The Other McCain

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

Mexicans in Kansas

Posted on | January 9, 2020 | Comments Off on Mexicans in Kansas

 

Seven people killed in two separate crimes. Suspects are in custody:

Suspects in a mass shooting a Kansas City, Kansas, bar, and a recent triple homicide are now charged with capital murder and could face the death penalty, the Wyandotte County district attorney announced Wednesday.
Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree Sr. released the amended charges against three men in two separate cases during a news conference.
Dupree first addressed the mass shooting that killed four people and wounded five others Oct. 6 at the Tequila KC bar near 10th Street and Central Avenue.
Two men, Hugo Villanueva-Morales, 30, of Kansas City, Kansas, and Javier Alatorre, 24, of Kansas City, were initially charged with four counts of first-degree murder. The victims who died in the shooting were Everardo Meza, 29, Alfredo Calderon Jr, 29, Francisco Garcia Anaya, 34, and Martin Rodriguez-Gonzalez, 58.

(Not one gringo killed in this bar, not even by a stray shot?)

Alatorre was arrested quickly after the shooting. Villanueva-Morales fled to Mexico, where he was arrested and was recently brought back to the metro area to face charges. Both remain in the county jail.
Dupree said Wednesday that Villanueva-Moreales and Alatorre are now each charged with capital murder for the four deaths. . . .
The district attorney’s office also announced amended charges against Ismael Caballero in the deaths of a Kansas City, Kansas, mother and her two children. Their bodies were found in a burning home at 29 N. Mill St. on Dec. 30. Kansas City, Kansas, police were investigating the deaths as homicides but have not said how the three victims died.
Caballero, 31, is charged in district court with capital murder for the deaths of the two children, Amerikha Rodriguez, 14, and Jean Carlo Rodriguez, 10, and is charged with second-degree murder for the death of their 31-year-old mother, Yazmin Rodriguez-Santilla.

Is should not be necessary to explain the point here, but I will: Some places in the United States have a long history of Latino settlement, with communities stretching back for generations, even centuries. One is not surprised by the large Mexican-American populations in California, Arizona or Texas, and we’re accustomed to Cubans in Miami, Puerto Ricans in New York, etc. However, on does not think of Kansas City this way, so when the headlines inform us that three guys named Villanueva-Morales, Alatorre and Caballero are charged with killing a combined total of seven people named Meza, Calderon, Anaya, Rodriguez-Gonzalez, Rodriguez and Rodriguez-Santilla in Wyandotte County, Kansas — well, what the heck is going on here? It appears, for example, that two gunmen can open fire in a Kansas City bar without risk that any of their bullets will hit someone who was actually born in America.

As evidence that our immigration problem is absolutely out of control, this situation in Kansas City is rather conclusive, but notice that this criminal mayhem in Kansas is just “local news.” If some deranged “alt-right” white guy had shot four Mexicans in Kansas City, CNN would be providing around-the-clock updates, but because it’s Mexicans killing Mexicans, nobody at the networks seems to care.

(Hat-tip: Kirby McCain on Twitter.)



 

Category: Crime, Immigration, Mexico, Missouri

The Cult of Climate ‘Science’

Posted on | January 8, 2020 | 1 Comment

 

Ugly facts can never disprove their beautiful theory:

The signs at Glacier National Park warning that its signature glaciers would be gone by 2020 are being changed.
The signs in the Montana park were added more than a decade ago to reflect climate change forecasts at the time by the US Geological Survey, park spokeswoman Gina Kurzmen told CNN.
In 2017, the park was told by the agency that the complete melting off of the glaciers was no longer expected to take place so quickly due to changes in the forecast model, Kurzmen said. But tight maintenance budgets made it impossible for the park to immediately change the signs.
The most prominent placards, at St. Mary’s Visitor Center, were changed last year. Kurzmen says that park is still waiting for budget authorization to update signs at two other locations.
But the glacier warning isn’t being removed entirely, she told CNN. Instead, the new signs will say: “When they will completely disappear depends on how and when we act. One thing is consistent: the glaciers in the park are shrinking.”

Notice the slight hedge — “computer models indicate” — in the wording of the now-replaced sign. This kind of language is a deliberately deceptive propaganda tactic. To say “X indicates Y” is different than saying “X predicts Y” or “X proves Y,” but the average person is not likely to notice the difference, especially when he is incessantly bombarded with similar messages from every direction (repetition is a basic propaganda technique). Notice also how the source of this assertion is described: “Computer models indicate,” as if some impersonal machine had produced this prediction. These “models” must be objective, because machines can’t be biased, right? And yet these models were actually developed by human beings like Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann, who has made a habit of suing his critics in an effort to silence them.

“Computer models indicate” is one of those phrases like “according to scientists” which can be made to function as a form of argument from authority (argumentum ab auctoritate), a fallacy that anyone who has taken an introductory course in logic should recognize. Climate-change cultists are attempting to impress people with the authority of scientific “experts” and their supposedly infallible computer models.

Effective propaganda can completely overwhelm common-sense skepticism, causing people to believe the most wildly implausible claims. One obvious example is the “ancient astronauts” myth, most famously promoted by Eric von Däniken in his 1969 bestseller Chariots of the Gods. Supposedly, various ancient archaeological sites — the Egyptian pyramids, etc. — are so sophisticated in design that they could not possibly have been constructed by mere human beings using pre-modern technology; ergo, visitors from outer space must have been responsible. The History Channel series Ancient Aliens has become a running joke by using deceptive language, e.g., “Some scientists believe . . .”

The idea of space creatures arriving via UFOs to build Pyramids near the Nile is so ludicrous that every intelligent viewer laughs at the suggestion and yet there is an audience for Ancient Aliens. This suggests that our education system has failed so disastrously that many people can’t see through the methods by which the most absurd assertions are made to seem possible, as the narrator soberly intones: “We cannot be certain that Leonardo da Vinci was visited aliens, but . . .”

The flat assertion that the Montana glaciers would melt by 2020 was offered with scientific certainty, thus to make it seem “smart” to agree with the claims of the climate-change movement. We see a similar tactic used by transgender activists, who use pseudo-scientific jargon phrases and other propaganda tactics to advance their agenda. To agree with them is the sophisticated, enlightened and progressive thing to do, their rhetoric suggests, and next thing you know, people are allowing convicted sex offenders to perform for children at public libraries.

Cult mentalities can only flourish, of course, by excluding dissent. A major reason Jim Jones took his Peoples Temple to the Guyana jungle was to isolate them from opposing viewpoints; similarly David Koresh isolated his followers in the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. The success of the climate-change cult can be attributed largely to our government-funded education system, which is controlled by left-wing Democrats to such an extent that middle-school students are subjected to propaganda videos like Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance. Parents who object to this indoctrination will find themselves accused of being “anti-science,” in the same way they’re accused of “hate” for objecting to transgender propaganda in schools. Such accusations are a way of protecting the Left’s cult belief system (whether about “climate change” or “gender” or anything else) from dissent.

It was apparently a 2009 National Geographic article that first promoted the claim that the Montana glaciers would disappear by 2020:

Daniel Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist, warns that glaciers may be melting at an even faster rate than originally predicted, according to National Geographic. Fagre has been conducting research in the national park since the early 1980s.
In 2003, USGS garnered headlines by projecting a disappearance date of 2030 for the Montana glaciers. That was based on studies using 1992 temperature predictions from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Fagre’s current research reveals that temperatures in Glacier National Park have risen higher than was predicted in 1992. The Montana glaciers are now expected to be gone by 2020. And that will dramatically impact the park’s rare and sensitive plants and animals.

Do you see how phrases like “according to National Geographic” and “Fagre’s current research” function as arguments from authority here? The prestige of an important magazine and the “expert” qualifications of Fagre — “a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist . . . conducting research . . . since the early 1980s” — were invoked to suggest that no intelligent person could possibly disagree with this alarming prediction. 

You’re anti-science if you don’t accept the word of climate-change “experts,” and of course, we know that aliens built those Pyramids.



 

Category: Global Warming, Montana, Science

Democrats: Pro-Iran or Anti-American?

Posted on | January 8, 2020 | Comments Off on Democrats: Pro-Iran or Anti-American?

 

Nancy Pelosi wants a vote to express her love of America’s enemies:

The House will vote on a resolution limiting President Trump’s military actions toward Iran following his decision to launch a drone strike that killed a top Iranian commander, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday.
Pelosi told Democratic members in a letter that the House will introduce a vote on a “War Powers Resolution” mandating that the administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran would cease within 30 days if no further congressional action is taken. . . .
Pelosi in the new letter called the administration’s decision a “provocative and disproportionate military airstrike” that she said endangered U.S. service members and diplomats.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer has some thoughts:

As someone who went toe-to-toe with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Afghanistan, I can assure you that Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani got exactly what he deserved when he perished in a U.S. drone strike. What he certainly doesn’t deserve is praise from Democrat lawmakers who would rather mourn a war criminal than credit President Trump for making the world safer.
As the leader of the IRGC’s Quds Force, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, Soleimani was among America’s most vociferous and aggressive foes. He was personally responsible for the deaths of thousands, including the killing and maiming of hundreds of American soldiers. . . .
As I saw firsthand, the IRGC has long promoted terrorist tactics against the United States, sowing chaos and destruction across the Middle East. My own interrogation of an IRGC terror enabler in 2003 revealed that the Iranian government was funding terrorist operations against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. These operations were being directed by Soleimani himself, yet previous administrations refused to act on intelligence that would have allowed us to take him out far sooner. . . .
This man was a terrorist in charge of an IRGC element that had been declared a terrorist organization. He was traveling, in violation of U.N. sanctions, to Iraq, with the apparent intent of inflicting harm on U.S. service members in the region. He was in a combat zone as a combatant in uniform — the legal basis to target him could not have been clearer, and the same goes for the moral justification.
Make no mistake, the targeted killing of Soleimani was not only justified but long overdue. Washington should have taken steps to eliminate this terrorist a long time ago.
The Democrats are politicizing this issue the way they’ve politicized every other issue since President Trump took office. They don’t even seem to care that they have to take the side of America’s enemies in order to criticize Donald Trump.

Let me add this: America’s enemies understand the value of their anti-American allies in the Democratic Party, whose love of “peace” makes it easier for terrorists to kill Americans and our allies. We know, for example, that John Kerry has been acting as an adviser to the Iranian regime, and met with Iranian diplomats in Paris in May 2018. If anyone is really serious about investigating foreign interference in U.S. elections, perhaps they should ask questions about why Iran decided to send a mob of “protesters” to attack the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.



 

Category: Aghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Nancy Pelosi

‘We’re Going to War, Bro’

Posted on | January 8, 2020 | Comments Off on ‘We’re Going to War, Bro’

 

If you know anything at all about the 82nd Airborne, you know that it’s an all-volunteer unit — an elite combat force. You don’t get there unless you want to fight America’s enemies, and so the troops view their deployment to the Middle East as an opportunity:

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (Reuters) — For many of the soldiers, it would be their first mission. They packed up ammunition and rifles, placed last-minute calls to loved ones, then turned in their cellphones. Some gave blood.
The 600 mostly young soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were headed for the Middle East, part of a group of some 3,500 U.S. paratroopers ordered to the region. Kuwait is the first stop for many. Their final destinations are classified.
“We’re going to war, bro,” one cheered, holding two thumbs up and sporting a grin under close-shorn red hair. . . .
The 82nd’s commander, U.S. Army Major General James Mingus, waded through the sea of camouflage-uniformed men and women as they prepared to leave the base near Fayetteville on Sunday. He shook hands with the troops, wishing them luck.
One soldier from Ashboro, Virginia, said he wasn’t surprised when the order came.
“I was just watching the news, seeing how things were going over there,” said the 27-year-old, one of several soldiers Reuters was allowed to interview on condition they not be named. “Then I got a text message from my sergeant saying ‘Don’t go anywhere.’ And that was it.” . . .
While members of the unit — considered the most mobile in the U.S. Army — are used to quick deployments, this was different, said Lieutenant Colonel Mike Burns, an Army spokesman.
“The guys are excited to go, but none of us know how long they’ll be gone,” Burns said. “That’s the toughest part.”
Soldiers were ordered not to bring cellphones, portable video games or any other devices that could be used to communicate with friends and family back home, out of concern that details of their movements could leak out.
“We’re an infantry brigade,” Burns said. “Our primary mission is ground fighting. This is as real as it gets.”

My son used to be in that brigade and he’s kind of bummed out that he’s missing this deployment. On his way back to Georgia after Christmas, he stopped by Fort Bragg to visit with his old platoon. He’s hoping that there’s no war and everybody gets back home safely. On the other hand, if any of Iran’s Shi’ite militia want to take on the best damned combat brigade in the whole world? Trust me, they’re ready, bro.



 

Category: Iran, Iraq, Military

Breaking: Iran Attacks U.S. Forces in Iraq

Posted on | January 7, 2020 | Comments Off on Breaking: Iran Attacks U.S. Forces in Iraq

Details are still very sketchy:

Iran launched more than a dozen missiles at two Iraqi bases that hold US troops in what appears to be retaliation for the American airstrike that killed a top Iranian general last week, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
A US official told CNN that the attacks did not inflict any US casualties, but an assessment is underway. There are casualties among the Iraqis at Ain al-Asad airbase following the attack, an Iraqi security source tells CNN. The number of casualties and whether the individuals were killed or wounded was not immediately clear.
White House aides are making plans for a possible address to the nation by President Donald Trump, according to two officials.
The attack comes days after the US killed top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in an airstrike in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. The administration has sought to cast that strike as an attempt to de-escalate tensions with Iran, but Tehran has vowed revenge for the killing, which it says was an “act of war” and “state terrorism.”

UPDATE: At one point, the media were reporting that President Trump would make a statement, but now it appears he will not do so. Why? Well, there were apparently no U.S. casualties, and the president may have decided that actions speak louder than words. So far — it’s about 9:30 p.m. ET — we have no reports of a U.S. counter-attack, but my guess is that such an attack has been ordered, and we won’t hear from the president until after that action has happened. We’ll see.



 

Category: Iran, Iraq, Military

In The Mailbox: 01.07.20

Posted on | January 7, 2020 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.07.20

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Heinlein On Censorship
EBL: The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Money Tree
Twitchy: Maajid Nawaz Takes Apart Clueless “Experts” Tweeting About Soleimani & The Middle East
Louder With Crowder: Joaquin Phoenix Calls Out Hollywood Climate Hypocrites

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Saving His Son – This Is What Fathers Do
American Conservative: If Baghdad Wants Us Out, We Should Go
American Greatness: Americans Will Rally Around Trump On Iran
American Thinker: Iran is Weak & Soleimani Is Still Dead
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Time Travel News
Babalu Blog: Human Rights Activist Has Testimony From Venezuelans Tortured By Cuban Agents
BattleSwarm: Solyndra 2 – Boondoggle Boogaloo
Cafe Hayek: Government Creates More Negative Externalities Than It Eliminates
CDR Salamander: One Simply Does Not “Throw Away COAs”, also, For A Larger Fleet – An Open Letter To The President
Da Tech Guy: Ricky Gervais Does The Impossible, also, Egyptians For Trump
Don Surber: The State Of The Donald
First Street Journal: The Philadelphia City Council Moves (Further) Left – What Could Go Wrong?
The Geller Report: Jihad Rep Ilhan Omar Signals Iran, also, Iran Threatens To Expose Western Diplomats Who Took Bribes To Create The Iran Nuke Deal
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Cultural Sites & War Crimes
Hollywood In Toto: Denver Critics Hail Jojo Rabbit, Marriage Story, & Little Women, also, The Real Reason Reporters Trashed Gervais’ Monologue
Legal Insurrection: Australia’s Apocalyptic Fires Caused By Poor Land Management & Arson, Not Climate Change, also, Germany Vows To “Save” Iran Nuclear Deal
The PanAm Post: Ecuador Debates 21st Century Socialism, also, Bolivarian Police Killed Over 5,000 Venezuelans In 2019
Power Line: Democrats Vs. The Bee, also, The Washington Post – Message Board For The Deep State
Shark Tank: State Rep Byron Donalds Running For FL-19 – Pro-Trump, Pro-Life, Pro-2A “Black Man Platform”
Shot In The Dark: This Is Nancy Nord Bence’s Mind On…Er, Does Anybody Know?
STUMP: Fixing My Graphs, also, 80% Public Pension Funding Myth Roundup For 2019
The Political Hat: Venezuela – Brand New Decade, Same Old Tyranny
This Ain’t Hell: Footprint Of Freedom, also, More On North Korea
Victory Girls: Defending Obama – Washington Post Now Claims Only Two Americans Killed At Benghazi
Volokh Conspiracy: Sen. Hawley Introduces Resolution To Dismiss Approved (But Not Transmitted) Articles Of Impeachment
Weasel Zippers: MSM Gets Iraqi Parliament’s Resolution Wrong, also, US Denies Iranian Foreign Minister Visa To Enter U.S.
Mark Steyn: Lese Majeste To The Golden Globalists

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Category: Linkagery

ABC News ‘Reporter’ Dons Hijab to Promote Iranian Propaganda

Posted on | January 7, 2020 | Comments Off on ABC News ‘Reporter’ Dons Hijab to Promote Iranian Propaganda

 

“Good Morning Anti-America,” you might say:

ABC News spent another morning sympathizing with our enemies on Monday’s Good Morning America. This time, it was correspondent Martha Raddatz’s turn to be awestruck by the anti-American protests in Iran over the U.S. drone strike-kill of terrorist General Qasem Soleimani, last week. Instead of praising the death of a man who has ordered the murder and torture of countless American soldiers, Raddatz sided with the Iranians, by touting the “mourning” over their “revered” military leader while worrying they would now seek “revenge” on the United States.
The ABC team set the stage, with co-anchors Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos warning of the “crisis growing in Iran” and the “fallout spreading” over the U.S. military strike that killed Soleimani.
Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz then dove in with her over-the-top sympathy piece for people who hate our country. She marveled at the anti-American protests, calling them a “powerful combination of grief and anger,” while hyping the “mourners” “paying tribute” to a “revered” American-killer . . .
From the streets of Tehran, Raddatz spoke with protesters chanting ‘death to America’ and burning our flag, while taking shots at President Trump. Raddatz couldn’t find the words to be critical of their response; instead, she seemed to sympathize:
“Soleimani’s image everywhere. The impact of his death profound. The crowds are massive and emotional. There are many tears here,…” she gushed.
After warning about Iran’s threats of “revenge,” she continued hyping the “emotional” response to the terrorist’s death:
“Inside the funeral service, the emotion just as powerful. The supreme leader of Iran weeping and praying over a coffin draped in the Iraqi flag. This is the largest funeral in Iran since the death of the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989,” Raddatz stated.
Immediately following this, ABC continued trashing Trump in a report touting Democrats upset by the air strike against Soleimani. Anchor George Stephanopoulos complained Trump was “lashing out” at Democrats by “taunting” Congress with a “threat” against Iran if they retaliated.

Almost as if they are “the enemy of the people” or something . . .



 

Category: ABC, Iran

Did Arsonists Cause Australia’s ‘Crisis’?

Posted on | January 7, 2020 | 1 Comment

 

TV news is full of scenes of out-of-control wildfires in Australia, where it’s been a dry, hot summer. Fortunately, the forecast this week in Sydney is for cooler, rainy weather, but we continue seeing televised scenes of people fleeing the catastrophic fires that have destroyed their homes. While environmentalists claim these fires prove the dangers of “climate change,” in fact criminals are making a significant contribution:

More than 180 alleged arsonists have been arrested since the start of the bushfire season, with 29 blazes deliberately lit in the Shoalhaven region of southeast [New South Wales] in just three months.
The Shoalhaven fires were lit between July and September last year, with Kempsey recording 27 deliberately lit fires, NSW Bureau of Crime and Statistics and Research data shows.
Police arrested 183 people for lighting bushfires across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania in the past few months. NSW police data shows 183 people have been charged or cautioned for bushfire-related offences since November 8, and 24 arrested for deliberately starting bushfires.
Queensland police say 101 people have been picked up for setting fires in the bush, 32 adults and 69 juveniles.

One of these arsonists was arrested last week:

A 79-year-old South Australian man has been charged with intentionally lighting four grass and scrub fires in the state’s southeast in recent days.
Police will allege the man lit fires on December 30 and January 2, and then two on Saturday, all in the Kingston area.
He has been refused police bail and will appear in Mount Gambier Magistrates Court on Monday.

There was this report in December:

Almost 100 firebugs have deliberately started blazes across Queensland that have destroyed homes and consumed thousands of hectares of bushland. . . .
A 16-year-old boy found to have started a fire that razed 14 homes in central Queensland and dealt with under the state’s Youth Justice Act.
Two more teens, 14 and 15, were charged with endangering property by fire over a blaze that destroyed two homes and forced hundreds to flee.

In November, there was this report:

NSW Police have charged two men with stealing firefighting equipment during [a Nov. 12] bushfire crisis, as they probe several “suspicious” blazes around the state.
In a separate incident, officers also charged a 19-year-old with impersonating a firefighter and stealing equipment in Sydney’s south.
It comes as police investigate seven “suspicious” fires across the state on Tuesday. . . .
Five people have also faced penalties over breaches of the statewide total fire ban for either using barbecues with an open flame or burning rubbish over the past 24 hours.
Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said it was hard to understand why people would take such risks in catastrophic conditions.
“Unfortunately we know there are some broken individuals out there who will maliciously light fires and we also have people out there who are just plain idiots and will try and light a barbeque on a day that it’s catastrophic,” he said. . . .
NSW Police and fire investigators made a public appeal for more information regarding fires that may have been deliberately lit.
“It’s awful. It angers every firefighter and angers everybody in the community,” RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.
“Clearly we are looking at those as suspicious, particularly the one in Loftus were there were multiple ignition points in the Royal National Park there.”

Whoa — “multiple ignition points“? Clearly, this is evidence of deliberate criminal activity, and we know that dozens of people have been arrested since November for arson. What we don’t know is the identity of these “broken individuals,” or what their motives might have been. In the absence of such information, however, some Australians have begun to suspect that some of these arsonists may be environmentalists (“Greens”) trying to manufacture a crisis to dramatize their cause. We don’t have any proof that this is the case, so it is irresponsible to speculate, and Arthur Chrenkoff advises using common sense:

Most people (I hope) understand that trees tend not to spontaneously combust, no matter what the air temperature is; when we talk about bushfires starting naturally, we are talking about lightning strikes igniting tinder. The climate change argument posits that the more extreme weather conditions — higher temperatures, drought and so forth — make fires, however started, much more destructive and much more difficult to control and extinguish. These are debates to be had between climatologists, forestry experts and firefighters.What is painfully clear, however, that Australia has a firebug crisis. It will no doubt be up to future royal commissions and inquiries to calculate exactly what proportion of the current loss and destruction can be attributed to human action, but I suspect it will be a significant one. Mankind may be causing climate change, but man is most definitely making fires start.

Various leftists have declared that it is a “conspiracy theory” — a “coordinated misinformation campaign” spread by “climate denial traitors” using Twitter “bots” — to call attention to the role played by arsonists in the Australian brush fires. The facts are still the facts, however, and indisputable facts are never “misinformation.”



 

Category: Australia, Crime, Global Warming
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