Whiskey Fire

Shorter Andrew Klavan

The Long Game

Three areas the Right should address, financially and intellectually

"As the brainwashed American public & the evil Hollywood producers who wash their brains have no interest in any of my art (For I am an artist.) please give me & my fellow conservative artists money, preferably in the form of a tax-free grant or award (For infrastructure!) so we'll be able to reverse liberal influence in the culture & restore the free market by making movies about what swell dudes businessmen are."

     — Mr. Klavan, in the Hudson Institute's City Journal.

As first transcribed here by M.B.

Michelle Malkin's Fashion Report

Well-dressed & entirely rational, not in the least bit absurdly paranoid conservative cheerleader Michelle Malkin has the scoop: It's a fashionista conspiracy!

Talk about wearing your politics on your sleeve. An elitist clique of fashion designers has banded together to raise money for celebrity-in-chief Barack Obama and browbeat their customers into supporting him. Even worse, the Beautiful People who dress the Powerful People are putting increased pressure on conservatives to stay out of the business altogether. Out: Haute couture. In: Hate couture.

Much too lazy to do a 180° treatment of that paragraph (Substituting "armament industry" for fashion designers, Romney for Obama, lib for con, yada.) but certainly you can imagine. You can also imagine the incredible "pressure" being applied:

Diane von Furstenberg pitched in two $85 tote bags and has grown more strident about her partisan agenda as Election Day nears. At a fashion event in her New York Meatpacking District store last month, she yelled at clients: "Everyone here better be a Democrat; no Republicans!"

Wow. Not sure pressure is a strong enough word. Fortunately Malkin found someone (Pro-Romney because he doesn't like to pay taxes or a living wage to women indentured in his sweatshops? Who knows?) to reveal that it's not mere pressure but a threat! And to do a 180 that reveals where the true attacks on women come from.

Young New York City designer Bradley Scott also spoke up against ideological "persecution" in his industry. "It's really offensive for me, as a designer, to be issued an unveiled threat by someone who could exert an enormous amount of influence over my customers, store buyers and magazine editors," he told me on Tuesday. "I for one want absolutely nothing to do with this attack on women. This pressure upon designers should offend every woman in this country, not just the conservatives."

As far as I can determine the real conspiracy here was making Ann Romney appear as if she's a blind woman who lets a six-yr. old Disney Princess fan choose her clothes.

Richard Perry/The New York Times Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, left, made cherry pies with Linda Hundt, the owner of Sweetie-licious Bakery Cafe in DeWitt, Mich., during a campaign stop in June.

See how far up Mitt Romney's ass the stick goes at the photo source.

— M. "Types In His Underwear" Bouffant

Everyone At The Corner Is Being Kind Of A Butt-Hurt Dick, But...

John Fund really takes the cake:

Moderators Should Not Be ‘Fact-Checkers’

OH!

Heaven FOR-FUCKING-FEND a moderator in a debate over who should be the leader of the free fucking world should be armed with a perfunctory grasp on reality, which she could then use against whichever one of the candidates who happens to be lying his grinny mouth off. I mean, can you imagine?! If that happened, it would almost be like the word "journalism" actually meant something, and if it did, well, the National Review would find itself sans staff.

Right to Life News

Holy Crap! Richard Viguerie is still alive.

Richard Art Viguerie (born September 23, 1933)[1] is an American conservative figure, pioneer of political direct mail and writer on politics. He is the current chairman of ConservativeHQ.com.

Akin Can Win, Despite Establishment GOP By CHQ Staff | 10/10/12

We came out strongly for Todd Akin in the Missouri senate race because he is a good and decent man who has long walked with us on the conservative agenda, especially the right-to-life.

Other conservative commentators, most recently RedState’s Erick Erickson, have joined-in to support Akin – you can read Erick’s perceptive post here.

But you can't read it here, because to hell with Erick son of Erick.

In other "Right to Life" news, here is "pro-life" teabagger Scott Eugene DesJarlais (GOP-Tennessee):

“You told me you’d have an abortion, and now we’re getting too far along without one,” DesJarlais tells the woman at one point in the call while negotiating with her over whether he’ll reveal her identity to his wife. They then discuss whether he will accompany her to a procedure to end the sort of life the congressman now describes as “sacred.”

“You told me you would have time to go with me and everything,” the woman complains.

“I said, if I could, I would, didn’t I? And I will try,” DesJarlais says. “If I can [find] time, you’re saying you still will?”

Furthermore:

“Desperate personal attacks do not solve our nation’s problems, yet it appears my opponents are choosing to once again engage in the same gutter politics that CBS news called the dirtiest in the nation just 2 years ago.”

- "pro-life" teabagger Scott Eugene DesJarlais

What advice will Erick son of Erick and Richard Viguerie have for Poor Victim Scott? A lonely nation awaits with bated breath.

(Posted by ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.)

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Isn't It Interesting? Isn't It Nice?

I am startled and frightened to learn that there exist human souls who of their own volition are watching the Republican Convention.

I frankly find Mittnuttery far creepier than Standard Wingnuttery. Your W-era wingnut wanted to start stupid wars and fellate the rich. Your Modern Mittnut wants to start stupid wars, fellate the rich, and then hard-sell you a timeshare in Provo.

Anyway, Jonah Goldberg is a shit.

No, really.

Unfortunately, the claim that Romney is trafficking in racism has proliferated. His ads attacking Obama for unwinding the 1996 welfare reform are being denounced as not simply inaccurate but racially loaded.

For instance, in a piece titled "Making the Election About Race," Columbia University journalism professor Thomas Edsall writes, "The racial overtones of Romney's welfare ads are relatively explicit" -- an interesting analysis given that the ads explicitly don't mention race, which you'd expect to be a minimum requirement of "explicit" racial overtones.

If the ad don't say "nigger," it ain't pulled da "trigger."

!

For fuck's sake. Really? Really?

Moving on.

Christ this is ghastly...

However, Edsall concedes that the racial overtones of Romney's Medicare ads are "a bit more subtle." Those ads charge that Obama raided Medicare to pay for Obamacare. Then Edsall notes that Medicare recipients are "overwhelmingly white."

He conveniently leaves out the fact that American seniors are overwhelmingly white as well and, if anything, under-enrolled in Medicare.

First, Romney's Medicare ads are all lies. (Really? You need links?)

Second, how on earth... what? What Jonah Goldberg said isn't a rebuttal. It's kind of evidence for the other side's point, if anything... what?

Here in Tampa, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told BuzzFeed that the Democrats are playing "the race card" in order to gin up black turnout. I'm sure that's true, but they're also trying to transform Romney into the ultimate unacceptable other in American politics -- a bigot (and a Mormon one to boot).

Gosh. The GOP sure has transcended racism.

"Here in Tampa, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told BuzzFeed that the Democrats are playing 'the race card' in order to gin up black turnout."

Jonah Goldberg quite seriously wrote this sentence to prove that liberals are the real racists, while at the same time, we see the GOP engaging in blatantly racist voter suppression efforts.

Face it, you're racist, all that's missing is the white sheets.

The Newest Civility: "Fuck You. War."

It's Must See Tee Vee, but you can't see it here. (Spent several mins. trying to embed the teaser for "Leaders w/ a Still of Ginni Thomas's Head & Shoulders" here earlier this a.m., but between TypePad & TheDC ...)

Not to pimp, but Blogger did embed it chez moi, & the good parts (0:34 & 2:40, if TheDC earns your click) are cued. The best part: Supreme Spouse Ginni Thomas has presented, under her name, techno thriller (guessing) author Brad Thor reciting Breitbart's anti-"hard institutional left" mantra, "Fuck you. War," in unison w/ the Ghost/a recording of/Zombie Andrew Breitbart. Un-bleeped, no NSFW. Free speech, moonbats!

(Of actual interest beyond the schadenfreude is the question of what we'll call the living digital dead who already walk among us, & can only increase. Bets on a Tupac-style Breitbart hologram screaming "Behave yourself! Stop raping people!" making an appearance at next yr.'s CPAC?)

Back to the absurd, where TheDC disclaims:

Mrs. Thomas does not necessarily support or endorse the products, services or positions promoted in any advertisement contained herein, and does not have control over or receive compensation from any advertiser.

Just giving it away, then?

— M. Bouffant

here's the vid -- Thers

Wrapped In The Flag, Carrying The Cross, & "All-Around Awesomeness"

Tain't much (And now we are really angry 'cause TypePad wouldn't let us post w/o signing in, then wouldn't sign us in, & then lost everything but the title of this opus after allowing us to sign in.) but let's celebrate Flag Day w/ Tucker Swanson Carlson's Daily Caller.

Two-hundred and thirty-five years later, the American flag now has 50 stars instead of 13, and has become synonymous with freedom, opportunity and all-around awesomeness. (See also: Top 10: Hot girls in American flag bikinis [SLIDESHOW])

But enough with the history lesson: Erect your flag at full-mast, and check out these ladies wearing, holding and/or posing next to American flags, as we know that’s what you really came here for.

We hope Entertainment Editor Taylor Bigler is very proud of herself. And that she familiarizes herself w/ the Flag Code of these United Snakes.

— M. Bouffant

The Kraphammer of the Gods and the Dolchstoss

Warning: link is to the Daily Cruller, and it's not just Kraphammer, but also the Doughy Pantload explaining why polls of veterans show a preference for Rmoney.

"At the same time, it seems to me that if you were a traditional military voter, you might have some serious problems with Obama. The way he sometimes talks about the military, he talks about the troops — it can often seem narcissistic, political, and rub people the wrong way."

- the Doughy Pantload

"And we heard Obama today doing essentially doing penance for a country that spat on soldiers who returned from the Vietnam War."

- The Kraphammer of the Gods

Stabbed in the back! The past and future of a right-wing myth

By Kevin Baker (Harper's, June 2006)

Yet the cultural division that Richard Nixon had fomented to try to salvage the war in Vietnam would take on a life of its own long after the war was over and Nixon had been driven from office in disgrace. It cleverly focused on the men who had fought the war, rather than the war itself. If Vietnam had been an unnecessary sacrifice, if world Communism could no longer be passed off as a credible threat to the United States, then the betrayal of our fighting men must become the issue.

Vietnam, for the right, would come to be defined mainly through a series of closely related, culturally explosive totems. The protesters and the counterculture would be reduced to the single person of Jane Fonda, embalmed forever on a clip of film, traipsing around a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun. The soldiers, meanwhile, were transformed into victims and martyrs. It became general knowledge that they had been savagely scorned and mocked upon their return to the United States; those returning through the San Francisco airport were especially liable to be spat upon by men and women protesting the war.

...

It would do no good to point out that there is no objective evidence that veterans were ever spat upon by demonstrators or that POWs were ever left behind or that Jane Fonda's addle-headed mission to Hanoi did anything to undermine American forces.

And there you go.

(Posted by ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© and cross-posted at my place. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.)

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They Never Make a Scene By Hanging All Over Me In a Crowd

by Ripley

In an effort to boost US keyboard and monitor industry sales, I offer this (via Southern Beale at First Draft):

Behind the locked doors of the chamber that was surrounded by more than one dozen police, Rush Limbaugh watched as his bust for the Capitol’s Hall of Famous Missourians was unveiled on Monday, May 14.

Shortly after the unveiling, however, Gov. Jay Nixon’s administration issued a document raising questions about the House speaker’s authority to handpick whose bust can be placed in the Capitol rotunda.

The unveiling of Limbaugh’s bust was kept secret from all but invited guests until less than an hour before the ceremony.

While Republican lawmakers were invited, Democrats were not and visitors were blocked from entering. All but one of the doors to the House chamber were locked with armed Highway Patrol and Capitol Police patrolling the hallways outside the chamber.

Cowards and crybabies, daddy-o! It's the 21st Century Republican party at their finest.

 

Rip -

 

AMERICA!

AMERICA! DO YOU LOVE IT!

Dennis Prager says that Mitt Romney loves America do, based upon Mitt's exhortations to Liberty College graduates.

It is I suppose cheering that people who believe one class of crazy bullshit are able to set aside their differences with people who believe another class of crazy bullshit in order to hate on gay people. Like, yay.

On Saturday, Mitt Romney delivered a speech to the 6,000 Liberty College graduates.

It was an important speech, not only because it seems to have closed the gap between Romney and evangelical Christians but also because it spelled out major themes in Mitt Romney's understanding of America.

"We all hate gays."

Romney: "You know who you are. And you know whom you will serve. Not all colleges instill that kind of confidence . . . ."

This is a truism. Most American universities seek to graduate men and women who are as committed to secularism as nearly all the members of faculty are. In contrast, at traditional Christian and Jewish schools, the aim is, as Romney said, to produce students who know "whom [they] will serve."

What Romney is asking is this: If one is not morally accountable to God, to whom or what is one morally accountable? Most universities will respond: to one's conscience. But those who adhere to Judeo-Christian values do not trust the conscience alone. What Nazi or Communist mass murderer was not at peace with his conscience? The conscience is as easily manipulated as the heart (the heart being the other guide to behavior among most college graduates).

The fuck...?

Mostly I yell about comma splices. I apologize for Treblinka (?).

Did he just say "if you get a college degree in America, you are as much a dupe as if you were a Nazi, because that's the same thing"?

He did.

This is weird. "Genocide is bad" does not require any motherfucking Seal of Moral Approval.