It's Not the End, It's Not the Beginning of the End, But It Might Be the End of the Beginning

So after the ticket for the Stop Sign (it is probably better not to run a stop sign if there is a cop sitting watching the intersection) and having CSB taking the four hour old kid we finally got a break.

Children Services pushed, I think, a little too far. We had an emergency hearing and a neighbor came to court and was pretty impressive. CSB was to go to her house and check it for safety issues to determine if they were able to care for the baby, with the understanding that the Mother would be there to assist, under supervision, to care for the kid. The house was safe as CSB admitted in their subsequent filing, but they had several other (new) reasons to deny these people temporary custody and delay so that they could put the kid where they wanted to. I got the GAL and the father's attorney to file, with me, objections to this determination by CSB. Further stuff was filed this morning by CSB and I suspect that is where they went too far. Essentially, they basically said fuck you judge we are going to do what we want.

Guess what? The judge said: Oh yeah, I'm the judge you do what I tell you not the other way around. We left the court room on Tuesday with everybody understanding that this kid would go to these people if they could show that their place was fit and they would protect him if necessary from the mother. They are fit and they will protect him.

UPDATE, FRIDAY: Well it couldn't last. Last night the neighbor went to get the kid and CSB lied to her telling her that the mother couldn't be around the child at all and that the father (of whom there were never any allegation concerning his mental health) could only be around the kid for brief periods with intense supervison. I had given my cell number to the parents and apparently the mother had written it down and then refused to give it to anyone. So I didn't find out about it today and it is now too late to correct it. The neighbors are now unsure of whom to believe. They heard the mother screaming in the back ground and are unsure if she might be violent.

So the end result is the kid goes where CSB wanted in the first place.

Is This Week Over Yet?

This has not been the most pleasant of weeks so far and yes I realize it is just Tuesday.

Monday I was set to have a hearing in Juvenile Court with my client who was almost 9 months pregnant with her eighth child. The other seven kids had been removed and placed about two hours away. My client is a paranoid delusional person who does not think that she has any problems. The hearing was a 9:00 a.m. at 8:30 the husband calls me to tell me that they have just had their eighth child.

I go to court and continue the case and see that Children Services are on their way to get an order to take the kid. I call my client who insists that the court has not authority to do this and will not do anything I suggest. By 1:30 the kid is in the custody of CSB and my client is again telling me how it is illegal to remove a nursing child from its mother.

One of my OVI guys comes in to tell me that the cops have been by his house and taken his license. In Ohio if one tests over a certain level then the driver's license is taken at that time "administratively" by the cops. In this case the guy gave a urine sample and it was sent away. When the cops got the sample they immediately went to his house and took the license, something that they have the legal right to do, but that I've never heard of being done before. It is worse because my guy is on Suboxon and apparently that is what put him over the limit, although he was never told not to drive while using it.

Meet with my accused felon who is probably moderately retarded, but who probably knows what he helped another guy do was wrong, so I try to figure out how to keep him out of jail.
Out to another two pre-trials, of course I go to the wrong court first and so am about 30 minutes late to the second court.

Back to my office where the mother of a client is weeping in the waiting room while being yelled at by a probation officer. Apparently because her son (the client's not the probation officer's) cut off his ankle bracelet and is on the run because the prosecutor was mean to him and (I know learn) possibly because he has traumatic brain injury from being beat up a year ago (no reason to let me know too early in the game, I guess). You have to understand that no body ever runs permanently away from this hick town. I once had a guy who committed a brutal assault and robbery on an older woman who ran all the way to Mexico and was back here in five (yes five) days.

Tuesday, started out with my meeting with the husband of my delusional client who is actually pretty normal from what I can tell (although a little weird religiously) and trying to talk to my client again. Luckily she didn't feel up to coming in to the hearing, so that was good. Talking to her is very strange, she is tangentially talking about the issue at hand but in a kind of parallel conversation. An hour trying to get something set up and then a two and a half hour hearing. It went as well as could be expected, perhaps we were able to get the baby to a neighbor's who would let the mom and dad stay there while this case drags on. The custodians of the other seven kids say that the mother would be allowed to visit the baby once a month if they had her.

Then over to muni court and a change of plea on a 21 year old 5 month pregnant woman who had been driving while well over two times the legal limit and had a wreck Her second OVI, in addition she had gotten out of prison for drugs in May.

Back to the office and a 45 minute phone conversation with a client I'll meet for the first time tomorrow on yet another Children Services case. These first meetings or conversations are very difficult because the client feels like they have to tell you everything about the case from their point of view and in no particular order. It is almost painful, but I haven't figured out a way to avoid it. After the initial interview I have a little background and I can start to figure out where to go from there.

Well, that's been my week so far. Came home to a nice dinner and then watched a Rumpole of the Bailey, a kind of bus mans holiday, I guess.

Hummm?

So Obama makes a speech about how we are all Americans and all have First Amendment Rights and therefore we should be cool about those folks building Cordoba House (who just happen to be Muslims) you know. It starts me wondering why it is that both Obama and Bush II seem to have the same position on our relationship with the Muslim world in general and also have similar positions on immigrants. to this country. Both of them seem (or at least seemed) to have a pretty good position on both those issues. Of course, Obama had to, within less than 24 hours, walk back his statement on Cordoba House. To clarify and to make clear that he thinks they have the right, but it is still kind of icky for them to build it in Manhattan. (Calling Henry Lewis Gates.)

I figure that right now I'm not up to, once again, trying to figure out why Obama is such a worthless piece of chicken shit when it comes to backing any position he takes that is even remotely liberal (such as supporting the First Amendment a position which doesn't seem to me to be particularly liberal). The guy is an empty suit (which isn't exactly true, since he seems to be willing to go to bat for large corporations and corrupt and reactionary politicians, but it's all I've got time for right now).

But what I want to try to understand is why these two guys who we will have had the unfortunate experience of having as our presidents for at least twelve years and who support nothing that doesn't put money in the pockets of the wealthiest 1% or maybe all of the wealthiest 5% of our (or is it the world's) population, while screwing the poor and what is left of the middle class. Why these two guys take what appear to be progressive or liberal positions concerning illegal immigrants and our relationship with the Muslim world (that is: Muslims aren't our enemies, certain people who are terrorists and who just happen to be fringe Muslims are our enemies).

So I thought, is it possible that on these two issues these two guys could have independently come to thee right and most just conclusion independently and simultaneously because it is the right thing, kind of like Darwin and Wallace or Leibniz and Newton.

Nah.

Money.

Look there are millions of immigrants in this country working their behinds off for significantly less than citizens, they are essentially non people. They get on a track to become citizens they will have to continue to keep a job and they will have to continue to do what their bosses want at a lower wage then all most all citizens are willing to work for. Who do they work for and who makes major profits off them? The richest 1% or maybe the richest 5%. Who are these wealthy people friends of? Oh come on.

Muslims control vast amounts of wealth and sit on huge amounts of oil that we want and need and our friends who run the great corporations that get this oil to us need the friendship of these Muslims. Well really the friendship of the Muslim rulers (don't forget that the Bush family is really very close personal friends with several Saudi oil chieftains), but you can't really tell the great unwashed that we should be friendly with only the wealthiest 1%, even Americans would eventually catch on to what is going on if you tried that.

So maybe it is like Darwin and Wallace or Newton and Leibniz, after all.

The Mask Slips (Some More)

Gibbs. Went over and read some stuff on Pandagon where most of the commentators are angry, but will still vote. The difference is I won't vote.

Gibbs won't walk back what he said and clearly if it mattered to his boss, he would be fired or apologizing left and right. Democrats are in a position they do not find particularly comfortable. The people at Pandagon seem to think that if they simply reason with the prez. and his people and the elected democrats they will eventually listen, or that for some reason they want to listen. I see it all the time when commentators complain that the democrats or Obama have caved on some issue. That point of view implies that the politician[s] in question had some sort of desire, no matter how small, to do something different than they ended up doing. One sees it in the discussion of HCR, the stimulus, and now Financial Reform among other things.

For whatever reason the people who are elected democrats do not want to do democratic things, or at least things that were considered to be democratic by the likes of FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ (with the exception of colonial and neo-colonial wars or opportunity). But the people who (still) vote democratic expect them to do democratic things. So they have to say that they will do these democratic things to get elected. To get people to vote for them.

Once in power they feel free to simply ignore us. When we irritate them a little too much they get pissy, they simply consider themselves the rulers of this country, in much the same way Louie XIV was (one can hope it is more like Louie XVI, but don't bet on it). Why when they believe these things they run as democrats instead of republicans is something I'm not sure I completely understand. But there you have it.

The other part of this strange situation are the people who think of themselves a liberal who will continue to vote for them and support them even after getting screwed over again and again. Because the other guy would be worse, maybe sooner rather than later, is all I can figure. I guess at my age I should be hoping to see someone not quite as crazy as say Palin as prez. so that we can drag out the final death throws of this empire until I have naturally shuffled off this mortal coil. But I really would like to see this mess blow up in my contemporaries faces, unfortunately at the best in that situation, I would be collateral damage.
UPDATE: Well this is even more interesting now isn't it, more bullshit to confuse the easily bamboozled.

All Dressed Up And No Place To Go

So the trial didn't happen today. All dressed up and no where to go as the judge told the jury. The prosecution made an offer to my guy he couldn't refuse. They offered him two weekends instead of fifteen days straight.

I thought that we might win this case and I told the guy that, what he heard, of course was the "might." All judges charge rent on the court room and I would expect that if we lost then my guy would have gone for thirty to forty-five days at least. I understand his thinking. I could see myself sitting next to him and saying: "Well, I really did think we'd win, sorry about that." I suspect that he could too.

The case was an OVI (that's DUI in the other 49 states) along with several different charges of driving under suspension. This was my guys first in six years and he blew the "super level" above .17. On the other hand they did not catch him driving.

He was at home and had had about ten beers between noon and 8:00 p.m. and then he ate. At about midnight one son called from where ever and was clearly wasted. The family told him not to drive home and then they called back and realized he was on the way. After a wait, and long after the son should have been home client and other son drove off to look for him. The son driving. A small town they knew which way he was going. They drove by a wreck and recognized it as the first son. The son who was driving was so freaked that he became really unable to drive and they stopped and client took the wheel. They drove back and dropped the second son off at the wreck and client went on home.

At home client says that he grabbed a whiskey bottle and took a serious swig, then he took a mixed drink his wife said was her's and had at least a couple of shots in it and chugged it. Then daughter him back to the wreck and the cops recognized him as the guy who had driven by about 10 minutes before and arrested him. I think that everyone agreed that he had the defense of necessity for his driving, which does let him out of the driving under suspension charges, but who would believe that he would have downed 3 or 4 shots in ten minutes? On the other hand I have done just that.

At any rate it was his call.

Early on in the video the cop was having a very hard time pulling the guy up on his computer. He kept putting in the guy's social security number and nothing would come up. Finally, my guy said: "I've never had this much trouble getting arrested before." Well maybe you had to be there.

How I Spent My Summer

Well OK, not the entire summer, just the last two weeks, which should be culminating in a Jury Trial this week, unless they come up with a much better offer.

One thing most people don't understand is that almost no cases go to trial any more, certainly almost none go to jury trial. Too expensive and they take up too much time. On the other hand the Judge is pretty excited since they have just opened the new municipal court building with the new trial areas so it should be interesting for all of us.

In the mean time I'm still slogging away on the various custody cases from hell and last weekend I was working as a co-chair at an Arts Festival here in Y-Bridge City. Well, really the whole thing ended in working for the entire time the festival was open, but to be honest the work before the festival was almost entirely my co-chair, otherwise known as my suffering better half.

In the mean time I'm looking at the disaster that is the ongoing economy and the liberal/progressives (should there be " " around that?) willingness to continue to back the slime ball in the White House and congress. I shall return later. I think maybe.

Wikileaks Again

Ooopsie. Note to self before one opens one's mouth to pontificate on facts (as opposed to pontificating on one's own opinions, I guess) Google for a few minutes to make sure of those facts. Point in case: number of foreign troops in Afghanistan. It took me five minutes this morning to find out the answer. I think I should have done it before I went and commented at Lawyers, Guns and Money last night on one of a series of posts by one of the people there concerning Wikileaks 90,000+ document dump. She was opposed and busy attacking him because he (according to her and her unnamed sources and other people and their unnamed sources) put people in Afghanistan in mortal danger because with only some work the Taliban could find out who ratted them out and then exact retribution against them and their family. So the question she raised was should Assange be prosecuted. Of course, she thought he should be.

There then began a very heated thread which included the argument that he isn't a United States citizen, so we really had no legal grounds (as though that has stopped us in the past). The response was that other countries including Australia have troops there so they could prosecute him, since he is an Australian citizen. I then said they only have a few hundred. Which it turns out is obviously wrong (see above). Now the point was that in relation to the USofA they have few, and that is true (see above again), but my entire point is seriously weakened because I didn't bother to do the little research necessary to give the correct figures. Further, that they are there because we want them there and they are doing this mainly to give us cover and so in the end they don't really care, the governments I mean.

Which gets me to my main point. There seem to be five lines of attack on Wikileaks and this specific leak: First, it's old news nothing new here so move along, and besides that everybody already knows their major points; Second, it's unimportant (which may just be a corollary of the first); Third, it endangers our Afghan allies (since the documents stop at around the end of 2009 they can't really argue that it endangers our troops, although there seemed to be some attempt to do that early on, but that appears to have petered out); Fourth, that it isn't doing any good anyway; Fifth, Assange is a media hog and not very nice and ugly, too (I would have thought that was not a particularly compelling argument, but it does seem to be repeated quite a bit).

The third point seems to be the one that the poster is flogging at L,G & M. Perhaps I have been reading too many novels that have flash back sections to the Second World War, but Quisling was executed wasn't he? Not to confuse the Taliban with the freedom fighters of WWII, but when a person's country is invaded It is natural for him (in this case not her) to resist the invader and to consider those who support that invader a traitor deserving of the kind of punishment a traitor should receive. At any rate to reveal the truth which may lead to people getting killed because the truth was revealed, is in this line of argument something one must not do.

The fact that people are getting killed in a war that it appears that we can't win so we've got to stay there forever, does not seem to be something that people who make that kind of argument consider. So who is going to get killed: our minions or the various people we are killing right now (along with fewer of our minions). In passing I'd suggest that the only government that has provided a good deal of freedom to women in Afghanistan was the one the Soviet Union put in place and we helped to destroy with our allies who turned into (or in all probability were always) the Taliban.

In the end her position seems to come down to the belief my government is just right and there are certain things that I as a citizen should not know and therefore my government will prevent me from getting that information. Any one who reveals any of those government secrets can be accused of doing injury to out country or our allies or someone or thing and should be punished to teach us all that this must not be done. In a freedom loving way of course. This does not seem to be a particularly viable political theory for a real functioning democracy or representative republic. That may explain its use here and now.

More Nihilism

Crooks and Liars has a post up about NetRootsNation in Vegas and about the divide there between those who see Obama as mostly a sellout and those who apparently applaud him for his "realistic pragmatic" approach to governing. I started to read the comments and then realized that I had a ten year old DVD of Midsomer Murders to watch.

I went back this morning, and saw that there were nearly 200 comments and since I generally don't bother with threads that are over about 75, I'm probably not going to bother to read all the comments.

The post is a "one the one hand there are some people who think, but on the other hand there are other people who think differently" kind of thing. I guess it is interesting to see someone admitting that there is that kind of divide, but all I have to do is to go to Balloon-Juice and then to Firedoglake to see that kind of fight going on between one kind of liberal and another kind. Particularly, if one reads the comments sections.

One of the irritants of that post, is that if one goes to B-J and reads those comments there are a great deal of gratuitous swipes at FDL, but not so many the other way around. Although to be fair (and why should I do that?) I haven't done any real statistical stuff, it is more anecdotal, so I guess I could be wrong, but I doubt it. So I'm saying that it is a false equivalency and more or less like the MSM: He said, She said.

Essentially, I think that what is going on is that those who have put their trust in Obama and the Democrats have to believe, no matter what they do, that their trust has not been misplaced. The longer they refuse to admit what is going on the less likely they are to look at Obama's policies in a rational and critical light and therefore they continue to insist that we must support him, no matter what. That is what happened with Clinton after all. After NAFTA after GATT after gutting welfare leftists still went all out to back him in the 1996 election. I suspect that 2012 will be a version of "second verse same as the first" if one considers the first verse to be Bill Clinton. Whether the re-election of the president will be the outcome is another question.

Remember that the republicans are crazy and corrupt where the democrats are only corrupt. I think that those who continue to back Obama and the democrats think that is a good thing.

So all I can say is: Nihilists of the world unite.

UPDATE: So as soon as I write about the BS along comes Balloon-Juice.

More Economic

So I'm watching this economics thing, that is I mean our economic continuing melt down in a kind of goulish sort or way. Kind of like a slow and cheaply made slasher movie. Those who are in the know, or rather those who are in positions of power and who belive in the all powerful elites (you know those who got us into this situation: 9% uncmployment and the housing bubble and stock market crash) insist that we must not spend on the unemployed and limit our spending on well gee just about everything, except wars. Also we gotta maintain the tax cuts for the wealthiest 10% because if we don't well then they will all go Galt, don'tcha know.

The first chart being the actual deficit and what causes it, although of course it really isn't important in any real way at this point, because the inflation rate is so low and the unemployment rate is so high. So our government can spend a lot of money and print a lot of money and there will be little or no effect on the rate of inflation, or at least the effect will be so small that it would not matter in the scheme of things, but that isn't what our betters are telling us. The other aspect of that is to look at the above chart and see where the deficit is coming from. The wars and the tax cuts for the wealthy. It doesn't seem to be an area to discuss for anyone who matters. Hell even Noble Prize winners are ignored.

Of course the real problem here as far as I'm concerned, is that I'm one of those teenagers who has just had sex and smoked a joint (metaphorically, of course), so I'm next in line for a visit from the slasher.

Oh: more good news from the ST. Louis Fed:




A point being that we are getting ourselves into a position where those of my age and only slightly younger are simply not going to be able to get jobs, ever.

Wikileaks

OK, not much here, but I think I would be remiss if I didn't link to Wikileaks document dump today. Comment

Whatthehell, whatthehell

Drifting back into the living here. Finished with a lot of stuff and am starting to look at the Shirley Sherrod thing.

It is all over the net, but it does look like the MSM has decided that in reality the real victims here were Brietbart and Fox, not really Ms. Sherrod at all, I guess. The other interesting part of this is that the right and left blogs haved staked out their positions: Right wingers, it is the disgusting Obama administration and the NAACP that really screwed over Ms. Sherrod and not Brietbart; left wingers it is Brietbart and Fox and the rest of the noise machine of the right, not the Obama people or the NAACP.

As I've said elsewhere I, personally, have enough contempt for all of them, and in fact the only person who seems to have come out of this whole is Ms. Sherrod. Conservatives are fond of the parable or fable of the Frog and Scorpion. "You knew my nature." While liberals prefer the more modern version: Animal House: "You screwed up, you trusted us."

How the NAACP and Obama could have jumped in accused both Sherrod and in the NAACP's case their own members of racism is nearly beyond me. Especially, since this guy is the same guy that did the ACORN video, which was later proven to be nearly totally lies. But buy into it they did. There does seem to be a cowardliness that simply overlays the progressive community in a way that didn't exist when I was younger. I do not know what it is, but there you have it. These scum on the right have a sort of power over the minds of the "responsible" left. To cow or frighten them into groveling supplication when in fact, nothing untoward was ever done.

Trying To Get Heads Out Of Asses

So this is a nice place to review a lot of the arguments concerning the reason that the Keynesian's are right and those who drove our economy (and by our I mean the entire world's) into the shitter are wrong (again?, still? continuously?). It appears as though Japan is the waive of the future even though they screwed up their economy for a decade by following just these policies. Of course it also shows (looking back at the Japanese) just how stupid the electorate in a liberal and highly educated democracy really can be.

The businesses will spend millions/trillions to.........do what exactely? Defeat this president and this congress, neither of whom has done much, but enrich these very business and the voters will lap it up. The three quotes that come to mind are: Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, Mencken; There's a sucker born every minute, not apparently P.T. Barnum, and Never give a sucker an even break, W.C. Fields.

Those three saying taken together could and probably are engraved in gold somewhere in every corporate boardroom in the country. Certainly, the major political parties must have them some where engraved on their souls (if they have any). Although, given that I started by pointing to the Japanese perhaps I am being a little too parochial here and just not giving enough credit to the world influence of these ideals.

Happy 4th I Think

I think that this is a great song, like Bruce says. I would have posted the version with him and Pete Seeger at the inaugural, but that was a little too painful remembering the hope in the air and seeing what has become of it.

I have never seen a man given as great a power and expected to do real good with it come down as Obama has on the wrong side of almost every issue presented him. And before anyone says it, no I don't think that every thing he has done is 100% wrong, but there is nothing that he has done that is even close to being even three quarters right.

My Favorite Marine General

It is time I think to repost some excerpts from General Smedley Darlinton Butler's explanation of just what his job was when he was an active Marine and what he did to get those two Medal's of Honor.

War Is A Racket

By General Smedley Butler, USMC
(Speech originally-delivered in 1933)
8-21-2

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns six percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes, and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem off for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. (Speech originally-delivered in 1933)

The booklet is in PDF here.

More Bull Shit

So the New York Times has decided that one the one hand and on the other hand, but the hand that is most important is the one that says that things are getting better and we can't afford to help the average person, now that the banks have gotten what they want. It is now time to cut the government spending and to go with the expatiation that the economy is going to get better simply through private incentive.

I do find it interesting that the ones who are most optimistic about this are the very ones who got us into this in the first place, but hey why should we be worried, I'm sure that they are right this time per Slacktivist:

This calls to mind an old story:

But knowing their hypocrisy, he said unto them, "Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a dime and let me see it."

And they brought one. Then he said to them, "whose head is this -- FDR's or Herbert Hoover's?"

They answered, "Roosevelt's."

And he said unto them, "Right. So shut up. Have you morons already forgotten the 20th Century? When the choice is between imitating what worked and what really, really didn't work, why are you pretending it's terribly complicated?"

And after, that no one dared to ask him any question.

Kagan

I've seen snippets of Kagan on teevee screens in the deli next door and on the web. Listened to Sessions pontificate and read a little about how "angry" republican senators are about "banning" military recruiters from Harvard campus(angry being in quotes 'cause you know it isn't real, just a game for the rubes)(banning being in quotes because you know: bullshit).

At any rate I just realized that I really don't give a shit about this nomination. If she is confirmed she will not be doing me any favors in the future. I'm sure she will vote with the administration (whoever that may be) in terms of "national security" (in quotes because --- oh hell you know), in favor of corporations whenever she possibly can and in general be just as well marvelous and liberal as Obama or Bush or Clinton.

So it really doesn't matter, except for the entertainment value, and perhaps the chance to watch the good ole boys of the GOP sashay around the issue of whether or not she's ever had a boy friend, or does she, you know like girls: Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

UPDATE: Apparently I was wrong they have decided to attack Justice Marshall (the black one). They do have several days to come out swinging (to coin a phrase) on the issue of lesbians on the Supreme Court, but apparently they want to start off by being unabashedly racist. As if Marshall would have countenanced what his one time law clerk has become. But in the end it is just more inside baseball, after all. Play to the cheap seats.

More Trials

Out of town yesterday to have yet another hearing in the "I am my own grandpa" case.

The grandfather/father has finally been convicted and sentenced to what amounts to life in prison. I expect that he will never get out. I don't think that he has any appealable issues and he certainly did not, in his statement at sentencing, indicate any remorse or even any understanding that having sex with his step granddaughter of 12 is a bad thing.

The GAL in the Protective Services case (my client) has held out and insisted that the grandmother not have unfettered access to the girl (her granddaughter) nor the girls two children (her great grand children).

For a reason no one other than the case workers are able to understand the Child protective Services wants (great)grandma to have a lot of access and originally want to place the girl and her children back with grandma. Right now the girl's two brothers live with grandma, something we could not prevent.

Of course, I cannot understand the Prosecutors position either, as the grandmother lied to the cops about the whereabouts of the grandfather and helped him fake the original DNA samples. Why she is not in prison or at least on probation, is also beyond me.

Well any way the girl will probably be approved for a Planned Permanent Living Arrangement. That is a special plan to place a child under the age of 18 out on their own with a lot of support from the system. Done with older children when it doesn't appear that living in a foster home until they turn 18 will work out. Although to be fair these foster parents seem to be very good.

The grandmother was requesting more time (actually unlimited time at her own convenience)with the great grand children, something she did not get. The judge said that to increase the great grandmother's visitation the girls GAL, Children's Protective Services (CPS), and the girl will all have to agree. Any one of the three has veto power to any change in the visitation.

I am not happy with my cross of the grandmother. I did not push as hard as I might have. She is participating in counseling because she too is a "victim" according to CPS. No mention of what her responsibilities were to the girl. This is particularly important since the girl's mother had accused the step grandfather/father of just the same thing about 20 or so years ago and the grandmother had refused to believe it and threw her out of the house. An interesting point with CPS, since they also believe that the girl's mother was lying. (Yeah, read studies of these creeps and see who gets caught the first time, not often).

I was concerned about how the grand mother would respond and if she would collapse on the stand and garner sympathy weeping that she tried, but just couldn't protect the girl. Now that I think about it I think that I should have taken that chance.

Well I'm hoping to get another chance, at her and make up for my mistake. One thing I've learned is that it really doesn't matter how skillful you are, it only matters if you win or lose. So far we have pushed CPS away from placing the girl and her children back with the grand/great mother and I think because of that the girl has gotten more and more strong and has a better understand of what kind of person the grand/great mother really is.

Just You Know Whatever

Working this week a lot for a change. You know I really expected that there would be a lot more crime and drunkenness out there with the economy as bad as it is and I am really getting tired of the criminal element not keeping up their end of things. In particular I am looking for more stupid criminals to get arrested and soon, I can use the money.

All this week I've been busy in various courts. Yesterday we got started two and a half hours late because the sheriff didn't get the guy that was in jail here on time. I guess I can't complain. Today one of the other attorneys reported something her client said incorrectly (the frequency of visitations). My client, the wife chased her ex out into the parking lot and she was going to assault him, if I hadn't caught her and explained that it was the other attorney's fault for getting the information wrong. Some fun. Normally when clients fight, I move in the other direction, just my normal cowardice coming into play, I guess.

I see that Obama did something right (kind of) with McChrystal. Of course after the drama and play acting are all over we are still going to be fighting that war in the country that has been invaded again and again for centuries with no winner since Alexander, and no real end in sight for us, but hey it gives the news guys in DC something to talk about for a day or two so it is all good.

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More Thoughts on Skerry Republicans

In writing a couple of days ago about how certain liberals are beginning to raise the specter about how bad it will be if the republicans get in office (you know investigations, impeachments, etc.). I'd forgotten about how the republicans and Monica managed to save Social Security during the Clinton (or Obama I) administration. Remember?

It was this way, Clinton had decided that he was going to cut Social Security and had worked out a deal with the republicans to do just that with a kind of "bipartisan consensus." When the republicans got control of the congress and started investigating every thing Clinton did, including "Not having sex with that woman." Now there the republicans acted like scorpion in the frog and scorpion story. Instead of backing off and letting the deal go through to help the fat cats who were not stealing enough money fast enough, they couldn't help themselves and attacked Clinton in that interesting feeding frenzy that sharks (to skip to another metaphor) experience when they smell blood in the water.

At that point Clinton needed every vote he could get to keep from being impeached and to stay in office. So the deal on Social Security went out the window and we managed to keep it for another ten or so years until another democrat was elected president.

I don't think that we will be that lucky this time.

Gay Pride

So went to Columbus today to take the LW to a quilting convention. The sign up for the convention (at the Hyatt on North High) said you would want to be signed in and inside before noon. The reason; some sort of parade, they didn't know what[?!]. So after the LW signed in I took my book and went outside and walked up High Street to see what was going on. It didn't take me long to figure it out.
Gay Pride.

The parade was not as outrageous as in the past nor as in places like say New York or San Francisco, but still fun. It was followed up with about thirty or so any gay pride demonstrators, with signs that said: God Hates Homo Sex" and a sign that a silhouette of two guys fucking saying that god hated them. They brought their kids out of course. on the other hand there were at least three churches marching in the main parade and a lot of kids.

I was very happy that I happened to wear my new t-shirt:

Strawman Much

So TPM has a lecture about the nasty liberals who want a conservative in because Obama isn't pure enough, at least according to them, following Digby with a post coming from the same position. Or maybe just skerry republicans can't let them get power post. I'm not sure what to say about this, no really I'm not.

I had decided that Obama's votes on the Wall Street bail out and the PATRIOT Act renewal made him unfit to be president and worthless to vote for, but to be honest I got scared and so ended up working and voting for him in the last week or so of the campaign.

At this point I do think that McCain....................? Well he would not have been better and in some ways probably (maybe?) worse, but the democrats would most likely have opposed his worst policies and prevented them from becoming law. There would still have been some sort of stimulus, and if not we would be in the middle of a world wide depression right now. As opposed to a mere massive recession, with more or less 25% of us under- and unemployed. As opposed to 25% to 45% actually totally unemployed with a total Hoover in office vs. a partial Hoover (which is what we have now).

There is no good answer to this situation. The people who are running for office are not, for the most part, worth voting for. The liberal/progressives in office right now seem more than willing to cave right at the point they are about to win something big. The phrase "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" comes to mind. Obama clearly does not want to do anything to mess with the people who run this country: the bankers, insurance industry types, and in general those who are the wealthiest 10%.

The attacks from republicans and the tea baggers are because he isn't being subservient enough. And those are the only people who are getting any traction in the MSM. Of course, if Obama was a third of the politician I thought he was he would be getting information from other sources than the oligarchs who now rule. He would know from his early life and his time as a community organizer, but he has chosen to completely throw himself behind the oligarchs/plutocracy, the big money men.

Question: Is there a big check room to go to when you run for office where you check your soul for the period of time you are in public life?

I've said it before: Things are going to have to get a lot worse before they get better, and I can't be sure that once they get a lot worse they will get better. But you know what after a year and a half of Obama and democratic control, I am positive that things are going to get a lot worse. And I am afraid that it is going to be quickly enough that I will live long enough to see it. Crap.

Vietnam

Damn that war still pisses me off. In an argument at Iconic Photos about the above picture. God I lost it once again. I am amazed at how pissed off I get when a discussion of that war happens and people try to argue about how, in the above argument, for instance, that that photo was staged or altered in some way.

My point being that who ever did it (apparently the S. Vietnamese AF) it was our fault, because we were the ones who prevented free and open elections in the South and decided to back the continuation of a colonial war for about 20 more years (although we personally weren't there in full military force for the entire 20 years). Therefore, in my opinion we are morally responsible for every death and every bit of destruction that happened there.

I'll go farther, we are at least partially responsible for the Cambodian holocaust, because we over threw the Sianouk government and put in its place an unpopular and unstable military dictatorship that fell once we withdrew. That then led directly to Pol Pot. Now are we the only ones who are responsible? Of course not. The Pol Pot and his minions themselves have a major or perhaps the major share of responsibility. Of course when Vietnam invaded and over threw the Pol Pot regime, we supported Pol Pot even though by that time the horrors that he perpetrated were widely known.

So yeah, I'd say that we as a nation are greatly responsible for what has happened in that peninsula since 1954. I am reminded of Grant's belief that the Civil War was god's punishment on the United States for the Mexican War, or for an unjust war waged by a greater power on a lesser.

More Depressing Thoughts

One of a Series Linked to below.

So I ran across this the other day, I'm not sure where, but it's now all over Facebook (I don't mean to imply that it was my doing there were over 5000 postings to FB when I saw it). I thought it would be worth while reposting here.

The information isn't something I haven't known about for a long time, but seeing it in graf form is certainly a help. The Class War has been going on a long time, but some how the right wing has been able to convince the majority of Americans at least that it is all being fought by the leftist radicals against the poor and oppressed middle class, when in reality it is the wealthy who have been waging that very war against the middle and lower classes all along.

Unions are for the most part a dirty word in this country, but why I cannot figure out. When I graduated from college in 1975 (about 5 years after I would have had I not accepted my uncle's invitation to spend time in various foreign countries like Thailand and Alabama) I distrusted unions. This was after graduating from Wright State a relatively liberal state school in Dayton/Fairborn a union area. I was not dumb (I don't think although it is true I was stoned), nor was I uneducated, I was after all a history major with a major in late 19th and early 20th century American history. So how did I come by this distrust? A constant hammering by the owners of the media and the various local government folks, like the teachers I guess.

Most of the people I knew were not wealthy, but they were strongly middle class and they didn't like unions telling them what to do. Also, this was the 50s and 60s periods of real growth in the middle class. The concept was that "I am doing this no one is helping me." It fed right into our ideals of who were thought we were. I suspect that this is added to America's ability to simply and quickly forget our very own history (with the exceptions of our very own heroic and always righteous wars).

So now we are in this situation (more frog in the water metaphors?) and yet we cannot see that it will take a great deal of collective action to start to recreate the middle class in the per centages that it existed in the 50s and 60s, if that is even possible at this point.

This is what we get instead:

Should I Be Surprised?

Greenwald has a post up today about the party Biden threw for the Washington "press" corps and their families. Now I hadn't seen this on vacation (hahaha, I am doing more or less than just following the news on vacation) so I'm just finding out about it today.

It does remind me of the party McCain threw for the "press" corps during the campaign (wow that was hard to find, wonder why?). All the right thinking kinds of people were aghast that the "press (let's face it, it is impossible to refer to these people as press without the quotation marks, isn't it?)" would accept that kind of thing from the candidate they were supposed to be covering objectively. Now a few, but not so many, at least on the left, but still some. Thank your higher power.

The complete obliviousness of the "press" to how this makes them look (although, I truly doubt that it is only looks) is amazing. Apparently they haven't ever heard of Caesar or his wife.

A couple of days ago I posted about Helen Thomas and what a crock it was to force her out for saying nasty things about Israel when others have been able to say essentially the same things about the Palestinians. But the more I think about it the more I realize that what these people do in Washington has nothing (or at least not much) to do with being reporters.

They yell (for the most part) questions at the President or more often the press secretary. Thomas tried to follow up those questions, and that is to her credit, but who among them is worth one tenth a Seymour Hersch, or Matt Taibbi? What have they discovered or revealed that would help the country or better inform the populace? Most twelve year olds know enough to ask questions the Washington "press" corps asks and would have fun at pool parties, so why not hire the twelve year olds, they would probably be cheaper. Certainly they wouldn't be any more corrupt.

MORE THOUGHTS: I've thought that these people are truly little people in the sense that not one of them has any real moral or intellectual backbone. They are not particularly intelligent either. Obama seemed to be the smartest one around, but he has been shown that once given authority that he is no more competent than the last guy. They think that they are being oh so smart and oh so clever, but in the long run, they are destroying the base of the country. The thing or people that make them, as rulers, strong. Without us they or their descendants will be nothing.

At any rate they dance around giving each other high fives and chortling like the nobles did at Versailles before the revolution. They are really truly clueless. The interesting thing here is that I don't think that there will be any revolution, not in any progressive sense, rather I expect that there will be a (more complete) take over of the government by the oligarchs which will end up being a fascist state more along the lines of Italy than Germany in the first half of the 20th century. Corporatist I guess.

We're Fucked

In Florida, I know I shouldn't enjoy the place so much, but I do. I don't do a lot except hang out, go to the beach, eat, and read.

Opened the paper today (that is something else I do, I read the local newspaper, in this case the Daytona Beach newspaper) to find that Helen Thomas said bad things about Israel and has to quit immediately. Ann Coulter still has a job, still after telling us that Jews had better become Xains or else you know.

So our foriegn policy is run by a brutally colonialist country that can do no wrong. Well OK, a different brutally colonialist country other than the USof A that can do no wrong.

Aw hell, I go on line and I read Krugman that we can expect a lost decade that is a recovery, except a recovery that really doesn't help most of us, then I read that our doctors have been experimenting on "detainees" to see how much we can torture them (oops I mean harshaly interrigate them).

Well I'm heading for the beach (the east coast, not the west coast where I would be able to watch the oil come ashore) so it will appear to be OK for awhile.

On The Road Again

Getting ready to hit the road. Got a great house sitter the dogs love her and she likes to stay at our place so it all works out well.

On the other hand my traveling computer, the ASUS solid state is sitting in the computer shop because one or more of the cats decided that the wire from the charger was tasty and of course that specific computer is rare and they have to ship the part from Indonesia or where ever to get the thing up and running.

For some reason all the cats are still alive.

Isreal I Guess

Well I was getting ready to write about this vile article in the New York Times about how individuals are just sticking it to the banks by not paying their mortgages and are still living the good life, so they must be near do wells, or just like trailer trash only they have more money, don't ya see, but then



The Israeli Navy decided to teach some protesters a lesson so the IDF in defense killed about 10 and wounded many other protesters, while suffering minor casualties themselves. But according to most of the main stream and certainly the right wing and this winger on my facebook, the IDF was merely defending themselves after forcing their way onto a boat bringing humanitarian supplies. Now I read that this might not be in violation of the law of the sea or the law of war or the law of those who have the money and power make the laws. That is if the blockade is legal then if you say that you are going to violate it means that you can be boarded anywhere at all and maybe sunk. I guess that just shows Wilson and those idiots on the Lusitania. So I gues that Chaiarman Mao was right all law does come from the end of a gun.

Now apparently the only country where the IDF is getting nothing but complete support from all the powers that be is the good old U.S. Even the Israelis seem to be disgusted with the IDF for being such incompetent fools. But not the good old USofA here we cannot bring ourselves to criticize or oppose anything the government (which ever government it is, although the more conservative and more Arab hating the better) of Israel does.

One way I think one can feel kind of sorry for the Israelis is that they are forced to live in the 20th and 21st centuries. Hell, when we took over North American and the Spanish and Portages took over South America in the 16th, 17th 18th and 19th centuries we just killed all those who were in our way. Now instead of having two continents populated by the red man we've got two continents populated with the white man (with a sprinkle of reddish color thrown in). Australia was dealt with in the same general fashion, although there weren't as many to exterminate.

So pity poor Israel, unable to kill all the rag heads because of some sort of evolving (mostly) world wide morality. I suppose it is a drag for them. Particularly, since they try to hold themselves up as practicing the highest ideals of democracy and freedom (much like the USofA, back in the day). And they just can't get away with doing anything they want to, oh they can get away wit hit, but it does make them look bad. On the other hand there is the concept that God is on the side of the heavy battions. So they do have that going for them.

UPDATE: On the other hand here is a different point of view as to whether or not the action of Israel was within the law.

Memorial Day or Why One Should Perhaps Not Enumerate Their Flightless Fowl Prematurely

So the "repeal" of DADT has passed and as soon as sixty days have passed after it is signed, as soon as the report is finished and filed as soon as the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs has decided as soon as the Secretary of Defense has agreed. Then by god the President will sign off and something will happen. Probably. Maybe. I'm sure.

I do find it interesting the way that various minority groups fight so hard to get their asses shot in war, or for that matter just to get into the military. Of course the other half of that is that straight white men fight so hard to be the only ones to get to have their asses shot at or off as the case may be.

I remember when I was in the Air Force and basic training and it was explained to me by one of the more knowledgeable airman that in California it was legal to be homosexual, but you did have to register. But then that was three years before Stonewall and ten or twelve years before I started working at Antioch. So my knowledge of the "alternative life styles" of homosexuals was shall we say a little less than complete.

Well at any rate I was more than a little naive at the time concerning all things sexual (although I did learn a great deal from the southern recruit, which each squadron was issued, who would explain his sexual conquests to us every night in the old World War II barracks as the rest of us would lay their trying to get to sleep and wishing we had been as lucky). Once again I guess I was just lucky because when I got out the sexual revolution had started and unlike our colonial war I was in the front lines at college along with the war on [for?] drugs, (I was more successful in the war on drugs as I was able to defoliate large herbal areas by myself if I remember correctly, and I doubt if I do).

Where was I? Oh yes, I think that on the whole young people are more knowledgeable and more able to deal with people who are different than I was when I enlisted back in the winter of '64-65. The Air Force was at the time I think more segregated than the Army, I do not think that there was an African American in my squadron in basic, and it was only after I had been stationed at Randolf for awhile that the first African American was assigned to my squadron. I had been in almost three years before I saw my first black officer.

None the less, I still fully expect Obama to screw this up and that we will end up with a system in place in the military that will continue to screw over the homosexual service people.

Dog Days