JustOneMinute

So Unseal The File!

Judge Lester of the Zimmerman case ordered witness names redacted and the file dumped back on April 23.  Let's go!

The magic of the intertubes will bring the files to the court website, sooner rather than later, we hope.

Not The Twitter I Thought I Knew

As I understand this, a small group of lefties decide some conservative is racist, homophobic or whatever, flag them on Twitter for spamming, and the account is blocked. That sounds like par for the left as I understand it (like minded protestors have been disrupting campus speeches for decades), but here is what surprises me - what is going to happen when some party hack in Syria or Iran or China opens a few hundred accounts run by state loyalists and starts taking down on-line revolutionaries by flagging them for spam?

Is Twitter really going to aid in the auto-stifling of dissent? Sure sounds like it.

Captain Ed explains the benefits of the current self-policing system, but naturally that requires a level of restraint and self-discipline that we don't always associate with the internet.

BUT IT IS OK BECAUSE THEY ARE PASSIONATE! AND ANTI-WAR... Via myiq2xu (himself a lefty) we get a reminder that the pro-Obama crowd may have stifled pro-Hillary dissent back in 2008:

That was the question buzzing on a corner of the blogosphere over the last few days, after several anti-Obama bloggers were unable to update their sites, which are hosted on Google’s Blogger service.

The bloggers in question, most of them supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and all of them opposed to Senator Obama, received a notice from Google last week saying that their sites had been identified as potential “spam” blogs. “You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog,” the Google e-mail read.

Does anyone imagine Saul Alinsky would object? This is who they are, this is what they do.

Proud to Be A (Native) American! (But Keep It Quiet...)

Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren was proud to be a Native American prior to her hiring at Harvard Law School in the mid 90's. After that, she mysteriously stopped listing herself as a minority in the Association of American Law Schools desk book.

I have no doubt she retained her pride in her ethnic status (whatever it was), but having ridden the Affirmative Action train to the end of the line at Harvard Law she wanted to avoid any taint of being an affirmative action hire. Just a guess, obviously - I don't want to be defaming someone with a legal background.

Jim Geraghty has more. I believe it was David Bernstein who first cracked open the old AALS directories (although an intrepid reporter may have moved independently) and he has informed speculation as well.

For my money, Ms. Warren is one more liberal who will defend Affirmative Action passionately, will pooh-pooh the notion of an Affirmative Action stigma, and will deny that Affirmative Action played any role in her own advancement.  Whether this costs her votes in Massachusetts, where the Irish do not benefit from Affirmative Action, remains to be seen.

Is This A Customary Level Of Ignorance For Cabinet Secretaries?

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had no understanding of the Constitution and the law before "balancing" the Constitution with Obamacare's command for contraception coverage.

The highlight:

“So when you say you 'balanced' things,” Gowdy said, “can you see why I might be seeking a constitutional balancing, instead of any other kind?”

“I do,” Sebelius said, “and I defer to our lawyers to give me good advice on the Constitution. I do not pretend to be a constitutional lawyer.”

“Is there a legal memo that you relied on?” Gowdy asked. “At least when Attorney General Holder made his recess appointments, there was a legal memo that he relied on. Is there one that you can share with us?”

“Attorney General Holder clearly runs the Justice Department and lives in a world of legal memos,” Sebelius responded, saying she “relied on discussions.”

Memos from lawyers can be so tedious, with all those footnotes and citations. And her ignorance and indifference saves us from having to read the advice she received!

Feed The Beast

Angela Corey, special prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin shooting, is not feeding the beast:

SANFORD, Fla. -

As controversy over the $200,000 George Zimmerman raised on PayPal took center stage Friday, Special Prosecutor Angela Corey's decision to ignore legal questions raised over whether she's obeying Florida's public record law went largely unnoticed.

But the issue of whether Corey has the legal right to continue preventing the public from seeing the evidence she says proves Zimmerman committed the second degree murder of Trayvon Martin seems to be coming to a head.

The special prosecutor's office on Friday refused to make that evidence public -- even though an attorney fighting for the public's access insists Friday was when Florida law required Corey to share the evidence with the millions of people following the case.

The reason the deadline for Corey's evidence to become public was Friday, according to Scott Ponce, the attorney representing media organizations seeking access, is because that was 15 days after Zimmerman's attorney served Corey with an April 12 demand for evidence. This process of the state sharing evidence with both the defendant and public at large is known as discovery.

The defense and prosecution are working to redact information that might identify witnesses, but at some point this special prosecutor will have to follow the law, or at least find some way to placate a hungry press.

MORE: The Orlando Sentinel speculates on what evidence we might find:

Crime-scene evidence

..."I definitely want to know what injuries the defendant suffered, what type of injuries and to what extent they were documented," said Pollack.

Sanford police took photos of the defendant that night. They should be in the evidence soon to be released.

...

Other important pieces of evidence in this category include the bullet casing from the fatal shot and any markings from the grass or sidewalk that might hint at how violent the fight was and who had the upper hand.

Witness statements

The most important witness in the case may be Zimmerman. According to prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda, the defendant gave five statements to authorities. Police described one as a re-enactment.

...Also key to the case will be eye-witness statements. Several neighbors saw and heard Trayvon and Zimmerman fighting. If they saw Zimmerman on top, that would damage his self-defense claim.

That may happen - there may well be witnesses who did not talk to the press.

Autopsy results

Trayvon died of a single gunshot wound to the chest, but the results of his autopsy should reveal how close the gun was when it went off and the bullet's trajectory, lawyers said.

Dale Gilbreath, a prosecution investigator, testified there was "stippling" around the entry wound, tiny gunpowder burns that Fussell said can be found only when the muzzle of a gun is close to the victim, usually an arm's length or less.

...

The funeral director who prepared Trayvon's body, Richard Kurtz, told the Orlando Sentinel he saw no such signs of a fight.

The funeral director is a black man serving the black community and he may be smart enough to know which way the wind was blowing on this case.

Crime-lab results

Police gathered Trayvon's and Zimmerman's clothes, and they have likely been analyzed for dirt, grass, blood and DNA by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The presence of any of those things would lend credence to Zimmerman's account that there had been a fight and the pair wound up on the ground, said Pollack.

Lending credence to Zimmerman's claims will be important at the immunity hearing, but at trial the state will eed to prove his claims are false. The absence of blood may be low-probability (if his story is true) but inconclusive.

 

If It's Sunday...

If it's Sunday (and there is no "If" about it, today anyway) you should be reading Clarice Feldman at the American Thinker.

She lauds the Obma Administration for creating a fertile market for sharpened pikes. On that theme, let's cut to Jimmy Kimmel, doing a little comedy at the correspondents dinner:

Kimmel later asked Obama: "You remember when the country rallied around you in hopes of a better tomorrow? That was hilarious."

"There's a term for guys like President Obama," Kimmel said with a pause. "Probably not two terms."

Obama dropped the Bush jokes in favor of Romney jokes but did manage a rare moment of self-mockery:

"What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?" Obama asked. "A pit bull is delicious."

WHOSE WAR ON WOMEN? Who thought this worked for Obama?

"We both think of our wives as our better halves, and the American people agree to an insulting extent," the president said.

I am pretty sure Mitt is not insulted that folks hold Ann in high regard.

 

Too Cheap A Shot

This isn't comparing apples and oranges; this is comparing apples and peacocks.

From Obama's speech announcing the death of Osama:

And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.

Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.

Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

And Bush's speech announcing the capture of Saddam Hussein:

The success of yesterday's mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate 'em.

Of course Iraq went on to become a quagmire, whereas Afghanistan...

Great Moments In Automated Marketing Fails

I hop this wasn't SIRI's idea! I was checking through some old emails and found this jaunty philanthropic appeal:

Dear Just One Minute,

Haven't reached out to you in a long time but I figured I would run this by you. Aside from my on-going mahablog work, at my other MCA blog, we have been working with Gary Cohn--the Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist. He will be writing a series for us on controversial and mind stirring pieces on the asbestos industry and how it relates to politics both domestically and internationally.

Here is the first piece: 

http://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/authors/gary/experts-forecast-global-catastrophe-of-death-and-disease-from-asbestos-use.htm

I would be thrilled if you would be willing to syndicate this by posting it on your blog(s).

Let me know, and hope all is well!

Barbara 

Hope all is well? Geez, the last time I was at the Mahablog (my go-to source for stale lefty CW) I got in a bit of a back and forth about the Trayvon Martin shooting.  Ms. O'Brien was fact free, as expected, but packed my bags with this:

Tom — I know you are determined to find that Zimmerman is innocent. Your continued insistence that the one eyewitness must be right and all other testimony and evidence wrong tells me you are not being honest.

...

Now, go away and bother somebody else. I don’t like talking to people who are not willing to be honest.

PS — Booman is mostly right,  ("Tom Maguire is an impossibly stupid man, and his commenters are probably even dumber") although I don’t think you are stupid as much as you lack the moral courage to acknowledge facts that don’t fit your worldview. 

...Now, I’m terribly busy and I have no interest in arguing with you further on this matter. The discussion is over.

Some of that dispute was obviously my own fault - I had made the unwarranted assumption that we shared certain basic facts about the case.  However, within a day or so Ms. O'Brien put up a post explaining that since Trayvon Martin had been shot at 7:25 (per CNN), George Zimmerman had been wandering around out of his truck for twelve minutes stalking poor Trayvon.

Who knew?  The Sanford Police report and every other account I have seen had the time of death at 7:17.  Obviously I should have been able to anticipate that much of her "reality" over which we were arguing was self-invented.  And none of her commenters knew enough (or cared enough) to correct that post, which I am pleased to say would be the least of my worries here. I infer that in her world "dumb" means "doesn't agree with me", and she has no dumb commenters.

Well, we've all passed a lot of water since then. It's for a good cause but I'm not quite stupid enough to imagine this will be an ongoing collaboration.

OH, LET'S BOO THE BOOMAN! The Booman described me as, let's see, "an impossibly stupid man" because I pooh-poohed the Orland Sentinel piece which claimed two voice experts had reached some sort of a judgment on whether it was Zimmerman or Martin who could be heard screaming on a 911 call.

So let's flash forward to the Zimmerman bond hearing:

O'MARA: Witnesses heard people arguing, sounded like a struggle. During this time, witnesses heard numerous calls for help. Some of this was recorded. Trayvon's mom reviewed the 911 calls and identified the cry for help and Trayvon Martin's voice. Did you do any forensic analysis on that voice tape?

GILBREATH: Did I?

O'MARA: Did you or are you aware of anything?

GILBREATH: The "Orlando Sentinel" had someone do it and the FBI has had someone do it.

O'MARA: Is that part of your investigation?

GILBREATH: Yes.

O'MARA: Has that given any insight as to the voice?

GILBREATH: No.

Score one for impposibly stupid.

I CAN STOP ANYTIME: In the course of his rhetorical flourishing the Booman offers this:

He questions the assumption that if it's not Zimmerman, it must be Martin. Does he have a theory that there was a screamer on the grassy knoll?

You know that's right! The 13 year old dogwatcher saw part of the incident and is a bit hazy on what happened next - he says his dog ran away and he went to get it, but any psychologist can see through that metaphor. What "ran away" was the kid's self-control, so he stood there screaming. 

That is only a theory, of course, but the prosecution will need to prove it is unreasonable to clear that thicket. So put a traumatized thirteen year old on the stand and swear him in. Uh huh.

ONE MORE: "Maguire doesn't offer a conjecture about why Mr. Tom Owen would make up his conclusion."

I don't think Mr. Owen is lying about the results of his software - I think he is promoting his new software that rolled out March 1, 2012 and could be yours for a mere $4,995.

I hope the Booman is not waiting for Al Sharpton and MSNBC to break that news - that would be impossibly stupid.

Sense And Nonsense On "The Gutsy Call"

Obama Got Osama! Team Obama is touting the one success of this administration, prompting a range of responses.

Mostly nonsense - the idea that delegating operational control to Admiral McRaven meant Obama was dodging responsibility.

More nonsense from Joe Biden:

As [The One] walked out the room, it dawned on me, he’s all alone. This is his decision. If he was wrong, his Presidency was done. Over.

Why would it be over? Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? McQ is brief on this - "We’d have simply never heard about it" - so I will beat a dead horse.  Let's cut to the New Yorker account of the raid from Aug 2011 for perspective:

The Abbottabad raid was not DEVGRU’s maiden venture into Pakistan, either. The team had surreptitiously entered the country on ten to twelve previous occasions, according to a special-operations officer who is deeply familiar with the bin Laden raid. Most of those missions were forays into North and South Waziristan, where many military and intelligence analysts had thought that bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders were hiding. (Only one such operation—the September, 2008, raid of Angoor Ada, a village in South Waziristan—has been widely reported.) Abbottabad was, by far, the farthest that DEVGRU had ventured into Pakistani territory. 

The added distance made the Osama raid riskier, but if any of these prior raids had gone sour we would have had irate Pakistanis to deal with, just as we are in fact dealing with them now over a botched airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. So were all these raids also acts of heroic leadership in which Obama gambled his Presidency?

Left unreported by the New Yorker - if there were "ten to twelve" prior raids, was the Osama raid really Lucky 13? Obama is bolder than we know! 

TO BE CONTINUED...

More nonsense can be found amongst the usual suspects. The BooMan relies on an early report of the raid to tell us, seemingly with a straight face, that the military had no contingency plans for nearbby back-up helicopters until Obama intervened. His excerpt and conclusion:

About 10 days before the raid, Obama was briefed on the plan. It included keeping two backup helicopters just outside Pakistani airspace in case something went wrong. But Obama felt that was risky. If the SEALs needed help, they couldn't afford to wait for backup.

He said the operation needed a plan in case the SEALs had to fight their way out. So two Chinooks were sent into Pakistani airspace, loaded with backup teams, just in case. One of those Chinooks landed in the compound after the Black Hawk became inoperable. The raiders scrambled aboard the remaining Black Hawk and a Chinook, bin Laden's body with them, and flew to the USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea. The ground operation had taken about 40 minutes.

Not only did the president insert the Chinooks into the operational plan, but that decision proved critical to the success of the mission. 

The New Yorker had a different version by August:

Forty-five minutes after the Black Hawks departed, four MH-47 Chinooks launched from the same runway in Jalalabad. Two of them flew to the border, staying on the Afghan side; the other two proceeded into Pakistan. Deploying four Chinooks was a last-minute decision made after President Barack Obama said he wanted to feel assured that the Americans could “fight their way out of Pakistan.” Twenty-five additional SEALs from DEVGRU, pulled from a squadron stationed in Afghanistan, sat in the Chinooks that remained at the border; this “quick-reaction force” would be called into action only if the mission went seriously wrong. The third and fourth Chinooks were each outfitted with a pair of M134 Miniguns. They followed the Black Hawks’ initial flight path but landed at a predetermined point on a dry riverbed in a wide, unpopulated valley in northwest Pakistan. The nearest house was half a mile away. On the ground, the copters’ rotors were kept whirring while operatives monitored the surrounding hills for encroaching Pakistani helicopters or fighter jets. One of the Chinooks was carrying fuel bladders, in case the other aircraft needed to refill their tanks.

I think the two added at Obama's suggestion sat at the border and thankfully were not needed.

End The Trayvon Pinata

In a column titled "Attacking whites in Trayvon's name a dangerous, stupid game" Darryl E. Owens of the Orlando Sentinel inveighs against "the new sport that's caught on in the aftermath of the shooting in Sanford of the unarmed teenager": 

What sport? Let's call it Trayvon Piñata.

How's it played?

Simple. Gather at least two or up to 30 players (usually black, but not always). Target some unsuspecting, blameless white person. Confront. Spout some racial pap. Stomp the stuffing out of him in Trayvon's name.

Rip-roaring fun!

It's all the rage — these outrageous acts of vengeance born out of misplaced rage.

He mentions two incidents in Florida of which I know nothing, the beating of Matthew Owens in Mobile Alabama [and the Alton L. Hayes III beatdown in Chicago]. Then:

It wasn't difficult to understand the frustration over a man walking away scot-free after killing an unarmed high-schooler. I, too, questioned the justice of a law that appears to take the concept of self-defense to ridiculous extremes.

But thumping random white surrogates for George Zimmerman isn't justice. And invoking Trayvon's name as justification tars his memory and the high-minded crusade to wring justice from a system that was willing to dismiss the death of a boy killed under sketchy circumstances.

And yet, Sanford's recent visitors, the reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who rallied at a Los Angeles church Thursday marking the two-month anniversary of Trayvon Martin's death, haven't said squat about the beatings, at least not anything that I could turn up.

Because they command the microphone, their unnerving silence regarding Trayvon Piñata speaks volumes. Which is why other black leaders must punch through the hypocrisy and decry the violence.

Black leaders have an opportunity to play a useful role here, as Mr. Owens is doing. But the media generally, having splashed a lot of ink and filled a lot of air time promoting Trayvon Martin as the symbol of racial injustice, might want to reflect on why they are now mysteriously silent on the consequences of their misbehavior.

Saturday Morning

Good morning all! I hope you're feeling good today and extremely better tomorrow.

Greatest Hollywood Bootlegger EVER!

The NY Time front-pages the story of a DVD bootlegger who will never be prosecuted. Their only mistake was running it below the fold.

At 92, a Bandit to Hollywood but a Hero to Soldiers

By ALAN SCHWARZ

MASSAPEQUA, N.Y. — One of the world’s most prolific bootleggers of Hollywood DVDs loves his morning farina. He has spent eight years churning out hundreds of thousands of copies of “The Hangover,” “Gran Torino” and other first-run movies from his small Long Island apartment to ship overseas.

“Big Hy” — his handle among many loyal customers — would almost certainly be cast as Hollywood Enemy No. 1 but for a few details. He is actually Hyman Strachman, a 92-year-old, 5-foot-5 World War II veteran trying to stay busy after the death of his wife. And he has sent every one of his copied DVDs, almost 4,000 boxes of them to date, free to American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With the United States military presence in those regions dwindling, Big Hy Strachman will live on in many soldiers’ hearts as one of the war’s more shadowy heroes.

“It’s not the right thing to do, but I did it,” Mr. Strachman said, acknowledging that his actions violated copyright law.

“If I were younger,” he added, “maybe I’d be spending time in the hoosegow.”

Capt. Bryan Curran, who recently returned from Afghanistan, estimated that from 2008 to 2010, Mr. Strachman sent more than 2,000 DVDs to his outfits there.

“You’re shocked because your initial image is of some back-alley Eastern European bootlegger — not an old Jewish guy on Long Island,” Captain Curran said. “He would time them with the movie’s release — whenever a new movie was just in theaters, we knew Big Hy would be sending us some. I saw ‘The Transformers’ before it hit the States.”

Jenna Gordon, a specialist in the Army Reserve, said she had handed out even more of Mr. Strachman’s DVDs last year as a medic with the 883rd Medical Company east of Kandahar City, where soldiers would gather for movie nights around personal computers, with mortar blasting in the background. Some knew only that the discs came from some dude named Big Hy; others knew not even that.

“It was pretty big stuff — it’s reconnecting you to everything you miss,” she said. “We’d tell people to take a bunch and pass them on.”

This ought to be made into a movie, although to compound the drama Hollywood ought to sue him first. Would there be a dry eye in the house for the courtroom scene? Or they could play it as a comedy - picture a bunch of suits stalking the nefarious "Big Hy" and discovering their actual nemesis.

Just a little more:

White-haired, slightly hunched and speaking in his Depression-era Brooklyn brogue (think Casey Stengel after six years of Hebrew school), Mr. Strachman explained in a recent interview that his 60-hour-a-week venture was winding down. “It’s all over anyways — they’re all coming home in the near future,” he said of the troops.

As he spoke, he was busy preparing some packages, filled with 84 discs of “The Artist,” “Moneyball” and other popular films, many of them barely out of theaters, to a platoon in Afghanistan.

As for his brazen violation of domestic copyright laws, Mr. Strachman nodded guiltily but pointed to his walls, which are strewed with seven huge American flags, dozens of appreciative letters, and snapshots of soldiers holding up their beloved DVDs.

“Every time I got back an emotional e-mail or letter, I sent them another box,” he said, adding that he had never accepted any money for the movies or been told by any authorities to stop.

“I thought maybe because I’m an old-timer,” he said.

In February, Mr. Strachman duplicated and shipped 1,100 movies. (“A slow month,” he said.) He has not kept an official count but estimates that he topped 80,000 discs a year during his heyday in 2007 and 2008, making his total more than 300,000 since he began in 2004. Postage of about $11 a box, and the blank discs themselves, would suggest a personal outlay of over $30,000.

Yeah, book 'em.

Ok, but seriously - suppose he was shoplifting from WalMart to send packages to Mother Teresa's operation in India. Still OK?

One might argue that if Uncle Sam or an energetic charity wants to ship DVDs to the troops abroad that they ought to cut some fair deal with Hollywood producers, who might line up for the good publicity. A nation of laws, not Robin Hoods!

Or one might argue there is something ephemeral about intellectual property and copyrights, since one person's use doesn't affect the availability to others (although it affects Hollywood's revenue). In contrast, medicine shoplifted from WalMart is no longer available to others.

On the other hand, we are talking about Hollywood, and this guy got it done. Pin a medal on him. Or sue him.  Or both.

Contempt For Holder

House Republicans plan a contempt citation for Eric Holder, which naturally calls to mind the old Mae West line from My Little Chickadee with WC Fields:

Judge: Are you trying to show contempt for this court?

M West: Your honor, I was doing my best to hide it.

With Holder and the House Republicans the feeling is mutual.

In a related Fast and Furious development an AAG is moving on.

No Charges In Summer Moody Death

No charges, no outrage, move on:

BAY MINETTE, Alabama --

After an exhaustive, 11-day investigation, authorities in Baldwin County will NOT charge the men in the shooting death of Summer Moody.

At a press conference in Bay Minette this afternoon, District Attorney Hallie Dixon and Baldwin County Sheriff Hoss Mack told reportes the shooting was an accident.

Investigators identified William Hearn and Larry Dean Duncan as the shooters- they say the men confronted Scott Byrd and Dylan Tyree near the burglarized cabin.

During questioning, the men told deputies one of the 17-year olds had a pistol. The handgun hasn't been recovered but deputies say the boys were carrying a knife and a rifle.

After seeing the weapon- investigators say Hearn and Dean- both carrying rifles themselves- fired two warning shots away from the teens and into the woods.

One of the rounds hit Summer Moody- who was hiding in the bushes with Daniel Parnell.

The teens' legal troubles are far from over. The boys face additional burglary charges in the cabin break-ins. Investigators say the teens burglarized two other cabins.

The could also be implicated in Moody's death under Alabama's felony murder rule, which holds the perpetrator responsible if a person dies in the commission of a felony.

 

 

Pre-Rebutted

The Hill recycles some phony (but updated!) ATF statistics that were debunked last November (my emphasis):

Nearly 70 percent of all guns found in Mexico came from the U.S. over the past four years, according to data released by the federal government on Thursday.

More than 68,000 of the 99,691 firearms that were recovered between 2007 and 2011, and submitted to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for trace testing, were either made in the U.S. or legally brought into the U.S. at one point, according to the agency.

Both gun-rights supporters and opponents have used the ATF’s numbers in years past to argue for their cause.

Gun-rights advocates say the numbers do not accurately reflect the true number of guns found in Mexico, which they argue is much higher. But instead, the ATF's data reflect only the number of guns that were submitted for traces. Some gun advocates in the U.S. have argued further that Democrats try to use the inflated numbers to make their case for stricter gun laws.

We surely do. Last November we wrote this in commenting on the latest ATF estimate of 70% of guns, etc:

So Ms. Feinstein made the point that among guns that were both recovered and submitted for tracing, roughly 70% came from the US.  This distinction had been kicked around back when Democrats (such as Obama or Ms. Feinstein) were claiming that 90% of recovered guns in Mexico were traced back to the US.  Back in reality, it turned out that plenty of guns recovered in Mexico were never submitted for tracing (FactCheck), so the 90% figure was probably closer to 34%, or maybe 17%.

I also cited this Dept. of Justice OIG report from Nov. 2010:

The number of trace requests from Mexico has increased since FY 2006, but most seized guns are not traced.

Mexican crime gun trace requests to ATF have increased since Project Gunrunner was established. The number of traces of Mexican crime guns increased from 5,834 in FY 2004 to almost 22,000 in FY 2009.

Yet, in a June 2009 report, the GAO estimated that less than a quarter of crime guns transferred to the Mexican Attorney General’s office in 2008 were submitted to ATF for tracing.

This latest report will be subject to the same objections and data limitations. That said, the old objections may need updating because the ATF got an expanded data set from Mexico to revise their 2007-2009 data:

This is one of the zombie lies of the Obama Administration. I am highly confident the Times will present it without criticism or nuance, as they did last fall. Let's see...

MOVING BACK ONE TRENCH: I just can't find reliable numbers for total guns recovered by the Mexican authorities relative to the number submitted for tracing. But let's grant Sen. Feinstein her dream and assume that the ATF is checking every gun recovered in Mexico - what are the policy implications for US gun control?

Surely that depends on whether the Mexican cartels have access to other sources of weaponry at comparable prices and volumes (and where do they get their hand grenades?)

To illustrate the obvious, I will estimate that 90% of the food my family eats at home comes from a supermarket a mile away. If that supermarket goes out of business, will my family starve? Hardly - there are a number of shopping alternatives within two or three miles. The world will lose two or three minutes of right-wing blogging while I expand my carbon footprint but nothing else will change.

Politically there might be some benefit to showing Mexico we are trying to help, but my guess is that even incredibly strict US gun control would do virtually nothing to disarm the cartels and merely be an ineffective feel-good measure.  In other words, perfect for the Dems.

Zimmerman Case - Bracing For A Document Dump

The Orlando Sentinel describes the maneuvering over what may become a document dump in the Zimmerman case:

SANFORD - Attorneys for the Orlando Sentinel, WFTV-Channel 9, NBC, CNN, The New York Times and other media companies are to be in court today fighting for access to records in the George Zimmerman case, but today's fight may not be a long one.

Some of what they're demanding was released Monday, a week after they made their requests. Those are the records in Zimmerman's court file, such things as his written plea of not guilty and a request by his lawyer that an earlier judge step aside because of a potential conflict of interest.

Another set of much-sought-after records may be another, bigger fight. Those are the ones collected by the special prosecutor and spelling out what evidence she has against Zimmerman.

...

Two weeks ago, Zimmerman's lawyer formally asked Special Prosecutor Angela Corey to provide the records by today, a deadline she is required by law to meet.

Once she provides them to him, they're public records, meaning they should be available to anyone who asks for them.

But the day after Zimmerman's arrest, defense attorney Mark O'Mara asked that those records be sealed, and Corey's trial lawyer, Bernie de la Rionda, agreed, and so did Seminole County Judge Mark Herr.

But on Thursday, Corey's office indicated it was preparing to release them to the public.

It's not clear whether the case's new judge, Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr., will listen to arguments today about those prosecution records.

From the docket (Case 592012CF001083A) we see that on 4/23 there was an order to "Unseal Court File", which presumably covers the Monday document release. The hearing today is set for 9 AM. 

cboldt provides a link to the 18th Circuit high profile cases, and reminds us that Judge Lester expressed his belief in prompt disclosure at last weeks bond hearing:

I'm going to have to work and I'm going to rely upon the state and the defense to assist me as far as what to do with the court file becausethe media absolutely has a right to the court file. The state understands that. The defense understands that.

I think at a preliminary we need to work toward getting that information to the media with the redacted version as far as addresses and names. Can the state and defense advice me if you have any objection with me working toward that right now?

I'll give you the final product, so you can OK it before anything's released. We can get that to the media as quickly as possible and then we'll tentatively set a hearing for next Friday at 9:00 to allow the media to go ahead and, if they any further concerns at this time, to go ahead and voice them. But I think if we can get that product to them immediately, I think that will alleviate a lot of the concerns they have with not being kept up to speed and being able to (INAUDIBLE). Is that OK with you?

I still think that the defense wants to move this case off the front page by starving it of oxygen. The mob will move on and real law can be applied.

But I can imagine the judge believes he will feel a lot less heat if he puts the facts on public display. If the prosecution case is as weak as it appeared last week, the judge's job will be easy.

As to what the prosecution wants, well, Ms. Corey got the headlines she wanted from her big press conference announcing the ludicrous charges. Unless her case is a lot better than we think, I would guess concealment (or very selective leaks) would be her preferred strategy.

A Shared Vision Of A Brighter Tomorrow

The First Whiner goes on about her dark days, but brightens ours:

"We can't sneak out often on our own with security and motorcades and people with us," Obama said when asked about what she would change about her role as first lady. "But you know one fantasy I have — and the Secret Service keeps looking at me because they think I might actually do it — is to walk right out the front door and just keep walkin'.

You go, girl! It's a tough life, being First Lady.  I think we should inflict it on Ann Romney.

NBC's Bad Zimmerman Edit - The Non-Story Expands

Breitbart's Big Journo flags a Miami Herald story telling us that NBC6 Miami reporter/producer Jeff Burnside was fired for his role in a misleading edit of the Zimmerman call to 911.

The timing is not clear, but the Herald story and/or this Newsbusters story may have precipitated this cryptic, tell-'em-nuthin' explanation from NBC6.

Maybe NBC 6 is revamping itself as a sit-com because this is pretty funny (my emphasis):

“We take this incident very seriously and apologize to our viewers,” said WTVJ spokesman Matt Glassman. “After conducting an extensive investigation, we are putting a more stringent editorial process in place to ensure this does not happen again.”

Glassman stressed that the Today show and Miami edits took place in two separate incidents involving different people.

Geez, an epidemic of brain lock at NBC! That is deeply implausible (my guess is a Today producer grabbed some local footage without double-checking it) but why would they lie? Protecting Al Sharpton does seem to be a key to this; from the Miami Herald:

“The network is very sensitive about the whole Al Sharpton/MSNBC issue, so when the right-wing bloggers started hammering, they needed to throw them fresh meat,” said the station source, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the controversy. “It’s not at all clear how this happened. Obviously, there was miscommunication.”

Hey, hey - it was a left-wing blogger that noted the March 22 mis-edit on the Today Show. I would say the NBC cover-up is unraveling. The NY Times still has nothing but WaPo media watchdog Eric Wemple did flag the Newsbusters story. Not exactly reporting, but better than nothing.

The NY Post has also joined in. Poynter has a real story, complete with phone calls and evasive responses. They do get this:

The WTVJ video, though edited similarly, was not the one that aired on NBC’s “Today” show, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The video that aired on the “Today” show actually came from NBC’s Southeast headquarters, also based in south Florida.

My credulity is straining here. Poynter got good play at MediaGazer, which has links to seven other outlets. Jim Treacher of the Daily Caller points out that Christina Hernandez, an NBC6 reporter, told a different tale on Twitter earlier in April. That has been deleted from Twitter now, but lives on at his blog and in an update here.

Let's have a "to be fair" moment - Ms. Hernandez (who, IIRC from her Twitter stream, was about due for a blessed event and a maternity leave) may not know what happened, and it may be that the other Florida affiliate mentioned above really did get the blame for the NY debacle. Hence her comment that "we get a lot of stuff from national news or other affiliates" may have reflected her honest understanding of the situation. Well, I am not paid to be their press flack.

 

Reports: Summer Moody Has Passed Away

This is coming from Facebook but two local news services have picked it up:

(MOBILE, Ala.) - Family and friends on a support page for 17-year-old volleyball star Summer Moody say she's passed away. 

Summer was shot in the head on Gravine Island. Authorities say she was with three young men who were breaking into fish camps on the remote island in the Mobile Tensaw River. Investigators say she was struck by a warning shot fired by one of three campers who were on the island. 

The investigation is nearly complete. I had *speculated* that the DA might be holding off until he knew what he was charging.

News, And Not News

The Times poses a puzzle on its front page today - in the world that brought us Trayvon Martin, what is news, and what is not news? In the course of asking they continue their non-coverage of Summer Moody (now deceased) and Matthew Owens, two stories with Trayvon Martin resonance that don't fit any comfortable Times templates.

News, if we include front page placement on the Times, includes stories like this:

Black Man’s Killing in Georgia Eludes Spotlight

By KIM SEVERSON

LYONS, Ga. — Norman Neesmith was sleeping in his home on a rural farm road here in onion country when a noise woke him up.

He grabbed the .22-caliber pistol he kept next to his bed and went to investigate. He found two young brothers who had been secretly invited to party with an 18-year-old relative he had raised like a daughter and her younger friend. The young people were paired up in separate bedrooms. There was marijuana and sex.

Over the course of the next confusing minutes on a January morning in 2011, there would be a struggle. The young men would make a terrified run for the door. Mr. Neesmith, who is 62 and white, fired four shots. One of them hit Justin Patterson, who was 22 and black.

The bullet pierced his side, and he died in Mr. Neesmith’s yard. His younger brother, Sha’von, then 18, ran through the onion fields in the dark, frantically trying to call his mother.

Yet somehow this did not get national attention and Sharptonian ministrations as Trayvon Martin did. The Times does identify a possible clue here:

On that day, Jan. 29, 2011, Mr. Neesmith was arrested. The district attorney brought seven charges against him, among them murder,false imprisonment and aggravated assault. On Thursday, Mr. Neesmith is expected to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct, which might bring a year in a special detention program that requires no time behind bars.

I'll just throw out a guess that the prompt arrest, charge and plea minimized outrage.  And since you ask, let's hear about the confusing struggle:

When Mr. Neesmith pulled the young men out of the bedrooms, he threatened to call the younger girl’s grandfather, according to court documents and interviews. He asked the two, who both have young daughters, why they were not home with their children. He ranted and waved the gun around.

So the brothers made a run for it. By all accounts, while the younger one struggled to unlock a side door, the older one shoved Mr. Neesmith.

Police testimony in early court documents shows that Justin Patterson pushed him against a table and chairs. In a recent interview and in other documents, Mr. Neesmith said he took a “whipping” that caused bleeding and cuts. He showed a reporter repairs to two holes in the wall that he said came from the struggle.

Mr. Neesmith’s first shots were fired while he was on the floor, according to investigators. One bullet hit the ceiling and the other hit Justin Patterson. Then, as the two ran, Mr. Neesmith went to the porch and fired two more shots. He called a friend, a bail bondsman, who told him to call the police.

Mr. Neesmith said he fired the extra shots as a warning. “Those boys could have come back and killed me in my own bed,” he said.

By the time he fired the fatal shot the boys were running, so a strict self-defense plea should have been out of bounds. However, the DA eventually decided he had other problems:

As the case unfolded, however, circumstances became clearer. The other girl in the trailer was 14, though she had told the men she was 18. Mr. Neesmith’s lawyers pointed out that a statutory rape charge could be bought. So could drug charges.

The shots off the porch were something someone in the country might do to make sure the intruders did not come back, [District Attorney] Mr. Altman said. Mr. Neesmith, who has a chronic nerve condition in his right arm and hand as well as other health problems, had been woken up in the middle of the night. He was not thinking clearly, Mr. Altman said; he had no record, and by all accounts was a good man.

Moreover, Mr. Altman said in a recent interview in his office, “I couldn’t see that I could find a jury that would convict.” Most people in a rural area with a high percentage of gun ownership would most likely accept that the fatal shot was in self-defense, he said.

“It might not feel fair for the family, and I am sorry for their loss,” he said. “But this is not at all like the case in Florida, other than they are both tragedies.”

So there is a story the Times thinks might have been news, and might yet become news, if their front page placement has the power it once did.

Meanwhile, you can look high and low in the Times for coverage of Summer Moody, a blond teenage girl shot and in a coma (and now reportedly dead) during a teen-age hijinks break-in of an empty fishing cabin. The three teens doing the burgling in have been charged; the shooters, one of whom fired a fatal "warning shot", have not.

And Matthew Owens, a white low-level thug beaten nearly to death by a "Justice for Trayvon" mob? That is so Not News the Times will never wonder why it is not news.

Let me help with the puzzle of what makes news. J-school grads don't dream of covering the local weather; every journalism school graduate longs to participate in any or all of three of the great stories of our nation's past. These earnest scriveners all hope to:

(a) be Woodward and/or Bernstein, breaking the web of deceit and unraveling the cover-up protecting the powerful. (In the current environment they don't want to end up working for Murdoch, so only Republicans get the full treatment; contrast Edwards and McCain in 2008).  

(b) report from the bridge at Selma, standing with Martin Luther King against Bull Connor.  Oh, to be young and a Freedom Rider, inveighing against White Oppression and Black Injustice!

or, (c) aid Daniel Ellsberg and publish the Truth that ends the Unjust War.

It really is that simple - any story that has the potential to be mashed into one of those templates will have the actual facts trimmed to size. The Duke Lacrosse debacle was such a great parable of White Oppression and Black Helplessness that actual facts didn't intrude on Times reporting for months.

And after a brief attitudinal speed-bump following 9/11 the Times was declaring a quagmire in Afghanistan in November 2011 and (Judith Miller notwithstanding) fully embraced its Vietnam flashbacks in Iraq.

And as a caveat, obviously certain political triggers can boost a story's importance - if the Times can find a gun control angle, boost the gay agenda, or promote abortion rights then a story is "news".

Matthew Owens fits no template the Times finds comfortable. Summer Moody fits their very long term gun control agenda, but rifles were employed and only the most ardent gun controller thinks we will be making "progress" there any time soon.

And obviously, their latest 'why isn't this news' story has them Freedom Riding again in the South. What kind of world are we living in when young black men can't smoke dope in an old white guys house, have sex with a fourteen year old, and beat the old guy up when he squawks? Mysterious. To the Times.

The Quick Red Fox Ran Away From The Energetic Cat...

I'll be darned - if I were as smart as my smartphone I would have some great nature footage.

A red fox wandered through my backyard and stopped about fifteen feet behind a back window, staring at my cat that was sitting in the lawn about forty feet to my left.

I went to the window to survey the action. After a few seconds the fox saw me and ran about thirty feet to my right, clearing a stone wall and heading into into the woods. Cat saved!  Uhh, cat saved? 

Not exactly. The cat sprinted the width of the yard, cleared the wall with one bound, and chased the fox into the woods. Lest you wonder, the fox had to be four times the size of the cat physically and I infer the fox had a favorable match-up mentally as well. If there is a Stand Your Ground law in the wilderness, the cat won't come back the very next day, or ever. I will find out sooner than that, I hope.

UPDATE: The cat is back and fine and didn't even make me march into the woods looking for her, so 'Connecticut Man Mauled By Fox' won't be your headline. Well, I had my daughter's field hockey stick handy; I preferred the balance and length over my tennis racket.

Bracing For An Obama Defeat On Arizona Immigration Law

The tide seems to be running against Team Obama in its challenge to the Arizona immigration law.

Since all Oama is worried but are the political implications, does an Administration defeat in June (a) fire up Hispanics to vote for the guy who makes quadrennial promises to focus on immigration reform without actually attempting to deliver anything, or (b) vote for the guy who might actually create jobs illegal immigrants can take?

I don't know.

STRAY THOUGHT: Team Obama figured in January 2009 that even if the economy took Pelosi over the falls in 2010 (it did!) it would be recovering enough by 2012 to give Obama eight years, just like Bill Clinton.  Hence the instant pivot to burnishing his legacy with a health care bill that remains unpopular. Oops!

But if - IF!- Romney should win, he really ought to be in a position to inherit a potentially long boom, with Republicans running the House and Senate and sharing the credit. Dems ought to be nervous.  Of course, after the glorious effort under the mostly-undivided government of the early Bush years, the rest of us might be well to be concerned, too.

A fw years of cleanly divided government might not worry folks as much, which suggests a possible campaign slogan for Obama - Every Village Needs An Idiot. Ahh, maybe not. How about "One Clown Left Behind"?

THIS IS WHAT TURNS PEOPLE ON? After three years of getting the slow jam from Obama we are supposed to get all excited because he added Jimmy Fallon to his act?

Dying Gets Easier With Practice

Hunter S. Thompson is shooting himself again, in his grave. 

An Arrest In The Mobile Beating

A black thug, Terry Rawls, has been arrested in the beating of Matthew Owens. An odd detail:

It was not the first time violence erupted between Rawls and Owens. Levy said the 2 traded racist epithets in July 2009 and that Rawls assaulted Owens. While a witness initially told police that Rawls had used a baseball bat, Levy said the suspect denied that, insisting he had only used his hands. The witness later said he could not be sure a bat was used, Levy said. 

At any rate, Levy said, the District Attorney’s Office reduced the charge to third-degree assault and dropped it when Owens declined to pursue it. 

Is it a hate crime?

[Police spokeperson]Levy [said] police have set up a meeting to present information about the incident to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which have jurisdiction over federal hate crimes. But Levy reiterated today that police are convicted that the Martin case did not motivate Saturday’s incident. Instead, he said, the assault resulted from long-simmering bad blood between Owens and Rawls. 

I'm not sure it is a hate crime, partly because I am not sure what constitutes a hate crime (other than political incorrectness or a current fad). I don't think this mob was looking for any random white person to whom they could deliver a beating; they picked Owens for other reasons. OTOH, I don't think he would have gotten that beating if he were black.

I am a lot more confident in saying that Eric Holder's people won't see a hate crime here.

I Almost Preferred No Explanation...

NBC6 Miami rolls in the fog machine and delivers a cryptic "explanation" that provokes more questions than it answers:

NBC6 Zimmerman Edit Explanation

On March 19 NBC6 ran a story on the phone call George Zimmerman made in connection with the Trayvon Martin case. In that story an error in editorial judgment was made in which a question from the operator was deleted which could have created the impression that Mr. Zimmerman’s statement may have been singling out Trayvon Martin because of his race. We take this incident very seriously and apologize to our viewers. After conducting an extensive investigation, we are putting a more stringent editorial process in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

First, why now?  The incident took place more than a month ago, the media "watchdogs" are ignoring this - what prompted this explanation now? My *guess* is that Matthew Sheffield of NewsBusters scored a hit with his story earlier today naming names and blaming NBC6 for the misleading edit that eventually ran at the Today Show and, with no media mention, on NBC News.

Was the story in question on-air, on the website, or both? Critics have been flagging three NBC6 Miami stories from the website that contained the problematic edit. Was there also bad video? Matt Sheffield says there was.

The website articles with the misleading edit were "corrected" without explanation on April 9, after online critics pointed them out on April 8.  Did it take another two weeks of careful investigation for NBC6 to realize they had in fact made these mysterious corrections?

And how in the world does this relate to the use of the same misleading edit twice on the 'Today Show', on March 22 (discovered by Blue Team truthseeker Jeralyn Merritt) and March 27? An NBC producer was fired for that - are we meant to believe that NBC6 independently had the same brain-lock? Or, if the misleading edit aired first in Miami and then went national, was it a Miami producer that took the fall?  

The current "explanation" explains nothing. We look forward to the unmysterious incident of the media watchdogs in the night.

NAMING NAMES: Matt Sheffield pegs Jeff Burnside as the NBC6 fall guy.  Mr. Burnside had a byline on one of the three misleading NBC6 stories and was named in the InstaPundit post from April 8.

Trayvon Martin Shooting - If Only Obama Had Intervened Sooner

Jiminy - Reuters has a long profile of George Zimmerman and we learn in the lead that he got his gun permit and gun because a neighbor wouldn't control his large, menacing pit bull:

(Reuters) - A pit bull named Big Boi began menacing George and Shellie Zimmerman in the fall of 2009.

The first time the dog ran free and cornered Shellie in their gated community in Sanford, Florida, George called the owner to complain. The second time, Big Boi frightened his mother-in-law's dog. Zimmerman called Seminole County Animal Services and bought pepper spray. The third time he saw the dog on the loose, he called again. An officer came to the house, county records show.

"Don't use pepper spray," he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. "It'll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to jump you," he said.

"Get a gun."

That November, the Zimmermans completed firearms training at a local lodge and received concealed-weapons gun permits. In early December, another source close to them told Reuters, the couple bought a pair of guns. George picked a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun, a popular, lightweight weapon.

Oh, man - if only the First Dog Diner had been around in September 2009.  We can hear him now - "If I had a dog it would look like Big Boi and Big Boi would look like dinner."

The real juice in the story is a bit later, where Reuters describes the crime wave that had vexed the Retreat at Twin Lakes. Two snippets:

Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.

"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."

And one of the burglaries was unusually upsetting:

At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.

...

But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse.

On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, and called a police dispatcher, whispering frantically.

"I said, 'What am I supposed to do? I hear them coming up the stairs!'" she told Reuters. Bertalan tried to coo her crying child into silence and armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors.

Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. Shellie Zimmerman saw a black male teen running through her backyard and reported it to police.

After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open.

"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said last week. "We didn't really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week."

I guess he didn't come off as an annoying contol freak at that moment.

This is the second recent 'new perspective' story from Reuters. Obviously, this might have been more helpful in easing our national blood pressure had it been run last March, but hey.

I will add that I read about the home invasion back when the City of Sanford had more of their police reports online. The prosecutor asked to have them taken down; they live online, but where? In the Google Cache, of course, and now also here: TwinLakesBurglaryReports; the home invasion is p. 13.

The Tampa Bay Times wrote about a neighborhood in transition battered by falling home prices and crime back on March 25. I do not think the Tampa Bay Times crime stat jibes with the Reuters numbers, but here we go:

For the first two months of this year, at the Retreat at Twin Lakes, the Sanford police logged 51 calls for service. Half were just people requesting information. The others included eight burglaries, two bike thefts and three simple assaults.

UPDATE: Here is the Miami Herald from March 17, with help from DizzyMissL:

The answer may lie in police records, which show that 50 suspicious-person reports were called in to police in the past year at Twin Lakes. There were eight burglaries, nine thefts and one other shooting in the year prior to Trayvon’s death.

In all, police had been called to the 260-unit complex 402 times from Jan. 1, 2011 to Feb. 26, 2012.

One And A Half Leaders

Over to Bill.

Headlines And Punchlines

The LA Times gives us pause for reflection with this:

Obama emphasizes new aspects of life story

Like the time he didn't eat a cat?

From The Pews Of Jeremiah Wright's Church...

Michelle speaks:

First lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday urged a group of young girls to “stay away from the haters.”

 “There’s always going to be haters out there. Don’t focus on that,” she said. “Put the negative things aside, because that’s always going to be there.”

Well, they haven't been taking their own kid to listen to Jeremiah Wright since they moved to Washington. But that hardly explains the choices she and her hubby made.

My guess is that her focus is on white haters.

Book 'Em

Arrests expected today in Mobile mob beating.  The Ace has lots.

UPDATE 2:

MOBILE, Alabama -- Wednesday 12:45 a.m.
Mobile police did not make an arrest before the end of the day as they expected. But police are in the process of serving warrants.

Neighbors say Matthew Owens chased off a group of black kids with kitchen knives after the boys lost a basketball in his sister's yard.

UPDATE: No arrests as of 8:35 PM but

Mobile police tell News 5 they still hope to make an arrest in the Matthew Owens case before the end of the night.

From watching some of the video clips I infer that Mr. Owens dropped the "N" bomb on a group of kids playing basketball, and has done so regularly. In one clip (the Lauren Vargas' live shot) we are told that Mr. Owens is "bipolar" and "he drinks" by "a black woman who lives on the street", eventually identified as Lemica Whisenhunt. Owens also has a history of, or with, violence - details are below, but in three incidents since 2009 a black man hit him with a bat, a black man punched him in the face, and he punched a white man in the face. Sounds like Owens is a one man EEOC of idiocy. [But over to a late update from WKRG:

The Mobile County Metro Jail log shows police have arrested Owens numerous times over the past 12 years for things like domestic violence, assault and sex abuse. His first arrest was November 4, 1990 for assault. The last time officers transported Owens to jail was last March on a domestic violence charge.

Regardless of what happened Saturday night leading up to the beating, police and most people would agree that it is not an excuse to put Owens in the ICU.]

Count us among the 'most'.

Also one kid (maybe ten years old?) claims that Mr. Owen was swinging a knife and cut his forearm.  The camerman did not zoom in for a close-up, which either means he won't be getting a Pulitzer Prize for his work anytime soon, or else he didn't actually see anything on the kid's arm.

This article has a bit of a misquote from an Ms. Whisenhut, an angry black mom:

Tonight, an angry mother who lives on the street told News 5's Blake Brown that the kids who live on Delmar Drive are the real victims.

"Every single day it's a problem with Mr. Owens concerning our kids," Lemica Whisenhunt. "All these kids do is shoot basketball. We keep 'em in the yard. They don't bother anybody.  We'd rather them play basketball than to be around here vandalizing, breaking into people's homes. We try to bring our kids up the right way and show people that all black kids are not bad."

"All black kids are not bad"? Racist! She corrected herself midway through that sentence; it should read "...and show people our black kids are not bad.. I don't think no black kids are bad."

We wish her Good Parenting Guide had a section on mob violence and the inadvisability thereof. As to the notion that kids can either play basketball or vandalize homes, I had no idea Mobile was so limited in its opportunities.

OWENS WAS TROUBLE, OR TROUBLED: From Brendan Kirby of the Press-Register:

Records from Mobile County Metro Jail show that Owens has been arrested numerous times. [Cpl. Christopher Levy, a spokesman for the Police Department] detailed 3 violent confrontations he has been involved in since 2009.

In July of that year, Levy said, police took a report that someone hit Owens with a baseball bat [This was Terry Rawls, arrested for the recent beating]. At that time witnesses told police that Owens yelled racial slurs and threats at a black man in the neighborhood. No one was charged in that incident, Levy said.

Parker said his brother-in-law was walking peacefully down the street at the time and that he was talking to himself but that assailant thought he was talking to him.

In an Oct. 29 incident, police said, a black man walking up the street asking for cigarettes eventually stopped at Owens’ home. An apparent disagreement ensued, and the man hit Owens in the face, police said.

Then on Dec. 16, Levy said, Owens was accused of fracturing the nose of a 53-yer-old white man after an argument.

FWIW, there are reportedly two witnesses to the "Justice for Trayvon" shouting - Owens' sister and a white neighbor.

ERRATA: Weapons included "brass buckles" not "brass kuckles". Here is the Daily News getting it wrong, with a cite:

Matthew Owens is in critical condition he was attacked at his home in Mobile by a group wielding chairs, pipes, paint cans and brass knuckles, according to WKRG.

Over to WKRG:

Owens was beaten Saturday night in front of his home on Delmar Drive. Witnesses, including Owens sister, say 20 black people attacked Owens with pipes, paint cans and chairs...

Big Skip and

Owens' sister, Ashley Parker, saw the attack. "It was the scariest thing I have ever witnessed." Parker says 20 people, all African American, attacked her brother on the front porch of his home, using "brass buckles, paint cans and anything they could get their hands on."

It's the old 'take your belt off and beat someone with the buckle' trick. People grabbing paint cans and chairs are using improvised weapons.

Here is Andy Campbell of the HuffPo getting it wrong:

Cops told WKRG that Matthew Owens got in an argument with some kids playing basketball at a court in the city of Mobile on Saturday night. The kids left and a group of some 20 adults arrived at Owens' front doorstep, armed with chairs, brass knuckles, pipes and paint cans.

I infer that Mr. Campbell never read 'Battle Cry' by Leon Uris, where I first encountered the brass buckle ploy.

The Look That Times' Readers Are Looking For

Here is an unexpected front-pager from the NY Times:

New Fashion Wrinkle: Stylishly Hiding the Gun

By MATT RICHTEL

Woolrich, a 182-year-old clothing company, describes its new chino pants as an elegant and sturdy fashion statement, with a clean profile and fabric that provides comfort and flexibility.

And they are great for hiding a handgun.

The company has added a second pocket behind the traditional front pocket for a weapon. Or, for those who prefer to pack their gun in a holster, it can be tucked inside the stretchable waistband. The back pockets are also designed to help hide accessories, like a knife and a flashlight.

The chinos, which cost $65, are not for commandos, but rather, the company says, for the fashion-aware gun owner. And Woolrich has competition. Several clothing companies are following suit, building businesses around the sharp rise in people with permits to carry concealed weapons....

And they go one, seemingly straight-faced, as if Times readers don't lock up their children and avert their eye when the subject of guns is raised.

Well - something with generous pockets for my cell phone would be great.

Don't Underestimate The Power Of Allah

A little snark goes a long way.

Back To John Edwards

Donor intent may be the key to the Edwards case. Walter Shapiro of TNR explains:

Count Two in the indictment is much more straightforward—and, based on my reporting, potentially more hazardous for Edwards. This charge centers on the allegation that the candidate and his aide Andrew Young solicited and received $725,000 from nonagenarian philanthropist Bunny Mellon in 2007 and 2008, money that was used to cover up Edwards’s affair—and that exceeded the legal limit of $25,000 in aggregate campaign contributions per election cycle.

Up to now, the pre-trial coverage has assumed that Mellon, like Baron, was intent on helping Edwards cover up his philandering. But the trial will raise the strong possibility—and you will have to trust me on the sourcing for this—that the then-97-year-old socialite was as ignorant of the existence of Rielle Hunter (or any other Other Woman) as any Democratic voter besotted with John Edwards. When she was asked for the money, delivered in seven installments beginning in June 2007, she apparently thought that she was donating in some round-robin fashion to the Edwards campaign, not covering up an affair.

I am out of ammunition on the vagaries of campaign finance law.

The Zimmerman Case: The Counter-Mob Forms

Mob justice is met with more mob justice:

Resignation of Police Chief in Martin Case Is Rejected

SANFORD, Fla. — Several hours after the city manager publicly announced that he had reached an agreement with Chief Bill R. Lee Jr. to resign over the Sanford Police Department’s handling of the Trayvon Martin shooting case, the City Commission voted late Monday afternoon to reject Chief Lee’s resignation.

Mayor Jeff Triplett was among the 3-to-2 majority of commissioners to vote “no confidence” in Chief Lee last month, prompting him to temporarily step aside. But during a special meeting Monday to consider Chief Lee’s future, Mr. Triplett was clearly conflicted amid a spirited debate punctuated with applause and standing ovations from backers of the chief in the audience.

In the end, Mr. Triplett voted in favor of Chief Lee’s remaining in the department, once again as part of a 3-to-2 majority. He said he wanted to review the reports of an independent investigation about the Police Department’s handling of the case before making a decision.

“I am not ready to have him come back and run the Police Department,” Mr. Triplett said. “But I am not ready for this either.”

He's ready to punt after a time-out.

I believe the Times missed a chance for a Sharpton shout-out in this passage:

Patty Mahany, a city commissioner who voted against the resignation agreement, praised Chief Lee during the debate, saying he was one of the finest law enforcement officials in Florida. “At least the city has taken a step back and a deep breath,” she said, insisting the firestorm around the case was driven by outsiders. She also said she wanted an independent review.

 

 

Circle The Damn Wagons And Move On (In A Circle...)

David Carr of the NY Times pretends to grill NBC President Steve Capus about the ghastly mis-edit of the Zimmerman 911 call.  The comic gold is this:

The clip was first broadcast on March 22, but no one noticed until it was rebroadcast on March 27. Later, when word of the misleading edit got out, everyone from Sean Hannity to Jon Stewart reacted with disbelief, with good reason.

Some went on to draw a line from NBC to MSNBC and its aggressive coverage of the incident and then on to the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has tried — awkwardly and unsuccessfully — to tread the line between talk show host and advocate.

People I talked to in and around NBC say it was idiocy, not ideology, that led to the edit, and that seems like a reasonable explanation, so I’m not buying that part about it being one more example of the liberal plot to subvert America.

The NY Times doesn't see any liberal bias in the media?  We look forward to their hard-hitting look at whether fish feel wet.

Mr. Carr provides lots of this and that about not much, and absolutely ZERO on the fact that NBC Miami, a wholly owned affiliate, ran three text stories on their website from March 19/20 with the misleading edit. Just as the Today Show cited time constraints, I have no doubt that NBC Miami would cite a pixel contraint, if anyone ever asked them about it.

Of course, asking them now is trickier - online critics flagged the stories on April 8, and by April 9 NBC Miami had re-edited them without explanation, investigation or apology.

I smell cover-up; the NY Times smells like those fish they are covering.

The navel gazing and thumb sucking is captured at Media Gazer - people bloviate about the right way to run a correction while ignoring the utter cover-up at NBC Miami.

So now they can all pretend they did their due diligence and on move on.  "NBC? We covered that."  Sure they did.

PUZZLER'S DELIGHT: We learn that MSNBC has a corrections page! Here they expound on the TODAY mistake:

The TODAY show broadcast truncated a portion of George Zimmerman’s conversation with a police dispatcher, and that truncated interview appeared on TODAY.com and msnbc.com. The video was removed from the site on March 30, as NBC News launched an internal investigation. On April 3, NBC News issued this statement: “During our investigation it became evident that there was an error made in the production process that we deeply regret. We will be taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future and apologize to our viewers.”

Well that's clear!  Other than omitting the dates the error was broadcast, just for starters.

DOCUMENT DUMP: Fox Orlando links to the newly released court filings. The OS outlines the upcoming calendar.

Trayvon Martin Case - A Partially Parallel Shooting In Alabama

Reality generally does not provide the sort of parallel situations that would satisfy the rigors of social science.  However, let's go to Alabama for a shooting case from April 15 with many similarities to the Trayvon Martin shooting.

A local newspaper is covering the story diligently; their index is here.

The gist:

BAY MINETTE, Alabama -- Men at a fish camp on Gravine Island shouted and fired warning shots to stop intruders captured in their spotlight during what their lawyer described as an early Sunday morning break-in at a neighboring camp.

The five-minute encounter with the four teens has led to nightmarish consequences, according to the lawyer, Tom Dassinger of Daphne.

One of the four teens, Summer Moody, is a blond girl's volleyball star. She was shot in the head by either a .22 or a .17 caliber rifle and remains in critical condition with a grim prognosis.

The other three teens were arrested and jailed for attempted burglary; for the benefit of non-link clickers, all are white. One has subsequently posted bail.

The three men who did the shooting have been questioned but not arrested. Two have had previous run-ins with the law. Their race is not mentioned, but I am guessing white, based on I don't know what.

Before we dive into more details, let's make a few points almost at random:

1 - Blond women are normally media catnip, at least when they encounter trouble in Aruba.

2 - It took three weeks for the Trayvon Martin story to break nationally with the release of the 911 tapes; this story may yet find its legs.

3 - Weighing against this story: Zimmerman had a pistol and a concealed carry permit; the weapon used here was a rifle.  Gun controllers don't have sporting rifles on their rader.

4 - Alabama does have something like the castle doctrine for self-defense, so the NY Times can inveigh against that.  However, these shooting fools were defending their neighbors property, so their legal stand is a bit more dubious (sorry, that is in the details).

5 - As to the notion from Florida that the shooter would have been jailed on Day One if Martin had been a white teenager and Zimmerman a black shooter: the Alabama case seems to provide at least a half-answer, since the shooters haven't been jailed.  Yet.

6 - Unlike Trayvon Martin, the teens here were pretty clearly guilty of something. The shooters had probable cause to investigate, whereas Zimmerman's initial interest in Martin is problematic (but not inexplicable; the community had had a rash of break-ins and Martin may have been skipping under covered patios to avoid the rain.)

The details may be troublesome for anyone with a blood pressure problem; this comes from an attorney for the shooters:

On Sunday, in the early morning darkness, the [three] couples who had gone there for the weekend were asleep in their camp house when the generator malfunctioned, shutting off the air conditioning, according to Dassinger.

"Someone got up to fix it, and it happened again, so things were quiet while they were working on it and someone heard a boat motor. Later they heard crashes and people talking. So eventually the men got in a boat and went over," he said.

Dassinger said that the three men had a spotlight, a .22-caliber rifle and a .17-caliber rifle. When they shined the light toward the camp where the noises were coming from, "they saw what they thought were grown men that turned out to be teenagers," he said.

The men yelled at the intruders to stop, but they scattered instead. The men then fired two warning shots, trying "to get them to stop" until law officers could be summoned, Dassinger said.

The men returned to their boat and headed away to alert officers only to hear a young man shouting.

"One of the teens, Summer Moody’s boyfriend, came out carrying Summer to the dock and was screaming for help. The men turned around and went back to help," Dassinger said. They loaded her into their boat and headed for Cloverleaf Landing, across the Tensaw River.

Dassinger said that one of the men "was holding her head and she was bleeding all over, they are trying to get her to talk and raise her hand. This was a nightmare. The events that unfolded couldn’t have gone more wrong. It was the worst case of Murphy’s Law. But what do you do if you are out there?"

Dassinger said the other two teens "split" from the scene.

"I think her boyfriend stayed at the dock and maybe his friends came back and picked him up later," he said.

He described the situation as anguishing for his client and the others who were on the island. "But how can you say they did anything wrong? What do you say to Summer’s family?"

What did they do wrong? Seriously?

Let's start with, if you fire a warning shot, at least try to hit the sky - that would be the dark emptiness over the shooter's head, not the enclosed emptiness inside his still-intact skull. And if the suspects kept running, was gunning down a bunch of scattering kids or adults with a .22 really the plan?

Using deadly force in response to people running away - I can't wait to hear what self-defense doctrine applies there. Maybe a Bizzaro World Duty To Prevent Retreat? [Hmm, it might be permissible use of force in defense of property; see STATUTES below.)

The property owner did find some unclaimed weapons at his cabin:

BAY MINETTE, Alabama --

The owner of one of the two fishing camps burglarized on Gravine Island said the door to his house was kicked in, windows broken and power tools were stolen.

“When we pulled up to the dock, I was in shock,” said Steve Stagner, who arrived on the island Sunday morning not knowing about the burglary and shooting that took place hours earlier.

A second house was also burglarized and a screen around the porch was cut, Stagner said. “We had to sit on the dock for hours” while investigators collected evidence.

A knife was found on the porch, and Stagner also saw a gun lying on the dock. “It looked like a rifle,” he said.

The charges against the three teens were upgraded because they allegedly had a .22 with them. If the shooters want to claim they saw a gun pointed at themselves (they don't seem to be), that would be something to consider.  A knife in the context described is meaningless.

Something I don't know is whether this community has had a rash of break-ins and whether these three teens have earned a reputation as local thugs. I have had some recent experience with that in Vermont, and sometimes the arrest you read about is just the culmination of a lot of earlier problems. We read that authorities are attempting to link these three to a prior incident and expect further charges.

That said, the court record does not seem to explain the $100,000 bail:

Court records show all three suspects had multiple traffic citations in recent years, including speeding, no insurance, no seat belts and driving with suspended licenses. Byrd was charged with failure to appear in court earlier this year, records show.

Both Parnell and Byrd were placed in their fathers’ custody as young children, with case files from 2003 indicating that Parnell’s mother was involved with illegal drugs. Byrd’s mother lost custody and was placed under a restraining order in 2004, court records show.

If I had to speculate (and what are the odds that I won't?) I would wonder about drugs in the backwoods. There might be a backstory here that explains what looks like a high bail for breaking into a couple of empty cabins.

As to the odds of Al Sharpton flying to Alabama to weigh in, or MSNBC going 24/7 after this - unlikely.

STATUTES: Here are the Alabama statutes on self-defense and the use of force; I will emphasize the part that may be keeping these shooters out of jail:

Code of Alabama - Title 13A: Criminal Code - Section 13A-3-23 - Use of force in defense of a person

Section 13A-3-23 - Use of force in defense of a person.

(a) A person is justified in using physical force upon another person in order to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by that other person, and he or she may use a degree of force which he or she reasonably believes to be necessary for the purpose. A person may use deadly physical force, and is legally presumed to be justified in using deadly physical force in self-defense or the defense of another person pursuant to subdivision (4), if the person reasonably believes that another person is:

(1) Using or about to use unlawful deadly physical force.

(2) Using or about to use physical force against an occupant of a dwelling while committing or attempting to commit a burglary of such dwelling.

(3) Committing or about to commit a kidnapping in any degree, assault in the first or second degree, burglary in any degree, robbery in any degree, forcible rape, or forcible sodomy.

(4) In the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or has unlawfully and forcefully entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or federally licensed nuclear power facility, or is in the process of sabotaging or attempting to sabotage a federally licensed nuclear power facility, or is attempting to remove, or has forcefully removed, a person against his or her will from any dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle when the person has a legal right to be there, and provided that the person using the deadly physical force knows or has reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act is occurring. The legal presumption that a person using deadly physical force is justified to do so pursuant to this subdivision does not apply if...

I feel like I must be misreading that, because the shooters had no apparent thought of defending themselves, which makes me question the applicability of a section titled "Use of force in defense of a person".

But as I read it, I can imagine it meaning that shooting in defense of a home in order to stop a burgalry in progress is acceptable, even if their is no "self" in the self-defense. Even an unoccupied neighbor's home?  Well, did they know it was unoccupied, and does it matter legally? Over to the lawyers!

Pressing on to a section on defense of premises:

Section 13A-3-25 - Use of force in defense of premises.

(a) A person in lawful possession or control of premises, as defined in Section 13A-3-20, or a person who is licensed or privileged to be thereon, may use physical force upon another person when and to the extent that he reasonably believes it necessary to prevent or terminate what he reasonably believes to be the commission or attempted commission of a criminal trespass by the other person in or upon such premises.

(b) A person may use deadly physical force under the circumstances set forth in subsection (a) of this section only:

(1) In defense of a person, as provided in Section 13A-3-23; or

(2) When he reasonably believes it necessary to prevent the commission of arson in the first or second degree by the trespasser.

Maybe the shooters were qualified to be at the other site? Even if they were, deadly force was not in play.

No help here (I omit everything related to peace officers):

Section 13A-3-27 - Use of force in making an arrest or preventing an escape.

(g) A private person acting on his own account is justified in using physical force upon another person when and to the extent that he reasonably believes it necessary to effect an arrest or to prevent the escape from custody of an arrested person whom he reasonably believes has committed a felony and who in fact has committed that felony, but he is justified in using deadly physical force for the purpose only when he reasonably believes it necessary to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical force.

That is not the story they are telling.

Well, I am convinced that the section of defense of premises does not help the shooters but I seem to believe that the section on the defense of other people's property gives them greater latitude. Yes, I recognize that makes no sense.  Either I am wrong about the self-defense section (the money bet) or the legislative history was such that an expansion of the protect-your-property rights got buried in the "self-defense" section. The notes at the bottom do suggest to my untrained eye that the self-defense section was modified in 2006, later than the other sections, which is when Alabama adopted "Stand Your Ground". Well, if these shooters were standing their ground something is deeply amiss. And if I end up on the same side of this as the NY Times editors, well, yike. Let's just hope they are as grim-faced about the prosepect as I am.

WHY NO ARREST? Maybe there has been no arrest because the DA is waiting for clarity and hoping he won't be charging a homicide.

Zimmerman And Koch

John Hinderaker of Powerline has a bad news/bad news post indicating that the insanity of our national media has taken a quantum leap upwards.

I wrote here about MSNBC’s campaign to tie the Koch brothers to George Zimmerman’s shooting of Trayvon Martin. That effort was, it is fair to say, insane, but it apparently inspired one or more liberals to take MSNBC’s theories a step farther. Someone wrote–I think it was on Facebook–that Koch Industries had paid for Zimmerman’s legal defense and/or put up his bail money. Other liberals happily repeated the claim, to the point where Snopes deemed it a rumor worth addressing.

The bad news is that CBS News wanted to recycle that allegation; the good news is that they troubled themselves to check with Koch Industries, leading to an email exchange reproduced by John.

His close:

Do you think that if I started an analogous, equally groundless rumor about Barack Obama on my Facebook page, CBS News would be on the phone to the White House, looking for confirmation so they can use my rumor in their broadcast? No, I don’t think so either.

That suggests an interesting question - does anyone have recent (or not-so-recent) examples of rumors that emerged from the right and eventually went mainstream?

Off-hand, the Swift-boating of Kerry percolated for months before it caught fire.  Jeremiah Wright was mentioned (by the Times!) a year before he became a national issue (at which point the Times went into the tank), and one might argue that it was only to resuscitate Team Hillary that Wright eventually got traction. Bill Ayers has received petulant, 'we're sorry to sully ourselves by reporting it and you by presenting it' coverage at best.

Is there anything from the right the media really leaped on with gusto? [A clarification - the PowerChallenge clearly speculated about "an analogous, equally groundless rumor"; the example sI suggested are hardly groundless, so I was making the gloomier point that even rumors with a good foundation get ignored.]

HOW SOON THEY FORGET!  myiq2xu and his memory is exponentially better as well - Anthony's weiner.

A CAUTIONARY TALE: Here is a minor example contradicting John - the lesson is that the media loves daffy right wing rumors it can easily debunk. Its the grounded ones that can't find traction.

Metaphor Near-Misses

Keith Olbermann grieves us greatly with his beef about the current campaign:

After a week of dog-eat-dog politicking between President Obama and Mitt Romney’s respective campaigns, Keith Olbermann said today that the “dog-gate” controversies have gotten out of hand.

“It raises the level of absurdity to something exponential,” Olbermann said on “This Week” about the Romney campaign criticizing Obama for consuming dog meat when he was 6 years old.

“With so many valuable questions going on, we’re wasting most of the time dealing with the dogs,” the former MSNBC and CurrentTV host said.

Increases the absuridty to "something exponential"?  Darn, I wish he had said that absurdity had taken a quantum leap so I could pedantically point out that a "quantum leap" is actually the smallest... oh, forget it. What exponent did he have in mind?  Knowing Olbermann's raving ego I would assume he is referring to the Power of One, but given his current paycheck maybe he meant the Power of Zero; neither exponent is especially fearsome, if in fact we fear absurdity at all.

The other George, Will, rode to the rescue, sparing me the trouble of trying to spell 'Stepanopol..." oh, forget that, too:

“The horse race is over, and the sugar rush that the media got from that is gone, and therefore they’re looking for something to keep their mind off, I guess, big questions,” Will said during the “This Week” roundtable.

The horse race is over and the dog racing has begun. Not locally, natch - the nation is headed back to Florida.

 

Tracking Obama's Emotions

Two of the following headlines have flickered by recently and one is merely the product of my wishful thinking.  Can YOU spot the imaginary headline?

(a) Obama: "I'll be angry" if Secret Service scandal is true

(b) Obama 'apoplectic' about GSA scandal

(c) Obama 'catatonic' about Fast & Furious death, cover-up

 

Let Me Knock This Down

Classical Values posts some clever sleuthing with respect to the Martin family cell phone bill, but I score it as No Sale.  The gist:

stobberdobber

Guess what I just noticed?? The phone logs state that “The date and time for all call correspond to Pacific Time (PSD/PDT). !!!!!!!

Which means the 7:12 PM phone call from Trayvon Martin's girlfriend was made at... 10:12 PM Eastern?  Really?

No.  I found this at a T-Mobile support site - since they don't have time-of-day pricing for text they don't track it the same way they track calls.

There seems to be a bug in the MyTmobile website.  When I log in and look at calls I notice the calls reflect calls made in EDT, while Data information seems to be based on PDT.  At the bottom of both pages are statements that the dates/times reflected are in Pacific time.  As a reference for the call I used a call from my wife and it reflected EDT (which is where I am), however when I purposely did a large data download it was reflected in Pacific time.  Anyone else notice this behavior when they log into their My Tmobile site?

Correct Answer by smplyunprdctble  on Mar 20, 2012 7:52 AM

It's been like that for a while, Josh.

I was told by another T-Mobile person it's because calls are translated to local time zone of where they're made because of billing purposes, but data & texts don't have different prices for peak and off-peak.

Hey, not every idea works out.

Foolish Though It Is To Gloat In April...

I will be an April fool - if Red Sox fans are finding their normal window ledges to be too crowded, let me offer some leaping room. Don't mind the Ranger fans.

FWIW: Eerily prescient Yankee broadcasters John Sterling and Susan Waldman mentoned both of these games when the Yankees trailed 7-0. FanGraphs shows both teams flatlining at different points.

CYA, Or Manning The Lifeboats?

Arthur Brisbane, the Public Apologit for the NY Times, assures us that the "All The News That Fits The Narrative" orgnization is poised to take a "hard look" at the President:

Now, though, the general election season is on, and The Times needs to offer an aggressive look at the president’s record, policy promises and campaign operation to answer the question: Who is the real Barack Obama?

Many critics view The Times as constitutionally unable to address the election in an unbiased fashion. Like a lot of America, it basked a bit in the warm glow of Mr. Obama’s election in 2008. The company published a book about the country’s first African-American president, “Obama: The Historic Journey.” The Times also published a lengthy portrait of him in its Times Topics section on NYTimes.com, yet there’s nothing of the kind about George W. Bush or his father.

Uhh, yeah.

According to a study by the media scholars Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter, The Times’s coverage of the president’s first year in office was significantly more favorable than its first-year coverage of three predecessors who also brought a new party to power in the White House: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.

Writing for the periodical Politics & Policy, the authors were so struck by the findings that they wondered, “Did The Times, perhaps in response to the aggressive efforts by Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal to seize market share, decide to tilt more to the left than it had in the past?”

Oh say it ain't so, Arthur!

I strongly doubt that.

Thank you. To be fair, that would imply the Times organization actually had a strategy and was capable of executing it. But on with the pre-apologia:

Based on conversations with Times reporters and editors who cover the campaign and Washington, I think they see themselves as aggressive journalists who don’t play favorites. Still, a strong current of skepticism holds that the paper skews left. Unfortunately, this is exacerbated by collateral factors — for example, political views that creep into nonpolitical coverage.

To illustrate, Faye Farrington, a reader from Hollis, N.H., wrote me earlier this year in exasperation over a Sunday magazine article about “Downton Abbey,” the public television series, in which the writer slipped in a veiled complaint about Mitt Romney’s exploitation of the American tax code.

“The constant insertion of liberal politics into even the most politically irrelevant articles has already caused us to cancel our daily subscription,” Ms. Farrington wrote, “leaving only the Sunday delivery as I confess to an addiction to the Sunday crossword.”

The dining section, the food, the movies and plays - all politicized. But not the reporting!

The warm afterglow of Mr. Obama’s election, the collateral effects of liberal-minded feature writers — these can be overcome by hard-nosed, unbiased political reporting now.

As plans go, "hard-nosed, unbiased political reporting" could change their reputation. Or waiting for pigs to fly out of my... well, let's say, there are a variety of approaches that might turn the perception that the Times has slanted left for decades.

Mr. Brisbane turns to the news desk for reassurance:

I asked Richard Stevenson, the political editor overseeing campaign coverage, about these matters, and he offered a detailed e-mail response, noting that “we take very seriously our responsibility to report without favoritism.”

He added, “We remind ourselves every day of the need to provide readers — voters — with as much news, information and context as possible about the candidates, their records, their characters, their positions and the influences on them, including their campaign donors.”

Yeah, yeah.  We'll see ya in November.

AFTER THAT INTRO: Jackie Calmes looks at Obama's use of Air Force One; this is a great article for April, when only the poli-junkies care; come October the Times will be dropping bombs on Romney on a daily basis, but they will claim that over the full year their coverage was balanced. And Ms. Calmes closing point - Reagan did it too! - will hardly elevate this bowl of mush to the hard-hitting Hall of Fame.

 

Zimmerman - Dated, Misinformed Absurdity From The Daily Beast

Glenn Reynolds links to Bob Owens discussing this dated, misinformed absurdity from Mansfield Frazier of the Daily Beast.

Mr. Frazier's theme:

Trial of George Zimmerman Could Trigger Another Rodney King

Since we don't want race riots and we can't expect the media, including Daily Beast columnists, to cover this accurately and responsibly, Zimmerman needs to accept a plea deal:

So what would a fair outcome look like? To my mind, the government offers Zimmerman a plea deal that has him back on the street within this decade, and he accepts it quietly. That seems like a conclusion most reasonable Americans could live with. Of course, no matter how long or short any sentence may be, there will be those who disagree, some vehemently.

"Most reasonable American" could live with that?  Mr. Frazier won't be spening time in jail over this, nor will I. I think the question is, what could Zimmerman live with, and what rights does he have under the rule of law, rather than the rule of the media-misinformed mob?

If people sincerly embrace "innocent until proven guilty" and its concomitant notion that it is better to free ten guilty men than jail one innocent then this is not a difficult case at all.

I said the column is dated; this shrewd legal analysis preceded the bond hearing, where we learned that the state's witnesses include a person who saw on his/her window shades what we guess to be a White Hispanic shadow chasing a black shadow. Or maybe the opposite.  Strong stuff!

Will it be strong enough to offset the state investigator's admission that they have no evidence to contradict Zimmerman's claim that he was walking back to his truck when Martin started the fight?  We will all find out together.

As to 'misinformed", Bob Owens took on Mr. Frazier's concerns about neo-Nazis patrolling the streets of Sanford, but he gave Mr. Frazier a pass on this comic gem

The wild card is his father, Robert, who has so far sounded like a knee-jerk far-right ideologue. In a CBS interview he said, "I never foresaw so much hate coming from the president, the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP," and this was before Obama said anything about the case!

The CBS interview to which he links is dated Mar 29 and includes this text, which must have escaped Mr. Frazier's keen eye for facts:

George Zimmerman's father: "So much hate" coming from Obama

Amid continued controversy over the death of Trayvon Martin, the father of the man who shot Martin lamented what he called "so much hate" coming from all sides - including President Obama.

...Asked about the ongoing controversy surrounding the case, Mr. Obama last week called the event a tragedy and suggested he was sympathetic to suspicion that the shooting may have been racially motivated. "You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Mr. Obama said. Without ever mentioning Zimmerman, the president call on authorities to investigate "every aspect" of the incident.

Mr. Frazier must be the only person in America who thinks Obama was not addressing the Martin/Zimmerman case with those comments. As to what other Trayvon is in the news, well, I await enlightenment.

Mr. Frazier also seems to think a protracted, divisive trial ending in a hung jury and followed by more tirals is a likely outcome.  He overlooks the likelihood that this case will be tossed at the self-defense hearing which will precede the trial.

The defense strategy is to move this case off the front pages so tempers can cool and judges and prosecutors can follow the law rather than the howls of the mob.  We will see how that works.

And in the long run, Mr. Frazier's notion that the side with the bigger, angrier mob ought to prevail is utterly at odds with the original goals of the civil rights movement and unlikely to promote a better society for black Americans, who are still only about 12% of the population. Let's run the great quote from "A Man For All Seasons":

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Obviously the notion of equl justice under the law has not served the black community well throughout our history, especialy in the South.  But unless the hope of continued progress has been abandoned, improving our system of law seems like a better bet for minorities than abandoning it to media/mob rule.

 

Todd Zywicki, A Man For All Seasons

Prof. Zywicki expounds on the importance of maintaining the rule of (commercial) law in good times and especialy in bad.  His theses:

Upholding the Rule of Law in Season and out of Season

One common assertion arising from the onset and resolution of the 2008 financial crisis is the belief that it proves the purported need and propriety of the government acting in a swift and discretionary manner and not have its hands tied by the constraints of the rule of law.  Yet a close examination of the most recent crisis as well as those of the past reveals the exact opposite truth: adherence to the rule of law is actually more important during periods of economic crisis, both to restore short-term economic prosperity during the crisis as well as for the long-term systemic impact.

here are four reasons why this is so.  First, adherence to the rule of law is necessary for economic prosperity in general, but even moreso during economic crisis.  Second, adherence to the rule of law is necessary to restrain the opportunism of politicians and special interests that use the opportunity presented by the crisis to piggyback their own narrow interests, often with no relationship to the real problems.  Third, once discretion is unleashed during the crisis history tells us that the dissipation of the crisis does not promote a return to the rule of law—in fact, there is a “ratchet effect” of government discretion as the post-crisis period brings about a consolidation of governmental discretion rather than new limits on it.  And finally, the mere potential for discretionary action promotes moral hazard, thereby creating the conditions for still further rounds of intervention.  Thus, while little is lost in the short run by tying the government’s hands from discretion, more importantly the only way to promote long-term economic growth and preserve freedom in the long run, and to avoid precisely the circumstances that then justify future arbitrary government intervention is to constrain government discretion in the short-run.  Consider each in turn.

Read it all.

And now for some fierce right wing blogging - how the heck does he have that title and that theme and fail to weave in the best of many great quotes from "A Man For All Seasons"? AYFKM? (Ahh, nothing like a little fierce right-wing vitriol to get those blogging juices going...)

Here we go:

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Hmm - that would actually be more on point in response to this Daily Beast inanity about incarcerating George Zimmerman to keep the peace.

Well, our regularly scheduled vigorous vitriolic denunciations of this and that will resume shortly!  Gotta feed the cats...

Maybe He Could Have Tried "FUBAR"

Jeralyn Merritt, who defends people for a living, has had time to present her thoughts on the Zimmerman bond hearing. She has lots, but one key point - contrary to my impression, the state prosecutor probably had a plan; it just blew up.

And her review of the CNN transcript reveals this highlight:

O'MARA: Which means they met. I'm just curious with the word confronted and what evidence you have to support an affidavit... And I want to know your evidence to support the word confronted if you have any.
GILBREATH: Well, it's not that I have one. I probably could have used dirty words. 

Damn right. My emphasis, natch - as a live viewer, I am sure he said "thirty".

Saturday Morning!

Let's have a traditional 'Something must be happening in the world that is not Martin or Zimmerman' open thread.

Andrew Breitbart died of heart failure.

Obama's campaign fundraising has yet to be autopsied.

Zimmerman Bond Hearing - Media Reaction

Let's follow up our highlights and lowlights of the Zimmerman bond hearing with some media reaction. Here is the local paper, the Orlando Sentinel, which leads with the weak prosecution case:

George Zimmerman granted $150K bond, apologizes to Trayvon Martin's family

SANFORD — At a hearing that legal experts said exposed flaws in the state's case, the Trayvon Martin special prosecutor failed Friday to convince a judge that gunman George Zimmerman should stay locked up.

The judge set bond at $150,000, meaning Zimmerman could be freed from the Seminole County Jail in a few days.

Most revealing in the hearing, though, was testimony by prosecution Investigator Dale Gilbreath, a surprise witness for the defense.

He admitted under oath that authorities do not know who started the fight between Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, and Martin, the black 17-year-old whose death has spurred protests across the country.

Lawyers for Trayvon's family have insisted that Zimmerman tracked down and killed the Miami Gardens teenager because he was black.

But Zimmerman told police he fired in self-defense after Trayvon threw the first punch, knocked Zimmerman to the ground and then began pounding his head against a sidewalk.

In the courtroom, Gilbreath also testified that although the FBI has analyzed a voice heard screaming for help in the background of a 911 call, it has produced no meaningful results [who just wouldn't pipe down about that?].

Trayvon's family says the voice is that of their son. Zimmerman's family says it belongs to the defendant.

Michael Grieco, a defense attorney and former prosecutor for the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office, said it appeared Gilbreath "either was unprepared or, alternatively, didn't have a whole lot to hang his hat on" in terms of evidence.

"I expected a lot more from the state," Grieco said. Though others have cautioned that significant evidence is still forthcoming, Grieco said he's not so sure. "You don't usually hold back your evidence in these types of hearings."

A bit of a skip and then this:

A few new pieces of evidence did come out Friday.

How close, asked the judge, was the gun to the victim when it was fired?

So close, said Gilbreath, that there were burns on Trayvon's sweat shirt and skin.

Gilbreath also said the state had a witness who reported seeing the shadows of two people running, one chasing the other, but could not identify who they were.

Although Gilbreath offered little evidence Friday that portrayed Zimmerman as a murderer, he said he did have evidence proving him a liar.

The powder burns will be more important than the shadows. No testimony was offered as to which shadow was black and which White Hispanic.

Their coverage omits the revelations that the lead investigator had not gotten Zimmerman's medical records and could not contradict Zimmerman's claim that he followed the dispatcher's suggestion and was headed back to his car when he was attacked.

The NY Times leads with the apology and gets to this:

As part of his effort to win Mr. Zimmerman’s release on bond, Mr. O’Mara challenged the prosecution’s case, going through the state’s probable cause affidavit line by line, turning the bail hearing into what appeared to be a foretaste of the trial.

He aggressively questioned a state investigator, Dale Gilbreath, about the accusation that Mr. Zimmerman had racially profiled Mr. Martin, and he demanded to know what evidence the state had for the statement that “Zimmerman confronted Martin and a struggle ensued.”

“Do you know who started the fight?” Mr. O’Mara asked Mr. Gilbreath.

“Do I know?” Mr. Gilbreath said. “No.”

Mr. O’Mara then asked Mr. Gilbreath if the state had any evidence to contradict Mr. Zimmerman’s statement to the police that he had been making his way back to his car when he was punched by Mr. Martin. Mr. Zimmerman told investigators he shot Mr. Martin in self-defense after Mr. Martin banged his head on concrete, covered his nose and mouth and reached for his gun.

Mr. Gilbreath responded, “No.”

Here is the AP:

The hearing provided a few glimpses of the strengths — and weaknesses — in the case being built by prosecutors.

Dale Gilbreath, an investigator for the prosecution, testified that he does not know whether Martin or Zimmerman threw the first punch and that there is no evidence to disprove Zimmerman's contention he was walking back to his vehicle when confronted by Martin.

But Gilbreath also said Zimmerman's claim that Martin was slamming his head against the sidewalk just before he shot the teenager was "not consistent with the evidence we found." He gave no details.

That gives short shrift to the defense rebuttal attempt which produced this exchange as recorded by CNN:

COSTELLO: Back live to the bond hearing in Sanford, Florida. Mark O'Mara, who is George Zimmerman's attorney is doing another redirect of the state's attorney investigator. They're talking about what injuries George Zimmerman had to his head that night. Let's listen. 

GILBREATH: Managed to scoot away from the concrete sidewalk and that is at that point is when the shooting subsequently followed. That is not consistent with the evidence we found. 

O'MARA: The injuries seem to be consistent with his story, though, don't they? [ABC pic]

Dale; The injuries are consistent with a harder object striking the back of his head than his head was. 

O'MARA: Could that be cement? 

GILBREATH: Could be. 

O'MARA: Did you just say it was consistent or did you say it wasn't consistent? 

GILBREATH: I said it was.

I say the AP shortchanged us.

Reuters caught the apology but missed the flaws in the prosecution case.

NBC News, aided by NBC Miami and the AP, led with the apology and found this to say about the prosecution case:

Dale Gilbreath, the investigator, said he couldn't remember who came up with the use of the word "profiling" in the document.

Gilbreath added that Zimmerman had two lacerations on his head, which could have been caused by impact with cement.

Zimmerman claims self-defense in the shooting. ABC News says it has obtained an exclusive photo of the back of Zimmerman's head, which appears bloody and may help substantiate his claims.

ABC News spends a lot of time on their exclusive photo in a story I read as favorable to Zimmerman.  However, on the day in court they offer this on the prosecution fail:

In a dramatic moment during the hearing, a detective, under questioning from O'Mara, admitted that it has no clear evidence that Zimmerman attacked Trayvon Martin first.

I wonder if Mr. and Mrs. America will come away from the Elite media coverage realizing just how weak a case the prosecution seems to have.

The George Zimmerman Bail Hearing

Wow - some days chicken salad and some days Florida state prosecutor.

George Zimmerman will be released on bail, set at $150,000.  The prosecution had asked for $1 million, the defense for $15,000.

CNN has 1, 2, 3 transcripts. Here is the CNN live blog and the Guardian live blog. The single most interesting blog point I have seen made is here; I discuss it below, but you won't see me spoiling the surprise up here.

This was a ghastly opening day for Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda, who seemed unprepared and admitted as much:

"Mr. Gilbreath, I didn't know we were going to be trying the case, I'm going to add up -- I apologize."

Hello!  Maybe the prosecutor should have prepped himself by reading up on 'Arthur' hearings:

Jeff Weiner, a former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers who practices in Miami, said Zimmerman was not necessarily entitled to release on bail. He faces up to life in prison for second-degree murder, a crime for which suspects in Florida are not usually afforded bail.

But if Angela Corey, the special prosecutor assigned to the case, wants to oppose his release, she will have to preview at least some of the evidence the state has against Zimmerman in proceedings known in Florida as an Arthur hearing, Weiner said.

“The state has the burden of proof to go forward and convince the judge that proof of guilt is evident and that the presumption of guilt is great … That’s what this hearing is about,” Weiner said.

Well, maybe the prosecution got the wrong instructional video.

It's hard to pick the lowest of the low, but the darker moments for the prosecution included:

- The admission by co-lead investigator that he had not personally interviewed George Zimmerman;

- the admission that he had not requested Zimmerman's medical records from the hospital;

 - the admission that the state has no evidence to contradict Zimmerman's claim that, following the advice of the police dispatcher, he headed back to his car;

 - the admission that the state has no evidence to contradict Zimmerman's claim that Martin assaulted first.

 -  the admission that the investigtors have not been "given any insight" by the voice experts at the Orlando Sentinel and the FBI who attempted to identify the screams on the 911 tape (My 'told you so' moment).

Among the rays of light for the prosection was this:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE [de la Rionda]: And isn't it true that a lot of statements that he made do not make sense in terms of the injuries that he described. Did he not describe to the police that Mr. Martin had him on the ground and kept bashing his head on the concrete over and over and just physically beating him with his hands? 

GILBREATH: He has said that, yes. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And isn't it true that there is evidence that indicates that's not true? 

GILBREATH: Yes. 

So the beating may not have been as fierce as Zimmerman described, or believed. However, the defense returned to this point, regrettably during a CNN break:

COSTELLO: Back live to the bond hearing in Sanford, Florida. Mark O'Mara, who is George Zimmerman's attorney is doing another redirect of the state's attorney investigator. They're talking about what injuries George Zimmerman had to his head that night. Let's listen. 

GILBREATH: Managed to scoot away from the concrete sidewalk and that is at that point is when the shooting subsequently followed. That is not consistent with the evidence we found. 

O'MARA: The injuries seem to be consistent with his story, though, don't they? [ABC pic]

Dale; The injuries are consistent with a harder object striking the back of his head than his head was. 

O'MARA: Could that be cement? 

GILBREATH: Could be. 

O'MARA: Did you just say it was consistent or did you say it wasn't consistent? 

GILBREATH: I said it was. 

Not a bad cross.  The fact that some evidence points against Zimmerman's story does not mean that there is no evidence supporting it, as Mr. O'Mara demonstrated.

The prosecutor did offer this for a future "Great Moments In Cross Examination" video.  The topic was Zimmerman's belated apology to the Martin's parents:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did you wait so long to tell Mr. Martin and the victim's mother, the father and mother, why did you wait so long to tell them? 

ZIMMERMAN: I was told not to communicate with them. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ok. So even through your attorney, you didn't ask to do it right away? Your former attorneys or anything. 

ZIMMERMAN: I did ask them to express that to them. And they said that they were going to. 

Anybody can have a bad day.

NEVER BEEN IN A WEIGHT ROOM: Timothy Noah makes a possibly embarrassing admission about his own life style choices:

2.) Zimmerman "did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little bit younger than I am." This would appear to suggest that Zimmerman wouldn't have fired the gun had he known Martin was 17. He fired the gun believing Martin was perhaps 25 or 26 (Zimmerman is 28.). The assumption, I guess, is that a 25 year-old is stronger or likelier to be carrying a gun or in some other way more potentially dangerous than a 17 year-old. There's no reason I'm aware of to believe that should be so. Zimmerman thereby confirms that he's a guy who leaps to conclusions.

I need help here - is there any sport where 17 year old males have an edge over older, stronger, more experienced 25 year olds?  Riding, maybe?  I'm stumped. (Yes, it's different for the young women, especially in gymnastics where puberty can be  killer. For guys, puberty is muscle-up time... geez, am I explaining the birds and the bees to TNR writers?)

In any case, if Martin's age is irrelevant, why is he referred to as a child all the time? In the court of public opinion, his age matters, and if Mr. Noah thinks that apology was addressed exclusively to the people inside the courtroom, well, my goodness.

I will say his third point is a good one - Zimmerman's admission that he "did not know if [Martin] was armed or not" was not helpful to the defense. It's probably not that harmful, however - Zimmerman claims that Martin grabbed for Zimmerman's gun, causing him to fear death or grievous bodily harm.  

In any case Zimmerman must have covered this ground in his repeated interviews with investigators, and what else could Zimmerman say - after the fact, what basis could he have had for saying he believed that Martin had been armed? That would be less plausible than his gun struggle claim (which I don't love - as a concealed carry permit holder, Zimmerman ought to know self-defense law and what to tell police.)

GOOD POINT: Assessments change, but on the 911 call Zimmerman described Martin as "late teens", yet he was older on the stand today. Why the change?  Who knows?  Maybe Martin had a deeper voice than Zimmerman associated with teens and aged him after he heard him speak just before their scuffle. Maybe Martin was stronger or fiercer than Zimmerman thought a teenager ought to be.  Maybe he lied on the stand.

Well - the left will hang their hate on this, so props to Prof. Hutchinson, where I saw it first.

LOOKING FOR REACTIONS: Jeralyn Merritt has not chimed on with her thoughts (this whole day job thing interferes with so much punditry...) but her first commenter deserves a prize:

It appears the prosecution's legal strategy is... (wait for it)... The Sneering Tone of Voice.  

Other than that I can't really see what he accomplished except to indicate to the judge he's a jerk. 

Well, and unprepared.

The WaPo leads with the apology (as does everyone) and has this deep:

The hearing provided a few glimpses into the evidence amassed by investigators, and in some cases evidence they do not have.

Dale Gilbreath, an investigator for the state attorney’s office, testified that he does not know whether Martin or Zimmerman threw the first punch and that there is no evidence to disprove Zimmerman’s contention that he was walking back to his vehicle when confronted by Martin.

Gilbreath also said evidence does not back up parts of Zimmerman’s story, such as his claim that Martin was slamming his head against a sidewalk just before he pulled out his handgun and shot the teenager.

“That is not consistent with the evidence we found,” said Gilbreath, who did not provide details.

The NY Times makes no mention of the comical prosecution presentation. Better their readers get that grim news elsewhere. [OK, their unmarked updating has now added a section of the prosecution debacle.]

The LA Times has a bit of the bad news deep:

The hearing was also notable for the extensive grilling that O'Mara gave one of the investigators for the state attorney's office, Dale Gilbreath, who helped prepare the probable cause affidavit that was the basis for Zimmerman's arrest.

The affidavit says Zimmerman "confronted" Martin, after which a struggle ensued. In a likely preview of the defense strategy at trial, O'Mara questioned the use of the word "confronted."

"Do you know who started the fight?" he asked the investigator at one point.

"Do I know? No," Gilbreath said.

"Do you have any evidence that supports who may have started the fight?"

"No" Gilbreath said.

YOU KNOW IT WENT BADLY FROM THE HEADLINE: ThinkProgress:

Prosecutor: Zimmerman Allegedly Slapped His Ex-Girlfriend And ‘Asked Her How It Felt’

They left out "Defense Counsel Slaps Prosecutor, Asked Him How It Felt"

The judge was far less impressed that Think Progress by Zimmerman's inglorious past; fro the Guardian live blog: 

The judge all but pooh-poohed the 2005 charges brought against Zimmerman for felony battery of an officer and resisting arrest. The charges were later reduced to a misdemeanor and Zimmerman never served prison time, although he was required to attend anger management classes.

This kind of thing is all too common, the judge said, suggested that the charges were somehow inflated and should not be taken as an indicator – that he, at least, would not be taking them as an indicator – of George Zimmerman's propensity for violence.

Well, the prosecutor impressed the stalwarts on the left, so he has that working for him. Too bad about the judge... 

WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE RETREAT AT TWIN LAKES?  More hints of the dazzling prosecution case to come:

Now O'Mara is asking Gilbreath questions again. He's driving at how long after the operator told Zimmerman not to follow Martin that the suspect "continued to follow" the scene.

Gilbreath: "We have a witness statement who observed shadows or figures running by her residence." He says he can't identify who they were.

I'm betting one of the shadows was black, but did the other shadow look Hispanic or White Hispanic?

(FWIW, I can't find that in the CNN transcript, but they did keep cutting away for revenue breaks.)

ALWAYS WHERE YOU LEAST EXPECT IT: A comedy highlight - defense counsel O'Mara has co-lead investigator Gilbrath on the stand:

O'MARA: Ok. Have you ever had your nose broken? 

GILBREATH: No. 

O'MARA: Have you ever had your nose fractured or broken. 

GILBREATH: No.

O'MARA: You know that that was an injury that Mr. Zimmerman sustained, correct? 

GILBREATH: I know that that is an injury that is reported to have sustained. I haven't seen any medical records to indicate that. 

O'MARA: Have you asked him for them? 

GILBREATH: Have I asked him for them? No. 

O'MARA: Do you want a copy of them? 

GILBREATH: Sure. 

O'MARA: I'll give them to the state. It's a more appropriate way to do it. If you haven't had them yet, I don't want to cross you on them.

Send better rodeo clowns.

YOU KNOW THAT'S RIGHT: From the conclusion of the prosecutor's closing statement:

I'm not here to argue all the facts, obviously.

Obvious as the day is long.

ABC Has New Photo Of Bloodied Zimmerman

ABC News has what looks like a flash photo of Zimmerman's head reportedly taken immediately after the shooting; it is not for the squeamish:

A new photograph obtained exclusively by ABC News showing the bloodied back of George Zimmerman's head, which was apparently taken three minutes after he shot and killed Trayvon Martin, gives possible credence to his claim that Martin had bashed his head against the concrete as Zimmerman fought for his life.

The cuts to his head are in the sort of line that might be made by the edge of a sidewalk. Apologies in advance to anyone who just had breakfast - pic.

One infers from ABC that this was not a police photo:

The person who took the photograph of a bloodied Zimmerman, asking not to be identified, told ABC News exclusively that they did not see the scuffle that night, but did hear it. The person recalled seeing Martin's prostrate body on the wet grass and said the gunpowder burns on Martin's gray hoodie were clearly visible.

The photographer said that after the shooting, Zimmerman asked the photographer to call his wife. When the photographer asked him what to say, Zimmerman blurted out, "Man, just tell her I shot someone."

Investigators have seen the photo.

It's a bit odd - the photo seems posed, which makes one wonder whether Zimmerman was planning ahead to document his situation. A neighbor would have overheard the scuffle.  A responding policeman who had not quite made it to the scene might have overheard part of it.

And any head wound bleeds like crazy, so those cuts might not have been all that impressive after being cleaned up.  OTOH, there they are.

The Zimmerman bond hearing is on now.  The Orlando Sentinel is streaming it.

ABC says we are unlikely to get a sneak peek at the prosecution case:

In a bail hearing in Florida, the burden of proof to deny bail, even in a second-degree murder trial, is higher than needed to seek a conviction in a trial.

"They would have to prove that the presumption of guilt is great, and that the proof is evident," O'Mara said.

In the capias -- similar to a warrant -- filed against Zimmerman last week, Special Prosecutor Angela Corey and her team set bail at "none."

In order to avoid a reduction in bail to a set monetary sum, Corey's team would have to prove its case essentially, something legal experts say is unlikely at this point in the legal process.

Zimmerman attorney O'Mara said he doubts the prosecutor will reveal its case before the trial.

Well, Dale Gilbreath, one of the two investigators who signed the probable cause arrest affidavit, is taking the stand right now...

KIDDING? The voice experts are the Orlando Sentinel, and the FBI has people studying the tapes.  But this is a State investigation and affidavit. I infer the State won't be relying on voice experts to advance their case.

SO WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE? From the CNN live blog, we wonder what the state's case might be:

[Updated at 10:47 a.m. ET] O'Mara is back to questioning state attorney's investigator Dale Gilbreath, one of the investigators in the case.

O'Mara asked whether Gilbreath knows who started the fight between Zimmerman and Martin, or had any evidence as to who started the fight. Gilbreath said no.

O'Mara asked whether Gilbreath had any evidence contradicting Zimmerman's statement to Sanford police on the night of the incident that Zimmerman 1) turned toward his car after losing sight of Martin; and 2) that Martin started the fight that led to the shooting. Gilbreath said no.

The state makes a bit of a comeback here:

[Updated at 10:53 a.m. ET] The prosecuting attorney, after saying "I didn't know we were going to be trying the case today," is back to ask questions of state attorney's investigator Dale Gilbreath, after O'Mara asked questions challenging the state's assertions.

The prosecutor asked Gilbreath whether there was any evidence indicating that Zimmerman's account that Martin bashed his head against a sidewalk wasn't true. Gilbreath said yes.

Who am I going to believe, this investigator or my lying eyes? That said, "any evidence" against Zimmerman's story is pretty broad - maybe there is some evidence supporting his story and some disputing it. Maybe the scuffle started near the sidewalk (hence the seemingly linear cuts) and Zimmerman wriggled to the grass.

Bail is set at $150,000; the state had requested $1 million, the defense $15,000, and the judge went with roughly the geometric mean. From my extensive review of Elmore Leonard novels I would expect a bail bondsman would want ten percent down, which ought to be within reach of Zimmerman's dad (who had offered to take out a second mortgage if necessary.)

Our Two Party System

The DNC promotes our two party system - Republican and "Not A Republican". That is even emptier than "Hope and Change". One wonders why a simple, tasteful "Who Killed Bin Laden? Yeah, Baby!" was overlooked.

So when does the RNC roll out their response?  Are they worried that "Not A Radical Redistributionist Job-Killing Enviro-Ideologue" is too long for a bumper sticker? C'mon, my SUV has a BIG bumper!