The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 03.23.18

Posted on | March 23, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.23.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Congress Goes Hog Wild
Twitchy: Must-See TV – Watch Roseanne Rip Into Jimmy Kimmel Over Trump
Louder With Crowder: David Hogg – The NRA Just Wants To Murder More Children
Reason: The Real Reason Zuckerberg Is Calling For Regulation Of Facebook (h/t NeoWayland)
According To Hoyt: Clean Your Room
Monster Hunter Nation: March Update Post
Vox Popoli: The End Of The Republican Party

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: He Gets It
American Power: Trump Administration Announces $60 Billion In Tariffs On Chinese Imports, also,  Fifteen Years After The Iraq War, A Veteran Reflects
American Thinker: Is Governor Jerry Brown Mentally Ill?
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five NRA Founding Friday
BattleSwarm: Ted Cruz On Why He Voted Against The Omnibus Spending Bill
Da Tech Guy: South Africa About To Do The Zimbabwe, also, Voices Of CPAC 2018 – Debra (Nice Deb) Heine
Don Surber: No, Citigroup, You Must Bake The Gay Wedding Cake
Dustbury: Replicator 0.9
Fausta: The U.S. Latest Export To Brazil? Sperm
The Geller Report: Muslim Gunman Kills Butcher, Takes Hostages, Shoots Cop In French Supermarket, also, Schweizer Says Obama Administration Regulations Were Crony Capitalism
Hogewash: The Gilmore LOLSuit, also, Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
JustOneMinute: McMaster Out, Bolton In
Legal Insurrection: Administration Slaps Sanctions On Nine Iranians, Company, For Hacking Universities, also, Facebook Changes Starving Conservative Media
Power Line: Thoughts From The Ammo Line, also, Trade War? Not So Fast!
Shark Tank: Trump Picks Bolton As New NSA, Democrats Blow Head Gasket
Shot In The Dark: Still Waiting For The Winning
STUMP: States – Let’s Sue The Evil Gas Companies! Gas Companies – How About We Sue You For Securities Fraud?
The Political Hat: Soviet Ape-Men Vs. Catgirl Nuns
This Ain’t Hell: Explosion At Travis AFB Gate, also, ACLU Sues Police For Arresting Illegal Immigrant
Victory Girls: John Bolton Named National Security Advisor, And The Pearl-Clutching Is Epic
Weasel Zippers: Oregon Initiative Would Ban “Assault Weapons”, Require Owners To Surrender Guns, also, DNC Vice Chair Keith Ellison Calls For “Maximum Wage” In America


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Category: Linkagery

Worst. Omnibus. Ever.

Posted on | March 23, 2018 | 2 Comments

How bad is the $1.3 trillion “omnibus” deal Congress passed yesterday? It’s an abomination, a swindle, a political failure, a fiscal catastrophe, a crime against God and man — an omnibus that will live in infamy.

Mitch McConnell and the other so-called “Republican leaders” in Congress who “negotiated” this disaster do not deserve to be in public office. They deserve to be in Guantanamo Bay, subjected to waterboarding or whatever. Here’s the Senate roll call so you know who to hate. In the House, 90 Republicans voted “no,” and you can find the roll call here to see how your representative voted.

One of the “arguments” (actually, excuses) offered in defense of this corrupt pork-laden deal is that it increases funding for the military. In other words, we are expected to believe, it is patriotic for Republicans to betray the voters who elected them. As bogus as this excuse is in terms of policy, however, it’s absolute folly as politics. This “we-support-our-troops” defense of the budget disaster will also be exploited by Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer who not only got a GOP-approved patriotism certificate from this deal, but also got Republicans to abandon any pretense that they ever intend to do anything to stop the immigration invasion. It was a complete sellout by the GOP, as Dan Stein says:

“This omnibus was an appropriate vehicle to provide full funding for the construction of a border wall — an essential tool for regaining control of our borders and stopping illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and terrorism. Instead, it contains a paltry $1.6 billion for repairs, drones, and pedestrian fencing — no wall construction. Even worse, the measure explicitly restricts funding for any of President Trump’s border wall prototypes, only allowing spending for designs deployed before the prototypes were constructed. If Congressional leadership told the president he was getting money for his signature campaign promise, he was lied to.
“And while adequate funding for the wall was not included, powerful business interests are inappropriately using the must-pass spending bill to expand their access to cheap foreign labor. Congressional leadership included a provision in the omnibus that allows the Department of Homeland Security to double the number of H-2B visas available in the current fiscal year. Opening the door for a significant increase in guest workers is not only unwarranted, but harmful to the interests of American workers. Moreover, this controversial provision has no place in a spending bill and should instead be debated openly along with other unsettled immigration matters after the government is funded. . . .
“The bottom line is this: there are no immigration-related provisions in the omnibus that are consistent with what President Trump and congressional Republicans told the American people they would do when they were sent to Washington.”

Everybody who voted for President Trump has been stabbed in the back by the Republican “leadership” in Congress. At this point, I don’t know why anyone should care if Democrats win the November midterms. If the GOP is so worthless, why should conservatives even bother voting?

 

 

Category: Budget, Immigration

In The Mailbox: 03.22.18

Posted on | March 23, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.22.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
First Street Journal: Never Apologize If You Don’t Mean It
EBL: John Bolton Replacing H.R. McMaster As National Security Adviser
Twitchy: Ted Lieu Tries To Pull “Classified Info” Rank On Alan Dershowitz, Gets Slapped Down Hard
Louder With Crowder: Rand Paul Tweets About 2018 Omnibus Spending Bill, Finds Crapton Of Waste
NPR: Jennifer Palmieri Claims Hillary Ran “With Half Her Humanity Tied Behind Her Back” (h/t NeoWayland)

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Podcast #77 – The Sacred Cows Episode
American Power: Conservative Amnesia
American Thinker: Amy Wax And Free Speech At Penn
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily New Confederates News
BattleSwarm: Congress Caves On Sanctuary Cities
CDR Salamander: Penny Wise? Pound Sand
Da Tech Guy: White Privilege Is A White Elephant, also, Musings On Ridicule
Don Surber: Why Creepy Uncle Joe Attacked Trump
Dustbury: How To Distract A Driver
Fausta: Peru – President PPK Resigns
The Geller Report: Muslim Migrant Screaming “Allahu Akbar” Rushes Angela Merkel, also, 100 French Intellectuals Warn About Islamic Totalitarianism
Hogewash: The Moon, 360 Degrees, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Joe For America: CitiBank Announces It’ll Force New Gun Control Rules On Its Customers
JustOneMinute: Corporate Fascism, But In A Good Cause!
Legal Insurrection: San Francisco Bans Fur Sales, also, Pence Family Shows Grace In Face Of John Oliver’s Childish Antics
Power Line: Anti-Semitic And Dumb As A Rock, also, The Senate’s Worst Boss?
Shark Tank: CNN In Center Of Controversy Again
Shot In The Dark: The Elephant In The Classroom
STUMP: McCabe’s Pension – Story Roundup, Pension Details, & A Little Bit Of Stats
The Political Hat: Woke Sexuality – Problematic DNA, Problematic Sperm, Problematic F**king
This Ain’t Hell: TSGT Phillip Dyer Saving The World, also, Arthur Jones The Illinois Nazi
Victory Girls: Ivanka Trump In A Lab Coast Triggers Hysteria
Weasel Zippers: Australian Nurses Forced To Announce Their “White Privilege” Before Treating Abos, also, Terrorist Attack At Travis AFB
Megan McArdle: Facebook Is America’s Scapegoat Du Jour
Mark Steyn: The Shadow Over Our Heads, also, Spoiling For A Fight


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Category: Linkagery

‘The Last Song Nearly Killed Me’

Posted on | March 22, 2018 | Comments Off on ‘The Last Song Nearly Killed Me’

 

On this date in 1963, the Beatles released their first album, Please Please Me, an event memorialized by the poet Philip Larkin:

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me)
Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.

The story of how that LP was recorded in a single 10-hour session is told in a fascinating article by Jordan Rutagh. The Beatles had already released two 45-rpm singles — “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me” — which along with their B-sides (“Ask Me Why” and “P.S. I Love You”) gave them four songs already recorded. A 33-rpm vinyl album in those days typically featured 14 songs (seven on each side), so after “Please Please Me” went to No. 1 on the British charts and their label wanted to capitalize on this success by rushing an LP onto the market, the group needed to add 10 more songs to make the required total. The Liverpool-based quartet arrived at EMI’s London studio on the morning of Feb. 11, 1963, and by 10:45 a.m., the tape machine was rolling.

If you are familiar with the album, you know that there are really only three good songs on it. The title track was a sexual double-entendre, a plea for reciprocation the matter of what was then euphemistically called “heavy petting,” written cleverly enough that the censors couldn’t suppress it, but everybody knew why teenage girls went wild for it.

When the frenzy known as “Beatlemania” took hold in England that year, one newspaper assigned its classical music critic to analyze the group’s oeuvre. He obliged with a review that described the pentatonic structure of “Please Please Me,” and reading that review was the first time the song’s composers ever saw the word “pentatonic.”

It is often wrongly claimed that John Lennon and Paul McCartney were self-taught prodigies. In fact, Lennon as a boy had sung in the local Anglican church choir, and McCartney had been taught the basics of piano and trumpet by his father, who’d played in jazz bands. However, as songwriters, they’d mainly learned by imitating what they heard on their favorite rock, pop and country records. With no formal lessons in music theory, Lennon and McCartney lacked the vocabulary that permitted the highbrow critic to name such a thing as a pentatonic scale, but simply wrote and sang what they liked — and they did OK.

“Please Please Me” sounds incredibly corny and simple to us now, but in 1963 it was ground-breaking and innovative, a fresh new sound that was much different from anything previously heard in pop music. The Beatles’ producer, George Martin, was a classically-trained musician who had never recorded a rock band, but the way he mixed their sound made the drums cut through with tremendous clarity. It was Martin’s production skill that gave such emphasis to the beat in the Beatles.

For rock music fans, however, the title track is arguably only the third-best song on the Please Please Me album. It is eclipsed by the manic energy of “I Saw Her Standing There.” With McCartney on lead vocals, and playing a bass riff lifted from an old Chuck Berry tune, “I Saw Her Standing There” just flat-out rocks. Jordan Rutagh explains that the famous count-off at the start of the track — “One, two, three, FAW!” — was actually recorded on the ninth take. The first take ended up on the album, but Martin had them keep trying for a better version, which never worked out. After the band halted midway through the eighth take because Ringo had flubbed a drum part, Paul was becoming irritated. So he put some of his irritated energy into the count-off of the next take. Martin liked that so much, he spliced it onto the start of take one.

The process of repeated retakes and overdubs rapidly chewed up the studio time allotted to the Beatles’ sessions that day, and the band actually worked through their lunch break, rehearsing in an effort to get their sound together. To make matters more difficult, Lennon was suffering with a head cold that day and kept gobbling throat lozenges to prevent his voice from shutting down completely. By the time they finished recording their next-to-last tune of the day (the Burt Bacharach ballad “Baby It’s You”), it was 10 p.m., everybody was dead tired, and there was some question as to whether Lennon’s voice could hold up through their last number, a cover of a minor hit by the Isley Brothers. They had to get it right in one take and, wow, what a take it was!

Every after more than half a century, the savage intensity of “Twist and Shout” is still exciting. The simple three-chord riff (the same used in the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” and Richie Valens’ “La Bamba”) isn’t anything special, and the Isley Brothers’ version had only reached No. 17 on the U.S. charts in 1962. Compare that version to what the Beatles recorded in 1963, and the difference is remarkable, mainly because of the raw sound of Lennon’s voice. “The last song nearly killed me,” he later said of that late-night session, but what an incredible sound!

It’s one of the greatest rock-and-roll records of all time. Later that year, the Beatles were invited to headline the Royal Command Performance, with Queen Elizabeth in attendance. They played three songs, and then Lennon made a joke: “For our last number, I’d like to ask your help. Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry.” Of course, it was “Twist and Shout.”

 

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

 

Category: History, Music

California Democrat Is Unemployed

Posted on | March 22, 2018 | Comments Off on California Democrat Is Unemployed

 

Gregory Salcido is a Democrat. A member of the city council in the Los Angeles suburb of Pico Rivera, Salcido ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2002, but lost the primary. Salcido’s politics are relevant to the repeated controversies that have plagued his career as a history teacher at El Rancho High School. In 2005, a parent complained that Salcido had initiated a classroom discussion of masturbation. In 2010, Salcido was suspended after reportedly telling a student, “shut up Kelly before I kill you.” In 2012, Salcido was again in trouble for hitting a student and allegedly making fun of the boy’s obesity. These incidents could be regarded in hindsight as “red flags” warning that Salcido was headed toward the self-destruction he reached in January this year:

A Southern California high school teacher was caught on camera denigrating the intelligence of people serving in the US military.
In the videos, which were stealthily recorded in class by a student at El Rancho High in Pico Rivera, California, history teacher Gregory Salcido, 49, can be heard making a variety of unflattering remarks about service people, at one point calling them the ‘lowest of the low.’ . . .
In one of the clips, Salcido can be heard saying, ‘Think about the people who you know are over there. Your freakin’ stupid Uncle Louie or whatever. They’re dumb s***ts. They’re not like high-level thinkers. They’re not academic people. They’re not intellectual people.’
He then says that overseas service people are ‘the freakin’ lowest of our low. Not morally — I’m not saying they make bad moral decisions — they’re not talented people.’ . . .
‘The data is in, we don’t have a good military,’ Salcido says.
The 17-year-old high school senior who shot the videos . . . said that his brother and uncles were Marines who fought in Afghanistan, Desert Storm and Vietnam, and that Salcido’s comments were ‘so disrespectful.’

Now, the “disrespectful” anti-American teacher is unemployed:

A California school district fired a teacher on Tuesday following his viral rant where he called the military the “lowest of our low.”
The El Rancho Unified School District voted unanimously to fire history teacher and Pico Rivera councilman Gregory Salcido, reported Fox News.
“[Salcido’s] comments do not reflect what we stand for, who we are,” El Rancho board of education president Aurora Villon said. “The classroom should never be a place where students feel that they are picked at, bullied, intimidated.” . . .
Aside from making headlines, Salcido’s screed earned him attention from White House chief of staff John Kelly, who said the former teacher “ought to go to hell.”
“I just hope he enjoys the liberties and the lifestyle that we have fought for,” Kelly, who retired from the Marine Corps, told Fox News.

California Democrats hate America.

 

Category: California, Democrats, Education, Military

McCabe Targeted Sessions in ‘Coup’ Conspiracy by Obama-Era DOJ Officials

Posted on | March 22, 2018 | Comments Off on McCabe Targeted Sessions in ‘Coup’ Conspiracy by Obama-Era DOJ Officials

 

Fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe launched an investigation against Attorney General Jeff Sessions last year as part of a “coup” organized by Obama-era holdovers in the Department of Justice.

“We already know Andrew McCabe was one of the primary conspirators in the plot to illegally spy on, manufacture evidence against, and then impeach a duly elected president using Illegitimate criminally obtained FISA warrants as pseudo legal cover,” according to an analysis of the revelation that McCabe targeted Sessions in a “covertly launched a criminal case.” By taking out Sessions, the analyst alleges, McCabe hoped to replace the attorney general with fellow conspirator Sally Yates, who was acting attorney general before Trump fired her in January 2017.

In a 35-message analysis on Twitter, @NameRedacted7 explains that McCabe — along with former FBI director James Comey, rogue FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, former associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr, former assistant attorney general Peter Kadzik, and other Democrats in the Justice Department — were complicit in “spying on Team Trump” through illegally obtained FISA warrants. (“8 top DOJ and FBI officials under a cloud over roles in Clinton, Trump investigations.”) The conspirators then launched an effort to “frame” Sessions, which was part of a “staggering” attempt to “decapitate” the executive branch in “show trials,” according to @NameRedacted7.

McCabe was accused of mishandling the investigation of Hillary Clinton for her use of a illegal private email server to conduct official State Department business. “McCabe opened his politically motivated case” against Sessions in response to a letter from Democrat Sens. Patrick Leahy and Al Franken, who had attempted during confirmation hearings “to falsely paint [Sessions] as a Russian agent,” the analysis notes.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation is likely to lead to the prosecution of McCabe and perhaps others, the analysis suggests. It has been reported that Horowitz will accuse McCabe of improper leaking to the press and deliberately misleading investigators.

The connection between McCabe and the phony “Russiagate” smear against Sessions shows how Democrat Party loyalists in the Justice Department used what Page and Strzok called an “insurance policy” in their attempt to sabotage the Trump administration.



 

Category: Corruption, Democrats

In The Mailbox: 03.21.18

Posted on | March 21, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.21.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #201
EBL: Governor Matt Bevin Speaks On Recent Violence
Twitchy: Josh Barro Schools Ezra Klein On Hillary, And Her Minions Are Pissed
Louder With Crowder: David Hogg, You Lying, Opportunistic, Insufferable Little Toe Rag
DC Whispers: Former FBI Director Goes On Record – “Comey, McCabe, & Brennan All Corrupt, And Everything Leads Back To Obama” (h/t NeoWayland)

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: At The Pleasure Of The Police
American Power: Austin Bombing Suspect Identified, also, Ralph Peters Quits Fox News
American Thinker: John Brennan, Deep State Political Hack
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
BattleSwarm: NEWSFLASH – Austin Bomber Dead
CDR Salamander: You Had Me At ASWOC, Kathlene
Da Tech Guy: The Schooling Of David Hogg, also, Cause And Effect, Eric Reed Edition
Don Surber: Gay Mafia Attacks Its Own
Dustbury: Imagine What This Kid Used To Be Like
The Geller Report: Florida Woman Who Crashed Car Into Police Station Is Devout Muslima – Total Media Blackout, also, Obama Campaign Staffer Said Facebook Allowed Them To Harvest Masses Of Data
Hogewash: The Orion Nebula In Visible Light And Radio, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Joe For America: Seth Rich Investigator Victim Of Hit & Run, Shooting
JustOneMinute: As Much As I Hate Seeing A Nazi Win Something…
Legal Insurrection: Reuters Blames Trump For Canada’s Immigration Problems, also, Why Is India Financing Palestinian Terrorism?
Michelle Malkin: Document Drop – Another Fatal FBI Fumble In Florida
Power Line: Digitalships & Double Standards, also, Barking Mad
Shark Tank: Parkland School Faces More Threats
Shot In The Dark: Vast Conspiracy
STUMP: Taxing Tuesday – NJ Wants To Be Number One
The Jawa Report: Sandcrawler PSA – Rusty’s Monkey Missing, also, Austin Bomber Bombs Himself
The Political Hat: The Netherlands Accelerates Down The Slippery Euthanasia Slope
This Ain’t Hell: Salcido Canned, also, Busted Memes
Victory Girls: John McCain Whips Out The Derp
Weasel Zippers: Oakland Illegals Who Dodged ICE Sweep Thanks To Mayor Re-Arrested For New Crimes, also, Male Student At Providence College Threatened With Rape For Supporting Traditional Marriage
Megan McArdle: Killing Drug Dealers Won’t Stop The Opioid Epidemic
Mark Steyn: Of The Remenant Nedeth Nat Enquere, also, The Undocumented And The Over-Documented


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Category: Linkagery

Don’t Mess With the USA

Posted on | March 21, 2018 | 2 Comments

There are about 2,000 U.S. troops in eastern Syria controlling key oil fields in territory formerly held by ISIS. Having destroyed that Islamic terrorist organization, our troops have little to fear from Syria, or from Iran, or from Syria’s Russian allies:

A small US presence in an eastern town called Deir Ezzor has maintained an iron grip on the oil fields and even repelled an advance of hundreds of pro-Syrian government forces— including some Russian nationals believed to be mercenaries — in a massive battle that became a lopsided win for the US.
Russia has advanced weapons systems in Syria, pro-Syrian government militias have capable Russian equipment, and Iran has about 70,000 troops in the country. On paper, these forces could defeat or oust the US and the Syrian rebels it backs, but in reality it would likely be a losing battle, according to an expert.
“They have the ability to hurt US soldiers — it’s possible,” Tony Badran, a Syria expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider. But “if they do that,” he said, “they’ll absolutely be destroyed.”
In Badran’s view, even if Russia wanted a direct fight against the US military in Syria, something he and other experts seriously doubt, the forces aligned with Syria’s government don’t stand much of a chance.
“I think the cruise-missile attack in April showed, and the ongoing Israeli incursions show, the Russian position and their systems are quite vulnerable,” said Badran, referring to the US’s April 2017 strike on a Syrian airfield in response to a chemical-weapons attack in the country. Though Russia has stationed high-end air defenses in Syria to protect its assets, that did not stop the US when President Donald Trump’s administration decided to punish the Syrian air force with 59 cruise missiles.
Russia has just a few dozen jets in Syria, mostly suited for ground-attack roles with some air-supremacy fighters. The US has several large bases in the area from which it can launch a variety of strike and fighter aircraft, including the world’s greatest fighter jet, the F-22.

Hat-tip: Nebraska Energy Observer, which has previously noted how some Russian mercenaries in Syria were devastated after they attacked a group of anti-Assad rebels supported by by U.S. troops. Compare the current situation to what we confronted in Iraq circa 2005-2008.

In Iraq, an insurgency used terrorist tactics — including car bombs and IEDs — against the occupying U.S.-led coalition forces. In Syria, U.S. forces are on the side of the insurgents (rebels fighting Assad’s regime) and the local Syrians, who have survived the brutality of ISIS, want no part of any kind of Islamic extremism. While the situation could conceivably change, a rather small force of U.S. troops is currently able to control a key region in Syria simply because anyone who attacked them would suffer a devastating counter-attack backed by everything the U.S. military can bring to bear, up to and including bombing raids by B-52s.

UPDATE: One of our NATO “allies” can’t take a hint:

The Pentagon Monday leveled sharp criticism at a military offensive on northern Syria, which has displaced tens of thousands of Kurds, killed hundreds of civilians and is creating a humanitarian crisis, all while carefully not mentioning the country carrying out the offensive, Turkey.
“Civilian casualties, not getting humanitarian assistance, a growing humanitarian crisis. It’s gotta be stopped. It’s gotta be averted,” Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.
Pressed by a reporter from the Turkish Anadolu News Service about who specifically was to blame for the worsening situation in the North, Manning refused to name Turkey, a NATO ally, and simply called on all sides to stop. . . .
The US has complained to Turkey that its two-months-old offensive, which captured the city of Afrin over the weekend, is siphoning off Kurdish fighters from the fight against ISIS in the east to battle Turkish and Syrian rebel troops in the west.

On the one hand, we would like to remain on friendly terms with Turkey. On the other hand, there are limits to such friendship.

 

Category: Military, Russia, Syria, Turkey
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