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What we should be appalled at is that the Chief Law Enforcement of the United States of America very likely played a major part in a large, purposeful operation that was designed to break the laws he and his staff are sworn to enforce; an operation that at the very least, facilitated the murder of a U.S. Border Agent.

Taking Down the Second Amendment: The Connection between Fast and Furious and the Trayvon Martin Case By Jeff Lipkes Very soon after his inauguration, Barack Obama decided to move ahead with plans to use the horrific number of deaths in the Mexican drug wars as a pretext for new gun control laws. On March 26, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder a ban on "assault weapons" in order to reduce violence south of the border.The administration made its case by citing a GAO report. "The number of guns that are used by the drug cartels against the police and the military -- 90 percent of them come from America," Hillary Clinton declared later the same day. The number was too good to be true. The report actually states that of about 30,000 firearms seized from criminals in 2008, the Mexican government submitted only 7,200 (25%) to the ATF. The authorities knew or suspected that the rest came from their own military or police, or overseas suppliers. Of the 7,200 weapons, only about 4,000 could be traced, and of these 4,000 about 3,480 (87%) originated in the U.S. The real figure for guns seized from criminals in Mexico that could be traced to the U.S. is thus about 11.6%. There is no other reasonable explanation for Fast and Furious except to improve on this dismal number. In Phoenix, the ATF watched as over 2,000 weapons were purchased by straw buyers and transferred to the cartels. They videotaped some of the transactions. There was no way to track the weapons until they were found at crime scenes or seized in raids. No GPSs were implanted in the guns. The Mexican authorities were not informed. Even the ATF attachés in Mexico were left in the dark. Agents who wanted to carry out warrantless "rips" and confiscate weapons on probable cause were told to stand down. Supervisors explained to the agents and to gun shop owners that the agency was going after the cartels: the little fish would lead the them to the big fish. Worried gun shop owners were reassured by the ATF, but several agents were incredulous and outraged. At least half a dozen protested and eventually came forward as whistle-blowers. "The most transparent administration in history" immediately began stonewalling. The DOJ sent a letter to Congress on February 4, 2011 categorically denying that the ATF had knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to suspicious buyers. It was only in December 2011 that the DOJ withdrew the lying letter. Meanwhile, the department repeatedly refused to turn over documents requested by the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform and Senator Chuck Grassley's office. Memos they did submit were so heavily redacted that frequently only a single line was not blacked out. One such memo, from the heady early months of the operation, was titled "Expected Legislative or Policy Developments." The campaign to hide incriminating evidence climaxed last month. On June 20, President Obama claimed executive privilege over the documents requested by the House. Eight days later, Eric Holder was cited for contempt of Congress. Why was Holder willing to become the first sitting Cabinet officer in history to be held in contempt of Congress? Why was the White House suddenly willing, at the 11th hour, to invoke executive privilege -- recalling the seamy Watergate scandal -- if the documents do not implicate Tricky Barack? Even with a pussycat press, these are significant crosses to bear going into an election campaign. Again, the only logical explanation is that the objective of F&F was the "expected legislative developments" and that this objective was discussed "at the highest levels of the White House," as reporters used to repeat during the halcyon days of Watergate. If supervisors were "giddy" with delight when guns found at crime scenes in Mexico were traced to the operation, it was because that was the mission's goal. Had the collateral damage been confined only to a few hundred dead Mexicans and not a U.S. Border Patrol agent, it's not difficult to imagine the next step in the administration's war on guns. Chicago is like Mexico in some ways. With 440 murders in 2011, the Second City has one of the highest crime rates of major cities in the U.S., more than double New York's. The murder rate is up 35% this year. Nine people were killed one weekend last month. "It's war," said a local pastor. Most of the homicides, robberies, and assaults are linked to drug-trafficking by gangs. Though its twenty-eight-year ban on handguns was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2010, Chicago still has one of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. Do the Chicago numbers refute the idea that tight gun laws correlate with lower homicide rates? Not at all, the Obama administration would have claimed. After all, private ownership of guns is illegal in Mexico. Had F&F succeeded, the Obamanistas would likely have made the case that the problem in Chicago is that guns were being "smuggled" into the city from jurisdictions with lax gun laws. Mayor Rahm Emmanuel would have issued a report documenting the number of guns taken from gang members that could be traced to out-of-state and internet gun shops. Only nationwide restrictions on the purchase of handguns will reduce murders in Chicago and in other large cities, we would have been told. * * * If you want to cut down on the consumption of a certain good or service, you can go after the producers or providers. You can outlaw or restrict their businesses or raise their costs with taxes, fees, and onerous regulations. But you can also work on the consumers. You can do this legitimately by, say, educating the public as to what an unborn baby looks like after three months, or what the lungs of a pack-a-day smoker look like after thirty years. But you can do this as well by intimidation. On February 26, 2012, a neighborhood watch captain was attacked by a thug. Trayvon Martin had already been expelled three times in the school year. In one case, twelve pieces of women's jewelry were found in his backpack. His Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube accounts reveal him as a gangsta wannabe, into drugs (and possibly dealing) and screwing "bitches." On the night February 26, "No-Limit Niggah" bought some Skittles and an Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail. Mixed with codeine, they're the ingredients for a cocktail called "Lean" that he seems to have been fond of. He also apparently tried to buy some blunts -- cheap cigars to be hollowed out and filled with marijuana. When the clerk turned him down, he had a scuzzy trio buy these for him. He didn't mix the cocktail, but he probably smoked a blunt. The autopsy found THC in his blood and urine. Martin originally left the 7-Eleven at 6:24. It's a fifteen-minute walk from his condo he was staying in, but forty-five minutes later, he was not back home. There is no reason to doubt George Zimmerman's description of him as wandering around in the rain, looking "like he's up to no good" or "on drugs or something." After Martin spotted Zimmerman, the teenager had seven more minutes to walk 300 feet to the condo. Instead, he circled back, told Zimmerman that Zimmerman now had a problem -- an understatement, it turned out -- then decked the watch captain with one punch and began pounding him into the concrete sidewalk. The only eyewitness reported seeing Zimmerman being pummeled, his screams were recorded on several calls, and he had a broken nose and lacerations on the back of his head. In Florida, you have a right to get out of your vehicle in the presence of an African-American teenager. You have a right to ask a stranger what he's doing in your neighborhood. George Zimmerman also felt he had a responsibility to do the former. The watch captain had reported Martin to Sanford police and wanted to be able to tell them where the guy was. There had been eight break-ins during the previous fourteen months at the Retreat at Twin Lakes, not to mention several unsuccessful attempts. When the suspects were spotted or caught, they were young black males. The last time Zimmerman had called 911 to report a stranger casing homes, the guy escaped before the cops arrived. There is no need to reiterate the media's Pavlovian response to the claims of Ben Crump and his flak Ryan Julison. Journalists and commentators who were capable of blaming the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords by a deranged, apolitical twenty-two-year old on Sarah Palin were more than willing to repeat ad nauseam the fairytale of the angelic twelve-year-old honor student going out in the rain to buy snacks for the son of his father's girlfriend only to be chased and gunned down in cold blood by a paranoid racist cop wannabe. It's tempting to see the press's bloodlust to crucify Zimmerman as the consequence of a dangerous and irrational surrogate religion. We would not expect fair and balanced reporting from a wild-eyed flagellant in 14th-century Europe or in 21st-century Iraq. But is the lynching a result merely of a pernicious ideology? Is there a method in the madness? (And it is truly pathological to pretend that the internet doesn't exist, and that the evidence you ignore or suppress won't surface in the blogosphere.) Is there, in other words, an agenda being pushed? It's been speculated that President Obama wanted to shore up support in the African-American community via the Trayvon Martin imbroglio. This seems implausible. African-Americans account for less than 12% of the vote, and the man who could have been Trayvon's father received 95% of this demographic. If he were really concerned about that number, he wouldn't have come out in favor of gay marriage. A more reasonable explanation is that the administration and its enablers want to terrorize gun-owners with carrying permits into refraining from carrying, and to deter those thinking about getting a gun and a permit. If you live in or near a big city, the reality is that if you have to use your gun to defend yourself, the chances are good that you'll be using it against a young African-American male. According to Eric Holder's Justice Department, between 1976 and 2005, African-Americans, 12.6% of the population, committed 52.2% of all homicides. Over the 30-year period, African-Americans committed murder at about 7.33 times the white rate. (Whites here include Hispanics.) The numbers for other violent crimes are comparable. The perpetrators are overwhelmingly males between fifteen and twenty-five. So the unspoken message of the media crusade against Zimmerman is that if you use a gun to defend yourself against a young black male, there's a chance you'll face a second-degree murder charge. You may see your mugshot in every paper and on every TV news show in the country, face death threats, lose your job and your home, and be forced to become a fugitive before your arrest. Why risk this? Targeted also are neighborhood watch programs. No program asks you to carry a gun or to make a citizen's arrest. But to be effective, you need to be able to describe the suspect and his location to police, and the word has to get out that intruders will be watched. After Zimmerman-Martin, potential volunteers may ask themselves, why risk a run-in with a suspicious African-American? If the guy isn't breaking into my own home, just keep driving. Pick up those groceries at Target and hope he's gone by the time you get back. There's a famous statement attributed to Martin Niemöller, the German pastor imprisoned in Dachau. "First they came for the communists," it begins, "and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist." After mentioning his silence about trade unionists and Jews, it concludes, "Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me." For some conservatives, gun-rights issues are not a high priority. But one day they might find themselves reciting another version of Niemöller's mea culpa. First they came after the owners of "assault weapons," and I didn't speak out because I didn't own a semi-automatic rifle. Then they came for the owners of handguns, and I didn't speak out because I didn't own a handgun. And then they came after my Swiss Army knife, but there was no one left to speak out for me. Carrying a knife, or folding knife with a blade over three inches, is illegal in the U.K. There's a more sobering version of Niemöller's litany. It's not something a lot of people would have given much credence to before the presidency of the man who vowed "to fundamentally change America." When they nullified the 10th Amendment, I said nothing because I was not a libertarian. When they nullified the 2nd Amendment, I said nothing because I was not a gun-owner. When they nullified the 1st Amendment, there was no one left to speak for me. Unfortunately, the 1st Amendment, and our other rights, depend ultimately on the existence of the 2nd Amendment. Holder has an interesting take on this amendment. Asked on ABC News in 1999 if he understood it to mean that "citizens have a right to bear arms" and to "buy a firearm," Holder replied, "No court has ever said that the 2nd Amendment actually says that. I think if you look at it, it talks about bearing guns in a well regulated militia. And I don't think anywhere it talks about an individual" (Pavlich, 22). The Founders, in other words, were using "people" as in "People's Republic of China," not as a synonym for "the population." Before Fast and Furious, the AG was notorious for engineering last-minute pardons for Marc Rich, on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List for the largest tax fraud in history, and for sixteen members of FALN, the Puerto Rican terrorist group that killed several people in bombings in Chicago and New York. But a more revealing accomplishment was his role as point man in the kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez. After applying for a court order to seize the boy from his legal guardian, Holder went ahead with the operation without one, then baldly denied that Elian was seized at gunpoint. Holder was not fazed by the fact that millions of people throughout the world had seen Alan Diaz's disturbing photo. Holder's 130-man INS militia brought enough assault weapons to have taken out Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian's uncle, and any other family members who had armed themselves. But he might have hesitated. It would have been tough to portray the Gonzalez family as nutcase Branch Dravidians. At the very least, Holder might have been tempted to have waited for a court order. And if the SWAT team had broken in with guns blazing and left with blood on its hands, the next time the feds faced armed opposition -- say, to the return of a fifteen-year-old runaway to her father so she could marry her cousin in Lahore -- they might have been even more wary. * * * The murder of Brian Terry has temporarily derailed the administration's plans to slowly, incrementally nationalize Chicago-style gun laws. But there are other fronts in this war, and the vilification of George Zimmerman seems to be very much a part of the campaign to take firearms out of the hands of private citizens. It's a clever strategy: no one has to mention the "g" word. Read more: http://www.americant...l#ixzz20haxVbRi

Hmm, see, I'm not such a simpleton that I can boil it down to a single, inane point... ... but if I had to put my finger on it, I'd say the death of a Border Patrol agent and another officer, the lack of concern for said losses, and the fact that one branch of the government is blatantly lying to another as the high points.

Wow is right...double Wow.

Yeah, I'm picking up on that... Everything else that came to mind would probably have gotten me banned, so I'll just add this: "FLAME DELETED." (Thanks ttag.)

I was lucky enough to be able to help David this weekend at the Grey gun show. It was a great experience and I am very glad that I got to meet a fellow TGOer and hopefully a new friend. I learned alot from David and he was very gracious to let me hang around the booth this weekend. If you all haven't met David check him out at the next show around you. His reloading supply prices are the best around and plus your supporting a TGO vendor (plus one heck of a good guy!).

Assault weapons ban, Romney care, higher taxes and fees? Go ahead and argue about shades of gray if it makes you feel good about supporting him. Fear must be some motivator. It's a fact he signed a ban on assault rifles, it's a fact he did Romney Care, it's a fact he raised taxes and it also a fact he raised fees on almost everything in his state. --- So Keifer, you've gone from Paul-bot to obama-drone? Well, I reckon if it makes you feel better call me whatever you like.

Yes Mr.David is a stand up guy

I'm sure I'd have less to say about the subject if there were fewer videos posted (almost daily) with the same general subject matter; that being that we should vote for an irrelevant candidate. I think it important that people understand just how dangerous for the country that path is.

I am pretty sure I never said I "didn't like" RP or Johnson or any of several other candidates and I don't recall anyone else saying so either. What people don't like is that so many seem willing to vote for someone who has ZERO chance of winning and expelling the Communist from the White House. If RP or someone like him were the R nominee I'd be voting for him but he isn't so I'm not; doesn't mean I don't like him and/or some or even most of his stands on the issues.

I don't see that putting RP on the platform is going to help Mit so why should he allow him the microphone? RP is almost certainly not going to endorse Mit (even though his son has) and putting him on the stage isn't going to bring the Paulbots to Mit's camp...those who haven't drank the RP koolaid are smart enough to make up their own mind about who to vote for whether RP gets to speak at the convention or not....in other words, I see no positives for Mit and there could well be some potential downfall so he's better off ignoring RP as he really needs to put some speakers on who will fire up/energize those who are watching.

Anyway... I hadn't heard about the title on this memo until this article. That just about sums up my thoughts on the whole affair. "Failed" my ass, it was well on its way to accomplishing what they wanted it to. I hope we one day see an un-redacted version of that memo.

Kettle? Hey, it's Pot... you're umm... Nevermind.

A vote for freedom is never wasted but any vote for anyone other than Romney in this election cycle is not only not a vote for freedom; it's a vote for communism, the antithesis of "freedom".

So is it the guns going into Mexico that disturbed you or the claims of a cover-up?

In a word, Charlie Brown; Yes. (I'm not even going to delve into your ridiculous trivialization of a major operation and the resulting cover-up.)

Well good grief, the Mexicans walk, float and fly bundles of coke across our borders right in front of the Mexican Police and they do nothing (except take a cut). And we are supposed to be appalled that some ATF agents lost track of some guns?

Wow.

Trayvon and Zimmerman: The Structure and Elements of a Disinformation Campaign May 3, 2012 By Scott Swett "Trayvon," of course, is Trayvon Martin, the black 17-year-old who was killed two months ago in Florida. "Zimmerman" is George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain who shot him. Referring to Martin by his first name and Zimmerman by his last is just one small tactic in the national media campaign to make Martin's death an enduring symbol of white racism. The Trayvon campaign is accurately described as "disinformation" because deception is a fundamental part of its planning, strategy, and implementation. Leftist disinformation campaigns are common but not widely understood. This article is intended to make them easier to recognize, and to provide a framework for additional research and investigation. Whether or not George Zimmerman was justified in pulling the trigger is outside the scope of this analysis. Narrative The Trayvon narrative can be summarized as follows: a black child was walking innocently through a gated community after buying some candy at a store, when a white racist stalked and murdered him for no reason but his color. The police, who are also racists, let the white man go free. This narrative is similar to those used in previous racial disinformation campaigns: 1987 - White racists have raped a young black girl and left her in a trash bag. 1996 - White racists are burning down black churches across the South. 2005 - White racists at Duke University have raped a black woman. Like the Trayvon narrative, the earlier narratives were untrue. However, they remain widely believed as a result of the massive media coverage used to bring them to national attention. Theme All the racial narratives have the same underlying theme: black people are constantly oppressed and endangered by white racism, which is a central feature of American life. This claim is constantly repeated by political agitators, making use of any event that becomes available. (Actual statistics on violent crime tell a different story: blacks in America assault and murder whites at a far higher rate than the reverse, and the overwhelming majority of violent acts against blacks -- 93% -- are committed by other blacks. These facts are rarely mentioned by the media.) Strategy Social science research offers some useful insights into how people typically make decisions: Reasoning is only a small part of forming opinions or judgments Judgments are often based on inadequate information Early and negative information has a disproportionally heavy impact Anecdotal, easy-to-remember information is also overly weighted Therefore, disinformation campaigns use simple, powerful, negative, emotional arguments that tell a story. Since people resist changing their minds about emotionally loaded topics, the media campaign has to ramp up quickly, before the facts have a chance to catch up to the narrative. Preparation The organizers probably evaluated several events before settling on one. Ideally, the "white oppressor" would not have been charged with a crime, highlighting the supposed inability of blacks to obtain justice from the legal system. The victim must be dead, not merely wounded, to be eligible for martyr status. Finally, the event should have taken place in the South, to allow sinister comparisons with the racial attacks committed there more than half a century ago. Such criteria are not easy to meet. This problem may have led the organizers to select an event that clashes with the "white racism" theme in several important and hard-to-conceal ways. Those aspects would need to be suppressed as long as possible to give the narrative time to take hold. Nearly three weeks elapsed between the shooting and the first national media coverage. The organizers would use this time to set up legal, research, and media teams. These teams would establish effective control over Martin's parents, organize his extended family members and friends, interview and recruit witnesses, try to conceal or sanitize Martin's online and school records, prepare media allies for the launch, and plan the content and timing of the campaign. Mary Cutcher, whose original statement to police supported Zimmerman's version of the event, is a possible candidate for the "recruited witness" role, having delivered a steady stream of interviews in support of the narrative after the media launch. Also worth noting is that Martin's parents quit their jobs shortly after the launch to start new careers as full-time political activists. Coordination The disinformation team includes those who work in apparently independent roles or behind the scenes, as well as public advocates. Little information is currently available about the behind-the-scenes players, but it is possible to make some useful inferences from their actions. The most prominent public organizers, Al Sharpton and attorney Benjamin Crump, are veterans of previous "white racism" campaigns -- Sharpton first came to national attention a generation ago as the leading promoter of the Tawana Brawley hoax. During the Trayvon campaign, he has been given free rein by MSNBC to serve as a coordinator and demagogue while simultaneously "reporting" the event on the air -- a blatant conflict of interest. Sharpton was most likely hired by the leftist network to fill precisely this role -- as a prime-time mouthpiece for racial propaganda efforts. He would later threaten to call for civil disobedience if Zimmerman was not arrested. Crump quickly established his law firm as the primary counsel for Martin's parents. He and partner Daryl Parks organized marches, contacted Sharpton and other "civil rights activists," and worked to bring federal officials into the case -- not a difficult task, given the radicalization of the Justice Department. From the beginning, Crump charged that race was the motive for the shooting, Martin was an innocent victim, and the local police were complicit in a cover-up. Control the message The narrative launched in mid-March with nearly simultaneous articles by black journalists at major leftist media outlets: Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic, Charles M. Blow at the New York Times, and Trymaine Lee at the Huffington Post. These were classics of advocacy journalism -- sensationalist propaganda with no attempt to be impartial, objective, or accurate. Al Sharpton repeated and amplified the reports on his daily TV show at MSNBC. The national media instantly adopted the story, devoting hour after hour to the narrative and its white racism theme, with little balance or analysis. The massive media support helped turn a local shooting into the most important story in America -- one that would dominate the news cycle for two weeks. However, that story contained many false and misleading elements: Martin was presented as a young boy who could not have posed a physical threat to Zimmerman, by showing photos taken when Martin was around 12 years old. Martin was repeatedly described as a "model student." Little or no mention was made of the recent wave of burglaries in the area, making it seem that Zimmerman had no legitimate reason to suspect or follow Martin. Zimmerman was reported to outweigh Martin by 100 pounds. According to a friend, Zimmerman is 5'8" and weighs 170. Martin was about 6'2" and 160. Zimmerman was reported as having ignored an "official order" from a police dispatcher to stop following Martin. In fact, the operator merely said, "You don't need to do that" -- after which Zimmerman replied, "Okay" and apparently returned to his truck. Even if the operator had instructed Zimmerman to stop, Zimmerman was under no legal obligation to comply. The media emphasized that Martin had been killed in a "gated community," creating the false impression that the area was an upper-class white enclave, when the neighborhood is actually middle-class and split evenly between white and minority residents. Zimmerman was presented as an angry racist, with no mention of his tutoring of black children or his efforts to have white police officers disciplined for beating a black man. The media pretended that Zimmerman was white for several days and then coined the new term "white Hispanic" purely to prop up the organizers' argument that whites as a group were to blame for Martin's death. More than any other aspect of their coverage, this tactic shows the depth of the media's commitment to the disinformation campaign. Inflame the public The core of effective disinformation is a powerful appeal to emotion. In the Trayvon campaign, the key emotional element was the anguished screaming captured on a 911 call recording. One report noted, "Until the chilling tapes of the 911 call were released -- in which screams of what sounds like a young boy and a gunshot can be heard -- it seemed to be 'just another garden variety killing.'" The media solemnly informed the public that the desperate-sounding screams came from Martin during his final moments, as he begged an implacable killer for his life. This produced the intended effect: visceral anger and outrage. During the crucial first days after the media launch, Martin was unambiguously presented as the young, helpless victim of a brutal racial attack. News reports repeated over and over that Trayvon had merely gone to the store to get candy, all the while showing an endless stream of photos of Martin as a smiling little boy. The media ignored or actively tried to undermine Zimmerman's claim that he had been attacked and beaten by Martin, and that he was the one screaming for help. Few reports mentioned the key statement by the Sanford police chief: "All the physical evidence and testimony we have independent of what Mr. Zimmerman provides corroborates [his] claim to self-defense." Meanwhile, black and leftist politicians, organizers, and activists hit the streets, accusing Zimmerman of cold-blooded murder and calling for his immediate arrest or execution. The overwrought speeches, rallies, marches, and demands are aspects of what Daniel Greenfield has called Grievance Theater. As Greenfield noted, "Grievance Theater isn't about race, it's not about slavery, police brutality or separate lunch counters. It's about power and money." Attack dissenters On March 27, it emerged that Trayvon Martin had been suspended from high school three times for possessing drugs and a marijuana pipe, for truancy, and for graffiti. During the most recent incident, he was caught with a bag full of women's jewelry and a "burglary tool." Martin's crude, misogynistic, and occasionally violent Twitter messages were also released. The topics under discussion included buying and smoking weed and Martin's apparent assault on a bus driver. Martin's mother responded by saying, "They killed my son and now they're trying to kill his reputation." This powerful one-sentence press release helped defuse the threat to Martin's carefully falsified image while also expanding the blame for his death beyond Zimmerman. Political amateurs rarely come up with such professionally crafted statements by themselves. The same day, a poll showed that 73% of respondents believed that Zimmerman should be arrested. This probably represents the high-water mark for public acceptance of the narrative. Defend the narrative In late March, major TV networks broadcast a series of doctored audio and video recordings, presenting each as an important breaking news story that contradicted Zimmerman's account. On March 22, CNN aired an "enhanced audio" of Zimmerman's phone conversation with the police and claimed he had committed a hate crime by using the obsolete racial slur "coons." On March 27, NBC's Today show edited Zimmerman's phone conversation to make him appear racist. In NBC's version, Zimmerman said, "This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black." But Zimmerman was actually answering a question from the police dispatcher: Zimmerman: "This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about." Dispatcher: "Okay. And this guy...is he white, black, or Hispanic?" Zimmerman: "He looks black." NBC's apology blamed the manipulation on "an error in the production process." The network fired a producer a few days later but continued to insist that the editing had been an accident. On March 28, ABC News aired a video of Zimmerman at the police station after receiving medical treatment. ABC reported that he appeared uninjured, and the network helped that perception along by covering his head with a graphic during most of the video. Other photos soon revealed lacerations and bleeding, but for several days the media reported that the lack of visible injuries had undercut Zimmerman's self-defense claim. A few days later, ABC trotted out a doctor who diagnosed Zimmerman's nose as not having been broken -- based solely on the police video. The dishonest news reports helped the organizers in several ways: they bought time for the narrative to sink in, distracted attention from the evidence mounting against it, and kept the story in the spotlight. They also provided ammunition for Martin's defenders in the furious debate over the facts and meaning of the shooting that was raging in discussion forums, in blogs, and in the comments sections of online articles and videos. These conversations included information largely ignored by the media, such as the original police report; the Sanford city manager's statement; more recent photos of Martin, the reports that he had been involved in drugs, thug culture, and possibly theft; and the media's own distortion of the facts. Public opinion began to shift slowly away from the narrative as new evidence reached those capable of being persuaded. By April, it was becoming clear that the person screaming on the 911 audio was Zimmerman, not Martin. The media quickly found "experts" to proclaim that computer analysis had failed to match the screams to Zimmerman's voice. These results were actually meaningless -- voice recognition software is not designed to compare words to screams. No analysis was done for Martin's voice, which would have been available in phone messages to his parents or friends. Transfer the blame A central goal of the Trayvon campaign is to focus the manufactured anger and outrage over Martin's death on the imagined racism of America's legal system, fueling a wave of political activism. To do this, the organizers must persuade the public that a chance encounter between two individuals proves the racism theme and has global implications. Objectively, this makes little sense: "A Hispanic man killed a black teenager in Florida, and no charges were filed. Racism is therefore rampant in America, and we must change the system." The fallacies don't matter. Disinformation campaigns are about emotional manipulation, not rational thinking. President Obama weighed in on March 23, saying it was "absolutely imperative" for federal, state, and local authorities to investigate the shooting. He asked Americans to "do some soul-searching" and added, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon." This matched the organizers' template perfectly. Obama had agreed that the shooting was of national importance, with society-wide implications; implicated racism as the motive; and identified personally with "Trayvon." Martin's mother echoed Obama, telling Congressional Black Caucus members that her son was "also your son." She continued the blame-shifting tactic at a rally, saying, "I know I cannot bring my baby back. But I'm sure going to make changes so that does not happen to another family." In early April, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said, "Justice must be done for the victim. It's not just this individual case; it calls into question the delivery of justice in all situations like this." Pillay also called for "reparations for the victims concerned." Endgame As the momentum of the story began to slow, the media focus shifted from the leaking narrative to related but more useful topics: the status of the legal case; the ongoing rallies and demands for "justice"; the extent of white racism in America; proposed legal changes; new white-on-black attacks; and, as always, the impure motives of those who resist the media's political agenda. We can expect no apologies for all the dishonest reporting, or any serious media analysis of the disinformation campaign itself. Leftist activists are exempt from "investigative journalism." Instead, the Trayvon campaign will be leveraged to support other objectives, such as: Promoting gun control Weakening self-defense laws Expanding hate crime and hate speech laws Supporting reparations and other forms of special treatment for blacks Energizing leftist political activism during an election year Justifying and encouraging black-on-white violence, civil unrest, and riots If a show trial was part of the organizers' original game plan, it no longer fits their needs. A trial would further expose the narrative and reveal the "white racist" bogeyman as a soft-spoken Hispanic Democrat who tutors black children in his spare time. The organizers do not want the world to see George Zimmerman tearfully explaining on the witness stand that Martin knocked him down and was bashing his head on the curb, and that he screamed for help, but no one came -- a statement that would be supported by the evidence and by witnesses. It remains to be seen whether the organizers can prevent Zimmerman from telling his side of the story in court. So where do we go from here? Many blacks (and some whites) are angry at the "racist white America" peddled by the organizers. Many whites (and some blacks) are angry at the dishonesty and anti-white racism of the disinformation campaign. The one certain outcome from all this is more racial division and animosity. No doubt that is what the organizers had in mind all along. Scott Swett is the primary author of To Set The Record Straight: How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry and webmaster for SwiftVets.com and WinterSoldier.com. The veteran-led opposition to John Kerry in 2004 countered a longstanding leftist disinformation campaign that smeared American troops and veterans as "war criminals." http://www.americant...n_campaign.html

I don’t care how many guns go into Mexico. I don’t care how many agents watch them go, lose track of them, or help carry them across the border. I don’t care what laws the government decides to pass or what penalties they decided to hand out to those involved in transporting guns to another country. As long as they recognize any U.S. citizen’s right to a fair trial; I don’t care if they send them to prison for life. But none of that has anything to do with a U.S. citizen buying a gun here. My right to own a firearm and States’ Rights will prevail. The Mexican government makes no attempt to stop drugs and illegals from crossing our border. But they have the audacity you whine about a few guns. Which will without doubt turn into “Send us some money!†Maybe if some guns can get into the hands of good Mexican citizens they can start defending themselves from the cartels and the corrupt government. The only ones keeping this BS issue alive is gun owners that want to see something happen to some government officials. You will not like the outcome of the attention you are causing.

i just hate the long wait. wish it was on now.

say no to crack.

I know charges are unlikely but whether easily visible or not, I always come down on the side of "if my firearm isn't welcome then you aren't welcome to my money"...I'll always go somewhere else unless there is simply no realistic choice and/or there are more important considerations.

I agree, and I don’t look hard either. Carrying a gun is a crime in Tennessee so I don’t really blame the businesses trying to cover their azz. If the state ever decides to recognize the right to carry; these signs will then become a rights issue. They will never see mine, so it will only be an issue if I have to pull it. At that point, signs are the least of my worries.

I have to agree with a good portion of this. I grew up in Monroe County, Tellico Plains (Rural Vale) to be exact. While Vonore may have the industry, that is about it in the county. The rest of it is slowly spiraling into a drug infested decay of poverty and laziness. With that said though... I remember about twenty years ago (wow, it has been that long...) when Dolly came to town and expressed interest in buying Stokely Bottoms for a theme park. The town told her no. The history of the area was more important. The Indian Burial Ground, the Civil War cannon works, the WWII internment camp. I was proud of Tellico for that. Made my happy to know that my town would not be... whored out like Sevier County. Now, with one of the highest meth related arrest rates in the state, several close friends and family that are dead or in jail from a stagnant wasting away of nothingness that comes from being deep in the depths of hopelessness and poverty, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if Dolly had bought Stokely Bottoms. Now back to the OP. I miss my mountains so much. I feel lonely without them. I knew they meant a lot to me, but I didn't realize I would feel like this without them. As a kid a I traipsed all through those woods, camping, hunting, fishing, just wandering. I miss that. I understand completely why the leaf lookers come out, and I don't hold it against them anymore, not the way I used to.

I hesitate to call myself a Conservative, b/c of the baggage that comes with it. Some people fail to see a distinction b/w fiscal policy and social policy. I'm VERY fiscally conservative, but I want to stay out of peoples' business. That doesn't mean I want their business shoved in my face either, though. Most important, though, is that the gov't has to quit picking winners and losers in the economy. They punish success through the tax code and that makes me furious. I'm sick of the class warfare crap most of all.

I think the Libertarians have the right idea about getting back to the Constitution. They are just going about it the wrong way. I have never seen a Libertarian candidate in any other race except for the President. If the libertarians want to have a chance of making a 3rd party they need to start slowly in smaller local elections and make successful communities(all over the country). Then focus on state governments and use the proven methods that worked in the local governments to make the state government successful. Then use the success of the state governments to built monentum for the national government. The problem is they are throwing up a candidate every four years and then not worrying about the local elections. The movement they are trying to make must be made in baby steps. If you take small steps and put your limited fund where they do the most good then you have a chance to make a difference. If you throw all your money at one big problem and not worry about the little problems then you are wasting your money.

I don't need to be a football star to understand why a team sucks so bad. I also am sick of all the whining coming from the Michigan auto industry that blames everyone but their own crooked ways.

Because supporting someone who can not and will not win election against a liberal communist dictator-want-a-be doesn't provide a "u-turn" at all; it only supports continuing down the same road and likely at a faster pace than would happen if we elected the Republican candidate.

Buy one, they rock. The only negative I can say is the low round capacity, but I deal with it.

I'm not a grammer monster or anything but........ Thay should be they........ and jest should be just.. ...other than that...have fun with the new mag and tell us how it works for you.....

No way the left votes for GJ but ironically that's where their votes will be counted. He has as much a chance as RP, actually less, whose votes will also benefit the left. Both should endorse Mitt and concentrate on building their base and filling the House and Senate with their ideas.

Lord I hope he takes as many votes away from the left as he will the right or we won't have a snowballs chance.

If that works for you that's great. I prefer to keep my Fourth Amendment rights intact along with the rest of them. As far as creating a law to force searches- again check the Fourth Amendment.

Interpretation is not really the issue; all one really has to do is read it.The Constitution is not that difficult to understand (of course, if one is product of our public schools they need some remedial English classes).

Leroy, I hope that is in fact the case and Roberts is actually smarter than he appeared yesterday. I fully see all that you stated, but I have a dark side of me that says the nuances as you stated will not be interpreted that way by future courts and legislative bodies. Either Roberts outsmarted Obama, congress, America, and his own court or he is another conservative that got taken in by the DC disease.

hahahahaha So the Supreme Court cannot be relied on to follow the constitution? What, your interpretation of the constitution? I dunno but I am pretty sure they decide what it all means.

Who is this "Ron Paul" you speak of? Please tell me more...

I'm getting the feeling you support Gary Johnson.

I'm working in a (government) facility that does not allow any weapons, and don't worry about incidents once I'm at work since it's pretty secure. Of course, the rules also state that I can't even keep a weapon locked in a lockbox secured with a steel cable to the frame under the left side of my rear seat completely out of sight for the commute to and from work, so I don't.

MikeG you are as senile as me. Paul has worthy ideas but comes acros as bat#### crazy to normal people He needs to endorse Mitt for the simple sake of ousting Obozo

I also had a very quick turnaround on my re-newal this month even with having to have a new picture made. I have gotten better looking, more mature, since my last picture.

It's rather lucky that Maverick and Goose didn't kill anyone.