The Big Show

The Casey Anthony trial is a great example of how our justice system has spun horribly off it’s axis.

I wanted Casey to get a fair trial and even be acquitted if the prosecution couldn’t prove its case not because I believe she’s innocent but because no matter whom the defendant is or what they are accused of the prosecution must meet its burden to keep an innocent person from being convicted.

However to be a fair trial both sides have to play fair. The job of a defense attorney used to be to provide vigorous representation for their client within the bounds of the law; at least it used to be. Now that job has been reduced to placing as close to 12 morons in a jury box as you can and convincing as many of them as possible that what could never happen in this or any other world just isn't just possible but probable.

Defense experts say whatever their paid to say and the truth be dammed. If you watched Dr. Spitz testify this week it was pretty clear even he didn’t believe his own testimony, but only in the paycheck he received and the chance to call himself defense expert on the Casey Anthony trial. A reference he’ll be using long after we have all forgotten about Casey herself.

What should be about finally finding out why and how a small child ended up as a bag of bones in a pet cemetery has become an attraction that has people fist fighting in the public square to catch a brief glimpse of our latest disposable celebrity. Ever since the Simpson trial defendants have become celebrities instead of defendants, and we tune in to see their lawyers do the legal equivalent of a dog jumping through a flaming hoop. It’s all a fabulous show that gets us no closer to an answer.

Today HLN ran a piece about the clothes Casey has been wearing during the trial. What’s next the Casey diet? You can only eat the same things she buys from the jail commissary.

I long for the days when court officers had integrity and the only goal was justice be it a conviction or acquittal.

If Casey walks from these charges we can all look forward to Casey the Lifetime movie , the perfume, the clothing line and of course the reality show, and we'll all try to forget that little bag of bones.

It's Your Fault

It seems to me the main focus of our justice system has become who is to blame for the things I do and nothing exemplifies this principal more than the Casey Anthony case.

It seems everyone is to blame for the death of Caylee Anthony but her mother.

Cindy Anthony was domineering, George and Lee touched her, Roy Kronk was out to become rich and famous, the police were lazy and never looked at anyone else, the FBI Crime Lab is incompetent and everyone just wants a piece of poor Casey. To use her words she is just as big a victim as her daughter.

Do you feel sorry for her yet? Either do I.

I feel sorry for a judicial system that permits this type of legal Three Card Monty to proliferate in court rooms across America day after day.

The Casey Anthony case would have been entirely winnable had she done one simple thing. Stopped all the lying and finally took personable responsibility for her own actions.

I can promise you 12 decent people would want to believe her daughter’s death was a tragic accident that she was too immature to know how to deal with and covered it up as opposed to a cold blooded murder. She could have walked away with lying to police and possibly neglect and walked out of the county jail with time severed

Instead Jose Baez decided to play the blame game. The truth of the matter is I have no idea if George Anthony ever molested Casey, but I do know women that have been molested and grow up to kill always kill their abuser and not their child.

Everybody in the world has a weird family dynamic of some sort. That’s why the Brady Bunch was so popular. Everybody doesn’t kill and blame the action on their family dynamic.

Instead of acknowledging that the FBI Crime Lab is the best in the world and if even they couldn’t find one bit of forensic evidence that directly ties Casey to the crime scene it should be pretty clear that there isn’t any evidence to find. Instead what we hear is about George Anthony molesting his daughter.

The cross examination of Dr. Garavaglia should be taught in law schools as an example of what not to do with an expert witness. How it should have been handled is the defense should have played up her expertise and than asked these simple questions:

1) Dr. did Caylee Anthony die of an allergic reaction?
2) Dr. did Caylee Anthony die of a previously unknown heart or brain defect?
3) Dr. did Caylee Anthony drown?
4) Dr. did Caylee Anthony choke to death?
5) Dr. did Caylee Anthony die from accidentally ingesting cleaning supplies?

The only answer she could honestly give would be I don’t know and if a physician of her knowledge and experience doesn’t know there is truly no evidence of murder.

Instead we have a circus that is designed to insult the intelligence of the jurors, and is just another blight on our justice system

If the defense had followed this simple truth of personal responsibility Casey Anthony would be back on the stripper pole before you could say hot body contest.

I should tell you if you disagree with I have to say in this blog I tried calling my mother today and the phone went to voice mail because she was napping and my father couldn’t meet me for coffee because his car was in the shop. So if you disagree with me please blame them.

And For My Next Trick

I am as proud to be an American as any one person can be. I love my country and that is why I am so distressed at the things I see going on around me.

My country is going to hell like a street car with no breaks and no one is doing a thing to stop it.

I was among to say the first President Obama was not my choice but he is my President and for that reason alone I was going to give him a fair chance.

I have given him a fair chance and I have come to the conclusion Barack Obama is the political equivalent of David Copperfield.

He holds the health care debate high in his right hand to deter your focus from the crumbling economy in his left hand.

I won’t insult the intelligence the reader and say health care isn’t an important issue but it pales behind the need to rebuild the economy. As sad as it to say the average American has bigger problems than being uninsured. They are unemployed. The need for basic medical services is superseded by the need to find any method they can to pay their mortgage and feed their children.

If half the effort were made to bring American jobs back to America as there is in passing a bill that won’t improve the lives of anyone at all health care in America would be an issue I’d love to discuss, but frankly we wouldn’t need to because the majority of people would be working and have employer paid heath care and we wouldn’t need a diversionary debate to focus our attention from the rumbling in our bellies.

Hallelujah!!! The Recession Is Over!!!

The other day I saw President Obama proclaim the recession is over. While I am glad to hear this news I think someone forgot to tell everyone who doesn’t live in the White House.

I am not a graduate of the Wharton School of Business and in fact I don’t even know how to use QuickBooks. I do have something that the higher levels of government and top notch economic scholars do not have and that is my experience as a small business owner.

I had an experience this week that really opened my eyes as to how bad things really are out there.

I was hired to over haul the computer systems of a telemarketing room. I know you hear the word telemarketing and your ready to place my blog on the national do not read list but I have a secret for you. If you really want to know what the economy is like ask the person who spends eight hours a day talking to people all across America trying to sell them something. If you want a real expert on the economy look no further.

With the permission of the people who owned the business I monitored their sales people while I was working. I knew things were very bad out there but I had no idea just how bad. The statics and numbers you hear on the news just don’t hit home until you hear person after person talk about how they are out of work, have no heath insurance, are about to lose their home, how $200.00 which was once disposable income is now a fortune.

All joking aside I honestly believe every senior White House official and economic adviser to the President should have it be a job requirement to spend a week telemarketing. They may have the raw numbers but those numbers would really hit home if they could hear the voices and the stories of their fellow Americans who have and continue to suffer through what I can only guess is economic recovery since the recession is over.

So yes like many others out there I’m very good at identifying the problems facing us but that doesn’t do a thing to fix them. If you’ll indulge me I do have a few ideas that maybe you’ll agree with.

1) Go back to being a nation of producers instead of consumers. Common sense will tell you that the money to consume comes from the money you earn when you produce.

2) Bring American jobs back to America. It is time to either get the labor unions on board with recovery or break them once and for all. Plain and simple the reason so many of our jobs have gone over seas is the unions have out priced American labor. At some time you would have thought it would occur to them that having 60% of what you once had is better than having 100% of nothing.

3) Make low interest loans to companies that will build factories in America and will place a sticker on their products that reads MADE IN AMERICA BY AN AMERICAN.
They will put people back to work. Radical idea I know.

4) Change our current tax code to a flat 10% that every American pays on what they earn, yes even the rich guys too who pay next to nothing now.

5) Face the fact that if the recession is really over it’s only because we are entering a full scale depression.

These are just the ideas of a guy with no economic education but plenty of experience making a living.

It’s time to face facts and stop sugar coating how bad things really are and have a frank and open discussion about how to fix things and listen to every single idea no matter how radical it may seem.

Five Lessons We Can Learn From Michael Jackson's Death

Watching the news coverage of Michael Jackson’s death reminds me of the hostess party scene from the movie Goodfellas where one of the mafia wives says we always talk about them like they’re saints once their gone.

Michael Jackson is dead and there is nothing that can bring him back but the one “redeeming” thing we can take from his death is the lessons we all can learn from it.

1)Unless you love yourself it doesn’t matter how many other people do. This is a man who hated who he was and what he looked like so much he many actually hold the world record for plastic surgeries. No matter how many people packed into a stadium or lined the streets to see him he never liked what he saw in the mirror.

2)Never buy into your own hype. Adoration is more powerful drug than Heroin. When you receive it to the degree he did it’s easy to believe not only do you deserve it but are entitled to it. After the Thriller album he no place to go but down. Very few artists will ever have a success like Thriller and no one has ever had a second one. Fleetwood Mac never had another Rumors and Peter Frampton never had another Comes Alive. There is nothing wrong with dreaming big but you only set yourself up for intolerable pain when you chase the impossible.

3)No matter if you get them from a Dr. or Dealer DRUGS WILL KILL YOU. He wasn’t the first person become an addict and by no means will he be the last. It’s difficult to perform when you’re so stoned you can’t lift your head off a pillow. If you have a drug problem there are many places to go for help call one now.

4)Keep your sexual appetites to yourself. There is an old saying if one person calls you a horse you can ignore it if enough people say it it’s time to buy a saddle. I don’t care how many public denials he made about the molestation charges, He would deny it with a statement and then prove it with his actions. The only reason he won the criminal trial is the jury hated the accuser’s family worse than they hated what he did. If you suffer from a perversion get help don’t flaunt it.

5)At the end of the day no matter how many people know and appreciate your work you are just a person and are open to the same temptations and downfalls as the rest of us and you can pay the highest price there is for it. Your life.

More Of The Same

I am sitting here reading about another politician who has had an affair. This time it is Senator John Ensign of my home state of Nevada.

Maybe I an uninformed or don’t hold elected officials to the same standard others do but my reaction is so what.

As far as I can tell Sen. Ensign did his job every day, didn’t funnel campaign or state money to her or do anything else even close to illegal. All he did was have sex with a woman who wasn’t his wife and that is nobody’s business except his and Mrs. Ensign.

Does this make him unable or unworthy to carry out the business of the state of Nevada? I don’t see why not.

It is time to realize our elected officials are people just like you and I and susceptible to the same desires and temptations as the rest of us.

I think the Senator did the right thing by keeping this private as long as he did and only came forward to protect himself from the extortion attempt of the husband of the woman he was seeing.

There are some things that are not the business of the people and what an official does at the end of their work day provided it is not illegal is one of them.
This is not a new story. Only the names have changed.

We all remember President Clinton’s involvement Monica Lewinsky. I had no problem with it then or now.

The only thing I feel President Clinton did wrong was lie about it when it became public. He could have saved the country a great deal of time, trouble, and money by coming clean when it became public, just as Senator Ensign did.

When it comes time for the Senator’s re-election I hope the people of Nevada will vote based on the job they feel he has done and not what two consenting adults did on their own time behind a closed door.

Just What Did You Prevent? Nothing.

I have never understood the view of the select few who use violence in the war against abortion.

I just do not see how murder prevents murder. Yes I know all the standard arguments that by killing the doctor you have saved all the lives he or she would have killed. I understand those arguments I just don’t buy them.

I do not want to turn this blog into a debate abortion itself. If it is something you really want to discuss I would rather save that for another entry where it can be given the full consideration it is due. Today I want to talk about killing doctors.

People who kill abortion doctors always say they are following God’s will yet completely ignore the sixth commandment. If you believe in the Ten Commandments how do you pick this one to ignore.

Killing abortion doctors is not going to stop abortions. Abortions are a business just like the removal of kidney stones or any other medical procedure. As long as there is profit to be made doctors will perform abortions. It is as simple as that.

People who kill abortionists give Christians a bad name (and the people who do this always profess to be Christians). I am sure if you were to poll the Christian population 99.9% would say abortion is murder and it should be outlawed. That is their right. I’m sure the same 99.9% would say it is just as big a sin to walk into a church with a gun and kill someone who performs abortions.

People who kill abortionists hide behind the name of Christianity without really knowing any of its core values. The majority of Christians would never even consider such a thing.

If you are that against legal abortion the way to stop it is to have the Supreme Court overturn Roe V. Wade not by bombing buildings and shooting people no matter what they do for a living.

When you take this route you are no better than the terrorists we are fighting around the world right now.