Detroit’s bankruptcy is about numbers: a 26 percent drop in population since 2000, 78,000 abandoned properties, $10 billion in underfunded pension and health care obligations for public employees and billions more in bond and other debt that make it impossible to pay for adequate city services. [Related Article: 25 Facts About The Fall Of Detroit...]
But the real bankruptcy is moral and intellectual – and it affects not only Detroit but almost all of America’s greatest cities and most states. Type “pension tsunami” into a search engine, read and weep. You’ll see that Detroit’s issues are only slightly worse than other cities and states around the nation with balance sheets dragged down by legacy costs and ballooning debt. A study released earlier this year commissioned by Baltimore City, for example, said it is on a path to financial ruin and requires major reforms to avoid bankruptcy. And according to a report this year on 30 cities in the most populous metropolitan areas from the Pew Center on the States, they have “74 percent of the money needed to fully fund their pension plans over the long run but only 7.4 percent of what was necessary to cover their retiree health care liabilities as of fiscal 2009, the latest year with data available for all pension plans of all 30 cities.”
And Detroit isn’t even in the worst shape on health care costs – some of the largest expenses faced by each jurisdiction in the country –according to the report. In terms of underfunding per household, New York ($22,857) and Boston ($18,962) are both worse off. Detroit ($15,682) was third worst, with San Francisco ($13,487) and Baltimore ($10,208) rounding out the top five.
The treasuries of state and local governments, which have $3 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities to public employees, weren’t clobbered by the recession. As Frank Keegan wrote for State Budget Solutions (http://watchdog.org/64060/keegan-revenue-crisis-citizens-should-have-such-a-revenue-crisis/) in December 2012, General Revenues in all the states as of 2011 were up $590 billion, or 56 percent, over the previous 10 years despite the recession, according to his analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
Neither were their elected leaders misled by erroneous fiscal reports – if anything, they tried to mislead the public and still do with overly optimistic investment rates of return that allowed them to shortchange pension funds. The problem was that elected officials acted like a herd of intellectual lemmings, choosing not to accept facts that did not correspond to their worldview of ever expanding government.
They built convention centers and hotels for those convention centers and subsidized expensive condos and other real estate projects that either never met financial expectations or failed. Worse, they also padded pension and health care benefits for public workers without the means to pay for them. And to make up for the revenue that failed to materialize from those projects they raised taxes over and over again, often so high that people started trickling out until one day there were more takers than makers and all the people who championed those causes had failed up the food chain to higher office or lucrative private sector jobs that depended on taxpayer dollars. [Related Article: Detroit's Plan To Spend Half A Billion Dollars On A Hockey Arena]
That intersection of folly and an empty checkbook is where a lot of governments stand today. Detroit just happens to be in the worst shape. The only way to start fixing the problem is if more elected officials act like Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. The Democrat should be praised for commissioning the study noted above that laid out reforms necessary for the city to thrive and for promoting an economic agenda to make it happen. Bankruptcy just didn’t happen to Detroit. It was a choice. And it will be the choice of more municipalities unless elected officials around the country fight the gimme culture whose manifestation can now be seen in the 58-minute wait time for police in Detroit, in its broken lights, its lawless streets and thousands of vacant, crumbling homes. Marta H. Mossburg writes frequently about national affairs and about Maryland, where she lives. Follow her on Twitter at @mmossburg.
A key distinction between the U.S. and other nations, even relatively free nations, long has been American restrictions on domestic use of the military, for police actions, law enforcement and keeping things under control.
However, when the local police officer or sheriff’s deputy is equipped with night vision goggles, laser-scope rifles, electronic eavesdropping equipment and body armor and comes up a citizen’s driveway in a military-type personnel carrier with shielded windows and oversize wheels, the prohibitions seem to lose some of their teeth. [Related Article: The DHS Reveals New Plans For Surveillance]
It’s an issue on which WND has reported for more than a decade, and others now are taking note.
Since 1878, with the passage of the Posse Comitatus Act, it has long been an established legal principle that the federal government is not allowed to use the military to enforce federal or state laws.
In recent years, the law has been modified to allow the president to deploy federal troops to enforce the law. Two of the most notable cases are President Dwight Eisenhower’s decision to send federal troops into Little Rock, Ark., to enforce desegregation and the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
However, while American armed forces may be limited in their ability to enforce the law, the act is essentially being circumvented by militarizing local enforcement, equipping it with some of the same equipment, training and tactics used in war zones.
Radley Balko raised the issue recently a Wall Street Journal article, “Rise of the Warrior Cop.” He says the trend is to erase the line between military and law enforcement.
“Since the 1960s, in response to a range of perceived threats, law-enforcement agencies across the U.S., at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier,” Balko wrote. “Driven by martial rhetoric and the availability of military-style equipment – from bayonets and M-16 rifles to armored personnel carriers – American police forces have often adopted a mindset previously reserved for the battlefield.” [Related Article: New Surveillance Cameras Track Entire Cities]
Balko said the “war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the U.S. scene: the warrior cop – armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.”
The number of local jurisdictions with SWAT teams has increased dramatically in recent years, employed now by the majority of police departments in small and medium-sized cities.
Balko cites surveys by criminologist Peter Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University, who noted that in 1983 just 13 percent of towns between 25,000 and 50,000 people had a SWAT team. However, by 2005 the figure was up to 80 percent.
With the increase in the number of SWAT teams, local police have increasingly used the new technology and training even in cases in which their use is questionable. [Related Article: Is America A Free Republic?]
The article noted that along with the increase in the number of SWAT teams has come a corresponding increase in raids by the military-style trained officers. In the 1970s there were just a few hundred raids per year, however, in the 1980s the number of raids jumped to 3,000 per year. In 2005, the number is a stratospheric 50,000.
Balko highlighted the case of Matthew Stewart, a U.S. military veteran. Police got a tip he was growing marijuana in his basement. Stewart was awakened when the battering ram knocked down the door and. Thinking he was being attacked by criminals, he picked up a firearm and began shooting before being killed by officers. [Related Article: The Heartbreaking Account of Andrew Wordes]
After the shooting, police found 16 marijuana plants, and although the plants were illegal, there was no evidence he was selling the drug. Stewart’s father said his son suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and may possibly have used the marijuana to self-medicate.
While many Americans are concerned about the increased firepower possessed by local law enforcement, Balko said the problem is more pervasive than just local police departments, noting that many federal departments now have their own personal SWAT department.
Among the government agencies with their own SWAT teams are the Department of the Interior, NASA and the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Even the Department of Education has its own “special forces” team.
Balko noted the federal department has sent SWAT team members to raid the home of a woman who authorities said was suspected of defrauding the federal student loan program. The raid raised eyebrows because it was it was the first time the public was aware the Education Department possessed such a unit.
Whenever the issue is brought up, officials claim the increased armament and hardware is needed because of threats faced by law enforcement that were not present decades ago. In the 1980s the rationale was the war on drugs, while in recent years it has been preventing domestic terrorist attacks.
However, the data does not back up such claims. The Colorado-based Independence Institute noted in a 1991 study that less than one-eighth of 1 percent of U.S. homicides were committed with military-style weapons. In the years since the 1991 report, additional studies have all reached similar conclusions including one by the Clinton Justice Department in 1995 and the National Institute for Justice in 2004.
While police departments have engaged in military tactics and training for their SWAT teams, they have been frequently limited by law and by finances. However, after the Muslim terrorist attacks on 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security began to offer federal grants to allow local police departments to upgrade their arsenal.
The Center for Investigative Reporting has said that since its inception in 2002, DHS has doled out $35 billion in grants to help militarize police forces with items such as grenade launchers and even armored personnel carriers.
In 1999, WND reported a proposed change in a federal regulation would be going into effect that would allow federal agencies to donate “surplus” firearms to state and local law enforcement entities.
The previous regulation permitted federal agencies to donate or sell trucks, boats, aircraft and even space vehicles to state and local agencies and to individuals. But the federal property management regulations drew a line in the sand when it came to agencies like the Forest Service or FBI transferring actual weapons either by gift or sale.
But under the new regulations, used handguns, rifles, shotguns, individual light automatic weapons up to 50 caliber, and rifle and shoulder-fired grenade launchers up to 75 mm could be transferred to state agencies for donation to state and local public agencies.
In 2011, the Pentagon gave away $500 million in military equipment to help bolster the armories of local law-enforcement.
Earlier this year the American Civil Liberties Union became concerned about the issue, saying in March it was filing a series of open records requests in 25 states and National Guard offices in an attempt to discover the extent to which federal funding have helped local police departments become more militarized.
“Federal funding in the billions of dollars has allowed state and local police departments to gain access to weapons and tactics created for overseas combat theaters – and yet very little is known about exactly how many police departments have military weapons and training, how militarized the police have become, and how extensively federal money is incentivizing this trend,” the ACLU said on its website.
While the issue is now beginning to generate concern over perceived threats to constitutional liberties by the Obama administration in light of the IRS and NSA scandals, WND founder and CEO Joseph Farah began reporting the trend to militarize the police in 1998.
In a column headlined “The cops are out of control,” Farah lamented that while in years past seeing a police officer gave him a sense of security, it was no longer the case because of recent actions by SWAT teams.
“The recent incidents in Oklahoma, where police shot an unarmed mother holding her child in her home, in Virginia, where a SWAT team killed a watchman guarding a dice game at an after-hours club and in California, where a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raid on a gun shop resulted in the death of the shopkeeper, provide some hard evidence that police in America may be getting out of control,” Farah warned at the time.
He went on to note the danger of police agencies acquiring military gear even back then.
“The biggest danger we face is the federalization and militarization of all law enforcement. Interagency task forces, bringing together local and state police with federal agents are now the rule of the day,” Farah noted. “Federal agencies bribe local cops with funding, equipment and training programs.”
The challenged to the Fourth Amendment generated by the use of SWAT teams and no-knock warrants is likely to continue as a result of a ruling by the Indiana Supreme Court in 2011.
In a 3-2 ruling, the court ruled that there is no right for a private citizen to resist illegal entry by a police officer. The court stated in its ruling “that there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers.”
The case involved Richard Barnes, who faced misdemeanor charges for resisting a police officer who had entered his home without a warrant. According to the ruling, the case began when Barnes got into an argument with his wife, Mary. During the argument Barnes threw a phone against a wall, prompting his wife to call 911. She told the dispatcher that Barnes was throwing things but did not strike her. The call went out as “domestic violence in progress.”
Officer Lenny Reed arrived at the scene and met Richard Barnes outside as he was leaving with luggage. Barnes told the officer he was leaving and raised his voice. Mary Barnes then came out, threw a bag at her husband and told him to get the rest of his stuff.
The couple returned to the apartment and Richard Barnes blocked the officers from entering. Reed attempted to enter the apartment and was thrown against the wall by Barnes. Officers Jason Henry and Reed used a choke hold and Taser to subdue Barnes.
After being found guilty of battery on a police officer, resisting law-enforcement and disorderly conduct, Richard Barnes appealed the ruling. His basis was that the jury had not been given instructions regarding the right of a citizen to reasonably resist entry into his home.
The Indiana Supreme Court, in a stunning conclusion, stated: “This court is faced for the first time with the question of whether Indiana should recognize the common-law right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers.”
“We conclude that public policy disfavors any such right.”
A WND columnist excoriated the ruling, saying, “Our founders, whatever the differences among them, would be enraged” at the notion that private citizens secure in their homes have no right to resist entry by officers without a warrant. [Related Article: After America...]
Jack Minor is a journalist and researcher who served in the United States Marine Corps under President Reagan. Also a former pastor, he has written hundreds of articles and been interviewed about his work on many TV and radio outlets.
We’ve all heard about Detroit’s bankruptcy as bleeding-heart “economists” plead for a bailout from Uncle Sam. Yet, the city of Detroit intends to move forward with its contribution to the Redwings’ new hockey arena.
According to CNN, the city plans to spend $444 million of Michigan taxpayers’ money on the facility, despite hour-long police delays and shutting off 40 percent of its street lights to save money. To borrow from The Simpsons character Mr. Burns, Detroit plans to use taxpayer funds to help a billionaire build a private playground for millionaires. Team owner Mike Ilitch is only worth $2.4 billion these days, so the city clearly needs to finance his every need during this tough time.
Let’s not forget that the average hockey fan is rather well off, either. According to CNBC, hockey fans have a higher average household income than any other major sport at $104,000. That’s about twice the national average of under $53,000. Combine that with Detroit’s blight and economic woes and chances are slim the average Redwings fan lives within city limits.
While proponents argue this investment is necessary, let’s call it what it is: corporate welfare. The tired “we need jobs” argument doesn’t pan out, as the construction needs will be temporary and the existing stadium already provides jobs. The move is little more than padding a billionaire’s wallet so he and his millionaire players can make more money off entertaining upper middle-class suburbanites.
So, America’s most liberal city intends to keep spending recklessly, making the Obama Administration’s current stance all the more important. The Administration’s decision not to bail the city out may very well be the best of its second term. Let’s hope it sticks with it. [Related Article: 25 Facts About Detroit]
Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords
Secret demands mark escalation in Internet surveillance by the federal government through gaining access to user passwords, which are typically stored in encrypted form.
The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.
If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.
"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."
A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"
Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.
"This is one of those unanswered legal questions: Is there any circumstance under which they could get password information?" -Jennifer Granick, Stanford University
A Microsoft spokesperson would not say whether the company has received such requests from the government. But when asked whether Microsoft would divulge passwords, salts, or algorithms, the spokesperson replied: "No, we don't, and we can't see a circumstance in which we would provide it."
Google also declined to disclose whether it had received requests for those types of data. But a spokesperson said the company has "never" turned over a user's encrypted password, and that it has a legal team that frequently pushes back against requests that are fishing expeditions or are otherwise problematic. "We take the privacy and security of our users very seriously," the spokesperson said.
A Yahoo spokeswoman would not say whether the company had received such requests. The spokeswoman said: "If we receive a request from law enforcement for a user's password, we deny such requests on the grounds that they would allow overly broad access to our users' private information. If we are required to provide information, we do so only in the strictest interpretation of what is required by law."
Apple, Facebook, AOL, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast did not respond to queries about whether they have received requests for users' passwords and how they would respond to them.
Richard Lovejoy, a director of the Opera Software subsidiary that operates FastMail, said he doesn't recall receiving any such requests but that the company still has a relatively small number of users compared with its larger rivals. Because of that, he said, "we don't get a high volume" of U.S. government demands.
The FBI declined to comment.
Some details remain unclear, including when the requests began and whether the government demands are always targeted at individuals or seek entire password database dumps. The Patriot Act has been used to demand entire database dumps of phone call logs, and critics have suggested its use is broader. "The authority of the government is essentially limitless" under that law, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who serves on the Senate Intelligence committee, said at a Washington event this week.
Large Internet companies have resisted the government's requests by arguing that "you don't have the right to operate the account as a person," according to a person familiar with the issue. "I don't know what happens when the government goes to smaller providers and demands user passwords," the person said.
An attorney who represents Internet companies said he has not fielded government password requests, but "we've certainly had reset requests -- if you have the device in your possession, than a password reset is the easier way."
Cracking the codes Even if the National Security Agency or the FBI successfully obtains an encrypted password, salt, and details about the algorithm used, unearthing a user's original password is hardly guaranteed. The odds of success depend in large part on two factors: the type of algorithm and the complexity of the password.
Algorithms, known as hash functions, that are viewed as suitable for scrambling stored passwords are designed to be difficult to reverse. One popular hash function called MD5, for instance, transforms the phrase "National Security Agency" into this string of seemingly random characters: 84bd1c27b26f7be85b2742817bb8d 43b. Computer scientists believe that, if a hash function is well-designed, the original phrase cannot be derived from the output.
But modern computers, especially ones equipped with high-performance video cards, can test passwords scrambled with MD5 and other well-known hash algorithms at the rate of billions a second. One system using 25 Radeon-powered GPUs that was demonstrated at a conference last December tested 348 billion hashes per second, meaning it would crack a 14-character Windows XP password in six minutes.
The best practice among Silicon Valley companies is to adopt far slower hash algorithms -- designed to take a large fraction of a second to scramble a password -- that have been intentionally crafted to make it more difficult and expensive for the NSA and other attackers to test every possible combination.
One popular algorithm, used by Twitter and LinkedIn, is called bcrypt. A 2009 paper (link here to PDF document) by computer scientist Colin Percival estimated that it would cost a mere $4 to crack, in an average of one year, an 8-character bcrypt password composed only of letters. To do it in an average of one day, the hardware cost would jump to approximately $1,500.
But if a password of the same length included numbers, asterisks, punctuation marks, and other special characters, the cost-per-year leaps to $130,000. Increasing the length to any 10 characters, Percival estimated in 2009, brings the estimated cracking cost to a staggering $1.2 billion.
As computers have become more powerful, the cost of cracking bcrypt passwords has decreased. "I'd say as a rough ballpark, the current cost would be around 1/20th of the numbers I have in my paper," said Percival, who founded a company called Tarsnap Backup, which offers "online backups for the truly paranoid." Percival added that a government agency would likely use ASICs -- application-specific integrated circuits -- for password cracking because it's "the most cost-efficient -- at large scale -- approach."
While developing Tarsnap, Percival devised an algorithm called scrypt, which he estimates can make the "cost of a hardware brute-force attack" against a hashed password as much as 4,000 times greater than bcrypt.
Bcrypt was introduced (link here to PDF document) at a 1999 Usenix conference by Niels Provos, currently a distinguished engineer in Google's infrastructure group, and David Mazières, an associate professor of computer science at Stanford University.
With the computers available today, "bcrypt won't pipeline very well in hardware," Mazières said, so it would "still be very expensive to do widespread cracking."
Even if "the NSA is asking for access to hashed bcrypt passwords," Mazières said, "that doesn't necessarily mean they are cracking them." Easier approaches, he said, include an order to extract them from the server or network when the user logs in -- which has been done before -- or installing a keylogger at the client.
Sen. Ron Wyden, who warned this week that "the authority of the government is essentially limitless" under the Patriot Act's business records provision.
Questions of law Whether the National Security Agency or FBI has the legal authority to demand that an Internet company divulge a hashed password, salt, and algorithm remains murky.
"This is one of those unanswered legal questions: Is there any circumstance under which they could get password information?" said Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society. "I don't know."
Granick said she's not aware of any precedent for an Internet company "to provide passwords, encrypted or otherwise, or password algorithms to the government -- for the government to crack passwords and use them unsupervised." If the password will be used to log in to the account, she said, that's "prospective surveillance," which would require a wiretap order or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act order.
If the government can subsequently determine the password, "there's a concern that the provider is enabling unauthorized access to the user's account if they do that," Granick said. That could, she said, raise legal issues under the Stored Communications Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University and a former federal prosecutor, disagrees. First, he said, "impersonating someone is legal" for police to do as long as they do so under under court supervision through the Wiretap Act.
Second, Kerr said, the possibility that passwords could be used to log into users' accounts is not sufficient legal grounds for a Web provider to refuse to divulge them. "I don't know how it would violate the Wiretap Act to get information lawfully only on the ground that the information might be used to commit a Wiretap violation," he said.
The Justice Department has argued in court proceedings before that it has broad legal authority to obtain passwords. In 2011, for instance, federal prosecutors sent a grand jury subpoena demanding the password that would unlock files encrypted with the TrueCrypt utility.
The Florida man who received the subpoena claimed the Fifth Amendment, which protects his right to avoid self-incrimination, allowed him to refuse the prosecutors' demand. In February 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit agreed, saying that because prosecutors could bring a criminal prosecution against him based on the contents of the decrypted files, the man "could not be compelled to decrypt the drives."
In January 2012, a federal district judge in Colorado reached the opposite conclusion, ruling that a criminal defendant could be compelled under the All Writs Act to type in the password that would unlock a Toshiba Satellite laptop.
Both of those cases, however, deal with criminal proceedings when the password holder is the target of an investigation -- and don't address when a hashed password is stored on the servers of a company that's an innocent third party.
"If you can figure out someone's password, you have the ability to reuse the account," which raises significant privacy concerns, said Seth Schoen, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Last updated on July 26 at 12 p.m. PT with comments from Orin Kerr. A previous update added comment from Yahoo, which responded after this article was published.
Disclosure: Declan McCullagh is married to a Google employee not involved with this issue.
It is so sad to watch one of America's greatest cities die a horrible death. Once upon a time, the city of Detroit was a teeming metropolis of 1.8 million people and it had the highest per capita income in the United States. Now it is a rotting, decaying hellhole of about 700,000 people that the rest of the world makes jokes about. On Thursday, we learned that the decision had been made for the city of Detroit to formally file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. It was going to be the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States by far, but on Friday it was stopped at least temporarily by an Ingham County judge. She ruled that Detroit's bankruptcy filing violates the Michigan Constitution because it would result in reduced pension payments for retired workers. She also stated that Detroit's bankruptcy filing was "also not honoring the (United States) president, who took (Detroit’s auto companies) out of bankruptcy", and she ordered that a copy of her judgment be sent to Barack Obama. How "honoring the president" has anything to do with the bankruptcy of Detroit is a bit of a mystery, but what that judge has done is ensured that there will be months of legal wrangling ahead over Detroit's money woes. It will be very interesting to see how all of this plays out. But one thing is for sure - the city of Detroit is flat broke. One of the greatest cities in the history of the world is just a shell of its former self. The following are 25 facts about the fall of Detroit that will leave you shaking your head...
12) Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, but over the past 60 years the population of Detroit has fallen by 63 percent.
13) The city of Detroit is now very heavily dependent on the tax revenue it pulls in from the casinos in the city. Right now, Detroit is bringing in about 11 million dollars a month in tax revenue from the casinos.
14) There are 70 "Superfund" hazardous waste sites in Detroit.
All over this country, there are hundreds of state and local governments that are also on the verge of financial ruin...
"Everyone will say, 'Oh well, it's Detroit. I thought it was already in bankruptcy,' " said Michigan State University economist Eric Scorsone. "But Detroit is not unique. It's the same in Chicago and New York and San Diego and San Jose. It's a lot of major cities in this country. They may not be as extreme as Detroit, but a lot of them face the same problems."
A while back, Meredith Whitney was highly criticized for predicting that there would be a huge wave of municipal defaults in this country. When it didn't happen, the critics let her have it mercilessly. But Meredith Whitney was not wrong.
And of course the biggest debt problem of all in this country is the U.S. government. We are going to pay a great price for piling up nearly 17 trillion dollars of debt and over 200 trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities.
All over the nation, our economic infrastructure is being gutted, debt levels are exploding and poverty is spreading. We are consuming far more wealth than we are producing, and our share of global GDP has been declining dramatically.
We have been living way above our means for so long that we think it is "normal", but an extremely painful "adjustment" is coming and most Americans are not going to know how to handle it.
Dishonestly interweaving the Zimmerman trial with Florida's "stand your ground" law, even though that law was not invoked during the trial, Attorney General Holder has capitalized upon another crisis that should not go to waste. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Holder has merely fabricated the latest crisis. This administration has a disturbing propensity for manipulating tragedy and doing all in its power to jab sharp objects into open wounds.
To Holder and the president, the isolated events involving Trayvon Martin, which have not been publicly replicated anywhere else in America on any regular or reported basis, serve as yet another excuse to launch sweeping radical attacks on the rights of all Americans. They loathe the ability of citizens to protect themselves against the left's predators, whether social or political.
Just as the president and his minions rely entirely upon "straw men" to lie to their audiences about imaginary demons, they employ "straw facts". Counting on the stunning ignorance and gullibility of their listeners, they simply make up the people and events needed to justify the damage they intend to do. The audience members blink rapidly, lick their lips, and clap joyously. Think Nancy Pelosi.
In a string of lies and half truths, amounting to merely another public speech or day of Congressional testimony for Holder, he premised his call for nationwide action against "stand your ground" laws with these whoppers:
"..it's time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods. These laws try to fix something that was never broken....
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. 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 that our laws reduce violence, and take a hard look at laws that contribute to more violence than they prevent."
In addition to Holder having no factual support for his claims, with none to follow, his statements are premised upon very fundamental liberal bigotries. The person who lawfully owns a gun and legally uses it in self defense against an illegally armed criminal intent on violence is the person most likely to benefit from a "stand your ground" law. Therefore, in Holder's mind and on the left, it is precisely that person who "sow[s] dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods". Such a person "encourages violent situations to escalate in public", and "victimize[s] too many who are innocent".
He can only be speaking of lawful gun owners, since no one in his right mind could believe that Holder is talking about "stand your ground" laws applying to the rampage of daily violence that involves the criminal use of illegal guns throughout neighborhoods in every Democrat-run city in the nation. Stand your ground laws don't exist in Democrat enclaves, and even if they did, they are not invoked in the neighborhood gun fights, gang wars, or drive-by shootings the left allows. Holder's audience at the NAACP convention doubtless knew this better than most, but they clapped like loyal zealots just the same.
Just as Holder's "straw-man" legal gun owner is fictional, the "straw facts" Holder employs are pure deceit. There is no epidemic of accidental or malicious shootings caused by some expanded concept of self-defense. Indeed, there is not even a short list. There is no fear of dangerous conflicts in our neighborhoods arising from "stand your ground" laws. And hypothetically, if there were, wouldn't it be constructive for the assailant to be constrained by such fear not to attack? Who besides the prospective attacker would be risking such a dangerous conflict, or its escalation?
Similarly, how does the natural right of self-defense in any form undermine public safety? Where is the 'long list' of tragedies involving self-defense and "stand your ground" laws? Similarly, I'd like to know more about all those 'innocents' who have been killed by others defending against attack. If someone else shot them in self defense, I question the presumption of their innocence, even while the left considers them social martyrs.
In Holder's world and on the left in general, the criminal is always virtuous, and in need of protection as he practices violent social justice. The criminal is the victim. We needn't look further than Holder's eager representation of terrorists while in charge of the department at Covington and Burling that proudly fills that role to know that there is no ideological predator he finds undeserving. Since the left's criminals are only evening the historical score, a practice Holder has blessed through DOJ policies, the administration would like to ensure they don't get shot in the process. It would be grossly unfair to the criminal if he could not safely practice violent social justice due to the risk of "workplace violence" should his gun use be reciprocated.
Because the left believes the criminal to be virtuous, he clearly deserves the advantage. The benefit of the doubt regarding whether a victim is armed or not should go to the criminal. The victim should be forced to surrender or retreat, putting himself at the fatal disadvantage of a supplicant in the process, but this is acceptable to the left, since the victim is only forfeiting what the criminal is entitled to take, including a life.
We have become accustomed to ridiculous statements from our president and his hatchet men, but these remarks by Holder are unusually blatant in their utter falsehood. He is peddling lies. If Holder actually believed in a duty to "ensure that our laws reduce violence", he would do well to advocate for concealed carry and "stand your ground" laws all over the country. Indeed, the left's urban black constituents would likely benefit the most from both being able to defend themselves lawfully, and from keeping the predators guessing which of their victims would shoot them first.
Needless to say, we can't do that. It might actually work.
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.
Yet they know — and Barack Obama, whose silence speaks volumes, knows — nothing is going to happen.
“Stand-Your-Ground” laws in Florida and other states are not going to be repealed. George Zimmerman is not going to be prosecuted for a federal “hate crime” in the death of Trayvon Martin.
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.
Hence, every black father must have a “conversation” with his son, warning him not to resist or run if pulled over or hassled by a cop.
Make the wrong move, son, and you may be dead is the implication.
But is this the reality in Black America?
When Holder delivered his 2009 “nation-of-cowards” speech blaming racism for racial separation, Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald suggested that our attorney general study his crime statistics.
In New York from January to June 2008, 83 percent of all gun assailants were black, according to witnesses and victims, though blacks were only 24 percent of the population. Blacks and Hispanics together accounted for 98 percent of all gun assailants. Forty-nine of every 50 muggings and murders in the Big Apple were the work of black or Hispanic criminals.
New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly confirms Mac Donald’s facts. Blacks and Hispanics commit 96 percent of all crimes in the city, he says, but only 85 percent 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.
Is stop-and-frisk the work of racist cops in New York, where the crime rate has been driven down to levels unseen in decades?
According to Kelly, a majority of his police force, which he has been able to cut from 41,000 officers to 35,000, is now made up of minorities.
But blacks are also, per capita, the principal victims of crime. Would black fathers prefer their sons to grow up in Chicago, rather than low-crime New York City, with its stop-and-frisk policy?
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 percent 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” Yet he may be closer to the ‘hood than Holder, who says he was stopped by police when running to a movie — in Georgetown.
Which raises a relevant question. Georgetown is an elitist enclave of a national capital that has been ruled by black mayors for half a century. It’s never had a white mayor.
Is Holder saying we’ve got racist cops in the district where Obama carried 86 percent of the white vote and 97 percent of the black vote? And his son should fear the white cops in Washington, D.C.? [Related Article: Praying for Richmond, VA]
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. 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.”
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.
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.
Today, 73 percent of all black kids are born out of wedlock. 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.
Are white vigilantes or white cops really Black America’s problem?
Obama seems not to think so. The Rev. Sharpton notwithstanding, he is touting Ray Kelly as a possible chief of homeland security.
Constitution of the United States, Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Jer 6:10To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised [unholy, impure, carnal], and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it. Jer 6:11Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in...
PRAYER REQUESTS: Richmond, VA
Isa 55:6Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Isa 55:7Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Please pray for the employees at HD Supply (Technology Dr. - Glen Allen). Pray that the Holy Spirit would bring conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Please pray for the employees here who are enslaved by political and spiritual deception; and who are being crippled by the pride, arrogance, and rebellion which is captivating the Black communities of Richmond VA and the greater Richmond Area, including the counties of Hanover and Henrico....pray for those at this location who have been conditioned by an antichrist educational system, political system, and entertainment industry to embrace and believe the ungodly lies of the Feminist movement. Please pray for A. Bowles and J. Farmer. [Related Article: Ten Lies of Feminism]
Please pray for some individuals at Hill Phoenix (Battery Brooke Pkwy.)...please pray for some who may or may not have entered this country legally; praying for deliverance from false doctrines. Please pray also for those who have been ensnared by the pride, rebellion, and spirit of lawlessness which is crippling the Black Community in Richmond, VA and the Greater Richmond Area.
Please pray for the employees at Qubica / AMF in Mechanicsville. Please pray for those who are enslaved by antichrist spirits of pride, arrogance, and rebellion. Pray that they would be see the truth of God's word and be set free from the political and religious deception which is destroying our nation.
Pray for Evergreen Enterprises (Midlothian Tnpk.) in Richmond. Please pray for employees who may or may not have entered this country legally. Pray that some of them would be delivered and set free from the heresy and false doctrines of Roman Catholicism. Please pray also for a number of employees at this location who have been led astray by the false religion of Buddhism. Pray for spiritual deliverance and genuine salvation through repentance and faith in the soul-cleansing death and literal, physical resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Please pray for the owners, management, and employees at Richmond Restaraunt Service, in Ashland, VA. Please pray for the employees here who have been led astray and deceived by the lies, propaganda, and false doctrines of their religious, political, and community leaders. Pray for a young woman in the Receiving office; please pray that she would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgement. Please pray that she would be delivered from the pride, arrogance, and lawless rebellion which is crippling and enslaving the Black community of Richmond VA, and the Greater Richmond Area, including Hanover and Henrico county. Please pray for D. Williams, Maurice, ........
Please pray for C. Wood (Henrico County), of Richmond. Pray that she would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment; leading to repentance and genuine salvation in Jesus Christ. Pray that she would be set free from a rebellious, proud, and arrogant heart. Pray also that she would be delivered from a spirit of Feminism which is crippling the hearts and minds of many women in the Richmond area. Please pray that there will be genuine accountability in her life regarding her crazed and reckless driving habits (as documented on Parham Rd.)....
B.W. Wilson -
GPS Cab -
Hermitage Steel -
- Ball Office Products: please pray for some of the delivery drivers at this location. Pray that they would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray for those who have been politically and spiritually deceived by their community and religious leaders. Pray that they would be delivered from spirits of arrogance and lawlessness....
Karn Custom Woodwork (Rhoadmiller St.) -
Please pray for an employee with J.W. Garner, Inc.......
Please pray for some of the drivers over at Airport Taxi in Richmond. Pray for their salvation and deliverance from pride, arrogance, and rebellion.
Please pray for A. Evans: please pray that this young woman would be delivered from an antichrist spirit. Pray that she would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment; leading to genuine salvation (born-again relationship with Jesus Christ). Pray that she would be delivered from the pride, arrogance, and lawless rebellion which is crippling and enslaving the black communities of Richmond VA, and the Greater Richmond Area including the counties of Hanover and Henrico.
Please pray for the delivery drivers and internal staff at Accurate Courier Express in Metro Richmond. Pray especially for those who are blinded and ensnared by the lies and deceptions being promoted by their political, religious, and community leaders. Pray that these employees would be convicted by the Holy Spirit of sin, righteousness, and judgment leading to a genuine New Testament relationship with Jesus Christ and freedom from the pride, arrogance, and rebellion which is crippling the Black communities of Richmond VA and the Greater Richmond Area including the counties of Hanover and Henrico...
- Richmond Volleyball Club:
- Sansbury Bakery / World's Best Cheesecake:
- PPD (2200 Tomlynn St.): please pray for the young people employed here; praying for their deliverance from antichrist worldviews and teaching. pray for those who have been ensnared by the lies and deceptions of the Feminist agenda.
- Virginia Blood Services:
- Electrical Equipment Company in Metro Richmond:
- Please pray for a man employed at W. H. Stovall and Co. in Ashland. Pray for his conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray that he would be delivered from arrogance and lawless behavior, and that he would repent and receive Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
Please pray for those who are employed by McKesson (Landmark Rd.) in Richmond. Pray overall for the salvation of those who have been led astray by ungodly and antichrist worldviews (supporting abortion, homosexuality, atheism, evolution, liberalism, and secular-humanism). Pray for the spirit of lawlessness which I have documented being perpetuated by these employees as they reveal their ignorance and arrogance on Landmark Rd., Parham Rd., Staples Mill Rd., and Janway Rd. Pray for those who are being crippled and enslaved by the pride, arrogance, and lawless rebellion within the Black community of Richmond, VA.
Please pray for Scott at East Coast Metals (N. Meadow St.)...pray that he would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray that he would be set free from religious deception and ignorance. Pray that he would be delivered from spirits of pride and rebellion which are enslaving and manipulating his heart, mind, and conversation.
Please pray for Diane at a Sherwin-Williams (Ownby Lane) in Richmond; praying for conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Please pray that she will be delivered from spiritual darkness and receive Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. Pray for her deliverance from a spirit of feminism. Jer 6:16Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Jer 6:17Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken. Jer 6:18Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Jer 6:19Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto My words, nor to My law, but rejected it.
Please pray for staff and management at UCI/Hahn Automotive/Auto Value in Richmond VA (Rhoadmiller St.). Pray that the Holy Spirit would bring the conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment upon this location. Pray for the individuals who are not saved; that they would repent and receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Pray for those who have been enslaved and deceived by the demonic lies of Feminism. Pray that there would be professional standards for the delivery drivers within the Auto Value division, and that the daily habitual habits of lawlessness and arrogance would be exposed and eliminated. (The ignorance and lawless arrogance of these delivery drivers can be found on Youtube). Pray for those who have been into captivity and ignorance by the lies and deceptions of their political, religious, and community leaders.
Please pray for the employees at Hildrup Moving and Storage (Dabney Rd.). Pray that there would be conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment upon the hearts and minds of all employed therein. Pray for the employees who have been led astray by the lies and deceptions of their religious, political, and community leaders...pray that they would be set free from the arrogance, pride, and lawlessness which is crippling and enslaving the black community of Richmond VA and the greater Richmond area including the counties of Hanover and Henrico.
"For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns (wells) -- broken cisterns that can hold no water."
(Jeremiah 2:13)
Please pray for the management and staff at Color Tree Group (Tomlynn/Jaque St. and Villa Park Rd.). Pray for the conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray for individuals working in the office who have been deceived and twisted by the lies and false doctrines of the Feminist movement. Please pray for those who have been led astray by the propaganda and deceptions of their religious, political, and community leaders. Pray for the deliverance of those who are under the influence of spirits of lawlessness and rebellion, as evidenced (and documented!) by their behavior and conduct on Dabney Rd., Tomlynn St., and Jaque St.
Please pray for the employees at K-2 Trophies (Jaque St.) Please pray for the young people here who have been enslaved and warped by the state-run educational system (evolution, atheism, homosexual agenda, feminism, and secular-humanism). Pray also for those who have been spiritually and mentally crippled by the lies and deceptions of their community, political, and religious leaders.
Please pray for a driver with Freedom Cab.....pray for conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgement. Pray for his salvation, and freedom from the pride, arrogance, and lawless rebellion which is crippling and enslaving the Black community in Richmond VA and the Greater Richmond Area, including the counties of Hanover and Henrico.
Please pray for some of the cab drivers employed by Airport Taxi...
Please pray for the employees at the Sears Retail Outlet on Tomlynn St. Pray for those who have been led into captivity by the lies, propagandas, and deceptions of false doctrine, dead religion, and an antichrist politcal party. Pray for those who are enslaved by the demon spirits of pride, arrogance, and rebellion which are manifesting themselves within the Black communities of Richmond, VA and the greater Richmond Area including the counties of Hanover and Henrico.
Isa 59:1Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: Isa 59:2But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. Isa 59:3For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. Isa 59:4None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
Pray for a woman driving for Care Van Transportation. Pray for her salvation and deliverance from the pride, arrogance, and rebellion which is crippling and enslaving the Black community of Richmond, VA. Pray for the safety of those who are being transported by her.
Jer 4:22For my people are foolish, they have not known me; they are silly children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
Pray for the management and employees at Air Conditioning Equipment Sales, Inc. (Impala Dr.).............
Please pray for the shipping/receiving crew at Direct Buy (West Creek Pkwy.) Pray for a young man at this location who has been led into a prison of ignorance and hate by the lies, deceptions, and propaganda of his religious, political, and community leaders.
REPENT OR PERISH, RICHMOND VA!
You are NOT "good people"!
Please pray for a salesman at Horizon Forest Products (Hermitage Rd.), praying for his repentance and salvation. Pray that he would be set free from an arrogant and lawless heart.
Please pray for D. Abad at a Walmart (Short Pump)....praying for her conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray that she would be set free from a false religion and receive Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.
Please pray for the management and employees at Dominion Technical Sales (Waco St.) Pray for a young woman working within the DTS office; pray that she would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment leading to genuine salvation through Jesus Christ.
Jer 2:19Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts. Jer 2:20For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.
Please pray for the sales, merchandising, and warehouse staff at Loveland Distributing Co. (Dabney Rd.).......
Please pray for management and employees at Amerisource Bergen (JEB Stuart Pkwy.) in Glen Allen. Pray for those who are ensnared by the spirits of pride, arrogance, and lawless rebellion - manifested by their behavior as they enter and exit the company property and also on J.E.B. Stuart Pkwy., and Brook Rd.
"...it’s so important to know this. In a time like this of tolerance…false teaching will always cry – “intolerance.” It’ll always say — “you’re being divisive; you’re being unloving; you’re being ungracious” — because it can only survive when it doesn’t get scrutinized. And it cries against any intolerance; it cries against any examination; any scrutiny, “just let us embrace each other; let’s love each other; let’s put all that behind us.” False doctrine cries the loudest about unity. [So] listen carefully when you hear the cry for unity; because it may be the cover of false doctrine encroaching. And if ever we should follow 1st Thessalonians 5 and examine everything carefully (v.21) — it’s when somebody is crying ‘unity, love, and acceptance’”(Online source)." (Dr. John MacArthur)
Please pray for a woman in the office at Liphart Steel (Rosedale St.)
A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof? (Jeremiah 5:30-31)
Please pray for a delivery driver working the West End for American Tire Distributors.
Jer 7:23-28But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them: Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers. Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee. But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
Foster's Refrigeration, Heating, and Air Conditioning - service techs.
Unity In the Body of Christ...how then shall we answer the deception and false teachings that threaten our faith?
Richmond Housing and Redevelopment Authority - service/maintenance staff, employees, (conduct and behavior while operating city and personal vehicles (documented on Brook Rd., Hermitage Rd., etc.) Isa 66:3 ...Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. [B]Isa 66:4I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.
Please pray for a delivery driver for Floramax....
Please pray for those employed by the City of Richmond working primarily out of the Parker Field location (located between N. Boulevard, Hermitage Rd, and Robin Hood Rd. . Pray for a large number who have been deceived by the political and religious lies of heir community leaders. Pray that they would be delivered from spirits of pride, arrogance, and lawless rebellion.
C L Electric (service techs)......
Alkat Electrical Contactors Inc., - please pray for one of their service techs...
Now that a jury has considered the best evidence the State of Florida could offer against George Zimmerman, and that it did not prove that Zimmerman was either the aggressor or an intentional killer, the Left has a problem. It invested what little credibility it had entirely in using George Zimmerman as a distraction from the horrific violence in black communities. The consequence, we were told before and have been told since, is that it is open season for non-blacks against blacks, and this case exemplifies how dangerous it is for blacks when they merely buy Skittles or wear a hoodie.
We are forever being told by the Left about how awful this country is for anyone who is not white. Blacks are being gunned down in the streets by non-blacks. Except they're not. Muslims are being discriminated against wholesale, and are afraid to leave their homes. Except they're not. Gun owners are violent crazies bent on mass murder, except they're not. Christians are trying to force their religion on us. Except they're not. Tea Party members are racists and violent. I believe the Breitbart reward for evidence of the accusations of tea party racism remains unclaimed, even in this day of cell phone cameras and video.
At the root of these accusations is hatred by the left of its political and ideological enemies. They hate the lot of us.
Certainly there are some dim bulbs who actually believe the lies, but we all know that blacks are not being gunned down in the streets by non-blacks anywhere in this country. What made the Zimmerman case so useful to the race-baiters and hate mongers is that it was, unfortunately, the only example which presented itself despite years of decrying endless, violent, and invisible, racism in our country at large. And, as Eric Holder has said before and since the Zimmerman verdict, we must not waste the opportunity for that "honest" debate on race which he has been avoiding since 2008.
Indeed, lethal non-black on black violence is so infrequent a phenomena in this supposedly uber-racist country with a black president, that when it became clear that the facts were not quite as the hate mongers could wish, it became necessary to distort them to fit the narrative that would then be spoon fed to the left's mindless cult members. What happened in Florida might have been a hate crime, or many, but not in terms of what George Zimmerman did. The racial hate crimes were committed by the Left, as usual, and they are so numerous and offensive that they render anyone protesting the Zimmerman verdict appear beyond "ign'ant", in the angry words of the Rev. Sharpton.
The Left's first disappointment came when Zimmerman turned out not to be white, and not Jewish, since we know how the Rev. Jackson and the Rev. Sharpton feel about them. Thus, it became necessary to make Zimmerman a new being, born just for this case: the White-Hispanic.
Once it started to become clear just what sort of young man Trayvon Martin had become in life, it became necessary to portray him with complete and utter dishonesty in death. Instead of being the fully grown 17 year old thug flashing the middle finger, or the trash-talking punk his social media entries show him to be, or the person caught with burglary tools and women's jewelry, or the dope-smoker seen in photos, or the guy who punched a school bus driver, we were treated to an endless lie of Trayvon Martin, the sainted child who was only buying Skittles. His younger, angelic face was displayed incessantly, even after more recent photos and exploits surfaced, making clear the left's deceit. Trayvon Martin was not the person the left needed us to believe he was for their new and improved racist murder narrative. Isn't it ironic that Martin turned out to be exactly the kind of person Zimmerman feared was casing his neighborhood?
Similarly, George Zimmerman was not who the left needed him to be, so NBC did what NBC has done so often in the past in service to the left. With malice, they created the falsified evidence they needed. Their manipulated 911 recording suddenly was played to the entire country. There. Now George Zimmerman was undeniably a racist.
The white Chief of Police in Sanford, and his officers, seemed unwilling to accuse Zimmerman of murder without evidence. His lack of hatred cost him his job. He was replaced with a black Chief of Police who knew what was expected of him.
The prosecutor who did not see enough evidence to obtain a conviction, or even an indictment, was also replaced with someone who understood their duty to the agenda, rather than the Constitution, the law of Florida and its citizens. Liberal hatred trumps ethics every time.
The real Trayvon Martin
The Department of Justice got in on the act, playing an active role in fomenting public anger and hatred toward someone as to whom there wasn't enough evidence to arrest or indict.
The president decided that if he had a son, he would look like the baby-faced child long outgrown by the real Trayvon Martin. Of course, it is possible the president was referring to the pot-growing, pot-smoking young man Martin had become. They certainly would have been able to share some heartwarming father-son moments remembering their favorite bongs.
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson certainly did what they do best. They swept in, told lies in angry tones to people conditioned to believe them, solidified their reputations in some circles as saviors and in others as opportunists, and left deception and hatred in their wakes.
And now that a jury has managed to somehow see through all of that to the truth, the haters and liars are outraged. Holder is considering civil rights or "hate crime" prosecution of Zimmerman, whose malice has already been adjudged lacking. Professional athletes tweet of revenge against Zimmerman, and actors profess outrage that the railroading failed to cause this gun-toting, practically-white guy to lose his freedom for a racial crime the Left fabricated out of whole cloth from the very beginning.
If George Zimmerman had been black, we would have known nothing about Trayvon Martin's decision to initiate a surprise attack in the dark, thinking he could easily injure or kill George Zimmerman, whose crime up to that point was being a "creepy-ass cracka" who followed Martin as a potential homosexual predator, as Rachel Jeantel told him just prior to his death. Was Martin's attack on Zimmerman and anti-gay hate crime?
The Left has absolutely no problem with blacks killing blacks. That is the acceptable price paid for the dependency wrought by destruction of the black community through liberal policies. As long as blacks keep voting 97% for Democrats, the Left couldn't care less how many of them kill each other. The Left has no capacity for the honesty needed for that debate.
There has certainly been hate afoot in Sanford, Florida, and across the country. But as is so often the case, it is perpetrated by those who congratulate themselves on their tolerance, open-mindedness, and higher intellect. While the Left proudly chants and tweets its unabashed hatred for someone who used a gun to defend himself against a fictional "child" who could simply have gone home untouched, their silent bigotry enables countless murders committed by their dependable voting constituency. As is always true with the left, the ends justify the means.
Meanwhile, isn't it past time to stop pretending that the Left and its agenda is not synonymous with hate?
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