The Other McCain

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

Has #MeToo Finally Gone Too Far?

Posted on | May 17, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

If you’ve watched MTV’s Catfish, you may remember Ayissha Morgan, a lesbian who was the victim in 2015 of an online-dating deception that the show’s hosts, Nev Schulman and Max Joseph, were able to unravel. Now, she is claiming she was sexually harassed by Schulman:

The show, now in its seventh season, began airing in 2012. In it, Schulman investigates online relationships, attempting to verify whether people are who they say they are on the internet.
In a video posted May 12 on YouTube, Ayissha Morgan, who appeared on the show in 2015, alleges that she was sexually harassed by Schulman throughout the production.
A lesbian, Morgan claims Schulman . . . pushed her to “reevaluate” her sexuality and have sex with him. In another video, posted May 14, Morgan alleges that a female production assistant, “Carol,” got her drunk and took advantage of her. The next day, she claims, Schulman invited her into his hotel room, where he allegedly propositioned her.
In a statement sent by his publicist, Schulman denied the charges.
“The behavior described in this video did not happen and I’m fortunate that there are a number of former colleagues who were present during this time period who are willing to speak up with the truth,” Schulman said. “I have always been transparent about my life and would always take responsibility for my actions — but these claims are false.”

If this accusation were proven true, as Shakespeare might say, it would be a grievous sin, and grievously shall Schulman answer it. However, the scenario alleged here seems wildly improbable to me, and there are reasons to doubt the veracity of Schulman’s accuser.

She has attempted, without much success, to parlay her 15 minutes of Catfish fame into a career (her YouTube channel has fewer than 4,000 subscribers) and her most obvious motive for making these allegations against Schulman would be to garner publicity. Is it possible that Schulman would “go for the two-point conversion,” as we used to say in college of guys trying to put the move on lesbians? While we can’t say that anything is impossible, the real question is not even whether this accusation is true, but whether it was wrong. Schulman got married last year, but in 2015, he was still a bachelor. If he found Morgan attractive, was he guilty of “harassment” for expressing interest in her?

“But she’s a lesbian! He pushed her to ‘reevaluate’ her sexuality!” you say.

To which the appropriate response is: So?

If you say it’s wrong for a heterosexual man to express interest in a self-identified lesbian, does that mean it’s also wrong for gay men to express interest in heterosexual men? Because this happens all the time, without anyone automatically considering it “harassment.” Heterosexuals would be accused of homophobia if they objected too loudly to propositions from gay people, but perhaps it is absurd to expect a sense of fair play from the #MeToo movement. There is no statute of limitations, no due process, no standards of evidence — a man is accused, his reputation is instantly destroyed and his career is automatically ended.

Let us stipulate, as a hypothetical, that there is some element of truth to what Morgan says. If Schulman “propositioned” her, should this alone be sufficient cause to cast him into outer darkness? Unless his behavior was grossly insulting, threatening or violent, I’d say no harm, no foul.

As it is, Schulman says his co-workers can attest that nothing of the kind actually happened and we therefore have a “he-said/she-said” controversy, not unlike the 2006 Duke lacrosse rape hoax in which liberals rushed to believe the alleged “victim,” who proved to be a liar.

 

Category: Sex Trouble

Synthetic ‘Community’: Social Media and Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria

Posted on | May 17, 2018 | 4 Comments

Kids want to belong. In the confusing storms of adolescence, defining yourself as a member of a group becomes a source of security. Historically, this has taken the form of tribalism — ethnicity and family as the basis of identity, typically reinforced by religious belief.

When a crowd of Irish Catholics turn out for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, they are celebrating a shared sense of self, rooted in the organic reality of their common ancestry and group heritage. The security of organic community is to be contrasted with artificial or synthetic “communities” which in modern cultures are largely produced by the media. For example, why does someone identify as a “gamer”? They spend their time immersed in the hobby of playing videogames, and begin to think of other people participating in online multi-player games as friends or enemies. This digital fantasy environment becomes a basis of identity, so that the obese teenager in his mom’s basement thinks of himself in the heroic game role (e.g., a Navy SEAL fighting jihadis) and his self-esteem is invested in his success or failure in the online game.

Such synthetic “communities” can have dangerous consequences, as when impressionable and alienated young men are attracted to neo-Nazi groups or are radicalized as Islamic terrorists. Feminists have blamed online communities of “men’s rights activists” (MRAs) for the murder rampages of Elliott Rodger in 2014 and Alek Minassian in April 2018. If participation in online “communities” can promote hatred and terrorism or influence the behavior of mass murderers, should we doubt that such activity can affect perceptions of gender and sexuality?

Critics of the transgender movement have described a phenomenon they call “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” in which young people develop a sudden belief that they were “born in the wrong body” and insist on seeking gender “transition” following a few weeks or months of intense immersion in the online transgender community. A remarkable increase in the number of adolescents calling themselves “non-binary” or “genderqueer” — labels unheard of a few years ago, but popularized via websites like Tumblr — further demonstrates how online communities are influencing the sexual attitudes and behaviors of young people.

Feminists and other critics accuse transgender activists of using online communities to promote a “cult” mentality among teenagers.

 

 

 

All cults operate through the methods of “ideological totalism”:

A totalist group, or cult, will operate under an ideology that is held to be true for all people at all times. This doctrine, or dogma really, is held as the ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence. It appears to be both inspired and scientific all at once. Psychiatrist Robert Lifton calls this a “sacred science.”
Whether or not the cult is religious or uses terms like “sacred” is irrelevant. The dogma is shown to be sacred in other ways- such as the forbidding of questioning the basic tenets. A cult does not need a central leader or a central God, because the ideas can be a kind of God. In the blending of transcendent ideas (the essence of womanhood, gender is a feeling, my gender is innate, etc.) and exaggerated claims of logic and scientific precision, it becomes not only a moral vision but an ultimate science. Therefore, anyone who would get in the way of this perfect scientific and moral system is a threat and must be silenced. Anyone who would question it, or even harbor alternative ideas, becomes both immoral and unscientific.

Parents say this cult mentality is also promoted by many therapists:

To put it bluntly, professional psychology has been captured by the transgender cult. Parents of teens find themselves tag-teamed, pressured into “acceptance” and “support” for “transition.”
What is apparent, from such first-hand accounts, is that transgender activists have created a narrative — a script — that is being promoted in the mental-health establishment, and the online transgender community then acts as Pied Pipers leading vulnerable youth toward “transition.”

Teenagers who immerse themselves in online communities are often socially isolated — treated as outcasts at school or otherwise alienated from the majority of their real-life peer group — and this isolation makes them especially vulnerable to those who seek to influence them. By identifying as transgender, these isolated teens may easily gain a sense of belonging that is lacking in their day-to-day interactions with peers.

Synthetic communities appeal to adolescents because group membership is a source of identity at an age when young people are struggling to define themselves as individuals. The greater a teenager’s feelings of alienation, the more outlandish their chosen identities are likely to be. Young people who are basically happy with their family and social lives, and optimistic about their futures, are as unlikely to announce they are “genderqueer” as they are to become radical Muslims. However, the ordinary emotional turbulence of adolescent life is such that even a popular and relatively well-adjusted teenager may at times be vulnerable to exploring synthetic communities. A growing body of research indicates that anxiety and depression are correlated with higher levels of social-media usage, and the association of rapid onset gender dysphoria with intense online involvement is almost certainly not coincidental:

Reports online indicate that a young person’s coming out as transgender is often preceded by increased social media use and/or having one or more peers also come out as transgender. These factors suggest that social contagion may be contributing to the significant rise in the number of young people seeking treatment for gender dysphoria. . . .
Young people can find plenty of in-group validation online. There is an incredibly positive climate around being trans in many places on the Internet. . . .
Young people on reddit and other social media sites explain that they started wondering whether they were trans because they enjoyed creating opposite-sex avatars in online games and liked the clothing or hairstyles of the opposite sex.

To get an idea of how this process occurs, consider the following account from an interview with a 24-year-old “transman” (i.e., born female) who began testosterone injections at age 20 in November 2014:

Growing up I’m definitely part of the generation . . . I grew up with computers and with internet access. I pretty quickly through that found LiveJournal and MySpace. Different platforms, social media where you’re suddenly like, okay, my friends are on here that I know but then also oh look, there’s all these other people that I don’t know yet I see them on here. It evolved, MySpace goes to Facebook then I got a Tumblr . . . then suddenly I was doing a lot of online. . . . Suddenly I was like, okay, I’m seeing a lot of people who are in the LBGTQ community and that was ringing true for me so I eventually came out as bi through knowing about the fact that that was a thing through online spaces. I’ve seen people be public about it.
I was influenced by people who are public about it. Finding out that I was queer, at first that I was bisexual, then . . . I was lesbian, then I was gay, then I was queer, then I was genderqueer, then I was trans. It’s just continued — all of these, all of my different identities have been going have all been very much influenced by the fact that I’m seeing people living these lives online. And sharing their experiences online. When I first, I’ve had a Tumblr since 2009 or so [i.e., at age 15], been on there basically through almost the entirety of my coming out experience. I’ve been seeing all these different blogs of people — that was for me, that was a space where you can also live this journey, where you’re living it in life, where you’re going through life not really not really know[ing] what the heck is happening but then you can go back online and be like, okay, here’s all these other people. Five months ago you can go back into Tumblr, okay, this is where they were at this stage in their transition or in their journey and you can self-relate just have a lot more access to different people. And then going to college, meeting a lot of other people and seeing their own online presences. I had quite a few friends that were very popular on Tumblr and different social media spaces. Honestly, it was always there. Also it was just another way to really document my trans journey for myself, just with photograph instead of having to actually physically take photos and print them. Making a scrapbook. I could just make a scrapbook online really easily. I was able to just everyday I could take a photo and put it on there and track the progress of when I was actually was starting hormones.
It was always there and always a thing for me. Especially so when early when I first started my transition blog. I’ve steered away from Tumblr. I don’t have enough time for it anymore. When I was on it I was a lot of messages I was getting was just thank you for being active. Thank you for sharing your story. Also I was very active on Facebook when I was coming out in terms of the social media bubble at my college. It’s always been a thing that I do. In high school I was very, I was the head of our GSA [Gay-Straight Alliance], I was in the pride parades. I went to the gay center in the city. I was just always been active and doing things. Social media was just another space.

Seeing “a lot of people who are in the LBGTQ community . . . through online spaces,” this person first identified as bisexual or “queer” around age 15, then as lesbian, back to queer, then “genderqueer,” finally becoming transgender at 20. Because of social media, young people have access to alternative identities being modeled for them (“seeing people living these lives online”) in a sort of identity-shopping expedition.

The desire to belong — to “fit in” somewhere, to be popular — is a natural human instinct. For the awkward or emotionally troubled teenager, transgenderism may seem like an ideal solution to their problems. For young people who feel like social failures, escaping their “gender” and transforming themselves into a simulacrum of the opposite sex offers the hope of becoming someone socially successful. Participation in an online community offers reinforcement for that escape fantasy.

Part of what makes the online transgender community so influential is that criticism is excluded as “negativity” or “hate.” Anyone who expresses doubt or discouragement toward the transition process is accused of transphobia, so that the community’s collective message to participants is a repetitive echo-chamber of reinforcement. This may tend to increase the isolation of the teenage community member, who is unlikely to find such pro-transgender attitudes among their friends and family.

Conflicts with parents and ostracism from peers can produce a sort of siege mentality, where the would-be transgender adolescent believes that everyone they know in real life is an enemy, and only members of the online community are their friends. The gender-critical feminist site 4th Wave Now published an account by a 19-year-old lesbian named Sarah who, from ages 14 to 16, identified as transgender, but who subsequently abandoned that identity. Her transgender identification, Sarah explained, was applauded in her Tumblr community, which provided “constant validation of trans people”:

The most harmful message to come out of the cultist ideology of trans rights is that you are x because you feel like x. . . . I didn’t feel like a woman, which according to trans ideology, meant I wasn’t ‘cisgender’, and so from that the leap was easy for me to make: I must be a man.

Making subjective feelings the basis of identity — a triumph of emotion over reality — is a basic appeal of all synthetic communities. Consider the world of sports: If a fan’s favorite basketball team wins the NBA championship, his identification with the team gives him a sense that their achievement is somehow a victory for him. In fact, of course, the fan has no role in the team’s fortunes, nor does their championship make any actual difference in his life, but his emotional investment as a fan of the team becomes part of his identity, even if he never attends a game in person, but only watches on TV. Similarly, a person may become intensely interested in partisan politics, so that he is elated when his party’s candidate wins an election, even though it is unlikely that he (the voter) will experience much actual benefit from his candidate’s victory. Although the outcomes of elections matter more than do the outcomes of NBA games, the motives that cause someone to identify as a Democrat or a Republican are often irrational, and the partisan’s subjective feelings may be drastically at odds with objective political reality.

Both politics and sports fandom offer examples of how synthetic communities operate and, as with transgenderism, the Internet becomes a means by which people can express and reinforce their various affiliations and interests, to seek support and a sense of belonging.

Recognizing the nature of the problem — the insidious effects of cult psychology on the alienated adolescent — is obviously the first step toward protecting young people against such appeals. Parents (and other responsible adults) must warn young people against immersing themselves in online communities, and must also be observant. Not every teenager is equally vulnerable to the appeals of the transgender cult, but none are immune. And what if your child falls prey to this mentality? Sarah says that a key factor in her case was that her mother refused to cooperate with her transgender fantasy:

I remember posting all the time online about how abusive she was for deadnaming me, or not letting me bind, which I now feel terrible about. I didn’t feel like I could talk to her about anything (especially gender things) because I had made up in my mind that she thought my very existence (as a trans person) was invalid. Her resolve was beyond admirable, though, as well as her patience for my angsty bulls–t. . . .
One of the biggest problems I think with being transgender is it comes out of an unhappiness, and that the impossibility of the accepted solution amplifies the unhappiness. Having short hair doesn’t give you an adam’s apple, testosterone injections won’t change your bone structure, a phalloplasty won’t let you produce sperm. The closer you get to the real thing, the bigger the gap between you and being a real male grows. Freeing yourself from the task of climbing a mountain whose peak can never be summited is your only chance of ever actually being happy.
I eventually stopped looking for validation as something I would never be, and started the process of loving myself.

Read the whole thing. Sarah recognized that the transgender fantasy — escaping personal unhappiness through “transition” — is a lie.  At the time, she was angry about her mother’s refusal to cooperate with her fantasy, but by the time she was 17, she realized that her “friends” in the online transgender cult were not really her friends. Within the Internet echo-chamber where the “ideological totalism” of transgender cult belief prevails, allegiance to the synthetic community is the supreme value. It is the decline of organic community — especially the loss of loyalty to church and family — which makes so many young people vulnerable to such cults. A child with a healthy sense of identity based in real life is to some extent inoculated against cult recruitment; it is chiefly because our culture has become hostile to church and family that there are so many confused youth so desperate for a sense of identity that they would consider transgenderism an acceptable “solution” to their problems.




 

 

Category: The Transgender Cult

In The Mailbox: 05.16.18

Posted on | May 17, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.16.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #257
EBL: Remember The Lessons Of The Chinese Cultural Revolution
Twitchy: Round Two! Dana Loesch Knocks  Out Rep. Ted Lieu For Trying To Link NRA To Russia, also, Rob Schneider Takes Dramatic Step To Close Hollywood Pay Gap!
Louder With Crowder: Kyle Kashuv Wrecks Twitter Troll – “I Was Seven When It Was Published”
Mad Genius Club: It Is Time To Fight Back

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Greasy Pole Podcast #4 – The Blue Lobsters Episode
American Power: Resistance Candidates Win Tuesday Primaries, also, Why Trump Is A President Like No Other
American Thinker: Let’s Stop Calling It Liberalism
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
BattleSwarm: Blue Wave? Not So Much, also, In A Surprise Development, Germany Now Sucks At War
CDR Salamander: Are We Watching The Free Previews In Ukraine?
Da Tech Guy: Israel Exists Because The Palestinians Can’t Slaughter Them; Palestinians Exist Because Israel Won’t Slaughter Them, also, The Government Solution Is Always Worse Than The Problem
Don Surber: “Just Quit Talking Down To Me”
Dustbury: Adolescent, After All
The Geller Report: Honor Barbarism – Pakistan Muslim, 22, Has Eyes Gouged Out By Father & Brothers Because He Wanted To Marry A Girl Of His Choosing, also, “Palestinians” Thank Canada For Not Attending Opening Of U.S. Embassy In Jerusalem
Hogewash: Gilmore v Jones et al LOLsuit News, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Joe For America: Beaver County PA Teacher Having Affair With Student Murdered On Mother’s Day
Legal Insurrection: NYT Report Confirms Obama’s FBI Spied On Trump Campaign, also, Chicago Advocacy Group Files Federal Lawsuit To Block Obama Presidential Center
Michelle Malkin: Marginalizing Melania
Power Line: Tom Steyer – Trump Isn’t As Bad As Hitler…Yet, also, Don’t Blame Trump For The Violence In Gaza
Shark Tank: Rubio Calls Venezuelan Dictator “Direct Threat” To U.S. National Security
Shot In The Dark: Into The Provinces
STUMP: Happy Pension News – Wisconsin State Pensions
The Political Hat: British Doctor Accidentally Decapitates Baby
This Ain’t Hell: Kaitlin Marie & The Gun Control Advocates, also, Tchaasu Taylor Killed Two Days After Being Released On Bail
Victory Girls: Chelsea Clinton, Meet The Facts
Weasel Zippers: Hamas Admits 50 Of 62 Killed In Gaza Border Incident Were Terrorists, also, Fauxcahontas Whines That Democracy “Crumbling Around Us” Since Trump Won
Mark Steyn: It Was A Very Good Year, also, Franchise Man v. Burka Girl


The Hidden Truth Just 99 Cents Through Sunday!
Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 05.15.18

Posted on | May 15, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.15.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
First Street Journal: The Euros Are Just So Upset Over Trump Moving Our Embassy To Jerusalem
EBL: Tom Wolfe, RIP
Twitchy: Blue-Check Journo Dragged For This Horrendous Take On Gaza Riots
Louder With Crowder: FOX Releases Trailer For Last Man Standing Reboot
Kyle Smith: The Great One
Michael Lewis: How Tom Wolfe Became…Tom Wolfe

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Jordan Peterson, Globalist Shill
American Thinker: Democrats Disgrace Themselves Interrogating Trump’s CIA Nominee
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Jerusalem Embassy News
BattleSwarm: SDF Finally Clearing Euphrates Pocket, also, Texas Primary Runoff Voting Starts Today
CDR Salamander: Prepper Math
Da Tech Guy: When Your Enemy Tells You What He Will Do, Believe Him, also, I Can’t Wait For Election Day NYT Comments – Iowahawk Edition
Don Surber: Trump Is The Dove With The Olive Branch
Dustbury: Netflix And Jail
The Geller Report: Refugee Timeout Policy – Massive Daycare Fraud In MN Somali Community, also, Facebook Posts Instruct Gaza Muslims To Arm Themselves, Invade Israel
Hogewash: Tom Wolfe, RIP, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Joe For America: Iran Threatens To Release Names Of Officials Who Took Bribes To Pass Obama’s Nuke Deal
Legal Insurrection: Students At Germany’s Heidelberg University Reject Antisemitic BDS Movement, also, Court Says Expelled Student Can Proceed On Key Claims Against Johnson & Wales U
Power Line: John Brennan, Lying Nutter, also, Behind The Smoke Screen
Shark Tank: Florida’s Most Popular Republican Politician Is…
Shot In The Dark: The Delicious Irony…
STUMP: Mornings With Meep, also, Taxing Tuesday
The Jawa Report: Attention Twitter Luser @hamzahf17
The Political Hat: Amazon Rights
This Ain’t Hell: Ron Worthey Gets His Time In The Spotlight, also, U.S. Milsurp M1911s Available – Almost
Victory Girls: Origins Game Fair Caves to SJZ Brownshirts, also, The Lies Of John Ward (Origins Post Update)
Weasel Zippers: Judge Rules Broward Co. Elections Supervisor Illegally Destroyed Ballots, also, Black California Voters Blast Sanctuary City Policies
Mark Steyn: Heel, Hipster, Loner, Loser, also, Russian To Judgement


CLFA Finalist A Rambling Wreck Just 99 Cents
Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

The Terrorist Riot in Gaza

Posted on | May 15, 2018 | 2 Comments

 

The shock of events Monday — when a rioting mob attacked the Israeli border and 55 people were killed — is being twisted by the liberal media which misleadingly call this attack a “protest.” The truth is that the people of Gaza are governed by a terrorist organization, Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel:

An IAF fighter jet struck five terrorist targets in the northern Gaza Strip in response to violent acts by Hamas along the security fence on Monday, according to IDF reports. The targets included military training facilities belonging to Hamas.
Earlier [Monday], two additional Hamas military positions were hit by tank- and aircraft fire, after IDF forces were shot at by Hamas from the northern part of the coastal enclave.
“The IDF is determined to prevent massive terror activities constantly being led by the Hamas terror organization,” an IDF statement emphasized, adding that “Each act of terror will be met with a harsh response.”
40,000 Palestinians took part in Monday’s violent riots in 13 locations along the Gaza Strip security fence, marking Nakba Day and protesting the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem.
“Nakba Day,” or “Day of Catastrophe,” is observed annually by Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs to commemorate the events following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
Gazans have been protesting along the border with Israel for the past six weeks as part of what organizers have called the ‘Great March of Return’, with demonstrators throwing stones, Molotov cocktails and rocks, as well as launching incendiary kites toward Israeli troops.

Most Americans do not know the history of this conflict well enough to understand the reality of what happened Monday, even if the liberal media were willing to report it accurately (which they are not). Many people talk of “peace” in the Middle East as if there were something that Israel could do to placate the demands of its enemies, but this is an error akin to blaming Czechoslovakia for the 1938 Sudetenland crisis.

The reason there is no peace in the Middle East is because Israel’s enemies don’t want peace. What they want is dead Jews.

Do not let yourself be deceived about this fact. Israel is surrounded by Arab countries, and the so-called “Palestinians” are just Arabs who refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Israel’s national existence. Seventy years after Israel won its independence from British colonial rule, there has grown up an anti-Israel mythology — a false history, created by Jew-hating propagandists — to justify terrorist warfare. The Arabs in Gaza can have peace simply by stopping their attacks on Israel.

Many of my paleoconservative friends dislike the U.S.-Israel alliance, which they perceive as unnecessarily involving us in what George Washington called “foreign entanglements.” Granting the legitimacy of these concerns, it is my belief that the real problem in the Middle East is that the United States erred in the 1990s by attempting to act as a broker in a “peace process” which was always doomed to fail. If the U.S. would simply stop its interference, Israel could bring about peace in the Middle East by the only feasible “process” — victory.

Because I remember the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, I know that Israel is capable of destroying its enemies. Guess what? Israel’s enemies know this, too, which is why they engage in terrorism and propaganda, rather than open warfare. By fomenting violence — and falsely blaming Israel for the bloodshed — Hamas seeks to continue a war that it can never ultimately hope to win. Why? Because killing Jews is the only purpose of Hamas, its raison d’être as a terrorist organization.

We can help advance the cause of peace by speaking the blunt truth. There was no “protest” in Gaza yesterday. It was a terrorist riot.




 

 

Category: Israel, Terrorism

In The Mailbox: 05.14.18

Posted on | May 14, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.14.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
First Street Journal: Hold Them Accountable!
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #256
EBL: Jeff Bezos Vs. Kshama “I Wanna, I Wanna” Sawant
Twitchy: Kamala Harris Left A Very Important Detail Out Of Her “Affordable Housing” Plea
Louder With Crowder: Does This Tweet Show That David Hogg Knows That He’s Lost The Game?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Links & Chicks – the Beautiful Weather Edition, also, Sunday Lifting Thread
American Power: Dana Loesch – The U.S. Keeps Winning Under Trump’s Foreign Policy, also, Matt Walsh, The Unholy Trinity
American Thinker: President Trump Fulfills Prophecies, Moves Embassy To Jerusalem
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
BattleSwarm: Real Charges Finally Filed In Waco Biker Shootout
CDR Salamander: The Simple, Right Thing Is Often The Most Difficult Thing
Da Tech Guy: Failed State Trying To Distract From Budget Mess By Ratifying ERA, also, Why Does McCain Regret Choosing Palin For VP?
Don Surber: Sustained Outrage Is For Losers
Dustbury: Strange Search Engine Queries, also,  Slightly Overbought
Fred On Everything: Netanyahu – “Let’s You And Him Fight”
The Geller Report: Not One Democrat In Jerusalem To Honor Embassy Opening, also, Canadian Ambassador To Israel Instructed to Boycott  Our Embassy Opening
Hogewash: Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Joe For America: Why Does God Scare Democrats So Much?
JustOneMinute: Say What?!?
Legal Insurrection: California Democrats Push Communist May Day Over Presidents’ Birthdays, also, Hillary Transferred Campaign $$$ To LLC That Handles Her Personal Income
Power Line: Trump Is Starting To Spook The Left, also, The Wind Energy Fiasco Writ Large
Shark Tank: Judge Finds “Unlawful” Ballot Destruction In Wasserman-Schultz’ 2016 Primary Race
Shot In The Dark: This Is Tina Flint-Smith
STUMP: Around The Pension-O-Sphere, also, Memory Monday – Second Week Of May 1918
The Political Hat: California To Demand People Sacrifice & Suffer For The God Of Global Warming
This Ain’t Hell: Dick’s Cut Off, also, Gonads
Victory Girls: Gina Haspel Has Nothing To Apologize For
Weasel Zippers: Dem Who Slammed Trump Over Clean Water Act Made Millions Violating That Same Law, also, Another Conservative Revolt In California
Mark Steyn: Non-Stop Number Ones, also, Announcing The Inaugural Mark Steyn Club Cruise


Now Through 5/20 – Hans Schantz’ A Rambling Wreck Just 99 Cents!
Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

Parenting, California Style

Posted on | May 14, 2018 | 2 Comments

 

Say hello to Jonathan Allen, father of 10:

Children removed from a squalid California home described acts of intentional abuse that resulted in puncture wounds, burns, bruising and injuries consistent with being shot with a pellet gun, authorities said Monday.
Sharon Henry, chief deputy district attorney for Solano County, said she was “horrified” by the statements from the children and that torture was carried out in the house “for sadistic purposes.” She declined to elaborate.
“It literally breaks your heart, and you’re outraged by how a parent or anyone could commit those acts,” Henry said afterward.
Jonathan Allen, 29, the father of the children, has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of torture and nine counts of felony child abuse. He is being held on $5.2 million bail.
Police in Fairfield said earlier Monday that the 10 children, ages 4 months to 12 years, had been removed from their home March 31 after their mother, Ina Rogers, 30, reported her oldest child was missing.
Police found filthy conditions in the home shared by Rogers and Allen, police Lt. Greg Hurlbut said.
“Officers located unsafe and unsanitary living conditions including garbage and spoiled food on the floor, animal and human feces and a large amount of debris making areas of the house unpassable,” he said.
Rogers was arrested and released after posting $10,000 bail on April 9.
She gave reporters a tour of her house on Monday, denying that her husband had abused the children. . . .
Rogers told reporters she’s surprised police had leveled the most serious accusations against her husband, as he was not the disciplinarian of the family.
“There’s no broken bones, there is no major scars, nothing,” Rogers told reporters in front of her house. “My kids get bumped and bruised and scratched because they’re kids but that’s it.”
During the tour, the four-bedroom house in Fairfield, 46 miles (74 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, was messy with scuffed walls and animal feces in the bathroom.

YOUR HUSBAND HAS TATTOOS ON HIS FACE! YOUR HOUSE IS FULL OF FECES! YOU’RE 30 YEARS OLD AND HAVE 10 KIDS!

Excuse me if I seem a bit … judgmental, but in what kind of world does this happen? “Hey, honey, I’m thinking about getting a tattoo on my face.” And she’s like, “That would be awesome. Let’s get pregnant again, because 9 kids isn’t enough. Oops, watch out for the cat poop . . .”

Well, at least they didn’t drive the kids off a cliff.

(Hat-tip: Kirby McCain on Twitter.)

 

Category: California

SJWs Ruin Everything

Posted on | May 14, 2018 | Comments Off on SJWs Ruin Everything

 

How does Hollywood make money?

  1. By producing popular entertainment;
    or
  2. By advancing the cause of social justice?

Some people seem to be confused about this. Millions of dollars are thrown away annually producing “artsy” and avant-garde films that nobody wants to see, but the biggest waste of dollars in Hollywood are movies that seek to “send a message” or “make a statement” about social and political issues beloved by the Left. Too many soi-disant “progressives” in the movie business ignore the wisdom of famed producer Sam Goldwyn: “Pictures were made to entertain; if you want to send a message, call Western Union.” How else to explain misguided catastrophes like the all-female Ghostbusters remake?

Occasionally, of course, a “message” movie makes a profit, because it is also entertaining. Such was the case with War Games, a 1983 thriller that depicted nuclear warfare as unthinkable and futile. The “message” of War Games was liberal, but the plot was exciting and the central characters — Matthew Broderick as a teenage computer whiz kid and Ally Sheedy as his girlfriend — were well played and sympathetic.

 

Broderick went on to star in the teen comedy classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, while Sheedy became known as part of Hollywood’s “Brat Pack,” with starring roles in two 1985 hits, The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire. Despite her early success, however, Sheedy’s acting career dwindled away after the mid-1980s; she worked regularly in films and TV, but did not become a marquee name. This was disappointing to me, because I always liked Ally Sheedy, but I’m ready to reconsider my previous admiration for her, now that she has contributed a chapter to a feminist anthology, blaming sexism for her misfortunes:

I was eighteen years old when I went to Hollywood to begin my acting career, after growing up in NYC and being raised, in great part, by feminists. . . .
On one of my first auditions, a director told me he liked me but could not possibly cast me because there was a “beach” scene. Apparently, my thighs and a– were going to get in the way of my fledgling career. I was five seven and weighed about 130 pounds.
It did not matter that I did a good job on auditions, that I was smart, that I had natural ability. My thighs were the “thing.” . . .
I learned that whatever I might contribute to a role through talent would be instantly marginalized by my physical appearance. I learned that my success would be dependent on what the men in charge thought about my face and my body. Everything I had learned back home had to go out the window as I adapted to these new requirements: what I looked like was paramount.
It wasn’t even just whether I was pretty or thin; it was that I wasn’t sexy. . . .
A few years later, I was told point-blank that my career was moving slowly because “nobody wants to f–k you.” There was something about me, sexually, that wasn’t selling. . . .

You can read the rest. Let’s stipulate that the men who run Hollywood are a bunch of contemptible moral degenerates. Sic semper hoc. But their job is to make movies that sell tickets, and if you want to be a movie star, having what is called “sex appeal” is part of your job. There are good roles for actresses who aren’t sexy, but these tend to be supporting-cast parts. That’s the way it’s always been and, given the nature of the business (and the tastes of audiences) that’s how it probably always will be.

If you don’t like the way the business is, stay away from Hollywood. For an actress to complain about “sexism” in Hollywood is like somebody going into the journalism business and complaining about deadlines — it’s just part of the job. If you don’t like it, get another job.

Also, it’s wrong for Ally Sheedy to pretend that “sexism” was the only reason her career faded away after St. Elmo’s Fire. She started dating Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora — an abusive alcoholic — got addicted to sleeping pills and had to go into rehab. In addition to her personal problems, Sheedy made some lousy career choices. (Maid to Order? What were you thinking?) And she also had some bad luck. Sheedy was cast as the lead in Heart of Dixie, based on a critically acclaimed novel by Anne Rivers Siddons. The novel is a coming-of-age story set against the background of Jim Crow-era social conflict, and the lead role had the potential to be a real breakthrough for Sheedy. Alas, this potential was not realized, as the 1989 review in the Washington Post made clear:

Ally Sheedy, Virginia Madsen and Phoebe Cates combine their negligible talents in “Heart of Dixie” — a melodrama so full of hams, it oinks. Led by Sheedy, the tedious trio plays giddy coeds caught up in the racist and sexist traditions of the South in the late ’50s. They all sound like they’ve been gulping hush puppy batter.
The actresses, however, are not solely responsible for this remarkably dumb potboiler, which is a sort of white folks’ “School Daze,” with novice screenwriter Tom McCown whining about apolitical campus Greeks. Working from McCown’s histrionic screenplay, Martin Davidson of “Eddie and the Cruisers” proves once again that he don’t know nothing ’bout directing no movies.

Well, tough luck. What could have been a breakthrough turned out to be a bomb and, at 27, Sheedy was getting too old for ingenue roles. What could she have done at that point? In a 1998 interview, promoting a forgettable indie film, Sheedy criticized her “Brat Pack” peer Demi Moore for choosing to cash in on her sex appeal, making movies based on “this male myth about the power of women’s sexuality,” but is it really a myth?

Not that I want to start an argument, of course. It’s just disappointing to see an actress I once liked go total SJW. Never go total SJW.

 

Category: Hollywood
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