Showing posts with label Zimmerman trial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zimmerman trial. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Worth Reading for the 4th

July 4 marks the end of the 238th year of the Independence of the Republic. I fear our Republic is drawing to a close. I expect to be traveling on vacation until July 10, so these skimpy posts will get skimpier. ~Bob

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Leaders Arrested, Army Moves In
Egyptian sources report that senior officials in the Muslim Brotherhood have been placed under house arrest and the military is securing strategic facilities across the country. The Islamist group that backed President Mohamed Morsi in last year’s successful bid to win the nation’s first democratic election is also now being scrutinized for corruption in the ranks. The group’s funding structure and records are being probed, according to a report posted Wednesday by the Egyptian Al-Ahram newspaper. (Female protester in Tahrir Square interviewed by CBS said, “Morsi is ruining our country.  He is spending us into oblivion.  He is promoting terrorists.”  An ex-general, I believe, also interviewed said, “He is ruining Egypt.  Do we have to wait for total collapse?”  Indicated they could see the course of Morsi and MB’s actions…want no part of it for a free Egypt.  Egyptians have more balls than US, or maybe, having seen the light of freedom, want to reach for it versus enslavement to a global hierarchy....Meanwhile, US funding MB in Egypt….Barb)

Tweet from @allahpundit
12:03 p.m. Egypt in chaos as reports of coup swirl. Fox News: Zimmerman. CNN: Zimmerman. MSNBC: Zimmerman.

How did Morsi let himself get put under house arrest? Didn't the Mubarak situation teach him anything? Always have a Gulfstream on standby.

All this stuff going on in #Egypt, is it because of some YouTube video?

White House delays health-care rule that businesses provide insurance to workers
Excerpt: The White House on Tuesday delayed for one year a requirement under the Affordable Care Act that businesses provide health insurance to employees, a fresh setback for President Obama’s landmark health-care overhaul as it enters a critical phase. (Setback? Yes, setback until after the midterm elections. ~Bob. The Democrats figure they won't be able to take the house of representatives, and may even lose the senate if the employer insurance mandate is implemented in 2014. No matter what anyone says, that is the reason for the delay. And the ONLY reason. --LLW)

Marines, Americans Respond To: A Public Letter To The Commandant Of The Marine Corps

The Mindset of the Left: Part II. By Thomas Sowell 
Excerpt: "Poverty" once had some concrete meaning -- not enough food to eat or not enough clothing or shelter to protect you from the elements, for example. Today it means whatever the government bureaucrats, who set up the statistical criteria, choose to make it mean. And they have every incentive to define poverty in a way that includes enough people to justify welfare state spending. Most Americans with incomes below the official poverty level have air-conditioning, television, own a motor vehicle and, far from being hungry, are more likely than other Americans to be overweight. But an arbitrary definition of words and numbers gives them access to the taxpayers' money.

Zimmerman Trial: Star Witness Rachel Jeantel and the Politics of Soft Bigotry
Excellent article by Crystal Wright, who posts as “Conservative Black Chick” and takes a lot of foul racist abuse from the “tolerant left.” ~Bob. Excerpt: As defense attorney Don West grilled Rachel Jeantel, liberal commentators fell all over themselves making excuses for Rachel’s shocking behavior in court and contempt for their process. I can tell you one thing for certain if Jeantel wasn’t black, none of these liberal pundits, especially the white ones would have made excuses for her rude behavior. They would have called it just what it was. . . unacceptable.

Liberal Apartheid: The elite mostly lead a reactionary existence of talking one way and living another. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: Gore has made hundreds of millions of dollars in the Marcus Licinius Crassus style of hyping a disaster and then profiting from its remedy. Gore hates carbon emissions. So much so that he dismisses those who live by them, such as coal-company executives, coal miners, and the rubes who mindlessly use coal-based electricity. But Gore also likes money and what money can do for him — SUVs, private jet travel, multiple residences. That’s why he just sold his interest in a failed cable-television network to a broadcasting network backed by a Middle Eastern authoritarian sheikhdom, known for both its anti-Semitism and its huge cash profits from the sale of fossil fuels. 

How Did the U.S. Lose the Egyptian People? By Jeffrey Goldberg
Excerpt: So here’s a question that’s nagging at me as we watch millions of Egyptians express their loathing for Mohamed Mursi, their hapless, power-grabbing president, and for his Muslim Brotherhood movement: How exactly did the U.S. come to be seen by Egyptian secularists and liberals as the handmaiden of a cultish fundamentalist political party whose motto includes this heartening sentiment: “Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope”?

Social Security Paid 1,546 Dead People $31 Million -- Deceased Collected Benefits Up to 20 Years


Covering Pre-Existing Conditions in a Market-Driven Health System. By James Capretta
Excerpt: The entire Obamacare edifice rests on the deceptive assertion that the law’s primary purpose is to cover persons with pre-existing conditions. The president and his team never defend the vast majority of the law’s provisions. What they do claim is that Obamacare was necessary to protect Americans, especially the sick, from the unregulated abuses of the health insurance industry. That argument, misleading as it is, resonates to some degree with the public, which is why the administration keeps repeating it over and over again.
Bottom of Form

Health Insurance Costs Set for a Jolt
Excerpt: Healthy consumers could see insurance rates double or even triple when they look for individual coverage under the federal health law later this year, while the premiums paid by sicker people are set to become more affordable, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of coverage to be sold on the law's new exchanges. A review of rates proposed by carriers in eight states shows the likely boundaries for the least-expensive and most costly plans on the exchanges. The lower boundary is particularly important because the government wants to attract healthy people to the exchanges, and they may choose to pay a penalty and take the risk of going without coverage if they believe they can't get an acceptable deal. For a 40-year-old single nonsmoker -- in the middle of the age range eligible for exchanges -- a "bronze" plan covering about 60 percent of medical costs will be available for about $200 a month in most places, the proposals show.  Though less generous than "silver" and "gold" plans on the exchanges, a bronze plan would still include fuller benefits than many policies available on the individual market today. The challenge for the law is that healthy 40 year olds can typically get coverage for less today, especially if they are willing to accept fewer benefits or take on more costs themselves.

Excerpt: In numbers released by Nielsen Media Research, MSNBC has fallen to third in the primetime race, behind CNN. But it gets worse for MSNBC, with its “total day” ranking dropping to fourth place, behind Fox News, CNN and HLN. This quarter marks the 46th straight quarter that Fox News has been first in “total day” and “primetime” as it continues to dominate the cable news show rankings. Fox held the top 13 programs in cable news based on total viewers for the entire quarter and claimed nine out of the top 10 programs in the 25-54 demographic. (Huh. Turns out editing news clips to fit your viewpoint isn’t that popular. ~Bob.)

Satire: Organizing for Action: The secret emails revealed
Excerpt: I’m working with the president to put together his drone kill list and I noticed that you still haven’t donated to OFA yet. Maybe now’s the time to act? As you know, OFA is on the forefront helping to push the president’s agenda. I would hate for you to be killed by an air robot before you see us change America. More to come soon, but in the meantime, please take a minute out of your busy day to give us $5. Your life is worth $5, right?

Hey Egyptian protestors. Start a chant about the Zimmerman trial and all the nets will break away to cover you.

Zimmerman Prosecution Predictably Collapsing. By Andrew C. McCarthy 
Excerpt: The state of Florida’s politically driven decision to charge George Zimmerman with murder has resulted, as some of us predicted it would, in a pathetically weak case. It has taken only a few days of trial to collapse of its own weightlessness – undone, in fact, by the direct testimony of a prosecution witness, as Bryan Preston relates at the Tatler and Ed Morrissey details at Hot Air. (What is worrisome is the result of this case being dismissed.  There will be screaming from the race-baiters and possibly some disturbances, even a riot is possible.  And Zimmerman will have to spend the rest of his life watching out for some crazy guy bent on getting revenge for Trayvon. –Del. They may be afraid to acquit. ~Bob))

Excerpt: If you ask Kathleen Sebelius, everything good that happens is partly the result of health reform. When bad things happen, she either says nothing or blames the result on someone else. What’s the truth of the matter? Most of what the administration wanted to happen is not happening. But unintended things are happening — some good and some bad. What does this mean for the way doctors practice medicine? On the plus side, consumer-driven health care has been given a boost and entrepreneurs are responding with products that seem to be far removed from the accountable care model the administration is pushing. On the negative side, hospitals are merging and they are acquiring doctors. In the process, they are making the market less competitive, gaming third-party payment formulas and doing other things that make our health insurance premiums and our taxes higher than they otherwise would be.

University Tells Student to Remove Cross Necklace. By Todd Starnes
Excerpt: A Sonoma State University student was ordered to remove a cross necklace by a supervisor who thought other students might find it offensive, in a case that prompted even one campus official to speculate that “political correctness got out of hand.” (OK, the good news is that this instantly scared the university people witless and they are anxious to apololgize and get this forgotten ASAP.  The bad news is that some idiot really thought he could get away with this kind of insanely repressive and inappropriate treatment of a free person in a free country wearing a very reasonable bit of personal jewelry reflecting her faith.  PC on steroids again.  But so incredibly stupid that the school didn't hesitate a second to back the student and offer all kinds of regrets about this. –Del. Bet they would not have told a female Muslim student to remove her head scarf, which is a religious symbol. ~Bob.)

A tale of two economies: Chile has employed free-market principles to outperform Ecuador. by Richard Rahn   
Excerpt: Chile and Ecuador provide an almost perfect test case of competing economic visions. Back in 1980, Ecuador had a slightly higher per capita income than Chile. In the past 33 years, Ecuador has increased its real per capita income a little more than threefold, but during the same period Chile has increased its per capita income more than sixfold. (A simple comparison between different approaches taken by somewhat similar nations.  The results tell you what you want to know, without a dozen PhDs in Economics writing you a 50,000 word technical report. --Del)

Human Rights Watch says mobs "assaulted and in some cases raped at least 91 women" in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Excerpt: Egypt's Tahrir Square has seen nearly hundred women falling victim to "rampant" sexual attacks during the past four days of protests against President Mohamed Morsi, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.  The global rights watchdog said on Wednesday that the mobs sexually assaulted "and in some cases raped at least 91 women" in Tahrir Square amid a climate of impunity. (As usual in a Muslim country, hard to tell who the “good guys” are. ~Bob.)

Fraud as Science. By  John Jaeger
Excerpt: Newspapers, magazines, television programs, classrooms, and conversations all over America are awash in fraud which is being covered by the mantle of “science.” The birth of the Global Warming Fraud can be traced to a conference organized by anthropologist Margaret Mead, in 1975.  You can read the paper documenting the conference attended by anti-human hoaxsters here. Anyone who dares to challenge this sacred majesterium of ”science” is a heretic and an ignoramus, according to advocates of The Global Warming Fraud.  

Trade deficit up as America's main industry of posting cat videos on the Internet does not appear to be generating money.

Your tax dollars at work: still no money for WH tours, but the State Department has spent $630,000 to buy “Likes” on Facebook.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

More items worth seeing

Some items of interest. It’s hard to stop when so much is happening! ~Bob

The Mindset of the Left. By Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: When teenage thugs are called "troubled youth" by people on the political left, that tells us more about the mindset of the left than about these young hoodlums. Seldom is there a speck of evidence that the thugs are troubled, and often there is ample evidence that they are in fact enjoying themselves, as they create trouble and dangers for others.

From Jonah Goldberg, The Goldberg File
Speaking of the correct orientation of planets, I'm reminded of one of my favorite Al Gore anecdotes. In 1998, the Washington Post ran a picture of Earth from space. I can't remember why, but I think it was a picture from the international space station. The picture infuriated then-vice president Gore. He called the Post's executive editor to tip him off about the "error." "I decided I just had to call because you've printed a picture of the Earth upside-down." It didn't occur to Gore that, from space, there is no upside down.

Obama's Climate Joke About A 'Flat Earth Society' Actually Referenced A Real Grouphttp://www.businessinsider.com/flat-earth-society-to-obama-climate-change-speech-georgetown-2013-6#ixzz2XohSzFhQ
Excerpt: For what it's worth, the Flat Earth Society doesn't have an 'official' position on climate change.  That falls a bit outside our remit.  Personally, though, I believe the evidence available does support the position that climate change is at least partially influenced by human industrialisation.  So if President Obama wants to reference people that actively deny anthropogenic climate change, he'd probably be better served by citing groups like the American Enterprise Institute rather than the Flat Earth Society.

Egypt: Pro-democracy protesters storm Muslim Brotherhood HQ
Excerpt: "The Muslim Brotherhood will have a significant role to play in post-Mubarak Egypt. And that is good thing." -- Reza Aslan That's Obama's foreign policy you see going up in smoke. "Egypt: Protesters storm Muslim Brotherhood HQ," by Hamza Hendawi for the Associated Press, July 1: CAIRO (AP) — Protesters stormed and ransacked the Cairo headquarters of President Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group early Monday, in an attack that could spark more violence as demonstrators gear up for a second day of mass rallies aimed at forcing the Islamist leader from power.

Tweet from Frank J. Fleming ‏@IMAO
If we need unskilled labor, why are we importing people from Mexico? Can't we just use the average college grad?

The Entitlement State: New York Pols Game Pension System
Excerpt: New York state isn’t exactly rolling in money, but some of its politicians are. Several county lawmakers have been fudging their time cards in order to collect pensions, according to an investigation. Ordinarily, officials are required to work a full thirty hours every week in order to receive benefits such as pensions and health care, but many have found creative ways around this restriction. For some, logging into email or attending political fundraisers constitute “work.” For others, getting a haircut qualifies. 

Exchanging Medicaid For a Better Option. By Devon Herrick
Excerpt: Why is this important? Moderate-income families, doctors and advocates for the poor should care because private insurers pay doctors about double what Medicaid pays for the same service. Low provider reimbursement rates make it more difficult for Medicaid enrollees to find physicians willing to treat them -- limiting their access to care.

Obamacare Will Worsen the Physician Shortage. By Yevgeniy Feyman and Paul Howard
Excerpt: What many evaluations of the law miss, however, is the distinction between health insurance and health care. Close to 30 million people will receive the former under the law -- but the health care that these 30 million will receive can't be measured quite so easily. Health-system researchers have long noted that the nation faces a growing shortage of physicians across all specialties -- around 130,000 by 2025. Adding 30 million Americans to the insurance rolls will exacerbate access-to-care challenges; those with newly minted Obamacare insurance policies will likely struggle to find doctors willing to see them in a timely manner.

Obama toasts failed African socialist
Excerpt: President Barack Obama toasted the founding dictator of post-colonial Tanzania on Monday, who collectivized the nation’s low-tech agricultural sector, established a one-party state and left that African nation’s economy in ruins. (Everything Obama aspires to be. ~Bob.)

Wikileaks issues odd non-American-English statement from Snowden in Moscow. By John Aravosis 
Excerpt: The doubters are correct.  … What set off alarm bells for journalists was that Snowden’s statement from Moscow, published by Wikileaks, used a verb tense that an American would never use (emphasis added) – though a European would:

The News in Zingers. By Argus Hamilton
Excerpt: Harvard ran a poll which found that Fourth of July celebrations tend to turn children into conservatives. The survey really had to alarm educators. It just takes a fireworks show and a patriotic speech to undo a hundred and eighty days of public school education.

As Conservative Islam Rises in Indonesia, Polygamy Flourishes
Excerpt: In a climate of increasing Islamization of the public sphere and a simultaneous expansion of an educated middle class, polygamy has both its ardent supporters and indignant detractors. “There is no such thing as a polygamous marriage that benefits women,” said National Commission on Violence against Women member Andy Yentriyani. … More worryingly, Nafsiah said that child marriages are increasing, which adds to higher maternal mortality rates due to immature reproductive organs.

Black Mob Picks On 'The Wrong Guy.' 'Knockout Game' results backfire when 'victim' is armed. By Colin Flaherty 
Excerpt: DeAndre Felton and his crew had a problem: The mall was closed. The curfew in effect. But they were still high on drugs and wanted to have more fun. So they decided to beat someone up. Turns out they chose The Wrong Guy. They had just come from a local park where DeAndre and 15 others beat up two girls, sending one to the hospital with a broken arm.

Russian Forces to Provide “Security” At US Events
Excerpt: As part of a deal signed last week in Washington DC between the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry and FEMA, Russian officials will provide “security at mass events” in the United States, a scenario that won’t sit well with Americans wary of foreign assets operating on US soil.

Egyptian Protesters Criticize MB Rule and Obama Administration
Excerpt: Sixteen people were killed and hundreds were injured during weekend protests that reportedly drew millions of Egyptians to the streets. Many estimated that the protests were larger than the 2011 demonstrations that forced dictator Hosni Mubarak from power. Numerous media accounts describe the broad demographic base of the protesters, from young women to old men, from liberal secularists to conservative Muslims. ... More ominously, the Egyptian army gave Morsi a 48-hour ultimatum to negotiate some kind of resolution with the opposition or face what could amount to a coup, as the military promises to "announce a future roadmap and measures to oversee its implementation."

Muslim Brotherhood Rejects Army's Ultimatum: "The age of military coups is over," stresses Muslim Brotherhood member.
A senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and JusticeParty (FJP) rejected on Monday the army’s 48-hour ultimatum for politicians to settle the country's political standoff.
"Everyone rejects the statement of the armed forces," Yasser Hamza, a member of the FJP's legal committee, told the Al Jazeera network.

Excerpt: The U.S. policies regarding Egypt, Syria, Turkey and even Qatar, where talks are slated with the Taliban, has left some observers in Israel, America’s staunchest ally in the region, wondering if the alliance still holds. In Egypt, the Obama administration was quick to support protesters in 2011, when they rose up against President Hosni Mubarak. But with fresh demonstrations aimed at President Morsi’s regime, there is no sign of the U.S. calling for the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood government despite its violent crackdown and widespread persecution of Egypt’s Christian community. 

Safe Streets Ahead? Judicial rulings and anti-cop activists threaten the city’s triumph over crime.
Excerpt: As the 1990s came to a close, the criminology profession declared that New York’s recent crime free fall was over. Homicides had declined a remarkable 72 percent over the previous decade, but that trend couldn’t possibly continue, the academy opined. “It is probable that another crime wave will engulf the City in the near future,” warned Andrew Karmen, a sociologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in 2000. (And here's the dilemma- if you put a lot of law enforcement efforts into neighborhoods made up of minorities, where most of the crime is by minorities against minorities, you will end up with a lot of police interaction with minorities.  Is that racial profiling?  I really don't think so, but some people feel strongly about it.  Yet others who live there feel strongly about the lowered crime incidence, which seems pretty reasonable to me. Sometimes there is no perfect way to approach a problem, your choices are not between good and bad, they are between not so good and really bad.  Stop & frisk may be not so go, but higher crime rates are really bad, at least in the opinions of the people who live there.  Some times you absolutely cannot make everyone happy. --Del)

A Season for Treason. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: Set aside all the politics over the War on Terror and then ask what Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden have in common. All three are arrogant and unstable men filled with aimless grievances and animated by the sense that they never received the things that they really wanted out of life. They are in short exactly the sort of people that foreign intelligence agencies recruit when trying to spot weak links in the  security chain. ((Yeah, we are so intellectual and smart that concepts like treason as a really important and very bad thing are just way out of sync with modern thinking.  That treason was despised, hated, and brutally punished belongs to the distant past.  See, people felt that way about it because it was something that meant really hurting our society or at least putting us into very serious risk of very serious damage.  Damage that meant lives and lots of property and ruined futures. Now we have elites who don't believe in such things, everything can be managed, and their interests will always be protected. Those of us who believe differently, who know different, are like those late era centurions worried about the Visigoths while the upper class has their feasts and slaves and the lower class has bread and circuses. --Del)

Both sides lie, because they're concealing their real motives. By Jack Kelly
Excerpt: But the sharpest division in America isn't between rich and poor, liberals and conservatives, racial groups. It's between all of the above, and our leaders.
The "central cleft" in our politics today is "the widening gap between the government and the governed," said Democratic pollster Pat Caddell. (Interesting stats.  Ten percent confidence in Congress... wow, that is very sad, yet from my point of view, a rating they have worked hard to deserve.  The number of congresspeople who are actually trying to work hard to do good for their constituents and the nation, as opposed to following the Party line and also working at their re-election, is not small, tiny is perhaps the better adjective.  And we all know it, and are unhappy about it, but get lousy choices in the whole electoral process.  Maybe the Tea Party idea of throwing out all or most incumbents actually makes good sense. --Del)

Keep The IRS Off Your Health Care Act Of 2013
You can sign as a citizen co-sponsor. ~Bob

Priorities… Obama Blows $100 Million on Family’s African Trip But Cancels Marines’ July 4th Fireworks

Father Defends Family, Shoots and Kills Two of Three Home Invaders (+videos)
http://joemiller.us/2013/07/father-defends-family-shoots-and-kills-two-of-three-home-invaders-video/#ixzz2XuJGbvAH

China, Russia in largest-ever joint naval drills

IRS workers bought porn, wine using agency credit cards: watchdog

UnitedHealth to exit individual insurance market in California: The move by UnitedHealth, the nation's largest health insurer, will force about 8,000 customers with individual policies to find new coverage.
Excerpt: The nation's largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group Inc., is leaving California's individual health insurance market, the second major company to exit in advance of major changes under the Affordable Care Act.

A sample of Zimmerman Trial tweets:

Tweet from ‏@Ronstoppable_17
If Zimmerman walks, we riot.

IT'S GONE BE A RIOT IN FLORIDA IF ZIMMERMAN GET OFF !......

It's going to be a big ass riot if Zimmerman gets off

Let george zimmerman get off....we gon riot in this bitch like the 90s...straight rodney king.

Aaron Weiss, Iraq combat vet, speaks brilliantly to Dutchess County against the 'Safe Act'

Police Vow to Pursue Pedophile Ring ‘To the Ends of the Earth’

Seen on FB: 'There is no such thing as " Illegal Fireworks" ... they are just undocumented pyrotechnics'

I'm doing fine, mum! Unborn baby's 'thumbs up' from the womb is captured on hospital scan
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280187/Unborn-babys-thumbs-womb-captured-hospital-scan.html#ixzz2Xuk3I8hc
Mum didn’t go to Planned Parenthood. ~Bob

Study: Electric Cars No Greener Than Gasoline Vehicles
Excerpt: Electric cars, despite their supposed green credentials, are among the environmentally dirtiest transportation options, a U.S. researcher suggests.

Portugal's finance minister resigned yesterday, and its foreign minister resigned today. Not a good sign for those Bundesbank lenders.

Femen activists sneak into Swedish mosque to stage topless protest after throwing off their 'burkas' 
With pictures. You go girl! ~Bob