Current Events on the News - A New Beginning

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Luke, this is for you:

Nancy Grace has been named on the smoking gun website as being sued for wrongful death.

Nancy Grace Sued For Wrongful Death
Claim: TV host drove Florida woman to suicide in missing tot case
NOVEMBER 21--The parents of a woman who committed suicide shortly after a grilling by Nancy Grace are filing a lawsuit against the TV host, claiming that their daughter was driven to her death by the hard-charging former prosecutor. In a wrongful death lawsuit to be filed today in Florida, the parents of Melinda Duckett charge that Grace duped their daughter into an interview about Duckett's missing two-year-old son, Trenton. That interview, which aired on Grace's CNN Headline News show after Duckett's death, was more of a cross-examination, with Grace peppering the 21-year-old woman with questions about her whereabouts at the time of her son's late-August disappearance. On September 8, a day after her interview with Grace, Duckett used a shotgun to kill herself. While police have described Duckett as the prime suspect in her son's disappearance, they have said they believe the boy may still be alive. A copy of the wrongful death lawsuit, to be filed by William and Beth Eubank, can be found below. The complaint, which also names Duckett's estranged husband as a defendant, seeks undisclosed damages. (9 pages)

[Galactus]

Robert Altman died.

[phil]

[phil]

Nancy Grace ... Another perfect example of a TV "personality"
who thinks they make/are the news ...

[Mary]

ded said:

Robert Altman died.

holy shit. sad

[phil]

Seems I'm not alone thinking this ...


The Shameful Behavior Of Nancy Grace

Written By Rick Ellis, Thursday, November 16th, 2006

It's no coincidence that Nancy Grace's road trip to Florida is happening the same week that the news breaks about a new O.J. Simpson book and TV special. If the O.J. Simpson trial coverage had a TV baby, it would be the creepy and self-important true-life crime Headline News Channel talker "Nancy Grace."

Grace is in Florida for two days in search of ratings, I mean baby Trenton Duckett, and watching her in action is like watching someone pick the pockets of the infirm and mentally challenged. It's sickening, it's depressing and it's a sad reflection on our nation. And yet, there is something sickly compelling about watching the off-kilter Grace in her element.

For those of you lucky enough to have not followed the story, two-year-old Trenton Duckett disappeared in late August from his mother's apartment. There are a lot of questions about the disappearance, and in fact, I suspect that it's more than likely that mom Melinda Duckett knew more about the events surrounding the disappearance than she admitted publicly.

Even friends of Melinda's admit she was high-strung and troubled and all of her insecurities and fears smashed head on into Nancy Grace when Grace did a phone interview with her in early September. Before Grace was even able to air the interview, Melinda Duckett had killed herself, blaming in part the oppressive media pressure. The show aired the interview as scheduled, and even some fans of Grace's were troubled by her belligerent and self-righteous interview with the troubled woman. If she did know anything about Trenton's disappearance, she was unlikely to reveal it to someone who's only goal seemed to be to score points off a woman who was teetering on the edge.

Grace befriended Trenton's father, and has been wheeling him out at every opportunity to answer the hard-hitting questions like "Did you ever think you would have to go through something like this?" I'm assuming when she asked that, she was referring to the crime, and not Grace's heavy-handed interviewing style.

Despite months of flailing away on her show, Trenton Duckett is still missing, and now Grace has headed to "Team Duckett" headquarters, in order to keep attention on herself…I mean the case.

Night one was the typical mix for a Grace show. She recapped the news from yesterday, that a Wendy's employee had claimed to have seen Melinda and Trenton the day he went missing. She then breathlessly hyped a "new witness," who claimed to have suddenly remembered seeing Melinda Duckett at a convenience store that same morning, making a "suspicious" purchase.

As is generally the case on the Grace show, her "breaking news" wasn't quite as impressive as advertised. While a private investigator recounted the sighting, Major Chris Blair of the Marion County Sheriff's Office essentially dismissed the sighting by noting that they already had an ATM transaction of hers less than 45 minutes later at a bank far enough away to make the identification unlikely.

Grace then went on to other new pet theories. There are reports that a sex video of Melinda Duckett might have been for sale online, although it doesn't seem to be clear to anyone whether it is indeed her, or if it was video made for sale, or just one made between consenting adults that was later offered for sale.

Regardless, that news sent Grace and her cadre of regulars into a frenzy of speculation, and it wasn't long until one guest suggested that perhaps young Trenton could have ended up in the hands of pornographers. That comment brought a slight smile to Grace's face, as if she was happy to get what she wanted…another sordid piece of speculation.

One of the fun things about watching Grace in action is that she consistently has to backpedal and re-spin her pet theories, as the actual facts make themselves known.

The most recent example of that was the case of the cut window screen in Trenton Duckett's bedroom. For weeks, Grace has been prattling on about the supposed "ten inch" cut in the screen, a cut she said was entirely too small to be used as a way to grab the child from his bed. Over a period of days, she brought out a procession of props to illustrate how big ten inches really is (feel free to make up your own jokes about that one). She had everything from a ruler to a screen "not unlike the one in baby Trenton's room."

But as it turned out, the cut screen was actually thirty inches wide and ten inches high. Ooops. Now, in Grace's defense, law enforcement seems to have let Grace spin in the wind with some incorrect info, so it's not entirely her fault. But still…a prop fake window screen?

People often wonder why I have such a distaste for Grace, and it comes down to this. Nancy Grace has consistently shown that she has no trouble at all shading the facts to make her theories of a story more believable. While that behavior might be entirely legal when you're a prosecutor, it's a fatal flaw in a talk show host. Particularly one who is dealing with people's real emotions and lives.

Tonight's example of that characteristic came at about the halfway point of the show when she was speaking with Court TV reporter Jean Casarez. After two days of hyping this "new" witness, the Wendy's employee who had supposedly seen Melinda and Trenton, it was revealed in passing that the witness also claimed to have seen Melinda at that same Wendy's later that afternoon, a claim that was impossible according to Melinda Duckett's cell phone records. That claim makes the entire sighting more than a bit suspicious, and yet, this vital fact barely made a ripple in the show.

This is the same witness who Grace has trumpeted as having passed a polygraph with "no apparent deceptions." But any second year law student (or anyone who has ever watched Matlock) can tell you that just means the witness believes what she is saying. It doesn't mean she's right.

I could go on and on about Thursday's show, including her segment on the newest dead white girl de jour, a 29-year-old former cheerleader who was found murdered in her home.

I'll end instead with this thought. I'll give Nancy Grace the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps everything she is doing is sincere and upfront. I would still make the argument that she doesn't deserve to be on the air.

Because when it comes to crime and punishment, the facts are too important to be bent for convenience or to fit preconceived pet theories. Grace exhibits an attitude often seen in longtime prosecutors. They all think they can tell who's guilty and who isn't just by using their "gut." But as any outside law enforcement official can tell you, the "gut" has gotten a lot of people wrongly accused and convicted.


*******

Trash TV at its worse best !!

[skvorisdeadsorta]

That woman makes my hate strong.

[phil]

Still on O.J. subject ...


O.J. Simpson, a wizard with a knife,
will serve food to the needy again on Thanksgiving

In related news, O.J. Simpson has announced that he will once again spend Thanksgiving afternoon serving a gourmet dinner to needy residents of the Miami suburb of Pinecrest. Although Mr. Simpson's appearance at the Pinecrest Polo Association has been called “a cynical attempt to repair his image,” his attorney, Yale Galanter, insists, “This is coming from the heart. O.J. knows what it’s like to squeeze by on a $30,000-a-month pension while living in a modest, middle-six-figure house.”

[luke]

Yeah, I read that story of her getting sued. She's really the worst. Makes me nauseous.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Fuck this guy!

House Democrat Wants Draft Reinstated
E-MailPrint Save

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 19, 2006
Filed at 9:59 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans would have to sign up for a new military draft after turning 18 under a bill the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee says he will introduce next year.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said Sunday he sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars.

''There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way,'' Rangel said.

Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription in the past, has said the all-volunteer military disproportionately puts the burden of war on minorities and lower-income families.

Rangel said he will propose a measure early next year. While he said he is serious about the proposal, there is little evident support among the public or lawmakers for it.

In 2003, Rangel proposed a measure covering people age 18 to 26. It was defeated 402-2 the following year. This year, he offered a plan to mandate military service for men and women between age 18 and 42; it went nowhere in the Republican-led Congress.

Democrats will control the House and Senate come January because of their victories in the Nov. 7 election.

At a time when some lawmakers are urging the military to send more troops to Iraq, ''I don't see how anyone can support the war and not support the draft,'' said Rangel, who also proposed a draft in January 2003, before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. ''I think to do so is hypocritical.''

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Standby Reserve, said he agreed that the U.S. does not have enough people in the military.

''I think we can do this with an all-voluntary service, all-voluntary Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy. And if we can't, then we'll look for some other option,'' said Graham, who is assigned as a reserve judge to the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals.

Rangel, the next chairman of the House tax-writing committee, said he worried the military was being strained by its overseas commitments.

''If we're going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can't do that without a draft,'' Rangel said.

He said having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve. Instead, ''young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it's our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals,'' with a promise of educational benefits at the end of service.

Graham said he believes the all-voluntary military ''represents the country pretty well in terms of ethnic makeup, economic background.''

Repeated polls have shown that about seven in 10 Americans oppose reinstatement of the draft and officials say they do not expect to restart conscription.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress in June 2005 that ''there isn't a chance in the world that the draft will be brought back.''

Yet the prospect of the long global fight against terrorism and the continuing U.S. commitment to stabilizing Iraq have kept the idea in the public's mind.

The military drafted conscripts during the Civil War, both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. An agency independent of the Defense Department, the Selective Service System, keeps an updated registry of men age 18-25 -- now about 16 million -- from which to supply untrained draftees that would supplement the professional all-volunteer armed forces.

Rangel and Graham appeared on ''Face the Nation'' on CBS.

^------

On the Net:

Selective Service System: www.sss.gov

[strat-0]

luke said:

O.J.'s not the first killer to come out and tell his story. I don't see anyone bitching about Henry Hill and/or Goodfellas. Same fucking thing.

Except he didn't claim he was innocent. And people aren't quite so put out by mobsters killing other mobsters.

[rockysigman]

I don't know, I think that murder is a serious enough crime that I don't think it makes much sense to draw a line between Henry Hill and O.J. Simpson just because Hill was more straightforward about his crimes. He also was responsible for a whole lot more deaths than O.J. Murder can't be rectified by a simple admission of guilt, especially because Hill did so with the knowledge that he had immunity from further legal problems relating to those crimes.

[Thorngrub]

skvorisdeadsorta said:

Luke, this is for you:

Nancy Grace has been named on the smoking gun website as being sued for wrongful death.

Nancy Grace Sued For Wrongful Death
Claim: TV host drove Florida woman to suicide in missing tot case
NOVEMBER 21--The parents of a woman who committed suicide shortly after a grilling by Nancy Grace are filing a lawsuit against the TV host, claiming that their daughter was driven to her death by the hard-charging former prosecutor. In a wrongful death lawsuit to be filed today in Florida, the parents of Melinda Duckett charge that Grace duped their daughter into an interview about Duckett's missing two-year-old son, Trenton. That interview, which aired on Grace's CNN Headline News show after Duckett's death, was more of a cross-examination, with Grace peppering the 21-year-old woman with questions about her whereabouts at the time of her son's late-August disappearance. On September 8, a day after her interview with Grace, Duckett used a shotgun to kill herself. While police have described Duckett as the prime suspect in her son's disappearance, they have said they believe the boy may still be alive. A copy of the wrongful death lawsuit, to be filed by William and Beth Eubank, can be found below. The complaint, which also names Duckett's estranged husband as a defendant, seeks undisclosed damages. (9 pages)

May she serve a lifetime sentence, or die by electrocution. Amen.

[kmc]

To be frank, there's no way to achieve our military's political objectives in Iraq without at least half a million troops, if what I've been reading is to be believed. A draft is unpopular, although it might be the only way to achieve "victory" in Iraq.

Not that I would fight. Brazil, here I come...

[kmc]

But yeah, Nancy Grace is a miserable bitch.