“the Human Conspiracy Blog”

And

“The Policy Think Site” http://www.jaygaskill.com.

Copyright 2008 by Jay B. Gaskill.

law@jaygaskill.com

BLEAK KNIGHT

A Review

I think the Joker killed Heath Ledger.

The Dark Knight is a toxic film - its release without further drastic editing was irresponsible. The silent disappointment of the Batman fans who walked out of the film without waiting for the credits was a warning sign. Heads-up for the producers: This film might even doom the franchise – even if it makes money. Please don't do this again. 'Do what?, you ask...

Whenever a film does as well as this one does in presenting a vivid, compelling picture of naked,nihilistic evil, then endows that evil with almost preternatural power, you need to add a balancing grace and core optimism.

This was a movie with fine performances and no grace.

In the film, the evil Joker, brilliantly portrayed by the late Heath Ledger, sets up a malign 'social experiment' in which the people in two crowded ferries, rigged with explosives, are invited to blow up the other boat before midnight – in order to escape the same fate themselves. When each boat declines to blow up the other, the film presents an opportunity for balancing grace. But that opportunity was one thrown away in the ensuing mayhem.

The end piece, in which the crusading DA, now hideously disfigured, has been successfully degraded by the Joker, attempts a kidnapping, then is killed, amounts to one measure of darkness too much. The film ends with Batman scurrying away, chased by the police for crimes he did not commit.

JBG

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All contents, unless otherwise indicated are

Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 by Jay B. Gaskill

OBAMA AND THE BETTER PICTURES

“July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Middle Eastern and European leaders are lining up to hear what Barack Obama has to say on his seven- country tour this week. For his presidential campaign, what he says on the trip may not be as important as the photos and videos it produces.”

More important than Senator Obama’s photo ops are his conversations with key players in the area and his ability to actually listen and absorb the reality – we are still in a long term war that chose us.  It’s not too late for the senator to adjust his actual policy approach.  I added an addendum to yesterday’s post:

July 22 - Policy Footnote: The single most important meeting on Obama’s current trip is with General Petraeus, who by all responsible players in DC is regarded as the genius who rescued Iraq and is now acknowledged by centrist democrats as highly credible.  To the extent that Senator Obama actually listens to the general and adjusts not only his rhetoric but his actual policy approach, the country and his campaign will be better for it.

The US remains at war with a jihad directed and coordinated by anti-American elements in the Middle East that share a virulent ideology masquerading as a religion. They fully intend to intimidate moderate followers of Islam and terrorize the secular forces in those countries that they do not fully control. Some of these jihadi elements are embedded in the Iranian and Syrian governments.  The object of this war – declared on us and our friends –  is to destabilize all regimes in the oil producing Middle East, creating openings for Islamist extremist takeovers.  Seen in this light, the Iranian a-bomb ambitions are particularly chilling. Once it is clear that the junior senator from Illinois has absorbed this lesson (if he does), we can all sleep better at night, knowing that his campaign is not for Jimmie Carter’s second term.

JBG

→The Human Conspiracy Blog: http://www.jaygaskill.com/blog3

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All contents, unless otherwise indicated are

Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 by Jay B. Gaskill

 Note - I hope the winner of the presidential race will meeet the expectations of most of those who vote for him, but I would'nt bet the farm on that prospect.  I have the impression that two decent men are in this race and that, at this point, either might win.  I'm not going to use this space to join either campaign. JBG

 "July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Middle Eastern and European leaders are lining up to hear what Barack Obama has to say on his seven- country tour this week. For his presidential campaign, what he says on the trip may not be as important as the photos and videos it produces."

Posted Monday, July 21.

Is Barak Obama Wearing Thin?

In politics, images are often more powerful than words, sometimes unexpectedly.  Recall the image of candidate Michael Dukakis on top of a tank during the failed campaign against Bush I – it was a silly moment because the picture simply didn’t fit the moment or the man.  And recall the image of candidate John Kerry windsurfing in a wet suit  during the campaign against Bush II – it was a silly picture because it did fit the moment and the man.

Is the junior senator from Illinois a foreign policy/national security lightweight? 

His trip abroad has generated words and images.  Is it just my imagination? The images of Obama walking next to the Iraqi and Afghani leaders seemed to diminish him - like a skinny kid playing soldier among the tough guys.  Barak Obama is a very thin man. When dressed up in a loosely fitting suit, highlighting his skinny neck, in the photos placing Barak among hard, swarthy, stocky men, he seemed … out of place.

And his face - sometimes so messianic and inspiring to his followers - showed differently in this tough, real world setting. His photographed expressions, especially when disconnected from that famous oratorical speaking voice, were almost ethereal and - dare I suggest it - less than “presidential”. 

Yes, I know.  Images are sometimes unfair.  So is life. 

But images sometimes accidentally serve as metaphors for uncomfortable truths.  Frankly, on the basis of resume and record alone, the democratic presidential candidate this year is a bit of a foreign policy/national security lightweight.  That a belated, first time international tour to troubled and dangerous conflict zones might highlight a certain lack of gravitas was entirely predictable. Obama’s advisors might have thought of this last year.  Done now, it seemed like a campaign afterthought, a necessary but risky gesture. 

I detect a new pattern emerging in the polls, one that suggests that the thin man might have thinning support among the persuadable middle rank of potential voters.  Again I find the daily tracking polls by the Scott Rasmussen group are the most balanced, astute and revealing.

Go to Rasmussen at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll .

JBG

July 22 - Policy Footnote: The single most important meeting on Obama’s current trip is with General Petraeus, who by all responsible players in DC is regarded as the genius who rescued Iraq and is now acknowledged by centrist democrats as highly credible.  To the extent that Senator Obama actually listens to the general and adjusts not only his rhetoric but his actual policy approach, the country and his campaign will be better for it.

→The Human Conspiracy Blog: http://www.jaygaskill.com/blog3

→The Policy Think Site: http://www.jaygaskill.com

All contents, unless otherwise indicated are

Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 by Jay B. Gaskill

Permission to publish, distribute or print all or part of this article (except for personal use) is needed. [Permission for use in group discussions is almost always routinely given.]

Please contact Jay B. Gaskill, attorney at law, via e mail at law@jaygaskill.com

WHO WILL BELL THE CAT?

A Presidential Candidate Rating Process

By

Jay B. Gaskill

Every open presidential election – that’s every one with two non-incumbent candidates – represents a watershed. Sometimes the outcome makes only a marginal difference in world history, and at other times the outcome is critical. Many wonder whether we are at one of those pivotal junctures in world history, moments of particular consequence like the immediate aftermath of World War II, when events could easily have sheered off in a vastly different direction.

This is one of those times.

Yes, like every previous election, we have two candidates-in-the-making who are … imperfect. Recall that Lincoln, FDR, Truman and Reagan were imperfect candidates for POTUS when they first ran for office and even afterwards. All the presidential candidates were. This is not a good time to “sit this one out”.

I invite you to apply the rating criteria to the two Senators who are campaigning to lead the US. Try to set aside partisan leanings and just see where the results lead.

LINKS to the Piece:

This piece in htm http://jaygaskill.com/BellTheCat.htm

This piece in pdf (W/Graphics) http://jaygaskill.com/BellTheCat.pdf

JBG

By

Senator John McCain
 
As you may know, I spent five and one half years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. In the early years of our imprisonment, the NVA kept us in solitary confinement or two or three to a cell. In 1971 the NVA moved us from these conditions of isolation into large rooms with as many as 30 to 40 men to a room.

This was, as you can imagine, a wonderful change and was a direct result of the efforts of millions of Americans on behalf of a few hundred POWs 10,000 miles from home. One of the men who moved into my room was a young man named Mike Christian.
 
Mike came from a small town near Selma, Alabama. He didn't wear a pair of shoes until he was 13 years old. At 17, he enlisted in the US Navy. He later earned a commission by going to Officer Training School Then he became a Naval Flight Officer and was shot down and captured in 1967. Mike had a keen and deep appreciation of the opportunities this country and our military provide for people who want to work and want to succeed.

As part of the change in treatment, the Vietnamese allowed some prisoners to receive packages from home. In some of these packages were handkerchiefs, scarves and other items of clothing.  
 
Mike got himself a bamboo needle. Over a period of a couple of months, he created an American flag and sewed on the inside of his shirt.  
 
Every afternoon, before we had a bowl of soup, we would hang Mike's shirt on the wall of the cell and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

I know the Pledge of Allegiance may not seem the most important part of our day now, but I can assure you that in that stark cell it was indeed the  most important and meaningful event.
 
One day the Vietnamese searched our cell, as they did periodically, and discovered Mike's shirt with the flag sewn inside, and removed it.

That evening they returned, opened the door of the cell, and for the benefit of all of us, beat Mike Christian severely for the next couple of hours. Then, they opened the door of the cell and threw him in. We cleaned him up as well as we could.

The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab in the middle on which we slept. A naked light bulb hung in each corner of the room.

As I said, we tried to clean up Mike as well as we could. After the excitement died down, I looked in the corner of the room, and sitting there beneath that dim light bulb with a piece of red cloth, another shirt and his bamboo needle, was my friend, Mike Christian.
He was sitting there with his eyes almost shut from the beating he had received, making another American flag. He was not making the flag because it made Mike Christian feel better. He was making that flag because he knew how important it was to us to be able to Pledge our allegiance to our flag and country.

So the next time you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you must never forget the sacrifice and courage that thousands of Americans have made to build our nation and promote freedom around the world.

You must remember our duty, our honor, and our country

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Thank you.

[][][]

amen

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Link to Print Version: http://jaygaskill.com/FracturesObamaOpening.htm 
 

Conservative Fractures and the Obama Opening

 

In earlier posts, I identified some of the populist shortcomings of the liberals, The discussion continues with a reprise of the conservative side. 

 

Until the congressional rout of 06, American conservatism still lived in the lingering glow of a renaissance. In retrospect, that renaissance was a gift from the democrats - the conservatives shone mostly in contrast with the excesses of the left wing activists who control the agenda of the Democratic Party. 

 

The coming election has exposed the widening ideological fractures in the conservative ranks.  This is true even though – as I predicted - the Iraq conflict has been moved to a background issue. 

 

Will the conservatives be able to mount an effective challenge to the democrats?  Will the republicans be able to do so without the enthusiastic backing of the conservatives?  All that depends on the extent to which the conservative and centrist republicans can together recapture their earlier populist momentum. This will require a major retooling, because the earlier momentum was driven by mostly populist rejection of elitist democratic liberals. 

 

And the GOP gravely damaged its populist identification in 2006.  This should not have been a surprise.  The Republican Party has a populist agenda to match that of the democrats (a different tone to be sure) but manifestly not a populist persona.  I’ll skip the details, but the GOP debacle was driven by a popular revulsion at the ruling congressional republicans who were seen “exposed” as phony populists. To understand how this happened we need to review the surfacing cracks in the conservative movement.

 

Clearly, a revulsion at the excesses of the left no longer adequately defines “conservative”.

Conservatism is in trouble because it is not a coherent belief system.  Here is my short list of the conflicts and overlapping sub-movements within the loosely defined conservative alliance:

 

1. The religious vs. secular conservatives (the latter unconcerned about God in the pledge or the Decalogue in the public square);
2. The “social” conservatives vs. the “socially tolerant” ones (generating issues like abortion vs. free choice and traditional marriage vs. “new paradigm”);
3. Public order conservatives vs. the libertarian conservatives (this fuels the drug legalization conflict, among others);
4. The isolationists vs. interventionists (isolationists went silent when the Trade Towers fell, but returned as the “Why is Israel so important, anyway?” crowd);  
5. Between the nationalists and internationalists. Frankly, this is a huge potential fracture for both parties.  There are at least three important sub-issues.

(a) industrial policy (of the general type that Ross Perot advocated) to curb outsourcing vs free trade as a matter of faith;

(b) much stricter immigration policies and more robust enforcement vs. leaky borders (and a growing unassimilated alien population);

(c) American economic interests first vs. treaty enforced carbon restrictions.

AND --- A supply side energy independence push vs. adaptation to lower consumption and higher prices.

 

The President Bush first identified himself as a thematic populist political leader when he was the governor of Texas.  Having run an oil company and a baseball team “W” plausibly presented as less patrician and more authentically “blue collar” (if that phrase isn’t already obsolete) than his father.  His first presidential campaign was headed to victory when a last minute revelation of his all-to-cleverly hidden DUI broke.  The aura of inauthenticity nearly cost him that election, and did depress his popular vote below that of Al Gore. 

 

The President’s populist persona reemerged post 911 in the rubble of the World Trade Towers.  It was plain to all discerning observers that on that day and in the company of the firefighters, police and rescuers, “W” was among men like those he had rubbed shoulders with in the oil business and on the baseball field and that he was comfortable.  Everyone in that rubble zone felt that this President was one of them, and that the “SOB’s” who’d done this to our country would be made to pay.  It should have been no surprise when, later, John Kerry’s patrician image proved to be no match.

 

A populist republican president was born in that moment, riding the one issue that trumps the typical republican rap as the party of corporate CEO’s and the country club set: Don’t tread on America.  This issue will always trump the rest provided two conditions are met: (1) the leader doesn’t break trust with the American people and (2) we actually succeed in beating our enemies.

 

For the moment, the fractures on the right were healed and the left was silenced, but there was trouble ahead. Then the Iraqi invasion, popular to the extent it was successful (Americans love winning and hate losing), turned sour, offering the democrats and their many media allies the opening to savage the president’s credibility and competency. It was the poison pill that undercut the president’s fragile populist image.  Add a spectacular misreading of the public mind by the administration on immigration (one – to be fair – that is shared by the democratic left) and the meltdown was irreversible. 

 

The conservative wing of the democratic party was silent, AWOL or in a cemetery in Arlington, VA and that of GOP the was exposed as leaderless, incoherent, cranky and demoralized.

 

There were several populist wedge issues that a new center-right republican candidate might exploit  - think ‘tough on crime, especially vis the death penalty’ and  a credible ‘don’t take away Aunt Tillie’s pistol’. But Obama was given two gifts by the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of its last session.  Its pro-second amendment ruling (District of Columbia vs. Heller)  and the ‘no death penalty for rape’ decision (Kennedy vs. Louisiana) gave the Junior Illinois Senator two opportunities to sound moderate, if not conservative.  He took them.  Granted that Senator McCain is more forthrightly conservative on both issues, but the differences between the two candidates are now nuanced and no longer bright line. 

 

On the energy independence issue, especially the ‘to hell with it, lets push energy supply, including oil’ issue, Obama is still vulnerable.

 

As Barak Obama tacks to the center, he has the opportunity to outflank the Arizona Senator on enough “conservative” issues to depress the turnout of the republican base and to exploit popular discontent without exposing himself to too many sharp policy differences.  At this moment, the democratic nominee is floating on a tide of largely unearned trust (in that Obama is a fresh face with a high ‘you can trust me’ valence, but a shallow track record). That momentum may prove to be enough to win - given the current conservative demoralization.

 

The thematic issues that will still matter greatly and be encapsulated in three phrases:

(a) restoring the credibility of the presidency,

(b) maintaining strong national security in a time of ongoing peril,

(c) common sense over ideology.  

 

The policy issues that will still matter greatly are still very much in play: (1) increasing the U.S. energy supply and independence; (2) keeping the American job machine healthy and robust (3) a safe landing for our troops in the Middle East in the context of regional stability.  On each of these issues, my private anecdotal survey of thoughtful democrats and independents give McCain the opening. 

 

We can be certain of only one thing at this point: that the political landscape in July 2008 will change several times over the next six months. 

But the internal contradictions – within conservatism and between Obama’s slim record in the Illinois legislature and the U.S. Senate and his newly minted centrist persona will remain.

 

A recent posting by Dick Morris estimates that Obama is leading McCain in the critical Electoral College vote (as of July 1) by 269 to 202 when the leaning status is allocated to each candidate.  This reflects the fact that McCain is behind in several key states that Bush won in the last election.  We can be certain that this, too, will change, but that the heavy lifting from here forward is assigned to John McCain…

 

Stay tuned…

 

JBG

 

 

 

 

As Published On

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All contents, unless otherwise indicated are

Copyright © 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 by Jay B. Gaskill

As revised on Monday, June 30, 2008

Link to the print version: http://jaygaskill.com/TROUBLEWEGOT.htm

WE GOT TROUBLE, MY FRIENDS - TROUBLE RIGHT HERE…

Years ago, when I was still the Public Defender for Alameda County, my friend, the county Sheriff, the legendary Charlie Plummer, asked me to address his department’s graduating class.

Naturally, I accepted.

This is part of what I told the men and women who sat attentively that afternoon, poised at the threshold of a career in law enforcement.

[][][]

“I believe that we are now and have been at war ever since the first fool who claimed to be a philosopher declared that morality was just an invention. That idea has eaten its way though the social fabric with the same effect as a computer virus corrupting an irreplaceable data base.  Those who believe in and support the pillars on which law and civilization rest are surrounded by millions of gnawing rats, of misguided intellectuals, and reckless idiots who are like the drunken sailors who build a bonfire in the hold of a wooden boat. 

“Let me give you eight examples of how one can light a fire in the bottom of a wooden boat:

•           Everybody does it.

•           She had it coming.

•           Hey, it was cool - they’ll never miss it.

•           Nobody’s going to find out.

•           Money can buy anything.

•           Only an idiot would tell the truth about that.

•           I had no choice.

•           Right and wrong?  Get real!

“Obviously this is an incomplete list, but you get the idea. 

“What makes a gradual moral deterioration like this dangerous is when there is nothing to stop the slide.  How many of the people under 25 in high crime areas actually believe that there is an ultimate right and wrong?  How many well-off latch key kids living in the suburbs do?  Go over the list of eight excuses, imagining you are conducting a poll.  The suburbs are a war zone, too.

“This is not a pitched battle.  The lines are not clear.  You can’t walk two blocks in a core urban neighborhood or read two pages in a popular newspaper without encountering the enemy.  But apprehended and un-apprehended criminals themselves are just the sideshow.  Like the fever in the early stages of a septic infection, criminals are a consequence of the deeper sickness.  You take an aspirin, you fail to treat the disease, you feel better for a little while -- then you die.  Money alone, whether given directly or in the form of free services, however important, is the aspirin. 

“This is a battle about the drop out of an entire moral framework.  I’m not talking about moral compromise here.  That implies - even requires -  the existence of a moral framework in the first place, something to compromise from.  When I said earlier that I believe in the possibility of redemption, I was using the term very carefully.  Redemption requires recognition that you have committed a wrong.  If you lack the moral framework to recognize that you have committed a wrong, then redemption is technically impossible. 

“When we are talking about the complete absence of a meaningful moral framework - that is scary.

“When I talked about a war, I wasn’t using hyperbole for effect.  I was serious.

…

“So what can we do?  Sermonize at the prison population?  Not such a bad idea by itself, but I wish it were so easy.  You will find that in dealing with an inmate defendant population, as I have, the practical, low risk approach is to adopt a non-judgmental attitude.  It’s a little like the medical model.  The doctor doesn’t typically look at a gunshot victim and say – “You dumb asshole, what were you doing in that bank with a gun?”  And, frankly, we PD’s don’t often approach a client interview in that spirit either.

“You will also learn that the easy prisoners and the difficult ones do not automatically sort out along lines of the seriousness of their cases.  That nice guy killed his wife.  That asshole stole a tire from Big O.  Go figure.

“What can you do?   Be aware of the problem.  Know the nature of the war.  Be sure of your own ground.  If you conduct your life with integrity, if you believe in right and wrong, and in the essential value and soundness of our laws and legal institutions, if you are not ashamed or embarrassed by your beliefs, that will come through in a hundred ways you are not even conscious of.  If you accomplish nothing else but to do your job well and allow yourself to reveal that there is moral ground in your life and you are standing on it, you will advance the cause.  You can’t throw a lifeline if you are drowning yourself.   

“We are all soldiers in this war.  And our weapons are our beliefs, our integrity, the quality of our lives, and the quality of the relationships of the people we deal with.  And with your help, the good guys will win.

“You have chosen an important calling at an important time in history.  Don’t let it end at the conclusion of your shift. Get involved in your community and stay in touch with the people you have sworn to serve and protect.  You owe that to your family.  You owe that to yourself.

“If you lacked basic respect for the law, if you didn’t care about the future, if you thought that morality is just something some old dudes made up, you wouldn’t be in this place at this time celebrating this graduation.   Looking over this group, seeing your faces, and knowing the quality and the esprit of the institution you have joined, I know you picked the right job.  And I can tell that the Sheriff and his staff have picked the right people.

“Sheriff, you have done very well with this graduating class indeed.  Congratulations and Godspeed. 

[][][]

Years later, this is what I would now add:

We desperately need an ethos that engenders fierce defense and heroic sacrifice in the cause of creative civilization against all the forces aligned against it, internally and externally. And the concomitant advancement of the integrated pluralistic institutions that will nurture, preserve and provide pan-generational support for the ethos of defense.

This is the tall order of the age.  And it is why I maintain that, if we didn’t have religion or its functional equivalent, we’d be forced to reinvent it.  A note about functional equivalency.  The aspect of religion that is essential to human survival, in my opinion, is its role as custodian of moral wisdom, carrier of the vital moral traditions and as a body of supporting communities that an effectively answer the question: Why care? I am not asserting that religion cannot be replaced, just that it has not been and that its essential function – however poorly performed in some instances, is well…. Essential.

The scope of the work to be done is great.  Religion – or its replacement – will be the primary source of an ethos that can take its believers past the transient concerns of the current generation.

Here is the core question of the age:

“Why should I care about what happens to this world after I’m gone?” 

Religionists, as the current custodians of moral transcendence, can supply an answer to the core question, but the secular “futilitarians” so far cannot. With rare (and so far not-widely replicated) exceptions, it has been the world’s enduring religious institutions (with all their admitted flaws) that have managed to keep the “moral light burning” during times of irresolution and doubt about our species’ essential ethical commitments.

The civilization imperative requires us to hew to a pan-generational ethos.

This I why I believe that we need a great convergence of secular humanism, one better rooted in the great universals, and religious humanism, one better able to embrace and address the whole of the human condition and the civilization imperative. Both sides of the convergence will be informed and shaped by an emergent understanding of the critical importance of creative civilization. 

This is what I had the occasion recently to say (in the spirit of Professor Harold Hill) to a moderately receptive church congregation:

[][][]

“We got trouble, oh we got trouble, right here in Inner City!  With a capital “T” That rhymes with “C” and that’s not cool,

“Well, either you’re closing your eyes to a situation you do now wish to acknowledge, or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the indifference to religion in your city.

“Folks are walking round town lookin’ depressed. They got a God shaped hole in the chest.

“They’re lookin’ for somethin’ they just can’t find: a com-mun-ity where folks are just plain kind.

“Ya got trouble, my friends, right here, I say, trouble right here in Inner City.

“Why sure I’m a church player, certainly mighty proud I say.  I’m always mighty proud to say it.

“I consider that the hours I spent with a wine glass in my hand were golden. Helped me get thru those loooong meetings with a cool head and a keen eye.

“Now anybody kin stay home on the couch, playin’ video games and watchin’ Em TeeVee, or surfin’ MySpace. They call that sloth. Never mind gittin’ with books, music or a friend in need, the weeds pulled, the homework done, or just one good deed. Never mind nothin’ inspirin’ to do all week. And that’s trouble, my friends. Oh, yes we got lots and lots a’ trouble.

“Now, I know all you folks are the right kinda’ parents, grandparents, god parents, aunts ‘n uncles, I’m gonna’ be perfectly frank. Heed the warning before it’s too late! Watch for the tell-tale signs of Dee-spare and coooo-ruption!

“Does little Jimmie think he’s bettern’ his buddies ‘cause he has cool clothes?

“Does little Julie feel inferior ‘cause she has troubles nobody knows?

“I’m thinkin’ of the kids in the low hangin’ pants, talkin’ gangsta’ rap, doin’ gangsta’rants,

“Right here in Inner City.

“Trouble, oh we got trouble. Right here in Inner City!  With a capital “T” That rhymes with “C”

“And that’s not cool. No, that’s not cool. Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule! That remote control is a devil’s tool!”

[][][]

Meredith Wilson was on to something.

G-d help us, every one…

JBG

→The Out-Lawyer’s Blog: http://www.jaygaskill.com/blog1  

→The Bridge to Being Blog: http://www.jaygaskill.com/blog2

In addition to my running trial commentary on the Out-Lawyer's Blog, the CBS 48 Hours Mystery program covering the Reiser investigation and trial is still available on line at the CBS 48 Hours "videos" site.  It is well worth checking out.  Go to this link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/48hours/main3410.shtml. Then...

Scroll to June 3, "Betrayal". It's all there, an engrossing television reconstruction of a fascinating crime. A crime solved - a first degree murder conviction without a body - or an ongoing mystery?

JBG

Visit - www.jaygaskill.com to locate the Out-Lawyer's Blog or just Google it...

Will Rezko sing?

The following account ran on the Chicago Tribune's web site:

 [][][]

5:12 PM CDT, June 2, 2008

Antoin "Tony" Rezko will have to wait at least one more night before learning what the jury in his trial has decided about the political corruption case against him.

After sending out a note earlier Monday that seemed to indicate they were on the threshold of reaching a verdict, jurors left at their previously scheduled departure time of 4:30 p.m. without announcing a decision.

Reporters had begun gathering at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in the afternoon after the panel sent out a note telling U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve that they were hung up on just one of the 24 counts against Rezko. Presumably, that meant they had come to an agreement on the other 23 counts against the former fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The jury is set to restart its deliberations at 9:15 a.m. Tuesday.

Jurors began talks May 13 after nine weeks of testimony.

[][][]

JBG

Permission to publish, distribute or print all or part of this article (except for personal use) is needed. [Permission for use in group discussions is almost always routinely given.]
Please contact Jay B. Gaskill, attorney at law, via e mail at law@jaygaskill.com

  

Traveling and out of reach for now.  Stay tuned.