The scales of justice can move very slow, but then deliberation is a good thing when dealing with highly emotional and tragic situations. When people’s lives are at stake, taking the time to get it right is not a bad thing.

Clearly, the end result in the Tryavon Martin case is going to be one lost life and one ruined life. And almost as clearly, the one at fault is the one who bullishly pushed towards confrontation, dismissing all the off-ramps in front of him to avoid this disaster.

Since my last post we have learned a lot. We have learned (as I suspected early on) that George Zimmerman wanted to be a policeman, and was prone to playing cop (probably for the ego surge it gave him):

 Over the years, his scores of calls to police showed he pursued shoplifters and errant drivers with zeal, reporting pit bulls, potholes, children playing in the street, open garage doors and “suspicious” youths – usually black males – loitering in the street.

He peppered his calls with jargon familiar to police. In one case, he chased a reckless driver while calling 911 – the driver later told police he was terrified that Zimmerman was going to attack him. In another case, Zimmerman tailed a supermarket shoplifter until a police officer successfully arrested the thief.

…

However, in December 2008, he applied for a citizens’ police academy with the Seminole Sheriff’s Office. In his application, Zimmerman stressed his background with the law: He wrote that his father is a retired Virginia Supreme Court magistrate judge and his mother worked as a deputy clerk of courts.

Zimmerman never actually became a cop, but apparently he did attack one once.

Sanford neighborhood Crime Watch captain George Zimmerman has previously been arrested in 2005 for suspicion of battery on a law enforcement officer, but the charges were dropped for an unknown reason.

He also had a volatile, quick temper that turned to violence:

“He had a temper and he became a liability,” the man said. “One time this woman was acting a little out of control. She was drunk. George lost his cool and totally overreacted,” he said. “It was weird, because he was such a cool guy, but he got all nuts. He picked her up and threw her. It was pure rage. She twisted her ankle. Everyone was flipping out.”

Connecting the dots here we see a lot of red flags. Violent behavior, a need to be in positions of power. Red flags a Grand Jury will see and ponder for themselves.

I agree with the lead investigator, who wanted Zimmerman arrested, on the charge I first noted he probably was guilty of:

The lead investigator probing the deadly shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin wanted neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman arrested and charged with manslaughter the night of the shooting, ABC News reports.

Investigator Chris Serino of the Sanford, Fla. Police Department wanted the 28-year-old Zimmerman behind bars, but the state Attorney’s Office said there was not enough evidence to lead to a conviction, sources told ABC.

If you want to shut people like Al Sharpton up, then arrest Zimmerman. He’ll get out on bail and he can tyehn prove in a court (not the media) he is innocent.

He’s probably not, because he ignored warnings and opportunities to leave Trayvon alone until police arrived. Instead of sitting back, he went behind buildings – armed – to confront a ‘suspicious’ person. Something he was neither authorized or trained to do.

Now to cover up his misjudgement, Zimmerman has to concoct some tall tales. He has to claim victim-hood here. He tried to say Trayvon attacked him, but it is clear the witness on Trayvon’s cell phone (his girlfriend) has already began to challenge that line. Her testimony was taken weeks ago, before this blew up into a national issue. From what little I found on what the girlfriend has said, it sounds like Zimmerman made contact first:

At a March 20 news conference, Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump says the girl hears someone ask Martin what he was doing and Martin asking why the person was following him. The girl gets the impression that there is an altercation in which the earpiece falls out of Martin’s ear and the connection goes dead, according to Crump.

According to an Orlando Sentinel story later confirmed by Sanford police, Zimmerman tells authorities that after briefly losing track of Martin, the teen approached him. After exchanging words, Zimmerman says, he reached for his cell phone, and then Martin punched him in the nose.

Why reach for the phone (or something else)? Why not follow the kid to his house and be a neighborhood watch person (what I would have done)? Again, all this defies common sense.

The other tall tale that *may* be out there is Zimmerman being the one screaming for help. If this proves to be a falsehood stated by Zimmerman, he is toast:

Tom Owen, forensic consultant for Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, told the Sentinel that he used voice identification software to rule out Zimmerman.

Zimmerman told police that he screamed for help during his confrontation with Martin, 17. He claims the shooting was self-defense.

Here’s a good assessment on how Zimmerman’s story is starting to fall apart.

It really is time for Zimmerman to be charged and go to court. That is the only way to work this out now. If, has his side claims, Zimmerman can prove his innocence then it is time for him do that and clear this up for Trayvon’s family and everyone else. The police in Sanford need to realize that more violence could come of this if the arrest takes too long.

Previous posts:

As Details Come Out, George Zimmerman’s Claims Crumble
New Wrinkle In Trayvon Martin Killing While Leftwing Nuts Go Crazy
Attempts To Make Trayvon Martin’s Murder A Race Issue Will Destroy Obama’s 2012 Election Chances

Tags: George Zimmerman, Stand Your Ground, Trayvon Martin

Updates Below

News from today’s hearings on Obamacare at the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) indicate Obamacare took a pounding.  CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin was especially shaken:

According to CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, the arguments were “a train wreck for the Obama administration.”

“This law looks like it’s going to be struck down. I’m telling you, all of the predictions including mine that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong,” Toobin just said on CNN.

Toobin added that that the Obama administration’s lawyer, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrelli, was unprepared for the attacks against the individual mandate.

“I don’t know why he had a bad day,” he said. “He is a good lawyer, he was a perfectly fine lawyer in the really sort of tangential argument yesterday. He was not ready for the answers for the conservative justices.”

That’s pretty bad news for Obamacare, and damn great news for America. Here’s another damning take:

Based on the questions posed to Paul Clement, the lead attorney for the state challengers to the individual mandate, it appears that the mandate is in trouble.  It is not clear whether it will be struck down, but the questions that the conservative Justices posed to Clement were not nearly as pressing as the ones they asked to Solicitor General Verrilli.  On top of that, Clement delivered a superb presentation in response to the more liberal Justices’ questions.

It looks like Team Obama was not prepared for a couple of things, including Justice Kennedy’s concerns on how Obamacare “changes the relationship between the individual and the government in a very fundamental way” – something Libertarian critics have been saying since day 1. It probably threw Verrelli off his game once he detected the tone of the room.

I have not seen this much hand wringing in quite a while, so it must have been something of a bomb shell.

Let’s hope it holds and Obamacare is thrown out (and ends this liberal, socialist madness for once and for all). Much more commentary over at Hot Air with Ed Morrissey.

Update 2: Oh wow – Verrelli admits not everyone will be required to comply with Obamacare!

However, in the Supreme Court on Monday, Justice Samuel Alito forced President Barack Obama’s solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, to admit that under Obamacare these free riders will not be eliminated despite the individual mandate.

For an elite group—including people eligible for Medicaid who don’t sign up for it and people whose health care expenses exceed 8 percent of their income—the Obamacare mandate is no mandate and the penalty is neither a penalty nor a tax because they are not required to pay it, period.

So Obamacare is not as they argue, something everyone MUST pay into in order to share the pain. Looks like that one admission could kill any reason for expanding government reach. Because once there are exceptions, the lobbyists run to Congress to expand the list of the exempted.

Update: Ouch! Some of the discussions were brutal:

USTICE SAMUEL ALITO: Do you think there is a, a market for burial services?

VERRILLI: For burial services?

JUSTICE ALITO: Yes.

VERRILLI: Yes, Justice Alito, I think there is.

JUSTICE ALITO: All right, suppose that you and I walked around downtown Washington at lunch hour and we found a couple of healthy young people and we stopped them and we said, “You know what you’re doing? You are financing your burial services right now because eventually you’re going to die, and somebody is going to have to pay for it, and if you don’t have burial insurance and you haven’t saved money for it, you’re going to shift the cost to somebody else.”

Isn’t that a very artificial way of talking about what somebody is doing?

….

JUSTICE KENNEDY: Could you help — help me with this. Assume for the moment — you may disagree. Assume for the moment that this is unprecedented, this is a step beyond what our cases have allowed, the affirmative duty to act to go into commerce. If that is so, do you not have a heavy burden of justification?

I understand that we must presume laws are constitutional, but, even so, when you are changing the relation of the individual to the government in this, what we can stipulate is, I think, a unique way, do you not have a heavy burden of justification to show authorization under the Constitution?

Looks like Verrelli got decimated.

Tags: Obamacare, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Toobin

Update: As the  Zimmerman’s camp calls for patience, one wonders where Zimmerman’s patience was on the night he cornered (and probably threatened if not enraged) Trayvon?

Update: Read this as well, because it lays out the reasoning that shows Trayvon was the victim, Zimmerman the obsessed vigilante. It means Zimmerman is the likely culprit:

If you have been advised to not approach the subject, but you do, you then become an aggressive participant in an unknown matter. Your level of training may not be vast enough to prepare you for unknown events. You certainly are not in a situation that requires immediate action. You are in a safe position to watch and wait for assistance. Unless you are trying to stop great bodily harm to yourself or others, you have time and distance to choose differently.

Now we have a person who saw a kid he thought was suspicious – for what? Do we know? He decides (after being advised not to) to approach a person in the dark out of sight that he said was suspicious. And do what?

…

Did he say something to the person that was threatening or fearful —  so intimidating that it would frighten you and make you fear for your life in an isolated dark area where no one else could see you? Was that person so aggressive that it scared you to a mode of defense?

With so many robberies, murders, abductions going on today, may be the kid felt for his life, maybe he thought this guy was trying to do him bodily harm. Maybe he was right. But we won’t know, because he has no voice. He is dead, and everyone knows dead men tell no tales.

…

Since when does the aggressor get to call it self-defense when the so-called perpetrator is moving away from them and not to them?

Exactly. Why go after the ‘suspicious’ person with a loaded gun? – end update

You’re a 17 year old kid visiting with your Dad’s fiance’. You went to the nearby 7-Eleven to get some candy and  drink at night. On the way back some yahoo in a pick up truck starts shadowing you. You’re in a strange town and some guy finally stops his truck and follows you on foot. You duck away, but you don’t know your way around. You just need to get home.

But you are also a 17 year football player, used to physical encounters. And as most 17 year olds, you are dangerously fearless. Worse yet, you are talking to you girlfriend on the phone and now is not the time to be timid.

This is a recipe for disaster.

Now switch shoes. You are an egotistical 28 year old playing sheriff. You see someone in your neighborhood and you jump to conclusions based purely on stereotypes. You stalk a 17 year old kid at night, first by car and then on foot. You are king of this little pond, and you are armed. You too are fearless in a dangerous way.

So who is the victim here? Who is being ‘hunted’? Not the kid with the candy and soda – he is talking to his girlfriend with no intention of an altercation. He is not pushing for confrontation, he is not looking to show his manhood.

George Zimmerman escalated his eventual confrontation with Trayvon Martin. And now we know he failed his last chance to avoid trouble. Zimmerman was not attacked from behind – by his own admission:

Zimmerman was on his way to the grocery store when he spotted Trayvon walking through his gated community.

Trayvon was visiting his father’s fiancée, who lived there.  …

Zimmerman called police and reported a suspicious person, describing Trayvon as black, acting strangely and perhaps on drugs.

Notice how Zimmerman, from a distance, had already tried and judged Trayvon. How strange was Trayvon walking, drinking his soda and talking on his cell phone?  Good lord, what is Zimmerman’s definition of ‘acting strangely’? One thing we do know, Zimmerman was an obsessive vigilante type who loved to play sheriff.

Anyway, back to Zimmerman’s crumbling excuses:

Zimmerman got out of his SUV to follow Trayvon on foot. When a dispatch employee asked Zimmerman if he was following the 17-year-old, Zimmerman said yes. The dispatcher told Zimmerman he did not need to do that.

There is about a one-minute gap during which police say they’re not sure what happened.

Zimmerman told them he lost sight of Trayvon and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from the left rear, and they exchanged words.

Trayvon asked Zimmerman if he had a problem. Zimmerman said no and reached for his cell phone, he told police.

Ahh. They exchanged words. Words like “I am visiting in the neighborhood” or “Just went to the 7-Eleven”. Or how about words from Zimmerman accusing Trayvon while being derogatory? You think Zimmerman simply said ‘no’?  When he finally gets to be the big bad sheriff in town?

Zimmerman’s last chance to back off.  He could have said “was just checking” or “OK kid, just get home safe”.

If Trayvon hauled off and hit Zimmerman in the nose, it was because Zimmerman was being a jerk. And I hate to tell this to Zimmerman, but if you cause a fight with words you cannot later claim self defense.

Since words were exchanged there was no attack. Zimmerman was the one pushing for the confrontation. To the point he left is truck on foot with a loaded gun. Trayvon, loaded with Skittles, never stood a chance.

You want to know why Zimmerman is all teary and upset. He is just now coming to grips with what he did, and how instead of being a sheriff he is just a child killer. He knows he could have avoided all this many times over. And it is about time he did what is right and truly courageous – and admit it.

Tags: George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin

As I noted yesterday, the tragedy surrounding the death of young Trayvon Martin is about to be eclipsed by left wing political vultures looking for any reason to get in the news. The worst offenders now being the New Black Panther Party, coming out with their tired old racism:

And in Sanford, Florida, a handful of members from the New Black Panther Party rallied and offered a $10,000 reward for Zimmerman’s “capture.”

“It’s time for us, as black men, to take justice in our own hands. If you won’t give us justice, we will have to take justice,” said Florida organizer Mikhail Muhammad. “An eye for an eye. A life for a life.”

The New Black Panther Party, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a “virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization,” …

Yeah, that’s what we need – more vigilantes like George Zimmerman. What we need is to let the authorities work out what happened. Justice is slow, but usually it works.

A lot of news outlets are wrongfully claiming that the anonymous witness stated that Trayvon Martin attacked Zimmerman. Everything I saw only noted the witness stating that Trayvon was winning the hand-to-hand fighting. I have not seen anything beyond conjecture to bolster this idea that he started the fight.

But in the above referenced article I did read a detail that bolsters the idea that Trayvon had a right to feel threatened by this unknown stalker – in a truck:

Zimmerman said he was driving in his gated community when he saw Martin walking and called 911 to report a suspicious person.

Zimmerman told the dispatcher he was following the boy, but the dispatcher told him that wasn’t necessary. Moments later, several neighbors called 911 to report a commotion outside, and police arrived to find Martin dead of a gunshot wound.

….

Sanford police said Zimmerman did not indicate a chase, telling them instead that “he had lost sight of Trayvon and was returning to his truck to meet the police officer when he says he was attacked by Trayvon,” the police said in the letter posted by Bonaparte.

Emphasis mine. So initially Zimmerman is following Trayvon in his truck. That is pretty nerve racking as it is, especially alone at night. Could have been gangs, could have been a nut – who knows. That would make me nervous – no doubt.

But then Zimmerman gets out of his truck – with his gun (he does not leave it in the truck). Is his gun drawn? Who knows.

He goes looking for Trayvon – since he indicates ‘he had lost sight of Trayvon”. Clearly Trayvon hid from Zimmerman – tried to stay away. But Zimmerman keeps coming, now on foot. And so Trayvon attacks his stalker – a bad decision, but no worse than Zimmerman’s decision to continue pursuit when police told him to back off. Now it seems evident that Trayvon had clearly tried to be left alone by hiding.

We only have Zimmerman’s word he was jumped by a hidden Trayvon, not that he had cornered and threatened Trayvon into action. But I say it again – if Zimmerman had just stayed in his truck, Trayvon would still be alive.

I still say Zimmerman escalated this into a disaster. I have seen his type before and they love the ego boost of playing sheriff. But he was not trained, and he got into a scuffle with a young kid. Then killed him.

Tags: George Zimmerman, Stand Your Ground, Trayvon Martin

Update: The news of an eye witness does not change my assessment below.

But one man’s testimony could be key for the police.

“The guy on the bottom who had a red sweater on was yelling to me: ‘help, help…and I told him to stop and I was calling 911,” he said.

Trayvon Martin was in a hoodie; Zimmerman was in red.

The witness only wanted to be identified as “John,” and didn’t not want to be shown on camera.

His statements to police were instrumental, because police backed up Zimmerman’s claims, saying those screams on the 911 call are those of Zimmerman.

Yes, but… Here’s the problem. What if the gun had been drawn and that led to the scuffle? Or what if Zimmerman confronted Trayvon and patted his side where the gun hid as an arrogant gesture dominance? Whose actions initiated the physical confrontation? Just because Trayvon was winning the fight (no surprise there, being a young football player) does not make him the instigator. As we know, the instigator was the one who refused to keep his distance until police arrived.

The point is, Trayvon had NO IDEA who this nut was stalking him, confronting him. For all he knew Zimmerman wanted to rob him. And that is why the self defense claim is also Trayvon’s – and why Zimmerman is still at fault for causing the incident to escalate. Zimmerman had to have pushed Trayvon into a fight or flight decision. There is no other reason for the attack on Zimmerman. – end update.

Bottom line 1: The man who shot Trayvon Martin needs to be charged and prosecuted with manslaughter

Bottom line 2: If liberals run around in a form of mob madness over this, they will lose the White House for Obama

I strongly agree with Newt Gingrich on this matter. What the political left is doing over this situation is repulsive to the rest of the country. Repulsive because they are turning this tragedy into a political football:

“It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background,” Gingrich said.

Absolutely. And we are horrified for this young man and his family. Our prayers go out to them all.

But to answer one of the left’s most notorious “Wolf!” criers, it will take time for justice to work its way through this tragedy:

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson said Friday that he’s grateful the rest of the country has sat up and taken notice of the tragic slaying of Trayvon Martin. But he can’t help but wonder: Why has it taken so long for everyone else to recognize the chronic injustices that African Americans face?

As someone who can’t shut up about race and obsesses over barriers that some can’t get past, Jackson has himself to blame for this as much as anyone who takes a human tragedy and tries to turn it into a race war. George Zimmerman, the man who should be charged by now, is colored (Hispanic). This is not about race, but about one egotistical, small little man. We don’t need to take one fool’s mistake and light up 100’s more. Jackson is just trying to regain some of his media attention – nothing more.

What happened is clear. George Zimmerman was playing cop. He was a self anointed vigilante – with a gun. He wanted to play Rambo. He stalked young Trayvon – against direction from the police. He instigated any confrontation that ensued by coming to the victim and not keeping his distance. He did this knowing full well he was armed with a loaded gun.

Zimmerman went looking for trouble, went looking for a confrontation. He had hundreds of opportunities to stay back and stay clear of Trayvon. Whatever ensued that ended with Trayvon dead, the simple fact is it would not have happened if Zimmerman had just kept his distance. That is all you need to know about this. If Zimmerman stayed back Trayvon would be alive. And that makes it Zimmerman’s fault.

Trayvon has the same right to self defense as Zimmerman. Trayvon was the one being stalked. We have no idea if the gun had been pulled and never will. If Zimmerman kept pushing Trayvon to the point he felt he had to defend himself, then Zimmerman is the guilty one. In my mind there is only a question of whether it was deliberate or accidental manslaughter. Beyond that this case is not complex.

Just tragic and sad. And we don’t need more Zimmerman’s popping up confronting others in anger and fear. That is not what Trayvon Martin deserves as the final epitaph for his too short life.

If the President or his supporters continue to poison this tragedy further, they will lose the support of every family who wants justice in this case. And justice does not come from the lynch mob, nor the  misguided vigilante.

Tags: George Zimmerman, Jesse Jackson, President Obama, Travyon Martin

Flim-flam artists are gifted in telling people what they want to hear in order to gain their trust – and then steal that trust. Usually it is in the form of money, but in politics it is in the form of votes. Team Romney has come out of the closet and admitted they are the penultimate ‘say anything to get elected’ type we on Main Street have come to loathe:

He defended Romney’s appeal to a broad base when asked if he’s concerned that, under pressure from Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, the candidate is tacking too “far to the right” in his positions and therefore alienating moderates.

“I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes,” Fehrnstrom said, and compared the change to an Etch A Sketch.

I warned Team Romney they would lose if they ever created the impression they were not able or willing to support some basic ‘keep out’ promises. And here we are less than 4 weeks later and they step into it up to their eyeballs.

All this means is Romney’s commitments don’t last beyond the sunset on the day he gave them. His team is prepared to say anything to win. And Team Romney wonders why no one is rallying to support him? I have said it many times – if he is just a faint version of slick talking, no meaning Obama he will lose and lose big.

One thing that really gets under the skin of professionals in my line of business is eff’d up data, especially when the eff’ing up looks to be a deliberate act to deceive.

At NASA there are heart wrenching examples of when computations are wrong:

For those not aware, that is the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia, respectively, as we saw them in their final seconds.

When I see people deliberately manipulate data to give a false impression it makes my skin crawl. It’s not just some innocent lying or fooling, in some cases it is a clear act of fraud. It’s the case of the dangerous lie that causes pain suffering I cannot abide, not an untruth for a good cause (like keeping secrets). Sadly, some people are deluded that their cause is worthy of a little untruth. A peculiar arrogance to be sure.

We now have proof Global Warming is man made, in that it has been concocted by con artist pretending to be scientists. And that proof comes from the latest temperature data from that scourge of the scientific process and method, the University of East Anglia’s Climactic Research Unit (CRU).

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I think one of the deep nagging problems with this election cycle is how we are experiencing the demise of big-government intervention as we collectively realize there are no easy (or cheap) answers to be found in the mythical magic of government as our savior. Government has a role to play, but as been shown as human society transitioned through a series of violent historic evolutions, this role has been settling towards an optimum balance that we have yet to reach. We are closer, but we could drift off into the ditch easily.

In the barbaric past humanity was basically operating within the constructs of Anarchy.

Anarchy, has more than one definition. In the United States, the term “anarchy” typically is meant to refer to a society without a publicly enforced government or violently enforced political authority.

Anarchistic social structures are open to misuse and abuse, as they are built upon the rule of the fittest, strongest or (too often) cruelest. We can see the vestiges of humanity’s anarchist roots in the cruelty of ancient civilizations ranging from Egypt to Greece to Rome. Anarchy is one end of the social spectrum most modern society’s know to avoid at all costs. Even a slight tilt in that direction get’s you a beat up, dirty, violent result (see NY City prior to Rudy Giuliani and his application of the broken window rule).

As we evolved toward orderly society the pendulum swung around to the other extreme – the dictatorial rule of the individual and their close band of thugs. This model ran under various themes from Egypt and her Pharaohs, through Rome and her Emperors, through Europe and their Kings, through China and more Emperors, Russia and Czars, , etc. The rule of the strongman individual culminated in its violent peak in the early 19th century when we had World Wars I and II – initiated by the strongmen of the time and legendary purveyors of death and destruction. This is the era of Hitler and the Holocaust, Stalin and his Purges and Hirohito and his War Crimes. Remnants lived on in isolated areas, but they are slowly dying off (see Pol Pot in Combodia, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, various war lords of Africa, and he despots of North Korea).

The nation that stood tall to end this madman government model was the United States of America, allied with other countries that had switched to (or were switching to) a model were government was minimal, had numerous checks and balances to thwart madman government, and relied on the wisdom and INDIVIDUAL efforts of its people. World War II saw the ascendency of the “We The People” model.

This decentralized government model, where people exploited their freedom of choice to create a positive direction for the whole society out of literally millions of individual ‘good’ decisions each day by the masses, was the best solution to the two extremes (Anarchy and Violent Dictatorial Rule). It produced a balance that protected the individual and their freedom, established boundaries of behavior that protected those freedoms from others, and allowed the masses to drive  the direction forward.

But somewhere after WWII and during the Cold War the minimal government model began to fall apart as a new, more screwed up model came into fashion. And that model is the progressive socialism out of control bureaucracy.

Call it the Mindless Bureaucracy. Whatever it is,  it is also a headless economic cancer. This model sinks back into the central control model of the madman leader – except the scope the madman can exert is limited to just a small piece of society – not all of it. So now we have a DC madman and his group of merry thugs running around inspecting school lunches. Another mad person running around measuring carbon foot prints. Another mad person running around checking fence heights and mailbox colors. Some mad council somewhere is determining when a toy in the hands of a fool causes injury, it is the toy’s fault. Or that the idiot with hot coffee between her legs while driving is the victim of the drive-through restaurant she ordered from.

Update: This news just hit Drudge. Basically it says pools have been temporarily saved from massive closures to avoid law suits. Liberals at work. – end update.

Or worse. Now we get the mad council of know-it alls determining who should get what medical treatments. Note how individual responsibility for their freedom of choice has been eroded to result in remove of freedom of choice by the government – who is out to protect us from our own freedom of choice. That is the cancer we are swimming in.

This mindless centralized government may actually be orchestrated and protected by a small group of wealthy political power players who endlessly fight over which side version of mad we will operate under: the juvenile delinquent and lazy mad of the left or the prudish and paranoid mad of the right. But it matters not. The headless big government model is failing.

What Americans want is the old US of A back. They want to live their lives and do what they know is right. And right now neither political party nor any of the presidential candidate has caught up with this new reality. But before I dive into where the people are versus the Political Industrial Complex (now falling behind the times), let me finish proving we are at the beginning of the end of mindless big government (i.e., progressive socialism). The signs are all about us.

First and close to home – and proving beyond a doubt neither left nor right leaning political professionals understand where we are – was the 2010 election. Obama, Reid and Pelosi had no idea they actually had to produce results to win support in the next election. They had no idea that their naive economic theories were so stupid and childish in the face of a very complex, very modern and very dynamic world. The community organizer has changed politics forever through his long laundry list of failures. That is why his party received the biggest electoral shellackings in living memory in 2010. He ushered in the end of progressive socialism.

But then the GOP in 2011 took that huge mandate and frittered it away in the budget battles. They kept raising the size of government with empty promises of future cuts. They were indistinguishable from Obama and his promise of economic success through crushing deficits, high unemployment, sky rocketing energy costs and higher taxes. The House GOP silenced and hand cuffed their 2010 insurgent members – and is now seen as being as much of the problem as the left. That is the straw that ended the enchantment with any form of big government here in the US.

Greece, Spain and Europe’s general economic woes are eye-watering evidence that bloated bureaucracies focused on minutiae and promising endless ‘free’ handouts is unsustainable and will lead, unavoidably, to financial ruin.

Right near the top of the pile is Spain, where the economy is once again back in recession, the unemployment rate is a staggering 23%, house prices are collapsing and the government is set to implement even further austerity this year.

The wasteful, useless and naive spending is starting to inflict massive pain on the people. In the EU the myth of ‘renewable energy’ is going the way of ‘shovel ready jobs’ here in the US. Watch for many more stories  like this in the coming months and years:

WIND power – more accurately wind impotence, since turbines operate at just 24 per cent of capacity – is the curse of Scotland. One of the most beautiful landscapes in Europe has been brutally ravaged, families have been driven into fuel poverty, pensioners have been presented with the lethal dilemma “heat or eat” – all to appease the neurotic prejudices of global warming fanatics.

Last week, the punitive costs of this lunacy were exposed in a report by Professor Gordon Hughes, professor of economics at Edinburgh University. He has calculated that the bill for wind energy by 2020 will cost consumers £120 billion. Yet generating the same amount of electricity from efficient gas-powered stations would cost only £13bn.

And now we see the same financial implosion on the Health Care front here in the USA:

A new report from the Congressional Budget Office hands critics of the health reform law a great new talking point: Under a worst-case scenario, the law could lead to 20 million people losing their employer-sponsored insurance in 2019.

Combined with the 6 million more not working due to Obama’s failed economic policies it will be more than 20 million without employer supplied health care in the near future. In tandem with the now rising cost of Obamacare, the result will be a total and painful mess.

So how could the GOP misstep on this clear opening? Simple – they stuck with big government solutions – just their versions.

Humanity has evolved from anarchy and survived to bury the idea of strongman/madman rule. It had for a brief time enjoyed the freedom of individual choice and responsibility, but then slipped into the doomed era of mindless big government run amok. The people are ready to dismantle the nanny state and retire her. The nag is going to the field to chew her cud sooner or later. Sooner is preferable.

To win elections today simply means to go back to America’s roots and realize taht when individual decisions rule the day, the worst damage that can be done by a bad decisions is to the individual (and sadly some around them). But when that individual is empowered as a bureaucrat in a life-long job, then those bad decision can ripple out to hurt all of us. The power behind the 2010 voting was the libertarian mindset to dismantle government and take the risk of bad individual decisions and recapture the success of millions of daily good decisions that made this country what it was in its prime.

If there is only  a choice between which big government madness will prevail (the ‘feel good’ message of the left or the ‘be proper’ message of the right) the GOP loses. Every damn time – they lose.

Why the GOP is seen as the worse of 2 evils is complex. For example, the right’s homophobic image and  promise to wage a war on porn (but of course, what is porn?) can sound good to some, but most people see just another stripe of busy-body madness in DC. In the end, the fight on sexual morals can only be waged in the home. There is no one size fits all for sex, religion and color preferences.

Do we really have to chose between the lunch police or the condom police?

Why can’t we just get back to the neighborhood police? And then live our lives the way we wish?

Tonight’s results are very, very interesting. Rick Santorum took both Alabama and Mississippi tonight. But worse for Mitt Romney (the anointed one) is the fact he came in 3rd in both races. Gingrich stole second place meaning “Anybody but Romney” took another round of races.

This means Gingrich and Santorum will stay in the race for a while longer. But more importantly it means the combined delegate counts of Santorum and Gingrich (486) is larger than Mitt Romney’s count (470). If this continues Santorum and Gingrich could make a play for the POTUS/VPOTUS tag team at the convention in a very legitimate manner.

Romney is not a given. Too much of the GOP voting block is not sold on him. When he is not able to win split decisions like this and swamp Gingrich and Santorum, that is a serious sign of trouble.

The GOP establishment in concert with the overall Political Industrial Complex can try and spin this all they want. But Obama is very likely to lose, so GOP voters can afford the luxury of being very picky.

Would a Santorum-Gringrich team be attractive?

Apparently that is the case for 64.4% of the voters in Alabama and 64.4% of the voters in Mississippi. Coincidence?

Not likely. Mitt lost 2-1 in these states. He is the front runner only when viewed with serious blinders on.

Update: As usual, check out the Hot Air thread for this Deep South Primary Tuesday for some interesting discussions.

Dear Readers,

I am so sorry I have not been able to post very much over the last few weeks. We had a slew of personal medical issues, a death in the extended family and a landslide at work. I have barely been able to breathe.

I had planned to post on the Feb unemployment numbers (and still will), but ran out of time again!  I am expecting the work landslide finally abates this week (been running since Christmas break).

Until I get my head above water, here is an open thread for comments. Also, if you have a topic you wish me to post on let me know!

Cheers, AJStrata