The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Rule 5 Monday

Posted on | July 15, 2013 | 19 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Once again, it’s time to take a break from the wall-to-wall 24-hour crazy of the news cycle and contemplate the wonder of God’s creation, preferably in bathing suits or lingerie, but occasionally not. Since many of the following links are NSFW, please exercise discretion and avoid clicking when you’re in places where you shouldn’t.

Valley of the Shadow leads off with Vampirella, who’s helping him shake the tip jar this month; Laughing Conservative has Eva Longoria, Fishersville Mike notes Sabine Lisicki, and Animal Magnetism chips in with Rule 5 Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon. Reaganite Resistance contributes Miss Germany, Caroline Noeding, 90 Miles From Tyranny offers Morning Mistress and Hot Pick Of The Late Night, and Randy’s Roundtable has Louise Kavanagh. Blackmailers Don’t Shoot has Pretty Girls On a Friday: Working For The Weekend, while Wine Women and Politics offers Saturday Night Special, Friday Fineness, and Friday Extra. First Street Journal, as usual, has a slightly different take on Rule 5 but we’re always happy to see the IDF Again.

Postaldog returns after a long absence with Laura Prepon, Paris Hilton, Olivia Sprauer, and Lana Del Rey.

EBL this week has White Hispanic Riot, Zimmerman Trial Dummy, gives an assist to Instapundit with Naked Women As A Fiat Car, and the unlikely pair of Shirley Jones and Alice Eve.

A View From The Beach brings us Cassidy Freeman, Cups, Sharknado Live Blog,  Miss Winchester Sues The NYPD, Are You Ready For Some Baseball?, Whatever Gets The Work Done, Did Spearchucking Make Humans Human? (with cavegirl content), and Photoshopping [The Unspeakable Armenians].

Soylent Green starts the week with Monday Motivationer Cali, I For One Welcome Our New Cybernetic Masters, Tuesday Titillation Twofer, Yeah I Like Superhero Movies, Overnighty Awesome, Humpday Hawtness Emily, Who’d Have Thunk It?, Nice Baseboards, Evening Awesome Monica, Falconsword Fursday Cara, Afternooner Kiera, Corset Morsels With Charlize & Dita, T-GIF Friday, Your Supplementary Scarlett, Now That’s What I Call Fully Equipped, Vampire Graves Unearthed In Poland, So LC How’s Your Weekend Going?, and Mea Culpa Scarlett.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Claudia Jordan, his vintage babe is Natalie Wood, and the Sex In Advertising Department asks, Armadillos anyone? Dustbury has Carly Rae Jepsen and Zooey (but no palooza).

The DaleyGator’s DaleyBabes this week were Natalie Noelle, Maya Michelle, Kie Katano, Mia Guzman, Monique May, Amanda Harrington, Caitlyn Hixx, Melyssa Grace, Melissa Giraldo, Cherry Mayers, Georgia Karabinis, Taylor Cole, Ursula Mayes, Tiffany Habib, Maria Venus, Satomi Tsubaki, Alicia Machado, Laura Lee, Catherine Kluthe, Kayden Kross, Sofia Jaramillo, Karin Castillo, Jennifer Metcalfe, Jennifer Denise, Jaimie Koeppe, and Hitomi Furisaki.


Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Links for next week’s Rule 5 Sunday (which I will TRY to actually get done on Sunday for once) are due to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox no later than Saturday, July 20.


Category: Rule 5

Mega-Dittos, @RushLimbaugh! Credit Where Credit Is Due and More Questions

Posted on | July 15, 2013 | 114 Comments

“So what you had here was a bureaucracy that was intent on making itself look good, and they were playing games with numbers.
“So real crimes would be committed by students, not just Trayvon, and rather than being categorized as such they were just pushed over here into another column on the spreadsheet that said ‘disciplinary actions.’ . . .
“The upshot is that criminal activity wasn’t punished.
“And so the perpetrators were never held to account, nor did they ever have to come to grips with the severity of their actions.”
— Rush Limbaugh, “The Left Throws a Temper Tantrum Over the Zimmerman Verdict”

When I heard that Rush Limbaugh had read my American Spectator article — “How a Miami School Crime Cover-Up Policy Led to Trayvon Martin’s Death” — on his radio show today, obviously credit was due to many others. It was Pamela Geller who called my attention to it Sunday and, in doing so, she mentioned that Andrea Shea King and Pat Dollard had been calling attention to it before. But the yeoman’s work in exposing this cover-up was done months ago by The Last Refuge blog.

What did I do? Well, I immediately recognized it as newsworthy. And, rather than just blogging it here, I realized The American Spectator would be ideal because everybody knows Rush Limbaugh reads The American Spectator. Could I have written the same article here, or at ViralRead? Yes, but I put it where I hoped Rush would see it.

So, I recognized it as legitimate news, and decided to write it where it would have the best chance of attracting high-profile attention, and then I wrote it as clearly as I could: “Just the facts, ma’am.”

Part of the reason it was difficult to get that story across was that it wasn’t easy to explain. It’s a complex story and boiling it down to less than 700 words took me several hours, because I had to sort through a lot of stuff and double-check basic background facts. And here is the most important fact of the whole story:

TRAYVON MARTIN WAS NOT FROM SANFORD

The liberal media keep leaving that out, don’t they? And why do you think that is? Because if they told you he was from Miami Gardens, more than 240 miles from Sanford, then the media would have to explain why Trayvon was in Sanford the night of Feb. 26, 2012.

Sometimes, if you pull one thread of a story, the whole narrative unravels and this question — “Why was Trayvon in Sanford?” — is one that the liberal media don’t want to talk about.

This is how you know it’s probably the most important question of all.

Strange as it may seem (or not), the liberal media broke this story before George Zimmerman was ever arrested but never followed up. Frances Robles of the Miami Herald reported it on March 26, 2012: “Multiple suspensions paint complicated portrait of Trayvon Martin.”

And then . . . nothing. Even while Robles’ story triggered an internal investigation within the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department (MDSPD) that helped eventually to bring about the resignation of MDSPD Chief Charles Hurley, nobody else in the mainstream media thought Trayvon Martin’s school record relevant to the story.

Because they are a disgusting pack of cowardly liars, that’s why. Some of them were down for the left-wing agenda, and some just let themselves be mau-maued by the thug mob that was demanding George Zimmerman’s prosecution. In fact, the Miami Herald actually quoted leaders of the thug mob in its March 26, 2012, article:

“It’s completely irrelevant to what happened Feb. 26,” said attorney Benjamin Crump. “They never heard this, and don’t believe it’s true. If it were true, why wouldn’t they call the parents? Why wasn’t he arrested?”
Trayvon, who was a junior at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School, had never been arrested, police and the family have said.
“We think everybody is trying to demonize him,” Crump said. . . .
Trayvon’s parents viewed the new reports as an orchestrated campaign to demonize their son as a “junkie and thief,” a routine occurrence in such cases, the Rev. Al Sharpton said at an afternoon press conference. Zimmerman, Sharpton said, had no way of knowing about Trayvon’s school record — “because he didn’t interview him before he shot him.”
“The only thing that’s relevant is what Zimmerman knew,” Sharpton said. “Let’s not play this double standard of trying to damage who is dead and sanitize who is the cause of the death.”
Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, said her son never had any problems with gangs or the police. In fact, she said, when she transferred him out of Carol City High School to be closer to home, the school wanted him to stay at Carol City because they liked him and he was a good student.
“They killed my son, and now they are trying to kill his reputation,” Fulton said.

Let’s leave aside for now this accusation that the only reason anyone would care about Trayvon Martin’s school disciplinary records was because they wanted to “demonize” the dead teenager and “kill his reputation.” Instead, let me call your attention to this: Sybrina Fulton says “she transferred him out of Carol City High School to be closer to home,” but Sybrina Fulton lived near Ben Franklin Park, and it doesn’t take a genius to check Google Maps: Carol City High School is at 3301 Miami Gardens Dr, Miami Gardens, FL — 7.4 miles from Ben Franklin Park — while Krop High School  is at 1410 County Line Rd, Ives Estates, FL, 8.1 miles from Ben Franklin Park.

Whatever reason Trayvon transferred from Carol City High to Krop High, being “closer to home” doesn’t really seem to explain it. Maybe there’s some other explanation that I don’t understand, but we know that Trayvon was suspended three times from Krop High. It might be interesting to know more about Trayvon’s years at Carol City High, besides his mother’s claim that “the school wanted him to stay at Carol City because they liked him and he was a good student.”

I’m just sayin’ . . .

You never know the answer to a question you never ask, and after this one story by Frances Robles in the Miami Herald, it seems that the media stopped asking questions about Trayvon. But that one article by Frances Robles pulled the thread that unraveled an important story, and for a long time, the only people who kept digging on that story were the bloggers at The Last Refuge.

MDSPD Chief Charles Hurley was suppressing the truth about the crime problem within the Miami-Dade school system, and this was why Trayvon Martin never got arrested for his crimes. Instead, he got suspended from school, and I repeat:

TRAYVON MARTIN WAS NOT FROM SANFORD

The reason Trayvon was in Sanford, Florida, more than 240 miles north of his home in Miami-Dade County, was that he had been suspended from school, and was staying in a townhouse community known as The Retreat at Twin Lakes. Trayvon was staying there with Brandy Green, who was dating Trayvon’s father, Tracy Martin, which brings us to another story the media doesn’t want to report.

Trayvon Martin comes from what used to be called “a broken home,” back in the days when most Americans got married and stayed married, so that kids had a Mom and a Dad and brothers and sisters — y’know, what we used to call a “family” once upon a time — instead of a kaleidoscopic arrangement of stepparents and half-siblings, Baby Daddies and Mama’s New Boyfriend and so forth. Call me old-fashioned, if you will, but I tend to think it might be relevant when we learn that a Troubled Youth comes from a Broken Home.

Well, let’s not be judgmental. And while we’re not being judgmental, say the mainstream media, let’s just not even mention these facts, because we don’t want to demonize anyone, see?

Start asking questions about Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin and Brandy Green — hater! — and you have no idea what you might find because, quite frankly, nobody in the national media seems to have asked any questions about these people. This is why, for example, you may not know that there was a stepmother, Alicia Stanley, who says she practically raised Trayvon Martin for 14 years before she got shoved aside for Tracy Martin’s new girlfriend, Brandy Green.

How many other wives or girlfriends has Trayvon’s father had? How many brothers and sisters and half-brothers and half-sisters and step-brothers and step-sisters did Trayvon have?

Damned if I know the answer to those questions, because it seems like nobody covering this story ever asked any questions like that. This kind of explains why I didn’t know until Sunday:

TRAYVON MARTIN WAS NOT FROM SANFORD

Because if the media had made a point of mentioning that, people might wonder why a kid from Miami-Dade County got shot dead in Sanford, more than 240 miles away. And the weird thing about it is, before this turned into the Murder Trial of the Century, there were people who actually reported some of these facts:

The night his son was killed, [Tracy] Martin, 45, was out to dinner with his fiancée, Brandy Green. Martin, who was divorced from Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, in 1999, is a truck driver from Miami who has a long-distance relationship with Green, a resident of the Retreat at Twin Lakes subdivision in Sanford where Zimmerman also lived.
Martin would visit Green on weekends, making the four-hour drive to the Orlando suburb of Sanford. In late February he was able to bring his son because Trayvon, a junior, was serving a 10-day suspension from Miami’s Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School. He’d been caught with a plastic baggie that contained traces of marijuana.

That article by Reuters reporter Daniel Trotta was published April 3, 2012, and  it included important facts that subsequently disappeared from The Narrative of this story, which is what tends to happen to facts that don’t fit The Narrative. Once the liberal media decide to turn what had been strictly a local crime story into a politicized Morality Tale, some facts are more equal than others.

So “a truck driver from Miami” was in “a long-distance relationship” with “his fiancée, Brandy Green,” and there was this 17-year-old son whose mother had been divorced by the truck driver 13 years earlier. While the two lovebirds Tracy and Brandy were out to dinner, Trayvon walked to the store for Skittles and Arizona Tea, and got shot to death by Zimmerman, who was the captain of the neighborhood watch that had been formed in this community a year earlier in response to a rash of burglaries in the neighborhood.

And in October 2011, six months before he was killed, Trayvon had been caught at school in Miami-Dade County with jewelry coincidentally matching the description of items stolen in the burglary of a house about a half block from school. But this wasn’t treated as a crime, because MDSPD Chief Charles Hurley wanted to reduce the number of reported crimes in the school system, see? This evidence was therefore listed as “found items” and the Miami police investigating the burglary didn’t even know this evidence existed, because nobody charged Trayvon Martin with a crime. Instead, it was just a disciplinary infraction and he was suspended from school not for suspicion of theft, but for the act of vandalism (“mischief”) that had led the school police officer to search Travvon’s backpack.

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along . . .

Sometime in the past year, the media decided to join this cover-up, evidently agreeing with Al Sharpton that Trayvon Martin’s background was irrelevant to The Narrative, in the same way it was irrelevant that Trayvon was three or four inches taller than George Zimmerman, who said he shot Trayvon in self-defense.

Never mind that, and never mind that George Zimmerman’s mother is Peruvian. Never mind those who knew Zimmerman and said he wasn’t a racist — none of that fits The Narrative, and if you so much as mention any of these irrelevant facts . . . RAAAAACIST!

This explains why I never knew until Sunday that Trayvon Martin was not from Sanford, and why people who have been following this story for months had never heard of MDSPD Chief Charles Hurley. So they can be excused for not realizing that when Chief Hurley started an internal affairs investigation, trying to find out who leaked the facts to the Miami Herald, a series of dominoes began to topple, leading eventually to Chief Hurley’s resignation in February.

No, you never knew about that, even though The Last Refuge had been trying to call attention to it, because the media decided that this is a story about civil rights and racism: Trayvon Martin was killed because he was black, and a half-Peruvian neighborhood watch captain was a fitting symbol of White Racism and Social Injustice, and facts that did not support The Narrative were irrelevant.

Meanwhile — more facts nobody is supposed to mention — President Obama last August signed an executive order that would, in effect, “mandate racial discipline quotas,” so that the methods employed by Chief Hurley are now likely to become nationwide policy.

What could possibly go wrong?

Trayvon’s father divorced Trayvon’s mother when Trayvon was 4. The Miami-Dade schools didn’t want to report Trayvon’s crimes as crimes. So instead Trayvon was suspended from school at age 17, which was why he was in Sanford on the night of Feb. 26, 2012, while Trayvon’s father went out to dinner with Brandy Green.

What could possibly go wrong?

But never mind any of that. Some facts are more equal than others, and Our Moral Superiors in charge of The Narrative know what’s best.

Thanks for the shout-out, Rush. There are some people who need to demonized, and they’re called “liberals.”

 

Category: American Spectator, Media Bias, Racism, Rush Limbaugh

Miami-Dade Schools Could Have Saved Travyon Martin’s Life by Arresting Him

Posted on | July 15, 2013 | 139 Comments

Leniency is not always mercy when dealing with juvenile delinquents, and I say this on the basis of my own experience of having been a teenage dopehead in the ’70s. My hoodlum buddies got away with a lot of stuff, but we also caught a time or two, and Sheriff Earl Lee was not the kind of man a dopehead hoodlum could take lightly.

Anyway, I hadn’t followed every detail of the Trayvon Martin story, which meant I missed one of the biggest untold aspects of the story: How a see-no-evil policy by Miami-Dade Schools resulted in Trayvon getting off lightly — suspended from school for criminal acts that should have gotten him arrested.

The Last Refuge has been trying to call attention to this story for months, but of course, the mainstream media wouldn’t touch it because it looked like a story about demonizing the dead kid. (Mark Steyn had some harsh comments about the beatification of St. Trayvon, if you’re interested.) But I never noticed this angle until Pamela Geller blogged it Sunday and, the more I read about it, the more I realized that this isn’t so much about Trayvon being a hoodlum. No, this is a story about bureaucrats trying to game the system, and pretend that there was less crime in the Miami-Dade schools than there actually was. The villain in this story isn’t a racist, just a disgraced cop:

The February 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martion might never have happened if school officials in Miami-Dade County had not instituted an unofficial policy of treating crimes as school disciplinary infractions. Revelations that emerged from an internal affairs investigation explain why Martin was not arrested when caught at school with stolen jewerly in October 2011 or with marijuana in February 2012. Instead, the teenager was suspended from school, the last time just days before he was shot dead by George Zimmerman.
Trayvon Martin was not from Sanford, the town north of Orlando where he was shot in 2012 and where a jury acquitted Zimmerman of murder charges Saturday. Martin was from Miami Gardens, more than 200 miles away, and had come to Sanford to stay with his father’s girlfriend Brandy Green at her home in the townhouse community where Zimmerman was in charge of the neighborhood watch. Trayvon was staying with Green after he had been suspended for the second time in six months from Krop High School in Miami-Dade County, where both his father, Tracy Martin, and mother, Sybrina Fulton, lived.
Both of Trayvon’s suspensions during his junior year at Krop High involved crimes that could have led to his prosecution as a juvenile offender. However, Chief Charles Hurley of the Miami-Dade School Police Department (MDSPD) in 2010 had implemented a policy that reduced the number of criiminal reports, manipulating statistics to create the appearance of a reduction in crime within the school system. Less than two weeks before Martin’s death, the school system commended Chief Hurley for “decreasing school-related juvenile delinquency by an impressive 60 percent for the last six months of 2011.” What was actually happening was that crimes were not being reported as crimes, but instead treated as disciplinary infractions. . . .

Read the whole thing at The American Spectator. Leniency is not always mercy, and going to jail is better than getting shot.

UPDATE: The Last Refuge today published a recap of their excellent work in chronicling the Miami-Dade School Police cover-up.

What is interesting is that the Miami Herald, which first broke the story in March 2012, has failed to follow up on Frances Robles’ original report, and we naturally suspect political correctness as the explanation. Maybe you could talk to Frances Robles on Twitter.

She’s now with the New York Times.

 


Category: Crime

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.15.13

Posted on | July 15, 2013 | 21 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Protests In San Francisco, Oakland Over Zimmerman Verdict

Protesters march in San Francisco

Ignorance on display
Related: Feds Weigh Charging Zimmerman


Syrian Refugees In Egypt Swept Up In Turmoil
Shown favor by Morsi, refugees now reviled


Asiana Airlines To Sue TV Station Over Fake Pilot Names
KTVU, NTSB already apologized for using false, racially offensive names in report



POLITICS
President May Have Prejudiced “Hundreds Of Military Sexual Assault Trials”

Oops, I did it again

Oops, I did it again

Use of phrase “dishonorable discharge”, other remarks may constitute “undue command influence”

Voter ID Law Back In Pennsylvania Court


Texas AG Greg Abbott Launches Campaign For Governor

Schweitzer Shocks Democrats, Says He Won’t Run For Senate

House GOP To Vote On ObamaCare, Say Delay Of Employer Mandate Unfair

GOP Attacks Immigration Bill On Security Grounds, Noting President’s Selective Application Of ObamaCare Law

DC Deputy Mayor Warns “Living Wage” Impact Could Stretch Beyond Wal-Mart



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Prices Ease Slightly In Asian Trade From Friday’s Highs: NYMEX $105.86, Brent $108.80
PRC Wealth Eludes Foreigners As Stocks Earn 1% Over 20 Years
Coal Under Attack: Federal Regulations Have Industry Reeling
Twinkie Fans Delight In Hostess Return From Zombie Death
PRC Economic Slowdown Seen Deepening As Beijing Pushes Reform
Retailers Keep Inventory Low For Back To School Sales
Microsoft Cuts Surface Prices Amid Weak Demand
Apple Will Appeal E-Book Ruling
Founder Of Bose Corporation Dies, 83
Best Buy Launches Two-Day iPad Trade-in Deal



SPORTS
Brian Vickers Scores Upset Win In New Hampshire

Brian Vickers


Makes best of chance from Michael Waltrip Racing

Knicks Interested In Metta World Peace After Amnesty By Lakers

Danica Patrick Starts Crash That Takes Out Boyfriend

Yankees Limp Into All-Star Break, Booed By Home Crowd

O’s Club Three Homers In 8-5 Defeat Of Blue Jays

Nationals End First Half With Win, Face Tall Order In Second Half



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
“Glee” Star Cory Monteith Found Dead In Vancouver Hotel Room, 31

Cause of death unknown

Police ruled out foul play

Jimmy Kimmel Marries Molly McNearney

Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie Changing Her Entire Name

Halle Berry Marries Olivier Martinez

JK Rowling’s Secret Life As Wizard Crime Writer Revealed

“America’s Next Top Model” Alum Renee Alway Arrested After SWAT Team Standoff

Miley Cyrus: Incognito For A Change

Paris Hilton Shuns The Sun

Farrah Abraham Rejected By Playboy

Is That You, Kurt Russell?

Jane Lynch: My Gay Marriage Is Over



FOREIGNERS
Mandela’s Family Contradicts Mbeki, Says He Remains “Critical But Stable”
Netanyahu Vows To Keep Advanced Weapons From Hezbollah
Congress Party Slams Modi, Says “Burqa Of Secularism Better Than Nakedness Of Communalism”
Italian Senator Compares Black Minister To Orangutan
India Sends Last Telegram As Service Ends
Syrian Army Marches On To Clear Damascus Suburb
Norks, ROK Resume Kaesong Talks
El Baradei Sworn In As Egyptian VP



BLOGS & STUFF
American Power: President’s Statement On Zimmerman Verdict All About #Trayvon
Breitbart: Obama – “Stem The Tide Of Gun Violence” For #Trayvon
Protein Wisdom: Obama On Zimmerman Case – From Mendacity To Actual Malice
Weasel Zippers: Reid On Zimmerman Verdict – “This Isn’t Over Yet”
Legal Insurrection: Guardian Removes “Open Season On Black Boys” Column, Reposts It
Gateway Pundit: Zimmerman To Move Quickly, Sue NBC News For Fraudulent Reporting
Rick Moran: GOP Senate Takeover Hopes Get A Boost
Moe Lane: Let Me Sum Up The Democratic Party Of Texas’ Trouble…
Jazz Shaw: The Return Of The Sequester Monster
Erika Johnsen: California Insurance Commissioner – “We Could Have A Real Disaster On Our Hands”
John O’Sullivan: Notes On A Scandal
Mark Steyn: The End Of History
James Pethokoukis: The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act
Betsy Woodruff: How Texas Pro-Lifers Won
NRO Corner: IRS Hearing Will Pit DC Officials Against Cincinnati Agent


Category: Live at Five

Verdict in Florida, Violence in Oakland, Insanity in Media, Ignorance Everywhere

Posted on | July 14, 2013 | 189 Comments

Will the Zimmerman Trial Verdict
Spark L.A.-Style Riots?
— Philadelphia Magazine, June 25

Marxist protesters in California display posters bearing
the logo of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

“History interests the radical elite only as it can be used to foment anti-capitalist passions, and they cherry-pick history to fit their own leftist interpretations, so that the past means exactly what they say it means and nothing else. . . .
“Schools today teach history mainly as a relentless harangue about how oppressively evil America has always been. Such tendentious sermonizing is boring, and young people respond by learning only enough history to ace their dumbed-down coursework.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “Not Afraid to Fight,” The American Spectator, April 12, 2011

Anarchist smashes Oakland window after anti-Zimmerman protest.

Frankly, after all the media hype about the potential of nationwide rioting if George Zimmerman wasn’t convicted — and all the protesters chanting “No Justice! No Peace!” — I was surprised the Baltimore Bolsheviks didn’t get their dream of a Marxist revolution. But that hasn’t happened yet and the only violence Saturday night was in Oakland:

Protesters angered by the acquittal of George Zimmerman held largely peaceful demonstrations in three California cities, but broke windows and started small street fires Oakland, police said. . . .
The Oakland police dispatch office said about 100 people protested, with some in the crowd breaking windows on businesses and starting small fires in the streets. . . .
Local media reports said some Oakland marchers vandalized a police squad car . . .
The Oakland Tribune said some windows on the newspaper’s downtown offices were broken, and footage from a television helicopter show people attempting to start fires in the street and spray painting anti-police graffiti.
Protesters also reportedly burned an American and a California state flag and spray painted Alameda County’s Davidson courthouse.

Question: What kind of person believes that “anti-police graffiti” in Oakland is justified by the result of a murder trial in Florida?

Answer: A typical Democrat voter.

Ignorance proliferates, weak-minded people embrace irrational folly and this explains why Harry Reid is Senate Majority Leader.

Meanwhile, media malpractice continues. Patterico had to explain that the trial was not about whether Trayvon Martin “deserved to die” — which no intelligent or sane person ever argued. But intelligent and sane people aren’t employed at the Tampa Bay Times, and the proliferation of kooks and zanies is becoming a serious social problem in America. I blame the media, and also an education system that fails to teach young people the most important lesson of youth: You’re ignorant.

All young people are ignorant, in comparison to educated adults, but some of us were fortunate enough to have teachers who explained to us how ignorant we were. Our teachers taught us we had an obligation — if we did not want to grow up to be complete fools — to educate ourselves, and otherwise to shut up about things we didn’t know anything about. And today’s lesson, children, is Basit Kassim:

You never picked cotton, young man, and I never made anybody pick cotton.  One hundred fifty years ago, there was a war.

Six hundred thousand men died in that war.

My great-great grandfather Winston Wood Bolt was a private in the 13th Alabama Infantry Regiment. He was captured on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, along with Brig. Gen. James Archer, and Private Bolt spent the rest of the war imprisoned at Fort Delaware.

He was fortunate, really, because  two days after he was captured, his regiment was in the vanguard of Pickett’s Charge, where their colonel, Birkett Davenport Fry, was seriously wounded and many of those Alabama boys were hastened to eternity by the cannons blasting double loads of canister and by volleys of Yankee rifle fire.

Students of history would be hard-pressed to argue that the deaths of 600,000 men were an insufficient sum to do justice to whatever anyone may suggest led America to that war.  Nor was the death toll the entirety of the price paid. We must add to the balance the men horribly maimed who somehow survived, including Winston Bolt’s brother, a corporal who managed to escape capture or death at Gettysburg, only to lose an arm at the Wilderness in 1864.

“Y’all people made us pick cotton?”

Who is this “y’all,” and who is “us”? You never picked any cotton, Basit, and I never made you pick it. Whence this idea that there is some sort of permanent system of collective guilt and collective victimhood, where people who never once in their own lives suffered injustice can claim an eternal cause of grievance against people they don’t even know?

My great-grandfather died long before I was ever born, but I knew his daughter — my grandmother, who lived past 90 — and she lived in a farmhouse on the red clay hills of Randolph County, Alabama, near the Little Tallapoosa River. There was no indoor plumbing. She drew her water from a well and cooked on a wood stove.

“Y’all people made us pick cotton?”

You never picked cotton, Basit, but my parents did. My aunts and uncles and grandparents picked cotton. Picked cotton all day long in the Alabama sun until their fingers bled, and took great pride in the fact that they earned a living by their own labor.

When my father was 16, he told my grandmother she would never have to worry about him. He moved to West Point, Georgia, and took a job at a cotton mill to pay his room and board so he could attend West Point High School, where he made the All-Valley football team playing end for the Red Raiders. College recruiters were interested in Bill McCain, but two weeks before his 18th birthday, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He joined the Army and was a sergeant in a forward reconnaissance unit in France when, one morning in 1944, he was cooking breakfast outside a farmhouse when an artillery shell hit. A shard of shrapnel hit him at the base of his neck, and came with a fraction of an inch of killing him. The medic told him, “You got a million-dollar wound, Mack” — not crippled or maimed, but bad enough he’d never have to go back into combat.

My Dad grew up on a Randolph County farm during the Depression, worked his way through high school, earned a Purple Heart fighting the Nazis in France, and attended the University of Alabama on the G.I. Bill. He moved to Atlanta after he graduated from Tuscaloosa, and worked 37 years at the Lockheed aircraft plant in Marietta. “Hold your head up, boy,” he’d say. “Ain’t nobody better than you.”

“Y’all people made us pick cotton?”

Damn, Basit. Just . . . damn.


Knowledge is the only cure for ignorance, and my mother used to tell me, “Son, you can do anything, if you put your mind to it.”

Why not put your mind to the task of curing your own ignorance? My great-grandfather, the one who was captured at Gettysburg, was an illiterate farmboy who signed his name with an “X.” This was perhaps not entirely his own fault, as opportunities for education were not as abundant in antebellum Alabama as they are today, and literacy wasn’t particularly crucial to a life of plowing with mules, chopping firewood, hoeing corn and so forth. My education therefore does not make me superior to my illiterate ancestors, but if I put my mind to it — and worked as hard at learning as my ancestors worked at farming — what limit could there be to what I might achieve?

A knowledge of history — especially the lives and labors of one’s own ancestors — can be a tremendous inspiration, as we strive to live up to our family’s share of an inherited glory, to conduct ourselves so that it may be said we have brought honor to their legacy.

My son serves his nation in the U.S. Army. My daughter, who worked her way through college and graduated summa cum laude, teaches at an elementary school where most of her students are the children of Haitian immigrants. These are just two of my six children, all of whom are equally heirs to an honorable past, with a duty to work hard and make themselves useful to their fellow man.

“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”
— Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 (KJV)

What more can we say to Basit Kassim who, thinking he might insult honest people, has brought such shame to himself, exposing his own ignorance, for which he has no excuse? Has he ever read Thomas Sowell’s The Quest for Cosmic Justice? Has Basit Kassim ever read The Vision of the Anointed or Shelby Steele’s White Guilt?

Has this young fool ever read any book that might enlighten him or improve his feeble mind? But why should we single out Basit Kassim, except as an example of the immeasurable universe of ignorance that our taxpayer-funded education system has created?

Ignorance has become so pervasive in America that these young fools never meet an educated man, but live in a benighted world where outright lies are accepted as Conventional Wisdom, where professional journalists are paid to write disgraceful falsehoods:

George Zimmerman shot a 17-year-old through the heart on a rainy night in February 2012. Now, finally, nearly 17 months later, a jury will try to decide whether the dead boy deserved it.
Zimmerman contends he did.

Nobody is saying Trayvon Martin “deserved it,” and it is astonishing that the Tampa Bay Times would employ a reporter who would write such a dishonest sentence, or editors who would let that lie appear in print. If this is what the media are telling people — and cable TV news has been crammed full of idiotic nonsense as bad as or even worse than this — are we surprised that rioters in Oakland think a good way to protest the Zimmerman verdict is to smash windows of downtown businesses and spray-paint anti-police graffiti?

I repeat: “Your TV is making you crazy.”

Turn off your TV and read a book, perhaps even The Good Book.

“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
— II Thessalonians 2:11-12 (KJV)

And let all God’s children say, Amen.

 

 

P.S.: You can read more about what my father taught me in my 2009 essay, “Championship Season.” And while my great passion is for teaching history, I occasionally offer lessons in the language arts, beginning with The Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!





Category: Crime, Culture, Education, History

FMJRA 2.0: Low Sun

Posted on | July 14, 2013 | 11 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

#TrayvonGate: How the U.S. Justice Department Abetted a Legal Lynching

The Pope Joins ‘Gang of Eight’?

Feminists Silent as ‘Progressive Activist’ Brett Kimberlin Terrorizes His Wife

Texas Democrat Party Aborting Itself to Oblivion: No Life, No Future, No Hope UPDATE: Hope, Change, Feces, Urine

Rush Is Right: Media Can’t Hide Their Disappointment Over Zimmerman Trial

The #FreeKate Case Is Typical

Rule 5 Monday: Independence Day Weekend Catch-Up Edition

U.S. Senate or Insane Asylum?

The Dishonest Liar From Phonyville

Are We Paranoid Enough Yet? FEMA’s Russia ‘Protocols’ Raise Serious Questions

Is John Kerry’s Yacht Named ‘Failure’?

‘We Need Reinforcements’

In Case I Haven’t Mentioned It Lately, David Brooks Is Still a Useless Idiot

University of Toronto Education Professor Arrested on Child Pornography Charges

‘Arab Spring’ Sequel: ‘Arab Anarchy’

How Glenn Greenwald Bamboozled People Who Should Know Better

Fight the Fight You’re Fighting

Brett Kimberlin Accuses His Wife of Adultery; Popcorn Shortage Expected

Gosh, Kind of a Tough Call Here

Notorious Bush-Era Anti-War Protester Adam Kokesh Busted on Drug Charge

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.11.13

The Perverse Incentives and Unintended Consequences of ObamaCare, Continued

 IN THE GRIM FUTURE OF HUMANITY, THERE IS ONLY WAR

Brett Kimberlin: The ‘Musician-Activist’ That @MonicaHesse Wants You to Forget

New York Times Buries the Lead — Deliberately — on Egypt Story

Satanic Media Ties McDonnell Millstone Around Ken Cuccinelli’s Republican Neck

Deranged Cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt Inspires Epic ‘Downfall’ Parody Video

 

Top linkers this week:

  1. EBL (13 the hard way)
  2. Daley Gator (9)
  3. (tied) Batshit Crazy News and Walla Walla Tea Party Patriots (8)
  4. Da Tech Guy (7)
  5. Lonely Conservative (6)

Props to EBL, who submitted more than 60 links last week and would have had 100 over the last fortnight if I hadn’t weeded out duplicate links and links from BCN, her joint project with Zilla.  Props are also due to the Walla Walla Tea Party Patriots, who broke through in a big way this week after having a link here and a link there for the last couple of months. Go forth and reward our top linkers by hitting their tip jars!

Thanks to everyone who linked this week! Deadline for next week’s FMJRA is Friday, July 17.


Category: FMJRA Award

#Zimmerman Coda: @dminor85

Posted on | July 13, 2013 | 15 Comments

by Smitty

A little more DM goodness:

“George Zimmerman has been found not guilty. Regardless of how people feel about it, we must still show love and have compassion one for another.”
– Demetrius Minor, a former White House intern, is an evangelist and motivational speaker.

If you haven’t figured it out, I’m a fan. Follow DM on Twitter and see if you don’t agree he’s the genuine article.

Category: Crime, Florida

#Zimmerman ACQUITTED: Not Guilty UPDATE: #Trayvon in ‘Amerikkka’?

Posted on | July 13, 2013 | 75 Comments

That’s all we know for now.

UPDATE 9:56 p.m. ET: CNN announced that the jury had reached a verdict about 9:45 p.m. The general consensus of observers is that it will either be a manslaughter conviction or acquittal.

We await the word. Court has been re-convened in Sanford.

UPDATE 10 p.m. ET:  ACQUITTED.

The jury deliberated for 16 hours.

UPDATE 10:05 p.m. ET: Trayvon Martin’s supporters outside the courtroom are, predictably, very agitated.

UPDATE 10:23 p.m. ET: Honestly, I thought the jury was going to convict on manslaughter — even had that set up as the headline and then was shocked when I heard, “Not guilty.” But I was never emotionally invested in this story, one way or the other. There were arguments to be made either way. A kid should be able to walk to the store and back without ending up shot dead; on the other hand, the original finding of investigators was that Zimmerman was exercising his right to self-defense, and there were those who believed Zimmerman was put on trial simply to satisfy political agitators.

Whatever. More than anything else, I hate the way the media exploited and distorted this case, and one in particular I hate:

UPDATE 10:29 p.m. ET: Oh, yeah, it’s predictable:

“Amerikkka” — and don’t you deny it, haters!

UPDATE 10:45 p.m. ET: More reactions from Twitter:

UPDATE 10:54 p.m. ET: You stay classy, Trayvon supporters!

Seriously? Random violence against just any “white boy” is justified on the basis of this trial in Florida?

UPDATE 11:15 p.m. ET: You want to see what a creepy ass cracker looks like in a hoodie? Then you must click the link:

In case you don’t know, Neal Rauhauser is an associate of convicted bomber/”progressive activist” Brett Kimberlin.

UPDATE 11:35 p.m. ET: You stay classy, continued:

Some of these people are so bad, you have to notify the feds:

UPDATE 11:50 p.m. ET: The New York Times story:

SANFORD, Fla. — George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, igniting a national debate on racial profiling and civil rights, was found not guilty late Saturday night of second-degree murder. He was also acquitted of manslaughter, a lesser charge. . . .
SANFORD, Fla. — George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, igniting a national debate on racial profiling and civil rights, was found not guilty late Saturday night of second-degree murder. He was also acquitted of manslaughter, a lesser charge.

 


Category: Crime, Florida
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