Category: Florida

World’s Least Intimidating Criminal

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Say hello to Zachary Dalton Howard of Niceville, Florida. About 10 p.m. on Dec. 22, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department, 22-year-old Howard walked into a convenience store “dressed in a long black coat, hoodie and blue jeans. He told the clerk he had a firearm but never showed a weapon. He left without getting any money after the clerk showed him an empty cash register drawer.”

Howard then went to a nearby Winn-Dixie grocery store, where he called his mother for a ride home.

After he was arrested, Howard told deputies he never had a weapon. He has been charged with one count of robbery.

(Via Florida Sun-Sentinel and Huffington Post.)

A Constitutional Right to Donkey Sex?

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Lisa Graas remembers how Rick Santorum was ridiculed for saying that the same logic that justifies gay marriage as a “right” could also justify legalized bestiality. Many at the time mocked Santorum as a bigoted yahoo. Yet the Republican presidential hopeful was merely expressing what Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had warned of when, in dissenting from the court’s 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision, he criticized the thin and hasty logic by which his colleagues overturned their own 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick precedent:

State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices.

Scalia’s dissent — which everyone should read — derided the court’s majority decision for creating a hitherto unknown “emerging awareness” doctrine for laws governing sexual behavior. Who can predict with any confidence where “emerging awareness” might lead?

We may be farther down the slippery slope toward legalized bestiality than most people suspect. In September, Carlos Romero was arrested in Marion County, Florida, and charged with having sex with a female miniature donkey named Doodle. His lawyers are arguing that the Florida law against sex with animals violates Romero’s rights:

In the motion filed in Marion County court on Dec. 6, the assistant public defenders handling Romero’s case — Joshua Wyatt, Scott Schmidt and Joshua Lukman — wrote that the statute infringes upon Romero’s due process rights and violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.

Of course, the 14th Amendment — the universal solvent of judicial activism!  Tracy Clark Flory at Salon is apparently OK with that:

They’re specifically targeting the language of Florida’s anti-bestiality law, which does not require proof that an animal has been harmed or “of the sexual activity being non-consensual,” or even of penetrative sexual contact.
The attorneys write, “Therefore, the only possible rational basis for the statute is a moral objection to sexual acts considered deviant or downright ‘disgusting.’” And that, they argue, is unconstitutional: “The personal morals of the majority, whether based on religion or traditions, cannot be used as a reason to deprive a person of their personal liberties.”
If, however, “the statute were to require sexual conduct with animals to be nonconsensual or to cause injury in order to be a crime, then perhaps the State would have a rational basis and legitimate state interest in enforcement,” they write.
It may be an opportunistic defense, sure, but it also brings up some interesting, if squirm-worthy, questions: Why should bestiality be illegal? Is it because it’s socially unacceptable or because it causes harm to animals? If it’s the latter, is it OK for people to have sexual contact with animals in cases where the animal isn’t harmed?

You can say whatever you want. Just don’t say you weren’t warned.

Discount Death

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You stay classy, death merchants:

A Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in southern Florida is offering a black Friday discount — including $10 off a visit to the abortion center today.
Planned Parenthood of South Florida and the Treasure Coast offered the special, saying, “Visit our West Palm Beach or Kendall Health Center for special after Thanksgiving savings on Friday, November 23rd.”
Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek noticed the Black Friday discount and responded, “Planned Parenthood brings new meaning to the term, “Black Friday,” doesn’t it?”
This is the same abortion business where the chair of the national Democratic party headlined a small rally last year.

You may wonder, how can Planned Parenthood afford to offer discounts? Because they’re funded with your tax dollars, of course.

A tougher question: How do they sleep at night?

Allen West Concedes FL-18, Expected To Take Up Watercolors And Scrapbooking

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by Smitty

CNSNews has a writeup:

Saying it’s time to “move ahead,” Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) announced Tuesday morning that he is conceding his House race to Democrat Patrick Murphy.
“I think that now is not the time to try to draw the process out,” West told “Fox & Friends.”
“We brought up some incredible voting irregulaties, not just in Saint Lucie County, but also some that we found in Palm Beach County, but now is not the time for the poeple down here in Congressional District 18 to be left in the lurch.”
West said “leaders don’t need a title in order to continue to lead and also to be a voice, and so I will continue to a citizen-servant of this great nation and do the things that help restore this constitutional Republic.”

If you incline the ear, you can hear the echo back in time from a CPAC 2013 speech where that patriot is going to raise him some roof.

via Twitchy

ELECTION NIGHT RESULTS HQ; UPDATE: OBAMA WINS RE-ELECTION; AMERICA HOPELESSLY DOOMED

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GAHANNA, Ohio
UPDATE 10:35 p.m. ET: It’s over, folks: Obama wins Wisconsin, which invalidates any remaining alternative path to 27o for Mitt Romney. Florida looks very much like a loss for Romney, who will hang on to North Carolina and, maybe, Virginia, but that’s not enough if Florida is gone.

The last time I looked at Ohio results, Romney was trailing by 60,000 votes and actually under-performing in the bellwether, Butler County. But the apparent loss in Ohio is moot, without Florida. Also, Iowa and Colorado look kinda iffy. So it is time to think about what this means — The Final Wisdom, the gestalt of the zeitgeist, which I must write for the American Spectator.

Please forgive me for having encouraged anyone to believe that there was still hope to save America. We’re obviously doomed beyond all hope of redemption.

UPDATE 10:50 p.m. ET:The dark gloom of stygian night might be mildly lightened if you were to hit the tip jar.

* * PREVIOUSLY 7 p.m. * *

It’s 7 p.m. ET and polls just closed in the key battleground state of Virginia. It is also now 30 minutes until polls close here in the key battleground of Ohio.

The Other McCain Decision Desk™ 2012 is watching results closely, preparing to be first to declare officially that Mitt Romney has won.

UPDATE 7:15 p.m. ET: We can declare Romney the winner in Kentucky, Georgia and South Carolina, while Obama has won the Peoples Democratic Republic of Vermont.

UPDATE 7:25 p.m. ET: CNN just called Indiana for Romney, but still considers Georgia and South Carolina “too close to call.”

The word for this is not “journalism,” but hallucinations.

UPDATE 7:33 p.m. ET: CNN just called West Virginia for Romney, but South Carolina and Georgia “too close to call”? And they’re also reporting exit polls as if they were talking about actual results.

UPDATE 7:45 p.m. ET: Finally, Wolf Blitzer decides that South Carolina can be safely called for Mitt Romney, as if there were ever any doubt at all.

Linked by The Lonely Conservative — thanks!

UPDATE 7:50 p.m. ET: Decision Desk™ 2012 is going to the store to buy a couple of packs of cigarettes. John King is on CNN babbling Democrat propaganda like the dishonest stooge he is. Polls haven’t even closed yet in the Panhandle of Florida, and King is giving a spin on the results that would make David Plouffe proud.

UPDATE 8:36 p.m. ET: Maryland, Illinois, Maine, Massaschusetts and Connecticut for Obama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas for Romney. Still going over the map. Virginia and Florida currently appear too close to call. I’m looking hard at North Carolina.

UPDATE 9:30 p.m. ET: Still crunching numbers here. If Mitt wins Florida, it will be by a very narrow margin, and Virginia is giving me the sweats. Loudoun County now at Obama 51% to Romney 48%, which aren’t the kind of numbers that reassure me.

The Decision Desk™ just got himself a cold Yuengling.

UPDATE 9:45 p.m. ET: Obama wins both Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Romney maintains leads in North Carolina and Virginia. Florida remains neck-and-neck.

UPDATE 10:05 p.m. ET: You’ll excuse my failure to report numbers from Ohio, but if Romney can’t win Florida, Ohio is moot and the numbers aren’t looking too encouraging in Florida right now.

UPDATE 10:25 p.m. ET: Obama wins Wisconisn.




 

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‘Benghazi Story’, A Tea Party Protest

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by Smitty

Retired General Norwood gathers some Tea Partiers in Florida to protest CBS 10, demanding the media do their jobs and investigate the Benghazi attack:

Barack Obama had better hope he loses next Tuesday. You can’t sit behind the Resolute Desk with this much albatross hanging from your neck.

via Bluegrass Pundit

Update: Instalanche! Thanks, Ed Driscoll!

Update II: linked at Gay Patriot. Thanks, Mr. Blatt!

Signs and Omens: Obama’s Fading Hope and the Graveyard Whistling Choir

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Nate Silver continues to lead the Democrat Graveyard Whistling Choir, raising Obama to a 70.3% likelihood of victory based on . . . what?

I dunno. I’m not an expert with a New York Times column or anything, much less a Magical Forecasting Model™ that can divine future events with the precise scientific exactitude of 1/10 of one percent.

This morning, Silver told us that Ohio might be a crucial battleground, which may be news to a victim who just escaped from an underground rape-dungeon after nine months of being held hostage and tortured by a sociopathic sex offender. But to everyone else, it’s not news at all.

My apologies for the bizarre word-imagery. Debate-night aftermath, a shortage of sleep and other psychological stress sometimes have this effect on my prose. But don’t worry. After 24 debates in 16 months, I’m used to it by now. And speaking of bizarre word-imagery, Ace of Spades:

“It’s going to be a grim affair, grim and horrible and just sad, but there’ll be lots of alcohol.”

That’s in reaction to unmistakable evidence of doom and gloom in Obama’s increasingly desperate fundraising e-mails. The plural of “anecdote” is data, as they say, and you don’t need a Magical Forecasting Model™ to see the dots in this emerging gestalt pattern, including the Gloria Allred “October surprise” gambit. Never heard a peep about this until after Obama got his ass kicked in the first debate, did ya?

–

Four new national polls — Gallup, Rasmussen, ABC and Monmouth — show Romney leading, compared to one (IBD) that shows Obama leading. If you average those five most recent polls, Romney’s lead is 2.2 points, while the RCP national average (which includes earlier results) has Romney ahead by a more slender 0.9 points.

In other words, while I haven’t yet seen any polling that reflects reaction to Monday’s debate, the trend going into that debate was steadily in Romney’s favor, which in turn would rather tend to contradict any thought that the pro-Obama shift in Nate’s Magical Forecasting Model™ is a function of actual data inputs. There is a growing suspicion that Nate’s just pulling his “data” out of his ass and wishcasting, and if that suspicion should prove true — if it becomes clear Romney is heading toward victory and Silver is forced to scramble his numbers — it might produce the biggest scandal since we learned that Jayson Blair was filing West Virginia datelines from his Brooklyn apartment.

However, I have no definite reason to accuse Nate Silver of deliberate fraud, and it’s entirely plausible that he’s just the victim of his own erroneous faith in statistical modeling. And when Team Obama starts talking about scenarios where they can win without Ohio, maybe you want to add a few extra grains of salt to Nate’s numbers.

The first rule of Losing Ohio Club is you don’t talk about Losing Ohio Club.

Damn, I love that Ewok. Continue reading Signs and Omens: Obama’s Fading Hope and the Graveyard Whistling Choir →

Does This Explain Something?
UPDATE: What a Cover-Up Looks Like

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Why is Obama still leading Mitt Romney in Ohio, but trailing in Florida? This puzzle might be explained by the early blitz of attack ads the Obama campaign laid down against Romney in Ohio back in May and June, which created a sort of “opinion deficit” that Romney has had to try to make up during the past four months.

Yet Obama also hit Mitt early in Florida, and Romney has bounced back pretty strong there in the past two weeks.

Is it Libya? And is it possible that the deadly Bungle in Benghazi has raised concerns about the administration’s Middle East policy among a key constituency in Florida? A friend on Twitter called attention to an article by my American Spectator colleague Jay Homnick:

MIAMI — The Jewish outreach of the Romney campaign leaves a great deal to be desired, about which more on another day. One good thing this wing of the overall effort has been doing is involving Ambassador John Bolton in presenting to Jewish groups. His powerful pro-Israel record and reputation make his name a good draw in the circles of the more knowledgeable Jewish voters. It does not hurt that he has astonishing breadth of knowledge, pristine clarity of thought, and crystalline clarity of expression.
Sunday night he appeared here in Miami at a synagogue bordering the two communities of Surfside and Bal Harbor. The biggest concentrations of Jews in the Miami area are not near that spot, but its equidistance from Miami Beach and North Miami Beach situate it perfectly for such events.
The room was packed to the rafters, and there were no hecklers or provocateurs. The crowd listened raptly and applauded lustily. It is difficult to extrapolate from this to voting patterns on Election Day, but this much was clear: there is a strong Romney-Ryan contingent among both the religious and secular Jews of Florida. . . .

Go read the whole thing. And while we’re at it, remember during last week’s debate, when Joe Biden laughed while Paul Ryan talked about the seriousness of the Iranian nuclear threat?

Biden’s dismissive attitude toward the danger of a nuclear Iran, accusing Republicans of reckless warmongering for taking that threat seriously — how did that play with Jewish voters? Biden’s bulldozing aggression against Ryan may have cheered up demoralized Democrats, but the unseriousness of Biden’s attitude hurt Democrats among undecided voters. Jim Geraghty examines a poll that found the Republicans gained a 3-to-1 advantage from last week’s debate.

But why trust the polls, when we’ve got the word of the Lord?

“And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee . . .”

You never want to get on the wrong side of a thing like that.

UPDATE: The big problem with the scandal now becoming known as “BenghaziGate” is that the Obama administration evidently decided to tell The Big Lie from the start, and so many officials repeated that lie so often that, once it became obvious they were lying, coming up with a plausible new lie was difficult. Ultimately, however, their problem is not their shifting lies, but rather the ugly truth of the administration’s failure. Even such a master of deceit as David Axelrod can’t hide from the facts:

Q. How soon after the attack did the President meet with the National Security Council, with people from state, with people from the…, the Director of National Intelligence, with all of the various people to try to sort out what happened in Benghazi?
A. Look. We are sorting out what happened there. Understand that the President the day after the attack called it an act of terror and charged everyone with responsibility for getting to the bottom of what happened. . . .
Q. Yes, the president made a statement and then he went to a fundraiser in Nevada. Question: Before he went to the fundraiser in Nevada, did he meet with his National Security Council to try to sort out the shifting stories. Because State says they never said it was a spontaneous demonstration; Intel, you are quite right, did. Did he meet with the National Security Council before he went campaigning in Nevada?
A. Chris, I assure you that the president was in contact with all those who had information and responsibility in the national security chain about this incident.

Via Memeorandum.

 

 

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