My Take: As we shrink government, let’s grow charitable giving March 27th, 2012

My Take: As we shrink government, let's grow charitable giving March 27th, 2012 03:00 PM ET Editor's Note: Glenn Beck is a radio and television host and is founder of The Blaze, a news and opinion website, and GBTV. By Glenn Beck, Special to CNN I have never felt particularly charitable on April 15. Instead, I typically feel like the victim of the most sophisticated burglary in world history. Yet it is on Tax Day that we learn a lot about the giving nature of our political leaders, at least those who release their tax records. Those documents provide a lens into politicians' financial priorities and benevolence. While the American people certainly don't have a "right" to see the tax returns of any private individual, the public has grown to expect that those running for the highest office in the land will voluntarily allow us to view their filings. Each election cycle, the media and general public take voyeuristic pleasure in examining how candidates made money and the charities they supported before knowing that the national microscope would be on them. According to his tax records, President Obama gave about 14% to charity last year, a laudable amount by any measure. However, that's about 12 times the rate he gave before he arrived in the Senate in 2004 and over 35 times the rate at which he gave in 2002 (when he managed to donate only 0.4% of his quarter million dollar income). CNN's Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories This raises questions about how much of the president's recent charitable contributions can be chalked up to political calculation. When charitable giving is at a high rate for an extended period of time, as is the case with Mitt Romney, the media tend to ignore the trend. While nearly every outlet on the planet wrote about Romney's 15% income tax rate when he released tax filings earlier this year, almost none covered the 15 % he gave voluntarily to charity. Explainer: Mormon tithing (While Romney and Obama lead the current presidential pack in personal giving, they are troublingly the only two remaining candidates supporting a partial elimination of the federal deduction for charity, which would cost non-profits far more than either man could personally give in a lifetime.) Rick Santorum, whom I firmly believe would be the best president out of the current crop of candidates, does not back down when questioned about the influence of faith on his life. But the devout Catholic has understandably faced some criticism due to the fact that his charitable giving, about 3% of his income in recent years, lags behind both Romney and post-rise-to-national-prominence-Obama. While Santorum's donations compare favorably to the average American, they're not up to the levels that many would expect from a man of such deep faith. It should be noted that Santorum is a member of the Roman Catholic Church, which does not require a specific 10 percent tithe, as many other traditions do. Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter Regardless, it's fair to wonder why Santorum hasn't willingly given more - which is why I recently asked him about it. While noting that many of his charitable acts, such as volunteering time and raising money through speaking appearances at charitable fundraisers, are not reflected in his tax returns, Santorum admitted: "I need to do better and I should be better and I fell short." In comparison to what other politicians have been caught doing, this is admittedly a minor offense. But it's encouraging that Santorum takes it seriously. At the end of the day, the lesson - that it's important to pitch in and give to help those in need - doesn't just apply to presidential candidates; it applies to all of us, but particularly to conservatives. Although studies have shown that conservatives already give more to charity than their liberal counterparts, the need is still great and requires much of everyone who is able to assist. The idea that individuals are the key to helping others is a conservative one. It's why I have never been shocked at Vice President Joe Biden's lack of charitable giving over the years. Biden averaged giving 0.2% over an entire decade of six-figure incomes in the Senate, 1/13th of what Santorum is criticized for today. Unlike President Obama, Biden's low charitable giving is a picture of stability. Even under the microscope of the Vice Presidency he still only gave 1% to charity last year. And yet this is oddly consistent with his political philosophy. Progressives believe the government does a better job with your money than you can. So, why give any money to charity? Why doesn't President Obama just give an extra 14% to the government? It's the responsibility of individuals to help others. Mercury One is a charity that I started in 2011 that attempts to take that morsel of ideology and turn it into action. The goal is to show that the American spirit of giving, while already far more significant than any other developed nation, still has plenty of room to grow. When it comes to charity, Americans need to stop saying "Yes, we can" and start saying "Yes, I can." We face tough economic times ahead. I believe that we must shrink the size and scope of government or we will face national economic disaster. But it's not just about making the government smaller. As some of these giveaways from Washington disappear, American individuals must step in and make up the difference. Savings in government waste and inefficiency can only go so far. It's up to all of us to demand of ourselves that we pick up the slack. Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus command us to elect a government that will take our money under threat of imprisonment so that bureaucrats can figure out the best way to help people in need. But as so many on the left have pointed out, Scriptures do direct us to help the poor. Yet God puts the responsibility on us, not on the government. Paul's Letter to the Corinthians says that "Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." I think the use of "not grudgingly or under compulsion" eliminates the possibility that he was talking about the IRS. This should serve as motivation for all of us to do more personally. Unless you're already feeling "cheerful" every year on April 15. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Glenn Beck.   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

By Karl Rove March 29, 2012 ObamaCare and the 2012 Election Whatever t

By Karl Rove March 29, 2012 ObamaCare and the 2012 Election Whatever the Supreme Court says, how the president handles health policy will deeply affect his chances in November. This week's historic Supreme Court hearings on President Obama's health-care overhaul will have huge political ramifications. The heart of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the requirement that every American purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. Justice Anthony Kennedy—widely considered the "swing vote" on cases that divide the Supreme Court evenly along ideological lines—raised concerns on Tuesday that this individual mandate "changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in the very fundamental way." This might mean the president's signature domestic achievement will be declared unconstitutional. If so, he would face a critical decision. Mr. Obama could announce he respects the court's decision and pledge to fashion a bipartisan solution to provide access to affordable health-care insurance for all Americans. This would help his re-election by repositioning him back in the political center, as he was in 2008 when he ran television ads that said "both extremes"—"government-run health care [and] higher taxes"—"are wrong." But he could instead lash out against the court's majority—as he did in the Citizens United case upholding free speech for corporations—and insist on an even larger role in health care for Washington. Perhaps he would advocate a "public option" where government competes with private and not-for-profit health-insurance companies, hospital consortiums and the like. The president has very little room to maneuver. His approval rating on how he is handling "health-care policy" in the latest Gallup Poll is only 41%. Just 39.2% of Americans favor ObamaCare, according to HuffPost Pollster's summary of the latest polls. And the RealClearPolitics average of recent surveys shows a majority (51.7%) favor the measure's repeal while 40.7% oppose repeal. More problems for ObamaCare have emerged recently. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released new budget projections for it over the next 10 years. In March 2010, the CBO estimated the gross cost at $940 billion for 10 years. Now it forecasts the cost to be $1.76 trillion, nearly double. For the eight years (2012 through 2019) included in both estimates, the CBO now says costs will run $90 billion more than originally forecast. The law's coverage provisions (such as premium subsidies and Medicaid outlays), which cost $66 billion in 2014 when implemented, will cost $265 billion in 2022, according to the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation. These higher costs will add to the national debt since taxes cover well less than half of ObamaCare's existing price tag. In addition, now even ObamaCare advocates admit it increases insurance premiums and does not lower them as the president promised. Consider MIT Prof. Jonathan Gruber, a former consultant to the Obama administration. You may recall that the White House rolled him out in November 2009 to undercut a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) analysis a month earlier that estimated premiums in the individual market would increase by 47% over the law's first decade. Mr. Gruber assured Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein, "What we know for sure is that [the bill] will lower the cost of buying non-group health insurance." But since ObamaCare passed, several states have hired Mr. Gruber to consult on the creation of the state insurance exchanges that are part of the new law. In this role, Mr. Gruber has now advised at least three states that health-coverage premiums in the individual market would increase 19% to 30%. The culprit is the law's "guaranteed issue" provision that requires insurers to issue policies upon demand, regardless of any pre-existing conditions. This was exactly the provision PWC's analysis warned about before the law was enacted. Finally, there is the supply of insurance products and competition. The Galen Institute, a free-market health-care research organization, published a report last December detailing more than a dozen instances in which companies exited the business or ended health-care coverage in as many as 20 states since the passage of ObamaCare. At insurance-industry conferences over the last month, executives have told me that the shrinkage of companies and coverage is only increasing as the industry finds it difficult to cope with the regulatory burdens. This will lead to less supply and less competition just when the law contemplates dramatically expanding the number of people with insurance. The mess that is ObamaCare is not going away. The president's handling of it will deeply affect his re-election chances. This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, March 28, 2012.   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

Take Me Out to the Ballgame Bill O'Reilly Mar 31, 2012

Take Me Out to the Ballgame Bill O'Reilly Mar 31, 2012   The urchins were startled. "Hey, let's go outside and play some baseball," I said. Outside? Are you kidding me? Inside, the two 8-year-old boys have an Xbox, iPads and personal computers at the ready. Outside? So I dragged them down to the ball field. "I need a helmet," one wailed. "Where're the helmets?" "And what about a heart-guard?" the other one said. "Mom says I have to get a heart-guard before I can play." "We're just going to practice," I replied. "No danger. Let's just throw the ball around and hit a few." The boys looked confused. "But we need helmets!" The year was 1957, and two Central Nassau little league teams were on the field. There were no helmets. No heart-guards. Just a dusty field with dirty bases and a coach who sat on a splintered bench drinking beer. I was 7 years old. Billy Weir was on the mound. I was at the plate. He threw; I swung the bat. The ball rocketed into left field. My first hit ever. I'll never forget it. "OK, I'll hit you guys some grounders, and you throw the ball home. Got it?" The boys looked even more confused. "What happens if the ball hits me?" the smarter one asked. "Pain," I said. "But that's why you have a glove. You catch the ball in the glove, and that protects you." I hit a slow grounder to the slower boy. He stood like a statue as the ball rolled through his legs. "What was that?" I asked. "It was too low," he replied. "It has to be higher." "You're supposed to bend down and catch the ball, " I said gently. "That's how you get guys out. You catch the ball and throw it to first." The kid looked bored. The kid was bored. There were no electronic zombies to kill. There were no gadgets in sight. "OK, let's do some hitting," I said, attempting to refocus the boys. "I only use aluminum bats," one of them said. "Mom says wood bats are too dangerous." Luckily, I had the aluminum model. "It's too heavy," the kid wailed. "Choke up, move your hands up the handle of the bat." I threw the urchins some soft tosses, and they began to hit the ball. On contact, the bat made a loud noise, which they liked. Reminded them of the noises that feed their gaming addiction. "OK, now we're going to run the bases." "Why?" they said in unison. "Because after you hit the ball, you run from base to base. That's how you score runs." "My mom doesn't want me to get dirty." How about I bury you under the pitcher's mound?" The kids ran to first. But they began to tire after reaching second. They both stopped and just stood there looking at me. I looked back. "How long are we going to do this?" the smarter one said. "I need a helmet if we're gonna keep playing." Bill O'Reilly Bill O'Reilly is host of the Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor" and author of "Who's Looking Out For You?" and Pinheads and Patriots.   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

This week on AMERICAN MOVIE CLASSICS Fear Friday Classic Horror, Thriller, Suspe

This week on AMERICAN MOVIE CLASSICS Fear Friday Classic Horror, Thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Sci-fi Movies they are showcasing and that is recommended must watch if you have AMC are.   Saturday March 31, 2012   1:00AM 12:00c Pet Sematary TV14, CC A family's life in small-town Maine is shattered by the evil unleashed from an ancient American Indian burial ground. 3:00AM 2:00c Pet Sematary Two TV14, CC A teen (Edward Furlong) and his buddy take a shot-dead dog to a sacred burial ground where it comes back to life, riled.   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

Diplomatic Duplicity Oliver North Mar 30, 2012

Diplomatic Duplicity Oliver North Mar 30, 2012 In the summer of 1987, just before my "television debut," a true friend instructed me in a congressional hearing, "Remember, the microphone is always on -- even when it's not!" It's a lesson I never have forgotten. Apparently, Barack Obama doesn't have any friends to give him similar advice, or he doesn't learn well. Either way, an open mic during this week's nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea, has revealed our president's extraordinary hubris and his penchant for dangerous diplomatic duplicity. The video clip of an unscripted exchange March 26 between Obama and outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev should be grounds for the American people to hire a new commander in chief in November. The two leaders, evidently unaware they were being recorded, were discussing new limits on U.S. ballistic missile defense. Obama: "On all these issues -- but particularly missile defense -- this can be solved, but it's important for him to give me space." Medvedev: "Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space -- space for you." Obama: "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility." Medvedev: "I understand. I (will) transmit this information to Vladimir." Note to reader: The "him" in Obama's opening soliloquy and the "Vladimir" in Medvedev's final remark are the same person: Vladimir Putin -- the former and future president of Russia. On May 7, Putin and Medvedev exchange places in Moscow's revolving-door government. This surreal moment of unintended transparency from the Obama administration immediately went viral around the world. In Warsaw, where pro-U.S. politicians are still bruised from endorsing U.S.-built missile defenses -- only to have the O-Team "postpone" the project -- the president's conversation is seen as proof that "Obama will cave in to Russia." One Polish paper's headline read, "Were they trading Poland?" In the immediate aftermath, officials in Romania and the Czech Republic -- both of which are slated for ballistic missile defense sites -- wouldn't comment on the Obama gaffe. But more than one political commentator observed that this is what we should expect from the Obama "reset" with Russia. Unfortunately, the Obama reset hasn't worked at all -- and Putin didn't need any privately delivered message from his lackey Dmitry to tell him that. Putin has been playing Obama as Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello. And now, thanks to what happened in Seoul, everyone can hear the music. The indelibly corrupt regime in Moscow has spurned every effort at improving relations with the U.S. and repeatedly used its veto threat in the United Nations Security Council to pre-empt any onerous sanctions against its clients in Iran and Syria. Despite repeated entreaties from the White House to endorse Obama's naive hope for "a world without nuclear weapons," Putin is proceeding to quietly modernize Russia's own arsenal -- while we do not. Notably, Putin has spurned an invitation to the May 20-21 NATO summit in Chicago, where ballistic missile defense is on the agenda. The fallout from the fiasco in Seoul is undoubtedly good news to the ayatollahs in Tehran. Buoyed by the precipitous withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq last November and talk of an early pullout from Afghanistan, Iranian advocates for pressing ahead with their nuclear weapons program just gained further evidence that the American president is a paper tiger with a big mouth but no teeth. The day after he bared his political soul in Seoul, Obama tried to make light of the matter. As he walked into the summit meeting, he clowned for the world press by placing his hand over the microphone on the dais and said, "Is the mic on?" They all laughed. But it really isn't a laughing matter. Who can imagine Ronald Reagan saying or doing such things anywhere -- much less at a summit of world leaders -- on or off mic? Can any of us recall Reagan in 1984 talking about "my" election? He knew it wasn't his; it was ours. We shouldn't want a clown for a president. We ought to have a commander in chief who knows that his primary job is to protect the American people from harm. We deserve a head of state who will bow before God Almighty and no one else. And we need a chief executive who will tell the truth to our allies, our adversaries and, most importantly, the American people. It would be good to remember all this, particularly these dangerous diplomatic deceits, in November. Oliver North Oliver North is the host of War Stories on the Fox News Channel, the author of American Heroes in Special Operations and the founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance, a foundation that provides college scholarships to the sons and daughters of servicemembers killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty.   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

Obama Doubling Down on His Leftist Radicalism David Limbaugh Mar 30, 2012

Obama Doubling Down on His Leftist Radicalism David Limbaugh Mar 30, 2012   You can't even casually surf the Internet on any given day without numerous reminders of just how radical President Obama is -- and this is during an election year, when it should be in his political interest to mask his radicalism. Minding my own business, I happened on an article by Jacob Laksin on FrontPageMag.com, titled "Obama's Pick for World Bank Hates Capitalism." I'd heard a bit about this before but hadn't yet studied it. I'm so used to Obama's extremism that such revelations hardly move me, much less surprise me. I know where he stands; I just wish everyone else did. Obama has nominated Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim to head the World Bank. In 2000, Kim edited a collection of studies under the title "Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor." The "book's radical central premise," writes Laksin, is that "capitalism and economic growth (are) bad for the poor across the world." Kim co-wrote the introduction, which includes the claim that the book shows "that the quest for growth in GDP and corporate profits has in fact worsened the lives of millions of women and men." It says that even in those instances in which free trade and free markets have led to economic growth, they've done so without benefiting "those living in 'dire poverty,' one-fourth of the world's population." Can't you just hear Obama himself in those words? One thing that helps the plight of the very poor, according to one chapter, is a socialized health care system, such as the one in Communist Cuba. The chapter's author touts that system because of the Cuban government's "commitment not only to health in the narrow sense but to social equality and social justice." As we opponents of Obamacare have said repeatedly, Obamacare is hardly just about making health care more affordable or more accessible, neither of which it will do in the end, but is a stealth vehicle to greatly expand governmental control over limitless aspects of our lives to enable the leftist central planners to effectuate "social equality and social justice" under the innocuous guise of providing health care. As with so many of its ideas, the left is wrong about the record of free markets on the poor, notes Laksin, who points to "overwhelming evidence" that economic growth raises income levels and reduces global poverty. But again, leftist ideologues aren't motivated by a desire to improve the lot of the downtrodden, domestically or globally, but by a burning passion for statism. This book is right out of Obama's playbook. Can you not see the common thread running through these alleged glories of the Cuban system and Obama's approach to health care and his war on oil, coal and gas, along with his corresponding commitment to green energy and his various stimulus bills, all of which increase our national deficits, debt and unemployment but greatly increase governmental control? Obama's nomination of Kim should be no surprise to anyone, considering his consistent record of radical associations and appointments, from Van Jones to transnationalist Harold Koh. For Obama, one's radicalism is not a deterrent to one's resume, but an enhancement. His appointment of Van Jones was not a mistake owing to the administration's failure to vet him as Obama's defenders later claimed once Jones' radicalism was exposed. Obama appointed Jones precisely because his administration was intimately familiar with Jones' views; indeed, the White House carved out a new position -- green energy czar -- specifically tailored for his worldview and then happily placed him in it. Tearing myself away from this uplifting article, I next encountered one detailing Obama's ongoing fulfillment of his promise to bankrupt the coal industry -- with his Environmental Protection Agency's issuance of new proposed rules on carbon emissions, which will please the goddess Gaia but won't do much for the production of energy, economic growth, jobs or the poor, for that matter. This was after watching a report on Fox News earlier that morning highlighting Obama's obstruction of oil shale production based on other dubious environmental doom-saying. Next, I saw John Fund's piece on National Review Online outlining Obama's background in the sordid community organizing tactics of famed leftist radical Saul Alinsky and Obama's close ties with the now fallen ACORN. According to New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor -- in her new book on Obama -- Obama still thought of himself as a community organizer when he was senator. He still does today, and, Fund warns, conservatives should be prepared for his Alinsky tactics in the 2012 campaign. Maybe this all wouldn't be so exasperating if Obama didn't hold himself out as a uniter, but he is the furthest thing from it, as he, if anything, is doubling down on his polarizing radicalism and his unswerving commitment to a statist agenda for America. David Limbaugh David Limbaugh, brother of radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, is an expert in law and politics and author of new book Crimes Against Liberty, the definitive chronicle of Barack Obama's devastating term in office so far.   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

Eco-Scams Are as Easy as "A123" Michelle Malkin Mar 30, 2012

Eco-Scams Are as Easy as "A123" Michelle Malkin Mar 30, 2012 While President Obama was busy lambasting Big Oil tax breaks on Thursday, yet another one of his environmental welfare recipients (the very kind he wants to redistribute oil subsidies to) was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Who needs to win the Mega Millions lottery? Start a pie-in-the-sky eco-boondoggle, and a half-billion-dollar jackpot ripe for squandering is all yours! The Solyndra of the week is A123 Systems, an electric vehicle battery company based in Massachusetts. The firm also has battery plants in Michigan, where former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm once heralded A123 as a federal stimulus "success story." Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the company headquarters and hailed it as a "great example of how Recovery Act funding is helping American companies." In addition to nearly $300 million in Obama Recovery Act funds, Granholm kicked in another $135 million in tax credits and subsidies to bribe the company to keep jobs in her state. How's the return on government investment? This green dud will have taxpayers seeing red. A123's official company motto is "Power. Safety. Life." But the firm's reality is "Out of power. Endangering safety. Clinging to life." Earlier this week, the company announced a recall of malfunctioning battery packs manufactured in Livonia, Mich. A123 makes the products for Fisker, Chevrolet and BMW electric cars. Consumer Reports flagged the potentially hazardous defect caused by faulty calibration earlier this month. The recall will cost upward of $55 million. A Deutsche Bank analyst wrote: "We no longer have enough confidence that (A123) can raise sufficient capital (without massive equity dilution) and/or continue to augment their book to future business. Recent quality issues may lead to concerns over (A123's) ability to manufacture with quality at high volumes, potentially leading to customer defections or at least difficulty in procuring new contracts." When it rains, it pours. The dead battery debacle follows news of 125 layoffs in November due to diminished vehicle production by top client Fisker Auto. That troubled company (which A123 has itself dumped $20.5 million of stock equity and cash into) admitted faulty wiring problems with its electric cars. While Michigan workers lost their jobs, Massachusetts executives burned through $155 million in cash this year and the company stock plummeted to just over $1. A123 lost a net $172 million over the first three quarters of 2011 and has yet to see a profit. Like Solyndra's top brass, A123 managers have been living high on the hog and partying it up with Democratic Party bigwigs. The Michigan-based Mackinac Center reports that in February, "A123's Compensation Committee approved a $30,000 raise for (Chief Financial Officer David) Prystash just days after (its primary customer) Fisker Automotive announced the U.S. Energy Department had cut off what was left of its $528.7 million loan it had previously received." Prystash's hike was 8.5 percent, taking his base salary from $350,000 to $380,000. One A123 vice president, Robert Johnson, received a 20.7 percent pay increase that saw his salary grow from $331,250 to $400,000. Another vice president, Jason Forcier, vice president of the automotive solutions group, climbed from a $331,250 base salary to $350,000. Analyst Paul Chesser of the D.C.-based National Legal and Policy Center raises pointed questions about the timing of the pay raises: "Were their actions intended as greater protection for their executives in the case of a sale or bankruptcy of the company?" Inquiring House GOP investigators looking into the Obama Department of Energy's big green boondoggles should want to know. And taxpayers should want to know more about the cozy ties between A123 and the White House and Democratic politicians. A123 Systems CEO David Vieau showered Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and key Democrats on Capitol Hill with nearly $17,000 before receiving the stimulus injection. A123 enviro-boodle also flowed to Mass. Sen. John Kerry and Rep. Ed Markey. Betting on "smart grid" cronyism has been a bonanza for the well-connected -- and a big, bad bet for taxpayers. Michelle Malkin Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

The Death of Mrs. G Thomas Sowell Mar 30, 2012

The Death of Mrs. G Thomas Sowell Mar 30, 2012 Although we all know that death is inevitable, we are still seldom fully prepared for the death of someone who has been important in our lives. So it was with the recent death of Dr. Marie D. Gadsden, at the age of 92. Mrs. Gadsden's only official connection with me was that she taught me freshman English at Howard University, more than half a century ago. But she and Professor Sterling Brown were my two idols when I was a student there -- and both remained so for the rest of my life. Mrs. G, as I came to call her in later years, was not only a good teacher, and a demanding teacher, but also one with kindness toward her students. I can still remember one very rainy night when a young lady from her class and I were walking up the street together from Howard University, when a car suddenly pulled over to the curb, a door was flung open and we were invited to get in. It was Mrs. Gadsden. When I decided that I wanted to transfer to Harvard, both Mrs. G and Sterling Brown wrote strong letters of recommendation for me -- letters that may have had more to do with my getting admitted than my mediocre grades, as a night student who was carrying too many courses for someone who worked full time during the day. Mrs. G put me in touch with a lady she knew in Cambridge, who rented me a room, and also put me in touch with a lovely young woman who was a student at Radcliffe. Mr. Gadsden, her husband whom I had come to know by this time, said to me: "Oh, Tom, now she is picking out your women for you!" He had a great sense of humor. In the decades that followed, Mrs. Gadsden and I remained in touch, usually by mail, even after we were both long gone from Howard University. Since she had many sojourns overseas, her letters often came from exotic places, principally in Africa. She was my most important confidante, and her wise words helped me through many tough times in my personal life, as well as in my professional career. She encouraged my work, celebrated my advancement and, where necessary, criticized my shortcomings. All of it helped me. At one point, I returned to Howard University to teach for a year. Among my students was a young African woman who had studied under Mrs. Gadsden in Guinea. This young lady, just recently arrived in the United States, seemed almost frightened by it -- and by my economics class, which met two hours every night during the six weeks of summer school. The class was moving ahead at a rapid pace and, when this young African woman fell behind, I knew it would be very hard for her to catch up. She failed the first two weekly tests and, when I spoke with her about it after class, she was thoroughly embarrassed and quietly began to cry. I then went to see Mrs. Gadsden, who was back in Washington at this time, and who knew this girl and her family back in Guinea. "So you think she's going to fail the course?" Mrs. G asked. "Well, she's not going to learn the material. Whether I can bring myself to give her an F is something else. That's really hitting somebody who's down." "You're thinking of passing her, even if she does not do passing work?" Mrs. G said sharply. She reminded me that I had long criticized paternalistic white teachers who passed black students who should have been failed -- and she let me have it. "I'm ashamed of you, Tom. You know better!" Now it seemed as if I could neither pass nor fail this young African woman. In desperation, I began to meet with her in the office for an hour before every class to try to bring her up to speed. At first, it didn't look like these private lessons were doing any good, but one night she finally began to grasp what economics was all about, and she even smiled, for the first time. The young woman from Guinea did B work from there on out -- and I was tempted to give her a B. But her earlier failing grades could not be ignored, and averaging them in made her grade a C. When I saw Mrs. Gadsden later, she said, "Our friend was overjoyed at getting a C in your course! She was proud because she knew she earned every bit of it." That was the Mrs. G I knew. And I never expect to see anyone like her again. Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM Thomas Sowell Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust.   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

I bid you good noon.

I bid you good noon. Iam @ dialysis & hooked up. I have 4:26 left. I'll come off around 5:00pm.
Carl Ray Louk

Can the Government Force You to Eat Broccoli? Judge Andrew Napolitano

Can the Government Force You to Eat Broccoli? Judge Andrew Napolitano Mar 29, 2012 This week, the Supreme Court measured Obamacare to see whether it fits within the confines of the Constitution. The big picture is whether the Constitution limits the behavior of the federal government to the plain meaning and historical context of the Constitution, or whether clever lawyers and politicians can interpret language in the Constitution so as to justify whatever Congress wishes to do. Does the Constitution mean what it says? Does it limit the federal government to the powers it has delegated to Congress? Or is it a blank check for Congress to do whatever it can get away with? One of those delegated powers is the power to regulate interstate commerce. The language in the Commerce Clause authorizes Congress "to regulate" commerce among the states. When James Madison wrote that phrase, he and the other Framers were animated by the startling lack of interstate commerce among the states under the Articles of Confederation. This was the period after the Revolution and before the Constitution when the merchants and bankers who financed the Revolution also controlled the state legislatures. They were both creditors, because they had lent money to the state governments to finance the war, and debtors, because they now controlled the machinery of state government that owed them money. What did they do? They were the original corporatists and crony capitalists. They formed cartels to diminish in-state competition, and they imposed tariffs to discourage out-of-state competition. Thus, in order to turn 13 mini-economies into one large economy, and to protect the freedom to trade, Madison used the word "regulate," which to him and his colleagues meant "to keep regular." So, the Constitution delegated to Congress the constitutional power to keep interstate commerce regular by prohibiting state tariffs, and it did so. But Congress was intoxicated with its new powers, so it began to keep commerce regular by regulating the fares charged by ferries going from Hoboken, N.J., to New York City -- and the Supreme Court said yes. From there Congress regulated the wages of workers who produced goods that were put onto those ferries -- and the Supreme Court said yes. Then Congress regulated the wages, working conditions and methods of manufacture of facilities whose goods never moved in interstate commerce, so long as the economic activity generated by the production of those goods had a measurable effect on interstate commerce -- and the Supreme Court said yes. This jurisprudence has resulted in the courts approving the congressional regulation of the thickness of leather in shoes, the water pressure in home showers, the amount of sugar in ketchup, ad infinitum. Wherever you go in the United States, it is impossible to avoid confronting federal regulation of human behavior unmentioned in the Constitution, but justified by Congress under the Commerce Clause. It will be necessary for the court to put a backstop on this absurd progression of congressional power in order to invalidate Obamacare's individual mandate. The other line of Commerce Clause jurisprudence that the court will confront started with a farmer growing wheat exclusively for the consumption of his family during the Great Depression, and the feds ordering him to grow less wheat. He resisted that order, and his resistance led to an infamous Supreme Court opinion that upheld the feds' order. That 1942 case stands for the propositions that even infinitesimal economic behavior, even behavior that is not numerically measurable, even behavior that is not of a commercial nature, even behavior that does not move products across interstate lines can be regulated by Congress if, when all the similar behavior in the land is taken in the aggregate, it could have an effect on interstate commerce. This aggregation theory is the most anti-historical, hysterical, disingenuous, convoluted ruling in the court's history. But it is still the law today, and it will be necessary for the court to distinguish or to overrule this case, too, in order to invalidate the individual mandate. Justice Antonin Scalia reminded his colleagues during oral arguments this week that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and it means today what it meant when it was written and ratified. If Congress can compel you to buy health insurance because that's good for you and for the country's economic health, he asked, can it force you to eat broccoli? And if it can, what is the value of having a Constitution that was written to limit the government's powers? Judge Andrew Napolitano Judge Andrew P. Napolitano is the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of the State of New Jersey. He sat on the bench from 1987 to 1995, during which time he presided over 150 jury trials and thousands of motions, sentencings and hearings. He taught constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School for 11 years, and he returned to private practice in 1995. Judge Napolitano began television work in the same year.   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

A Post-Racial Lynch Mob Ann Coulter Mar 28, 2012

A Post-Racial Lynch Mob Ann Coulter Mar 28, 2012 Even after the Duke lacrosse case, Texaco executives allegedly using the N-word in private meetings -- which turned out to be "St. Nicholas" -- the Tawana Brawley case, not to mention virtual hailstorms of racist graffiti and nooses materializing on college campuses, all of which invariably end up having been put there by the alleged victims, the Non-Fox Media (NFM) didn't even pause before conjuring a racist plot in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida last month. Like Captain Ahab searching for the Great White Whale, the NFM is constantly on the hunt for proof of America as "Mississippi Burning." Over St. Patrick's Day weekend, the month after Martin was killed, gangs in Chicago shot 10 people dead, including a 6-year-old girl, Aliyah Shell, who was sitting with her mother on their front porch. One imagines MSNBC hosts heaving a sign of relief that little Aliyah was not shot by a white man, and was thus spared the horror of being a victim of racism. As it happens, Trayvon Martin wasn't shot by a white man either, but by George Zimmerman, a mixed-race Hispanic who lives in a diverse (47 percent white) gated community and tutors black kids. But Hispanic is close enough for the NFM. They're chasing the Great White Whale of racist America and don't have time to check to see if the whale is actually a guppy. Since the cat leapt out of the bag on Zimmerman being Hispanic, the media have begun calling him a "white Hispanic." Not being a race-obsessed liberal, I don't particularly care, but it's indisputable that Zimmerman is brown. I saw his face carved on the side of a Mayan temple in the Yucatan. Using his mother's maiden name, he would be admitted to the University of Michigan law school on a full scholarship. Apart from that, pretty much all that is known with certainty is that Zimmerman called the police to report a suspicious character in his neighborhood, and shortly thereafter he shot and killed Martin. On the basis of little else, the media conjured a Hollywood script: A "white" man was "stalking" a little black kid -- who could be Obama's son! -- confronted him, beat him senseless as the small black child screamed for help, and finally shot the kid dead, "just because he was black." Two weeks of nonstop hysteria later, it turns out that every part of that gripping plot is based on nothing that could be called a reasonable assumption, much less a fact. The NFM's theory of the case might be true, just as it might be true that the loud bang I just heard outside my door is Godzilla returning to terrorize Manhattan. I, like the NFM, have no facts supporting my theory. (Although mine is more credible because Al Sharpton is not involved and none of my facts are provably false, such as the NFM's claim about Zimmerman being "white.") First of all, there's no reason to believe Zimmerman followed Martin after the police told him not to, which is the linchpin of much excited reporting. Zimmerman told the police, his friends and his lawyer that he walked back to his car after hanging up with the police and was waylaid by Martin. No witnesses have told the press otherwise. We don't know if -– as the NFM has baldly asserted -- it was Martin yelling "Help!" during the struggle. Before the case became a nationwide sensation, the lead detective told the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel that the police had played all the 911 calls for Martin's father, and he said the voice crying "Help!" was not his son's. (The father has subsequently retracted that.) Before the shooting was even a twinkle in the eye of MSNBC, an eyewitness gave a detailed account to the local media, indicating that it was Martin who was on top of Zimmerman, pummeling him, as Zimmerman screamed "Help!" The police report says Zimmerman's nose was bleeding and his back covered in grass stains when they arrived at the scene. His lawyer and friends say he was treated for a broken nose the next day. There's no sense in arguing in public about such facts. The medical records exist or they do not. Of course, the information contradicting the media's fantasy comes to us only in the form of witness statements and police reports appearing in the press, not as evidence in a formal criminal investigation. It's hard to tell where the NFM's suppositions are coming from inasmuch as they simply report their version as hard fact. But all their evidence seems to come only from Martin's family and girlfriend. Can we start trying all criminal defendants based exclusively on the testimony of the victim's friends and relatives? Among the reasons to be suspicious of the media as impartial judges of the evidence is that they keep showing us snapshots from Martin's childhood, rather than any recent photos. Without doing research, the average person would think Martin was a slight 12-year-old whippersnapper at the time of the shooting, rather than a strapping 6-foot, 160-pound 17-year-old. Indeed, he was 3 inches taller than Zimmerman, according to the police report. Why aren't they showing us Zimmerman's baby pictures? (And why didn't we get to see baby pictures of the Duke lacrosse players? I bet they were adorable.) CNN ceaselessly reported the allegation that Zimmerman could be heard in the background of one 911 call using an archaic racial epithet. Before playing the tape, correspondent Gary Tuchman first announced what the slur was supposed to be ("f*****g coon"). There's nothing like suggesting the answer in advance to improve reliability! Police should try that in lineups. Then the same network that couldn't find the Jeremiah Wright tapes for sale in a church lobby brought in "one of the best audio experts in the business" to enhance the tape -- take the bass away here, add volume there -- and played the 1.6-second loop again and again, just in case you were not suggestible enough the first time. Still, all that can be heard on the enhanced tape is "cha-chu, cha-chu, cha-chu." But Tuchman wrapped up this demonstration by saying, "You know, it sounds like this allegation could be accurate, but I wouldn't swear to it in court. That's what it sounds like to me." To the small percentage of CNN's audience with triple-digit IQs, it was comedy gold. The only thing missing was Tipper Gore playing the audio backward to reveal satanic lyrics. (Incidentally, the Nexis transcript of the indecipherable "cha-chu" sound reads: "ZIMMERMAN: F*****g coons, f*****g coons. F*****g coons. F*****g coons. F*****g coons." Except it doesn't use asterisks.) All this may give you an inkling of why we rely on the criminal justice system to determine guilt in criminal cases and not the fervid imaginations of the race-obsessed media. Ann Coulter Ann Coulter is a columnist and author of Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault On America.   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/