Breaking News: Perry Enters Presidential Race

Speaking from a flag-packed stage in Charleston, S.C., Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced his long anticipated entrance into the 2012 presidential race.

"I declare to you today as a candidate for president of the United States!" Perry announced during a speech that resonated with conservative imagery, support for industry, and references to Ronald Reagan, and which spoke to rightwing Republican and Tea Party concerns.

In keeping with the other current GOP candidates, Perry made vague criticisms of the Obama administration and observations on the economy core elements of his platform.

"We reject this president's unbridled fixation on taking more money out of wallets and pocketbooks of American families -- and employers -- and giving it to a central government," Perry said. "Spreading the wealth punishes success."

Perry also held Obama accountable for everything from the recent downgrade in the U.S. credit rating to the country's increasingly perilous place in the world, noting that "Our president has insulted our friends and encouraged our enemies."

Following his speech, Perry's wife and children joined him on stage while a crowd chanted their support for him.

Casey Anthony Trial — The Aftermath

I am actually stunned to see the current discourse on CNN regarding whether or not the names of the jurors in the Casey Anthony trial should be released. The judge, rightfully so, is concerned about the likelihood of retribution against jury members by the mob currently camped outside the Orlando Courthouse. Do these folks not have employment or lives of their own?

Sadly, the only thing that has made this case different from any of the other tragic murder cases of children: this case caught the interest of Nancy Grace. Grace in a single episode of her sensationalist tabloid TV show, stuck the label of “Tot Mom”, and tried and convicted Casey Anthony of First Degree Murder. It should be noted that Grace, prior to hosting her show on CNN, was a prosecutor of questionable ethics. Before becoming a CNN and Court TV anchor, she was a notorious prosecutor in Alabama.

In a 2005 federal appeals opinion, Judge William H. Pryor Jr., a conservative former Alabama attorney general, found that Grace had “played fast and loose” with core ethical rules in a 1990 triple-murder case. Grace was accused of not disclosing critical evidence (the existence of other suspects) as well as knowingly permitting a detective to testify falsely under oath. The Georgia Supreme Court also reprimanded her for withholding evidence and for making improper statements in a 1997 arson and murder case. The court overturned the conviction in that case and found that Grace’s behavior “demonstrated her disregard of the notions of due process and fairness and was inexcusable.” She faced similar claims in other cases.

Clearly, without conscience, Grace has never cared whether or not a defendant, who by constitutional law is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, is denied due process or a fair trial. Her own misconduct as a prosecutor is proof of that. While one can understand why a prosecutor might bend or even break the rules a little to get that career enhancing conviction, she withheld evidence and suborned perjury that made it clear that the defendant on trial was actually innocent. Thus sending an innocent victim to prison until the conviction was overturned.

I suspect her biggest fans haven’t bothered to do any research on the character of the women they so idolize, and perhaps would not care. In the case of the Casey Anthony, Grace and others, like Grace clone Jane Velez-Mitchell, ranted and raved for the cameras for ratings, not caring who they libeled or defamed in the process. Notably, I do not believe I have ever heard either one of them covering, or inciting an angry mob on behalf of innocent victims being released from prison, many off death row, after decades in prison for crimes of which they were ultimately found innocent. (Shown here are agitated trial spectators attacking each other in the wake of the Anthony verdict.)

I honestly don’t know whether or not Casey Anthony killed her daughter either deliberately or accidentally. Given that she has been legally determined to be not guilty of the crime that should no longer be an issue. I do believe, without any doubt, that the jury did the best possible job and that while many of all of them might have thought that Anthony was responsible for the death of Caylee, evidence was not presented by the prosecution that convinced them beyond a reasonable doubt.

We all need to be cautious in condemning a justice system designed to protect us all from being railroaded to prison for crimes that we are innocent of. In spite of that protection, all too often innocent victims are imprisoned and even executed for crimes of which they are innocent.

Grace’s comment on her July 5th show “the devil is dancing” indicates that she believes in the devil. If she indeed does, then she must also consider that there is a God and that Anthony will ultimately be held accountable for her transgressions. That will have to be good enough for all of us, unless of course, some angry mob member, incited by years of hearing Grace proclaim “Tot Mom’s” guilt decides to take justice into their own hands.

See also "Breaking News: Casey Anthony Moving to Texas!" on Texas Confidential Online.

Book Review: 'The Rise of the Fourth Reich'

Author Jim Marrs’ The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America(Harper Collins, 2008) is not a book to be read lightly. After completing it, a reader will either have wasted the time spent to work their way through nearly 400 pages of increasingly complex and disturbing data and relationships, or will be forced to acknowledge things about the world that they can no longer ignore (even if it was possible to do so when they only vaguely suspected they might be true).

Marrs is the author of several bestselling books that focus largely on subjects like conspiracies, secret societies, the subversive agendas of “power elites,” and the like, works that tend to resonate on some level with many modern readers (while variously enthralling or repelling those at the extreme ends of the spectrum). Some of his other titles include Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, the book upon which the Oliver Stone film JFK is based; The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11 and the Loss of Liberty; and Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us.

Because it alludes to subjects like the Templars and Illuminati, which have become familiar even to the unread through popular films, The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over Americais in some ways very much a product of its time. As indicated by a significant number of online reviews of his books, however, some readers are disinclined to take any of Marrs’ work seriously simply because he goes far beyond these popular themes and into the realm of UFOs, time travel, and conspiracy theories.

And Marrs is certainly no less extreme in his approach in The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over Americathan in any of his other works. His thesis in this book is, in short, that the industrial and philosophical basis of Nazi Germany was not destroyed in World War II, even though its political and military apparatus was. Beyond just surviving, Marrs says, these systems were disseminated around the world, notably to the United States, and have subsequently become an integral part of what Eisenhower dubbed “the military-industrial complex” — and cautioned Americans to beware of.

“Always remember that a typical attribute of fascism is the merging of state and business leadership,” Marrs writes. “In fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the state gained control over the corporations. In modern America, corporations have gained control over the state. The end result is the same.”

Marrs demonstrates this merger, which was well underway by the early 20th century, and his revelations are disturbing and even a little sickening, especially when considered in light of each other. These include, for example, Prescott Bush’s role as a principal in corporations that supported the rise of Hitler in Germany, his son George H.W. Bush’s support of secret Nazi assistance programs while director of the CIA, and his grandson George W. Bush’s use of propaganda techniques identical to those used in fascist Germany.

And revelations about the pro-Nazi activities of individuals (e.g., Dick Cheney, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld) and companies (e.g., Chase, IBM, I.G. Farben) we all are explicitly familiar with are equally horrifying.

Isolated facts aside, whether or not Marr’s conclusions in The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over Americaare correct, they do constitute a unified theory on why things are the way they are in the United States today. The unending wars with vague justifications and no apparent end in sight to which Americans are becoming accustomed, for example, are perfectly explained in his schema (and he certainly articulates the possible motivations behind the current U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan better than any major political leaders have in the past nine years).

His detractors and extreme conclusions aside, Marrs does not write like a nut and presents his case adeptly. And, the rather sensationalistic title of the book notwithstanding, he does nonetheless maintain a sober style of writing that lends credibility to his case. He also does a fairly good job of weighing even information that supports his case and expressing skepticism about claims that he does not deem likely.

At 42 pages, the most substantial chapter in the book — and one of the most fantastic — is on “Nazi Wonder Weapons,” such as the familiar V2 rockets. This chapter focuses in some detail on the German atomic weapons program, and touches briefly on things like flying-saucer-shaped concept aircraft and the “Bell,” an energy-manipulating device with some characteristics of a time machine. One of the most compelling things Marrs does in this chapter is present a believable case that the Germans might have not just had functioning atomic bombs late in the war but that they might have tested them on a number of Russian targets — and that the weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki several months after the Nazi surrender might have been of German manufacture and been transferred to the United States as part of a deal on behalf of certain Nazi leaders and researchers.

There are a few potential or actual flaws in The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America.
While the sprawling patchwork of facts presented by Marrs has disturbing implications when considered as a whole, beginning to build inexorably early in the book and reaching critical mass well before its conclusion, it does not always go beyond implications of probabilities or possibilities. And, as largely a distillate of other authors’ findings and points of view, it often presents a disturbing collage but one that was not necessarily intended to hang together.

Marrs also draws almost exclusively on secondary rather than primary sources, so the overall effect of his presentation is potentially undermined by any weaknesses in the works of the disparate authors to whom he refers. This methodology has been effectively applied in the case of other significant books, of course (e.g., William Manchester’s The Arms of Krupp), and does not negate his prodigious accomplishment with The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America.

Marrs does also not necessarily define unfamiliar concepts explicitly, and readers who want to completely understand what he is talking about may need to do some external research. He extensively uses the term “globalists,” for example, and while this likely evokes some sort of an image for most readers — and one that will crystallize as they work their way through this book — a full definition requires recourse to third-party sources.

A minor but nonetheless annoying downside that emerges in the second half of the book is some rather sloppy editing, which typically manifests itself in a particular name being spelled one way initially and a different way a little further on in the text. This never actually reduces the clarity of the book, but one would think a big publisher like Harper Collins could do better.

Marrs’ chapter on Religion is somewhat lightweight and a bit of a disappointment. In it, the author puts almost as much effort into decrying liberal attacks on organized religion, rather than on the overtly cynical ends to which the political and social institutions he builds a case against throughout his book have increasingly used many American churches (i.e., as a means of disseminating “values” calculated to erode personal freedoms). Marr’s own voice comes through in this chapter more so than many of the others, and it is conflicted.

In the end, however, these blemishes are minor compared to the great work Marrs has done in The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America,and his message is not greatly diminished by them. And even if someone is not inclined to agree with Marrs’ conclusions — that the social, political, and economic institutions of the United States have been suborned by de facto or actual Nazis — the information he provides to support them is interesting in and of itself, and it will be a rare reader who does not walk away knowing much more than they did before.

Movie Commentary: 'Good'

Based on the play by C.P. Taylor, the 2008 film Good looks at the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany from the perspective of a literature professor. Like many of his fellow citizes, Professor John Halder (Viggo Mortenson) is a good man who is uncomfortable with the coarseness and amorality of the National Socialist movement but accepts it as a device for social and professional advancement.

In many ways, the film is unexceptional in that its themes of corruption and the mind-numbing inhumanity of the Nazis are ones that have been explored any number of times in other works (although I don't think it ever hurts to be reminded of these things and for each generation to continue to explore them). It is, however, exceptional in one small way, and that is its depiction of the punch card system developed by computer pioneer IBM to help the Nazis manage the extermination of European Jews.

IBM is not mentioned by name in the film and, like other U.S. companies that supported Nazi policies during the 1930s and '40s, obviously does not talk about this a lot. For anyone who is interested in learning more about this shameful episode, it is the subject of the excellent book IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation and is discussed in author Jim Marrs' The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America.

When the Lie is the Message

Once in awhile, a friend or relative will forward me a message containing a brief emotional anecdote encouraging me to be patriotic, "support the troops," or engage in some other form of desirable conduct. These messages then usually exhort me to forward them to everyone I know but never actually call for any constructive action in support of the causes they espouse (e.g., sending care packages to the troops I am supposed to support).

What is most disturbing about these messages, however, is that they typically contain some blatant, verifiable lie. A recent one, supposedly about honoring fallen veterans, contained in it the following:

"Did you know that the ACLU has filed a suit to have all military cross-shaped headstones removed? and another suit to end prayer from the military completely. They're making great progress. The Navy Chaplains can no longer mention Jesus' name in prayer thanks to the ACLU."

A little research revealed that these particular statements have been making their way around the Internet since at least June 2009 (as per Snopes, and that none of these particular assertions are true in any way"Grave Concerns"). Over the past two years, they have been read by hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people who have simply accepted them as the truth, got all worked up about them, and then forwarded them to everyone on their contact lists.

Verification aside, anyone capable of critical thinking ought to be able to read between the lines on these statements and sense that they are not true. There would be no legal basis, for example, for removing headstones with Christian iconography but not those with the symbols of other religions. There is thus a vicious, unspoken implication in this particular lie (e.g., that it would be OK for those Jews at the ACLU if headstones shaped like the Stars of David were retained, or even those with Muslim crescents, presumably as part of some convoluted Zionist plan to strengthen the hold of Islam in the United States).

And anyone who has actually served in the military anytime in the last few decades, or bothered to talk to those who have while "supporting" them, knows that troops are in no way deprived of their rights to prayer or worship -- especially Christian troops. Over the past several years, in fact, I have heard numerous complaints from soldiers that Bible-thumping commanders have promoted their own extreme fundamentalist religious views on their subordinates.

On a personal note, it bears mentioning that, as a journalist, I have striven most of my adult life to be strictly apolitical. But as an American, a veteran, and a person of faith, I am both revolted that there are so many people willing to spread baseless lies and dispirited that there are so many people eager to accept and propagate them -- and I cannot help but notice that messages bearing such falsehoods almost never originate from the left and almost always come from the right.

Sex in the Lone Star State

Hard to believe it's been five months since I've posted to this site! It is certainly overdue and I need to make sure that much time doesn't elapse again without getting some new content up. I have, however, been pretty busy finishing up my 10th book, Texas Confidential: Sex, Scandal, Murder, and Mayhem in the Lone Star State. It is due for release in July and will be available everwhere (and is already listed on Amazon.com). As indicated by its subtitle, Texas Confidential is divided into four sections, one each devoted to "Sex," "Scandal," "Murder," and "Mayhem," 54 chapters total. Obviously, the one most suited to discussing on this site is Sex, and I have posted below an exlusive first look at the annotated, 13-chapter outline for that section!

1) Texas Vice: Prostitution was a factor in Texas society from its earliest days, well before it became a state or even an independent nation, and the Spanish had noted its presence in San Antonio at least as far back as 1817. (Shown here is the "Blue Book," a 1911 visitor's guide to the San Antonio red-light district.)

2) Miss Hattie’s Bordello: For fully half a century, from 1902 until 1952, one of the best known and most successful businesses in San Angelo was Miss Hattie’s Bordello. It was, in fact, the crown jewel in the local vice district known as the Concho, a neighborhood named for the river along which it was located.

3) Porno, Texas Style: Dozens of well-known pornographic actresses and actors have hailed from the Lone Star State, and some of these have had stories that were particularly sordid or interesting. These include the dissolute Chloe Jones (shown here), whose greatest claim to fame in her short life was receiving $15,000 for performing oral sex on the infamous Charlie Sheen — an act that may ultimately have led to her demise.

4) Walking Tall in the White House: Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the United States, always seemed proud of his womanizing ways. He had sex, inside and outside the White House, with secretaries, aides, and just about any other woman who would agree.

5) The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas: Whether or not it was actually “the best little whorehouse in Texas” is probably a matter of personal opinion, but there really was a brothel in the southeastern town of La Grange that inspired first a Broadway musical and then a film.

6) Going Down to Get Ahead: In 1976, John Andrew Young was on his eleventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives when a woman who had worked for him accused him of pressuring her to have sex with him. Even worse, she said, the married father of five had compensated her at taxpayer’s expense.

7) Paying for It, Lying About It — And Getting Away With It: When Secretary of Housing Henry Cisneros, the former mayor of San Antonio, lied to the FBI about money he paid his mistress, it caused him untold problems, tarnished a presidential administration, and cost the American taxpayers a lot of money.

8) Below the Bench: After being named Federal District Judge of Galveston by President George H. W. Bush, Samuel B. Kent was convicted of lying about sexually harassing two female employees and sentenced to 33 months in prison.

9) Now All Sex is Fine in Texas: For those who are interested, anal and oral sex between consenting adults of all genders is now legal in the State of Texas — but only since 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to tell the state where it could stick its intrusive sodomy laws.

10) A Risky Proposition: Passed in 2005 with the intent of preventing gay relationships, Proposition 2 threatened to accidentally illegalize all marriage in the state.

11) Anna Nicole Smith: Before she was a celebrity of questionable virtue, Texas native Anna Nicole Smith was a woman of no apparent virtue at all.

12) Sex Toys Now Legal in Texas!: Since November 2008, people in Texas have had the right to sell or purchase sex toys of various sorts as desired. Prior to that, however, the Lone Star State explicitly reserved the right to regulate morality and to prosecute people who did not measure up to its lofty standards.

13) Mark of Shame: In 2011, a jury in New Braunfels sentenced local attorney Mark A. Clark to seven years in prison for trying to induce a 12-year-old girl to pose for him in sexy clothing at his office the previous summer.

Who is a Good Samaritan?

One of the teachings in the Bible that I have contemplated increasingly over the past few years is that of the Good Samaritan, as presented in one of the parables of Jesus (Luke 10:25-37).

This is a key teaching but, in part because people have heard it so many times, I think it has to some extent lost its impact, had its meaning obscured and diluted, and been reduced to a children’s story. And, once a child thinks the point of the story is that they need to be nice to their little brother or help their mom around the house, they are probably never going to understand it correctly.

There are, however, two critical points to this parable. One is the importance of being kind to people who are not like oneself. The other is the importance of helping people without the possibility of reward.

Part of the reason people are often confused by the meaning of this parable is likely that they have heard the terms “good” and “Samaritan” used in conjunction with one another so many times that they have subconsciously established a relationship between them. “What is a Samaritan? Well, it must be an especially good sort of person.”

The reason, however, that Jesus used a Samaritan in his parable is that it was an ethnic group that his audience would have found particularly objectionable. To us, the term “Samaritan” is intrinsically meaningless; there a mere 700-or-so members of this group still alive today and, even for those of us who might have known that, their existence almost certainly has no bearing on us one way or the other.

It is just as certain, however, that Jesus never said anything that was meaningless, and if he told that parable today he would therefore have to use a sort of person other than a Samaritan in order for the parable to make sense to his audience. What sort of person would that be?

Well, it might be the type of person for which his particular listeners had the worst or the most ethnic slurs. The one that they told the nastiest jokes about. The ones that they crossed the street to avoid, would have never had as guests in their homes, and would have forbid their children to marry. Today, any particular audience would likely hear the parable of “the good illegal alien.” “The good Arab.” “The good African-American.” Whoever his listeners would be most offended by is who he would insert.

I am probably making it sound as if this teaching would have been very unpopular — and I bet it was! While we revere Jesus and hold him in the highest regard, in his own time many people were really annoyed by him and with what he had to say — to the extent that they were willing to subject him to a mock trial and have him tortured and killed. They did not do that to knowingly fulfill a prophecy, they did it because they hated Jesus and because his words were an affront to them.

Last year, I covered an especially disturbing murder trial. After the defendant was convicted, her defense attorney called about a dozen character witnesses in an attempt to sway the sentence that the jury would impose (and succeeded in this regard). Many of these witnesses characterized the killer as a Good Samaritan, describing the things that person had, apparently selflessly, done to help them. This, however, displays an extreme misunderstanding of the teaching. When you help people that can testify on your behalf in court or serve you in any other way, you are not being a good Samaritan — you are paying the premiums on an insurance policy.

I am certainly not suggesting that helping one’s family members, friends, or neighbors is not a desirable thing. But, if the people you are helping can pay you back in any way, then your actions are meaningless in the context of the parable of the Good Samaritan. To the extent that helping people who can help you in return is a Christian value, it is just as much a Jewish value, a pagan value, a Muslim value, even an atheist value. Jesus and everyone else already knew that Jews helped Jews, Romans helped Romans, gentiles helped gentiles, and no one needed to tell a parable to illustrate that.

So, according to the words of Jesus, there are probably few greater things that one could aspire to be than a “Good Samaritan.” Doing so, however, just might be a lot tougher than you thought.