Capital Punishment

America And The Death Penalty: In The Company Of Iran, North Korea, China, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria!

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American use of capital punishment puts this nation into company with other nations that are generally looked upon as disgraceful and anti democratic, including Iran, North Korea, China, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

In Europe, only one nation allows capital punishment–Belarus!

In Latin America, only Cuba allows capital punishment!

No democracy, except Japan in limited circumstances, allows executions.

This nation is allied with brutal dictatorships in allowing execution, most of it occurring in Southern states that historically have deprived people of their rights and taken their lives, while at the same time promoting “religious values”, a total hypocrisy!

America should be, and in many corners, is indeed in mourning, not just for Troy Davis, but for the many cases of injustice that we know have led to the deaths of innocent people, because of the mad blood lust for “law and order”, even if it victimizes mostly poor people, both white and minority!

The use of the death penalty in a nation that claims to have morals and ethics is a sign of how sick this nation is, and the thought that George W. Bush and Rick Perry could brag about the number of inmates killed in Texas is enough to make one want to vomit! Some achievement, rather than educating people and providing them with health care, so they can have long, enriched lives!

The Troy Davis Case: Capital Punishment On Trial, And The Supreme Court Disgraces Itself!

Ronald 1 Comment

The decision of the US Supreme Court to allow the execution of Troy Davis by the state of Georgia tonight is a legal travesty, and makes the Supreme Court look more than ever what it is rapidly becoming–a total disgrace!

It is shocking to the author that the decision of the Court was unanimous! How could it be that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan could sit by and allow themselves to be bullied by Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, and that Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy could not see the virtue of allowing a lie detector test; would not consider that a number of prison wardens called for clemency because of doubts about the evidence, none of which was physical and with no gun found; would not take into account that seven out of nine witnesses in the trial recanted; would not listen to five jurors in the case who said they regret their decision to convict and give the death penalty; and would not listen to a witness who said one of the other witnesses confessed that he had been the murderer of the police officer in Savannah, Georgia, in 1989!

This execution puts capital punishment on trial, and it is barbaric that a country that prides itself on democratic virtues and values allows the death penalty when there is evidence so often that innocent people are being executed, many of them minorities in Southern states that have always been “excellent” in utilizing the death penalty against the racial minority that they exploited in slavery and segregation! This is an enhanced way to utilize racism and justify it!

One would like to believe that the “Old South” has passed into history, but actually it has NOT in any sense! Not only do Southern states use the death penalty very often, but also they seem to revel in the fact that seven of the “Old South” states–all but Virginia, Florida, Georgia and Texas–joined with border states Kentucky and West Virginia, to be nine of the ten poorest states, according to the US Census of 2010!

The “Old South” is great at executing people, and keeping them ignorant and in poverty, and by no coincidence, they tend to be RED states, those that tend to vote Republican!

Is this something the GOP should be proud of? And is it conscionable that Republican candidates tend to ignore poverty, never mentioning the disgrace of it in 21st century America, and this including millions of poor whites, as well as minorities?

This is a sad moment for America, but hopefully, it will start up the fight to end capital punishment as against American democracy, making us look terrible in the viewpoint of our friends, European countries, that do not allow the death penalty, and do just fine without it!

The Republican Culture: Death, Hate, Selfishness, Lack Of Compassion!

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The Republican Party, in its mad dash to the far Right with Texas Governor Rick Perry in the lead, is demonstrating its ugly side, arguably the most despicable agenda since the creation of the party in the Civil War era!

Always a major backer of corporations and the rich upper class, the party always maintained some sanity, and while not promoting the social safety net as a principle, we saw members of the party in different northern states and in Congress who worked in unison with Democrats to support the Progressive Era reforms, the New Deal, and the Great Society, and reforms under Richard Nixon.

The one time the party went this far to the Right, they suffered a massive defeat under Barry Goldwater a half century ago. When Ronald Reagan became President on much of the Goldwater agenda, he managed to work across the party lines and take away the rough edges of the right wing, mouthing support but not pursing much of their agenda.

But now with the advent of the Tea Party loonies, the party is adopting a new culture, that should sicken any civilized, decent American citizen!

Unfortunately, as witnessed at the recent Republican debates in California and Florida, there are many Americans who fail to act and believe in a dignified manner of behavior!

Now death, in the form of capital punishment endorsement and advocacy of letting people without health insurance die, has been endorsed enthusiastically by right wing Republican whackos!

Now, hate of illegal immigrants and their children, and wishes to deny them basic education, health care and ability to work and contribute to American society, is endorsed wholeheartedly!

Now, selfishness, including desire to destroy labor organizing, and lack of respect and appreciation of the contributions of public workers, including police officers, firefighters, prison guards, teachers, nurses, librarians, social workers and others is endorsed!

Lack of compassion for the poor, the sick, the disabled, the elderly, and for minority groups in America is hailed as a virtue!

One day, when this sickness in the psyche of the Republican Party is finally expunged, we will look back on this period with shock and regret, and wonder why a major political party would allow itself to engage in such insane behavior!

The great Republican heroes of the past–Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan–would be shocked and embarrassed by what the party has allowed itself to become!

But even the lesser Republican Presidents–William Howard Taft, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush–would, and in the case of the two Bushes, are very disturbed at what their party has become. This is the reason why Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney are seen as mainstream by the Bush family, and why they are clearly against the horrible message of Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann!

Even the great heroes of the conservative Republican movement in the past–Robert Taft and Barry Goldwater–were not as ugly as these Tea Party Republicans are today!

Hopefully, this poison in the political debate going on, will be soundly defeated in 2012, by sane, intelligent people, who realize what the Tea Party control of the GOP has done is to make America far worse off than it was just nine months ago when they took power in the House of Representatives and declared war on basic values of decency!

Rick Perry: Dangerous For The Republican Party And America’s Future! He Must Be Stopped!

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Texas Governor Rick Perry may have flubbed a bit in his debate performance in Tampa on Monday, but he remains the front runner for the Republican Presidential nomination as of today, and it is looking more likely that he really could end up as the nominee of the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan!

This is dangerous for the party and the nation, as Perry has many shortcomings, as well as dangerous aspects in his background and viewpoints!

For the party, Perry represents a threat to the Establishment Republicans, the middle, the mainstream of the party in the past, and gives power to the extremists of the Tea Party Movement!

With Jon Huntsman apparently floundering, even though the author feels he came across very well in the past two debates, the only hope in the field of candidates is Mitt Romney, with all of his shortcomings and faults, but it will not be easy to overcome the Tea Party takeover of the party!

One could say that if the party nominates Perry, they will lose, and that will be, therefore, only their problem as to how to recover from a disastrous defeat in 2012.

But with the economy so bad right now, the idea is starting to develop that maybe, just maybe, Barack Obama COULD lose in 2012, giving us President Perry, and possibly a Tea Party Congress, enough to make one hysterical and give one nightmares, and the purpose here is NOT to joke, but be very serious!

Were Perry to win, we would face the following, with and without a Tea Party majority in Congress:

1. We would have a President who is not very smart, not very curious to learn, not open to new ideas, very rigid in his right wing beliefs, unwilling to compromise, arrogant, cocky, with a swagger about him, and not willing to be transparent in his activities in the White House!

2. We would have a complete takeover of right wing conservatism, leading to total deregulation, cutting of taxes even further on the rich, attempts to destroy several government agencies or make them ineffective in their work, and resulting in widespread corruption due to “cronyism”!

3. We would have a President who would be arrogant toward the outside world, create crises and possible interventions in other countries, and boast about “American exceptionalism”, undermining relations even with our allies and friends around the world.! The neoconservative view of foreign policy would dominate.

4. Civil Liberties would be violated worse than any President in modern times, and civil rights enforcement for Latinos, African Americans, women and gays would end!

5. We would see a theocracy develop, as Rick Perry would constantly invoke Jesus Christ, talk about God and religion more than any President, including Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush, and promote as much combination of church and state as one can imagine might happen.

6. The economy would NOT get better, and instead we would have more poverty, deprivation, and human suffering, similar to the reality in Texas under Governor Perry.

7. War would be declared on environmentalists, and scientists, in the name of industry and religion, undermining our education system nationally, as well as our health care programs.

8. Justice and fairness in the law would be undermined, as capital punishment would become a virtue, and the courts, including the Supreme Court, would become the most right wing in American history since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.

9. The goal of a Perry Administration would be the destruction of Social Security, Medicare, and all other social safety net programs, and basically the repeal of the Progressive Era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, and the other reforms under Richard Nixon in the early 1970s.

10. Fundamentally, America would go back a full century to the Gilded Age, with the total or near total repeal of the 20th century, which made America the envy of the free world!

This is serious stuff here, no joking, and all efforts must be made in the Republican Party to defeat Rick Perry, and if that fails, and even if it succeeds, do everything necessary to reelect Barack Obama as the only hope for moving forward in the second decade of the 21st century!

Poverty And Health Care Denial: The Disgrace Of American Democracy!

Ronald 1 Comment

New statistics show that America, the ideal democracy in many people’s minds, has the horrific record of all time highs in number of people mired in poverty, and the number of people who lack health insurance coverage.

The Census Bureau reports that 15.1 percent, the highest since 1983, are in poverty, with a large percentage of these being children.

46.2 million, up 2.6 million since 2009, are in poverty, the number increasing because of the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, 49.9 million, an all time high, lack any health insurance coverage.

The concept that about one out of six Americans are in poverty and lack health care is a disgrace on American democracy!

How can we talk about American “exceptionalism” with such statistics?

How can the Republican Party act as if there is no crisis in America, and that instead they condemn those who are down and out to perpetual poverty, and yet they can sleep at night?

And how can a nation where so many talk about being “religious” can we see the hard hearted attitude of so many Right Wing Christians toward these poor people, and see cheers in the debate last night over the idea that a person without health insurance should NOT be given necessary health care, that it is not the responsibility of all of us to help those in need, and instead let that person die? And this from those who fight against abortion rights, and yet accept and cheer capital punishment!

The hypocrisy of so called “religious” people in the midst of poverty and deprivation is mind boggling!

The Debate Audience In Tampa: What Are We Becoming? Shame Over Their Behavior!

Ronald 2 Comments

In watching the CNN-Tea Party debate in Tampa, Florida, last night, beyond the points made by the potential GOP Presidential candidates, one characteristic stood out, a very ugly characteristic!

The audience at the debate demonstrated just how nasty, mean spirited, self centered, and lacking in humanity the Tea Party crowd have become!

It has become a disease in America, if one wants to believe that the Tea Party movement is spreading far and wide, which the author hopes is NOT the case!

Witness the following:

1. When Rick Perry brought up the idea of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke being treasonous, the crowd cheered wildly.
2. When the subject of a 30 year old male who chose not to have health insurance coverage and then is in the hospital for six months, the reaction of the audience is to applaud the idea that he should not be put into intensive care to save his life, that he should die, that there is no responsibility for others in medical crisis.
3. The hatred of the audience toward illegal immigration, and readiness to destroy Social Security and Medicare was obvious.
4. The refusal of the audience to consider that Ron Paul had some good points about our foreign policy causing a lot of our woes financially, and instead booing him, was disturbing.
5. There were many other moments of poor behavior by the crowd, too numerous to list here.

But beyond all this, the fact that the audience at the Reagan Library debate last week cheered and applauded the fact that Rick Perry had been responsible for the execution of more prisoners than any governor in history, was also very disconcerting, as if the death penalty is the answer, when it is well known that mistakes ARE made and have been made in Texas and elsewhere, with denial of new evidence, refusal to recognize that some testimony against some defendants is unreliable, and that the death penalty is unevenly utilized against minorities as compared to whites!

If this is the country we are becoming, the equivalent of the Tea Party mentality, this nation is in deep trouble, and we have lost our common decency and humanity!

But the thought is that this is a minority view, which demands full commitment to fight and defeat this poison, this cancer, in our society, before it becomes endemic!

Rick Perry: An “Enviable Record” Of Accomplishments and Beliefs?

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Does Rick Perry have an “enviable record” of accomplishments and beliefs as Governor of Texas for the past eleven years?

Education–The absolutely worst record of educational accomplishments and graduation rate from high schools, and a massive budget cut this year,

Health Care–One out of four Texans have no health care coverage at all, not seen as a problem by the Governor.

Capital Punishment–The highest rate of executions of any Governor, including many questionable cases of miscarriage of justice.

Social Security–Calling the program a “Ponzi Scheme”, totally off the wall, and undermining its future by scaring young people who are paying into the system, along with those getting it and near to eligibility for it.

Employment–Bragging about the most jobs created, without revealing most are minimum wage or below, or are government or military jobs, which he has no right to give himself credit for.

Immigration–Claims that there is a crisis on the border, when statistics show there is NOT a crisis.

Much more could be delineated, but the point is clear: Rick Perry is himself a “Ponzi Scheme”, a charlatan, a liar, a phony of major proportions!

Texas Governor Rick Perry: A Disgrace Who Should Be Removed From Office NOW!

Ronald 1 Comment

Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry has been governor longer than any other in the United States, and is seeking another four year term in 2010, with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison challenging him in the March 2010 primary.

Already notable for his statements supporting secession of Texas from the Union this past spring, and for many idiotic statements and actions in his nine years as Governor, Perry has now reached the stage where he should be removed from office immediately, as he is involved in a coverup of the execution of a prisoner in 2004.

This prisoner was convicted, in less than an hour, of committing arson which killed his three young daughters, an accusation that he denied right up to his execution in 2004, with the governor refusing to grant a delay or commutation due to widespread evidence that he was totally innocent and that arson had not taken place.

A state commission was about to reveal new evidence and proof that an innocent man had been executed five years ago, a political threat to Perry, so he fired three members of the commission, and appointed a political lackey to head the group, which now will indefinitely delay any report.

This is corruption at the highest level, and there should be an outcry demanding that Perry be removed from office immediately. Also, a civil legal action should be brought against the governor, holding him responsible for a wrongful act of knowingly having a prisioner executed when the evidence was clear cut that he was not guilty of the crime he was convicted for.

Texas has a reputation of being the leading “execution state”, and this outrage should promote a movement to suspend, if not end, the death penalty in Texas and elsewhere as “cruel and unusual punishment”, with too many errors occurring in the justice system and leading to the tragedy of innocent people being killed by the state.

Perry is an embarrassment to his state and to the whole concept of justice, and he needs to be held accountable for his corrupt behavior!