Jeff Sharlet wrote a powerful public post on Facebook a few hours ago. It’s a “why we have to vote for Trump anyway” post but one that doesn’t minimize the things we dislike about Clinton – on the contrary it goes into some detail on them, via his own investigative journalism.

I’m so tired of Hillary Clinton posts, but I’m going to write one anyway. This is directed at my friends and acquaintances who, like me, are very critical of Clinton’s corporate centrism, cronyism, elitism, and militarism: Please consider voting for her anyway, even if you live in a “safe state.” Clinton is probably going to win, but it’s no longer a lock. Trump has a narrow but real potential

I was startled by the part where Suzanne Moore said Wonder Woman has been named a UN ambassador so I followed her link.

“This is the most fun the UN has had, I’m pretty sure right?” Diane Nelson, president of DC Entertainment said at a ceremony appointing Wonder Woman as the United Nations’ honorary ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls. The ceremony was meant to honor the fight for gender equality and the 75th anniversary of the character.

Pause to stare in amazement.

How insulting is that? What, because the empowerment of women and girls is so trivial and such a joke that a comic book character might as well be ambassador for it?

Also…

Not really … Read the rest

Tom Harris at the Telegraph is disgusted by the suspension of Louis Smith.

He starts with Roy Hattersley’s submission to Islamist outrage at Salman Rushdie in 1989.

Hattersley, whose constituency of Birmingham Sparkbrook included a large number of Muslims, has revealed that as a consequence of pressure put on him by local Muslim leaders, he proposed a “compromise”: Rushdie’s book should not be issued in paperback, as would normally be the case after the initial marketing of the hardback.

Of course, this was no compromise at all. The Shadow Home Secretary was advocating a surrender to the threat of terrorism. He advocated the compromising of free speech as a route to sating the blood thirst of the leader

Another bad thing. Pragna Patel of Southall Black Sisters writes:

Just had a horrible, bruising experience on BBC Asia Network whilst debating the problem of religious arbitration bodies, especially Sharia Councils, and their rulings on family and personal matters.

I was pitted against two Islamic ‘judges’ who call themselves ‘scholars’ who defended the existence of Sharia ‘Courts’: They argued that these bodies were set up for women and run on principles of compassion and justice. (Try telling that to the many Muslim women and women of other faiths who approach SBS on a daily basis with horrific stories of domestic violence and religious abuse of power; including those who contacted us today as a result of the debate on

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Potok was not about to let facts change his mind.

A significant faction on the left hates them for upholding the values they have forgotten

How did a significant faction on the left become apologists for a far-right movement that they would be the first to condemn if it were dominated by white people? Some random thoughts on how this might have happened.

I suspect that most leftists have a notion that it is legitimate to criticize what other people think or do, but not what they are as individuals, which is fine to a certain point. But language is flexible. You can always invent a name for “The kind of … Read the rest

Headline:

Bono Becomes The First Man To Make Glamour’s Women Of The Year List

Because…there just aren’t enough women good enough to win it?

Glamour’s annual Women of the Year list always takes in a lot of territory, from noteworthy fashionistas and sports heroes to social justice activists and business leaders.

Enter Bono: The first Man of the Year among the magazine’s Women of the Year, all to be honored at a Nov. 14 ceremony in Los Angeles.

“We’ve talked for years about whether to honor a man at Women of the Year and we’ve always kind of put the kabash on it. You know, men get a lot of awards and aren’t exactly hurting in the celebration and honors

And speaking of non-violent Isamism, and the clueless non-Muslims who enforce it on the rest of us – the Guardian reports that the British gymnast Louis Smith has been suspended from British Gymnastics for two months for making jokes about Islam.

Louis Smith has been banned for two months after a video emerged in which he and fellow gymnast Luke Carson were appeared to mock Islam.

Smith, who won a silver medal for Great Britain on the pommel horse in Rio, was filmed with Carson shouting “Allahu Akbar” and mimicking a praying pose. Carson has been given a reprimand by British Gymnastics which will stay on his record for two years.

Did this happen at a public event where he … Read the rest

I was pretty sure I’d heard of Bob Lambert before reading Nick Cohen’s piece on the SPLC’s attack on Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I was pretty sure I remembered a co-authored piece at Comment is Free making some kind of claim that Islamists Are Our Friends, and that I’d blogged about it. I was not wrong.

It was April 2009. The ridiculous title is The demonisation of British Islamism. It’s shockingly stupid and perverse – or, as Nick suggests, it’s part of Lambert’s undercover disguise.

In recent weeks an unnecessary schism has been created between government and British Islamists.

First, government failure to condemn Israel in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead exposed a bias towards Israel