Posts Tagged ‘Michael Totten’

LinkSwarm for April 25, 2014

Friday, April 25th, 2014

Pressed for time, so here’s a quick LinkSwarm:

  • Forgot to include this in the Wednesday roundup: Massachusetts Democrat says that ObamaCare will “bury us”.
  • The “Obama Recovery” in action: Retail store closings worst since 2009.
  • 12% of Americans are in the top 1%. Wait, what?
  • Republicans expand Senate map yet again.
  • Man threatened with federal $525 fine for an 89¢ soda refill.
  • Things America has that Communist Cuba doesn’t: freedom, human dignity, and soap.
  • China’s Ghost Cities redux.
  • Dr. Huey Shen Wu skips to China after thumbing his nose at U.S. courts.
  • Another day, another 71 killed by Jihadests with a car bomb in Nigeria.
  • #hashtag. #facepalm
  • AT&T is trying to shed it’s legacy landline business.
  • Things I did not know: Whittaker Chambers translated the first English language edition of Bambi.
  • LinkSwarm for February 10, 2014

    Monday, February 10th, 2014

    These LinkSwarms tend to get pushed back to days when there’s not a big story jumping up and requiring my attention. It seems like the Olympics have created a bit of a news lull

  • Democratic congressmen abandoning ObamaCare in droves.
  • Obama’s fake recovery sucks in comparison to Reagan’s real recovery. Why? ObamaCare.
  • People who overestimate their income, thus getting a subsidy rather than thrown into Medicaid, might be in for a nasty surprise come tax time.
  • Today’s Democratic representative retiring after getting caught with his hand in the till comes to you from Rep. Ron Andrews of New Jersey.
  • Today’s example of a Democratic member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns being convicted of a felony (in this case bribery) also comes to you from New Jersey, in the form of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack. But as you observe all this Democratic malfeasance in New Jersey, never lose sight of the truly important thing: Chris Christie might have closed a bridge!
  • Here’s a fascinating piece from Ace of Spades HQ on class identification among the gentry left.
  • And this piece on “Love in the Time of Obama” is well worth reading on its own.
  • Massachusetts state Democrat Rep. Carlos Henriquez’s schedule: 1. Smack my bitch up, 2. Mark my bills up. Yes, assaulting a woman is evidently no reason to keep him from working as a legislator…
  • More black Chicago residents question what the Democratic Party has done for the black community.

    Heartening, but I can’t help but notice that some of the same people appear in this video as the one from that town hall meeting in December. Makes it hard to gauge just how widespread black America’s dissatisfaction with Obama is…

  • The Turncoat Diaries: “The conversions of Charlie Crist, from Republican to independent to Democrat, make up one of the least inspiring tales in modern politics. To take it seriously is to admit you’re the sort of person who takes Scientology stress tests and supplies credit card info to anyone who claims to need help from Nigeria.”
  • People move from high tax, high regulation states bleeding jobs to low-tax, low-regulation states gaining jobs. Gee, who knew?
  • How Russia is trying to keep control of Ukraine.
  • NBC calls the end of the Soviet Union “bittersweet”. Much like Hitler’s suicide…

  • Tweets from Sochi: Missing floors, open manholes, yellow tap water, and “cakes in ass.”
  • More: “Three of the nine mountain hotels have not been completed.”
  • Title company executive dead in nailgun “suicide.” Patrick Bateman wanted for questioning.
  • Inside the Red Light Camera Bribe Machine. Redflex has done business with several cities, including “Austin, El Paso, Plano, Corpus Christi, Grand Prairie, North Richland Hills, Hurst, Port Lavaca, League City, Carrollton, Killeen, Mesquite, and Longview.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Even Howard YEAGGGGHHH Dean thinks the Iran deal sucks.
  • When principled lefty Alan Derschowitz says the Dinesh D’Souza case is “selective prosecution,” perhaps we should listen.
  • New York City schools Harrison Bergeron a gifted students course because of their unacceptable albedo index. (Hat tip: Indapundit.)
  • Michael Totten visits some of the least-crappy parts of Cuba.
  • When I think “high tech giants,” certainly the first name that comes to mind is Chelsea Clinton. Nepotism much, SXSW? (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty in NRO.
  • Slashdot users in open revolt over a redesign. Take one look at the Beta site and you know why: It is indeed a big, festering mound of suck.
  • Adobe to release new DRM scheme that’s annoying, useless, and screws older customers.
  • Ten scenes from Blazing Saddles too politically incorrect to be made today.
  • Did Bill Clinton add Elizabeth Hurley to his list of in-White House conquests?
  • Round Rock ISD committee chairman tries to bypass laws to make changes to sex ed.
  • On tour with the Sex Pistols in Texas.
  • LinkSwarm for January 29, 2014

    Wednesday, January 29th, 2014

    Lots of news from around the world, where the global economy is handing like a Kia that’s just started losing traction on an icy hill:

  • Bundesbank: Don’t look at us, broke PIIGS, you’re going to have to screw your own people.
  • Does a big default loom in China?
  • Russian bank halts all cash withdrawals?
  • Meanwhile, reports that Chinese banks have stopped allowing withdrawals turns out to be a false alarm.
  • European earnings outlook: Zero.
  • Problem: Greek economy still sucking wind. Solution: change how GDP is calculated.
  • Japan hits record trade deficit. Remember when they were supposed to take over the world?
  • The ruble flirts with record lows.
  • Obama and the Democratic Party’s numbers are worse than they were in 2010.
  • Planned Parenthood wonders what’s the big deal with a little statutory rape among friends?
  • Florida heroin kingpin is an illegal alien on food stamps.
  • Another Democrat convicted of that vote fraud that doesn’t exist. (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • Democrats actually polling worse than they were in 2010. And that’s from Dem pollster/booster John B. Judis.
  • Target’s part-time workers get ObamaCared.
  • We have a winner for troll of the year:

    Every time I hear someone say that feminism is about validating every choice a woman makes I have to fight back vomit.

    Do people really think that a stay at home mom is really on equal footing with a woman who works and takes care of herself? There’s no way those two things are the same. It’s hard for me to believe it’s not just verbally placating these people so they don’t get in trouble with the mommy bloggers.

    Having kids and getting married are considered life milestones. We have baby showers and wedding parties as if it’s a huge accomplishment and cause for celebration to be able to get knocked up or find someone to walk down the aisle with. These aren’t accomplishments, they are actually super easy tasks, literally anyone can do them. They are the most common thing, ever, in the history of the world. They are, by definition, average.

    Amy Glass, come down and collect your coveted Trolly! (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “Woman Takes Short Half-Hour Break From Being Feminist To Enjoy TV Show”
  • In case you didn’t notice, Iran’s mullahs are still lying, violent scumbags.
  • Strangely enough, Israeli’s trust Netanyahu more than Obama. Funny how a mere 40+ years Palestinians breaking every agreement they’ve signed will sour people on the peace process…
  • Michael Totten wanders around Cuba some more, where he let’s us know that Cubans can be arrested for unauthorized shrimp.
  • California Court determines that disgraced serial journalistic liar Stephen Glass is too dishonest to be a lawyer.
  • In other news, Eugene Volokh stuns Washington Post readers with non-liberal thoughts on guns and other topics.
  • Have you ever considered the possibility that Woody Allen isn’t a child molester?
  • Drive a Fit, a Prius, a Yaris, or a Fiat 500? Hope you’ve made out a will.
  • Anthony Weiner forced to downsize to an apartment whose rent is a mere 6 times my mortgage.
  • LinkSwarm for January 17, 2014

    Friday, January 17th, 2014

    Welcome to your complimentary Friday LinkSwarm. I steal collect these from all over, including Ace of Spades HQ, Instapundit, Twitter, Facebook, and a dozen other places

  • Really, is there any book that screams “love story” like George Orwell’s 1984?
  • Reminder: North Korea is still an unmitigated communist hellhole. Not that anyone whose name isn’t Dennis Rodman has forgotten…
  • More people in Illinois sign up for concealed carry than ObamaCare. That’s so delicious I might have to rerun it for the next ObamaCare and gun news roundups…
  • Insurers say they’re just fine and dandy with ObamaCare subsidies.
  • ObamaCare cast pall of gloom over Democratic attempts to take the House. Now if only I could figure out where I placed my nanoscale violin…
  • Jonah Goldberg further explores the theme:

    In 2009, retiring Arkansas representative Marion Berry presciently warned that Obamacare was setting up the Democrats for a huge defeat in the 2010 midterms, just like “Hillarycare” had led to a loss of 54 House seats in 1994. Obama scoffed at such concerns. According to Berry, the president told him, “Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.” Republicans went on to win 63 House seats and six Senate seats. It was the largest swing in the House since 1938. So I guess the difference was him.

  • Liberal New York Times editor wonders why cancer patients can’t just hurry up and die.
  • Retiring congressman Jim Moran: Scumbag.
  • Compared to the Obama Administration, Chris Christie is a rank amateur in the vindictiveness Olympics.
  • “If the current president is making a mess of everything and almost no one is being held accountable, isn’t that a bigger story?”
  • Every so often. the New York Times publishes a lifestyle story whose entire purpose seems to be to make you hate New Yorkers. Today’s example Left-wing yuppie tells how capitalism (in the form of her failing business) made her start stealing stuff.
  • Obama tells Senate Democrats that he’s going to make John Boehner his bitch on illegal alien amnesty.
  • Ted Cruz is America’s most efficient Senator, while Rand Paul ties for most effective.
  • Calling all Jews, calling all Jews. Calling all Jews, calling all Jews. (Via Ace)
  • It occurs to me that people younger or older than a certain edge (“My lawn! Off it!”) may have no idea what I’m riffing on, so here’s the reference:

  • 100,000 government employees escape union control.
  • Obama (wait for it) gives a speech, claiming that the solution is (wait for it) bigger government. (Save this sentence, and you’ll find that you can use it over and over again the next three years…)
  • Michael Totten on Syria: “Today we have a near-zero chance of a non-horrible outcome.”
  • How the American Studies Association anti-Israel boycott breaks the law.
  • Baltic Dry Index collapsing?
  • I think I know what the next Alamo Draft House “don’t talk on your cell in the theater” ad will be.
  • Liberal actually says that the Obama Administration has no serious scandals. It’s like that Monty Python skit where the British naval officer is denying cannibalism while the guy next to him is munching on a human leg.

    I am heartened to see that not a single commenter supports his absurdist whitewash.

  • Is Egypt getting ready to take the wood to Hamas?
  • German children taken from parents because they might be exposed to incorrect thought. Nazi Germany? Communist East Germany? Try today.
  • “Socialism is the anti-Semitism of intellectuals.”
  • LinkSwarm for November 25, 2013

    Monday, November 25th, 2013

    This was supposed to go up Friday, but Stuff and Things interfered once again.

    Obama’s “deal” with Iran drops sanctions and lets them enrich uranium to their heart’s content. I guess Obama needs the Iran agreement as a disastrous fake achievement to distract from ObamaCare, his last disastrous fake achievement. I haven’t read all the details, so I can’t tell if it’s Madeleine Albright bad, or Neville Chamberlain bad, but it doesn’t appear to address Iran’s continued support of Assad, Hezbollah, or their other terrorist activities. Still to be decided: whether Obama personally plants the knife in Benjamin Netanyahu’s back, or has aide do it. (If Hillary Clinton wanted to put distance between herself and the Obama Administration, now would be a great time to denounce the Iran deal.)

  • Mother forced into Medicaid. “There was just one option—at the very affordable monthly rate of zero. The exchange had determined that my mother was not eligible to choose to pay for a plan, and so she was slated immediately for Medicaid.”
  • The real rationale behind ObamaCare was the redistribution of wealth. “The redistribution of wealth has always been a central feature of [ObamaCare].”
  • “Insurance is complex to buy”? Really, Mr. President? I’m pretty sure Forest Gump could have figured that out in less than 3 years…
  • The real reason behind Obama’s laughable deal with Iran is to shore up his shrinking liberal base, the only group that still supports him after the ObamaCare debacle.
  • John Bolton calls the deal “abject surrender”.
  • End result of the Iran deal? “War has now become a much more likely prospect.”
  • Given all that, Harry Reid nuking the Senate’s filibuster gets pushed further down the Stack of Perfidy. What it tells us is that Democrats believe they’re going to lose the Senate. “They think it’s very likely that they will lose their Senate majority in 2014. They are essentially writing off the last two years of Obama’s presidency, which means getting as much done as possible right now. They are going to spend the next year packing as many liberal justices and appointees onto the courts and various bureaucracies as they can.”
  • Democratic Rep mugged in DC. Does this mean she’ll turn Republican? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
  • 16 things people couldn’t believe about America until moving here. (Hat tip: Michael Totten.)
  • I wonder how John Carter feels about being labeled part of “the House’s own pro-amnesty gang”?
  • Related: How Amnesty dies: Part 1, Part 2.
  • Syrian Kurds declare autonomy.
  • Crystal Mangum, the central accuser in the Duke Lacrosse “rape” case (which wasn’t) has been convicted of murder. Somehow I managed to miss Nancy Grace’s wall-to-wall coverage of her trial…
  • LinkSwarm for October 4, 2013

    Friday, October 4th, 2013
  • Harry Reid and Obama declare war on World War II Vets and cancer patients. Next up: Reid explaining why the shutdown requires them to euthanize kittens.
  • Obama deserves the blame for the shutdown.
  • Thomas Sowell: “There is really nothing complicated about the facts. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to keep all government activities going — except for Obamacare…You cannot blame other people for not giving you everything you want. And it is a fraud to blame them when you refuse to use the money they did vote for, even when it is ample to pay for everything else in the government…When Barack Obama keeps claiming that it is some new outrage for those who control the money to try to change government policy by granting or withholding money, that is simply a bald-faced lie.”
  • The “only man to enroll in Obamacare” is an OFA shill. Also a liar. “Bill Henderson told me that both he and his son were interested in getting coverage, but that he had not enrolled in any plan yet, and to his knowledge, neither had his son.” Ace has the blow-by-blow dissection of Henderson’s story coming part.
  • The White House has 436 essential employees and 1,265 non-essential? Where do they fit???
  • You can probably tell what the Obama Administration thinks of you when you realize the number for ObamaCare information is 1-800-FUCKYO.
  • The people composing California’s elementary school math questions are evidently illiterate.
  • Pedophile pleads guilty, receives prison sentence.
  • Obama tried to have Wisconsin state parks shut down. Response: Get stuffed!
  • Park Rangers are actually being told to make life difficult for visitors.
  • Five reasons Ted Cruz deserves our respect.
  • British lefty: We have to talk about Islamic barbarism. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
  • What’s so special about John Moses Browning? (Ditto)
  • Obituary watch: Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, Army of North Vietnam. Like Erwin Rommel or Heinz Guderian, Giap was a brilliant general who fought for an evil government.
  • Islamists kicked out in Tunisia.
  • TV reporter asks undercover cop to step up to the microphone.
  • Via James Lileks, this is pretty funny:

  • The Truth About Egypt

    Friday, August 16th, 2013

    Michael Totten has an interview with Egypt expert Eric Trager on the truth about Egypt. Include Western observers deluding themselves about the Muslim Brotherhood. “The Brotherhood prevents moderates from becoming members and prevents members from becoming moderates.”

    Also this:

    But once the army made the decision to step in, as reluctant as it may have been, it’s modus operandi unquestionably changed. It entered into a direct conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood, perhaps even an existential one. The military believes it not only has to remove Morsi, it has to decapitate the entire organization. Otherwise, the Brotherhood will re-emerge and perhaps kill the generals who removed it from power.

    Still more:

    MJT: How much support do you think the Muslim Brotherhood actually lost since it won the election?

    Eric Trager: It has lost substantial public support. Think back to the early presidential elections in 2012. Morsi only won five million votes, which was 25 percent of the votes cast. That’s not a high number. It’s substantially lower than what the Brotherhood had won just a few months earlier in the parliamentary elections. So already by May 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood’s support shrunk back to its base which is only around five million people.

    The Brotherhood’s power is not derived from mass public support and it never has been. It is derived from its exceptional organization capabilities on one hand, and the fact that the rest of Egypt is deeply divided and highly disorganized on the other. That’s still the case. I think if Egypt had free and fair elections today, the Brotherhood would still do well and might even win because nobody else is prepared to run in an election.

    Read the whole thing.

    Super Brief Post on Egypt

    Sunday, June 30th, 2013

    I don’t know what’s really going on in Egypt beyond the largest protests in the history of the world.

    Your basic protest in the middle east doesn’t mean jack compared to guys with guns. But protests this massive change the scale of things. Mohammed Morsi isn’t popular with the army, which he hasn’t yet succeeded in Islamicizing. Protests this big are essentially giving the army the green light to take Morsi out.

    Protestors have set fire to Muslim brotherhood headquarters, albeit incompetently, if this video is any judge.

    Aim for the windows with the Molotovs, people, not the facade!

    In addition to be an Islamist scumbag, Morsi has been a manifestly incompetent, nakedly-power-grabbing authoritarian. A lot of protestors are probably opposing the Muslim Brotherhood’s incompetence at governing rather than islamism per se. Michael Totten has noted that liberals (in the classical, Democratic sense) are a distinct minority in Egypt.

    Oh, and all that “smart diplomacy” and speech-making from Obama? Thanks to his backing Morsi (with our tax dollars), Egyptians now hate us more than ever.

    With demonstrations this massive, there are only three possible endgames in Egypt:

    1. Morsi steps down
    2. The army removes Morsi
    3. Civil war

    Possibility #1 is unlikely, and Possibility #3 would likely be a bloodbath to make the Syrian Civil War pale in comparison.

    So let’s hope Possibility #2 prevails. But I have no idea how likely that is…

    A Quick LinkSwarm on Syria

    Monday, June 17th, 2013

    So Obama is (maybe) going to be shipping arms to Syrian rebels. I think this is a remarkably bad idea for a number of reasons, none of them that Bashar Assad isn’t a murderous thug who oppresses his own people, supports terrorism, and attacks and destabilizes neighbors like Lebanon and Israel. All that is true, and Assad certainly deserves a bullet in his head for his sins.

    But there’s zero compelling evidence that toppling him is in the United State’s best interests, that America has any vital interests at sake in the Syrian civil war, or that al Qaeda-related Islamslist thugs won’t come out on top, impose Sharia law, and export Sunni-branded terrorism every bit as vicious and deadly as Assad’s Shia-backed variety. Indeed, the history of Libya and Egypt suggests that they are likely to be considerably worse. And predicting that Sunni Islamists are likely to come out on top of a post-Assad power struggle is like predicting that guys are going to wake up with no memory of last night in a Hangover sequel: we’ve seen this movie before.

    Anyway, here are a few links for the current situation in Syria.

  • Who makes up the opposition to Assad in Syria? “An array of rebel militias heavily infiltrated by radical Islamists and al Qaida loyalists with no central command.” In other words: exactly who those of us paying attention have said they are.
  • Victor Davis Hanson makes the case that intervention in Syria is a bad idea. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
  • Michael Totten can’t make heads or tails of Obama’s plans for Syria…including whether we’re actually arming the rebels or not.
  • Speaking of Totten, he links to this piece that argues. “The Islamic Republic[of Iran]’s headlong intervention in Syria is akin to Nazi Germany’s surge of military forces into the Battle of Stalingrad in the fall of 1942 – an operationally competent, strategic blunder of epic proportions.” Not buying it, especially the part that says “Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ultimate defeat is a foregone conclusion.” His argument of Irnaian-backed losses being unsustainable also sounds remarkably like the “flypaper strategy” some said would kill off the supply of radical Islamists by drawing them to the insurgency and killing them in Iraq, and we all know how well that theory turned out…
  • LinkSwarm for October 15, 2012

    Monday, October 15th, 2012

    Doing a bunch of stuff, so here’s a more-or-less random linkSwarm:

  • A funny thing happened on the way to the death of conservatism.
  • Romney might pick up one electoral vote in Maine.
  • Michael Totten and Sohrab Ahmari take down Tariq Ramadan.
  • In the Texas House, it’s a band of conservative brothers vs. Texas Speaker Joe Straus.
  • Journalist shocked that all his fellow journalists are suddenly spewing vitriol at him and calling him a traitor because he’s decided to vote for Romney. Also confirms the overwhelming liberal bias in the newsroom.
  • Police arrest members of the Mexican Mafia prison gang across the state, including one police officer in Houston who was providing them guns.