occasional appearances in controlled environments, e.g., a 20-minute speech at a labor union convention: “See? He’s not hiding — he’s right here, reading aloud the script we prepared for him.”

It has been 100 days since Biden held a press conference (July 15) and this staged CNN event with Anderson Cooper was an obvious attempt to postpone any such high-risk engagement, by providing the public a simulacrum of spontaneous response to issue-related questions. If you tuned into CNN on Friday, you would have seen them using a few short clips from this town hall as the basis for “news” reporting, while completely ignoring the numerous awkward moments when Biden babbled like an idiot. The CNN event served the propaganda purpose for which it was intended, and was therefore a “win” for Team Biden.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention this — the audience for Biden’s CNN town hall was about 1.2 million viewers, less than half the size of the audience that was watching Tucker Carlson on Fox News.

It is difficult to quantify the diminution of CNN’s influence, now that their hourly primetime audience is often less than 1 million viewers. But here’s a telling comparison: Joe Rogan‘s podcast has 144 million subscribers, and about 7 million daily listeners.




 

Category: CNN, Joe Biden

In The Mailbox: 10.22.21

Posted on | October 22, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.22.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual deadlines for the usual weekend posts. Also, after reading this piece from an Aussie general that Instapundit linked, I have Thoughts. Unkind ones. I’ll post them sometime this weekend.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Komi enters neko mode

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Oregon Forbids Police From Enforcing The Law
EBL: Dune 2021
Twitchy: THEY KNEW. THEY ALL KNEW.
Louder With Crowder: YouTube bans Rapper’s “Let’s Go Brandon” Song, Claims It’s “Misinformation”
Vox Popoli: Ban Fake Guns In Hollywood, also, A Flaming Techwreck
According To Hoyt: Game Over, Man! Game Over! also, HIPAA Vs. ADA
Monster Hunter Nation: Lost Planet Homicide – Free Audiobook for Audible Members!

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – We’re Back, Baby
American Greatness: LA Shrink Says COVID Policies Aren’t About Health, They’re About Control, also, Emails Confirm NSBA Coordinated With White House On “Domestic Terrorism” Letter
American Thinker: Cruel & Unusual Pain Treatment, also, Decoding The Heinous Philadelphia Train Rape
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Useless UN News
Babalu Blog: Despite The Dictatorship’s Threats, Cuban Activists Moving Ahead With 11/15 Protests, also, Las Tunas Join Peaceful November Protests In Cuba
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For October 22
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, Curiosity’s New Mountain Views, and Today’s Blacklisted American [Encore College Edition]
Cafe Hayek: Peter Robinson Talks With Jay Bhattacharya, also, Exploring EconTalk – Thomas Sowell (2008)
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: When I Saw “Ukrainian Who Grew Up In The Former Soviet Union”…
Don Surber: DC DEMANDS A WAR IN (Spins Wheel) HAITI! also, The Woman Alec Baldwin Killed
First Street Journal: The Witnesses Who Sat There & Did Nothing Should Be Publicly Named & Shamed
Gates Of Vienna: The Death Knell of Sweden, Wolfgang’s Farewell, and Bringing Them All Back Home
The Geller Report: Putin Warns That Wokeness Is Destroying The West, also, Man Who Brutally Raped Woman On Philly Train Is Illegal Immigrant – Not Deported Despite History Of Sex Crimes
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, Flying By Mercury, and A Letter & A Memorandum
Hollywood In Toto: Variety & AP Brazenly Lie About Netflix Protest, also, Dune Delivers…At Long Last
The Lid: How You Can Help Destroy The New Green Deal With Six Little Words
Legal Insurrection: NSBA – “We Regret & Apologize For The Letter”, also, New Language Guide At UNR Advises Students Not To Use “Native Nevadan”
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Ex-NBA Broadcaster Suing For Wrongful Termination Over “All Lives Matter” Tweet, also,  Enes Kanter’s Red China Opposition Could Create Another Mess For NBA
Power Line: Thoughts From The Ammo Line, Enes Kanter Speaks Truth To Chicom Power, and Alec Baldwin’s Accident
Shark Tank: Elvira Salazar Slams Pelosi’s “Outrageous Abuse Of Power”
Shot In The Dark: Priorities, Lies Corrected While You Wait, and Of Platforms & Campaigns
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – The Energy Crisis & The Economy
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, VA Medical Record Overhaul Could Be Complete In 2028, also, USS Bonhomme Richard Fallout
Transterrestrial Musings: The Mess In LA & Long Beach Harbors, also, Jab Mandates For Cops
Victory Girls: Sleepy Joe’s CNN Town Hall In Baltimore Bombs
Volokh Conspiracy: The Firearms Policy Coalition Targets S.B. 8
Weasel Zippers: Despite No Presser In 98 Days & No Interview In 68 Days, Biden Flack Insists “He Takes Questions All The Time”, also, “The Meaning Of Fully Vaccinated Could Change Over Time”
The Federalist: NBA’s Jonathan Isaac – Standing For The Anthem Was About Conviction, also, AG Garland’s Message To Concerned Parents Is Clear – Shut Up Or Else
Mark Steyn: We Have Met The Enemy Part XXV, also, The Suspicion Of Chambers Secreted

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Category: Linkagery

Why Terry McAuliffe Is Losing

Posted on | October 22, 2021 | Comments Off on Why Terry McAuliffe Is Losing

Wednesday night, longtime Democrat strategist James Carville appeared on MSNBC to declare himself “scared to death” that Republican Glenn Youngkin could defeat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia:

“It’s close,” Carville said. “Cook has it [as] a toss-up. If Cook has the race toss up — and Terry, by the way, has been blunt that we are in a very tight, race and Democrats need to be activated.” . . .
“It’s close. There’s no doubt about it, and I’m scared to death. And other Democrats should be. And the solution to that, if you know people in Virginia, call them and ask them to vote. If you are in Virginia, call and ask other people to vote. But the only thing that I can tell you, it’s a close race,” Carville said.
McAuliffe faced backlash for admitting during a debate that he doesn’t believe parents should tell schools how to teach their kids. He has since attempted to walk back his comments and explain his position. Williams acknowledged that is a hard sell.
“James, the rule of thumb in your line of work is that if you’re explaining, you’re losing,” [MSNBC’s Brian] Williams said.

First, let’s be honest — Carville isn’t “scared to death” because the race is “close,” but because he knows McAuliffe is losing.

If you live in the DC metro TV market, you can turn on any channel and see the evidence of panic among Democrats, who are absolutely saturating the airwaves with commercials accusing Youngkin of being some kind of dangerous extremist Trump clone. They wouldn’t be pouring tens of millions of dollars into this negative advertising blitz if they thought McAuliffe was merely in a “close race” with Youngkin.

A big factor in this panic is, of course, the collapsing approval for Joe Biden, a net loss of 8 points in the RCP average since August.

If you study this closely, you realize that Biden suffered two separate downward trends. The first was in August, as a result of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, after which the numbers stabilized and then improved slightly in September before a second decline in early October. What caused that? Almost certainly, it was a result of the supply-chain crisis, which is causing shortages and spiking prices.

The downward pressure from Biden’s collapse is, however, only half the story of why McAuliffe is losing in Virginia. The other half of the story is that McAuliffe’s alliance with the teachers union in Virginia has put him on the wrong side of a parents’ rights controversy:

What seems to be the central issue in the campaign surfaced when the moderator [of the final Sept. 28 debate between McAuliffe and Youngkin] asked the candidates whether “protections for transgender students” should be determined at the state level or in each school district. Youngkin raised the issue of school districts not listening to parents when they objected to portions of the curricula, citing sexually explicit classroom content in Fairfax County. He clearly stated his position that parents are in charge of the education of their children.
McAuliffe shot back, “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions. I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Needless to say, his statement is at the heart of a debate that is taking place in school board meetings nationwide after parents got a view into their children’s curricula thanks to distance learning during COVID-19. Many parents were horrified.
McAuliffe doubled down on the sentiment in subsequent interviews, and his poll numbers started to slide. Shortly after, Daily Wire broke a story out of Loudoun County, Virginia, setting the record straight about a viral video of law enforcement officers dragging a parent from a school board meeting. Activists used the video as fodder to support Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to direct the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ offices to meet with local schools boards to assess terrorist threats.

As longtime readers know, my wife homeschooled our children for several years before we sent them to private Christian schools. This reflected an informed judgment based on direct experience. Most people (obviously including Terry McAuliffe) do not realize that it is the best educated and most conscientious parents who are offended by the arrogant claims of “expertise” made by public-school officials. Anyone who researches the subject will discover that, on average, as a group, education majors have the lowest SAT scores of any college graduates. If you have a degree in business management or engineering or whatever, you are certainly competent to judge the quality of curriculum and pedagogy in your child’s classroom and, as research about homeschooling shows, good parents are at least as capable of educating a child as most government-certified teachers. That’s from a strictly academic perspective; from a moral perspective, no credential can qualify any “expert” to tell a parent what their child’s beliefs should be.

Transgenderism is immoral because it is dishonest — a deception, an attempt to substitute make-believe for biological reality. One can speculate about the psychological causes of a desire to “be” (or rather, pretend to be) the opposite sex, but in practice, transgenderism is a sort of fraud, perpetrated for selfish reasons. In a free country, adults may do as they please in private matters, but the transgender cult seeks to force the public to cooperate with this deception; when taxpayer-supported public schools joined this effort, bad results could easily be foreseen.

In Loudon County, Virginia, where many parents were already up in arms about the teaching of Marxist “critical race theory,” school officials attempted to cover-up an incident in which a 14-year-old girl was raped in a school restroom by a transgender student — “a boy in a skirt,” to quote the victim’s father. A new $1 million TV ad campaign in Virginia references this increasingly notorious case:

 

We don’t know how the election will turn out in Virginia. There is abundant evidence that McAuliffe is losing, and that Youngkin is poised for an upset victory that will have nationwide impact, but it will be up to voters in Virginia to do the right thing. Pray for them.




 

Category: Education, Election, Virginia

UPDATE: Union Crew Walked Off Alec Baldwin Film Set Before Fatal Shooting

Posted on | October 22, 2021 | Comments Off on UPDATE: Union Crew Walked Off Alec Baldwin Film Set Before Fatal Shooting

Earlier today we told you how Alec Baldwin shot two people, killing the female cinematographer on a Western film set in New Mexico. This looks very bad for Baldwin’s legal liability:

Hours before actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer on the New Mexico set of “Rust” with a prop gun, a half-dozen camera crew workers walked off the set to protest working conditions.
The camera operators and their assistants were frustrated by the conditions surrounding the low-budget film, including complaints of long hours and getting their paychecks, according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment.
The camera crew showed up for work as expected at 6:30 a.m. Thursday and began gathering up their gear and personal belongings to leave, one knowledgeable crew member told the Los Angeles Times.
Labor trouble had been brewing for days on the dusty set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe.
Shooting began on Oct. 6 and members of the production said they had been promised the production would pay for their hotel rooms in Santa Fe.
But after filming began, the crews were told they instead would be required to make the 50-mile drive from Albuquerque each day, rather than stay overnight in nearby Santa Fe.
The cinematographer who was accidentally killed, Halyna Hutchins, had been advocating for safer conditions for her team, said one crew member who was on the set.
As the camera crew — members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — spent about an hour assembling their gear at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, several nonunion crew members showed up to replace them, the knowledgeable person said.
A member of the producer staff then ordered the union members to leave the set. She said if they didn’t leave, the producers would call security to remove them.
“Corners were being cut — and they brought in nonunion people so they could continue shooting,” the knowledgeable person said.
There were two misfires on the prop gun on Saturday and one the previous week, the person said, adding “there was a serious lack of safety meetings on this set.”

(Hat-tip: Evil Blogger Lady on Twitter.)

Baldwin was Executive Producer on this “low budget” film, so that he bears responsibility for conditions on the set. They were cutting corners to save money, so they brought in scabs to replace the union members on the crew, and this accidental shooting was the direct result.




 

Category: Celebrities, Hollywood, New Mexico, Violence Against Women
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