The Other McCain

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

FMJRA 2.0: SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP

Posted on | February 19, 2024 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP

— compiled by Wombat-socho

People are arguing on X about Starship Troopers again. Ignore the movie (which is fun but dumb) and read the book instead.
SOTD
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

One more for the road.

FMJRA 2.0: The Giant Wombats of Gor
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Joe Biden’s Punch Line Presidency
The Pirate’s Cove
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Rule 5 Monday: Coffee, please
Animal Magnetism
Flappr
EBL
A View From The Beach

In The Mailbox: 02.12.24
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 02.13.24
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

How to Lose a Special Election
Flappr
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 02.14.24
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Kansas City Fans Celebrate Super Bowl Victory With Parade and Mass Shooting
The Daley Gator
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 02.15.24
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 02.16.24
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Top linkers for the week ending February 16:

  1.  (tie) A View From The Beach and EBL (10)
  2.  357 Magnum (9)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

WTF, ‘Eritrean Migrant Factions’?

Posted on | February 18, 2024 | Comments Off on WTF, ‘Eritrean Migrant Factions’?

It is claimed that the president of Eritrea is a brutal dictator, but seeing how these people behave, who can blame him for being brutal?

Riots between rival factions of Eritrean migrants broke out in the Dutch city of The Hague on Saturday evening as police officers were left injured and cars were set on fire outside a conference centre.
The home of the war criminal trying International Criminal Court saw war zone-like scenes brought to its doorstep as supporters of the leftist government of Eritrean dictator Isaias Afwerki gathered in the Opera Hall Centre in The Hague’s city centre on Saturday evening.
A group of anti-government Eritreans gathered outside of the building in protest, however, it quickly devolved into open riots, with the anti-government faction smashing the windows of the hall and setting it on fire.
Riot police were dispatched to help protect the building from further damage and the pro-government Eritrean group within the conference centre were escorted from the building under police escort, Der Telegraaf reports.

The description of Afwerki as “leftist” might be misleading; like, you’re saying he’s the Justin Trudeau of East Africa or what? By describing him as “leftist,” you’re trying to get me to be against Afwerki, but seeing as how it’s the opponents of the dictator causing the riots, maybe I should be pro-Afwerki. Having searched my conscience for a reason to give a flying fuck about Eritrea, however, I must confess I found nothing. Instead, I’m leaning toward the conclusion that Eritreans are nothing but trouble and we should send them all back to Eritrea.

What are these people doing in Charlotte, North Carolina?

Charlotte police on Saturday made several arrests, deployed pepper spray and closed a major road for an “unlawful protest” that they said blocked a business hosting a cultural festival.
Police in a news release identified the festival on Monroe Road as an “Eritrean cultural event.” The Charlotte Observer’s news partner, WSOC-TV, reported the protest was over international politics, with two groups at the scene: one supporting the government of the east African country of Eritrea, and another saying the country’s president is a brutal dictator.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department posted photos from the scene of officers in riot gear and said its Civil Emergency Unit was met with violence and aggression and that the crowd of 200 set a tractor-trailer on fire.
By the time the scene cleared around 9:30 p.m. Saturday, police said they arrested eight people, including three male participants who face charges of impeding traffic and a female participant who faces charges of impeding traffic, inciting a riot and assault on a government official for hitting an officer. The other arrests were for charges that included impeding traffic and failure to disperse, a news release said.
Police said they seized a firearm from the female protester.

This is America, OK? Your disagreements over the government of Eritrea are of zero interest to us and, in consideration of your being here (and not there) we expect you to behave yourselves. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure a majority of Americans — especially the people in North Carolina whose roads you’re blocking — would be happy to deport all of you Eritreans.



 

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Category: Eritrea, Netherlands, North Carolina

How Trump Derangement Syndrome, #MeToo and Tumblrinas Ruined Disney

Posted on | February 18, 2024 | Comments Off on How Trump Derangement Syndrome, #MeToo and Tumblrinas Ruined Disney

You probably never saw Raya and the Last Dragon, which was not exactly a box-office blockbuster — it barely broke even — and is certainly not destined to be remembered as a classic Disney cartoon.

Nevertheless, Raya and the Last Dragon is historically important because the 2021 film marks the decisive turning point in the downward trajectory of Disney. Ace of Spades on Friday linked and excerpted a lengthy recounting of this history by Alan Ng, editor-in-chief of the website Film Threat. “The D-Files, Part 3: Disney the Killer of Dreams.”

Because Ng’s story is such a long one, and because Ace’s excerpts do not provide the necessary backstory for those who haven’t followed the twists and turns of Disney’s trajectory, I feel obligated to give readers a thumbnail history. Under the leadership of Michael Eisner, Disney in the late 1980s became the most successful studio in Hollywood and, beginning with 1989’s The Little Mermaid — which won two Academy Awards; Best Original Score and Best Original Song for “Under the Sea” — launched a string of animated features that became known as “The Disney Renaissance.” Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995) — Disney could do no wrong. Not only did these cartoon features bring in blockbuster box-office revenues, they also sold lots of VHS and DVD copies (every kid in the 1990s and 2000s grew up watching these videos over and over), to say nothing of the toys, costumes and other merchandising sales. Meanwhile, with funding from Steve Jobs of Apple computers, Pixar Studios began producing feature-length computer-animated movies: Toy Story (1995), A Bug’s Life (1998), Monsters, Inc. (2001), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), etc. The popularity of this new-style animation eclipsed the old ink-and-paint animation style, and by 2006, Disney bought out Pixar.

In 2009, Disney added the Marvel franchise to its portfolio, and in 2012, bought Lucasfilms, bringing the Star Wars franchise into the brand. Bob Iger had succeeded Eisner as head of Disney in 2005, and these acquisitions — Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars — put Iger atop a seemingly indestructible entertainment juggernaut. The hits just kept coming, with the Pirates of the Caribbean series (five films, 2003-2017) adding to the Disney empire’s pile of successes. And then Trump happened.

It is difficult to find words for just how much hatred and craziness were generated in Hollywood by Donald Trump’s 2016 defeat of Hillary Clinton. The show-business moguls had gone all-in for Hillary, and were as stunned as anyone when, on the evening of November 8, 2016, Trump won decisively in the Electoral College although (as Democrats never stopped pointing out over the next few years) Clinton had won the popular vote by a 3-million vote margin. Along the way to this result, Hillary had stirred up a frothing cauldron of feminist sentiment, which did not dissipate with her defeat. Instead, there was born the Women’s March movement and, eventually, the #MeToo campaign, launched in the fall of 2017 and initially inspired by widespread accusations of sexual abuse by movie mogue Harvey Weinstein. Very quickly, #MeToo — which must be seen, in retrospect, as a symptomatic side effect of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) — came knocking on the doors at Disney.

In acquiring Pixar Studios in 2006, Disney had regained the services of genius John Lasseter, who had started as an apprentice animator for Disney in 1979 but left in the mid-1980s to pursue computer animation, first with Lucas, and then with Pixar, where he directed their first three smash hits, Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Toy Story II. After Pixar was acquired by Disney, Lasseter was promoted to chief creative officer of Walt Disney Feature Animation, reporting directly to Disney CEO Iger. On November 21, 2017, the bombshell struck: The 60-year-old Lasseter was “taking a leave of absence,” it was reported, after complaints of “unwanted advances” and other similar misconduct.

The “leave of absence” proved permanent, and in June 2018, Lasseter’s exit from Disney was announced. Lasseter was replaced by Pete Docter and Jennifer Lee, the latter largely responsible for the 2013 hit Frozen. But this became more that the mere replacement of an executive, as Alan Ng writes, Disney decided “radical changes needed to be made in the racial and gender makeup of its leadership and creative process. This change began with Raya and the Last Dragon.” After that film began development in 2018, “a major recruitment push was made to hire more women from outside the company to reach a 50/50 male/female balance for equity’s sake.” It should go without saying that these new hires were younger and less experienced than the “old white guys” who got shoved out the door to make way for this “equity” crew and, given that they knew they were only hired for political reasons, the new hires brought with them a militant attitude. This brings us to the most shocking of Alan Ng’s revelations about Disney’s new hiring process:

Instead of hiring formally trained artists from traditional institutions like Cal-Arts, Disney (with the help of Women in Animation) explicitly recruited from social media sites, including Tumblr and Reddit — a fact confirmed by numerous sources. . . .
What mattered was that your social media profile checked the right boxes (i.e., “female” and “not White”). . . .
Another source noted that Tumblr was “UNEQUIVOCALLY” the base for new talent. Women from the social media site were quickly scooped up and placed on Raya and the Last Dragon, along with other animated shows and features. Talent was always an afterthought. It was more important that these women could pad the quotas and become useful foot soldiers for the cause of DEI. Once in, the activists were asked for referrals, and now they were in a position to hire other artists from their “friend squads.” They were now hiring based seemingly on their politics; these “friend squads” quickly created a powerful contingent not just at Disney. . . .
he vast majority of the newly hired Tumblr talent is self-taught. There’s nothing wrong with that as an artistic starting point. Successfully copying your favorite artists is the first indicator that one has minimal talent. The problem is that Tumblr is not art college and will not give you the proper training required to grow. Tumblr-based artists are constantly being affirmed by fellow Tumblr artists…which breeds an unhealthy level of narcissism and bad habits. Constructive criticism is the key to growth, but online criticism of one’s art is always taken personally and inevitably sparks drawn-out struggle sessions of hurt feelings followed by personal attacks. Best to keep your criticisms to yourself if you want to be part of the “friend squad.”
It is well-known in the art community Tumblr has a bad reputation. In fact, “Tumblr cartoons” is a term for awful animation featuring bad design and uninspired storytelling. One source told me, “Tumblr was Ground Zero for this mess we’re in. . . .”

This is madness, and it’s important to understand how this obsession with DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) connects to Trump Derangement Syndrome and the feminist theme of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Hillary’s message was, “It’s her turn” — voters owed her the job, because she’s a woman. Electing Trump instead was a gigantic middle-finger answer to that demand, provoking a feminist rage that fueled the #MeToo movement, took down Lasseter and resulted in Disney hiring a bunch of women artists from Tumblr, effectively creating a No-Males-Allowed climate inside the studio. As Alan Ng writes: “The mission of DEI is not equality…it’s revenge. The final outcome is a complete takeover…a reset…of the entertainment industry as a whole.”



 

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Category: Feminism, History, Movies

In The Mailbox: 02.16.24

Posted on | February 17, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 02.16.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Finished the first peak stint in the tax mines. Home to Tonopah tomorrow.
We have a sudden vacancy in Pete’s Continual Draft League – Atlanta is available to an interested player.
They had a pretty formidable lineup of hitters last season, but their pitching sucked. 
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Good Guys 2 Bad Guys 0
EBL: Alexei Navalny, RIP
Twitchy: “Comedic Choir of Misfits”, “That Isn’t The Flex You Think It Is”, and Stephen Colbert Channels His Inner Keith Olbermann
Louder With Crowder: “I don’t feel mature enough to see any man’s p****”: Students forced to confront school board over woke “inclusive” bathroom policy
Vox Popoli: Never. Question. Me, A Bizarre Headline, A Library Survey, British Asset Dies in Russia, and The Cost of Cowardice
According To Hoyt: The Peasants are Revolting, The Perfect Storm, and The Tuna Equation
Monster Hunter Nation: Larry is not a fan of social media companies, Announcing a new upcoming fantasy novel, and A new anthology of MHI stories, from the Czech Republic!
Upstream Reviews: Night’s Black Agents
Stoic Observations: The Dad Bod Party

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: So Do Ship Numbers Matter Or Not?
Don Surber: No outrage, no readers
STUMP: U.S. Cancer Death Rates by Race/Ethnicity 1968-2023

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 02.15.24

Posted on | February 16, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 02.15.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

One more day in Carson City/Dayton. 

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Upgraded, also, The Underdoggs
Twitchy: Fulton County DA Fani Willis Has Taken The Stand – Here Are Some, Uh, Highlights, Illegal Who Beat Up NYC Cops Now Also Wanted For Robbery, and Watch What Morally Compromised UNRWA Chief Martin Griffith Says About Hamas
Louder With Crowder: “This is epic”: MSNBC legal analyst declares Fani Willis’s case against Trump is “game over”
Vox Popoli: Angels vs Demons, Bad Choices Abound, and The Humor of the Hugo

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: MAGA vs. Mike Gallagher: The Inside Story
American Greatness: Putin Says He Prefers Biden over Trump Because He’s ‘More Predictable’
American Thinker: What the Media hasn’t Told you About Carroll v. Trump, also, The Verdict Against Mark Steyn Effectively Stifles Speech In America
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Red Thursday News
Babalu Blog: Some blockade! Cuba imported $10 million worth of vehicles from U.S. in 2023, 300,000 Cubans fled island & requested asylum in 2023, and Repression update: Latest tally on political prisoners in Cuba: 1,066, including 33 minors
BattleSwarm: China’s Fake Log Princesses
Behind The Black: SpaceX successfully launches Intuitive Machines Odysseus lunar lander, SpaceX moves its corporation home from Delaware to Texas, OSIRIS-REx brought home twice as much material from Bennu than planned, The shoreline of a Martian lava sea, and Space Force cancels major satellite contract with Northrop Grumman
Cafe Hayek: Socialism Does Not Strengthen An Economy, also, A Note on Covid Carelessness
CDR Salamander: The PRC’s Peacetime Island Hopping Continues
Da Tech Guy: Sports Thoughts Under The Fedora, also, Hey Progressives Nudge This
Don Surber: NYC may ban Tide Pods
First Street Journal: Stupidity x Stupidity = Stupidity², also, More proof that The Philadelphia Inquirer and District Attorney Larry Krasner side with the thugs, not the police
Gates Of Vienna: “The Netherlands is in the Service of the Migrant”, Brutopia – The Poshlost of Mohammed, and Jew-Hatred is Alive and Well in Germany
The Geller Report: Nazi Collaborator George Soros Buying Second-Largest Chain of Radio Stations, Hundreds of American Radio Stations Ahead of 2024 Election
Hollywood In Toto: Nickelback’s Revenge – Hate to Love Doc Bows This Spring, Joe Rogan Defends Jon Stewart from Leftist Rage Over Biden Gags, and Matisyahu, Gelman Blame Cancellations on Pro-Israel Views
The Lid: If Only Donald Trump Could Avoid All His Ad Hominem Attacks
Legal Insurrection: California’s Nanny State War on Plastic Bags Backfired…Bigly, Hawaii Investigating Five Cases of Whooping Cough in One Visiting Family, Border Patrol Agents Have Encountered Over 20,000 Chinese Nationals in Fiscal Year 2024, Trump Georgia Case – DA Willis Loses Temper, Receives Warning From Judge in Explosive Testimony, and Far Left Billionaire Described as the ‘New George Soros’ Recruits Republican Lobbyists
Nebraska Energy Observer: A Substitution
Outkick: Next Splash In College Football Is A Head Coach Leaving After Spring Practice? Time To Change The Calendar, Kansas City Royals Release Images Of Proposed New Stadium, Iowa Superstar Caitlin Clark Hits The Mark, Passes Kelsey Plum’s All-Time NCAA Scoring Record, Rob Manfred Defends New Jerseys, Wants To Expand MLB And Fix Free Agency, and Female Super Bowl Viewership Skyrockets Amid Taylor Swift Hype
Power Line: Climate Activists Are Evil, also, Fani Takes the Stand [Updated]
Shark Tank: Mills Says America Was Safer Under Trump
Shot In The Dark: Kind Of A Good News/Bad News Situation, also, Informal Yet Rigorously Scientific Survey
The Political Hat: Starving To Death As Medical Treatment – Self-Starvation As Euthanizable Condition; Doctors Starving Patients To Death; Caregivers Starving Patients To Death
This Ain’t Hell: Thursday…shooting and a favorite resurfaces, Policy update allows Sailors to put their hands in their pockets, and Iran Claims South Pole
Transterrestrial Musings: AI GIrlfriends, About That Russian Nuclear Satellite Thingy, and “Passion Is Not Misconduct”
Victory Girls: Palestinians Get To Stay And Have American Jobs
Volokh Conspiracy: Biden is Right to Grant Temporary Refuge to Palestinian Migrants Already in US, but Should go Further
Watts Up With That: When polar bears die, they die of starvation: new Nature paper is propaganda, not news, Academics Blame Lower Trust In Scientists On Everything But Bad Scientists, and Major American Financial Institutions Withdraw From Global Climate Investment Org In Blow To Green Agenda
The Federalist: Top U.S. Investors Aid CCP Abuses By Dumping Billions Of Dollars Into Chinese Tech, From Trump To Kennedy, Democrats Don’t Want To Let Anyone On The Ballot But Their Own Candidates, Our Most Serious National Security Threat Isn’t Russian Nukes In Space, It’s Intelligence Agencies In Washington, Elizabeth Warren Wants To File Your Taxes, Tony Bobulinski Flames Jamie Raskin For ‘Assassination Of Character’ Post-House Interview, Will The Kickapoo Tribe Be Dragged Into The Abbott-Biden Fray Over Illegal Immigration? and Did Our Intelligence Agencies Suggest The Russia Hoax To Hillary Clinton’s Campaign?
Mark Steyn: Obama’s Third Term

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Category: Linkagery

Kansas City Fans Celebrate Super Bowl Victory With Parade and Mass Shooting

Posted on | February 15, 2024 | Comments Off on Kansas City Fans Celebrate Super Bowl Victory With Parade and Mass Shooting

When this story started breaking Wednesday afternoon, there was a lot of confusion and CNN (I watch, so you don’t have to) had on some “experts” who were talking about terrorism, blah blah blah, which I didn’t believe for one second. Pardon me if I’ve been paying enough attention to news about mass shootings to have some pre-conceived beliefs about the likely scenario when gunfire erupts someplace like downtown Kansas City.

Far be it from me to engage in wild speculation, or to rush out a story based on a bystander’s video I’d seen online, but my hunch was this was some kind of beef between teenage gangbangers, likely committed with stolen pistols featuring extended magazines and a “Glock switch” for automatic fire: “Pray and spray” mode, which explains the high ratio of wounded victims to fatalities. Your teenage gangbanger doesn’t spend any time at the target range, OK? He doesn’t aim his weapon, he just points it in the general direction of whoever he’s beefing with. And these “usual suspects” have no regard for bystanders:

The Kansas City Police revealed new updates on the shooting that left one dead and several injured during the Super Bowl victory parade.
Police Chief Stacey Graves said three suspects, including two juveniles, have been taken into custody relating to the shooting, and 22 people have been injured, according to The Associated Press (AP). A mother of two children, 44-year-old Lisa Lopez-Galvan, was reportedly killed in the shooting.
The victims injured in the attack ranged between the ages of 8 and 47 years old, and half are younger than 16, The AP reported. The University Health Truman Medical Center and Children’s Mercy Hospital confirmed they received victims from the shooting as emergency patients.
Graves said the shooting began as a “dispute between several people that ended in gunfire,” and confirmed the shooting was not linked to terrorism and the suspects have not yet been charged, according to CNN. . . .
“We are working to determine the involvement of others. And it should be noted we have recovered several firearms. This incident is still a very active investigation,” Graves said at a news conference, according to the outlet.

By now, liberals are already talking about new laws to reduce “gun violence,” as they call it, without acknowledging the likelihood that none of the perpetrators of this shooting were legally carrying. If they weren’t minors, they were convicted felons and, as I say, it’s a good bet that all of the firearms used were stolen. This is connected to the “criminal justice reform” attitude that mere property crimes shouldn’t be punished. Liberal prosecutors have started taking a turn-’em-loose attitude toward thieves and burglars, based on the misguided belief that sending people to prison for such property crimes is an example of “systemic racism” or whatever. But guess what thieves and burglars like to steal? Guns!

So next thing you know, every 15-year-old wannabe thug in the ’hood is packing a 9mm with a 33-round magazine and a “Glock switch,” and then you have atrocities like this one in Kansas City, which causes the liberals to demand new gun laws when they don’t want to enforce the gun laws we already have because that would mean “mass incarceration.”

If (and it’s a pretty big “if”) police are able to identify the shooters, don’t expect to see mug shots of the suspects on TV. That wouldn’t do much to advance the liberal narrative about “gun violence.” We’re supposed to think maybe it was NRA lifetime members wearing red MAGA caps who did the shooting, and don’t CNN to report anything to the contrary.

UPDATE: More details from a shooting victim:

A man who was struck by a bullet during the mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory parade on Wednesday has spoken out about the ordeal, explaining what he and his family saw prior to the gunman opening fire.
Jacob Gooch Sr. of nearby Leavenworth, Kansas corroborated testimony from others that the horrific act was sparked by a dispute . . .
In an interview with CBS Mornings, Gooch explained that while he did not see the shooter himself, he did hear a woman say “Don’t do it, not here, this is stupid” before gunshots rang out.
Gooch, who was shot in the ankle and has been in and out of hospital dealing with broken bones in his foot, said he and his family initially thought someone had set off fireworks, but soon realized that wasn’t the case.
He went on to note that his wife and daughter “saw the gun come out and start shooting.”
“Some lady was holding [the suspect] back and people had started backing up,” he added, “and then he pulled it out and just started shooting and spinning in a circle.”

Like I said, “Pray and spray.”



 

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Category: Crime, Missouri

In The Mailbox: 02.14.24

Posted on | February 15, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 02.14.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

From r/GirlsUndPanzer

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: When Did Meeting Random People From The Internet Become A Good Idea?
EBL: Ash Wednesday, also, Diversity Shooters Coming To America
Twitchy: Newsweek Proclaims Justice Thomas An Enemy To Black People, National Geographic Names Drag Queen Traveler Of The Year, and Obama’s CIA Had Foreign Intel Agencies Spy On The Trump Campaign
Louder With Crowder: AWFL woke woman lets illegal migrants live with her, automatically turns them into her slaves
Vox Popoli: Bambi Sanctions Godzilla, also, So Thankful
Upstream Reviews: Doris Dances & Fires Rekindled by Julian Hawthorne
Ammo.com: Concealed Carry Statistics
Stoic Observations: Strange Days & The Year of the Dragon
Postcards From Barsoom: Digital Purdah As A Solution To Female Internet Brain?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: A Real Lent Sacrifice
American Conservative: GOP Majority Approaches Knife’s Edge With Special Election Loss, also, Mike Johnson’s Time for Choosing
American Greatness: LGBTQ Ministers Accused of Mocking Christians With ‘Glitter Ash Wednesday’
American Thinker: What Does an Insurrection Look Like?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Some blockade! Cuba purchased record-breaking amount of food from U.S. in 2023, Cuba obtains 99 medical transport vehicles, including 2 ambulances donated by Dutch capitalists, and Happy Ash Wednesday! Have a blessed Lent! Ay!
BattleSwarm: Speaker Mike Johnson: No Foreign Aid Until You Address The Border
Behind The Black: One instrument on Perseverance has a problem, Update on SpaceX preparations for 3rd Superheavy/Starship orbital test launch, Orbital perturbations caused by passing stars might very well have caused past extinctions, Spiders on the rim of a Martian crater, and Despite big bucks from the U.S., the stalemate in the Ukraine continues, with only minor Russian gains
Cafe Hayek: Get in Touch
CDR Salamander: War In WESTPAC? Really? You And What PGM Inventory?
Chicago Boyz: “Public Service”
Dana Loesch: Trump’s Picks To Run The RNC Aren’t Good
Don Surber: Dodging the 13th Amendment
First Street Journal: Very compassionate academics want “juvenile” definitions extended beyond age 18, so they can let violent twenty-somethings be “reformed”
Gates Of Vienna: Between a Rock and Hard Place
The Geller Report: CBS Fires Award-Winning Senior Correspondent Catherine Herridge After Reporting Joe Biden Kept Classified Documents Involving Bribes From Foreign Countries
Glenn Reynolds: The Practice Effect
Hollywood In Toto: The Left Slams Jon Stewart for Mocking ‘Elderly’ Joe Biden, also, Jon Stewart Couldn’t Beat ‘Gutfeld!’ (or Fox News)
The Lid: You Will Live In Tiny Homes, Drive Electric Vehicles, And Be Happy
Legal Insurrection: Over 2 Billion Metric Tons of Rare Earth Minerals Discovered in Wyoming, Several Iowa Universities To Review “Diversity Scholarships” After “Civil Complaints“, UNH Closes Art Museum Due to Budget Cuts But Keeps DEI Administrators, GWU Students Petition School to Revive SJP Chapter That Projected Pro-Hamas Messages on School Building, and Teen Suspected of Attacking Cops in Times Square Arrested for Robbing Macy’s in Queens
Michelle Catalano: Walk out to winter, also, It’s the end of the newsletter as you know it
Nebraska Energy Observer: Don’t Mess with Texas
Outkick: ‘Inside the NFL’ Mutes Recorded Travis Kelce-Andy Reid Sideline Audio, Ex-NFL Coach Would Rather Throw Up Than Listen To Tony Romo, Megan Rapinoe The Narcissist Mocks Christians Again While Saying Her Haters Have A ‘Special Place In Hell’, Travis Kelce Is Producing A Movie With Financial Backing From Biden’s Green Energy, Clay Travis And Rich Eisen Go At It On Gun Control After Chiefs Parade Shooting, and Nearly 1 in 5 Americans Believe Taylor Swift Part Of Covert Government Effort To Rig Election For Biden
Power Line: Democrats Against Democracy, also, Joe Biden’s Third War?
Shark Tank: “Get Off Your Butts & Fix It!”
Shot In The Dark: And So It Begins
This Ain’t Hell: Senate approves bill that provides military aid to foreign countries, but falls short on US border security
Transterrestrial Musings: Rare Earths
Victory Girls: Lara Trump As RNC Co-Chair? Who Benefits?
Volokh Conspiracy: Climate Activists Pour Red Powder On Constitution Case At National Archives
Watts Up With That: Yes, Popular Mechanics, Scientists ‘Have Miscalculated Our Global Warming Timeline’, Professor Dargaville: We Need More Grid Scale Batteries to Combat Supply Outages, and Wind and Solar Slaughtering India’s Iconic Bird
The Federalist: DOD Deceives Military Parents, Doubles Down On DEI Initiatives In K-12 Schools, Massachusetts School Forces Middle Schooler To Remove ‘There Are Only Two Genders’ Shirt, Democrats Scramble To Fix Consequences Of Their Spending Because It’s Election Year, New Ad Proves Mitch McConnell’s Open Border Deal Was A Huge Gift To Dems, Sources Say U.S. Intelligence Agencies Tasked Foreign Partners With Spying On Trump’s 2016 Campaign, Chinese Nationals Are Surging Over The Border — This Isn’t A Crisis, It’s An Invasion, and How Many Elections Must High-Polling Republicans Lose To Learn Ballots Matter More Than Votes?
Mark Steyn: Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue, End of Part One, and Live Around the Planet – Happy Valensteyn’s Day

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Category: Linkagery

How to Lose a Special Election

Posted on | February 14, 2024 | Comments Off on How to Lose a Special Election

What is the first thing you notice about that picture? It shows last week’s televised debate for the special election in New York’s 3rd Congressional District — a seat vacated because fraudulent “Republican” Rep. George Santos was kicked out of Congress. Don’t even get me started on how Santos got elected up there, but let me instead repeat the question: What do you notice about that picture of last week’s debate?

Well, it’s a black woman debating a white man. Don’t worry, I won’t accuse you of racism — “RAAAAACISM!” — for noticing this, because guess what? I think voters in the 3rd District noticed it, too.

You may not realize it, but the black woman in that picture was the Republican candidate, and the old white guy — Tom Suozzi — is the Democrat, who just got himself elected to Congress:

Former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) has won the special election for New York’s Third Congressional District in a blow to House Republicans’ already thin majority.
Suozzi . . . beat out Republican Mazi Melesa Pilip, a member of the Nassau County legislature who served as a paratrooper in the Israeli Defense Forces. . . .
Suozzi will fill the seat that was vacated when embattled former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) was expelled from Congress in December. Once Suozzi is sworn in, Republicans will only have a six-seat advantage over Democrats, at 219 seats to 213, amid key spending battles with the Democrat-controlled Senate and the Biden administration.

The New York Republican Party is decadent and depraved. As in most Democrat-controlled “blue” states, the GOP exists in New York merely as a local organization in rural areas. Because there is a near-zero chance that any Republican could win a statewide race, no one in New York with political ambition would choose to be a Republican. And, in case you haven’t figured this out yet, politicians are motivated mainly by ego and ambition, rather than by devotion to some abstract “principle.”

This is a factor that most voters don’t understand. The difference between us (i.e., regular people) and them (aspiring politicians and other members of the political class) is that for them, politics is not really about ideas or issues or policies. No, for them, it’s about getting paid. It’s a job, a career, a way to pay their bills, and they will say or do whatever is necessary to win elections, without regard to whatever “principles” they may claim to cherish. One of the reason the journalism business has gone into the toilet is because the field started attracting “Democratic operatives with bylines,” political activists who consider it their duty to promote whatever line of propaganda will most benefit the Democratic Party. That’s their job, see? It’s what they get paid to do, and otherwise they are unemployable, because they have no other skill.

Speaking of CNN — do I know how to write a transition, or what? — this morning the Last-Place Cable News Network was enthusiastically pumping up the Democrat’s victory in this special election as signifying some kind of Important National Trend favorable to Joe Biden’s reelection chances. It was so bad, I just turned the TV off for a couple of hours, rather than subject myself to this insultingly bad interpretation of why Tom Suozzi won. How about money?

Democrats vastly outspent Republicans, putting in $13.8 million to the GOP’s $8.1 million.
House Majority PAC, House Democrats’ main outside group, contributed the most: $6 million. Its Republican counterpart, the Congressional Leadership Fund, spent $4.3 million. Suozzi and the DCCC each spent around $3.9 million, and had a $94,000 coordinated buy. Meanwhile, the NRCC placed around $1 million and Pilip spent a little over $300,000; the committee and Pilip also spent $1.4 million on coordinated buys. Secure New York State PAC, a Republican group, put close to $1.1 million into the airwaves.

How about the district’s voting history? Democrats control the legislature in New York and this district was redrawn after the 2020 Census, so you can’t judge its party alignment based on previous results, but Tom Suozzi represented part of the current district for three terms (elected in 2016, 2018 and 2020) before leaving Congress to make a failed gubernatorial bid. So he came into the campaign with strong name recognition whereas Mazi Pilip was just a member of the Nassau County legislature (what would be called a county commissioner in most of the country).

When you’re running a county commissioner against a former three-term member of Congress, and you get out-spent by $5 million — well, how does this predictable defeat tell us anything about national trends?

You can see why, even though I normally watch CNN (so you don’t have to), I had to turn off my office TV today, rather than listen to them explain how this special election shows MAGA is totally doomed!

In case you haven’t noticed, Donald Trump is not a county commissioner with low name recognition. He’s also not an Ethiopian Jew.

Far be it from me to say that the Republican Party should never nominate Ethiopian Jews for Congress. In fact, having raised her profile in this special election campaign, perhaps Mazi Pilip has a bright future ahead of her in GOP politics, and her success in that endeavor would make me very happy. But was she really the ideal candidate to face Tom Suozzi in this special election, in a district that is 70% white, 15% Asian, 11% Hispanic and barely 3% black? Going out on a limb here, but in terms of finding a candidate who makes the best “fit” for a district, it seems to me that the New York GOP might have done a better job.

Readers are probably like, “Well, duh,” but you have to understand that the talking heads on CNN were all hyped up about this election as a national bellwether, and not once did any of them mention the fact that the GOP thought it was a brilliant idea to run an Ethiopian Jew as their candidate in a 70% white district, while Democrats nominated an old white guy and won. Gosh, too bad the Republican Party in New York doesn’t have any old white guys . . . Wait a minute. What did you say?

“RAAAAACIST!”



 

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Category: Election, New York, Racism
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