Hey Eric It’s Over

“If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon” — President Barack Obama. March 23, 2012.

The harvesting of Trayvon-mania for political gain marches on, with Attorney General Eric Holder's astonishing announcement of a national tip line to solicit reports of past racist behavior by George Zimmerman. This is not just an outrageous waste of taxpayer resources, instituted by the Attorney General who hides from every scandal by claiming he doesn't know what anyone in the Justice Department is doing. It's absolutely deranged.

How many people in the nation have spent any amount of time getting to know George Zimmerman? A few dozen at most? How carefully will reports of offensive remarks or off-color jokes by Zimmerman be investigated and vetted, and how many real criminal matters will be ignored to free up manpower for the effort? How many "verified" reports of thought crime will be necessary to get a federal civil-rights prosecution of Zimmerman rolling?

This insanity is a natural outgrowth of Big Government's need to politicize everything. Holder, and the Obama Administration's media allies, have already begun using the Zimmerman trial as a soapbox to destroy the "Stand Your Ground" laws they hate, even though such laws played absolutely no role in the trial. The real people, actual events, and case law of the encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin are already fading from public memory like an old photograph, because totalitarian politics sustain themselves by erasing history and editing truth.

By now most rational, thinking people should be over the verdict in the George Zimmerman case. As a liberal, feminist Tamra Holder stated in her Fox News.com article “Stop Insulting the Zimmerman Jury”:

“George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin on a dark and rainy night on February 28, 2012. Zimmerman admitted to the killing but claimed he acted in self-defense. Zimmerman was charged with Second Degree Murder.

Approximately 16 months later, Zimmerman’s trial started. The prosecution and defense mutually agreed on a detailed juror questionnaire that was filled out by 211 potential jurors. Over the course of nine days, both sides sifted through every response, whittled their way down to 40 prospective jurors, and picked a final jury of 6, with four alternates.

Over the course of 14 days, the jury heard opening statements, viewed over 200 exhibits, and listened to the testimony of 56 witnesses (38 for the prosecution and 18 for the defense), and heard closing arguments.

The jury received detailed instructions on the elements required to find Zimmerman guilty of second degree murder, as well as a lesser-included offense of manslaughter.

On July 13, 2013, the jury of six women made a unanimous decision: “Not Guilty.”

The president of the Florida NAACP State Conference also chimed in: “Justice did not prevail,” said Adora Obi Nweze.

Justice did not prevail? How so?

In the same statement, Nweze said “Last year we pushed for the arrest of George Zimmerman and a thorough investigation and trial.”

Not only did “they” push for a trial, they received a trial.

Oh wait, the NAACP and other opponents of the verdict did not ask for a “fair trial.” They wanted a trial without the constitutional requirements of due process and an impartial jury.”

Normally I do not agree with anything Ms. Holder has to say during her appearances on the Sean Hannity Show but this time I think she is right on the money. It’s like the old adage that a stopped clock can be right twice a day.

It appears as though the media just can’t walk away from this case and they are continually rehashing and retrying the case from based on their personal ideology. Let’s face it, this was a simple murder case where the prosecution went for murder in the second degree and the defense claimed it was a case of self-defense. The jury believed the defense and returned a verdict of not guilty. No matter what your opinions on the case are it was a jury empaneled with the concurrence of both sides that heard all of the testimony, saw the evidence and listened to the arguments put forth by the attorneys that made the final decision. That’s how the system works.

There was an interesting article by William Saletan writing for the liberal Slate Magazine where he stated:

“But that’s how Martin ended up dead. It’s how Zimmerman ended up with a bulletproof vest he might have to wear for the rest of his life. It’s how activists and the media embarrassed themselves with bogus reports. The problem at the core of this case wasn’t race or guns. The problem was assumption, misperception, and overreaction. And that cycle hasn’t ended with the verdict. It has escalated.

I almost joined the frenzy. Yesterday I was going to write that Zimmerman pursued Martin against police instructions and illustrated the perils of racial profiling. But I hadn’t followed the case in detail. So I sat down and watched the closing arguments: nearly seven hours of video in which the prosecution and defense went point by point through the evidence as it had been hashed out at the trial. Based on what I learned from the videos, I did some further reading.

It turned out I had been wrong about many things. The initial portrait of Zimmerman as a racist wasn’t just exaggerated. It was completely unsubstantiated. It’s a case study in how the same kind of bias that causes racism can cause unwarranted allegations of racism. Some of the people Zimmerman had reported as suspicious were black men, so he was a racist. Members of his family seemed racist, so he was a racist. Everybody knew he was a racist, so his recorded words were misheard as racial slurs, proving again that he was a racist.”

Mr. Saletan’s comments as those of Tamra Holder are proof that even an unabashed liberal can see the light when it’s bright enough. They may not like the verdict but they have to accept it. Even the trial court judge bent over backwards to give ever possible advantage to the prosecution.

Now we have our Attorney General, Eric Holder, pandering to the crowd at the NAACP convention with his remarks about the case. He wants a new investigation into possible civil rights violations by George Zimmerman and a review of the Stand Your Ground Laws that some 38 states have on their books. He has even gone so far as to appoint a posse of citizens to troll for tips about Zimmerman and e-mail the “unsubstantiated evidence” that George Zimmerman was a racist to the DOJ kangaroo court.. How will that work out as every Tom, Dick and Harriet with an ideological axe to grind will get on the internet and flood cyberspace with their poison. How will that work out in our system of justice? How will he ignore the FBI reports that found no evidence of such racism in their investigation? As a Fox News article pointed out:

“Though the department announced after Zimmerman's acquittal that it would consider a possible federal case, previously filed FBI documents show agents have not turned up any accounts that Zimmerman, before the February 2012 shooting, exhibited racial bias. Sanford police detective Chris Serino also told FBI agents last year that he considered Zimmerman as having "a little hero complex, but not as a racist."

Attorney General Eric Holder, in his first post-verdict comments, confirmed Monday during a speech in Washington, D.C., that his department continues to investigate while signaling concern for the position of the Martin family and those -- such as the NAACP -- pressuring the DOJ. He said the department is "mindful of the pain felt by our nation" over the "tragic, unnecessary shooting death" of Martin.

"The Justice Department shares your concern -- I share your concern," Holder said.

He added that the shooting provides an opportunity to speak "honestly" about the charged issues involved in the case, and that "we must not ... let this opportunity pass." Holder even appeared to suggest the possibility of bias in this case, saying it's important to address "underlying attitudes, mistaken beliefs and stereotypes that serve as the basis for these too common incidents."

I guess he will handle those reports in the same manner as he did with Fast and Furious and the James Rosen cases — just ignore them as they do not match the narrative he wants to sell the public. This what worried our Founding Fathers the most — government overreach and mob rule.

Here are a few articles and columns I came across that I feel are worth sharing. In an interview on CNN and reported in The Blaze juror B37 shed some light on the trial, evidence and how the jury came to their not guilty verdict. The juror in the George Zimmerman trial said Monday that the actions of the neighborhood watch volunteer and Trayvon Martin both led to the teenager’s fatal shooting last year, but that Zimmerman didn’t actually break the law:

“The woman known as Juror B37 told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Zimmerman made some poor decisions leading up to the shooting, but that Martin wasn’t innocent either.

“I think both were responsible for the situation they had gotten themselves into,” said the juror, who is planning to write a book about the trial. “I think they both could have walked away.”

The juror said Sanford Police Detective Chris Serino made a big impression on her, because he would have been accustomed to dealing with murders and similar cases. He would have known how to spot a liar, and yet he testified that he believed Zimmerman, the juror said.

Legal analysts agreed that Serino’s testimony was a blow to the state’s case.

The juror was not impressed by the testimony of Rachel Jeantel, who was talking with Martin by cellphone moments before he was fatally shot by Zimmerman in February, 2012.

“I didn’t think it was very credible, but I felt very sorry for her,” the juror said. “She didn’t want to be there.”

…

“The interview came two days after the six-woman jury acquitted Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch activist, of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Martin in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. Martin was black, and Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic. Zimmerman was not arrested for 44 days, and the delay in charging him led to protests from those who believed race was a factor in the handling of the case.

While prosecutors accused Zimmerman of profiling Martin, Zimmerman maintained he acted in self-defense.

The juror said she didn’t think Martin’s race was the reason that Zimmerman followed him. She said she also believed Martin threw the first punch and that Zimmerman, whom she referred to as “George,” had a right to defend himself.

“I have no doubt George feared for his life in the situation he was in at the time,” the juror said.

Juror B37 also outlined to CNN the process she and the other five jurors went through in their deliberations. She said they spent the first day electing a foreman and getting organized. She said the jury instructions weren’t immediately clear and the evidence was in no order whatsoever.

Juror B37 said all but one juror believed it was Zimmerman screaming for help on the 911 call based on the medical evidence and testimony submitted in court.

Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder, but the jury also was allowed to consider manslaughter.

Based on an initial vote, three – including B37 – were in favor of acquittal, two wanted manslaughter and one wanted second-degree murder. She said the jury started going through all the evidence, listening to tapes multiple times.

“That’s why it took us so long,” B37 said.

When they started looking at the law, the person who initially wanted second-degree murder changed her vote to manslaughter, the juror said. Then they asked for clarification from the judge and kept going over it again and again. B37 said some jurors wanted to find Zimmerman guilty of something, but there was just no place to go based on the law,

B37 said jurors cried when they gave their final vote to the bailiff.”

There is also a similar article on this on Fox News.com

“We are so programmed by our history with race in America that reaction to the acquittal of George Zimmerman on charges of murdering Trayvon Martin depends largely upon one's individual, even group experience.” writes Cal Thomas on Fox News.com:

“If you are African-American, you might react like former Washington, D.C., homicide detective Rod Wheeler. Appearing on Fox News, Wheeler said many blacks look at quarterback Michael Vick, jailed for taking part in an illegal dog-fighting ring, and wonder why Zimmerman gets away with killing a young black man.

If you are white, or Hispanic, you could possibly see the trial as something whipped up by the always racially conscious media and rhetorical bomb-throwers like Rev. Al Sharpton.

You might conclude that if the victim had been white and the perpetrator black the media would have shown little or no interest.

Your view would be reinforced by a case in Georgia in which four African-American teenagers beat a 36-year-old white man as he emerged from a gas station convenience store. While trying to escape, the man stumbled into the middle lane of a highway where he was struck by a car and killed. The Marietta Daily Journal reported that the four are charged with felony murder, aggravated assault and violation of the Georgia Street Gang Act. The incident occurred two weeks ago, but I have seen no national media coverage.”

…

“What helps keep us divided is our propensity for labeling and categorizing. Certain behaviors and language are tolerated, while others are not. Some people can get away with language that others cannot. Some faiths can be disparaged while others are insulated from criticism. What is needed is one standard. One national identity. One America. We're not there yet.

Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Trayvon Martin's family, compared Trayvon's death to those of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers. Any attempt to turn Trayvon into a civil rights martyr similar to Till and Evers goes well beyond the apples and oranges analogy.

More to the point was a comment by Zimmerman's attorney Don West: "The prosecution of George Zimmerman was disgraceful." The defense believes he should never have been brought to trial. Co-defense counsel Mark O'Mara speculated about "how many lawsuits will be spawned by this fiasco."

Probably quite a few, given our never-ending racial double standard. As both sides have noted, there are no winners in this case.”

The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. A jury of six in Florida has determined it was not criminal, but George Zimmerman will forever be the man who killed a 17-year-old.

No one can be happy about what happened other than, for Zimmerman and his family, that a jury believed him.

Now the NAACP and others are calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to file charges against George Zimmerman. Never mind that federal investigators looked into the matter and concluded Zimmerman did not engage in racial profiling.

Should the U.S. Department of Justice decide to pursue charges, it would not be double jeopardy. The state and federal governments remain separate entities with separate jurisdictions. A trial in one does not preclude another.

But in this case it should.

Our system is not perfect, but it is preferable to rule by the mob. Juries are not perfect, but they are better than the court of public opinion.

Many will feel justice was not served, but it was. Justice does not mean getting the outcome one side desires. Even so, those who are glad of the verdict should try to understand why so many feel so cold by what has happened and some see injustice.

I see too much politicization by too many people on more than one side. A boy is dead. A man's life ruined. And too many are trying to capitalize on the politics of now.

As the president said yesterday, a jury has spoken. It is time to respect the verdict of that jury and move on. Trayvon Martin will never come back and George Zimmerman may be free, but it will be a long time, if ever, before his life returns to normal.

Then we have the hoodlum element “protesting in the streets of Los Angeles and Oakland. These hoodlums are burning cars, closing down freeways and trashing stores like Wal-Mart. It is really no different than the same gangs of ne’er-do-wells, gang members, and vandals burring cars and trashing businesses when their sports team win a championship. After all when the Lakers win the NBA titles it’s appropriate to burn a car.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said violence and vandalism in city streets resulted in 13 arrests in protests over George Zimmerman's Florida acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Speaking at a news conference with Garcetti late Monday, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said about 150 people broke off from a larger, peaceful protest and began walking through the streets, committing multiple acts of vandalism and several assaults.

The officials didn't elaborate on the assaults or any potential injuries.

Beck said more than 300 officers were called to the scene. They were slow to directly engage the protesters in an attempt to allow a peaceful end to the demonstration.

He said police would take a much stricter posture if the protests continued for another night.

Protesters ran through Los Angeles streets, stopping traffic, breaking windows and at one point raiding a Wal-Mart store, and a major freeway was blocked in the San Francisco Bay Area in the third night of protests in California over George Zimmerman's Florida acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Several hundred mostly peaceful protesters gathered Monday night at Leimert Park southwest of downtown Los Angeles, many of them chanting, praying and singing.

But a smaller group of about 100 people splintered off and began blocking traffic on nearby Crenshaw Boulevard, some of them jumping on cars and breaking windows.

At about 10 p.m., a few hours after the splinter protest began, police declared the group an unlawful assembly, and many in the crowd began to disperse.

Several protesters ran into a Wal-Mart store, where they knocked down displays before store security chased them out, and police began guarding the door.

TV news helicopters showed some people apparently throwing punches along the street. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

"I commend the prayer rally attendees in Leimert Park for practicing peace," tweeted LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, who returned early from an East Coast visit. "I call on people in street on Crenshaw to follow their example."

In Oakland, dozens of demonstrators briefly blocked all lanes of Interstate 880 at the tail end of rush hour Monday evening, stopping traffic in both directions for several minutes before they were cleared by authorities. Several protesters laid their bicycles on the ground in front of stopped cars.

"You've got to go. You will go to jail," one police officer shouted at demonstrators who were blocking traffic, the Oakland Tribune reported. However, police decided not to make arrests as the marchers, chanting "Justice for Trayvon Martin," were directed back to surface streets.

Later, another group tried to march up the onramp to Interstate 580 before being turned away by Oakland police and California Highway Patrol officers.

The freeway protesters broke off from a larger group organized via social media that gathered at Oakland City Hall about an hour earlier. Several people were arrested for acts of violence and vandalism while marching from City Hall, authorities said.

Jonathan Cohen writes in American Thinker that more lies from the main stream media about the Zimmerman case are still obfuscating the truth.”

“Today's Chicago Tribune editorial on the Zimmerman verdict repeats some of the lies and misrepresentations that have helped create so much of the anger over this case for the past 16 months. The editorial which urges acceptance of the verdict none the less begins with the following quote:

"Are you following him?"

"Yeah"

"Ok. We don't need for you to do that".

The quote leaves out Zimmerman's reply of ok, an editorial decision that changes the clear meaning of the exchange which is that Zimmerman accepts the advice. More properly, what the transcript of the call reads

"Are you following him?"

"Yeah"

"Ok. We don't need for you to do that".

"Ok"

The first paragraph of the editorial then repeats the lie that Zimmerman was told not to leave his car. In fact what the transcript of the call shows is that just prior to this exchange, the dispatcher tells Zimmerman "just let me know if this guy does anything else. A few seconds later after Zimmerman says that Martin is running the dispatcher asks him "which way is he running." It is sometime in this period that Zimmerman sounds like he has gotten out of his truck. For the next five or ten seconds there is a sound of wind that is followed by the exchange in which the dispatcher advises him he doesn't need to follow Martin. At no time anywhere on the call does the dispatcher ever tell him not to leave his car or return to it. These five to ten seconds are the only time in the whole encounter in which there is any evidence of Zimmerman following Martin on foot. And since there is so much misinformation about what happened it bears repeating.

Zimmerman was never told to stay in his car and was never asked to return to it!

No evidence at all is ever produced that Zimmerman followed Martin after the above exchange with the dispatcher. In fact, towards the end of the call, Zimmerman tells the dispatcher that he has lost sight of Martin. Clearly Zimmerman could not follow Martin if he couldn't see him. Further evidence of this is that Rachel Jaentel's testimony indicates that Martin had likewise lost sight of Zimmerman until shortly before the start of the confrontation. In other words, after telling the dispatcher "ok", Zimmerman did not follow Martin nor did Martin perceive he was being followed.

The claim that Zimmerman was at fault because he pursued Martin after being told not to has absolutely no basis in fact. It is a made up assumption that has been repeated so many times by the media that people actually believe that is what happened.

The 911 call that was placed by Zimmerman is on the web in both audio and written transcript form. It was played numerous times at the trial. There is no excuse for continuing to lie about the evidence. The Chicago Tribune should know better than to continue to perpetuate lies that have fueled so much anger over this case.”

Then there is a good exposé of the prosecutorial misconduct by the Florida State’s special prosecutor Angela Corey and how many more Black juveniles than whites were arrested and tried as adults in Florida:

“There are many unanswered questions in the handling of the persecution of George Zimmerman by the State of Florida but two of the salient questions are why was Angela Corey, who is noted for her intemperate personality, selected to prosecute the case and why Angela Corey dismissed an impaneled grand jury to wildly overcharge George Zimmerman with second degree murder on her own volition?

I believe if we use Ockham’s (or Occam’s) Razor the answers will become obvious: racial politics.

I think everyone can now agree on one thing, Angela Corey was possibly the worst possible choice for a high profile prosecution.

She has a sense of entitlement that is so typical of small people promoted to jobs that are well above their level of competency but who lack the self-awareness to recognize what everyone else knows. (You need look no further than her bizarre post-verdict press conference that she treated as though it was an Academy Awards acceptance rather than a repudiation to see that she occupies a different reality than most.) In Angela Corey’s world, criticism of her is a basis for legal action. She has threatened to sue Harvard if it did not fire Alan freakin Dershowitz after he pointed out her lack of legal acumen and ethics. In Florida she is something of a legend for threatening her critics.

Her lack of concern for the rule of law was almost immediately apparent. Shortly after she received the case she gave a press conference in which she disclosed that she was not seeking justice, but “justice for Trayvon”:

Corey: The first thing my team and I did upon being appointed was to meet with Trayvon’s family and pray with them. “We opened our meeting with prayer.” Also, Ms. Corey thanked “all those people across this country who have sent positive energy and prayers our way,” and she asked them to continue to pray for Trayvon’s family and for her team. “Remember, it is Trayvon’s family that are our constitutional victims….”

Startling statistics reveal that between 1980-2008, African-Americans were six times more likely than whites to be victims of gun violence and seven times more likely to kill with guns than whites, according to the Justice Department. African-Americans represent a mere 13% of the US population yet more than 50% of federal prisoners are black. You can claim racial bias in the judicial system, but that doesn't explain all of it.

Why aren't so-called black leaders outraged and marching over the recent shooting rampage in Chicago. During the 4 July holiday weekend, including the Wednesday leading up to it, 62 people were wounded by gun violence in Chicago and 12 others killed. The holiday shooting spree raised Chicago's homicide tally to 200 for the year. Last year about 500 people were killed, and most of those killing and being killed in Chicago are black. According to the Chicago Tribune, "blacks make up about 33% of the city's population, they accounted for nearly 78% of the homicide victims through the first six months of 2012".

With the mainstream media's national attention on the Zimmerman murder trial, I think it's stunning that scant, if any, attention was given to the violence raging in Chicago or other cities across the country. As I've said in previous blogs Americans, especially black Americans, have come to accept blacks killing other blacks as normal.

When a white person is accused of killing a black person, African-Americans seem to care more and cry racism, allowing race baiting voices like Al Sharpton, who's a reverend as much as I'm a progressive liberal (hint: I'm not), to organize marches and rallies. The same is now true when a non-white like Zimmerman is accused of killing a black 17-year-old like Trayvon Martin. Last year blacks even got the news media to basically convict Zimmerman as a racist murderer in the court of public opinion before the trial even began.

Even President Barack Obama got in on the act, stoking the racist flames before any facts were revealed, "If I had a son he'd look like Trayvon". Yet Obama has been a lot less vocal on the killings in Chicago, the city from which he hales and served as both an Illinois state senator and US senator.

The tragedy is that blacks who are shouting about racism aren't offering real solutions, especially to the violence issue in African-American neighborhoods. Interestingly, Senator Mark Kirk (an Illinois Republican) has a plan to end gun violence in Chicago. Since 15-year old Hadiya Pendleton was murdered in January in Chicago after performing at Obama's 2013 inaugural, Kirk has been pushing the Federal Bureau of Investigation and federal prosecutors to crack down on gang violence related to drugs, which police believe is driving the gun violence.

Kirk, a Republican, wants the FBI to prosecute these gang related crimes at higher rate given that about 18,000 people belonging to the Gangster Disciple gang, one of the most notorious gangs in Chicago (and beyond). Gangster Disciple stretches into 28 states and amasses more than $100m a year by selling drugs. And that's what we know about.

In a meeting with Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy in June, the police superintendent told Kirk more than 100,000 gang members live in Chicago. As Kirk tried to tackle gang violence in his home state of Illinois, Representative Bobby Rush, a black Democrat representing the 1st district of Illinois for 20 years, which includes Chicago, railed against Kirk's plan as "upper middle class, elitist, white boy solution". Well, "the white boy" conservative is coming up with solutions while blacks like Rush and Ali stoop to calling conservatives of all colors heinous names when they highlight or offer solutions to the ills disproportionately harming black Americans.

Today the main people holding blacks back as a race and taking them back to the days of Jim Crow are blacks themselves. Self-appointed black leaders, advocacy groups like the NAACP and black members of Congress cry racist at every turn. Beyond this battle cry, they have no solutions to offer blacks a way towards greater economic prosperity and less violent lives.

The day after George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder, the President of the United States chose to stir the race-baiting pot again by intimating that America should honor Trayvon by passing gun control:

“Now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son. And as we do, we should ask ourselves if we're doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities.”

Barack Obama isn't one to hide his disrespect for federalism or conceal his contempt for the legal system or the U.S. Constitution. The statement Obama made reveals that his motivation was to once again gain personal political expediency from someone else's heartbreak.

Think about it: the president sheds tears over murdered children, but it's always attached to advancing a specific political agenda. That's precisely why, in some circles, as America's most radical pro-abortion advocate, Barack Obama has zero credibility when discussing lives lost to gun violence.

As far as Obama is concerned, Trayvon Martin deserves kudos for delivering a big bang for his anti-Second Amendment buck. Nonetheless, if the Trayvon controversy should miraculously cool down, in due time someone else will come along and provide still more political capital for the president.

Rest assured, if need be, Mr. Obama will move on quickly from Trayvon, just as he moved from Tucson to Sandy Hook to any number of other tragedies he's used as political causes.

Unfortunately, based on what went on in Sanford, Florida, certain African Americans fall into the same category as the president they blindly support.

Black Americans hung up on fomenting racial unrest or buying into the victim mentality lack credibility too, because although they cry racism over the tragic loss of Trayvon Martin, who they call one of their 'babies,' they have shed few tears over the extermination of actual babies taking place for the last 40 years in abortion clinics all over America.

While focused on Trayvon Martin, socially liberal black Americans continue to ignore the genocide that kills thousands of black baby boys (and girls) every day, many of whom, if given the chance to live, much like Trayvon Martin might have grown up to look like the son Barack Obama never had.

Does it matter that blacks constitute only 13% of the population but account for 36% of all the abortions that take place every year? Where are the tears, protest signs, and New Black Panther demonstrations for the deaths of innocent children who didn't break anyone's nose or smash anyone's skull against a sidewalk?

For perspective, 13% of the U.S. population contributed 22,000,000 of the 60,000,000 children aborted since 1973. Each and every day in the U.S., approximately 1,876 black children are aborted. And yet pro-life people are supposed to believe that the angst over Trayvon's untimely end is based on the black community's respect for the sanctity of life?

In her fight to save the unborn, Erma Clardy Craven, the late Minnesota social worker and author of Abortion, Poverty and Black Genocide, once shared that, "17,000 aborted babies were found in a dumpster outside a pathology laboratory in Los, Angeles, California; some 12-15,000 were observed to be black." Does the president care about them? Apparently not.

While Obama is asking America to "honor Trayvon" by doing what Obama wants, we forget that none of the 15,000 black babies found rotting in that dumpster in LA got the chance to wear a hoodie, shop for Skittles and fruit-flavored iced tea, or skulk around in the dark in a Sanford, Florida residential complex.

The difference between Barack Obama and Al Sharpton is, and has always been, that Obama hides it better, he is handled better, and his coldness and lack of conscience express themselves in a manner that passes for sobriety and seriousness with some people. And he has bigger goals, which is to say a bigger ego, than the laughable Sharpton. Obama's statements on this case, from beginning to end, have been spoken like a true community organizer: use pleas for "calm" resignation in the face of alleged injustice to stir up and solidify support for your broader authoritarian agenda. This is the Alinsky way.

Having said all that, if we want to be philosophical about this, we might observe that there is, indeed, a way to honor Trayvon Martin. It is for the white-dominated American media, the white-dominated entertainment industry, the white-dominated Democratic Party, and the rest of white-dominated progressive America to stop telling young black people like Trayvon Martin that they are not "really black" unless they are fighting, using drugs, talking and acting like thugs, and citing "racism" as their excuse for everything. It is for America's first half-white president to stop treating black Americans as an aggrieved underclass that can only be protected against injustice and poverty by voting Democrat. It is for that half-white president to stop trying to earn "his props" by flaunting his friendship with the millionaire "pimps" and "hoes" of the "black entertainment industry" who sell drugs, violence, racism, and sex as the secret path to "coolness," i.e., acceptance, when in truth — as the lives of so many of these "entertainers" beyond age thirty prove -- the heaven they are selling is in fact the pit of an inescapable hell. Enough of the White House gala evenings and Michelle Obama tweetings about Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and the rest of the creeps, punks, and porn stars - cum singers.

Duke Ellington brought American "black entertainment" to the heights, mixing his muse comfortably, and on a footing of real equality, with Shakespeare and Steinbeck, Tchaikovsky and Grieg, always studying, always learning — so that today, his supposed heirs can rant in a drugged-up stupor about killing cops and defiling women. Ella Fitzgerald became America's "First Lady of Song" by expanding her repertoire from the popular dance tunes of her early days to masterful renderings of Gershwin, Porter, and Ellington in the 1950s; her heiresses today slink around like strippers using words and images to enliven the basest sentiments of the perpetual pubescents that comprise today's pop music audience. Today's so-called black leaders, including their "beige" president (to use Ellington's phraseology) are firmly on the side of the glamorizers of cop-killing, rape, and prostitution. They have deliberately squandered or obscured the gains of the twentieth century for their own evil, oppressive purposes.

If you want to "honor Trayvon Martin," stop actively corrupting the character and sentiment of each new generation of Trayvon’s. Stop encouraging, excusing, and even praising behavior that causes broken families, government dependency, moral decay, illiteracy, the degradations of a permanent underclass — and, all too often, sad wastes like the "tragedy" of February 26, 2012.

In short, if you want to honor Trayvon Martin, end American progressivism now.

Obama, The Liar In Chief

“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” — Winston Churchill

President Obama and his people deserve at least one accolade: they have perfected lying into an art form.

Is anyone in Obama's closest orbit a truth-teller?

Jay Carney, press secretary, lied about the Benghazi talking points, the effects of the federal budget sequestration, and Eric Holder;

Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, a "congenital liar" according to the late William Safire in a 1996 NY Times column, lied to Congress about her role in the Benghazi security breach, and subsequent cover-up;

Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the UN, lied to the American people on five successive TV news-interview shows about a video provoking the Benghazi attacks; Eric Holder, Attorney General, lied to Congress and to federal judges about his role and intentions in obtaining the surveillance and wiretapping authorization for journalist James Rosen;

Douglas Schulman, IRS Commissioner, lied to Congress about the IRS not targeting opponents and political enemies of the Obama administration;

James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, lied to Congress about NSA not eavesdropping and collecting phone records and emails from millions of Americans;

Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator, used at least one alias to avoid scrutiny by Congress;

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services lied about her secret government email accounts, and lied about her soliciting health insurance companies for illegal fund-raising, (and has lied about nearly every major provision in ObamaCare);

Arnie Duncan Secretary of Education, lied about the federal budget sequestration causing mass layoffs of teachers;

Janet Napolitano Director of Homeland Security and Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation both lied about sequestration causing massive air travel delays;

Nancy Pelosi, previous Speaker of the House, lied about provisions in ObamaCare and about whether she was briefed about water boarding;

Harry Reid, US Senate Majority Leader, lied about deficit reduction provisions embedded in non-existent budget resolutions and about Mitt Romney's tax returns.

Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior and his Energy Czar Carol Browner lied about and used fraudulent claims to impose an offshore drilling ban in the wake of the BP oil spill, then were rebuked by a federal judge.

If others in Obama's cabinet or inner circle haven't been caught lying, it may be only because they've kept their mouths shut.

Yet none of Obama's apprentices can match the master. Obama is an incontinent bladder of lies, deceptions, and red herrings gushing virtually non-stop whether in press conferences, campaign speeches, the State of the Union addresses, or remarks to foreign dignitaries.

Stig Severinsen, who holds the world record for holding his breath under water for 22 minutes, couldn't endure long enough for the time needed to recite all of Obama's lies. Obama's catalog of lies is truly astonishing:

Obama's lying about the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United , about Al Qaeda "on the run," about "deficits shrinking," about Republicans initiating sequestration, about the Benghazi attacks incited by a video, about "you can keep your health plan and your doctor," about private sales of hand guns, and the latest about "we believe in the free market; we believe in a light touch when it comes to regulations," is more than political rhetoric or partisan posturing. Lying is a way of life; truth seems untouchable, toxic, red hot radioactive to Obama and his minions.

Do you remember in 2009 when South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson shouted "You lie!" as Obama declared in a major address to Congress that illegal aliens wouldn't get government paid health care? When in modern history has a president's lying provoked such a spontaneous outburst in real time? And barely months into his first term?

Lying has many shades; Obama has perfected the bald-faced type, the most jarring, with a repetition that files down the senses, grinds away at outrage.

Obama isn't the only occupant of the White House to have incorporated brazen lying into his daily habits. Bill Clinton was an accomplished liar, notably in denial of his own personal transgressions. For Clinton lying to a grand jury was just like any other conversation. LBJ lied about Vietnam; yet Johnson the ultimate political manipulator knew he had misled the American people thus stood down from re-election.

No one likes to be called a liar; it is such a crude Saxon label, and so dispositive; dissembler only a slightly more graceful epithet. Instead, being called an artful dodger would be far more becoming; even better to acquire a more sophisticated Latinate derivative, prevaricator.

More elusive variations on the straight-up unadorned and unvarnished lie have now become the norm, from subtle inflections to translucent mutations. Untruths, partial truths, prevarications, sleights-of-hand, obfuscations, fabrications, distortions, misrepresentations, mistaken attributions, convenient amnesia, and contingent truths, all forms of dishonesty that seem to be accepted political discourse. They all define Obama's culture of deceit and betrayal of the American people.

I suppose serial lying, the pathological sort, is a form of sustained self-deception and insecurity sometimes accompanied by identity theft and fabrication of one's resume. When lying becomes commonplace, truth telling is hard to recognize, and then so exceptional as impossible to be authentic. And when lying is the norm, greeted not only with impunity, but affection, why tell the truth?

When Obama or any of his minions speak, do you expect impartial information, an honest appraisal, or objective analysis? No, when Obama speaks, fact-checkers are forced into overdrive.

As lying becomes the default font, the most egregious practitioners collect the highest rewards. To wit: Susan Rice, a spectacular fivefold liar as US Ambassador to the UN, has now been rewarded by the president to be National Security Advisor, for her laying down the scent to divert the beagles and hounds in hot pursuit of the truth about Benghazi.

One explanation for Obama's compulsive lying comes from the accounts of military deception in WWII written in 1975 by Anthony Cave Brown about Winston Churchill, who remarked to Stalin at Yalta: "In wartime, truth is so precious, she should be attended by a bodyguard of lies." Obama, the reparations crusader, sees himself at war. At war with a litany of oppressors in his own nation who have seized his imagination since he was a small boy. Yet what core of truth is he protecting? Well, it is the truth about himself and his agenda that dare not be exposed, much less admitted.

Enablers and apologists have enthusiastically embraced Obama's culture of deceit. Yet when they realize that they too are the enemy, will they discover a bodyguard of lies protects no one?

The Obama Administration has presented such an array of botched domestic and foreign policies that an observer can become disoriented. Seeing a blur of so many negative events is like watching a Jason Bourne movie, with the camera on high speed. Each alleged malfeasance or scandal is worthy in itself of deliberate scrutiny, yet as we start to examine each one, others suddenly compete for our attention. It is a dazzling tapestry of mismanagement at best. But there is one theme that connects it all: contempt.

First, we have a rogue agency named the Internal Revenue Service interfering in the lives of ordinary folks with views that are conservative or at odds with the Administration. This contemptuous act against Americans who have committed no apparent wrongdoing or financial legerdemain is heavy-handedness reminiscent of banana republics or authoritarian regimes of yesteryear.

Testifying on Capitol Hill about his reportedly 157 visits to the White House, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman dismissively cited “the Easter Egg roll with my kids” among the reasons for such an astonishing number of meetings. Lois Lerner, Director of the IRS Exempt Organizations pleaded the Fifth Amendment, and Steven Miller, Acting Commissioner referred to the debacle as “horrible customer service” in his apology. To make it worse, the IRS will judge whether Americans are in compliance with ObamaCare, not supported by a majority of the American people and railroaded into existence by the President. And it is the same IRS, which investigates U.S. companies for excessive corporate entertainment expenses that are reported as income tax deductions, that spent $50 million on conferences over a recent three-year period, with certain IRS officials staying in $3,500 hotel suites, according to findings of the Treasury Department’s inspector general. Indeed, the IRS has shown itself to be unworthy in its principal role as the instrument of revenue collection from American people and companies.

Further, the Department of Justice that has shown contempt for the First Amendment through highly unusual surveillance of journalists of the AP who like those harassed by the IRS, are seen to be a threat to the Administration’s narratives. In a disingenuous and cynical act, Attorney General Eric Holder invited journalists to an “off the record meeting,” again evidencing contempt for openness and the principle of transparency which the Administration has piously affirmed. All this comes from an Attorney General already held in contempt by the House of Representatives for not presenting documents relating to the mismanaged Mexican Fast and Furious gun tracking operation, the first such a sanction of a Cabinet official in American history. Moreover, it has been revealed that an anti-abortion group in Iowa was directed to commit to the IRS that it would not demonstrate in front of Planned Parenthood, a crudely repressive action by the Department of Justice that seems at odds with the First Amendment.

The same contempt prevails in foreign policy. Benghazi is enshrouded in fog and allegations of deception by the Obama Administration, which before the November election desperately put out the story that the massacre of U.S. foreign service staff was the result of a video offensive to Muslims produced in California, and not a concerted ambush by Al Qaeda or its affiliates — to avoid the inference that America had not successfully broken the back of Islamist jihadism.

To this day, we do not know who denied requests for security at the American mission; who ordered a Special Forces unit in Tripoli to stand down, as charged by Gregory Hicks, formerly deputy chief of mission; who directed Susan Rice, ambassador to the United Nations, to take to the air waves and call it a reaction to a video offensive to Muslims; and who ordered that this misrepresentation be maintained for seventeen days until President Obama finally acknowledged that it was a terrorist attack. Further, we do not know exactly what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama were doing during all seven hours of the siege of the U.S. consulate. And now, the controversial and highly criticized Susan Rice has been named national security advisor.

Perhaps the Administration hopes that Americans have attention deficit disorder — absorbed with buying and selling, family problems, and the distractions of a consumer economy — making them unable to assimilate and concentrate on so many issues of incompetence, or worse, illegality if proved.

What we have is a matrix of contempt — contempt for the American people, or at least about half of them; contempt for the principles of transparency and stewardship; and contempt for the pursuit of truth. Let us hope the electorate will speak out and make its will known; resignations of shameless senior U.S. officials could be too much to hope for.

Who knows — we might even get to hear Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary, state that in an era of moral relativism, we must make allowances for our government.

No administration in the history of this Republic has spread so many lies and half-truths as the Obama administration and his minions in Congress. What makes this situation worse is the enabling of these lies by the media so anxious to see their anointed one to be successful.

Each day new polls shows show a growing distrust of government. Even though the mainstream media and Obama sycophants keep trying to insulate Obama from the egregious untruthfulness and outright criminality of his administration the truth is slowly trickling its way out each day. It’s like a faulty dam in one of those earthquake disaster films when you see a trickle of water begin seeping out of the face of the dam. Then as the film progresses the trickle becomes a stream and finally the dam bursts sending a wall of water destroying everything in the valley.

Obama in his incompetence and lack of any leadership skills has allowed this condition to grow in the past five years. He is great at making speeches reading words from a teleprompter that one of his subordinates have written for him. He smiles a lot as he turns his head from the teleprompter on the right to one on he left. He uses hand gestures to emphasize the points he wants to make — all of this against a background of avid followers that have been carefully selected to surround him. It’s pure Mussolinian.

Yet 52% of the American public has bought into Obama’s lies because they want to believe him. They are dazzled by his charismatic appearance and the words they want to hear — especially when he espouses things they want to hear like tax the rich and his doctrine of “fairness” and class warfare. Just look what he told the people in the Texas town of West when he made one of his photo-op visits telling the assembled crowd that they would not be forgotten. Then after he flies away on Air Force One FEMA denies any help for the beleaguered town. Obama didn’t give a tinker’s damn about the town of West. It was in Texas — a red state. Obama’s comments were not intended for the citizens of West, they were put forth for the national media where he could show his faux compassion. In essence he lied for political gain.

While I am not a fan of FEMA and the vast amounts of federal aid it hands out each year I use this issue to point out the duplicity of our liar-in-chief.

As Winston Churchill said: “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”

Too Many Scandals

"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness." — George Washington

With all the scandals it’s getting hard for the average American to keep up. First we had Benghazi. Then the Justice Department’s snooping into the e-mails of the AP and James Rosen of Fox News. Then came the IRS’ overt bias against conservative groups requesting 501c(3) tax exempt status. Now we have the bombshell of the National Security Agency’s data mining of millions of Americans. And we will soon have the exposé of the EPA’s illegal actions of going after conservative groups by loading them with onerous regulations and the looming sex scandal involving the State Department.

Most Americans spend their time working and supporting their families. They don’t have much time to focus on all of these scandals every day. Most get their news from the nightly TV news shows or the late night comedians. Unless they are dedicated listeners to talk radio of the cable news channels they just can’t keep up.

The beauty of the 1973 Watergate Scandal is that it was the only scandal to focus on. The American people were able to watch replays of the hearings each night on the three major TV networks. Most of the anchors on these networks were fairly unbiased reporters who did a reasonable job of reporting the news and not getting into opinions. That was left to the Sunday shows like Meet the Press and Face the Nation.

This overload of scandals is in a way a blessing for the Obama administration. It creates a cloud of obfuscation over all of the scandals with the exception of the most current one. In this case it’s the NSA and Edward Snowden. The Benghazi attack of 9/11/2012 and the issue of gun-running to Syria has taken the rear most seat in the media. The DOJ’s illegal snooping is growing dim. The IRS scandal according to Representative Elijah Cummings (D MD) is over and the case is closed yet the reports and law suits continue to mount. Now it’s all about the NSA.

It’s difficult for the mainstream media to walk and chew gum at the same time. In fact it’s difficult for some of the MSM’s publications and outlets to walk at all. This is good news for President Obama and the worst Attorney General since Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789 and the Federalist and former Secretary of State Edmund Jennings Randolph was appointed as the first Attorney General.

The United States Attorney General (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice (see 28 U.S.C. § 503) concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government. The attorney general serves as a member of the president's cabinet, and is the only cabinet department head who is not given the title secretary.

The attorney general is nominated by the President of the United States and takes office after confirmation by the United States Senate. He or she serves at the pleasure of the president and can be removed by the president at any time; the attorney general is also subject to impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial in the Senate for "treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors."

The original duties of this officer were "to prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the president of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any of the departments." Only in 1870 was the Department of Justice established to support the attorney general in the discharge of his responsibilities.

Since AG Randolph was appointed we have had 81 Attorney Generals — some good, some bad, some charismatic, but most unknown to most of us today. If I were to ask who Edward Bates or Richard Olney were I would venture you would not know. On the other hand if I asked if you knew who Edwin M. Stanton, Alexander Mitchell Palmer, Francis Biddle, Robert F. Kennedy, or John Mitchel were most educated Americans would get that question correct of Jeopardy.

Three of the worst AGs in American history come to mind: Alexander Palmer (Wilson), Janet Reno (Clinton), and the worst being our current Attorney General Eric Holder.

Prominent voices from both sides of the aisle are calling for embattled Attorney General Eric Holder to resign as America’s chief law enforcement officer. Even those on the left have abandoned him. Holder has presided over a “comprehensive erosion of privacy rights, press freedom and due process,” according to liberal professor Jonathan Turley

In his May 29^th column in USA Today Turley said:

“Recently, Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the administration's sweeping surveillance of journalists with the Associated Press. In the greatest attack on the free press in decades, the Justice Department seized phone records for reporters and editors in at least three AP offices as well as its office in the House of Representatives. Holder, however, proceeded to claim absolute and blissful ignorance of the investigation, even failing to recall when or how he recused himself.

Yet, this was only the latest attack on the news media under Holder's leadership. Despite his record, he expressed surprise at the hearing that the head of the Republican National Committee had called for his resignation. After all, Holder pointed out, he did nothing. That is, of course, precisely the point. Unlike the head of the RNC, I am neither a Republican nor conservative, and I believe Holder should be fired.”

While Prof. Turley makes a case for Obama firing Holder I think it’s a liberal’s way of brushing the issue of government overreach and abuse of power under the rug in the Oval Office and a way for Holder to eat Obama’s sins.

Here are a few reasons why Holder should not be fired:

(1) If Holder is culpable, let him face investigation and the legal consequences for his actions. If he is not, let him keep his job. Resignation is an unsatisfying compromise that leaves the American public without the answers we deserve.

(2) This is no time for him to ride off into the sunset. Resignation would allow him to disappear over the horizon and return to private life. The press will move on to the next kerfuffle du jour, and the American people will lose interest in what he may or may not have done while serving as attorney general.

(3) Resigning would immediately reduce his accountability. Resignation would make it easier for Holder to claim he no longer has access to key information. When congressional committees seek answers to the many unanswered questions, Holder can claim that he doesn’t know and that he no longer has access to relevant information.

4) We don’t need any more obfuscation. Holder’s resignation would give political cover to the administration’s erosion of privacy rights, press freedom and due process. The federal leviathan now has unprecedented access to health information, thanks to the behemoth of bad legislation known as ObamaCare.

Freedom of the press goes the way of individual privacy. Outrageous incursions — obtaining phone records of editors and reporters at The Associated Press, the electronic monitoring of Fox News reporter James Rosen — together with Holder’s denials before the House Judiciary Committee that he was not involved in either incident prompted Obama to ask Holder to investigate himself.

And remember that bit in the Fifth Amendment about no person being “deprived of life” without “due process of law”? I missed the part where it says “except in the case of drone strikes.” Waterboarding non-citizen, enemy-combatant Jihadis makes the president evil, whereas vaporizing U.S. citizens from the sky makes the president a hero.

5) Atonement requires more than just a sacrificial lamb. Holder should not resign because that will allow the left to claim that he was a rogue attorney general and that his boss bears no responsibility for his misdeeds. It will allow Obama to escape making the tough public decision to fire him for cause, and it would give Obama an easy way out.

Obama faces a watershed moment in his presidency. From Benghazi to the IRS scandal to the AP and James Rosen investigations to the NSA’s surveillance of the entire population, the American people have innumerable unanswered questions about this administration’s approach to the rule of law.

Obama promised the most transparent administration ever. He claimed he would bring “an unprecedented level of openness in government” that would “work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency.”

He promised transparency. He delivers opacity, blocking investigations of wrongdoing. He promised “a review of government regulations” to find and “fix” rules unnecessarily burdening business. He delivers a one-way ratchet on federal governmental expansion at the inevitable expense of individual freedom.

The issues posed by the current epidemic of current and developing scandals cannot be solved by the resignation of Eric Holder, Lois Lerner, Cheryl Mills, Michael Morell or anyone else. We need to keep the public spotlight shinning on these dark corners of our administrative state.

Barack Obama wasn't an average citizen before moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He was a senator. He was on the Foreign Relations Committee and had access to classified information — all the more reason to believe that he knew that the terror threat was not cynical “fear mongering' by President Bush. When Bush engaged in data mining, he was “undermining our constitution and our freedoms.” When Obama does it, he is “striking the right balance” between security and freedom.

The president assures us that “no one is listening to our phone calls,” and that may be true. But this administration also assured us that no sweeping data collection on American citizens was going on, that the IRS was not unfairly singling out conservatives, that the Justice Department had not attempted to prosecute journalists, and that the Benghazi attack was the response to a video.

According to the latest Fox News poll two-thirds of American voters (66 percent) think the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups as part of a high-level operation to punish political opponents. Far fewer — 23 percent — think it was a mistake by a handful of lower-level IRS employees.

More than three-quarters of voters (78 percent) want Congress to continue to investigate the IRS. That’s a bit higher than the number that thinks Congress should continue to investigate the Justice Department seizing journalists’ records (76 percent) and the Obama administration handling of the attacks in Benghazi (73 percent).

Holder’s resignation would make things easier on this administration. And that’s the last thing we need if we want to return to constitutional government.