Don’t Apologize for Me

"It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him." — Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, 1785

Last week the Chris Matthews, the spittle spewing big mouth liberal on MSNBC, went on record apologizing to the Black community for all whites, which he deemed as racist. Speak for yourself Mr. Matthews, don’t speak for me.

I have nothing to apologize for. For starters my ancestors from Ohio and Pennsylvania fought on the side of the North in our Civil War. Some were seriously wounded and a few died. What did your ancestors do Mr. Matthews?

I have and still do live next to Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. In fact my current neighbor is a Black man who owns his own home, works hard as an independent contractor, and doesn’t think much of our current president. I have hired Blacks, Hispanics and Asians and mentored then in their professional careers. I have given them choice assignments based on merit and capability — not because of their race or heritage. Does this make me a racist? I don’t think so. So when it comes to what I have done keep your mouth shut Mr. Matthews. You are nothing but a race hustling, big mouth liberal out to increase your falling ratings. Speak for yourself!

Yes I discriminate and have done so my entire life. I discriminate on the friends I have and the people I wish to associate with like liberals like you Mr. Matthews. I discriminate on where I want to live, the products I buy, the food I eat, and the places I visit. I discriminate on the books I read, the Internet sites I visit, and the TV channels I watch (that’s why I don’t watch MSNBC). These forms of discrimination are called choices and we all make choices every day. It’s the way rational people live their lives.

I've always been sensitive to race. I don't support racism or racists. I've never considered myself racist and don't think others would consider me a racist. How could I be one now?

I never enslaved anyone, prevented them from working or voting or living in my neighborhood or joining my clubs. I don't think there was any proof that George Zimmerman did either.

But now I know if I ever cross or injure a black person — no matter how justified my actions might be — there is a presumption that I am a racist.

I don't like it at all. It isn't true. But here I am, non-racist me trapped inside this new racist body I've been assigned. My actions and beliefs are irrelevant. Society has decreed this is who I am.

After the Zimmerman verdict, many white people woke up just like me, realizing that we will be deemed haters whenever we interact with non-whites and something goes wrong — no matter what our motivation or innermost thoughts are.

Most of us didn't grow up this way. Quite the opposite. I was taught never to hate and only to judge people by their actions and not by their color, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. Didn't Martin Luther King say we should judge a man by "the content of his character, not by his color of his skin"?

Use of racism to implement an agenda or get one's way, has been building over years. This isn't news to any of you. Anytime you fire someone who is a minority, you must have documentation backing up your non-racist justifications. Even if you have pages and testimony to bolster your decision, you still could be confronted with an unpleasant lawsuit identifying you as a "discriminator."

Even though we are supposed to be a color-blind, post-racial society, groups and individuals force us to think about race all the time. We have become a hyper-racial society. Furthermore, since very few of us want to be labeled with anything as odious as "racist," we will do anything — including keeping incompetents in our employ — to avoid the moniker.

Nevertheless, as careful as many whites are to avoid doing anything that would saddle us with such epithets, time and time again it is thrust upon us with the goal of serving someone else's purpose — regardless how we actually conduct ourselves.

If you don't like your black neighbor because you have a personality clash, you are a racist.

If you complain about a black clerk in a store because she wasn't helpful, you are a racist.

If you oppose affirmative action, you are a racist. Every Black conservative such as Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, David Webb, Deneen Borelli, Roy Innis, Larry Elder, and Justice Clarence Thomas are against affirmative action. Does that make them racists? That would mean Blacks are racists against other Blacks.

If you disagree with a black President's ideology and disapprove of his policies, you most definitely are a racist.

If you are a juror in the Trayvon Martin case and find George Zimmerman not guilty, you must be a racist. Heck, the entire system that acquitted Zimmerman is racist. Those shots were fired not out of self-defense but because of racism. And we know that, because Trayvon was black and Zimmerman white.

Speaking of Justice Clearance Thomas when President George H.W. Bush appointed him to the Supreme Court and he was opposed by Democrat stalwarts like Ted Kennedy, the Democrat Party, and the entire left-wing press (including you Mr. Matthews) I guess that’s proof that they were all racists

Now we have President Obama once again jumping into the fray. Last week he made an appearance at an impromptu press conference to pontificate on racism and stand your ground. As usual he wanted to gin up his base before going on his multi-million dollar vacation to Martha’s Vineyard where he can hob-knob with his million dollar donors.

Obama publicly and personally addressed the Trayvon Martin case for the first time since George Zimmerman was acquitted nearly a week ago, relating his own experiences to the "pain" the black community is feeling and going on to question so-called "stand-your-ground" laws.

The president delivered extensive remarks during a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room. He suggested race may have played a strong role in the case, saying that if a "white male teen" were involved, "both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different."

He went far beyond his remarks a year ago in which he stirred controversy by saying if he had a son, he'd look like Martin.

"Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago," Obama said.

The president used the highly personal comments to, in his words, put the angst in the black community in "context." And he also appeared to give his support to Attorney General Eric Holder's call earlier in the week for a review of "stand-your-ground" laws.

Here is a segment from Obama’s remarks:

"You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African-American community at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it's important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a -- and a history that -- that doesn't go away. There are very few African-American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.

"There are probably very few African-American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator. There are very few African-Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

(Wasn’t it the race hustler Jesse Jackson who once said that while walking at night in a Black neighborhood he would anxiously look over his shoulder until he could get out of the area?)

…

"And, you know, I -- I don't want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it's inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear. The African-American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws, everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case.”

…

"And for those who -- who resist that idea, that we should think about something like these Stand Your Ground laws, I just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

"Number three -- and this is a long-term project -- we need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our African-American boys? And this is something that Michelle and I talk a lot about. There are a lot of kids out there who need help, who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them, and values them, and is willing to invest in them?

"You know, I'm not naive about the prospects of some grand new federal program. I'm not sure that that's what we're talking about here. But I -- I do recognize that, as president, I've got some convening power. And there are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on this front. And for us to be able to gather together business leaders and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and athletes and figure out, how are we doing a better job helping young African-American men feel that they're a full part of this society and that -- and that they've got pathways and avenues to succeed?

"You know, I think that would be a pretty good outcome from what was, obviously, a tragic situation. And we're going to spend some time working on that and thinking about that. And then, finally, I think it's going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching.

"You know, there's been talk about, should we convene a conversation on race? I haven't seen that be particularly productive when, you know, politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have. “

And then there is the poster boy for cognitive dissonance, Juan Williams, who wrote in his recent column “Obama's risky admission -- after Zimmerman case America must do better on race” for FoxNews.com:

“The president's decision to speak out about the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case is an explosive, risky step in an already polarized racial landscape.

The first black president has tried to speak about race before and not had a good response. That's possibly why he said that he's not calling for a "national dialogue" but asking people to do some soul searching at home, at church and among friends.

The president's decision to come out and speak, despite the warnings from his top advisers, reveals how deeply the Martin-Zimmerman case has torn at the nation's long, troubled history of race relations.

The fact is president must have concluded that he had no choice but to speak out or be recorded in the history books as a political no-show on the critical race issues of his day.

President Obama is already under fire for not doing enough on race, for not speaking out about black on black crime in the country, about high black unemployment, about the tragedy of urban education for black kids. Something deep in him must have forced him to speak out this time.

While it won't please his critics that the president spoke at all, it's clear that Mr. Obama is trying to offer a leader's healing prescription for a nation filled with hurt over the Martin-Zimmerman case.

I know I have been hurt in the days since the verdict.

I have been full of sadness over the not-guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman murder. The lack of justice for a dead teenager and the Martin family is sad, it is tragic.

Yes, the prosecution failed, in my opinion, to make the case beyond reasonable doubt that Zimmerman acted with the malice necessary for a conviction on second-degree murder.

Yes, the jury failed to see the need for justice for all.

And, yes, the media failed to be fair.

These failures began before the trial when the special prosecutor in the case, Florida State Attorney Angela Corey, did not convene a grand jury. After the local police failed to arrest or charge Zimmerman the prosecutors were in a rush to satisfy racial activists, the media and political pressure for immediate action.”

Then we have the clamor to rid ourselves of the Stand Your Ground laws from the liberal left-wing media. It should be noted that 30 states have Stand Your Ground Laws and if I read the Ninth and Tenth Amendments correctly this is the business of the states, not the federal government. Take as example a recent article in Salon.com by Katie Halper “Stand your ground” law helps white defendants a lot more than black ones.” In the article Ms. Halper advances her belief that stand your ground benefits whites more than blacks and uses two anecdotal cases to prove her point. She used the cases of Ralph Wald, and Marissa Alexander both of Florida:

“On March 10 of this year, around midnight, Ralph Wald, 70, of Brandon, Fla., got out of bed to get a drink and found Walter Conley, 32, having sex with his wife, Johanna Lynn Flores, 41, in the living room. He immediately went back into his bedroom, grabbed his gun and shot Conley three times. Conley died. Wald claims that he thought Conley was a stranger who had broken in and was raping his wife – despite the fact that Conley lived next door, had been his wife’s roommate and lover, and had his wife’s name tattooed onto his neck and arm. During a 911 call, when the dispatcher asked Wald if the man he shot was dead, Wald responded, “I hope so!” Wald never used the word “rape” in later reports to police, opting instead for “fornicate.” And while the fact that the two were lovers doesn’t imply consent, Flores has never accused Conley of rape — nor do prosecutors buy that that’s what Wald actually thought was happening. They say that Wald, who suffers from erectile dysfunction, killed Conley in a jealous rage. Flores admits that she and Conley had sex regularly before and after her marriage to Wald. While testifying, Wald explained that his erectile dysfunction and his wife’s reluctance to have sex with him made them compatible: “In fact, she would joke a lot with me that we were a perfect couple. She didn’t want to do it, and I couldn’t do it.” On May 30, after deliberating for two hours, a jury found Wald not guilty. After the verdict was announced, Wald continued to show no remorse: “If the same thing happened again, I would do the same thing.”

…

“On Aug. 1, 2010, Marissa Alexander, a 31-year-old mother of three, with a master’s degree and no criminal record, was working for a payroll software company in Jacksonville. She was estranged from her abusive husband, Rico Gray, and had a restraining order against him. Thinking he was not at home, she went to their former house to get some belongings. The two got into an argument. Alexander says that Gray threatened her and she feared for her life. Gray corroborates Alexander’s story: “I was in a rage. I called her a whore and bitch and I told her if I can’t have you, nobody going to have you,” he said, in a deposition. When Alexander retreated into the bathroom, Gray tried to break the door. She ran into the garage, but couldn’t leave because it was locked. She came back, he said, with a registered gun, which she legally owned, and yelled at him to leave. Gray recalls, “I told her I ain’t going nowhere, and so I started walking toward her. I was cursing and all that and she shot in the air.” Even Gray understands why Alexander fired the warning shot: “If my kids wouldn’t have been there, I probably would have put my hand on her. Probably hit her. I got five baby mommas and I put my hands on every last one of them, except for one … I honestly think she just didn’t want me to put my hands on her anymore so she did what she feel like she have to do to make sure she wouldn’t get hurt, you know. You know, she did what she had to do.” And Gray admits Alexander was acting in self-defense, intending to scare and stop but not harm him: “The gun was never actually pointed at me. The fact is, you know she never been violent toward me. I was always the one starting it.” Ultimately nobody was hurt. Nobody died. On May 12, 2012, it took a jury 12 minutes to find Alexander guilty of aggravated assault. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Both defendants used the defense of “stand your ground,” a Florida law that holds that a person has “no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself.” The man who shot his wife’s lover to death was successful and walks free. The woman who shot at a wall to scare an abusive husband failed and sits in jail.”

It must be pointed out that both cases were prosecuted by Angela Cory’s State Attorney’s Office. I believe the case against Ms. Alexander was a gross miscarriage of justice perpetrated once again by Angela Cory, a woman who should be disbarred. I only hope she can get a good attorney to work her appeal.

However, two antidotal cases do not make a case for overturning stand your ground in 30 states and it won’t happen. What we need are better prosecutors. The stand your ground laws go hand in hand with the Castle Laws.

According to Patrick Howley writing in the Daily Caller “Blacks benefit from Florida ‘Stand Your Ground’ law at disproportionate rate.”:

“One hundred thirty three people in the state of Florida have used a “Stand Your Ground” defense. Of these claims, 73 were considered “justified” (55 percent), while 39 resulted in criminal convictions and 21 cases are still pending.

Forty four African Americans in the state of Florida have claimed a “Stand Your Ground” defense. Of these claims, 24 were considered “justified” (55 percent), while 11 resulted in convictions and nine cases are still pending.

Of the 76 white people who have used the defense, 40 were considered “justified” (less than 53 percent), while 25 were convicted and 11 cases are still pending.

Ten Hispanics have used the defense, seven of them successfully, according to the database, which included George Zimmerman as a “Stand Your Ground” defendant.

Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” cases have resulted in 78 white victims against 40 black victims, including Martin, and 10 Hispanic victims.

“For a defense attorney, it (stand your ground) is an excellent tool. Even if your client is not found legal under stand your ground, it helps you flesh out the issues as the case proceeds to trial. It’s an opportunity to push forward with that position while also forcing the state to show their hand,” said defense attorney Chuck Hobbs, whose 20-year-old African-American client Earl Jackson was found not guilty of murder but was convicted on lesser charges after a 2009 gang shootout in a Tallahassee parking lot that left an innocent bystander dead.

Then-19-year-old African American Tony Hayward of Palm Beach County also benefited from the “Stand Your Ground” defense when he was acquitted in the shooting death of 22-year old Jyron Miles.

“Besides the shooter’s word and a grainy surveillance video, jurors had little to go on when deciding if Tony Hayward was defending his life when he shot and killed Jyron Miles, 22. Hayward, then 19, and his father were delivering newspapers when Miles appeared at about 3 a.m., according to newspaper reports. They said Miles aggressively demanded ‘is you straight?’ a phrase sometimes used to see if someone has drugs,” according to the Tampa Bay Times database. “The father and son said Miles then reached for what they thought was a gun, so the teen fired. The video did not show whether Miles had a gun, but police did not find one when they arrived…At his second trial in early 2011, Hayward was acquitted. His public defender argued that Hayward was standing his ground during the confrontation.”

The best known African American associated with Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law is Marissa Alexander, who was prevented from invoking the law after firing a warning shot to protect herself from her abusive ex-husband. Alexander, who had no prior criminal record, was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and her case has become an important cause for supporters of the law. Alexander was prosecuted by Angela Corey, the same state attorney who lost the Zimmerman case.”

As John Adams stated in his defense of the British Soldiers accused of murder in the Boston Massacre; “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

I wonder if the race industry has any idea what they are clamoring for by restricting the claim of self-defense. Black-on-black crime is the overwhelming source of crime against blacks in America. If the Zimmerman protesters have their way and a black intruder breaks into the home of a black family and is shot dead by the homeowner, the homeowner will more likely be the criminal on trial than the perp, as we have seen in the Ron Dixon case in Brooklyn, where a Jamaican family man killed an intruder (whose race isn't clear in the reports) and was shockingly sentenced to jail for illegally possessing a gun.

We will be cutting off our self-defense noses to spite our racial anger faces.  This all stems from intense vitriol for past sins most of us had nothing to do with and would never condone.  The sins of America's past are being visited upon America's present and future regardless of the sensibility of doing so.  My heart breaks that slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, the KKK, lynching, and discrimination ever existed. Every reasonable human being feels this way. But this continued pay back has to stop.

This is not exclusive to race. LGBT activists have hijacked the black plight for their own purposes. LGBT students are given special consideration in the college application process to right the wrongs visited upon previous generations of homosexuals. If you dislike a person who happens to be gay, you are homophobic. If you disapprove of redefining marriage, you are homophobic. If the thought of same-sex sexual conduct makes you feel uncomfortable, you are homophobic. If you think AIDS is a gay disease brought on by lifestyle, you are homophobic. If you fire anyone who is gay, you are homophobic.

If a gay man tries to rape a straight man and the straight man accidentally kills the gay man while trying to ward off the rape, he must be homophobic. There is no room for self-defense if the perp-turned-victim is gay and the accused is not. (See the case of Steven Nary.)

And, as we have seen in the media's reaction to the Zimmerman case, for many, there is no room for self-defense if the puncher-turned-victim is black and the accused is white.

Obama put us on notice that we'd better do some "soul-searching" because as president he has "convening power" to push forward some "grand new federal programs."

Wow, 'wait till your daddy Obama gets back from Martha’s Vineyard kids — there's gonna be some whoop-ass if you don't straighten it out.' Obama, the Daddy that 73% of the Rachel Jeantel demographic never had, is going after those downright mean white oppressor bullies. The ones who keep putting all the black young males in prison for wearing hoodies and eating skittles. The ones who "paint African-American boys with a broad brush" and who tend to see them as "more violent."

Obama the Marxist never strays too far from the dialectic. We have to put Martin's death in "context." What context Obama doesn't say, but we can assume it's all about slavery and its economic origins. Why else were there communist protesters at the Justice for Trayvon rallies with signs reading Racism is a By-Product of Capitalism?

Obama and his dupes, including Martin's father, Tracy, have been repeating the "if Trayvon was [sic] white" talking point ever since the verdict came down. Translation: whites are the privileged class, nobody bothers them. Or in the words of Marx who indeed linked slavery to white capitalist exploiters of blacks: "In fact, the veiled slavery of the wage-laborers in Europe needed the unqualified slavery of the New World as its pedestal. Capital comes dripping from head to toe, from every pore, with blood and dirt "

Obama may be fooling the black community with his "Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago" but like everything else in the Marxist world, black interests are only a means to an end to capitalism.

While Obama continues to exploit blacks for his own purposes, we can be sure he'll act like the wise chief ruling over a human kindergarten telling us what to do and to like it or else.

Obama said in his press conference:

“Ask yourself am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can; am I judging people, as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.”

This from the titular head of the Democrat Party, which has turned Martin Luther King's challenge about color and character upside down. Indeed, for Obama and the Left, color trumps character.

Obama closed his remarks saying, "Those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions." Seriously, that is what this consummate hypocrite said. Of course Obama has risen from a "community organizer" to the office of President of the United States, solely by invoking the politics of disparity, fomenting class, race, sex and religious division across the nation — pure Alinsky. Democrats rely on this "divide and conquer" strategy in every campaign, and Obama politicized the Zimmerman/Martin case for precisely that reason during his 2012 reelection campaign.

Obama did feign disdain for the protests incited by Al Sharpton and other race-bait hustlers, saying, "If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin." Fact is, Obama's remarks dishonor what happened to Martin, because they divert attention from the real tragedy of cultural entropy and epidemic violence in predominately black communities.

Race hustlers with their double standards across the nation are calling for a civil rights investigation into Zimmerman's motives for shooting Martin. However, during Zimmerman's trial, it was clear that none of his actions were motivated by race. However, Rachel Jeantel, who was on the phone with Martin just prior to the altercation, testified that Martin described Zimmerman as a "creepy-ass white cracker." Seems a more pertinent question would be: Was Martin's assault on Zimmerman racially motivated?

Oh, and despite all the spin Obama is generating around this case, we won't get distracted from all his other scandals and policy fails!

As the Black economists Thomas Sowell stated:

“If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.”

The Myth of High Speed Rail

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." — Frederic Bastiat

For the past two years I have been writing about the myth of high speed passenger rail. (See my blog from May 12, 2012 — “The Train to Nowhere, Part Deux”) In my May 12^th blog I addressed the history of rail in the United States and talked about the proposed $7 billion dollar high speed rail from Victorville, California to Las Vegas, California. Since that time the name of the project has changed from DesertXpress to XpressWest and the United States Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration has nixed the requested $5.5 billion dollar loan.

On July 17^th the Washington Post reported:

“WE’VE SEEN some bad policy ideas but not many more awful than the proposal to extend a $5.5 billion low-interest, 35-year federal loan to a West Coast start-up for a high-speed rail connection between Southern California and Las Vegas. This time, though, we are happy to report, common sense has prevailed: The Obama administration has stopped the project.

Backed by wealthy casino moguls, who in turn enjoyed the support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a company called XpressWest wanted to lay tracks between Vegas and lonely Victorville, Calif., some 81 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Several times larger than the largest amount ever loaned under the obscure federal Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing Program, the federal money would cover 80 percent of the project’s costs. The supposed public benefits were reduced carbon emissions, less auto traffic and, of course, more jobs.

What XpressWest struggled to explain was why taxpayers should bet on a proposition that private investors apparently found too risky: hordes of travelers driving to Victorville, parking their cars and then boarding the train for an 80-minute ride to Vegas — as opposed to driving the whole way, flying or taking “My Party Ride,” a limo-like bus trip for up to 30 passengers at $99 each, including food and drinks.

The whole thing had the makings of a boondoggle, for which taxpayers would eventually end up paying. Yet multiple federal and state agencies had given environmental and regulatory approvals, leaving the crucial matter of the loan up to the Transportation Department. Given the project’s political connections, DOT’s thumbs-up seemed inevitable — until June 28, when then-Secretary Ray LaHood, as one of his final acts in office, sent XpressWest Chairman Anthony Marnell II a letter saying that the department had decided to “suspend further consideration” of the loan.”

LaHood, in his June 28 letter to the company, cited "serious issues" with the application in the decision to cut the project off. He suggested the company was having difficulty ensuring that the project would be built with enough American products like U.S-made steel and iron.

Some of the letter was redacted, but LaHood also suggested concerns about the sheer size of the loan and the risk, and the company's apparent failure to submit additional documentation on other participants in the project.

"After several years of engagement with no resolution to the threshold issues addressed in this letter and the significant uncertainties still surrounding the project, we have decided to suspend further consideration of XpressWest's loan request," LaHood wrote. The request had been under consideration with both his department and the Federal Railroad Administration.

The decision is a major blow to the project, as the federal loan was expected to make up the bulk of funding for the $6.9 billion rail line.

The 185-mile line was billed as the most advanced and fastest in the U.S. According to the company, it would connect Southern California and Vegas with an 80-minute train ride.

Yet critics warned that costs could spiral and ridership projections might be too rosy, and that such a massive federal investment was not wise.

The XpressWest line is running into a wall after another project — a proposed magnetic levitation (Maglev) train with a similar route — also ran into recent problems, as state planners backed away from that project and federal funding ran dry.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, (R-Alabama), top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, and Rep. Paul Ryan, (R-Wisconsin)., chairman of the House Budget Committee, had earlier revealed they'd been told about the department's decision on XpressWest. The two lawmakers had been among the toughest critics of the project and loan, calling it "costly, wasteful and risky."

On February 12, 2013 Laura Carroll Reported in the Las Vegas Review Journal:

“At best, it could be another 18 months before any ground is broken on the XpressWest project - the same time frame backers gave the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2009.

The reality of a high-speed train shuttling travelers between Victorville, Calif., and Las Vegas hinges on funding of $5.5 billion from the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing, which is administered by the Federal Railroad Administration. XpressWest's first loan application was submitted in December 2010 and is still under review.

The nearly $7 billion project will largely be financed from this loan, if approved, and the rest in private equity investment.

At Tuesday's meeting of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board of directors, XpressWest Chief Operating Officer Andrew Mack, said it could be six months before a decision is made on the application. If approved, it would be still another year before ground is broken.

"It's really dependent on the RRIF pay," Mack said. "That's really driving the schedule.

The train would be built adjacent to Interstate 15 with service every 20 minutes and one-ways taking about 80 minutes. The average fare is less than $100, Mack said. Each train would seat between 500 and 600 passengers.

If construction eventually starts, XpressWest estimates that 80,000 direct and indirect construction jobs will be created, with a third of those going to Southern Nevadans. The estimated economic output of the rail line during its lifetime is $7.8 billion.

In Las Vegas, two potential sites have been chosen for train stations: one across from the Rio and the other across from Mandalay Bay.”

The Transportation Department later said in a statement that "XpressWest has the ability to revive its application by significantly revising its request."

The project still has a powerful supporter in Congress — Senate Majority Leader Reid, as well as Republican Nevada Sen. Dean Heller.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Reid claims the administration has not "permanently foreclosed" the possibility of an investment. He stressed Friday that he plans to keep pushing for "this vital investment." Obviously this decision is a death blow to Reid and the backers of the project — a decision I totally agree with. (See the Fox News report from March 13, 2013)

According to an August 2012 tax risk assessment by the libertarian Reason Foundation should the Victorville to Las Vegas train commercial revenues fail to pay operating costs and debt service, the project would not have enough money to repay the federal loan, resulting in a default that would make Solyndra look like small change. Taxpayers would lose up to $6.5 billion in principal and any unpaid interest, an amount that could climb to more than $7.5 billion if a full six-year deferment of repayment is granted. The Taxpayer Risk Assessment identifies a number of concerns that could result in taxpayer losses.

This Taxpayer Risk Assessment examines the financial risks to taxpayers of the proposed XpressWest high-speed rail project from Victorville to Las Vegas. There would be no need for a Taxpayer Risk Analysis without government (taxpayer) involvement. For example, if a bus company were to establish a new service between Victorville and Las Vegas, there would be no taxpayer financial exposure under normal circumstances. The company would either succeed or fail depending on its ability to cover its costs through various commercial activities. As with private loans, the ability to secure the loan depends on the bank’s assessment of its successfully pay off — a natural inhibitor of risky propositions. XpressWest is intended to be self-supporting, with the construction and financing expenses and operating expenses covered by commercial revenues, principally passenger fares. Tellingly, the project sponsors are apparently unable to arrange conventional private sector financing and seek a federal loan with a subsidized interest rate, which would pass the risks on to taxpayers if the forecasted ridership should fail to materialize. Moreover, in the event of financial difficulty, state and local taxpayers could face significant pressure to provide funding to complete the system or to subsidize its operations. Thus, a Taxpayer Risk Assessment is necessary.

This Taxpayer Risk Analysis reviews ridership, revenue and capital cost forecasts to the extent that they are available. The principal focus is on ridership, since the repayment of the proposed federal loan from taxpayers is entirely dependent upon commercial revenues, principally the fares that will be paid by riders and ancillary revenues, such as advertising.

1. A Speculative Consumer Market: The greatest risk is that the potential consumer market for the train is far smaller, in geographical terms, than is assumed in the project documentation. There is no parallel for large numbers of drivers and airline passengers to travel well outside the urban areas in which they live to connect to a train (or plane) to any destination, much less one so close to Southern California as Las Vegas. As a result, common sense finds ridership and revenue likely to be a mere fraction of forecast. This would likely make repayment of the federal loan impossible. This risk to taxpayers of an exaggerated market is “unknown, but potentially severe.”

2. Materially Changed Circumstances: Even if the consumer market were geographically as large as assumed, growth in the Las Vegas tourist market has been far below forecasts in recent years. As a result, the base ridership figures are implausibly exaggerated and need to be revised downward. The ridership and revenue risk to XpressWest from this factor is high and risks make paying the federal debt impossible, calling for a taxpayer bailout.

3. Ridership and Revenue Forecast Model Concerns: The international record indicates that rail projects tend to average approximately 39% less in ridership than forecast. Specific factors of the ridership forecast for the Victorville to Las Vegas train indicate that actual ridership is likely to be 39% to 70% less than forecasted, even after adjustment for the materially changed circumstances. These factors include an optimistic estimate of the base year market, a market growth rate greater than in pre-recession years, an optimistic assumption of attraction from cars and an optimistic bus attraction assumption. Such rosy predictions increase the likelihood that the federal loan would not be repaid.

4. Capital Cost Escalation: Capital cost escalation for rail projects has been pervasive in similar projects, suggesting that capital cost escalation is likely to occur on the Victorville to Las Vegas train, leaving the project impossible to complete and triggering a default on the federal loan. Governments (federal, state and local) would be faced with difficult decisions about whether to complete the project, at elevated costs, with public funding or to fund dismantlement of a partially completed system.

5. Likely Commercial Losses: Even if there is no capital cost escalation, it is unlikely that the business plan for this project is flexible enough to deal with all the variations discussed above without suffering either higher costs or commercial revenue shortfalls. This inflexibility could lead to a default on the federal loan with the loss paid by taxpayers. Further, political pressure to keep the train operating could lead to a federal Amtrak-style takeover with subsidies, or the train could be operated with state and/or local subsidies. The risk of taxpayer loss from this factor is evaluated at “high.”

6. Higher Cost for Highway Expansion: Use of the median of I-15 for the Victorville to Las Vegas train could preclude the most cost-effective options to expand highway capacity. This would increase costs to taxpayers and highway users. The risk of higher expansion costs on I-15 is evaluated as “moderate.”

In 1991 I was involved with the proposed Maglev line from Anaheim to Las Vegas. This was to be a cooperative venture between Transrapid (the German consortium pushing their Maglev technology), The California High Speed Rail Corporation, and Bechtel to design, build and operate a Maglev train from Disneyland to Las Vegas. The technology seemed sound but there were two major problems. One is that they could not get a permit from Caltrans to use any right of way along the I-15 corridor and two; they could not find any investors. Eventually the right of way issue was solved by an act of the California Legislature, but there still was no money coming forth.

The majority of high-speed rail lines require large government subsidies from both general taxpayers and drivers. Even with generous subsidies, traveling by high-speed rail is still more expensive than flying for 12 of the 23 most popular high-speed rail routes in the world. Evidence suggests it can only be competitive on routes that are 200 to 500 miles in length.

High-speed rail is also very expensive to build. Most new routes cost at least $10 million per mile to construct. The cheapest European rail line costs more than $50,000 per seat to operate annually. A U.S. high-speed rail line would need ridership of 6 million to 9 million people per year to break even. The high-speed Acela service, despite operating in the busy Northeast Corridor, averages only 3.4 million passengers per year.

Advocates cite other advantages for high-speed rail, but most fall apart under close examination:

Environment: High-speed rail creates more pollution than it prevents because building a high-speed rail line is very energy-intensive.

Economic development: High-speed rail does not create much new development; it merely redirects development from one area to another.

Mobility: High-speed rail is unlikely to improve mobility since most of its potential passengers already travel by air.

Choice: Customers can already choose between a low-cost bus, a fast plane or a personalized car trip.

Most countries have built high-speed rail to relieve passenger overcrowding on their existing lines. The U.S. lacks this overcrowding, which suggests consumer demand for high-speed rail may not be there. Furthermore, freight rail dominates track usage, and railroad companies are reluctant to relinquish capacity, as is evident in the discussions surrounding the proposed multimodal passenger terminal in downtown Atlanta.

Any U.S. rail operator will have to compete on the same terms that cause Amtrak to lose large amounts of money each year. Railways are subject to outdated labor laws that were enacted when railroads did not face competition. Operating a passenger railroad in the existing regulatory environment is not a profitable proposition.

Our core cities, where people are most likely to board high-speed trains, are much less dense than European or Asian cities, which also limits the potential market.

The U.S. has far higher rates of car ownership than most other countries. Gas taxes are lower, road tolls are less common, and many cities — especially in the South and West — have grown up around the automobile.

As a result, high-speed rail is best regarded as a luxury toy this country cannot afford. For far less money, we could create a world-class highway and aviation system with first-rate bus and airplane service and far more flexibility.

We’d like to think that cost and feasibility concerns ultimately derailed this crazy train, but that is not what Mr. LaHood emphasized in his letter. Rather, he faulted XpressWest for not guaranteeing that it would get steel and other manufactured goods from U.S. suppliers. We disagree with protectionist “Buy America” thinking; still, in this case it at least shows that the project’s job-creation potential was always limited by the fact that no U.S. manufacturer makes high-speed rail cars or the needed heavy steel rails and electrification systems. However imperfect his rationale, Mr. LaHood reached the right result, and that’s cause for celebration.

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.