Posts by Liliana Segura

Liliana Segura is a staff writer and editor of AlterNet's Rights and Liberties and World Special Coverage.

Is It Cruel and Unusual to Sentence Teens to Die In Prison?
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on November 9, 2009 at 11:50 AM.

Editor's Note: This is an excerpt of a longer article on juvenile life without parole.

Sara Kruzan was 11 years old, a middle school student from Riverside, Calif., when she met a man -- he called himself GG -- who was almost three times her age. GG took her under his wing; he would buy her gifts, take her and her friends rollerskating. "He was like a father figure," she recalls.

Despite suffering severe bouts of depression as a child, until then, Kruzan was a good student, an "overachiever" in her words. But her mother was abusive and addicted to drugs; as for her father, she had only met him a couple of times. So, more and more, GG filled in.

"GG was there -- sometimes," she said. "He would talk to me and take me out and give me all these lavish gifts and do all these things for me …" Before long, he started talking to her about sex, giving her his expert advice on what men were really like and telling her that she didn't "need to give it up for free."

Unbeknownst to her, GG was grooming Kruzan to be a prostitute. When she was 13, he raped her. "He uses his manhood to hurt," Kruzan recalls, "Like, break you in. I guess."

Kruzan worked for GG as a prostitute for three years. The hours were 6 p.m. until 5:30 or 6 in the morning. She and "the other girls" would come back and hand over their earnings to him. "He was, like, married to all of us I guess," she says. " … Everything was his."

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CNBC Reporter: NYC Marathon Winner Not Really American, "He's Like a Ringer You Hire to Work a Couple Hours at Your Office"
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on November 3, 2009 at 12:30 PM.

Look out, Pat Buchanan: Here comes Darren Rovell, CNBC sports reporter, and nativist extraordinaire!

Coming off of Pat's latest, "Traditional Americans Are Losing Their Country," Rovell is here to tell you that, no matter what the news media claim about that American runner who won the New York City Marathon last weekend -- the first in over 25 years! -- first place finisher Meb Keflezighi, is not, in fact, a real American.

Writing at ColorLines, blogger Jorge Rivas notes that Rovell has published a new column: "Marathon's Headline Win is Empty."

"It's a stunning headline: American Wins Men's NYC Marathon For First Time Since '82" Rovell writes, "Unfortunately, it's not as good as it sounds."

The man who won the marathon is Mebrahtom Keflezighi, who immigrated to the U.S. when he was 12, became a citizen and later trained in youth, college and professional level distant running programs. But from the moment Keflezighi won the marathon this past Sunday, the dispute erupted online: Should Keflezighi's win count as an American victory?

According to Rovell, the answer is a definitive "No."

Meb Keflezighi, who won yesterday in New York, is technically American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998, but the fact that he's not American-born takes away from the magnitude of the achievement the headline implies …

Given our disappointing results, embracing Keflezighi is understandable. But Keflezighi's country of origin is Eritrea, a small country in Africa. He is an American citizen thanks to taking a test and living in our country."

Got that, naturalized citizens? No matter how long you've been here, no matter how legal your status, never forget that this is not your country.

As Rivas points out, "Keflezighi did exactly what anti-immigrant reform activists say immigrants should do. He came to the U.S. twenty-two years ago legally as a refugee and became a 'naturalized' citizen a few years after. So even when immigrants of color enter the U.S. 'the legal way' they're still not welcome."

Or at least, not fully welcome. If the United States is a corporate workplace, in Rovell's mind, these people are sort of like the part time temps:

"Nothing against Keflezighi, but he's like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league."

Emphasis mine.

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In the U.S., Veterans Come Home From War Only To See Relatives Executed By the State
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on October 27, 2009 at 1:16 PM.

Editor's note: Reginald Blanton was executed on Tuesday, Oct. 27th, pronounced dead at 6:21pm.

28-year-old Reginald Blanton is scheduled to die tonight in Texas, despite the very real possibility that he is innocent. This morning, his brother, Andre Bios, appeared on Democracy Now! to discuss his brother's impending execution.

Bios is an Iraq vet; he served in the 1991 Gulf War. Speaking to Amy Goodman and Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Bios described the cruel irony of having devoted himself to supposedly defending democratic ideals on behalf of his country, only to have his brother sentenced to die at the hands of the state:

Amy Goodman: Andre, you’re about to visit your brother. Are you going to be, if in fact he is executed, one of the witnesses to the execution?

Andre Bios: Yes, I am. It was one of the things that I did not want to do, but he has been requesting over and over again for me to be there ...

And the reason why I didn’t want to witness what was getting ready to happen to my brother is because it’s like a slap in my face from my own country, you know? His constitutional rights were violated, but yet I can go overseas and fight in another country to uphold peace, liberty, for them to have, but I can’t uphold peace, liberty and equality for my own brother.

Years ago, I had the opportunity to work alongside Monique Matthews, also a veteran, and the sister of Ryan Matthews, an African American teenager who was sentenced to death in Louisiana for a crime that he didn't commit. Ryan was exonerated in 2004, but I can still remember the sense of betrayal in his sister's voice as she described the hypocrisy -- and the racism that led to his wrongful conviction.

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Anti-Dobbs Movement Overshadows CNN's "Latino In America" Special
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on October 23, 2009 at 2:30 PM.

Pobre CNN.

The cable news network hoped its "Latino In America" special -- a two-night "journey into the homes and hearts of a minority group destined to change America" -- would replicate the success of its Black In America series last year, which was watched by more than 13 million viewers. Instead, the series has been eclipsed by a growing controversy over CNN's resident xenophobe, Lou Dobbs, and an expanding movement to get him booted off the air.

Last Sunday, a headline in the New York Daily News read: "CNN's Ramping it's 'Latino in America,' But it's Getting Ruined By Lou Dobbs."

The report quoted Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a national pro-immigration reform group, who said, "the truth is that CNN already airs a nightly program on Latinos in America. It's called 'Lou Dobbs Tonight', and for 260 hours a year CNN provides air time for anti-immigrant distortions and anti-Latino propaganda."

A couple days later, the Associated Press caught wind of the fact that the much ballyhooed special -- it has its own Facebook page -- virtually ignored "its own commentator ... whose persistent advocacy against illegal immigration has angered many Hispanics."

The story quoted immigration activist Roberto Lovato, who calls Dobbs the "gigantic, anti-immigration elephant in the room at CNN."

"Rather than address him, they decided to just avoid the issue," Lovato said.

Lovato heads up Presente.org, which has spearheaded the movement now called "Basta Dobbs."

"Lou Dobbs uses his platform on CNN to spread myths and misinformation about Latinos and immigrants, even as his network is wooing Latino viewers," the Basta Dobbs website reads. "It’s time we said enough (that's "basta" in Spanish). Join us in calling on CNN to get rid of Dobbs!"

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Pat Buchanan's Latest Racist Rant: "Traditional Americans Are Losing Their Nation"
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on October 21, 2009 at 4:40 AM.

Wowsers.

MSNBC's resident racist, Pat Buchanan, has a new column out and it's a doozy.

It's titled "Traditional Americans are losing their nation."

And by "traditional," he means "white."

The tea-baggers, birthers, and, most recently, "Oath Keepers," are not racist, Pat argues. No. They, like him, are angry.

Why are they so angry?

Well:

"In their lifetimes, they have seen their Christian faith purged from schools their taxes paid for, and mocked in movies and on TV. They have seen their factories shuttered in the thousands and their jobs outsourced in the millions to Mexico and China. They have seen trillions of tax dollars go for Great Society programs, but have seen no Great Society, only rising crime, illegitimacy, drug use and dropout rates.

Note to Hollywood: Stop making those damn movies and TV programs that so viciously mock Christians and "traditional Americans." We need to go back to the Golden era of flim, the era of such classics as, I dunno, Birth of a Nation.

(Also, what the hell, U.S. school system? Who do you think you are purging religion from public schools like that? John Adams?)

Pat goes on:

They watch on cable TV as illegal aliens walk into their country, are rewarded with free educations and health care and take jobs at lower pay than American families can live on -- then carry Mexican flags in American cities and demand U.S. citizenship.

In Pat Buchanan's mind, all of this is happening, in that order -- regular conquistadors, those "illegals" -- and to add insult to injury, it's all being televised. Not only have they marched in to snatch all those things that rightfully belong to the original native REAL Americans, they have brought on the plague of reality television!

Finally, there's this:

They see Wall Street banks bailed out as they sweat their next paycheck, then read that bank profits are soaring, and the big bonuses for the brilliant bankers are back. Neither they nor their kids ever benefited from affirmative action, unlike Barack and Michelle Obama.

There you have it: In Buchanan-land, Barack and Michelle Obama built their successes on the backs of hardworking "traditional Americans." (Just like that other "affirmative action pick," Sonia Sotomayor.) Sort of like that White House they live in, which was built by slaves.

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Playing God? Texas Jury Consulted Bible Before Sentencing Man to Death
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on October 16, 2009 at 12:30 PM.

This post first appeared in PEEK.

Last week I wrote about Texas Governor Rick Perry's craven attempts to cover up proof that he signed off on the execution of an innocent man. Crazy, yes? But crazier than a pack of jurors who consult the Bible before deciding whether to sentence someone to death?

From Amnesty International:

Khristian Oliver, 32, is set to be killed on 5 November after jurors used Biblical passages supporting the death penalty to help them decide whether he should live or die.

Amnesty International is calling on the Texas authorities to commute Khristian Oliver's death sentence. The organization considers that the jurors' use of the Bible during their sentencing deliberations raises serious questions about their impartiality.

A U.S. federal appeals court acknowledged last year that the jurors' use of the Bible amounted to an "external influence" prohibited under the U.S. Constitution, but nonetheless upheld the death sentence.

Apparently, this "external influence" included the following passages from the Old Testament, some of which were read aloud in the jury room: 

"The murderer shall surely be put to death"

"And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, the murderer shall surely be put to death."

"The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer."

(That last one, I assume, was determined to be logistically unfeasible.)

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Rick Perry Can Run, But He Can't Hide: Pressure Builds to Admit Texas Executed An Innocent Man
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on October 15, 2009 at 12:00 PM.

By now you've probably heard of Cameron Todd Willingham, the Texas man who was executed in 2004 for supposedly setting a fire that killed his three young daughters. His conviction was based on junk science, prejudice, and wild allegations about his homicidal tendencies based on his tattoos (really). The arson investigation that sent Willingham to the death chamber has been thoroughly debunked by no fewer than six arson experts, leading to one inevitable conclusion: Texas killed an innocent man.

Not surprisingly, Texas Governor Pick Perry, who signed off on Willingham's execution despite alarming proof of his innocence, has gone to great length to suppress this story. In the past two weeks, Perry fired four members of the state Forensic Science Commission -- including its chairman -- 48 hours before it was scheduled to hold a critical hearing on the Willingham case. He has appointed a new Commissioner, John Bradley, a district attorney and "one of the state's most notorious tough-on-crime advocates," according to the Texas Observer. The investigation is now stalled until further notice.

Perry's moves reek of desperation, particularly given his upcoming bid for re-election. His top challenger, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, has seized on the Willingham case, simultaneously using it to discredit her opponent while reaffirming her own pro-death penalty stance. (She accuses Perry of providing "liberals" with ammunition against capital punishment.)

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Outrageous Oklahoma Law Will Post Details of Women's Abortions Online
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on October 9, 2009 at 11:10 AM.

So I know we're all supposed to be talking about Obama's Nobel War Peace Prize, but Joshua and Addie are on it already. So before moving on to the fact that NASA just spent $79 million to bomb the moon, can we just stop for a second to get a load of the latest insanely anti-woman legislation to come down the pike?

Over at Think Progress, Amanda Terkel reports:

On Nov. 1, a law in Oklahoma will go into effect that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website.

Here are the first eight questions that women will have to reveal:

1. Date of abortion

2. County in which abortion performed

3. Age of mother

4. Marital status of mother

(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)

5. Race of mother

6. Years of education of mother

(specify highest year completed)

7. State or foreign country of residence of mother

8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother

Live Births

Miscarriages

Induced Abortions

Wow.

This nasty bit of legislation comes courtesy of Oklahoma Republicans Dan Sullivan and Todd Lamb; Lamb, a Baptist and former Secret Service agent, is running for lieutenant governor. He calls the law "common-sense legislation."

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The Human Cost of War: The Images the Corporate Media Doesn't Want You to See
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on October 5, 2009 at 2:30 PM.

This past weekend, AlterNet had the privilege of hosting a screening of Robert Greenwald's important new documentary, Rethink Afghanistan, in New York City. It was just one of several screenings to kick off an impressive nationwide campaign by Brave New Films to spread a crucial message about the war in Afghanistan: This is not the "good war" as we have been told by so many for so long. This is a losing battle, and it is costing us dearly: in billions of dollars, in thousands of lives, and in the eyes of the rest of the world.

And of course, it is costing the people of Afghanistan more than anyone. Perhaps one of the most jolting things about watching the film is seeing image after terrible image of civilian suffering: desperate families mired in refugee camps, pain-stricken schoolgirls attacked with acid by the resurgent Taliban, countless injured men, women and children who are the "collateral damage" from errant U.S. bomb strikes. It is a punch-to-the-gut reminder of just how sanitized this war -- which Obama has always called the "right front" of the so-called war on terror -- has been.

Of course, if you're the New York Times, these very images, which have the power to awaken people to the human cost of war, are actually proof of a slanted agenda on the part of the filmmaker. "At an almost breathless pace that leaves little room for reflection, Mr. Greenwald presents a flurry of sights, voices and figures, many of them compelling but all reflecting his point of view," writes NYT film reviewer Andy Webster in a dismissive 250-word review today.

"Mr. Greenwald's documentary has no time to approach an opposing view with sympathy or understanding for its concerns," he concludes.

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Palin Memoir, Sure To Be a Classic, Already a Bestseller
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on October 2, 2009 at 1:00 PM.

In news that should make struggling writers (and, really, everyone else) weep, Reuters reports today that failed VP candidate and former Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin's upcoming memoir, Going Rogue, is "already the top bestselling book on the shopping sites of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble," no less than a month and a half before the book even hits the shelves!

According to Reuters:

The memoir, which became available for pre-order this week, has been in Amazon.com's top 100 for three days, and just replaced the latest novel from "Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown at the top of the list.

"It obviously bodes well that there's so much interest and excitement," said Tina Andreadis, spokeswoman for HarperCollins, the book's publisher and a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

"Bodes well for whom, Tina?" struggling publishers of serious books and creative writing students everywhere might ask, to which Tina might respond, "well, Todd Palin, for starters." Indeed, coincidentally, news broke today that the former "First Dude" has resigned his oil post to "spend time with his family."

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Scary: Bullet Makers Can't Keep Up With Demand
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on September 28, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

This post originally appeared in PEEK.

So here's a disconcerting little headline. From the Associated Press (via the Houston Chronicle): Bullet makers can't keep up with demand

Bullet-makers are working around the clock, seven days a week, and still can’t keep up with the nation’s demand for ammunition.

Shooting ranges, gun dealers and bullet manufacturers say they have never seen such shortages. Bullets, especially for handguns, have been scarce for months because gun enthusiasts are stocking up on ammo, in part because they fear President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass antigun legislation -- even though nothing specific has been proposed and the president last month signed a law allowing people to carry loaded guns in national parks.

According to the article, "gun sales spiked when it became clear Obama would be elected a year ago and purchases continued to rise in his first few months of office. The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System reported that 6.1 million background checks for gun sales were issued from January to May, an increase of 25.6 percent from the same period the year before."

This is only the latest news report showing a rise in demand for guns and ammo since Obama took office. But the president didn't accomplish this on his own; a good deal of credit goes to the gun lobby, which has always relied on fearmongering and paranoia as critical parts of its strategic arsenal. In its propaganda campaign in the run-up to the 2008 election, the NRA portrayed Obama as the most anti-gun candidate in the history of the republic.

"Never in NRA's history have we faced a presidential candidate ... with such a deep-rooted hatred of firearm freedoms," read a letter sent out last August. The mailing purported to lay out "Obama's Ten Point Plan to 'Change' The Second Amendment," despite the fact that the "points" did not match Obama's campaign positions on guns. One of them was a ridiculous claim charging that Obama plans to "close 90 percent of the gun shops in America."

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Chronicle of a Failed Execution: Ohio Prisoner "Traumatized" After Two-Hour Death Chamber Ordeal
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on September 24, 2009 at 2:56 PM.

Last Tuesday afternoon, on September 17, 53-year-old Romell Broom lay strapped to a gurney inside the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, OH, as "medical" staff -- also known as an "execution team" -- struggled to insert IVs into his arms.

The point, of course, was to kill him, by the same method currently used in every death penalty state in the country: Lethal injection. It's a technique widely seen as perfectly humane, including by the U.S. Supreme Court, which last year ruled that, despite several documented executions gone awry, it does not violate the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Nevertheless, it doesn't always go according to plan -- and certainly not in Ohio. In 2006 a different Ohio prisoner named Joseph A. Clark lifted his head from the gurney after his vein collapsed and said "It don't work, it don't work, it don't work, it ain't working," repeatedly, according to one witness. This led to "moaning, crying out and guttural noises" some 30 minutes later. An hour and a half after the execution started, Clark was finally dead.

In 2007, the execution of another Ohio prisoner, Christopher Newton, took two hours due to executioners' difficulty finding a vein.

So maybe it was the gruesome memory of these botched executions that led Broom's execution team, 30 minutes in, to leave the chamber and "take a break," according to a grim timeline of the procedure. Twelve minutes later, team members were back in the cell, trying again, only to be told another two minutes later by Terry Collins, the prison director, to take another break.

In sum, after poking and prodding for two hours, during which Broom wiped his face, wept, and attempted to help his executioners find a vein -- "He turned over on his left side, slid rubber tubing designed to clarify his veins up his left arm, then began moving the arm up and down while flexing and closing and opening his fingers" -- the team finally stopped, upon order of Ohio governor Ted Strickland, who issued a temporary reprieve.

Julie Walburn, a spokesperson for the prison described Broom as "extremely cooperative and respectful at the team," noting, "He actually attempted to help the team find an access point."

Meanwhile, Adele Shank, one of his attorneys, who was present for the execution, described her client as "traumatized."

"It really hurt him, I mean physically hurt him," she said.

Indeed, by the time the whole mess came to an end, the execution team had attempted to find a vein in both his arms and "at least one leg," according to reports.

A report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer described how Broom "lay back on his bed, covered his face with his hands, and cried."

"Another time, while sitting up, he was seen grimacing as the execution team appeared to seek a vein around his ankles."

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Carrie Prejean to Religious Right: "I Know That God Has an Even Bigger Crown Up There For Me"
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on September 18, 2009 at 12:00 PM.

Surely you remember Carrie Prejean, the right-wing Barbie doll whose steadfast defense of "opposite marriage" at a beauty pageant catapulted her to national stardom, sparking a series of deeply stupid controversies -- with photos -- that would culminate in a press conference held by celebrity billionaire Donald Trump, who personally pardoned her, declaring that people only hate her because she's so freaking gorgeous.

So all that happened.

Last we heard, Carrie was suing the Miss California USA pageant, which eventually fired her for "continued breach of contract issues." Apparently, she did not want to do their events. ("Stop speaking for me," she reportedly said. "I have my own voice.")

To the delight of the defense-of-straight-marriage movement, Carrie has decided to exercise that voice, most recently this week in Washington D.C., where she addressed the good Christians attending the Values Voters Summit. According to the Wall Street Journal, "so far none has excited the crowd as much as former beauty queen turned marriage activist Carrie Prejean."

"Wow this is so exciting. I'm so excited to be here in Washington, D.C." Prejean said to a standing ovation and raucous applause. "This has been a whirlwind of events, this has been absolutely crazy."

According to the WSJ, Prejean is being treated as a "rock star." Or maybe a martyr:

"Even though I didn't win the crown that night," she said, as tears welled up and the crowd rose to their feet, "I know that God has an even bigger crown up there for me."

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Shoe-Throwing Iraqi Journalist Released From Prison: "Here I Am Free, And My Country Is Still Captured"
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on September 15, 2009 at 6:34 AM.

"Here I am free, and my country is still captured."

These were the words this morning of Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who became an international hero after hurling his shoes at George W. Bush last year, first yelling,"This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!" and then "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!"

Nine months after his arrest, at a press conference in Baghdad, al Zaidi described how his years reporting on the death and destruction caused by the U.S. invasion had instilled in him a deep anger at what was happening to his country.

"If those who blamed me knew how many destroyed houses I walked over with those shoes that I threw; and how many times those shoes mixed with the blood of the innocent; and how many times those shoes went into homes where the honor of those who lived there was disgraced, then it was probably the proper response," he said.

He also described the torture he suffered while in prison, which included "electric shocks and being beaten by electric cables and steel rods."

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Anti-Choice Floridians Peddling Constitutional Amendment to Criminalize Birth Control Pill
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on September 14, 2009 at 2:15 PM.

This post originally appeared in PEEK.

Florida has done it again, folks.

Yes, the state that brought you Bush v. Gore, the sex offender colony under the bridge, and the shoot-first-ask-questions-later legislation known as the "Stand Your Ground Law" has another idea up its sleeve. And this one's for the ladies.

Tampa Bay Online reports:

TALLAHASSEE - Anti-abortion conservatives are proposing a new constitutional amendment that critics claim would make it a crime to take birth control pills in Florida.

The "Personhood Amendment" that conservative activists are filing today in Tallahassee would add language to the state constitution that defines someone as a "person," regardless of age or health status, "from the beginning of the biological development of that human being."

This, of course, is just another twist on the conventional argument by anti-choice groups that birth control pills are basically murder weapons. "The pill will irritate the lining of the uterus so that the newly formed human being cannot attach to his/her mother's womb and dies," reads an explanation on the website of the American Life League, which is supporting similar efforts in other states. "This is called a chemical abortion."

This is the same group that runs thepillkills.com, a site that "focuses on blood clots and other health risks that birth control pills pose to women."

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