http://pjmedia.com/blog/disorder-judge-recesses-zimmerman-trial-excludes-damning-evidence/?print=1 Trayvon Martin’s phone had hundreds of messages discussing criminal behavior, including trafficking black-market firearms. The State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman took a wild turn late Tuesday evening, as defense attorney Don West got in a heated conversation with Judge Debra Nelson just before 10:oo p.m. Nelson had just expressed her intent to block […]
http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/groundhog-day-at-the-un-human-rights-council/
Yes, folks, it’s about time for the United Nations to produce its next slate of candidates for election to 14 of the 47 member seats on the UN’s Geneva-based Human Rights Council. Not that the UN seems in a hurry to advertise the candidates, but Geneva-based UN Watch [1] has the scoop. So, guess who’s in the running…
A) Cuba
B) Saudi Arabia
C) China
D) Russia
E) Chad
F) Vietnam
G) All of the Above (plus maybe Syria and Iran, though these have yet to be confirmed)
A no-brainer, I know. It’s obviously G, and in the spirit of the UN brand of human rights diversity, we might well ask what kind of bigotry is at work that the UN has failed to flatter North Korea with a place on this list. Of course, there are other candidates as well. Countries such as France, the UK, Latvia, Mexico and Morocco are also among the contenders. And in an election process that allocates seats by quota to regional groups, there are actually more candidates than seats for some of the regions — meaning that when the General Assembly votes on these candidates this November, there will actually be a bit of competition.
http://www.steynonline.com/5669/leviathan-subcontractors It took me years of living in the United States before I acclimated to certain uniquely American rituals. I noticed early, standing in the pick-up line at CVS or Rite Aid, that it took more time to collect a prescription than in any other country I’ve ever needed a bottle of pills in. But […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353136/how-think-about-egypts-revolutions-john-wohlstetter Egypt’s second revolution in two years resurrects a debate over what role, if any, the United States should play in promoting human rights around the globe. Much of the confusion surrounding this ongoing debate stems from Americans’ tendency to project their own revolutionary experience onto other situations that arise in vastly different cultural and […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353148/political-train-wreck-mark-krikorian
Most of the Republican House members who gathered this week to discuss immigration understand that passing anything like the Obama amnesty bill would be politically harmful to them. Even Jay Leno has gotten knowing laughs with a crack about “undocumented Democrats.” Ann Coulter has written that “if illegals were Republicans, Chuck Schumer would be a ‘Minuteman,’ patrolling the Mexican border 24-7.”
The Left knows this too. Eliseo Medina, a top official with both the SEIU and Democratic Socialists of America, noted years before this particular bill was written that “immigration reform” is an important part of the statist project: “If we are to expand this [Hispanic] electorate to win, the progressive community needs to solidly be on the side of immigrants; that will solidify and expand the progressive coalition for the future.”
Even ostensibly neutral observers make the same point. As Politico noted earlier this year:
The immigration proposal pending in Congress would transform the nation’s political landscape for a generation or more — pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that, if current trends hold, would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.
But the prospect of millions of new big-government, socially liberal voters is a cloud as small as a man’s hand. It’s serious, but it’ll be a while before it gets here. By contrast, passage of amnesty and expanded immigration will immediately create a political sky grown dark with clouds and wind for conservatism — among Americans who are already voters. It would be an electoral catastrophe for Republicans, who would look back with envy at Romney’s 27 percent share of Hispanic votes and last year’s 64.1 percent turnout among whites.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353130/supposed-crimes-mind-victor-davis-hanson
When do insensitive words destroy reputations?
It all depends.
Celebrity chef Paula Deen was dropped by her TV network, her publisher, and many of her corporate partners after she testified in a legal deposition that she used the N-word some 30 years ago. The deposition was made in a lawsuit against Deen and her brother over allegations of sexual and racial harassment.
Actor Alec Baldwin recently let loose with a barrage of homophobic crudities. Unlike Deen, Baldwin spewed his epithets in the present. He tweeted them publicly, along with threats of physical violence. So far he has avoided Paula Deen’s ignominious fate.
Does race determine whether a perceived slur is an actual slur?
It depends.
Some blacks use the N-word in ways supposedly different from those of ill-intentioned white racists. Testimony revealed that the late Trayvon Martin had used the N-word in reference to George Zimmerman and had also referred to Zimmerman as a “creepy-ass cracker” who was following him.
Some members of the media have suggested that we should ignore such inflammatory words and instead focus on whether Zimmerman, who has been described as a “white Hispanic,” used coded racist language during his 911 call.
Actor Jamie Foxx offers nonstop racialist speech of the sort that a white counterpart would not dare. At the recent NAACP Image Awards (of all places), Foxx gushed: “Black people are the most talented people in the world.” Earlier, on Saturday Night Live, Foxx had joked of his recent role in a Quentin Tarantino movie: “I kill all the white people in the movie. How great is that?”
Foxx has not suffered the fate of Paula Deen. He certainly has not incurred the odium accorded comedian Michael Richards, who crudely used the N-word in 2006 toward two African-American hecklers of his stand-up routine.
Yet whites at times seem exempt from any fallout over the slurring of blacks. Democratic Minnesota state representative Ryan Winkler recently tweeted of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s vote to update the Voting Rights Act: “VRA majority is four accomplices to race discrimination and one Uncle Thomas.” Winkler’s implication was that four of the jurists were veritable racists, while Thomas was a sellout. After a meek apology, nothing much happened to Winkler.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/07/president_obama_vs_george_zimmerman_america_loses.html BREAKING: Judicial Watch has obtained documents disclosing that the Department of Justice actually helped organize demonstrations and protests against George Zimmerman.) As the Zimmerman prosecution falls apart, the country faces the threat of race riots. A case that lacked any evidence of malicious murder was wrongfully brought to court under political pressure. And our […]
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ The Romans had their arenas, Elizabethan England had bear baiting and Obama’s America has the trial. HLN has already shot past CNN with wall-to-wall coverage of the latest trial whose defendant is indistinguishable from a celebrity and whose coverage is barely distinguishable from that of the movie premiere. But in between the usual criminal […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323368704578595903774513758.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
Eliot Spitzer wasn’t prosecuted for his use of prostitutes or related offenses in 2008 because he agreed to surrender New York’s governorship. But there was another investigation that was also left unresolved by his resignation. And now that he’s seeking to become New York City’s comptroller, the case raises still more questions about his fitness for office.
In 2007 Mr. Spitzer’s staff enlisted the state police in gathering damaging information about a political opponent, former state Sen. Joseph Bruno, and then released it to the press. According to a March 2008 report from the district attorney of New York’s Albany County, Mr. Spitzer denied in an interview with prosecutors that he directed the effort to gather the information and also denied that he ordered its release.
But a former Spitzer communications aide and loyalist, Darren Dopp, told a very different story when granted immunity. According to the D.A.’s office, Mr. Dopp described under oath the events that led to the release of the information.
According to his testimony, Mr. Dopp was told by a colleague in June of 2007 that “Eliot wants you to release the records.” Mr. Dopp told investigators that he then went to Mr. Spitzer to confirm the order. “Yeah, do it” was Mr. Spitzer’s reply, according to Mr. Dopp, who then asked if the Governor was “sure” he wanted to, given how angry Mr. Bruno was likely to be.
Mr. Spitzer replied, “[expletive deleted] him, he’s a piece of [expletive deleted], shove it up his [expletive deleted] with a red hot poker,” according to Mr. Dopp’s statement. The former aide elaborated that Mr. Spitzer had “turned a little red” and was “spitting a little bit” as he talked while trying to drink a cup of coffee. “He was spitting mad,” added Mr. Dopp.
Any reasonable person would interpret Mr. Spitzer’s reported comments as an order to release the information. Either Mr. Dopp or Mr. Spitzer was lying at the time, and Mr. Dopp had much less incentive to do so. New York voters might want to ask if lying to a district attorney is acceptable behavior for the official charged with overseeing New York City’s pension funds.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323823004578593750885340348.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
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What’s to stop President Obama from refusing to enforce the Senate bill’s border-security promises?
America is a nation of immigrants, but we’re also a nation of laws, and the U.S. immigration system should respect both traditions. Unfortunately, the Senate immigration bill undermines the rule of law without solving the country’s illegal-immigration problem, and it will harm American workers. The House of Representatives will reject any proposal with the Senate bill’s irreparably flawed structure, which is best described as: legalization first, enforcement later . . . maybe.
This basic design flaw repeats the mistake of the 1986 amnesty law, which, according to former Attorney General Edwin Meese, President Reagan considered the biggest mistake of his presidency. The Senate bill ensures, as did the 1986 law, that we’ll have full legalization but little-to-no enforcement.
The Senate bill’s advocates argue that its implementation of enforcement measures, such as extending the security fence on the border with Mexico, will precede and be a “trigger” for opening a path to citizenship. But these advocates are conflating legalization and citizenship. America has approximately 12 million illegal immigrants, who chiefly desire the right to live and work here legally. The Senate bill legalizes them a mere six months after enactment.
