Something to remember when Democrats claim racism: 13 Senate Democrats voted against Black female judge nominated by Trump

 With the new Supreme Court nomination coming soon, claims of racism are sure to be lodged against any Republican who votes against the black female that Biden has promised to nominate. From Fox News:

The Senate Democrats in question all voted against Ada E. Brown, former President Trump’s nominee for district judge of the northern district of Texas.

Brown, a Black woman, was confirmed in September 2019 by a vote of 80-13, with the 13 "nay" votes coming from Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer, Tammy Baldwin, Richard Blumenthal, Sherrod Brown, Maria Cantwell, Catherine Cortez Masto, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mazie Hirono, Ed Markey, Patty Murray, Brian Schatz, Debbie Stabenow and Ron Wyden.

Only two of the offices for the 13 senators who voted against Brown’s confirmation responded to Fox News Digitals’ requests for comment.

My newest piece at Fox News: "Expert: Blacks trust police more than whites do"

My newest piece at Fox News starts this way:

Do blacks trust police more than whites do? Given the anger over events in Ferguson and New York City, the very question seems absurd. But it is not. Behind the polls and demonstrations, there is evidence that blacks trust police at least as much as whites do. 

The poll results are hardly surprising. A new Gallup poll confirms blacks place less confidence in police and the criminal justice system. Using survey data from 2006 through 2014, Gallup found: 

-- 31 percentage points more blacks than whites believe black males are more likely to go to prison than white males primarily because of discrimination (50 percent versus 19 percent). 

-- 7 percentage points more blacks believe the honesty and ethics of police are low/very low (17 percent versus 10 percent). 

Similarly, a 2013 Pew Research Centersurvey reveals that 70 percent of blacks believed police treated whites better than blacks. By contrast, only 37 percent of whites agreed. 

But what people say and what they do are often different. And there are both victims and criminals in black communities. 

Victims may trust the police for the same reasons that criminals dislike them. Blacks are not a monolithic group: blacks who who have been through the criminal justice system as criminals could answer these questions quite differently than those who have relied on police as victims. 

The polls don’t distinguish between these two groups. As Charles Barkley recently said: “[Police] are the only thing in the ghetto between this place being the wild, wild west.” 

Most violent crime victims don’t report crimes to police. For example, only about half of rapes are reported to police. That has a lot to do with how victims believe they will be treated by the police. In the case of rape, victims who think that the police are unsympathetic to rape victims or are unlikely to solve the cases are even less likely to report rapes. 

If black victims really believe police are racist, why would they report the crime to the police? Blacks victims don’t want other blacks locked up simply due to their race; they want the criminals who actually committed the crime punished. . . .

The article continues here.

Democrats using race and Stand Your Ground laws to drive black voter turnout

“Tillis even led the effort to pass the kind of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws that caused the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.”
The Washington Post has this evaluation of the campaign ad:

It is telling that Senate Majority PAC does not bother to offer any defense of this radio ad. Perhaps it hoped it could slip this past reporters asking too many questions. . . . .

Even if Harry Reid isn't defending the ad, Alex Wagner on MSNBC is defending it.

My newest piece at Fox News: "The truth about young black men and police shootings"

My newest piece at Fox News starts this way:

Tensions are still high in Ferguson, Mo., after the Aug. 8 police shooting of Michael Brown. On Friday, it was reported forensics showed Brown’s blood was on both the inside of police officer Darren Wilson’s car as well as Wilson’s gun. The gun had also been fired twice within the car. This evidence hardly squares with early witness accounts that Brown was shot with his hands in the air while he was surrendering.

With forensic evidence finally coming in, Officer Wilson’s shooting Brown is looking as if it were justifiable self-defense.  But that hasn’t stopped people from making it a racial issue. 

Over the weekend, the New York Times noted some black leaders, such as Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, D-Maryland, “often invoke voting rights and the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed black man shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., as a way to mobilize black voters.” 

About a week ago journalists at ProPublica and Slate further fueled the anger many blacks felt about the shooting. Slate’s headline read: “Black Teens Vastly More Likely to Be Killed by Police Than Whites Even After Adjusting for Crime Rates.” 

The incendiary finding got massive uncritical news coverage . . . .

Top of the page at Fox News.



The piece was the most read opinion piece at Fox New during the whole day.

Eric Holder and racial cases: Abusing the power of the federal government in the Trayvon Martin and Ferguson, MO cases?

US Attorney General Eric Holder is still trying to go after George Zimmerman.  Dragging out the legal case like this over years imposes massive costs on George Zimmerman -- not only does it impose legal costs on him, but it makes it very difficult for him to plan his life.  Holder's actions here are a real criminal penalty that are being imposed on Zimmerman.  Either charge Zimmerman with something or eventually let go of the case.  From Grabien.com:

REPORTER: “There is a big announcement that you made years ago about the investigation in Trayvon Martin shooting. Have you ever finished that civil rights investigation? Are you ever going to finish that?” 

HOLDER: “That investigation is ongoing. In fact, in anticipation of that question, I was asked — I asked, give me, you know, the best we can where do we stand. That matter is ongoing. There are active steps we are still in the process of taking. There are witnesses who we want to speak to as a result of some recent development. So that matter is still underway.”

From Politico:

Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged Thursday that even as his department has been opening new investigations stemming from the racially-charged shooting death of African-American teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. last month, federal prosecutors have still not concluded a long-pending probe into the shooting death of another black teen, Trayvon Martin, in Florida in 2012. 

Last November, Holder told the Washington Post he expected a conclusion "relatively soon" to the probe into the shooting of Martin by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. In July 2013, a Florida jury acquitted Zimmerman was acquitted of murder. Holder promptly announced that the Justice Department would probe the case to see if prosecution on federal charges was warranted. . . .

Experts and former prosecutors have said they are very doubtful the Justice Department will file a federal criminal case against Zimmerman, although his acquittal on state charges does not legally preclude doing so. . . .

So despite "experts and former prosecutors" saying it is doubtful that federal criminal charges will be brought against Zimmerman, the Obama administration continues harassing Zimmerman.

Here is another clip from the same press conference about how the federal government can use its massive resources to make life difficult for a small town, when it appears that Holder made up his mind before any evidence was actually collected.  Others have noted how Holder “is personally invested in" the Ferguson case, having put in “more than 40 FBI agents on the ground."  Holder has publicly spoken out about what he perceived of as police hassling him when he was younger, though the evidence that those incidents actually involved race was never provided.  What is extraordinary here is that the local prosecutor is a Democrat and Holder clearly doesn't trust him to do a reasonable job.  From Grabien.com:

REPORTER: “Mr. Attorney General, can you give us a little more texture on why you decided to launch this investigation? Your own conversations there — you talk about review of documented allegations. Give us the universe of what went into this.” 

MORAN: “We looked at a number of things in our initial and preliminary assessment and whether or not to open the investigation. It included not only discussions that the Attorney General had with residents of Ferguson two weeks ago but also, other meetings that the Civil rights division and Community relations service and other Justice Department officials have had with residents. We’ve looked of course at public records and other pieces of information that are available to make an assessment that this was indeed an appropriate opening for a pattern and practice investigation. Moreover, the civil rights division met with city leaders in Ferguson yesterday and they expressed a strong willingness to assist us, and in fact were extremely open to this investigation. So we will have cooperation from our local residents.” 

REPORTER: “What public records are we talking about?” 

MORAN: “There are a number of pieces of information that we looked at which would have included demographics and public records related to cases that may have been filed by private litigants. There are a number of different things we looked at.” 

REPORTER: “Mr. Attorney General, what about your visit struck you to the point where you felt comfortable able to move forward with the investigation? And then secondly, what do you say to supporters of the police that this investigation is premature and in fact unfair to the police department?”  

HOLDER: “Well, I would say that, as Molly said, the assistant attorney general said, the decision to go ahead was based not only on what I heard while I was out there, which was fairly compelling, and there was a certain continuity in similarities and the kinds of things that I was hearing whether it’s the traffic stops, revenue raising on the basis of traffic stopped; traffic stops that occurred in certain parts of the area. But in addition to that and in response to the earlier question, there has been a review of documentary evidence indicating that there are problems. I do not think there is any question that there is a basis to begin a pattern or practice of investigation. So with regard to those who might be concerned that we are somehow being premature, all we are saying at this point is we are opening an investigation to see whether or not there are in fact problems. I think the fact that we have pledges of local cooperation is an indication that there are issues felt even there at the local level, indicating the need for us to work together to make the situation better. But I want to emphasize, as I said in the prepared remarks, the vast majority of the people who serve — the American people in a law enforcement capacity in this country do so honorably, do so quite well. The vast majority of police departments do so, I think, quite well. But where we find problems, it is incumbent upon us given our statutory responsibilities to use federal law to make sure that in fact occurs.” 

REPORTER: “[indecipherable] You know, this is the same when we read a lot of stuff and you said there is no question that there is justification for opening it. But, I mean, it just sounds like, we talk to people, we read some stuff. But what specifically? Are there cases that specifically predicated the opening of this?” 

HOLDER: “[indecipherable] when you say, we read a lot of stuff. I mean, that’s kind of what we do. You know —“ [crosstalk] 

REPORTER: “There is no question, but there is no question to you. But for people who do not know what you read and don’t know what you’re looking at, what specifically have you seen that said, yes, we have to open this investigation?” 

HOLDER: “Molly maybe can get into more of the specifics, but there are variety of documents and materials that are contained in the public record that exists about the percentages of stops that occurred that involve certain ethnic groups and whether those are consistent with the numbers of people who make up the population. There were whole variety of things that you all have reported on that I think given us a good factual basis to proceed.”

Very amusing piece by Chris Friend on "Seeing red over Indian nickname debate"

The piece starts this way, but I strongly recommend that you follow the link and read the entire article:

Life is good. 

Summer is in full swing, the Trayvon/Zimmerman soap opera is finally fading away, government is probably reading only half our emails now, and the excitement of football is in the air. 

Most important, though, is that America apparently has solved all of its problems. Otherwise, how could you possibly explain the fact that a cadre of congressman — both Republican and Democrat — recently sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder, every league team, and Redskins sponsor FedEx urging them — demanding, actually — that the Redskins name be changed because it was so racially demeaning to Indians. Oops. Native Americans. 

Sorry. 

Really? That’s the most dominant issue consuming our elected officials? Granted, if we had an Indian nickel for every boneheaded thing Congress does, we’d all be millionaires. But those congressmen need to be scalped for this one, and publicly admonished until they turn red-faced with embarrassment. 

This is no time for peace pipes. We must, without reservation, not just hold down the fort but go to war with those riding roughshod over hallowed American traditions — fighting the people who love nothing more than to chop away at things no one actually finds offensive. As with most issues though, we lack a political chief brave enough to tackle this type of political correctness. The biggest irony? If a leader painted this picture as the insanity that it is, it wouldn’t be his last stand, but a feather in his cap, because the vast majority of Americans recognize that using Indian names isn’t offensive, but complimentary. . . . 

 The rest of the piece is available here.

Black Pastor says Stand Your Ground laws help blacks

Even in Florida, some people are making sense on Stand Your Ground laws.  Blacks are more likely to be victims of violent crime and it is hardly surprising that they benefit the most from these laws, but it is something that has been ignored.  Opponents point to the fact that people who kill blacks under SYG laws are less likely to be convicted, but they ignore the fact that almost everyone shooting these blacks are other blacks.  The way I view it is that you have innocent victim blacks who are being attacked by criminals who are fortunately able to successfully defend themselves.  This is argument finally being made by some blacks in Florida.  From Channel 4 in Jacksonville, Florida:

In the wake of the shooting deaths of unarmed teenagers Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin groups of protesters have been calling for change to the controversial stand your ground law.
A stand-your-ground law is separate from traditional self-defense. The law gives individuals the right to use deadly force to defend themselves without any requirement retreat from a dangerous situation.
Kenneth Adkins, Reverend of Greater Dimensions Christian Fellowship in Brunswick told Channel 4 that calling the law discriminatory against African Americans is false; Atkins said more often than not, the law actually helps African Americans.
"The majority of the people who have benefited from the stand your ground laws have been African American." said Adkins.
Adkins points to a Tampa Bay Times investigation done in 2012,  that showed a significant number of African Americans in Florida used the stand your ground defense successfully.
"Why don’t people who don’t like stand your ground? Talk to the people who have benefited from stand your ground," suggested Adkins. "If it had not been for Stand Your Ground 24 African American families in the state of Florida, their loved one would have been in jail," said Adkins. . . .

The racist history of minimum wage jobs

From an op-ed piece by Tom Sowell:

In 1925, a minimum-wage law was passed in the Canadian province of British Columbia, with the intent and effect of pricing Japanese immigrants out of jobs in the lumbering industry. 

A Harvard professor of that era referred approvingly to Australia’s minimum wage law as a means to “protect the white Australian’s standard of living from the invidious competition of the colored races, particularly of the Chinese” who were willing to work for less. 

In South Africa during the era of apartheid, white labor unions urged that a minimum-wage law be applied to all races, to keep black workers from taking jobs away from white unionized workers by working for less than the union pay scale. . . .

Racial Quotas for School punishment: If quota reached for the month on punishment, does that mean that they can commit offenses at no cost?

Some pretty scary stuff from the Obama administration.  Fox News:

Education experts blasted a recent Department of Justice directive, which they say seems to advocate a racial quota system for punishing school kids for such transgressions as being late or chewing gum in class. 

The memo, jointly released by the departments of Justice and Education on Wednesday, urges public schools to ditch so-called "zero tolerance" policies the feds claim disproportionately affect minority students. The letter, which was sent to all public schools, said even well-intentioned policies are discriminatory if they end up being applied in greater proportion to minority children. 

“Schools ... violate Federal law when they evenhandedly implement facially neutral policies and practices that, although not adopted with the intent to discriminate, nonetheless have an unjustified effect of discriminating against students on the basis of race," read the letter. "Examples of policies that can raise disparate impact concerns include policies that impose mandatory suspension, expulsion, or citation (e.g., ticketing or other fines or summonses) upon any student who commits a specified offense — such as being tardy to class, being in possession of a cellular phone, being found insubordinate, acting out, or not wearing the proper school uniform.” 

Experts interviewed by FoxNews.com said punishments should be meted out to school kids who break the rules - without regard to their race. . . . .

A note on Fisher v. University of Texas as it goes back to the Fifth Circuit

The American Educational Research Association Amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court case tried to undermine my research with Mark Ramseyer and Jeff Standen.  Here is the relevant discussion from their brief.

It is true that only two universities were examined, but most of the rest of the statements are misleading or wrong.

1) While both schools tended to have relatively low total African-American enrollment, the point of the study was to examine how students did as they went from one class to another.  In some of their classes there were few black students, but in others they made up fairly high percentages of the students in those classes.  So it wasn't that the schools lacked data to study critical mass.  There is a very large range of percentage of black students in these classes.

2) It is simply false to claim "their model do not incorporate other potential explanatory variables that could affect grades, such as the imposition of a mandatory grade curve or the skills tested on examinations."  The estimates accounted for fixed effects for student, class, professor and semester.  Those fixed effects will pick up all the differences across how different teachers teach and across different classes.  The paper also explains out the grade curve issue biases the results against the results that we found.  

3) Neither the brief of Scholars of Economics and Statistics nor the paper with Ramseyer or Standen "neglect" or hide the one result for Asian Americans that there is a benefit to Asians from more Asians.  In the brief it is noted: "Only for Asians was there evidence that increasing their share of the class after they exceed their share of the applicant pool increased their grades, but the effect was exceedingly small."

4) There is no other evidence that directly tests the critical mass claim.  If one believes the American Educational Research Association Amicus brief, they don't even appear to think that the "critical mass hypothesis" is testable because they don't even think that there is an identifiable "critical mass." 

Greg Gutfeld: Does owning a gun make you a racist?

Gutfeld does a great job here in discussing the push to demonize and tax gun ownership.

UPDATE:  Jeff Poor has a discussion of Gutfeld's segment as well as a partial transcript available here.

Newest piece at Fox News: Are you a racist if you own a gun?

This is the way my newest piece at Fox News starts:

If you believe a new study, whites who own guns do so because they harbor racist feelings towards blacks. Indeed, in the study, four Australian and British psychologists also claim that racism is associated with opposition to gun control. 

The lead paragraph on this study in Friday's New York Daily News summed up the claim this way: "Racism and guns go together." 

So how is racism measured? Well, you are apparently “racist” if you don't agree that the legacy of slavery still has a great impact on how blacks are faring today. After all, slavery was abolished 158 years ago. 

Besides, blacks were doing relatively better on many dimensions, such as family stability, during the early 1960s than today.  

Of course, people might disagree with these points, but that doesn’t mean that they are racist. 

OK, so conservatives are more likely to own guns than liberals (big surprise there), and they are more likely to believe that people are more responsible for how well they do in life than something that happened to their ancestors over a century and a half ago. . . .

The rest of the piece is available at Fox News. 

Are racial tensions getting worse? How often were these types of attacks by blacks on whites occurring before Obama?

There have been a number of black attacks on whites in revenge for the Zimmerman case (see here, here, and here).  Is this the ultimate evidence of Obama's strategy to divide people?  This new shocking case is from the New York Daily News:

A group of 10 black youths — one of them a 12-year-old girl — surrounded a white couple's car in Brooklyn, viciously beating the husband and yanking the wife to the pavement by her hair as they peppered the two with racial slurs, authorities said.
“Get those crackers!” some of them screamed, according to court papers. “Get that white whore!” 

The confrontation erupted about 7 p.m. Monday, as the marauding group crossed Avenue U at E. 58th St. near Kings Plaza Shopping Center in Mill Basin. 

Ronald Russo, 30, and his wife, Alanna, apparently had the green light and the husband honked at the group to get out of the way. The rowdy kids started kicking the car, according to the criminal complaint. Ronald Russo got out to check on potential damage to his vehicle. . . . 

Ronald Russo was dragged to the ground. Then he was punched and kicked in the head. He felt more blows all over his body, investigators said. He suffered a fractured nose, a broken septum, a blood clot and abrasions to his shoulder. He was treated and released from Beth Israel Medical Center. 

In the midst of the attack, there was a steady chorus of epithets. “White motherf-----!” screamed the attackers, who ranged in age from 12 to 18. 

Alanna Russo, 30, was calling 911 when the 12-year-old girl pulled the woman’s hair and threw her to the ground. The victim’s head slammed into the concrete. She suffered a black eye, bleeding and difficulty breathing, prosecutors said, but she refused medical attention. . . . .

When will the Obama administration bring a case against places that prevent blacks from buying guns

It costs over $500 to license and register a handgun in DC, but that isn't a problem.  A free ID in North Carolina is a problem.  BTW, there are no free IDs given out for people to go through the background checks to buy guns.  From Politico:

The Justice Department will file suit against North Carolina on Monday, charging that the Tar Heel State’s new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls violates the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against African Americans, according to a person familiar with the planned litigation. . . . .

Responses to Sarah Silverman's racist video on guns

Sarah Silverman had this widely watch video entitled the "Black NRA" where she tries to scare people about the fact that law-abiding blacks will get guns.





Of course, my work shows that it is poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas who benefit the most from owning guns.

"March on Washington": Mentions of Trayvon Martin

Shirt "sold by vendors in D.C. today as America commemorates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 'I Have a Dream' speech."

From Martin Luther King III:

“The task is not done, the journey is not complete.  The vision preached by my father a half-century ago was that his four little children would no longer live in a nation where they would judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  However, sadly, the tears of Trayvon Martin’s mother and father remind us that far too frequently the color of one’s skin remains a license to profile, arrest, and to even murder with no regard to the content of one’s character."

From Fox News:

Performers also included Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey, their voices thinner now than when they performed at the original march as part of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. They sang "Blowin' in the Wind," as the parents of slain black teenager Trayvon Martin joined them on stage and sang along. . . .

From the beginning of a piece in the LA Times:

The struggle continues.  So said many of those who turned out Wednesday for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, saying they were there to mark the historic occasion but also to call attention to causes ranging from joblessness to "justice for Trayvon Martin." . . .

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley told the crowd:

"still too much apathy when the lives of people of color are too often valued less than the lives of white people." 

From the Huffington Post:

The most memorable moment of the march occurred when Trayvon Martin's family walked within feet of where I was standing. I wanted so badly to say something to them -- but nothing I could conjure up in a few seconds could convey the anger, grief, and helplessness I felt towards the tragedy of their loss. Trayvon's presence was felt throughout the entire event, making me question how much progress we've truly made in these 50 years. If I still share Dr. King's dream in 2013, what have we accomplished? . . . .

The Chicago Teachers' union issued this statement:

A mass email sent out to the Chicago entire Teachers Union’s mailing list urges union members to attend the march to protest foreclosures, the Second City’s recent rash of school closings and, of course, the verdict in favor of George Zimmerman, a Hispanic man who shot a black teenager during an altercation. 

“The attack on the working people of Chicago and the country — school closings, high rates of unemployment, evictions and foreclosures, mass incarceration of our youth, lack of access to affordable health care and clinics — highlights the structural racism in our society,” the email beseeches. “We are marching for Trayvon, for jobs, for schools, for health care, for justice and for dignity.” . . . 

From WBUR: 

[Rep. John] Lewis said he never thought 50 years later that some of the same issues would be back on the table."I thought we had completed the fight for the right to vote, the right to participate in the democratic process. I thought we were in a process of reforming the justice system. But when I see something like what the Supreme Court did, or what happened to Trayvon Martin, it tells me over and over again that we're not there yet. We have not finished."
(Lewis was referring to the verdict in the killing of unarmed black teen in Florida, and the Supreme Court's decision in June striking down a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.) . . .

In some parts of the country, the rally was billed: "MARCH ON WASHINGTON/JUSTICE FOR TRAYVON MARTIN." (Richmond, VA)

From Fox News:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AUG. 24) JULIAN BOND: We march because Trayvon Martin has joined Emmett Hill in the pantheon of young black martyrs. We march because the United States Supreme Court has eviscerated the voting rights act for which we fought and died. We march because every economic indicator shows gaping white/black disparities. We march for freedom from white supremacy.  (END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: . . . Juan, I'll start with you. You know, a lot of people, there have been numerous high-profile cases that the American people are following. For example, the president spoke out on the Cambridge police acting stupidly, spoke out about Trayvon, but yet has not spoken out publicly -- I know he sent a letter to the family earlier today -- about the Chris Lane case, an 88-year-old World War II veteran beaten, a Florida bus beating, three kids, black kids against one white kid. And some people question why these civil rights leaders, why the president are selective in the instances in which they speak out on?
JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you can't speak out on every crime in America, Sean, I don't think by the way that the racial cover you would put on those is always the case. Certainly not in Oklahoma where you had one kid who was white and another who's biracial involved in that shooting. I think that there are criminals of all colors and types.
But I think a lot of this is now sort of popular and it worries me that we are inflaming racial tensions by trying to voice this interpretation --
HANNITY: You mean like the Trayvon case? Was there inflaming racial tensions there?
WILLIAMS: Sure, I think that -- I think there are people who tried to exploit it. I happened to think that the verdict was an injustice to Trayvon Martin's family because I think there's a dead child there.
HANNITY: Oh, good grief.
WILLIAMS: But that's my feeling.
HANNITY: All right, Larry, weigh in.
LARRY ELDER, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, the so-called black leaders don't like to talk about the fact that when you're talking about black/white violent crimes, most of the time it's a black perpetrator and most of time it's a white victim. It's much easier to talk about the rare instance when a white person does something violently to a black person.
The fact is that the criminal justice system is not a racist criminal justice system. In 1994, the Justice Department examined 75 major metropolitan areas to find out if it's true that blacks got longer sentences for the very same sentences because of racial reasons. They found out nothing like that, this is 1994 under Bill Clinton.
And yet, the mantra continues that race and racism remain major problems in America. It just isn't true, we've elected and re-elected a black president. 
We've had back to back black secretaries of state. If black America were a separate country, Sean, it would be the 15th or 16th wealthiest country in the world. . . .

On a related note, former Secretary of State Colin Powell commented on the Trayvon Martin case this past Sunday.  He called the jury verdict "questionable."  Interestingly, I found a post noting that Powell had a different view of the OJ Simpson verdict.

“People will try to suggest that because there were nine blacks on the jury, it was a racial judgement. I think that’s unfair. These are people who can understand the facts put before them.”

The crowd in 1963 was about 250,000 people.   The crowd on Wednesday was only about 20,000.

It must be obvious to everyone now that since Democrats can't completely ban guns, they want to tax them out of existence

In March, I wrote an op-ed about how the common theme in Democrats push for gun control is to impose taxes on purchases or transfers of guns.  Who do you think that such taxes primarily prevent from obtaining guns?  The poor, and since a greater percentage of blacks are poor, these taxes primarily tend to disarm poor blacks.

Just in case that push to disarm poor blacks wasn't obvious to everyone, a new bill to tax guns and ammunition is being pushed by two Democrats in the House.

A pair of Democratic lawmakers are proposing steep new taxes on handguns and ammunition, and tying the revenues to programs aimed at preventing gun violence.Called the “Gun Violence Prevention and Safe Communities Act," the bill sponsored by William Pascrell, D-N.J., and Danny Davis, D-Ill., would nearly double the current 11 percent tax on handguns, while raising the levy on bullets and cartridges from 11 percent to 50 percent. . . .

Why do Democrats so fear poor law-abiding blacks from having guns? The taxes don't stop poor criminals from getting guns because they aren't going to be the ones paying these taxes.

Newest piece at National Review: "Obama’s Racial Imbalance: He professes outrage when there’s little evidence of bias against blacks, but ignores attacks on whites."

My newest piece starts this way:

Racism should make people pretty angry. But for that very reason charges of racism should only be leveled carefully. 

George Zimmerman wasn’t motivated by race in confronting Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman, a Hispanic, was himself one-eighth black. The prosecution in his case produced no statements by Zimmerman showing any racial bias. 

Alas, most people didn’t have time to follow the trial’s day-to-day testimony, and obviously didn’t know that. They got summaries presented by the mainstream media. NBC selectively edited a 9-1-1 call to make Zimmerman sound racist. President Obama pronounced the killing as racially motivated, first personalizing the case by comparing Trayvon to a hypothetical son of his, then his younger self, and then suggesting Trayvon was followed because of his race. Naturally, Jesse Jackson claimed the case meant “blacks are under attack.” Martin’s parents surely believed the tragedy was about race. 

Now, race appears central in the recent murder of Australian Christopher Lane in Oklahoma, but the discussion seems to be about almost everything else, especially gun control. . . .

Here is a related shocking statement here by Martin Luther King III, MLK's son:

"However, sadly, the tears of Trayvon Martin's mother and father remind us that, far too frequently, the color of one's skin remains a license to profile, to arrest and to even murder with no regard for the content of one's character," he said, calling for "stand your ground" self-defense laws to be repealed in states where they have been enacted. . . .

Fox News has a related discussion here.

UPDATE: Oklahoma's governor, Mary Fallon, makes an argument that implies that if Obama were to say anything about Trayvon Martin or Christopher Lane case, it should be about the Lane case.

“I think it would be a nice gesture for him to do that, especially since the country of Australia has expressed its sentiments as to the murder itself,” Gov. Mary Fallon (R) said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. . . .

Jesse Jackson views the Trayvon Martin and Christopher Lane cases as dramatically different.  Jackson would only say the Lane case was one that should be "frowned upon."

During an interview on MSNBC, Jackson was asked whether he thinks that “some on the right are making a false equivalency” between Martin and Lane, a young white baseball player allegedly killed Friday by three black teenagers. 

Yeah,” he said. “They want to connect what happened in the Trayvon Martin case with these three young men on this foolish rampage killing this ballplayer.” 

Jackson said a better comparison was a case in Oklahoma last year when two white men shot five and killed three people in a black community. Jackson said conservatives “seem to have forgotten” about last year’s slayings. 

“That’s really more of an equivalent,” Jackson said. “But there are no winners in any of this sickness.” 

On Thursday, Jackson denounced Lane’s killings in far stronger terms than he did over Twitter on Wednesday, when he was mocked by some on the right for saying the actions of Lane’s killers should be “frowned upon.” . . . 

UPDATE: Others think that race relations have gotten worse.

Asked whether the overall trajectory of race relations has been positive or negative in recent years, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) paused for a moment. 

“Right after the election of the president, I would have thought it was going in a positive direction, but I am not so sure anymore,” she said.  

“I think we have lost ground as it relates to our tolerance of people who are different or people who we believe have not worked hard enough. You hear the language all the time on talk radio — the buzzwords, often primarily directed at low-income people and communities of color.” . . . 

Possibly I should also have mentioned that the Obama administration helped fund anti-Zimmerman demonstrations.

Was the shooting of the Australian in Oklahoma a hate crime? Was it a revenge killing for Trayvon Martin?

I have collected a number of previous cases where blacks have killed or beaten whites or Hispanics in revenge of Trayvon Martin's death (see here, here, and here).  Now there is another case involving the Australian who was killed in Oklahoma.  The difference here is that the death is extremely high profile and you would think that the general media would have to finally acknowledge the impact that the racial angle in the Trayvon Martin case (a racial angle that the media has constantly been pushing).  From the Washington Times:

. . . James, who is black, was arrested along with his friends and suspected accomplices, Michael Dewayne Jones, 17, and Chancey Allen Luna, 16.  James and Chancey were charged with first-degree murder. Michaelwas arrested for using a vehicle to facilitate the discharge of a weapon—  the suspects allegedly fired on Lane from their car as he jogged down the street — and on charges of being an accessory after the fact of first-degree murder. 

Some of James‘ tweets are proving enlightening. 

One: “90 percent of white ppl are nasty. # HATE THEM.” 

Another: He brags he “knocked out 5 woods since Zimmerman court.” The word “woods,” The Blaze said, is a term to describe white people in a derogatory manner. 

Another, on Aug. 13: “With my niggas when it’s time to start taken life’s.” 

And his Facebook account — before it was deactivated — wasn’t much tamer, The Blaze reported. One posting from April 19 read: “At the end of the day it’s all about the kill.” . . .

In 2008, President Obama campaigned on bringing Americans together.  Many whites voted for Obama on the hopes that it would be the ultimate way of helping heal some of the country's racial wounds.  Instead, Obama has done things such as personalizing Trayvon Martin's death and emphasizing the racial aspects of it.  This is what he said on July 19th:

You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son.  Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.  And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away. 

There are very few African American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store.  That includes me.  There are very few African American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars.  That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator.  There are very few African Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off.  That happens often. . . .

In reading this quote from Obama, it sure seems as if he is indicating that Trayvon was being followed because of his race.  If so, Obama sure seems to imply that the shooting was racially motivated.  To put it slightly differently, when Obama refers to Trayvon as some who could have been his son or that he could have been Obama, isn't Obama saying that could have been the case because Obama is black?  Here is something that John Kass wrote in the Chicago Tribune.

Obama pronounced the killing as racially motivated, though he didn't use the words. He didn't have to, such is his prowess. It was so smooth that few noticed. He put the killing in a racial context, and that was enough. 

"You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago," Obama told reporters at the White House on Friday, addressing last weekend's acquittal of Martin's shooter, George Zimmerman. 

Could Obama have been Trayvon Martin 35 years ago?  Perhaps. If so, then any of us could have been Trayvon Martin. And I could have been Trayvon Martin. Racial motives weren't established at trial. And reportedly, the FBI still hasn't found racial motives in George Zimmerman, who is Hispanic. . . .

These types of comments go back to the Louis Gates case in 2009.  The transcript shows:

. . . My understanding is at that point Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in, I'm sure there's some exchange of words, but my understanding is, is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house. And at that point, he gets arrested for disorderly conduct -- charges which are later dropped. 

Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact. . . .

President Obama made this inflammatory by claiming Gates showed his ID to show that it was his home.  In fact, that isn't what happened (click on the text below from page 2 of the police report to make it larger):

President Obama and his supporters have helped contribute to this racial tensions in other ways.  Every policy disagreement with Obama seems to be interpreted as motivated by racial animus.

And the polls show clearly that racial relations have deteriorated both nationwide and in Florida where the Zimmerman trial occurred since Obama first took office.

A Viewpoint Florida poll of 900 people asked: Question #5: “In your opinion, have race relations in the United States gotten better or worse since Barack Obama took office almost 5 years ago, or have they stayed about the same?” 53 percent answered that race relations have deteriorated since Obama’s inauguration, with only 10 percent saying they’ve improved.

From the Washington Post:

In a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center titled “King’s Dream Remains an Elusive Goal,” only 26 percent of African Americans said the situation for black people has improved in the past five years, and 21 percent said things have gotten worse. In a 2009 poll, 39 percent saw improvements, Pew said. Today, half said the picture is essentially unchanged.
Whites had a much more positive opinion of black progress, with 35 percent saying things have gotten better in the past five years. Even among whites, however, that share has fallen from 49 percent in 2009.
In the fifth year of the Obama presidency, Pew researchers and scholars of race relations attribute the pessimistic outlook among African Americans to the fading glow of Obama’s first term and the lingering struggle to emerge from the recession. Pew said sentiment is approximately where it was before the recession and Obama’s election. . . .

Why is it that the Post would never consider Obama's racial rhetoric in discussing worsening racial relations? 

Gun control

CNN: "A chart in the Washington Post, using data from The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, shows Australia to have among the lowest gun-related killings in the developed world. The United States had the highest. Former Prime Minister John Howard told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in March that gun control laws instituted after a mass shooting were responsible for the low number."

Christian Science Monitor: "Also getting prominent airplay were comments by former Australian Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer that Australian tourists should boycott the US to send a message about gun control. “I am deeply angry about this because of the callous attitude of the three teenagers [but] it’s a sign of the proliferation of guns on the ground in the USA. There is a gun for almost every American,” Mr. Fischer said.  The comments reflect the view of most Australians that lax gun laws in the United States are behind the country’s high murder rate and string of shocking massacres such as last year’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook school in Connecticut."

From Alan Colmes:

UPDATE: Another case in Memphis might have also been a Trayvon Martin revenge killing.

“The first and foremost question in De Diago’s mind: If this was a robbery, why did his brother-in-law still have his wallet, car keys, and cell phone? Nothing was taken from him. And witnesses confirm that,” the Blaze reported.
“Miguel also says the police told him that the 9mm shell casing was found 10 feet from the body — an indication to him that the shooter was not at close range as would typically happen with a robbery.”
The family source told the Blaze that he tracked one of the alleged shooters, Mario Patterson, through his Facebook account, which no longer exists.
“He said the page had numerous photos of Trayvon Martin, and he wondered if it’s possible the shooting was a revenge killing for the Zimmerman verdict,” the report said. . . .

Comedian Tim Allen has some interesting thoughts on the use of the N-word

Entertainment Television has some interesting remarks from Tim Allen available here.