The Other McCain

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

Fact-Based Argument Is Denounced as ‘Common Right Wing Talking Point’

Posted on | June 10, 2019 | 1 Comment

 

As every progressive knows, facts are “hate” and logic is “racism.” So when Jake Tapper asked a Democrat politician an obvious question — which proposed gun-control laws would have prevented a recent mass shooting in Virginia? — the Scanners-style head explosions commenced:

New York Times columnist Charles Blow went off on what he called a “horrible question” that CNN’s Jake Tapper asked of Senator Cory Booker this week about the gun massacre in Virginia Beach, a question that is frequently asked in the wake of such tragedies.
On this week’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, host Bill Maher noted that “Cory Booker was on with Jake Tapper, and Jake Tapper asked him, a couple of times, what in your plan would have stopped the massacre that we had last week at Virginia Beach, and Cory Booker took a very long time to not be able to answer that question.”
Can I just say this? Journalists have to stop asking that horrible question,” Blow said. “That is a horrible question.”
“Because what we’re doing is picking out one incident out of 30,000 deaths per year and saying ‘How could you solve this one thing?’” Blow continued.

Since the New York Times columnist evidently wants to make this a question of arithmetic, let’s talk about The Law of Large Numbers. In a nation of 325 million people, it’s always possible to find a handful of examples anything, e.g., people arrested for having sex with dogs, or children being raped by transgender perverts. Yet we do not see any talking-heads on CNN discussing these phenomena as a tragic “epidemic,” because there are no non-profit activist groups compiling reports about dog rape or LGBT sex crimes and advocating new laws to combat these problems. Mass shootings are, from a statistical perspective, very rare events in the United States, but in a nation of 325 million people, if a half-dozen kooks go on rampages every year, these statistical outliers are making national news every eight weeks or so.

Unless we are willing to absolutely prohibit private firearms ownership — not just limiting future sales, but confiscating the many tens of millions of guns already owned by Americans — there is no possibility that we can eliminate the danger of mass shootings. So when Jake Tapper asks whether the gunman’s rampage in Virginia Beach could have been prevented by any law advocated by Cory Booker, it’s a legitimate point. Democrats who advocate new gun-control laws do not wish to admit that it would take very drastic measures to substantially reduce the risk of mass shootings, because to make such an admission would give credence to claims by First Amendment activists that the Democrats are secretly planing to confiscate everybody’s guns. Whatever gun-control “plan” Booker proposes, therefore, is likely to be ineffective, a more or less symbolic gesture, and Tapper’s question pointed this out, prompting liberals to shriek: “FACTS ARE HATE!”

 

Speaking of facts, we know almost nothing about DeWayne Craddock, the Virginia Beach gunman, except that he had given his two-weeks’ notice of an intent to quit his job before going on a workplace rampage. Police say Craddock evidently wasn’t targeting anyone in particular, but was firing randomly at his former co-workers. You might think journalists would have been able to dig up some clue as to why Craddock killed 11 people, but they don’t seem very interested in his motive.

This evident lack of curiosity is odd, isn’t it? Like, if this guy was a Trump supporter, I’m sure journalists would have mentioned that, but instead we’ve got silence, and nobody seems to be asking, “Why?”



 

Category: Crime

Math Is Hard

Posted on | June 10, 2019 | 2 Comments

 

Part One:

The Seattle Minimum Wage Study, a study supported and funded in part by the Seattle city government, is out with a new NBER paper evaluating Seattle’s minimum wage increase to $13 an hour and it finds significant disemployment effects that on net reduce the incomes of minimum wage workers.
It is the first study of a very high city-level minimum wage, with administrative data that has much more detail than is usually available. The first wave (examining the increase to $11/hr) last year was a mixed bag, with fairly imprecise estimates.
These findings, examining another year of data and including the increase to $13/hr, are unequivocal: the policy is an unmitigated disaster. The main findings:
– The numbers of hours worked by low-wage workers fell by *3.5 million hours per quarter*. This was reflected both in thousands of job losses and reductions in hours worked by those who retained their jobs.
– The losses were so dramatic that this increase “reduced income paid to low-wage employees of single-location Seattle businesses by roughly $120 million on an annual basis.” On average, low-wage workers *lost* $125 per month. The minimum wage has always been a lousy income transfer program, but at this level you’d come out ahead just setting a hundred million dollars a year on fire. And that’s before we get into who kept vs lost their jobs.

How many times do we have to explain basic economics to these people? Governments cannot mandate demand — for labor, or for anything else — and thus the attempt to artificially inflate wages by establishing an arbitrary minimum will have the effect of reducing the number of jobs for entry-level workers. This in turn will have ripple effects, acting as a disincentive to capital investment, as companies will seek out less-regulated markets. In a rapidly-growing economy, where there is high demand for labor, the statutory minimum wage will become irrelevant, as the vast majority of workiers are earning more than the minimum. However, artificially “raising the floor” underneath this free-market equation will always negatively impact both employment and business growth, by reducing opportunities for less-profitable companies to continue operations by hiring marginal workers for low-skill jobs, and by pricing these marginal workers out of the market.

Everyone who knows anything about economics understands this, but politicians are under pressure to pander to ignorant voters, a problem exacerbated by liberal journalists who don’t understand arithmetic. And speaking of liberal journalists . . .

Part Two:

ThinkProgress, the website that is a project of the Democratic Party’s primary think tank, is facing dire financial troubles and bleeding staff, according to primary-source documents viewed by The Daily Beast.
A budget document provided to ThinkProgress management and obtained by The Daily Beast showed that the website was expecting a roughly $3 million gulf between revenue and expenses for 2019. ThinkProgress has never been a revenue generator, and has often made up for its deficits through fundraising efforts and funds from its mothership entity, the Center for American Progress (CAP). But the current outlook is significantly worse than ever before.
According to the document, advertising revenue is projected to fall $350,000 short of what was budgeted this year, and online contributions are expected to fall short by nearly $180,000. The site is projected to have about $64,000 in grant revenue (money derived from donations to CAP and meant for coverage by ThinkProgress) in 2019. That’s roughly $60,000 short of what it had budgeted for the year and roughly $540,000 less than it received in 2018. . . .
“Unfortunately, ThinkProgress has had a large and growing budget gap for going on two years now,” Navin Nayak, executive director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, told The Daily Beast. “Like most media organizations, ThinkProgress has relied on advertising revenue as a major source of funding, increasingly subject to the behavior of social-media platforms and their decisions on news distribution. As with many other digital media organizations, 2017 and 2018 were particularly challenging years in this regard, as ThinkProgress experienced a 40 percent drop in ad revenue over just one year, creating an inevitable budgetary strain.”
Management for ThinkProgress held a two-hour meeting with Nayak on Wednesday afternoon to discuss financial matters, according to a source at the outlet who requested anonymity. In a Thursday morning email to staff, viewed by The Daily Beast, management stressed that the “financial outlook has not improved in 2019 as CAP hoped it would” and that leadership at CAP plans to provide additional information about a path forward this month. According to the email, Nayak said he did not want to provide a lot of specifics at this current moment, so as not to “speculate.”
Sources at CAP and ThinkProgress told The Daily Beast that Nayak has had to engage in a series of “blunt” conversations with staffers at the website, telling them they should be looking for other jobs. These conversations took place even as the site’s union negotiated a contract at the end of 2018.

“Learn to code!”

The Obama years were a boom time for the Center for American Progress, but CAP’s founder John Podesta left to join the Hillary Clinton campaign, and her defeat tarnished their brand, since peddling access to powerful Democrat politicians (which, let’s face it, was Podesta’s stock in trade) only works when those politicians actually have power.

Much of the rage against Trump has been orchestrated by such people, to whom the election of a Republican president represents a loss of income opportunities. If what you’re selling is political influence, losing an election can have a devastating impact on demand for your services.



 

Category: Economics

Rule 5 Sunday: Monica Bellucci

Posted on | June 10, 2019 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

It was pointed out to me last week that Morena Baccarin had not been in the Matrix movies, and that the actress I was thinking of was Monica Bellucci. I stand corrected. This is the gal from The Matrix Reloaded. Here she is adorned with a bit of fur, the better to annoy the kind of people annoyed by such things.

Monica in furs.

Leading off as usual, it’s Ninety Miles From Tyranny with Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #644, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns.

EBL’s herd this week includes Alana Camile Bunte, Naomi Wolf, Daliborka Stojsic, Shirley Jones, Women Of D-Day, Immigration Enforcement Rule 5, and Farron Salley.

A View From The Beach send in Talk Like a Pirate – Toni Garrn, Fish Pic Friday, It Must Be Tanlines Thursday Again!, Russiagate in Name Only, SJWs Aim to Knock Out Dodgeball, I’m Sure Mark Is Quaking in his Loafers, One of DCs Cherished Landmarks Threatened by Climate Change?, “Lean On” and Palm Sunday?

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Sofia Pernas, and at Dustbury, it’s Kimberly Busteed and Jacinta Ardern.

Thanks to everyone for the luscious links!


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Category: Rule 5

President Trump ‘Should Be in Jail,’ Says Progressive Journalist Now Under Arrest

Posted on | June 9, 2019 | 3 Comments

 

Look at the date on that tweet from @DrPizza, which is the Twitter handle of Ars Technica reporter Peter Bright. April 19 — that’s the date when Bright said our President “should be in jail.”

 

April 19 is an interesting date in the life of Peter Bright, because a day earlier, he’d made contact with an undercover FBI agent. Of course, he didn’t know it was an undercover agent. He thought she was the mother of two children — a 7-year-old boy and a 9-year-old she was offering online for, uh, “sex education.” For more than month, Bright communicated with the agent, discussing what he’d like to do to the two preteens, sending photos of his genitalia, until on May 22 he went to meet them in Manhattan and was arrested.

 

The affidavit in the Peter Bright case is horrifying to read. Bright, who identified himself on his Twitter profile as polyamorous, pansexual and “pervy,” apparently frequented a social-media site for kinky people, where his handle was “randomanon.” During his conversations with the undercover agent, Bright claimed that he was already sexually involved with an 11-year-old girl, and expressed interest in masturbation and anal sex with the two children he thought the agent was offering.

Allegedly, I hasten to add. It’s important, as a matter of journalistic ethics, to include the word “allegedly” here, because Peter Bright is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

 

Did I mention that Peter Bright hates President Trump and also hates every American who voted for Trump? Because the British-born journalist said some very vile things about our President, and encouraged the harassment of Trump supporters like Mike Cernovich:

The child sexual predator and pedophile called Cernovich a Nazi.
The child sexual predator also called Cernovich “off the rails,” in a conservation he had with his good friend Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs. . . .
Peter Bright also amplified this harassment campaign against my family and interacted with my stalkers and those who have threatened my daughter.

Hey, Mike, you forgot to include the word “alleged” — alleged child sex predator Peter Bright, who is a “good friend” of Charles Johnson.

 

It would be wrong — a violation of Journalism Ethics™ — for me to engage in any lurid speculation about what would happen to alleged pedophile Peter Bright if he goes to federal prison, but that professional consideration doesn’t apply to blog commenters, y’know.

Bright by on Scribd

(Hat-tip: Wombat.)



 

Category: Crime

FMJRA 2.0: Mr. Mastodon Farm

Posted on | June 9, 2019 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Mr. Mastodon Farm

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Back to normal this week, for certain values of normal.

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

FMJRA 2.0: Systems Of Romance
EBL
A View From The Beach

Two Trannies Arrested in Child Pornography Case Involving 7-Year-Old
Dark Brightness
EBL

Why P&G Has Gone SJW
John Jason Fallows
EBL

Totalitarian @GayWonk Is Attempting to Silence Conservative @SCrowder
EBL

In The Mailbox: 06.03.19
Proof Positive
EBL
A View From the Beach

‘Incel’ Gets Five Years in Prison
Dustbury
EBL

Man Who Threw Child Off Mall Balcony Sentenced to 19 Years in Prison
EBL

‘Florida Woman’ Strikes Again
EBL

In The Mailbox: 06.04.19
357 Magnum
EBL

NYC Schools Face Lawsuit Charging Discrimination Against Whites
EBL
Pushing Rubber Downhill

Sociology Professor Who Quoted ‘Red Pill’ Sites Forced Out of Canadian University
Grand Facho
EBL
Pushing Rubber Downhill

A Hate Crime in Tennessee
Dark Brightness
EBL

In The Mailbox: 06.05.19
Proof Positive
EBL
A View From The Beach

In The Mailbox: 06.06.19
Proof Positive
EBL

Leni Reifenstahl and Steven Crowder
EBL

Violence Against Women Update
EBL

Google Lawsuit Proceeds
357 Magnum
EBL

WOW! Ohio Jury Delivers $11 Million Verdict Against Oberlin College
EBL

In The Mailbox: 06.07.19
Proof Positive
EBL

Top linkers for the week ending June 7:

  1.  EBL (20)
  2.  Proof Positive (6)

Thanks to everyone for all the linkagery!

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Category: FMJRA Award

In The Mailbox: 06.07.19

Posted on | June 7, 2019 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #642
EBL: Wavery B. Woodson Jr., RIP
Twitchy: Tech Reporter Peter Bright Arrested For Soliciting Sex With Children
Louder With Crowder: Shoutout To Everyone Who Supported Free Speech During The #VoxAdpocalypse
According To Hoyt: Just Deserts
Vox Populi: The End Of The Conservative Party? also, Delighted To Hear It

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The Swamp Tour Edition
American Greatness: A Sovereign People Need Data Sovereignty – Now
American Thinker: Is Whiteness Really Killing Our Country?
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Green Fascism Friday
Babalu Blog: Senators Melendez & Rubio Demand Extradition Of Murderer Joanne Chesimard From Cuba
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For June 7
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Thoughts Under The Fedora
Don Surber: Highlights Of The News
Dustbury: Where Have All The Monarchs Gone?
First Street Journal: Vox Media Unionizes, Leftist Ownership Doesn’t Knuckle Under
The Geller Report: Ilhan Omar Found Guilty Of Six Campaign Finance Violations, Fined Thousands, also, Minneapolis Police Officer Mohammed Noor Gets 12 1/2 Years For Killing Unarmed White Woman
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, Social Justice Warfare Update
Hollywood In Toto: Dark Phoenix Offers Modest Superhero Rewards
JustOneMinute: Weaker But Not Yet Weak
Legal Insurrection: Jury Awards Gibson’s Bakery $11 Million In Lawsuit Against Oberlin College, also, Democrats Once Again Trot Out Yale Psychiatrist To Declare Trump Insane
Michelle Malkin: Did Ilhan Omar Commit Federal Tax Fraud?
The PanAm Post: How Hezbollah Operates In Venezuela
Power Line: Ilhan Omar’s Blizzard Of Lies, also, Thoughts From The Ammo Line
Shark Tank: Ethics Panel Signs Off On Gillum Settlement
Shot In The Dark: Simultaneously Villain & Scapegoat
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – The Culture Of The Left
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, also, Creepy Porn “Lawer”
Victory Girls: Ilhan Omar Fined For Campaign Finance Violations, Tax Fraud Charges May Be Next
Volokh Conspiracy: Originalism & The Law Of The Past
Weasel Zippers: Mexico Agrees To Immigration Control Deal To Avert Tariffs, also, Rep. Elijah Cummings’ Wife Hit With Perjury, Self-Dealing Charges In Revised IRS Complaint
Mark Steyn: Return Of The Thoughtcrime Commissars

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Category: Linkagery

WOW! Ohio Jury Delivers $11 Million Verdict Against Oberlin College

Posted on | June 7, 2019 | 1 Comment

In November 2016, Jonathan Aladin, a black student at Oberlin College, was caught shoplifting at Gibson’s Bakery near the campus of the elite private school, and two other black Oberlin students, Endia Lawrence and Cecelia Whettstone, were charged with attacking one of the bakery owners who tried to apprehend the thief. Activists with the #BlackLivesMatter movement at Oberlin accused the bakery owners of racism, and college officials promoted this false accusation. The three students pleaded guilty and, in November 2017, Gibson’s sued Oberlin, accusing the college of “libel, slander, interference with business relationships, interference with contracts, deceptive trade practices, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent hiring, and trespass.” Today, a jury came down hard on Oberlin, as Professor William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection reports:

The Jury in the Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College case has reached a verdict.
According to our reporter in the Courtroom, the jury awarded $11 million. Here are the details: Allyn W. Gibson was awarded $3 million, David Gibson $5.8 million, Gibson Bros. $2,274,500. Next Tuesday there will be a separate punitive damages which could be a double award (meaning tripling the $11 million to $33 million).
[Oberlin ice President and Dean of Students] Meredith Raimondo was held liable on the libel and interference with business relations, but not intentional infliction of emotional distress. By stipulation, the college is responsible for any amounts awarded against her, so she will not pay anything out of pocket.
We followed this case from the start of the protests, through the lawsuit process, and now trial. Here’s my statement:

The verdict sends a strong message that colleges and universities cannot simply wind up and set loose student social justice warriors and then wash their hands of the consequences. In this case, a wholly innocent 5th-generation bakery was falsely accused of being racist and having a history [of] racial profiling after stopping three black Oberlin College students from shoplifting. The students eventually pleaded guilty, but not before large protests and boycotts intended to destroy the bakery and defame the owners. The jury appears to have accepted that Oberlin College facilitated the wrongful conduct against the bakery.

A “strong message,” indeed! The cost of attending Oberlin is $71,390 a year, including room and board, and the mystery is why parents would pay such a sum to have their children indoctrinated with lunatic ideology at a school whose faculty and administration are infamously dishonest.

(Hat-tip: Steve White in the comments.)

UPDATE: It’s difficult for most people to understand how crazy Oberlin has become, or what an awful “education” students get there. A few years ago, I highlighted one typical Oberlin student, Kaela Elias, who hates men, Republicans and heterosexuality, not necessarily in that order:

“I hope men realize that we (women) actually fear for our safety every time we walk by you on the street.”
— Kaela Elias, Aug. 4, 2015

“when i was younger, i thought i was straight because society makes you think that. it’s sad.”
— Kaela Elias, Aug. 9, 2015

I hate male entitlement; I hate the things men are expected to do and think; I hate how much space men take up and that they don’t even realize it; I hate the way men oppress others and create violence and the fact that it’s often unintentional; I hate that I often don’t feel safe around men but still feel pressure to seek their approval.
— Kaela Elias, Nov. 24, 2015

“I recently learned that the guy who lives next to me and literally never even makes eye contact with me is a REPUBLICAN. I am scared.”
— Kaela Elias, Dec. 14

When did paranoia and hatred become a curriculum? Why would parents pay money to send their children to a campus crowded with such lunatics? Also see “Get Woke, Go Broke: ‘Social Justice’ Agenda Leads Oberlin College Into Crisis” (Feb. 27, 2018) and “The Cult of Social Justice” (The American Spectator, Dec. 21, 2015).



 

Category: Crime, Education, Racism

Google Lawsuit Proceeds

Posted on | June 7, 2019 | 1 Comment

 

A California judge ruled Friday that a lawsuit accusing Google of employment discrimination against conservatives, males and white people can proceed to the discovery phase. Clara County Superior Court Judge Brian Walsh rejected Google’s motion to dismiss in the class-action lawsuit. James Damore, who was fired by the Internet giant in 2017, was the original plaintiff, but last year Damore opted for arbitration, and four other men joined as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, although only two now remain. At any rate, this is a huge win, because discovery will likely uncover very damaging evidence documenting the extent to which SJWs have taken over Google, imposing speech codes and hiring quotas.



 

Category: Culture
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