The Other McCain

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

Rebekah Jones: Still Lying

Posted on | August 13, 2021 | Comments Off on Rebekah Jones: Still Lying

Today my podcast partner John Hoge was in Montgomery County court for the final dismissal of the fake criminal charges that disgraced former Florida health department employee Rebekah Jones filed against Christina Pushaw, who wrote a brutal takedown of Jones and has since become press secretary for Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Because there was never any factual basis for the charges against Pushaw, the case was nolle prosequi, and the hearing today was a formality.

Alas, some Trump-hating clown in Miami named Grant Stern, who is trying to play “investigative reporter” with a Substack blog, decided that because (a) Christina Pushaw works for DeSantis then (b) any charges against her must have merit, and therefore (c) believe Rebekah Jones! Or such would seem to be Stern’s syllogism, anyway. Lots of amateurs out there playing “investigative journalist” don’t know any more about logic than they do about journalism, much less libel law, so it should be noted that I am merely expressing an opinion when I characterize Stern’s thinking process, but as for the fact that Stern is a clown, I think his big red nose and floppy shoes are sufficient evidence.

Charles C.W. Cooke rips Stern and Jones to tatters here.

Never believe a word Rebekah Jones says. If she say it’s up, it is almost certainly down. She is not only dishonest, she is crazy.

In short, Rebekah Jones is the Deb Frisch of Michael Avenattis.




 

Category: Crime

Number 10 for the Win

Posted on | August 13, 2021 | Comments Off on Number 10 for the Win

Is Mac Jones ready for the NFL? Oh, hell, yes.

Everybody was impressed with Mac’s first appearance Thursday night as the New England Patriots opened their preseason at home against the Washington Football Team (pronouns: they/them).

My brother Kirby is convinced that Mac is going to be an NFL star, but years of covering politics has made me wary of getting my expectations too high, so I just kept telling Kirby, “We’ll see.” And on Thursday afternoon, while I was out walking the dogs, the thought crossed my mind: No interceptions, no fumbles, no injuries — a modest thing to hope for, or perhaps to pray for, if you think God cares about football.

Thank God, then, Mac met my expectations. He played five series, including two drives that ended in field goals, completing 13 of 19 passes. But his best pass of the game was one of those incompletions. On first and 10 from the Washington 34, Jones sent wide receiver Kristian Wilkerson on a go route down the left sideline and threw a picture-perfect pass to the end zone that Wilkerson somehow dropped.

Talk about threading the needle! As Henry McKenna of USA Today pointed out, this pass was aimed so perfectly that the defensive back didn’t have play — only the receiver could have caught it. Forty-five yards on the fly, dead on target and, as every ’Bama fan must be telling themselves, “Devonta Smith would have caught that one.”

You know who was impressed with Mac Jones? Cam Newton, that’s who:

New England Patriots rookie Mac Jones made his NFL debut in Thursday night’s preseason victory over the Washington Football Team but the former Alabama standout turned to the team’s veteran for some pointers.
Cam Newton, who started the first quarter before turning over the reins to Jones, told reporters after the game that Jones came to him before kickoff for advice.
“He came and talked to me, and we talked it out about just his expectation. Every young quarterback goes through it — the excitement, the anticipation,” Newton said. “He wants to be so perfect, and I see his preparation is always pristine. That’s what I admire about him.” . . .
“For him and today’s performance he’s just going to keep getting better. And we’re gonna be here for each other along this whole process and that’s what we’re here for.”

Wow, that’s gracious. It’s a very awkward situation at New England, where Belichik traded up in the draft to pick Jones 15th in the first round, and everybody’s talking about the rookie as the future of the franchise. Meanwhile, here’s Cam Newton — who was himself a first-round draft pick 10 years ago, but hobbled by injuries before being picked up as a free agent by the Patriots last year — as the veteran starting QB, basically expected to train Jones as his replacement. Cam Newton took the Carolina Panthers to the Super Bowl just five years ago, and so his situation at New England has got to be somewhat embarrassing, having to fight for his job against a mere rookie. It’s a mark of maturity on Cam’s part that he’s handling this situation without complaint, and apparently without any hard feelings toward Jones.

Did I mention that Cam played for Auburn? I don’t know if the Auburn-Alabama rivalry has any impact on how two pro players on the same team get along, but hate is not too strong a word to describe the attitudes that pervade this rivalry. “Sorry about your trees, Auburn.”

People sometimes make the mistake of thinking I’m a football fan, and I have to correct them: “No, I’m an Alabama fan.” It’s different.

Normally, I don’t pay much attention to the NFL, but with Mac Jones expected to be the Second Coming of Tom Brady at New England, I guess I’ll be following the Patriots from now on. Roll Tide!




 

Category: Football

In The Mailbox: 08.10.21

Posted on | August 10, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 08.10.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Going down to the VA in Vegas tomorrow, not sure yet if I’ll be lugging the laptop. So there my not be a link dump tomorrow; if there isn’t, I will of course double up on Thursday.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

Operator-chan goes to Paris.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: If You Make Something Cheaper, You Will See More Of It
EBL: Dance Like You Think The Media Isn’t Watching, also, Andrew Cuomo Resigns
Twitchy: Parent Files Lawsuit After Learning Elementary School Is Segregating Kids Into Black & White Classrooms
Louder With Crowder: Patriots Destroy Horrible “Influencer” Video With A REAL Day In The Life Of A White House Intern
Vox Popoli: Don’t Fear To Walk Away, also, Advertising Doesn’t Work

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Women Seeking To Be Inferior Men
American Greatness: Appellate Court Overturns Pre-Trial Detention For 1/6 Detainee
American Power: Families’ Anxiety Skyrocketing Over Delta Variant Surge
American Thinker: Tyranny Always Starts With A Little Prick, also, Is Our Ruling Class Smart, Dumb, Or Really Dumb?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Agrocolonial News
Babalu Blog: Castro Dictatorship Continues Show Trials, also, Long Live A Free Cuba Without Communism
BattleSwarm: Can We Stop The Runaway Pork Trainwreck? 
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, Starliner Launch Scrub – Apparently None Of The Capsule’s Propulsion Valves Worked
Cafe Hayek: Some COVID Links
CDR Salamander: So, The Military Has A Vaccine Mandate Coming Up?
Da Tech Guy: As It Turns Out, State Testing Was A Bad Idea, also, MLB Plays Pass The Pitchforks In Colorado Race Hoax
Don Surber: Feminists Enabled Cuomo, also, Media’s Suicide Continues
First Street Journal: Hold Them Accountable! also, Rep. Mark Green Says The Pentagon Vaccine Mandate Violates The Law
The Geller Report: CDC Director Just Killed The Rationale For Vaccine Passports, also, Oregon Will Now Allow Graduation From High School Even If Students Can’t Read, Write, Or Do Math
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, And He’s Gone
Hollywood In Toto: Rob Moritz Blazes Trail For Right-Leaning Video Channels, also, Mission: Impossible Director gave The Finger To PC Culture 21 Years Ago
The Lid: CDC Releases Bogus, Inflated COVID Data For Florida
Legal Insurrection: Teachers Union Exposed To Anti-SLAPP Punitive Claim For Suing Mom Nicole Solas, also, Subway Franchisees Tired Of Megan Rapinoe As Customers Boycott The Chain
Nebraska Energy Observer: Coma
Outkick: Why Is ESPN So Uninterested In Devin Funchess Using An Anti-Asian Slur? also, Is MLB Ready To Go To 14 Teams For The 2022 Playoffs?
Power Line: Patriot Games, also, How Crazy Are Liberals?
Shark Tank: DeSantis Says RSV More Concerning To Kids Than COVID
Shot In The Dark: A Taste Of Ozone, also, Winter Project For The Family
STUMP: Taxing Tuesday – The SALT Cap Battle Continues
The Political Hat: The UK’s National Health Service Does What It Does Best – Condemn A Baby To Death
This Ain’t Hell: Sturgis Rally Super Spreader? also, SecDef Memo Declares Intent To Mandate COVID Jab
Transterrestrial Musings: Facing Reality, also, The ISS Incident
Victory Girls: Republicans Have A Brilliant Idea To Impeach Joe Biden
Volokh Conspiracy: Can The Impeachment Process Bar Andrew Cuomo From Running For Re-Election?
Weasel Zippers: Numbers Of Illegals Testing Positive For COVID Reportedly “Overwhelming”, also, Rashida Tlaib Blasts Rand Paul For Rejecting Mask Mandate, Almost Immediately Seen Dancing Maskless At Indoor Wedding
The Federalist: You Can’t Say “Master” Bedroom Anymore, also, Andrew Cuomo Isn’t The Problem
Mark Steyn: Walkers & Talkers, also, Living In Half-Reality

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Category: Linkagery

CUOMO ANNOUNCES RESIGNATION

Posted on | August 10, 2021 | Comments Off on CUOMO ANNOUNCES RESIGNATION

Wow! This just happened on live TV without any forewarning. First, the lawyer for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo did a long defense presentation criticizing the investigation of him, and then the governor came on with a statement that began with him sounding like he was preparing to dig in and hold onto office. So I turned the sound down and went back to work, but then my brother Kirby walked in and looked at my office TV and said, “Cuomo resigns.” What the hell?

UPDATE: Brittany Bernstein reports at National Review:

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation Tuesday, saying he would like to spare New Yorkers the distraction of a protracted impeachment inquiry.
“I work for you and doing the right thing is doing the right thing for you because as we say, it’s not about me, it’s about we,” Cuomo said in a televised address, adding that his resignation would be effective in two weeks.
He said that fighting back against the “politically motivated” attack on him would throw New York into months of turmoil and “I cannot be the cause of that.”
“The best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to government,” the 63-year-old three-term governor said.
Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul will become the state’s first female governor.
“I agree with Governor Cuomo’s decision to step down. It is the right thing to do and in the best interest of New Yorkers,” tweeted 62-year-old Hochul, who previously served as a member of Congress.
Ahead of his resignation on Tuesday, Cuomo said he takes “fully responsibility” for his actions, though he continued to defend himself, saying he had “never crossed the line with anyone.”
“I have slipped and called people ‘honey, ’sweetheart’ and ‘darling.’ I mean it to be endearing but women found it dated and offensive,” he said. “I take full responsibility for my actions. I have been too familiar with people. My sense of humor can be insensitive and off-putting.”
“In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn,” Cuomo added. “There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate and I should have — no excuses.”

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.) Most guys our age — I’m a couple of years younger than Cuomo — could actually sympathize if (and it’s a big “if,” so big as to be a farfetched speculation) all Cuomo did was make jokes or behave in ways that could be politely deemed “flirtatious.”

Once upon a time, perhaps as recently as 20 or 25 years ago, men and women were allowed to joke around in the workplace in ways that now seem to be automatically construed as “harassment” — at least when men do it. I suppose women are still allowed to joke around, but apparently an “insensitive” joke is now grounds for immediate termination, if a guy does it. It’s been a dozen years since I had a regular office job, so my understanding of workplace protocol may be obsolete, but judging from news coverage of “harassment” in the #MeToo era, any young man would be best advised never to speak to any woman in the office, if he could possibly avoid it, and certainly no man should ever make a joke at work, if a woman is within earshot. Be a serious as a 17th-century Puritan in Salem — that’s the only way for a man to survive the contemporary workplace climate. Keep your mouth shut and never make eye contact with a woman at the office. Strive to be invisible.

All that said, women have accused Cuomo of behavior that “crossed the line” by anyone’s standards, and I suspect he just thought he could get away with groping every cute young thing within reach.

You know, like Joe Biden, who is allegedly President of the United States?

UPDATE II: As at least one commenter has reminded me, just yesterday I expected Cuomo to ride it out, the way Ralph Northam rode out that KKK/blackface scandal. But beyond this latest failure of my crystal ball, the real mystery is, “Why now?” Cuomo has been in public office since 1993, and was the New York state attorney general (2007-2010) before becoming governor, and has been re-elected governor twice, in 2014 and 2018. Recall that the #MeToo movement was a gigantic public bonfire in 2018, incinerating the reputations and careers of dozens of famous or powerful men, so how was it that Andrew Cuomo — now accused of being a serial groper — had no trouble getting re-elected in 2018?

Why was Cuomo destroyed by scandal this year, and not previously? What can explain this timing? My guess — and it’s only a guess — is that it might be somehow related to Cuomo, who divorced his wife in 2005, breaking up with his girlfriend Sandra Lee in 2019. That is to say, whatever offenses Cuomo may have committed during his first two terms as governor, he wasn’t actually on the hunt then. But the past two years, since breaking up with Lee, Cuomo’s lechery has gone too far, because (a) he’s desperate and (b) he’s 15 years older than he was the last time he was on the dating market. That’s my best theory, although I would not argue with anyone who suspects there was some kind of arcane political conspiracy involved. Because Democrats are like that.




 

Category: Democrats, New York, Scandal

In The Mailbox: 08.09.21

Posted on | August 10, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 08.09.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Apropos of yesterday’s Rule 5 post

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: A Typical Saturday Night In Chicago
Red Pilled Jew: The Jab – Criminal-Scale Negligence
EBL: Atlantic Crossing Review
Twitchy: Drew Holden Names & Shames Media Who Sicced The Mob On An Innocent Rockies Fan, also, Rockies Seem To Have Left Something Out Of Their Update On Fan Who Didn’t Use The N-Word
Louder With Crowder: Mike Rowe Destroys – Line By Line – Idiot Bulwark Reporter’s Hit Piece On Him
Vox Popoli: AZ Pedo State Senator, also, Fauci Spins ADE Injections
Gab News: Facebook-Funded “Researchers” & The NYT Team Up To Go After Gab

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Sunday Morning Ramblings
American Conservative: It’s Not Just About The Masks
American Greatness: Nancy Pelosi’s Secret Police, also, The Great Leftist Bully Boy Hope
American Thinker: The Vaccine – Experimental Times Two, also, Biden’s Six Months In Office Have Us On The Road To Communism
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: Red China Furiously Working To Save Cuban Communist Dictatorship, also, Biden’s Response To The Cuba Crisis? Resetting Obama’s Unconditional Surrender To Castro
BattleSwarm: Based Joe Rogan Vs. Vaccine Fascism, also, Imagine Communism
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, Peeling Thin Layers On A Martian Plateau
Cafe Hayek: John Tierney On The Dangerous Tyranny Of Lockdowns
CDR Salamander: Shipping In The Time Of COVID On Midrats, also, Forget Your Peacetime Battle Networks
Da Tech Guy: We Call Them Standards For A Reason, also, Conservatives’ Quiet Boycott Of Woke Olympics Succeeds
Don Surber: Why Biden Ignores The Constitution, also, Diversity Is Our Weakness
First Street Journal: Hold Them Accountable!, also, Kneel Before Zod!
The Geller Report: GA Ballots Rejected By Machines Later Altered By Democrat Election Workers To Count, also, Voter Group Says Over 150,000 Illegal Ballots Cast In Wisconsin Election
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, IC 1954
Hollywood In Toto: Publishing’s Leftward Lurch Leaves Author No Choice But To Go Solo, also, Have We Finally Reached Superhero Fatigue?
The Lid: Antifa Terrorists Attack Portland Prayer Event, Portland Police Do Nothing
Legal Insurrection: CriticalRace.org has Grown, And We’ve Cataloged Over 400 Schools, also, Unions May Have Major Legal Problem In Lawsuit Against RI Mom Nicole Solas Over Critical Race Teaching Records
Nebraska Energy Observer: For God & Country, also, U.S. Generals Lost Wars, Lied, & Looted
Outkick: Legendary Florida State Head Coach Bobby Bowden Dies At 91, also, Twitter Hilariously Reacts To Peyton Manning HOF Bust Reveal
Power Line: Red State Bikers & Sophisticated Celebrities, also, Joe Biden, Enemy Of Religious Freedom
Shark Tank: Wassermann Schultz Calls DeSantis Dumb & Deadly
Shot In The Dark: Peace De Resistance, also, Slopping The Cultural Trough
The Political Hat: Nadsat Goes Woke
This Ain’t Hell: Perfect Snapshot Of What It’s Like Working In The Military, also, 101st Airborne D-Day Vet To Jump Again On 100th Birthday
Transterrestrial Musings: Christian Denominations, also, Tucker To Hungary
Victory Girls: Teen Vogue – Mobilize Towards A Socialist Future, also, Cuomo’s Chief Toady Melissa DeRosa Jumps Ship
Volokh Conspiracy: Fourth Amendment Bars Cuffing Driver Just Because He Has A Gun And A Permit
Weasel Zippers: GA Gov Brian Kemp Booed Off Stage By Constituents, also, Subway Franchisees Want Megan Rapinoe Axed From Commercials
The Federalist: Rocks Are Racist Now, also, Newsom’s Recall Is A Hail Mary For Californians Democrats Have Savagely Abused
Mark Steyn: Made For Each Other – Libeled Lady, also, See You Later Respirator

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Category: Linkagery

The Magic ‘D’

Posted on | August 9, 2021 | Comments Off on The Magic ‘D’

The other day, browsing headlines at RCP, I noticed this one:

Ohio special election: A good day for Democrats

So I clicked on it and started reading then noticed the byline.

Al Hunt? Is he still alive? The guy’s been around since I was in grade school. When I came to Washington 25 years ago, Hunt had already been D.C. bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal since anyone could remember, and was a fixture on TV panel shows, but he was (and is) perhaps best known as the husband of Judy Woodruff. He is also one of the most boring columnists ever to sit down at a keyboard. If what you were looking for was important news or penetrating insight, you could just skip Al Hunt’s column, a predictable collection of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom with a hefty dose of Democratic Party propaganda.

Like so many other mediocre journalists, Hunt remained employed for decades — and indeed, had quite the successful career — for one reason, and one reason only: Al Hunt is a liberal.

This is the only real qualification for a career in journalism, as is true in Hollywood and in academia. No actual talent is necessary. So long as you are useful to the basic media project of propagating liberalism, you’ll never miss a paycheck. And therefore nothing — not even accusations of sexual harassment — could dislodge Al Hunt from his seemingly eternal career as a D.C. journalist. He’s 79 years old, and still cranking out columns, now for The Hill, including this one last week:

Democrats got a double dose of welcome news in two Ohio special congressional elections yesterday, fending off a left-wing candidate in one district, while a Donald Trump-backed coal lobbyist won the Republican nod in another. . . .
Shontel Brown, a Democratic Cuyahoga County councilwoman defeated left-wing opponent Nina Turner for the seat vacated by Rep. Marcia Fudge, whom President Biden tapped as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
The 11th district race became a contest of the Democratic progressive mainstream versus the party’s left with Clyburn and Hillary Clinton campaigning for Brown, and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) campaigning for Turner. A victory by the left would have further emboldened the activists creating schisms with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the White House.
Separately, Mike Carey, with Donald Trump’s active support, won a special election for the seat of a Republican incumbent in Ohio’s 15th district who quit. Carey defeated a large field including two state legislators.
Democratic strategists privately welcome Trump’s clout within the Republican party, believing a number of the non-incumbent candidates he’s endorsing will be weaker against a Democrat. Ohio’s 15th, centered in the Columbus suburbs and small towns, is Republican — Trump won it by 14 points last November — but Democrats think they have an outside shot in the November general election against a first-time candidate who has been a lobbyist.

This is unadulterated partisan bullshit, my friends. If you actually think Democrats “have an outside shot” at winning OH-15, would you care to wager $100 on that proposition? No? How about $20? $5?

Of course not. James Carville himself wouldn’t bet a nickel on the chance of a Democrat winning that district, and the whole point of Hunt blowing sunshine up their skirts is to help the DCCC with their lackluster fundraising, given the near-certain likelihood of them losing the House majority in next year’s midterm elections. Al Hunt is a hack, see, because if he wasn’t a hack, he’d be out of work. Hackery pays his bills.

Al Hunt is still employed for the same reason Andrew Cuomo isn’t resigning, despite being credibly accused of sexually harassing 11 different women. Cuomo’s got the magic “D” beside his name, and has the good fortune of being in New York, where it’s nearly impossible for a Democrat to lose. Recall that Anthony Weiner, after being forced to resign from Congress over his first sex scandal, was actually the front-runner in the campaign to become mayor of New York City until his second sex scandal erupted. It was not until his third sex scandal sent him to federal prison that Weiner’s political career was finally over. Well, I say “finally,” but in New York who knows? There are so few New York Democrats without felony records, Weiner might yet mount a comeback.

All of this is merely further illustration of the symbiotic relationship between Democratic politicians and sycophantic liberal hacks in the media, like Al Hunt — “Democratic Party operatives with bylines” who, as Ed Driscoll remarks, “spent the last quarter century propping up Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky scandal, defending Al Gore and his doomsday rhetoric, pretending that John Kerry was the second coming of Patton, that Obama was the second coming of God, and that Hillary and Biden had track records worthy of the White House.”

And I’ve still got that $100, if Al Hunt really believes Democrats have a shot at winning OH-15. But he doesn’t. He just prints whatever partisan bullshit his good buddy James Carville feeds him.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Guess the governor’s “magic D” couldn’t save him. Cuomo announced his resignation today.




 

Category: Media Bias

Rule 5 Sunday: Crossing The Streams

Posted on | August 8, 2021 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Crossing The Streams

— compiled by Wombat-socho

One of the cool things about SF fandom is the tradition of fan art, where amateur artists took the characters from Sf stories and drew/painted pictures of them, sometimes in the original context, and sometimes…not. There is a passage in the documentary Trekkies where Denise Crosby shows Brent Spiner a garage full of Trek art that people had sent her, including a quite racy painting of the two of them as their Next Generation characters that was definitely NSFW. Spiner was speechless. Anyhow, the Japanese have a parallel tradition of fans doing unofficial renditions of anime & manga characters, and compiling their stories into volumes called doujinshi. This is not only tolerated by Japanese publishers but encouraged, and there’s a massive festival every year called Comiket where doujinshi authors and artists get together to sell and trade their work – without being hassled by copyright lawyers. That’s where we get today’s appetizer – Komi Shouko from Komi Can’t Communicate drawn as the combat android 2B from the popular videogame Nier:Automata.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Komi as 2B

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1435, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns.

Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Dirty Rotten Bidens Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon. 

EBL: MAGA Infrastructure Vs. Biden-Pelosi Pork, Val, Blondie, Wanda Jackson, Olivia Newton-John, Sam Kinison in Back To School, Bomb Girls, Carole King, Louie Prima, and Julie London. 

A View From the Beach: Down in the Weeds with Mary-Louise Parker, Fish Pic Friday – Floridagirl772, Today’s Olympic Moment, Tattoo Thursday, Mission Accomplished!, Today’s Olympic Moment, The Wednesday Wetness – Pool Toys!, Go Beaver!, Tuesday Tanlines, The Monday Morning Stimulus, My Brothers Will Be Upset and Palm Sunday.

Brian Noggle: Zooey Deschanel.

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

Mass Murder in Texas: Can You Guess Why National Media Have Ignored This?

Posted on | August 8, 2021 | Comments Off on Mass Murder in Texas: Can You Guess Why National Media Have Ignored This?

Jeffrey Jack “Jeff” Gerla was a 47-year-old psychologist who had taught at Kilgore College and more recently worked as a mental health specialist at Rusk State Hospital, which is about 15 miles from where Jeff lived in a trailer behind his mother’s house in New Summerfield:

He was highly creative in everything he did. He loved making Aquariums and getting freshwater fish, he was a devout Christian who cherished his job, and he loved his dogs and horses. Jeff never met a stranger. He was a people person. He was always helping others and everyone that knew him loved him.

Have you noticed the use of past-tense verbs? Because whatever Jeff Gerda was — and I think “devout Christian” may be a bit of stretch — he is no more. Gerla went to his final reward last month, along with three other people. The other victims in this July 20 mass murder were Gerla’s 18-year-old boyfriend, John Clinton, Clinton’s mother Ami Hickey, 39, and Hickey’s lesbian partner, Amanda Bain, 38. And while you puzzle over that, can you imagine the national media headlines?

FBI INVESTIGATES TEXAS HATE CRIME
AFTER FOUR GAY PEOPLE SLAIN

How could the media resist such a story? But the details of the case aren’t conducive to a media crusade against homophobia. To begin with — a 47-year-old man with a teenage boyfriend? Not necessarily ideal from the perspective of public relations for the LGBTQ community, which is always foremost in the minds of journalists reporting on such stories. This has been my main beef on this issue for decades, going back at least as far as the 1998 death of Matthew Shepard, who was portrayed as a saintly martyred victim of homophobia, for which the “Religious Right” was scapegoated, as if his killers were Republicans who had just attended a Pat Robertson rally. In fact, they were a couple of dopehead punks who had hung out with Shepard in a local pub and lured him to his death with promises of supplying him with meth. All that got buried in the posthumous celebration of Saint Matthew, who became the gay-rights poster boy, even though nothing about his life or death could be construed as relevant to such issues. Hanging around dopeheads is dangerous — that was the most obvious lesson of what happened to Matthew Shepard, but the media didn’t want to talk about that.

We can’t expect CNN or the other national news operations to notice this mass murder of four homosexuals in Texas, because not even the most mendacious media liars can ignore the sordid facts. You see, while Jeff Gerla — “a devout Christian,” according to his obituary — was “in a relationship” with 18-year-old John Clinton, it was not an exclusive relationship. Gerla’s teenage boyfriend had matched on the gay dating app Grindr with 20-year-old Jesse Pawlowski, who then joined Clinton and Gerla in a “polyamorous relationship”:

In an interview with detectives, Pawlowski said he met Clinton and Gerla, who police confirmed were in a dating relationship, on a dating app and entered a sexual relationship with them.
During this relationship, Pawlowski visited Gerla’s residence multiple times and noticed several firearms, including a handgun that Clinton wanted to sell for $500, according to the affidavit.
Pawlowski told investigators he introduced [Billy] Phillips to Clinton, and an agreement was made for Phillips to facilitate the purchase of Clinton’s handgun. However, Pawlowski said he never intended to buy the gun. Pawlowski, Phillips and [Dylan] Welch made a plan to steal the gun from Clinton, the affidavit stated.

Two of these characters had criminal records:

In a records request to DPS and TDCJ, KLTV has learned Billy Dean Phillips, 37, was released from state prison in December 2020. He had just served a 15-year sentence for Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child. The conviction centered around a case involving a female under the age of 13 in Dallas County. Prior to that prison term, TDCJ records show Phillips served a separate 2-year prison sentence in September 2002 on a Controlled Substance charge (cocaine) also out of Dallas County. . . .
Both DPS and Cherokee County court records show in 2019 Pawlowski accepted a plea deal offered by the prosecutor in a case involving two counts of burglary of a habitation. The terms of the plea bargain required Pawlowski to serve 10 years of probation and pay court costs. He was also ordered not to own or possess a firearm as part of the agreement. The Cherokee County District Court confirms Pawlowski was on probation at the time of the killings.

In yesterday’s “Violence Against Women Update” we discussed what can happen when people get involved with convicted felons. But when you’re a 47-year-old man with an 18-year-old boyfriend, and your boyfriend offers to add a 20-year-old to your “relationship,” probably you wouldn’t bother to do a criminal background check on your new partner.

Does anyone else see how this relates to the media’s dishonest role in acting as publicity agents for the LGBTQ community? See, if you actually know gay people — and I majored in drama in college, OK? — the distance between reality and media-generated image is remarkable. We are expected to believe that gay people are all suffering from bigotry and discrimination. The media thus avoids reporting anything that might reflect negatively on the LGBTQ community, in the belief that such information would incite homophobia. However, media bias in favor of a particular group results in coverage that is neither fair nor accurate.

We may suppose that it never occurred to Jeff Gerla that his teenage boyfriend’s trolling on Grindr represented a deadly risk. Why would anyone suspect that gay men might be capable of violent crime? The news media go out of their way to pretend this is impossible, that membership in the LGBTQ community is synonymous with secular sainthood. So the fact that Jesse Pawlowski was on probation for burglary — and that this might be indicative of a general criminal tendency — was never even a blip on Gerla’s radar. Everybody on Grindr is awesome! Everything is always sunshine and happiness beneath the rainbow flag!

Jeff Gerla “was a people person . . . always helping others and everyone that knew him loved him,” except maybe the dude who murdered him:

Pawlowski said he went to Gerla’s home late Monday when Gerla, Clinton, Bain and Hickey were present. He texted Phillips to come to the residence to pick him up so they could steal the handgun.
Phillips and Welch arrived at the home, and Pawlowski and Clinton walked to the end of the driveway to meet Phillips and Welch. Phillips took the gun from Clinton and then shot Clinton “in the back of the head,” Pawlowski told police, according to the affidavit.
Pawlowski said he, Phillips and Welch then entered the residence. Phillips then shot Gerla, Bain and Hickey. The three men stole two shotguns from the residence, and Pawlowski said he removed the key fob for Gerla’s car from Clinton’s pocket, the affidavit stated.
Pawlowski said he drove the car from the residence and left it near a metal building in Jacksonville to try to sell it later.

No, the national media won’t report this. Wouldn’t be good for the LGBTQ community image. Too much of an “East Texas white trash” vibe, what with the teenage boyfriend, living in a trailer in mom’s backyard, the “polyamorous relationship” with a convicted burglar, and all that.

Four gay people killed in a Texas mass murder, but you won’t see this story on CNN or MSNBC, because “equality” or something.




 

Category: Crime, Gays, Media Bias, Texas
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