The Other McCain

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

Tater Tots With Russia Sauce

Posted on | May 12, 2020 | 2 Comments

 

Simple recipe:

  • 1 fat bald CNN personality with zero self-awareness;
  • Several dozen of his own words;
  • Combine ingredients. Bake for one minute and six seconds. Laugh.

 

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

Apologies for the lack of blogging today. I crawled down through the layers of media bias in coverage of the Ahmaud Arbery case, got about 1,000 words into a post and then had to make a run to Little Caesar’s for dinner. Will try to finish that and post it later tonight. The difficulty, of course, is that I want it to be 100% accurate, and to avoid any appearance of justifying the actions that resulted in Arbery’s death.

Speaking of lack of blogging, a reader was asking about Wombat’s extended absence. I can report that Wombat is alive and healthy, but his current housing situation does not permit him to blog. He expects to have this problem solved soon, and we may have him back as soon as this weekend. Meanwhile, readers can hit Wombat’s tip jar to encourage him during this difficult time of Fear and COVID-19 in Las Vegas.




 

Category: CNN, Russia

Georgia on My Mind

Posted on | May 11, 2020 | 2 Comments

 

“It seemed like a good idea at the time” is not a strong defense in a murder trial, and the question everybody seems to be asking in regard to the death of Ahmaud Arbery is why Gregory McMichael and his son thought it was a good idea to grab their guns, jump in their truck and go out in pursuit of a man they assumed to be a fleeing burglary suspect.

It is not my habit to play Monday-morning quarterback in controversial murder cases. I’m not a lawyer, and my opinion in such matters is no more valuable than anyone else’s. However, I’ve spent more than 30 years in the news business, and I know a thing or two about media bias. In 2009, when I saw a bunch of pundits pontificating about the alleged “lynching” of a census worker in Kentucky, I got the wild idea to hit the road and investigate the reality of the story on the ground. As it turned out, the census worker had committed suicide and staged it to look like a lynching, in an insurance fraud scheme, but by the time the truth came out, the pundits who had smeared this Kentucky community as a haven of “anti-government extremism” seemed to have lost interest.

Could it be that the media’s coverage of the Ahmaud Arbery case is similarly biased? I’m trying to resist the itch for a road trip, but meanwhile I’m sick and tired of the way the story is being spun:

Brunswick is a seaport town on the Georgia coast with which I have a personal connection. During World War II, my maternal grandfather moved to Brunswick to work in the shipyard and my grandmother joined him there, working in the canteen that served meals to the more than 16,000 workers who built 99 “Liberty ships” in the Brunswick yards in a span of about three years. Founded in the 1770s, Brunswick remains today a major harbor, and its picturesque Old Town district attracts many tourists who visit nearby Jekyll Island and St. Simons Island.
Brunswick seldom makes national news, but that changed last month when the New York Times devoted a 1,700-word article to the February shooting death of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery. Why would this homicide be worthy of national attention? Because Arbery was black and the man who shot him is white and, until the case became the subject of round-the-clock coverage on CNN, no charges had been filed in the case. Now that 34-year-old Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, have been charged with murder and aggravated assault, one might hope that journalists would be content to leave the matter to the justice system, but that’s not how the media operate in such cases. Instead, Americans are still being bombarded with updates and commentary on the alleged “lynching” of Arbery, who is described as a “black jogger” who was the victim of racism. . . .

You can read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.




 

Category: American Spectator, CNN, Crime, Georgia, Media Bias, New York Times, Racism

R.I.P., Little Richard

Posted on | May 9, 2020 | Comments Off on R.I.P., Little Richard

 

“A wop bop a loo bop a wop bam boom!”

Arguably the most exciting words in the history of music, the opening lyrics of “Tutti Frutti” announced the arrival of a bright-burning star who, in a period of two years, created the sound of rock-and-roll. You could say Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley had a larger influence, but nobody was ever more exciting than Little Richard. His falsetto whoops and earthy blues vocal style, combined with his boogie-woogie piano, highlighted a unique blend of talents by a sensational showman.

Beginning with “Tutti Frutti,” Richard Wayne Penniman rattled off a string of hits: “Long Tall Sally,” “Slippin’ and Slidin,” “Rip It Up,” “Ready Teddy,” “The Girl Can’t Help It,” “Lucille,” and “Jenny, Jenny,” among others. The Beatles famously covered “Long Tall Sally” as well as Little Richard’s version of “Kansas City,” and in the 1970s, I remember Johnny and Edgar Winter including “Slippin’ and Slidin” in their rock-and-roll medley. Nobody quite personified rock-and-roll as a wild and dangerous sound quite the way Little Richard did, with the sexual innuendo of his lyrics, his pompadour hairstyle and those crazy leering eyes.

R.I.P., Little Richard. Your legend lives on.




 

Category: Music

Headline of the Week

Posted on | May 9, 2020 | 1 Comment

An instant classic:

EXCLUSIVE: ‘I have no other talent’:
Gold Coast influencer breaks down
in tears as she loses followers on
‘porn’ website OnlyFans due to
the coronavirus pandemic and
can no longer pay her rent

Australia’s Gold Coast is near Brisbane, and I have no idea why this particular bimbo would think she could make a career out of selling dirty pictures of her coochie on the Internet:

A distraught Gold Coast influencer had a breakdown last week because the coronavirus pandemic led to a drop in followers on her X-rated OnlyFans account.
Billie Beever, who has 113,000 Instagram fans and supports herself by posting adult content on the subscription website, cried as she revealed she can no longer pay her rent.
The 27-year-old charges $12.99-a-month for access to her pictures and makes extra through tips and requests — but jobless fans can no longer afford to follow her.
‘Everyone on TV is always talking about how everybody has lost their jobs and people can’t pay for anything anymore, but I’m losing subscribers on OnlyFans and that’s my main source of income,’ sobbed Billie in a now-removed TikTok video.
She continued: ‘I can’t pay my rent, I can’t work. Even if I was to go back to work, what am I meant to do? Strip clubs are all closed, you can’t even be close to somebody because of social distancing.
‘I have nothing else going for me, I have no other talent. I’ve got nothing else. I can’t dance, I can’t sing, I can’t do anything. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. I just want everything to go back to normal so people can keep subscribing.’

Well, I suppose, she could become a politician and make regular appearances on CNN, which is what whores with no talent do in America. And speaking of people making money on the Internet . . .

Because nobody would pay to see pictures of me naked, I was forced to become a blogger, and making jokes about politics is even less lucrative than what Billie Beever does. Somehow, I managed to endure this shame without ever being tempted to run for Congress or appear on CNN. And you should probably hit my tip jar in gratitude.

(Hat-tip: @ground_miller on Twitter.)




 

Category: humor

Is Obama Living in an Alternative Reality?

Posted on | May 9, 2020 | 1 Comment

 

“I’m not making this up, you know,” remarks my podcast partner John Hoge, in reaction to this mind-boggling bit of news:

Former President Barack Obama on Friday stated the “rule of law is at risk” in response to the Department of Justice dropping its criminal charges against retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, according to an audio call obtained by Yahoo News.
“The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama said during a virtual discussion with members of the Obama Alumni Association. “The fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”
During his remarks on Flynn, Obama erroneously said the former White House national security advisor pleaded guilty to perjury. Rather, he was charged for lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) about his contacts with then-Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during President Trump’s transition period. Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 as part of then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into now-debunked collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. In January, the Justice Department changed its sentencing recommendation for Flynn from probation to six months in jail, prompting the former Trump official to withdraw his guilty plea, citing prosecutors breaking their plea agreement.

What’s interesting here is when Obama says that the dropping of the charges against Flynn has been “somewhat downplayed” in the news, which tells me that he must be watching CNN, because if you’re watching Fox News, this story has gotten heavy coverage there. Why would this story be “somewhat downplayed” by whatever media Obama watches?

In court documents, the Justice Department said it dropped the case “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.” . . .
In its filing, the Justice Department said it concluded that Flynn’s interview by the FBI was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn” and that the interview on Jan. 24, 2017, was “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.”

Newly released documents, including FBI agents’ notes, show that they were aware Flynn was the target of a set-up ordered by James Comey.

Is Obama so isolated within a cocoon of friendly media that he actually doesn’t know any of this? We know Obama was prejudiced against Flynn, who in 2014 as head of defense intelligence had contradicted in congressional testimony Obama’s claim to have al-Qaeda “on the run.” But does the president know that other people are aware of this? See, if you’re watching CNN or MSNBC, you’ll never see any information that reflects negatively on Obama (or positively on Republicans), and thus Obama might be completely unaware of what Fox News and other organizations have reported in relation to “Crossfire Hurricane.”

Many millions of other Americans are as clueless as Obama, of course. If all you know is what you get from CNN or MSNBC, for example, you may not even be aware that someone named Mollie Hemingway exists, so you would never read her excellent article showing a timeline of how Obama’s Jan. 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting with John Brennan, James Clapper and others, led to the spurious prosecution of Flynn.

There’s a whole lot of information in that article which has never been reported by either CNN or MSNBC, nor by any of the three major broadcast network news divisions. Unless you actively and deliberately seek out information that the liberal media don’t want you to know about, it’s very easy to believe whatever narrative they’re selling you. This is why your liberal friends on Facebook are so smugly confident about their intellectual and moral superiority; they have simply never encountered any information that contradicts their worldview. Because liberals so dominate the journalism industry — to say nothing of their hegemonic control of Hollywood and academia — it requires a lot of effort to become a conservative. But I digress . . .

If your liberal friends haven’t yet figured out that “Russian collusion” was hoax, why? It’s confirmation bias, of course. Your liberal friends hate Donald Trump — in fact, they hate you for voting for him — and therefore make an active effort to avoid encountering any information that might reflect favorably on Trump. It’s very easy for them to do this, for the reasons I’ve explained, and so their minds would melt down in cognitive dissonance if they watched this 12-minute Tucker Carlson monologue:

 

You should probably share that video on your Facebook page, so that your liberal friends will have one more reason to hate you. Also, you should probably hit my tip jar, for giving you that suggestion.




 

Category: Barack Obama, Corruption, Russia

Transcripts Prove Adam Schiff Lied; More Releases Expected From DNI Grenell

Posted on | May 8, 2020 | Comments Off on Transcripts Prove Adam Schiff Lied; More Releases Expected From DNI Grenell

 

A couple of years ago at CPAC, in the hotel lobby, I was introduced to Richard Grenell who, at the time, was still awaiting confirmation as our ambassador to Germany. Whatever specious pretexts Senate Democrats offered for opposing Grenell, the real reason was that he is “the real deal,” my conservative friends assured me. Grenell “gets it” in terms of the larger geopolitical struggle against “globalism” and, as such, is a threat to the status quo defended by the “Deep State.” My CPAC encounter with Grenell was brief, but the eagerness with which my friends vouched for him made a strong impression, and he has since proven his value to the administration, so much so that President Trump appointed him acting Director of National Intelligence, and wow, is he ever the real deal!

It was Grenell who pushed for the release that made big news Thursday:

Newly released transcripts of interviews from the House Intelligence Committee’s long-running Russia investigation reveal top Obama officials acknowledged that they knew of no “empirical evidence” of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election, despite their concerns and suspicions. . . .
The transcripts, which were released by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., revealed top Obama officials were questioned over whether they had or had seen evidence of such collusion, coordination or conspiracy — the issue that drove the FBI’s initial case and later the special counsel probe.
“I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election,” former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified in 2017. “That’s not to say that there weren’t concerns about the evidence we were seeing, anecdotal evidence. … But I do not recall any instance where I had direct evidence.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, according to the transcript of her interview, was asked about the same issue. Power replied: “I am not in possession of anything — I am not in possession and didn’t read or absorb information that came from out of the intelligence community.” . . .
Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice was asked the same question.
“To the best of my recollection, there wasn’t anything smoking, but there were some things that gave me pause,” she said, according to her transcribed interview, in response to whether she had any evidence of conspiracy. “I don’t recall intelligence that I would consider evidence to that effect that I saw…conspiracy prior to my departure.”
When asked whether she had any evidence of “coordination,” Rice replied: “I don’t recall any intelligence or evidence to that effect.”

And so on down the line. Every single witness in this testimony (which at the time was secret) disavowed having any evidence of “collusion,” and yet Adam Schiff spent three years publicly claiming to be privy to conclusive evidence of this alleged Russian conspiracy. If there was ever any doubt that Schiff was lying, that doubt is now over. As I say, it was acting DNI Richard Grenell who made this happen:

Schiff released the files — approved in late 2018 for release by the committee — after facing pressure earlier this week from Republicans to do so. Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell then notified Schiff that the redaction and declassification process was complete, and that the records were ready to be made public.
“At the bipartisan request of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Intelligence Community reviewed all transcripts for classification and made appropriate redactions. HPSCI voted unanimously in 2018 to publicly release these transcripts, and it is long past time that these are released,” Grenell said in a statement Thursday.

Schiff has been exposed as a dishonest fraud, and there may be even more proof on the way, thanks again to Richard Grenell:

President Trump’s top spy chief reportedly has a “satchel” of documents related to the Russia investigation that could be released as early as Friday.
After the House Intelligence Committee released dozens of witness transcripts from its investigation into Russian election interference on Thursday, Fox News chief White House correspondent Ed Henry reported two sources told him acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell is prepared to unveil additional documents that will show how Chairman Adam Schiff and other investigators “knew for a long time there was no collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin “even though they kept saying they had direct evidence.” . . .
Attorney General William Barr received a separate “satchel” of documents, Henry said in a report Friday evening on Tucker Carlson Tonight as Fox News aired video that a producer took of Grenell personally delivering them to the Justice Department.
Henry noted that his sources would not say precisely what was in the satchel, but they expect the contents could be made public as early as Friday.
The reporter also said that while a senior administration source told Fox News previously that Schiff was in “panic mode” about the House Intelligence Committee witness transcripts, the California Democrat may be “even more panicked” now.
The release of the witness transcripts and related materials came after the Justice Department filed to drop all criminal charges against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Keep an eye on this. The wheel of karma is turning.




 

Category: Corruption, Donald Trump

‘In a Statement, Biden Said …’

Posted on | May 7, 2020 | Comments Off on ‘In a Statement, Biden Said …’

 

OK, first the great Ace of Spades headline:

Biden: Believe All Women
(Except The Lying Whore Accusing Me)

This is about a policy position taken by the Democrat:

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that if he’s elected president, he will reverse a rule issued by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos aimed at bolstering protections for students who are accused of sexual assault on university campuses.
In a statement, Biden said the new rule was an effort by the Trump administration to “shame and silence” survivors of sexual assault
“It’s wrong,” Biden said. “And, it will be put to a quick end in January 2021, because as president, I’ll be right where I always have been throughout my career — on the side of survivors, who deserve to have their voices heard, their claims taken seriously and investigated, and their rights upheld.”

In other words, this is not literally something “Biden said.” Instead, reporters are quoting a press release issued by the Biden campaign. This is an important distinction because, as we all know, Biden’s mental deterioration has become so acute that he cannot speak coherently. Biden’s enablers in the press corps, of course, are obligated to pretend they don’t know this, therefore, they report “Biden said” things that he is, in fact, incapable of saying. You know who’s been calling b.s. on this? A guy by the name of Donald Trump. From a press conference Monday:

REPORTER: “Joe Biden actually just attacked you in a tweet, I don’t know if you have seen it.”
TRUMP: “He just what?”
REPORTER: “Attacked you.”
TRUMP: “He didn’t write anything. He has professionals from the Democrats writing.”
REPORTER: “Let me read what he said. He says Donald Trump is not responsible for the coronavirus but he is responsible for failing to prepare our nation to respond to it. How do you respond to that, sir?”
TRUMP: “He didn’t write that. That was done by a Democrat operative. He doesn’t write. He doesn’t — he’s probably not even watching right now. And if he is, he doesn’t understand what he’s watching. . . . Joe Biden didn’t write that. Joe Biden didn’t write that. He wished he did but he didn’t.”

 

Boom!




 

Category: Donald Trump, Joe Biden

Gen. Flynn Exonerated; Trump Blames Obama Administration: ‘Human Scum’

Posted on | May 7, 2020 | 2 Comments

 

Big news about a victim of the “Russian collusion” hoax:

The Justice Department on Thursday dropped its criminal case against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
In court documents, the Justice Department said it dropped the case “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.”
A proposed order presented to US District Judge Emmet Sullivan would dismiss the case “with prejudice,” meaning the same charges cannot be brought in the future. . . .
In its filing, the Justice Department said it concluded that Flynn’s interview by the FBI was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn” and that the interview on Jan. 24, 2017, was “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.”
Earlier Thursday, federal prosecutor Brandon Van Grack withdrew from the case.
The US attorney reviewing the Flynn case, Jeff Jensen, recommended the move to Attorney General William Barr last week and formalized the recommendation in a document this week.

Trump reacted characteristically:

“He was an innocent man. . . . He was targeted by the Obama administration and he was targeted in order to try and take down a president. What they’ve done is a disgrace and I hope a big price is going to be paid. . . . What they did, what the Obama administration did, is unprecedented. . . . I hope a lot of people are going to pay a big price because they’re dishonest, crooked people. . . . They’re human scum. This should never have happened in this country.”

Gee, Mr. President, why don’t you tell us how you really feel?




 

Category: Donald Trump
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