A Friday LinkSwarm on Friday. Will wonders never cease?
LinkSwarm for August 16, 2013
August 16th, 2013Egypt’s Death Toll: 500 and Rising
August 15th, 2013And the violence continues apace in Egypt. Egypt’s government cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood, the brotherhood looting government buildings and attacking the Christian Coptic minority. And assaulting the occasional journalist taking their picture.
Looking for insight as to what Obama should do? Sorry, all out of insight today. The best thing to do is stay the hell out of the way, make the usual meaningless appeals for calm as a sop to the “international community,” and let things run their course. Which seems to be pretty much what Obama is doing, either through calculation, incompetence, or indifference.
This, in fact, is the way politics is conducted in the Middle East: Two factions kill each other until one is weakened enough to stop fighting. It’s in our interest to see as many of the Bad Guys (Muslim Brotherhood) killed by the Not Nearly As Bad Guys (Egyptian military) as possible.
Sorry I couldn’t be more cheerful. Here’s a cute dog video compilation to make up for it.
Egypt Blowing Up Again
August 14th, 2013NRO has running updates. Civilian death toll at 245, security forces death toll at 43.
Here’s your generic Middle East conflict video montage:
(Note: I originally had a completely different generic Middle East conflict video montage there, but AFP evidently doesn’t like embedding videos.)
It was always wishful thinking that the Muslim Brotherhood was going to relinquish its grip on power without a fight. The only question now is how many dead, and how many of its top leadership the Egyptian military is going to kill.
Egypt should count itself lucky that Mohammed Morsi was so stupidly impatient. If he had only followed Erdogan’s lead, he could have slowly but steadily consolidated his rule while pushing the military out of the picture. Now he’s toast, and we can only hope his fellow Islamists get pushed out of power-sharing entirely.
Wendy Davis for Governor Boomlet Continues Apace
August 14th, 2013Wendy Davis slouches closer to running for Governor. In fact, with the Texas Democratic Party officially begging her to get in, I think it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point.
I think she will get in and get slaughtered by Greg Abbott in the general election in 2014. I think her partisans have severely overestimated how Abortion Barbie’s signature issue and liberal politics will play statewide. Also expect Democrats to field a collection of nobodies in down-ballot statewide races, assuming they bother to recruit anyone at all; remember, they failed to even field candidates in many 2012 races.
In addition, I hope Democratic partisans nationwide pump enough money into her campaign to weaken them elsewhere; far better for Wendy Davis get that money than, say, Mary Landrieu.
Despite that, I think it probably is the best decision for her politically. A losing race for Governor is going to give her a lot more national exposure and access to donors than another state senate campaign ever would.
My prediction is that by 2015, she’s going to have her own show on MSNBC.
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before
August 13th, 2013“Travis County prosecutor charged with DWI.”
A prosecutor with the Travis County District Attorney’s Office was charged with driving while intoxicated after being involved in a traffic wreck over the weekend.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit released Monday, Brandon Grunewald, 33, was in a collision Sunday afternoon on the southbound MoPac Boulevard service road near Barton Skyway, Grunewald was driving a 2008 Land Rover. The other driver was in a Mini Cooper.
And what did his boss have to say?
Grunewald’s boss, Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said she is reviewing his case
“It’s a first offense DWI and I don’t know what will happen until I have all the facts,” explained Lehmberg. “I have never terminated an employee for a first offense DWI and we have had employees with first offense DWI up and down the ranks.”
Indeed.
You know, I don’t think I’ve worked anywhere where “people up and down the chain of command” had “first-time” DWIs.
Sadly, Mr. Grunewald was not reported to have stamped his feet and implored the police to “Call Greg!”
(Hat tip: Blue Dot Blues.)
Shut Up White Women!
(or The #solidarityisforwhitewomen Tag And What It Means)
August 13th, 2013
Last night the #solidarityisforwhitewomen tag raced to the top of the Twitter trending chart, treating people not only to an amusing left-on-left slap fight, but also providing a glimpse into the fever swamps of far-left victimhood identity politics.
It’s an unholy marriage of Marxism and racial identity politics, brewed and decanted among far-left community organizers and tenured faculty members. The basic idea is that victimhood equals saintliness, in that the more of a victim you are, the less of a white capitalist hetronormative patriarchal oppressor you are. (Feel free to add another dozen or so far-left buzzwords to the preceding sentence.) This is done both in order to assert who has the greater moral claim on the spoils of big government, and to cow others and guilt-trip them into giving in to your demands, because black victimhood automatically trumps white privilege, etc. It’s also to keep people firmly ensconced in the left’s group-think herd mentality rather than thinking critically. It’s the language of thought-terminating cliches, designed to end debate by placing those employing it higher on the hierarchy of victimhood than those it is deployed against.
As for what brought on this hashtag, well, it’s a rich, zesty, resentful stew of left-wing grievance-mongering.
Part of it seems to be backlash over all the attention lavished on Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg’s “how to have it all by climbing the corporate ladder to CEO and still having children while promoting the sisterhood” book, which seems particularly near and dear to the hearts of white female business writers everywhere.
When Lean In takes up all the feminist oxygen for weeks and WF don't get why WOC aren't excited and celebrating. #solidarityisforwhitewomen
— abaran76 (@abaran76) August 13, 2013
#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen is when Sheryl Sandberg never thanks her Hispanic nannies in "Lean In." http://t.co/4QtQS2OPVh
— Danger and Play (@PlayDangerously) August 12, 2013
#solidarityisforwhitewomen is being told by a white woman that the book 'Lean In' speaks to all of us; she's offended when I tell her not me
— Kimberia Sherva (@ridingburritos) August 12, 2013
Part of it seems to stem from some white feminists actually daring to be critical of radical Islam, which (for complex and mysterious reasons) seems to trump white feminism on the hierarchy of victimhood.
#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen when fellow "feminists", not Islam, are the ones making Muslim women feel oppressed #idontneedsaving
— Humera (@whooo_meee) August 12, 2013
#SolidarityisforWhiteWomen when they are silent on the occupation of Palestinian women, checkpoint births & unequal rights.
— Wi'am☮وئام (@VivaPalestina26) August 13, 2013
Iraq, Pakistan, Uganda and Afghanistan have a higher % of women in the government than the US & UK. #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen #Women
— zeshan ahmed chaudry (@zeeshanahmed84) August 13, 2013
The topless activists of Femen seem a particular object of their ire:
Interpreting racist, hate filled, orientalism #Femen as feminist movement. #solidarityisforwhitewomen
— سعيدة (@xSyedaMiah) August 12, 2013
FEMEN belongs in the #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen bag. With their 'european values of freedom and equality'.
— Selin Kara (@Selintifada) August 12, 2013
For some reason, something Amanda Marcotte did in 2008 still seems to be a fresh wound in the minds of many:
#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen when the trauma of WOC is treated as a commodity. Why yes, I'm pointing at you @AmandaMarcotte
— Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) August 12, 2013
And it’s just a chance to grind the usual left-wing axes some more:
#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen who support Zionist genocide of PALESTINIANS cuz if US whites decimated indigenous people, Israel should too
— Liza Sabater (@blogdiva) August 13, 2013
#Zimmerman shot #Trayvon and then white women shot him again. We will NEVER FORGET, privileged pigs. #solidarityisforwhitewomen
— Modern Leftist (@ModernLeftist) August 13, 2013
When mainstream feminist orgs aren't concerned abt the end of family caps for welfare recipients & cuts to #SNAP #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen
— Amanda Reyes (@gardengnomey) August 13, 2013
And this is particularly gratifying for those of us on the Vast Right Wing:
#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen is why WOCs had betta support #Hilary2016. OR ELSE!
— Black Canseco (@BlackCanseco) August 12, 2013
It’s also amazing how often some variant “You shut up” is deployed for any white women who happen to have some objection to this mass race-based mobbing.
Fellow White Women: Sit down, shut up, and listen. http://t.co/xOkOlCmEjY #solidarityisforwhitewomen
— Dani Kelley (@danileekelley) August 13, 2013
The hash tag #solidarityisforwhitewomen tells me one thing tonight. SHUT UP WHITE WOMAN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO CONTRIBUTE. #forALLwomen
— WhoopDiDoo (@WholeLottaJulie) August 13, 2013
WHITE WOMEN — SHUT UP AND LISTEN #solidarityisforwhitewomen
— Tia Keenan (@kasekaiserina) August 12, 2013
If you're a white woman writing "I like #solidarityisforwhitewomen, but they're talking about feminism wrong…" please stop typing.
— Abigail Collazo (@LeftStandingUp) August 13, 2013
Feeling literally ill reading responses from privileged white women, colorblind fuckers. SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP! #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen
— Kat B (@TranceGemini613) August 13, 2013
The lesson: On the far left, you are not allowed to speak when your superiors on the victim hierarchy chart are speaking. As usual on the far-left, “let’s have a dialog on race” turns out to mean “you’ll shut up and listen while I condemn you, bigot.”
Of course, underlying all of this is a real truth that none dare speak out loud: The Democratic Party as currently constructed spreads the benefits of its patronage disproportionately to old white politicians and their favored cronies. Just look at the paleness of hue of all those green energy subsidy recipients. Why, think of all the community organizing and diversity consulting sinecures that money could have underwritten! The Pigford scandal is a drop in the bucket by comparison. The Hillary Clintons, Harry Reids and Nancy Pelosis are always going to have first call at the trough of big government largess, because that’s the way the Democratic Party’s spoil system works.
But above all, this blue internecine warfare is designed to do one thing: to keep those on the identity politics left as part of the herd. Those fixated on victimhood and inter-feminist doctrinal differences are far less likely to question why their policies have failed so badly when allowed to run their course in Detroit, or why 72% of blacks are born out of wedlock, thanks in large measure to to the welfare state.
More commentary from Twitchy.
“The conservative wing of the Democratic Party has been obliterated.”
August 12th, 2013Today the Dallas Morning News has an article hand-wringing article on why white males have abandoned the Democratic Party. The title quote is from the middle of the piece, to which one can only reply “Well, duh.”
The piece makes the usual MSM-required mention of racism, and takes until the third-to-last paragraph to quote a Republican saying “The national Democratic Party moved sharply to the left.”
Ask yourself: What conservative Democrat of, say, 35 years ago, would back an agenda of trillion dollar deficits, illegal alien amnesty, gay marriage, and taxpayer funded abortions? Pretty much none, especially not in the rural areas Democrats used to dominate. It’s all-but-impossible to envision conservative Democratic stalwarts like Charlie Wilson or Allan Shivers back today’s Democratic Party. Add to the fact that liberals have ruthlessly purged Blue Dog Democrats from the party, and you realize that conservatives didn’t leave the Democratic Party; they were pushed out.
Sales Tax Holiday This Weekend in Texas
August 9th, 2013Today through Sunday are Texas’ annual tax-free weekend. Mostly on clothes and school supplies. Take advantage while you can.
Statewide Race Roundup for August 9, 2013
August 9th, 2013Time for another quick roundup of statewide race news:
Which strikes me as well-produced, but pretty generic. Can’t see why any reasonable person would find it even remotely objectionable.
Q: What Does Harassing Gun Owners Earn Journalists? A: A Pink Slip
August 8th, 2013Hey, remember when New York newspaper the Rockland County Journal News published a map showing the locations of gun permit owners?
Well, today the newspaper laid off 26 staffers, including Chief Editor Caryn McBride, who published and vocally defended the story.
This is a reoccurring theme. Remember Rebecca Aguilar, the Dallas reporter who harassed a lawful gun-owner on air for having the sheer effrontery to defend himself from a criminal using deadly force? She got a pink slip too.
Funny how attacking millions of law-abiding readers is a career-ending move for journalists…