The Other McCain

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

Texas Bomber Identified

Posted on | March 21, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

“Nice kid from a great family”:

The suspected Austin serial bomber who apparently killed himself early Wednesday as authorities closed in on him was Pflugerville resident Mark A. Conditt, local and federal law enforcement sources told the American-Statesman and KVUE.
As the sun rose, neighbors of the 23-year-old, who was home-schooled growing up and went to Austin Community College, struggled to wrap their minds around the news that authorities were linking him to the bombings.
“I know this is a cliché but I just can’t imagine that,” said one neighbor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and whose children grew up playing with Conditt on Pfluger Street. The neighbor described Conditt as a nice kid from a great family. . . .
Conditt received a degree from Austin Community College’s Northridge Campus and had worked at Crux Semiconductor in Austin as a “purchasing Agent/buyer/shipping and receiving,” according to a profile on a job recruiting website. He previously worked as a computer repair technician.
There are very few public social media posts under his name.
His mother, Danene Conditt, posted a picture in February 2013 to commemorate her son’s completing a high school-level education.
“I officially graduated Mark from High School on Friday. 1 down, 3 to go. He has 30 hrs of college credit too, but he’s thinking of taking some time to figure out what he wants to do….maybe a mission trip. Thanks to everyone for your support over the years.”
He and his father, Pat Conditt, purchased a Pflugerville property last year that is now valued at about $69,000. The neighbor said Mark Conditt had been living in that house, which he built with his father’s help.

PREVIOUSLY: Austin Bomber Reportedly Dead After Shootout in Round Rock

 

Category: Crime, Texas

Will Democrats Self-Destruct?

Posted on | March 21, 2018 | Comments Off on Will Democrats Self-Destruct?

 

When former Sex in the City actress Cynthia Nixon announced that she would challenge New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democrat Party primary, I was delighted. What could be more perfect, in a year when Republicans are defending their House majority in the midterm elections, than for a left-wing Democrat to attack an otherwise safe incumbent in an expensive primary battle in a deep “blue” state like New York? This couldn’t be more perfect for Republicans than if Paul Ryan, the Koch Brothers and a squad of Russian hackers had planned it.

In case you didn’t know it, Cynthia Nixon is a lesbian, and so is former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Are there any women in the New York Democrat Party who aren’t lesbians? Never mind. The point, from the Koch Brothers/Russian-hacker perspective, is for Democrats to tear each other apart over this primary in New York, and I’m happy to report that our plan is working perfectly:

Former Democratic New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn on Tuesday said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D.) Democratic challenger is a “unqualified lesbian.”
The remark from Quinn, an openly-gay supporter of Cuomo, came one day after former “Sex and the City” actress Cynthia Nixon announced she would challenge Cuomo in the 2018 Democratic primary. Quinn told the New York Post in an interview that Nixon was an “unqualified lesbian” before taking a shot at Nixon for endorsing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio over her in the 2013 Democratic primary for mayor.
“I’m surprised by this race. It’s a flight of fancy on her part,” Quinn said of Nixon’s campaign announcement.
“Cynthia Nixon was opposed to having a qualified lesbian become mayor of New York City,” Quinn said. “Now she wants to be an unqualified lesbian to be the governor of New York. You have to be qualified and have experience. She isn’t qualified to be the governor.”
Quinn, who is also a CNN contributor, admitted she and the “Sex and the City” actress are both supporters of progressive positions, but she said there is more to running the state of New York than being a liberal celebrity.
“She’s an accomplished actress, a supporter of political causes and that’s a good thing. Participating in rallies is important,” Quinn said. “But she’s never run an organization. Being an actress and celebrity doesn’t make you qualified for public office. This is a time to move away from celebrity and toward progressive leadership.”

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Now what we need to happen:

  1. Cynthia Nixon must raise millions of dollars for her campaign, draining the pockets of liberal donors who might otherwise contribute to Democrat congressional campaigns.
  2. Every progressive kook in the country must give their 100% support to Nixon. It is especially important that feminists and the LGBT coalition must see Nixon’s campaign as a do-or-die grassroots effort to take control of their party away from corrupt corporate-funded “moderates” personified by Cuomo.
  3. Cuomo must defeat Nixon decisively, thus demoralizing her grassroots supporters and spreading the belief throughout the progressive community that the Democrats are not only a bunch of corrupt corporate-controlled stooges, but also patriarchal betrayers of gays and women.

You might be wondering, though: “What if Cynthia Nixon actually wins?” That would be even better — imagine the impact in blue-collar Midwestern “swing” districts of having a celebrity lesbian score a historic victory in the New York Democrat primary. Nothing could better serve to inspire a homophobic right-wing backlash in the Heartland.

Trust me, the Russian hackers and Koch operatives have thought of every possible scenario here. It’s a total win-win for the GOP.



 

Category: Democrats, Election, New York

UPDATE: Austin Bomber Reportedly Dead After Shootout in Round Rock

Posted on | March 21, 2018 | 3 Comments

Breaking news:

An officer-involved shooting on Interstate 35 in Round Rock near Old Settlers Boulevard is related to the Austin bombing suspect, a source tells KXAN’s Sally Hernandez.
The source says the bomber blew up a device during the incident.
Round Rock police say while northbound I-35 is open, Southbound I-35 will be closed for the next four to six hours due to the investigation.

UPDATE: Tony Plohetski of the Austin American-Statesman reports:

Bombing suspect is dead, law enforcement sources confirm.
Officials say police traced suspect using mix of cell phone technology, security video, store receipts.
Sources say the suspect killed himself using an explosive device.

So the bomber who has terrorized Texas for weeks is dead.

UPDATE II: More background:

A man whom authorities were attempting to arrest early Wednesday in a string of bombing attacks in Austin killed himself with an explosive device as authorities closed in, a high-ranking law enforcement official told the American-Statesman early today.
The official said authorities identified a suspect in the past 24 hours based largely on information gained after police said the suspect shipped an explosive device from a FedEx store in Southwest Austin. That evidence included security video.
Authorities also relied upon store receipts showing suspicious transactions from the person and obtained a search warrant for his Google search history that showed him conducting searches they considered suspicious, the official said.
Authorities relied upon cell phone technology to trace the suspect to a hotel in Williamson County, the official said.

UPDATE III: All that is known about the bomber at this time (5:15 a.m. ET Wednesday) is that he was male. Because we don’t know the identity of the bomber, we do not yet know his motive. His first three bombings appeared to target black people, which raised suspicion of a racial motive, but the targets then shifted, and the motive is unknown.

UPDATE IV: At a press conference, the suspect was identified as a 24-year-old white male, but authorities declined to name him:

The suspect in a string of bombings in Austin is dead, interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley confirmed early Wednesday.
Investigators identified several leads but the case really broke in the past 24 to 36 hours, Manley said.
The chief described how authorities tracked down the suspect’s vehicle to a Round Rock-area hotel. Police began following the suspect’s vehicle, and as SWAT approached, the suspect detonated a bomb in the car, Manley said.
The name of the suspect, described only as a 24-year-old man, has not been released, pending notification of his family, Manley said.
Although police are still investigating the possibility of accomplices, he said, “we believe this individual is responsible for all of the incidents in Austin.”

UPDATE V: In an interview on Fox News. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the bomber was unemployed and lived in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville with two roommates. The suspect had no criminal record and there were “no red flags” on his social media that would have called him to law-enforcement attention, the governor said.

UPDATE VI: The bomber has been identified as Mark Conditt, a “nice kid from a great family.”

 

Category: Crime, Texas

In The Mailbox: 03.20.18

Posted on | March 20, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.20.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
First Street Journal: Philadelphia Inquirer Editors Want to Keep Policy That Allowed Nikolas Cruz To Buy Guns
EBL: Where In The World Is Mark Zuckerberg?
Twitchy: Sports Writer Takes Insane Swipe At Dana Loesch After Hero SRO Stops Great Mills Shooter
Louder With Crowder: “Count Dankula” Convicted Of Hate Crime For Teaching Girlfriend’s Pug Nazi Salute
The Federalist: Was Social Media A Mistake? (h/t NeoWayland)

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Never Trust A White Knight
American Power: Facebook’s Existential Crisis, also, Garry Kasparov, Winter Is Coming
American Thinker: Homeschooling – The Best Hope for America’s Future
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Sendai News
BattleSwarm: Welcome To The Progressive Utopia
BLACKFIVE: Christopher Rice, Bone Music
CDR Salamander: Has The Air Force Already Shifted To A Drone Future?
Da Tech Guy: Student Protests & The Constitution
Don Surber: Fake News Suckers In More Journalism Students
Dustbury: Apocalypse Soon
Fausta: Venezuela – US Bans The Petro
Fred On Everything: Civil Insurrection – A Modest Proposal For Ending The United States
The Geller Report: Terror-Tied CAIR Demands Senate Block Pompeo’s Confirmation, also, UK Police Dropped 20 Cases Against Telford Rape Gang Because It Was “Too Much Trouble”
Hogewash: Global Warming Report, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Joe For America: David Hogg Makes Horrible Error With Nazi-Like Images In Anti-Gun Post
JustOneMinute: “Lacking Candor”
Legal Insurrection: Armed School Resource Officer Ends Maryland School Shooting, also, Wyoming Joins Large Majority Of “Stand Your Ground” States
Power Line: Mohamed Noor Charged In Damond Shooting, also, Hearing Whistle, They Bark
Shark Tank: Governor Scott Tackles Opioid Crisis
Shot In The Dark: Count The Proposals
STUMP: Mornings With Meep – I’m Happy I Didn’t Wait
The Jawa Report: Russia Just Following DNC’s Lead, also, Allah Hates The Taliban 100% Proof
This Ain’t Hell: David Hogg & Emma Gonzalez On CBS, also, Lacey High School Board Faces Angry Parents
Victory Girls: Sharpton & Black Lives Matter Rally In Support Of Racist Anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan
Weasel Zippers:  What’s Genius For Obama Is Scandal For Trump, also, Peaceful Picketers Protest Oakland Coffee Shop That Won’t Serve Police
Megan McArdle: How Safe Are Driverless Cars? It’s Too Soon To Tell
Mark Steyn: Step Inside Love, also, Jewnami Tsunami


Today’s Digital Deals
Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

‘Social Justice’ Indoctrination Is Now Mandatory for Future K-12 Teachers

Posted on | March 20, 2018 | Comments Off on ‘Social Justice’ Indoctrination Is Now Mandatory for Future K-12 Teachers

What is “social justice”? Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek famously called it a mirage, a delusion of an impossible “equality.” This radical ideology has become the agenda of the Democrat Party in the 21st century, however, and because Democrats control the education system, indoctrination into “social justice” ideology has become mandatory in university teacher-training programs:

Two education professors recently argued that aspiring K-12 teachers who hold conservative views and resist social justice theories may not be qualified to work with children.
Erin Miller and Tehia Stark-Glass, both professors at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, advanced the case in a March 8 article in the journal The New Educator entitled “The Maintenance of Whiteness in Urban Education,” expressing concerns that white conservative teachers will be unable to effectively teach minorities if they do not thoroughly internalize social justice.
The professors assert that some white students in their elementary education diversity classes have “impervious dispositions that would likely not qualify them to work with diverse children,” as evidenced by the fact that those who struggled most with the course content tended to “think they were being indoctrinated into Anti-American values.” . . .
“It would be difficult to know whether the experiences the preservice teachers shared through their life stories — experiences that highlighted how they held on to conservative values, experienced marginalization, and interpreted violent acts — directly contributed to their inability to successfully demonstrate mastery of the course goals and objectives,” Miller and Stark-Glass remark, adding that “for these preservice teachers, their whiteness seemed to congeal when they perceived the course material as un-American, in contrast with their conservatism.”
In their conclusion, the professors concede that many students don’t agree with their social justice theories on diversity and racism, saying they wish to better understand “why they feel so threatened by diversity,” albeit “not because we should be concerned about the discomfort of whites when discussing race and racism, but because we should be concerned about what will happen to children of color if we do not.” . . .

You can read the whole thing. These professors are employed at taxpayer expense to teach young white people to hate themselves, because white people are “privileged” and therefore deserve to be hated, according the prevailing academic ideology of social justice.

Parents and taxpayers need to be aware of what is being taught by the Democrats who control America’s universities and K-12 public schools.

 

Category: Education, Racism

Crazy People Are Dangerous

Posted on | March 20, 2018 | Comments Off on Crazy People Are Dangerous

Texas:

The San Antonio Texas Fire Department said a package bomb apparently bound for Austin exploded at a FedEx distribution center in Schertz, Texas, hurting one person, a FedEx employee who apparently suffered a non-life-threatening “percussion-type” injury from the blast. An FBI agent told CBS News “it’s more than possible” the package is related to explosions that have occurred in Austin in recent days.
The package exploded shortly after midnight on Tuesday.
ATF and FBI agents were at the scene of the FedEx facility Tuesday morning analyzing components of the explosive device. They were looking for any similarities of ingredients or components that are “a signature” that would link this package explosion to the other four bombing incidents in Austin, reports CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton.

Maryland:

At least three students were reportedly injured — including the shooter — Tuesday morning in a shooting at a high school in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, according to authorities.
The St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office says it happened at Great Mills High School and that police are on the scene. ABC7’s Brad Bell said sources tell him the shooter was a student and is one of the three injured. Bell says a school resource officer took action to end the threat and authorities confirmed the incident has been contained.

The news is becoming a daily drumbeat of craziness. While my little corner of the world continues to be relatively sane, everywhere we see people cracking up under the psychic strain of 21st-century culture.

 

Category: Crime, Maryland, Texas

‘Consciousness-Raising’ as Advertisement

Posted on | March 20, 2018 | 2 Comments

 

The Miami Herald did a story about a would-be transgender teenager who committed suicide at age 17. Rod Dreher examined the ideological issues involved, which prompted this reader comment:

All this consciousness-raising of trans issues functions like an advertisement for a product. . . .
The product we see today, a transformation of body and social identity, promises to fulfill the deep human need of social acceptance and self-satisfaction. Change your “identity” and you too can become a hero! Change your body and you can enter the group with power and no social stigma, you can join the entitled victim class!

Indeed, this is how rapid onset gender dysphoria is being “sold” to the naïve adolescent offspring of clueless parents. However, the same thing is true not only of transgenderism, but of all such ideologies, attitudes, and lifestyles. A complex, confusing and sometimes self-contradictory set of beliefs about “gender” and “sexuality” are being sold as a sort of smörgåsbord of identities from which the teenager is supposed to choose. Anyone who criticizes or opposes this approach is denounced as a bigot, as if expecting kids to behave normally is a hateful prejudice.

What passes unnoticed in this discourse is how the “born that way” ideology of the gay-rights movement has been transformed (as some opponents of the movement predicted) into an argument for encouraging an experimental approach to sexual identity. After all, if homosexuality is an immutable trait, so that some people are destined from birth to be gay, how are young people to know they’re not gay unless they give it a try?

Those who invite teenagers to the sexual identity smörgåsbord, however, do not offer this invitation in a value-neutral manner. No, the purveyors of postmodern gender theory believe that, once they have presented this behavioral buffet to the adolescent identity-consumer, many will choose a deviant identity as a sort of fashion statement, and that those who nevertheless remain heterosexual will do so with a sense of guilt about rejecting the various LGBTQ options. Thus a “straight guilt” complex is being internalized in the minds of young people as they are exposed to endless celebrations of gay pride. If homosexuals have a monopoly on “pride,” doesn’t this rhetoric imply (as its logical obverse) that heterosexuality must be regarded with shame?

Many adults are afraid of being labeled “homophobic” for pointing out how LGBTQ propaganda likely influences vulnerable teenagers. This fear is how the straight-guilt complex silences common sense objections, allowing the propagandists to expand their influence without opposition. If you are a parent worried your child could be a victim of brainwashing by the transgender cult, your concerns will be dismissed as paranoid, because it’s not like there’s an agenda at work, right?

By imposing a sense of shameful silence on their critics — because nobody in 21st-century America wants to be branded a “homophobe” — LGBTQ activists have scored a propaganda triumph. How does this manifest itself in youth culture? One consequence is that many young heterosexuals try to find a place under the LGBTQ rainbow umbrella. They’re basically straight, but are eager to be seen as gay-friendly, so they choose weird identities — “non-binary,” genderqueer,” “pansexual.”

You know who is really annoyed by this trend? Actual gay people.

Lesbians in particular have complained that they are being overrun by trendy wannabes identifying as “bisexual,” “queer,” or even heterosexual males claiming to be “translesbian.” But when the regular dykes complain about these aggresive intruders, they are accused of being “exclusionary” and “transphobic.” You’re a bigot if you don’t want to associate with freaks like Riley Dennis and “Zinnia Jones” (a/k/a “Satana Kennedy,” a/k/a “Lauren McNamara,” a/k/a Zachary Antolak).

Zachary Antolak in 2008 (left); “Zinnia Jones” in 2015 (right).

 

“Riley J. Dennis is a polyamorous, atheist, gender non-binary transwoman . . . educating people on the nuances of gender, sexuality, and intersectional feminism.”
— Everyday Feminism

This propaganda is everywhere nowadays, and even some soi-disant “Christians” are engaged in promoting it. Eric Teetsel of the Family Policy Alliance had to point out the errors involved in such arguments, which should be so obvious as not to need explanation. When popular culture is being inundated with gender-theory propaganda, however, it becomes necessary to explain things that would require no explanation if common sense were actually still common. Alas, it seems, our society is rapidly descending into insanity, which makes life difficult for parents trying to protect their kids from the enveloping madness.

Dreher offers a useful analogy:

Last week in the Czech Republic, the Benda children — all adults now — told me that growing up under communism, their mother and late father taught them every single day about the lies that their school and the state-controlled media proclaimed as true. It was essential to building their internal resistance to the Big Lie that was Communism. Their parents kept them connected to the true and the real. It required constant effort. But it had to be done.
Over and over in Hungary and the Czech Republic, I had to answer questions about political correctness from the curious and mildly horrified people I talked to. They honestly struggled to believe that we Americans were surrendering to it. I told them, by way of explaining how it’s happening, that the media were mainstreaming it by the constant-bordering-on-obsessive sympathetic coverage of transgenderism.

Parents who don’t want their children to be drawn into the gravitational orbit of insanity promoted by the transgender cult must find ways of “building their internal resistance to the Big Lie.”

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

UPDATE: A comment from Gab: “Parents have to starting thinking like the Amish. Consciously build your family identity as a culture apart.”



 

Category: Sex Trouble, The Transgender Cult

Our So-Called ‘Allies’

Posted on | March 20, 2018 | 1 Comment

If you’re old enough to remember the debates that preceded the Iraq War, a key point was the posture of our so-called “allies” in Europe. Many liberals argued that if European countries didn’t support the U.S., we couldn’t go to war against Saddam Hussein. In effect, liberals wanted to give Europe a veto over U.S. foreign policy. Americans had to endure the humiliating spectacle of our leaders basically begging France to join the anti-Saddam coalition, only to be rebuffed in the end.

Without regard to the specific issue of Iraq, however, that debate called attention to the general uselessness of our so-called “allies.” How many armored divisions can France put in the field? How many brigades of combat infantry can Belgium or Portugal deploy? How many attack helicopters and fighter aircraft do Spain and Italy have? If you scrutinize Europe’s military preparedness, you realize that even if they had wanted to join the U.S.-led coalition in smashing Saddam, they didn’t have very much operational equipment and manpower to contribute to the effort.

Consider the current condition of the German military:

Germany has come up short once more in meeting its military obligations to NATO. Leaked readiness data indicates that a key component of the NATO rapid reaction force, which Germany is to supply in 2019, is nowhere near ready to perform duties German said it could handle. The German armored brigade that was promised for 2019 is not able to fulfill its duties. Only about 20 percent of the armored vehicles (Leopard 2 tanks and Marder infantry vehicles) are fit for service. German military aircraft continue to have the lowest readiness rates in NATO and Germany continues, as it has for over twenty year, to promise the situation would be fixed but it never is. When the Americans press Germany to meet its NATO obligations (which includes spending at least two percent of GDP on defense) there are promises but no performance.

(Hat-tip: Austin Bay at Instapundit.)

All we ask is that our NATO partners spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense, and they can’t even meet that obligation. Keep in mind that one reason for the creation of NATO’s rapid reaction force is the need to counter Vladimir Putin’s recent aggression in Eastern Europe. So while President Trump is accused of “collusion” with Russia, the reality is that our NATO partners are either unwilling or unable to do what is necessary to defend against Russian aggression.

Ask your liberal friends if they are aware of this problem. Our so-called “allies” in Europe are in a state of pathetic helplessness, unable to meet their military obligations, and how do they expect Trump (or any future American leader) to stand up to Putin, when NATO is dysfunctional?

 

Category: Europe, Germany, Military
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