Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.
Is that the one that HBO did the special on several years ago with James Woods playing the defense attorney? That was scary. To think you could go from nice person trying to help kids to that kind of make believe witch hunt was stunning.
Here is one for everybody...what pct of kids in your area are on gov't lunch programs?
Read an article that identified the pct of low income kids in a large region with the pct that got free breakfast. It was over 50% which seemed high...so I googled that and found a ton of stuff about how parents scam that system.
Of course nobody wants needy kids to go hungry but who is policing this type of program? I guarantee you 50% of the families don't go without cable, 2 cars, flat screen TV's, designer clothes, $200 cell phones etc. but they get free meals.
Woods played the lawyer in a dramatization of the McMartin case, IIRC, the first of the "ritual sexual abuse" trials. At one time the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history, and at the end of the day, not a single charge stuck. However, one defendant spent five years in the LA lockup, because he was denied bail!
This trial (in fact, all of these showtrials) featured patently absurd testimony from children who had been badgered into giving the "correct" answers to prosecutors' questions. Supporters of these trials contended that "children don't lie," but research has shown that children can have their reality altered by repeated questioning, "anatomically correct" dolls and claims that other children are "smart" because they're giving the desired answers to the questions. What kid wants adults to think of him as "stupid?"
Here's the scenario: mom and dad call their kid into the living room, they've got a very serious look on their faces and they tell the kid he's not in any trouble. The kid instantly realizes he IS in trouble, because his parents never have these command performances with him. They ask him if Mr. Bob touched his doop. The kid says no. The parents say: you can tell us the truth. The kid says no. The parents tell him OTHER kids are saying that Mr. Bob touched their doops. Finally, they put it to the kid again and he says "yes." This generates praise, strokes, pleasure, smiles, statements of what a good boy he is, accompanied by parental touching.
The kid quickly figures out what the "right" answers are, and begins to give them.
As I said, all of these cases featured totally unbelievable claims by children which were nevertheless believed by parents, law enforcement and prosecutors. In McMartin there were claims of an underground system of tunnels (which some true believing parents kept trying to unearth years after the case ended) and sexual abuse at a neighborhood grocery store and flying to undisclosed locations in a black airplane. Yup, sounds credible to me.
In the Fells Acres case, where Martha Coakley behaved so badly, there was testimony from child "victims" that the male figure in the case had anally raped a child with a butcher knife, somehow magically leaving no scars. And the adult sister was accused of tying a child to a tree in the front yard of the day care and raping that child--in broad daylight. I've got no problem believing THAT. And that kids were abused with a magic wand. Uh huh, nothing unbelievable about that testimony.
By the time Coakley came along the defendants were already in prison but the state pardons board had issued a recommendation, based on the multiple violations of the defendant's rights to a fair trial,that should be released. All that was needed was the signature of the governor. Coakley organized "victims" and their parents to lobby the governor not to sign, she didn't. BTW, when a child has his memory altered about these kinds of events, he continues to believe, even into adulthood that he was the victim of sexual abuse, even when the evidence clearly shows he wasn't.
The Fells Acres case was a gross assault on due process and the presumption of innocence. And Martha Coakley was right there in the middle of it, advancing her career while a person she knew or should have known was innocent was rotting in prison. Shame on her, forever.
There was a "ritual sexual abuse" trial involving the Little Rascals day care in Edenton, North Carolina. And the usual unfair procedures were in effect. It was alleged that over 90 children had been abused. Oddly, those charges were supported by local "therapists" who interviewed kids in Edenton. But none of the kids whose parents had moved and were examined by out of town therapists reported any abuse. Hmmm, wonder why?
One befuddled woman who worked at Little Rascals, who was not charged, but whose son was allegedly assaulted, looked into a documentary camera and even though she was a true believer, said she couldn't understand how all that abuse was going on, she was there everyday. Exactly.
