Jean Marie Garrison Kerr

LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. -- Jean Marie Kerr, 83, was born to Eugene and Izzetta Garrison of Lynchburg, Va., Jan. 28, 1924. She died July 10 at home in Lee's Summit, Mo.

She married John A. Kerr in 1946 while he was stationed with the U.S. Navy in Virginia. They had one son, John A. Kerr Jr.

Jean retired in 1986 after a 22-year career at Disneyland. She started there as a sales clerk and rose to supervise a group of 25 employees.

She leaves a legacy of kindness and generosity toward family and friends. She quit scool at age 13 and went to work to help support her younger brothers and sister. Throughout her adult life, she routinely "adopted" elderly couples, taking them grocery shopping, driving them to doctors appointments and checking on them before and after work. She also volunteered at local senior centers.

She lavished love and attention on her son and her grandchildren, Adam Kerr of Lee's Summit and Victor Kerr of Kansas City.

Besides her grandchildren, she is survivied by her son, John, and his wife, Mary Livingston Kerr, of Lee's Summit.

Burial services were held July 12 at the Lee's Summit Historical Cemetery. 

Impeachment 'Strategery'

   It's almost too painful to contemplate. Democratic leaders in the House have taken impeachment off the table apparently in the belief Republicans are on the ropes and larger majorities in Congress and the White House are theirs for the taking. Pursuing impeachment, they reason, would only raise a stink that might somehow threaten what otherwise looks like a sure bet.

   Speaker Nancy Pelosi further suggests the Democratic agenda of important legislation would be stymied in the turmoil of an impeachment action.

   At the same time, Democrats seem determined to nominate as their presidential candidate in 2008 either the polarizing wife of a polarizing ex-president or an inexperienced black man.

   Meanwhile George Bush continues to live out Dick Cheney's dream of clutching ever more power and further expanding the reach of the American Empire.

   What Democrats in congress apparently fail to grasp is that growing numbers of Americans want the Bush Administration to be held accountable for a lengthy lists of offenses, the worst being the gutting of the Constitution and Bush's fraudulently conceived war of aggression in Iraq. 

   Nothing the Democrats might accomplish legislatively is likely to erase the perception they simply lack the courage to take on the Bush-Rove-Cheney White House. Neither will it quell the outrage building around the notion Bush and his corrupt cronies might be allowed to walk away unpunished for their many crimes against America.

   The ultimate payoff for the Democrats will probably come with the all too predictable outcome of choosing Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama carry the Party's pennant in 2008. They also are likely to learn that cowardice isn't an appealing attribute for a Party asking voters' to put it in power.

The Real Surrender Monkies

Republicans delight in accusing Democrats of cutting and running, hoisting the white flag and other phrases calculated to paint Democrats as the party of surrender.

Yet it was the Republican leadership that succumbed to terrorism and set in motion the actual surrender of America. For it was the Republican leadership that yielded to terrorists' desire to intimidate Americans  and destroy the fabric of their nation. The Republicans accomplished this by capitalizing on our fears to consolidate power and then and dismantling the Bill of Rights one by one.

The resultant Bush empire bears little resemblance to the America he inherited when he was sworn in as president. More and more each day it operates like an empire ruled by an unenlightened emperor.

And we can't blame terrorism for the sea changes that have taken place in America on Bush's watch. Terrorism is an ancient tactic that always has been and always will be available to otherwise powerless groups and nations harboring powerful animosities.

All that changed on 911 was the scope of success of a single attack in a series of attacks attempted over decades by the same folks who've long despised America for its Middle East policies.

So it is Bush and his sleepwalking followers that have surrendered America by handing it over to Big Business power brokers and dismantling the foundational documents that made it what it once was....and sadly is no more.

The Amnesty Bill? C'mon!

Republicans have made an art form of manipulating the language. They've become accustomed to saying anything, no matter how illogical or bereft of facts, and being believed by far too many gullible, distracted, uninformed Americans.

The immigration bill being referred to by its opponents as the amnesty bill is a prime example. It's a bad bill because it's far too harsh and punitive, not because it doesn't include a plan to export 12 million people.

Here's a question for the Lou Dobbs-Pat Buchanan wing of the Republican Party: If people sneak across the U.S. border because their families are starving and there are no jobs where they live, does that make them criminals..."illegal aliens"...or refugees?

A pox on the angry, frightened, authoritarian, bigoted jerks who can't sympathize with these good, hardworking people who typically work twice as hard for half the money lazy, spoiled Americans demand.

They use emergency rooms for health care and can't pay the bills, which then get passed on to taxpayers. They put their children in schools but pay no property tax to support the schools. They take their wages under the table and therefore pay no income tax. They put a strain on the welfare system. They drive down wages for blue-collar workers who used to receive respectable manufacturing industry salaries.

So why, then, don't we expel the poor, white Americans who do these things along with the illegal aliens who keep Lou Dobbs up at night?

A big problems with America is that downtrodden people who desperately need a powerful voice in government have no chance of getting one. It's too risky for our "leaders'" job security to speak for low-level drug users being routinely crushed by the "War on Drugs"....for gays who merely want the rights non-gays enjoy...for victims of a "justice system" that's speeding full circle toward trial by ordeal...and, yes, for poor, hard-working brown people desperately trying to feed and care for their families.

America is a tough-guy nation by any standard. And it obviously prizes strength and toughness over sometimes competing virtues such as wisdom, charity, kindness. But remember these wise words: America is great because it is good; if it ceases to be good it will cease to be great.

Ought there to be a Gouging Law?

The problem with making price gouging a federal crime is this: While initially the law would be used to harness greedy energy barons, it would only be a matter of time before "creative" prosecutors were using it to nail local business people for charging $7 for a service for which they used to only charge $5.

Alberto Gonzales' problems are just a small part of what's wrong with the "Justice Department."

Prosecutors and Wrongful Convictions

Responding to the Duke LaCross case exonerations, Eric Zahnd says prosecutors strain to convict only the guilty and "virtually always get it right."  (Prosecutors want justice, not just a victory, 4/15/07 Kansas City Star B8). For a pretty convincing alternative view, however, every American should read “Win at all costs; Government misconduct in the name of expedient justice,” a series that appeared a few years ago in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It’s online at http://www.post-gazette.com/win/day1_1b.asp

Also, Zahnd was defending prosecutors doing business in state courts, where cases are commonly tested by juries. But what about federal prosecutors, who typically leverage their breathtaking powers and other advantages to “win” all but a relative handful of their cases in plea agreements.

Take, for example, the charge of choice these days for federal prosecutors in

Kansas City

and elsewhere in the nation, mortgage fraud. “Targets” face seemingly insurmountable odds of prevailing, regardless of guilt or innocence or mitigating circumstances.

Armed with the draconian federal sentencing guidelines, prosecutors can plausibly threaten those who are reluctant to confess with three or more decades in prison as the alternative to “light sentences” of “only” a year or two in prison. If that fails, prosecutors often threaten to charge members of the targets’ family. Given the expansive, sweeping nature of fraud statutes, those threats are plausible, too.

Federal prosecutors routinely punish the rare suspects who opt for trials by stacking additional charges against them.

The hearty few who still insist on a trial then face legal costs of up to half a million dollars or more. And while recent scandals have cast new shadows on the FBI and Justice Department, it still falls to defense attorneys to overcome jurors’ TV-drama images of agents and prosecutors as straight-arrow stalwarts of justice.

Not surprisingly then, none of the scores of area citizens charged with mortgage fraud in recent years have gone to trial. And about 96 percent of those charged with federal crimes end up negotiating for the least ruinous sentence possible.

So who really knows how fair or honest or descent federal prosecutors are, since most of their work takes place in interrogation rooms where they enjoy lopsided advantages over suspects even as wealthy and famous as Martha Stewart and as powerful and connected at Scooter Libby.

Beyond that, Zahnd’s comments fly in the face of a 2004 University of Michigan Law School study that reported 328 prisoners were exonerationed by DNA and other exculpatory evidence between 1989 and 2003. It noted another 135 cases in which innocent suspects were victimized by rogue cops and compliant, career-driven prosecutors. It characterized these numbers as “the tip of the iceberg” of the “false conviction” phenomena.

MSNBC Fires Imus?

Further proof, if more were needed, that absolutely everything is about the Benjamins came with the decision Wednesday evening to fire Imus.

Imus had a huge, loyal audience. They've been fired, too.

It's time to mark the victory of political correctness over free speech. It's time to mourn the death of irreverance and edgy humor.

The victim in all this, ultimately, will be the kids with cancer who benefited enormously from the Imus Ranch and the way he used his program to raise money to help them.

MSNBC is a chickenshit organization. And shame on Imus' friends like Ed Schultz of Air America who were on the air Wednesday night saying, yeah, it was right that he be fired.

I only wish we could stop all the silly jabbering about "land of the free." We are becoming a country of, by and for corporate America and whatever "advertising sponsors" declare is OK to say.

The Imus, Rutgers Press Conference

Jesus! Imus got a bit carried away with one of the comedy dialogues they do on his show. It was a cruel thing to say. But he didn't commit murder.

The show is about irreverence. The pattern is for one of the crew to say something "out there" so another member of the crew can protest. It's how it works. It's what every one of the millions of people who watch the show routinely expect each time they tune in.

I can't recall seeing many things more ridiculous than the mellowdramatic press conference the girls baskeetball team put on Tuesday evening.

My god. We have gone completely insane.

Imus Didn't Invent 'Bitch-Ho' Culture

Should Imus be fired? C'mon.

Anybody who tunes in Imus knows what they're getting. Edgy humor is the nature of the program and being edgy poses risks. So how about this: instead of killing a show a lot of people, me included, find entertaining, just change the channel/station. Watch/listen to something else.

What we're seeing is more fake outrage from the oh-so-sensitive among us.

Imus devotes time, money and energy to helping kids with cancer and their families. So I find it somewhat easy to forgive him for saying things that reflect the "bitch and ho" brand of humor/music that was introduced to our culture by mostly black musicians and comedians.

Political U.S. Attorneys and Mortgage Fraud

Buy low, sell high, go directly to jail.

Major newspapers around the country repeatedly regurgitate the Justice Department’s mortgage-fraud story dressed up to look like investigative reporting.

The Kansas City Star rediscovers the horrors of mortgage fraud every couple of weeks or so. It did it again on Sunday's front page in a story headlined "Real Estate and Mortgage Ventures; Deal Maker Cuts a Path of Financial Anguish."

What they don't tell their readers is the other side of the Bush Administration’s ballyhooed mortgage-fraud crusade and its costly implications for ordinary homeowners hoping to someday realize a profit on the sale of their homes.

First, some lenders routinely portrayed as victims in mortgage-fraud stories were more like collaborators with loan originators who ended up going to prison. Most problems leading to fraud convictions could have been eliminated had lenders conducted appraisal reviews and checked (underwritten) loan applications before approving them.

Appraisal reviews are relatively cheap, only $100 or so. Sub-prime lenders routinely use them to insure appraisals haven't been falsely “inflated.” Major lending companies apparently rely instead on federal agents and prosecutors acting as strong-armed collectors after loans fail. Criminal prosecutions typically result in property seizures and restitution, which effectively make carelessly approved loans far less risky...at least for lenders.

One “victim lender” in some recent mortgage fraud cases around the country (ABN Amro of

Holland

) was fined $41 million in 2005 after acknowledging its employees had forged underwriters’ signatures to thousands of loan documents in four states. Any underwriting lapses in the other 46 states were forgiven as part of the settlement. Neither Amro nor the employees involved in the forgeries was criminally prosecuted.

Truth is, lots of lenders were looking the other way and making shaky loans in the hot markets of the late 1990s and beyond for the same reason loan originators were cutting corners and pushing loans: to make lots of money.

Yet only the mortgage brokers, appraisers, real estate agents and closing attorneys have incurred the wrath of awesomely powerful federal agents and prosecutors.

As an aside, most Americans might be stunned to learn how agents and prosecutors use the draconian federal sentencing guidelines and other built-in advantages to make wrongly accused and even innocent “targets” of fraud prosecutions eager to sign plea agreements.

The stakes are terrifyingly high. Federal agents can plausibly threaten virtually every “target” with three or more decades in prison if they don’t “cooperate.” And it's not unusual for targets who end up with home detention or prison sentences of a year or less to have signed plea agreements as an alternative to threats of virtual life sentences.

Legal expenses are ruinous for all but the wealthiest defendants. Fighting the government in a complicated fraud trial typically costs upwards of a half million dollars. And the straight-arrow reputation federal agents and prosecutors enjoyed until recently made going to trial look like an impossibly steep mountain climb.

It helps explain why about 96 percent of mortgage fraud cases are settled out of court. It also makes a sinister farce of the Justice Department’s ratings of U.S. Attorneys based on the number of prosecutions and convictions they achieve.

Targets of fraud charges subjected to the modern equivalent of rubber-hose beatings by agents and prosecutors are then effectively silenced by a plea-agreement clause threatening further punishment for failing to “accept responsibility for the crime.” Presumably that’s why Martha Stewart ultimately went quietly to prison for, in effect, lying to a bureaucrat about a stock trade.

It’s worth remembering, too, the mortgage fraud crusade was a Bush initiative to divert media attention from his own white-collar troubles: his close financial and personal ties to former ENRON CEO Ken Lay and his dumping of Harken Energy stock two weeks before the company tanked. As such, the mortgage-fraud crusade stands as a politically inspired prosecution effort virtually all U.S. Attorneys eagerly embraced.

To be sure, the crusade has taken down some operators who were knowingly committing serious crimes. But the Justice Department's wide, tight net has almost certainly netted as many ordinary business people "working gray areas" or "doing business as usual" as it has actual criminals.

For average home owners, the upshot of sweeping serial prosecutions of nearly everyone engaged in significant property-selling networks in virtually every metropolitan area in the nation could be the loss of thousands of dollars when it comes time to sell.

Appraisers have been thoroughly spooked. So more and more sellers must accept less money for their homes than buyers are willing to pay as appraisals fall short of asking prices.

Too Dumb for Democracy?

So 50 to 80 American soldiers and Marines must continue dying each month into the foreseeable future because Democrats in Congress have calculated, accurately in all likelihood, Republicans could successfully convince voters "supporting the troops" means funding Bush's endless, pointless war. Whew!

From here it looks like America is simply too miserably stupid to sustain a democracy.

keywords: war funding, Bush veto, support the troops, Karl Rove, Bush Congress show-down, trooop withdrawal, redeployment, deadlines, benchmarks

Sen. Hatch for Attorney General?

Why didn't Russert just give Sen. Hatch the keys to the studio and ask him to turn off the lights when he was through talking?

And then to further Hatch's long-time quest for a seat on the Supreme Court or the Attorney General's post? Jesus! Hatch is the worst kind of political hack. Might as well keep Gonzales as to have Hatch as AG.

Russert is so far and balanced it makes my hair hurt.

keywords: Tim Russert, Meet the Press, Sen. Orin Hatch, Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General,

Speedy Alberto Gonzales versus Justice

It would be easier by half for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to lie more convincingly if he could only manage somehow to wipe the smirk off his face while he's doing it.

Alberto Gonzales, lies, torture, constitution, resign, puppet, George W. Bush, justice, smirk

Being Lou Dobbs

If Lou Dobbs were an out-of-work Mexican with a family to feed, what do you suppose he'd do? Go to the immigration office and fill out the forms for a green card? Apply for citizenship across the border in America? Or would he cross the border and work three crappy jobs just to pay rent and buy food?

Another question: If Dobbs were Mexican, would he be the same oh-so-witty, erudite, bon vi vant, man-about-town, gentleman's gentleman raconteur he is now?

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

The Snowman Tony Snow

Tony Snow. So calm. So poised. So surprised that some reporters suspect something is amiss. Everything's cool. Everything's fine. "Hey, what's all the fuss about? Never fear, George W has everything under control. Chill!" See, America? Nothing to worry about. You can go back to sleep now. Night, night.

Are We Smart Enough for Democracy?

That there isn't a powerful political will compelling both impeachment and the suspension of Bush's Folly in Iraq might be an indication Americans either aren't engaged enough or smart enough to sustain a democracy.

Timid Press and Lawrence O'Donnell

So Joe Scarborough does a segment suggesting the timid corporate media has lost ground to political comedians and guess who shows up to dispute that notion. Lawrence O'Donnell, a regular guest of progressive talkers who firmly believe the media let the country down in the build-up to the Iraqi invasion.

O'Donnell's evidence? Well, some media people were killed in Baghdad while imbedded with the military. Another media figure lost an arm while ejecting a grenade from a vehicle.

Scarborough didn't ask what A had to do with B, of course. But I'd love to know how the happenstance deaths of media people covering the war acquits the media at large of turning a blind eye to "Bush's war of aggression.

I don't want to believe O'Donnell is a rank opportunist, willing to provide whatever counterpoint view is needed on shows like Scarborrough's. But that's what it looks like.

President Bush Hates America for its Freedoms

The military is worn out.

The treasury is being bankrupted.

New Orleans is still in ruin.

The Constitution has been gutted.

The Justice Department has been discredited.

The Supreme Court is packed with political hacks.

The Country is bogged down in its worst foreign policy blunder ever.

A third of the country hates, not just disagrees with, the other two-thirds.

Never would I have believed one man, no matter how ignorant or feckless or pliable or deluded or mean-spirited, could do so much damage to America in only six years.

I thought the country was bigger and more durable than it has turned out to be. Bush turned out to be more capable of abject distruction than I imagined.

Hello, Odessa

Hello and thanks to those of you who followed my OA letter about Molly Ivins to this blog site. I hope you'll check in from time to time, respond to the posts or just email me to say hello. I've been spending a lot of time doing research for my book about the federal justice system, "Doo Process; Rare Trials." But I expect to resume posting to this blog several times each week from now on.

Best regards

Comments from original post are included here:


Hi John,
Nancy and I have missed your calm, reasoned editorials and comments. Seems like the background noise is getter shriller; not just in Odessa but elsewhere. Good to know you're still out there.
Darrell
Posted by: Darrell Wells


John, 
You are very much missed in Odessa, I am sure your mailbox will be filled with letters to that effect. The paper is just not as enjoyable as it was, people get bored when you dont have diverse opinions about things, you always gave people something to consider, chew over and see that there are many ways of seeing something..sure your polictical views sometimes made me say..grrrrrrrrrrrrrr, what the heck is wrong with the man. But you always printed the letters disagreeing with you as well as the ones that did. You are very missed. Sure wish you would come back. This paper needs you..
Sidney
Posted by: SidneyAdams


After you left, we still had Molly...(sigh). On the bright side, my students at UTPB seem to be demonstrating more political awareness. The Young Dems Club is up and running. Students are volunteering to escort pregnant women past the anti-choice crowd at Planned Parenthood's clinic in Midland. And the ditto-heads don't go unchallenged when they spout their drivel in class anymore. I'm enjoying my work more and more!
Posted by: Gary


With you and Molly both gone the OA is hardly worth reading. You are both sincerely missed. I have always thought the Odessa Chamber was a political forum for the Odessa Country Club and the Odessa American was it's Fox News. Oh well - that's life in Odessa.
Posted by: Barbara

Shameful Scene in Senate

So. No debate, let alone meaningful action, on whether to support or block the president's "surge" plan.

Instead we are seeing in the Senate the same stew of demagoguery and cowardice that produced the authorization to use force in Iraq...which produced the too-broke-to-fix quagmire we find ourselves in in Iraq.

Demagoguery: Republican senators scuttled debate with a resolution they believed would compel cowardly Democrats to support the surge by linking it to a "support the troops" promise not to cut funds for the war.

Cowardice: Democrats didn't disappoint the Republicans who figured they'd fold.

It was a replay of the tack that compelled cowardly Democrats to vote for the use-of-force resolution by linking it with post-911 patriotism.

The Democrats who voted for it did so because they feared Karl Rove would successfully accuse them of siding with the terrorists. And that, they feared, would cost them their jobs.

Cowardly Democrats can't say that, of course. Admitting cowardice is only marginally less offensive to voters than "siding with the terrorists." So Democrats who've been recanting their force-resolution vote in recent months instead say things like "I supported the war, but the president was incompetent in prosecuting the war" or "I believed the president when he told us the Iraqis had nukes." Nonsense.

Lots, maybe all, of those timid Democrats probably thought the war was a bad idea -- for the convincing reasons expressed by George W's father back in the early 1990s. And, even if Hussein had the weapons George W said he had, not a shred of evidence was put forward to suggest Hussein had any intention of attacking America.

Beyond that, most clear-thinking people see no real difference between "pre-emptive war" and "first-strike war of aggression."

It's sad what we're seeing in the Halls of Congress. Conniving, mindlessly partisan Republicans scheming to protect an incompetent, delusional president and spineless Democrats letting young Americans die as a result of deplorable policies that they have the power to stop. 

Me and Molly Ivins

Of the scores of conferences I sat through in more than three decades as a newspaper editor, only one remains stuck in my head all these years later.

It was memorable because Molly Ivins, the featured speaker, provided a rare glimpse of what  life might be like for the treasured few whose talent, inclinations and quirks inevitably forge careers that reward them simply for being who they are.

There she was. Bold. Profound. Funny. Outlandish. Irreverant. Funny. Profane. Brash. Funny.

She gets to do what she loves and what she's so good at, I remember thinking. She gets to make a living thinking out loud, and she doesn't have to pull any punches or flatter people she detests. What's better than that?

My only other similar glimpse of nirvana came in the post-game coverage after John Elway's Denver Bronchos won their second superbowl. I'm a native of Denver. The Bronchos have been my team since they came into the league.And there he was, maybe the greatest quarterback to ever play the game, basking in adoration from a stadium full of grateful fans on their feet chanting his name. What's better than that? 

I never got to play quarterback in the NFL. But a few years after seeing Molly Ivins at the conference, I got a taste of her lifestyle with a newspaper column of my own.

It wasn't informed by years of reporting Texas and national issues like Molly's was. It lacked her humor. And as editor of the paper I did have to pull my punches.

Even so, my column was inspired by libertarian impulses, like Molly's was. It was anti-authoritarian, in that it frequently jabbed the Bush Administration and other folks in power as did Molly's. Its libertarian take, like Molly's, was widely perceived as being "too liberal for Texas."

It was flattering from time to time to be teamed with Molly Ivins in the minds of readers who lambasted or praised the two of us as kindred spirits.

Fact is, she never knew I was alive. Never even spoke with her. But I sure do miss her. And it's hard to shake the feeling that life is somehow less interesting, less fun without her.

Give 'em hell in heaven, Molly! 

The Malicious Mischief President

The big difference between the president we've got and all the others I've observed or read about is this: the other presidents at least seemed to be trying to do a good job.

What we get from George W. Bush looks more like malicious mischief than good-faith governance.

If he isn't impeached for any of the scores of grievances that could be listed, what would some future president have to do to merit impeachment?

No doubt, part of the Bush legacy will be that he set the bar for impeachment so high no future president is likely to clear it. The only other thing he's likely to be remembered for is giving the country the worst foreign policy debacle in its history.

Posse Comitatus...who needs it?

Against U.S. law to use the military to police civilian populations? No problem.

Most civilian police agencies are barely distinguishable these days from military units.

All that differentiates most police departments from U.S. military services these days is that local cops don't yet have fighter jets, bombers or war ships.

Armaments and force-protection tactics are nearly identical. Devotion to mission (violently subduing suspects) is primary. Public safety too often is secondary. Any mission cops engage in -- even serving warrants for relatively minor violations, for example -- is deemed more important than any harm that might result....kicking in the door at the wrong house, for example, or mistakenly shooting the occupants...or violently throwing innocent bystanders to the ground in "clear and hold" type actions.

Mistakes are tolerated because get-tough politicians, including lots of judges, don't want to be seen as being weak on crime. None of them appear to worry they'll be accused of being weak on civil liberties. So, as I recently heard an off-duty policeman tell his companions at a sports bar, even if the cops screw you over, who are you going to complain to?

The Constitution has lost its footing. Even the president and attorney general seem to have more respect for toilet paper than that tired old document written centuries ago by men who never had to concern themselves with "islamo facists."

Local cops don't yet have sentencing guidelines like the ones federal cops use to coerce confessions. "Confess and get probation or piss us off by making us take you to trial and you're looking at 30 years." And the state courts haven't yet been as eager to write local cops a blank check. But one by one, checks and restraints on "law enforcement" are being stripped away.

More cases will be disposed of through "plea agreements." Trials, which are expensive, time consuming and require the preparation of cases capable of withstanding scrutiny, will continue to give way to highly leveraged "plea negotiations."

The sad, steady march toward a police state continues.