Category Archives: Intelligence

UPDATED: Yes, Bachmann’s Brainy

Elections, Human Accomplishment, Intelligence, Journalism, Media

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann has all the brain power poor Sarah Palin is without. Chris Matthews says she looks like she’s dazed, hypnotized, irrational. I think this is because to Matthews, a fully engaged female is someone like Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida), who talks up a storm in promoting Obama’s statist schemes. Simpletons perceive a fulminating statism as “good,” “caring,” and certainly “smart.”

Bachmann is in the news for a change as she is “mulling a presidential bid.” As you know, I do quite like this woman. She is quick and cannot be rattled.

Very little has been said in the muck-raking media about Bachmann’s background. You can just imagine what publicity Wasserman Schultz (of the double-barreled, affectatious surname) would receive had she provided foster care for 23 children in addition to raising five of her own.

Most women lawyers, moreover, do not go into tax law; family law is more like it. Michelle has a Master of Laws in tax law from the William & Mary Law School. Now let’s not go off on a tangent about the evils of tax law and its enforcement. We’re agreed; The Sixteenth is the Number of the Beast (and Bachmann is forever tainted for having enforced the law). The point made here is that tax law is quite a bit more cerebrally taxing than immigration or family law. Not that you’d know it from the manner in which she is portrayed, but Bachmann is clearly very clever.

Indeed, from the media scrum one hears very little about Michelle Bachmann’s undeniable intellectual aptitude, as they hate her with a purple passion.

In any event, it is this rational, steely quality that drives Chris Matthews crazy. After all, he is the emotional wreck who regularly experiences daytime nocturnal emissions over Obama and genuinely believes that the president is an intellectual of the highest order.

UPDATE (Jan. 6): According to her foes over at Hardball, “Michele Bachmann (R-MN) introduced the first bill of the 112th Congress today, and she’s landed a prime spot on the Intelligence Committee.” Somewhat vapidly, the WSJ characterizes Bachmann’s challenge to the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul as “an interesting strategy to gain more attention.”

Could it be that the financial bill, in all its 2,300 pristine, unread pages and the 500 odd new regulations it imposed simply needs to go? Bachmann has been consistent in her vehement opposition to a bill that will “further increase in the overweening powers of the Executive branch, which will now be able to seize a firm it designates as systemically risky.”

UPDATED: Assange is us

Free Speech, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Military, Republicans, Technology, The State

This is from my new, WND.COM column, “Assange is us”:

” … What is top-secret to some, however, is open-source for others. First-Amendment jurisprudence is … clear-cut with respect to the great guerrilla journalism of WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks operators have committed no crime in publishing what is undeniably true, newsworthy information. Antsy America has no jurisdiction over a foreign entity (WikiLeaks) and its proprietor (Julian Assange). The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog confirmed that U.S. law looks upon WikiLeaks as ‘a passive recipient of the material.’ ‘Most First Amendment lawyers would say that preventing the publication of material is justified only where absolutely necessary to prevent almost immediate and imminent disaster. It’s an extremely high standard,’ Jack Balkin, a First Amendment expert at Yale Law, told the WSJ. …

… Why has this individual become the enemy? Should Americans not have an inkling, by now, of what it’s like to live at the mercy of the federal government’s imperially imposed edicts? Aren’t we all being treated as potential terrorists at the nation’s federally controlled airports, by the TSA, an arm of the government now stalking Assange?”

The complete column is “Assange is us.”

The Second Edition of Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society (the print edition may be purchased here) is now also available on Kindle.

UPDATE (Dec. 10): The reader below (see Comments Section) says Assange provided the identities of “pro-freedom, pro-democracy activists in places like Afghanistan, Iran, Venezu.” First, provide proof of such online Wikileaks.

Second: Let me get this. The minions in the military may freely ad-lib about the subjects they’ve “liberated” (and sicced upon one another) in far-flung places. Conversely, the publisher of this stuff—which was forsaken for every military tom, dick and harry to read—must be extra careful in its publication. The statist will always apply a different standard to his cherished government. Frederick Bastiat the statist is not.

But then the reader conflates, 1) democracy and freedom. 2) The wrecking ball we applied to Afghanistan and Iraq with freedom. When you hold 1 & 2 to be true, your premises are shaky from the start.

The "Real Rush" Joins The Blogoshpere

Celebrity, Communism, Film, Hollywood, Intelligence, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Pop-Culture

My good friend and WND colleague Erik Rush has joined the blogosphere. Erik is the author of the column titled, “The Other Rush.” But he’s the “Real Rush” to me. Erik’s is a great-looking blog. I’m looking forward to checking it out daily.

Beings super squeamish, however, I almost fainted at the image Erik has posted of a Hollywood celebrity undergoing the mandatory commie programming. From the spouse this photo will elicit the kind of laughter he lets out when we’re watching one of our a favorite programs, “1000 Ways to Die.” (Mr. Rush likes it too.)

Or “Thinning The Herd,” as we call it. (You just know that the writers and editors of “1000 Ways to Die” would have adopted that title, but there’s just so much these good folks can get away with.)

Alas, as fabulously brutal and graphic as Erik has been in “Why Entertainers Go Left: The Real Story,” I’m less inclined to the school of thought that holds liberalism to be a mental disorder, or a condition developed under duress. Sadly, because it has such strong emotional appeal—the masses seem to experience a rush at the ideas of collectivization and confiscation—left-liberalism is probably the default position of humanity. A hostility to reason and reality guarantees liberalism’s top-dog position in political philosophy. This, of course, relates strongly to intelligence, but, dammit Erik, that’s too much to brood over on the Sabbath.

I strongly recommend Erik’s important new book, with this unbeatable title: “Negrophilia: From Slave Block to Pedestal – America’s Racial Obsession.” When I catch my breath, I will treat you to a Mercer Interview (click the Interview Category in the Search Window for a sample) with Erik about “Negrophilia.”

UPDATED: The Founding Fathers Deconstructed (MT, Saint Or Sadist?)

Africa, America, Christianity, Colonialism, Founding Fathers, History, Intelligence, Morality, Propaganda

From today’s WND.COM column, “The Founding Fathers deconstructed”:

“The idea that the founders were flawed, sinful men like you and me is current among a hefty majority of Americans, conservative too. It is wrong. Quite the reverse. The founders were nothing like us. Not even close. I say this not as an idealist but as a realist.

” … Judging from their works and their written words, the American Founding Fathers were immeasurably better than just about anyone on earth today. That goes for that gnarled, somewhat stupid sadist Mother Teresa, whom Christopher Hitchens nailed in The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. And it applies to the moral role models selected for us annually, courtesy of CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

The founders are matchless today both morally and intellectually – their actions bespeak a willingness to forsake fortunes and risk lives for liberty, a concept and cause alien to contemporary Americans, who are, mostly, bereft of both the mental and moral gravitas necessary to grasp it. … ”

The complete column is: “The Founding Fathers deconstructed.”

The Second Edition of Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society (the print edition can be purchased here) is now also available on Kindle.

UPDATE (Dec. 3): MT, SAINT OF SADIST? Just as I thought I had written an uncontroversial column, Rod writes to write me off as a writer, a human being, etc.:

He quotes my column: Judging from their works and their written words, the American Founding Fathers were immeasurably better than just about anyone on earth today. That goes for that gnarled, somewhat stupid sadist Mother Teresa, whom Christopher Hitchens nailed in ‘The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.'”

First sentence quite good – second one horribly bad. Are you an atheist like Hitchens? Why would you appeal to such a God-hater as any kind of authority on the likes of Mother Teresa. And I wouldn’t think you should need reminding, but Mother Teresa is now outside the scope of your “… immeasurably better than just about anyone on earth today” – since she died 3 years ago. I can’t argue you observation of “gnarled”, or even “somewhat stupid” – but “sadist”; do you get that from Hitchens, or is this you own “somewhat stupid” idea. You had my rapt attention, and your article was making great sense – until you brought in Mother Teresa, out of the blue, I mean the “wild blue, way up yonder” out of the blue. …
I’ve been reading you for years on WND, and must say you are an excellent writer, and appear to have a brilliant mind. But you really lost it with this one. Hitchens book title is bad enough, then you pile on further insult with your “Hitchens nailed [her]” comment – are you trying to be more vulgar and disgusting that the somewhat stupid atheist, or are you just being stupid yourself.
One last thing – beauty is (truly) only skin deep. Yet you include your picture in the article – I suppose so we can all see how ‘beautiful’ you are on the outside. But in God’s economy, I daresay Mother Teresa is far more beautiful – one of the most beautiful in my lifetime. Her beauty radiates from within, just as your ugly heart is coming to the light through your vulgar words.
I guess you’ve concluded by now that you’ve lost a long-time fan.

Mother Teresa is held up as a universal paragon of goodness in it purest form. Hence the reference to her in the column. As someone who prefers facts to blind faith, indeed I do think Hitchesn—who hung out in Calcutta with Mother, and did his homework well—nailed this sister’s act (as in “detect and expose”).

More later (the parrots are demanding birdie bread with calls of “mommy, mommy”).

Later: If I am supposed to discard the facts because they were dredged up by an atheist (CH), I suggest that my reader question his adulation for a woman (MT) worshiped by former White House communications director Anita Dunn.

“My favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse-tung and Mother Theresa,” said the lizard-tongued Dunn.

I am absolutely sure that I share no heroes with Dunn. Picture a Venn diagram. There is no overlap between my mental/intellectual universe and Dunn’s.

The facts, as illustrated by Hitchen, show that MT preferred “providence to planning” in her facilities and was far from humane to the poor she took in. Hitchen quotes, among others, a doctor, the editor of the acclaimed “Lancet,” who was alarmed at the intentional neglect of proper diagnosis and pain management at a MT operation. On Mother’s orders, lavish, well-appointed homes that were donated to her cause were stripped bare of decent mattresses or creature comforts. The heat turned off. Volunteers got TB.

As a matter of theology, MT insisted that the poor be left to suffer horrible pain (while she was always airlifted to receive medical care in the best western facilities). Salvation through suffering for the poor, but not for Mother. Hypocrite?

MT, moreover, had a sizable fortune, enough money to outfit many clinics in Bengal (or wherever she operated). But she pursued “suffering and subjection” for her charges and for those working for her. If a dying man got an aspirin from her, he was lucky. Her palliative philosophy was in direct opposition to that of the Hospice movement.

Unforgivable. “Hell’s Angel.”

Myron, Mother T. had close ties to a lot of very corrupt governments, so she was hardly the epitome of private charity. Her motto seemed to have been: “money has no smell.”