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News/Politics 7-22-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

UPDATE!

From ABCNews  “George Zimmerman, who has been in hiding since he was acquitted of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, emerged to help rescue someone who was trapped in an overturned truck, police said today.

Sanford Police Department Capt. Jim McAuliffe told ABC News that Zimmerman “pulled an individual from a truck that had rolled over” at the intersection of a Florida highway last week.”

No word yet on the race of the victim, or if he was profiling the driver. But the DoJ is investigating. 🙄

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First up, 2 guys who wanted to be President.

The first, finally someone points out the obvious, and a few inconvenient truths about the effects of liberal policies on inner cities.

From RealClearPolitics  “NEWT GINGRICH: This fits perfectly with what I was going to say earlier. You have a congressman — and I respect Bobby Rush. You have a congressman who represents the most violent city in America. You have a congressman who represents the city in which over 500 people were killed last year, 74 percent of them African-American. You have a congressman who represents the city which is 80 percent of the killings, according to police, are by gangs. Gangs have increased — let me finish. Gangs have increased by 40 percent since this president was elected. There is no federal program to stop it. No one wants to have an honest conversation about it. And so you have a congressman whose own district is bleeding, who puts on a hoodie as a symbolic act, but he doesn’t do anything about the gangs in his own district.”

Next up, the always useful (to Democrats) Senator from Arizona.

From TheHill  “Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Sunday urged states to review their “stand your  ground” laws amid a widening debate over the Trayvon Martin verdict and racial  profiling.”

🙄

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Next up, think the NSA is invasive in snooping? Wait ’til you get a look at this. And remember folks, the people who will have access to your private info are the community organizing ACORN types that the Obama admin has hired for the job.

From Rare.com  “As the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide “electronic, near real-time access to federal data” and “access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information.” In these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by, the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous.

They certainly should be; the potential for abuse is enormous. The massive, centralized database will include comprehensive personal information such as income and financial data, family size, citizenship and immigration status, incarceration status, social security numbers, and private health information. It will compile dossiers based on information obtained from the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration, state Medicaid databases, and for some reason the Peace Corps. The Data Hub will provide web-based, one-stop shopping for prying into people’s personal affairs.”

“However, the hacker threat is the least of the Data Hub worries. The hub will be used on a daily basis by so-called Navigators, which according to the GAO are “community and consumer-focused nonprofit groups, to which exchanges award grants to provide fair and impartial public education” and “refer consumers as appropriate for further assistance.” Thousands of such people will have unfettered access to the Data Hub, but there are only sketchy guidelines on how they will be hired, trained and monitored.”

Yeah. Great. 🙄

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In other overreaches by this administration……..

From TheNYTimes  ” A federal judge on Friday sharply and repeatedly challenged the Obama administration’s claim that courts have no power over targeted drone killings of American citizens overseas.”

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Another food program scam to go with last week’s school lunch story.

From TheNYPost  “Food stamps are paying for trans-Atlantic takeout — with New Yorkers using taxpayer-funded benefits to ship food to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found.

The practice is so common that hundreds of 45- to 55-gallon cardboard and plastic barrels line the walls of supermarkets in almost every Caribbean corner of the city.”

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More stupidity from the atheists.

From TheColumbusDispatch  “The Freedom from Religion Foundation wants the proposed Statehouse Holocaust memorial changed by removing what it sees as the Jewish religious symbolism of the Star of David.

In a June 14 letter to Richard H. Finan, chairman of the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board, two foundation officials said they have no objections to a Holocaust memorial at the Statehouse. However, architect Daniel Libeskind’s design includes a cut-out version of a 6-pointed star, usually interepreted as the Star of David, a symbol associated with Judiasm. Arguably, that would be a violation of the separation of church and state set out in the U.S. Constitution, the foundation said.”

Why ignore the obvious? Since the star was used by Nazi’s to identify Jews, does it not have relevant historical value here?

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Next up, 2 stories involving police work. And privacy where both are concerned as well.

First, from TheWallStJournal   “The police tactics at issue in the Stewart case are no anomaly. Since the 1960s, in response to a range of perceived threats, law-enforcement agencies across the U.S., at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier. Driven by martial rhetoric and the availability of military-style equipment—from bayonets and M-16 rifles to armored personnel carriers—American police forces have often adopted a mind-set previously reserved for the battlefield. The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the U.S. scene: the warrior cop—armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.”

“A number of federal agencies also now have their own SWAT teams, including the Fish & Wildlife Service, NASA and the Department of the Interior. In 2011, the Department of Education’s SWAT team bungled a raid on a woman who was initially reported to be under investigation for not paying her student loans, though the agency later said she was suspected of defrauding the federal student loan program.”

And lastly, this one, from TheNYTimes  “The case put Mr. Murray at the center of a growing debate over a little-known but increasingly important piece of equipment buried deep inside a car: the event data recorder, more commonly known as the black box.       

About 96 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States have the boxes, and in September 2014, if the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has its way, all will have them.       

The boxes have long been used by car companies to assess the performance of their vehicles. But data stored in the devices is increasingly being used to identify safety problems in cars and as evidence in traffic accidents and criminal cases. And the trove of data inside the boxes has raised privacy concerns, including questions about who owns the information, and what it can be used for, even as critics have raised questions about its reliability.”

Given the way the govt currently abuses technology to stomp on people’s rights, I’m skeptical of it’s use.

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18 thoughts on “News/Politics 7-22-13”

  2. I’ll be glad when that royal baby is born so we can forget all about George Zimmerman.
    Anyway Hannity had a good couple of shows this week where he had a large panel of pundits, lawyers and such who actually talked about race. They even had one of the Martins lawyers. There seemed to be a good mix of left and right, male and female, black, white and other. There was very little name calling, until Bob Beckel showed up. 🙂 I actually like Beckel most of the time though he does seem to have some animosity towards the South.

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  5. Brit Hume is calling this the best piece so far on the Zimmerman-Martin mess. It takes on what passes for the current political “leadership” in the black community:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324448104578618681599902640.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

    “… One wants to scream at all those outraged at the Zimmerman verdict: Where is your outrage over the collapse of the black family? Today’s civil-rights leaders swat at mosquitoes like Zimmerman when they have gorillas on their back. Seventy-three percent of all black children are born without fathers married to their mothers. And you want to bring the nation to a standstill over George Zimmerman?

    “There are vast career opportunities, money and political power to be gleaned from the specter of Mr. Zimmerman as a racial profiler/murderer; but there is only hard and selfless work to be done in tackling an illegitimacy rate that threatens to consign blacks to something like permanent inferiority. If there is anything good to be drawn from the Zimmerman/Martin tragedy, it is only the further revelation of the corruption and irrelevance of today’s civil-rights leadership.”

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  7. At this point, it’s beyond a mere matter of ignorance when people invoke SYG in relation to Zimmerman; now whoever does it is simply an idiot.

    I only read the excerpt you provided, donna j, but it’s a good one. Unfortunately, today’s civil-rights leadership is NOT irrelevant. Can anyone defend or explain the respect Al Sharpton commands from black people? He’s trash. Does it say anything about those who look to him for leadership?

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  10. So while assorted race baiters, including the President, DoJ, DHHS, and assorted hucksters were busy trashing the guy and calling him a murderer, he’s out saving someone’s life?

    Nice. I believe some would call that karma. And yeah, it sure is. 😉

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  11. Nice update. Meanwhile, Trayon Martin did not help out the motorist. Granted he was dead but still …. An other illustration in the battle of characters its hard for the dead to defend themselves.

    McCain and others should separate SYG from racial profiling. SYG laws deserve to be reviewed on their own even without the added caveat of racial profiling. Apparently, Zimmerman’s lawyers didn’t mention SYG but the judge did and apparently the jury did consider its implications. I would think they would have too as self defense is the issue and thus they need to know how its defined in the state of Florida. Under Cdn law, he’s guilty of manslaughter as he had ample time to avoid the situation. Given the nature of the incident he would be out in 2 years.

    Gingrich — the man must have a new book to plug. BTW Chicago (Bobby rush’s home district) is not the most violent city in America — google it and you can find a few different lists but Chicago is not on any Top Ten list. Detroit, Flint, Memphis, Oakland, Birmingham, St Louis are all there but no Chicago.

    Health Data/Car “black box” — I’ve no doubt federal and state agencies sell access to their data but normally names and other identifiers are held back; at least in the experience of my friend who works at Statistics Canada and regularly sells data and research to private corporations. I’d be more worried about the NSA. Police use of the black box should be subject to the search and seizure laws. With the paramilitary nature of modern policing — all justified on the basis of fear and security — I wouldn’t trust the police with any data.

    I would take the health data warning with a grain of salt. Its an other attempt to disparage the ACA now that it appears premiums are going down in some states, opponents need an other talking point.

    Obama’s overreach of executive powers (at least the DofJ) is similar to other presidencies. With the exception of Carter and Ford in the post-Watergate era, modern presidents have all attempted to place the executive above the other branches (read Cheney’s vision of the presidency). I’m sure there will be a correction and hopefully the courts will provide it — one person should not have that much power.

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  14. “I would take the health data warning with a grain of salt. Its an other attempt to disparage the ACA now that it appears premiums are going down in some states, opponents need an other talking point.”

    Yeah….. oh wait, no, they don’t.
    I see you’re another willing victim of the NYT propaganda piece. This should help. And lots of links that refute your, and the Times assertions to the contrary.

    http://hotair.com/archives/2013/07/18/premiums-for-new-yorkers-to-fall-50-percent-thanks-to-obamacare-says-the-nyt-really-though/

    “News stories about rising premium prices for health insurance plans have been erupting all over the country for awhile now, especially on those plans meant for young, healthier, and lower-risk people shopping in the individual market; back in March, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finally admitted that the increasingly widespread phenomenon of rising premiums is, in fact, at least partially due to ObamaCare, and from coast to coast, that whole “affordable” promise is indeed looking worse and worse.

    On Wednesday, however, the New York Times’ big and highly cited story was all about how the wise and magnanimous auspices of the Affordable Care Act are helping to dramatically lower health insurance premiums for New Yorkers, according to figures from the Cuomo administration:”

    “Which certainly sounds awesome, except that the state of New York already has a convoluted, bureaucratic, and heavily regulated health care system and has been running some of the highest individual market premiums in the country for about two decades. It’s gotten so bad, there really isn’t much room for their premium prices to go anywhere but down at this point, and the NYT definitely misrepresented ObamaCare’s impact. Avik Roy has their number over at Forbes:

    It’s always better to see rates go down rather than up, but you have to remember the context. New York’s rates will still be three times higher than those found in California before Obamacare. And the Times inflated the impact of the ACA, implying that average premiums in New York City exceed $1,000 today vs. $308 under Obamacare; by our analysis, using a fairer comparison, the five-borough average for affordable coverage was $695, with a much lower average upstate.”

    I know, I know….. Math is hard.

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  15. kbells — Martin was walking home, Zimmerman was in a car. Martin’s dead, Zimmerman’s not.

    AJ — the stories I’ve heard and I’ve linked previously make references to California, Oregon, and New York among others. Even your own piece admits that NYC premiums fell from $695 to $308.

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  16. There is no evidence that Zimmerman broke any laws before the altercation. There is no doubt that Martin beat him up, as a matter of fact, there is more evidence that Martin hunted Zimmerman down than the other way around. Stop parroting MSNBC and do some actual research.

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  17. hwesseli, instead of semi-veiled accusations, why not make a direct statement. But you’ll have to do a better job of handling the facts than you have in recent posts of yours. So what are you getting at by pointing out that Zimmerman is alive and Martin is dead. Do you suppose we don’t know that? So explain please…

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  18. “Under Cdn law, he’s guilty of manslaughter as he had ample time to avoid the situation.”

    Irrelevant, of course. And given the facts of the case, it would be a shame if that verdict was reached in any country anywhere.

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