Trump's America Endorses Death Penalty for LGBT, Adulterers, Atheists and Blasphemers

Nope, not kidding or exaggerating at all:

PZ  Myers:

A resolution before the UN to condemn executions for apostasy, blasphemy, adultery, and consensual same-sex relations has passed, but Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates voted against it.

Oh. And one more. The United States voted against it, too, all for allowing countries to continue to execute people for being an atheist or a gay person. The United States. My country.

Your fine christian leaders, ladies and gentlemen.  Hand-in -hand with their fellow hateful freakazoids of islam, hinduism, shinto, confuscianism and buddhism.

Unity, Not Compromise

Conservatives used to sneer at liberal "open-mindedness" by pointing out that an open mind lets your brains fall out.  

They were wrong.  But now I say that a too-open tent that lets your enemies in is suicidal.

People who fought for the other candidate in the Democratic presidential primary are not our enemy. 

 

People who want to deny our basic human rights are our enemy.

• People who think it's OK for cops to shoot and kill unarmed black people with impunity are not our allies.
• People who think women are mindless wombs who must be forced to give birth are not our allies.
• People who think it's OK to treat non-cis, non-straight people like criminals or sub-humans are not our allies.
• People who think it's OK to discriminate against somebody else's religion but demand special favors for their own are not our allies.
• People who think workers are drones who don't deserve a living wage or a union are not our allies.
• People who descended from immigrants but think all other immigrants should be deported are not our allies.
• People who think torture works are not our allies.
• People who support the death penalty are not our allies.
• People who think climate change is real but we need fossil fuels so there's nothing we can do about it are not our allies.
• People who think for-profit corporations can operate public services like schools and water and parks better than government can are not our allies.
• People who think rich people need more money are not our allies.
• People who think poor people are lazy, criminal drug addicts are not our allies.
• People who think health care is a privilege reserved for those who can afford it are not our allies.
• People who think the War on Drugs is a great idea are not our allies.
• People who think marijuana is worse than heroin but alcohol is not are not our allies.
• People who think war is the answer are not our allies. 
• People who think that some people shouldn't be allowed to vote are not our allies.

Open the Democratic tent to everyone who shares ALL our values.  And no one else.

Political Animal:

The issues that suddenly divide us? Apparently whether we, as a party, will be unyielding in a woman’s right to choose. Taking a page out of the right’s playbook, Jane Sanders called fighting for that right “political correctness.” I see it as core and just as central to who we are as a party as the bullet points above. We’re apparently arguing over whether economic equality would keep immigrant families from being torn apart by immigration authorities (it wouldn’t), or keep African Americans from being shot in the streets and killed in jail cells (it wouldn’t), or keep Donald Trump from grabbing a woman’s pussy (it hasn’t).

From there Markos discusses where he sees the current divide.

It is interesting to me that these are sometimes referred to as “cultural issues.” But if you are a woman whose economic survival is threatened by a pregnancy, I’m sure that the right to chose can’t simply be relegated to a cultural phenomenon. Same would be true if your family’s survival depends of what an ICE officer decides to do with his time, or if you are a black man in the middle of getting pulled over by a police officer. In all of those instances, these are life and death matters. That is why women and people of color react so strongly to being told that speaking up about them is divisive. It is actually the other sides trampling of their lives that is divisive. We need to be clear about that.

A lot of this discussion was reignited when Bernie Sanders chose to endorse a Democratic candidate who was openly anti-choice. I tend to think about that this way: would I vote for an anti-choice Democrat if the only alternative was the mini-me Trump that is my current representative? You betcha I would! That is what politics is often about in a two-party system.

On the other hand, this morning I read an article from Politico about why the Christian right is so thrilled with Donald Trump’s presidency and have become the one constituency he can rely on. It is all based on what we call “cultural issues” – and that is overwhelmingly about the steps this president has taken (and promised to take) to strip women of their right to chose. So let’s be honest…these are the battles we face right now. Any backing off from fighting them will destroy decades of progress that our predecessors fought for so valiantly.

The challenge Democrats have always faced can be summed up with questions like this:

• Are men prepared to fight for a woman’s right to chose?
• Are white people prepared to fight against racism?
• Are citizens prepared to fight for those who are undocumented?
• Are white collar workers prepared to fight for unions?
• Are the wealthy prepared to fight for the middle class?
• Are those who have good health insurance through their employer prepared to fight for those who don’t?
• Are members of the upper and middle class prepared to fight for those in poverty?
• Are the middle-aged prepared to fight for seniors?
• Are seniors prepared to fight for young people?

I could go on, but perhaps you get the point.

Whenever the answer to one of those questions is “no,” or when the message is sent either directly or indirectly that “my issue is more important than yours,” the divide widens. That is what makes the challenge more difficult for Democrats than Republicans. We can’t afford to play a zero-sum game. We have to care about people who aren’t like us because that is the definition of what “liberal” means.

Marcos ends his piece with a powerful quote from Australian Aboriginal activist Lilla Watson.

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.

But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

The over-arching goal of liberalism is that “your liberation is bound up with mine.” That is what it means to form a coalition. That was Bernice Johnson Reagon’s message way back in 1981 and it is what Rev. William Barber is talking about when it comes to “fusion politics.” It is the only path forward for Democrats.

This Culture of Crime Will Be Stopped Only With the Death Penalty

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Corporations simply cannot be trusted to self-regulate. It will never work because all the incentive is there for them to cheat. They want to profit and if the government isn’t watching, they will cut corners to do so. The auto industry has shown this for decades. Only sticks will work. You have to punish corporations–and specifically corporate executives with massive fines and jail time if you want corporations to obey the law and take safety and pollution seriously. One estimate has the Volkswagen emissions leading to approximately 106 deaths in the United States. VW will be punished for this, but if we want to stop other companies and other industries from similar evasion of regulations, we simply have to beef up our regulatory powers and funding for regulatory agencies significantly. Otherwise, other versions of this will happen again and again.

Today in Satirical Headlines That Are Probably True

From Firedoglake:

- Ohio Replaces Lethal Injection With Humane New Head-Ripping-Off Machine

Tell me there aren't repug state legislators googling "Head-Ripping-Off Machines" right now.

Here's a Death Penalty I Can Justify

Firedoglake:

- Vietnam has a harsh response to bankers who engage in illicit activities: the death penalty.

What Parts of This Policy Bother Freakazoids?

Trick question!  The answer is none of them! This is exactly what the Dominionists want right here in America, except using Jeebus as the excuse instead of Allah.

PZ Myers:

Raif Badawi has already been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes, and now he has been recommended to be be brought before a high court on a crime that carries the death penalty. All for having a remarkable resemblance to Tom Hiddleston.

No, wait, it’s for an equally trivial crime: he founded a blog network that is critical of political and religious figures, he disobeyed his father (he is 31 years old), and he does not believe in god. Ed Brayton better watch out.

One of his great crimes is that he once wrote about Valentine’s Day, a prohibited holiday in Saudi Arabia.

This is what theocracy takes us to. And Saudi Arabia is one of our allies? Shouldn’t we have better taste in friends?

 UPDATE, from Divine Irony: He's been sentenced to death.


As will all American atheists, gays, unmarried women, uppity minorities and children who talk back to their parents, if the freakazoids get their way. That's the great thing about the bibble: there's an excuse in there to kill just about anybody.

The Death Penalty in Black and White

It rarely gets this blatantly obvious.

Brad Friedman:

Reuters in 2008:

The parole board in the state of Georgia spared a convicted killer from execution hours before he was due to die by lethal injection on Thursday and commuted his sentence to life in prison.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles made its decision less than three hours before Samuel David Crowe, 47, was to be executed, according to a spokeswoman for the state's prisons.

"After careful and exhaustive consideration of the requests, the board voted to grant clemency. The board voted to commute the sentence to life without parole," the parole board said.

...

In March 1988, Crowe killed store manager Joseph Pala during a robbery at the lumber company in Douglas County, west of Atlanta. Crowe, who had previously worked at the store, shot Pala three times with a pistol, beat him with a crowbar and a pot of paint.

Crowe pleaded guilty to armed robbery and murder and was sentenced to death the following year.

"David (Crowe) takes full responsibility for his crime and experiences profound remorse," according to Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an advocacy group, who welcomed the board's decision.

The BRAD BLOG last night, after the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles had denied clemency to a different prisoner:

Despite 20 years asserting his own innocence; 7 of 9 witnesses having recanted their testimony, claiming police coercion; 3 jurors in the death penalty case having filed affidavits retracting their votes for "guilty" verdict; the murder weapon used in the killing of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail never having been found; no physical evidence tying Davis to the murder; hosts of luminaries from Republicans Bob Barr and Michael Steele to Democrats like President Jimmy Carter to a former GA Supreme Court Justice to a former FBI Director and many more calling for him to be spared; and after 3.5 hours of secret deliberation by the U.S. Supreme Court who temporarily reprieved his execution at the last moment before denying a stay without explanation, Davis was killed tonight by the big government state of Georgia at 11:08pm ET.

In his last words, according to witnesses to the execution, Davis spoke to the family of Officer MacPhail in the front row, and told them again he was sorry for their loss, but that he was innocent, did not have a gun, and did not kill their "son, father, brother."

Other than the confessed murderer being spared, and the man who maintained his innocence for 20 years being killed, I wonder if the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles saw any other significant differences between the cases of Samuel David Crowe and Troy Anthony Davis.

I've never been anti-death penalty, though I'm not really pro, either. But seeing these two cases - these two images - juxtaposed says it all.

Illinois Defies the Bloodthirsty Austerity Vultures

Chicago may be about to commit municipal suicide by electing Rahm Emmanuel mayor, but the rest of the state is more than making up for it.

The Land of Lincoln is taking bold steps to prove both the capital punishment mouth-breathers and the plutocratic austerity vultures wrong.

David Dayen at Firedoglake:

Fifteen states agree with me, and do not give the option for the death penalty to their prosecutors. A sixteenth, Illinois, is about to join them.

Illinois was poised to become the first state since 2009 to abolish the death penalty after the state Senate approved the ban on Tuesday and sent it to Democratic Governor Pat Quinn for his signature.

The Senate vote came after House approval late last week. The Senate vote was 32-25.

Illinois has not executed anyone for more than a decade after former Republican Governor George Ryan imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in January 2000 following a series of revelations that people had been sent to Death Row who were later found to be innocent.

Illinois is also refusing to let hysterical cries for austerity destroy its economy and its residents.

From Zandar:

California has chosen to cut, cut, cut to balance its budget (and still faces a huge hole.) Illinois on the other hand is still able to raise revenues and they just did in a huge way.

Many states are struggling with anemic revenues and the prospect of an end to additional federal funds, but Illinois faces a budget deficit of as much as $15 billion, owes some $8 billion in unpaid bills to social service agencies, doctors, dentists and others, and is receiving mounting signs of worry from bond investors.

Under the legislation, the income tax rate would, at least temporarily, rise to 5 percent from its current rate of 3 percent. Lawmakers had talked about an even steeper increase, but set that aside as the hours went by and the debate grew increasingly emotional. The rate for corporate taxes would rise to 7 percent from its current rate of 4.8 percent. As part of the deal, the state’s spending growth would be limited from one year to the next over the next four years.

Gov. Patrick J. Quinn, a Democrat whose signature would be needed to make any rate increase final, has indicated in the past he believes a tax increase is necessary.

The tax hike irked Republicans in Springfield, the state capital, and business owners around the state. Again and again, Republicans argued that the state needed to make significant spending cuts to solve its deficit before it even began considering a tax increase.

On the Statehouse floor on Tuesday night, Roger L. Eddy, a Republican representative, said that lawmakers were essentially “making up for our mistakes” on the backs of taxpayers, while one state senator called it a “train wreck.” Representative David Reis, another Republican, warned of the “sucking sound” he imagined would now be heard of businesses leaving the Illinois.

The fallout of the vote remains to be seen: Will Illinois businesses really now flock to neighbors Wisconsin and Indiana as opponents have suggested? Will the increase impress investors and quickly improve the state’s sunken bond rating? And, perhaps most of all, will the change be enough to turn around the financial woes of a state where the deficit has grown to the size of half of the annual general fund?

We'll see. Republicans who forced California into draconian cuts say they had no choice. Illinois Democrats who forced a major raise in the state's income tax said they had no choice either. We're about to see a laboratory of democracy experiment in action.

Which state will recover first, if either?

I'm betting on the state that is making reality-based decisions that reflect decades of economic success from progressive taxation.

What's your secret, Illinois? What are you feeding your state legislators? And how fast can we get emergency shipments of it to Frankfort?

Public Defenders to Jack Conway: Fuck You

So Jack "an invisible sky wizard does too run the Department of Homeland Security!" Conway, sucking wind in the U.S Senate primary, runs up to the podium waving his arms and yelling "oooh, oooh, I've got it - let's kill these guys!"

About a minute and a half later, the lawyers at the Department of Public Advocacy - where they do actual courtroom law protecting the Rule of Law, the Bill of Rights and oh, yeah, people's lives and liberty - announced "Not so fast, Fry-Boy."

From the Herald-Leader:

Attorney General Jack Conway wants Gov. Steve Beshear to set execution dates for three men on Death Row.

In a statement, Conway said that Ralph Baze Jr., Robert C. Foley and Gregory L. Wilson had exhausted all of their appeals and it was time for the families of their victims to have closure.

"Each has exhausted all of their 'matter of right' appeals in state and federal courts," Conway said, including reviews by the Kentucky Supreme Court and a federal habeas corpus review. "There are no remaining legal impediments to the finality of these death sentences," he said.

"The horrific crimes these men committed have taken an enormous toll on the victims’ families, for whom this may bring closure," he said.

Public Advocacy's response:

Public Advocate Ed Monahan and Louisville Metro Chief Public Defender Dan Goyette call for a moratorium on executions in Kentucky until the American Bar Association (ABA) objectively reviews the fairness, accuracy and reliability of Kentucky’s system for imposing and administering the death penalty. Today, Goyette and Monahan sent a request to the Governor asking that he not sign any execution warrant while the study is being conducted and a similar request to the Attorney General asking that he withdraw his three requests for execution warrants he made today until the review is completed and the ABA Assessment Team issues its report.

Public Defenders are appointed to represent the vast majority of those who are currently on Kentucky’s death row. Defenders play a critical role in ensuring full due process of law for their clients. There are individuals on death row who are severely mentally ill, who had lawyers that were ineffective, and who had trials in which serious errors occurred that remain uncorrected.

“There are serious and disturbing questions about the convictions of a number of inmates facing execution, particularly in those cases that were tried years ago by unqualified lawyers lacking adequate resources,” Dan Goyette said. “We should not proceed with executions until this independent evaluation is completed and we are assured that due process has been fully and properly provided in each and every case. To do otherwise would cast significant doubt on the fairness and propriety of imposing the ultimate punishment. We all have a fundamental responsibility to avoid at all costs the possibility of making an unjust and irreversible mistake.”

Since 1967 Kentucky has executed three people (two were volunteers) and three KY Governors have granted clemency to five people sentenced to death. Since 1976, 92 death sentences have been returned in Kentucky state courts. Currently, there are 35 people on KY’s death row. Of the 50 KY capital cases that have exhausted review by the Kentucky Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, 42 have been reversed.

“The error rate in KY capital cases over the last 33 years is stunning and unacceptably high,” said Ed Monahan. “It is compelling evidence that indicates the system is broken. This excessive rate of error shows that the system cannot get it right. A moratorium will prevent the execution of an individual whose conviction and death sentence has been imposed by an unfair and arbitrary system.”

The ABA Assessment Team has begun the process of reviewing the way the death penalty in Kentucky has been administered in light of established national standards. A number of other respected Kentucky lawyers have today also called for a moratorium while this study is underway.

Read the whole thing.

Oh, Stop Screaming - the Pain's Not "Severe"

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. But I don't believe you have to be an expert in Constitutional Law to understand what "cruel and unusual" means and to see the logical consequences of judicially approving the infliction of pain.

Today's Supreme Court decision upholding Kentucky's lethal-injection death penalty does far more than put state executions back on track.

It confirms the idea that there's an acceptable level of pain that American officials can inflict on prisoners without fear of violating Constitutional principles.

This is a philosophy of justification that owes far more to Abu Graib than to Madison and Hamilton.

Patriotic Americans still hoping to establish through the courts that the torture and denial of habeas corpus practiced at Guantanamo are un-Constitutional depravities unbecoming a Democracy should despair at this decision.

Seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices have just announced that American officials inflicting on prisoners pain that falls just short of "severe" is perfectly fine with them.

That Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas align themselves with the evil depravity of Smirky-Darth is no surprise, but for Kennedy to join them is a disappointment. And the concurrence of Breyer and say-it-ain't-so! John Paul Stephens is devastating. Only Ginsberg and Souter dared to defy the torture-loving perverts among their Brethren.

I'm not saying that lethal injection constitutes torture. I'm saying that when the Supreme Court starts pronouncing on levels of acceptable pain, their justification of torture can't be far down the road.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.