Ayn Rand Barbie Speaks

"Of course, predictions are hard, especially about the future."

No doubt McArdle will claim she's making a funny, but her whole column is chock full o'  such boneheaded drivel.

At this point, it's just a matter of time. In some sense, the sexual revolution is over . . . and the forces of bourgeois repression have won.

That's right, I said it: this is a landmark victory for the forces of staid, bourgeois sexual morality. Once gays can marry, they'll be expected to marry. And to buy sensible, boring cars that are good for car seats. I believe we're witnessing the high water mark for "People should be able to do whatever they want, and it's none of my business." You thought the fifties were conformist? Wait until all those fabulous "confirmed bachelors" and maiden schoolteachers are expected to ditch their cute little one-bedrooms and join the rest of America in whining about crab grass, HOA restrictions, and the outrageous fees that schools want to charge for overnight soccer trips.

Either McArdle thinks the "sexual revolution" was a gays-only phenomenon or she thinks that the availability of marriage cannot coexist with the choices not to marry and to fuck without a wedding ring.  And she's apparently never considered that equality of rights is a good thing independent of any desire to exercise such rights.  

What McArdle actually thinks is that marriage is all about the accumulation of wealth and saying "screw you" to losers who are unlike her. 

That's why McArdle has never supported marriage equality, and still does not.  (She concedes the inevitability of marriage equality, but never the immorality of inequality.)  And why she's hopeful that unmarried sluts and their bastards will once again suffer public prejudice and shame.  Because the more people she can say "screw you" to, the happier she is.

(via alicublog)

The Tuckerho Chronicles

The sordid tale of Tucker Carlson and his relations with prostitutes gets even more interesting:

[Dominican district attorney Jose Antonio] Polanco said that [Melanio] Figueroa gave police an account describing his involvement in the taping, starting in October. He said he was approached by Carlos about the idea in the fall, and they met in a small bar in a Santo Domingo shopping center to discuss the details, according to Polanco. Figueroa said the foreign man gave him a $2,000 “advance” to make the arrangements for the interview, Polanco said.

In comments reported by Univision, Polanco said that Figueroa stated he has been contacted by four media outlets — Telemundo, Univision, CNN en Español and the Daily Caller — that were interested in interviewing the women. But Figueroa told police it was only “Carlos,” who identified himself as working for the Daily Caller, who came to the Dominican Republic and paid him to arrange the recorded interviews, according to an interview with Polanco.

Tucker Carlson and The Daily Choler deny that any money changed hands between "the Daily Caller and any sources or individuals connected with this investigation, nor did anyone named Carlos travel to the Dominican Republic on behalf of The Daily Caller." 

The most obvious explanation is that "Carlos" is Robert "Mickey" Kaus, whose name is not Carlos, and that Carlson told Kaus he'd pay him back the $2,000, but never did.

Penii For The Fjords

The lineup for the August 2013 National Review Cruise in Norway has just been announced, and it's even more of a sausage fest than usual.  Every one of the "guest speakers" on the cruise, from Jonah Goldberg to Dick Morris to John Podhoretz, is a genetic male.  Not a single lady, or Maggie Gallagher, among them.  I suppose this makes sense if your target customers are elderly widows and confirmed bachelors of a certain age.  

Though National Review has already reduced the price at least once, "convservative cruisers" will still enjoy all of the following:

Scintillating seminars with NR editors and guest speakers, along with plenty of passenger Q&A.

Plenty of chances to meet, schmooze and enjoy personal interaction with our special guest speakers.

Exclusive Parties and Dining with our special guest speakers. You will dine with your fellow National Review attendees, so that you have the chance to meet many of your fellow conservative cruisers.

Intimate dining on two evenings with a guest speaker or editor.

Three revelrous cocktail receptions.

One late-night "smoker" featuring world-class H. Upmann cigars.

And should the thinkable, but nevertheless tragic, happen, cruisers will get to see Paul Johnson or John O'Sullivan sent to his eternal reward atop an authentic Norse funeral pyre.

The Paul Movement

Our boy Brian Do'herty is off his meds:

"This was a very big deal. In 36 hours, the Republican Party has completely changed," said Brian Doherty, a senior editor at Reason [sic] magazine who has been covering the Paul movement for two decades.

"You literally saw the shift happen over the course of the day," Doherty said. "It started with Rand Paul, and then it was just [Sens.] Mike Lee and Ted Cruz. And then you had people like Marco Rubio and Saxby Chambliss joining in. And by the end of it, [Republican Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell was on the floor saying he was going to block [CIA Director John] Brennan's confirmation, and [RNC Chairman] Reince Priebus was tweeting that Senators should go join Rand Paul."

And then, by the end of that, Brennan was confirmed. 

Yes, before Rand Paul blathered, Republican politicians never sought to take advantage of free publicity or to obstruct a Democratic president's agenda.  It's Year One ... in spades!

One paragraph later, and Brian is already hedging his bets:

"Who knows, maybe in two years, the filibuster won't seem like a big deal," he added. "But today, it feels like everything has changed. Today, it feels like the Republican Party is different." 

Feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa.... feelings.

Brian, you should know better.  When you see a Paul movement, you don't cover it.  You just flush.

How Can You Tell When Tucker Carlson Is Lying?

His website is publishing.

2013 - 2008 ≠ 8

The 20th century has arrived in California:

By a nearly two-to-one margin (61% to 32%), California voters approve of allowing same-sex couples to marry. This represents a complete reversal in views about the issue from 1977, when The Field Poll conducted its first survey on this topic, and is the highest level of support ever measured by the poll.

Approval of allowing marriage between two people of the same gender includes majorities of men and women, voters in all racial and ethnic groups, and Californians living in each of the major regions of the state. The only subgroups where majorities remain opposed are registered Republicans and voters who classify themselves as conservative in politics.

The icing on the cake would be if Prop. 8 backfired so horribly that it is declared to be in violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of bigots.

Geller Skelter

You know when you accuse someone of sucking donkey dicks and that person inexplicably disinvites you from his or her wedding?  Seems our Pam Geller Oshry has had a a similar experience with the Conservative Political Action Comic-Con.

And after all she's done for CPAC:

Pamela Geller, the most vocal of the activists opposed to the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” to be built two blocks from the former site of the World Trade Center, said Friday that the Conservative Political Action Conference she was speaking at had itself been “corrupted” and “compromised by Muslim Brotherhood activists.”

Speaking at a non-official CPAC event on Friday afternoon [in February 2011], Geller said that many members of the board of the American Conservative Union had to go because they were allowing the event to be infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood activists.

“If you look at the agenda of CPAC, look at all of the panels and then look at your daily news headlines, they’re either clueless or complicit,” Geller said. “And I’m telling you that before you throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are 12,000 people that come to this event that don’t know they’ve been completely sold out by CPAC leadership. We have to take CPAC back, you can’t create this again.”

Seems CPAC is still wary of a Tea Hall Putzch, and has once again not invited Geller to participate as a speaker, lest she lead the unwashed masses in a revolution to take back that which they didn't build.

The Joan Rivers of anti-Islamists is claiming that "for the first time in five years, I won't be at CPAC."  (No direct link to the loon.)  However, the TPM article makes its sound like she hasn't been invited to speak at an official conference event since at least 2011, so apparently this time she isn't content with showing up and paying for a ticket like all the other schmucks.

I'm just glad Andrew Breitbart isn't alive to see this.

Kathleen Parker, the O'Doul's version of Peggy Noonan, chimes in on the Gene Sperling vs. Bob Woodward Battle Royale with Cheese.  

Again, Woodward’s kneecaps are probably safe, but the challenge to his facts, and therefore to his character, was unusual, given Woodward’s stature. And, how, by the way, might Woodward come to regret it? Sperling’s words, though measured, could be read as: “You’ll never set foot in this White House again.”

When reporters lose access to the White House, it isn’t about being invited to the annual holiday party. It’s about having access to the most powerful people on the planet as they execute the nation’s business.

But Woodward made himself a household name without access to the White House.  He was a metro reporter when he was assigned to the Watergate break-in.  He wasn't a White House reporter, or a political reporter, nor did he have access to the most powerful people in the Nixon White House as they executed the nation's business.

In contrast, what did Woodward do when he got unparalleled access to the most powerful people people on the planet?  He transcribed their justifications for the invasion of Iraq without ever reporting that their claimed cause for war was a lie.  And said nothing as the Bush Adminstration executed women and children and other Iraqi non-combatants based on that lie.

Time For Another Bloggers' Ethics Panel

Josh "SuperHacks" Trevino made nearly 400K (gross) over three years shilling for the Malaysian government, without disclosing his payoffs and his paymasters to the rubes who hired him and his beards.

The payments to conservative American opinion writers — whose work appeared in outlets from the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner to the Washington Times to National Review and RedState — emerged in a filing this week to the Department of Justice. The filing under the Foreign Agent Registration Act outlines a campaign spanning May 2008 to April 2011 and led by Joshua Trevino, a conservative pundit, who received $389,724.70 under the contract and paid smaller sums to a series of conservative writers.

...

Trevino's subcontractors included conservative writer Ben Domenech, who made $36,000 from the arrangement, and Rachel Ehrenfeld, the director of the American Center for Democracy, who made $30,000. Seth Mandel, an editor at Commentary, made $5,500 (his byline is attached to the National Review item linked to above). Brad Jackson, writing at the time for RedState, made $24,700. Overall, 10 writers were part of the arrangement.

"It was actually a fairly standard PR operation," Trevino told BuzzFeed Friday. "To be blunt with you, and I think the filing is clear about this, it was a lot looser than a typical PR operation. I wanted to respect these guys' independence and not have them be placement machines."

That Box Turtle Ben was a recipient of Malayasian largesse should also surprise no one.  The Malaysian government probably wrote his pieces too.

Given that nobody takes Trevino seriously, it seems the Malaysian government overpaid by roughly  $389,724.40.