The Other McCain

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

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

Posted on | October 4, 2019 | 1 Comment

by Smitty

We crossed the ridge as the sky brooded and looked down on the Umgeheuer encampment.

This was the hard part. I beamed instructions to my drone rider, and he dismounted, unaware of his pending demise. We’d clone him again.
As sun set, the drone crawled in low to where their noisy power generators throbbed and poured pollutants skyward.
Past the generators was a large fuel bladder. The enemy was cocky about their camp layout.
The explosives in the drone’s stomach took full advantage of this.
* * *
“Excellent work, Xanthippus,” said General Benton, the drone’s DNA source, upon my return to base.
—
via Darleen

Category: Friday Fiction

In The Mailbox: 10.03.19 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | October 4, 2019 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: What’s The Cost of Being Stupid About Security?
EBL: Adam Schiff’s Phony Impeachment Is Unraveling
Twitchy: Occasional Cortex Condemns “Right Wing” Reaction To Climate Change Freakout At Her Town Hall
Louder With Crowder: Trump Nails Biden On Ukraine Lie With Nickelback “Photograph” Tweet

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Greatness: Newly Released Judicial Watch Docs Paint Rosenstein As Active Participant In Deep State Coup
American Power: Democrats Will Destroy America’s Energy Sector, And The Economy
American Thinker: The Purge Of Conservatism From America
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Imperial Society News
Babalu Blog: Senators Rubio & Scott Question NEA Funding For Exhibit Glorifying Che Guevara
BattleSwarm: Breaking – Bernie’s Blocked Arteries, also, Wargaming A Sanders Exit
Camp of the Saints: Medieval Is Not Evil
Cafe Hayek: Wondering If Bernie Sanders Realizes…
CDR Salamander: The Navy Defines Professionalism Down
Da Tech Guy: Animal Farm Is So Very Relevant Today
Don Surber: Biden Duped Senators Into Helping His Corrupt Son
First Street Journal:  The Criminalization Of Speech, Part II
The Geller Report: Jewish Boy Forced To Kiss Muslim Classmate’s Feet, also, Paris Bloodbath – Recent Convert Slaughters Four Fellow Policemen In Cold Blood
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Bombshells & Duds
Hollywood In Toto: Eastwood’s Richard Jewell Punches Fake News In The Nose
Joe For America: Joker Director Says He No Longer Makes Comedies Due To “Woke Culture”
Legal Insurrection: Happiness! Red Meat Turns Out To Be Healthier Than “Settled Science” Predicted, also, Trump Digital Team Brings Their A-Game To Biden Ukraine Fight
The PanAm Post: What Happened In Peru? Coup D’Etat Or Rebel Congress?
Power Line: Whither Impeachment? also, The Real World Consequences Of “Jailbreak” Policies & Practices
Shot In The Dark: Placed Into Evidence
STUMP: Visualizations Of Public Pension Funding & Why Fundedness Is Decreasing
The Political Hat: Unwelcome In College – Affirmative Action Bake Sales, Teaching Conservative Political Thought, Male Authors
This Ain’t Hell: What About Bob? also, Stolen Valor & Valor Vulture Blumenthal Wastes No Time Grabbing Attention From Tragedy
Victory Girls: Rashida Tlaib Thinks All Blacks Look Alike to Non-Blacks
Volokh Conspiracy: The CRS Has Shifted Its Position On Whether The Foreign Emoluments Clause Applies To The President
Weasel Zippers: Woman At AOC Town Hall Freaks Out, Says It’s Time To Eat Babies, also, Pelosi Claims Schiff Didn’t Fabricate Trump Quotes From Ukraine Call
Mark Steyn: Michael E. Mann – Loser, Liar, Scofflaw & Deadbeat

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Category: Linkagery

Hey, @LiamHemsworth: Name Something You Should Never Stick in Crazy

Posted on | October 3, 2019 | 3 Comments

 

There is a proverbial saying among men about avoiding crazy women, so why did Liam Hemsworth ever get involved with Miley Cyrus? In August, when the “Wrecking Ball” singer publicly humiliated Hemsworth by engaging in a lesbian affair with Brody Jenner’s ex-girlfriend Kaitlynn Carter, Hemsworth declared he “wish[ed] her nothing but health and happiness” and an “insider” was quoted saying, “Miley and Liam love each other and always will.” What does “love” mean in such a context? If Miley loved her husband, would she have made such a fool of him? And why would Liam “always” love a woman who had disgraced him?

Well, after her fling with Kaitlynn Carter ended, Miley was reportedly “begging” Hemsworth to take her back, but he’s filed for divorce and returned to his native Australia, and his family is reportedly trying to keep Hemsworth away from the toxic bisexual bimbo:

Chris Hemsworth and his wife, Elsa Pataky, have had enough of their former sister-in-law, Miley Cyrus, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively — and have issued her a stern warning to stop playing games with heartbroken Liam.
“They are the ones picking up the pieces,” a source told Radar. “And they’ll happily do anything to protect Liam, including shutting Miley out of Liam’s life.” . . .
Adding insult to injury, Cyrus, 26, released a scathing breakup song aimed at her ex titled “Slide Away.”
“The breakup song, the smear campaign implying he has addiction issues, her texting him at random – it’s all infuriating to them,” the source continued. “They welcomed Miley with open arms even though she was way too wild and immature for their friendship group, and they feel betrayed by her behavior too.” . . .
“They have conveyed that message to her in a strongly worded text,” the source confessed. “Miley was actually shocked that Chris and Elsa had struck her off and told her in no uncertain terms to stay away from their brother and let him heal.”

Do I have to explain why Hemsworth has no one but himself to blame? He and Cyrus first hooked up about 10 years ago and were on-and-off for quite a few years before they married, and he should have seen that she was definitely not wife material. Miley Cyrus will never mean anything but misery to any man fool enough to get involved with her.

Oh, and her “bisexuality” is just another symptom of her borderline personality disorder (BPD). There are no sane bisexuals. There are gay men and lesbian women who have both feet on the ground, but every bisexual is a bundle of neurotic craziness. And when you examine Miley Cyrus’s life history, it’s a laundry list of BPD symptoms.

Never trust a bisexual. How many times do I have to explain this?

It was my lesbian friend Cynthia Yockey who pointed out the substantial overlap between bisexuality and borderline personality disorder. People with BPD notoriously have “boundary issues.” They can’t stand to be told “no,” and don’t think the rules should apply to them. They love to cause drama, and would rather have negative attention than to be ignored. BPD is “characterized by extreme fear of abandonment; unstable relationships with other people, sense of self, or emotions; feelings of emptiness; frequent dangerous behavior; and self-harm.”

That is such a perfect description of Miley Cyrus that it might as well have been written about her specifically, and so we must ask why no one warned Liam Hemsworth to steer clear of her.

Well, he can’t say he hasn’t been warned now. My work here is done.



 

Category: Celebrities

‘DEEP STATE’ BOMBSHELL: Rosenstein Was Part of Anti-Trump Coup Plot

Posted on | October 3, 2019 | 1 Comment

 

What was widely suspected is now conclusively proven:

Judicial Watch on Wednesday released 145 pages of former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s communications which include a one-line email from Rosenstein to Robert Mueller stating “The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions.” That email came just five days before Rosenstein appointed Mueller to take over the FBI’s Russia investigation as special counsel, roiling Trump’s presidency.
The communications — which include “off the record” emails with major media outlets around the date of Mueller’s appointment — show that Rosenstein did not just dispassionately go along with the fraudulent probe in an attempt to get at the truth, but was an active participant in the deep state coup, secretly plotting with other FBI and DOJ officials against the president of the United States. . . .
On May 8, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memo to President Trump recommending that FBI Director James Comey be fired. The next day, President Trump fired Comey. Just three days later, on May 12, Rosenstein sent an email assuring Robert Mueller that “The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions.”
In a May 16, 2017 email, sent the day before Mueller’s appointment, Rosenstein emailed former Bush administration Deputy Attorney General and current Kirkland & Ellis Partner, Mark Filip stating, “I am with Mueller. He shares my views. Duty Calls. Sometimes the moment chooses us.”
And on May 17 Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
During the same time period, between May 8 and May 17, according to then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Rosenstein met with McCabe and other senior Justice Department and FBI officials to discuss wearing a wire into the oval office to spy on Trump, as well as invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president. . . .
The documents released by Judicial Watch also show that Rosenstein had a cozy relationship with reporters from the anti-Trump news outlets 60 Minutes, New York Times and Washington Post.

(Hat-tip: Steven Green at Instapundit.)

Remember that the firing of Comey was the pretext for launching the Mueller “Russian collusion” witch-hunt. What we now see is that Rosenstein, who wrote the memo supporting Comey’s firing, was the entire time working with anti-Trump forces — the whole thing was a set-up, a frame job, from the start. The “deep state” is real, my friends.



 

Category: Corruption, Donald Trump

In The Mailbox: 10.03.19 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | October 3, 2019 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #761
EBL: Jussie’s Girl
Twitchy: Detroit Police Chief Calls Out Rep. Tlaib For Racism Double Standard
Louder With Crowder: NYC Bans Term “Illegal Alien” Because It Hurts Some Peoples’ Feelings

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Uncommon Decency, or, Why Women Shouldn’t Wear Pants
American Greatness: Virginia Police Officer Suspended After Turning Illegal Alien Over To ICE
American Power: Trump Campaign Cashes In
American Thinker: Gaslighting The Voters
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: GE Violates Cuba Sanctions, Gets Whacked With $2.7 Million In Fines
BattleSwarm: Is Your Minimum Wage $15/Hour? Behold Your Future!
Cafe Hayek: Some Links
CDR Salamander: Under Attack By The Luftwaffe, At Sea
Da Tech Guy: Massachusetts New Across-The-Board Pay Cut
Don Surber: Crime Hits 47-Year Low
First Street Journal: The Criminalization Of Speech
The Geller Report: Manhattan Synagogue Invites Vile Antisemite Al Sharpton During Rosh Hashanah, also, Anti-Semitism Protest At NYC City Hall
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, The Red Spider Nebula
Hollywood In Toto: How One SNL Joke Brutally Exposes Cancel Culture
Joe For America: Woman Climbs Into Bronx Zoo Exhibit, Taunts Lion
JustOneMinute: Bernie On The Outs?
Legal Insurrection: Germany To Boost Border Checks Amid Surge In Illegal Immigration, also, Desperate Kamala Harris Calls For Trump To Be Suspended From Twitter Amid Campaign Disarray
Michelle Malkin: ADL, Antifa, & Koch – The Toxic Anti-Trump Team
The PanAm Post: Europe Won’t Forgive The US For Saving It From Its Own Monsters, also, Maduro Has Never Been The Real Problem
Power Line: Stand By Your Sham – Conspiracy Theory (2), also, William Barr Goes To Rome
Shark Tank: Federal Judge Strikes Down Part Of DeSantis’ Sanctuary City Law
Shot In The Dark: Living The Lie
The Political Hat: Level 20 Sensitivity Editor Casts Wokeness On D&D
This Ain’t Hell: Wednesday Feel-Good Stories, also, Mad Maxine Strikes Again!
Victory Girls: Did The Guyger Jury Get It Right?
Volokh Conspiracy: Did The Lochner Court Have A Green Thumb?
Weasel Zippers: MSNBC Fears “Heavily Armed” Trump Supporters Will Invade DC, also, Maxine Waters Doubles Down On Unhinged Tweet
Mark Steyn: High Holy Links

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Category: Linkagery

Ukraine ‘Scandal’ Hoax Imploding

Posted on | October 3, 2019 | 1 Comment

 

Before we run down the latest developments in the Ukraine hoax, let me remind you of a post I wrote three months ago — June 22:

The Fake Ukrainian Ledger Angle: How
the Media Colluded With the ‘Deep State’

As I explained there, the New York Times reported in August 2016 how Ukraine’s “newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau” took an interest in Donald Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort — what a coincidence! — and guess what they found? A handwritten ledger allegedly showing cash payments to Manafort. Except this was ridiculous, for several reasons, and the ledger was obviously a forgery:

Manafort’s Ukrainian business partner Konstantin Kilimnik, a regular informer for the State Department, told the U.S. government almost immediately after The New York Times wrote about the ledger in August 2016 that the document probably was fake.
Manafort “could not have possibly taken large amounts of cash across three borders. It was always a different arrangement — payments were in wire transfers to his companies, which is not a violation,” Kilimnik wrote in an email to a senior U.S. official on Aug. 22, 2016.
He added: “I have some questions about this black cash stuff, because those published records do not make sense. The timeframe doesn’t match anything related to payments made to Manafort. …It does not match my records. All fees Manafort got were wires, not cash.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and the FBI were given copies of Kilimnik’s warning, according to three sources familiar with the documents.

Ace explained what the FBI was doing:

It’s illegal to submit, as part of an official record, evidence to a judge — for example, in seeking a warrant against Paul Manafort– which the person submitting knows to be fraudulent, or which may be fraudulent.
It can result in an actual criminal charge being filed.
So, what did Mueller and Weismann do?
They could not submit the “black cash ledger” as evidence in seeking probable cause warrants against Manafort — that could expose their own corrupt asses to federal charges.
But they were determined to jam it in there anyway.
So they submitted media reports as evidence supporting the warrant, based on leaks about the likely fraudulent ledger, as part of their application.
They effectively submitted the contents of the “ledger,” without submitting the ledger itself — in order to avoid having to tell the judge, straight up, that they’d been warned by several informed sources that the thing was a forgery and a sham.

So, by leaking this “Ukraine ledger” story to the New York Times, the FBI in effect manufactured “evidence” to use to get a warrant to conduct surveillance on Manafort, a pattern of misconduct very similar to what the FBI did with the infamous “Steele dossier.”

But gosh, why was Ukraine investigating Manafort?

Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy noted at National Review [Sept. 26] that then-President Barack Obama’s administration asked Ukraine to investigate Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, in 2016. . . .
McCarthy notes that “the Obama administration’s law-enforcement agencies pressured their Ukrainian counterparts to revive a dormant corruption investigation of Paul Manafort” in the middle of the 2016 presidential election.
The results were soon clear: leaks about Manafort’s activities in Ukraine began to appear in the U.S. media, spun in the worst possible light. He was replaced at the Trump campaign and became a target in the phony “collusion” narrative.
McCarthy notes the glaring double standard: “When the Obama administration leans on Ukraine for help in an investigation of political opponents, the Democrats and the media say, ‘But look how corrupt Paul Manafort was!’ When the Trump administration leans on Ukraine for help in an investigation of political opponents, the Democrats and the media say, ‘Abuse of power — impeach him!’”

The whole Russian “collusion” thing was a set-up — a frame job — and Attorney General William Barr has ordered an investigation to find out what happened in 2016, which is why Democrats panicked and started this not-really-an-impeachment over the Ukraine “whistleblower.”

And, wow, is this blowing up in their faces:

Republican congressional leaders accused Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Democrats of rigging the impeachment scheme after news broke that Schiff was in contact with the whistleblower before the complaint against President Donald Trump was filed.
The report from the New York Times claimed that Schiff received an “early account by the future whistleblower” days before the person filed the complaint accusing Trump of presidential misconduct.
The report seemed to be confirmed by a Schiff spokesman, who said: “Like other whistle-blowers have done before and since under Republican and Democratic-controlled committees, the whistle-blower contacted the committee for guidance on how to report possible wrongdoing within the jurisdiction of the intelligence community.”
Schiff said during a Sept. 17 interview on MSNBC that he did not have “direct contact” with the person who filed the complaint.
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the minority whip, was among those reacting to the news, telling a Fox News reporter that he was “deeply concerned” that the whistleblower went to Schiff’s staff instead of waiting for the CIA whistleblower process to work through its conclusion. The person, who has not been identified publicly, reportedly filed the complaint initially with the CIA.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) shared the report and wrote in a statement: “Chairman Adam Schiff just got caught orchestrating with the whistleblower before the complaint was ever filed. Democrats have rigged this process from the start.”

Furthermore, the rules of the Intelligence Committee requires that information brought to the committee be shared with members of both parties, something that Schiff manifestly failed to do. Of course, viewers of CNN and MSNBC know nothing about this — if you’re not watching Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, you might actually think the Ukraine “whistleblower” story is a real scandal, which it’s not. Trump went off on Schiff in a press conference today:

 

Oh, and here’s an interesting headline:

Ex-Ukraine prosecutor said he was told to back off
probe of Biden-linked firm, files show

Keep in mind, nobody was talking about the Biden-Ukraine thing before Schiff tried to turn this “whistleblower” into an impeachment. What Schiff never expected was that Trump would react by declassifying the transcript of his phone call and releasing it so everybody could see for themselves what he’d said to the Ukrainian president. And once he did that, most people looked at the transcript and said, “What scandal?”

If it was not wrong to ask Ukraine to investigate Paul Manafort, why is it wrong to ask Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden? Oops. And once people start asking those questions, who knows what they’ll become curious about next?

WHO IS ALEXANDRA CHALUPA?

Keep asking that question. The answer matters.



 

Category: Corruption, Donald Trump, Ukraine

My Brother Kirby Needs Help

Posted on | October 2, 2019 | 1 Comment

Last month, I rattled the tip jar for my brother Kirby, whose health problems have kept him out of work, and over the weekend he was hospitalized. Now he’s been released and my younger brother will be bringing Kirby up here to stay with us for a while until he can get back on his feet. You can send Kirby money via PayPal. Whatever you can give — $5, $10, $20 — would be appreciated. He’s got a GoFundMe account, if you’d rather contribute that way. Thanks in advance.

 

Category: Family

NY Times Prints Fawning Profile of MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow

Posted on | October 2, 2019 | 1 Comment

 

For two years, Rachel Maddow’s show was about one thing: “Russia! Russia! Russia!” She hyped Robert Mueller’s investigation as the silver bullet that would slay the Trump werewolf, and when Mueller failed, Maddow’s ratings slumped and have never recovered.

Well, she’s got out a new book — Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth, and if you’re going to buy it, you ought to buy it through my Amazon link so I get a commission, right? — and therefore the Democrat-Media Complex is engaged in providing her with free publicity. Amanda Hess provides journalistic cunnilingus in the New York Times:

Rachel Maddow was trying to get to work. She only had to get from the glass door of her doctor’s office to the tinted-windowed S.U.V. that was idling at the curb, waiting to spirit her to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, but there was a hitch. Maddow had torn three ligaments in her left ankle — fishing accident — and one of those ligaments ripped off a piece of her bone, so now she was lumbering toward the sidewalk, her foot strapped into a boot, her lanky body bent over crutches that creaked and boomed with every hit to the sidewalk. In Manhattan, this had the effect of a kind of ritualistic drumbeat, alerting every liberal within earshot to her presence.
A woman with a graying ponytail suddenly wriggled into Maddow’s path. “Rachel,” she said, extending her phone to secure a selfie for a friend in Oregon who watches her show every single night and was going to bug out when she saw this. Maddow smiled for the camera as a man in long shorts planted himself 20 feet away, holding his own phone up horizontally to film the scene. When he saw Maddow see him, he smiled and waved slowly, as if he were a proud relative capturing a milestone. Farther down the block, a woman screamed something incomprehensible in her direction. As Maddow finally neared the curb, a woman with silver hair and chunky glasses materialized at her side and said with blasé familiarity: “I don’t know what happened to you, but I just want to say I love you. Keep up the good work. Can I give you a hug?”
Maddow balanced on her good foot. She spread her crutches out to accommodate the stranger’s embrace. “What’s your name?” Maddow asked brightly, as if she had hobbled out expressly for the purposes of saying hello. “Emily,” she said. She made a perfunctory gesture toward the silent bald man next to her. “This is Ed, my ex-husband.”
“Big fan of yours,” Ed said, and he went in for a handshake, which Maddow was eager to meet until she discovered, midreach, that her ankle could not make the pivot to a second greeter. “Whoa,” Maddow said. “No twisting! Sorry!”
“Be careful with her!” Emily said to Ed, and then, as she saw Maddow breaking away and toward the car, she urgently called out: “So — so what do you think? Elizabeth Warren?”
Finally sealed in the back seat, Maddow propped up the ankle. Then she turned and said, as if I were a friend and not yet another stranger pumping her for information: “That was dangerous! Did you see my twist with Ed?” . . .

Translation: “She’s so popular! Fans mob her in the streets! She’s like The Beatles on Ed Sullivan in February 1964!”

This 400-word anecdotal lead is the scene-setter of a 6,000-word feature. For those of you who aren’t in the journalism racket, 6,000 words is about eight times longer than the standard news article. It’s a bit longer than your average chapter of a non-fiction book, and it certainly took an entire week, if not more, to write something that long. What does the New York Times pay for freelance work? A dollar a word? If so, that 400-word lead is worth about three days’ work by a $15-an-hour laborer. And you’d have to hire that $15-an-hour worker for a month and a half to pay him what Amanda Hess got for that entire 6,000-word feature.

And it’s just publicity, not journalism — this article is simply free advertising for Maddow and her book, and why? Because she’s a Democrat, MSNBC is a Democrat network, the publisher and editors of her book are Democrats, and the New York Times is a Democrat paper. So this is not ordinary free publicity, it’s partisan political propaganda.

Noting how the New York Times profile includes some rather absurd vignettes of Maddow’s adoring fandom, Ed Driscoll remarks: “If this is what ‘real life’ looks like in America’s blue regions, the Babylon Bee is really going to have to up its satire game to compete.”

Oh, Maddow’s book? It combines a hostile attack on Big Oil with a conspiracy theory about (you guessed) Russia! Russia! Russia!

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!



 

Category: Conspiracy Theories, MSNBC, New York Times, Russia
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