Back to Basics

Well our stimulus has worked so well.  Obama is aligning himself with the new French Socialist president on increased spending.  Notice the one country that has controlled spending the most has been doing the best.  From Reuters:

U.S. President Barack Obama will press European leaders to ease up on fiscal austerity and focus on economic growth at a summit on Saturday that will discuss ways to stem turmoil in the euro zone and head off the risk of global contagion.
At the wooded Camp David retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains, Obama and leaders from other large economic powers will try to forge a common approach to tackling a crisis that threatens the future of Europe’s 17-nation single currency.
Though no major policy decisions are expected from the Group of Eight summit, leaders hope they can bridge enough of their differences to soothe rattled financial markets after worries about the risk of a Greek exit from the euro zone sent European stock prices to their lowest level since December.
“Hopefully we’ll get some stuff done,” Obama told Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti as he and other summit participants arrived for Friday evening dinner at a lodge at the secluded presidential retreat.
Obama earlier in the day aligned himself with Monti and new French President Francois Hollande by urging a solution to the euro zone crisis that combines fiscal belt-tightening measures with a “strong growth agenda.”
On the other side of the debate is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has pushed fiscal austerity as a means of bringing down huge debt levels that are burdening European economies. . . .

It is interesting to note that Brazil’s stimulus policies haven’t been working out too well also.  From the Financial Times:

Brazil’s economic output shrank in March, defying government stimulus measures and surprising economists who had predicted that Latin America’s biggest economy would begin to recover from a prolonged slowdown.
The 0.35 per cent contraction, compared with February, makes Brazil’s growth the second slowest in Latin America in real terms, after Argentina. The news comes as Asia’s major emerging market economies, China and India, are also decelerating.
“The weak … conditions are likely to encourage the authorities to add more fiscal and monetary stimulus to the economy and to remain activist on the foreign exchange front,” said Alberto Ramos of Goldman Sachs in a client note. . . .

The Weekly Standard has this:

After a poll released this week showed President Barack Obama only beating his Democratic primary opponent John Wolfe Jr. by seven points, 45 percent to 38 percent, in Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District, state Democrats moved to practically disenfranchise Arkansas voters. “[D]elegates Wolfe might claim won’t be recognized at the national convention,” national party officials are telling state Democrats. Wolfe is being accused of not following the party rules.“They want a coronation,” Wolfe tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “They’re conflating [Obama] with the party. Are we supposed to call him ‘Dear Leader’? Is this some kind of North Korea thing?” . . .

As Justice Breyer wrote in the McDonald case:

I can find nothing in the Second Amendment’s text, history, or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as “fundamental” insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes. . . .

Such concerns cause self-defense advocates to write:

That Breyer demands armed police protection provided at taxpayer expense illustrates no small amount of elitist hypocrisy considering his dissent in the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller case, in which the Supreme Court majority held the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals in federal enclaves to possess a firearm in the home for traditionally lawful purposes, including self-defense. . . .

As far as I can tell, everything in this ABC News discussion was available in the police reports that I wrote about early on in this case.  The ABC News video is incredibly biased against Zimmerman, though the headline and as much of the story as I was willing to read through fits this: “Cops, Witnesses Back Up George Zimmerman’s Version of Trayvon Martin Shooting.”

From St. Clair County:

The two men charged Friday in a string of six barn and shed arson fires are a “Beavis and Butt-head duo” who just got a kick out of setting blazes, police say.
“They wanted to go out there and start fires and stir up stuff,” said Capt. Steve Johnson of the St. Clair County sheriff’s office. “It doesn’t necessarily make sense why they would do this.”
Bryan Boide, 23, of Belleville, and Nicholas Haegele, 19, of O’Fallon, were each charged with six counts of arson. In all, police said they started seven fires for “no apparent reason.” They targeted sheds and barns.
Police in St. Clair County have been investigating a string of suspicious fires in the past month. Officers from area departments spent time patrolling backroads in unmarked police cars, during the times of day that the arsonists had struck. They stopped cars to try to obtain information.
The big break came just after midnight Wednesday. That’s when Boide and Haegele were nabbed by a property owner on Bay Point Drive who got suspicious when he saw them walking around with flashlights on his property. The man grabbed his shotgun, held the pair at gunpoint and walked them to a neighbor’s home. He had the neighbor call police. . . .

Thanks to Allen Boyer for this link.

Man who fathered 30 kids says he needs a break—on child support

Why do these 11 women keep having kids with this guy if they already know that he has so many kids that he can’t provide more than $1.49 a month to many of them?

Postal employee on workers’ comp caught running Boston Marathon

A U.S. District Court in Florida convicted a former Florida postal worker of health care fraud after she was caught participating in more than 80 long-distance races, including the Boston Marathon, all while taking workers’ compensation for a back injury.
Jacquelyn V. Myers . . . faces up to 15 years in prison. . . .
In May 2009, Myers claimed to have a lower back injury that prevented her from delivering the mail as part of her job. She was relieved of her mail carrying responsibilities and put on “light duty.”
However, photos and videos emerged showing Myers participating in the races, including a triathlon. And in what would ordinarily be considered good news, her race times actually improved after she made her initial injury claim. . . .

My new Fox News piece starts this way:

The new medical reports on the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case tell us a lot. And it is not just for what they find, but also what they don’t find. First, the reports provide striking evidence that Zimmerman did not start the fight with Martin, and that Zimmerman shot Martin in self-defense. Martin’s injuries were two-fold: broken skin on his knuckles and the fatal gunshot wound.

Zimmerman’s injuries involved: a fractured nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury.

It takes considerable force to break the skin on multiple knuckles. The large range of injuries on Zimmerman indicates that the Martin’s attack was prolonged. . . . .

My newest piece at National Review starts this way:

Would you hire President Obama as your financial adviser? Three years ago his administration invested more than $100 billion in taxpayer money to bail out General Motors. On Tuesday, the entire company, not just what the government owns, was worth less than $34 billion. By anyone’s definition, that investment is a glaring failure. Yet over the last few days the Obama campaign, in a $25 million marketing blitz, has flooded the airwaves with ads in battleground states, claiming the bailout should be counted a rousing success.
Unfortunately, assertions that “all loans have been repaid to the federal government,” that the bailout “saved more than one million American jobs,” that “U.S. automakers are hiring hundreds of thousands of new workers,” that GM is again the “number-one automaker” — all are based on creative accounting. . . .

The news is as important for what it says as what it doesn’t say.  Martin had broken skin on his knuckles, but note that there was no mention about Zimmerman having similar bruises on his knuckles. What does that tell you?  It means that Martin was hitting Zimmerman sufficiently hard and often to break the skin on his knuckles, but that Zimmerman didn’t hit Martin back.  That means Zimmerman didn’t throw the first punch.  That means that it is that much harder to believe that Zimmerman started the fight.  And that is extremely important.  It looks as if Zimmerman stopped following Martin when it was suggested, but even if he didn’t, even if he asked Martin what he was doing, that doesn’t justify Martin attacking him. From ABC News:

A medical report compiled by the family physician of accused Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a “closed fracture” of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation. . . .

WFTV in Florida reports on Martin’s injuries, but again it is what injuries aren’t reported that is also important.

WFTV has learned that the medical examiner found two injuries on Martin’s body: The fatal gunshot wound and broken skin on his knuckles.
When you compare Trayvon’s non-fatal injury with Zimmerman’s bloody head wounds, the autopsy evidence is better for the defense, Sheaffer said. . . .

So despite already facing being overcharged, the Obama administration continues to go after Zimmerman:

WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer said federal prosecutors would have to prove the hate crime to charge Zimmerman, though.
“What the government would have to prove is that Mr. Zimmerman acted out of hatred toward African-Americans. That’s why he came into contact with him. That’s why he shot and killed him,” Sheaffer said.
Sheaffer said a federal hate crime murder charge could bring more serious consequences than the second-degree murder charge Zimmerman faces now.
“Mr. Zimmerman could be punished by up to life in prison or even the death penalty,” said Sheaffer. . . .

Hate crime?  Against a person who donated his time to mentor black kids?  Against someone who is part black himself?  Against a guy who tried to help his neighbors, some of whom are black, by volunteering to be the community watch leader.

Enough already!  Leave the guy alone!

A grounds keeper and his foreman were both fired.  Chevilott wanted to give the gun to the police, but they didn’t arrive so he had to give it to the police after he was done with work.  From Fox News:

A Detroit groundskeeper, who turned in a loaded handgun he found hidden in weeds while working, was fired by the Wayne County Department of Public Services, MyFoxDetroit.com reports.
John Chevilott, who is just two years shy of retirement, found the loaded snub-nosed revolver on May 3 when he and his crew were mowing a lawn in Wayne County. Chevilott secured the gun, waiting for police to drive by so he could hand it over to them. . . .
According to a Wayne County spokeswoman and the rules, employees aren’t allowed to possess a weapon on work property.
Chevilott says he didn’t bring a weapon to work. He found it on the job. . . .