Are You Listening?

Posted on | December 16, 2018 | Comments Off on Are You Listening?

In case you haven’t been listening to The Other Podcast, you really should. My podcasting partner John Hoge has applied his decades of audio engineering expertise to the program and, when the BlogTalkRadio software doesn’t go glitchy on us (as sometimes happens), it’s a lot of fun.

Saturday night, we had a call-in from a Democrat (!!!) who had found our program randomly, and he wanted to talk about the #NeverTrump phenomenon, as inspired by our bon voyage to The Weekly Standard. In case you don’t know it, John didn’t even vote for Trump, and is therefore sympathetic to such sincere Christian conservatives as David French, whom I also consider a friend (while also considering him sadly misguided). As I indicated (“So Much Ahoy,” Dec. 14), I’m more in agreement with Ace of Spades, a regular conservative who has a profound resentment toward Movement Leaders™ who were de facto pro-Hillary and are now de facto pro-Pelosi. Those of us who do not rank as Movement Leaders™ are compelled to go to war with the army we’ve got and to fight or battles as we find them, rather than wistfully wishing we were in an ideal army fighting the battles of our choice. But I digress . . .

Saturday’s podcast was also interesting in that I found myself in mid-show reading a Vox article by Murray Waas in which he talked about Michael Avenatti’s newest client, Alexandra Chalupa, attributing his information to a “source with direct knowledge of the matter.” As an experienced editor, what I noticed about this article was that, while Waas conveys the impression his “source” is someone close to the Mueller investigation, he never specifically characterizes his source(s) this way. If you know how investigative reporting works, you understand that if Waas was getting this from a law enforcement source, he would say so, because that would give the story more credibility. Waas wants his readers to believe he knows for a fact that (a) Paul Manafort advised the White House “to specifically target Alexandra Chalupa, a political strategist and consultant for the DNC, for allegedly working with Ukrainian officials”; (b) it was this advice which Mueller was referencing in saying Manafort “lied about his contacts” with the White House; and (c) we should accept this “exclusive” story as true, based on the authority of Waas’s “source with direct knowledge of the matter.” However . . .

What if Murray Waas’s source is a clever sociopath?

We know that Alexandra Chalupa was working with Brett Kimberlin, one of the most notorious sociopaths on the planet. Furthermore, Kimberlin is a known associate of Neal Rauhauser, an operative whose skill in misleading journalists is remarkable. So that’s at least two known liars who could be sources for Waas’s “exclusive,” and now that Michael Avenatti’s representing Chalupa, that makes three known liars. Of course, we cannot rule out Chalupa herself as this “source” and, because she is a former DNC operative . . . well, that makes four.

Question: If this Murray Waas “exclusive” were true, wouldn’t other reporters be able to match the story? Because if it is true that Manafort was acting as a White House advisor on this DNC/Ukraine angle, and that this was what Mueller was referencing, that would be newsworthy. Wouldn’t we expect to see this story picked up and expanded by the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, Associated Press, etc.?

But those dogs are not barking, are they?

There is a distinct aroma of bovine excrement here, you see, and I didn’t notice it until John and I were in the middle of our podcast Saturday night. After we got off the air, I put in a call to Lee Stranahan, who’s one of the few reporters following the Chalupa/Kimberlin story, and his hunch about the story closely matched my own.

See John Hoge’s latest “Team Kimberlin Post of the Day.”

Stay tuned, dear readers . . .

Category: Russia, The Kimberlin Files, Ukraine

FMJRA 2.0: Distant Smile

Posted on | December 16, 2018 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Rule 5 Sunday: Babe In Toyland
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Jungle Love
The Pirate’s Cove
A View From The Beach
EBL

Police: Former Miss Kentucky Admitted Sending Nude Photos to 15-Year-Old Boy
A View From The Beach

EBL

Two Former Obama Aides Are Certain Mueller Can Prove Russian ‘Collusion’
A View From The Beach
EBL

Breaking News: Heisman Trophy Winner Once Used ‘Queers’ as a Slur on Twitter
The Pirate’s Cove
EBL

Career Criminal Arrested for Kidnapping, Rape, Murder of N.C. Girl, 13
EBL

Macron Deploys E.U. Army in Paris?
Pushing Rubber Downhill
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.10.18
Proof Positive
EBL

Grandfather’s Transgender Lover Charged With Murdering 1-Year-Old Girl in Texas
EBL

Pro-Choice Activist of the Year
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.11.18
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

The Miracle of Saint Nancy
Pushing Rubber Downhill
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.12.18
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

Known Wolf: ‘Allahu Akbar’ Killer in France Had 27 Criminal Convictions
EBL

The Tumblrina Terrorist
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.13.18
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

So Much ‘Ahoy’
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.14.18
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

Top linkers for the week ending December 14:

EBL (17)
A View From The Beach (9)
Proof Positive (6)

Thanks to everyone for all the linkagery!

Last Minute Deals
Amazon Warehouse Deals
Try Amazon Music Unlimited Free Trial
Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial

Category: FMJRA Award

In The Mailbox: 12.14.18

Posted on | December 14, 2018 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Eliza Dushku And CBS Bull
Twitchy: Federal Judge Rules Key Parts Of Obamacare Unconstitutional
Louder With Crowder: John Stossel Exposes The Real Numbers on Global Mass Shootings
According To Hoyt: Bad Bad Futures That Didn’t Happen – The Serial Number Version
Monster Hunter Nation: Noir Fatale Cover Reveal
Vox Popoli: The Yellow Vest Protest Continues

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The New System Edition
American Power: Checking Robert Mueller
American Thinker: The GOP Needs To Stop Being The Stupid Party
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Chicago Machine Friday
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For December 14
Camp Of The Saints:
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: No Pasaran! Details The Straw That Broke The French Drivers’ Backs, also, Non-Tweets Under The Fedora For December 14
Don Surber: Weekly Standard Gone, Trump Still Standing
Dustbury: Gently Down The Streams
First Street Journal:
The Geller Report: Obama’s FBI Paid More On Russian Dirt & Fake News In The 2016 Election Than The Russians, also, Jewicidal Leftist Natalie Portman Slams Israel’s Nation-State Law As “Racist”
Hogewash: Another Statue Bites The Dust
Hollywood In Toto: Mortal Engines (Mostly) Delivers What We Need
Joe For America: FL School Soars To #1 In State After Ditching Common Core
JustOneMinute: Traditional Market Meltdown Open Thread
Legal Insurrection: Fauxcahontas Finally Admits She’s Not A “Person Of Color”, also, CNN Poll Says Biden Tops Democratic Nominees
The PanAm Post: Maduro Regime Arrests German Journalist On Espionage Charges
Power Line: Flynn’s Fate, also, Trump Names Mulvaney Acting WH COS
Shark Tank: FL Unemployment Rate Hits Lowest Percentage Since 2007
Shot In The Dark: “Die, Apostates!”
The Political Hat: Twelve Posts Of Christmas, Day 2
This Ain’t Hell: “Captain Dan” Strikes Again, also, Last Ride For Rolling Thunder
Victory Girls: That Danged Constitution
Volokh Conspiracy: Short Circuit – A Roundup Of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Weasel Zippers: Obama Administration Reportedly Gave Classified Info To Senators For Use Against Trump, also, Democrats Voted For Border Wall In 2006, Now Oppose It
Mark Steyn: Pot For Pensions, also, I’ll Be Holmes For Christmas

Last-Minute Deals
Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

So Much ‘Ahoy’

Posted on | December 14, 2018 | Comments Off on So Much ‘Ahoy’

Two major differences between my blog and the Weekly Standard:

I never sold any cruises to my readers;
and
I’m still publishing.

Also, I never whored out to the open-borders #NeverTrump crowd:

The Weekly Standard, a conservative opinion magazine turned Never-Trump publication, will shut down, according to a Friday announcement from the publisher’s owner, Clarity Media Group.
Earlier Friday, Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Stephen Hayes sat down with MediaDC chairman Ryan McKibben to discuss the magazine’s fate. Hayes sent a letter to employees notifying them of this morning’s meeting with McKibben, saying he was “not sure what today will bring”
“This is a volatile time in American journalism and politics,” Hayes’ letter to staffers read. “Many media outlets have responded to the challenges of the moment by prioritizing affirmation over information, giving into the pull of polarization and the lure of clickbait.” . . .
The Weekly Standard, a once-influential neoconservative magazine, was co-founded by Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes in 1995 and published by Newscorp.
Clarity Media Group acquired The Weekly Standard in 2009.

That’s a carefully restrained version of the story, like saying the Hindenburg “experienced problems” on its arrival at Lakehurst, N.J.

Having previously said what I had to say on this topic (“The Bankruptcy of #NeverTrump,” Dec. 5, and “Be Not Conformed to This World,” Dec. 6), I’ll refrain from doing a happy dance on the grave of “elite” conservative folly. Instead, I’ll just quote a bit of Ace of Spades:

There’s a lot of whining by NeverTrumpers that this is terrible because we need dissenting voices in media, and the closing of the Weekly Standard means that we must all “kneel” to one rich arrogant man’s ego.
Well, you know who might agree with that? Lee Smith, who was fired — purged — from The Weekly Standard last October immediately having offered them an article exposing FusionGPS, the firm that Bill Kristol hired to try to take out Trump and Cruz, for those who like to forget that last name.
I know a lot of NeverTrumpers pretend they were Cruz supporters but funny, when I was supporting Cruz, I didn’t see them anywhere near me. They were taking snarky shots at Cruz and seemed to be rather enamored of Ruuuuubioooo.
Anyway, Lee Smith offered a rich (well, at least he lives richly off other people’s money) arrogant man whose ego cannot bear to hear any dissenting voices a story about the company he paid (or rather, used his donors’ money to pay) for dirt on Trump and Cruz, and was canned. . . .
So to all of those Weekly Standard people upset about losing your jobs — Lee Smith lost his job last Christmas (he was fired in October, but generously paid through Christmas), and none of you said a g–damn thing.

Read the whole thing and remember that Ace is not any kind of paleoconservative or “alt-right” white nationalist. He’s just a regular conservative who is living in reality, rather than in some opium-den pipe dream of a “Proposition Nation” or whatever other intellectual abstraction these genius controlled opposition types have spent 25 years peddling to Fox News viewers as True Conservative™ Principles.

So now their crooked hustle is busted, because the suckers got wise to the scam, and I’m right here where I’ve been for more than a decade, doing straightforward fee-for-service blogging, and reminding you again that The Five Most Important Words in the English Language are:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Really. Please. It’s Christmas. Thanks in advance.

Category: Media Bias

In The Mailbox: 12.13.18

Posted on | December 14, 2018 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Interesting Articles Found On Ancipient.com
EBL: Troy: Fall Of A City
Twitchy: CBS Pays Actress Eliza Dushku Millions In Secret #MeToo Settlement
Louder With Crowder: Boy Scouts Consider Bankruptcy After Years Of Sex Abuse Coverup, “Progressive” Policies

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Trying To Be The Mom
American Power: Alistair Horne, The Fall of Paris
American Thinker: How Does Occasional Cortex Explain Communism’s 100 Million Dead?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Underground Living News
BattleSwarm: Theresa May Survives No-Confidence Vote
CDR Salamander: More To learn From The Norwegians
Da Tech Guy: Government Bureaucracy Turned A Small Town Road Into A Nightmare, also, Non-Tweets Under The Fedora For December 13
Don Surber: Feds Find 19,000 Missing Strzok-Page Texts
Dustbury: It Don’t Mean I’m Blind
The Geller Report: Fox News Host Apologizes To Nazi Collaborator George Soros, also, Jewish Men Brutally Attacked In Miami At Kosher Dunkin’ Donuts
Hogewash: Welcome To The Club, Titania, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Ultimate Guide To 2018’s Best TV Shows
JustOneMinute: Hey, Dude, Where’s My Collusion?
Legal Insurrection: New Bill Makes Congressmen Responsible For Sexual Harassment Settlements, also, Judge Demands Interviews With Flynn After Sentencing Memo Raises Questions
The PanAm Post: Bolsonaro, Macri Off To Rocky Start On Brazilian-Argentine Relations
Power Line: Ninth Circuit – Judges, Or Robed Activists? also, Settled Science – There Really Are “Latte Liberals”
Shark Tank: Trump’s Approval Rises To 46%
Shot In The Dark: Why Are Progressives Such Miserable People?
The Political Hat: Twelve Posts Of Christmas, 2018 (Day One)
This Ain’t Hell: One Big Fustercluck, also, Ghosts For The Gullible
Victory Girls: Young Woman Pens Love Note To Aborted Baby
Volokh Conspiracy: Unconstitutional “Hate Speech” Prosecution In NY
Weasel Zippers: OIG Report On Page, Strzok Phones Suggests “Unacceptable” Consuct By Mueller’s Office, also, Homeland Security Shuts Down Fake News From CNN’s Sciutto
Mark Steyn: Sapphic Sharia Same-Sex Slavers Of Secaucus

Twelve Days Of Deals, Day Twelve – Sports & Outdoors
Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

The Tumblrina Terrorist

Posted on | December 13, 2018 | 1 Comment

Elizabeth LeCron: Too crazy for Tumblr.

Have I ever mentioned that crazy people are dangerous? Pretty sure I have mentioned this a few times, for example Kentucky gunman Gregory Allen Bush, Cornell University student Saano Murembya, transgender activist “Gwynevere River Song” and psycho gamer David Katz, not to mention the now-incarcerated Deborah Frisch.

The latest proof that crazy people are dangerous (as if further proof were needed), involves a girl so crazy she got banned from Tumblr:

A Toledo woman was arrested and charged in federal court after she purchased black powder and screws that she believed were going to be used to make a pipe bomb as part of an attack on an “upscale” Toledo, Ohio restaurant, prosecutors said.
Elizabeth “Bee” Ridge LeCron, 23, was charged with one count of transportation of explosives and explosive material for the purposes of harming others and property.
Federal officials said she “explicitly stated (a) desire to engage in acts of death and destruction.”
LeCron was part of the true crime community on Tumblr. Her page is shadow-banned to Tumblr users but is visible to non-users. For now.
LeCron, of Maumee and Toledo, Ohio, was vocal on her Tumblr account and frequently posted images having to do with mass murder, school shootings and, in particular, she was a fan of white supremacist and convicted mass murderer Dylann Roof. . . .
According to an affidavit filed in the case, LeCron came to the attention of law enforcement in June when a friend told authorities they were concerned when LeCron and her boyfriend Vincent Armstong “expressed a desire to conduct a violent attack.” But it was more than a desire as she already had an arsenal, court records show. Months after the feds were first on to LeCron, a search warrant found she had an AK-47 a shotgun a number of handguns large quantity of ammunition and a plastic shopping bag containing numerous end caps which can be used in the manufacturing of pipe bombs.
From the beginning, investigators were shocked by the “frequently posted voluminous photographs and comments on social media glorifying mass murderers, including the Columbine shooters and Dylann Roof.”
After her Tumblr account ‘ligaturemarkings’ was shut down because of offensive content, LeCron started a new profile, CharlestonChurchMiracle, where she continued to post photos and comments about mass casualty attacks, the second account an apparent homage to Roof. On this page, as was the case with her first page, she reblogged frequent disturbing posts about mass murders, serial killers, school shooters including the Columbine killers and of late, Nickolas Cruz, the accused Parkland shooter. But the posts were not just re-blogs, rather appeared a call to action, feds say.
Court records and her Tumblr pages show the seriousness with which the platform took her commentary – they shut her page down – but also even people on Tumblr from the True Crime community who said she was “disturbed.” . . .

(Whoa! If even losers in the deranged online cesspool of Tumblr think you’re “disturbed,” you must be dangerously crazy.)

In August, undercover FBI agents and confidential sources began communicating with LeCron as presumed allies. She told undercover agents that she had devised a plan to commit an ‘upscale mass murder’ at a Toledo bar. . . .
Meanwhile, she and her friend, who was working with feds by that time, flew to Denver to visit Columbine High School. LeCron and Armstrong also had copiously filed journals with myriad details about plans for mass murder . . .
Still, in August of 2018, an undercover agent contacted her through her Tumblr and it was then that LeCron stated she wanted to meet other anarchists in order to form a team. She stated she wanted to damage a livestock farm to set livestock free. She later confirmed she was willing to sabotage anything that harms the environment.
A week later, on August 28, she reiterated she wanted to attack a farm that raises pigs or cows. . . .
In September, Lecron met with undercover FBI agents and stated she and an associate started to make a pipe bomb. She stated she “definitely want(ed) to make a statement up here” and thought the place where she worked could be a good target because she believed they were polluting the river behind the plant. . . .
On December 8, LeCron met with a source at a retail sporting good stores, where she entered the store by herself and purchased two pounds of Hodgson Triple Seven Muzzleloading Propellant. She then went to a larger retailer in Perrysburg, where she purchased 665 screws of various sizes, some as large as three inches. . . .
LeCron is a ‘furry,’ a fandom subculture into anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. She also has artwork on a site called Deviant Art.

OK, this is like the trifecta of 21st-century craziness:

Tumblr blog? Check.
“Furry”? Check.
Posting crappy weird drawings on Deviant Art? Check.

Look, I understand there are people with actual talent who post their work to Deviant Art, but there is also a lot of no-talent crap, less impressive than the cartoons I drew in fifth grade. When you combine this with having a Tumblr blog and being a “furry”? That’s a level of craziness that requires Thorazine and institutionalization.

Did I mention she was a Bernie Sanders supporter? And has weird hair? All she’d need to do is to add “nonbinary genderqueer” to her profile, and she’d be the very model of the SJW Tumblrina. Such people used to be locked up in lunatic asylums, but the psychiatric profession is controlled by liberals, so they turned all the kooks loose, permitting them to post their crazy rants on Tumblr and, also, vote Democrat.

Or that’s my theory, anyway. You got a better one? No, I didn’t think so.

Until about 15 years ago, people babbling lunatic gibberish were recognized as crazy. The disheveled guy mumbling to himself on the bus, the crazy-eyed woman who accosted you on the sidewalk to bum some change — you knew these people were a few fries short of a Happy Meal. If they started ranting about the Illuminati or the New World Order or some other wacko conspiracy theory, you just kind of nodded and smiled and made an excuse why you were in a hurry to go catch a plane or something. “Have a nice day,” you’d say, and then make a swift exit. But that was before the invention of online social media.

Now, instead of mumbling to themselves on the bus, the kooks stay home, collecting disability payments and finding a ready-made audience for their craziness among the crowds of other kooks on sites like Tumblr. Remember how federal disability payments mysteriously increased during the Obama administration? Remember the soaring percentages of young women diagnosed with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality, etc? Do you think that was just a coincidence? And are you savvy enough to connect the dots to the proliferation of SJW “activist” types promoting left-wing ideas on social media?

Lunatics are our new Leisure Class, supported by a combination of disability payments, student loans, parental largesse and Patreon. They are disconnected from reality — I mean, Bernie Sanders for President? — and view the real world as a place of systemic oppression, in which they are victims and you, the normal working person trying to pay your bills and take care of your family, are the oppressor.

Because these lunatics have proliferated at such a fantastic rate in the past decade, they are overwhelming our society’s defense mechanisms. Like, how are you supposed to tell which of the wild-eyed, purple-haired, tattoo-covered freaks is a real threat, when you routinely encounter dozens of such weirdos at your local shopping mall?

Once you start paying attention to this phenomenon, you notice that the clerk at the convenience store has an undercut hairstyle and gauged ears, and the girl taking your order at Burger King has a tattoo on her neck and a menacing glare. The crazies are everywhere now, not just in Berkeley and the East Village. So here’s this girl in Toledo spending all her time online raving about mass murder and, fortunately, somebody reported her to the FBI. Did I mention she had a boyfriend? Yeah, you know this dude’s a real winner:

The boyfriend of an Ohio woman who allegedly worshipped mass murderers like Dylann Roof and plotted a massacre was charged Wednesday with lying to the FBI, authorities said.
A criminal complaint says Vincent Armstrong, 23, initially told investigators that he and girlfriend Elizabeth Lecron, 23, were “role-playing” when they talked about killing people — but later admitted it had “crossed over” from fantasy to reality and had started prepping for an attack.
She and Armstrong also wrote about their urge to carry out violent attacks in disturbing journal entries seized by the feds and on their Tumblr accounts.
“Around 5 a.m., I called [Subject-1],” Lecron wrote in May, referring to Armstrong. “He told me he felt homicidal. He had followed a car, wanting to murder. Didn’t happen but it worried me. I just told him ‘soon.’”
A few weeks later, Armstrong wrote that he was haunted by “a vision to kill.”
“To hunt the unwilling. These peasants to society. The hatred toward the human race is bewildering,” he wrote. “It makes me feel good to know I will end it all. Very soon. I am buying a knife this weekend to slay my pray [sic].”

He’s into tattoos and “described himself as a vegan and a poet.”

Here you have two 23-year-old psychos with nothing in common but “hatred toward the human race” and how are they paying their rent? How is it they have infinite leisure time to write “disturbing journal entries” and Internet paeans to mass murderers? Even if you were a disgruntled misanthrope with a generalized contempt for your fellow citizens, you wouldn’t have time to brood about it, because you’ve got a job and other adult responsibilities to keep you busy, whereas these young lunatics have nothing else to do all day except share their hatred of “peasants” like you, who might be gunned down in one of the random and meaningless slaughters such wackos usually commit.

Category: Crime

Known Wolf: ‘Allahu Akbar’ Killer in France Had 27 Criminal Convictions

Posted on | December 13, 2018 | 1 Comment

By the time he opened fire on a Christmas market in France, the killer had spent nearly two decades as a menace to Europe:

Cherif Chekatt’s criminal career began at age 10. By age 13 he had been convicted. Now, with his third decade still incomplete, he is a fugitive, accused in the deadly shooting at France’s most famous Christmas market.
The 29-year-old has more than two dozen convictions, mostly in France but also in Switzerland and Germany. The rare times he’s been out of jail, he’s moved around. He had lived at his latest apartment, in a grim housing bloc on the edge of Strasbourg, for just a few months before police broke down the door in an unrelated case.
But Chekatt wasn’t home on Tuesday morning when the police arrived at the fifth-floor flat overlooking a pair of smokestacks and flat-topped houses in the distance. Further in the distance, barely visible, is downtown Strasbourg, where that evening he allegedly shouted “God is Great” in Arabic [“Allahu Akbar”] amid gunfire and shootouts with police in northeastern Strasbourg that left two dead, one person brain dead and 12 others injured.
Hundreds of officers fanned out Wednesday in a massive manhunt, hoping to put him behind bars yet again.
Police had been trailing Chekatt, a Strasbourg native and one of six siblings who was “well known” to authorities: He had 27 convictions in his criminal record, said Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz. Chekatt was also tracked by the domestic counterintelligence service, DGSI — France’s equivalent of the FBI.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said by age 10 the suspect “already had behavior that fell under penal law.” . . .
Authorities say he was flagged for Islamic extremism in prison in 2015 and put on the “Fiche S” radical watch list then. It’s a profile familiar to many in European security, and has hit France particularly hard — that of a petty criminal who fuses a life of violence with Islamic extremism.

Here’s a question: If this profile is so “familiar,” why are they turning these monsters loose on the streets? And why are they embracing open borders policy to bring more monsters to Europe?

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!