The Other McCain

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

Memories Light the Corners of My Mind

Posted on | September 16, 2018 | 2 Comments

 

In the 24 hours since I last wrote about the Brett Kavanaugh nomination (“Democrats Pull the Sleaziest Smear in Their Long History of Sleazy Smears”), further details have emerged including (a) the name of the accuser and (b) the name of Kavanaugh’s prep-school buddy on the night of the alleged incident in 1982. According to the tale, the future Supreme Court nominee was with Mark Judge, now a conservative journalist, on the night that 17-year-old Kavanaugh allegedly . . . uh, molested then-15-year-old Christine Blasey, who is now Professor Christine Ford:

Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” Ford alleges — corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County.
While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth.
“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” said Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern California. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”

Well, what do you expect a “stumbling drunk” 17-year-old to do?

The hazards of mixing alcohol and teenagers were as well-known in 1982 as they are today. All kinds of bad things happen as a result of such a combination, and this tale, if true, certainly wouldn’t be the worst thing a drunk teenager ever did. This alleged incident was originally reported as “attempted rape,” although the details do not seem to justify such a description. Getting groped by a drunk preppie “clumsily” attempting to undress you would be unpleasant, but it’s probably not a felony. Professor Ford’s claim that this alleged incident inflicted permanent psychological trauma on her strikes me as dubious. At times in my youth I was the victim of rather serious violence and I’ve seen guns drawn in anger, which is an adrenaline-pumping experience, but trauma? No, I sleep peacefully at night, and I find it difficult to believe that Professor Ford has spent the past 36 years in a state of emotional suffering due to this alleged incident at a house party in the summer of 1982.

It is not necessary to say Professor Ford is lying to say that her claim should have no bearing on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation. There are probably sitting justices on the Supreme Court who did bad things as drunk teenagers, but there was no #MeToo movement in 1994, so senators did not grill Stephen Breyer about his adolescent behavior which, for all we know, was much more shocking and sordid than groping a girl at a party. This whole business of reaching into the distant past to dig up dirt on one’s political enemies has gotten completely out of hand when a 53-year-old federal judge, against whom no other similar accusation has ever been made, can be required to answer for what he may or may not have done as a “stumbling drunk” 17-year-old. Brett Kavanaugh never drowned a campaign aide in an Oldsmobile, did he?

Excuse me for being cynical about Serious Journalists devoting themselves to reporting what sounds like a scene from a screenplay for Prep School Boys Gone Wild, as if it were the most important news in the world. If the American people’s opinion of our political class sinks any lower, the Senate might become even less popular than the media.

That’s all this is, really — a political hit-job, promoted by partisan propagandists engaged in character assassination.

Mike Cernovich says that Professor Ford is a “far left wing activist” who recently scrubbed her social-media accounts to delete evidence of her political radicalism. Chuck Schumer is using Professor Ford’s accusation as an excuse to delay the vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation. My hunch, however, is that Mitch McConnell will ram this through come hell or high water, and won’t waste any time doing so.

UPDATE: In the time it took me to write this post, Sen. Jeff Flake has announced that he is “not comfortable” voting for Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Senator Flake, a Republican from Arizona, is comfortable with a lot of things most people wouldn’t find comfortable, if you catch my drift, but he can’t vote for Kavanaugh? How about we start asking around about what young Jeff Flake was doing when he was 17, huh?



 

Category: Senate, Supreme Court

Amazon’s Digital ‘Fahrenheit 451’

Posted on | September 16, 2018 | Comments Off on Amazon’s Digital ‘Fahrenheit 451’

 

An unbook by an unperson gets unpublished:

Every day now seems to bring more news of people being banned from social media, fired from their jobs, or even targeted for violence for expressing disagreement with liberals. Recent victims of this ongoing purge include Infowars host Alex Jones, White House speechwriter Darren Beattie and bestselling author David Horowitz. Evidence continues to accumulate that the billionaire Democrats who control companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google are pursuing a campaign to suppress or silence conservative voices.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 seems to have inspired a climate of paranoia in Silicon Valley. Anyone suspected of dissenting from progressive orthodoxies could become the next target in this digital purge, where accusations of “hate” are used to justify the suppression of politically incorrect voices. However, the most remarkable — and perhaps the most ominous — example of how out-of-control the Left’s anti-free speech agenda has become involves a target who isn’t even involved in politics.
Daryush Valizadeh, a/k/a “Roosh V,” is a legendary 39-year-old pickup artist (PUA) who became notorious for a series of books describing his libidinous forays in European countries (Bang Iceland, Bang Estonia, etc.). His popularity eventually made him a target of feminists, and the Southern Poverty Law Center actually declared Roosh’s website Return of Kings a “hate group.”All of this, you understand, because Roosh shares advice to help single guys learn how to “score” with women. Males who pursue heterosexual activity are now guilty of “misogyny” and “male supremacy,” according to the SPLC.
College kids nowadays probably won’t believe this, but once upon time, even liberals approved of heterosexuality, which was a favorite activity of such notable Democrats as former President Bill Clinton and members of the Kennedy family. Unlike the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Chappaquiddick), Daryush Valizadeh has never left a girl to die in the backseat of a submerged Oldsmobile, but times have changed and any man advocating heterosexuality in the 21st century risks being placed on the SPLC “hate list.”
The Left’s crusade to abolish heterosexuality reached frightening new extremes this week when Amazon banned Roosh’s books. . . .

Read the whole thing at The American Spectator.



 

Category: Amazon

Democrats Pull the Sleaziest Smear in Their Long History of Sleazy Smears

Posted on | September 15, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

As someone remarked on Twitter, Democrats are now trying to turn Judge Brett Kavanaugh into Roy Moore, and it’s disgusting. It’s also predictable and, in fact, was predicted in a prescient email that “a very smart conservative” lawyer sent to Weekly Standard writer John McCormack. On Sept. 5 — eight days before Sen. Dianne Feinstein pulled this stunt — the lawyer warned that Democrats would drop a “grenade” after the Senate confirmation hearings, a repeat of the tactic they used with Anita Hill’s smear of Clarence Thomas. (Hat-tip: Allahpundit.)

This actually surprised me. After the four-day Soros-funded protest carnival of the hearings, I expected the Kavanaugh nomination to proceed rapidly to a Senate vote. Like, OK, Democrats put on their little TV show and now we’re done, right? Certainly I could not believe that such a sober clean-cut, Catholic judge, who has served a dozen years on the bench, would be made the target of this cheap smear:

The allegation dates back to the early nineteen-eighties, when Kavanaugh was a high-school student at Georgetown Preparatory School, in Bethesda, Maryland, and the woman attended a nearby high school. In the letter, the woman alleged that, during an encounter at a party, Kavanaugh held her down, and that he attempted to force himself on her. She claimed in the letter that Kavanaugh and a classmate of his, both of whom had been drinking, turned up music that was playing in the room to conceal the sound of her protests, and that Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand. She was able to free herself. Although the alleged incident took place decades ago and the three individuals involved were minors, the woman said that the memory had been a source of ongoing distress for her, and that she had sought psychological treatment as a result.

This stinks to high heaven and reeks of election-year desperation.

Stripped of dramatic embellishment, what is alleged is that circa 1982, teenage preppie Brett Kavanaugh got to third base with a girl at a party. For his part, Kavanaugh denies this flatly: “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.” And the classmate who was allegedly Kavanaugh’s accomplice likewise denies it: “I have no recollection of that.”

This is an excellent lesson in Anglo-American common law. Among the rights we are guaranteed under the Constitution is to face our accusers in a court of law. We also have a right to a speedy trial. Furthermore, there are statutes of limitations that prevent us from being dragged into court to answer charges involving decades-old incidents where it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find evidence or witnesses by which we might defend ourselves. It would be one thing if a woman went to police and said, “Brett Kavanaugh raped me last night.” In such a case, the time and location of the alleged offense would be clear, and police could examine evidence or question witnesses relevant to the accusation. But how in the world can we expect to obtain knowledge of what happened at a high-school party in 1982? This is almost certainly impossible.

Because we cannot know what happened — there were no charges filed at the time, and it is unlikely Kavanaugh’s accuser could specify what date this incident allegedly occurred, so that at least we could determine his whereabouts on the night in question — it is unfair even to mention it.

Now, I suppose, if a respectable Republican judge had, as a horny prep-school boy in 1982, actually gotten to third base with a girl at a party, we might view that as somehow related to his character. Perhaps you could say he’s a hypocrite, although if every middle-aged man in America were dragged in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and forced to answer for what he did as a horny teenager, the hearings would never end.

Characterizing such a claim as attempted rape? Whoa.

We have traveled far down the road toward a radical feminist dystopia, a nightmare regime of anti-male hatred, if we are willing to destroy the reputation of a federal judge by accusing him of attempted rape in such a case as this. It is a fact of nature — the science is settled — that any teenage boy will go as far as a girl will let him. If it could somehow be proven that Brett Kavanaugh actually did attend a party with this girl, and that he actually did engage in some sexual activity with her that stopped short of actual intercourse, how are we to differentiate between that incident and millions of other similar incidents where teenage boys get to third base without hitting a home run? We are told that Kavanaugh’s anonymous accuser has suffered “ongoing distress” as a result of her memories of this particular night, and has “sought psychological treatment” and . . .? Yeah, she’s crazy.

During the 1990s heyday of Bill Clinton, Democrats employed what came to be known as the “nuts and sluts” defense. Team Clinton was notorious for siccing their private investigators on any woman who came forward to assert that Bill had engaged in improper sexual behavior. The investigators would dig up dirt on the woman and leak it to the media to discredit her as mentally unstable, promiscuous, dishonest, etc.

To quote Clinton strategist James Carville: “Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find.”

Do we really want to go there again? Would it behoove Republicans to employ such Clintonian tactics to discredit Judge Kavanaugh’s anonymous (at least for now) accuser? No, I’m certain nobody in the GOP relishes the thought of a scorched-earth battle on such terrain.

Ace of Spades has a hunch that this nameless woman has psychiatric issues completely unrelated to anything that did or didn’t happen between her and teenage preppy Brett Kavanaugh in 1982, and that the accuser’s dubious credibility explains why Senator Feinstein, who was informed of this accusation in July, waited until after Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing to go public with this sleazy smear.

Senate Democrats should be ashamed of themselves, but if they had any sense of shame, they wouldn’t be Democrats, would they?



 

Category: Democrats, Senate, Supreme Court

In The Mailbox: 09.14.18

Posted on | September 15, 2018 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: If Manafort Can’t Help Mueller Go After Trump, What Does Mueller Get?
Twitchy: Ratio In Progress! Potatohead Stelter Comes To The Defense Of Weather Channel’s Mike Seidel
Louder With Crowder: Watch What The Broward County School Board Does To Parkland Survivor Who Questions Them
According To Hoyt: I Feel The Ground Shifting
Monster Hunter Nation: Monster Hunter Guardian Cover Reveal, also, Infinity RPG 3rd Session Recap
Vox Popoli: “Europe Belongs To The Europeans”, also, The West Has Failed

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The World Upside Down Edition
American Power: The Left’s Despicable “Sexual Misconduct” Allegations Against Kavanaugh, also, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Antisocial Media
American Thinker: The Media’s Latest Poll Dance
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Why Socialism Fails Friday
BattleSwarm: Linkswarm For September 14
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: The Three Faces Of CNN
Don Surber: Fake News Collapses On NYT
Dustbury: Been Here A While
First Street Journal: Not Exactly #FakeNews But Written To Deceive
Fred On Everything: Fred To Take Wheel Of Ship Of State
The Geller Report: Indian Muslim Father & Brother Murder & Mutilate Girl For Marrying Non-Muslim, also, Muslim Screaming “Allahu Akbar” Rams Car Into French Crowd
Hogewash: SDO Sees The Moon Transit The Sun. Twice.
JustOneMinute: Resistance Follies
Legal Insurrection: #StopKavanaugh – Believe Women, Except For The 65 Who Support Kavanaugh, also, “I’m Into Humiliation Porn, That’s Why I Watch You On CNN”
The PanAm Post: The NYT Is Complicit In Supporting Maduro’s Corrupt Regime, also, Howie Carr – 25 Years Of Antagonizing Northeast Establishment Liberals
Power Line: What We Can Learn From John Kerry, also, Thoughts From The Ammo Line
Shark Tank: DeSantis Releases First General Election Ad
Shot In The Dark: If Guns Are Banned…
STUMP: Divestment Follies – An Actual Cogent Case, Kind Of
The Political Hat: Watermelons Of The Global Elite
This Ain’t Hell: Midway Pilot’s Final Flight, also, Former SOCOM Head Gen. McRaven Resigns From pentagon Board After Criticizing Trump
Victory Girls: Working Men & Women Optimistic About Future
Volokh Conspiracy: Another Brutal Review Of Nancy McLean’s Democracy In Chains
Weasel Zippers: UW Snowflakes Declare Ice Cream “Not Inclusive Enough”, also, Red China Cracking Down On Christians
Megan McArdle: Serena Williams, Meet ThinkProgress
Mark Steyn: The Parched Grasses Wait The Spark


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Category: Linkagery

Surprised? Obama’s ‘Gender Integration’ Agenda Is Wrecking the U.S. Military

Posted on | September 14, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

There are some things which must be excluded from military life if morale and esprit de corps are to be maintained. The stark insanity of rescinding Article 125 of the UCMJ was accompanied by a “gender integration” agenda, with predictable results:

One of the first women to enter the Marine Corps infantry is being discharged from the service after admitting to having an intimate relationship with a subordinate — a fellow Marine she eventually married.
On their own, the legal charges against Cpl. Remedios Cruz, 26, are not uncommon in military investigations of American troops. But they highlight the struggle the Marine Corps has had in integrating women into jobs that were only open to men before 2015.

(Oh, “jobs.” That’s all it is to be a Marine, a job. And notice the “struggle” began in 2015? Gosh, whose idea was this?)

“The biggest mistakes I’ve made in the infantry were from my personal relationships,” Corporal Cruz said in an interview. “I really want to move on.”
As part of a deal to avoid going to trial, Corporal Cruz pleaded guilty to fraternization in July and decided to put the Marine Corps behind her. She is awaiting her final separation from the Marines.

(She “decided,” as if this was her choice.)

Corporal Cruz was one of three women who joined First Battalion, Eighth Marines in January 2017. She was accused of three charges — fraternization, adultery and accessory to larceny — in separate investigations that would have been sent to court-martial in June. . . .
Over the years fraternization policies in the American military have changed but broadly prohibit “unduly familiar” relationships among service members of differing ranks. . . .

(She became “unduly familiar” with a private’s penis.)

Of the roughly 184,000 active-duty Marines, around 15,800 are women. As of July, 24 women were serving in infantry billets in the Marine Corps, according to military documents obtained by The New York Times.
The Army, with roughly 740 women who are serving in previously restricted combat roles, has encountered its own issues with integrating women into the jobs. Last week, the Army Times reported an investigation of a relationship between a senior noncommissioned officer and a junior female infantry soldier in the same unit. . . .

(Like every other policy of the Obama administration, this policy is failing, because it is a bad policy, a hare-brained scheme that no one with common sense would endorse.)

Corporal Cruz, of Fleischmanns, N.Y., joined the Marines as a supply clerk in 2013 and completed infantry training in 2014. Two years later, she requested to transfer to an infantry unit after then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter ordered that women be allowed in all previously restricted combat roles. The Marine Corps vehemently opposed the change. . . .
Days after she arrived at the battalion in January 2017, she was promoted to sergeant — a rank that probably ensured, as a Marine in an infantry platoon, that she would be considered for a leadership role.
She said she began a relationship with a lower-ranking Marine in her unit and married him shortly before the battalion deployed to Japan in August 2017. . . .

A Marine sergeant marrying a private? “Love wins!”

Let me explain something that perhaps not everyone understands: In 1993, Bill Clinton became president and immediately signed an executive order repealing Article 125, provoking an immediate outcry from every American familiar with military life. Under pressure from the Pentagon and with the advice of Sen. Sam Nunn, then chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Clinton then accepted a compromise that became known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” This was profoundly dishonest, a hypocritical wink-and-a-nod policy toward violations of the UCMJ, but the Pentagon was forced to accept this corrupt political deal.

For the next 22 years, as the generals and admirals who had accepted this policy finished out their careers and went into retirement, a new cadre of senior officers rose to replace them who had served nearly their entire careers under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The Democrats won the presidential elections in 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012, so that for most of that period — excepting only the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush — the military had a Democrat as their Commander-in-Chief, and were expected to implement liberal policies, especially regarding “diversity” and “inclusion.” Thus, the generals and admirals now commanding our armed forces have spent two decades parroting the Official Nonsense of tolerating homosexuality in the ranks and the absurd “gender inclusion” policy. This is not your father’s Marine Corps.

Standards have been lowered, and discipline has been loosened, in order to enable the kind of ridiculous make-believe game that required senior officers (who certainly should know better) to pretend that Remedios Cruz was fit to serve as a sergeant leading men in a Marine combat unit.

A sand-castle of lies has been piled up over the past 25 years. Ignoring everything common sense tells us about human nature, the military has pursued policies applauded as “courageous” and “progressive” by politicians who have no skin in the game, and which may seem harmless in times of relative peace. The Pentagon is competent enough at public-relations that it can usually conceal from scrutiny the problems caused by “gender integration,” just as it concealed most of the problems caused by the repeal of UCMJ Article 125. However, the loss of morale and unit cohesion as a result of these misguided exercises in social engineering is nonetheless very real, and we will not discover how bad the problem is until it is too late to save the lives of those troops who will die as a result of this needless folly. When the predicable disaster finally strikes, we need not doubt that most of the dying will be done by men.

“Equality,” my ass.



 

Category: Military

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 09.13.18

Posted on | September 14, 2018 | Comments Off on Late Night With In The Mailbox: 09.13.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Convicted Sex Offender Dori Myers Keeps Her Teaching Certificate?
Twitchy: Looks Like Dianne Feinstein’s Big Kavanaugh Gamble Didn’t Pay Off After All
Louder With Crowder: That Dystopia Everyone Fears? It’ll Come From The Left

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: California Democrats To Ban Gas-Powered Internal-Combustion Vehicles By 2035, also, Raw Tensions Over Race & Gender Shape Midterms
American Thinker: Trump Voters & The Bitter Elites
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Gun Advertising News
BattleSwarm: SDF Begins Final Assault On Hajin, also, Twitter Suspends Bosch Fawstin
CDR Salamander: The Depot Dearth
Da Tech Guy: Rick Green & The Latest Ad In MA-3, also, Is Judge Kavanaugh A True Originalist?
Don Surber: Democrat Senate Candidate Defended Men Who Get Underage Hookers
Dustbury: The End Of The Long & Winding Road
First Street Journal: The Problem With The Catholic Priesthood
The Geller Report: Feds Discover More Victims of Muslim Doctors In Detroit FGM Case, also, UK Muslims Brutally Attack Boy While Insisting He Pray To Allah
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day (plus Bonus), also, “Don’t Be Evil”
Legal Insurrection: Democrats Lob A Hail Mary Shot At Kavanaugh With Laundry List of Questions, also, Nevada Professor Shoots Himself In Arm To Protest Trump
Michelle Malkin: The Post 9/11 Cycle Of Cynicism – Remember, Forget, Repeat
The PanAm Post: What’s The Answer To The Current Brazilian Prison Crisis?
Power Line: On Puerto Rico, Trump Is Right, also, Justice Department Considering Breaking Up Big Tech
Shark Tank: Gov. Scott Slams Sen. Nelson As “A Vote For Government Waste & Debt”
Shot In The Dark: Inexorable
The Jawa Report: Ministry Of Health PSA – Take Two Of These And Call Me In The Morning
The Political Hat: Unconstitutional Denial Of A Constitutional Right – From Illinois & California To Vermont & Florida
This Ain’t Hell: Trailblazing Female Gets The Boot For Fraternization, also, A Very Special Feelgood Story
Victory Girls: Yes, Nearly 300 Died After Hurricane Maria. No, Trump Isn’t To Blame, also, Google Laments All The Dummies That Didn’t Follow Their Instructions
Volokh Conspiracy: Speech Codes And “Twisting Title IX”
Weasel Zippers: Notorious RBG Calls Dems’ Treatment Of Kavanaugh During Hearings “Wrong”, “Highly Partisan Show”, also, Millions Of Water Bottles Found Rotting In Puerto Rico As San Juan Mayor Continues To Bash Trump
Megan McArdle: What Jamie Dimon And Other New Yorkers Don’t Grasp About Washington Politics
Mark Steyn: High School Confidential


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Category: Linkagery

Big Trouble at the ‘Tiffany’ Network: Another ‘Get Woke, Go Broke’ Lesson?

Posted on | September 13, 2018 | Comments Off on Big Trouble at the ‘Tiffany’ Network: Another ‘Get Woke, Go Broke’ Lesson?

 

The top of the stack this morning at Drudge:

TIMES UP FOR '60 MINS' CHIEF...
CBSNEWS On-Cam Ambush Of Own Exec!
Network Airs Disturbing Fager Text...
Allegations of inappropriate conduct...
Threats and Deception: Why Board Turned On Moonves... 

The takedown of CBS boss Les Moonves was followed immediately by the takedown of 60 Minutes producer Jeff Fager, the latest casualties in the #MeToo crusade against men in the media. Let’s not kid ourselves about what’s happening here. When this began back in October 2017, it was possible to imagine that Harvey Weinstein was an isolated problem, an unusually bad person engaged in unusually bad behavior. As the list of targets lengthened beyond a few bad apples in Hollywood to include the news media, however, #MeToo brought to light a toxic culture in the world of big-time journalism, in which a sort of sexual pay-for-play ethos had long prevailed. If former Today show anchor Matt Lauer — a handsome and popular personality — could turn his NBC office into an upscale rape dungeon, was it possible to enforce standards of decency elsewhere in these organizations? That is to say, if the network’s multimillionaire on-air talent is engaged in predatory behavior, doesn’t that send a signal to all the lower-echelon personnel?

Something has gone terribly wrong in the TV industry, for the #MeToo scandal to have reached as high as the CEO of an organization once known as the “Tiffany Network.” It is perhaps impossible for young people to imagine the enormous prestige enjoyed by CBS during the life of its founder William S. Paley. CBS was the network of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, of Lucille Ball and Ed Sullivan, of Perry Mason, Gunsmoke and The Waltons. Starting with a few Philadelphia radio stations in the 1920s, Paley more or less invented the concept of a nationwide broadcasting network, and insisted on the highest-quality programming. One measure of his success was that, during World War II, President Roosevelt tapped Paley “as director of radio operations of the Psychological Warfare branch in the Office of War Information at Allied Force Headquarters in London” with the rank of an Army colonel. Did I mention that CBS also owned a record company, the one that invented the 33 RPM album? Do you know who sang for Columbia Records? To quote 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt, “Paley was the guy who put Frank Sinatra and Edward R. Murrow on the radio and 60 Minutes on television.” Yep — CBS owned Sinatra back in the day, and stars don’t come any bigger than Sinatra, except maybe The Beatles, who made their U.S. television debut on . . .? Yep, CBS, Ed Sullivan.

Something else about CBS: It was a great network for women, both in terms of audience and performers. My mother was a big fan of the detective programs that CBS did so well, with handsome leading men like Mike Connors on Mannix, and there was perhaps never a cowboy the ladies loved more than James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke (with the possible exception of Michael Landon as Little Joe on NBC’s Bonanza). Paley seemed to have an innate understanding that attracting female viewers was crucial to success in the entertainment business. After all, who attracted women better than Sinatra? And beginning with Lucille Ball’s smash hit with I Love Lucy, CBS was always had the best female-led programming, as the TV home of Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett. What went wrong at CBS?

Part of the answer may be found in a Hollywood Reporter column by Linda Bloodworth Thomason, one of CBS’s most successful producers in the 1990s, when Designing Women was a huge hit. Thomason describes how, after Les Moonves became president of CBS Entertainment in 1995, his personal hostility toward her essentially destroyed her career:

I was immediately concerned when I heard that Mr. Moonves was rumored to be a big fan of topless bars. Then, someone delivered the news that he especially hated Designing Women and their loud-mouthed speeches. . . . I was at the pinnacle of my career. I would not work again for seven years. . . .
Then, I began to hear from female CBS employees about his mercurial, misogynist behavior, with actresses being ushered in and out of his office. His mantra, I was told, was, “Why would I wanna cast ’em if I don’t wanna f–k ’em?” And he was an angry bully who enjoyed telling people, “I will tear off the top of your head and piss on your brain!”

That’s no way to treat a lady, sir.

Of course, I am not a fan of Thomason’s feminist politics, but you can’t succeed in show business by killing off successful shows, and if Moonves put his personal prejudice ahead of his business interests, he was cheating the shareholders out of profit. In short, he lacked integrity.

What went wrong at CBS? Is it possible that the “Tiffany network” fell victim to a “Get Woke, Go Broke” problem? Politically, CBS was always generally liberal (see Bernard Goldberg’s 2001 blockbuster Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News), and both Moonves and his boss, Viacom CEO Summer Redstone, were Democrats. In much the way Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez shoved aside Joe Crowley in the Democrat primaries, powerful liberal men in media are now being destroyed by their feminist allies, who are no longer content to be quiet about the abusive behavior they were forced to endure as part of the bargain in the “progressive” coalition of Democrat Party interests.

What happens next? If men can no longer get rich (or get laid) by parroting whatever the latest liberal mantra may be, isn’t it possible that some men in the media will have a “Red Pill” awakening? Couldn’t the spectacle of careers being destroyed by the #MeToo movement yield a new awareness of the ugly reality hidden behind the hypocritical veneer of “progressive” solidarity? Think back to the Access Hollywood audio, where Trump bluntly described the situation of a network TV star: “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the p–y. You can do anything.” Wasn’t this the honest truth about the way some women react to men who are major stars, as Trump was when The Apprentice was a Top 20 hit in 2005? “You can do anything” if you’re a star.

Wasn’t the same thing true of Les Moonves, who as CEO had the power to make or break the careers of women at CBS? Moonves was a liberal Democrat, and if he ever had anything negative to say about the womanizing behavior of Donald Trump (whose show ran on rival NBC), Moonves never said it until Trump ran for president as a Republican.

Women are attracted to men with money and power. This isn’t exactly a revelation to anyone who knows anything about women. What is happening with the #MeToo movement is that women have weaponized sex as a means of taking away men’s money and power — not in the old-fashioned transactional quid pro quo manner, but as a one-sided extortion racket. It’s like Stalin robbing banks to fund the Bolsheviks.

 

Guys like Les Moonves need to take the Red Pill and wake up to the reality of what feminism means in terms of changing social incentives. The fallout from #MeToo will not be limited to the destruction of a handful of personalities in show biz, journalism and politics. Wise men (and women) ought to consider what the consequences might be.



 

Category: CBS, Scandal, Sex Trouble

In The Mailbox: 09.12.18

Posted on | September 12, 2018 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box – Episode #376
Proof Positive: The Least Serious President In The History Of The Republic And His Contribution To Our Booming Economy
EBL: Florence Is Coming
Twitchy:  Google’s Statement About Leaked Video Of Senior Execs’ Reaction To Trump’s Election Sparks MAJOR Skepticism
Louder With Crowder: Jimmy Fallon Cowers To Outrage Mob, Cancels Norm McDonald Interview

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Podcast #90 – The Floorboards Episode
American Power: “Racist” Serena Williams Cartoon
American Thinker: The Once “Golden State” Is Badly Tarnished
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
BattleSwarm: Houston Chronicle Reporter Resigns Under Suspicion Of Making Things Up
CDR Salamander: Aviation Degradation Doesn’t Happen By Accident
Da Tech Guy: Under The Fedora – 9/11 Thoughts, Kaepernick & Dems, Trump As Wile E. Coyote, & More
Don Surber: Let Me Explain, Mr. President
Dustbury: Remember The Public Domain?
First Street Journal: The Problem With The Catholic Church Is At The Top
The Geller Report: Illegal Immigrants Cited In Theft Of 39 Million Social Security Numbers, also, French Education Minister Says French Kids Should Learn Arabic
Hogewash: Dwarfs That Can Punch Above Their Weight
JustOneMinute: The Dreadful Police Shooting In Dallas
Legal Insurrection: Populism Is Dangerous – Taco Bell Voted Best Mexican Restaurant, also, Activists Threatening, Trying To Bribe Senator Collins Into Voting Against Kavanaugh
The PanAm Post: Calls To Dollarize Argentinian Economy Grow
Power Line: It’s Official – Google Is A Democratic Party Front, also, Hassett Has It!
Shark Tank: DeSantis Is A Constant Conservative
Shot In The Dark: Dispatches From Never-Never Land
STUMP: Trying To Deflect The Blame – CALPERS, The Catholic Church, & Trump
The Jawa Report: 17
The Political Hat: Pledge To Global Society
This Ain’t Hell: Washington Post Declares Trump Is Complicit For Dangerous Storm, also, One Of The Last WW2 Soldiers To Make 4 Combat Drops Into Europe Has Died
Victory Girls: The Primary Season Ends & The Real Push Begins
Volokh Conspiracy: Speech Code Hokey Pokey
Weasel Zippers: Washington Post Blames President Trump For Hurricanes, also, Google Execs Caught On Video Bashing Trump Supporters After 2016 Election
Mark Steyn: The Endless War & The Battle Unfought, also, The Word That Can’t Be Questioned


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