The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 03.19.21

Posted on | March 20, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.19.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

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

Formerly adorning Bob Stupak’s Glitter Gulch Casino (later a strip club) Vegas Vickie is back at a Circa cocktail lounge bearing her name.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: I For One Welcome Our Self-Driving Overlords
EBL: A Dish For St. Joseph’s Day
Twitchy: White House Flack’s Excuse For Biden’s Fall Actually Makes It MUCH WORSE
Louder With Crowder: White House Suddenly Firing Former Pot Smokers
Vox Popoli: Putin Bitchslaps Creepy Joe, also, Patreon Is A Factory Of Filth
According To Hoyt: Waiting For The Other Shoe
Monster Hunter Nation: Songs Of Valor, With A New Story By Me

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: To Flee Or Not To Flee, also, Romney Says America’s Leaders Too Old To Take On Red China
American Greatness: Putin Challenges Biden To A Televised Debate, also, New York’s Corrupt & Venal Leaders Must Go
American Power: San Francisco Asian Woman Who Fought Back Now Has GoFundMe Closing In On $1 Million
American Thinker: Meet America’s First Idiocracy President
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Mis-Education Friday
Babalu Blog: The Song That Tells Cuba’s Dictatorship “It’s Over!”, also, Even Dollar-Only Stores In Cuba Running Out Of Goods As Economic Crisis Worsens
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For March 19
Behind The Black: Yesterday’s Blacklisted Americans, Today’s Blacklisted Americans, and  Biden Nominates Former Senator Bill Nelson As NASA Administrator
Cafe Hayek: Who Says Capitalism Doesn’t Work?
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Biden’s First Public Address Was Proof He’s Clueless About Our Founding Principles, also, Ironies
Don Surber: Why Don’t We Oppose Perversion Any More? also, Buddha Trump
First Street Journal: This Is What Happens When Criminals Are Treated With Leniency, also, Amanda Marcotte Doesn’t Care About Murders Unless They’re Politically Useful
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, Room For Only One Kind Of Dope At The White House?
Hollywood In Toto: Depp’s City Of Lies Gets Oh, So Close To The Death Of Notorious B.I.G., also, Will Woke Insanity Crush Awards Season?
The Lid: The Week Biden Proved To The World He’s A Foreign Policy Disaster
Legal Insurrection: University Of Pennsylvania Denies Official Recognition To Hunting Club, also, The Weaponization Of Race & The Asian Model Minority Myth
Nebraska Energy Observer: The Mission
Outkick: Deshaun Watson Sexual Assault Lawsuits Now Up To Twelve Women, also, Hasbro’s “Diversity & Inclusion” Department’s Next Target – Monopoly
Power Line: Media Peddles Unsupported Racial Narrative On Atlanta Shootings, also, Thoughts From The Ammo Line
Shark Tank: Florida Democrats Want Special Election In SD37 Controversy
Shot In The Dark: A Minnesota Senate DFL Tradition, also, It Was Twenty Years Ago Today
The Political Hat: Marriage A Trois – Polyamory As A Constitutional Right, Polyamory Acceptance, & Polyamory Normalization, also, Oregon Poised To Ban Diesel
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, also, Korean War Vet Awarded Silver Star, Almost 70 Years Late
Transterrestrial Musings: Mannsuit Update, also, Glynn Lunney
Victory Girls: Marjorie Taylor Greene Faces Expulsion From Congress
Volokh Conspiracy: National Review Not Liable For Mark Steyn’s Blog Post About Michael Mann
Weasel Zippers: Now That Biden Is President*, Dem Rep Claims It’s Not “Appropriate” For Media To Cover Border Facilities, also, California My Exclude Christians From Police Departments
The Federalist: After Mocking Trump’s Walk, Biden Gets Owned By A Set of Stairs, also, Corporate Media Doesn’t Want To Talk About The Atlanta Gunman’s Real Motivation
Mark Steyn: Kama To Frenesi

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Category: Linkagery

Nika Holbert and the BLM Myth

Posted on | March 19, 2021 | Comments Off on Nika Holbert and the BLM Myth

Nika Holbert shot a Nashville police officer last week and was shot to death when the officer returned fire. Ordinarily, this would not be a very newsworthy incident — “Criminal Dies in Shootout” — but we are not living in ordinary times. The Black Lives Matter movement has created what can only be described as a myth of racial innocence. At the core of this myth is the belief that every problem experienced by any black person in American can be explained as a result of racism; therefore, when a black person engages in wrongdoing, they are never really guilty — it’s all whitey’s fault — and should never suffer consequences.

The BLM Myth of Racial Innocence is now embedded in nearly all media coverage of crime involving the black community. No matter what the circumstances may be, the black person who commits a crime is never really guilty of anything, it is implied, and we are expected to believe that every black inmate serving time is a political prisoner, a victim of “systemic racism.” So when a police officer goes to arrest a black suspect who resists arrest, we are expected to sympathize with the criminal, rather than sympathizing with the officer who is, after all, putting his own life at risk to enforce the law and maintain public safety.

This is a dangerous belief system, and it is irresponsible for the media to promote it, because it tends to encourage resistance to law enforcement and thereby increase the number of violent encounters that end up with black suspects getting shot. WKRN-TV in Nashville interviewed a civil rights attorney about the Nika Holbert case:

“She made some very, very bad decisions, prior to shooting at the officer. But unfortunately, you just don’t understand her state of mind,” said Ashley Upkins, managing partner at The Cochran Firm.
Upkins has worked on several civil rights cases, including police conduct. She said despite the fact that this was a case of a white police officer pulling over a black driver, she does not believe the shootout was racially motivated. Instead, Upkins suggests the situation escalated due to systemic racial fears.
“I don’t think anyone can watch that video and not believe that she looked terrified and petrified,” Upkins explained.

Hold that thought for a minute while I explain a little about the background of this case, because contrary to what the lawyer says, I think I do understand Nika Holbert’s “state of mind,” and the reason she “looked terrified and petrified” had nothing to do with “systemic racism.”

Go back up to the top of this post and look at that picture of Nika Holbert, taken from the police officer’s bodycam. Notice anything?

Yeah — the car. That’s a 2015 Camaro.

You can buy one used for $15,000-$20,000.

Have you got $20,000 to spare? Because I’d really like to drive around in a late-model Camaro, instead of an old Nissan. So, let us ask, how was it that Nika Holbert was driving around in this fine vehicle?

Say hello to Demond Maurice Buchanan, who is well-known to law enforcement in Nashville, his lengthy criminal record dating back to 1996 — not coincidentally, the year he turned 18 — and including numerous drug offenses, weapons offenses, attempted murder and, less than five years ago, vehicular homicide:

A convicted felon has been arrested for vehicular homicide, aggravated assault, gun and marijuana charges.
SWAT officers arrested 37-year-old Demond M. Buchanan following an indictment on the charges filed after a crash last May that killed a passenger in his car.
On May 2nd, Buchanan was driving a Camaro possibly in excess of 100 mph when he struck an SUV. His passenger -Marlon Burnett died at the scene and Buchanan was hospitalized. A weapon, cash and marijuana were found inside the car.
Buchanan was found at a motel on Atrium Way. Inside, police found baggies of crack cocaine, heroin, marijuana and a loaded pistol.

That was in 2016. You might think that a criminal with such a lengthy rap sheet, charged with such serious crimes, would go to prison for a long time. But for some reason, the state of Tennessee can’t keep Demond Buchanan behind bars, so he was out on the streets, committing further felonies. Buchanan was wanted on six felony warrants when Officer Josh Baker spotted his 2015 Camaro. Baker called for backup when he pulled over the Camaro and began questioning the driver, Nika Holbert, who said she was “really confused” about why she was being stopped:

 

Was it “systemic racial fears” that led this traffic stop to escalate into a shootout? Or was it the fact that (a) Nika Holbert knew she had drugs in her purse, and also (b) was in possession of a firearm, so that (c) a search of the car would result in her going back to jail?

According to online records from both Metro and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Nika Holbert’s criminal background includes several repeat misdemeanors, including driving with a revoked license and theft under $500.
Holbert also had a felony drug charge from 2010.
Her last listed interaction with law enforcement was a public indecency charge in 2017.

So she was a habitual violator driving around in a car belonging to a locally notorious criminal. That is why the situation “escalated.”

One reason you’re seeing more situations “escalate” in this manner is simply that technology has shifted the balance toward law enforcement. More and more police vehicles are equipped with scanners that automatically read tags of passing cars, so that if you’re driving a stolen vehicle or, as in Nika Holbert’s case, driving a car whose owner is wanted on arrest warrants, the cops are gonna get you. Five or 10 years ago, you could be driving around with a car full of felonies and cops wouldn’t know it, unless you did something to attract their attention. Nowadays, it’s a lot harder for criminals to get away with crimes, which is why we keep seeing videos like this. Race has nothing to do with it.

But the BLM Myth of Innocence is everywhere:

A Nashville-based organization is calling for change nearly a week after two separate shootings — one of them deadly — involved Metro Police officers.
Nashville Organized for Action and Hope (NOAH) held a press conference on Thursday.
“Talk, talk, talk, we’re tired of talking, we’re tired of waiting,” said NOAH task force member Jane Boram. “Nashville cannot continue to kill innocent women. This has got to stop.”

Ma’am, Nika Holbert was not an innocent woman. She shot first.

You pull a gun on a cop, expect to die. I don’t know how to explain that more clearly. Cops aren’t trained to lose gunfights.




 

Category: Crime, Tennessee

Joe Biden Can’t Even Walk Up Stairs

Posted on | March 19, 2021 | Comments Off on Joe Biden Can’t Even Walk Up Stairs

His Fraudulency is incapable of the simplest tasks:

President Biden on Friday fell while walking up the stairs of Air Force One.
The Democrat, who at 78 became the oldest president to assume the presidency, was caught on video repeatedly tripping on the staircase and catching himself ahead of a flight to Georgia. Biden was able to recover on his own and he continued toward the plane without assistance.
Biden offered a quick salute at the top of the stairs after recovering from his fall.
White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield took to Twitter to say Biden “is fine,” adding the fall was “nothing more than a misstep on the stairs.” . . .
White House aides have taken great strides during his two months in office to downplay the 78-year-old president’s age. They have limited him to brief speeches that have not required him to stand for long periods and released pictures of him playing with his German Shepherds on the White House’s South Lawn.

POLL: Americans ‘Worried’
About Biden’s ‘Ability To Do The Job’




 

Category: Joe Biden

Gentle Reminder To Instapundit

Posted on | March 19, 2021 | Comments Off on Gentle Reminder To Instapundit

by Smitty

The mighty Instapundit makes the point:

The Pentagon’s swift and coordinated ‘smiting’ of Tucker Carlson, who had the gall to ‘diss’ the idea of sending pregnant women to war—an obviously absurd idea to all but the most politically correct officers grasping for a promotion—makes it very clear.”

This is what they do instead of winning wars, something they haven’t done even once this century despite nonstop combat.

It’s absolutely the case that the military hasn’t been impressive of late. I was bemoaning the current shambles with an active duty friend just two days ago.

Nevertheless, one must not lose sight of the truth that the military is mechanism, not policy. It’s not Oldsmobile’s fault that a Delmont 88 makes a terrible submarine. You’ll have to bring that up with the driver.

Here, the driver is “We the People”. I wouldn’t go fearing military death squads anytime soon. On the other hand, the method for correcting our course and steering clear of the Full Banana Republic Experience is unclear.

Category: Uncategorized

‘Level With the American People’: Tennessee Senator Slams Biden

Posted on | March 19, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘Level With the American People’: Tennessee Senator Slams Biden

Last year voters in Tennessee elected Sen. Bill Hagerty to kick ass and chew bubble gum — and he’s all out of bubble gum:

The Biden administration today is being urged to “level” with a nation growing anxious about the historic surge of illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border and the danger that they pose by spreading COVID-19 and taking jobs just as the nation recovers from the pandemic.
“It is time to level with the American people regarding the nature of this crisis,” said Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty in a letter delivered to President Biden this morning . . .
“Your administration has demonstrated a complete lack of transparency regarding this crisis, including failing to provide adequate information concerning the migrants who are entering communities throughout the United States as a result of your policies and repeatedly refusing to even acknowledge that a crisis exists,” he wrote in the sharply worded letter. . . .
Since Biden took office with promises to dismantle former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and open the border, over 100,000 migrants have been apprehended, and estimates suggest that number could near 1 million this year.
Officials have said that many have COVID-19 but are being released into U.S. cities. The National Sheriffs’ Association said yesterday that up to 50% of the migrants are infected. . . .
“You criticize American state and local leaders for relaxing pandemic mandates on Americans to allow businesses to open and Americans to return to work, while simultaneously releasing unknown numbers of non-Americans — some of whom are currently COVID-positive — into American communities,” said Hagerty. . . .
“This is a crisis of your own making,” he wrote.

Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) are promoting a dual messages: First, that there is no “crisis” at the border, and second, that even if there is a crisis, it’s entirely Donald Trump’s fault.

Orange Man Bad, semper aeternum.




 

Category: Immigration, Joe Biden

In The Mailbox: 03.18.21

Posted on | March 18, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.18.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

“Howdy, pardner! Welcome to New Vegas!”

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Tesla Vs. Safety
EBL: Jordan Fuchs, Liar
Twitchy: “Too Late, Degenerate” – Candace Owens Wrecks Cardi B For Trying To Run Away From Posting False Tweets About Owens’ Husband
Louder With Crowder: Freudian Slip? Slow Joe Brainfarts, Calls Kamala “President Harris”
Vox Popoli: Surviving Civil Collapse, also, Tucker 1, U.S. Military 0
Gab News: Transhumanism & The Spiritual Battle For Humanity

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Battle Between The Physical & The Spiritual
American Conservative: The Uses And Abuses Of “Woke Capital”
American Greatness: Poll Shows Overwhelming Majority Want Voter ID Laws
American Power: 75-Year-Old Asian Woman Deals Out Street Justice To Would-Be Attacker
American Thinker: Joe BIden – More Heel Than Healer
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Lockdown News
Babalu Blog: Cuba’s Economy Is Shifting…Toward Barter
BattleSwarm: TX Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick On Biden’s Border Crisis
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, The Changing Seasons Of Saturn
Cafe Hayek: Scaring Us into The Grip Of Tyrants
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: Flash! The Catholic Church & Its Pope Are Still Catholic, also, Report From Louisiana – Stubborn People, Spring Break, & Shreveport Violence
Don Surber: Sellout’s Remorse
First Street Journal: His Holiness Attempts To Be Catholic, also, I Wonder If King Henry VIII Is Smiling About This Someplace
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, Black Holes & Star Formation
Hollywood In Toto: Yes, Zack Snyder’s Version Of Justice League Was Worth The Wait, also, Falcon & The Winter Soldier – Woke Work Under Construction
The Lid: 75% Of Likely Voters (Including Democrats) Support Voter ID Laws
Legal Insurrection: Conservative Student Group Strikes Back At Prof Who Accused Them Of Racism, also, DiBlasio Wants NYPD To Scold People For Saying Things That Are Legal But “Not Appropriate”
Nebraska Energy Observer: Do This Now!
Outkick: Deshaun Watson Up To Three Sexual Assault Lawsuits, also, Yankees Say Yankee Stadium Will Allow 20% Of Fans in 2021
Power Line: Battle Lines Being Drawn, also, Chauvin Trial Day 8
Shark Tank: Fried Praises Biden, Says Administration Really Understands The Climate Crisis
Shot In The Dark: Make The Case, also, For Conservative Reasons
The Political Hat: Segregation As Social Justice In Florida
This Ain’t Hell: Army Denies Medals & Insignia To Pardoned Soldier, also, Dancing In The Blood Of Innocents
Transterrestrial Musings: Read It And Weep
Victory Girls: White House Claims Trump To Blame For Atlanta Massage Parlor Shootings
Volokh Conspiracy: Chauvin Jury Selection Process Highlights Need To Stop Dumbing Down Juries
Weasel Zippers: Four People On FBI Terror Watchlist Arrested While Trying To Sneak In With Illegals, also, Rand Paul Goes Off On Fauci
The Federalist: The Biden Administration Is Imposing A Media Blackout At The Border, also, OR Health Officials Propose Making Mask Mandates Permanent
Mark Steyn: Racist Hiking & Wokestapo Psychology, also, Testicles Still On Hold

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Category: Linkagery

Atlanta: The ‘Yellow Fever’ Theory

Posted on | March 18, 2021 | Comments Off on Atlanta: The ‘Yellow Fever’ Theory

Of the many kinks, fetishes and perversions with which I’m familiar, the one I’m sure I never suffered is “yellow fever.” It is true that some guys are into that whole “exotic Orient” trip, obsessed with the idea of allegedly “docile” Asian women, but I was never one of those guys.

De gustibus non est disputandum, of course, and whatever floats your boat, but I guess I’m just a regular vanilla kind of guy, and never really understood that kind of racial fetishism. Inevitably, however, in the wake of the Atlanta massage parlor massacre, we get takes like this:

Asian Women Have Always Been
a Deadly Obsession of White Men

Notice the lack of qualifiers there. “Always” white men everywhere have universally been guilty of this “deadly obsession” — or so we are expected to believe because this one guy in Atlanta, who police confirmed frequented Asian massage parlors, went on a murderous rampage.

Your honor, I plead not guilty.

This idea of collective blame is the essence of racism. It is also the negation of the core concept of individual responsibility.

However much benefit so-called “progressives” imagine they can derive from promoting group guilt in the name of Critical Race Theory, I can assure you that the costs will ultimately outweigh whatever short-term political gains are to be made by playing this racial blame-game.

Does it not occur to our friends on the Left that two can play that game, and that the resentments stirred up by identity politics will not always be limited to their intended purpose of “energizing” various ethnic groups to vote for Democrats? If the potential for backlash frightens me — a white guy whose reputation as a right-winger is rather notorious — then how much more should it frighten liberals? Yet they’re like children playing with matches, never thinking they’ll get burned.

As it turns out, we now have extensive testimony that Robert Aaron Long, who killed eight people in his Atlanta rampage, was not motivated by racial hatred and the reason he patronized Asian massage parlors wasn’t “yellow fever.” Rather, his former roommate says, Long considered these venues the “safest” way to cope with his sexual cravings:

Long told his roommates that he’d chosen to go to the Asian massage parlors “not because of the employees’ race, but because he thought the spas were safer than paying for sex elsewhere.”

In other words, if there had been massage parlors with white women offering “happy endings” for the right price, Long might have patronized those establishments but . . . Well, it is what it is.

It’s always easier to deal with facts rather than theories. Speaking of facts, in 2019 (the most recent year for which federal statistics are available), there were 16,425 homicides in the U.S. Do the math, and that’s 45 homicides on an average day, so that these eight murders in Atlanta were less than 20% of the daily total. On the same day, there were more than 35 murders that didn’t get nationwide attention. And yesterday, there another 45 murders, and 45 murders today, and there will be 45 murders tomorrow — on average, I say. There will probably be more than 300 Americans murdered this week, and yet nearly all of those murders will be strictly “local news.” CNN won’t even notice them, and pundits won’t write columns interpreting the political meaning of these deaths.

There is a remarkable selectivity involved in the process of deciding which murders deserve national attention, and you should question the motives of the media in the process of making those choices.

If you’ve got a “deadly obsession” with Asian women, seek psychiatric help, but as for me? Nope. Not guilty, your honor. I rest my case.




 

Category: Crime, Georgia, Racism

NYPD to Combat Thought Crimes?

Posted on | March 18, 2021 | Comments Off on NYPD to Combat Thought Crimes?

Last year, New York City experienced a 45% increase in murders, and the number of shooting victims doubled. Despite the manifest inability of NYPD to prevent violent crime, however, Mayor Bill De Blasio now wants cops to have “an educating impact on people”:

“I assure you, if an NYPD officer calls you or shows up at your door to ask about something you did, that makes people think twice, and we need that. . . .
“Even if something is not a criminal case, a perpetrator being confronted by the city, whether it’s NYPD or another agency, and being told that what they’ve done was very hurtful to another person — and could, if ever repeated, lead to criminal charges — that’s another important piece of the puzzle,” de Blasio said.
De Blasio went on to say the NYPD was uniquely equipped to handle such a mission, adding, “One of the things officers are trained to do is to give warnings. If someone has done something wrong, but not rising to a criminal level, it’s perfectly appropriate for an NYPD officer to talk to them to say, ‘that was not appropriate, and if you did that on a higher level, that would be a crime.’ I think that has an educating impact on people, I think that has a sobering impact that we need.”

Hey, Mayor, you know what has an “educating impact on people”? Putting them in prison when they commit actual crimes. Maybe focus on that, instead of having cops warn people about being “hurtful.”

Your administration has made it a priority to turn criminals loose — because “social justice” or whatever — with the result that everybody who can afford to rent a U-Haul is leaving New York. You are unquestionably the worst mayor in the history of the city, having accomplished the impossible task of actually being worse than David Dinkins.

(Hat-tip: Ace of Spades.)




 

Category: Crime, New York
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