The Other McCain

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

Belichick’s Strange Choice Confounds Critics Who Don’t Understand 4D Chess

Posted on | April 29, 2022 | Comments Off on Belichick’s Strange Choice Confounds Critics Who Don’t Understand 4D Chess

BERRIEN SPRINGS, Michigan
Last night my wife and I had dinner with our 19-year-old daughter and her new boyfriend (he passed muster) at a Mexican restaurant, and there’s nothing like a belly full of Mexican food to put me to sleep, so as soon as we got back to our AirBNB, I crawled into bed and crashed. I’d forgotten that it was NFL Draft night, even though I’ve been following all the pundits’ predictions for weeks. Everybody agreed that the New England Patriots — my team, because Mac Jones, Roll Tide! — should focus on defense, particularly cornerbacks and linebackers, as well as looking for a top wide receiver. So I woke up about 4 a.m. today and checked the headlines and HOLY FREAKING COW!

Belichick did what is called “trading down” in the NFL Draft, exchanging New England’s first-round pick (#21 overall) for the Kansas City Chiefs’ first-round pick (#29 overall), as well as third-round (#94 overall) and fourth-round (#121 overall) picks. The reason the Chiefs were willing to do that is they saw a player they wanted badly (University of Washington cornerback Trend McDuffie) available, while the Patriots — despite their own need at cornerback — apparently weren’t high on McDuffie. So they “traded down” and, in the process, gave themselves 11 picks in the seven-round draft. (The Patriots also have two extra sixth-round picks as a result of previous trades with the Rams and Texans.)

Still, the experts were befuddled by Belichick’s choice of University of Tennessee-Chattanooga offensive guard in the first round, because everybody figured Strange for a second- or even third-round pick. Ah, but they don’t understand four-dimensional chess! The players that Belichick might have picked at #21 (including offensive lineman Zion Johnson of Boston College, Alabama wide receiver Jameson Williams and LSU defensive back Derek Stingley Jr.) got taken earlier in the draft and, as I say, they obviously didn’t like McDuffie as much as the Chiefs did. However, there were other cornerbacks still available, including Florida’s Kaiir Elam, who got snapped up by the Buffalo Bills at #23, not to mention Georgia linebacker Quay Walker, who went at #22 to the Packers. But the Patriots definitely needed a real stud on the offensive line, and of the first 20 players picked this year, six of them were offensive lineman. In other words, Belichick could see that there was an unusually high demand for quality linemen in this year’s draft, and if he didn’t get one he liked in the first round, the choices available in the second round (where the Patriots have the #54 overall pick) might not be to his liking. Cole Strange is a genuine beast, 6-foot-5, 307 pounds and incredibly athletic, with the best broad jump performance of any offensive guard at this year’s NFL combine. He’s also smart, with good technique, played in every game for his entire four-year career at UTC, and is exactly the kind of rookie who should be ready to be a starter for the Patriots on Day One in September. Even if nobody else projected him as a first-round pick, think about the psychological factor of Belichick’s choice. It sends a message to Strange: “We believe in you. The team is counting on you. Give us 110%. Don’t let us down.”

Two words: Logan Mankin. A tackle from Fresno State, Mankin wasn’t projected as a first-round pick, but Belichick picked him and switched him to guard, where he became a seven-time Pro Bowl selection, anchoring an offensive line that twice took the Patriots to the Super Bowl. So don’t tell me Belichick can’t pick em.

Something else to think about: Over the past 10 years, no team has gotten higher CAVOE (Career Average Value Over Expectation) from the draft than the Patriots, and Belichick is especially good with late-round picks. Last year, they took running back Rhamondre Stevenson from Oklahoma in the fourth round and, as a rookie, Stevenson was good enough to rival veteran RB Damien Harris (who was himself a third-round choice in 2019). The other starting guard for the Patriots, Mike Onewenu, was a sixth-round pick in 2020, so it’s not as if the extra draft picks that New England got from Kansas City in Thursday’s trade might not produce a starter, or perhaps even a star. You see, back in 2000, Belichick took a player in the sixth round who turned out to be pretty good.

Kid from Michigan. Maybe you’ve heard of him.




 

Category: Football

Spring Means It’s Time for the Joyous Return of the Big Yellow Button

Posted on | April 28, 2022 | Comments Off on Spring Means It’s Time for the Joyous Return of the Big Yellow Button

 

MORROW COUNTY, OHIO
As every regular reader of this blog knows, the yellow “donate” button takes you to my PayPal account, where you can contribute dollars, pounds, Euros, shekels, pesos or whatever to support the blog. (We used to accept rubles, but Putin ruined that recently.)

My wife and I are in Ohio en route to Michigan, where our 19-year-old daughter is a college freshman and wants us to meet her new boyfriend. We spent Thursday night at my mother-in-law’s home here in the rustic woodland where I saw bunnies playing in the backyard this morning. While we were driving through Youngstown, I dialed up my old friend Dave Weigel, who’s here in Ohio covering the GOP primary campaign. Weigel, like pretty much every other observer of this campaign, thinks J.D. Vance is the likely winner of Tuesday’s primary.

Trump’s endorsement has Vance attracting capacity crowds in his final campaign stops. There is a weird report today from Rolling Stone that Tucker Carlson swayed Trump toward Vance by repeating some kind of sexual gossip about “David McIntosh, the president of the conservative Club for Growth and a top backer of Vance’s rival Josh Mandel.” The report is deliberately vague about what McIntosh is accused of, and I don’t know why this would be relevant to the Ohio GOP primary. It’s unfortunate this primary has become so contentious. Both Vance and Mandel are Marine Corps veterans, and I think it’s very encouraging for Republicans to be attracting young military veterans as candidates.

That’s my Army son and me at the awards ceremony for the Best Ranger Competition earlier this month at Fort Benning. Everyone on Facebook has made their comments on that photo, and I thought blog commenters might want to have their say. That road trip and this one have disrupted my work schedule this month, and you don’t even want to know about the finances (but just hit the tip jar). What aggravates me about road trips like this is spending hours away from my laptop, so I kill the time as a passenger by scrolling news on my phone, and yesterday I found something that brings me to this unpleasant topic:

Have we all forgotten about notorious grifter Brianna Wu? She inserted herself into #GamerGate as a competitor in the Harassment Victimhood Derby, ultimately seizing the prize from contenders Anita Sarkeesian and the Tattoo-Covered, Mentally Ill Ex-Stripper Whose Real Name Is Chelsea Van Valkenburg. Oh, what a feminist heroine “Brianna” is!

John Walker Flynt as a failed male (left) and after becoming ‘Brianna Wu’ (right).

Of course, Brianna’s transgender identity was never a secret — I mentioned it here in December 2014 — but one of the accusations against Milo Yiannopoulos was that he subjected John/“Brianna” to harassment by writing a February 2015 article “exposing” this status. How do you “expose” something that is already well-known? Never mind that, how about this: Where is the evidence that “Brianna” was harassed? This was one of the things that #GamerGate supporters kept pointing out during the drama of 2014, namely that while “Brianna” claimed to be the victim of terrorizing death threats, not once was a suspect ever identified or arrested by law enforcement. Sure, there were plenty of people on Twitter who said rude things about “Brianna,” but mean tweets are not a crime, or else everyone who ever said mean things about me would be in prison.

The Heroic Victimhood Narrative at the heart of the liberal media’s coverage of #GamerGate could be seen, objectively, as a warm-up for how the media portrayed Hillary Clinton as a heroic victim during and after the 2016 presidential campaign. The idea that it is “unsafe” to be a woman on the Internet — that all women suffer humiliating or terroristic abuse from men in their online interactions — is quite a popular theme among young feminists. Actually, I could tell you some stories about how women online suffer abuse from other women, but I am not at liberty to discuss that time enraged Harry Styles fans on TikTok went beserk after a certain teenage girl mentioned the singer’s receding hairline.

Crazy People Are Dangerous, as I have often reminded you, and there are obviously some kooks out there who need to be banned from the Internet completely, but why bring up Bill Schmalfeldt at this late date? The prevailing narrative is that women and members of “marginalized communities” have a monopoly of victimhood in terms of online harassment. Grifters gotta grift, and the grifter known as “Brianna Wu” parlayed her victimhood into two failed congressional campaigns in the 8th District of Massachusetts. In 2018, she got about 17,000 votes in a primary challenge to incumbent Democrat Rep. Stephen Lynch, then was trying again two years later, but quit in April 2020, blaming COVID-19.

That was so disappointing to me. Nothing would have made me happier than seeing a moderate Democrat like Lynch lose a primary to this kooky fringe candidate, which might actually make it possible for a Republican to win that otherwise safely blue district, but alas, grifters gotta grift and failures gotta fail and, as her critics have pointed out, “Brianna Wu” has always failed at everything, except grifting. If you know anything about Wu, you have to know this, that her claim to be a “game developer” rests entirely on “Revolution 60,” which was the subject of a lot of pre-release hype and subsequent fawning reviews from the “games journalism” community whose biases were the original cause of #GamerGate. To put it bluntly, “Revolution 60” sucked, and there was never any possibility of it becoming popular. The only reason anyone (other than the readers of Kotaku) ever heard of “Revolution 60″ was because Brianna Wu got a certain level of notoriety by piggybacking onto #GamerGate as an alleged victim of harassment. He/“she” was a failure as a game developer, just like he/“she” was a failure as a congressional candidate, and yet the media continue to pretend that he/“she” is a legitimate spokesperson, a credible source on the subject of online harassment.

Yes, NBC News cites Brianna Wu as a credible source, and Wu is also cited as a source in an incredibly one-sided Associated Press story about Elon Musk’s buyout of Twitter. This is why, incidentally, I was on the phone with Dave Weigel yesterday. Whatever his faults, Dave is an actual reporter — someone who goes out on the road and writes about what he personally witnesses, rather than just blabbering on Twitter all day, as so many young “journalists” now do — and I wanted to see how much he remembered about Wu’s #GamerGate drama. He has clear memories of the infamous “Wu-pocalypse” incident, where a comedian pretended to be a psychopath obsessed with Wu, an absurd “threat” that Wu took seriously. Dave’s busy covering the Ohio primary campaign now, but he might get around to taking a look at the whole Twitter “harassment” saga later. In the meantime, I’ve got to pack up and get back on the road for Michigan, to meet my daughter’s new boyfriend, but I might also spend some time this weekend working on an American Spectator column on the subject of “Brianna Wu,” whose KiwiFarms file is more than 3,000 pages long. Lots of research to be done there, IYKWIMAITYD.

Well, on the road again, and with gas over $4 a gallon, I urge readers to recall the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!



 

Category: Shoe Leather Fund

In The Mailbox: 04.27.22

Posted on | April 27, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.27.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

The beatings will continue until freedom is restored.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1700
357 Magnum: Seattle City Council Shocked By Police Shortages
EBL: Billy The Kid
Twitchy: Senators Cruz & Hawley Destroy Biden Judicial Nominee Over SPLC Connection, also, Cenk Uygur Barfs Up More Stupidity
Louder With Crowder: Twitter Employee Whines That It’s Like “Working In Ukraine” Now That Musk Owns Him
Vox Popoli: Russia Cuts Off Bulgaria & Poland
Stoic Observations: First World Black Problems
Gab News: Gab Responds – Elon Buys Twitter, So Now What?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Red Meat & Rosaries, also, United Australia & Australia One Nowhere On The Vax
American Conservative: Making Vote By Mail Permanent
American Greatness: Nazis In Ukraine, also, DeSantis Signs Bill Creating Election Police 
American Power: A Tyranny Of Moral Minorities, also, MSNBC’s Joy Reid Completely Tanks In April
American Thinker: Don’t Be Afraid To Call It Grooming, also, You Can’t Have A Functioning Nation Without Free Speech
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: DeSantis Rips Administration For Meetings With Cuba’s Dictatorship, also, Lions In Cuban Zoo Dying Of Starvation
Behind The Black: Pushback – Three Idaho U. Students Sue School For Punishing Them Over Opinions, SpaceX Successfully Launches Four Astronauts Into Orbit, and Ingenuity Photographs Perseverance’s Abandoned Parachute
Cafe Hayek: People Don’t Understand Prices
CDR Salamander: Marine View From Down Under
Da Tech Guy: Why Doesn’t The Left Just Make Their Own Twitter? also, The Perfect Expression Of Being What An American Is
Don Surber: What LGBT Rights Really Are, FJB Chants Sink Democrats, and DC Doughnuts Are $57 A Dozen
First Street Journal: Joe Manchin’s Popularity Soars In WV, also, The NYT Really Hates (Other Peoples’) Freedom Of Speech
Gates Of Vienna: Sicilian Court Rules Mandatory Jab Unconstitutional
The Geller Report: DeSantis Bans Zuckerbucks, Creates Election Police Unit, also, John Durham Has Hundreds Of Emails Between Fusion GPS & Reporters
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, A Bright Pearl
Hollywood In Toto: The Elon Musk Effect, also, David Spade’s Cancel Culture Fears Will Make You Scream
The Lid: Joe Biden Failed To Report Over $5.2 Million In Income Used To Pay Hunter’s Legal Fees
Legal Insurrection: Brown U. President Looking For Ways To Cut Ties With “Science Disinformation” Spreaders, Biden Tells Congressional Hispanic Caucus He’s Open To Cancelling “Substantial Amount” Of Student Loan Debt, and NY Supremes Throw Out Democrats’ Gerrymandered Redistricting Map
Michelle Malkin: Orrin Hatch’s Beltway Barnacle Legacy
Nebraska Energy Observer: The War On Western Culture
Outkick: Former NFL Player Suing Joy Reid For Defamation, NASCAR Orders Denny Hamlin To Complete Sensitivity Training, and Deshaun Watson Can Play, But Trevor Bauer Still Suspended
Power Line: The China Syndrome, also, Censoring Johnny The Walrus?
Shark Tank: Nikki Fried Asks – Where Is Charlie Crist?
Shot In The Dark: The Empire Strikes Back, also, The Catholic Vote
The Political Hat: Pre-School Gender Indoctrination
This Ain’t Hell: AF General Convicted Of Sexual Assault Given Stern Talking To, Some Updates, and String Of Suicides On The George Washington
Transterrestrial Musings: If Biden Pays Off Student Loans
Victory Girls: America – The Nameless, The Shameless, & The Soulless
Volokh Conspiracy: A Glossary of Militia Law Terms
Watts Up With That: The Annual Disaster Fake News Story, also, John Kerry – Old-School Playground Bully On Climate
Weasel Zippers: Biden’s DHS Creating An Actual Ministry Of Truth, also, Kevin McCarthy Told Liz Cheney He’s Like To See More Conservatives Banned From Twitter
The Federalist: New Credit Card Will Allow You To Avoid Financing Woke Banks, Leftists Claim Everything Is Racist Except Actual Race Hatred, and Linktree Deplatforms Libs Of Tiktok Without Warning
Mark Steyn: Too Spirited, also, Return Of The Leech

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 04.26.22

Posted on | April 27, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.26.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Day 2 of the ongoing Leftist meltdown over Elon Musk’s Twitter buyout.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

More of the current “wisdom”.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Not Quite Summer In Chicago
EBL: The Elon Musk Song
Twitchy: Twitter Engineer Insists Suppression Of Hunter Biden Laptop Story Wasn’t Targeted Censorship
Louder With Crowder: @Jack Completes Selling Out The Left
Vox Popoli: NATO Is Already At War, also, Good Thing He Doesn’t Fly Planes For A Living

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Russians Wear Ties, also, The Queering Of Male Friendship
American Conservative: The Rising Storm Disney Can’t Wish Away
American Greatness: Google Launches New “Inclusive Language” Feature, also, The Ruling Class’ Pantheon Of Lies
American Power: Why I Love Watching The Meltdown Over Musk & Twitter, also, Amazon Employees Melt Down Over Matt Walsh’s Best-Selling Kids’ Book Johnny The Walrus
American Thinker: Fraud Is The Only Issue, also, The War America Should Be Fighting
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Twitter News
Babalu Blog: Are We Cubans As Alone As We Think? also, SIGN THE PETITION: Expel Cuba From The UN Human Rights Council
BattleSwarm: Disney Fallout Roundup, also, Musk Twitter Fallout Roundup
Behind The Black: Pushback – Judge Rules Lawsuit From Professor Suspended For Refusing To Favor Black Students Can Proceed, SLS Rocket Rolls Back To VAB, and SpaceX Signs Up Another Airline For Starlink’s In-Flight Internet
Cafe Hayek: Crowding Out Private-Sector Success
CDR Salamander: Have The Russians Restarted The Odessa Offensive?
Chicago Boyz: What Would YOU Do With Twitter?
Da Tech Guy: The Conservatives At Disney, Dynasty 1970 League Expansion Draft, and I Like Ike!
Don Surber: Biden Heads For The Bunker And Democrats Scramble, The First 2024 Primary, and Only 3% Of Its Subscribers Actually Watched CNN+
First Street Journal: A “Solution” From A Democrat Stuck In The 1930s, also, Killadelphia
Gates Of Vienna: The Struggle Against The Deep State In Slovenia, also, We Want More Administrative Bloat!
The Geller Report: Jeff Bezos Prods Red China To Exert “Leverage” Over Elon Musk At Twitter, also, Federal Judge Blocks Biden From Ending Title 42 At Border
Hogewash: Much Is Proceeding As I Have Foreseen, I Haven’t Changed My Twitter Avatar Yet, and An Irregular Dwarf
Hollywood In Toto: Mark Twain Prize Honors Propagandist Jon Stewart, also, Hatching Brings Body Horror To A New, Disturbing Level
The Lid: Libs Pooping Their Pants Because Musk Bought Twitter
Legal Insurrection: Bama Conservative Students Discuss Wokeness On Campus, MSNBC’s Ari Melber Frets Musk Will Target Democrats On Twitter, and Bad Orange Woman Blames Texas For Guardsman’s Death On Border
Nebraska Energy Observer: Ukraine, also, It’s Too Much
Outkick: After Postseason Disaster, Nets Keeping Steve Nash As Coach, Don’t @Me – What’s The Difference Between Ben Simmons & Simone Biles? Novak Djokovic Eligible To Play At Wimbledon Without Jab
Power Line: The Melber Foresight, also, More Evidence That Masks Don’t Work
Shark Tank: Gov. DeSantis Signs Election Integrity Bill Into Law
Shot In The Dark: Where Will You Be In Nine Years? also, Chilling Effect?
The Political Hat: Neural Implants Mean One Thing – Cyborg Catgirls With Brain Modems
This Ain’t Hell: How To Successfully Pull Off Stolen Valor, MCPON Tells Sailors To Lower Their Standards, and GOP Rep Madison Cawthorn Accused Of Stolen Valor
Transterrestrial Musings: Is Ukraine Our Spanish Civil War?,  What Elon Should Do About Twitter, and Zero Tolerance For Tolerance
Victory Girls: Taylor Lorenz Whines About Her Own Consequences
Volokh Conspiracy: Why Does Google Hate Mothers? also, What Is Church Autonomy?
Watts Up With That: Comedy Gold – How To Cope With Your “Climate Anxiety”, also, Earth Day Protest A Bust
Weasel Zippers: Slow Joe Has $5 Million In Unexplained Income, also, Fauxcahontas Claims Musk Buying Twitter Is “Dangerous For Our Democracy”
The Federalist: The Depp-Heard Trial Reminds Us Toxic Feminism Is Real & Horrifying, Egg McMuffin Is The Utah Democrats’ Senate Candidate, and The Democrats Are Banking On Smearing & Censoring Their Opposition Because They Have Nothing To Offer
Mark Steyn: A Death In Exile, also, A Sudden End To Self-Government

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Category: Linkagery

Killadelphia Update

Posted on | April 26, 2022 | Comments Off on Killadelphia Update

Say hello to Rahajahi Taylor Batchelor, 19, who pleaded guilty earlier this month to gun trafficking charges in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Batchelor was only 17 when he was arrested in September 2020 and, despite his youth, prosecutors said he was one of the “masterminds” of a major illegal firearms trafficking operation:

A Norristown man who as a teenager was accused of being one of the ringleaders of a multi-county gun trafficking network that illegally obtained and sold 44 firearms using straw purchase schemes has admitted to his role in the organization.
Rahajahi Taylor Batchelor, now 19, of the 1100 block of Green Street, pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court to charges of corrupt organizations, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activities, illegal sale or transfer of firearms, criminal use of a communication facility, possession of a firearm by a minor and conspiracy in connection with incidents that occurred between March and August of 2020.
Judge Thomas C. Branca deferred sentencing so that court officials can complete a background investigation report about Batchelor. Branca said Batchelor will remain in the county jail without bail while awaiting his sentencing hearing, tentatively set for June.
The open guilty plea means Batchelor has no deals with prosecutors regarding his potential sentence. Batchelor potentially faces more than a decade in prison on the charges. . . .
“This 17-year-old was one of the ringleaders that orchestrated the straw purchases of 44 firearms by three adults and then illegally sold those firearms to people who could not legally buy firearms for themselves,” District Attorney Kevin R. Steele said in November 2020 when Batchelor was ordered to stand trial as an adult. “This defendant, along with his co-conspirators, has done a tremendous amount of damage to the safety of our community here in Montgomery County and in the greater southeastern Pennsylvania region.”
At the time of the arrests in September 2020, Steele alleged the organization’s “sole purpose is to make money by putting firearms in the hands of people who cannot lawfully buy and possess guns.”
Authorities alleged the gun trafficking organization was led by Batchelor, Terrence Barker, 21, of Philadelphia, and Mikal Scott, 19, of the 7900 block of Rolling Green Road, Cheltenham. Barker and Scott are still awaiting trial on corrupt organization and related charges.
Earlier this year, Anthony Jamaris McCrary, 26, of Philadelphia, pleaded guilty to charges he purchased 35 firearms via straw purchases at federally licensed gun dealers in the three counties between July and August 2020 on behalf of the gun trafficking network led by Batchelor, Barker and Scott. McCrary is awaiting sentencing.
A straw purchase occurs when a person with a clean background purchases firearms on behalf of another person to conceal the true ownership of the firearm. Those who are unable to legally purchase firearms include convicted felons, domestic violence offenders, juveniles and mentally ill individuals.

It was big news when the bust went down in September 2020:

Authorities dismantled a gun trafficking network operating in Montgomery, Bucks and Philadelphia counties, alleging nine adults and five juveniles, including some from Norristown and Cheltenham, illegally obtained and sold 44 firearms using a straw purchase scheme. . . .
Ashon Jared Pearson, 23, of the 1400 block of Arch Street, Norristown, Jamil Brown, 19, of Philadelphia, John McDonald, 21, of Philadelphia, and Clarence Codada, 18, of Philadelphia, also were charged with allegedly participating in the gun trafficking network. Four other juvenile males who ranged in age from 14 to 17 also face charges. . . .
“Oftentimes, some of the members of the gun trafficking organization accompanied the straw purchasers to the gun stores and helped choose the weapons,” Steele said.
“After the straw purchasers filled out the federal and state paperwork and lied on it, vowing that this gun was for their own use, they walk out of the gun store, they hand over the gun or guns to other members of the gun trafficking organization who immediately sold it, arming the people the law says cannot have a gun,” Steele added..
The charges lodged against all or some of the alleged participants include corrupt organizations, conspiracy, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activities and illegal sale or transfer of firearms. Bail was set for those charged and their preliminary hearings are pending.
“We may never know the true extent of the damage from these 44 illegal guns since guns obtained using a straw purchaser are typically immediately resold to people who can’t legally buy a gun for themselves. Then after an illegal firearm is used in a crime, it’s resold to other felons and the damage grows. It’s a domino effect,” Steele said.
Steele revealed only six of the 44 firearms have been recovered, including one that was linked to a shooting incident in Cheltenham and another seized during a traffic stop of a juvenile in Abington.
Thirty-eight of the guns remain on the streets.

Hey, did I mention that Philadelphia had a record 561 homicides last year? And that Joe Biden got 81% of the vote in Philadelphia? As our friend Dana Pico has frequently pointed out, the per capita homicide rate in Philadelphia is actually higher than Chicago’s. Dana recently did some more arithmetic and figured out that this year’s pace of murders in “Killadelphia” is lagging slightly behind 2021, so that there would be only 537 murders in the city, at the current pace — about 10 murders per week, on average. If any of the perpetrators are Trump voters or NRA members, this hasn’t been mentioned in the news coverage.




 

Category: Crime, Pennsylvania

In The Mailbox: 04.25.22

Posted on | April 25, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.25.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Amala Ekpunobi Reveals How She Discovered The Big Lie
EBL: Orrin Hatch, RIP, The Armenian Genocide, and Will Twitter Change Now That Elon Musk Is In Charge?
Twitchy: “I Feel Like I’m Going To Throw Up”, also, Christina Pushaw & Others Give Jeff Bezos The Wedgie Of Self-Awareness
Louder With Crowder: Blue-Check Twitter Is Awake & Freaking Out Over New Owner Elon Musk
Vox Popoli: Europe Waves The White Flag, France Votes For Self-Extinction, and Out With The Old Gatekeeper

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: In The Australian Election, What About The Unvaxxed? also, Podcast #151 – The Sexual Misery Episode
American Conservative: The Donbas Rebels In Their Own Words, also, The Virtues Of Strategic Ambiguity
American Greatness: Our Spanish Civil War? also, Who’s Running This Show, Anyway?
American Power: The Teen Mental Health Crisis, also, Elon Musk Buys Twitter
American Thinker: Six Years Of BLM Killed More Blacks Than 86 Years Of Lynchings, also, American Churches Are Killing Christianity
Animal Magnetism: The Saturday Gingermageddon, also, Goodbye Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: Russia Rewards Cuba For Loyalty With Huge Shipment Of Wheat, also, The Rationing Of Liberty In Cuba
BattleSwarm: Why Are Russia’s Arms Sucking So Badly? also, Accounts Elon Musk Should Restore
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, Return Of Axiom Mission Delayed Again For Weather, and The Icy Reull Valley Of Mars
Cafe Hayek: Reich Is Wildly Wrong
CDR Salamander: Episode 622 – Red China’s Assassin Mace In WESPAC, also, The Progressive War Party, Of Sorts
Chicago Boyz: A Stylish Diversion, also, Where I Was Last Weekend
Da Tech Guy: The Five Lessons Of The Disney Story, Observations From A Trip To West Texas, and Report From Louisiana – Confederate Memorial Day Is No More
Don Surber: Exxon First To Lower The Rainbow Flag, What The Press Got Wrong On DeSantis & Disney, and $78, 107/Year Columnist Gives Elon Musk Financial Advice
First Street Journal: At Ohio State, The Students Want Wrongthink Punished, also, Why Philly Cancelled Its Mask Mandate
Gates Of Vienna: Russian Meddling In Slovenia, Sweden – Torching The Easter Parade, and The Fifth Horseman Of The Apocalypse 
The Geller Report: ELON MUSK BUYS TWITTER, also, Disney Has Lost $50 Billion In Value Since Going To War Against Florida
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, Micronovae, and 32 Years Of Hubble
Hollywood In Toto: Yes, 1982’s Tron Deserves Your Respect, When Entertainment Trumped The Message, and Who Will Be Bill Murray’d Next?
The Lid: Connection Discovered Between Mueller Report & Spygate-Implicated Tech Researchers, also, Tenn. Gov Bill Lee Should Veto SB 1005 – An Assault On Free Speech
Legal Insurrection: Triggered Leftists Get #RIPTwitter Trending After Musk Buyout, Facing Parental Wrath, San Diego High School Reverses Plans To End Honors Courses, and Former MCD CEO Organizes “Boardroom Initiative” To Fight Woke Corporations
Michelle Malkin: How Much Federal COVID Money Is Funding GLSEN’s Groomers?
Nebraska Energy Observer: Random Observations, also, Saints & Sinners
Outkick: If You Want Tennessee To Stop Having Fun, Go Beat Them Consistently, NBA Legend Eviscerates Ben Simmons, and Dodgers & Padres Fans Have An Old-Fashioned Prison Yard Fight At Petco Park
Power Line: A Salute To Michael Ramirez, Progressive Ideology Is A Lie, and Identity Politics Meets Its Waterloo?
Shark Tank: Rubio Mocks Demings For Co-Opting Old Obama & Biden Campaign Slogans
Shot In The Dark: Traditionalism – The New Radicalism, Critical Marksmanship Theory, and Chanting Points Memo – The Little Guy
STUMP: Process Is Important – SALT Cap & NY Redistricting
The Political Hat: Woke English Class – Non-Grammatical Gender
This Ain’t Hell: AF General Found Guilty Of Sexual Assault, also, Another Two Return
Transterrestrial Musings: Dietary BS, The Democrats’ Problems, and Trans Ideology
Victory Girls: AFT Boss Randi Weingarten Calls Parents Warmongers, also, Taylor Lorenz Offers More Excuses For Doxxing
Volokh Conspiracy: Ukraine & Double Standards On Refugees
Watts Up With That: New Study Shows Wind & Solar Energy Killing 48% Of Priority Bird Species With “Population-Level” Effects, also, Earth Day’s Failed Predictions From 52 Years Ago
Weasel Zippers: Biden Shakes Hands With Felon Who Tried To Kill Kyle Rittenhouse, also, Cook Political Report Says Democrats Totally Screwed In 2022
The Federalist: The Best Thing Elon Musk Could Do With Twitter Is Annihilate It, Left-Wing Group Demands Apple Pre-Emptively Nuke TruthSocial, and Throwing Government Housing At The Homeless Is Treating The Symptom
Mark Steyn: Sucker Punch – 99 River Street, There’ll Always Be An England, and Shots & Stats

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Category: Linkagery

So … Is #FreeStacy Trending Yet?

Posted on | April 25, 2022 | Comments Off on So … Is #FreeStacy Trending Yet?

He’s a multibillionaire with lots of things more important to worry about than restoring my @rsmccain account, but I hope he’ll get around to it pretty soon. Meanwhile, congratulations to Twitter’s new owner:

After a two-week battle against opposition from the platform’s board members, self-declared free speech absolutist Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and currently the richest man in the world, has succeeded in his bid to buy Twitter.
In a press release, the Twitter board announced that they had reached an agreement with the multi-billionaire to sell 100 percent of the company at Musk’s original price of $54.20 per share. . . .
Musk had been slowly acquiring shares in Twitter in the first quarter, becoming the company’s largest shareholder at the end of March.
His highly publicized campaign to take the company private kicked off twelve days ago, when he offered to buy 100 percent of the publicly-traded company.
The prospect of a self-declared “free speech absolutist” taking over the company has led to outrage from the platform’s progressive users, as well as the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post.
On the road to acquiring Twitter, Musk clashed with Twitter board member Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud of Saudi Arabia’s royal family, who opposed the takeover attempt.
The board also attempted to block Musk’s takeover by deploying a “poison pill” strategy, a corporate jiu-jitsu move intended to increase the costs of a takeover. It appears that these efforts have failed.
In his acquisition offer to Twitter, disclosed to the SEC, Musk unambiguously stated that the goal behind his purchase was the restoration of free speech on the platform.
“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” wrote Musk.

When my @rsmccain account was banned in February 2016, it was a cause célèbre and, as it turned out, an omen of things to come. At the time, Twitter staff claimed I was being banned for “participating in targeted harassment,” but they never would say (a) who was “targeted,” (b) what kind of “harassment” they suffered or (c) how I “participated.” Many people suspected that my banishment was the first official act of Twitter’s newly appointed “Trust and Safety Council.”

Totalitarian ideologues don’t like being called totalitarian ideologues. Now watch the tears fall like rain as Elon Musk takes over Twitter.




 

Category: Media Bias

A Genuinely Weird Rock ’n’ Roll Story

Posted on | April 25, 2022 | Comments Off on A Genuinely Weird Rock ’n’ Roll Story

Do you see that guy with the gold top Gibson Les Paul guitar? That’s Bill Bartlett, lead guitarist of a one-hit-wonder band from 1967. The Lemon Pipers had formed in 1966 in the college town of Oxford, Ohio, and signed a deal with New York-based Buddah Records. Their first single, an original written by Bartlett, was a flop, so the record company told the group’s producer, Paul Leka, to team up with Brill Building songwriter, Shelley Pinz, to write the band a hit song. The result was “Green Tambourine,” a song which the band hated — they were a rock group, and this was a silly pop tune — but it went all the way to Number One in early 1968. Despite this sudden success, however, the Lemon Pipers weren’t able to follow up with any more hits, and broke up in 1969.

Buddah Records was home to a production team — Super K Productions, Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz — which specialized in so-called “bubble gum” pop. The Super K guys weren’t much for the whole “artistic integrity” thing, they were about money and didn’t care how they got it. They recorded a group called The Rare Breed, but the musicians quit in a dispute with the producers, so Kasenetz and Katz found an Ohio group called Sir Timothy & the Royals and renamed them the Ohio Express. Kasenetz and Katz then took recordings done by The Rare Breed, released these under the name of the new band, and had a Top 40 hit called “Beg, Borrow and Steal” in late 1967. Then a songwriter named Jon Levine sent them a demo for a tune called “Yummy Yummy Yummy.” Kasenetz and Katz liked the demo so much, they released it as a single under the Ohio Express name, even though nobody in the band sang or played on it! That made the Top Five on the charts in 1968.

Fast-forward a few years. After the breakup of the Lemon Pipers, Bill Bartlett had returned to Ohio and, while attending Miami University in Oxford, formed a new band that at times included three players from the Lemon Pipers and various other musicians. This new band was called Starstruck and they gigged around at clubs for two or three years before getting serious in 1975. They did some recordings at a studio in Cleveland and paid to have 1,000 copies of a single pressed, This record, a rocked-out version of an old blues song, got a decent amount of airplay on Ohio radio stations, becoming something of a regional hit. The group got a management deal and played as an opening act for such big names as Edgar Winter, Foghat, the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. Alas, no major record company seemed interested and the band broke up in late 1975.

In spring 1976, a few months after Starstruck broke up, Bill Bartlett got a call from Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz, whom he knew from his Buddah Records days with the Lemon Pipers. Kasenetz and Katz were looking to put together a new hard-rock band, and Barlett was invited to audition, so he went to New York and took with him a copy of the single he’d recorded with Starstruck. Kasenetz and Katz loved it, and Barlett then returned to Ohio with an offer for his former bandmates: $3,000 for their rights to the recording, take it or leave it. They took the money.

Now, let me tell you a little bit about this song. In the 1920s and ’30s, musicologist John Lomax and his son Alan traveled the country doing “field recordings” of American folk songs. Among the places they recorded was the Central State Prison Farm in Sugarland, Texas, where one of the inmates was James “Iron Head” Baker, a habitual criminal who described himself as “the roughest n***er what ever walked the streets of Dallas.” Baker and his fellow inmates sang several of their work songs for the Lomax recording in 1933, and one of the tunes was recorded in 1939 by folk blues legend Huddie William “Lead Belly” Ledbetter.

How this tune came to the attention of a rock band in Ohio in the 1970s is a mystery, but this was the recording for which Kasenetz and Katz were willing to pay $3,000, to do one of their classic moves. Rather than have the new group re-record the song, Kasenetz and Katz simply took the Starstruck version of the song and did some editing which they released under the name of their new band, Ram Jam.

Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-lam)
Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-lam)
Black Betty had a child (Bam-ba-lam)
The damn thing gone wild (Bam-ba-lam)
Said it weren’t none of mine (Bam-ba-lam)
The damn thing gone blind (Bam-ba-lam)

“Black Betty” became a Top 20 hit in the United States in 1977, and made it to the Top 10 in England and Australia. At one point, the NAACP tried to mount a boycott against “Black Betty,” but that effort fizzled after it was learned that this was actually a black folk song from the 1930s.

Ram Jam released an album and toured for a couple of years, but there was no follow-up. Bill Bartlett thus has a unique claim to fame, having been a “one-hit wonder” twice — first with the Lemon Pipers and “Green Tambourine,” then 10 years later, with Ram Jam and “Black Betty.”

As Paul Harvey used to say, “Now you know the rest of the story.”




 

Category: Music
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