The Other McCain

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

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

In The Mailbox: 03.19.18

Posted on | March 19, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.19.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: And Who Was Rod Rosenstein’s Wife Representing?
Twitchy: WHOSE Immigration Policies Have Overwhelmed Canada’s Refugee System?
Louder With Crowder: Connecticut Kindergarten Teachers Make Their Students Walk Out For Gun Control
CATO Institute: Tread Carefully On Mental Health Reform (h/t NeoWayland)


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: You Don’t Need Game In Marriage
American Power: Democrats Following UK Labour Party Down The Anti-Semitic Rathole, also, Facebook Breach Ignites Uproar
American Thinker: McCabe’s Domino Is Only The First To Fall
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
BattleSwarm: Texas Sanctuary City Ban Upheld
BLACKFIVE: Brad Meltzer, The Escape Artist
Bring The HEAT: Happy St. Patrick’s Day From The U.S. Army
CDR Salamander: Battleflags, Korean Battles, & The Joys Of Unexpected Archaeology On Midrats
Da Tech Guy: Review Of Flint Town S1, also, Altared State
Don Surber: Trump Is America’s Red Pill
Dustbury: Strange Search Engine Queries, also, It’s Going To Katmandu
Fausta: Phantom CEO Busted For Encrypting Blackberries For Cartel
The Geller Report: UK Muslim Couple Tortures, Starves , & Murders Naive French Nanny, also, DC Democrat Blames Jews For Bad Weather
Hogewash: Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Joe For America: Political Correctness Destroys History And Christianity
JustOneMinute: Blue Eats Blue, California Style
Legal Insurrection: Who Elected John Brennan? also, Officials Wanted Parkland Shooter Committed Under The Baker Act In 2016
Power Line: Democrats’ Obstructionism Is Unprecedented, also, Dumbest Headlines Of The Day
Shark Tank: Democratic Congressman Targeted By Pro-Gun Activists Loses His Cool
Shot In The Dark: Just Remember…
STUMP: Around The Pension-O-Sphere – FBI, CA, KY, & NJ, also, Memory Monday – Avian Flu Vaccine, Some Chit-Chat, and Third Week Of March 1918
The Political Hat: The Normalization of Rape Gangs
This Ain’t Hell: NJ Students Suspended For Range Photos On Social Media, also, Mattis Congratulates New “Secretary Of Defense”
Victory Girls: David Hogg Gets Another College Rejection Letter, Still Doesn’t Get It
Weasel Zippers: Jihadi Work Accident – Afghani Imam Killed While Loading Bomb Into Truck, also, Democrat Suggests “Second Amendment” Remedy For Trump
Megan McArdle: The Student Walkout Said More About Adults Than Kids
Mark Steyn: Pension Deathwatch, also, Saturday Film Feature: Michael Collins


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Category: Linkagery

California vs. America

Posted on | March 19, 2018 | 2 Comments

One of the “arguments” (an excuse, actually) employed by Democrats after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election was, “She won the popular vote!” To which the proper reply is, “Where?” In a handful of large urban states where Republican Donald Trump did not campaign, Clinton won by huge margins, and this proves . . .? Nothing, really.

In California, Clinton won with 62% of the vote, 7.4 million to 3.9 million, a margin of nearly 3.5 million votes (3,446,281 to be exact). Nationwide, Clinton got 65,853,516 votes to Trump’s 62,984,825 — a margin of exactly 2,868,691. In other words, her margin in California alone was more than enough to account for why she “won” the popular vote, which is completely irrelevant in our Electoral College system. Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, but the Democrat Party controls California, and Democrats are against the United States:

Early this month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared war on the State of California. At least that’s the way many opponents of the Trump Administration saw it. Speaking to the California Peace Officers’ Association in Sacramento, Sessions announced that the Department of Justice was suing the state for passing three laws to protect undocumented immigrants –– measures, Sessions said, that “intentionally obstruct the work of our sworn immigration-enforcement officers.” California, he continued, was endangering those officers and “advancing an open-borders philosophy shared by only the most radical extremists.”
Jerry Brown, a Democrat, now in his fourth term as governor of California, reacted to Sessions with undisguised irritation. He had signed the most inflammatory of the laws—the so-called sanctuary-state law, which limits local and state coöperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement—only after demanding many changes. He wanted to insure that ice would still be able to do its job. His contempt for the White House was palpable. “Look, we know the Trump Administration is full of liars,” Brown told reporters. “They’ve pled guilty already to the special counsel.” Brown was clearly agitated; his face was flushed, and he gestured with his left arm to emphasize his distress. “I would assume — this is pure speculation — that Jeff thinks that Donald will be happier with him, and I’m sure Donald will be tweeting his joy at this particular performance,” Brown said. “But it’s not about law enforcement, it’s not about justice, and it really demeans the high office to which he’s been appointed.”
Few Democrats in such an influential job have spoken more intemperately about the Administration. And yet Brown steered away from the language of absolutism. To Sessions, Brown said, “I still put my hand out and say, ‘I’ll coöperate, Jeff, if you can get off this current maneuver you’re on, because it’s unbecoming.’ ” Later, Brown told me that the battle launched by Sessions would be complicated and prolonged. “Trump won’t even be President by the time it gets to the Supreme Court,” he said. . . .

Democrats control California because California hates America.

 

Category: California, Democrats

Rule 5 Sunday: Gal Gadot

Posted on | March 18, 2018 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

So earlier this week physicist Stephen hawking died, and Israeli actress/model Gal Gadot tweeted a sympathetic tweet which said in part, “Now you’re free of any physical constraints.” This of course triggered a bunch of dimwitted “disability activists” who dragged her for being an “ableist”. To her credit, Ms. Gadot didn’t deign to reply to these thimblewits, and the whole thing was quickly forgotten about. So, today’s appetizer is Ms. Gadot, from a 1991 shoot for FHM magazine.

Not yet Wonder Woman, but still wonderful.

Ninety Miles From Tyranny leads off with Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #195, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. From Dai Nippon, Animal Magnetism graces us with Rule Five Age of Majority Friday, as well as the Saturday Gingermageddon.

This week EBL brings us Olivia Cooke, Lauren Southern, Hair, Big Ambition!, Hyeonseo Lee, Pi Day, Beware The Ides Of March (starring William Shatner), St. Patrick’s Day Eve Rule 5, Savannah St. Patrick, Kate Upton Gets A Visitor, and St. Joseph’s Day Eve Rule 5

A View From The Beach has Fanning the Rule 5 Flames with Dakota Fanning, Floron of the Week: Woman Injured by Transvestite’s Boob, #HerToo: She Kissed a Boy, and He Didn’t Like It!, RIP: Stephen Hawking, FBI Seeks Sex Coach in Thailand, UK Denies Entry to Canadian Conservative, Sao Paulers Protest Pollution with Naked Bike Ride and Easily Worth the Broken Nose.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Rose Leslie, his Vintage Babe is Danielle Darrieux, and Sex in Advertising is covered by Brooke Shields. At Dustbury, It’s Halle Berry and Sabrina Lentini.

Thanks to everyone for their luscious linkagery!

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Category: Rule 5

‘Europe Is Already Under an Invasion’

Posted on | March 18, 2018 | 2 Comments

 

On the occasion of the anniversary of the 1848 revolution, Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban gave a powerful speech in Budapest:

The situation, my dear friends, is: They want to take away our country! . . . They want us to hand it over willingly to others. To strangers from another continent, who do not speak our language, who do not respect our culture, our laws and our way of life. Who want to replace our way of life with theirs. From now on they do not want us and our descendants to live here, but someone else. . . .
There is no exaggeration in this! We can see it day by day, as great European peoples and nations, step by step, area by area, from city to city, lose their homeland. The situation is such that those who do not stop the migration at their borders will be lost. Slowly but surely they will be consumed. All of this by external forces, international powers that are trying to force it upon us, with the help of their local allies, and they see the upcoming election as a great opportunity for this.
Europe is already under an invasion. If we let it, in the coming decades, tens of millions will begin to move into Europe from Africa and the Middle East. Western Europe is watching this with their hands in the air. Whoever puts his hands up is disarming himself. He is no longer making decisions about his fate. The history of the losers will be written by others in the years ahead. The young people in Western Europe will see it, when they become a minority in their own country and they lose the only thing in the world they can call home. Such forces as now reveal themselves have not been seen in the world for a long time.
Africa will have ten times more young people than Europe. If Europe does nothing, they will kick down the doors, and Brussels will not protect Europe. They do not want to stop the migration, but rather to support it and organize it. They want to dilute and replace the people of Europe!

You may be wondering, who are “they”?

Media financed by foreign groups, and a domestic oligarchy, professional activists . . . agitators, organizers of riots, chains of NGOs paid by international speculators, which can be summed up with George Soros’ name, since he personifies it. This is the world we must fight against, to defend our own.

 

Last July, I reported how Orban’s anti-Soros rhetoric was condemned by some (including the Israeli ambassador) as anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, it is a fact that “professional activists” funded by Soros, along with other “external forces,” do support unlimited immigration to Europe, and have sought to undermine Hungary’s government, which opposes this Islamic “invasion.” Hungary faces an election on April 8 — about three weeks from now — and Orban’s speech could be seen as an effort to rally support for his party and to counter the challenge of the Jobbik party, which is even farther to the right than Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party.

Michael Brendan Dougherty is concerned by a passage of Orban’s speech which “reads like a checklist drawn from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” but it must be asked: What is the alternative? That is to say, if the meddling activists funded by Soros have inflamed public opinion in Hungary, so that the nationalist government of Orban is threatened by openly anti-Semitic rivals, do we expect Orban to ignore this threat? And if Orban does a bit of dog-whistling about the “crafty” Soros who “speculates with money,” is that worse than what would happen in Hungary if Orban were to fall, and Jobbik were to gain power?

The Left has sown the wind and is reaping the whirlwind, including an ugly resurgence of anti-Semitism. It is a mistake to blame the reaction in Europe without acknowledging the Left’s role in provoking that reaction. The crisis in Europe is a result of two decades of misguided policies promoted by the elites in Brussels and elsewhere, policies that were supported by many American politicians in both parties. It is reasonable to hope that, if Orban wins a solid victory in next month’s election, this will relieve the pressure against his government, and thereby help suppress the more extremist elements in Hungary.

It is a shame, and also highly ironic, that George Soros has managed to rekindle the toxic politics of European anti-Semitism. It will be recalled that Soros was a Nazi collaborator in World War II, and is it anti-Semitic to despise a self-hating Jew? Yet no one could imagine that the Jews of Europe will benefit from an influx of Muslim immigrants. So it appears that once again, Soros is collaborating with the enemies of the Jewish people, while at the same time causing his own enemies to hate Jews!

What is happening in Europe could be a harbinger of our own future, unless more Americans wake up to the danger of cultural Marxism.



 

 

Category: Europe, Hungary, Immigration

Africans Riot in Madrid

Posted on | March 18, 2018 | Comments Off on Africans Riot in Madrid

 

If all you know about the world is what you learn from watching CNN or other liberal media, you wouldn’t know that this happened:

Madrid’s “most multicultural neighbourhood” was set aflame in riots against “racist” authorities after a Senegalese street vendor reportedly died of a heart attack.
At least 20 people were injured in the clashes, which lasted from 9pm Thursday evening until after midnight and saw dustbins, trees, and furniture set alight, and patrol cars, buildings, and bus stops smashed in the city’s Lavapiés district. . . .
“We want the neighbourhood to burn and for everyone to know about what happened this morning,” one protester told reporters, referring to the Senegalese man Mame Mbaye who died on Thursday after going into cardiac arrest.
Protesters said the 35-year-old street vendor, who was living in Spain without a residence permit, collapsed while he was being chased by officers on motorcycles — a claim denied by city police and emergency services.

Police say the man simply dropped dead of a heart attack, and that a rumor was spread via social media falsely claiming that he was being pursued by police. Left-wing activists quickly turned the situation into a riot. But how many Senegalese are there in Madrid?

“As of 2014, there were over 5,023,487 foreign-born people in Spain, over 10.7% of the total population,” according to Wikipedia. Immigration to Spain has quite recently surged, as the foreign-born population has more than doubled, from about 2 million in 2002 to more than 5 million now. The three biggest sources of immigration to Spain, as of 2014, wre Romania, Morocco and Great Britain, and there were barely 50,000 Senegalese in the country. It seems difficult to believe that Madrid could erupt in anti-police riots by angry Africans, but nevertheless it happened. And you wouldn’t know it, if you were watching CNN.

 

Category: Spain
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