The Death of Antonio West

You won't recognize me.  My name was Antonio West and I was the 13-month old child sitting in a stroller who was shot in the face at point blank range by two black teens who were attempting to rob my mother, who also was shot.

Because Georgia law does not allow the execution of killers under the age of 18, neither the one who was 17 (like Trayvon Martin) nor his 15-year-old buddy  will face the death penalty . . . too bad.  I was given a death sentence for being innocent and defenseless.

My family made the mistake of being white in a 73% non-white neighborhood, but my murder was not ruled a hate crime.  Nobody is looking into whether my civil rights were violated by my killers.  Nor has President Obama taken so much as a single moment to acknowledge my murder.

I am one of the youngest murder victims in our nation's history, but the media doesn't care to cover the story of my demise, President Obama has no children who could possibly look like me -- so he doesn't care and the media doesn't care. My story is not interesting enough to bring them ratings so they can sell commercial time slots.

There is not a white equivalent of Al Sharpton because if there were he would be declared racist.  So there is no one rushing to Brunswick. Georgia, to demand justice for me.  There is no White Panther party to put a bounty on the lives of those who murdered me. I have no voice, I have no representation and, unlike those who shot me in the face while I innocently sat in my stroller, I no longer have my life.

So while you are seeking justice for Trayvon, please remember to seek justice for me too.  Tell your friends about me, tell you families, get tee shirts with my face on them and make the world pay attention, just like you did for Trayvon. 

Thank you. 

News reports on the above-described atrocity can be accessed by googling the name Antonio West.

For examples of just three of the many other mostly unreported black-on-white atrocities, take a look at this report and/or this one, which is relatively minor, especially as compared to this horrific one.

Judges vs. Juries: Thank God for the Difference . . . and the Nation's Founders for Our Right to It

The judge who presided over the George Zimmerman trial clearly wanted him to be convicted for the death of Trayvon Martin.

Had she been the trier of facts Mr. Zimmerman would be in or on his way to a Florida penitentiary.  That also would be the case had she been successful in her inappropriate and probably improper efforts to influence the jury.

Mr. Zimmerman is free because a jury of his fellow citizens found that he had acted as necessary and appropriate to defend himself while under violent attack by Trayvon Martin.

Thus Mr. Zimmerman is the latest in a long string of beneficiaries of the right to be tried by a jury of one's peers when accused by the powers of the state of having committed a crime. That string began in America when a jury in colonial New York rejected the directions of a judge to convict, and instead acquitted, John Peter Zenger of criminal libel charges for having printed criticisms of the royal governor.

Judges as well as many lawyers dislike juries and jury trials.  They would have themselves or panels made up of experts like themselves determine the outcome of legal proceedings.  

It behooves us to reject their efforts and to remember that the supposedly expert professionals are not impartial.  They are part and parcel of the political ruling class.  They also want to do away with the popular election of judges to ensure that only members of their class ever sit on their jurisdictions' judicial benches.

Relevant to the foregoing is the answer to the inquiry about the difference between the Supreme Court and the Ku Klux Klan:

In the Supreme  they wear black robes

 and scare white people 

Finally, a Real Presidential Accomplishment

At long last, after four years of treating speech making as the primary, if not only, duty of the presidency, Mr. Obama actually has accomplished something.

He has restored the respectability of racism . . . he has made it socially acceptable again.

And that truly is a noteworthy and singular achievement notwithstanding that to accomplish it he teamed up with the dishonorable Eric Holder, who as his attorney general heads the Department of Just Us, as well as the scurrilous racial profiteering reverends -- Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

By endlessly promoting baseless legal actions against George Zimmerman for having lawfully defending himself, that racist crew would criminalize any individual for doing what is necessary and appropriate to defend themselves from any violent attack by any black person or persons.

To understand that this is so, one need only recall the admonition of the late liberal Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan that everyone is entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts.  And the cold, hard, objective, and largely unreported facts of the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case, are set forth in this video.

The campaign against state stand-your-ground laws is part and parcel of the effort to protect violent would-be and actual assailants notwithstanding that blacks under assaults have been the primary beneficiaries of those laws.

The effort to shield black criminals from any consequences for their behavior began early in the Obama administration when the Holder Just Us Department dropped the case that already had been won against members of the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia.  The beneficiaries of that action went unpunished for having wielded truncheons to threaten and intimidate white voters at polling places in the city of brotherly love.

Since then, the effort has been relentless.  Not once in the ensuing four years have Messrs. Obama and Holder and their minions brought or even investigated a single hate crime case against any blacks.  They talk about an honest and open dialogue about race but that in fact is the last thing they want.  Anyone expressing an opinion contrary to theirs is immediately branded a racist to shut them up.

In his recent speech about race, Mr. Obama tried to explain and encourage white citizens to understand the mindset of the black population.  The nation and its black citizens would be better served were Mr. Obama and his fellow black leaders explain to their followers that the rest of the country does not understand and never will accept rioting and looting, the burning and destruction of property of blameless individuals and entities, violent criminal behavior, or a multi-generation welfare and illegitimate birthrate/single parent culture in which gang memberships substitute for being part of a family.

Fed Up With Screechings About Race

Every time some black thug takes on the wrong guy and ends up getting what he deserves, we're supposed to feel guilty if the targeted victim isn't lynched for doing what is necessary to defend himself.

Well, I don't feel guilty.  In fact I'm gratified by, and proud of the Florida jury for its having followed the law in the baseless case that was pressed against George Zimmerman for his having defended himself by fatally shooting Trayvon Martin.  No charges ever would have been brought against Mr. Zimmerman but for the strident insistence of America's professional race hustlers, their political lackeys, and the mobs they were able to stir up. 

Mr. Zimmerman's acquittal of all charges was appropriate in a system of justice based on existing laws rather than the emotions of would-be lynch mobs motivated by perceived racial grievances. Nobody can credibly claim to know with any degree of certainty what transpired in the confrontation between the two involved individuals.  Mr. Zimmerman's account of what occurred certainly was both plausible and supported by the physical evidence.  Accordingly, there was and is more than a reasonable doubt of any culpability.

Individual black citizens today generally enjoy at least -- and often more than -- equal treatment by the nation's political and public institutions as well as in their dealing with private individuals and organizations.

Blacks as a group, however, are not, and do not deserve to be viewed and treated as equal.  So lets have an honest discussion about when and how they can earn collective equality.  That will come if and when -- and only if and when they:

*  Replace with responsible individuals the race baiting hustlers who currently make up the congressional black caucus, the charlatans who still head their constantly clamoring (and falsely named) civil rights organization, and eternally opportunistic faux leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton,

*  Bring the rates at which their young people commit violent and other crimes, and are responsible for illegitimate births down to levela similar to those of the general society, and


*  Stop blaming others for their increasingly recognized shortcomings as a group, and begin contributing to the common good rather than perpetually claiming entitlement to ever more unearned support from the nation's productive citizens.

So, yes . . . let's have an honest discussion about race without trying to shut up those expressing  politically disfavored views by calling them racists. 

The above undoubtedly will lead to this fed-up blogger being called a racist.  Such calls typically will come from people who have benefitted from, but contributed nothing to the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement . . . in contrast to my having worked in that movement from the mid 1950s before doing so became popular and politically beneficial and correct (and my doing so in the south occasionally involved being targeted for gunfire and fire bombs) through the mid 1960s when the movement morphed into demands for more than equality.

Candor Cancelled In, By, and From the U.S. Government . . . and Nobody Cares

In recent weeks several high ranking officials of the U.S. government have been shown to have been routinely and systematically lying not just to the American people but also to Congress.

The liars have included U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (the nation's highest law enforcement officer), Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander.

Lying to congress is a crime . . . but apparently not for the politically favored who hold high office.  Nobody cares about their lying sufficiently to hold them accountable for being intentionally untruthful and misleading.

44 Second Italian Auction

You don't have to understand Italian to follow this:

A Chinese Ming Vase is up for auction. The bidding opens at a half-million Euros.

Bidding is brisk and each bidder is clearly identified as each raises the bid by 100,000 Euros. (The exchange rate at auction time was 1 Euro = $1.43.) Within seconds, the bid stalls at one million Euros, and the gasp from the crowd identifies the excitement that prevails in the room. The successful bidder is the last one who bid one million , and the auctioneer counts down the bid, "Going once, going twice, and sold to the gentleman sitting in front of me for one million Euros."

Now, you are going to have to see the video for yourself. The auctioneer is exuberant. The pace is fast. This is how an auction should be run. Please note the excitement on the auctioneer's face after the final bid.

A Glass of Wine

To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine

and those who don't and are always

seen with a bottle of water in their hand:

As Ben Franklin said:

In wine there is wisdom,

In beer there is freedom,

In water there is bacteria.

In a number of carefully controlled trials,

scientists have demonstrated that if we drink

1 liter of water each day,

at the end of the year we would have absorbed

more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. Coli) -- bacteria

found in feces.

In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop annually.

However,

We do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer

(or rum, whiskey, or other liquor)

because alcohol has to go through a purification process

of boiling, filtering and fermenting.

Remember:

Water = Poop,

Wine = Health

Therefore, it's better to drink wine and talk stupid, 

than to drink water and be full of Shit.

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information:

I'm doing it as a public service

Extraterrestrial Spending Proposal

Unsatisfied with their ability to find things on earth on which to spend taxpayer dollars, two Demorat members of the U.S. House of Reprehensibles are proposing to establish a national park on the moon, according to this report.

More of the Same

Another in the endless series of examples of the hypocrisy of our ruling elitists and of their favored treatment under the laws they enact has surfaced in this report.

Never mind -- everything is fine and dandy.  Just keep paying your taxes and watching the boob tube.

Telling It Like It Is

Congressman Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma speaking on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on June 3, 2013:

America Rotting From the Top

Wondering why America is decaying and declining?

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

 . . . John Adams in 1798

To Officers of the First Brigade 

of the Third Division of 

the Militia of Massachusetts

We without question have failed to  live up to the requisite standard.  That failure is demonstrated by:

*  The refusal of the current president to comply with his duty under Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution that he "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."  There is no exception made for laws that an incumbent president dislikes or that he finds politically inconvenient.  For some of the very serious ramifications of this, see this essay.

*  Tolerance of an national administration staffed at high levels by (i) individuals who routinely lie to the people they supposedly serve as well as to congress but suffer no penalty when their perjury is revealed, and (ii) individuals who have been exposed as having cheated on, and failed to pay their taxes.

*  The viability of (and often even successful) candidacies for election to high offices of individuals who would have been shunned in a virtuous nation -- individuals like the dishonorable Richard Blumenthal, the U.S. senator from Connecticut who prior to his election was exposed as having falsely claimed heroic military service, not to mention the despicable Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer, who currently are back in public life, running for offices in New York State, after having been outed as sexual miscreants -- lechers and in Mr. Weiner's case also a pervert.

*  Our having been content to live sumptuously first by eating the seed corn bequeathed to us by prior generations and then by borrowing and bequeathing to future generations the obligation to repay the debts we incurred to finance our profligacy.

We have been reduced to participating in a low rent sequel to the Roman Empire . . . but it all is occurring with our approval or consent.

  

Our Worst Criminals

Whatever one may think about the alleged law breaking by NSA secrets leaker Edward Snowden, nothing he has done approaches the criminality of those who today hold high offices in the United States and use their positions to shred the Constitution and the rights, liberties, and freedoms of individual Americans.

A Private Declaration of Independence

A realistic American opts out of the nation's political charades and claims his individual freedom, in this individual declaration. 

Spending Problem? What Spending Problem?

Here are a few items that were tucked away in the Hurricane Sandy Relief bill enacted by congress:

*  $4 million for the Kennedy Space Center.

*  $8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments.

*  $20 million for a nationwide "Water Resources Priorities Study."

*  $41 million for eight military bases including Guantanamo Bay.

*  $56.8 million for charting the debris from last year's Japanese tsunami.

*  $58.8 million for forest restoration on private land.

*  $100 million for the federal Head Start day care program.

*  $150 million in funding for Alaskan fisheries.

*  $188 million for new Amtrak lines (not repair, whole new lines).

*  $197 million "to. protect coastal ecosystems and habitat impacted by Hurricane Sandy."

*  $5.3 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers (that's more than their annual budget).

*  $10.78 billion for public transportation, most of which is allocated to future construction and improvements, not disaster relief.

*  $13 billion would go to "mitigation" projects to prepare for future storms.

*  $17 billion for wasteful Community Development Block Grants, a program notorious for its backdoor earmarks.

Canadian Bear Warning Sign

Cops Really Are Jack-Booted Thugs

Police no longer are anyone's friend.

They have been militarized and become a dangerous lethal force trained and conditioned to serve and protect only the political establishment by maintaining order -- discipling the population -- and therefore permitted by that establishment to function largely without accountability.

Nothing is done to curb law enforcement excesses because of the nation's partisan political  divide.  When conservatives control the political establishment, they unleash the forces against their political opponents.  Liberals decry that but adopt the same tactics (while conservatives complain) when the liberals are in power.

Those inclined to disbelieve or doubt the above, or to think it exaggerates the situation would do well to take a look at and consider this roundup of some of the nation's recent tragedies.  And for a detailed description of one scary but not unusual episode, take a look at this report.

Politics Now Trumps Law in U.S.

Believing Obamacare to be an unmitigated disaster, I should be celebrating the administration's delaying enforcement of the health care legislation's employer mandate for a year from the its specified January 1, 2014, implementation date.

However, the delay is another example of America's transformation from a nation governed by laws to one ruled by men -- men who constitute an out-of-control and unaccountable political oligarchy.

Anyone who buys the explanation that the complexity of the legislation necessitates the delay now -- after more than three years have elapsed since its enactment -- is either hallucinatory or residing in a dream world.

The fact is that the delay is due to the administration's desire to put off until after the 2014 elections  the economic devastation that implementation of the job killing mandate will cause.

Rule of law be damned!

New Service Available From Always Helpful Big Brother

Different Laws for Different Folks

Few things exemplify America's transformation from a country governed by law to one governed by oligarchs than the starkly different treatment of ordinary citizens who break the law and the politically favored who do so.

Take for example the unrelenting drive to severely punish Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden for leaking classified information that the high and mighty leak with impunity whenever and wherever it is politically expedient for them to do so.  And what about the publication by The New York Times of the highly secret details of how our intelligence services used to be able to track terrorists' financial transactions?

Now we also have the case of a high mucky muck apologizing for having given what he now calls "erroneous information" to congress when he testified that the NSA was not intercepting and collecting information about communications of the nation's citizens.  When first exposed, he said his answer to the member of congress who was questioning him was "the least untruthful" response he could have given.  He lied . . . he lied to congress.

Wouldn't it have been wonderful for Scooter Libby or Martha Stewart to be able to get off by similarly apologizing for their misstatements to officialdom or characterizing them as "the least untruthful" statements that were possible for them?

Also keep in mind all the pooh-bahs in high offices despite having cheated on their taxes -- transgressions for which ordinary Americans suffer significant sanctions.

Being ruled by men rather than by law is especially dangerous today because the rulers have enacted so many laws and laws of such great complexity that few citizens are likely at all times to be in compliance with all of them, let alone all of the multitude of incomprehensible rules and regulations promulgated under those laws.  This is very convenient for members of the nation's political ruling class.  It enables them to successfully target -- and thus discredit, imprison, or otherwise silence -- almost any individual citizen they wish. 

Freedom From What ? ? ? ?

Our World Today

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.

. . . James Madison

High Level Job Opening Trap: An Opportunity for Disgrace

Some poor sod soon is going to be named chairman of the Federal Reserve to succeed the celebrated but hapless Ben Bernanke, whose tenure in the job is drawing to a close.

Mr. Bernanke has presided over the final stages of the transformation of the economy into a house of cards -- a structure built on debt.  He didn't design or begin the construction of the structure but he did raise it to unprecedented proportions.  He probably will escape its collapse largely unscathed.

His successor is unlikely to be as fortunate.

The fundamental problem is that the Fed and our opportunistic and ignorant or unscrupulous politicians deferred the writing off of all of the bad sovereign, institutional, and personal debt, which always has been an essential prerequisite for a genuine recovery.  

The Fed is in a trap.  It has fashioned a bogus recovery.  By endlessly and recklessly printing money it has debased the currency and created an illusion of recovery by again inflating the value of assets.  It thus recreated the bubble that last brought the economy crashing down when it burst.

It now is recognized that this cannot continue. The mounting debt and the size of the bubble portend, and are increasingly recognized as portending a disaster of horrendous proportions. Continuing to increase them, although putting off the day of reckoning, is guaranteed to increase the severity of the inevitable outcome.

On the other hand even vague hints by the Fed that it will stop sustaining the house of cards brings brings down and threatens to collapse the inflated asset values immediately.  In addition, such a collapse and the restoration of market level interest rates threaten the ability of governments at every level to service the debts they have incurred.

The real economy (as distinct from asset values) never has recovered. It still is staggering in disarray.  With governmental policies poised to add to the distress, letting the air out of the inflationary bubble would lead to disaster.

So the Fed is trapped. It can neither continue on, nor abandon its present course.

Mr. Bernanke's successor will inherit the opportunity to take responsibility for the conundrum and its consequences. 

Good luck!