David Cameron’s Conservative Party won an outright majority in parliamentary elections and will be forming the next government. Labour, after having managed to piss off almost everyone during last year’s vote on Scottish independence, was essentially wiped out in Scotland, all but one of their MPs replaced by candidates from the Scottish National Party, and right now is losing 26 seats. The Liberal Democrats were all but wiped out elsewhere, losing 48 seats, and UKIP managed nearly four million votes, but only a single parliamentary seat.
These were not the results which most pollsters foresaw, none of which saw the Tories getting more than 285 seats. Between this and the Israeli election results, it’s almost as if media pollsters have a systematic bias in favor of the big government parties favored by media elites…
Will Cameron govern more conservatively with an outright majority now that he no longer needs the rump of the Liberal Democrats in a coalition? Possibly. But if he reneges on his promise to hold a referendum on EU membership no later than 2017, expect to see a huge backlash against his leadership.
Did you miss the riots in Baltimore on Saturday? You know, the ones CNN and other media outlets didn’t cover because they were too busy covering the White House Correspondent’s Dinner? Because mere rioting by the uncouth peasantry must wait while the overclass is engaged in glad-handing celebration of itself.
Q: What do you call a 13-year who was the victim of a Muslim pedophile sex ring? A: “Racist.” (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)
Lutfur Rahman, the corrupt muslim Labour Mayor of Tower Hamlets, was convicted of election fraud. The Labour crew behind Tower Hamlets became so notorious for rigging elections and turning in results late that they became a running joke in UK political circles. (Hat tip: Ditto.)
Three Muslims charged with killing a woman in Houston because she helped convert a relative to Christianity.
“I would describe today’s meeting as a complete breakdown in communication with Greece.” Oh, I think Greece is communicating loud and clear: They’re completely broke, and they demand the right to continue spending other people’s money indefinitely without reforming their welfare state. What’s unclear?
And Greeks themselves are not so happy about capital controls. Well, Greeks voted for a government dedicated to the idea that the welfare state is far more sacred than the capitalism that underpins it, and now they’re starting to reap the rewards of that choice…
The Comcast/Time Warner merger is officially dead. Good. Perhaps both of them should consider offering customer service that ranks higher than “abysmal” now…
Actors quit play about Ferguson because the objective truth of the screenplay (based on the actual grand jury testimony) conflicts with their preexisting beliefs. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Another Friday, another LinkSwarm. There’s almost enough news here to break out a separate “UK child rape cover-up update,” but I found the idea too depressing…
What set off this new round of ominous Israel concern-trolling was Netanyahu’s assertion that leftist NGOs, billionaires and consultants were making sure that “Arab voters are going to the polls in droves.”
Which was a fact.
The leadership of the Arab front has openly stated that it wanted to pull together any and all factions of Israeli Arabs, including communists and Islamists, for the single political purpose of removing Israel’s prime minister. Arab political forces are free to rally to unseat Netanyahu, free to aspire to dismantle the Jewish State, but if Netanyahu mentions any of this he’s a racist undermining Israel’s formerly pristine democracy. Or so we’re told.
Charles Krauthammer on the same theme:
The Obama Administration is so desperate for a nuclear deal with Iran that they’ve dropped Iran and Hezbollah from the terrorist organization list.
“If you want to know what Hillary Clinton would be like as president, you’re seeing it right now. There is no other Hillary. This is her.” Also: “What this utterly typical PR fiasco shows is that what they’ll actually get is familiar, tired, pathetic, dishonest, and embarrassing.”
“Hillary, I’m not disappointed that you’re lying. I’m disappointed that you’re phoning in your lies.”
Some people just can’t learn from the mistakes of others. Even when the other is Anthony Weiner. And you’re a Democratic lawmaker. And you’re hitting on the same woman Weiner hit on.
The new, not-improved New Republic to create stories to order for advertisers? Honestly, selling the magazine to Rush Limbaugh wouldn’t have been quite so dishonorable to the magazine’s memory… (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
If you hadn’t heard about it on this side of the pond, BBC Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended over a “fracas” (supposedly involving a thrown punch) with one of the show’s producers. Given that the actual details still haven’t been shared, it’s hard to say how serious the incident was.
TV star behaving badly, details at ten. You wouldn’t think it would have been more than a brief news blip, but instead it’s turned into a seven day furor as UK’s progressives howled for Clarkson to be fired over the incident and “cultural insensitivity” (including muttering a nursery rhyme racial slur that got caught on a microphone).
It seems that Clarkson, an unapologetic enthusiast for car culture and other masculine pursuits, has become the latest flashpoint in the culture wars.
Here’s a panel discussion on the Clarkson issue. Skip to about 8:50 in if you want to see Milo Yiannopoulos (Twitter’s @Nero and gay conservative journalist and all-around bon vivant) address the issue of structural prejudice against men in the modern western world.
Notice the immediate, sharp pushback Yiannopoulos gets at daring to question any part of the feminist line.
That’s the context on the Clarkson dust-up. My impression that it’s not so much what Clarkson said, but his refusal to bow to the usual victimhood identity politics shibboleths that has the social justice warrior types howling for his blood. That’s why they want his scalp so badly.
At this remove, it seems like the UK progressive establishment is far more incensed at Jeremy Clarkson than Rotherham and similar child rape scandals.
It’s infuriating that political correctness and fears of offending Muslim sensitivities have caused so many officials to repeatedly look the other way and fail to investigate child rape cases in the UK. As in Rotherham, the officials that let this happen should end up in prison.
Rotherham was disturbing enough. To find out that there was another Muslim child rape ring operating in the UK (albeit one with only one-third the victims) rather staggers the moral imagination. It also begs the question: How many more Muslim child rape gangs in the UK remain to be uncovered?
I’ve got a cold and my dog had major dental surgery yesterday, so pardon me if I seem out of it.
Democratic Party makes it clear they expect reporters to be good little lapdogs, going so far as to escort them to the restroom to keep them from talking to congressmen.
U.S. hits targets in Syria. Not ISIS, but “the Khorasan group.” For such a reportedly “small” group, we seem to be bombing them a lot…
Fatah and Hamas thoughtfully take a break from trying to kill Jews in order to blow each other up.
I’m shocked, shocked that there’s abuse and fraud in the “Obamaphone” program.
In addition to national and statewide outbreaks of sanity, there was even an outbreak in Austin, where voters defeated a proposal to expand Capitol Metro’s toy trains.
British police name the beheader as “Nicholas Salvadore, a 25-year-old would-be cage fighter who is believed to be a Muslim convert, who had been living a few doors from 82-year-old [Victim] Palmira Silva.”
Seeing some reports that Salvadore is a Nigerian immigrant, but I don’t think that’s been confirmed.
Weasel Zippers comments on possible Islamist influences. “You can be mentally ill and still be influenced by extremism.”
Another beheading in the UK, this time in Edmonton, north London, by what his neighbors claim is a convert to Islam, but “detectives said they had ruled out terrorism as a motive for the killing.”
Well, isn’t that special. Funny how you can rule something out without apparently doing any investigation. It seems the spirit of multicultural political correctness is still alive and well in the UK.
Racking my brain, I can’t seem to recall a single instance in my lifetime of beheading by a convert to Catholicism or Judaism…
