Sunday, July 21, 2013




Why the Leftist outrage at the acquittal of George Zimmerman?

There is an illustrated list of Leftist and media reactions here.


"It’s 2013 and an American jury just acquitted a man who admitted to stalking and killing an unarmed child" — Richard Dreyfus, actor

I think you can see why in the face above.  That face is expressing glee  -- barely restrained delight.  The slightest hint that America is unjust is manna from heaven for Leftists.  They  build their self-esteem on being wiser and more compassionate than "the masses".  And given America's black/white tensions, a chance to see others as racist is not to be missed.  It is America's most powerful form of condemnation so any chance to use it must be used even if it is only remotely justified.

It's pathetic that people need to condemn others in order to boost their own self-esteem but that's Leftists.  They never cease finding fault.

I note however that many of the commentators refer to the 6' tall Martin as a "child".  So the constant media use of pictures of Martin when he was a child may have misled some commentators in an important way.  It would have made it less plausible that Zimmerman acted in self-defense.


A picture of Martin as he was at about the time that he pounced on Zimmerman

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Are Americans Living in a Police State?

by ALAN CARUBA

The thing about a police state is that it tends to creep up on you. One day you think the Bill of Rights is intact and the freedoms you take for granted are intact, but the next day you find out that under the National Defense Authorization Act (HR 1540), signed into law by President Obama on December 31, 2011, you can be arrested and detained without recourse to an attorney or the courts.

HR 1540 kills the concept of Habeas Corpus by permitting the detention of U.S. citizens without trial. In 2009 the National Emergency Centers Act, HR 645,  was introduced for the establishment of "internment camps." I have not been able to determine if it was passed and signed into law, nor have I found any explanation why the Congress of the United States either passed or even considered these laws.

The 2001 Patriot Act was justified as a response to 9/11 and revised in 2012. It gives the government unprecedented powers of surveillance and enforcement in the name of deterring terrorism.
One of Obama's many executive orders permits him to "commandeer" all domestic U.S. resources, including food and water supplies, energy productions, and transportation, even in times of peace, with no congressional oversight. On March 16, 2012, the National Defense Resources Preparedness EO expands on a law from the 1950s as the Cold War was heating up and there were fears of a conflict with the Soviet Union.

President Obama, obsessed with leaks to the press, has now turned the entire federal government into a workplace where employees are expected to report "suspicious activity" of their co-workers. Failure to do so could result in penalties including criminal charges. Though figures differ, by 2010 there were an estimated 2.5 million full-time federal employees.

According to an article by Jonathan S. Landay and Marisa Taylor, two reporters for McClatchy newspapers, the October 2011 executive order mandating the program is "based on behavioral profiling techniques that are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government documents." The program, deemed flawed, "could result in illegal ethnic and racial profiling and privacy violations."

As Americans have been learning in airports across the nation, the Transportation Security Authority routinely engages in profiling and highly intrusive physical "pat downs" that many find humiliating.

In 2011, the TSA's "VIPR teams" conducted an estimated 8,000 unannounced security screenings at subway stations, bus terminals, seaports, and highway rest stops in which Americans were required to show some proof of identity. This is the same administration that opposes voter ID, but not when the police functions of the TSA are concerned.

In bits and pieces, news of activities at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been reported and, when the dots are connected, some very scary conclusions can be reached. Why has DHS purchased 1.6 billion bullets as of March of this year? That is reportedly twenty times more than the amount of bullets expended in the Iraq War. Why is the DHS reportedly sending thousands of heavily armored vehicles and combat gear to cities and towns around the nation for use by police forces that are increasingly being militarized?

One can find a list of actions by the Obama administration that, together, portray preparations for the implementation of a police state as Americans are detained, as per a DHS report, because they are deemed to be potential terrorists because they hold beliefs and ideologies that include:

# "being fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to international in orientation)"

# "anti-global"

# "suspicious of centralized federal authority"

# "reverent of individual liberty"

# "believe in conspiracy theories"

# "a belief that one's personal and/or national ‘way of life' is under attack"

# "a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism"

# "impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)"

# "anti-abortion"

And those are just some of the "suspicious" activities or beliefs that can get you hauled off to a detention camp without the benefit of a trial.

While there have been a handful of incidents where terrorist acts have been perpetrated by those inspired by Islam, they do not justify preparations that clearly suggest the Obama administration anticipates a perceived national uprising against the federal government. Indeed, a number of marches in Washington, D.C. are planned, including one on September 9.

The legislation that has been passed and the executive orders put in place suggest that there are plans in place to ensure that the implementation of a police state can be swiftly imposed on Americans, contrary to all the protections of the Constitution. Indeed, given their existence, are we not already living in a police state?

SOURCE

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Five reasons why Left-wingers are pure evil

A semi-serious comment from Britain

The Labour-supporting blogger Sunny Hundal has done his bit for world peace by declaring that Right-wingers are all “evil”. Obviously, it’s political hyperbole at its most silly. But this kind of rhetoric is increasingly common among Left-wingers who think that conservatives who want to reform welfare, stop the NHS from killing people or make sure kids can leave school with the ability to tie their own shoe-laces are – to use Sunny’s words – “heartless bastards.”

So if we’re going to play this game of tit-for-tat, I’d like to offer evidence that it’s the Left that’s pure evil rather than the right. Aside from hating freedom and the baby Jesus, they also commit these five mortal sins without any thought for the rest of us:

1. Bad stand-up comedy. Call me old-fashioned, but I always thought a comedian was a fat man in a tux who came on stage and told jokes. But Left-wingers will laugh at something not because it’s funny but because they think they’re supposed to – which been an enormous boon to the careers of "alternative" comedians like  Jeremy Hardy, Josie Long, Robin Ince, Mark Thomas and Marcus Brigstocke (seriously, folks, I’ve known colonoscopies that are funnier than Marcus Brigstocke). Their acts are basically George Galloway speeches with a laughter track added and one of their favourite targets are the “fascist simpletons” who believe in God. Oddly, though, they never pick on fundamentalist Muslims. They can’t seem to see the funny side of having a fatwa put on their head.

2. They all seem to be about 12 years old. My old nan used to complain that policemen were getting younger and younger, but the same now applies to Labour politicians. And for some reason it’s become a requirement that Left-wing pundits look like Blue Peter presenters – all opened-necked shirts, spiky hair and shiny, shiny faces. Would it surprise you if Sunny, Ellie, Owen or Laurie broke away from a debate on globalisation to tell the audience how to build a Thunderbird Tracy Island out of pipe cleaners and a plastic bottle?

3. They care about what famous people think about things. Barbara Windsor is a lifelong Conservative, but you wouldn’t know that because she doesn’t drop it into every conversation. On the other hand, we all know the politics of Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, Ross Kemp, Tony Robinson and Eddie Izzard because they never shut up about it. Eddie Izzard is even thinking of running for Mayor of London; if so, I hope the Tories go tit-for-tat and run the Chuckle Brothers against him. It’s a strange thing about the Left that while they claim to be egalitarian they go all weak at the knees when they discover that a rich famous person supports their cause. It can backfire – no one’s going to be inviting Alec Baldwin to their gay wedding.

4. They’re willing to give murderers the benefit of the doubt. There’s nothing more annoying than a Leftie in a Che Guevara t-shirt – a racist sociopath who helped to establish a regime that butchered all its opponents and threw into jail anyone who was “a bit camp”. But Left-wing sympathy for patently bad people is typical. One campaign that irritates me more than any other is the crusade to allow prisoners to vote, as if we want to give a democratic voice to convicted fraudsters and lunatics who think they have a mandate from God to kill their grandma and wear her scalp as a hat. If this stupid idea ever gains any ground, the only upshot would be that politicians might have to start canvasing in maximum-security prisons. Oh, how I’d dearly like to see Nick Clegg beg Ian Brady for his vote.

5. They think that people who don’t share their opinions are evil. Left-wingers are the most tolerant people on earth – until they encounter someone who disagrees with them. Disagreement offends their sense of righteousness, and turns champions of free speech and free love into 17th-century Puritans. If you don’t believe me, follow this simple exercise. A) Post this article on your Facebook page. B) Take note of all the people who write that “Tim Stanley is the love child of Adolf Hitler and Kenneth Williams AND HE SHOULD BE SHOT." C) Unfriend those people immediately. That’ll sort the Right-wing wheat from the Left-wing chaff.

SOURCE

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Sebelius: Obamacare Opponents Are Like Those Who Opposed Civil Rights

Vicious accusations in lieu of rational debate

Addressing the annual NAACP convention in Orlando, Fla., Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that opponents of Obamacare are the same kind of people who opposed civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Her comments on Tuesday came one day before the Republican-led House votes to delay key provisions of the law.

"The Affordable Care Act is the most powerful law for reducing health disparities since Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965, the same year the Voting Rights Act was also enacted," Sebelius said. "That significance hits especially close to home. My father was a congressman from Cincinnati who voted for each of those critical civil rights laws, and who represented a district near where the late Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth lived and preached.

"The same arguments against change, the same fear and misinformation that opponents used then are the same ones opponents are spreading now. 'This won’t work,' 'Slow down,' 'Let’s wait,' they say.

"But history shows that upholding our founding principles demands continuous work toward a more perfect union...And it requires the kind of work that the NAACP has done for more than a century to move us forward.

"You showed it in the fight against lynching and the fight for desegregation. You showed it by ensuring inalienable rights are secured in the courtroom and at the ballot box. And you showed it by supporting a health law 100 years in the making.

"With each step forward, you said to forces of the status quo, 'This will work,' 'We can’t slow down' 'We can’t wait,' 'We won’t turn back.'

Sebelius then hailed the "voices of progress" that "we hear and honor this year," as people start signing up for mandatory health insurance on Oct. 1:

"They echo from church bells rung at midnight 150 years ago to educate our nation of a people’s emancipation. They echo from a speech on our nation’s mall 50 years ago next month about the promise of our nation’s dream. And they still echo and guide us today in a second term of a historic presidency.

"So let us seize this moment. We can’t slow down. We can’t wait. We won’t turn back. We move forward."

In another part of her speech, Sebelius told the civil rights group, "The debate in Washington is over. The Supreme Court has issued its decision. The people have spoken. President Obama was re-elected. And to paraphrase Stevie Wonder, the Affordable Care Act is signed, sealed, and it’s delivering."

Sebelius spoke one day before the House of Representatives votes on delaying the Affordable Care Act's employer mandate as well as its individual mandate.

According to House Speaker John Boehner, the first bill "will provide the authorization the president should have sought" before he unilaterally delayed the employer mandate's reporting requirements. The other bill "will provide families and individuals with the relief they've been unfairly denied by the administration."

Obamacare requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to provide affordable health insurance to their employees or else pay a fine. Individual Americans are required to purchase health insurance, or else pay a tax to the IRS.

The Senate is unlikely to pass the House legislation, and even if it did, the White House has promised to veto it.

SOURCE

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