Scott Creighton on left-gate keeper journalists:

“Jeremy Scahill shouldn’t be condemned for making a statement that distances himself from this issue. [Lila: 9/11 research]

After all, Jeremy has books to sell. And who am I to tell someone how much wealth they have to sacrifice to help get our country back.

Yes, he takes on Blackwater. But nothing changes when you take on Blackwater, except their name. They are still getting contracts, still cashing the checks. In fact, they are bigger and more powerful since Jeremy wrote his now famous book.

And so is Jeremy Scahill.  In a way, you can say… the longer the “War on terror” goes on, the longer Blackwater will be gaming the system, and THEREFORE… the longer Jeremy Scahill remains an employed literary hero.

But he should be condemned for his attitude and making the ridiculous claim that people like myself and Richard Gage and David Ray Griffin are “insulting” the families of the victims of 9/11.  This is the kind of straw-man attack that “debunkers” have been using for years now. The fact is, the victims on 9/11 died horribly. Some first responders are STILL dying horribly because the Bush administration LIED about the air quality and now the Obama administration STILL won’t help them get the medical attention they need.

But in the end, I don’t know how it is supposed to hurt someone less if they think an “angry Muslim” terrorist killed their loved one, as opposed to a “greedy fascist” terrorist.  It’s still a terrorist act and whether or not it was brought about by Muslims in a cave or neocons who wrote in 2000,  “The process of transformation.” The plan said, “is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event- like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Perhaps the families of the victims of 9/11 are somehow different from those of the victims of the anthrax attacks. We all know that the story of Dr. Ivins as the “mad doctor” is bullshit. I think even Jeremy Scahill has to admit that.

So what is the difference?  The difference is, the Nation magazine won’t tear up your contract if you write about Dr. Ivins being framed.  That’s the difference.

So yeah, Jeremy Scahill gets a little mad at the people who ask him about 9/11. He gets mad because he feels like we should be polite enough to recognize that he can’t admit the story is bullshit because if he does it will cost him money.  I guess he feels like the questions he gets asked are an imposition… but I guess that is somehow different from when  he is trying to get the truth out about Eric Prince and Blackwater. Some how that is all different I suppose but forgive me if I can’t really see it.

Here’s the real difference… going after Blackwater or some congressman and his greed is one thing. It doesn’t end anything.

But you go after 9/11… well that’s different.

The Global war on Terror is over.. the militarization of the nation is over… the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq are both over… the Drone industry dries up… the investigations start… the plea bargains start… the snitching starts… the BIPARTISAN NEOLIBERALIZATION OF AMERICA ENDS… and one more curious thing…

Once the truth comes out, people are going to eventually start asking why all our “serious” investigative journalists like… Jeremy Scahill… missed something so goddamned obvious.

Not only did they miss it, they made up shit to attack people who were actually trying to investigate it; trying to tell people.

So one day, when this does all come out, after all the confessions and the accusations and the trials, one day the attention of the angry population will eventually turn to our “serious” investigative journalists like Goodman, like Taibbi, like … Scahill…

… and they will be asked to account for how they chose their careers and their “respectability” over the Truth.  A truth I know they feel in their hearts.

Knowing a day of atonement like that is coming, is bound to piss anyone off. Even Jeremy Scahill.

So I am not angry, fellow advocates, I feel sorry for him. Like all the other douche bags.”

My Comment:

I’ll just add here that I think Taibbi is quite a bit better than the other two, not just in writing ability, but in terms of what he covers. I cannot actually listen to Amy Goodman straight through. Her partisanship and obvious bias are so distressing.

At the Daily Paul, an alert reader expresses my own skepticism about the supposed hit job on Michael Hastings.

Really? For taking down a Pentagon general to exonerate a US President….in the faux-alternative Rolling Stone magazine at that? Really?

They blow up a popular, talented, white, middle-class journalist, with connections at every major media outlet and likely in the Pentagon as well, for that?

And they do it after making sure to let you know (pssst, wink!), via a military officer (who happens to be the journalist’s friend) that the FBI was following the journalist…. and the FBI,  of course, plants a car bomb on the guy, just after interviewing all his friends…

And said journalist turns out to be  connected to Super-Snitch Edward Snowden; to Julian Assange & his Wikileaks circus; to Jeremy Scahill, nemesis of  Blackwater and himself a close friend of Glenn Greenwald (also a fan of Assange and Snowden);  to the Freedom of the Press foundation – the same press outfit that sports Greenwald and Laura Poitras on its board and supported Manning and Assange at the very time it was bringing Edward Snowden to the public’s attention; and to Barret Brown, a self-proclaimed spokesman for Anonymous, who researched and posted the HBGary emails outed by a subgroup of Anonymous, the hacker collective that backs Assange and Manning).

Yikes.

Cointelpro alright. Only, in my estimation, Hastings was less likely to have been a target than he was to have been a player.

So here’s the reader at Daily Paul:

“How many of you really know who Michael Hastings is?

I was very intrigued by the Michael Hastings tragedy especially because he seemed linked to Snowden who really drew my interest in recent days. I first learned about Hasting through this post:
http://www.dailypaul.com/289627/michael-hastings-dead-at-33

There is a video on that thread that showed Hastings as a Ron Paul supporter which immediately hooked me. In that video he continued to share fascinating stories about Afghanistan and a very emotional human story about the family of a dead soldier.. He seemed genuine.

Then some oddities started popping up. The last person who tweeted that he was with Michael Hastings is Jeremy Scahill who I researched and immediately suspected as a left war gatekeeper and controlled opposition for reasons I mentioned in the above thread.

Then I looked into Hastings and found out he had a very unusual story about losing his wife in the Afghan war and wrote a book about it: I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story
(Many of the negative Amazon reviews suggest the book was mainly about him and very little about her.)

Then I realized his current wife Elise Jordan was a speechwriter for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2008–2009 and very connected with George W Bush.

Then I read an interview with Julian Assange (who I always suspected as cointelpro):
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/julian-assange-the…
I came away just as unimpressed with Wikileaks from this story as before.

Then finally I read Hasting’s famous Rolling Stone piece about McChrystal:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-runaway-genera…
First off how could Michael Hastings have so much access?

I couldn’t help feeling after reading the Runaway General that the article was a very carefully crafted propaganda piece aimed at the political left to remove Obama from blame and scapegoat McCrystal (who took one for the team.) The general public was growing weary of the war and the story was a basis for the Obama apologists who would say: “It wasn’t Obama’s war…he was removed from what was going on and was reluctant. It was the General’s war..” Furthermore there is a part about how the General was protective of innocent Afghan civilians, how innocent casualties were limited in contrast to how the Russians killed millions. Can you believe that? I couldn’t help but believe this is an incredibly well-crafted war propaganda piece!!!

I think I wanted to believe this story, but now I’m a skeptic again. I wonder how great the web of lies could be? Are many of these journalists intelligence operatives, controlled opposition and gatekeepers? Are these fake stories? Actors? Are fake CIA operative deaths used to promote fear? These are just questions I have… *Sigh*…”

Links between Anonymous and elite companies, proposed on deep politics forum:

“First off let’s start with the latest Anon video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyKE9…layer_embedded
entitled: A99 #OpESR RICO Class Action Lawsuit Against the Federal Reserve

In this video you will see an invitation message to go to www.fss34.com to chat.

Let’s start from there —> fss34.com

Domain listing is protected by domain privacy company in Nova Scotia, Canada.

“Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc.

Whois Agent (gmbpmrlhdq@whoisprivacyprotect.com)

+1.9027492060

Fax: +1.9027495405

PO Box 841

C/O fss34.com

Yarmouth, NS B5A 4K5

CA”

That company has a fax contact of a UPS store fax box in Bellevue Washington USA.

” Whois Privacy Protection Services, Inc.

Whois Agent ()

Fax:

PMB 368, 14150 NE 20th St – F1

Bellevue, WA 98007

US”

REF LINK: http://www.superpages.com/bp/Bellevu…0135213050.htm

You might remember this very same government tactic used by the CIA not long ago.

Remember CIA Agent Davis who was arrested for killing 2 ISI Agents in Pakistan. His dummy background info on his private company also lead to a UPS Store.

What’s in a name or a handle?? gmbpmrlhdq@whoisprivacyprotect.com

I found some interesting correlations regarding the prefix: gmbpmrlhdq

It can be broken up into abbreviations

GM (General Motors) BP (British Petroleum) Mr. L & HDQ (Headquarters)

How are all these abbreviations connected ???

Philip A. Laskawy = Mr. L ???

Even Mr. Laskawy fits into all the abbreviations with his contacts.

Mr. Laskawy is currently head of Ernst & Young LLP who handles accounts for British Petroleum.
REF LINK: http://www.ey.com/UK/en/Industries/O…il-and-Gas-EYe

Mr. Laskawy is also former Board Chairman for General Motors up til 2009.
REF LINK: http://www.gm.com/company/aboutGM/bo…p_laskawy.html

So how does it fit with the Bellevue WA Fax box at the UPS Store???

Ernst & Young LLP has an office in Bellevue WA.

CAP GEMINI ERNST & YOUNG

10500 NE 8TH ST

BELLEVUE, WA 98004-4345

gm|bp|mrl|hdq = GM, BP, Mr. Laskawy, Headquarters

So why would the elites be tied to an Anon video ???

I bet Mr. L never thought that one would be figured out and on to internet censorship !!!

Some more interesting facts worthy of note.

Mr. L’s company Ernst & Young also has ties with AT&T and Verizon.

Why is this significant ???
These 2 companies are the 2 biggest internet providers in the US.

Verizon paid E&Y over $35 Million in 2008

REF LINK: http://investor.verizon.com/financia…8/proxy10.html

AT&T also had them under contract in 2008

REF LINK: http://www.att.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=13112

You may also remember E&Y from the Enron Scandal ???

They were also probed by the Feds for their involvement with the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

REF LINK: www.foxbusiness.com… industries/finance/ernst–young-probed-role-lehman-bankruptcy/

So we have a connection between Mr. L, AT&T, Verizon and Anon.

Mr. L, the middle man ??? circumstantial ??? maybe, but there’s more

Remember that Ernst & Young Office in Bellevue WA ??? The fax box at the UPS Store in Bellevue, WA ???

The name of the E&Y Office in Bellevue WA is Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. Cap Gemini short for Capital Gemini.

In a move to create a global computer services consulting firm, Cap Gemini S.A. of France announced today that it was acquiring the consulting practice of Ernst & Young, one of the world’s largest accounting firms, in a deal worth $11.1 billion.

Cap Gemini said it would pay 375 million euros, or $362 million, in cash and issue up to 43.5 million new shares, if all the consulting businesses of Ernst & Young accept the offer.

The stock will be divided among Ernst & Young’s 1,000 consulting partners, who will then work for Cap Gemini, and the 4,000 accounting and tax partners that will remain with the auditing firm. About a third of the shares will go to the consulting partners and another third to the accounting and tax partners, who must sell their stock within five years. The remainder will go to finance Ernst & Young’s pension plan and to pay for a variety of other expenses, including tax bills and transaction costs.

<span class=” fbUnderline”>REF LINK</span>: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/01/bu…-business.html

Notice, their specialty ?????

Global Computer Services !!!

Also ties in with internet censorship.

If the internet gets regulated, who do you think the Gov will turn to for the infrastructure and resources to govern the internet ???

Cap Gemini ????

They are the leader in the field.

Internet Censorship means billions of dollars to Cap Gemini in contracts for the gov.

Anon’s connections to Cap Gemini makes it a global internet conspiracy with Anon acting as the strong arm to reach that destination.

And how much did Cap Gemini pay Ernst & Young for this ???

$11.1 Billion

Is this what control of the net is worth to them ???

For $11.1 Billion, you can buy a lot of hackers

It is my belief that Cap Gemini intends to make billions off of internet censorship like Haliburton made billions off the Gulf War.

But this is all just theory. Or is it ???

You decide and do your own research

Update: I should add here that I have since writing this looked at the video of the car crash again. I’m not knowledgeable about cars at all, so this is just a random opinion, but I found the way the car veered off and exploded a bit eerie. Unnatural.

I don’t think that means the government took him out, though. I think, I’d need to know more about the security camera that caught the image and whether a certain kind of distortion is to be expected.

On the other hand, I can’t get rid of the feeling that there was something stagey about the whole thing.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

There was a lot of talk on the blogs about the death  in a car crash of journalist Michael Hastings, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine.

I didn’t post any of the theories about his death, because I got the distinct impression that they were largely speculation….and possibly disinformation.

Hastings wrote terrific reports, but he was too much an “establishment alternative” (Rolling Stone Magazine, Polk award etc.) for me to think he’d strayed far enough to warrant some kind of hit.

Now we have news that both the autopsy report and the family confirm that the reporter, a one-time meth addict, had slid back into taking drugs and was also taking medical marijuana for post-traumatic stress disorder, acquired during his years reporting on the Iraq war.  The report shows traces of amphetamines and marijuana in his blood, but also states that they were not the cause of his death. The evidence from the report and witness accounts from family members suggest that Hastings’ death was caused by crashing his car while driving at high-speed (at least 80 MPH, possibly 100 MPH or higher). What caused the speeding? No one can say for sure. But a troubled state of mind, exacerbated or caused by drug usage might well have led to the reckless driving, which was uncharacteristic of the reporter, from accounts from his family.

“Family members said Hastings had been using the hallucinogenic DMT recently, though the drug was not detected in a blood test after the crash.

The names of family members who spoke to investigators were redacted in the report.

The report said a family member had last seen Hastings passed out at home about three hours before the crash. The person said Hastings had been smoking marijuana the night before the crash.” (FoxNews.com)

Julian Assange, supposedly the epitome of Rage Against the Machine, is now hell-bent, it seems, on joining the Machine.

His Wikileaks Party, not content with dissing the Aussie Greens and cozying up with right-wing parties down under (take that, all you lefty groupies of Julian)…or with infighting over its own lack of ..er…transparency and democracy…..has now reinvented itself as a bastion of realpolitik and fervent advocate of MORE defense and intel to preserve Australian sovereignty.

Yes, you read that right. Aussie sovereignty is what really turns Assange on.

How art the mighty fallen.

Only a few short years ago, Assange was supposed to be the beacon of a new post-national age of justice sans frontieres.

Today, alas, his party manifesto sounds as if it could have been manufactured by some government apparatchik.

Perhaps it was.

More from Raoul Heinrichs:

“Launched in March this year, the WikiLeaks Party is contesting seven Senate seats in Australia’s upcoming federal election. The evolution has been a strange one. As Sam Roggeveen put to Assange himself in a recent video forum, rather than ‘raging against the machine’, WikiLeaks now finds itself eagerly trying to join it.

To that end, a new constitution and policy platform have been drawn up, and a user-friendly website has been launched that alludes to WikiLeaks’ distinctively raw online aesthetic without fully embracing it.

The hacktivists, meanwhile, have retreated back into their darkened basements, replaced by candidates from an altogether different milieu. Beyond Assange, who remains the figurehead, these are older and less controversial figures: academics, journalists, lawyers and human rights activists. Each is steadfastly committed to the enhancement of accountability, transparency and justice, though presumably less by the freewheeling, anarchistic means traditionally associated with WikiLeaks than by the formal structures embodied in Australia’s system of parliamentary oversight.

……After revelations this week that WikiLeaks has allocated preferences in NSW and WA to a slew of right-wing parties over the Greens, the job may have become even harder. Leslie Cannold, the second Victorian candidate and designated replacement for Assange, has already resigned. With the party now facing an existential crisis over claims of infighting and a lack of transparent and accountable decision making, more are expected to leave. In short, the WikiLeaks Party now needs a miracle……

..With its collective brainpower understandably devoted to other issues, the Party has not fully articulated its position on foreign affairs. A quick review of its policy platform and the public statements of its lead candidates, however, does reveal a certain level of coherence and, surprisingly, a worldview only lightly infused with the philosophy and conspiratorial mindset we associate with WikiLeaks. Indeed, the most striking thing about the Party’s outlook on foreign policy is its overriding sense of moderation. There is throughout a conspicuous absence of radicalism and utopian ideology…….

Its platform extols the importance of a foreign policy ‘based on human rights and international law’, on resolving conflict before it escalates into violence, and on the need for Australia to play a role as a ‘good international citizen’. But these are virtually axiomatic principles in Australian foreign policy, and they could just as easily be read out of the ALP handbook. Beyond this, the Party evinces no concrete attachment to any really big ideas — to isolationism, pacifism or international cosmopolitanism, or even to the more mainstream tenets of liberal institutionalism, which emphasise communication and transparency as a means of fostering peaceful relations among states.

Instead, the party’s foreign policy views appear to have been formulated with a conventional, if realistic, model in mind: an international system of states, animated by mistrust and the ever-present risk of conflict. Unsurprisingly, then, the dominant concern seems to be about enhancing Australia’s security and independence (in other words, its sovereignty).

In this vein, the WikiLeaks Party has no fundamental objection to the traditional instruments of national power, so long as their purpose and activities are more openly known and consistent with a higher standard of official transparency and individual privacy. ‘Our regional security alliances are very important’, noted Assange last week in Google Hangout. ‘[W]here the public is aware of it, we should have as many alliances as possible…and the US should be a factor in our alliances, so should Europe, so should the region.’

For Assange, the issue is not so much about divesting Australia of its alliance with the US as about redressing what he sees as problematic dynamics within it — namely, a lack of dignity and respect for Australia, a lack of reciprocity on the part of the US, and a situation in which the alliance operates in conflict with the individual freedoms and privacy of Australians to the point of constituting an abrogation of Australian sovereignty.

For Alison Broinowski, a WikiLeaks candidate in NSW and a career diplomat and academic, the concerns go even further. Echoing the Party’s official admonition against blindly following allies into ‘disastrous illegal wars’, she is concerned that the US alliance will necessitate Australian participation in yet another conflict, possibly against Iran. At that point, she argues, ‘we repeat the disasters of Iraq all over again, including the manipulation of information in the headlong rush to war, with serious consequences for Australia’s moral standing and strategic position in the world.’ While Assange and Broinowski would prefer a more circumscribed alliance, not least to disrupt what they see as a creeping, increasingly indiscriminate surveillance program that lies at its heart, neither calls for its wholesale dissolution.

Nor is there a general aversion to Australia’s military forces and intelligence agencies. To the contrary, Assange has recently flagged increased defence spending as a potentially necessary means of mitigating the risks to Australia in an era of American decline. ‘The Australian military has the most important task in Australia’, notes Assange, ‘and the Australian intelligence agencies are related to it, which is (to) ensure that Australian sovereignty isn’t compromised’.”

….of aiding the enemy [the most serious charge].

Why am I not surprised?

And thus ends yet another richly evocative intelligence psyop*….

(See also, Martin-Zimmerman case; Snowden  E; Assange, J; etc. etc).

Are you getting the picture?

It’s show-and-tell time.

I’ll leave it to all of you bright things out there to figure out who’s showing and who’s telling……

And what.

One of the few well-considered posts about this case that I have read from the right. It exactly captures my sentiments about how both left and right forgot their wits in the media frenzy.The big libertarian/conservative sites were no exception, sad to say.

Arnold Ahlert at Patriot Post:

“From the moment the Trayvon Martin shooting rose to the national spotlight, the story became entangled in the nation’s diseased dialogue on race. Racial arsonists like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson descended on the scene at the head of the left-wing lynch mob to force a verdict of guilty on Zimmerman because he was allegedly white. Without the benefit of evidence, George Zimmerman became a caricature of everything lynchers like Sharpton and Jackson claim America to be — hateful, bigoted and indifferent to the loss of African-American life.

Thus, provoked by years of race-baiting from the left, many conservatives have responded in kind, indulging in a parallel demonization campaign of Trayvon Martin designed as a protest against past injustices by civil rights racists against whites (think no further than the destruction of Paula Deen and the acquittal of O.J. Simpson). In an effort to right decades of racial wrongs, many conservatives have hastily embraced caricatures of Trayvon Martin, painting him as a vicious street thug who deserved his fate. Quite apart from the merits of the legal case, this unseemly effort shows the power of the racist left over the mind of the nation. A look at how this works will hopefully serve as a corrective.

One prominent example of anti-Martin slander is a chain email currently being circulated on the Internet:

Do you know who this is?

It is Little Trayvon Martin…!  At 17 yrs of age.

For those of us who thought we were well informed and weren’t…..quite the reality check. That old adage applies here: “there are two sides to every story.”

We don’t always get the truth from the media. One of my favorite rants – the liberal controlled media, television news, newspapers, magazines, radio; all continue to show 12 year old Trayvon; NOT 17 year old Trayvon.

In fact, there are plenty of 17-year-old pictures of Trayvon available but this one (above) is not one of them. It is a photo of Jayceon Terrell Taylor, also known as “The Game,” a 32-year-old rapper from Compton, CA. Yes, Trayvon had tattoos but they didn’t look anything like this. There were two of them. One was a tattoo on his chest of two praying hands with pearls and the names of his grandmother and great-grandmother. The other was a tattoo on his wrist of his mother’s name.

Family photos of the teen shown here give a much different impression of Martin, who is seen on horseback, wearing a jacket, tie and glasses, and posing with other members of his family. Friends and family remember him as warm and funny, as well as a standout athlete with an enormous appetite. Far from being a gangbanger, Trayvon grew up in a close knit middle class family despite a divorce. His mother is a college graduate who has worked for the Miami-Dade housing authority for twenty-four years. His older brother is a well-spoken, mild-mannered senior at Florida International University. His father, a truck driver, maintained a close relationship with his son, even after the divorce. The boys regularly spent weekends at their father’s house and often were there during the week. The night he was killed, Trayvon asked his father’s permission to go to the store for the Skittles and an Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail.

According to the many texts about Trayvon, he towered over Zimmerman. Thus the chain email alleged: “In reality ‘little Trayvon’ at the time of his death stood almost 6’2? tall and weighed 175 muscular pounds.” But according to the autopsy report Martin was actually  5’11” tall and weighed 158 pounds, while Zimmerman was only three inches shorter and weighed 200 pounds.

Trayvon’s football coach, Jerome Horton, characterized him as a fine young man, noting that his father attempted to keep him in line when he acted up. “I’ve watched his dad take him off the field because he messed up in school. We’d beg and plead, but he would just say, ‘No, he isn’t going to play.'” On a recent “Nancy Grace Show,” Martin’s coach said he had seen Trayvon the week before the shooting. Trayvon told him he was quitting football because he wanted to go to aviation school and become a pilot. The coach said black people don’t become pilots. Martin replied, “Then I’m going to be the first.”

Trayvon had incidents of misbehavior, but none as serious as Zimmerman, who was jailed for attacking a police officer. On the other hand, the anti-Trayvon literature, of which “The Game” email is representative, portray him as an of out-of-control gangster with a criminal record, who sold drugs and “had numerous run-ins with authorities (both at school and local police).” He is described as a “drug dealing … tattooed thug whose name on one of his Facebook profiles was ‘Wild Nigga’ [and] who ‘finds’ jewelry and burglary tools on the way to school.”

But Martin’s documented “numerous run-ins with authorities” show him to be little more than a rambunctious teenager. They consist of three suspensions from school. The first one, according to his parents, was for tardiness and truancy. His second was for graffiti, when he and some of his friends wrote “W.T.F.” on a school locker. The day after that incident, a school police investigator, who had seen Martin on a surveillance camera, went through his book bag in search of the graffiti marker. He discovered 12 pieces of jewelry, in addition to a watch and a large flathead screwdriver he described as a “burglary tool,” according to a Miami-Dade Schools Police report obtained by the Miami Herald. Martin said the jewelry belonged to a friend. The jewelry was impounded and Martin’s official suspension was for the graffiti.

The third suspension was for possession of a bag with marijuana residue and a “marijuana pipe,” as reported by Miami-Dade police. Martin was not criminally charged, but the school suspended him for ten days due to its zero-tolerance drug policy. Half the populations of private schools in Beverly Hills have probably seen more serious drug use than this.

Martin has also been accused of slapping a bus driver in the face and being “almost arrested.” The basis for the claim is his Twitter account, since taken down. Martin tweeted under the handle “NOLIMITNIGGA.” According to WAGIST.com, a message was sent to Martin on February 21st that read, “yu ain’t tell me yu swung on a bus driver.” The message was tweeted five days before Martin was killed. No evidence has ever emerged that Martin assaulted a bus driver, yet the story continues through rumor and misinformation.

That’s the extent of Martin’s “record.” Unlike Zimmerman, Martin had no police record.

The Game photo is far from the only fake image of Martin to have surfaced. One of those fakes was allegedly of Martin wearing “county orange” flipping off the camera with both hands, with his pants sagging down around his waist. The photo was posted on Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy.com, a conservative website. The young man in the picture was indeed of a Trayvon Martin, but it was another Trayvon Martin who is alive and well and whose relatives live in Savannah, GA. Twitchy.com issued an apology.

Perhaps Trayvon Martin isn’t a candidate for sainthood. The 17-year-old used foul language, made obscene gestures on camera, probably smoked marijuana, and engaged in other troublesome teenage behavior. But he was no gangster. Perhaps he was too volatile that night when Zimmerman followed him. Perhaps Zimmerman did fear for his life in the scuffle that ensued. Perhaps the failure of the prosecution to establish that it wasn’t a case of self-defense means that Zimmerman should be acquitted. Nonetheless, what happened should be seen as a tragedy involving two well-meaning individuals who acted without fully appreciating the possible consequences of their actions. It should not be seen as an acting out of the nation’s melodrama on race. That is reserved for the crowds of spectators who have clamored for a verdict before the trial and distorted the facts but who, in a more healthy time, would have left the wheels of justice to turn on their own.”

The reformed libertarian.blogspot.com:

“Being a gun-owner myself I believe people have the right to own guns and defend themselves or others if the extreme circumstance presents itself. However, in my opinion these “Make My Day” laws take defense a step too far. These law allow not only the ability to fatally shoot someone if you think they may threaten you, but they also let someone provoke a fight and still claim self-defense and they also allow you to fatally shoot someone to defend property. So if a shootout happens between two gun owners, whoever “wins” gets to claim self-defense. This is like a return to old spaghetti western movies. While I love those movies I don’t like the idea of them happening in real life.
So, where are all these “Make My Day” laws coming from?  Well, they start out being sponsored by Walmart and gun manufacturers to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC is a Koch brother’s (among others) sponsored conservative organization that creates boiler plate legislation to be pushed through state legislatures, in this case with the help of the National Rifle Association (NRA) [Source 1].
Why would Walmart want this legislation pushed through? Well, Walmart is one of the largest gun retailers in the United States and if guns that were sold in their stores are linked to non-justifiable homicide they are open to possible litigation and damages. How better to avoid this risk than expand what counts as justifiable homicide?
Conspiracy theories aside, the facts show that since the introduction of these instances of “justifiable” homicides have skyrocketed. In Florida alone the number of reported “Justifiable Homicides” jumped from 12 to 36 after the passing of their statute [Source 2]. That is a 300% increase! All of the other states with similar statutes have seen the same remarkable jumps in justifiable homicides. Whether these laws have actually lowered the instance of crime, will not be known until crime statistics get released for 2011.
So, there is a time and a place for defending yourself but our laws should not allow for people to shoot without thinking and have no repercussions. We live in a civilized modern society, please lets not revert back to the dusty streets of the cowboy westerns I so love watching.”
1) ALEC info, ALEC Exposed, http://alecexposed.org/wiki/What_is_ALEC%3F
3) Justifiable Homicides, Think Progress, http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/09/460542/stand-your-ground-laws-coincide-with-jump-in-justifiable-homicides

Comment:

Think Progress is a liberal outfit, funded by Soros, so I’m going to have to look twice at those figures and see that they really are accurate, but the Walmart angle is interesting.

The Atlantic Wire clears the record on the racial optics of stand-your-ground in Florida:

“There’s one specific situation in which blacks “benefited” from the “stand your ground” law, if you will. Killings of whites by blacks were slightly more likely to be found justified than killings of whites by whites. But otherwise, the law has been less than helpful to the state’s black community. Nearly four-in-five killings of black people where it has been invoked have resulted in the killer being freed. It’s hard to see the benefit in that.”

More evidence of Florida’s police-state mentality:

“Well, it’s official. Florida governor Rick Scott signed into legislation the “Internet Cafe Ban,” which effectively closed down around 1,000 such establishments in the state. The ban went into effect immediately, though some cafes shut their doors a week ago under the assumption that the ban would go through.

A report in Florida Today paints a picture of displaced senior citizens who had been meeting at the cafes to socialize with one another, hop on the Internet, and for legal gambling, the latter of which is what prompted the ban in the first place.”