The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 12.24.18

Posted on | December 25, 2018 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: It’s A Wonderful Life
Twitchy: If You Criticized Talib Kweli Green For His Tweet About The Nazi’s Berlin Wall, You’re An Actual Nazi
Louder With Crowder: Actor Calls Fro James Bond To Be Played By Transgender “Woman”

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Champagne Level German Propaganda, also, Podcast #98 – The Expectations Episode
American Power: Jonah Goldberg On Conservatism, also, Done With Disparate Impact Analysis
American Thinker: Did The Media Care When Obama Fired General Mattis?
Animal Magnetism: Merry Christmas Eve!
BattleSwarm: Sh0eOnHead Takes On Twitter Pedophiles, also, A Life Worth Celebrating
CDR Salamander: On Mattis
Da Tech Guy: Will People Care About Womens’ Sports If Transgendered “Women” Dominate? also, If Only The Knights Of Columbus Were A Muslim Organization Instead Of Catholic
Don Surber: Government Shutdown Impact, Day 2, Day 3
Dustbury: Strange Search Engine Queries, also, Oh Snap Three Snap
Fred On Everything: Papua New Guinea Looks Better & Better
The Geller Report: NYT Propaganda – “What A Muslim Could Teach Trump Supporters About Jesus”, also, Canadian Imam Preaches “Wishing Christians ‘Merry Christmas’ Is Worse Than Murder”
Hogewash: Blognet, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Condescending Vice Trips On Its Own Propaganda, also, Into The Spider-Verse – Diversity Done Right
Joe For America: Remember When This Principal Said Parents Would Be Arrested For Walking Their Kids To School?
JustOneMinute: And A Merry Christmas To All
Legal Insurrection: Hamas Tunnel Engineer Dies In Workplace Accident, also, Even NYT Finally Acknowledges Womens’ March Antisemitism
The PanAm Post: On January 10, Venezuela Won’t Have A Legitimate President
Power Line: The Ellison Question – Just Shut Up, also, Schumer Digs In
Shark Tank: Scott Announces Senate Committee Memberships
Shot In The Dark: When You’ve Lost Moonbeam…
STUMP: Twas The Night Before Taxmas
The Jawa Report: Sandcrawler PSA – Government Shutdown And You
The Political Hat: Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! also, The Twelve Posts Of Christmas Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, & Day 12
This Ain’t Hell: Russia’s Reaction To US Pullout From Syria, also, 104 Years Ago On Christmas Eve
Victory Girls: LeBron James On Slavery, Jewish Money, And Other Flapdoodle
Volokh Conspiracy: Why Judge O’Connor Was Wrong To Allow Plaintiffs Standing In The ACA Challenge Case
Weasel Zippers: WaPo Reporter Tries To Shut Down Wall GoFundMe – DENIED! also, Trump Overhauls Wildfire Prevention – The Media Totally Misses It
Mark Steyn: The Mark Steyn Christmas Show, also, Christmas In The Trenches


Category: Linkagery

Kulaks of New York

Posted on | December 24, 2018 | Comments Off on Kulaks of New York

If you have studied Soviet history, you know that Josef Stalin waged a campaign of economic warfare against the kulaks — peasants who resisted the Bolshevik agenda of agricultural collectivization. The Democrats who control the state government of New York are doing something similar to their own “class enemies,” deliberately destroying the economy in Republican majority communities:

Since the start of the decade, a million people have moved out of New York.
For Andrew Cuomo, that’s not a problem, that’s a victory.
It has solidified his party’s hold on power, and it has reshaped the state and its culture in a fashion more congenial to his interests and agenda.
The subject comes up because of new Census Bureau numbers which show, yet again, that more people decide to move out of New York than any other state in the nation. Those move outs are so numerous that they outstrip population growth and leave the state with fewer total people. . . .
[M]ore than 40 percent of all the net population loss in America took place in New York.
Under Andrew Cuomo.
And that’s a win for him.
Because almost all of New York’s net population loss took place upstate, where values and party enrollment are in conflict with the governor and his progressive agenda.
Forty-two of New York’s 50 upstate counties have had a net loss of population in the last year. All of them were counties that voted against Andrew Cuomo in the recent gubernatorial election. . . .
There is a decade-long depopulation of upstate New York underway, and it is hard to conclude that that is anything other than a policy objective of Andrew Cuomo. In this dramatically bifurcated state, Cuomo’s efforts to make New York — in his words — “the progressive capital of the nation” require a weakening and suppression of conservative, rural and Republican upstate.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)



 

Category: Economics, New York

Transgender Rage: You Can’t Have a Women’s Symbol at a Women’s College

Posted on | December 24, 2018 | 1 Comment

Mount Holyoke College is a “prestigious” women’s college, in the sense that “prestigious” is a synonym for expensive ($64,658 a year, including room and board). It’s one of the so-called “Seven Sisters” colleges of New England, so if you’re rich and your daughter is a radical lesbian with a mania for social justice, Mount Holyoke is the place to send her. (When I jokingly called it the “Western Massachusetts Marxist Lesbian Indoctrination Camp,” some students at Mount Holyoke adopted this as an unofficial slogan and actually printed it on T-shirts.)

Recently, Mount Holyoke commissioned a design firm to create a new logo for the school, and one of the designs offered was this:

 

Very clever — when turned on its side, you see, the logo displays the female Venus symbol associated with the feminist movement. You might think this would be popular at a women’s college, but Third Wave “social justice” is all about inclusion, and this logo would not do:

A prestigious women’s college in Massachusetts has pulled the plug on a plan to include the Venus symbol, a traditional icon of feminism and women’s empowerment, on its new logo design.
According to a Tuesday press release, Mount Holyoke College recently commissioned an outside firm to design a new logo for the school. On December 14, officials released nine draft logos to the student body and encouraged students to provide their feedback.
While the majority of public comments on the proposed logos urged the school to “keep the old one,” the school marketing office was apparently also deluged with concern about the use of the Venus symbol in the new design.
Just two business days later, MCH officials issued a public apology.
“It is now evident to us that this symbol has a long history of exclusion connected to movements that, while trailblazing for some groups, represents the erasure of others,” wrote Charles L. Green, MCH’s VP of Mmarketing.
“The College cannot move forward with a word mark that references this symbol.… While it is always disappointing to realize that our creative work has not achieved its goals, it is deeply upsetting to realize that the work is seen as offensive and damaging.”
One alumna, Tessa Ann Schwartz, wrote on Twitter that the Venus symbol marginalizes LGBTQ individuals.
“Speaking as one of those trans alums, you all will not be getting my money until this is changed, and I am not alone,” tweeted Schwartz.
Historically, the Venus symbol has been used as shorthand to reference women’s issues, feminism, and female empowerment. While it may seem fine to use at a women’s college, MCH officials remind us that the school is a “gender-diverse women’s college.”
The school now accepts students of all genders, as so long as they are not men who were born men. As such, the school has a sizeable transgender and gender non-binary population, and offers a variety of services to support them.
[Mount Holyoke] professors are now warned against calling students “women,” “referencing the two genders,” and saying things like “we’re all women here.” Avoiding these terms and phrases is crucial to avoid perpetuating “various types of disrespect,” according to school officials.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.) The women’s college has insulted its “gender-diverse” students and transgender alumna (or alumni, as the case may be), and you see how the minority tail always wags the majority dog wherever the identity politics of “social justice” operates.

Years ago, I found myself discussing affirmative action with a long-time critic of such policies who explained why racial quotas are always a source of friction. When white people think of “equality,” my acquaintance informed me, they think in terms of equality of opportunity — everybody judged by the same standard — whereas many black people believe any standard is unfair if it does not produce “equality” in terms of outcomes. Furthermore, even if this were possible, the fact that black people are 14% of the U.S. population means that even in such a regime of “equality,” they would still be a minority in the student body of a “diverse” college, and yet some black activist types believe that “equality” should entitle them to a 50% share of everything. It is this 50-50 attitude toward “equality,” my acquaintance said, that is the real root of racial resentment among black college students.

We see a similar pattern has been replicated in other situations where the rhetoric of “diversity” fuels identity-politics demands. What percentage of Mount Holyoke students are “non-binary” or transgender? Even in such a “prestigious” hotbed of Third Wave craziness, the numbers are probably quite small, but whenever this vocal minority expresses their “concerns,” everyone is expected to genuflect in obeisance to their every whim. So the tail always wags the dog and, drunk on their own power, the transgender minority develop the attitude of a conquering army, accustomed to dictating the terms of their antagonists’ surrender.

So the all-women’s college becomes “gender-inclusive,” and guess who gets to define what “inclusive” means? Not the women, that’s who.



 

Category: Education, The Transgender Cult

Rule 5 Sunday: Merry Christmas!

Posted on | December 24, 2018 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

As we all know, our friends in Japan are somewhat confused about the history and practices of Western Civilization, and nowhere is this more evident than in anime, manga, and video games. For example, in the tremendously popular phone game Fate/Grand Order, many historical figures have been recreated as Heroic Spirits, who assist the player in completing the necessary tasks involved in averting the destruction of humanity, which is scheduled for midnight this next Tuesday. This is not to say that the Heroic Spirits are necessarily historically accurate, and a great example of this is the Emperor Nero, shown in last year’s Christmas event preparing to dispense presents to the deserving. Yes, she’s roleplaying as Santa Claus. No, I didn’t use this year’s ersatz Santas because I’m not into lolicon.

“I, the Emperor Nero, order that you have a Merry Saturnalia – I mean, Christmas!”

Ninety Miles From Tyranny has an exceptional Hot Pick Of The Late Night – Emily Ratajkowski! also, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #475, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. At Animal Magnetism, it’s Rule Five Mexican Standoff Friday and a summery Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL brings us Vintage Christmas Trees, Roma, Penny Marshall (RIP), Best Instagram Post Ever?, Emily Blunt, Julia Ioffe, and Vintage Christmas In New York.

A View From The Beach offers Representing Us in the Multiverse – Catriona Gray, Happy Solstice!, Girls Will Be Girls, At Least She’s an Equal Opportunity Offender, Woody Allen’s Jail Bait Comes Forward, I Think I know Why, Sounds Like Bull to Me, Of Course They Didn’t, #HerToo: Cybill Shepherd Claims Moonves Cancelled Show After Failed Folly and Rainy Day Russiagate.

Proof Positive has Friday Night Babes, Vintage Babes, and Dove Skin Undies covering the Sex in Advertising beat. At Dustbury, it’s Katarina Kresal and Agnes Milowska.

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious linkagery!

Visit Amazon’s Intimate Apparel Shop
Amazon Fashion – Jewelry For Women

Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Sunday Morning Coming Down

Posted on | December 23, 2018 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Rule 5 Sunday: Eliza Dushku
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
Proof Positive
A View From The Beach
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Distant Smile
The Pirate’s Cove
A View From The Beach
EBL

Are You Listening?
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.17.18
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
A View From The Beach
EBL

‘Social Justice’ and the Death Gap
A View From The Beach
EBL

The Hate Twitter Won’t Ban
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.18.18
Proof Positive
EBL

Woody Allen’s Jailbait Lover: ‘When Mia Was There, We’d Talk About Astrology, and Woody Was Forced to Listen’
Pushing Rubber Downhill
EBL

The Only Good Commie…
EBL

BOOM! John McCain Aide Was BuzzFeed Source for Steele Dossier
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.19.18
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
A View From The Beach
EBL

Violence Against Women Update
EBL

Violence Against Women Update
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.20.18
EBL
Proof Positive
A View From The Beach

Samuel Little: FBI Says Serial Killer Murdered at Least 34 Women
EBL

Teacher Pronounces Education Secretary DeVos ‘Completely Under-Qualified’
EBL

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge
EBL

The Gathering Darkness
A View From The Beach
EBL

The Devil’s in Alabama
EBL

Syria, Afghanistan, and the #NeverTrump Problem of Jonah Goldberg
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.21.18
Proof Positive
EBL

Can We Deport the NY Times, Please?
EBL

Top linkers for the week ending December 21:

  1.  EBL (21)
  2.  A View From The Beach (7)
  3.  Proof Positive (6)

Thanks to everyone for all the linkagery!


Year End Deals
Amazon Warehouse Deals
Try Amazon Music Unlimited Free Trial

Category: FMJRA Award

Socialist Disaster in Venezuela is Sending Economic Refugees into Prostitution

Posted on | December 23, 2018 | Comments Off on Socialist Disaster in Venezuela is Sending Economic Refugees into Prostitution

 

Nothing is more predictable than the destructive power of socialism:

Inflation in the crisis-stricken country of Venezuela is on track to hit 1.4 million percent by the end of 2018, according to the latest report from the International Monetary Fund.
The report, entitled “Outlook on the World Economy,” predicts that inflation will reach 1.4 million by December 31, 400,000 percent higher than what they forecast in June this year and over a hundred times faster than the estimate of 13,000 percent in January. . . .
In 2018, the Venezuelan economy shrunk by a staggering 18 percent, indicating a third consecutive year of double-digit decline that has led to the worst economic and humanitarian crisis in the entire region. . . .
Nicolás Maduro’s socialist dictatorship has responded to the economic catastrophe with a number of creative but ultimately ineffective solutions that has included seeking additional loans from allies such as Turkey, Russia, and China and creating its own national cryptocurrency known as the “Petro,” supposedly backed by the nation’s extensive oil and gold reserves.
Maduro’s solution to the hyperinflation crisis has involved repeatedly raising the country’s national minimum wage and taking five zeroes off of the Bolivar currency. . . .

It is impossible to exaggerate the extent of the man-made disaster in Venezuela. Thousands of people are fleeing to neighboring countries, including Colombia, where Fox News reports from one border town:

Both men and women are exposed to sex trafficking along the route from Venezuela to Colombia. According to several walkers, some women “chose” prostitution as a means to make money and earn rides along the way. And some heterosexual men “sell themselves on the gay market” for a little money.
Other women are manipulated or forced into giving “pimp types” their documents and identification cards, and are subsequently drawn into prostitution rings. That’s particularly the case in border areas, where many rebel and drug-trafficking groups operate. . . .
Girls as young as 14 line the Cucuta streets available “for hire,” earning around seven dollars “per service.”

Someone should ask socialist Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez if they are in favor of 14-year-old girls getting pimped out for $7 a trick, because that’s where socialism ultimately leads.



 

Category: Economics, Venezuela

Crazy People Are Dangerous: Anthony Halliday a/k/a ‘Stephanie Hayden’

Posted on | December 22, 2018 | Comments Off on Crazy People Are Dangerous: Anthony Halliday a/k/a ‘Stephanie Hayden’

Not a woman: Anthony Halliday (left) as ‘Stephanie Hayden’ (right).

Anthony Halliday is an obese 45-year-old man who, in 2007, began “identifying” as a woman, calling himself “Stephanie Hayden.” Because so-called “self-identification” has obtained the protection of law in England, this has the effect of empowering deranged perverts like Halliday/“Hayden” to harass anyone who refuses to participate in their “gender” delusions. Earlier this year, Halliday/“Hayden” was granted a Gender Recognition Certificate, which means that anyone in England who doesn’t acknowledge his self-declared female identity is at risk of criminal punishment. This has made him/“her” a Grand Inquisitor:

Mr. Hayden regularly threatens gender identity disbelievers with civil or criminal lawsuits, or attempts to have them ousted from their careers.
In September 2018, Mr. Hayden attempted to get academics who don’t believe in gender identity ideology fired from Sussex University, denouncing the academic institution as a “temple of transgender hate.” . . .
That same month, Mr. Hayden joined Adrian Harrop and other transgender rights activists in a successful campaign to take down a billboard in Liverpool that showcased the Google definition of the word “woman” as “adult human female.” That billboard was a “symbol that makes transgender people feel unsafe,” Dr. Harrop complained. . . .
Still in September, when . . . award-winning comedy writer, Graham Linehan, engaged in critical analysis and debate on the topic of gender identity ideology on Twitter, Mr. Hayden allegedly posted details, including business addresses, of Mr. Linehan’s wife’s company. Mr. Linehan claimed in a Times interview that Mr. Hayden’s alleged doxxing of his wife was an attempt to silence him . . .
Mr. Linehan, believing Mr. Hayden to be a “dangerous troll,” posted on Twitter to his 672,000 followers Mr. Hayden’s aliases and examples of Mr. Hayden’s online activity . . .
In October 2018, Mr. Hayden responded by filing a complaint with law enforcement against Mr. Linehan for “transphobic harassment” . . .
Mr. Hayden’s case made history, becoming the first “deadnaming” case in a UK court. “A [Gender Recognition Certificate] holder has a right to confidentiality in respect of their previous gender identity. If a person acts in an official capacity and discloses such information it is actually a criminal offence under s.22 Gender Recognition Act 2004,” Mr. Hayden explained . . .
West Yorkshire Police issued Mr. Linehan a verbal warning not to contact Mr. Hayden. Mr. Hayden is proceeding against Mr. Linehan in a civil suit for harassment, defamation and misuse of private information.

Do you see what happens when we permit the rhetoric of “civil rights” to be hijacked by lunatics and perverts? Graham Linehan never sought to interfere with Halliday’s fetish of wearing women’s clothing and pretending to be a woman named “Stephanie.” Rather, it is the bullying behavior of “transgender activism” which brought Halliday/“Hayden” to public attention and prompted Linehan’s criticism.

 

Thanks to British laws on “gender recognition,” however, any criticism of transgender ideology is now treated as criminal “harassment,” and the law is being used to terrorize critics into silence. It’s like Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four being forced to say 2 + 2 = 5.

Americans should take notice of what is happening in England. If your state or local authorities attempt to impose transgender “equality” by law, your free-speech rights could soon be similarly infringed.



 

Category: Great Britain, The Transgender Cult

Can We Deport the NY Times, Please?

Posted on | December 22, 2018 | 1 Comment

It’s difficult to maintain my emotional equilibrium this morning, as my senses are assailed by woeful tidings from every direction. Go take a look at Ed Morrissey’s roundup of how the pull-out from Syria means that our Kurdish allies in the region are now totally screwed. This isn’t some whining #NeverTrump tantrum, but geopolitical realism and, even if we can trace it all back to the Obama-era meddling of the 2011 “Arab Spring” project, it’s a responsibility Trump inherited when he became president and abandoning allies is always bad business. Meanwhile . . .

 

The New York Times has published the most anti-American column imaginable on the subject of immigration, with this astonishing headline:

None of Us Deserve Citizenship

From that startling premise — that Americans, including New York Times readers, are undeserving of any protection by our own government — the writer Michelle Alexander continues her argument:

After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship. On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?
Jose Antonio Vargas’s powerful book “Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen” wrestles with the moral, emotional and psychological dimensions of America’s perennial question: Who deserves citizenship? With remarkable sensitivity to the extraordinarily wide range of people whose lives are affected by our nation’s immigration policies, he writes from the perspective of someone who was brought to this country illegally at the age of 12 to live with his grandparents, leaving his mother in the Philippines. Ever since his grandfather confessed to him, at age 16, that “you are not supposed to be here,” he has battled deep feelings of unworthiness and has striven to earn the right to belong. . . .
It’s tempting to imagine that our position as gatekeepers is morally sound — since we’re frequently reminded that “all nations have a right to defend their borders” — but our relationship to those who are fleeing poverty and violence is morally complex. Not only does birthright citizenship bestow upon us a privileged status that we haven’t earned; our nation’s unparalleled wealth and power, as well as our actual borders, lack a sturdy moral foundation. But for slavery, genocide and colonization, we would not be the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world — in fact, our nation would not even exist. This is not hyperbole; it’s history.

The word for this is sophistry, a tendentious argument that begins by assuming a conclusion (in this case, that the U.S. has no right to enforce its own immigration laws) and then scours around for any sort of “evidence” to throw into the balance of an appeal to emotion necessary to compel our acquiescence. If you reject Michelle Alexander’s argument, she implies, your opposition is proof of your blood-drenched guilt for “slavery, genocide and colonization.” She expects us to be so overcome by sympathy for Jose Antonio Vargas, author of a “powerful book,” that we ignore every practical consideration which might cause us to disagree with her open-borders stance. Every fact the could be introduced to the discussion as evidence in favor of strict border enforcement she simply waves away by asserting that “history” renders our national existence morally illegitimate. Because no one born in America has “earned” citizenship in a nation whose “unparalleled wealth and power” was wrongfully obtained, Ms. Alexander implies, therefore our “privileged status” means we have no right to defend our interests.

By the way, why is this “America’s perennial question”? Isn’t it because our decadent elite are deeply soaked in the kind of anti-American sentiment manifested in Ms. Alexander’s column? Hasn’t our intellectual class been tutored in Cultural Marxism by their university professors? Didn’t the prejudicial beliefs she cites as “history” originate as Soviet propaganda during the Cold War? Can’t we trace her arguments back to the work of CPUSA members Herbert Aptheker and Howard Zinn?

Using “history” to de-legitimize America, to turn our nation’s success into proof of our own evil, was a hallmark of Communist propaganda during those decades when, as Nikita Khrushchev boasted, the Soviet Union aimed to “bury” us, and it is remarkable how this kind of anti-American rhetoric has outlived the Soviet regime by more than 25 years.

Since Ms. Alexander wishes to recommend “powerful” books to her readers, I will respond by recommending Thomas Sowell’s powerful 1998 book, Conquests and Cultures: An International History. Sowell patiently explains why the kind of arguments made by Ms. Alexander are invalid, namely that “slavery, genocide and colonization” are worldwide phenomena, commonplace occurrences in human history, rather than a unique moral failing of America. If we examine history from this global perspective, certainly we cannot be made to feel ashamed of the remarkable success of the United States, and become more interested in preserving our heritage than in destroying it, which is what Michelle Alexander and her editors at the New York Times would have us do.

Nevertheless, since Ms. Alexander has asserted that no one, herself included, has a right to U.S. citizenship, what is to prevent President Trump from issuing an executive order to permanently exile her from the United States? Indeed, as liberals are eager to have us believe Trump is an authoritarian dictator, why couldn’t he draw up an “enemies list,” perhaps including the entire staff of the New York Times, and order them shipped to some foreign country, perhaps Syria. If no one “deserves” citizenship — a “privileged status” that protects us from arbitrary power — then Trump might use his dictatorial authority to rid the country of his critics. You don’t like ICE rounding up illegal aliens? OK, then, instead we’ll order ICE to start rounding up liberals. We’ll put them on a boat and ship them to Syria, and they can join the Kurdistani freedom fighters in the battle against ISIS, or Turkey, or whoever else they want to fight. It doesn’t matter, so long as we can get these liberals out of America, a country they so obviously hate. Good-bye, “privileged status”!



 

Category: Immigration, New York Times
« go back — keep looking »