Or assessing recent polling data. A recent poll in a key battlegr0und state shows clear danger for Obama’s re-elect:

The Quinnipiac University poll shows Romney leading the president 47 percent to 41 percent among registered voters, a notable shift from a tie in Quinnipiac’s last poll of the state in early May, which showed them effectively tied.

That is not even among ‘likely’ voters, and Obama is already in the dead zone of 41%. Then there were those primary votes in the south, where Obama lost 40% of his own party:

President Obama lost more than 40 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s Arkansas and Kentucky Democratic primaries, despite little-to-no opposition.

Obama lost 42 percent of the vote to the “uncommitted” option in Kentucky and more than 40 percent to little-known attorney John Wolfe in Arkansas — the latest example of the incumbent president failing to win significant shares of votes in uncompetitive contests.

But it’s not the first time the president has taken less than 60 percent of the vote in a primary this year.

He ceded 41 percent of the vote in West Virginia to an incarcerated man in Texas named Keith Judd, and in Oklahoma, Obama lost several counties and won just 57 percent of the vote.

When your own party doesn’t want you, you will not win the general election. Sort of one of those obvious indicators the news media wants to ignore because it pains them so much.

At Real Clear Politics Romney is at 44% (43.8 if you are into mythical precision) and Obama is at 46% (or 45.5). This is a statistical tie, but it really is much worse than that. Most polls are still sampling voters or adults, not likely voters. Of the three sampling likely voters the average is Romney  46% and Obama 44%. Given that undecideds rarely break for the incumbent, this indicates Obama is heading for a bad election. He is sitting at 45% – which for an incumbent means near certain defeat.

I doubt I will be posting much on polls over the summer (unless Obama’s support collapses like his fundraising is) because I have been convinced since his Stimulus Packages screw up the man was toast. You don’t fix the economy and give people hope then you don’t get a second term. So more polls showing the same dire future are not going to be of much interest. But occasionally I may opine on the inexperienced community organizer failed as world leader for all to obvious reasons. And Americans noticed.

Boy, if you want to help President Obama win reelection, one of the best ways to do so is to park your brain and go full Birther – ignoring all other critical issues facing this country.

The state of Hawaii has responded to Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett’s request for proof that President Barack Obama was in fact born in the Aloha State.

The Hawaii attorney general’s office has reportedly told Bennett that there are steps he needs to take in order to confirm President Obama’s birth records.

Those steps include Bennett proving that he legitimately needs confirmation in order to update the records at his office.

This is so stupid, and it reflects stupidity on those trying to unseat this inexperienced liberal politician before he can do more harm to our economy and country. How does this affect the economy, jobs, the rising national debt, the crumbling family, our military, our health care, our education system,….? How?

Let me be clear here – President Obama is a US Citizen by birth. Why?

Because his mother was a US Citizen. No other aspect of the definition of citizenship comes into play because where you are born has no bearing over who your parents are. None.

There is no question of soil or location or statehood. A child born at sea, in Europe, Asia or Africa to a US citizen is a US Citizen. A child born in space or on the moon to a US Citizen is a US Citizen.

All those who explore beyond this fact are just being foolish. And since it was Obama’s mother who was the US Citizen (not the father where paternity issues could arise), there is no doubt about his lineage.

If you want to make Obama look good by allowing him to compare himself to confused and distracted fools – go right ahead. But don’t blame anyone else if Obama wins election because no one b0ught into the Bogus Birther Brouhaha.

Update: As predicted, the Birther die-hards are having trouble adjusting to reality. Here is a very interesting story about in vitro children born overseas:

She found that the U.S. State Department did not share in her joy when she went to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to apply for citizenship for her children.

An embassy staffer wanted to know whether Lavi got pregnant at a fertility clinic. She said yes and was told that her children were not eligible for citizenship unless she could prove that the egg or sperm used to create the embryo was from an American citizen.

“I was humiliated and horrified,” Lavi said. “We’re talking about the children I gave birth to. Of course they’re my children.”

The incident points out what critics say is a glaring inequity in U.S. citizenship regulations. A child adopted overseas by a U.S. citizen is eligible to become an American, and a baby born in the USA is American even if the parents are not.

But a child born to a U.S. citizen overseas through the increasingly common practice of in vitro fertilization with embryos from donor eggs and sperm is not American, unless an American is one of the donors.

Let me recap for the stubborn ones: If Obama was ADOPTED by his mother from Kenya he would be a US Citizen. So OF COURSE if she gave birth to him he would be as well. I mean – really??

I have a deep scientific and engineering background. I live and work on the front lines of both. In my job no truth is perfect, sacrosanct nor complete. It is simply a crude, current understanding of more to be discovered. When people establish their positions too early, glued together by supposition and assumptions, they are doomed to fail. In my business it is best not to establish immutable truths. They never survive.

NASA’s Challenger and Columbia accidents were partially due to a rush to consensus through mob-think. The few dissenting voices were drowned out by all those who had their minds made up. In both cases there was large amounts of contrary evidence around. But the ‘experts’ could not afford the publicity of being wrong, and went ahead with the mob. No one had time to stop and think.

My truths are shattered on a daily (if not hourly) basis. We do the best we can to aim true, but in science and engineering there are no bullet proof road maps, recipes, processes or known facts. In science, the only thing we know for sure is this: what we don’t know dwarfs what we have discovered to date. Science is the iterative process of establishing a new and better understanding of reality, only to replace it later with another one.

Examples of not being adaptable and open minded are:

Continue Reading »

Tags: 911 Tapes, Trayvon Martin, Voice Analysis

Since everyone has made up their mind and is closed to new evidence and logic, this post is about useful as tits on a boar hog (one of my Dad’s favorite sayings). But in good conscience I need to point out why the evidence continues to point to a likely guilty verdict in any trial (jury or judge).

Remember that Zimmerman made his statements to police without realizing there was a witness on the phone with Trayvon, so he has put out statements now demonstrably false (assuming all testimony is of equal weight – which it is at this point). He wove a tale of self defense on the spot. The more holes in Zimmerman’s statements, the more credibility he loses while other witnesses gain or stay the same.

So let’s go to the first problem in Zimmerman’s statements – the lost house number:

Zimmerman claims he got out of his vehicle to find a house number to let police know where he saw the allegedly suspicious person, and while returning to his car was knocked down by a punch in the nose and attacked by Martin.

If this is an accurate portrayal of what Zimmerman said, he really is in deep trouble. In the map below we see where people think Zimmerman’s truck was parked (C) when he got out to chase Martin. There are tons of house numbers in view of his truck across the street, and then straight ahead before you go behind and in between the buildings. If Zimmerman did go to point E and then F, he was not looking for house numbers.

The most damning part of the evidence now released is how Zimmerman not only profiled and judged Martin in a split second (and here I do not mean racial profiling, but simply looked at the kid and determined he was a criminal from his clothes and the fact he was in Zimmerman’s neighborhood), but stalked him. An armed man stalking a kid based on fantasies concocted in his head.

Here is what Trayvon’s friend on the phone has stated happened:

An unnamed girl, the one identified by the Martin family attorney as Trayvon’s girlfriend, may be one of the case’s most important witnesses. She told prosecutors that she and Trayvon talked by cellphone on and off as he went to the store that evening.

She said Trayvon told her a white man in a vehicle was watching him. Trayvon started walking, and the call cut off, she said. When she called back, “he said this man is still following him.”

The girl said Trayvon started running, “and then he said he lost him [Zimmerman],” she said, adding that the teen’s “voice kind of changed … I could tell he was scared. And in a couple minutes, he said a man’s following him again.”

She said Trayvon asked, “Why are you following me for?” and a man’s voice said, “What are you doing around here?” Then she heard a noise, and the call cut off.

This does not fit Zimmerman’s statements whatsoever. Martin is scared and running from a man stalking him. He even loses him. But Zimmerman’s hunt for house numbers apparently took him far afield. Also note how Zimmerman is not ambushed. Martin tells his friend on the phone how the guy keeps coming TOWARDS him.

And this is where Zimmerman loses the right to self defense and becomes a reckless fool with a gun. The Florida  ‘stand your ground law’ has some very interesting exceptions:

While the law also states that the defense “is not available to a person who initially provokes the use of force against himself,” there are 2 exceptions. First, if:

“in good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.”

The law does not allow someone to instigate an altercation, start to lose the altercation and then claim self defense. But moreover, it clearly states anyone wishing to withdraw has to be allowed to do so. The section I emphasized applies to Martin and Zimmerman equally. When Martin ran from Zimmerman and tried to lose him, it is clear he doing all he can to withdraw.

People naively think Zimmerman has all the rights to self defense here.

Martin has every right to be where he was:

A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

This is where Zimmerman crossed the line (many times over). He thought he could confront Martin with the threat or use of force. He cannot. He was reckless and got into a fight because he was reckless. Without Zimmerman there  is not death.

Apparently there are witnesses the bolster the idea Zimmerman went gunning for Trayvon:

According to ABC News, the woman, only identified as witness 5, told investigators “I do honestly feel that he (Zimmerman) intended for this kid (Martin) to die… If you’re in self defense, shoot him in the leg. He’s a 17 year old, scrawny little kid. You get into a physical fight with him… I think the kid was running for help.”

…

He said Zimmerman was, “…more like, talking like he was having a hard time, looked like he just got his butt whipped… not like he was in shock, not like, ‘I can’t believe I just shot someone,’ but like, ‘Just ell my wife I just shot someone,’ like it was nothing.”

I too have had a real problem with where the shot was aimed. A shot to the leg or arm would be enough.

Finally, the small scrapes on Travyon’s knuckle (or knuckles depending on the story) cannot be from Zimmerman’s nose. More than likely Trayvon missed once or twice (I assume Zimmerman dodged his head) and hit the pavement behind him. Or he could have slipped if he was pushing Zimmerman’s head on the pavement. But the only way to rip knuckles is on teeth, and Zimmerman did not have any fat lip, etc.

And to the THC – forget about it. It makes people mellow. All the crap written about that aspect of this is just that – crap. It is no more a factor than a beer drank the day before.

Note: Follow the link for the above him (click it) to discover and interesting back story to the Python Dead Parrot sketch.

With his standing in most head-to-head polls hovering in the 43-45% range (a clear indication of electoral doom for any incumbent, but especially a sitting president) President Obama would be seen to be in enough trouble right now. With Obamacare starting to destroy our health insurance (best on the planet), our national debt skyrocketing and real unemployment over 10% (see here for why) things are bad enough for the inexperienced pol who swept into power in 2008. Add to that the 2010 insurgent voter backlash – which has been followed up with more house cleaning on the GOP side in surprise wins for Tea Party-Palin-Cain candidates – and the tea leaves are looking pretty bad for the Dems in 2012.

But when you now add into this already dismal picture an epic fail for the Obama budget, the writing is now blinking in neon lights on the wall:

Another day, another congressional shutout of O’s latest unserious gimmick. That makes three in the past year. The Senate torpedoed his last budget 97-0 in May 2011, then the House dropped a goose egg on him in March with a robust 414-0 tally. Now this.

610-0:

This observation includes the 99 votes against in the Dem-Senate rejection of Obama’s last-ever budget (hallelujah!):

A budget resolution based on President Obama’s 2013 budget failed to get any votes in the Senate on Wednesday.

In a 99-0 vote, all of the senators present rejected the president’s blueprint.

This has to be a record. 610 to 0?

Obama is now toxic on Capitol Hill. The budget is the prime mechanism for making things happen (or not happen) in the federal bureaucracy. And no one, not even the most left of greens, supported the President. He is just not a factor anymore.

Many will now attempt a new twist on Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch and try and convince everyone this lame duck is not an ex-president walking. Like the pet shop owner, they will try…

But clearly Obama’s re-election campaign as shuffled off its mortal coil.

“His campaign is not pining, it has past. This re-election effort is no more. It has ceased to be. The “Hope & Change” for 2012 has expired and gone to meet its maker. It is a stiff, bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn’t have nailed him in front of the teleprompter he’d be pushing up Habitat for Humanity Homes. He’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-president!”

Update: I meant to note a great idea gaining steam in Congress. The ‘no budget no paycheck’ act:

Cooper’s bill stipulates that members wouldn’t get paid, even retroactively, if Congress doesn’t pass a budget by October 1st. The group has been meeting regularly to figure out their agenda and this is their first official piece of work together.

Sounds good to me.  Include their staff as well. Put to a vote in the states and it will become a Constitutional Amendment in no time.

Tags: 2012 elections, 99-0, Obama Budget

Update: Ed Morrissey has a good post and lots of comments at Hot Air - end update

News out of Nebraska in yesterday’s GOP senate primary is a good sign there is yet hope for this country. The Palin-Cain candidate took the honors in garnering another US Senate seat for We The People:

Nebraska state Senator Deb Fischer pulled off a surprise upset victory against Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning in the state’s Republican Senate primary Tuesday, marking the second contest in two weeks in which an establishment favorite was upended by a dark horse candidate in a Senate primary.

…

Fischer secured the endorsements of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and former presidential candidate Herman Cain, and she also got a boost from Joe Ricketts, the owner of the Chicago Cubs and founder of TD Ameritrade

I am glad to see more and more establishment candidates failing. We don’t need any more deadwood in DC right now. We need change. Palin change.

Last night we also got to watch the Palin documentary “The Undefeated“:

All I can say is please, please, please watch this movie to understand what we are up against, and what kind of candidates we need to fix this country. The movie had me a bit blue, after being reminded of how much Palin stood for that is right and at the core of the Tea Party movement. I am still frustrated we lost that moment, and many others since. As the documentary indicates, it was Palin who really produced the flame that lit the 2010 election results. She was the first Tea Partier.

I only wish she had not bowed out this round.

As a shorter reminder, I also suggest people listen once again to her acceptance speech in the 2008 convention. While we have been derailed by a spineless GOP leadership in Congress and a pathetic Democrat led Senate (which has taken “do nothing” to a whole new level), we must occasionally reconnect to the core message of Palin and the Tea Party.  We cannot lose site of the end goal here, because it will take years to achieve.

Tags: GOP Senate Primary, Nebraska, Sarah Palin, Tea Party

This should be the last post on the Trayvon Martin case for a while – unless some details pop out this week from the discovery. As I was doing my last round of news searches, something came out last night from the Zimmerman camp that caught my eye, and confirmed my suspicions (that it would be the testimony of Martin’s girlfriend that seals Zimmerman’s conviction). The source of the enlightening comment? Zimmerman’s father (apparently a judge):

He [Zimmerman's father] believes medical records and photos – released to the defense on Monday – will prove his son was injured by Trayvon [1] when the two met in a gated community’s dark pathway. He said voice tests will show George Zimmerman didn’t lie and an eyewitness will back up his account. The girl who claims to have been on the phone talking to the teenager when the incident occurred will be proved a liar [2], Zimmerman insists.

Oh good Lord – this is how they plan to win a trial? First off, no one disputes the physical altercation or that George Zimmerman got some scrapes and bruises. The issue is who instigated the confrontation, who pushed this to a head. And in this situation we have ear-witness testimony that the instigator was Zimmerman, contrary to his statements to police. Here is what little we know about the girlfriend’s testimony:

In a dramatic press conference on Tuesday, the Martin family’s lawyer Benjamin Crump detailed how the unnamed girl – a minor who was so traumatised by Martin’s death she was taken to hospital at his wake – was talking to him on his cell phone in the minutes leading up to his death, and heard the altercation with his killer.

…

Crump said that during the final phone call with his girlfriend, who was back home in Miami, Martin told her that a stranger was following him, according to an affidavit she recorded. Martin had then tried unsuccessfully to get away from the stranger.

“He says: ‘Oh, he’s right behind me. He’s right behind me again,’” Crump said the girl told him. “She says: ‘Run.’ He says: ‘I’m not going to run, I’m just going to walk fast.’

She then heard Martin saying “Why are you following me” and another voice saying “What are you doing here?“ She told Crump they both repeated themselves, and then she thinks she heard Zimmerman push Martin “because his voice changes, like something interrupted his speech.” She heard an altercation and then the phone call was cut off, Crump said.

This does blow Zimmerman’s statement made to police at the time out of the water. I would suspect Zimmerman had no idea Martin was on the phone and someone was listening in. So he makes up a story about being ambushed from behind to augment his self defense claim. Little did he know a 3rd person was there that night – virtually.

This testimony is in complete contradiction to Zimmerman’s, and it is powerful (and of equal weight to anything Zimmerman claims). It indicates Martin tries numerous times to get away from Zimmerman who stalks the kid (armed of course). It indicates Zimmerman was not ambushed, but came up to Martin and challenged him. And it also implies Zimmerman started the physical altercation.

If Zimmerman’s father believes the defense will prove her a liar (which is way too harsh) and that will save his son – he is being foolish. She is going to be an unimpeachable witness. She is going to provide details Zimmerman thought he could cover up when he concocted his story.

And it is clear from the elder Zimmerman’s harsh statement it is the girlfriend’s testimony that is most dangerous to his son’s defense.

Zimmerman is now caught in a lie, and somehow must prove to judge or jury the girlfriend made up her testimony. Won’t happen. There is no motive. The defense has relied on this all about Zimmerman being attacked. Now we have confirmation it was Martin who was attacked.

And under stand your ground he had every right to beat Zimmerman’s head against the ground in self defense.

We finally get a peak at the evidence against Zimmerman in the shooting death of young Trayvon Martin. And one of the big surprises is an unknown video from the club house at the complex where the shooting took place.

According to the documents, prosecutors also have new video evidence from the night of the shooting — both from the 7-Eleven store where Trayvon purchased Skittles and Arizona iced tea, and from the clubhouse of Retreat at Twin Lakes, the apartment complex where the teen was killed.

This could be nothing of import, or could be something pivotal. We won’t know for sure until trial I wager. But here is a close up of the clubhouse area from maps out on the web, and possible viewing angles towards the incident.

Click to enlarge. Let me stress again these are possible viewing angles of interest. Most video cameras are not aimed out to distance (usually aimed to cover entrances). So we don’t know what could be on the video> It may be nothing except confirmation of events and timing.

One angle shown above is across the pool from the far corner of the clubhouse. Viewing is limited by the back of the clubhouse and the buildings were Zimmerman parked his truck. The second angle is from the entrance near the mailboxes. It’s viewing is limited by the row of buildings across the top.

Neither angle would see the location where the incident took place (F). Neither angle probably has much detail (if any) at those distances. The only area of interest possible is the area near the mailboxes, and what Zimmerman did as he left his truck.

In my mind it is this last potential ‘evidence’ that could be most problematic to Zimmerman. If his actions outside the truck on video do not match his testimony, his entire case is gone. Of course, these things can play into the defense as well, so we shall see.

I would be surprised if the camera could detect whether Zimmerman’s gun was in his waist band or out in his hand. But that is a possibility.

Other evidence is quite telling as well, with a large number of police investigator statements – obviously not in Zimmerman’s favor:

Other primary witnesses include four FDLE investigators and three investigators from the office of state attorney Norm Wolfinger plus two from Corey’s office, including Dale Gilbreath, who hand-delivered the motion to Seminole County clerks about 20 minutes before their doors closed for the day Monday.

Five fire-rescue personnel are listed as secondary witnesses. So are a fingerprints expert with Sanford police, and the following FDLE experts: a firearms specialist, DNA expert, trace evidence expert and fingerprints expert.

It should be noted that the police actually pushed for Zimmerman to be charged that fateful night:

The lead homicide investigator in the shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin recommended that neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter the night of the shooting, multiple sources told ABC News.

…

Serino filed an affidavit on Feb. 26, the night that Martin was shot and killed by Zimmerman, that stated he was unconvinced Zimmerman’s version of events.

More here:

The lead homicide detective probing the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin wanted the Florida neighborhood watch volunteer slapped with manslaughter charges from the get-go.

All those claiming this is open and shut for Zimmerman, and the police investigation found no issues, are horribly wrong. Police went so far as to apply for charges before the States Attorney overruled them. They are not going to be goo for Zimmerman. All 18 of them currently listed.

I am sure there is more to come in this controversial case. But I have yet to see anything exculpatory – as would be expected with the prosecutors case. If there was, it would have derailed the charges being made in the first place.

Tags: Clubhouse Video, Evidence, Trayvon Martin

Precedent:

In common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a principle or rule established in a legal case that a court or other judicial body may apply when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Black’s Law Dictionary defines “precedent” as a “rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases.”

This legal term is rapidly becoming an issue for the George Zimmerman’s defense team, because today comes news of a second court case that parallels the Trayvon Martin case, and spells bad news for George Zimmerman (here was the prior case). The parallels are quite important:

Circuit Judge Ashley Moody denied a motion to use the Stand Your Ground defense on Monday.

Trevor Dooley, 69, said he was protecting himself when he was attacked and choked by David James

Dooley is charged with manslaughter in James’ death.

Before we go further, note the lesser charge of manslaughter here – which indicates prosecutors may have a lot more on George Zimmerman than has been publicly released to date. Now the specifics:

Dooley, who lives across the street, saw the skateboarder and yelled at him that he was not allowed to skate on the court. James stuck up for the teenager, yelling to Dooley to show him the sign saying he was not allowed to skate.

A verbal altercation between Dooley and James ensued. That altercation at some point became physical, and ended when Dooley — who has a concealed weapons’ permit — took his gun out and shot James.

Similarity 1: Dooly is trying to play cop and enforce laws. Something he is not authorized to do. Identical to Zimmerman

Similarity 2: A verbal exchange gets heated, and turns to a physical one, in which the instigator (Dooly) begins to lose the physical battle:

His attorney also tried to portray Dooley as an older, smaller and physically weaker man than James, who feared for his safety.

The defense also called James’ daughter, now 10 years old, to testify. She saw the altercation and shooting take place.

She said she did not see Dooley’s gun until he took it out during the altercation. She also said her father was “on top” of Dooley at one point “to keep him down so he could actually get the answer” about where the sign was.

Double bad news here. Dooly was on the bottom (like Zimmerman) and he pulled the gun during a physical fight. The verdict was there was insufficient threat of life at this point. Even though he was out matched physically.

Dooly entered into a confrontation with another law abiding citizen – armed. He then pushed the confrontation forward until a physical altercation occurred, at which point he pulled his gun and killed the other person.

This is not self defense, nor is it defensible. Zimmerman better start negotiating – and fast.

One rule in war and politics is not to intervene when you opponent is self-destructing. Newsweek has produced one of those rare missteps that takes out both the person launching the missive, and the person the missive was meant to help:

This cover is juvenile and crude. First off, the halo (sign of Christianity) is a complete insult to those who are against homosexuality from a religious perspective. If you wanted to ignite the opposition, that was the way to do it. The anti-gay religious armies will now be out in force.

Dumb.

And it was juvenile, in the teeny-bopper, doe-eyed, rabid fan sense. We know the media loves its little pretend prince of liberalism.

The end result of this will be devastating for Newsweek and Obama. Newsweek because the people who buy magazines are mostly middle class families. So be prepared for the magazine to go under.

But it will also destroy Obama’s already slim hope for reelection:

Just days after President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, pastors and priests around Maryland took to their own pulpits with their reaction– and in some cases– condemnation of the president.

Obama’s team could easily be inexperienced enough to assume there is nothing they could do to destroy is core base – the African American voter. But this idiocy sure could do it. And if it does, then Obama has no hope of winning and Romney could be facing a Reagan-like landslide.

I tell you what, this is one of the dumbest moves I have seen in ages. Just one more sign the news and the Democrats need to be shown the door to the dustbin of history.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of the recent case for domestic shooting (no one harmed) I will say I believe the sentencing was way over the top. However, the case illustrates what I have been saying about the Trayvon Martin case for some time.

That is: the use of a firearm in self defense requires a clear and present danger, not a feeling based on emotion.

Here is the situation that transpired:

Alexander said she was attempting to flee her husband, Rico Gray, on August 1, 2010, when she picked up a handgun and fired a shot into a wall.

She said her husband had read cell phone text messages that she had written to her ex-husband, got angry and tried to strangle her.

She said she escaped and ran to the garage, intending to drive away. But, she said, she forgot her keys, so she picked up her gun and went back into the house. She said her husband threatened to kill her, so she fired one shot.

…

Corey said the case deserved to be prosecuted because Alexander fired in the direction of a room where two children were standing.

Here’s the rub. While the gun was discharged to ward off attack, the “attacker” in this situation had not yet reached a point where deadly force was considered proper. But there is more

Alexander’s attorneys tried to use the state law that allows people to use potentially deadly force anywhere they feel reasonably threatened with serious harm or death.

But a previous judge in the case rejected the request, saying Alexander’s decision to go back into the house was not consistent with someone in fear for her safety, according to the Florida Times Union newspaper.

This is the whole thing about avoiding conflict. You cannot take actions and make decisions that create a confrontation and then use the confrontation as a self defense. Personally I am stunned at the outcome, since the man had apparently tried to strangle the women. But the law is clear, she had escaped and she should have called police, not armed herself and gone back in.

This is why Zimmerman is in such deep trouble. He too had opportunities (many of them) to stand back and avoid the conflict. He defied police direction to do so. This woman fired a warning shot – Zimmerman killed a kid. She was in her home, Zimmerman was in a public space.

The story also explains why I think Zimmerman should avoid a jury trial and actually plea deal:

After the sentencing, Rep. Corrine Brown confronted State Attorney Angela Corey in the hallway, accusing her of being overzealous, according to video from CNN affiliate WJXT.

“There is no justification for 20 years,” Brown told Corey during an exchange frequently interrupted by onlookers. “All the community was asking for was mercy and justice,” she said.

Corey said she had offered Alexander a plea bargain that would have resulted in a three-year prison sentence, but Alexander chose to take the case to a jury trial, where a conviction would carry a mandatory sentence under a Florida law known as “10-20-life.”

Virginia is just as strict. With your CCP permit comes harsh penalties for stepping a hair out of line. Let me repeat – this sentence is unjustified and unfair. The conclusions are correct, the punishment ridiculous. Hopefully the Governor will intervene and set it to something reasonable.

Now, I want address the incident map and show how Zimmerman was not likely to have been ‘jumped’ by Martin.  In fact the map shows just the opposite:

You can click to enlarge, but the key points here are

• C – Zimmerman’s truck, where he left it armed to chase down Martin
• E – Where Zimmerman ended up thinking Martin would try and leave the neighborhood (it never dawned on him Martin had a right to be there and lived in the nearby buildings)
• G – Martin’s residence
• F – The site of the physical altercation and killing of Martin

Now a lot of people claim Martin ‘doubled back’ to confront Zimmerman. That is pure BS given this map. Martin would not know where Zimmerman is because he sprinted down between the buildings and likely did make it to is house. He also probably assumed the coast was clear, having stayed between the buildings for a long time (as everyone admits given the phone call time line). Zimmerman could be anywhere since he was in a truck.

Zimmerman is actually standing in the parking lot out of site of Martin. There is no proof Martin knew where Zimmerman was, anymore than Zimmerman knew where Martin was.

So the story goes thus: Zimmerman ends his 911 call to head back to his truck from Point E. There is a straight line between C and E right down the walkway.

But look where F took place!

F is not on that straight line to Zimmerman’s truck. It is on Martin’s path to/from home. There is nothing against Martin assuming the nut job (Zimmerman)  had left. Martin reasonably could have assumed the coast was clear and went back to his phone call with his girlfriend.

But Zimmerman must have seen him down the path and diverted his heading. Zimmerman HAS to have walked towards Martin for the event to occur where it did. Which blows Zimmerman’s story out of the water. Zimmerman was the consistent instigator. And like the case above, he had no right to go armed after Martin. None.

Zimmerman is toast.

Tags: George Zimmerman, Stand Your Ground, Trayvon Martin

A lot of my readers do not understand why I have such confidence in the fact George Zimmerman was rightly charged in the death of Trayvon Martin. Most of their angst is due to the fact they let politics enter into their thinking and – whether they admit it or not – they don’t want Al Sharpton to be even partially right on this. So they defend the indefensible.

Personally I could care less about Sharpton. Whether he is right or wrong has no bearing on this. What does matter is how the incident played out and what are the laws when it comes to concealed weapons and the right to stand your ground.

Some background is in order, because I am not naive to these kinds of situations. I have had a gun pulled on me, and one threatened to be pulled on me. A passenger in my car pulled a knife on some guys harassing us late at night, and I hung out on the wrong side of the tracks at times. Sadly these kinds of incidents are not unknown to me.

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Tags: George Zimmerman, Stand Your Ground, Trayvon Martin

Apparently the 2010, insurgent Tea Party voter (as opposed to any attempt to organize an actual political party) is alive and well in Indiana. And my guess it is alive and ready to vote change in all 50 states and the White House this year.

While the GOP tried mightily to co-op these independent, centrist voters it really never worked. The GOP simply looked like the better foundation through which to begin a political revolution. The GOP supposedly is the party of small, limited government. But after the GOP caved in 2011 on real, near term cuts in government, it became clear the establishment GOP was as addicted to government power as the liberals. So more change is coming.

This morning the nation wakes up knowing it can (and will) throw out those politicians who are too set in their ways, and too able to stymy actual cuts in government. Dick Lugar was one of these ‘statesmen’ who knew how to play the Senate – yet he (and too  many others) allowed the Democrat Senate to run in neutral for 3 years, never once meeting its constitutional requirement to pass federal budgets to run the government. Instead of the promised action after the 2010 election wipe out, we are stuck with terminal inaction and those stupid promises of future good behavior.

In my mind, Lugar is one of nearly 100 pols who need to be retired. So while a good start, the job is not done yet.

DC is all twitter that Richard Mourdock (has the backing of Libertarians and Tea Party types.

No duh!

Hopefully more will be on the way. It may take a decade to clean house – but sooner or later DC will bow to the will of We The People.

Can’t help but end this by noting a bit of panic from Jim Carville:

Democratic fundraisers, activists, supporters, and even politicians alike have somehow collectively lapsed into the sentiment that the president is going to be reelected and that we have a good shot to take the House back while holding the Senate.

I ask: What are you smoking? What are you drinking? What are you snorting or just what in the hell are you thinking?

…

The polling? Not that encouraging. The latest Democracy Corps poll was 47-47. The Real Clear Politics average of polls has the president up a whopping three-tenths of a percentage point. And I am hearing the garbage that Democratic donors are telling Democratic fundraisers …”Obama has it in the bag.”

Well, Obama does have his epic “FAIL!” in the bag. Here is the key data point. Obama is sitting in too many polls at 45% or lower. That is the point of no return for incumbents. I suspect he will drift all the way down to around 40% over the summer as two things transpire.

First, most 2010 insurgent voters are so fed up they have tuned out politics. You see it in the low turn out in the primaries, and you see it in the dropping readership/viewership of political shows and electronic outlets. They wake up on occasion, but mostly they are biding their time until November.

Second, the polls are not yet sampling likely voters. So when Obama is up by 3 he could really be down by 3.  And if he is tied he could be behind by 5-6%.

When these two factors shift late summer the Dems are going to have a rude awakening.

It is a well established fact of history that broad economic hardship leads to chaos and strife, which leads to mass/mob anger and panic – which can easily lead to brutal dictatorships and  then mass graves. Hard economic times do not have to follow this progression, but brutal regimes do arise from chaos and strife.

This is how Hitler was able to rise to power leveraging the economic pain imposed after World War I:

Adolf Hitler’s rise to power began in Germany (at least formally) in September 1919 ^[1] when Hitler joined the political party that was^[2] known as the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (abbreviated as DAP, and later commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). This political party was formed and developed during the post-World War I era. It was anti-Marxist and was opposed to the democratic post-war government of the Weimar Republic and the Treaty of Versailles; and it advocated extreme nationalism and Pan-Germanism as well as virulent anti-Semitism.

Emphasis mine.

For all those who do not know this period well, the antisemitism was wrapped in a blanket of hate towards bankers, financiers and those with money:

Adolf Hitler’s National Socialism party rose to power in Germany during a time of economic depression. Hitler blamed Jews for Germany’s economic woes. Hitler’s book Mein Kampf (German, My Struggle) included the following passage which was representative of much of the antisemitism in Germany and Europe: “The Jewish train of thought in all this is clear. The Bolshevization of Germany – that is, the extermination of the national folkish Jewish intelligentsia to make possible the sweating of the German working class under the yoke of Jewish world finance – is conceived only as a preliminary to the further extension of this Jewish tendency of world conquest…. If our people and our state become the victim of these blood-thirsty and avaricious Jewish tyrants of nations, the whole earth will sink into the snares of this octopus.“^[117]

Communism is based on the same general premise – the rich are bad and only the loving (death) embrace of the government can save the masses:

A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism as an intermediate stage. The idea that a proletarian revolution is needed is a cornerstone of Marxism; Marxists believe that the workers of the world must unite and free themselves from capitalist oppression to create a world run by and for the working class. Thus, in the Marxist view, proletarian revolutions need to happen in countries all over the world.

Communist Russia and Nazi Germany together represent the deaths of tens of millions of innocent civilians, and also tens of millions of military personnel who had to sacrifice themselves to free the world of this evil cancer. As the World War II generation begins to fade into history, we apparently have forgotten how such evil came to take control of so much of the world.

It was not all that hard for this evil to grow – once broad economic hardship became rampant in Europe.

Fast forward to modern Europe, and the parallels are very disturbing.

In France and Greece, voters have rejected “austerity”–the idea that European governments should live within their means. In Italy, too, anti-austerity candidates are currently leading in the polls. French Socialist François Hollande vows to continue running huge deficits so that he can hire more public sector workers; in a burst of stupidity, he announced that “My real enemy is the world of Finance.” I suppose there could be a surer way to impoverish your country than to declare war on the flow of capital, but I can’t think of one offhand.

…

One might think it obvious that no country can live beyond its means forever by borrowing money which it can’t possibly pay back. But voters in countries like Greece and France apparently think: it has worked so far, why not keep it up? Realistically, it will work until creditors–Germany, mostly–decide to pull the plug. Then there will be default, some form of bankruptcy, some degree of chaos.

Some degree of chaos?

When I hit that line I realized we may not be taking this as seriously as we should. Are the leftist measure truly meant to end economic hardship? Is it stupidity that drives the new French leader to drive faster over the economic cliff? Or is it a need for more chaos and strife?

Greek leftist leader Alexis Tsipras on Tuesday laid out the radical agenda he hopes to pursue if he becomes prime minister, including the cancellation of international loan agreements to Greece that forced the country into sharp budget cuts.

He also called for state control of the banks as he started efforts to form a governing coalition in the wake of parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Ahh. Those evil bankers again. And will this help or hurt Greece? The obvious answer is ‘hurt’. So obvious one wonders what it takes to pretend otherwise.

The Occupy Idiocy movement here in the US is an impotent echo of the leftist European as they too keep pointing to the 1% with all the money. Sadly, you can take away all the money from that 1% and it will not have any significant impact on the financial status of the other 99%. The top 1% already pay most of the taxes, therefore footing the bill for endless big government screw ups. There is just nothing better than growing the economy and shrinking government. Nothing.

This has become crystal clear in the US after the Democrats’ socialist deficit spending and failed government stimulus spending. Those shovel ready jobs were a myth in 2009, and remain a myth today.

The world is hurting from bureaucratic failure, not successful people.

But if you look at the rhetoric of the left it has changed very little since the days of the Communists and Nazis that plagued the globe in the early 20th century. Today we don’t have the evil capitalist tagged to the Jews in Europe (which I am sure the Jews are grateful for), but Jews are still the bane of the Mideast and Muslim enclaves. Today the enemy is just bankers, not Jewish bankers.

The Jews in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia were just a convenient vehicle for the core message – hate democracy, hate capitalism, hate individual success, let a strong-arm bureaucracy determine fairness. The fact these same failed ideologies are being trotted out again on the world stage in Europe just goes to show Europeans have not yet rid themselves of the cancer that plagued them almost 100 years ago. They apparently want one more shot at totalitarian corruption.

Therefore, there is going to be another round of Capitalism (the individuals and companies)  vs Government (Fascist, Socialist, Communist – does not matter really). And as many now realize, it will come with more than a degree of chaos. Europe appears to be in for a very rough ride.

But one truth is immutable, and that is the individual spirit will win out over the bureaucracy over time. Hopefully this round we keep the destruction and pain to a minimum, and simply use economic competition to win this round. But in the end, the lazy collective will once again lose to the spirited free market.

Tags: Communists, Democrats, EU, France, Greece, Nazis, Obama, Socialists

One thing that always amazes me with the left is their idiotic drive to believe in a biased number over brutal reality.  Last week the monthly unemployment numbers came out and we are supposedly on a glide path to economic repair because the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1%.

The fact is the 8.1% unemployment number is a sad joke. The number is based on an ever shrinking workforce size – which has been shrinking as people have given up on jobs and/or their unemployment support runs out. The fact is if you allow for a steady work force size, based on historical ratios to population size, then the current unemployment rate for April 2012 is 10.3%!

Why the government cannot or will not truly assess the economic situation is beyond me. Simply because if you understand the underlying economic issues, then you can address them (versus address some lesser issue or ignore the problem all together). This administration and this bloated bureaucracy is focused on CYA – not solving problems. Which makes their numbers as useless as their mythical shovel-ready jobs where when Obama took office.

Anyway, the method for computing the real unemployment is pretty straight forward. The growth in work force size has been very steady over the years, growing with the population. This can be seen in the April workforce graph below (blue area) for all Aprils since 2000. Note how even 9-11 and two wars did not impact the workforce growth (click to enlarge).

Since workforce changes over the year for seasonal reasons (e.g., high before Christmas, high in the Summer) it is best to look at one month over the decade to see this phenomena.

As can be seen in 2008 we finally hit a jolt that derailed the economy enough to hurt the workforce level. This can be seen for all the months I have run over the past year (see here, here, here, here, here for examples).  The fact the pattern shows up for every month is how we know this is not a seasonal issue, but a systemic problem with our economy. The red line shows where the workforce should be (and in this case there should be 3,385,000 more workers working). To compute the actual unemployment you simply compare those working against the nominal workforce level, not Obama’s shriveling one.

Clearly Obama and the Democrats failed to fix the economy with all their government, deficit spending. All that spending and look at the workforce level – still a mess. At least now we know trickle down government spending never works. We can put that little socialist concept into the dustbin of history where it belongs.

The real problem for the Democrats is this: no fudging of numbers can correct reality. The workforce is smaller – and making less. Therefore the economy has shrunk like never before in most of our lifetimes. A lot of able bodied people are out of work or working for less than before. And their lack of purchasing power is impacting every business in the country. This is what is really happening.

This is a sign of utter failure by the Democrats. And the hole they dug for us all will require too many years to work our way out of – unless we take a budget axe to government and stop deficit spending and begin a serious program off debt reduction. Can we afford four more years of this?

No.

The same story can be found here, using different data to reach the same conclusions.

Tags: Democrats, Economy, Jobs, Obama