Provocative question:
Who would you rather have as neighbors... the Zimmermans or the Martins?
Imagine... Trayyvon Martin... as your neighbor. (Hell... imagine "young Trayyvon" and his "homies" just "hangin'" in your neighborhood... with that "nice young girl" Rachel Jenteal a frequent presence.)
Well...???
17 comments:
* FOUR-PARTER... (Part 1 of 4)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324448104578614220949743916.html
The IRS scandal was connected this week not just to the Washington office — that had been established — but to the office of the chief counsel.
* YEP. (*SIGH*) AND I DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO NEWSBITE THE STORY BECAUSE... WELL... I KNOW IT DOESN'T MATTER TO MOST FOLKS.
* CONSIDER THIS NEWSBITE A MEA CULPA FOR MY TEMPORARY "SURRENDER."
That is a bombshell — such a big one that it managed to emerge in spite of an unfocused, frequently off-point congressional hearing in which some members seemed to have accidentally woken up in the middle of a committee room, some seemed unaware of the implications of what their investigators had uncovered, one pretended that the investigation should end if IRS workers couldn't say the president had personally called and told them to harass his foes, and one seemed to be holding a filibuster on Pakistan.
Still, what landed was a bombshell.
And Democrats know it.
* BUT THEY ALSO KNOW WHAT I KNOW... THAT THE GOP PROBABLY ISN'T UP TO TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE NEW INFORMATION AND THAT THE MSM WON'T DO IT FOR THE REPUBLICANS.
* AND YET... (KEEP READING!)
[Democrats are] desperate to make the investigation go away.
They know, as Republicans do, that the chief counsel of the IRS is one of only two Obama political appointees in the entire agency.
To quickly review why the new information...is big news:
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 4)
When the scandal broke two months ago, in May, IRS leadership in Washington claimed the harassment of tea-party and other conservative groups requesting tax-exempt status was confined to the Cincinnati office, where a few rogue workers bungled the application process.
* THIS WAS A LIE.
Lois Lerner, then the head of the exempt organizations unit in Washington, said "line people in Cincinnati" did work that was "not so fine." They asked questions that "weren't really necessary," she claimed, and operated without "the appropriate level of sensitivity." But the targeting was "not intentional."
* A LIE...
Ousted acting commissioner Steven Miller also put it off on "people in Cincinnati." They provided "horrible customer service."
* ATTEMPTED MISDIRECTION AND COVER-UP... THE LIE BECOMES THE TALKING POINT.
House investigators soon talked to workers in the Cincinnati office, who said everything they did came from Washington.
Elizabeth Hofacre, in charge of processing tea-party applications in Cincinnati, told investigators that her work was overseen and directed by a lawyer in the IRS Washington office named Carter Hull.
Now comes Mr. Hull's testimony.
[Like] Ms. Hofacre, Hull pointed his finger upward. Hull — a 48-year IRS veteran and an expert on tax exemption law — told investigators that tea-party applications under his review were sent upstairs within the Washington office, at the direction of Lois Lerner.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
In April 2010, Hull was assigned to scrutinize certain tea-party applications. He requested more information from the groups. After he received responses, he felt he knew enough to determine whether the applications should be approved or denied. But his recommendations were not carried out.
* AND WHY NOT...? (READ ON!)
Michael Seto, head of Mr. Hull's unit, also spoke to investigators. He told them Lois Lerner made an unusual decision: Tea-party applications would undergo additional scrutiny — a multi-layered review.
(*SMIRK*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 3 of 4)
Mr. Hull told House investigators that at some point in the winter of 2010-11, Ms. Lerner's senior adviser, whose name is withheld in the publicly released partial interview transcript, told him the applications would require further review:
Q: "Did [the senior adviser to Ms. Lerner] indicate to you whether she agreed with your recommendations?"
A: "She did not say whether she agreed or not. She said it should go to chief counsel."
Q: "The IRS chief counsel?"
A: "The IRS chief counsel."
The IRS chief counsel is named William Wilkins. And again, he is one of only two Obama political appointees in the IRS.
(*TAPPING MY FINGERS ON THE DESK TOP*)
What was the chief counsel's office looking for? The letter to Mr. Werfel says Mr. Hull's supervisor, Ronald Shoemaker, provided insight: The counsel's office wanted, in the words of the congressional committees, "information about the applicants' political activities leading up to the 2010 election." Mr. Shoemaker told investigators he didn't find that kind of question unreasonable, but he found the counsel's office to be "not very forthcoming": "We discussed it to some extent and they indicated that they wanted more development of possible political activity or political intervention right before the election period."
It's almost as if — my words — the conservative organizations in question were, during two major election cycles, deliberately held in a holding pattern.
(*SMIRK*)
So: What the IRS originally claimed was a rogue operation now reaches up not only to the Washington office, but into the office of the IRS chief counsel himself.
* A DIRECT OBAMA APPOINTEE. A DEMOCRAT PARTISAN.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 4 of 4)
At the generally lacking House Oversight Committee Hearings on Thursday, some big things still got said.
Ms. Hofacre of the Cincinnati office testified that when she was given tea-party applications she had to kick them upstairs.
When she was given non-tea-party applications, they were sent on for normal treatment.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Was she told to send liberal or progressive groups for special scrutiny? No, she did not scrutinize the applications of liberal or progressive groups. "I would send those to general inventory." Who got extra scrutiny? "They were all tea-party and patriot cases." She became "very frustrated" by the "micromanagement" from Washington. "It was like working in lost luggage." She applied to be transferred.
* MICROMANAGEMENT FROM WASHINGTON... ULTIMATELY FROM A POLITICAL APPOINTEE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA.
For his part, Mr. Hull backed up what he'd told House investigators. He described what was, essentially, a big, lengthy runaround in the Washington office in which no one was clear as to their reasons but everything was delayed. The multi-tiered scrutiny of the targeted groups was, he said, "unusual."
* THE... TARGET... GROUPS...
* WELCOME TO AMERIKA, MY FRIENDS...!
It was Maryland's Rep. Elijah Cummings, the panel's ranking Democrat, who, absurdly, asked Ms. Hofacre if the White House called the Cincinnati office to tell them what to do and whether she has knowledge of the president of the United States digging through the tax returns of citizens. Ms. Hofacre looked surprised. No, she replied.
(It wasn't hard to imagine her thought bubble: Do congressmen think presidents call people like me and say, "Don't forget to harass my enemies"? Are congressmen that stupid?)
Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, finally woke the proceedings up with what he called "the evolution of the defense" since the scandal began.
* NAMELY... (READ ON...)
First, Ms. Lerner planted a question at a conference.
* "PLANTED..."
Then she said the Cincinnati office did it — a narrative that was advanced by the president's spokesman, Jay Carney.
* A FALSE NARRATIVE... A LIE.
Then came the suggestion the IRS was too badly managed to pull off a sophisticated conspiracy.
Then the charge that liberal groups were targeted too — "we did it against both ends of the political spectrum."
* YET ANOTHER LIE...
(When the inspector general of the IRS said no, it was conservative groups that were targeted, he came under attack.)
Now the defense is that the [President Obama didn't personally call low-level IRS staffers and give them their marching orders], so "case closed."
(*SMIRK*)
This is one Republican who is right about evolution.
* YES... BUT DOES BOEHNER CARE? DOES MCCONNELL CARE? DOES THE LEADERSHIP OF THE GOVERNING GOP (ELECTED OFFICIALS) HAVE THE INTEREST AND THE COMPETENCE TO OVERCOME MSM CONNIVANCE WITH THE DEMOCRATS? SAD TO SAY... DOUBTFUL.
Those trying to get to the bottom of the scandal have to dig in, pay attention. The administration's defenders, and their friends in the press, have made some progress in confusing the issue through misdirection and misstatement.
* "SOME" PROGRESS...?!?!
This is the moment things go forward or stall. Republicans need to find out how high the scandal went and why, exactly, it went there. To do that they'll have to up their game.
* YOU MEAN LIKE THEY DID... (DIDN'T!) WITH BENGHAZI?
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/hhs-admits-you-might-not-be-able-keep-your-doctor-under-obamacare_740093.html
As ObamaCare was being pushed through Congress in 2010, the Obama administration and its allies were unequivocal in two claims:
1) If you like your doctor and you like your current health care plan, you can keep them both.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius and then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi backed the president fully in this regard.
The White House even went so far as to post a "Health Insurance Reform Reality Check" on its website, where "Linda Douglass of the White House Office of Health Reform debunks the myth that reform will force you out of your current insurance plan or force you to change doctors."
President Obama upped the ante, putting the promise in the form of a "guarantee": "Here is a guarantee that I've made. If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance. If you've got a doctor that you like, you will be able to keep your doctor. Nobody is trying to change what works in the system. We are trying to change what doesn't work in the system."
[T]he new Healthcare.gov website has taken some of the mystery out of the controversy. President Obama and his administration do not fare well in this latest "reality check."
Among the questions that HHS recently added to the website: "Can I keep my own doctor?"
ANSWER: "Depending on the plan you choose in the Marketplace, you may be able to keep your current doctor."
* "MAY...???" (*SMIRK*)
The bottom line is that ObamaCare guarantees neither. Doctors may be only available through certain networks, just as in the current system. And only plans that existed in their current form on March 23, 2010, are even eligible to be "kept." The vast majority of plans will be new, subject to a raft of new regulations, requirements, and restrictions.
[S]uspicions of ObamaCare opponents were justified. The Obama administration will have some explaining to do to friends and foes of the law alike because now everyone is finding out "what's in it."
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/18/afghanistans-thanks-for-us-generosity-harsh-taxes-/
So much for thanks!
(*SNORT*)
As the U.S. accelerates its exit from a decade long, $100 billion reconstruction effort in Afghanistan, American generosity is getting an unwelcome penalty in the form of taxes and fees imposed by President Hamid Karzai’s government on U.S. contractors supporting the rebuilding effort.
Everything from exiting military equipment and food for troops to new federal contract dollars are facing levies, customs fees and fines — a wave of taxation estimated to slice $1 billion or more off the top of aid that was supposed to go to the Afghan people. (Instead, it’s going into the coffers of the Karzai government.)
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
U.S. officials have had little success pushing back, setting up an unnecessarily expensive end to U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.
“Congress’s appropriations for the Afghanistan reconstruction effort are intended to build Afghan security forces, improve governance and foster economic development in Afghanistan,” the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction wrote in a warning letter to congressional appropriators July 1. But “a substantial portion of these funds are being spent not to achieve these important goals, but, rather, to pay the cost of doing business in Afghanistan.”
* LET'S GIVE OBAMA AND HILLARY (AND NOW KERRY) A ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR THE GREAT JOB THEY'VE DONE WITH REGARD TO AFGHANISTAN...
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
The wave of taxation has created confusion among American officials, resulting in even more financial penalties, the inspector general says.
* HOW'BOUT WE JUST GET OUT... TAKE OUR EQUIPMENT WITH US OR DESTROY IT AND LEAVE IT.
“In addition to levying nearly a billion dollars in business taxes on companies supporting U.S. government efforts in Afghanistan — most of which we believe are improper based on applicable international agreements — the Afghan government is assessing hundreds of millions of dollars in additional fines, fees, and penalties, some of which are also improper, on many of these same companies,” the watchdog wrote.
* SOMETIMES I MISS GEORGE W. BUSH...
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
State Department officials overseeing the Afghan rebuilding effort took issue with parts of the inspector general’s conclusions, warning that questions of who and what are subject to national taxes are complex, with some contractors working with multiple federal, international and nongovernmental organizations.
* IN ENGLISH: THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT IS ON KARZAI'S SIDE!
“Not all work a foreign contractor performs in Afghanistan, including for the U.S. government, is necessarily covered by an agreement with the Afghan government providing for tax exemption,” Ambassador James Warlick, the deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, wrote in his reply to the findings.
* YOU'RE READING THIS, RIGHT..?
Mr. Warlick added that it is difficult to know whether all fees assessed by the Afghan government are in violation of treaties.
* ISN'T IT HIS JOB TO KNOW...???
“Any exemption from taxes or customs duty in a country has to be negotiated, and the host country has to be willing to provide it,” he said.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Though there is an agreement between the two countries exempting military supplies, the Defense Department’s shipments are still getting taxed, the inspector general found. “The Afghan government is charging DOD commercial carriers customs process fees for every exempt container of goods shipped into Afghanistan in support of U.S. military operations,” the report noted.
* AGAIN... YOU'RE READING WHAT I'M READING... RIGHT?
Inspector General John Sopko’s office is urging Congress to step in, contending that the fees are starting to hurt the U.S. war effort. The Karzai government has stopped a number of trucks laden with food or fuel for U.S. military personnel and their allies, demanding that transit fees be paid before the trucks are released.
* FUCKING BUSH... FUCKING OBAMA...
* YEP. IT STARTED UNDER BUSH. (WITH SENATOR AND THEN PRESIDENTIAL CANADATE OBAMA'S APPROVAL FOR THE AFGHANISTAN WAR!) BUT AS WITH MOST FUCK-UP BEGAN UNDER BUSH... (*SIGH*)... OBAMA DOUBLED-DOWN ON AFGHANISTAN AND THIS IS PART OF THE RESULT.
* BTW... I CAN'T IMAGINE BUSH WOULD HAVE STOOD FOR THIS. CAN ANY OF YOU? EVEN IF YOU HATE THE MAN, YOU'VE GOTTA ADMIT HE WASN'T A PUNCHING BAG FOR FOREIGNERS LIKE OBAMA IS.
“This is an issue U.S. military leadership in Afghanistan is currently addressing with the Afghan government,” said Cmdr. Bill Speaks, a Pentagon spokesman who handles Afghanistan affairs. “We are confident the situation will be resolved soon.”
* I HAVE NO CONFIDENCE IN U.S. MILITARY LEADERSHIP. NONE. REMEMBER BENGHAZI!
Meanwhile, U.S. contractors are starting to charge the taxes and levies back to the U.S. government, increasing the costs of procurement.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
Earlier this year, the Afghan government stopped the transportation of 220 containers, some of which contained food for U.S. and allied troops. The contractor charges the U.S. government $100 per day per container for their use, so every day the containers are held by Afghanistan customs, the contractors is charging the U.S. government $22,000, the IG noted.
* THESE ARE OUR "ALLIES."
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/07/19/black-americas-real-problem-isnt-white-racism/
In the aftermath of the acquittal of George Zimmerman, Eric Holder, Al Sharpton and Ben Jealous of the NAACP are calling on the black community to rise up in national protest. The result of all this ginned-up rage that has produced vandalism and violence is simply going to be an ever-deepening racial divide.
Consider the matter of crime and fear of crime.
From listening to cable channels and hearing Holder, Sharpton, Jealous and others, one would think the great threat to black children today emanates from white vigilantes and white cops.
* THINK AGAIN!
In New York from January to June 2008, 83% of all gun assailants were black, according to witnesses and victims - though blacks were only 24% of the population.
* THINK ABOUT THAT, FOLKS... THINK ABOUT WHAT THAT MEANS...
Forty-nine of every fifty muggings and murders in the Big Apple were the work of black or Hispanic criminals. Blacks and Hispanics together accounted for 98% of all gun assailants.
New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly confirms Mac Donald’s facts. Blacks and Hispanics commit 96% of all crimes in the city, he says, but only 85% of the stop-and-frisks are of blacks and Hispanics. (And these may involve the kind of pat-downs all of us have had at the airport.)
* AGAIN, FOLKS... IF ANY OF YOU ARE HAVING A PROBLEM FOLLOWING THE SIMPLE MATH... BLACKS AND HISPANICS ARE ACTUALLY UNDERREPRESENTED IN STOP AND FRISK WHILE WHITES AND ASIANS ARE OVERREPRESENTED... "DISCRIMINATED AGAINST" IN THE SENSE FOLKS LIKE HOLDER AND OBAMA WOULD USE THE WORD "DISCRIMINATION."
Blacks are also, per capita, the principal victims of crime.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Would black fathers prefer their sons to grow up in Chicago, rather than low-crime New York City, with its stop-and-frisk policy?
* IF ONLY THERE WERE MORE BLACK FATHERS PRESENT - IN A POSITIVE WAY - IN THEIR CHILDREN'S LIVES. THE FACT IS... BY AND LARGE BLACK FATHERS HAVE ABANDONED THEIR CHILDREN. ANYONE WHO DOESN'T BELIEVE ME CAN LOOK UP THE STATS FOR THEMSELVES. FEDERAL STATS. STATE STATS. OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT STATS.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Fernando Mateo, head of the New York taxicab union, urges his drivers to profile blacks and Hispanics for their own safety: “The God’s honest truth is that 99% of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these drivers are blacks and Hispanics.” (Mateo is what The New York Times would describe as “a black Hispanic.”)
(*SMIRK*)
Yet he may be closer to the ‘hood than Holder, who says he was stopped by police when running to a movie — in Georgetown.
(*SNORT*)
What about interracial crime, white-on-black attacks and the reverse? After researching the FBI numbers for “Suicide of a Superpower,” this writer concluded: “An analysis of ‘single offender victimization figures’ from the FBI for 2007 finds blacks committed 433,934 crimes against whites, eight times the 55,685 whites committed against blacks."
* ONE... MORE... TIME:
“An analysis of ‘single offender victimization figures’ from the FBI for 2007 finds blacks committed 433,934 crimes against whites, eight times the 55,685 whites committed against blacks."
* HIDING ONE'S HEAD IN THE SAND DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACTS, FOLKS.
(*SIGH*)
Interracial rape is almost exclusively black on white — with 14,000 assaults on white women by African Americans in 2007. Not one case of a white sexual assault on a black female was found in the FBI study.”
(*SIGH*)
Though blacks are outnumbered 5-to-1 in the population by whites, they commit eight times as many crimes against whites as the reverse. By those 2007 numbers, a black male was 40 times as likely to assault a white person as the reverse.
* ONE... MORE... TIME:
Though blacks are outnumbered 5-to-1 in the population by whites, they commit eight times as many crimes against whites as the reverse. By those 2007 numbers, a black male was 40 times as likely to assault a white person as the reverse.
(*BITING MY LOWER LIP*)
If interracial crime is the ugliest manifestation of racism, what does this tell us about where racism really resides in America?
And if the FBI stats for 2007 represent an average year since the Tawana Brawley rape-hoax of 1987, over one-third of a million white women have been sexually assaulted by black males since 1987 — with no visible protest from the civil rights leadership.
(*SHRUG*)
Today, 73% of all black kids are born out of wedlock.
* IF MAJORITY BEHAVIOR REPRESENTS "CULTURE" THAN BLACK CULTURE IS... FUCKED.
* AND THE HISPANICS (YEAH... CATHOLICS...) AREN'T SO FAR BEHIND.
(*SHRUG*)
Growing up, these kids drop out, use drugs, are unemployed, commit crimes and are incarcerated at many times the rate of Asians and whites — or Hispanics, who are taking the jobs that used to go to young black Americans.
* SO... ASK... YOURSELVES...
Are white vigilantes or white cops really Black America’s problem?
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/07/19/ap-fact-check-truth-about-obamas-health-insurance-rebate-claims/
Another year, another round of exaggeration from President Barack Obama and his administration about health insurance rebates.
In his speech defending his health care law Thursday, Obama said rebates averaging $100 are coming from insurance companies to 8.5 million Americans.
* I WON'T BE HOLDING MY BREATH; HOW'BOUT YOU?
In fact, most of the money is going straight to employers who provide health insurance, not to their workers...
A look at some of [the President's] claims and how they compare with the facts:
”Last year, millions of Americans opened letters from their insurance companies. But instead of the usual dread that comes from getting a bill, they were pleasantly surprised with a check. In 2012, 13 million rebates went out - in all 50 states. Another 8.5 (million) rebates are being sent out this summer, averaging around 100 bucks each. And this is happening all across the country. And it’s happening because of the Affordable Care Act. Hasn’t been reported on a lot. I bet if you took a poll, most folks wouldn’t know when that check comes in that this was because of ObamaCare that they got this extra money in their pockets. But that’s what’s happening.”
* DID ANYONE READING THIS GET A CHECK...???
"If they’re (insurers) not spending your premium dollars on your health care — at least 80% of it — they’ve got to give you some money back.”
THE FACTS:
Just as he did a year ago, Obama made a splashy announcement about rebates that incorporates misleading advertising. The health care law requires insurance companies that spend too much on administrative expenses to issue rebates to customers. But those customers are often employers that in turn offer insurance to workers and bear the bulk of the costs. In workplace plans, the rebate goes to the employer, which must use it for the company health plan but does not have to pass all or part of it on to the worker. People who buy their own insurance and qualify for a rebate get it directly.
Obama was on solid ground in saying “millions of Americans” got rebate checks last year, but the number was not close to 13 million as he implied. Of the 12.8 million rebates announced last year, health policy experts estimated 3 million would go directly to the insured. (The government didn’t know how many.)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Nearly two-thirds of the 12.8 million were only entitled to pro-rated and decidedly modest rebates, because they were covered by employers that pay most of their premiums. Workers typically pay about 20% of the premium for single coverage, 30% for a family plan. Employers pay the rest.
* AND THAT'S THE PROBLEM FOLKS! AMERICANS SHOULD GET WAGES - PERIOD! LET THEM PAY FOR THEIR INSURANCE VIA THEIR FAIRLY TAXED INCOME!
Altogether, this year’s rebates are worth $500 million, down from $1.1 billion returned last year. The government says the lower rebates mean insurance companies are becoming more efficient.
* WHAT DID YOUR INSURANCE GO UP LAST YEAR OR THIS YEAR MY FRIENDS? MINE? 17%.
* MORE OBAMA BLATHER:
”In states that are working hard to make sure this law delivers for their people, what we’re seeing is that consumers are getting a hint of how much money they’re potentially going to save because of this law. In states like California, Oregon, Washington, new competition, new choices, market forces are pushing costs down.”
THE FACTS:
It is simply not known whether health insurance will become less expensive in those states — or nationally — than it is now, or than it would have been absent the law. And hitches in setting up the new insurance marketplaces called exchanges are not limited to Republican-led states where leaders object to the law, although that political pushback is certainly part of what’s going on.
* ONE... MORE... TIME: OUR INSURANCE PREMIUMS WENT UP SOMETHING LIKE 17% THIS LAST YEAR!
In California, for example, where there is plenty of competition by health insurers wanting to get into the exchange, an actuarial report commissioned by Covered California, the state agency running the insurance marketplace, found that middle-income residents could see individual health premiums increase by an average of 30% while costs go down for lower income people.
* INCOME REDISTRIBUTION, FOLKS; THAT'S ALL IT IS.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20130718/BUSINESS/307180100/State-says-Obamacare-will-force-78-percent-increase-individual-insurance-plan-rates?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1
Insurance rates in Indiana will increase 72% for those with individual plans and 8% for small group plans under President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul, according to the state’s insurance department.
* OBAMACARE... (*SIGH*)
The spike in costs is due primarily to new mandates under the law, which requires insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions and to offer a minimum level of benefits, said Logan Harrison, chief deputy commissioner with the Indiana Department of Insurance under Republican Gov. Mike Pence. New taxes and fees under the law also contributed, Harrison said.
* OBAMACARE...
“This new data regrettably confirms the negative impact of the Affordable Care Act on the insurance market in Indiana,” he said. “The Affordable Care Act requires many Hoosiers to purchase more comprehensive and more expensive health insurance than they may want or need. These rates call into question just how affordable health insurance will really be for many Hoosiers.”
Costs for individual plans is expected to increase from an average of $255 per member per month in 2012 to $570 in 2014, when the most aspects of the law go into effect.
* HA! MARY AND I PAY SOMETHING LIKE $1,300 A MONTH FOR OUR INSURANCE - WHICH DOESN'T INCLUDE DENTAL.
* FOLKS... THE SYSTEM IS THE PROBLEM! OBAMACARE DOUBLES DOWN ON EVERYTHING THAT WAS WRONG WITH THE EXISTING SYSTEM!
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/16/blacks-benefit-from-florida-stand-your-ground-law-at-disproportionate-rate/
* FACT:
African Americans benefit from Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law at a rate far out of proportion to their presence in the state’s population, despite an assertion by Attorney General Eric Holder that repealing “Stand Your Ground” would help African Americans.
* FACT:
Black Floridians have made about a third of the state’s total “Stand Your Ground” claims in homicide cases - a rate nearly double the black percentage of Florida’s population.
* FACT:
The majority of those claims have been successful, a success rate that exceeds that for Florida whites.
Nonetheless, prominent African Americans including Holder and “Ebony and Ivory” singer Stevie Wonder, who has vowed not to perform in the Sunshine State until the law is revoked, have made “Stand Your Ground” a central part of the Trayvon Martin controversy.
* AND OBAMA... DON'T FORGET OBAMA...
(*SIGH*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Holder...criticized Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law in a speech Tuesday before the NAACP.
“We must confront the underlying attitudes, the mistaken beliefs and the unfortunate stereotypes that serve too often as the basis for police action and private judgments. Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation’s attention, it’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhood,” Holder said to applause in his speech before the NAACP Tuesday.
“These laws try to fix something that was never broken. There has always been a legal defense for using deadly force if — and the ‘if’ is important — if no safe retreat is available. But we must examine laws that take this further by eliminating the common-sense and age-old requirement that people who feel threatened have a duty to retreat, outside their home, if they can do so safely. By allowing and perhaps encouraging violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety,” Holder said.
“The list of resulting tragedies is long and, unfortunately, has victimized too many who are innocent. It is our collective obligation; we must stand OUR ground to ensure — (cheers, applause, music) — we must stand our ground to ensure that our laws reduce violence, and take a hard look at laws that contribute to more violence than they prevent,” Holder said.
Ads by Google
(*SIGH*) (*ROLLING MY EYES*)
But approximately one third of Florida “Stand Your Ground” claims in fatal cases have been made by black defendants...
And they have used the defense successfully 55% of the time...
At the same rate as the population at large and at a higher rate than white defendants, according to a Daily Caller analysis of a database maintained by the Tampa Bay Times.
(Additionally, the majority of victims in Florida “Stand Your Ground” cases have been white.)
African Americans used “Stand Your Ground” defenses at nearly twice the rate of their presence in the Florida population, which was listed at 16.6% in 2012.
* SEEMS THAT "STAND YOUR GROUND" HAS EMPOWERED LAW ABIDING BLACK PEOPLE.
(*SHRUG*)
One hundred thirty three people in the state of Florida have used a “Stand Your Ground” defense. Of these claims, 73 were considered “justified” - 55% - while 39 resulted in criminal convictions and 21 cases are still pending. Forty four African Americans in the state of Florida have claimed a “Stand Your Ground” defense. Of these claims, 24 were considered “justified” (55%), while 11 resulted in convictions and nine cases are still pending.
* I'M JUST A REGULAR GUY AND I DO MY BEST TO MAKE SURE I KNOW ALL THIS STUFF; WOULDN'T IT BE NICE IF HOLDER AND OBAMA HELD THEMSELVES TO THE SAME STANDARD?!
Of the 76 white people who have used the defense, 40 were considered “justified” (less than 53%), while 25 were convicted and 11 cases are still pending.
* SO... DOES THIS MEAN WHITES ARE BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST...?
(*SNORT*)
Ten Hispanics have used the defense, seven of them successfully, according to the database, which included George Zimmerman as a “Stand Your Ground” defendant.
* HISPANICS 70%... BLACKS 55%... WHITES... LESS THAN 53%. AGAIN... ARE WHITES BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST? I TEND TO DOUBT IT.
The best known African American associated with Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law is Marissa Alexander, who was prevented from invoking the law after firing a warning shot to protect herself from her abusive ex-husband. Alexander, who had no prior criminal record, was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and her case has become an important cause for supporters of the law. Alexander was prosecuted by Angela Corey, the same state attorney who lost the Zimmerman case.
* I PLAN TO ADDRESS THE ALEXANDER CASE IN A STAND-ALONE POST!
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/353864/post-zimmerman-poison-pill-heather-mac-donald
The most poisonous untruth being peddled in the wake of the George Zimmerman acquittal is the claim that American justice is racist.
Criminal-law professors across the political spectrum agree that the Zimmerman verdict resulted from prosecutorial overkill, not juror bias. The trial was scrupulously fair and presented the prosecution with full opportunity to make its case.
The idea that the criminal justice system discriminates against blacks — and that this bias explains blacks’ disproportionate presence in custody — is a staple of civil-rights activism and of the academic Left. Every effort to prove it empirically, however, has come up short.
(A 1994 Justice Department survey of felony cases from the country’s 75 largest urban areas discovered that blacks actually had a lower chance of prosecution following a felony than whites did and that they were less likely to be found guilty at trial.)
Alfred Blumstein has found that blacks are *underrepresented* in prison for homicide compared with their arrest rates.
A meta-analysis of charging and sentencing studies showed that “large racial differences in criminal offending,” not racism, explained why more blacks were in prison proportionately than whites and for longer terms, according to criminologists Robert Sampson and Janet Lauritsen.
Close on the heels of the “biased justice system” conceit, however, is the preposterous implication that the primary homicide threat faced by young black males comes from honorary whites such as George Zimmerman.
“Our children are targeted. Our community is targeted,” Martin Luther King III told the NAACP national convention on Wednesday. Protesters at the Orlando, Fla., courthouse this week held signs proclaiming “Endangered species: young black men and boys.” The New York Times ran an article today about the “painful talks” black parents are having with their children about how not to get gunned down by whites. A nurse’s assistant in Missouri told the Times: The whole situation ‘“would just make me skeptical about what crowd of white people I put [my son] around.’”
* GEEZUS...
* I FEAR IT'S ACTUALLY PATHOLOGICAL!
In fact, if a black parent wants to radically reduce his son’s chance of getting shot, he should live in a white neighborhood.
(*THUMBS UP*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
New York’s crime profile is typical of urban-crime disparities across the country. The per capita shooting rate in predominantly black Brownsville, Brooklyn, is 81 times higher than that of predominantly white and Asian Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, according to the New York Police Department. Blacks in 2012 committed about 75% of all shootings in New York, and whites a little over 2%, though blacks are 23% of the city’s population and whites 35%.
Blacks are 60% of the city’s homicide victims. Their killers? They aren’t white. The picture is the same nationally.
Black males between the ages of 14 and 24 committed homicide at ten times the rate of white and Hispanic males combined in the same age category in 2008, resulting in a homicide victimization rate nearly as disproportionate. As for interracial crime, black homicide offenders in 2010 had nearly three times the absolute number of white and Hispanic victims as there were black victims of white and Hispanic homicide offenders, despite blacks’ much lower population numbers.
* I KNOW... FACTS, FACTS, AND MORE FACTS...
(*SHRUG*)
The “white death threat” meme predominated in the immediate aftermath of the tragic Trayvon Martin shooting as well, of course, but in the intervening year and a half the mainstream media have been forced - however fleetingly and inchoately - to acknowledge the black-on-black shooting spree that continues to characterize urban America despite the country’s 17-year crime drop.
The January 2013 slaying of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, a majorette in the Chicago marching band that had played at Obama’s inauguration, triggered sporadic attention to Chicago’s hardly unique gun violence over the following months.
* CHICAGO... AS IN CHICAGO ILLINOIS... AS IN OBAMA'S HOME TOWN... AS IN WHERE OBAMA SUPPOSEDLY "MADE A DIFFERENCE" WITH HIS "COMMUNITY ORGANIZING... WHERE OBAMA SUPPOSED "MADE A DIFFERENCE" AS A STATE SENATOR... WHERE OBAMA SUPPOSEDLY "MADE A DIFFERENCE" WHILE REPRESENTING THE INTERESTS OF ILLINOIS IN THE U.S. SENATE.
(*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Even if the press was unwilling to point out that the killers of such inner-city victims share their skin color, that fact should have been obvious to anyone who has even the most remote contact with reality. Yet this recognition of the real source of black homicide risk has evaporated completely in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict and we are back to the “rampaging white racists” conceit.
* SERIOUS STATEMENT: FRIGGIN' FARAKHAN HAS DONE MORE FOR "THE BLACK COMMUNITY" THAN HAS BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA. AT LEAST FARAKHAN TEACHES SELF-RELIANCE AND ADVANCEMENT! WHAT'S OBAMA PREACH? "GIMME-GIMME-GIMME."
The American Prospect’s Bouie even argues that “there’s no such thing as ‘black-on-black’ crime.” Black-on-black crime is simply a matter of proximity, he says; blacks kill each other because they usually live next to each other. But Asians also frequently live next to each other; we don’t try desperately to ignore “Asian-on-Asian” crime, however, because their crime rate is so low.
(*SHRUG*)
Honesty about disproportionate rates of black crime requires acknowledging another truth as well: Trayvon Martin’s race could well have been a factor in Zimmerman’s initial suspicion of him. But that is because the known suspects in the recent pattern of burglaries in his neighborhood were black.
* SOUNDS PRETTY FRIGGIN' REASONABLE TO ME!
Had Asians been breaking into homes, consistently with an elevated rate of Asian crime, an unknown Asian teen wandering the neighborhood could also have drawn the attention of a neighborhood-watch volunteer.
* I HAVE NO REASON TO DOUBT THIS!
To recognize the possibility of criminal profiling at the onset of the encounter is not to justify in any moral sense the killing of an unarmed black teen or to diminish the horror of that encounter’s conclusion.
(*NOD*)
The Martin case is an undeniable tragedy.
(*ANOTHER HEARTFELT NOD*)
But if one extremely rare shooting of an unarmed black teen by a non-black neighborhood-watch volunteer is leading black parents to warn their children about getting shot by whites, it is no less natural that people faced with blacks’ actually elevated crime rate are going to view teens who fit the black-thug look with a greater degree of trepidation.
* FOLKS... DO YOU KNOW WHAT ANOTHER TERM FOR "PROFILING" IS? IT'S "USING JUDGMENT." MAYBE "CONNECTING THE DOTS." PERHAPS "MAKING A RATIONAL INFERENCE BASED UPON ALL KNOWN FACTORS."
(*SNORT*)
If shopkeepers in an area plagued by black robbery and shoplifting go into heightened awareness mode when black youth congregate outside their store or enter it, their response is not only inevitable, it is also rational, based on the evidence. The most efficient solution to such reactions is to bring the black crime rate down to the rates of white and Asian crime.
* BINGO...!!!
An eight-year-old girl was killed and two other children and their grandmother wounded in Oakland on Wednesday night when an unknown gunman sprayed their apartment with bullets. I’m guessing, based on historical crime rates, that the gunman is black. Do the people grandstanding today about “racial profiling” think otherwise?
* THEY COULDN'T CARE LESS...
(*SADLY SHAKING MY HEAD*)
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