Holder wades deeper into Zimmerman battle, calls for review of ‘stand-your-ground’

Attorney General Eric Holder waded deeper into the controversy over the George Zimmerman case and verdict on Tuesday, suggesting a national review of "stand-your-ground" laws during a speech before the annual NAACP convention in Orlando.
The NAACP is at the forefront of the effort to pressure the Justice Department to bring federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman. Holder confirmed on Monday that his department is reviewing that possibility, citing his personal concerns about the case.
He went a step further on Tuesday, weighing in for the first time on controversial state-level laws on self-defense.
"Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation's attention, it's time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods," Holder said.
The comments were a reference to so-called "stand-your-ground" laws, which in Florida and other states allow people to use deadly force if they think their life is being threatened.
The role that law played in the Zimmerman shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin is a matter of dispute.
But Holder suggested the laws encourage confrontation, saying there "has always been" a legal defense for using deadly force when retreat is not an option.    
"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," Holder said. "By allowing -- and perhaps encouraging -- violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety."
He called for a "hard look" at the laws. The crowd applauded as he said "we must stand our ground."
The "stand-your-ground" laws have been a popular target ever since the Martin shooting, and the pressure has intensified after Zimmerman was acquitted on Saturday.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, though, told Fox News that officials should not politicize the case.
"We shouldn't turn this into politics. This was a tragedy," he told Fox News on Monday.
Scott noted that he already put together a bipartisan commission to examine Florida's "stand-your-ground" law.
"Their recommendation is we not make any changes, that it is working the way it was intended," Scott said.
A confluence of pressure campaigns, though, are weighing on Congress and the Obama administration.
Despite warnings from analysts and attorneys that the Justice Department would face an uphill climb in prosecuting Zimmerman on civil rights charges, an NAACP-led petition demanding such a case has apparently hit one million signatures.
Singer Stevie Wonder is also the latest celebrity to criticize Florida's self-defense law.
He declared that he would not perform in Florida until the law is abolished. Bailey Comment: Holder is Black, now whose side do you think he is going to be on when he addresses the NAACP??

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/16/holder-wades-deeper-into-zimmerman-battle-calls-for-review-stand-your-ground/#ixzz2ZFI4ihpj

Race Baiting

Students should get loans from banks.

Project 21 black leadership network

Washington, D.C. – Members of the Project 21 black leadership network are analyzing the legal aspects of the George Zimmerman verdict and commenting on the implications:

Horace Cooper
“While I’m thrilled with this outcome, it should never have come to this. This case should never have been brought forward. The grand jury should never have been bypassed and Judge Nelson should never have allowed this case to get this far. There’s a reason the investigating officer refused to support an arrest, there’s a reason the state’s attorney refused to prosecute and there’s a reason the grand jury was bypassed. There was no substantial evidence corroborating the state’s case and a whole heck of evidence supporting Mr. Zimmerman. The rush to arrest and indict Zimmerman merely to appease the media or race-based interest groups not only jeopardized Mr. Zimmerman’s rights and liberty, but the precedent suggests that all of our rights could be infringed.”
-Cooper, the co-chairman of Project 21, is a former law professor and former congressional leadership staff member.

Darryn “Dutch” Martin
“It goes without saying that a 17-year-old child is dead, and this verdict – though just and correct in my view – will not bring him back. My heart goes out to his family and loved ones. But it needs to be understood that the case against George Zimmerman for the death of Trayvon Martin was not supposed to be about race. It was always about self-defense. Zimmerman’s defense team proved this and the jury concurred. Justice has been served. Now, let’s pray that cooler heads prevail.”
-Martin, a member of Project 21, is a former member of the American diplomatic corps.

Lisa Fritsch
“Despite a not guilty verdict, we must remember that George Zimmerman is not truly free. This trial will forever remain in his mind for his remaining days. Our hope should be that this trial and verdict will unite the Florida community and this country and be a healing testimony to what happens when we think the worst of one another first. In this case, it felt as if our very country were on trial for racial prejudice. The not guilty verdict should make us reflect on what it means to give the benefit of the doubt before judging harshly and deciding one’s actions are racially motivated. The final question for every community is how we can protect our youth from a system of violence and a lifestyle that nearly guarantees they will find trouble. Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin’s family and more urban Americans will hopefully use this case and verdict as an opportunity to correct that system.”
-Fritsch is a member of Project 21 as well as a tea party activist, author and talk radio host.

Hughey Newsome
“Everything about the verdict can be wrapped up by considering the post-verdict comments of Zimmerman attorney Mark O’Mara. While many may feel that O’Mara’s comment about charges not being filed against Zimmerman if Zimmerman were black may seem insensitive and oblivious, his subsequent comments about the need for a civil rights discussion in regards to African-American males are timely despite his feeling it is irrelevant to this case. Those saying the value placed on an African-American male is diminished in today’s society must now ask themselves, if this is believed to be true, what is causing this phenomenon? So many in the media and entertainment industries seem to profit off perpetuating the image of the African-American male as violent and sexual animals, but this is then ignored in order to complain about overt racism that is mostly marginalized in today’s society. This gets us no closer to solving the problem at hand.”
-Newsome, a Project 21 member, is a financial expert and also the Washington representative for the Move-On-Up.Org black political organization.


Emery McClendon
“We must stop looking at issues from a racial context and stand together as one America – with God as our strength. To use a familiar phrase these days, let’s not stay ‘stuck on stupid’ and move on to heal our land. We have so much to be thankful for. For too long, people such as the NAACP’s Ben Jealous and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have spoke out in hate and ignorance and found placement in the media. It’s time to stop the madness. We must turn the tide. If we put as much time into restoring our Constitution as we did into the Zimmerman trial, America would be a better place for all of us.”
-McClendon is a Project 21 member and tea party activist.
Project 21 was formed in 1992 when the riots following the verdict in the Rodney King case revealed a need to highlight the diversity of opinion within the black community. For over 20 years, the volunteer members of the Project 21 black leadership network have provided conservative and free-market perspectives that, until that time, were largely unknown or ignored by the establishment media.
During the course of the Zimmerman trial, which was heard in the Seminole County (Florida) Circuit Court, Project 21 members provided commentary and continue to be available for interviews about the case and the issues surrounding it. Project 21 regularly issued press releases featuring quotes from its members on the breaking news about the trial and the controversies surrounding it.
Project 21, a leading voice of black conservatives since 1992, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (http://www.nationalcenter.org).

Obama Cartoon

White House Escalates War of Words With Fox News * Refreshing your Memory.

Published October 12, 2009

FoxNews.com

Calling Fox News "a wing of the Republican Party," the Obama administration on Sunday escalated its war of words against the channel, even as observers questioned the wisdom of a White House war on a news organization.
"What I think is fair to say about Fox -- and certainly it's the way we view it -- is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on CNN. "They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that's fine. But let's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is."
Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente, who likens the channel to a newspaper with separate sections on straight news and commentary, suggested White House officials were intentionally conflating opinion show hosts like Glenn Beck with news reporters like Major Garrett.
"It's astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming," Clemente said. "It seems self-serving on their part."
In recent weeks, the White House has begun using its government blog to directly attack what it called "Fox lies." David Gergen, who has worked for President Bill Clinton and three Republican presidents, questioned the propriety of the White House declaring war on a news organization.
"It's a very risky strategy. It's not one that I would advocate," Gergen said on CNN. "If you're going to get very personal against the media, you're going to find that the animosities are just going to deepen. And you're going to find that you sort of almost draw viewers and readers to the people you're attacking. You build them up in some ways, you give them stature."
He added: "The press always has the last barrel of ink."
Gergen's sentiments were echoed by Tony Blankley, who once served as press secretary to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
"Going after a news organization, in my experience, is always a loser," Blankley said on CNN. "They have a big audience. And Fox has an audience of not just conservatives -- they've got liberals and moderates who watch too. They've got Obama supporters who are watching. So it's a temptation for a politician, but it needs to be resisted."
Nia Malika Henderson, White House correspondent for the Politico newspaper, also questioned the White House offensive against Fox.
"Obama's only been a boon to their ratings and I don't understand how this kind of escalation of rhetoric and kind of taking them on, one on one, would do anything other than escalate their ratings even more," she said.
Dunn used an appearance on CNN's "Reliable Sources" over the weekend to complain about Fox News' coverage of the Obama presidential campaign a year ago.
"It was a time this country was in two wars," she recalled. "We'd had a financial collapse probably more significant than any financial collapse since the Great Depression. If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election, what you would have seen would have been that the biggest stories and biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and something called ACORN."
Ayers was co-founder of the Weather Underground, a communist terrorist group that bombed the Pentagon and other buildings in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1995, Ayers hosted Obama at his home for a political function and the two men later served together on the board of an anti-poverty group known as the Woods Fund.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which once had close ties to Obama, has been accused by a variety of law enforcement agencies of voter fraud. In recent weeks, the Democrat-controlled Congress moved to sever funding to ACORN after Fox News aired undercover videotapes of ACORN employees giving advice on how to break the law to a pair of journalists disguised as a pimp and prostitute.
As for Dunn's complaint about Fox News' coverage of the Obama campaign, a study by the Pew Research Center showed that 40 percent of Fox News stories on Obama in the last six weeks of the campaign were negative. Similarly, 40 percent of Fox News' stories on Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, were negative.
On CNN, by contrast, there was a 22-point disparity in the percentage of negative stories on Obama (39 percent) and McCain (61 percent). The disparity was even greater at MSNBC, according to Pew, where just 14 percent of Obama stories were negative, compared to a whopping 73 percent of McCain stories -- a spread of 59 points.
Although Dunn accused Fox News of being a "wing of the Republican Party," she said the network does not champion conservatism.
"It's not ideological," she acknowledged. "I mean, obviously, there are many commentators who are conservative, liberal, centrist -- and everybody understands that."
Still, Obama refused to appear on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace on Sept. 20, the day he appeared on five other Sunday shows. At the time, the White House characterized the snub as payback for the Fox Broadcast Network's decision not to air an Obama prime time appearance. But last weekend, Dunn blamed Fox News Channel's coverage of the administration for Obama's snub of Fox News Sunday.
"Is this why he did not appear?" Dunn said. "The answer is yes."
Wallace has called White House officials "the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington."
Dunn was asked by CNN's Howard Kurtz whether Obama would grant an interview to Fox News by the end of the year.
"Obviously, he'll go on Fox, because he engages with ideological opponents and he has done that before, he will do it again," Dunn replied. "I can't give you a date, because frankly I can't give you dates for anybody else right now."
But last week, Fox News was informed by the White House that Obama would grant no interviews to the channel until at least 2010. The edict was relayed to Fox News by a White House official after Dunn discussed the channel at a meeting with presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs and other Obama advisers.
"What I will say is that when he (Obama) goes on Fox, he understands he's not going on it really as a news network, at this point," Dunn said on CNN. "He's going on to debate the opposition. And that's fine. He never minds doing that."
Dunn also strongly implied that Fox had failed to follow up on a New York Times story about a scandal swirling around GOP Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, although Fox News broadcast the stories on numerous shows, including Special Report with Bret Baier.
Clemente questioned the motives of the White House attack, which comes in the wake of an informal coffee last month between Fox chairman Roger Ailes and Obama adviser David Axelrod.
"Instead of governing, the White House continues to be in campaign mode, and Fox News is the target of their attack mentality," he said. "Perhaps the energy would be better spent on the critical issues that voters are worried about."
Blankley suggested the war on Fox News is unpresidential.
"It lowers the prestige," he said. "If you're president or speaker, at a certain level, you don't want to be seen to be engaging that kind of petty bickering. If you're just a congressman, maybe you can do it."
In an interview over the summer, Obama made clear that Fox News has gotten under his skin.
"I've got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration," he told CNBC's John Harwood. "You'd be hard pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front."
At the White House Correspondents Dinner in May, Obama even mocked the media for supporting him.
"Most of you covered me; all of you voted for me," Obama said, spurring laughter and applause from the assembled journalists. "Apologies to the Fox table."
Gergen said the White House should delegate its attacks to outside support groups.
"Why don't they take this over to the DNC, over to the Democratic National Committee, and have their struggles like that fought out over there and not out of the White House?" Gergen said. "I have real questions about that strategy."
Click here for more on the conflict between the White House and Fox News. 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/12/white-house-escalates-war-words-fox-news/?intcmp=trending#ixzz2Z1cadmfS

Texas Senate passes sweeping new abortion restrictions

Democrats, though, promised a fight in the courts.
"There will be a lawsuit. I promise you," Dallas Sen. Royce West said on the Senate floor, raising his right hand as if taking an oath. Bailey Comment: When ever the Democrats lose on a issue, the only thing they want to do is ether riot or sue or both. This is their answer to everything.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/13/texas-senate-poised-to-vote-on-abortion-measure/#ixzz2Yve8ZQjn

Fact check rips Pelosi claim that ObamaCare mandate 'not delayed' What a Idiot!

The big news on ObamaCare these past two weeks has been the administration's announcement that it will delay by one year the requirement on businesses to provide health insurance.
Nancy Pelosi, though, had a curious take on the whole thing. Actually, she instructed reporters, "The mandate was not delayed."
The House Democratic leader used some creative reasoning to make her case -- she claimed the administration really only delayed the requirement on businesses to report insurance coverage details.
But The Washington Post fact-checker on Friday shut it down, effectively ruling that Pelosi is trying to "deny reality."
"Yes, reporting requirements were delayed. But there also was a one-year delay of the actual employer mandate. It's right there in the announcement," the Post wrote.

'The point is, is that the mandate was not delayed.'

- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi

Here's what Pelosi said during a press conference on Thursday:
"The point is, is that the mandate was not delayed. Certain reporting by businesses that could be perceived as onerous, that reporting requirement was delayed, and partially to review how it would work and how it could be better. It was not a delay of the mandate for the businesses."
Pelosi was correct in the first part of that statement. In an announcement last week on the Treasury Department blog, Mark J. Mazur. assistant secretary for Tax Policy at Treasury, said the requirement to report details on insurance coverage would be delayed by a year.
However, that decision meant everything else would be delayed too. Mazur said the penalties on employers would be pushed off until 2015, meaning the requirement itself would be pushed off -- though the administration would still "strongly encourage" employers to offer coverage during that time.
But, as the Post noted, "encouraging employers to provide health insurance is not the same thing as mandating it."
Pelosi tried to deny the existence of a delay as her Republican colleagues use the announcement as an opening to attempt to stall other parts of the law.
Republicans are already teeing up votes on delaying what is known as the "individual mandate" -- the requirement on individuals to buy health insurance, which the administration so far has kept on schedule.
The Post wrote: "We understand Pelosi's desire to minimize the impact of the decision -- and supporters of the law may have a strong case that the employer mandate is not as central to the law as the individual mandate to buy insurance -- but that's not an excuse to deny reality."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/12/fact-check-rips-pelosi-claim-that-obamacare-mandate-not-delayed/?test=latestnews#ixzz2Yspkb9zg