The Casey Anthony Verdict: Why is it Illegal to Lie to the Cops?

Mark Noonan13 Comments

I figured that the jury would come back with “not guilty” on the murder charge – though I thought there was a good chance they’d find her guilty of manslaughter; but that only because she’s clearly guilty of something in the death of her child…but I didn’t think guilty of murder; certainly not provably guilty of murder.  We don’t even know how the child died – so how can their be a murder charge?  For all we know the child really did die of an accident and then Ms. Anthony went in to panic mode…the rest is tragic history.

But now that the jury has ruled, I want to take issue with what she was found guilty of: lying to the police.  In my view, there is something just wrong about being found guilty of lying about a crime you didn’t commit.  Remember, she was ruled not guilty – the jury says she didn’t do it.  That is the end of it as far as the death of her child goes.  To now hold her responsible for lying to the police just doesn’t come across to me as an action of justice.

I don’t blame the jury in this – from what I can tell, she not only lied to the police, but lied a lot…and to a lot of people.  I further understand that lying under oath is a very serious crime (for which, incidentally, Bill Clinton should have been removed from office; so serious is the crime)…but I don’t think she was under oath in the interrogation room.  Sure, she should have just kept her mouth shut or told the absolute truth…but she is also a young, irresponsible girl who has a dead child to account for; in such a situation it can easily seem that lying is the best course (it never really is – this is no justification for lying; just a statement that lying, in and of itself, perhaps should not be prosecutable).  All such convictions do is ensure that anyone who watched the trial now knows what to do – shut up, shut up and shut up some more.

Quite simply, if you are ever arrested – even for something you absolutely know you didn’t do – you should just say nothing to the police.  Don’t even give your  name without your attorney present.  You might even make an honest mistake and wind up convicted for lying to the police over it.  How many of us, suddenly hauled in to a police station, could be certain we’d lay out a complete story with no inconsistencies or errors?  And once you’ve made an error, how do you convince the authorities that it was just an error and now you’d like to correct the record after you’ve had a chance to review in your mind the sequence of events?  The charge of lying to the police is a trap that only the most clear minded person completely familiar with the law can possibly avoid.

The police and prosecutors should not have this ability to convict us of lying to them – that should be taken away.  As long as you aren’t solemnly swearing to it, then it isn’t a lie in the legal sense.  At least, that is my view.

 

Blog Migration Update

Matt Margolis

Well, more content has been transferred over, and it looks like our regular readers are now once again joining in the conversation. Soon, the original site will redirect to this one and well be totally switched over. Today I went through the blogroll and checked for dormant sites to remove. That process was just completed. If you have your own blog and want to get put in the new blogroll here, post a comment in this blog entry.

This announcement will remain up for a couple days. New posts are below. 

Banks Two Years, Trillions of Dollars Too Late

Mark Noonan3 Comments

From the New York Times:

As millions of Americans struggle in foreclosure with little hope of relief, big banks are going to borrowers who are not even in default and cutting their debt or easing the mortgage terms, sometimes with no questions asked.

Two of the nation’s biggest lenders, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, are quietly modifying loans for tens of thousands of borrowers who have not asked for help but whom the banks deem to be at special risk…

Which is just swell for you if you’re at risk…if your risk has already come crashing down and you’ve lost your house (as millions of Americans have), then it is a bit late.

I figured as early as October of 2008 that we needed to do something to bring home mortgages in to line with home prices.  This isn’t rocket science – home prices ran up way too high and the crash instantly wiped out a gigantic amount of paper wealth but left tens of millions of Americans owing not just more than their house was worth, but likely more than it would ever be worth, again.   It was in 2009 that I figured we needed a program of “cramming down” home loans – which is essentially what the banks are doing in the linked article.  Trouble is, I think it is too late; prices have fallen so far and so fast – and look to continue declining – that even taking a “cram down” makes no sense.  By 2010 I was arguing we needed some means of just keeping people in their homes, even after they default…anything to keep houses off the market.  That is where I still stand.

The trouble with our banks – the reason they have got it so wrong both in the run up and in the crash down – is that they are run by people who haven’t the foggiest notion of economics.  Bankers think that government borrowing and printing can be a good thing – it is why they backed Bernanke’s “quantiative easing” (ie, money printing) and Obama’s “stimulus”.  If they knew anything about economics their would have first allowed “too big to fail” to fail, and then would have called for balanced budgets and sound money – counting on the native energy and drive of the American people to dig us out of the mess while they stood ready to lend money to solid enterprises.  In a real sense, we don’t have bankers…we have corporate, Ruling Class bosses who rose to the top based on connections rather than knowledge or skill.

They are even less schooled in morality (they teach “ethics” these days…which really works out to learning how to stay out of trouble with the EEOC and SEC).  The mix – people who don’t know what to do and are weak at identifying what is right and what is wrong – prove a strong poison…and let to things like Mortgage Backed Securities and the whole “sub prime” trigger of the collapse.  It doesn’t surprise me at all that the banks are now picking up on cram down, years late and after it is already clear it can’t solve the problem.

My advice right now, if anyone is interested, is:  don’t buy a house.  Wait a couple years.  It might be down 20% lower than now…and if I’m wrong, it won’t be more than 1 or 2% higher.  Housing should, also, not be seen as an investment bringing a monetary return – it might again, some day, have that quality (though, honestly, I hope it never does) – but, instead, as a home.  If you think of it that way, then it doesn’t matter what the market does – provided you’ve bought a house within your budget, if its worth a million dollars or one, it is all good for you.

Report: Unions Kill Jobs

Mark Noonan29 Comments

From Investors Business Daily:

…The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.1%. In right-to-work states the average is 7.9% — 8.6% adjusted for population.

Between 1977-08, employment grew 100% in right-to-work states vs. the national average of 71% and 56.5% in non-right-to-work states. That’s according to a January study that Ohio University economics professor Richard Vedder did for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.

In this period, real per capita income in the right-to-work states grew 62.3% vs. the national average of 54.7% and 52.8% for non-right-to-work states…

If unions would concentrate on actually helping workers, the story would be different.  I would be a backer and member of a union if they were in favor of workers – I’m not because unions are not for me:  they are for, first, the union bosses; second, for the Democrat party; third, for corrupt deals; fourth, for various anti-American, socialist/communist political groups.  There is no place in there for an average, working man who just wants a strong business climate and good wages and benefits.

It is wise and logical for working people to band together to look after their own interests.  But the primary interest of a employee union is in strong economic growth – it is only by such means that the workers gain real leverage over the employers.  When the economy is thundering ahead and labor is in high demand, that is when the workers can hold back and demand higher wages and benefits.  Our unions, however, have decided that economic growth is pointless:  the only thing which matters is keeping the union bosses rich, the Democrats in power and the economy so controlled that non-union companies are essentially forbidden to compete with union companies.  A huge amount of our current economic misery can be directly traced to the unions corruption, political hackery and restraint of trade.

A real union actually for the workers would be calling for less government spending (government spending takes money out of the private economy which could be used to employ workers); for lower taxes (higher taxes on a business means it can employ fewer people); for less government regulation (when you tie up new businesses in regulatory knots it means fewer get started and employ fewer people).  It is to be hoped that the current unions – especially the private-sector unions (the government sector unions are probably beyond redemption) – will wake up to this, or that the membership will wake up and, if necessary, form new unions.  The working man does need his own organization…but the current groups which claim that role are actually harming the working man every day.

 

Sen. Paul Threatens Debt Ceiling Filibuster

Mark Noonan21 Comments

From the Daily Caller:

Tea Party favorite Sen. Rand Paul is planning a filibuster sometime next week to bring the debt ceiling negotiations to the Senate, the Huffington Post is reporting.

“We’ve not had one minute of debate about the debt ceiling in any committee,” the Kentucky Republican told C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” in a Sunday interview. He said after not having a budget or an appropriations bill in two years, he’s “part of the freshmen group in the Senate that’s saying, ‘No more.’”…

What Paul and other TEA Party Senators would really like is to link an increase of the debt ceiling to a balanced budget amendment.  So far, McConnell, the GOP Leader, says that is a non-starter – not enough votes for it.  To which I answer, “yeah, so?”.  Put the pressure on the Democrats for once – it is quite reasonable, and in keeping with American opinion, to demand some really hard and fast fiscal discipline.  In fact, the people are more and more demanding it.  Put it right in Reid’s lap – tell him that you don’t have enough votes to pass an increase unless Reid can round up enough votes for an amendment.

The good news here is that I feel more confident that our side will prevail, in the long run, than ever before.  Usually when we get to these points it is time for the GOP to cave and liberals to get what they want…now, not quite like that.  Unless there is some serious debt reduction, no deal can pass the House.  Naturally, Obama, Reid and the rest of the Democrats are hoping that the old tried and true tactics of allowing the MSM – and its manufactured polling – to stampede the GOP in to going along…but I don’t think it will work this time.  I think that when push comes to shove both TEA Party principal as well as political survival will rule the day:  the GOP will stand firm.

Death of Europe Watch

Mark Noonan6 Comments

From the Telegraph – British government won’t celebrate the bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo:

The Government has decided not to celebrate the anniversary, on June 18th, 2015, for fear of upsetting the French. The Department of Culture has ruled out any official celebration, or a service of thanksgiving in Westminster Abbey.

It’s a pretty lily-livered decision. Would the French really care that much? Do we mind that the Americans celebrate Independence Day today – a commemoration, in part, of our ultimate defeat by American revolutionaries?…

The real notice of the Death of Europe is that Britain has a Department of Culture.  When you’ve got that, it means you have no culture left.  Culture isn’t made by government decree, it is made by people living.  Part of “living” for Europe means a vitally important battle was fought in 1815 which ended forever Napoleon’s dreams of continental domination.  It happened; it was important; it is an integral part of British and European culture…but the Department of Culture essentially says it didn’t happen.  So, no official marking of the date.

As the linked article notes, would the French really care?  Descendants of Confederates and Yankees gather to mark the anniversary of Civil War battles – it is no longer about the hatreds of war, but about honoring brave men, on both sides, who fought well for what they thought was right.  It is part of history – part of what makes us a people.  So, too, Waterloo…it is part of France, it is part of Britain; it is part of Europe.  To not mark the date is to say that the men who fought did so in vain – and, I guess they did.  Europe is dying – I don’t see how they can recover.  They haven’t even the will to learn of themselves.

Welcome to the New Blogs for Victory!

Mark Noonan20 Comments

We appreciate greatly the patience you all have shown during this transition.  The move was made to better ensure us against down time and we look forward to not having as many outages as we had before.

Other than the technical side, we are looking forward to energizing the blog further for the 2012 campaign.  We are inviting more people to write for the blog to better cover all aspects of the conservative/libertarian/TEA Party march to victory in 2012.  Along with new written content, we are planning on doing weekly video updates on the campaign; these should start in the October time frame.

As always, we thank you for your loyal readership and great comments over the years and look forward to continuing it until the last liberal is thrown out of office.

S&P: Greek Bailout is a Default

Mark Noonan3 Comments

Nice of them to mention this after the S&P 500 went on a tear based on the assumption that the Greek bail out avoided a default – at any rate, the Financial Times is reporting that S&P is considering the bail out to be a “selective default”. In other words, it is just a bit of financial chicanery to keep people thinking that all is well as Greeks drops in to complete bankruptcy.

The one thing the Ruling Class doesn’t want is a gigantic financial melt down – not now, not with so many members of the Ruling Class up for re-election in 2012 (it isn’t just about Obama). Something needed to be done last week because if Greece went, it looked as though the whole, global financial system would go with it. That was and remains a correct assumption – if Greece goes, it all goes. But, also, if Spain goes, it all goes; if Portugal goes, it all goes; if Italy goes, it all goes. The problem is, as I’ve said, too much debt – governments owe far more than they can ever repay…and that is even if their people agree to be poor and work very hard for a generation to repay. It still wouldn’t work.

So, a melt down is inevitable – and anyone out there thinking that China can rescue the Euro or that China is an engine of real growth, think again: they, too, teeter on the brink of insolvency and only European and American bonds stand between them and the abyss. Its all good, if those bonds retain their value – if the Eurozone doesn’t have a default and if the United States doesn’t get a bout of inflation making our paper worth less. Not only is the melt down coming, but it is the most healthy, long term thing which can happen. We have to clear out the morass of bad debt, find out what things are really worth and then start to rebuild. The longer we keep up this extend and pretend fiction, the worse it will get.

Save money, get out of debt – and then just watch the show.

More on That “New Tone”

Mark Noonan1 Comment

From NJ.com:

Senate President Stephen Sweeney went to bed furious Thursday night after reviewing the governor’s line-item veto of the state budget.

He woke up Friday morning even angrier.

“This is all about him being a bully and a punk,” he said in an interview Friday.

“I wanted to punch him in his head.”…

Now, in Sweeney’s defense he claims that the Governor didn’t give him what he thinks the Governor agreed to…but it does seem that Christie and the legislative Democrats were supposed to get together to work out a single budge, but the Democrats went and voted on their own, instead. So, Christie just “line-item vetoed” everything he didn’t like. As it turns out, Republican Christie didn’t like a whole raft of things Democrat Sweeney liked – so, there’s the hurt feelings.

But, still, imagine if it were Christie who said he wanted to punch Sweeney in the head? If that had been the case, it would have resulted in a national news frenzy as the whole of the liberal power structure went in to overdrive to force a humiliating apology from Christie. No such thing will happen here – it was a Democrat offering violence, and so that is ok.

In the end, no matter how much Sweeney was offended and no matter who violent he becomes, Christie did the right thing…we GOPers really have to learn that you can’t negotiate with Democrats. It really just doesn’t work – Democrats are only interested in paying off the special interests which bought them at election time, as well as ensuring their own wealth and power. Some GOPers are like that, too, but it is endemic to the Democrat party. It is better to just hammer them down – and if we have the power (and it appears that Christie does), then you just use it to maximum effect. In the long run, this is healthier for the nation because each chip away at the bloated, anti-democratic, un-American, liberal Big Government power structure is another step towards a restored America.

Why America is Different (and Better) Than Other Nations

Mark Noonan2 Comments

Other nation’s have their start lost in the mists of time. Some founded by the merest adventurers, others by conquerors and oppressors; some were just sort of made up by others. The United States is different – voluntarily people removed themselves from their native society and set up a new place where right from the beginning, regular folks would look after their own affairs. It took raw guts to even want to come here – the trip across the Atlantic was fraught with risk, and that was before you even set foot in North America and tried to carve a life out of the wilderness. Only the most stern, disciplined and motivated people would even try…and only the best among them would live. A nation founded by such people was bound to be unique – and better than any other nation out there; and so it has proved.

By the time our Founders gathered in 1776 we were 150 years a people…divided, to be sure; not at all certain as to just what sort of government we should have…but dead set upon the fact that they would rule themselves, or die fighting.

We here in 2011 have lost some of that. We’ve grown a bit fat and soft…and some people who claim the title of American would even fight to defend liberty under any circumstances. But, also, we are regaining some of that. As the forces out to destroy the American ideal advanced, it created a backlash…and now people realize that the precious inheritance is at risk. That we could, indeed, cease to be American and become some sort of besotted, bankrupt, dying copy of disintegrating Europe.

I think we will recover it all – I think we will prove to our Founders that we are worthy descendants. There will be a new birth of American freedom, and we will once again astound the world.