January 11th, 2016
No one could have possibly seen this coming, except, you know, every single observer who saw it coming:
The New Republic, the century-old magazine that was rocked a year ago by the mass exodus of its staff following an effort by its owner to make it more digitally focused, is being put up for sale.
Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook who purchased a majority stake in the struggling title in 2012, said in a staff memo Monday that he had underestimated “the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate,” and would seek to find a new owner.
“After investing a great deal of time, energy, and over $20 million, I have come to the conclusion that it is time for new leadership and vision at The New Republic,” the memo read.
Translation: I took a still-important liberal opinion magazine and managed to turn it into a Salon-clone that managed to lose even more money than Salon.
Also this:
“Immediately following the tumult, the magazine’s Web traffic declined by more than 50%, according to comScore Inc., and hasn’t risen much in the last year. In November, the site attracted 2.3 million unique visitors, down 38% from the same month a year earlier.”
Publishing an opinion magazine is an expensive, generally money-losing proposition. William F. Buckley, Jr. kept National Review afloat thanks to regular reader fundraising solicitations and money from his own pocket. This is why we’re willing to give NRO a lot of slack when they keep pushing their wine club and yearly cruises. (This path is of course open to The New Republic, except who on earth would want to be trapped on a boat for two weeks with current TNR writers?)
The New Republic used to fill an important role as a voice of liberal hetrodoxy, despite the magazine’s general decline over the years. After the shakeup, it no longer fulfilled any important role whatsoever except as a cautionary example of what not to do and a method of sucking money from Chris Hughes’ pockets.
Now let’s see if Hughes can find another clueless liberal millionaire to keep pouring money down the rathole…
Tags: Chris Hughes, Democrats, Facebook, Media Watch, National Review, William F. Buckley
Posted in Democrats, Media Watch | 1 Comment »
January 11th, 2016
Remember Rep. Jason Villalba, the ostensible Republican responsible for such hits as let’s make it illegal for bloggers and gun owners to photograph the police and I’m going to block my critics on Twitter?
Well, he’s attracted a Republican primary challenger in Dan Morenoff.
From his bio:
Dan Morenoff is an unhyphenated, full-spectrum Conservative who grew up in the suburbs, went to the only public high school in America named for a baseball player, and married a girl who sat next to him in a 7th grade history class.
He studied economics and political science at Columbia, while running the school’s Conservative newspaper (he believes it was the only one in Manhattan at the time) and working with a think tank on entitlement policy.
After college, Dan worked again on entitlement reform with Senator Phil Gramm for a number of years,before leaving for law school at the University of Chicago. There, too, Dan led the institution’s leading Conservative organization.
Since 2001, Dan’s lived in Dallas, where he’s worked as a lawyer and raised three girls with his wife Erica. In that time, Dan has led the local chapters of both the Federalist Society and the Republican Jewish Coalition, while serving on the boards of various local charities (including his kids’ Jewish day school and his synagogue).
Dan, you had me at “Federalist Society.”
(Hat tip: Push Junction.)
Tags: 2016 Election, Dan Morenof, Elections, Jason Villalba, Republicans, Texas
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 2 Comments »
January 9th, 2016
One year after it occurred, John Daub goes over the day that changed his life, when he was forced to shoot and kill a large man breaking down his family’s front door.
From my perspective, the main thing I remember is hearing my wife screaming for me. Her words were saying there was someone at the door. But the way she said it — the sheer mortal terror in her voice — was something I had never heard out of her in the almost 20 years of our marriage.
If you’ve been following this blog, then you probably know that the home invader turned out to be an autistic man, and that Daub was eventually no-billed by a grand jury over the well-justified shooting. Daub’s writeup on the incident is well worth reading for it’s insight of real-life self defense scenario unfolds under pressure.
Tags: Austin, Crime, Guns, John Daub
Posted in Austin, Crime, Guns | No Comments »
January 8th, 2016
And as long as we’re doing some crime blotter updates, former St. Louis Cardinals scouting director Christopher Correa pleaded guilty to five counts of hacking into the Houston Astros computers.
No word on how Major League Baseball will sanction the Cardinals. (I think giving all their 2016 draft picks to the Astros might be sufficient discouragement…)
And let this be a lesson to you: Don’t reuse your old computer passwords at a new company…
Tags: Astros, baseball, Christopher Correa, Crime, hacking, Houston
Posted in Crime | No Comments »
January 8th, 2016
Via Dwight comes word that Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow has been convicted of all 162 counts against him.
After all his co-defendents (including California State Democratic Senator Leland Yee) had plead guilty to lesser charges, Chow is the one taking the fall for “arranging the murders of two gang rivals and overseeing crimes ranging from money laundering to drug trafficking.” I’m not able to find a list of all of those 162 charges against him, but presumably that includes the gun-running charge as well.
Tags: California, Crime, Democrats, Leland Yee, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, San Francisco
Posted in Crime, Democrats | No Comments »
January 8th, 2016
Another one of Obama’s “refugees” makes his presence known:
Authorities said Thursday that two Iraqi refugees have been arrested on terrorism-related charges in Houston and California.
According to the FBI’s Houston office, Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan, 24, was charged with attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State, unlawfully attempting to gain U.S. citizenship and making false statements.
Al Hardan, a Palestinian born in Iraq, entered the United States as a refugee in November 2009 and has lived in Houston since being granted legal permanent residence in August 2011, the FBI said in a prepared statement.
Authorities said Al Hardan is accused of attempting to provide support and resources, including “training, expert advice and assistance and personnel — specifically himself — to a known foreign terrorist organization.”
The FBI also said that Al Hardan lied on his application to be a naturalized U.S. citizen.
“He allegedly represented he was not associated with a terrorist organization when, in fact, he associated with members and sympathizers of ISIL throughout 2014,” the FBI said.
Somehow all these terrorists and rapists keep slipping through that “rigorous screening” Obama likes to talk about…
Tags: Border Controls, Crime, Houston, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad, Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan, terrorism, Texas
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Jihad, Texas | No Comments »
January 7th, 2016
Via Tam comes word that National Review writer Florence King has died at age 80.
King was sharp and funny, and well worth reading even at her most iconoclastic (she often claimed to be a monarchist). And she could take down puffed up political functionaries like nobody’s business.
Rest in peace, you magnificent southern broad…
Tags: Media Watch, National Review, Obituary, Republicans
Posted in Media Watch, Republicans | 1 Comment »
January 6th, 2016
Three of the top Bandidos leaders have caught federal charges.
National leaders of the Bandidos biker gang were arrested Wednesday on charges of racketeering and waging a deadly “war” on the rival Cossacks gang, federal authorities said.
An indictment announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio accuses three Bandidos leaders of sanctioning a three-year fight that included violent clashes with rival gangs and distribution of methamphetamine.
The accusations focus on a rivalry that came under renewed attention in May, when a meeting of biker groups at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, ended in gunfire that left nine people dead.
Authorities believe that the fatal confrontation began when members of the Cossacks crashed a meeting of a confederation of biker clubs that included the Bandidos at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. The dispute ended in gunfire between the bikers and police standing nearby.
The federal indictment accuses John Portillo, the Bandidos’ national vice president, of using dues and donations to pay legal expenses of its members days after the Waco shooting. Portillo, along with national president Jeffrey Pike and national sergeant-at-arms Justin Cole Forster, are charged with racketeering, drug distribution and other crimes.
None of those three shows up on the list of bikers arrested at the Waco shootout.
“Using dues and donations to pay legal expenses of its members days after the Waco shooting…” Is that illegal? I’m actually asking here. I’m not aware of that violating any specific law, but I could be wrong.
Federal charges are heavy, as Uncle Sam has essentially unlimited resources with which to investigate and make the case. As the Bandidos have been involved in drugs in the past, that may be the easiest charge to make stick. But it’s still mighty curious that no one has been charged with murder for a shootout that left nine dead….
Tags: Bandidos Motorcycle Gang, Cossacks Motorcycle Gang, Crime, Jeffrey Pike, John Portillo, Justin Cole Forster, Texas, Waco
Posted in Crime, Texas | 1 Comment »
January 6th, 2016
Following up on yesterday’s report of up to 1000 Muslim men sexually assaulting women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, Cologne’s female mayor is taking action:
The Mayor of Cologne said today that women should adopt a “code of conduct” to prevent future assault at a crisis meeting following the sexual attack of women by 1000 men on New Year’s eve.
Mayor Henriette Reker attended an emergency meeting with Chief of Police Wolfgang Albers and Wolfgang Wurm to discuss how to deal with the attack, where dozens of women were repeatedly touched and groped, with one case of alleged rape in the center of town.
Snip.
The crisis management team said prevention measures should include a code of conduct for young women and girls, and Mayor Reker said the existing code of conduct will be updated online.
The suggested code of conduct includes maintaining an arm’s length distance from strangers, to stick within your own group, to ask bystanders for help or to intervene as a witness, or to inform the police if you are the victim of such an assault.
Translation: Stop asking for it, you slut!
And what sort of place is Cologne now?
“Especially the area in and around the central station, the cathedral and the adjoining area towards the banks of the Rhine for tourists (and locals) is no longer considered even in normal times as safe. For months, there is in these areas numerous thefts, open drug dealing, robberies and harassment of all kinds… Dozens of women were sexually harassed in public and there was at least one rape.
“Neither the city nor the police are able to guarantee in the territory described the safety of tourists and locals. Especially for women it must be assumed that a high security risk is here in the evening and night hours. At New Year’s Eve there was a legal vacuum and a no-go area for women. With the climax of the Carnival season it is unfortunately expected to be a similar situation”.
And the “solution” to this problem? No-go areas and free western women self-imposing soft Sharia law on their own actions.
Remember how feminists were enraged by guidelines for women like “Don’t walk alone in bad parts of town late at night” or “don’t drunk from a punch bowl unless you know what’s in it” because they contributed to “rape culture”? Yet when it comes to the real rape culture that radical Islamists have carried with them to other countries, they remain silent, just as they remained silent on the Islamic pedophile rape gangs in Rotherham.
The reason is twofold, though both relate to leftwing political solidarity: Somehow Muslims have become the most sacred victims on the victimhood identity hierarchy, and leftwing political parties need Muslim votes.
They left has evidently decided that if reality doesn’t conform to their fantasies of peaceful, multicultural Muslim immigrants, then reality must be ignored, and anyone noticing this reality must be labeled a “racist” or “xenophobe”. If leftists continue to ignore reality, they are likely in for a rude awakening come election time…
Tags: Border Controls, Cologne, Crime, Europe, Germany, Illegal Aliens, Islamist, Jihad, rape, Rotherham
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Jihad, Social Justice Warriors | No Comments »
January 5th, 2016
I hope everyone else has had a happier New Year than I, since my father passed away after a long battle with cancer Sunday.
On the plus side, I saw the new Star Wars and the Texans made the playoffs. Doesn’t quite balance out, though…
Remember: It’s OK to rape 13-year olds as long as you’re a well-connected Democratic Party donor. Remember, this is the case that had Bill Clinton taking the Lolita Express to Pedophile Island.
“Nobody needed criminal convictions to drop Cosby – just multiple accusations of sexual assault and some out-of-court payouts. But multiple accusations of sexual assault, out-of-court payouts and the loss of his law license are apparently not enough to bar Bill Clinton from another eight years in the White House.”
Hillary Cliton’s many conflicts of interest:
At Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearing for secretary of state, she promised she would take “extraordinary steps…to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
Later, more than two dozen companies and groups and one foreign government paid former President Bill Clinton a total of more than $8 million to give speeches around the time they also had matters before Mrs. Clinton’s State Department, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
Fifteen of them also donated a total of between $5 million and $15 million to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the family’s charity, according to foundation disclosures.
Six things a Washington Post reporter found out following Ted Cruz around. “The majority of the undecided voters I have spoken with have said they were very impressed after hearing Cruz speak. Many of them said they were undecided coming into a rally and supported him when it was over.”
Obama to judicial branch: “Screw you, I’m going to give work permits to illegal aliens you’ve ordered deported.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
“Unfortunately, 2016, the little of it that we have so far seen, is already beginning to look like another year of Grim Slide, of a world stumbling down a slippery slope to become less secure, less stable, and less free.”
People are forgetting what an awful festering hellhole the Soviet Union was.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have severed diplomatic relations over Saudi execution of a Shiite cleric, and Kuwait has recalled their ambassador from Tehran; don’t be surprised if the other Sunni nations follow suit. Good thing we have a Nobel Peace Prize winner in the White House…
Turkey’s Prime Minister: Hey, you know who was a model of effective leadership? Adolf Hitler.
Swiss General: Europe “On The Verge Of Civil War,” Citizens Must Arm Themselves.
Oslo police: “We Have Lost the City.”
It looks like Karachi, Basra, and Mogadishu all rolled into one. People sell drugs openly just next to the Gronland subway station.
It’s not Norway or Europe anymore, except when there is welfare money to be collected. The police have largely given up. Early in 2010 Aftenposten stated that there are sharia patrols in this area, and gay couples are assaulted and chased away.
Mass sexual assaults involving up to 1,000 Arab men on New Year’s Eve in Cologne.
“IRS Employee Whose Job Was Assisting Victims Of Identity Theft Charged In $1 Million Identity Theft Tax Fraud.” (Hat tip: Instapundit)
Rahm Emanuel’s failure in Chicago is emblematic of the blue model failure in America’s cities. “The city’s bloated pension obligations have already forced Emanuel to make severe education cuts. It will continue to force cuts in city services in various cities, making it harder and harder for mayors to govern, and increasing the antagonism among various constituencies.”
“Murder rates drop as concealed carry permits soar.” Plus this: “Between 2012 and 2014 the number of black permit holders increased from 10,389 to 17,594, according to the report.”
Mississippi Democratic City Councilman urges constituents to hurl rocks and bricks at the police.
Armed mother successfully defends home and children against three armed thugs. But gun-grabbers want to disarm her…
Bahamas resort project gives in to Chinese demands to secure more construction loans. Result: Bankruptcy.
Ben Carson’s campaign staff quits. There’s a reason president of the United States isn’t an entry-level job…
Former feminist now a pro-life activist who is disillusioned with feminism. (Hat tip: John C. Wright.)
Confessions of a social justice warrior white knight. “Their communities thrive on self loathing disguised as elitism…SJWs insist their goal is to make everyone equal, and for a long time I believed it, but their communities actually enforce factionalism and division.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Wendy Davis: Still digging.
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Bahamas, Ben Carson, Bill Clinton, Chicago, China, Cologne, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Europe, feminists, Foreign Policy, Germany, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Hitler, Iran, IRS, Islam, Jihad, Mississippi, Norway, Obama Scandals, pension crisis, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Arabia, Social Justice Warriors, Soviet Union, Ted Cruz, Texas, Turkey, unions, Wendy Davis
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Obama Scandals, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, unions | No Comments »