Let me begin with the truth. I am not a lawyer. I am a criminal defense investigator with decades in the trenches. Over the past year I have been assigned to defendants in Los Angeles County who are facing the most serious charges on the books, including murder, and many of them have chosen to represent themselves. Everyone knows justice works better, faster, and more fairly when an accused person has competent legal counsel. The Supreme Court locked that principle into our constitutional fabric in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), which held that even the poorest among us are entitled to counsel at government expense. California extends that logic to investigators because a lawyer without investigative support is fighting blind. Then comes the wrecking ball. Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975), empowered defendants to fire their lawyers and take the wheel of their own defense, no matter how untrained, suspicious, or plainly unfit they may be to navigate a criminal co...

  This isn’t a tale of heroics. It’s a story about luck, timing, and the kind of science that can turn death itself on its heels. In 1968, Uncle Sam decided I should wear an Army uniform. I was soon trained as a light weapons infantryman and given orders to report to the First Air Cavalry in Vietnam. Then fate intervened. Through some bureaucratic twist, one of those “Army miracles,” I was rerouted into on-the-job training as a medical corpsman. That, I quickly learned, was the best job in the Army. I was stationed in Germany. Determined not to wind up hauling trash or scrubbing latrines, I buried myself in medical study. Soon I was assigned to the treatment and surgery room at the largest dispensary in the country, a place where everything from major trauma to childbirth emergencies rolled through the doors. Through a small comedy of errors, nobody realized I wasn’t formally trained. Had they known, they would have shipped me to an ambulance crew. Instead, I found myself stand...

The Democrat Party has morphed back and forth into tyranny since it was created.   Most recently their inviting millions of illegal aliens to invade our nation was an act of treason and sedition.  This massive crime cost Americans and legal immigrants as much as a trillion dollars.   The American working class has been stabbed in the back as the invaders have reset wages to poverty levels.  This has undone so much that labor unions have accomplished for their workers.  American voted to remove these trespassers from our soil.  Since they broke our laws to enter they’re no different than any other enemy combatants.  They simply don’t get American rights and protections.  Any and all physical force needed to remove them is justified.   The problem is the courts and Congress can’t arrive at any workable solution.  Democrats understandably see these invaders as future Democrats that would guarantee a one party democrat America.  We...

  As the silver screen flickers to life with “Nuremberg,” the echoes of that infamous tribunal thunder back into our consciousness, a stark reminder of the legal abyss that swallowed justice whole. This was no solemn American courtroom upholding sacred constitutional principles. No, this was the raw might of the victorious Allies, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the iron-fisted Soviet Union, forging a trial from the ashes of World War II. Yet even among these conquerors, discord raged; they could never unite on how to brand and punish these so-called war crimes. Hear me now: many of these Nazis plunged into unspeakable horrors, their hands drenched in blood, and they reaped the grim harvest they sowed, including the noose’s fatal embrace. My quarrel is not with their guilt, but with the sham of “justice” that condemned them. Crimes were conjured from thin air, laws retroactively birthed, ex post facto abominations utterly forbidden by the American Constitution. The def...

The Glorious Futility of “Technology-Proof” LawAh yes, technology-based laws. The shining dream of bureaucrats everywhere. Because clearly, if you just write the right words on a piece of paper, the laws of physics and human ingenuity will bow in reverence. Let’s pretend for a moment that we’ve achieved the impossible utopia: no one can legally make, sell, or even touch a firearm. Victory, right? Crime solved! Cue the triumphant music! Except, oops, anyone with a few thousand dollars and an internet connection can buy a CNC machine, click a few buttons, and suddenly a shiny new handgun appears like magic. CNC machines, those cold, efficient robots that carve and fabricate with eerie precision, do not care about your laws. They do not care about politics. They just do what they are programmed to do, often better than the humans who write the legislation.  Imagine the radical task of rounding up the 400 million guns that are already in America’s Homes. And if CNCs sound too “high-...

Ah, technology, the modern miracle that lets us talk to anyone on the planet, post our lunch online, and document our own downfall in high definition. With a single swipe, we can send a message to someone halfway around the globe or ruin our lives in record time. Privacy? Who needs that anymore? Apparently not the geniuses who think their phones are invisible to law enforcement. Every call you make leaves a digital fingerprint. Sure, what you say isn’t saved unless someone records it, but the fact that you called, when you called, and how long you talked stays forever. And text messages? Those are like tattoos on the Internet’s hide, permanent, embarrassing, and often regretted. There’s an old saying among cops: You can’t cure stupid, but you can give it a court date. And that’s never been truer than it is today. The vast majority of criminals are walking, talking IQ tests that they keep failing. If they could get what they wanted without committing a crime, they’d still break the l...

  Not because its people were weak, but because their leaders were fools. You’d think that after two thousand years of persecution, pogroms, and a Holocaust, the Jewish people would know better than to trust any politician with their safety. Yet here we are, history repeating itself under the management of bureaucrats who mistake red tape for security. The founders of Israel built a fortress nation from the ashes of genocide. They turned deserts into cities and refugees into soldiers. And then, somewhere along the way, the suits and the speechwriters took over. The same people who could out-think anyone in business, medicine, and science somehow let their own survival instincts get outsourced to government clerks with rubber stamps. Politicians told the people to relax. “We’ll keep you safe,” they said. “No need for weapons. Trust the police. Trust the army. Trust the State.” So ordinary citizens were turned into spectators in their own defense. They could fill out applications, ...

Once again, Donald J. Trump did what every Democrat swore was impossible. He ended the Gaza war and brought the Israeli hostages home, not with weak-kneed “diplomacy” or empty photo ops, but with real leadership, the kind that terrifies bureaucrats and dictators alike. While Trump was out there playing chess, Joe Biden and his Democrat pals were still trying to find the checkers board. Biden’s feckless inaction turned Gaza into a graveyard. Thousands died because Democrats couldn’t decide whether to side with civilization or chaos. They chose confusion, as usual. Hamas ruled Gaza like a cult, choking their own people in a noose of hate and blaming Israel for every drop of blood they spilled themselves. Yet Democrats wrung their hands and held committee meetings while the bodies piled up. Trump walked in, said enough, and delivered results. The same “radical progressives” who once mocked him will now pretend this victory never happened. But facts don’t care about their feelings. Trum...

When it comes to arson investigations, I’m reminded of a Phoenix case where an arson investigator actually testified that his dog was better at detecting accelerants than the state crime lab. The defendant, Barbara Sloan, was dragged through prosecutorial hell because the key witness was a dog. Think about that. To admit this evidence, the handler had to testify under oath about what the dog supposedly told him. That’s not science, that’s comedy. Yet this kind of junk evidence appears to have resurfaced in the Pacific Palisades arson case against 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht. Before this arrest, the fire was blamed squarely on Southern California Edison’s decrepit equipment, Mayor Karen Bass’s inept leadership, and Fire Chief Kristyn Crowley’s department failures. Then suddenly we’re told it was arson. How convenient. With billions in damages and at least a dozen lives lost, everyone on the hook just got an early Christmas gift, a patsy to absorb all the blame. The utility’s negle...

The radical left is not some quirky political movement. It is a serious domestic threat. We can sit back, do nothing and hope their street thugs do not burn down more cities, or we can stop these wannabe Communists cold before they drag the country into more chaos. Military veterans and retired cops, it is time to wake up. Train your neighbors. Build plans. Be ready to back up federal, state, and local law enforcement when the chaos spills over. For now, rules of engagement stay defensive, but do not kid yourself. The threat will escalate, and when it does, the rules will change fast. What happened in Chicago yesterday was disgraceful. Police Superintendent Larry Snelling and Mayor Brandon Johnson let ICE agents come under deadly attack and blocked officers from helping. That is not leadership. That is betrayal. If Chicago police won’t keep the peace in protecting federal agents, then citizens who value law and order must be ready to step in and keep those agents alive by whatever me...

Meet Tilly Norwood, the “it girl” of a future that does not need real people. She is gorgeous, ageless, and built entirely out of code. Her voice is flawless, her accent charming, her face camera ready every hour of the day. She can sing, dance, act, and never ask for a trailer upgrade or a bigger paycheck. She is the new triple threat and she does not even need lunch breaks. Artificial intelligence can already replace every television news anchor. Reporters are harder to swap out for now. Remember Max Headroom? That rubber faced, stuttering digital host was a clumsy first try at replacing human broadcasters. Today’s AI anchors look real, sound real, and can read a teleprompter without blinking, sneezing, or getting a name wrong. Sure, we like to see emotion when breaking news hits, like when Walter Cronkite removed his glasses and wiped away tears announcing JFK’s assassination. But do not kid yourself. AI can fake that perfectly. Programmers already know how to code sadness, outrage...

Since its grand debut nearly 80 years ago, the UN has racked up a spectacular record of failure in its supposed core mission: peacekeeping. Wars keep happening, genocide keeps happening, and dictators still strut across its stage pretending to care. Meanwhile, American taxpayers fork over at least $4 billion a year to keep this diplomatic retirement home running. For what? A bunch of overpaid bureaucrats lounging in prime Manhattan real estate while accomplishing exactly nothing. The UN began with noble intentions. But if phone calls between world leaders achieve just as much, and they do, why keep bankrolling this total shit show? Its presence today is purely symbolic, a costly monument to global inaction. The New York headquarters is crammed with career diplomats wasting oxygen and congratulating each other for meaningless resolutions. It is long past time to take the grown up step: pack up their fancy offices, hand them their eviction notice, and let someone else host the most ...

Renting a car sounds innocent enough, right? You show your license, sign the paperwork, and drive away thinking you’re just borrowing a car, not a set of felony charges. Wrong. Welcome to the modern clown show of rental car companies. I recently had a case where a client was charged with stealing a car from Avis. He thought it was a brilliant idea to represent himself. Newsflash: representing yourself in court is like doing your own brain surgery. It is messy, painful, and almost always ends badly. This nonsense isn’t new. Remember Hertz? I somehow recalled a little “oops” moment where they reported cars stolen that were, in fact, rented. One poor guy, just a tourist in Vegas, got the full Las Vegas moment sans the wedding chapel ceremony. Instead of meeting Elvis he met Cops at gunpoint, face in the asphalt and a vacation memory he’ll never forget! I decided to dig deeper using ChatGPT, and what I found was staggering. This wasn’t one mistake. It was practically company policy. Cleric...

Bill Maher, the master of smug smirks, built a career out of mocking conservatives while sprinkling just enough insults at liberals to look “balanced.” His crown jewel was Politically Incorrect, which was pitched as bold, edgy television but usually looked like a bad dinner party where washed-up celebrities pretended to know politics. The hook? Toss in a few “ordinary people” to make the stars look smart by comparison. Enter me. Maher held auditions in Phoenix, probably because he needed fresh meat far enough from Hollywood that the poor saps like me would work cheap. I showed up, gave my best, and actually made the cut as a finalist. That’s right, I was this close to being the civilian circus act next to D-list celebrities debating topics they’d Googled in the limo. Then ABC axed the show. Just like that, my fifteen minutes of fame evaporated. Later, I ran into Maher at a Hollywood party, where we clinked glasses and lamented the cancellation. He looked annoyed his platform was gone...