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As you may have noticed, Ron has this wacky theory that a surprising percentage of our political leaders have, shall we say, compromising incidents in their past. He even speculates that perhaps having something to hide from the public might make a rising politico more attractive to those who make it their business to decide which of the ambitious to help climb the greasy pole of political power.
Of course, that’s just nonsense, and has nothing (I tell you, nothing) to do with this breaking news story in the NYT:
Ex-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert Indicted on Federal Charges
By MONICA DAVEY MAY 28, 2015CHICAGO — J. Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, was charged on Thursday with lying to the F.B.I. and structuring cash withdrawals to avoid bank reporting requirements.
Mr. Hastert, 73, a longtime Republican leader who served as speaker from 1999 until 2007 and now works as a lobbyist in Washington, was providing money to an unnamed person in order to “compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct” against that person, according to a federal indictment issued by the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
2000 RNC (Was The Rock’s head smaller back then?)
The indictment says that Mr. Hastert, who was once a high school teacher and wrestling coach in a small Illinois town, paid $1.7 million to the person from 2010 to 2014. …
In 1999, Mr. Hastert, who was then a six-term congressman from Illinois, was catapulted to the speaker’s post after Newt Gingrich stepped down after a contentious national election marked by the wounds that the House inflicted on itself during the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton. The Republicans’ first choice to succeed Mr. Gingrich, Robert L. Livingston of Louisiana, gave up the position before he ever assumed it, acknowledging that he had carried on adulterous affairs. Mr. Hastert was chosen because of his reputation among his Republican colleagues as a conciliator.
He left Congress in November 2007.
Seriously, this is a pretty interesting single datapoint-test of Ron’s general suspicions. Hastert’s payoffs didn’t begin until Hastert had left Congress to cash in as a lobbyist. The anti-Unzian interpretation would be that the hush money is for something Hastert only began doing recently.
The Unzian interpretation would be that the NYT published this sentence:
The indictment says that Mr. Hastert, who was once a high school teacher and wrestling coach in a small Illinois town, paid $1.7 million to the person from 2010 to 2014.
to imply that the scandal has some sort of roots from before Hastert’s rise to the Speakership.
Well, we shall see (hopefully).
What do you think? Dead girl or live boy?
P.S.: Ron points out in reply that I had published the following blog item 9 years ago:
BY STEVE SAILER • OCTOBER 12, 2006
Is there something I’m not clued into about why all the Mark Foley scandal attention is directed against Speaker of the House Denny Hastert? I don’t recall demands for Speaker Tip O’Neill to resign during the Gerry Studds scandal. Is there something about Hastert that everybody in DC knows, but they won’t tell the rest of us? Yeah, I know he was a high school wrestling coach, but, I mean, really …
I had totally forgotten about this post. In fact, I don’t even know anymore what I was nudge-nudge wink-winking about nine years ago.
By the way, let me point out, however, that, yeah, contrary to the impressions you might get from reading all the avid descriptions of lithe, sweaty high school wrestlers in John Irving’s bestseller The World According to Garp, high school wrestling isn’t very gay at all. It just isn’t.
By the by the way, let this Hastert story be a lesson to everybody: if you did something bad in the past and now are being blackmailed, or, conversely, if you want to blackmail somebody over something he did to you: GET A LAWYER.
Lawyers are expensive, but they know how to legally structure payoffs of hush money so nobody goes to jail. Or even, as in the cases of the individuals demanding hush money from Bill Cosby and David Letterman, so your alleged victim goes to jail, not you.
The legal distinctions between illegal blackmail and the kind of non-disclosure contract that the government blesses — and enforces — are extremely subtle but extremely important. Hire a smart lawyer who can explain them to you until you understand them.
Personally, I’ve never had to hire a lawyer in such a situation. I’ve only brought it up relative to the Cosby and Letterman blackmail cases. I’d like to thank my extremely acute commenters who were able to explain even to me why Cosby and Letterman were able to have their accusers arrested. Unfortunately, I’ve only been able to keep their explanations in my head for about 15 minutes. So, like I said: if you find yourself on either side of such a situation, don’t try to wing it. Get a lawyer.
(Note: If you want your accuser taken away to jail, it also helps to be a popular comedian who has been on TV for decades.)
This article on the liberal democrats by Sean Gabb changed my understanding of British politics forever (about the fact that our political class is coopted)
http://www.seangabb.co.uk/flc143-mark-oaten-rent-boys-and-the-secret-police-a-view-of-how-england-is-governed-at-the-end-of-its-history-sean-gabb-22nd-january-2006/
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960856
Mark me up as a supporter of Unz’ wacky theory.
I cite the banned Discovery Channel documentary “conspiracy of silence” as evidence in favor.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960857
Er, the incidents in question appear to have happened after Hastert left office so I don’t see how any person without a time machine could have used information against him while he was in politics.
The story is not about we now know Hasert did after leaving office. It's about what do not know that he did (or did not do) while still in office. Capisce?
You could not possibly have known what the allegations related to, either apparently or actually. So my presumption is that you have some need to appear authoritative, or to run cover for Hastert (or 'Team Blue' generally), or a combination of both.
We now know - with 100% certainty - that they relate to his period as a not-even-remotely-gay-I'm-SHOCKED-that-you-would-make-such-a-scurrilous-claim high-school teacher and wrasslin' coach. It's not even debatable, and if you were trying to help control the narrative arc, you failed to appreciate how good the internet is at finding stuff out.
Not for nothin': Dubya (George the Turd) was a male cheerleader (a group not exactly renowned for rampant heterosexuality) and Rumsfeld was also a wrasslin' coach. What is it with megalomaniacs and sweaty teenage boys?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960865
David Brooks coined (I think) a phrase years ago, “status-income disequilibrium”. He used it to describe high-status but relatively low-pay jobs like journalism. But American politics has power-income disequilibrium. Congressmen and other pols are underpaid relative to their power. That invites corruption.
Kerry wasn't any different despite being married to a heiress of the Heinz fortune, this guy was taking bribes from a West Coast defense contractor (SAT Inc, president Majumder who did a stint in club Fed for bribing him). Majumder bought him cheap to get some juicy defense contracts swung his way. I knew this because I worked for the venomous toad and knew most of parties involved. Ohh the amount was chicken fee, it wouldn't have even paid for upkeep on his yacht. These guys can be had cheap.
Governor Arnold in CA took bribes as well.
Look at the Clintons, they amassed a vast fortune doing pay to play politics when Hilldog was SOTUS. Clinton himself seems to certain unrestrained sexual peccadilloes and a taste for teenagers according to his association with Epstein and his pervert Island that Clinton visited quite often. Then there is Hillary and her lesbian lover Huma Abedin whose family is a major player in the Muslim Brotherhood in KSA. What a unholy couple.
All this adds up to leverage against both of them.
The Bushes seemed to have a boatload of skeletons in their closet as well given the way they covered up KSA's role in 9/11 and did one of the greatest feats of logical contortions in history by blaming 9/11 on Iraq.
I have every confidence that many who reach the pinnacles of power in D.C. are men with skeletons in their closet(it's the only real way of keeping them on a leash).
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960866
Ron’s theory would certainly explain why Boehner and McConnell act like they are being blackmailed by George Soros rather than as representatives of their constituencies.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960880
Goldenstern’s Rules:
Always hire a rich attorney
Never buy from a rich salesman.
To get rich in politics you have to be a crook. Bush is worse than Nixon. HST truth’s.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960881
I think you’re probably right, Steve, that this weird aside:
…is a wink and a nudge. My guess: The Times had info on specific allegations, but couldn’t get anybody to comment on the record; they’re dropping that breadcrumb to lure other parties into coming forward.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960882
Homosexuals have been big in espionage, and I suspect homosexual networks have been big everywhere, for all time. Not so much for the blackmail, although homosexuals can blackmail people they have had sex with, but for the secret handshake aspect of it.
We know Jews are loyal to Jews, and other ethnic groups help each other to an extent, but my theory is homosexuals trump all of these. This bond seems to be stronger than family, clan, or nation, and I think is the deep reason homosexuals have been reviled- they are serious potential security risks.
I don’t know what the nature of Hastert’s bad behavior was, of course, and it was likely heterosexual but the point remains.
They say Anthony Blunt got away with spying for the Soviet Union for so long as his paedo/homosexual network protected him.
Rumour has it that Lindsey Graham flies to Paris once a month. Some people's policy positions only make sense if they are being forced to take them.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960883
Or not-still we’ll have to see.
But does anybody not have ‘prior misconduct’ events in their past?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960886
Rumors about Hastert having a gay molestation problem in his past have been around for years, but never got any traction.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/12/256520/-Is-Hastert-gay#
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960889
Wouldn’t this just be petty corruption, rather than some deep conspiracy?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960893
I’m 110% with Unz. Didn’t know he said it, but I’d made up my mind of the same years ago.
And a perfect opportunity to pass along a link to this week’s story on the whistle-blower that instigated Oregon’s disgraced Governor Kitzhaber’s resignation.
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-24792-the_whistleblower.html
Comparisons and contrasts to other particular government official’s spousal shakedown racket are an exercise left for the reader.
As is, the illustrated example of of Steve’s recommendation to get yourself a lawyer before taking-on taking-down the rich and powerful.
Compare and contrast Ben Kruidbos, the whistle-blower in the Zimmerman persecution who sought legal council, with the whistle-blower in the Kitzhaber resignation who did not.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/05/28/controversial-florida-state-attorney-angela-corey-loses-counterclaim-suit-against-zimmerman-witness-ben-kruidbos
http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-when-tokyo-rose-ran-for-president/
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960894
“I returned to the Holiday Inn — where they have a swimming pool and air-conditioned rooms — to consider the paradox of a nation that has given so much to those who preach the glories of rugged individualism from the security of countless corporate sinecures, and so little to that diminishing band of yesterday’s refugees who still practice it, day by day, in a tough, rootless and sometimes witless style that most of us have long since been weaned away from.”
Gonzo Papers, Vol. 1: The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (1979)
Grab a football and shotgun. Deflate it in flight. Win the prize. Throw a bomb!
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960896
Sheesh. Not very quick on the up-take are we?
The story is not about we now know Hasert did after leaving office. It’s about what do not know that he did (or did not do) while still in office. Capisce?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960899
Actually, Steve was the one who raised the original suspicions about Hastert in this post almost a decade ago:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/foley-and-hastert/
I very much remember reading it at the time and thinking Hmmm… But since nothing ever came out, I gradually assumed that the suspicions were unwarranted.
Was Steve insinuating that Hastert might have had the same proclivities as Foley? Hastert never seemed queer though.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960902
News you can use! Ka-ching!
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960903
Ehh, don’t know about this:
The Unzian interpretation would be that the NYT published this sentence:
The indictment says that Mr. Hastert, who was once a high school teacher and wrestling coach in a small Illinois town, paid $1.7 million to the person from 2010 to 2014.
to imply that the scandal has some sort of roots from before Hastert’s rise to the Speakership.
That would imply that the reporter is in on the scandal. Or the reporter’s boss is in on it, and directed the reporter to put the sentence in. More likely explanation is that this is just a typical newspaper throw-away line that gives a quick backstory on the subject*.
Bob Livingston is the counter example. He would have been prime black mail material. Or maybe he was, and Larry Flint was a loose cannon who spilled the beans.
*This seems to be the new shorthand for describing someone’s physical appearance without getting into race. Remember burly black bodies? If we didn’t know who the Rock was, the NYT could call him a former pro wrestler than ‘muscular Samoan’**. Hastert looks like the prototypical former high school wrestling coach. Much easier than saying ‘portly, white haired middle class white guy’.
**Are you in on the secret Steve? Why is there a pic of the Rock and Hastert?
One reason is that it was the least dull picture of Hastert I could find.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960904
“We’ve come to a point where every four years this national fever rises up — this hunger for the Saviour, the White Knight, the Man on Horseback — and whoever wins becomes so immensely powerful, like Nixon is now, that when you vote for President today you’re talking about giving a man dictatorial power for four years. I think it might be better to have the President sort of like the King of England — or the Queen — and have the real business of the presidency conducted by… a City Manager-type, a Prime Minister, somebody who’s directly answerable to Congress, rather than a person who moves all his friends into the White House and does whatever he wants for four years. The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It’s come to the point where you almost can’t run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics.” HST
We should have a Prime Minister. Obama can be the last President that has to do anything other than golf.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960906
the indictment specifically mentions Hastert was a wrestling coach and teacher, and the blackmailer is a lifetime resident of Yorkville who knew Hastert most of his/her life.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2089603/hastert-indictment.pdf
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960907
It’s something gay.
It’s something gay."
The love that dare not speak it's name. Or at least won't speak it for $ 1.7 million.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960908
Ok the original article I read earlier today stated that the misconduct was believed to have occurred prior to his entering Congress. That is no longer in the article, and there is no “correction” reflecting the change. I recall many more details in this afternoon’s article, detailing his years in office, that are no longer in the linked-to article. Double hmmmm…
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960913
http://www.unz.com/isteve/foley-and-hastert/
I very much remember reading it at the time and thinking Hmmm... But since nothing ever came out, I gradually assumed that the suspicions were unwarranted.
I had forgotten about the Foley scandal.
Was Steve insinuating that Hastert might have had the same proclivities as Foley? Hastert never seemed queer though.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960915
From what I could gather from the article I read on it, Hastert is being indicted, not for the payoff, but for “structuring” – i.e. withdrawing his own money from his bank in a manner that he chooses so that he doesn’t have to report it to the government. So the government mandates rules (are they even the result of laws? Who knows?), and if you abide by the letter of the rules, you are still guilty if you violate the intent of the rules.
That, and for lying to a federal investigator – the same beef they put Martha Stewart away on. Funny, a G-man can lie to you all he wants – and they routinely do when interrogating suspects. But if you lie to them, that’s a big no-no.
I hope Hastert beats the rap – not because I like him or approve of whatever sex-romp he was trying to hush-up – but just because so much of what the government demands to know is, rightfully, none of their damned business.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960916
Was Steve insinuating that Hastert might have had the same proclivities as Foley? Hastert never seemed queer though.
I don’t remember anything. I must be going ga-ga.
What was the Foley scandal? What was I talking about?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960922
“Why is there a pic of the Rock and Hastert?”
One reason is that it was the least dull picture of Hastert I could find.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960932
Mark Foley, the guy who got busted hussying up to teenage male congressional pages
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960936
Even the rich pols take kickbacks and bribes. Just ask Feinstein’s husband.
Kerry wasn’t any different despite being married to a heiress of the Heinz fortune, this guy was taking bribes from a West Coast defense contractor (SAT Inc, president Majumder who did a stint in club Fed for bribing him). Majumder bought him cheap to get some juicy defense contracts swung his way. I knew this because I worked for the venomous toad and knew most of parties involved. Ohh the amount was chicken fee, it wouldn’t have even paid for upkeep on his yacht. These guys can be had cheap.
Governor Arnold in CA took bribes as well.
Look at the Clintons, they amassed a vast fortune doing pay to play politics when Hilldog was SOTUS. Clinton himself seems to certain unrestrained sexual peccadilloes and a taste for teenagers according to his association with Epstein and his pervert Island that Clinton visited quite often. Then there is Hillary and her lesbian lover Huma Abedin whose family is a major player in the Muslim Brotherhood in KSA. What a unholy couple.
All this adds up to leverage against both of them.
The Bushes seemed to have a boatload of skeletons in their closet as well given the way they covered up KSA’s role in 9/11 and did one of the greatest feats of logical contortions in history by blaming 9/11 on Iraq.
I have every confidence that many who reach the pinnacles of power in D.C. are men with skeletons in their closet(it’s the only real way of keeping them on a leash).
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960938
Gov. Scott Walker is barely scraping by, and Senator Marco Rubio would be if he didn’t have a car dealer sugar daddy.
Similarly, Rand Paul probably polls the best with younger voters.
Women and younger voters are probably the two key demographics to win over for GOP success. So who do they shove down everybody's throats? Jeb Bush.
So...if Ron's theory is true, what is in Obama's closet?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960939
It was like 10 years ago and Mark Foley wasn’t a huge figure so a lot of people don’t remember. Foley was a GOP congressman from Florida who was involved in sexual relations with his congressional pages, who were college boys. If I recall correctly, there were graphic text messages and AOL instant messaging conversations between Foley and the boys that were published in the media during the coverage of the scandal. I think it was among the first public scandals involving graphic texting and messaging.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960940
But does anybody not have 'prior misconduct' events in their past?
Many of us do, but it’s safe to say relatively few of us have any worth $3.5M..
OTOH, I’m enough of a wh*re that there’s very little I wouldn’t do for $3.5M. OTOH, I’m really not liking the visual here.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960941
Hastert only became Speaker after the Bob Livingston sex scandal unmasked by Larry Flynt. He was seen as the sort of dull-but-worthy person who would not attract attention like his predecessor Newt Gingrich or potential alternative Tom DeLay. If he really accepted the job while having his own sex scandal, he was a pretty reckless guy.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960942
Siebel Edmonds claims that she discovered Hastert was covertly in the employ of the Turkish government. He denied it of course but left his career to become a lobbyist for the Turkish government at a nice healthy salary.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960945
But does anybody not have 'prior misconduct' events in their past?
That requires hush money?!
Only people with money and/or power are capable of getting into the kind of troubles politicians get into. In Hastert’s case, I’m sure whatever is at the heart of this hush money scandal would’ve been just a local story. If Hastert had simply remained a wrestling coach he would never be interviewed by the FBI and be facing federal (i.e., totally screwed) charges.
If you're getting blackmailed, and you aren't that bright, I'd get a nice corrupt attorney and/or accountant as well. I can't believe Hastert didn't know about structuring. Any second year accounting student would.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960946
Didn’t Obama become senator because his Republican opponent Ryan, who was the favorite, got involved in a sex scandal and was replaced by Alan Keyes?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960951
Did Edmonds claim it before or after Hastert got his Turkey job?
She's the most classified person on the face of the globe.
http://www.classifiedwoman.com/
Even the political filth acknowledge there's something there.
Here's her day to day blog:
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/
Here's the wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960952
That’s pretty run of the mill stuff in the Beltway.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960956
And of course it was Hastert who sunk the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res. 596) on behalf of the Turks in October 2000.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960958
Obama would have still won against Ryan, just not by quite as much as Alan Keyes.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960964
Her claim was printed in a 2005 article in Vanity Fair. The following from Wikipedia:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960967
My impression was that Hastert was going to have the House pass the Armenian Genocide Resolution in 2000 until Clinton called him at the last moment and told him there foreign policy wheels within wheels and he needed to deep-six it.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960972
The Rock is a Republican? I know there are a lot of Republicans in the WWE, but The Rock surprised me because he is the off spring of a Black father. I am not surprised though when White male WWE wrestlers like Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels admit that they are Republican because the GOP does quite well with that demographic.
"Johnson attended the 2000 Republican National Convention and the 2000 Democratic National Convention, and gave a speech at the former. Both appearances were part of WWE's non-partisan "Smackdown Your Vote" campaign, which aimed to influence young people to vote."
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960975
Yes.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960976
I’m kind of two minds about the Turkish Connection in Washington:
- It’s sleazy (and the Armenians do have a good claim to simple recognition of their suffering).
- On the other hand, we’re talking about the most strategic spot on Earth — Constantinople. Instability in Turkish domains routinely caused wars among European Great Powers for centuries. So, the fact that Turkey has been relatively at peace for 90 years now strikes me as a very good thing, and makes me hope that whoever is in on whatever Turkey-related conspiracies are going on actually know what they are doing and will keep on keeping the world from getting blown up over the Straits. I hope …
Fine, as long as the price of peace in that place is not Turkey's admission to the EU.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960979
The story is not about we now know Hasert did after leaving office. It's about what do not know that he did (or did not do) while still in office. Capisce?
Or before.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960982
Come on, Denny was showing the kid a new wrestling hold and things just got a little out of control.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960987
OT, but as good a time as any: keep your eye on Marco Rubio, he’s a sociopath. By politician’s standards, of course. Not sure that he has a Bill Clinton-level of sophistication to go the distance, though.
Scott Walker's great-aunt by marriage, twice removed
Miss Yanomami, 1971
Bubba Clinton
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960990
I have to admit I don’t keep up on the latest gay terminology…..what is a Turkey Job?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960991
So, the fact that Turkey has been relatively at peace for 90 years now strikes me as a very good thing, and makes me hope that whoever is in on whatever Turkey-related conspiracies are going on actually know what they are doing and will keep on keeping the world from getting blown up over the Straits. I hope…
Fine, as long as the price of peace in that place is not Turkey’s admission to the EU.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-960998
Walker is charismatic in person and has turned a purple/blue state red. Elected, re-elected, and beat a re-call. The whole way he has added red seats to the state legislature. He’s not good looking, per se, but he’s charismatic enough to probably poll well with women.
Similarly, Rand Paul probably polls the best with younger voters.
Women and younger voters are probably the two key demographics to win over for GOP success. So who do they shove down everybody’s throats? Jeb Bush.
So…if Ron’s theory is true, what is in Obama’s closet?
Obama.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961007
$3.5 million is dead girl/live boy territory.
If you’re getting blackmailed, and you aren’t that bright, I’d get a nice corrupt attorney and/or accountant as well. I can’t believe Hastert didn’t know about structuring. Any second year accounting student would.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961012
It’s also been claimed, and given credence by Philip Giraldi who wrote about it, that there was a sexual blackmail attempt against an Illinois congresswoman by Turkish operatives who set her up. She reportedly didn’t give in and has denied the claims. One thing that comes out, however, is that there’s apparently a lot of effort being made by various governments to influence US policy but who fly under the radar of public consciousness. When the subject comes up who thinks of a country like Turkey or any number of other countries who may be targeting members of our government in attempts to induce them to in effect be their agent?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961018
Foley was used to pound Hastert because HE’S REPUBLICAN. Some things you don’t have to overthink.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961021
That, and for lying to a federal investigator - the same beef they put Martha Stewart away on. Funny, a G-man can lie to you all he wants - and they routinely do when interrogating suspects. But if you lie to them, that's a big no-no.
I hope Hastert beats the rap - not because I like him or approve of whatever sex-romp he was trying to hush-up - but just because so much of what the government demands to know is, rightfully, none of their damned business.
Yeah, these are bullshit charges.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961033
“Wrestling isn’t gay”
Yet:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/ex-lindenwood-wrestler-guilty-of-exposing-sex-partner-to-hiv/article_d91559d4-a26b-517b-8bf2-a9a1d4e5b435.html
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961035
Similarly, Rand Paul probably polls the best with younger voters.
Women and younger voters are probably the two key demographics to win over for GOP success. So who do they shove down everybody's throats? Jeb Bush.
So...if Ron's theory is true, what is in Obama's closet?
So…if Ron’s theory is true, what is in Obama’s closet?
Obama.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961038
That’s true. Then again, Sandusky was the linebacker coach at Penn State.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961050
Freeman’s Commentary on Ginsberg’s theorem:
Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg’s Theorem. To wit:
Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even.
Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game.
With more shale plays producing more loss, you can’t lose betting on more quitting. Nobody is betting on more water. Mysticism gives you a scientific advantage, so negate the other two. There’s no instant water.
” I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it. One doesn’t study calculus before studying arithmetic. In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism. This isn’t instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism.”
Elie Wiesel, as quoted in “10 Questions for Elie Wiesel” by Jeff Chu in TIME (22 January 2006)
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961054
I’d modify Unz’s theory. I’d say success in politics pretty much requires:
*Sleazy fundraising.
*Betrayal of allies.
*Lying about everything and maintaining public pieties.
*Non stop career advancement.
*Narcisism to the Nth degree.
*Machiavellian traits and seeing people as objects to be used.
*Disdain for any high ideals or truths.
*A great appetite for risk.
Given that, it would seem decent, ordinary people would be (and are) repulsed by politics and only those predisposed to do awful stuff are funneled into politics. Thus, nearly all politicians by their very nature have engaged in both risky and sleazy things that makes them ample blackmail material.
The only exceptions seem to be people with big success in other areas seeing politics as a capstone to a life well lived (Reagan, Ike), Statesman called to save their nation (Churchill, De Gaulle), or time-servers elevated by accident who otherwise have no ambition (Truman, Carter) regarding sleazy and depraved things worthy of blackmail.
Fundamentally however politics requires politicians to lie about PC/Diversity pieties and embrace them knowing they are lies from their own lives. This guarantees either supremely stupid people or the very worst.
The only exceptions seem to be people with big success in other areas seeing politics as a capstone to a life well lived (Reagan, Ike), Statesman called to save their nation (Churchill, De Gaulle), or time-servers elevated by accident who otherwise have no ambition (Truman, Carter)..."
LOL, the idea that Jimmy Carter just kinda stumbled onto the Presidency, for which he lacked any ambition, is hilarious stuff. The guy was stumping across rural Iowa in the spring of 1975, almost a year prior to their caucuses. Just because guys like Carter, or McGovern, seem like nice fellows, doesn't mean they lack ambition. They both fought like demons, in order to obtain their party's Presidential nomination.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961058
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_child_prostitution_ring_allegations
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961060
And here we have someone who looks specifically at the astonishing number pedophiles in politics.
https://www.corbettreport.com/pedophiles-in-politics-an-open-source-investigation/
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961066
I wondered that, too. This is what I found on Wikipedia:
“Johnson attended the 2000 Republican National Convention and the 2000 Democratic National Convention, and gave a speech at the former. Both appearances were part of WWE’s non-partisan “Smackdown Your Vote” campaign, which aimed to influence young people to vote.”
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961073
Hastert and a couple of other GOPs politicians were originally against Clinton’s interference in Bosnia (96) and Kosovo (99), then changed their positions abruptly. He was probably in the Turk’s pocket even before he sank the Armenian Genocide resolution.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961077
It could have been that Hastert beat or choked his wrestlers or something ala Bobby Knight. Though paying off millions in secret seems a bit steep for that, especially for high school boys who can take a beating.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961090
And the plot thickens:
“Federal prosecutors indicted former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert Thursday on charges he allegedly hid payments he made to an apparent blackmailer in order to compensate for and conceal “prior misconduct.”
*snip*
The indictment says that Hastert then agreed to provide $3.5 million “in order to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against Individual A.”* It does not elaborate on the alleged misconduct or indicate if Individual A is a man or a woman. However, it says the person has known Hastert most of the person’s life. It also says the person has been a resident of Yorkville, Illinois, where Hastert was a high school teacher and wrestling coach from 1965 to 1981.”
*Emphasis added.
Link:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/28/feds-indict-former-speaker-house-dennis-hastert-on-bank-related-charges/
Two thoughts: (1) dang – $3.5 million in hush money just doesn’t buy you as much hush as it used to. (2) The Unz theory begins to grow on me.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961096
Whatever it is, there must be “proof” if it’s worth $3.5mm. My bet is on an illegitimate child.
If memory serves, there was also some discussion of some smart real estate investment, Harry Reid type, where Hastert just happened to have some land in the way of an interstate interchange. Which explains in part how he happened to have so much loose change.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961110
I think a corollary should be added to Unz’s theorem: whenever the subject politician’s misdeeds are exposed to the light of day (as is the case here), it means he has pissed off the wrong person (or people). As for the who and how of Hastert’s case, we can’t say (yet). But another example that comes to mind is late Youngstown Ohio congressman James Traficant. He certainly pissed off a lot of people in his own party (he was a Dem who was strongly against illegal immigration, for starters). And while he was certainly corrupt, I doubt he’s much worse than the average Congressman now.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961111
Steve, Turkey is mostly irrelevant except in the eyes of Turks and Turkish specialists looking for jobs in the US government. Geostrategic relevancy is dependent on proximity to wealth and contests amongst great powers. Turkey is in the middle of nowhere surrounded by poor Balkan states to the north and poorer Arab states to the South. The Russian black sea fleet are rusting relics and the Mediterranean itself is irrelevant beyond being the launching pad of a tidal wave of imminvaders. The world has moved on from the 15th century and honestly it wasn’t particularly relevant in the 19th either beyond its geographical convenience where British and Russian imperialists could duke it out without having to go too far out of their way.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961151
Ron is right and this is exactly the sort of scandal we should sit back relax and enjoy. We are in good hands. The FBI was built to do this by a guy named Hoover. Hoover hired a bunch of smart Irish toughs whose ancestors patrolled St. Patrick’s Cathedral at night with bats before the municipals gave them billy clubs. When that tough-minded mulatto departed the Irish were left to their own devices and resorted to a style of politics where glad handing involves petty cash. Georgetown is to the FBI what Yale is to the CIA. Steve should do some posts looking at domestic politics in Ireland. It would be eye-opening for a lot of these readers and totally unsurprising. Readers also might refresh their memory of a guy named Bill Casey, and read his books too. Of course I’m insane, but if I wasn’t, my shrink would have in recent memory been the godfather of the Irish Catholic Mafia that doesn’t exist and hangs out at pubs like The Dubliner where Pat Garvey reigns. We are all insane and these are Irish facts. Of course I know what I’m talking about, my middle name is Daniel. Again, Ron is right, but also in California. We are in good hands about this stuff. Trust me. I’m insane.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961160
If memory serves, there was also some discussion of some smart real estate investment, Harry Reid type, where Hastert just happened to have some land in the way of an interstate interchange. Which explains in part how he happened to have so much loose change.
Well, if that’s all it is, he made a colossal blunder. Forget the violation of federal banking laws. He lied to the FBI. Ask Martha Stewart how this goes over. With Stewart the dollar amount in question was much smaller and the violation probably civil (SEC).
All the money he laid out is now wasted. The next two years in and out of federal court will be hellish. Then off to FCI Butner if he’s lucky.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961163
Unz has an amazing memory, or he Google “Sailer Hastert wrestling.” Let’s believe it’s the memory.
I.e., you’ve hired lawyers in other situations, or, i.e., in such a situation, you have just forked over the money rather having to hire a lawyer to arrange it?
Seriously, who could blackmail someone whose public persona is questioning our assumptions about race?
Also, re this conspiracy theory:
If Unz were correct, Congressmen wouldn’t have been calling for Hastert’s resignation, they would have been rubbing their hands together in anticipation. Also, if this tit-for-tat-scandal-cover-up-conspiracy were true, I would think part of the deal would be covering it up after office as well, no?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961172
At some point in my life, I had to deal with a large number of politicians from lowly county supervisors to US senators and, in one instance each, separately, the Speaker of the House and the Vice President at the time.
It’s often said that politics is show business for ugly people. While politics is not always show business (frequently enough it’s about serious issues such as national security and the national economy, as in fates of millions of our fellow citizens), what struck me true about that idea is that being a politician is essentially being an actor for people without actor looks. I remember watching one episode of “The Actor’s Studio” or some such show once and the host asked the audience (aspiring actors I think) how many came from divorced homes. A majority raised hands, and the host went on to make a point about actors being people who need to fill a void in their psyche or some such thing to the interviewee (I think it was Robert De Niro).
In my view, the same personality is frequently present among politicians. The kind of people who are attracted to politics are often damaged or insecure people who crave popular acclaim, attention, and power (the ability to compel and control others). It’s almost as if they can’t help but cause scandals because they can’t resist their internal compulsions toward corruption or deviance (which is why the most successful politicians are generally those with good self-discipline who are able to, however temporarily, suppress those urges – e.g. “he ran a very disciplined campaign”). People often cite Lord Acton, but the truth in my view is closer to what the sci-fi writer Frank Herbert wrote in one of his “Dune” novels, something along the line of “it’s not that power corrupts; it’s that power attracts the corruptible.”
We lionize Cincinnatus precisely because he was an anomaly.
That's my impression from casually reading hundreds of IMDB bios and Wikipedia articles about actors for writing movie reviews: lots come from broken homes. (Presumably, one reason is because their parents tended to be sexy and good-looking just like their movie star children.) And a remarkable number lived in some kind of hippie or cult commune for awhile as children.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961175
Well, you mean, it hasn’t been. Maybe we are living through a corollary to O’Sullivan’s Law:
“All organizations that are not expressly not-gay will become gay over time.”
The new Boy Scouts will be a test case…
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961177
The popular image of the completely arrogant and dick-ish jock is the good-looking blond quarterback, you know, a football player. But I have found that quite a few football players are good sportsmen and good guys. Team players who know something about cooperation for the greater good. The kind of people you want in your platoon or business team. Football players get good-looking girls for a reason.
In reality, wrestlers are the stereotypical dick-ish jocks par excellence. There is little emphasis in good sportsmanship in wrestling, whether American folk wrestling or international/Olympic wrestling. Wrestler often cheat or otherwise try to hurt their opponents with all kinds of nefarious, underhanded rule-breaking. They are usually phenomenally-conditioned and superbly tough athletes who have an incredible work ethic. But they do it all for their own gratification and nothing else, so do not make good team players for a larger goal or organization.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961186
If memory serves, there was also some discussion of some smart real estate investment, Harry Reid type, where Hastert just happened to have some land in the way of an interstate interchange. Which explains in part how he happened to have so much loose change.
where Hastert just happened to have some land in the way of an interstate interchange. W
Yes, “the land in the way of an interstate” is what I recall reading about.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961189
“Yes, “the land in the way of an interstate” is what I recall reading about.”
Isn’t that what “Used Cars” is about?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961195
The NSA is probably partnered with the rich elite that runs the country, and has a dossier on everyone worth monitoring.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961202
Istanbul is the most strategic location on Earth? I find that dubious, at least since the end of the Cold War. And your argument that 90 years of peace in Turkey has been good for the world kind of falls apart when you remember what happened between 1939 and 1945. I know this is just the comments section, but lazy historical analogies are lazy.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961215
And a perfect opportunity to pass along a link to this week's story on the whistle-blower that instigated Oregon's disgraced Governor Kitzhaber's resignation.
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-24792-the_whistleblower.html
Comparisons and contrasts to other particular government official's spousal shakedown racket are an exercise left for the reader.
As is, the illustrated example of of Steve's recommendation to get yourself a lawyer before taking-on taking-down the rich and powerful.
Talk about serendipity, today is a two-fer…
Compare and contrast Ben Kruidbos, the whistle-blower in the Zimmerman persecution who sought legal council, with the whistle-blower in the Kitzhaber resignation who did not.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/05/28/controversial-florida-state-attorney-angela-corey-loses-counterclaim-suit-against-zimmerman-witness-ben-kruidbos
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961216
Turkey is just a bad, bad, bad country; a sh**ty country in my opinion. I respect Armenia; at least Armenians are/have been creative and successful in business for centuries- and the current neighboring countries, particularly Iran, have been buying-up the homes in Yerevan as fast as they are developed. Wealthy Iranians are planning ahead. Some of you may not know this, but Armenia is the oldest Christian country in the world.
However, this whole ‘wrestling/Hastert/High School boys/ inferred blackmail’ vein is weirding me out. I love the sport of wrestling – such a pure sport, an Olympic sport – seen on the surface of Greek vases; my son was all-state in wrestling – I guess I really am a prude, a “mom prude!”
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961221
Turkey is a strategic location for power projection for NATO against Russia and the Eurasian space generally. Also for power projection against the Middle East, which has oil.
As for the middle east, the US is not short on military bases in the region and no one else seems particularly interested (or foolhardy) in helping them fight their sectarian feuds.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961224
In reality, wrestlers are the stereotypical dick-ish jocks par excellence. There is little emphasis in good sportsmanship in wrestling, whether American folk wrestling or international/Olympic wrestling. Wrestler often cheat or otherwise try to hurt their opponents with all kinds of nefarious, underhanded rule-breaking. They are usually phenomenally-conditioned and superbly tough athletes who have an incredible work ethic. But they do it all for their own gratification and nothing else, so do not make good team players for a larger goal or organization.
You don’t know what you are talking about. Wrestlers are all different types of people and most champion wrestlers are great sportsmen who will try to rough you up during a match, then shake your hand as soon as it’s over. There are certainly no more cheaters and bad apples than in any other sport. They also keep team scores in wrestling and wrestlers are often asked to do things like move up a weight class or starve themselves and move down a weight class for the good of the team. When we won the state championship, our coach told our last two wrestlers to wrestle not to get pinned because if they both lost, but avoided the pin, we would still win the team trophy. Both wrestled too conservatively and lost close matches, taking one for the team. And wrestling probably has fewer homosexuals than other sports; it requires too much manliness and dedication for some gay guy just trying to do something he thinks might be titillating from a distance.
Because I was a high level Judo practitioner (I was the main training partner for someone who later won an Olympic medal), I was a "tackling dummy" for a Midwestern wrestling powerhouse program for two off-seasons in college.
I had a TON of air time and got thrown on my head A LOT (but I gave back on a few occasions however rare they were - there are some techniques in Judo arsenal with which wrestlers are not familiar and I think that's why the coach wanted them to train some with me and other Judoka during offseason; and it benefited my Judo game quite a bit for that matter). I developed a HUGE respect for wrestlers for their incredible toughness and work ethic. They were certainly some of the toughest athletes I've ever known. And the wrestlers at this program, being a national powerhouse, were just beasts of athletes. I just can't say that enough. But they were not, in general, "gentlemanly" people. "Trying to rough up" opponents and training partners with illegal moves and shaking hands afterwards is not good sportsmanship. It's just being a dick with a pro-forma handshake. And for the record there is a lot of this dick-ishness in Judo as well (but that tendency is mildly ameliorated by the whole "martial arts spirit and tradition" in Judo).All kinds of individual sports are turned into ersatz-team sports by bundling individual matches (e.g. gymnastics). But on the mat, you are alone as an individual athlete against another individual athlete, mano a mano. On the other hand, you can't play football with two opposing players. Some sports are team-oriented in essence, there is no mano a mano, and those build not just the camaraderie of training together and adding scores together, but actually cooperating in the midst of battle to achieve something greater than the sum of its constituent players.I don't know whether that is the case or not and do not care one way or another. I think it's juvenile and stupid when people make fun of wrestling because of the close physical contact or attire. I tend to think that people who see "gay-ness" in every male-to-male physical contact is projecting, at least a little.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961226
Fine, as long as the price of peace in that place is not Turkey's admission to the EU.
That’s in the past. Turkey doesn’t want to join EU anymore. Economically speaking they are focused toward the East focusing on fellow ethnic Turkic brethren, Russia and China.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961227
A major Turkish cult / political faction, the Gulen Cult, is the biggest operator of taxpayer-funded charter schools in the United States. That’s so weird that almost nobody in the U.S. can get interested in it because it doesn’t have any obvious Red-Blue salience.
Gulen is another of those President/Prime Minister in waiting that the spooks have stacked away.
You'll see a lot more of him if Erdogan gets too far out of hand.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961232
Most strategic location is the heartland of Eurasia as outlined by Mackinder, “…commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.” Then it was taken up by Brzezinski in his Grand Chessboard book on advocating a Eurasian strategy for controlling the resources of Central Asia and thus ensuring global supremacy.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961234
In terms of absolute and relative social standing as adults, high school wrestlers may do better in life than any other set of male high school athletes.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961239
Not exactly. The sex scandal (he had pressured his wife to go to sex clubs) was written up in a sealed divorce filing that somehow was unsealed or leaked, likely thanks to David Axelrod. His wife was a celebrity, Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), so it was a big story. The incident predated the campaign but was publicized during.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961244
That’s because they are incredibly tough, competitive, and hardworking individuals. Of course many such people will be highly successful. But are they as good for their professional organizations as former team sport athletes?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961248
“Sluggo says:
It’s something gay.”
The love that dare not speak it’s name. Or at least won’t speak it for $ 1.7 million.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961250
That, and for lying to a federal investigator - the same beef they put Martha Stewart away on. Funny, a G-man can lie to you all he wants - and they routinely do when interrogating suspects. But if you lie to them, that's a big no-no.
I hope Hastert beats the rap - not because I like him or approve of whatever sex-romp he was trying to hush-up - but just because so much of what the government demands to know is, rightfully, none of their damned business.
Yep, it’s all absolute bull-sh*t. Anyone know if structuring itself has actually been litigated resulting in a guilty verdict?
I can’t say that I have heard of it. I know it is usually piled-on with other arrest charges that are real, because, hey, structuring does go hand-in-hand with other illicit activity, but getting someone to cop to a structuring charge as part of a plea-deal ain’t the same as getting a guilty verdict on a structuring charge in isolation.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961251
Wouldn’t surprise me much if many of them have signed a certain contract with their own blood.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961252
In reality, wrestlers are the stereotypical dick-ish jocks par excellence. There is little emphasis in good sportsmanship in wrestling, whether American folk wrestling or international/Olympic wrestling. Wrestler often cheat or otherwise try to hurt their opponents with all kinds of nefarious, underhanded rule-breaking. They are usually phenomenally-conditioned and superbly tough athletes who have an incredible work ethic. But they do it all for their own gratification and nothing else, so do not make good team players for a larger goal or organization.
You obviously never played football; you were not a wrestler. I think “in reality,” YOU are “the stereotypical dick-ish’ guy” who has such a big load, not just a chip on their shoulder. For all the copious amount of bs about how smart and amazing you are in your posts of yore, you sound like a moron when you fantasize about “dick-ish jocks par excellence.” Just think about that line you wrote while I snortle a little! What went down in your HS?
BTW, I am talking about wrestling in HS/College..NOT O’s, WWE or any corn-ball “false” Las Vegas-like wrestling. Never mind, pls don’t respond to me…just sayin’ you sound awfully whiny about wrestling…stereotyping thousands of teenage boys in this country saying that they are unethical/nefarious/cheaters/underhanded…the last 3 insults being your words of choice of varsity athletes that are, let’s see…14-18 years old. Oh wait, they are not good team players for a future organization, too. I hate people who generalize with impunity. Kinda’ shows your IQ is not as high as you claim, or you just have NO social intelligence at all. Social IQ is what football players have, which you do admit.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961253
I’m afraid to go over to Urban Dictionary to find out what a “Turkey job” is. Can’t be too hygienic.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961254
It's often said that politics is show business for ugly people. While politics is not always show business (frequently enough it's about serious issues such as national security and the national economy, as in fates of millions of our fellow citizens), what struck me true about that idea is that being a politician is essentially being an actor for people without actor looks. I remember watching one episode of "The Actor's Studio" or some such show once and the host asked the audience (aspiring actors I think) how many came from divorced homes. A majority raised hands, and the host went on to make a point about actors being people who need to fill a void in their psyche or some such thing to the interviewee (I think it was Robert De Niro).
In my view, the same personality is frequently present among politicians. The kind of people who are attracted to politics are often damaged or insecure people who crave popular acclaim, attention, and power (the ability to compel and control others). It's almost as if they can't help but cause scandals because they can't resist their internal compulsions toward corruption or deviance (which is why the most successful politicians are generally those with good self-discipline who are able to, however temporarily, suppress those urges - e.g. "he ran a very disciplined campaign"). People often cite Lord Acton, but the truth in my view is closer to what the sci-fi writer Frank Herbert wrote in one of his "Dune" novels, something along the line of "it's not that power corrupts; it's that power attracts the corruptible."
We lionize Cincinnatus precisely because he was an anomaly.
“one episode of “The Actor’s Studio” or some such show once and the host asked the audience (aspiring actors I think) how many came from divorced homes. ”
That’s my impression from casually reading hundreds of IMDB bios and Wikipedia articles about actors for writing movie reviews: lots come from broken homes. (Presumably, one reason is because their parents tended to be sexy and good-looking just like their movie star children.) And a remarkable number lived in some kind of hippie or cult commune for awhile as children.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961259
I’m sorry, but that is the kind of too clever by half thinking that I grew out of once I realized that invading the United States via Kamchatka wasn’t as feasible in reality as it is in Risk. Invading Russia from Turkey is a rather roundabout way of going at it, it’s much easier and faster invading from say, Ukraine.
As for the middle east, the US is not short on military bases in the region and no one else seems particularly interested (or foolhardy) in helping them fight their sectarian feuds.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961260
And there was a remarkably similar scandal that befell the frontrunner in the Illinois Democratic Senatorial primary that Obama eventually won.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961262
Turkey is actually a much nicer country than Armenia. Turkey’s GDP per capita is around $10,500, while Armenia’s is around $2,500.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961267
Totally agree that wrestling is not for the self-conscious or not-confident. Does not attract teenage homosexuals for that reason. Of course, this is my opinion as a woman and a mother of wrestlers. But, seriously, wrestling is mano-a-mano and it is just brute strength and speed. A wrestler has to be totally focused on winning. Can you tell I was a crazy-assed athlete? I almost got in a fight at a rugby match (as a spectator) last week! Not a soccer hooligan, but I loathe any false calls.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961268
Where is your evidence for that?
Because I was a high level Judo practitioner (I was the main training partner for someone who later won an Olympic medal), I was a “tackling dummy” for a Midwestern wrestling powerhouse program for two off-seasons in college.
I had a TON of air time and got thrown on my head A LOT (but I gave back on a few occasions however rare they were – there are some techniques in Judo arsenal with which wrestlers are not familiar and I think that’s why the coach wanted them to train some with me and other Judoka during offseason; and it benefited my Judo game quite a bit for that matter). I developed a HUGE respect for wrestlers for their incredible toughness and work ethic. They were certainly some of the toughest athletes I’ve ever known. And the wrestlers at this program, being a national powerhouse, were just beasts of athletes. I just can’t say that enough. But they were not, in general, “gentlemanly” people. “Trying to rough up” opponents and training partners with illegal moves and shaking hands afterwards is not good sportsmanship. It’s just being a dick with a pro-forma handshake. And for the record there is a lot of this dick-ishness in Judo as well (but that tendency is mildly ameliorated by the whole “martial arts spirit and tradition” in Judo).
All kinds of individual sports are turned into ersatz-team sports by bundling individual matches (e.g. gymnastics). But on the mat, you are alone as an individual athlete against another individual athlete, mano a mano. On the other hand, you can’t play football with two opposing players. Some sports are team-oriented in essence, there is no mano a mano, and those build not just the camaraderie of training together and adding scores together, but actually cooperating in the midst of battle to achieve something greater than the sum of its constituent players.
I don’t know whether that is the case or not and do not care one way or another. I think it’s juvenile and stupid when people make fun of wrestling because of the close physical contact or attire. I tend to think that people who see “gay-ness” in every male-to-male physical contact is projecting, at least a little.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961276
That's my impression from casually reading hundreds of IMDB bios and Wikipedia articles about actors for writing movie reviews: lots come from broken homes. (Presumably, one reason is because their parents tended to be sexy and good-looking just like their movie star children.) And a remarkable number lived in some kind of hippie or cult commune for awhile as children.
I figured all of you knew that the vast majority of actors, well, artists in general, come from families with bi-polar, depression, anxiety, ADHD backgrounds. I thought this was universal knowledge? I mean, all the suicides of so many creative people for a century almost…all the risky behavior that leads to death. Forget good looking or sexy; crazy is really the foundation. Most creative people walk on the edge of anxiety…otherwise they wouldn’t choose to be an artist. You have a longer life with a solid, healthy lifestyle if you are a CPA, a doctor, an account executive, a lawyer, an electrician, a bus driver, a librarian, a nurse…
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961277
I did play football. I was a wide receiver, and wasn’t very good. And while I was not a serious wrestler, I cross-trained with wrestlers from a top Midwestern college program while I was a competitive Judoka in college. See my above comment.
And of course I am generalizing. I mean to convey tendencies as groups, not describe accurately every single wrestler ever… kinda the way we talk about race here.
The rest of your rantings and ravings and personal attacks, I will let pass as passionate outpourings of a proud mother of a wrestler. I am a parent too.
By the way, my eldest son is a pretty good Judoka, but I’ve told him numerous times that there are a lot of dicks in Judo (not in that word, exactly).
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961281
That's my impression from casually reading hundreds of IMDB bios and Wikipedia articles about actors for writing movie reviews: lots come from broken homes. (Presumably, one reason is because their parents tended to be sexy and good-looking just like their movie star children.) And a remarkable number lived in some kind of hippie or cult commune for awhile as children.
Coming from a commune correlates with compliance on the casting couch.
If anything, I'd think being raised in a hippie commune would be an inoculation against the worst parts of the "creative culture." Those kids would know how to turn the tables on someone trying to use them as a disposable plaything, and would see right through false promises.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961282
Do you think the reason that Google and Facebook were both valued so highly fairly early in their existence was because of their value to the NSA?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961285
If there was any scandalous behavior involving my high school’s wrestling coach it would have been completely heterosexual. The not-unattractive female managers sure seemed to enjoy his company.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961296
And Turkey, or rather Ionia would be wealthier still had it not been for the Turks. Nomadic raiders invariably leave whatever civilization they touch in a worse condition than they found it, even the ones that turn to stationary banditry. They are after all at heart ultimately nothing more than thieves. Western Anatolia, the most developed and prosperous segment of the country was for a thousand years prior to the Turks arrival part of the heritage of the Greeks. The relative prosperity of the Turks today is mostly because the Turks through generations of rapine are not as thoroughly “Turkish” as they were 800 years ago.
Besides, sometimes violent thugs who are good at rapine and pillage end up doing pretty well. Just look at the Vikings and their descendants.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961299
One reason is that it was the least dull picture of Hastert I could find.
Putting The Rock in a picture makes it more fun, as Duane Johnson explained via song on SNL last week.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961304
I have no love for Turks (they stabbed my country, the United States, and *me* in the back!). But that’s unduly harsh and inaccurate historically.
Besides, sometimes violent thugs who are good at rapine and pillage end up doing pretty well. Just look at the Vikings and their descendants.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961322
I’ve known that since my teens. I didn’t meet any until years later, so I guess I just read it.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961328
I wouldn’t say so. I dated a couple girls who spent part of their childhood in communes/cults, including one whose big sister went on to become a celebrity (most commune kids are about my age or a few years older), and they had pretty strongly negative opinions about the sexual mores of 70s-era cults. They had seen their families torn apart by this loose behavior, so they weren’t on board with the free love BS.
If anything, I’d think being raised in a hippie commune would be an inoculation against the worst parts of the “creative culture.” Those kids would know how to turn the tables on someone trying to use them as a disposable plaything, and would see right through false promises.
Doesn't work that way. The world, I'm afraid, is filled with children in adult bodies. Most of them have repetition compulsion and are very actively engaged in subconsciously recreating the traumas of their past.
How many times have you seen the harebrained twit, whose boyfriend cheated on her, say "men are all the same!"? Then, as soon as she has sufficiently recovered, what does she do? Goes out and finds another one just like the last one. Rinse, repeat. Very few people ever break the cycle, or even, for that matter, come to the realization that they are in one of their own making.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961333
If anything, I'd think being raised in a hippie commune would be an inoculation against the worst parts of the "creative culture." Those kids would know how to turn the tables on someone trying to use them as a disposable plaything, and would see right through false promises.
Those people (to judge by your account) were reacting against their upbringing. Most don’t.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961353
The Turks refused to let the 4th Infantry Division launch from Turkey into northern Iraq in 2003. Consequently it had to be redeployed to Kuwait and we did not get to kick off the 2003 invasion with a large northern invasion force. So much for using Turkey for power projection.
Also, the Syrian rebels are being supplied through the Turkey-Syria border.
Oh, OK.
I'll bet if Iraqi intelligence had been shown to have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, Turkey would have allowed us to invade Iraq from the north, and might have even sent a brigade or two themselves. Just because they aren't our slaves, ones who go along with every goofball notion we concoct, does not mean they are devoid of strategic value.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961357
Because I was a high level Judo practitioner (I was the main training partner for someone who later won an Olympic medal), I was a "tackling dummy" for a Midwestern wrestling powerhouse program for two off-seasons in college.
I had a TON of air time and got thrown on my head A LOT (but I gave back on a few occasions however rare they were - there are some techniques in Judo arsenal with which wrestlers are not familiar and I think that's why the coach wanted them to train some with me and other Judoka during offseason; and it benefited my Judo game quite a bit for that matter). I developed a HUGE respect for wrestlers for their incredible toughness and work ethic. They were certainly some of the toughest athletes I've ever known. And the wrestlers at this program, being a national powerhouse, were just beasts of athletes. I just can't say that enough. But they were not, in general, "gentlemanly" people. "Trying to rough up" opponents and training partners with illegal moves and shaking hands afterwards is not good sportsmanship. It's just being a dick with a pro-forma handshake. And for the record there is a lot of this dick-ishness in Judo as well (but that tendency is mildly ameliorated by the whole "martial arts spirit and tradition" in Judo).All kinds of individual sports are turned into ersatz-team sports by bundling individual matches (e.g. gymnastics). But on the mat, you are alone as an individual athlete against another individual athlete, mano a mano. On the other hand, you can't play football with two opposing players. Some sports are team-oriented in essence, there is no mano a mano, and those build not just the camaraderie of training together and adding scores together, but actually cooperating in the midst of battle to achieve something greater than the sum of its constituent players.I don't know whether that is the case or not and do not care one way or another. I think it's juvenile and stupid when people make fun of wrestling because of the close physical contact or attire. I tend to think that people who see "gay-ness" in every male-to-male physical contact is projecting, at least a little.
I don’t think it’s projection. It’s extreme sexualization. First, they sexualized all male-female friendships. Then they sexualized all male-male friendships. Fraud claimed that the motivation for all human behavior came down to the search for sex. American society seems to have taken up his bizarre claims with a seriousness they don’t deserve. What began as headshrinker quackery and comedic double entendres has become the conventional wisdom.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961364
I am not sure either, but it may be related to gerbilling. But with even more disastrous consequences if it goes wrong.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961388
Sibel Edmonds accused Hastert of taking bribes from Turkey back in 2005.
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/8/10/did_speaker_hastert_accept_turkish_bribes
Hastert became a Turkish lobbyist in 2009.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2009/04/11/former-house-speaker-dennis-hastert-contracted-lobby-turkey
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961446
who cares if former wrestlers are good for the corporation?
unless the corp is privately held, by you, why would you care about this?
the corp certainly doesn’t care about what’s good for the wrestler
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961457
The US Air Force has a base at Incirlik.
Also, the Syrian rebels are being supplied through the Turkey-Syria border.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961465
I’ve always believed that the Saudis (or maybe even the Israelis ?) had something like this on W, which is why he went into Iraq.
Well, I guess in the afterlife he'll have another painter and former head of state of a world power to talk to ;)
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961471
Gulen has a “compound” about 4 miles from me. A couple of friends of mine got to know him well over some real estate deals and he took them to Turkey for a week. None of this Passport or visa nonsense and they report that their treatment at regular US airports is now materially better than it was. They’ve obviously been flagged in some way.
Gulen is another of those President/Prime Minister in waiting that the spooks have stacked away.
You’ll see a lot more of him if Erdogan gets too far out of hand.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961485
Wouldn’t be surprised.
Well, I guess in the afterlife he’ll have another painter and former head of state of a world power to talk to
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961486
My guess is buggering minors.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961495
If I were the Turks I wouldn’t have cooperated either. That said, our planners were foolish to assume we could strong arm them. Regardless, we had sufficient combat power. The lack of a post conflict plan was the flaw.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961499
Nicer in an economic sense, but not in a geopolitical sense. They are jihadi supporters and have been for quite a while. Erdogan is a bad man despite how clownish he is.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961516
Talking about Duane “The Rock” Johnson, there is a NY Post (5/27/15) comparison between George Clooney (bombs) and Duane Johnson (successes).
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961563
Never talk to the police. Period.
A law school professor and former criminal defense attorney tells you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961575
The firm Hastert worked for, Dickstein Shapiro, LLC, was quick to remove all connections to him.
http://www.dicksteinshapiro.com/people/speaker-j-dennis-hastert
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961577
Maybe Turkey jobs have something to do with gobbling (no explanation needed, I assume). A stretch of Hampstead Heath in London earned the nickname Gobblers’ Gulch.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961583
As someone who has wrestled, there are definitely gay wrestlers out there, I’ve been on the mat with them. I can think of at least 4 examples who I would have bet were gay.
It’s a lot like tennis vs golf. Gays in golf is a rarity because of the demographics. Old, fat men walking around in clothing that is not revealing, or too revealing. Versus younger in shape athletes. Wrestling is like tennis in that regard except the clothing is less and tighter, and the sport involves dominating or being dominated by in-shape sweaty men. This must be like a dream pastime for a lot of gays. Hence a significant amount of closeted gays involved with grappling sports.
As for wrestling vs team sports in business or on your platoon, I would not underrate a good wrestler. If they are intelligent, you know they have a great work ethic, are very goal oriented and are self-motivated. I love having those sorts of people on my team. If I don’t hold up my end they are liable to do what is necessary to achieve the team objective anyway.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961600
Well, I’m with Lagertha here. I refuse to believe a sport that started with one naked man trying to get another naked man to submit could have ever become tainted by something like homosexuality.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961608
You would almost think that certain players have access to our most private official documents.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961620
If anything, I'd think being raised in a hippie commune would be an inoculation against the worst parts of the "creative culture." Those kids would know how to turn the tables on someone trying to use them as a disposable plaything, and would see right through false promises.
“Those kids would know how to turn the tables on someone trying to use them as a disposable plaything, and would see right through false promises.”
Doesn’t work that way. The world, I’m afraid, is filled with children in adult bodies. Most of them have repetition compulsion and are very actively engaged in subconsciously recreating the traumas of their past.
How many times have you seen the harebrained twit, whose boyfriend cheated on her, say “men are all the same!”? Then, as soon as she has sufficiently recovered, what does she do? Goes out and finds another one just like the last one. Rinse, repeat. Very few people ever break the cycle, or even, for that matter, come to the realization that they are in one of their own making.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961621
We know Jews are loyal to Jews, and other ethnic groups help each other to an extent, but my theory is homosexuals trump all of these. This bond seems to be stronger than family, clan, or nation, and I think is the deep reason homosexuals have been reviled- they are serious potential security risks.
I don't know what the nature of Hastert's bad behavior was, of course, and it was likely heterosexual but the point remains.
http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/leo-mckinstry/569181/sex-abuse-claims-Leo-McKinstry
They say Anthony Blunt got away with spying for the Soviet Union for so long as his paedo/homosexual network protected him.
Rumour has it that Lindsey Graham flies to Paris once a month. Some people’s policy positions only make sense if they are being forced to take them.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961641
Good one.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961662
It’s when foreign intelligence agencies get hold of this that democracy collapses.
And if your own intelligence agencies share all info with these foreign intelligence agencies you are simply asking for it.
Last two upright MPs in UK Parliament: Enoch Powell and Tony Benn, couldn’t be blackmailed or bribed.
Explains a lot.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961668
Hastert entered Congress with a net worth under $300k. Today his net worth is estimated as high as $17 million.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-house-speaker-dennis-hastert-indicted-over-alleged-secret-payments/2015/05/29/dad237be-05f7-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html?hpid=z1
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961695
You do realize that we have been supporting various groups of “jihadis” since the 80s, don’t you? The US media might not call them “jihadis” in its coverage – they usually call them “freedom fighters”, militiamen, etc., but that is often what these people are and how they regard themselves.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961698
Maybe Hastert was demonstrating a new chokehold……
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961702
And a perfect opportunity to pass along a link to this week's story on the whistle-blower that instigated Oregon's disgraced Governor Kitzhaber's resignation.
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-24792-the_whistleblower.html
Comparisons and contrasts to other particular government official's spousal shakedown racket are an exercise left for the reader.
As is, the illustrated example of of Steve's recommendation to get yourself a lawyer before taking-on taking-down the rich and powerful.
Thanks. Here’s a link to the main article to which Steve was probably referring:
http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-when-tokyo-rose-ran-for-president/
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961709
*Sleazy fundraising.
*Betrayal of allies.
*Lying about everything and maintaining public pieties.
*Non stop career advancement.
*Narcisism to the Nth degree.
*Machiavellian traits and seeing people as objects to be used.
*Disdain for any high ideals or truths.
*A great appetite for risk.
Given that, it would seem decent, ordinary people would be (and are) repulsed by politics and only those predisposed to do awful stuff are funneled into politics. Thus, nearly all politicians by their very nature have engaged in both risky and sleazy things that makes them ample blackmail material.
The only exceptions seem to be people with big success in other areas seeing politics as a capstone to a life well lived (Reagan, Ike), Statesman called to save their nation (Churchill, De Gaulle), or time-servers elevated by accident who otherwise have no ambition (Truman, Carter) regarding sleazy and depraved things worthy of blackmail.
Fundamentally however politics requires politicians to lie about PC/Diversity pieties and embrace them knowing they are lies from their own lives. This guarantees either supremely stupid people or the very worst.
I would disagree with Carter being on that list. I think a better example would have been Calvin Coolidge.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961721
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Foley_scandal
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961746
Wrestling (the real kind) is a combat sport not for the faint of heart. I doubt you will find too many homosexuals interested in it (as participants).
Remember, around 3.5% of any broad population sample is expected to be homosexual; among men the percentage may be somewhat higher as apparently gay men are more numerous than strictly lesbian women. So if, say, about 1 in 25 amateur wrestlers are gay that is essentially equal likelihood of participation.
In my experience most gay men are not conspicuously gay. And of those men, there's a fair percentage who are interested in high-adrenaline/ultra-macho/extreme activities. Unfortunately, people often stereotype gay men based on the behavioral tendencies of the conspicuously gay (dance, ice skating, musical theater, fashion) rather than low-profile gay men.
This is compounded by subconscious comparison with lesbian women, who show much higher likelihood of interest and success in competitive sports than their heterosexual compatriots, while gay men are roughly comparable to straight men.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961749
Apparently Hastert went to very conservative Wheaton College:
http://www2.wheaton.edu/learnres/ARCSC/gallery/hastert/exhibit/
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961765
Yeah, but he’s married to Jennifer Aniston.
I mean come on, who would you rather have as First Spouse:
Jennifer Aniston
Scott Walker’s great-aunt by marriage, twice removed
Miss Yanomami, 1971
Bubba Clinton
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961789
Scott Walker's great-aunt by marriage, twice removed
Miss Yanomami, 1971
Bubba Clinton
This is Rubio’s wife (a former NFL cheerleader):
http://www.listwns.com/images/group/201504/Jeanette-Dousdebes-20150414204922.jpg
Yet another reason never to vote for that Bambi.
I'll bet she spends a lot of "late nights at the salon" while he just looks at her blankly and believes every word she says.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961816
INT Large Boardroom. Five MEN seated at massive table.
Billionaire One: All right, we gotta make this quick, because many of us are busy. The candidates for the Governorship of Florida are going to come in and introduce themselves. As you know, we purposely refrain from showing you their resumes, so as not to cloud your intuition on such an important matter as electing the next Governor. We go by oral examination here, and personal revelations only. Candidate One will enter now…
Can 1: Hello.
Billionaire One: Let’s get to it. State your qualifications.
Can 1: I gang-raped a girl in college, and I wasn’t even questioned by the police, but I understand they’re laying for me.
Bill One: Very nice. Now for Candidate Two…
Can Two: I… was a scoutmaster… about ten years ago, and… you know.
Bill One: No we don’t know. State your offense.
Can Two: If our organization had rape merit badges, many of my boys would have been Eagle scouts.
Bill One: Are your victims still in the state?
Can Two: Oh, yeah.
Bill One: And they’re still angry?
Can Two: I believe, yes. Very much so.
Bill One: And finally, Candidate Three…
Can Three: I’m gay.
Bill One: That’s it?
Can Three: Also, so far, I’ve given over 100K to the Tampa chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
Bill One: Indeed!
Can Three: And, uh… I fucked our housekeeper.
Bill One: So you’re married! To a female!
Can Three: Uh, yeah. Anyway, got our maid pregnant. She kept the baby. She’s still living in the maid’s quarters in my house. Told the wife it was from her boyfriend.
Bill One: Wow! That’s tight!
Can Three: She’s black.
Bill One: Brilliant!
Can Three: When I was a kid, I used to pull the legs off of flies, then I dropped them into a glass of water and watched ‘em sink. My sister saw me.
Bill One: Okay, that’s plenty! THANK you.
The CANDIDATES leave the BOARD ROOM
Bill One: Well, I think we know where the voting is gonna go, so let’s just get that out of the way, then we can get into what we’re going to do with Cuba this year.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961826
Doesn't work that way. The world, I'm afraid, is filled with children in adult bodies. Most of them have repetition compulsion and are very actively engaged in subconsciously recreating the traumas of their past.
How many times have you seen the harebrained twit, whose boyfriend cheated on her, say "men are all the same!"? Then, as soon as she has sufficiently recovered, what does she do? Goes out and finds another one just like the last one. Rinse, repeat. Very few people ever break the cycle, or even, for that matter, come to the realization that they are in one of their own making.
Depressing but probably true.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961854
Sounds like live boy.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dennis-hastert-indictment-fed-say-cover-was-related-sexual-misconduct-n366776?cid=eml_nbn_20150529
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961870
Looks like Hastert filled nelson:
“Hastert made payments to conceal sexual misconduct from high school coaching years, officials say ”
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-hastert-misconduct-20150529-story.html
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961877
Hastert is gay, it seems. Link.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961880
Unz’s hypothesis is intriguing…
It reminds me of the dude who created the TV series Babylon 5.
The creator said he wanted to create “a novel for television”; he had the story lines and plot and characters all mapped out from the start, and even had a time limit on the series (5 years). Miraculously, he was able to pull it off: 5 solid years of a story that culminated to a fine finish.
It’s a plan that later “premium” cable channels took note of, and shortly thereafter The Sopranos came out, and it’s wild success encouraged other cable channels to make their own novels-for-television (or, as I term them, extra-long miniseries).
Anyway, it reminds me because the creator dude knew the whole thing was a long shot, especially since he might have to switch channels, wait time to finish a season or two, lose actors who went on to other things, cut costs, etc. So he ingeniously developed a self-described “trapdoor” for each character/actor, so that, if an actor left the series for whatever reason, his absence could be explained away in a planned-ahead fashion, and a back-up character inserted into their place played by another unspecified actor; that way continuity wouldn’t be lost due to an important character disappearing (Chuck Cunningham Syndromee) or the weirdness of having a character suddenly played by a different actor (Soap Opera Syndrome/National Lampoon Vacation Syndrome).
So the big money men support politicians who have their own built-in trapdoors. It allows them to blackmail and to pull the switch if need be. The big money men also have enough media on their side to actually make the scandal stick as opposed to being memory-holed.
So politics is basically Babylon 5. Which, if you ever watched the show, makes it all a pretty eery life-imitating-art-imitating-life thing going on.
Since most Americans worship TeeVee, until it's on TeeVee it doesn't really exist...
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961906
SO Rubio’s wife is a trashy, negro-loving skank?
Yet another reason never to vote for that Bambi.
I’ll bet she spends a lot of “late nights at the salon” while he just looks at her blankly and believes every word she says.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961911
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-house-speaker-dennis-hastert-indicted-over-alleged-secret-payments/2015/05/29/dad237be-05f7-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html?hpid=z1
And he is, by far, not the worst in that regard. Our selection system for political representatives is seriously out of whack.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961912
It's a lot like tennis vs golf. Gays in golf is a rarity because of the demographics. Old, fat men walking around in clothing that is not revealing, or too revealing. Versus younger in shape athletes. Wrestling is like tennis in that regard except the clothing is less and tighter, and the sport involves dominating or being dominated by in-shape sweaty men. This must be like a dream pastime for a lot of gays. Hence a significant amount of closeted gays involved with grappling sports.
As for wrestling vs team sports in business or on your platoon, I would not underrate a good wrestler. If they are intelligent, you know they have a great work ethic, are very goal oriented and are self-motivated. I love having those sorts of people on my team. If I don't hold up my end they are liable to do what is necessary to achieve the team objective anyway.
IN GENERAL, wrestlers make superb warriors. But where there are matters of life and death at hand, I prefer team sport athletes who make good soldiers, even if they might be lesser warriors.
The times I went to watch him wrestle it was quite clear that the number of illegal and underhanded moves and holds away from the referee rivalled those in the WWE. Ball grabs, the "shocker", limb twisting, the face rake, etc. were happening in almost every match. But a lot of these happened to me at the bottom of the pile while playing high school football back in the day. Wrestlers may or may not pull dirty tricks more than those in other sports, but, given the one-on-one nature of the sport, they tend to be more obvious.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961913
We often hear of blackmailing officials in other countries, and corruption or bribery, but not as often in the US. The explanatory power of “we just don’t hear about what goes on in the US” vs “it only happens rarely in the US”, it seems to me the former has more heft to it.
Our political class doesn’t seem to be the sorts that are restrained in their appetites, and as the federal government has acquired vast power and money, making it a lucrative target. This includes both foreign and domestic actors.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961919
Looks like Hastert enjoyed greek life as a young man.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961933
Unz has the right of this, no way these guys aren’t owned.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961935
Churchill spent his years in the wilderness doing everything he could to get back on the inside. He spent much of his life hatching ambitious schemes to get ahead.
This is the first place I’d look for an intersection between acting and politics.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961939
For example it’s very widely rumored that Hillary Clinton has lesbian relationships. Chat with some police assigned to duty at Clinton events over the past couple decades and they’ll say she’s on the down low. That was the subtext of the recently released Hillary email, which describes a Monica Langley interview with Hillary:
Huma Abedin is widely rumored to be a lover. Michele Bachman has asserted that several in her family are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood; I know nothing about the facts of that, but the first couple of mainstream media stories I clicked on were long on bluster directed against Bachman but short on information, and Andy McCarthy notes some basis to the charges:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/354351/huma-unmentionables-andrew-c-mccarthy
Given that multiple foreign intelligence agencies were in her homebrew mail server I think it very likely that any email pillowtalk between the two is in their hands.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961940
Also, re:lagertha, women do not have well tuned gaydar. Good looking men have the best tuned gaydar because they are accustomed to being hit on by gays, usually with a period of uncomfortable over-friendliness, looks, mannerisms and innuendos advanced first. This is the best training for your gaydar (the ‘but how do you know?’ Problem is solved by the propositioning that will come at the end if you let it get that far) and is something that women will never receive for obvious reasons.
Women probably have a ‘cheating husband detector’ or caddar for similar reasons though I have not heard it referenced before. But it is not tuned to gays because gays have different mannerisms.
If you have never seen ‘the ambiguously gay duo’ of SNL you owe it to yourself to watch on youtube. The discussions of ‘big head’ and others as to whether ace and gary are gay is like an animated isteve thread.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961949
Wasn’t he in the army?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961957
Is there any way for Hastert to get the money back?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961973
If I remember correctly, and I do, some of the offal discovered by Sibel Edmonds included stuff involving Denny and Jan Schakowski as well, tip of the dungberg. More about bribes and arms dealing with unsavories after 9-11.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961975
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/354351/huma-unmentionables-andrew-c-mccarthy
Given that multiple foreign intelligence agencies were in her homebrew mail server I think it very likely that any email pillowtalk between the two is in their hands.
I don’t think Hillary Clinton or her supporters would be bothered too much by revelations of lesbian affairs. It’s not as if she was betraying a faithful and devoted husband or anything. It seems to be an open secret for a long time. I saw Camille Paglia say matter-of-factly on TV twenty years ago that Hillary was well known to have had affairs with other women. Even if it turned out to be false, it’s something that a lot of people believe and accept already.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961988
"Hastert made payments to conceal sexual misconduct from high school coaching years, officials say "
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-hastert-misconduct-20150529-story.html
Live boy, not dead girl, I guess?
Was this over or under the age of consent in Illinois?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961992
That’s the Big Reveal at the end of Joe Klein’s “Anonymous” roman a clef novel “Primary Colors.”
It still has the capacity to cause problems for candidates of either party. The party of the fringes does not consist solely of SWPLs and uses as electoral muscle coalition partners that are not agreeable to homosexuality.
Given the benefits to those who have proof of behaviors like this by various commercial, ideological, or foreign actors, one wonders how much of the political class is compromised. Suppose, for example, that Bill Clinton flew to an island owned by Jeffery Epstein with some nymphets and spent a few nights in a house with an extensive video recording system.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-961996
It reminds me of the dude who created the TV series Babylon 5.
The creator said he wanted to create "a novel for television"; he had the story lines and plot and characters all mapped out from the start, and even had a time limit on the series (5 years). Miraculously, he was able to pull it off: 5 solid years of a story that culminated to a fine finish.
It's a plan that later "premium" cable channels took note of, and shortly thereafter The Sopranos came out, and it's wild success encouraged other cable channels to make their own novels-for-television (or, as I term them, extra-long miniseries).
Anyway, it reminds me because the creator dude knew the whole thing was a long shot, especially since he might have to switch channels, wait time to finish a season or two, lose actors who went on to other things, cut costs, etc. So he ingeniously developed a self-described "trapdoor" for each character/actor, so that, if an actor left the series for whatever reason, his absence could be explained away in a planned-ahead fashion, and a back-up character inserted into their place played by another unspecified actor; that way continuity wouldn't be lost due to an important character disappearing (Chuck Cunningham Syndromee) or the weirdness of having a character suddenly played by a different actor (Soap Opera Syndrome/National Lampoon Vacation Syndrome).
So the big money men support politicians who have their own built-in trapdoors. It allows them to blackmail and to pull the switch if need be. The big money men also have enough media on their side to actually make the scandal stick as opposed to being memory-holed.
So politics is basically Babylon 5. Which, if you ever watched the show, makes it all a pretty eery life-imitating-art-imitating-life thing going on.
Yeah I bet you watch Babylon 5, whorefinder. What’s incredible is that an interesting insight can come from a whorefinder like you. Almost like a retarded development of a male mind that might have turned out pretty fine if he could have found any whores before he, ya know, became an Alpha whorefinder like you.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962002
*Sleazy fundraising.
*Betrayal of allies.
*Lying about everything and maintaining public pieties.
*Non stop career advancement.
*Narcisism to the Nth degree.
*Machiavellian traits and seeing people as objects to be used.
*Disdain for any high ideals or truths.
*A great appetite for risk.
Given that, it would seem decent, ordinary people would be (and are) repulsed by politics and only those predisposed to do awful stuff are funneled into politics. Thus, nearly all politicians by their very nature have engaged in both risky and sleazy things that makes them ample blackmail material.
The only exceptions seem to be people with big success in other areas seeing politics as a capstone to a life well lived (Reagan, Ike), Statesman called to save their nation (Churchill, De Gaulle), or time-servers elevated by accident who otherwise have no ambition (Truman, Carter) regarding sleazy and depraved things worthy of blackmail.
Fundamentally however politics requires politicians to lie about PC/Diversity pieties and embrace them knowing they are lies from their own lives. This guarantees either supremely stupid people or the very worst.
“…nearly all politicians by their very nature have engaged in both risky and sleazy things that makes them ample blackmail material.
The only exceptions seem to be people with big success in other areas seeing politics as a capstone to a life well lived (Reagan, Ike), Statesman called to save their nation (Churchill, De Gaulle), or time-servers elevated by accident who otherwise have no ambition (Truman, Carter)…”
LOL, the idea that Jimmy Carter just kinda stumbled onto the Presidency, for which he lacked any ambition, is hilarious stuff. The guy was stumping across rural Iowa in the spring of 1975, almost a year prior to their caucuses. Just because guys like Carter, or McGovern, seem like nice fellows, doesn’t mean they lack ambition. They both fought like demons, in order to obtain their party’s Presidential nomination.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962005
It reminds me of the dude who created the TV series Babylon 5.
The creator said he wanted to create "a novel for television"; he had the story lines and plot and characters all mapped out from the start, and even had a time limit on the series (5 years). Miraculously, he was able to pull it off: 5 solid years of a story that culminated to a fine finish.
It's a plan that later "premium" cable channels took note of, and shortly thereafter The Sopranos came out, and it's wild success encouraged other cable channels to make their own novels-for-television (or, as I term them, extra-long miniseries).
Anyway, it reminds me because the creator dude knew the whole thing was a long shot, especially since he might have to switch channels, wait time to finish a season or two, lose actors who went on to other things, cut costs, etc. So he ingeniously developed a self-described "trapdoor" for each character/actor, so that, if an actor left the series for whatever reason, his absence could be explained away in a planned-ahead fashion, and a back-up character inserted into their place played by another unspecified actor; that way continuity wouldn't be lost due to an important character disappearing (Chuck Cunningham Syndromee) or the weirdness of having a character suddenly played by a different actor (Soap Opera Syndrome/National Lampoon Vacation Syndrome).
So the big money men support politicians who have their own built-in trapdoors. It allows them to blackmail and to pull the switch if need be. The big money men also have enough media on their side to actually make the scandal stick as opposed to being memory-holed.
So politics is basically Babylon 5. Which, if you ever watched the show, makes it all a pretty eery life-imitating-art-imitating-life thing going on.
That’s a very crucial point. These political blackmail strategies only work if you control enough media to activate them. For example, a *vast* number of gigantic and and massively documented scandals regarding high-ranking political figures have come out over the decades, but they’ve never gotten any major traction because the MSM has just dismissed them all as being “crazy conspiracy theories.”
Since most Americans worship TeeVee, until it’s on TeeVee it doesn’t really exist…
In reality, members of congress get indicted or arrested all the time. No, seriously; there is rarely a downtime when a current or former member of the legislature isn't being hauled up on serious charges. I'm talking every year, people. But the press rarely covers it unless they have an ulterior motive. Barney Frank 's live-in boyfriend literally ran a gay brothel from their home and no one in the media talked about it!
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962008
Our political class doesn't seem to be the sorts that are restrained in their appetites, and as the federal government has acquired vast power and money, making it a lucrative target. This includes both foreign and domestic actors.
Well, that’s exactly what Syd Schanberg told me a few years back, namely that the elite American media outlets were very eager to reveal massive scandals and corruption on the other side of the world, but much less willing to cover such things closer to home, the closer the less willing. And as a Pulitzer-Prize winning former top editor at the New York Times, I suspect he probably knew what he was talking about…
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962012
“The Turks refused to let the 4th Infantry Division launch from Turkey into northern Iraq in 2003. Consequently it had to be redeployed to Kuwait and we did not get to kick off the 2003 invasion with a large northern invasion force. So much for using Turkey for power projection.”
Oh, OK.
I’ll bet if Iraqi intelligence had been shown to have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, Turkey would have allowed us to invade Iraq from the north, and might have even sent a brigade or two themselves. Just because they aren’t our slaves, ones who go along with every goofball notion we concoct, does not mean they are devoid of strategic value.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962030
I am surprised by how many people assume that homosexual men are not interested in participating in combat sports. (I guess because they might “break a nail”.)
Remember, around 3.5% of any broad population sample is expected to be homosexual; among men the percentage may be somewhat higher as apparently gay men are more numerous than strictly lesbian women. So if, say, about 1 in 25 amateur wrestlers are gay that is essentially equal likelihood of participation.
In my experience most gay men are not conspicuously gay. And of those men, there’s a fair percentage who are interested in high-adrenaline/ultra-macho/extreme activities. Unfortunately, people often stereotype gay men based on the behavioral tendencies of the conspicuously gay (dance, ice skating, musical theater, fashion) rather than low-profile gay men.
This is compounded by subconscious comparison with lesbian women, who show much higher likelihood of interest and success in competitive sports than their heterosexual compatriots, while gay men are roughly comparable to straight men.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962037
Your logic astounds me. Thank you, good sir, for sharing. We are all now dumber for having read that.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962038
Since most Americans worship TeeVee, until it's on TeeVee it doesn't really exist...
I love when movies or TV shows make a huge deal of the politician at the center of the story being indicted or arrested or put in jail.
In reality, members of congress get indicted or arrested all the time. No, seriously; there is rarely a downtime when a current or former member of the legislature isn’t being hauled up on serious charges. I’m talking every year, people. But the press rarely covers it unless they have an ulterior motive. Barney Frank ‘s live-in boyfriend literally ran a gay brothel from their home and no one in the media talked about it!
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962044
Yes–this has always been a word of mouth rumor, or wrapped in the deniability of a novel, but very rarely addressed in press outlets. So we have something quite probably true, but not reported upon, including when possibly ideologically hostile partners are involved.
It still has the capacity to cause problems for candidates of either party. The party of the fringes does not consist solely of SWPLs and uses as electoral muscle coalition partners that are not agreeable to homosexuality.
Given the benefits to those who have proof of behaviors like this by various commercial, ideological, or foreign actors, one wonders how much of the political class is compromised. Suppose, for example, that Bill Clinton flew to an island owned by Jeffery Epstein with some nymphets and spent a few nights in a house with an extensive video recording system.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962045
Sibel Edmonds is one of the most interesting people to surface for decades.
She’s the most classified person on the face of the globe.
http://www.classifiedwoman.com/
Even the political filth acknowledge there’s something there.
Here’s her day to day blog:
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/
Here’s the wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962075
Oh, OK.
I'll bet if Iraqi intelligence had been shown to have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, Turkey would have allowed us to invade Iraq from the north, and might have even sent a brigade or two themselves. Just because they aren't our slaves, ones who go along with every goofball notion we concoct, does not mean they are devoid of strategic value.
If we had a real foreign policy the Turks would be paying for that betrayal. Like being kicked out of NATO, losing any western foreign aid, or at least being denied any new Western weapons.
NATO is supposed to be a defensive treaty. I see nothing, either treaty-related, or in terms of general friendship between our two nations, that places even an implied obigation on Turkey, to assist us in inadvertently pushing our country further down the road to national catastrophe, while we launch a needless war of aggression against one of Turkey's neighbors. As a patriotic American, I don't begrudge them their refusal one iota. Of course, had Iraqi intelligence been shown to have been behind the 9/11 attacks, and Turkey still balked, then everything you indicated above, would not only make sense, but might've actually been too lenient.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962080
Turkey will always be the evil, duplicitous, backward country I know it is, and, it proves itself to be everyday. I fart in your general direction.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962173
Why do people still laud Churchill, he was a evil sociopath!
He’s like Kissinger, another sociopath…
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962289
Individuals are be paid based on productivity, not power. Politicians should be paid less than zero because they destroy productivity.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962444
US Special Operations teams have an insane proportion of wrestlers among their ranks. Collegiate wrestlers are well overrepresented in that world, and that subset of warfare is the ultimate “team sport”. So I don’t think your theory holds.
2. SOCOM is full of ass-kicking ninjas, so it's obviously full of never-say-die tough athletes, including wrestlers and not just wrestlers.
3. A lot of SOCOM guys are, er, shall we say, a bit off, and are not the usual yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full, sir-type. So it's not a typical military organization (hence the "Special").
Do you know about the smart-stupid, hardworking-lazy matrix? Per that matrix, typically (regular) military officers are smart and lazy while enlisted are stupid and hardworking. Well, SOCOM guys are smart and hardworking types. You absolutely need people like that in the military, but a whole military full of such people can at times lead to calamity (and in case you are wondering about the last quadrant, you don't want the stupid and lazy - you cashier them out wherever you find them).
4. Obviously, it comes down to the individual in terms of evaluations. But it's still my experience that, IN GENERAL, wrestling breeds a lot of rule-breaking dicks out for their own glory while team sports tend to breed people who understand they are sometimes but a tiny grain of sand on the beach (and that the beach is what matters). So, like I said, warriors vs. soldiers. Warriors are very special people who have their place in the military and the society at large. They are very nice to have and are a great force-multiplier, indeed, but are not as essential as soldiers, e.g. the ordinary infantryman who follows orders, bayonets our enemy's peons, and stands guard at the perimeter through hours of mindless boredom.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962461
Turkey (like the US apparently) is byzantine. There’s always something going on below the surface.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962595
“If we had a real foreign policy the Turks would be paying for that betrayal. Like being kicked out of NATO, losing any western foreign aid, or at least being denied any new Western weapons.”
NATO is supposed to be a defensive treaty. I see nothing, either treaty-related, or in terms of general friendship between our two nations, that places even an implied obigation on Turkey, to assist us in inadvertently pushing our country further down the road to national catastrophe, while we launch a needless war of aggression against one of Turkey’s neighbors. As a patriotic American, I don’t begrudge them their refusal one iota. Of course, had Iraqi intelligence been shown to have been behind the 9/11 attacks, and Turkey still balked, then everything you indicated above, would not only make sense, but might’ve actually been too lenient.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962675
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-house-speaker-dennis-hastert-indicted-over-alleged-secret-payments/2015/05/29/dad237be-05f7-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html?hpid=z1
He’s going to need at least 1/4 of it for legal expenses.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962705
If it were something that happened in Congress, wouldn’t the statute of limitations have run? Probably so, unless there is a crime against a minor, which would mean a longer statute of limitations….
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-962886
Why would you claim that “the incidents in question appear to have happened after Hastert left office”, as a basis for your subsequent decvlarative refutation of blackmail as a control vector for Hastert throughout his entire career??
You could not possibly have known what the allegations related to, either apparently or actually. So my presumption is that you have some need to appear authoritative, or to run cover for Hastert (or ‘Team Blue’ generally), or a combination of both.
We now know – with 100% certainty – that they relate to his period as a not-even-remotely-gay-I’m-SHOCKED-that-you-would-make-such-a-scurrilous-claim high-school teacher and wrasslin’ coach. It’s not even debatable, and if you were trying to help control the narrative arc, you failed to appreciate how good the internet is at finding stuff out.
Not for nothin’: Dubya (George the Turd) was a male cheerleader (a group not exactly renowned for rampant heterosexuality) and Rumsfeld was also a wrasslin’ coach. What is it with megalomaniacs and sweaty teenage boys?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-963206
Which dovetails nicely with what I saw with my nephew’s wrestling and football teammates. The bulk of the football team went to college, while 5 members of his wrestling team seniors went into the service.
The times I went to watch him wrestle it was quite clear that the number of illegal and underhanded moves and holds away from the referee rivalled those in the WWE. Ball grabs, the “shocker”, limb twisting, the face rake, etc. were happening in almost every match. But a lot of these happened to me at the bottom of the pile while playing high school football back in the day. Wrestlers may or may not pull dirty tricks more than those in other sports, but, given the one-on-one nature of the sport, they tend to be more obvious.
I've seen lots of rule-breaking at college wrestling meets (which I used to watch a lot back in the day) *right in front of the ref* with him doing zilich about them. And as I wrote before, "unnecessary roughness" also happens with some regularity at Judo matches, but unlike wrestling, Judo has that whole institutional "Budo spirit" thing going on, so there is some censure against obviously egregious cheating. So I think that cuts down some, but not all, of the dirty moves.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-963408
1. One of the men I admire the most is Major Douglas Zembiec, a Marine and an officer of the CIA NCS (may God rest his soul). He was a New Mexico state high school wrestling champion and wrestled at Annapolis. Of course there are wrestlers who are great team players.
2. SOCOM is full of ass-kicking ninjas, so it’s obviously full of never-say-die tough athletes, including wrestlers and not just wrestlers.
3. A lot of SOCOM guys are, er, shall we say, a bit off, and are not the usual yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full, sir-type. So it’s not a typical military organization (hence the “Special”).
Do you know about the smart-stupid, hardworking-lazy matrix? Per that matrix, typically (regular) military officers are smart and lazy while enlisted are stupid and hardworking. Well, SOCOM guys are smart and hardworking types. You absolutely need people like that in the military, but a whole military full of such people can at times lead to calamity (and in case you are wondering about the last quadrant, you don’t want the stupid and lazy – you cashier them out wherever you find them).
4. Obviously, it comes down to the individual in terms of evaluations. But it’s still my experience that, IN GENERAL, wrestling breeds a lot of rule-breaking dicks out for their own glory while team sports tend to breed people who understand they are sometimes but a tiny grain of sand on the beach (and that the beach is what matters). So, like I said, warriors vs. soldiers. Warriors are very special people who have their place in the military and the society at large. They are very nice to have and are a great force-multiplier, indeed, but are not as essential as soldiers, e.g. the ordinary infantryman who follows orders, bayonets our enemy’s peons, and stands guard at the perimeter through hours of mindless boredom.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-964181
[…] Unz is correct that many of the folks involved in national politics are hiding sordid parts of their past. As we […]
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-964385
The CIAs venture arm In-Q-Tel was an early investor in Google.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-964408
The times I went to watch him wrestle it was quite clear that the number of illegal and underhanded moves and holds away from the referee rivalled those in the WWE. Ball grabs, the "shocker", limb twisting, the face rake, etc. were happening in almost every match. But a lot of these happened to me at the bottom of the pile while playing high school football back in the day. Wrestlers may or may not pull dirty tricks more than those in other sports, but, given the one-on-one nature of the sport, they tend to be more obvious.
When I trained for two off-seasons with wrestlers from a top Midwestern college program, I was initially take aback by just how unnecessarily rough they were. Then several of them basically told me the same thing: “You ain’t trying if you aren’t cheating.”
Maybe. But the fact that team sports cheaters have to go to some lengths to hide their rule-breaking may very well be an indication, in the first place, that 1) cheating is not as frequent as in wrestling and 2) it is not tolerated to the same level.
I’ve seen lots of rule-breaking at college wrestling meets (which I used to watch a lot back in the day) *right in front of the ref* with him doing zilich about them. And as I wrote before, “unnecessary roughness” also happens with some regularity at Judo matches, but unlike wrestling, Judo has that whole institutional “Budo spirit” thing going on, so there is some censure against obviously egregious cheating. So I think that cuts down some, but not all, of the dirty moves.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-967152
[…] Steve Sailer writes: […]
http://www.unz.com/isteve/paging-ron-unz/#comment-969314