The Other McCain

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

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 02.23.18

Posted on | February 24, 2018 | Comments Off on Late Night With In The Mailbox: 02.23.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
First Street Journal: The Left And Freedom Of Speech
EBL: Coward of The County?
Twitchy: Conservatives Tell @BrowardSheriff Exactly What They Think With New Hashtag
Louder With Crowder: Experts Now Comparing San Francisco To “Slums Of Developing Countries”
The Federalist: 13 Ways Public Schools Incubate Mental Instability In Kids (h/t NeoWayland)
According To Hoyt: No Feet Sally And The Denial Of Humanity
Monster Hunter Nation: Back From LTUE
Vox Popoli: David Hogg, Media Star

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The Curse of Modern Management Edition
American Power: David Horowitz, The Left In The Universities, also, “Ratings Gold” – Dana Loesch Slams Media Exploitation Of Mass Shootings
American Thinker: The Contemptible American Left
Animal Magnetism: Best Headline Of The Day, also, Rule Five “Reasonable Restrictions” Friday
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For February 23
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: The Silence Of The Bloggers, also, Justin Trudeau Dresses up For Bride And Prejudice
Don Surber: Trump Revives Coal
Dustbury: The Model For All That Followed
Fred On Everything:
The Geller Report: Merkel Walks Out Of Bundestag after AfD Leader Blasts Her Immigration Policies, also, Emails Expose Terror-Tied CAIR’s Ongoing Influence In San Diego Schools
Hogewash: A Deplorable Mind, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Joe For America: Pelosi Desperate As Democrats Face Significant 2018 Losses
JustOneMinute: Imminent Strange New Respect For The Donald?
Legal Insurrection: Enterprise Car Rental Cancels NRA Discounts Under Pressure From Left-Wing Gun Grabbers, also, Parkland Shooter Tips The FBI Ignored
Power Line: A Guide To Weapons For The Uninformed, also, The Confucius Institutes – China’s Vehicle For Ideological Warfare In America
Shark Tank: CNN Accused Of Feeding Scripted Questions at Town Hall
Shot In The Dark: So Let’s Get This Straight
STUMP: Around The Pension-O-Sphere – Let’s Divest From Guns, New Interpretation of Pension Spiking, And More!
The Political Hat: The Hellhole Of Tumblr Creeps Into The Real World
This Ain’t Hell: 73rd Anniversary Of Mount Suribachi Flag Raising, also, Failures
Victory Girls: My Liberal Friends Are F***ing Idiots
Weasel Zippers: US Islamic Group Launches Pro-Hijab Billboard Campaign, also, Not Just One But Four Broward County Deputies Waited Outside School As Kids Died
Megan McArdle: You Can’t Have Denmark Without Danes
Mark Steyn: The Decline of Social Trust


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Category: Linkagery

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

Posted on | February 24, 2018 | Comments Off on Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

by Smitty

Swings the heavy door shut, turns the key a final time.
Mother’s illness has been a second womb. The lengthy second gestation is done. She’d been ancient; he, merely old, wife taken by cancer decades ago, only son taken by war, siblings estranged.
Hand lets go of the brass key. He feels liberated. Weight dropping off.
There’s a brew pub on the corner. His tongue almost jumps out of his mouth at the thought of the sweet ale washing away the bitter pain of emotion with the crisp bitterness of hops.
He hasn’t had a beer in what? Decades.
Yes.

via Darleen

Category: Friday Fiction

#CPAC2018: Legion of the Banned

Posted on | February 22, 2018 | 1 Comment

Pete Da Tech Guy displays a copy of his book.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland
Arrived here about 3 p.m., and I’ll be crashing in Da Tech Guy‘s room for the next three days. His book Hail Mary is available via Amazon, if you want to help support his work. As for me, I’m due at 5 p.m. at Cadillac Ranch for an invitation-only happy hour with Google “manifesto” author James Damore, a chance at last to meet my fellow Thought Criminal.

 

Category: CPAC

In The Mailbox: 02.22.18

Posted on | February 22, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 02.22.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Suspended By Medium
Twitchy: Ted Lieu Admits He’s Straight-Up Lying About Guns And Says He Won’t Stop
Louder With Crowder: Dear Celebrities Demanding We “Do Something” About Guns – YOU FIRST
Mises Wire: Security Works At Disney, But Can’t Work In A Public School? (h/t Neo Wayland)


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Spread The Word
American Power: Dana Loesch At CNN’s Town Hall
American Thinker: What Constitutes Treason?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Gun Ban News
BattleSwarm: Gun-Grabbing Democrats Get High On Their Own Supply Again
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday, also, Not Quite The Morocco Crisis
Da Tech Guy: Dinesh D’Souza, The Big Lie, also, Voices At CPAC 2018 – Vicki From Minnesota
Don Surber: We’ve Had Gun Control For 50 Years
Dustbury: Have We Got A Brazilian For You
Fausta: MS-13 In The News This Week
Fred On Everything: Kids, Then & Now
The Geller Report: Three African Migrants Arrested For Cannibalism In Paris, also, Acid Placed In Stroller Burns French Rabbi’s Baby
Hogewash: Stacy McCain GULAGed Again, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Joe For America: John Cusack Calls Republican Party A “Death Cult”
Legal Insurrection: CNN Harasses Woman Whose Pro-Trump Facebook Group Was Targeted By Russian Trolls, also, PA Legislators Seek SCOTUS Stay Of New Congressional District Map
Michelle Malkin: Do Not Let The Children Lead
Power Line: Remembering The Indispensable Man, also, Amy Wax Looks Back
Shark Tank: President Trump Meets With Parkland Shooting Survivors
Shot In The Dark: All The News That’s Fit To Manufacture
STUMP: Dirty Divestment & Clean Investment Follies
The Jawa Report: Jawa Olympics Coverage, also, RIP Billy Graham
The Political Hat: Fundamental Transformation – English-Free Pledge Of Allegiance, De-Westernized Western Civilization, Non-Swedish Swedish Heritage
This Ain’t Hell: Don’t Lecture Me, also, Attention On Deck! Listen Up!
Victory Girls: Hateful Teen Vogue Columnist Tells Billy Graham To Burn In Hell
Weasel Zippers: Billy Graham’s Last Post, also, Flynn Case Judge Orders Exculpatory Evidence Turned Over To Flynn’s Lawyers
Mark Steyn: The State Submits


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Category: Linkagery

Suspended by @Medium: Another Platform Is Banishing Conservatives

Posted on | February 22, 2018 | 3 Comments

On Feb. 14, I received this email from Medium.com:

Hello,
We are writing to notify you that your Medium.com account is in violation of our rules, and your profile and posts will no longer be publicly available on Medium.

Harassment
Medium exists to share and discuss ideas. We don’t tolerate harassment, which includes:

— Bullying, threatening, or shaming someone, or posting things likely to encourage others to do so
— Posting copies of private communications between private individuals without the explicit consent of all parties to the communication
–Doxing, which includes not only private or obscure personal information but also the aggregation of publicly available information to target, shame, blackmail, harass, intimidate, threaten, or endanger
— Using Medium features like responses, private notes, mentions, follows, story requests, or writer requests in a way intended to annoy or harass someone
— Posting intimate or explicit images taken or posted without the subject’s express consent

Related conduct
We do not allow posts or accounts that engage in on-platform, off-platform, or cross-platform campaigns of targeting, harassment, hate speech, violence, or disinformation. We may consider off-platform actions in assessing a Medium account, and restrict access or availability to that account.

Your work will remain accessible to you while signed in, and may be exported at any time by following the instructions here, but will appear as unavailable to others.
Your Medium membership, if you have one, will be cancelled and any remaining funds you may have prepaid will be returned to you.
Medium Trust & Safety

There was nothing in this email to describe how anything I had done had specifically violated these rules. So I sent them an email inquiring what content had caused this suspension, and what I might do to get my account reinstated. No answer. So I emailed again, and again. Nothing.

Yesterday, however, it was reported that Medium.com had also suspended the accounts of Mike Cernovich, Jack Posobiec, and Laura Loomer — all figures identified as “alt-right” — and it may therefore be surmised that, like Twitter and Facebook, Medium.com has begun to effectively prohibit conservatives from using their platform.

I first began writing at Medium.com in June 2016. Some friends of mine had occasionally used Medium.com for long-form writing, and I saw the advantages of the platform in technological terms. Several of my posts there reached a readership of more than 10,000, and I appreciated this, even though I derived no direct revenue from it.

Mike Cernovich has announced his intention to sue Medium.com for violating his “civil rights,” and I wish him success in that endeavor, although it has always been my personal policy never to sue anyone. Lawsuits are a headache that I strive to avoid, and while I have been forced to defend myself in court — and won — being a plaintiff just isn’t something that appeals to me. Reporting on bias in the media becomes problematic if you are suing the people you’re reporting about.

And that’s what this is — another media bias story. The days of the Internet as an unrestrained Wild West frontier for the dissemination of information are coming to an end, as we see emerging online the same liberal bias that has warped newspapers, magazines and TV news into an Orwellian exercise in propaganda and disinformation. Companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook are suppressing facts and commentary that contradict the Cult of Social Justice that prevails inside the “progressive” echo chamber of the university-educated elite.

Although this silencing of dissent has harmed me personally and professionally, I keep in mind that this is not about me. Nobody other than my family and friends really cares what happens to me and, while I consider regular readers here as my friends, what would happen if this blog got taken offline? For a few days or a few weeks, perhaps, there might be some attention paid to my suppression, but “out of sight, out of mind” as they say — almost no one now mentions how my @rsmccain account was banished from Twitter two years ago.

Those of us who are banished are like Bukharin or Trotsky during the era of Stalinism, airbrushed out of the old photos and excluded from the history books, becoming “unpersons,” as it were. We dwell in a sort of an online gulag, occasionally mentioned in samizdat publications which the hegemonic powers have been unable to suppress — yet.

When Medium.com announced its new rules Feb. 7, the claim was that this was to “strengthen our community,” while the evidence indicates this was merely a pretext for banishing dissent from the site. Medium.com is a Democrat Party propaganda operation, and therefore must purge anyone who disrupts this partisan and ideological conformity.

Do not be deceived about what is happening here. It is not a paranoid “conspiracy theory” to describe the self-evident facts, even if the ideological enforcers defend these purges by libelously accusing the suppressed of “harassment,” “abuse,” “hate,” etc. After their candidate was defeated in 2016, the Democrats decided that the reason for their loss was that their opponents had been too successful in online activism. Consequently, a crackdown on conservative voices was organized in Internet firms as a way to tilt the playing field online, much as CNN and other so-called “mainstream” news operations tilt the playing field.

What does history teach us about the consequences of this kind of suppression? I’m sure the geniuses running “Trust & Safety” operations at these companies haven’t studied those lessons very carefully.

“Truth is great and will prevail,” as Thomas Jefferson said, but the eventual triumph of the truth can be long delayed by oppressors, as was the case in the former Soviet Union, a regime of lies which took more than 70 years to collapse from its own inherent contradictions.

Like I keep saying, people need to wake the hell up.



 

 

Category: Media Bias

No, Our Boys Are Not ‘Broken’

Posted on | February 21, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

Talk about “toxic masculinity” interests me, because I know very well what that looks like — the domineering behavior of the brittle ego, the obnoxious braggart who feels that every social encounter is a contest in which he must demonstrate his superiority. Nobody likes a bully, and if the critics of “toxic masculinity” were serious about addressing such problems, I would be happy to suggest experience-based solutions.

Michael Ian Black is a comedian who hates Donald Trump and who used the Parkland shooting as a pretext to launch a Twitter lecture about masculinity that was, in fact, irrelevant to what happened last week. The shooter in Parkland was psychologically disturbed, the product of an unusual family background. He was adopted at age 2 by a middle-aged couple. His adoptive father died when he was 5, and his mother died last year. The shooter was diagnosed with depression, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. To make such an obviously damaged person — who was recognized by school officials and his fellow students as having profound personal problems — symbolic of an allegedly pervasive “crisis in masculinity” is not a logical inference.

 

As I said yesterday, the Parkland massacre raises “serious questions about adolescent mental health — why were so many red flags about this teenager’s dangerous behavior ignored?” However, the media avoid these questions, instead offering formulaic liberal “solutions” while ignoring evidence that such “solutions” are part of the problem:

Broward County used to lead the state of Florida in sending students to the state’s juvenile justice system. County leaders responded with a perfectly progressive solution: “lower arrests by not making arrests.” . . . One particular motivation behind programs like Broward County’s was the pressure from multiple sources to reduce the statistical disparity between black and Hispanic student arrests on one hand and white and Asian student arrests on the other. . . .
By virtue of his name alone, Nikolas de Jesús Cruz, the adopted son of Lynda and Roger Cruz, became a statistical Hispanic. As such, authorities at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland had every reason not to report his troubling and likely criminal behavior to the police.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.) Whatever policy changes might be suggested in response to the Parkland massacre, the liberals who caused the problem have discredited themselves as a source of “solutions.” Yet the media continue to pretend that liberals have a monopoly on wisdom, so that Michael Ian Black’s Twitter rant earned him an interview on NPR:

What do I mean by boys are broken? I think it means that there is something going on with American men that is giving them the permission and space to commit violence. And one of the main things we focus on correctly is guns and mental health, but I think deeper than that is a problem, a crisis in masculinity. . . .

(Question: Was the ISIS-inspired Orlando gunman Omar Mateen, whose family is from Afghanistan, part of “something going on with American men”? Or what about Syed Rizwan Farook, perpetrator of the San Bernardino massacre? Why is it that only “American men” are considered appropriate subjects of discussion about a “crisis in masculinity”? But please continue your lecture, Mr. Black.)

I also think that masculinity doesn’t have a language in the way that femininity has come to have a language. We understand that femininity can be much more broadly encompassing than masculinity now. When you think of a strong woman, that doesn’t rob her of any of her femininity. But when you think of a fragile man, that has the effect culturally, I think, of neutering that guy. And so much of masculinity is rooted in sexuality. . . .

Blah, blah, blah — it’s the same tired old Freudian nonsense, recycled in the jargon of postmodern feminist “social justice” wokeness. Stuart Schneiderman is not deceived by such rhetoric:

If leftists believe that feminism is the solution, the truth is that feminism is the problem. If you ask who broke boys or why boys are broken, you might turn to Christina Hoff Sommers’ book The War Against Boys.
Thanks the feminist schoolteachers, in particular, boys have been beaten down at school.

One of the most important aspects of healthy masculinity is that a good man must be able to endure pain, to shrug off insults, and to avoid complaining about his suffering. When I’d take my sons on mountain hikes, the younger ones would sometimes get tired and start whining. “There is no crying on the Bataan Death March,” I’d say, and tell them about how soldiers survived that brutal ordeal. Also, I’d point out to them that the greatest triumph of Muhammad Ali’s career was a fight he lost, when Ken Norton broke his jaw, and yet Ali still went the distance, fighting on to finish the 12th round and lose a split decision. Take the pain and keep going — that’s what a man has to do.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

“Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”

“I don’t believe in God. How can I say the Pledge of Allegiance if I don’t believe in God?”
— Michael Ian Black

Michael Ian Black is an atheist, and thus lacks the wisdom necessary to advise anyone about anything, especially about “the duty of man.”

As a child, I was taught to “turn the other cheek,” to resist the temptation to wrath, because “vengeance is mine . . . saith the Lord.” Mercy ought not to be confused with weakness, and only “the fear of the Lord” can make a man truly courageous. Knowing that “the wrath of God” is directed against the “unrighteousness of men” should inspire in us a spirit of humility, because “the judgment of God” condemns us all: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

The Rev. Billy Graham died today at age 99, and I think his ministry was far more helpful in teaching non-toxic masculinity than anything a Hollywood liberal like Michael Ian Black might say. Being conscious of our own sinful nature, and our need for divine mercy, is the only possible solution to every evil temptation in our lives. While probably few of my acquaintances would say I am a good Christian, I married a godly woman, who never ceases praying and who has been a tremendous force for good in the lives of all our children. It is an insult — and one I deeply resent — for Michael Ian Black to suggest that my sons are “broken,” trapped inside a “rigid, outdated model of masculinity.” Oh, really?

Godless atheists like Michael Ian Black know they can insult Christians — disparaging even honorable men like my son — because they know that “the fear of the Lord,” and a concern for doing “the whole duty of man,” requires us to “turn the other cheek.” Yet the truth has not changed in the past 2,000 years, and when hateful degenerates like Michael Ian Black mock God, they invite God’s wrath against themselves. Selah.



 

 

Category: Celebrities, Crime, Hollywood, Liberals

In The Mailbox: 02.21.18

Posted on | February 21, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 02.21.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #173
EBL: Billy Graham, RIP
Twitchy: Charles C.W. Cooke BLASTS Chris Cuomo Over Bogus AR-15 “Purchase” Story
Louder With Crowder: Ted Cruz Owns Celebrities On Gun Control In TMZ Video
Medium: Ex-CIA Director Thinks US Hypocrisy About Election Meddling Is Hilarious (h/t NeoWayland)

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Pass Me The White Rose, also, Podcast #75 – The Star Wars Episode
American Power: Collapse Of The Global Elite, also, President Trump’s Surprising Grand Strategy
American Thinker: Did The Progressive “Broward County Solution” Cost 17 Students Their Lives?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Nork GULAG News, also, Animal’s Hump Day News
BattleSwarm: Trump Derangement Syndrome, Max Boot Edition
BLACKFIVE: Sarah Sundin, The Sea Before Us
Bring The HEAT: Army Officially Honoring Three Slain JROTC Cadets For Heroism During Parkland HS Shooting
CDR Salamander: Obama’s Syria Blink
Da Tech Guy: The Daily Kos And Its Fellow Travelers, also, Why I’m Against Black History Month…And For It Part III
Don Surber: Another Anti-Trump Olympian Crashes
Dustbury: Does Porn Make You Stupid?
Fausta: Peru’s Fujimori Going On Trial…Again
The Geller Report: Nikki Haley Tells Abbas US Won’t Chase Him For Mideast Deal
Hogewash: Grace’s Law 2.0 Or Brett’s Bill? also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Joe For America: Democrat/Russian Collusion – Michael Moore Involved In Russian-Sponsored Anti-Trump Rally
JustOneMinute: Liberal Fascism, also, Breaking News From 2015
Legal Insurrection: Pelosi Heckled While Criticizing Tax Reform, also, The Diseased Streets Of San Francisco
Michelle Malkin: The War On JROTC Resurrected – By Unhinged Liberal Media
Power Line: Gun Control Hysteria Sweeps The Left, also, California Suicide Watch, Part II
Shark Tank: Trump Pushes Low-Cost Obamacare Alternative
Shot In The Dark: Walz’s Waffles
STUMP: Around The Pension-O-Sphere – Multiemployer Plans, Illinois, Kentucky, & New York, also,  Taxing Tuesday – DOOOOOM And More DOOOOOM
The Jawa Report: He Lied! He Lied To US! also, Bahmp Dahmp Ba Ba Ba Badubump
The Political Hat: Unqueering The Cake…In California?
This Ain’t Hell: Cadet Peter Wang Posthumously Appointed To USMA, also, Russian Contractors Test US Forces In Syria
Victory Girls: Black Panther – Proud, Patriotic, And Powerful
Weasel Zippers: Sheriff Offers Free CHP Class to Teachers – Filled In 20 Minutes, also, Parkland Shooting Survivor Accuses Media Of Using Tragedy To Push Gun Control
Mark Steyn: A Smackin’ Corker, also, Guns Gays Gaelic & Gloom

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Category: Linkagery

No, Russia’s ‘Rinky-Dink Troll Operation’ Did Not Change the 2016 Election Result

Posted on | February 20, 2018 | Comments Off on No, Russia’s ‘Rinky-Dink Troll Operation’ Did Not Change the 2016 Election Result

The simple fact behind last week’s indictment of 13 employees of a Russian outfit is that, if this is the sinister “collusion” that the liberal media have been warning us about, there’s no way such a miniscule effort could have cheated Hillary Clinton out of the presidency.

Ace calls it a “rinky-dink troll operation” and Da Tech Guy asks, “Where’s the beef?” Honestly, it’s laughable. Adrian Chen, the reporter who first called attention to the Russian firm behind the online effort, dismisses it as “ineffective” and derides as “paranoia” the fear-mongering portrayal of the operation as an “immense propaganda machine.” Rick Moran reminds us that “the total expenditure from both parties (campaigns, SuperPACs, etc) in 2016 was well over $2 billion dollars,” so that a handful of Twitter and Facebook accounts could not have made a significant impact. We must therefore ask, why have the media and the Democrats spent more than a year shrieking about the alleged “collusion” (of which we have seen exactly zero evidence so far) between Russia and the Trump campaign? Daniel Flynn has some thoughts:

An administration siccing the surveillance state on the opposition party’s presidential candidate based on dubious reports compiled by the favored presidential candidate’s campaign ranks as a terribly reckless strategy risking the future freedom of its architects for their future power, no?
“Not if you think you will win the election and no one will ever find out,” an animated Joseph diGenova tells The American Spectator. “That’s why they did it. They thought she would win and no one would ever find out.”
Alas, Hillary Clinton did not, as so many expected, win the presidency. So, the incoming administration, investigated by dubious means, got to see what the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and various Justice Department officials believed it would never see. . . .
Specifically, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence memo’s finding that the Justice Department knew that the information justifying its application for a FISA warrant to obtain electronic surveillance came from a Hillary Clinton campaign opposition research operation, i.e., Christopher Steele’s “dossier,” yet withheld that information, possibly constitutes a legal problem for James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and others involved in applications to the court. Beyond this, reports that the Justice Department relied on a second dossier compiled by Cody Shearer, a political hatchet man without the pretense of credibility that Steele, a longtime British intelligence agent, provided for his “dossier,” further complicates legal matters for government employees involved in what increasingly looks like partisan work done on the federal government’s dime.

Now, hold that thought — the Obama administration illegally obtaining warrants to spy on Trump’s campaign, based on bogus information provided by Fusion GPS and Cody Shearer — while you consider this: In March 2017, Professor Glenn Reynolds intuited exactly why Democrats started pushing the “collusion” narrative after the election:

The spying-on-Trump thing is worse than we even imagine, and once it was clear Hillary had lost and it would inevitably come out, the Trump/Russia collusion talking point was created as a distraction.

What this means, of course, is that President Trump is absolutely right in calling the media’s “collusion” narrative “fake news.” But what it also means is that the Mueller investigation is actually part of an ongoing attempt to cover-up wrongdoing by the Obama administration!



 

Category: Corruption, Media Bias, Russia
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