The Other McCain

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

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 10.12.18

Posted on | October 13, 2018 | Comments Off on Late Night With In The Mailbox: 10.12.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Unfortunately Friday the 13th comes on a Saturday this month.
You still need to send me your links for the FMJRA and Rule Five Sunday.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Proof Positive: Gosnell – A Movie Review
EBL: National Farmers Day Rule 5
Twitchy: You’re About To See A Bunch Of Libs Attack Trump Over Robert E. Lee. Shockingly, It’s All BS
Louder With Crowder: Exposed – Top Five Rape Hoaxes Of All Time
The Camp of the Saints The Coming Calamity
According To Hoyt: Cleaning Up
Monster Hunter Nation: Wait. I Got Blacklisted From What Now?
Vox Popoli: Responses To IndieGoGo’s Retro-Cancellation

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Thinker: Violence? It’s Not Only The Right That Will Bleed
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five All Politics Is Local Friday
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For October 12
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: The Obvious Question Everyone Is Ignoring In This Nasty Transgender Bathroom Story
Don Surber: Democratic Candidate Implodes In Arizona
Dustbury: Program Notes
First Street Journal: Money Isn’t Everything
The Geller Report: Hillary Finally Loses Security Clearance After Server Scandal, also, Tens Of Thousands Of Muslims Riot On Gaza Border
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, Pulsar In A Box, also, (Another) Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
JustOneMinute: We Have Conquered Fear!
Legal Insurrection: Senator Cassidy Calls Out Anti-Kavanaugh Protester For Using Her Children, also, Cherokee Author Rejects Fauxcahontas Presidency “While She Appropriates My Identity”
The PanAm Post: Colombia’s Uribe Won’t Rule Out Intervention In Venezuela
Power Line: The AP Defends The Democrats’ Mobs, also, Glenn Simpson Would Prefer Not To
Shark Tank: Marco Rubio Warns The Chicoms Are Growing Repressive
Shot In The Dark: Angie Craig, Miracle Worker!
The Political Hat: Alyssa Milano & Humidors
This Ain’t Hell: Sometimes I Just Go Full Potato, also, Secret Squirrel Code Talkers
Victory Girls: Cruz v. O’Rourke – Texas Interests Or Hollywood Glitz?
Volokh Conspiracy: Proposed Constitutional Amendment Against Packing The Supreme Court
Weasel Zippers: Democrats Agree To Confirm 15 Federal Judges So They Can Go Home & Campaign, also, Neil Patrick Harris Recalls Getting Propositioned by Whoopi Goldberg When He Was Just 15
Mark Steyn: The Mark Steyn Show – Ann McElhinney & Phelim McAleer Return, also, Hell’s Brel


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Category: Linkagery

Party of Science™ Update: Democrats Now Actively Consorting With Satan

Posted on | October 12, 2018 | Comments Off on Party of Science™ Update: Democrats Now Actively Consorting With Satan

 

Earlier this month we reported (“Democrats Desperate to Stop Kavanaugh Nomination Resort to … Witchcraft,” Oct. 4) that anti-Trump pagans were conjuring Dark Powers in their doomed effort to prevent Brett Kavanaugh from becoming the 114th justice of the Supreme Court. Having learned nothing from their failure, they’re now doubling-down:

Witches plan to place a public hex on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh through an occult ritual on Oct. 20 in New York City, an event sponsored by Catland Books, which describes itself as “Brooklyn’s premiere occult bookshop & spiritual community space.” The planned ritual has been advertised on Facebook.
“Please join us for a public hex on Brett Kavanaugh, upon all rapists and the patriarchy at large which emboldens, rewards and protects them,” reads the description for the event, “Ritual to Hex Brett Kavanaugh.”
“We are embracing witchcraft’s true roots as the magik of the poor, the downtrodden and disenfranchised and it’s history as often the only weapon, the only means of exacting justice available to those of us who have been wronged by men just like him,” reads the description.
“He will be the focal point, but by no means the only target, so bring your rage and all of the axes you’ve got to grind,” states Catland. . . .
“There will also be a second ritual afterward — “The Rites of the Scorned One” — which seeks to validate, affirm, uphold and support those of us who have been wronged and who refuse to be silent any longer,” reads the description.
It further states that 50% of the event proceeds will go to charity: 25% to the Ali Forney Center and 25% to Planned Parenthood.
The Ali Forney Center is a homeless shelter and help center for LGBTQ youth. Planned Parenthood is America’s largest abortion provider. It received $543.7 million in taxpayer funding for the year ending June 30, 2017, reads its latest annual report.
Tickets cost $10.00. . . .
Some of the other events occuring at Catland Books this month include “Demonology,” “Magic Spells with the Tarot,” “Witchcraft 101,” and an “All Hallows Seance.”

Did you know that involvement in the occult is highly associated with sexual perversion and mental illness? Even a minor bit of dabbling in astrology or tarot has evil tendencies. Whether or not you believe that Satan is real, the existence of supernatural evil is no more dependent on your belief than is the force of gravity. As someone who has witnessed the manifestations of evil with my own eyes, I am grateful for the intercessory prayer of those devout Christians who I know ask God to send His angels to watch over me. And like I said, you may not believe that there is anything in the world beyond random interactions of matter and energy, perfectly explicable by science, but I know what I have seen, and I’m telling you that those who willingly involve themselves in the occult, in however trivial manner, are traveling in dangerous realms.

Does anyone remember The Exorcist? The book was much better than the movie, but in both versions, the girl’s demonic possession occurs after she plays with a Ouija board. And as silly as this may seem, many people who are extensively familiar with the neo-pagan occult movement will tell you that you should never, ever play with a Ouija board. Just sayin’ . . .

People who don’t believe in Satan’s existence are the most vulnerable to satanic influence, but the Bible is very clear about avoiding witchcraft: “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer” (Deuteronomy 18:10-11); “Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies . . . they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:20-21); and “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18). These activities are cursed, and wise people keep far, far away from anything that seems even slightly “witchy.”

Don’t vote Democrat, or the curse will be upon you.



 

RELATED:

 

Category: Democrats, Sex Trouble

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 10.11.18

Posted on | October 12, 2018 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Hey, Arizona – Krysten Sinema Thinks You’re All Crazy
Twitchy: Facebook Just Shut Down The “Right Wing News” Page; Its 3.1 Million Followers Hardest Hit
Louder With Crowder: Video Montage Exposes Leftist Mobs & Media Too Afraid To Call Them Mobs

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Could Election Day Disaster Strike The Democrats Again? also, There’s No Such Thing As A Moderate Democrat In 2018
American Thinker: The Left’s Next Big Thing
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Imperial Civility News
BattleSwarm: Beto Boomlet Busts
CDR Salamander: So, You Want To Fight A Peer Over There & Not Here?
Da Tech Guy: If We Still Followed The Constitution, Nobody Would Care Who Was On SCOTUS, also, The Left Has Paid The InsaneGeld, Now We’ll Never Get Rid Of The Insane
Don Surber: Trump Is The Best President For The Press
Dustbury: This Is Not Even Slightly Civil
First Street Journal: The “Bitter Clinger”
The Geller Report: Rosenstein Refuses To Turn Over Subpoenaed Memos, No-Show At Today’s Hearing, also, London – 423 Mosques, 100 Sharia Courts, More Than Many Muslim Countries
Hogewash: Kavanaugh Casualties, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
JustOneMinute: Kick ‘Em When They’re Up, Kick ‘Em When They’re Down
Legal Insurrection: Mitch McConnell Rams Through 15 More Federal Judges, also, Liberal Media – Our Mobs Aren’t Mobs So Don’t Call Them Mobs
The PanAm Post: Evidence Suggests Maduro’s Regime Murdered Councilman
Power Line: Democrats – The Constitution Is Unconstitutional! also, Should The California GOP Vote Socialist?
Shark Tank: Former Rep David Jolly Breaks With GOP
Shot In The Dark: On Latte Support?
The Political Hat: Icky In Academia – Shameful White Males, Unwanted Asians, & Colorblind Racism
This Ain’t Hell: Thursday Morning Feelgood Stories, also, Space Crew Survives Fall To Earth After Russian Rocket Fails
Victory Girls: CNN Calls Kanye West Trump’s “Token Negro”
Volokh Conspiracy: UK Supreme Court Rules Baker Doesn’t Have To Put Pro-Gay Marriage Message On Cake
Weasel Zippers: Rep. Scalise – When Dems Like Holder Call For Violence, That’s A Threat To Democracy, also, Toledo City Councilwoman Defends Post Calling Red States “Dumfuckistan”
Mark Steyn: Man, I Feel Like A Womxn, also, Reverse-Engineering The Banana Republic Stuff


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Category: Linkagery

Coming Out as … MOGAI? The Weird and Dangerous World of Queer Feminism

Posted on | October 11, 2018 | 2 Comments

 

Today was National Coming Out Day, which I celebrated by reading feminist Tumblr blogs and a recent memoir by lesbian blogger Katie Heaney that I’ll be writing about at length later. Heaney’s story is interesting enough (if you consider “interesting” a synonym for pathetic or ludicrous) to deserve the 3,000-word treatment, and I don’t want to spoil it for you, so instead let’s talk about MOGAI and Queer Feminism.

The University of Western Washington in Bellingham offers a minor in Queer Studies, and one of the core classes in that program is Queer Literature (ENG227), taught by “Queer intersectional feminist” Professor Kelly Magee. In 2014, Professor Magee had her students post their class assignments to a blog, and one of the students contributed this:

LGBT+, Queer, and MOGAI — Why Does It Matter?
Throughout the course, many people have brought up the fact that LGBT is typically seen as an outdated term. For individuals of a marginalized sexual orientation, the trend has typically been towards calling our community “queer”. I think it’s interesting to note why these terms shift, and what is considered correct.
The term “queer” initially began as a slur or epithet. This was a word specifically designed to hurt people and put them down for experiencing different sexual and romantic attractions. Many people have reclaimed this term for plenty of different reasons — for political reasons, to give a unified umbrella term for marginalized orientations, or to avoid the messy “alphabet soup” of LGBTQIAPDG+. The LGBT term typically fetishizes the L, focuses on the G, and ignores the B and T entirely. Not to mention the fact that it fails to include pansexual, asexual, genderqueer/fluid, demisexual, and intersex people, as well as a multitude of other sexual orientations and gender identities. Additionally, people tend to think that A stands for ally, instead of asexual, which tends to give straight people access to queer communities.
Many people have elected to use the term MOGAI instead. This stands for Marginalized Orientation, Gender And Intersex. This allows everyone who identifies as queer to be united under a single term, without this term being a slur or focusing on one identity. This also includes intersex individuals, a group that receives a large amount of discrimination and a very small amount of public awareness.
I would like to see this class as a whole move towards discussions based not specifically on gay issues, but the issues of many sexual orientations and gender identities. It is important to note that queer readings of literature can include gender identity and expression as well, not simply a homosexual vs. heterosexual or male vs. female dichotomy.

“MOGAI” opens Pandora’s Box, because what does it mean to say that someone’s sexuality or gender identity is “marginalized”? There are all kinds of kinky freaks out there among the millions and millions of men who are not homosexual. It was the interests (not to mention the money) of homosexual men that originally brought “gay liberation” into existence circa 1969, and it was the AIDS crisis of the 1980s that made this movement an important constituency within the Democrat Party. Say what you want about lesbians or transgender people’s role in the gay-rights movement, but it was wealthy male homosexuals who had the political influence that guaranteed the movement’s success. Much of the energy of lesbian activism, meanwhile, was channeled into the feminist movement and university Women’s Studies programs

What has happened in recent years, because of the success of gay rights and feminism — especially in academia — is that a lot of weirdos and perverts who aren’t homosexual have decided that they, too, are “marginalized” in some way, and therefore deserving of inclusion in the rainbow-flag-waving coalition of people who have sexual “rights.”

See, if you’re a woman, you’ve got sexual “rights.” If you’re gay, you’ve got sexual “rights.” If you’re a heterosexual male? The only rights you’ve got are summarized by the Miranda warning: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you . . .”

This is where “MOGAI” comes in, by telling perverts — transvestites, BDSM weirdos, “furries,” whatever — they’re “part of the queer community” which, according to the trendy rhetoric of inclusion, has no argument for refusing admission to these freaks. MOGAI is a magnet for creeps, and “Queer Feminism” is a magnet for emotionally disturbed women, so when you put the two together, you’ve basically formed a Wolves and Sheep Alliance. Anyone familiar with human nature can predict how this will turn out. All a creepy dude has to do is get a weird haircut and some facial piercings, call himself MOGAI, and he has to be welcomed into the “movement,” because diversity!

My advice to any young person, especially on a university campus, is to avoid that whole freak show — Gender Studies, Queer Studies, LGBT activism — and instead hang out with sane, normal people. Even on the 21st-century university campus, there are still sane, normal people and, no matter what your preference or orientation, you’re going to be happier and safer hanging out with them than with those MOGAI weirdos.



 

Category: Education, Gays, Sex Trouble

Darwinian Terrorist: Feds Arrest N.Y. Man in Election Day Suicide Bomb Plot

Posted on | October 11, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

Paul Rosenfeld of Tappan, N.Y., worked as a house painter and was a sort of amateur political philosopher and, also, a would-be bomber:

Police and FBI agents searched a Hudson Valley, New York, home Wednesday and arrested the 56-year-old man living there after learning about his alleged plan to build a bomb and blow himself up in Washington, D.C., on Election Day, two law enforcement officials told News 4 New York.
Court documents say Paul Rosenfeld wanted to draw attention to his belief in an ancient election system called “sortition,” a method of choosing political officials at random.
Officials tell News 4 Rosenfeld had no criminal history but had told a reporter in Pennsylvania he planned to blow himself up on the National Mall around Election Day because he was angry about the country’s direction.

More from the U.S. attorney’s office:

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: “As alleged, Paul M. Rosenfeld concocted a twisted plan to draw attention to his political ideology by killing himself on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. — risking harm to many others in the process. Rosenfeld’s alleged plan for an Election Day detonation cut against our democratic principles. Thanks to outstanding coordination between local and federal law enforcement, Rosenfeld’s alleged plot was thwarted and he is now in federal custody.”
Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. said: “As alleged in the complaint, Paul M. Rosenfeld planned to detonate a large explosive to kill himself and draw attention to his radical political beliefs. Had he been successful, Rosenfeld’s alleged plot could have claimed the lives of innocent bystanders and caused untold destruction. Fortunately, his plans were thwarted by the quick action of a concerned citizen and the diligent work of a host of our law enforcement partners and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. I’d like to extend particular thanks to our partners with the Orangetown Police Department, the Rockland County Sheriff’s Office, the Rockland County District Attorney, the New York State Police, the New York City Police Department, and the Stony Point Police Department for their respective roles in bring this investigation to a safe conclusion.” . . .
In August and September 2018, ROSENFELD sent letters and text messages to an individual in Pennsylvania (“Individual-1”). These letters and text messages stated that ROSENFELD planned to build an explosive device and detonate it on November 6, 2018, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. ROSENFELD’s stated reason for these acts was to draw attention to his political belief in “sortition,” a political theory that advocates the random selection of government officials.

In March 2015, Rosenfeld outlined his views in a 1,600-word blog post that included this paranoid hypothetical scenario:

The logical end of majority rule is monarchy. The constant political maneuvering of individuals and factions must inevitably trend towards a winner takes all conclusion. Even today, despite all our “democratic” pretensions in the U.S., one might easily imagine a scenario in which President Jeb Bush (following an act of nuclear terrorism) suspends the electoral process, under the pretext that “terrorists” have infiltrated the Democratic party. A perpetual dynasty of Bush leaders would be a plausible outcome.

At the end of that blog post, Rosenfeld said it was “was condensed from a much longer essay” which he linked. I’ve uploaded a copy of that 9,000-word essay, “The Extinction of Politics: A speculation on the relationship between Ecology, Politics and Government,” to Scribd:

Paul Rosenfeld: The Extinct… by on Scribd

 

You can skim through that quickly and see that Rosenfeld uses pseudo-intellectual rhetoric in an effort to conceal his very limited knowledge of history, politics, economics and philosophy. There is, for example, the simplistic opposition of Adam Smith (capitalism) and Karl Marx (communism) as the only two economic theorists worth mentioning, typical of the sort of amateur who has never actually studied economics and, in all likelihood, has never read either Smith or Marx.

This crude conception of economics is common, and reflects the failure of our public education system. Rosenfeld is intelligent and reasonably articulate, but like most products of the American school system, was not properly taught the why of economics (or anything else). Why did Adam Smith write The Wealth of Nations? He was arguing against the theory of mercantilism, trying to explain to Englishmen that their true best interest was in the general expansion of commerce, which was best encouraged by a policy of liberty, rather than by imposing limitations on trade with such rival powers as Spain and France. To do this, Smith spent many thousands of words explaining how economic activity happens, how wealth is created from three basic sources, the wages of labor, the rent of land, and the profit of capital. The important point is this: Smith was not arguing against socialism or communism, ideas that had not at that time ever been seriously proposed. His explanation of economic activity was not intended as a defense of a political system called “capitalism” (a word he did not use), but rather an effort to show the rational basis of opposition to policies of tariffs and embargoes urged by others.

For the purpose he intended, Smith’s work was masterful, and the thoroughness of his treatment made The Wealth of Nations a founding text of modern economics. Unfortunately, it is the habit of small minds to yoke Smith and Marx together as an either/or binary choice, as if no one else in human history beside these two men had ever said anything important about economics, and despite the dissimilarity of authorial purpose between Smith and Marx. But I digress . . .

Just as Paul Rosenfeld’s conception of economics is crude, so also is his understanding of science. He begins his essay thus:

When The Origin of the Species appeared in 1859 the first people to appropriate Darwin’s ideas were the wealthy, who quickly promoted pseudo-scientific arguments using “natural selection” to rationalize their domination of society. At the time, anarchism, communism and socialism were all perceived as serious threats to the existing social order. Evolution seemed to offer a solid scientific rebuttal.

This is your sophomore Political Science 101 student’s simplistic summary of Darwin’s influence on politics, reflecting the prevalent sort of dumbed-down leftism that prevails in most classrooms. “Social Darwinism,” a set of ideas generally associated with Herbert Spencer (who coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” in his 1864 book Principles of Biology) is quite commonly depicted the way Rosenfeld does, as a “rebuttal” of radicalism, which is in its own way as absurd as claiming that Adam Smith was arguing against socialism. Spencer was himself a radical by the standards of 19th-century England, an acquaintance of John Stuart Mill and other radical thinkers, at a time when what we nowadays call libertarianism was considered as radical as socialism. Most importantly, Spencer was committed to a strictly secular (or “scientific”) philosophy, quite similar to the way that Marx and Friedrich Engels insisted that their own theory of dialectical materialism was the only possible basis of “scientific” socialism.

Well, damn your “science,” sir. Excuse me for clinging bitterly to my guns and my Bible, as Obama said, but it’s easy to see how subtracting religion from consideration — in politics, economics, philosophy and education — has unleashed dangerous forces in the world. The “scientific” belief in a godless universe is folly (“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God,” Psalm 14:1), an invitation to perversion and insanity (“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . . God gave them over to a reprobate mind,” Romans 1:22, 28). But again I digress . . .

In his essay, Paul Rosefeld attacks the Constitution as unscientific:

Grand Ayatollahs and Supreme Court Justices both wear black robes while enforcing conformity in the name of an ancient document, but there is a critical difference. The will of Allah is inscrutable whereas the earthly intentions of the framers were clearly stated in plain English at the beginning of their document. Secular ends demand secular means. When government becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of the people to change their means. This is the province of science, not religion. But the theological interpretation of the Constitution has become so ingrained we are blinded by it. . . .
The framers lived before Darwin. Were the implications of his work not profound with respect to human government? Surely they were no less radical than the revelations of Copernicus for astronomy. Where is the long overdue re-examination of “political science” that was so clearly indicated by Darwin’s theory? . . .
In the pre-scientific era Politics was arguably the only way of maintaining the class system which was central to the preservation of the human ecological dynamic. With myriad populations all competing for the same resources only the strongest and cleverest could prevail. Politics is a form of natural selection by which the strongest and cleverest homo sapiens lead their respective populations in the larger global competition. But, to the extent that this competition has (in recent millennia) been tempered by an impulse towards stability and justice (rather than expansion and subjection) politics has been supplemented by these other mechanisms (merit and chance). Now (under the influence of science) Homo sapiens have arrived at a point where stability is essential, and further competition borders on suicide.

To quote John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Rosenfeld obviously views himself as a profound thinker, and regards his fellow citizens as intellectually inferior — quite like the Unabomber, the Harvard-educated hermit Ted Kaczynski, also a terrorist.

If you ever get an urge to write a “manifesto,” prior to committing an act of terroristic violence, ask yourself: “Has this ever worked before?” Because to my knowledge, none of these manifesto-writing lone-wolf lunatics have ever succeeded, unless you consider Valerie Solanas the founder of modern feminism — which might be valid, but Feminism Is a Totalitarian Movement to Destroy Civilization as We Know It.



 

Category: Crime, Terrorism

In The Mailbox: 10.10.18

Posted on | October 10, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.10.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #404
EBL: Foods That Are A Lie
Twitchy: “Dear Diary” – Trump Adds Insult To Acosta’s Injury
Louder With Crowder: Envy Is Not Compassion!

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Podcast #93 – The Environmentalism v. Feminism Episode
American Power: Hillary Incites Violence Against Republicans, also, Scott Greer, No Campus For White Men
American Thinker: Trump, Declassification, And Leverage
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
BattleSwarm: Google Embraces Censorship
Da Tech Guy: Ten Truths Under My Fedora
Don Surber: Six Reasons Democrats Want To Abolish ICE, also, Angry Mob Complains Republicans Aren’t Graceful
Dustbury: Minus Plus
Fred On Everything: Vacation
The Geller Report: Shaheed Hussain & Son Arrested After Deadly Limo Crash, also, Here’s Why WH Leaker Dina Habib Powell Shouldn’t Replace Nikki Haley At The UN
Hogewash: White Progressivism’s Problem, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
JustOneMinute: The Cotton Theory Of The Ford Leak Overlooks Feinstein Speculation About “Friends”
Legal Insurrection: Eric Holder – “When They Go Low, We Kick Them”, also, Kavanaugh Bounce? Republicans Surge In Four Senate Races
Michelle Malkin: The Most Important Movie You’ve Never Heard Of – Gosnell
The PanAm Post: Brazil 2018 – Why Haddad Doesn’t Have A Prayer Of Beating Bolsonaro
Power Line: Was Rosenstein Serious About Wiretapping Trump? also, Political Correctness & Other White Elitist Fads
Shark Tank: Governor Rick Scott Warns “It’s Too Late To Get Out”
Shot In The Dark: Layers & Layers Of Gatekeepers
The Political Hat: The Grievance Studies Affair
This Ain’t Hell: Wednesday Morning Feelgood Stories, also, Ambassador Haley’s Letter Of Resignation
Victory Girls: Amazon Won’t Be The Downfall Of Our Country
Volokh Conspiracy: The Unintended Consequences Of “Ban The Box”
Weasel Zippers: Gun Grabber Emma Gonzalez Frets About Being Run Off The Road by Gun Owners, also, SCOTUS Allows SD To Enforce Full Voter ID Law For Upcoming Midterms
Megan McArdle: There’s No Excuse For Undermining SCOTUS’ Legitimacy


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Category: Linkagery

What Media Bias Looks Like

Posted on | October 10, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

Rush Limbaugh has remarked that if all he wanted to talk about was media bias, he could spend all day, every day talking about it. As someone who’s been in the conservative journalism business for more than 20 years of my 32-year career, I know exactly what Rush means. Our job, as communicators on the Right, is to attempt to counteract the tsunami of left-wing propaganda from the major media establishment. When I was working the national desk at The Washington Times, my job often involved editing wire copy to remove liberal bias. For example, take the latest item from the Associated Press and remove those phrases and clauses that represented an intrusion — subtle or explicit — of political prejudice. I became very adept at such work, and also was a master of what you might call the compiled summary. A mass shooting happens, for example, and you assemble a 500-word story with bits and pieces from multiple sources (AP, Reuters, local newspaper coverage, etc.) to present the event in a neutral way, rather than as a rallying cry for new gun-control laws (which is how the Washington Post would report it).

Most journalists live inside an echo-chamber of liberalism, and therefore have no concept of what’s wrong with their worldview. Limbaugh has pointed out that many liberals go into the journalism business because they “want to make a difference.” They consider themselves missionaries of enlightenment, battling the forces of ignorance, and the only way they ever look at a Republican is down. The type of people who work at CNN or the New York Times view GOP voters as so far beneath them — morally and intellectually inferior — that they don’t even deserve to be noticed, except insofar as they deserve to be hated. It is impossible to exaggerate the contempt with which Jim Acosta or Carol Costello regard the 63 million people who voted for Donald Trump. And what the soi-disant “elite” media cannot be bothered to contemplate is that their prejudice is a result of their own ignorance. It would be interesting, if you just happened to encounter Mika Brzezinski at a cocktail party, to say, “Have you ever read Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed?” Or: “Have you ever read The Long March by Roger Kimball?”

Those are just a couple of titles on the list of Books Liberals Never Read, and the fact that they became “educated” (usually at very expensive private universities) without ever being exposed to any well-argued criticism of their beliefs is your first clue as to the source not only of their own political prejudice, but the general decline of intellectual standards in elite academia. Why is it that I’ve read so much Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky — picture me, circa 1995, with The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte as my bedtime reading — and yet none of the liberals who get paid to talk on cable-TV news programs can be bothered to read any of the books that well-informed conservatives have generally read? Do the anchors at CNN suppose that, for example, Heather Mac Donald is just a bigoted dimwit? Do they think Charles Murray is a clown?

Hillary Clinton basically endorsed terrorism against Republicans the other day, and nobody at CNN thought to call it what it was. How can we explain this tone-deafness except as evidence that the mainstream media has succumbed to a cult mentality? But I digress . . .

Sometimes media bias is so pervasive that we wouldn’t notice it — fish don’t notice water — if no one bothered to measure it analytically:

Between June 1 and September 30, mainstream media TV networks obsessed over negative stories about President Donald Trump and his administration, while almost entirely ignoring the good news about the booming Trump economy.
Coverage of Trump from ABC, CBS, and NBC was 92 percent negative, according to a Media Research Center (MRC) analysis. Even worse, the booming Trump economy received less than one percent of air time on these three networks.
The networks dedicated 342 minutes to the Russia “collusion” investigation, with coverage that was 97 percent negative on Trump. They spent 308 minutes discussing immigration policies, with 94 percent of that coverage negative. They spend 291 minutes on the Supreme Court battle over Brett Kavanaugh, 82 percent negative. The networks gave 179 minutes to the diplomacy with North Korea, 90 percent negative. They spent 151 minutes discussing Trump’s relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, 99 percent negative.
“Amid this sea of coverage, the networks spent almost no airtime — a mere 14 minutes, or 0.7 percent — on the administration’s economic achievements, including the positive effects of the tax cuts and deregulation, plus historic job growth,” MRC’s Rich Noyes reported.

(Hat-tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) 



 

Category: Media Bias

Taylor Swift, SJW

Posted on | October 10, 2018 | Comments Off on Taylor Swift, SJW

 

Pop culture in the Age of Wokeness:

When did Phil Bredesen become a heroic figure in “the fight for LGBTQ rights”? That was the first thought that hit me when I read pop singer Taylor Swift’s endorsement of the Tennessee Democrat’s Senate campaign on her Tumblr fan page. Miss Swift seems to be under the impression that Bredesen, a 74-year-old former governor, is some kind of progressive Trojan Horse. While the Democrat has been trying to paint himself as a common-sense moderate, Miss Swift conveyed to her impressionable young fans the idea that Bredesen is secretly a Social Justice Warrior (SJW) committed to fighting “any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender” and ending the allegedly “terrifying, sickening and prevalent” problem of “systemic racism.”
Are those the themes of Bredesen’s campaign ads in Tennessee? Did I somehow miss the news that the septuagenarian former governor underwent an ideological makeover to become a radical clone of Cory Booker? Or is Miss Swift’s endorsement of Bredesen an ill-considered attempt by the singer to dispel the criticism she received from the Left for avoiding political commentary during the Trump era?
For months, leftists have been hammering Miss Swift for her failure to support Hillary Clinton’s campaign, or to condemn President Trump since his election. Despite being one of the most successful female entertainers in history, Miss Swift was accused of doing feminism wrong. The website Everyday Feminist slammed her in September 2015 with a headline: “5 Ways Taylor Swift Exemplifies White Feminism — And Why That’s a Problem.” . . .

Read the rest of my column at The American Spectator.



 

Category: Celebrities, Election, Sex Trouble, Tennessee
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