The Huffington Post Strikes Again. - Steve Martin's Irony Misreported

Steve Martin, a state delegate from Virginia, made a facebook post that has recieved national attention thank to The Huffington Post.  

Here is the post:

I received a Valentines Card today with a two tone red heart on the front above the words, "Don't break our hearts." Inside was the following message:

"On behalf of women's Heath advocates across Virginia, we are disappointed in your record of voting to restrict access to critical healthcare for women and families. All women deserve access to their full range of reproductive health options - including preventing unintentional pregnancies, raising healthy children, and choosing safe, legal abortion - and your votes only make it more difficult for Virginians to plan and provide for their families. We are watching your actions closely, and hope that you will reconsider your position on this critical issue. Please don't break our hearts.
- The Virginia Pro-Choice Coalition"

~ How very heart warming - all while using ill defined terms. "Raising healthy children" in the context of access to abortions speaks only to the ability to "kill unhealthy children." Do they not see the sickness of that argument?

If it's your expectation that I should support such nonsense, I will be breaking your heart.
You can count on me to never get in the way of you "preventing" an unintentional pregnancy." I'm not actually sure what that means, because if it's "unintentional" you must have been trying to prevent it. And, I don't expect to be in the room or will I do anything to prevent you from obtaining a contraceptive. However, once a child does exist in your womb, I'm not going to assume a right to kill it just because the bearer of the child (some refer to them as mothers) doesn't want it to remain alive.

We finally get to to the truth at the end of that same line. What they want is access to "safe, legal abortions," any time one might be desired. Okay, then why did you write all the rest of that bologna about raising healthy children (by killing the unhealthy ones), having access to healthcare (which you do), and preventing unwanted pregnancies (don't have unprotected sex)?

Such nonsense, supposed adults have written, to celebrate love, on Valentines. These folks are really sick people!

Now, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to see his use of irony in this post.  NARAL and other abortion activists have consisently used strategies about abortion that would absolutely frame the pregnant woman as a "host". The original post did use the word host instead of bearer of the child.  

  “disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the 13th Amendment, in that forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest."

This is from Dawn Johnsen's brief she filed on behalf of NARAL.   She compared being pregnant to slavery. As a person who is an elected official who is obviously pro-life, Mr. Martin has seen many instances where the unborn have been referred as any number of things, including the most frequently used, a clump of cells (like we aren't all just a clump of cells from a biological standpoint).  See what I did there? I put my own opinion in parens.  Sort of like what Mr. Martin did.  

HuffPo knows that Mr. Martin never meant, nor does he believe, that a pregnant woman is nothing more than a mere host.  He views them as mothers.  That is what the irony of this whole thing is.  He was mocking the beliefs of many pro choice advocates and they turn it around to attack him on his views.   

Could it be because when they see it in writing in that fashion they realize how dehumanizing that opinion really is?  (Just a thought)

C.L. Bryant and Roland Martin Debate Trayvon Martin's Exploitation

Geraldo and the Hoodie - Is what he is saying all that crazy?

“I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies, I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.”
“When you see a kid walking down the street, particularly a dark-skinned kid like my son Cruz, who I constantly yelled at when he was going out wearing a damn hoodie or those pants around his ankles,..It’s those crime scene surveillance tapes. Every time you see someone sticking up a 7-Eleven, the kid’s wearing a hoodie. Every time you see a mugging on a surveillance camera or they get the old lady in the alcove, it’s a kid wearing a hoodie. You have to recognize that this whole stylizing yourself as a gangsta — you’re going to be a gangsta wannabe? Well, people are going to perceive you as a menace,”

On the surface yes it is.  But if you really think about what he is saying it isn't all that crazy.  We judge people on how the dress all the time.  Take this lady for instance:

She is quoted as saying she wants to be treated with a little bit of respect after her local nightclub banned her because of her outfits.  The nightclub owners/employees judged her on this outfit.  I sure as heck did.  You dress like that you are going to draw a certain amount of attention and people will assume that you are looking for sex.  Now, if that is true or not isn't the point.  The point is she is dressing in a way that will suggest to other people that she is out on the town looking for someone to spend the night with.

Would you go to a job interview at one of the big banks in shorts and flip-flops?  Not if you really wanted the job you wouldn't.  I had a job that had a very strict dress code.  One that I personally felt was right out of the 1950's.  If you really were to follow the letter of the code all women had to wear hose/socks of some kind.  Who wants to wear pantyhose in the middle of the DC summer heat?  Not me.  So what I did was always wear long skirts so you couldn't tell that I didn't have hose on.  They didn't say anything about the long skirts, but you were told to dress more appropriately (in a not so subtle way) if you wore a short skirt with no hose on.  The men had to wear ties except one Friday a month; casual day.  But even on casual day they couldn't really wear any shirt they wanted to.  You couldn't have anything that couldn't be tucked in.  Those were the rules.  If you showed up for a job interview in a way that didn't comport with that dress style I can guarantee you that your chances of getting the job dropped considerably.  Fair?  Maybe not, but true.

Crime stats are what they are.  You can dislike them but that doesn't make them less true.  If you live in a major urban area, you will hear about gang violence.  It isn't even just relegated to urban areas anymore.  Where I live there is a town not all that far away that has gang issues.  There is a task force in place that every once in a while makes the papers that has some major arrest or breakthrough.  It is far enough away from my home, that I honestly don't pay all that much attention to it.  But, if I lived closer, I would pay attention.  There is a mall in that city that I sometimes go to.  When I do, I park as close to the mall as I can.  I don't ever stop to grab something to eat there.  I go into the store I need to go to, buy my stuff, and leave.  It is a safety issue to me.  I have never seen any crime take place there, but I have heard that the crime rate around the mall is higher.  It may not be, but my perception is that I could end up being a crime victim there, so I only go when I have to go.  They have since opened another location of the store I went to there, and I have not been back to that mall since.  It makes sense to me.

If you watch movies or tv shows that sometimes glorify gang life, you will see a certain type of dress.  Not all that different from having a dress code at work.  You see images of gangsta rappers and the way the dress is very similar.  You listen to the lyrics of the music and you will hear a glorification of violence, misogyny, and drug use.

Now, I normally dismiss anything that Geraldo says out of hand, as I think he is generally an exploitive ass.   As I write this I have a hoodie on because I was cold earlier.  Do I look at a person in a hoodie as criminal first?  No. But that doesn't mean if I were walking alone at night and someone with a hoodie covering up his face wouldn't make me a pause for a split second I would be lying, it would.  It wouldn't matter to me what color they are, it was the fact that I can't see their face that would make me nervous.

We judge people on how they dress all time.  We do it daily.  Fair or not, it is the truth.  Does that mean that you should be treated like a criminal or a tramp?  No.  But don't be surprised when there will be people who will treat this way.  There is an old adage: Dress for the job you want, not the one you have.  Your appearance does matter.  You will be judged on it.

‘There is nothing more painful to me at this stage of my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Jesse Jackson to the New York Times 12/12/93

It isn't about being racist.  It is having an understanding of crime statistics.  Which makes Mr. Jackson's involvement in stirring the pot that much more hypocritical.  But I don't expect anything different from a man who has made a living out of playing victim.

The Additional Tragedy of the Trayvon Martin Death

First, I want to make it perfectly clear that I feel that this case should go in front of a grand jury and let them decide what, if any, charges are brought against Zimmerman.  It should not be tried in the court of public opinion. 


The problem is that this case is being tried by the media, the pundits, the race baiters of our country, social media, and around kitchen tables all over America.  It is really criminal that this boy's death is being used in this way.  There are people with an agenda that are making statements that may very well have no basis in fact.  


The police have released very little information on the evidence that they have on the case.  Maybe because they did a awful job investigating it or just maybe because they are doing a better job than people are willing to admit and are making sure that they are covering every base.  It isn't all that unusual for it to take time for charges to brought against someone.  Police have to build a case that they believe will hold up in court.  


We also can look at the photos that are being used.  Below is the photos that media are using.  Photos that are old and paint a picture that they want to paint.  

They are using pictures of Tayvon that are old and make him appear much younger than his 17 years.  They are using an old mug shot of Zimmerman that is a close up picture of his face that makes him look much bigger than the picture to the right of it.  Media narrative.  The facebook picture of Trayvon clearly shows that he was much bigger than what the media would like you to believe and that Zimmerman isn't as big as they want you to believe.  


In Chicago there was a march to honor the life of Trayvon.  But there was barely a mention of the people who were killed by gang violence in a city that has been overrun by gang related crime and deaths this year.  57 children have lost their lives since the beginning of the school year.  The majority of them were gang related.  Are those children's lives less valuable?  Don't their parents want justice too?  


We have movie director and producer Spike Lee tweeting out Zimmerman's home address, not just once, but twice.  He have Al Sharpton involving himself in this crime.  We have Jesse Jackson saying that black men are under attack.  On this point we sort of agree:

While African Americans comprise 13.5% of the U.S. Population, 43% of all murder victims in 2007 were African American, 93.1% of whom were killed were African Americans. 

Shouldn't we be just at outraged about these murder victims as well?  


It isn't that anyone is saying that Jayvon's death isn't a tragedy.  It is.  No parent should bury a child, ever, under any circumstances.  It goes against the nature of things.  My only point being we need to examine why this particular crime is getting so much attention and how the media is creating a narrative that may or may not be based on facts.   George Zimmerman has been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. Not only as a murderer, but a racist as well.  The evidence of that is quite lacking.  


Black parents have some worries that others do not.  They have to talk to their sons in a way that their white counterparts do not.  Racism exists in this country.  That cannot be denied.  But not every crime  that have people of different colors involved is about racism.  It just isn't.  The above stat proves that.  Only 7.9% of black murders are even committed by someone of another race. These numbers may not be comfortable for people like Jackson, Sharpton, and Lee to look at, but it doesn't make them less true.  


We have to decide as a society if black murder victims are only cared about when they are killed by someone who is not black.  It is about time we have the difficult discussions and broach the topics of why the numbers are so skewed.  Until we talk about the real issues, the problems will never be solved, 


I know that I view the police differently than many in the black community do.  I trust the police for the most part.  There are bad apples of course, but by and large they do their dangerous jobs well.  Many in black communities have a very different view of the police.  But I do feel that is more socio-economic related than race related.  I think that distrust of the police is just more prevalent in poorer communities were crime rates are higher than they are in lower crime rate areas. I have had very few run-ins with the police in my life.  So from my vantage point they are doing their job keeping criminals away from my property.  When you live in a high crime area you are going to see police more often.  You will see people getting arrested more.  You may even feel hassled if they question you because there was a crime in your neighborhood, you will also know more victims of violent crimes and you will know more people who have spent time in jail.  You wonder why they are not doing more about the gangs, the drugs, and whatever else is more of a daily occurrence in your neighborhood than what happens in mine.  Those are the biases that people from my vantage point and  people from other vantage points bring with them when they look at this case.  It isn't about racism, it is about human nature.  We look at the world from what we have experienced and seen for ourselves.  


Read here What if Trayvon Martin were white.  A true story of white teen killed by a black shooter.  A different state with different gun laws.  There is an agenda to why this story is getting the attention that it is.  

The Tragedy of Trayvon Martin

I was just about to do a post on that poor young man that was shot murdered in Florida.  I happened to read SilverFiddle's take on the incident and there is no way that I could say it any better:


A Stupid Gun Owner is a Dangerous Gun Owner

Responsible gun owners and defenders of the right to self-defense must demand the prosecution of George Zimmerman

Police in the central Florida town of Sanford have said that 28-year-old George Zimmerman says he shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in self-defense during a confrontation in a gated community. Police have described Zimmerman as white; his family says he is Hispanic and not racist. (US News)

Neighborhood vigilante George Zimmerman murdered young Trayvon Martin.  I don't see how a reasonable person could reach any other conclusion. News outlets are blaming Florida's Stand Your Ground Law, but that's just agenda reporting. 

Nothing in that law green-lights what Zimmerman did. He was flat-out wrong. Criminally wrong. You can’t just go chasing law-abiding citizens down the street at the point of a gun.

Zimmerman told a police dispatcher that the teen was "up to no good" because he was walking through his neighborhood "just walking around, looking about" with his "hands on his waistband."  Does the idiot have kids? That's what teens do!

Zimmerman chased after Martin, complaining to the dispatcher, "These a******s always get away."

Hell yeah!  When a gun-toting man is chasing you, you're going to try to get away. Of course Martin’s going to run. He probably thought Zimmerman was a pedophile or some kind of crazy person. He had every right to run. He also had a right to turn around and “jump” Zimmerman “from behind” (how do you get jumped from behind by someone you’re chasing? Zimmerman is lying.)

When someone chases you down and assaults you, you have a right to fight back. Too bad the kid didn’t end up kicking the dumb bastard’s head in.

Critics are calling for a repeal of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law in the wake of the killing, but that is like calling for the repeal of driving automobiles every time a pedestrian gets run down.

The perpetrator was not “standing his ground,” he was chasing down an innocent young man who was just trying to get back to his house before the second half started. If anything, had the kid killed Zimmerman, that same law would have protected him.

This is a tragedy. It is assault with a deadly weapon and murder. And Florida's Stand Your Ground law needs to stand.  It will protect potential victims from assaults by people like George Zimmerman. 



The Martin family deserves justice for their son.  Mr. Zimmerman needs to be charged and tried.  Let a jury of his peers decide what his punishment will be.  The city/town of Sanford also deserve a new police chief, one that will follow the letter of the law.  This case is screaming for an arrest and he should be doing just that.


Although, I do want make another point that Silverfiddle didn't cover in this, the fact that media is purposely fanning the flames of racism by reporting incorrectly that Mr. Zimmerman is white.  That is not a small point when charges of racism are flying around so freely.    Mr. Zimmerman is Hispanic.  


You should also go and read DaTech Guy's take on this as well.  He makes some very good points too.  The numbers of black on black crime that dont' seem to generate all the outrage that this case is generating.  It is very possible that Mr. Zimmerman had some issues with race.  It is also very possible that he has some issues with aggression and anger management that had nothing at all to do with race.  I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that until more evidence is presented.  But he needs to be arrested and charged.  Let a jury decide his fate.  


Rest in Peace Trayvon.  

I Don't Know About Roland Martin, But I Fear Obama

Roland Martin wrote an OP-ED for CNN based on the premise that Obama's problem is that no one fears him. Umm, Mr. Martin he scares the living crap out of me.


But this is coming from a man who sees nothing wrong with him trying to schedule a speech on the economy on the same night of the GOP debate.

After his Martha's Vineyard vacation, President Obama signaled he was ready to do battle leading up to the 2012 re-election. But the bungling, and eventual capitulation, over when he would address a joint session of Congress to present a jobs plan shows that we have seen more of the same: a decisive action taken by Obama, only to back down and acquiesce to the GOP.


After Obama buckled to Speaker John Boehner by postponing the speech to Thursday, a hardcore Democrat, who hates anything the GOP does and has never voted for a Republican for president, texted me the following: "Does the POTUS need back surgery? I think he does. He needs a spine transplant."

The debate has been planned for months. Like it or not Mr. Rowland this is part of the democratic process in this country. There are plenty of people who are interested in what the GOP candidates have to say. By trying to schedule the speech at the same time the president was showing that he has no respect for the process, his opponents, let alone the American people who want to watch the debate. Would Mr. Martin feel the same had President Bush tried to do the same thing during one of the democratic debates four years ago? Some how I think not. Then to top it off and make it worse, Carney comes out and says the date and time was coincidental. Uh huh, I am sure it was. This was nothing but a stunt pure and simple. A stunt that backfired, and now Mr. Martin is trying to blame for the GOP for it.


He is also pointing to the fact that one of his candidates to head the Consumer Protection Bureau will actually have to go through a senate confirmation hearing. The horror.

The White House bowed to Republicans in the Senate in not appointing Elizabeth Warren as head of the Consumer Protection Bureau. She was considered enemy No. 1 for them. So by appointing Richard Cordray, the Obama administration hoped the Senate would recess, allowing them to make his appointment effective during the recess. There was one tiny problem: The only thing the GOP hated more than Warren was the bureau itself. They didn't recess, and now Cordray will be put through the wringer on Tuesday during his Senate confirmation hearing.

The problem is the president never appointed her. She was given a totally different job and will be the likely opponent to Scott Brown next year as he tries to hang onto his senate seat. It would be very hard to run a government agency while being a first time candidate for senate would it not Mr. Martin? If you like her so much you should be glad that she got passed over because she could very well end up taking over where Teddy left off. Agency heads should always go through a senate confirmation hearing. Period. I don't care which party the president is from. The American people have the right to expect our elected officials to fulfill the constitutional duties afforded to them and confirming heads of agencies is one of them.


But, this has to be my favorite:

It is abundantly clear that President Obama is unwilling to fire back at his critics, who disrespect him and the office of the president. He wants to take the high ground, while his critics are ripping the ground out from underneath him. Instead of taking charge of his agenda, he is willing to let others blow him off to pursue their own

How delusional is Roland Martin? Let us see, he himself has played the race card about the tea party. President Obama slammed a private citizen basically to his face while at the correspondent's dinner when he spent a good portion of his speech going after Donald Trump. Remember when Bagdad Bob Gibbs showed some notes he wrote on his hand in order to stick it Sarah Palin? I guess Roland Martin forgot that. This president is one of the most thin-skinned we have ever had.

Martin on the Confederacy - Southern Soldiers, al Qaeda, and Terrorists

Roland Martin of CNN denounced the proclamation from Virginia’s Governor Bob McDonnell making April Confederate History Month. Martin has decided that confederate soldiers were no better than al Qaeda terrorists. In order to do this one must make the leap that the civil war was only about Slavery; and it was not. There were many other factors that caused the civil war in this country.



Some of those factors include state rights as well as economic factors. The reality is that fewer than 5% of people in the south owned slaves. The other 95% of the south didn’t go to war to protect that 5%. Slavery was a despicable practice and no one is trying to defend it, but it is part of our history. Virginia has a great deal to offer to people who are history buffs. I actually live relatively close to one of the civil war battlefields, Bull Run. This particular battle was a real turning point in the war and as such drives a great deal of tourism for Northern Virginia. It also serves as a reminder of what could happen if we allow ourselves to be so divided.


One of the problems that we have in this country today is an effort to rewrite our history. We fought a civil war almost 150 years ago; slavery was part of the reason that we fought that war. But, it was not the only reason. Roland Martin can try a turn this into a racial argument all that he wants to, but it still will not make it so.

“As a matter of conscience, I will not justify, understand or accept the atrocious view of Muslim terrorists who view their actions as representing a just war. They are reprehensible, and their actions are a sin against humanity.”

“And I will never, under any circumstances, cast Confederates as heroic figures who should be honored and revered. No, they have been, and forever will be, domestic terrorists.”

There was an initial dust up with the proclamation because it didn’t mention slavery at all, then McDonnell made yet another mistake by saying that he was focusing on the issues that were important to Virginia, saying that slavery wasn’t important to Virginia. But, that being said, it still doesn’t excuse the mentality that Martin is portraying. We have a history, and not all of it is good.


It is time that we have the difficult conversations and study the history for what it is. The war was fought for a variety of reasons, not all of them had to do with racism or slavery. We cannot white wash our history for future generations. Teach them every side and allow the facts to guide the determination of what happened. By acting like the confederacy didn’t exist is nothing more than the liberal elitists turning our history into something that it is not.  The south has a very rich history, the confederacy, slavery, and the civil war are only small parts of that history; there is nothing wrong with celebrating and examining that history without resorting to calling southerners terrorists.