Ju$tice ?

In following the John Goodman case here in Palm Beach County I wonder how much longer his defense team is going to be filing inane motions to keep vacating his sentence.

 

It goes to show you how much money makes a difference in real justice. Now it was proven in court that he did plow into Scott Wilson’s car which caused it to flip upside down into a canal and Mr. Wilson either died from impact or drowned.

 

It appears that the defense team is grasping at straws and throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks in reference to motions for a retrial or to get the sentence vacated.

 

I wonder if we will see the following motions from the defense team:

 

Asking for a mistrial because on day 35 of the trial the coffee in the break room was changed to another brand and the defense team was not consulted on it.

 

Juror number three had too much cleavage showing and the defense team was distracted.

 

The lunchroom menu was not conducive to Mr. Goodman’s dietary needs.

 

The air conditioner in the courtroom was too cold and Mr. Goodman’s civil rights were violated.

 

The $ 500,000 Bentley that Mr.Goodman was driving was a piece of junk. (Wait ,they tried that defense, didn’t work)

 

I guess if you are an attorney and your client has unlimited funds you will do whatever he tells you to get him off no matter how dishonorable, shady, morally bankrupt ideas your client throws at you.

 

 

 

 

Now, now, Mister Loria really?

Now comes Jeffrey Loria, Miami Marlins owner with a “mea culpa” song and dance probably urged by the public relations firm that the Marlins hired to soften the damage caused by the latest insult to their fan base.

He took out full-page ads in South Florida newspapers with his version and a half assed apology/excuse/explanation as to why they decided to gut the team of the high-priced talent they signed two years ago.

He also rails about how it’s not public money that is being used for the building of Marlins Park. He states that it will be hotel tax money that was used by the city and county to pay for their share of the park and that the public did not pay one cent towards the stadium and parking garage costs.

Well if the park was not built that hotel tax money would go back into the infrastructure wouldn’t it?  It could have gone to road repair, building upgrades, rapid transit, the list is endless. So it is really costing the public isn’t it? And the promise the Marlins made to spend, spend, spend on payroll was a lie.

He does not get it. Here is what people are upset about: Okay you got rid of underacheieving players, but you are replacing them with unproven players and minor leaguers. You will be fielding a minor league team instead of going out and spend, spend, spend on proven players and real major leaguers. The payroll will be about $40 million which will be the second lowest payroll in major league baseball. So it is not that you got rid of the players, it is that you did not replace them with players of equal talent and experience when you do have the money to do so. It is a blatant money grab.

The open house they had a few weeks ago was attended by about 400 people as opposed to last year when 40,000 showed up. You think there is panic in the front office? Hiring a public relations firm is not going to help. Unless of course the public relations firm has some guys named Jeter, Pujols, Trout, Verlander or Hamilton on board.

Last year they had about 12,000 season ticket holders, this year it’s under 5,000.   You think the people are pissed off?  Again it’s not that you cleaned house, it’s that the replacement players are not proven veterans, all-stars or household names. Miami is a front-runner town, you don’t win, you do not get  attendance or “buzz”.

He states that baseball people lauded the buldup of their farm system because of the players received in these trades. Great, that is good for the future but fans want to win TODAY.

What is ironic is that the reason the Marlins built their own park was because they were not getting money from concession and parking at their old stadium. That is the excuse they used to use for not signing high priced talent. Now that they get ALL the revenue in addition to the millions they get from the television contract they are not spending it to field a decent team. As I have stated before I will not go to a Marlins game even if they have strippers in the stands and hand out free beer. Go Yankees !

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

I was tagged by my daughter, Ily Goyanes, who is also an author, to participate in The Next Big Thing Blog Hop. So, thanks for the tag…now I get to answer ten questions about my current work in progress. Fun, fun, fun. Read on to find out more about the book I’m currently working on — a sequel to Miami Beat: A Jose Castillo Mystery. 

What is the working title of the book?

The working title is Miami Beat II, but that won’t be the real title.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Follow up/sequel to Miami Beat, a Jose Castillo mystery.

What is the genre of the book?

Detective murder mystery.

Which actors would I choose to play the characters in a movie rendition?

Andy Garcia as Jose, Gwyneth Paltrow as his girlfriend Kat, and Samuel Jackson as Nate, Jose’s policeman buddy.

What about this bailout? $22.7 BILLION profit

In a December 12,2012 newspaper article buried in the bowels of the business section in the Palm Beach Post. I read that the United States government actually made a profit of $22.7 BILLION dollars on their bailout of AIG. This was from the much maligned TARP program.

Why was this not front page news? After all the clamor and whinnying and hair pulling of bailouts why was this not shouted from the front page?

The government gave AIG $182 Billion at the height of the financial crisis which gave the U.S. a 16% ownership in the company. When all was said and  done   the  stock  that was sold back  made $22.7 Billion more which of course went back into the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve.

The Democrats really missed an opportunity to yell from the mountain tops of what was gained. They need a better public relations department to lord it over to the other side when something like this happens.

Facts: The government gotten back $380 Billion of the $418 Billion or 90% back of the moneys it disbursed under TARP. So pick something else to bitch and moan about.

Miami Marlins: The Three Stooges

Well. well, well………pitcher Mark Buehrle came out without mincing any words and flat out stated that Marlins management repeatedly lied to him on multiple occasions.

There is no shock there, the three stooges who run this franchise: Larry (Beinfest) Curly (Sampson) and owner Moe (Luria) have bamboozled everyone with their shell game.

First they obtained $360 MILLION in public money from Miami-Dade county and the city of Miami to build a state of the art stadium in the heart of Little Havana, promising to end their penurious payroll policy and to actually spend money to field a decent team.

Keep in mind that in 2011 Marlins management was called on the carpet by Major League baseball and the Players Union because they were raking in millions from the collective bargaining agreement and not spending it on players. It was strongly suggested that they spend a little back on salaries which they did “a little ” in 2011.

What happened in 2012 was that they made a huge splash for the grand opening of their ballpark by signing a high-profile manager (Ozzie Guillen) who turned out to be a poster child for a Dale Carnegie course if there ever one was needed, This guy insulted more people than Don Rickles on crack cocaine.

Besides throwing F-bombs more frequently than someone with Tourette’s Syndrome, Ozzie did the one worst possible thing: he complimented Fidel Castro. A cuban would rather you call his mother a whore than have you compliment Fidel.

Fidel is right up there with Hitler, Genghis Khan, and any despicable dictator you can think of. And yes if you think I am Cuban, you are right, you need info on Fidel’s legacy, just ask. But I digress.

The stooges also loaded up on almost $200 million worth of free agents,. I thought for a bit that they finally had the right idea. New stadium, great players, proven manager, great recipe for success right?   Wrong! Team chemistry was worse that three divas sharing the same dressing room, the manager was a public relations disaster and the worse thing that could happen; players had the worst starts to their careers, by midseason it was obvious this team was going nowhere.

First the stooges got rid of a few players that were not cutting it including their star shortstop who was now playing third base in another brilliant move by the front office. If you have a possible great player at one position you don’t go out and get another great player for the same position. You cannot play both at once, so you have to move one to another position. That is bad for that player and team chemistry. Bad recipe, bad,bad.

Then after this train wreck of a season was over the stooges jettisoned all the players they had brought in with million dollar contracts  which was characterized as a fire sale. In return they got back unproven major league players (2) and a handful of minor leaguers who have “potential”. They will be fielding a MINOR league team and they would not be worth $5 to see them let alone the usurious price for beer and hot dogs.

It’s an insult to the fans of the team and I along with thousands of others will not be attending any Marlins games. Even if they have free beer and blowjobs during the seventh inning stretch. I will not spend a nickel on this team in 2013 until their payroll reaches over $100 million and these stooges make the team appear to be run by professionals and that they have players on the field who are of professional caliber. If not I will take the same attitude  that the stooges take towards their soon to be non existent fan base: Fuck’em.

Electoral and more losers

There were some extraordinary losers in Tuesday’s elections. People that are not used to losing lost big time. Some lost money which they have plenty of. Some lost reputations which are hard to come by. Some lost face which for some they don’t care and for those that do it’s a bit late pardners.

Lets start with the big kahuna himself, Mitt Romney. He was so sure, so righteous, so confident he did not see that he was the best of the worst Republicans could come up with. He was handsome, well dressed and cut a swath like the captain of industry which he was.

He was also aloof, arrogant, elitist and didn’t know when to keep his mouth closed. Forty seven percent anyone? Shut down PBS? Planned Parenthood? He was out of touch with the people just like his party. And he changed his mind more often that a schizophrenic off his Prozac.

Some of the big losers were big money donators: Sheldon Adelson, Donald Trump and the Koch brothers. Poor investments boys, even for you money geniuses. Sure they probably didn’t feel the money pinch but their egos sure felt the blow.

Not a money loser but a big reputation blow was suffered by Karl Rove, the Victor Frankenstein of the GOP. I could see him in his lab with the bunsen burners cooking up strategies like a mad scientist. His grand plan went down in flames when Obama won both Massachusetts and Wisconsin, the states that Mitt and Paul Munster were from. That was a tell  of the crash and burn evening that was coming up. The other tell was when Claire Mc Caskell, Tammy Baldwin and Elizabeth Warren won their states.A sure sign that the people were tired of the holy roller religious right tight assed bible thumping conservative straight-laced 1950′s ideas.

Folks, the 1950′s are long gone, if Ozzie & Harriet Nelson were still around they would be retired in Sun City Arizona, slurping down Mai Tai’s and smoking weed at sunset. June and Ward Cleaver would be retired in Boca Raton Florida with June whipping up Viagra cocktails for Ward or Eddie Haskell if he was still obsessed with her. But I digress.

The GOP should have a leash alert for some of the assholes that were part of their party. I say were because rocket scientists  like Joe Walsh, Allen West, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock went down in flames in their respective races because the people finally got sick of their insensitivity, their lack of couth, their lack of taste ,their misogynist peanut sized minds and their lack of knowledge of how women’s minds, let alone their bodies work.

The arrogant, bloated, lily white limp dicks at the GOP failed to realize that the women were going to turn on them, the latinos wanted no part of self deportation and that the minorities were tired of being disenfranchised and being crushed by poverty.

While people were being laid off, evicted, and being foreclosed on these arrogant fucks were talking about extending taxes for the rich and corporations, the nerve of them. They should be tarred and feathered. This is step one, step two will be the mid-term elections in 2014, if they don’t play ball with President Hipster they will lose even more than they lost in November 6,2012. The people were mad and thank God they did not take it anymore.

GOP………R.I.P. ……………..what went wrong.

I want you to know that I am registered Republican and I am not proud of it. The party that I joined is not the same party that exists today.

It has been hijacked by the tea party and the religious right. I wrote about their coming mistakes in this blog back in April of this year and I suggested that they cater to women’s needs and try not to tell them what they can do with their bodies.

The immigrant situation other than self deportation.

Try not to ignore any minority.

Give the youth of this country some new ideas other than outdated 1950′s dogma.

Be sensitive to the gay population and to cut out all these banned same sex amendments.

Make sure the rich pay their share of taxes.

Be sensitive to the enviroment, stop saying you will eliminate the EPA.

Planned Parenthood does a lot of good, keep it.

The old ,white, rich, cranky old men that run this party have ruined it and they are headed to oblivion. Pretty soon they will be a non factor.

Before Obama had received enough votes I told my wife that he was going to win because I saw the following:

Claire Mc Caskill, Elizabeth Warren and  Tammy Baldwin won their respective races. In Florida an amendment to remove Supreme Court Justices that were deemed too liberal by Governor Scott and the Republican led legislature failed miserably by a 3 to 1 vote. I could see the handwriting on the wall at that time. The people were fed up with the partisan political bullshit.

 I hope this party has gotten a wake up call and that the national leaders get their act together before they become irrelevant. If they keep up with the obstructionist crap, I hope they get voted out of office when it’s their turn.

Congrats to President Hipster and I hope he does the best for the people of this great country as he has promised.