I had an entire set of stuff lined up for yesterday’s LinkSwarm, but in the rush of amnesty-related news I managed to forget to paste it into the right file. D’oh!
So enjoy your rare complimentary Weekend LinkSwarm!
A few more bits of 2014 election analysis:
I hit Instapundit this morning, and guess who the banner ad was attacking?
That’s right: An anti-Greg Abbott, pro-Wendy Davis ad on Instapundit! That’s some mighty fine use of targeted advertising, Wendy Davis campaign!
Next up: A Jewish Defense League fundraising appeal on Al Jazerra…
Robert Stacy McCain first alerted me to Nina Burleigh’s amazingly irrational screed on the “Women Against Feminism” movement. Which, in turn, linked to this women against feminism tmblr, which Burleigh describes as “selfies of young women, dressed and posed like ads for DIY escort services.”
Later on she says that “Everything about Women Against Feminism suggests it’s a sock puppet for the aggrieved misogynists and pedophiles of the anti-feminist men’s rights crowd. The main clue is that almost all the women on the site are nubile and posed in ways that fulfill dirty old men’s wildest dreams about pliant young things.”
Set aside the fact that Burleigh’s sole claim to fame is offering to give Bill Cinton a blowjob. Go look at that tmblr she links to. Really, go look at it.
So where are all those women “dressed and posed like ads for DIY escort services?” Not only do I not see any, I don’t see any pics that any remotely rational viewer could construe as such.
In fact, let me post the very most salacious pic I could find on that entire tmblr. Ready? (“Don’t look, Ethel!”)
That’s it. That’s the closest I could find to Burleigh’s “escort” poses.
That tmblr consists of perfectly normal, non-slutty women holding up signs she disagrees with, none of whom remotely look like they’re “dressed and posed like ads for DIY escort services.”
So, in summary: #WomenAgainstFeminism supporters are pedophiles because its women are younger and prettier than @ninaburleigh. @rsmccain
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) July 31, 2014
Instapundit weighs in as well:
To a certain class of women in the media, it’s always about them, and their various mucous membranes.
Which, speaking of psychosexual theories, may explain Burleigh’s reaction to Women Against Feminism. Just check out the pictures; I’m sure these young women need to check their “prettiness privilege” or something. And I think that’s what’s going on with Nina Burleigh. When she, and her generation of feminists, could exercise sexual power directly (see above) it was all “you go, girl!” Now that they’re getting past that age, they’re falling back on the standard refuge of older women: Slut-shaming younger women who try to do the same. Older women have, of course, always tried to limit the sexual power of younger women, for fairly obvious reasons. This is just more of the same.
Plus this: “From the comments: “For Burleigh and her crowd I propose a new hashtag: #shrewculture. You know what to do, Internet.”
Nina Burleigh’s feminist politics seem to have so warped her worldview that she can’t even perceive reality clearly anymore. Perhaps she should consider seeking professional help…
These seem like parts of he same story:
If you are receiving this email, it means you ordered a copy of my book. Yet no one has received any copies yet, and I owe you an explanation why.
I am presently legally barred from fulfilling the order. The South Carolina lawyer disciplinary authorities—government officials—have determined that my political and religious commentary is “unethical.” I am legally barred from sending you a copy of my book at this time. (Well, I could send you a copy, but I could be disbarred for it.)
This is the culmination of a two year secret investigation of me by the South Carolina Commission on Lawyer Conduct and the South Carolina Office of Disciplinary Counsel, two entities that have taken the position that the First Amendment simply does not apply to lawyers. Unsurprisingly, no Democrat lawyers have been targeted so far as I know, and the people in charge of the South Carolina Office of Disciplinary Counsel have solid Democrat voting histories.
I encourage you to do discuss this matter in public and on Twitter and Facebook, and you are free to contact the people involved to complain. Here are some excellent talking points: (1) This is just like the IRS Tea Party targeting scandal, because I am being targeted for my political commentary but absolutely no Democrat lawyers are being targeted. (2) Anyone with half a brain understands that the genuinely offensive things I say are merely to provoke the Left and are my distinctive brand of political commentary. (3) If my political activism wasn’t effective, no one would be trying to shut me up. (4) Unlike the Mozilla controversy and other examples of private boycotts, the South Carolina lawyer disciplinary authorities are government agents who are punishing private citizens for political and religious advocacy that is not to their liking. (5) This is book burning, plain and simple. (6) If I lose my right to speak freely because I am a state licensed professional, anyone in a state licensed profession is subject to having their free speech rights taken away from them. (7) This case is one of the absolute best arguments against state licensing for professions. Once government gets its dictatorial foot in the door, everyone in the room becomes a slave to whatever group of petty tyrants happens to run that wing of government at any given point in time.
The reason for my silence about this matter until now is that I truly thought they would come to their senses about all of this. In fact, they indicated to me more than once that they would not punish me for political or religious commentary that was not to their liking, after initially demanding that I stop saying anything offensive on Twitter. (That was why I briefly stopped using profanity on Twitter in late 2012, in case you were wondering what that was all about.)
However, in early June, just as I was preparing to send out my book, I received an unexpected notice from the South Carolina Office of Disciplinary Counsel that the investigation was going to continue because of comments I made on Twitter regarding a left wing political activist named Col. Morris Davis, a frequent guest on MSNBC. (I have no indication that Col. Davis has anything to do with this—it appears a supporter of his filed a bar complaint on me, the seventh or eighth complaint filed on me in recent times.)
As a result of all this, I have prepared and filed a lawsuit in federal court. Please read the attached complaint that was filed earlier this evening. I will fight this matter all the way to the United States Supreme Court if I have to. Surrender is not in my DNA. However, I have no choice but to stop tweeting and hold off sending out copies of my book or engaging in any other advocacy until the federal court gives me clearance to do so without fear of professional repercussions.
#SalonExcuses What right-wing libertarian theocrats call "parody" is nothing more than an effort to silence marginalized voices.
— Popehat (@Popehat) July 16, 2014
Why Parody Should Be Regulated and Progressives Should Be the Regulators http://t.co/0Kbj5P99TH #FreeSalonDotCom
— SalonDotCommie (@IloiloKano) July 17, 2014
Noam Chomsky explains how communism has been ruined by white privilege. #Freesalondotcom
— Hugo Hackenbush (@MangyLover) July 17, 2014
The Stealth Anti-Feminist Messaging of Dunkin Donuts, where the eclairs and bearclaws are always displayed higher than the donuts
— SalonDotComLives (@AceofSpadesHQ) July 16, 2014
Derridas And Derridon'ts: How To Avoid Linguistic Hegemony When Deconstructing Your Children's Artwork
— Popehat (@Popehat) July 16, 2014
I like to think @salon had to scrap a good 25% of upcoming stories b/c @salondotcom accidentally stole their thunder. #FreeSalondotcom
— Will Antonin (@Will_Antonin) July 17, 2014
.@Salon: Stop Laughing at Historical Hate Crimes: Why Blazing Saddles Should Be Banned
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) July 16, 2014
.@Salon If You Argue With A Gay Person Or Minority, You're Automatically Wrong #FreeSalondotcom
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) July 17, 2014
.@Salon Who's More Rabid: A Rabid Dog, Or The Gun Owner That Shoots It? #FreeSalondotcom
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) July 17, 2014
.@Salon A Second Nobel Peace Prize? Obama's Masterful Handling of The Middle East #FreeSalondotcom
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) July 17, 2014
.@Salon Why An Obscure Church With 8 Members Represents The Hate In All Christian's Hearts #FreeSalondotcom
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) July 17, 2014
A lazy LinkSwarm for the last Friday of the year:
See if you can fill in the blank for the following headline:
“Homebuilder Confidence in U.S. BLANK Fell in February”
Having trouble? Try again with the first sentence
“Confidence among U.S. homebuilders BLANK dropped in February from a more than six-year high, a sign the real-estate market will take time to accelerate.”
If you’ve been reading Instapundit for any length of time, you know exactly what the word replaced with BLANK is. And that word is “unexpectedly.”
Gee, how could anyone possibly have seen that continued high unemployment and an economy that is shrinking might negatively impact the housing market? (And of course, when the economy shrank, the shrinkage happened “unexpectedly.”)
Obama and friends keep trying and trying neo-Keynesian pump-priming and keep getting the same results: economic stagnation. While trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of madness, that doesn’t matter to them, since it allows them to continue the payoffs to cronies and interest groups that keep the Big Government Class in power (and rolling in taxpayer dough). Germany and Estonia performed no or minimal “stimulus” deficit spending and their economies are growing again. Obama and congressional Democrats have taken the opposite tack: Keep pouring money down the big government rathole and hope that results this year won’t be identical to the last four. My prediction: higher deficits, continued high unemployment and continued economic stagnation.
And each and every negative economic indicator the media will report as arriving “unexpectedly.”
Expect it.
This is the time of year when the political world is awash in polls. Some otherwise sensible Republicans take a look at those polls and go “Oh my God! Obama is up by 2! Or 5! He got a big convention bounce!”
I could wade into the murky swamps of different polling companies, different methodologies, different biases, the problem with cell phone vs. landline samples, partisan weighting screens, the comparison between citizens, registered voters and likely voters, or a dozen other variables. But I’m not going to.
Instead, one piece of advice, and one explanation.
The advice: Chill.
The explanation: Barack Obama was elected in 2008 with 52.9% of the popular vote to 45.7% for John McCain, the best popular vote margin of any Democratic Presidential contender since Lyndon Baines Johnson captured 61.1% of the vote in 1964. (People forget that Bill Clinton, for all his retrospective popularity, never broke 50% of the popular vote; Al Gore got 48.4% of the vote while losing in the electoral college in 2000.) Ignoring (for now) the electoral college and minor changes in the composition of voters, that means only 4% of the people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 need to switch their vote for Mitt Romney to win.
Do you think Obama might be 4% less popular than he was four years ago? Perhaps among those who have lost their jobs? There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Obama is less popular than he was four years ago, his inability to fill campaign events the way he used to being one, and numerous elected Democrats in tough reelection fights avoiding the DNC being another. So who are you going to believe: MSM polls or your lying eyes?
The media is desperately trying to pretend that 2010 never happened, or that it was an aberration.
The polls are part of the media trying desperately to maintain what Instapundit Glenn Reynolds calls “preference falsification,” a willingness on the part of the political and media establishment to manufacture a false consensus that (in this case) liberal policies and politicians are popular. When it comes to the current election, the question might be most crassly boiled down to “Do you support Obama, or are you a racist?” In 2010 and now we’re finally seeing a “preference cascade” of people unwilling to buy that liberal narrative. The walls are finally coming down.
Which is not to say the election is in the bag for Romney. There’s still a lot of hard work to be done, and a lot of work to make sure Republicans and anti-Obama independents get to the polls, especially in swing states. But there’s no reason to get worked up over each and every little poll. Time is not on Obama’s side.