The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 10.15.21

Posted on | October 15, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.15.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Coming soon to a military base near you?

OVER THE TRANSOM
Edge Of The Frontier: This Is Rumor Control
EBL: Joe Rogan Takes On Sanjay Gupta & CNN, also, Where In The World Is Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg?
Twitchy: Bernie Sanders Calls out Joe Manchin Over The $3.5 Trillion Spending Bill, Gets Rekt, also, “Not A Militiaman, A Longtime FBI Informant”
Louder With Crowder: Anti-Comedian Hannah Gadsby Lashes Out At Dave Chappelle
Vox Popoli: The Eminence Grise, James Bond Is Gay, and Tory MP Stabbed To Death
According To Hoyt: I’m Alive, Sort Of, also, Hello Galt
Monster Hunter Nation: WriterDojo S1E9 – POV
Stoic Observations: Dancing On The Third Rail

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Greatness: Police Union Boss urges Chicago Cops To Defy Mayor’s Jab Mandate, also, Navy Prepares To Discharge Unvaxxed Sailors
American Power: On Joe Rogan Vs. Sanjay Gupta, also, We Got Here Because Of Cowardice
American Thinker: Bill Ayers, A Familiar Face In The Birth Of Critical Race Theory, also, Punk Rock Republicanism Will Win
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Lying Liars That Lie Friday
Babalu Blog: The Rope Tightens As 11/15 Approaches, also, Ten Years Ago Today – The Regime Murders Laura Pollan, Founder Of The Ladies In White
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For October 15
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, Dry Martian Chaos, and FAA Announces Details For SpaceX Boca Chica Environmental Impact Hearings
Cafe Hayek: Quotation Of The Day
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: I Was Just Thinking
Don Surber: Teacher Of The Year Doesn’t Understand Her Subject, also, Buttigieg Is Literally Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
First Street Journal: The Increase In “Breakthrough” Infections, also, Are Journalists Today Trying Less To Inform Public Minds Than Steer Public Opinion?
Gates Of Vienna: Why Don’t We See News Stories Like This? also, A Mujahidette On German Public TV
The Geller Report: Maine Hospital Fired So Many Unvaxxed Employees They Had To Close The ICU, also, South Philly Judge Of Elections Indicted In Voter Fraud Scheme
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Water Vapor On Europa
Hollywood In Toto: Halloween Kills A Reborn Franchise, also, Why Neal Fox Won’t Stay Silent On Marxism Gone Wild
The Lid: Homeland Security Tells Judge Remain In Mexico Policy Will Be Back In November
Legal Insurrection: Huge Win For Parents As Loudoun County School Board Member Beth Barts Resigns, Pa. School Boards Assn. Votes To Withdraw From NSBA, and Horrified Loudoun County Parents Demand Superintendent’s Firing
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday – Brandon’s Affirmative Action Administration
Outkick: Emails Expose NFL Lawyer’s Relationship With Redskins & Racial Jokes, Terry Bradshaw Complimented Erin Andrews And Twitter Loses Its S***, and The NFL Thinks You’re Stupid
Power Line: Thoughts From The Ammo Line, In Search of Billionaires (Like You), and How Serious Are Democrats About Packing The Court?
Shark Tank: Laura Loomer Outraises Incumbent Webster Ahead Of FL-11 Primary
Shot In The Dark: Just So We’re Clear, Just So We’re Clear (2), and #Unexpectedly
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – The Carter Years, Power & Principle
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, LTC Scheller Sentenced, and Loudoun County Superintendent Denied Allegations That Female Students Were Raped
Transterrestrial Musings: No More Needles
Victory Girls: Chicago Showdown – Cops Vs. Mayor Groot On The Jab
Volokh Conspiracy: The Right To Bear Arms In Historical Context
Weasel Zippers: Teen Vogue Starts Calling Women “Non Prostate Owners”, Bill Clinton Hospitalized With Sepsis, and Teachers Union Boss Randi Weingarten Agrees Concerned Parents Are Domestic Terrorists
The Federalist: William Shatner’s A Normal Person, But There’s Something Wrong With Jeff Bezos, also, Biden Administration Rewards Disgraced Liar & Russia Collusion Andrew McCabe With $200,000 Pension
Mark Steyn: We Have Met The Enemy Part XXIV

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Category: Linkagery

Who Killed Sir David, and Why? UPDATE: ‘Somali Heritage,’ Motive Unknown

Posted on | October 15, 2021 | Comments Off on Who Killed Sir David, and Why? UPDATE: ‘Somali Heritage,’ Motive Unknown

It’s almost midnight in England now, and many hours have passed since the news broke that Sir David Amess, a Tory member of Parliament, was stabbed to death during a meeting with constituents:

Police said a 25-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder after the attack at a church in Leigh-on-Sea.
They recovered a knife and are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident. A counter terrorism team will lead the investigation.

Nothing whatsoever can be learned about the identity of the stabber, or the motive for his deadly attack. Surely by now, police must know who this man is, and why he did what he did, yet it is remarkable — and rather suspicious, really — that the press has reported nothing about it.

One immediately suspects that this must be Islamic radicalism, but that is mere suspicion. The one thing we can almost certainly rule out is any sort of “right-wing extremist” motive, because the press would have been shouting that from the rooftops already, were it so. Probably by Saturday afternoon, or Sunday at the latest, we’ll have most of the details, and then we’re likely to get some huffy sermons against “Islamophobia.”

All we have now is suspicion and speculation, so until we get more, it’s best to reserve judgment. Stay tuned . . .

UPDATE: Well, this didn’t take long:

A 25-year-old man arrested on suspicion of murdering Amess on Friday is believed to be a British national with Somali heritage, official sources have told the PA news agency. . . .
The UK’s Counter Terrorism Command will lead the investigation into the murder, police said later Friday. “It will be for investigators to determine whether or not this is a terrorist incident. But as always, they will keep an open mind,” Ben-Julian Harrington, Chief Constable of Essex Police, told reporters.

“Diversity is our strength!”




 

Category: Great Britain, Terrorism

In The Mailbox: 10.14.21 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | October 15, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.14.21 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.
OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Power Corrupts, Australian Edition
Red Pilled Jew: Converging Downturns
EBL: Judge Tanya Chutkan Persecuting J6 Protesters
Twitchy: Glenn Greenwald – “CNN Is Utter S***”, also, “WTF Is Internalized Racial Superiority?”
Louder With Crowder: Unhinged Liberal Harpy Records Herself Screaming At Neighbors Until They Call The Cops On Her 
Vox Popoli: D+P = W Confirmed, Why The U.S. Won’t Defend Taiwan, and Shortages Due To California Law
Gab News: Trump – If You’ve Had COVID, You Don’t Need The Jab

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Don’t Commit To Defend Taiwan, also, The Right’s New Godfather
American Greatness: How To End The Deep State, also, Defund The FBI, Re-Fund The Local Police
American Power: Black Children Jailed For Crime That Doesn’t Exist; Almost Nothing Happened To The Adults Responsible
American Thinker: No, The U.S. Is Not On Its Knees, also, The Time Has Come To Nobly Save Or Meanly Lose
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Economic Wars News
Babalu Blog: Cuban State Security Issues Death Threats To Activists Promoting Peaceful 11/15 March, also, Cuban Spending On Military-Owned Tourist Industry 50x What’s Spent On Healthcare
BattleSwarm: Freedom Flu Spreads To American & United
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, Shatner Vs. Today’s America, and Astronaut Blood Samples Suggest Long-Term Weightlessness Leads To Brain Damage
Cafe Hayek: Supporting Phil Magness’ Defense Of Jim Buchanan
CDR Salamander: Economic Power Is Global Power, also, Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: Five Sports Thoughts Under The Fedora, also, I Admit It – I Was Wrong
Don Surber: It’s The Mandate, Not The Vaccine, 54% Hike In Heating Bills Expected, and  Trump’s 2024 Plan
First Street Journal: You Can’t Fix The Problem If You Won’t Admit What The Problem Is
Gates Of Vienna: Do You Love To Hate?, Nuclear Power Goes Green, and Thursday’s Vax & Corona Roundup
The Geller Report: Norwegian Bow & Arrow Attacker Who Killed Five Was Muslim Known To Police, also, Judge Holds DC Jail Officials In Contempt Over Treatment Of J6 Prisoners
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, Weren’t We Supposed To Be Turning Things Over To The Experts?, and Consequences Of Overreach
Hollywood In Toto: Grave Intentions Serves Up Sloppy Anthology Scares, also, Vamp Gave Grace Jones A Perfectly Unexpected Closeup
The Lid: New Emails Show Joe Biden Was Lying – He Knew About Hunter’s Business
Legal Insurrection: Critical Race Group Targets Diverse List Of Anti-CRT “Frontline Spokespeople”, also, Loudoun County Family Of Girl Allegedly Raped By Trans Classmate Plans To Sue LCPS
Nebraska Energy Observer: Seeking Whom He May Devour
Outkick: Kyrie Irving Losing Millions For Jab Stance While Media Only Support Those Who Profit, “Yes, The Vaccine Ended My Season”, and Washington Cheerleaders Livid Over Topless Photo Leak In Gruden Email Scandal
Power Line: Getting Minds Right At Yale, Civil War 2.0?, and Why People Hate The Media, Part 12,186
Protein Wisdom: Is A COVID Political Alignment Coming?, On Psyops & Mass Event “Hypnotism“, and Oh.
Shark Tank: Nikki Fried Fries “Republican” Charlie Crist Over New Position On Weed Legalization
Shot In The Dark: The Long & Winding Road, Taking Stock, and Not Exactly Omaha Beach
The Political Hat: Cops & Criminals – Gunfight In Portland, Defunding The Police In Austin, & Abolishing The Police In Minneapolis
This Ain’t Hell: LTC Scheller Pleads Guilty To All Charges, Aww, Not This S*** Again, and Katie Couric Muzzles Leftist Icon RBG & Gets Outed By LTC For Pushing Fake News
Transterrestrial Musings: Shatner’s Experience, also, Ron Klain
Victory Girls: Janet Yellen Says $600 IRS Plan Isn’t Spying, also, Administration Wants Ocean Wind Farms On All Coasts
Volokh Conspiracy: Amnesty International Brief Against RKBA, also, Katie Couric Took A Knee For RBG
Weasel Zippers: Reuters Now Calling Biden’s Economic Collapse “The Great Reboot”, Bad Orange Woman Claims Gas Prices Aren’t Rising
The Federalist: Zuckerbucks 101 – How A Media Mogul Took Over The 2020 Election, also, The 2020 Election Wasn’t Stolen, It Was Vandalized By Democrats, Big Tech, & The Media
Mark Steyn: It’s Only Rock & Roll, But…, also, Coach Class

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Category: Linkagery

Lesbian Love Triangle: NYPD Cop Murders Ex-Girlfriend’s New Lover

Posted on | October 14, 2021 | Comments Off on Lesbian Love Triangle: NYPD Cop Murders Ex-Girlfriend’s New Lover

Allegedly, I hasten to add:

The off-duty NYPD officer who allegedly shot her ex-girlfriend and killed the woman’s new lover may have snapped because she was clinging to hope that they’d get back together, a high-ranking police source told The Post Thursday.
Officer Yvonne Wu, 31, had recently split with her ex, Jenny Li, 23, but was still spending the night on occasion at Li’s home in Brooklyn — and may have lost it when she saw her there with another woman, the source said.
“She was still staying there on and off. She was still staying there some nights. It’s not that strange, maybe she thought it could still work out,” the source said.
Wu, who works at the 72nd Precinct and lives on Staten Island, allegedly opened fire on Li and her 24-year-old new lover, Jamie Liang, at the home on 19th Avenue near 79th Street in Bensonhurst Wednesday night, according to police.
“When the cops get there, she says, ‘I shot them both. The gun’s inside,’ calm as can be,” the source said.
Liang was found with a bullet wound to the chest and was taken to Maimonides Medical Center, where she died. Li was in serious but stable condition on Thursday, police said.

Notice something about this story? Neither the word “lesbian” nor the word “gay” appears anywhere in it. This is standard practice when referring to homosexuals who commit crimes, whereas if a homosexual is the victim of a crime (e.g., Matthew Shepard), “gay” is in the headline. In this case, where one homosexual (allegedly) shoots two other homosexuals, they went with the former rule, I guess.

As if the headline “Killer Cop in Lesbian Love Triangle” wouldn’t sell more newspapers? See, that’s my real beef with this kind of political correctness — insofar as journalism is a business, the profit motive would suggest the word “lesbian” in the headline of a story like this, much the same way that the word “rape” should always be in the headline of a story about rape. A legalistic term like “sexual assault” doesn’t sell papers the way “rape” sells papers. One reason the news business is in such dire condition is that political correctness is the enemy of the kind of lurid scandal-sheet mentality portrayed in L.A. Confidential.

What America needs is journalists who think more like old-school reporters — wearing fedoras and wide lapels, smoking Chesterfields and driving a 1949 Packard — and less like college professors.

If you ever get a chance to use “Lesbian Love Triangle” in a headline, why would you pass up such an opportunity? Like you’re afraid of being sued or something? Let’s stipulate the possibility that one or more of the women involved here — including the deceased Jamie Liang — may have been bisexual, but the nature of this particular love triangle would justify the word “lesbian” as an adjective, if not as a noun.

Or that would be my defense, anyway, if it turned into a libel suit.

Speaking of libel suits, Ace thinks Joe Rogan may have a case against CNN for smearing him by claiming he took “horse dewormer” as treatment for COVID-19. And whether or not that were defamation, per se, I certainly hope Rogan will sue CNN over this, because discovery is a bitch. If Rogan can get clear the “motion-to-dismiss” hurdle, he might obtain some internal CNN memos about how they’ve been covering COVID-19. Anything bad that happens to CNN is good for journalism.

Anyway, the alleged lesbian cop — notice how I used the word “alleged” there? — has worse problems than being called names by a blogger. New York City has gone kind of soft on crime with De Blasio as mayor, but I’m pretty sure that murder is still a felony there. Maybe she’ll plead insanity, and her defense team can call me as an expert witness.

ATTORNEY: “Would you say my client is crazy?”
McCAIN: “Definitely. She’s deranged, demented, berserk, bonkers, daft, wacky, zany, nutty as squirrel farts, a few fries short of a Happy Meal, and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”
ATTORNEY: “And how does that apply to her shooting rampage?”
McCAIN: “Like I always say, Crazy People Are Dangerous.”

Case closed. Court is adjourned.




 

Category: Violence Against Women

In The Mailbox: 10.14.21 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | October 14, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.14.21 (Morning Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1504
Ammo.com: Righteousness & Force In America
357 Magnum: So How Is That Bail Reform Working Out?
EBL: Midnight Mass
Twitchy: Desperate Much, A**holes?, also, Judd Legum Thinks The Concerned Parents Challenging School Boards Are Astroturf
Louder With Crowder: “Democrats Caused Every F***ing Scar That Exists On This Country”
Vox Popoli: It’s Not Your Imagination, also, The Good Boomer

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Domestic Terrorist Is The New Nazi
American Greatness: Judge Rules Against Jab Mandate At United Airlines, also, Federal Judge Finds DC Jail officials In Contempt Over J6 Prisoner Treatment, Demands Civil Rights Inquiry
American Power: Xi Emphasizes “Peaceful Reunification” With Taiwan Days After Record Show Of Force
American Thinker: The Prospect of A National Divorce, also, The Jon Gruden Dinosaur Hunt
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Back When Cuba Had Sugar & Coca-Cola, also, 11/15 Peaceful Protest March In Cuba To Go On Despite Regime’s Prohibition
BattleSwarm: The Amish Refuse Flu Manchu Foolishness, also, Southwest CEO Talking Out Of Both Sides Of His Face
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, Australia To Build Unmanned Lunar Rover For NASA
Cafe Hayek: John Stassel On COVID & The COVIDOcracy, also, Protesting More Panic Porn
Da Tech Guy: CNN Channels Yes, Prime Minister
Don Surber: Biden Goes Grinch, and Apoorva Mandavilli Still Has A Job?
First Street Journal: A Stunning Lack of Perspective, also, The Whole Truth Doesn’t Interest Newspapers These Days
Gates Of Vienna: We Are All Rwanda Now
The Geller Report: Please Stand By, also, Dumb & Dumber DeBlasio Ends NYC’s Gifted Students Program Over Equity Concerns
Hogewash: Cosmic Leftovers, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Brain Freeze Satirizes The Usual Targets – With A Twist, also, WaPo Tries To Cancel Country Music…Really
The Lid: Will Biden’s Economy Be The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?
Legal Insurrection: Student Wants Reagan’s Name Removed From UCLA Medical Center, AAUP To Investigate UNC-Chapel Hill For Racism, and Student Slams Colorado State U Over COVID Policies
Michelle Malkin: GooTube – The Democrats’ Kiddie Propaganda Arm
Nebraska Energy Observer: Lupus Tenebrosus Chapter 10
Outkick: The View Thinks The NFL Should Hire Colin Kaepernick To Make Up For Jon Gruden’s E-Mails, also, Bucs Removal Of Gruden From Ring Of Honor Raises Questions About Warren Sapp, Others
Power Line: This Just In – Inflation Rising, The Case Of Hunter Biden, and  The End Of Green Dreams?
Protein Wisdom: ICU Doctor – “My Experience Treating Patients Does Not Comport With Federal Claims Regarding COVID Vaccine Safety”, also, The Horror. The Horror.
Shark Tank: Demings Outraises Rubio
Shot In The Dark:  Ack Shu Ally, also, How Times Change
The Political Hat: Bioengineering & Robots Converge – Confluence To Cyborg Catgirl
This Ain’t Hell: Happy Birthday, Navy!, William Shatner Sets Record As Oldest Man In Space, also, Sergeant Major Denzel Washingon
Victory Girls: Pete Buttigieg – The Invisible, Incompetent Transportation Secretary
Volokh Conspiracy: Court Blocks NY Rule Prohibiting Religious Exemptions From Jab Mandate
Weasel Zippers: Big Tech Censors GOP Congressmen 54x More Than Democrats, also, DHS Leak – Administration Released 70,000+ Illegals Into U.S.
The Federalist: Cleveland Clinic Bars Severely Ill Man’s Kidney Transplant Because Donor Didn’t Get The Jab, also, The Jon Gruden Story Isn’t About The NFL
Mark Steyn: Living Large, also, Live Around The Planet

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Category: Linkagery

Biden Begging for Lower Fuel Prices?

Posted on | October 14, 2021 | Comments Off on Biden Begging for Lower Fuel Prices?

The man who, on his very first day in office, signed an executive order revoking the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, is now desperate for help to do something about rising fuel prices?

The White House has been speaking with U.S. oil and gas producers in recent days about helping to bring down rising fuel costs, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Energy costs are rising worldwide, in some cases leading to shortages in major economies like China and India. In the United States, the average retail cost of a gallon of gas is at a seven-year high, and winter fuel costs are expected to surge, according to the U.S. Energy Department. Oil-and-gas production remains below the nation’s peak reached in 2019.
The talks with energy companies touched on several issues, including prices, according to a third person familiar with the discussions. The administration has been in discussions with the oil industry over limiting methane emissions in recent months.
“We are closely monitoring the cost of oil and the cost of gas Americans are paying at the pump. And we are using every tool at our disposal to address anti-competitive practices in U.S. and global energy markets to ensure reliable and stable energy markets,” a White House official said.
U.S. crude oil recently hit $80 a barrel for the first time in seven years, as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies known as OPEC+ restrict output. The White House has discussed rising prices with top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia in recent weeks.

Under the previous administration, the United States had not only achieved energy independence, but had become a net exporter of oil and gas. Oh, but those mean tweets! So now we’ve got feeble-minded Joe Biden in the White House, begging the Saudis for more oil?

(Hat-tip: Twitchy via Instapundit.)




 

Category: Joe Biden

In The Mailbox: 10.12.21 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | October 13, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.12.21 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

As you may have noticed, we’ve added counterjihad site Gates of Vienna to our list of blogs, and Jeff Goldstein has picked up the gauntlet again at Protein Wisdom after getting the boot from Twitter.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

Ereshkigal from Fate/Grand Carnival as shown in Newtype magazine.

 

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The Rise Of The Australian Police State
Red Pilled Jew: Creating A Preference Tsunami
EBL: It’s “Saint” Matthew Shepard Day
Twitchy: CNN – American & Southwest Airlines Say Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Supersedes Conflicting Texas Order
Louder With Crowder: 11-Year Old King Shoots Home Intruder, Mocks Him For Crying After Being Shot
Vox Popoli: Never Listen To The Elite, Superhomo, and Dead Pilots In Flight
Gab News: Gab’s Response To The ADL

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Enemy In Our Midst, also, Coming Out Trad Day
American Conservative: Take-Off Time For Solidarity, also, Social Media Profits Off Conservatives
American Greatness: Southwest Airlines CEO Says No Employees Will Be Fired Over Jab Mandate, also, Our Representatives, Not The J6 Protesters, Defile The “Sacred” U.S. Capitol
American Power: What Happens When The Last Jew Leaves Afghanistan, also, Remarkable Shape-Shifting On The Left’s CRT Takeover
American Thinker: The Benefits Of Blue State Bankruptcy, also, Mahan & The Problem Of China
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Border Crisis News
Babalu Blog: Cuban Food In Miami, Tampa, & New York, also, Lucy – The Computer Application That Aims To Revitalize Totalitarianism In Cuba
BattleSwarm: Are Biden’s Jab Mandates About To Destroy The Airline Industry?, also, Supply Chain Disruption Update
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, Michael Knowles – Celebrating Columbus, and Starship/Superheavy Update
Cafe Hayek: A Current Ill-Consequence Of Deficit Financing, also, The (Il)logic Of Vaccine Mandates
CDR Salamander: Drydocks Matter
Da Tech Guy: Is This A Bug Or A Feature? COVID Edition, Report From Louisiana – On Newspapers, and Help Wanted!
Don Surber: Officer Cleared In Shooting Of Attempted Kidnapper/Rapist, Bigger Social Security Checks Mean More Trouble Ahead, and Reindeer Shut Down Windmills
First Street Journal: Bullets Flying In The Bluegrass State, also, The Patricians Really, Really Don’t Like The Plebeians!
Gates Of Vienna: Giorgia Meloni’s Speech In Madrid, Taharrush In Tarragona, and Come Join The Hive!
The Geller Report: Virginia Father Arrested At School Board Meeting After His Teen Daughter Was Raped & Forcibly Sodomized By Trans Student In Public School, also, Poll – Majority Of American Voters Believe Cheating Tainted Biden’s 2020 Victory
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Discovering North America In Space
Hollywood In Toto: From Dusk Til Dawn Isn’t Worthy Of Its Cult Following, also, How The Media Make Cancel Culture Worse
The Lid: Kamala Harris Space Video Uses Child Actors Instead Of Regular Kids
Legal Insurrection: Providence RI Schools Move To Terminate CRT Whistleblower Teacher, Mass. Teacher Fired For Opposing CRT/LGBTQWTFBBQ Agenda In Schools, and Loudoun County Dad Accuses School Board Of Covering Up His Daughter’s Rape By Trans Student
Nebraska Energy Observer: Weak Men Produce Hard Times, also, It’s A Matter Of Trust
Outkick: Gruden Drama Comes Down To Words Vs. Actions, Gruden Resigns As LV Raiders Coach After More Email Leaks, and Gruden Gone While Rappers & Deshaun Watson Continue to Represent The NFL
Power Line: South By Southwest, also, Woke Mob Fails to Cancel Geophysicist’s Lecture Despite MIT’s Cowardice 
Protein Wisdom: The Arrogance Of Ignorance, I Question The Timing Part 67889456, and The Cure IS The Virus
Shark Tank: Government Buses Potentially Filled With Illegals Enter Florida
Shot In The Dark: Build Bull Blocker, also,  Well That’s a Big Slip-Up!
The Political Hat: University of San Diego To Prospective Faculty – DIE Or Else!
This Ain’t Hell: Navy Nuke Engineer Charged With Trying To Pass Secrets, Taliban Claims U.S. Will Provide Humanitarian Aid To Afghanistan, and There Are More Odd Things Going On 
Transterrestrial Musings: Breezewood, also, Laughing Wolf
Victory Girls: If It Weren’t For Columbus, We Wouldn’t Be Here, also, Sinema Leaves Protesters Out In The Cold, Skips Race
Volokh Conspiracy: Does A Medieval English Statute Supersede The Second Amendment?
Weasel Zippers: McAuliffe – Saying Critical Race Theory Exists Is Racist, Homeland Security Orders ICE To Stop Raiding Illegals’ Workplaces, and Pelosi Thinks Press Isn’t Selling Biden’s Build Back Better Plan Hard Enough
The Federalist: The 2020 Election Wasn’t Stolen – It Was Bought By Mark Zuckerberg, also, Mom Reports School To Police For Promoting Gay Porn To Kids
Mark Steyn: Happy Holidays!, The Stampede To Stupid, and Blaming The Weather

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Category: Linkagery

MBD’s Trump Problem, and Mine

Posted on | October 13, 2021 | Comments Off on MBD’s Trump Problem, and Mine

Michael Brendan Dougherty (left) with Tucker Carlson in 2019.

Let me start by saying that I like Michael Brendan Dougherty, and I’ve always liked him. He is a serious thinker and his paleoconservative leanings are so obvious that it’s a miracle he hasn’t already been purged from National Review, like John Derbyshire, Peter Brimelow, et al. His 2007 article “The Castaway,” about the late, great paleoconservative intellectual Sam Francis, stopped short of a full-on endorsement of Sam’s ideas, but you could see that Dougherty’s interest was tinged with a certain amount of admiration:

The question for Sam Francis was, How might a conservative elite rise up to challenge the managerial elite? Conservatives would have to attach themselves to a broad social base. In his 1982 essay, “Message from MARS: The Social Politics of the New Right,” Francis combined his Burnhamite analysis of elites with Donald Warren’s sociological work on “Middle American Radicals” or MARs.

Dougherty here locates the hard kernel of insight that made Sam nearly unique — a disciple of James Burnham, he saw politics not so much as a “war of ideas” (the Goldwater/Reagan analysis) but as a matter of class interests. How else to explain the phenomenon of rich liberals? They are members of a social class — the “managerial elite,” in Burnham’s phrase — and as a result are hostile to the interests of rival groups, whose resistance to elite governance takes the form of populism. The Republican Party has always attracted its vital support from small business owners, who exemplify in many ways both the “rugged individualism” of frontier America and also what Max Weber called “The Protestant Ethic.” Within their own communities, these people are treated with respect, but in the great centers of cultural and political power (D.C., New York, L.A., etc.), they are viewed with contempt — a lot of provincial bourgeois Babbitts, too unsophisticated to be taken seriously. This is the real conflict in American politics, a conflict deliberately obscured by the national media establishment which, of course, is affiliated with and does the bidding of the elite.

Having distilled in a single paragraph a thumbnail sketch of Sam’s ideas about “Middle American Radicals,” I won’t bother to explain or defend how, during the 1990s, his intellectual trajectory led to him being labeled a “white supremacist.” After the past five years, I think most conservatives have become so accustomed to this label that we shrug it off, but in the mid-1990s, such an accusation still had devastating power, which is how Sam became, as Dougherty calls him, “The Castaway.”

After having profiled Sam Francis in 2007, Dougherty revisited the theme after Trump’s shocking 2016 upset of Hillary Clinton, hailing Sam as the prophet of Trump’s populist war against “globalism.” Let me clue you in here: Whether or not Donald Trump ever heard of Sam Francis, I can guarantee you that Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller is familiar with Francis’s work, just as Miller is familiar with other notorious Thought Criminals, including Brimelow, Charles Murray, Steve Sailer and Jared Taylor. Given the crisis conditions of the conservative movement circa 2006-2015, any intelligent person (and Miller is frighteningly intelligent) would have been looking around for some inspiration outside the narrow limits of Conservatism, Inc. Everyone can now see, looking back, that the time for a populist uprising on the Right was long overdue, and Trump just happened to be the figure around whom this uprising rallied.

On Monday, Dougherty published a column criticizing Roger Kimball’s limited defense of the January 6 Capitol riot, and I suppose many of my friends will be angry at Dougherty for this. Be that as it may, here is the real core of Dougherty’s argument:

Nearly everything Kimball says about the ongoing resistance to Trump is true. It was meretricious, hysterical, and dangerous. Even before Trump won the election, I predicted the unprecedented subterfuge that would probably be aimed at him if he won the presidency. We saw the deep state as it really is: an ongoing class warfare against the democratic peoples and their representatives whose disruptions provide accountability. . . .
Some of us have spent the better part of the past two decades or longer arguing that conservatives should be more open to a populist and working-class core of voters, the losers of globalization. We have been arguing for putting “the forgotten man” at the heart of conservatism’s concerns. We’ve argued for reexamining the effect of our trade relationships on the American people themselves. We denounced the democracy project in the Middle East and Afghanistan as a waste of blood and treasure. We argued for getting control of our immigration system, and for immigration limits and moratoriums in order to make America cohere again. It was thankless work. And if we had known it was all to set the stage for opportunists and recent converts to make their riches and fly their freak flags, perhaps we wouldn’t have done it.

You can read the whole thing. I don’t know who else Dougherty means to include as “some of us,” nor does he specify the targets of his criticism of “opportunists and recent converts.” Because he is not stepping on my toes (I was smeared as a “white supremacist” before it was cool), I could have just ignored this as another circular firing squad exercise on the Right, but I thought I’d address the subject directly because it matters. 

The subject amounts to a simple question: “What’s wrong with Trump?”

Dougherty focuses on Trump’s apparent belief that all Vice President Mike Pence had to do was to reject the certified Electoral College votes of Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and — abracadabra! — Trump would stay in the White House. Of course, that’s not how it works, and even if you believe that the election was stolen (a belief shared by tens of millions of Americans), the problem was that, within the constitutional framework, there was no simple remedy.

This gets very close to being an answer to the question of what’s wrong with Trump: He doesn’t read books. He doesn’t read much of anything, really. He couldn’t even be bothered to read intelligence briefings as president, so that White House aides resorted to creating Powerpoint slideshows to try to at least get him to absorb the basic points. Trump seems to get his ideas about politics and policy from watching Fox News, which is why he was always tweeting out reactions to whatever it was they were talking about on Hannity or Fox and Friends.

Watching TV is no substitute for reading, because TV can never convey ideas faster than human speech (i.e., about 150 words per minute), whereas a collegiate-level reader can absorb the written word much faster. This blog post is about 1,600 words. It would take 10-12 minutes to read it aloud, but you’ll probably reach the end much quicker. Also, the written word has a permanence that the spoken word does not. To absorb complex ideas, and to commit them to memory, the written word is superior. So Trump’s habitual aversion to reading . . . Well, that’s a real problem, and one which explains a lot of his other problems.

All that said, democracy means that our leaders are chosen collectively, and the GOP primary voters in 2016 chose Trump. So those of us who did not want Hillary to become president had no other choice but to accept the circumstances thrust upon us, and make the best of them. I believe that none of Trump’s rivals for the 2016 GOP nomination could have beaten Hillary. I think Trump was uniquely able to attract support from voters who would not have voted for Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, et al. And I think he threw the Democrats off their game. In my first American Spectator column about his campaign (“How Trump Has Changed the Game,” Sept. 14, 2015), I compared Trump to the great scrambling NFL quarterback Fran Tarkenton:

Watching Republican establishment types trying to stop Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is like watching a highlight film of Fran Tarkenton’s NFL career. Tarkenton’s legendary ability as a scrambling quarterback was every football coach’s worst nightmare. Never mind what play Tarkenton called in the huddle, or what scheme the defense deployed against him. Once he started scrambling, the playbook ceased to matter. He’d run all over the backfield, eluding the defensive linemen who tried to tackle him, until he found a receiver open downfield. Tarkenton’s improvisational style was unique and unpredictable, and he led the Minnesota Vikings to three Super Bowls by defying the norms of what an NFL quarterback should be.
What Tarkenton did to NFL defenses, Donald Trump is doing to the Republican Party. The bombastic billionaire routinely says things that, for any other candidate, would be campaign-destroying gaffes. With his larger-than-life celebrity persona, however, Trump keeps winning. . . .

That was four months before National Review blazoned “Against Trump” on its cover and, having lashed themselves to the mast, they went down with the #NeverTrump ship. This was their choice, and not mine, and therefore I am not responsible for the consequences. It’s like the Capitol riot — nobody in the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers came to me and asked, “Hey, Stacy, do you think it’s a good idea to have a riot?” Certainly, I would have advised against it, but no one sought my advice. Similarly, nobody at National Review asked me if it was a good idea for them to declare war on the GOP primary voters who wanted Trump.

Wisdom is what we ought to gain from our mistakes, but you’re never going to become wise if you refuse to recognize your mistakes. It may be that both Trump and his #NeverTrump adversaries suffer equally from this problem. Unless and until National Review publishes a cover story with the headline, “We Blew It,” their credibility is damaged.

Let Michael Brendan Dougherty make of this what he will. I still like him, but wish he’d follow his populist inclinations far enough to get himself purged from National Review — a fine tradition to uphold!




 

Category: Conservatism 101, Donald Trump, Intellectuals
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