A Belated Dr. King Tribute

I try to do a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. every year.  Any long-time reader will recognize I have deep respect for the man.  I have half-jokingly called him “our American saint”—it’s only half a joke because it is so true.  And you know there is this whole thing:

If MLK had never existed I might not have been able to marry my lovely wife. How do you even begin to thank a man for that? #MLKDay
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) January 20, 2014

But truly I felt a great deal of respect for the man and even gratitude well before that.  Being disabled, I do belong to a group that tends to face discrimination and I personally have faced discrimination because of my disabilities.  I dropped out of high school because of that discrimination and only after Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act was I able to get a GED, go to college and eventually become a lawyer.  Where would the movement to give greater equality to the disabled people be if racial discrimination was still considered acceptable?

Corrupt, Ineffectual Bullying in #Bridgegate

“Now I say that those dominions which, when acquired, are added to an ancient state by him who acquires them, are either of the same country and language, or they are not. When they are, it is easier to hold them, especially when they have not been accustomed to self-government; and to hold them securely it is enough to have destroyed the family of the prince who was ruling them[.]”

--Machiavelli, The Prince (emphasis added)

“When you strike at a King, you must kill him.”

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

So we have a scandal brewing for probable 2016 presidential candidate Chris Christie where it seems that some of his staff appeared to close a huge chunk of the George Washington Bridge about two months before the last election, to get back at a local mayor who didn’t endorse Christie.  You can read a sample article about it here, as well as some of the damning emails, here.  But we are still at the “what did he know and when did he know it?” stage of the scandal.  I don’t believe anyone has actually proven Christie knew of this, let alone ordered it.

A Quick Observation on Judge Grimm’s New Letter Order

This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga^®.  If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not everyone reads my blog.  The short version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over a year, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime.   I recognize that this might sound like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word.  You only have to believe your eyes.  So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.

As regular followers of Hogewash learned yesterday, my emergency motion to reconsider the extension of time given to Brett was denied.  There’s isn’t a lot I can say about it that I didn’t say in John’s comments, so I will reprint it (with minor edits I am not going to mark):

I didn’t say this earlier for obvious reasons, but I knew it was a long shot when I filed it, and I told John the same. The deadline had already passed for John and was about to pass for me. It was possible for the judge to get really mad at Brett and say he loses the chance to oppose our motions to dismiss, but one can never count on that. And if the judge chose to shorten it, it would create its own problems.

My suspicion always was that the judge just didn’t want to hear one MTD after another, after another. That is why he gave Brett his “homework assignment.” Because he expects to get motions to dismiss from every single defendant, and doesn’t want to consider them one at a time and is worried that Brett is not doing what he has to in terms of service of process.

So I knew it was likely to be a “defeat in victory” for Brett. I got what I frankly expected to be the most likely outcome, which still has value. The judge is now hearing from us that Brett jacked around with service and my sense of it is the judge believed us. So Brett won the round, but he is bleeding in front of the judge and the judge has even more evidence that Brett is not acting in good faith. And this was after the judge gave him a homework assignment that suggested the judge doubted Brett was doing his job in terms of service.

Identity Politics Eats Itself: The “Wise Latina” Edition

Update: I forgot to hat tip Hot Air. So now I have.  And now, a HotAiralanche and an Acealanche.  Cool, thanks.

Update (II): A DaTechGuyalanche, too!  Cool.

So this morning I had a bit of fun on twitter, with the hashtag game #ThingsThatOffendLiberals and responding to a few of them.  One of the more clueless tweeters had this exchange with me:

#ThingsThatOffendLiberals crusty old white republican men telling women what they should/shouldn't do with their bodies
— olivia (@princessxolivia) January 8, 2014

Wow that's racist MT @princessxolivia: #ThingsThatOffendLiberals old white republican men telling women what they can do w their bodies
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) January 8, 2014

(See below for an explanation of RT v. MT.)

@AaronWorthing How?
— olivia (@princessxolivia) January 8, 2014

Um, judging by the color of one's skin. Derp. @princessxolivia
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) January 8, 2014

She goes on, either not getting it or pretending not to when she was shown to be wrong and indeed racist.

This is identity politics, folks, and it’s getting more and more common on the left, the tendency to define your political position according to one’s religion, race, social background and so on.  And really, it is bigotry with a smiley face on it.  And as much as it presents itself as warm and friendly, underneath it all is bigotry and hatred: you just have to have the right event to trigger it.

Of course, one famous example of identity politics was when this statement emerged from Sonia Sotomayor when she was seeking nomination to the United States Supreme Court.  This is what she said:

Global Warming Trapped in the Ice

So tonight we sit in our houses shivering in record, I recall the fun I had over the last few months with a hapless scientist named Chris Turney.  Mr. Turney describes himself on his own website as follows: “I am an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Professor of Climate Change at the University of University of New South Wales.”  Their idea was to retrace the expedition of Australian explorer Douglas Mawson, so they could show how much Global Warming has changed the environment down there.

And by now, you might know about the comedy of errors that ensued.  First, their expedition was trapped in the ice.  You know, the ice that was supposed to have melted.  Then they sent ice breaker after ice breaker to rescue them, three in all, and they got stuck in the ice.  At one point the plan became to land a helicopter on the ice that they were stuck, at which time I found Mr. Turney on Twitter, and, I admit, had waaaay too much fun with him:

Robert Gates Accuses Obama and Clinton of Being Unpatriotic

So, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has written a memoir and Bob Woodward has written an article pulling some interesting quotes and comparing it to his own knowledge of events.  And there is a great deal that is interesting, but I want to focus on one passage.

Let’s start with principles, folks.  There is a delicate balance that must be struck, dear reader, when dealing with war.  It is not that all opposition is wrong, but that it must be a loyal opposition.  So, when you accuse our troops or our leadership of doing something wrong or illegal in a war, during that war, you need to be careful that you actually have the proof (which is one of the things that offended me about John Kerry—that his accusations against our soldiers in the field was often based on fraudulent testimony from his so-called Winter Soldiers).  And any criticism of policy and/or strategy in a war, during a war, should be based on good faith, and not based on politics.  In other words, you only oppose a military action or policy because you think it is genuinely a bad idea, and not because your constituents demand it or you see any other political advantage in it.

Is that all reasonable?  Is that something you, dear reader, and I can agree upon?

Then what can one say about this bit from Woodward’s article: