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Posts Tagged ‘Trayvon Martin’
July 22nd, 2013 at 5:30 pm
Elizabeth Warren Errs Again with ‘Stand Your Ground’ Comment

If you wanted to know what a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts thinks about a Florida murder trial, the Huffington Post has you covered.

Speaking to the press in South Boston today, Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said that while she thinks people should accept George Zimmerman’s acquittal in Trayvon Martin’s shooting death, it is reasonable to criticize ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws.

Except that it’s completely unreasonable in Zimmerman’s case. As I pointed out in my column last week, Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law played absolutely no part in the trial for either the prosecution or the defense. Instead, Zimmerman argued that once Martin started beating him he was entitled to use deadly force to defend himself. Zimmerman relied on traditional self-defense, not ‘Stand Your Ground’ – a law which drops the requirement that a person reasonably fearing death or great bodily injury must first try to escape before engaging his attacker.

This isn’t the first time Senator Warren has played fast and loose with the facts. For decades she (at best) made misleading assertions about her alleged Native American ancestry, allowing her to get plumb academic jobs at Penn and Harvard Law ahead of other more qualified candidates. Earlier this year, Warren claimed that her brother lived solely on his Social Security checks – a claim she walked back after admitting that she and her millionaire husband give him assistance.

And so on with today’s politicization of Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law.

Warren, like other liberal elites, is turning a tragedy into an activist agenda to repeal a law that played no part in Martin’s death. It would be comical if it didn’t betray a serious disregard for reality. Warren and friends need to stop directing anger at the wrong source, and start acting with the competence and prudence their high offices demand.

July 19th, 2013 at 5:49 pm
Senate Dem Using ‘Stand Your Ground’ Hearings to Target ALEC, NRA

In the days since a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, liberal politicians and pundits have tried to argue that without the state’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law providing a defense, Zimmerman would be guilty.

The problem with this argument is that Zimmerman’s lawyers never invoked ‘Stand Your Ground’ as a defense in the trial. ‘Stand Your Ground’ was irrelevant to the verdict.

But that hasn’t stopped liberals like Attorney General Eric Holder from using the mere existence of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws as a pretext for unmerited lawsuits. In a speech to the NAACP this week, Holder encouraged members of the NAACP to agitate for the repeal of such laws in the 30+ states where they exist.

Now, Congress is upping the ante.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) is promising to hold congressional hearings about the effects of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws, including such topics as “when racial profiling and ‘stand your ground’ laws mix,” according to a press release.

Amid all the racially charged theater, Durbin also announced what has to be his real motive behind the hearings – scrutinizing the roles that the NRA and ALEC played in promoting ‘Stand Your Ground’ legislation.

Durbin has no right to subject either organization to an investigative fishing expedition designed to criticize private groups for exercising their First Amendment rights. If Durbin follows through with his threat, someone in the Senate GOP needs to throw some brush-back pitches in Dick’s direction. After the politician-inspired IRS scandal, it’s time for liberals to be held accountable for their wild-eyed accusations.

July 17th, 2013 at 9:59 am
Ramirez Cartoon: The Media Addiction
Posted by Print

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

April 11th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
UN Human Rights Chief Inserts Herself into Trayvon Martin Case
Posted by Print

Last month, I posted here on the blog about the U.N. Human Rights Commission’s risible-if-it-wasn’t-so-deplorable failure to deal with the enormous human rights violations occurring in Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. But be not worried — if those fearless defenders of human rights can’t bring justice to Damascus, they’ll be happy to settle for the Orlando suburbs. From Breitbart:

UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay has called for an “immediate investigation” into the death of Trayvon Martin.

Leaving aside the matter of the despicable record of the UN on human rights, what kind of record does Pillay herself have on human rights, and does she have any moral leg to stand on when interfering in the domestic affaris of the United States?  According to Freedom House, between September 2008, when she became the Human Rights Chief, and June 2010, Pillay made no comment whatsoever on the victims in 34 countries rated “Not Free.”  Some of the countries not criticized were: Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Vietnam.

Your United Nations, ladies and gentleman. Cost to American taxpayers: approximately $3 billion a year.

The Trayvon Martin case remains an ambiguous tragedy. Certainly someone was in the wrong, but the available facts give us no clarity as to who. At the moment, only one thing is certain: justice will be less likely with the UN involved.