Rights and Liberties

Protecting your rights, habeas corpus, torture, death penalty, eavesdropping, spying, no-fly lists. Comprehensive Rights & Liberties coverage available here.

Do Pregnant Women Have Fewer Rights?
Posted by Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, Blog of Rights on October 30, 2009 at 1:15 PM.

In March, a Florida judge forced a pregnant woman to stay on bed rest and undergo all medical treatments deemed necessary to save her fetus, virtually imprisoning her at a hospital. In June, a federal judge in Maine sentenced a pregnant woman living with HIV to spend the duration of her pregnancy in jail solely because she was HIV-positive and pregnant (her sentence was later vacated). And just last week, the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in a case where local probation officers admitted they threw a probationer who failed a drug test into jail because she was pregnant; if she had not been pregnant they would have taken less drastic measures.

In a blog post on Double X, Beth Schwartzapfel does a great job of discussing this unlawful and discriminatory treatment of pregnant women. She writes:

One reason these cases keep coming up, despite their clear illegality, is simple paternalism -- overzealous prosecutors and judges think they know what’s best for a healthy pregnancy, as if that’s separate from what’s good for the pregnant woman. This is particularly troubling when judges assume that the woman must be confined or coerced in order to take good care of her child. . . . And the effect of prosecuting pregnant women who use drugs may be to deter other women with addictions from going to doctors’ offices and social service agencies -- precisely the places they need to be. If going to the emergency room might get you arrested, would you go?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The New Yorker Has a Laugh Over Cell Phone Sniffing Dogs In Prison
Posted by Just A Guy, Prisonmovement on October 30, 2009 at 7:15 AM.

Shame on Ian Frazier and The New Yorker.

Frazier is a writer for that bastion of liberal magazines, and he published an article (puff piece) about cell-phone sniffing dogs in the New Jersey correctional system.

No, it’s not really a puff piece -- “puff pieces” generally don’t have a deleterious affect on people or segments of society, as Frazier’s piece does on inmates throughout the country.

The piece does a great job of allowing New Jersey corrections officials to laud their own efforts to overthrow that most evil beast, the cell phone in prison. The piece goes on to report about New Jersey corrections training its own dogs on how to sniff out cell phones, and the wonderful results of that training, which is the seizure of more than 130 cell phones from us dastardly, evil inmates.

New Jersey corrections ballyhoos itself quite well about how much the agency is saving over states like California, which has contracted cell phone sniffers to come in at exorbitant rates, depleting our already woefully depleted budget. At least the New Jersey corrections folks got something right.

The corrections agency goes on to say how dangerous and threatening all us inmates are with cell phones, how it’s pretty much only gang members and drug dealers who purchase the phones and call out hits on unsuspecting witnesses and victims.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

An Early Halloween Scare: Immigration Agents Attacking Workers' Rights!
Posted by Amy Traub, DMI Blog on October 30, 2009 at 3:54 AM.

In our recent report on immigration policy and the middle class, I made the case that the exploitation of undocumented immigrant workers threatens to drive down wages, benefits and working conditions for middle-class workers and low-income Americans striving to earn a middle-class standard of living. The solution, I argue, is to provide a path to legal status for the undocumented immigrants: this would maximize the economic benefits undocumented workers, consumers, and taxpayers already bring to the nation and help ensure that exploitation doesn't harm the rest of us.

Unfortunately, that's not the direction the country is going. Instead, a new study by researchers from the AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work and the National Employment Law Project documents a decline in the enforcement of labor standards at the same time the nation has experienced an immigration crackdown in the workplace. The result only worsens workplace exploitation. As the study points out:

"The single-minded focus on immigration enforcement without regard to violations of workplace laws has enabled employers with rampant labor and employment violations to profit by employing workers who are terrified to complain about substandard wages, unsafe conditions, and lack of benefits, or to demand their right to bargain collectively... ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency] actions have created incentives for shady employers to continue hiring and abusing undocumented workers, since the deportation of their employees may excuse those employers from complying with labor laws."

It's fitting that the report was released a week before Halloween, since it's full of frightening stories of immigration agents - or local police enforcing immigration law - intervening in ways that facilitate workplace abuses. We read of ICE helicopters hovering menacingly above picket lines; immigration agents who came promptly to arrest workers who had complained about workplace safety; and one story of a worker suffering from a horrific workplace injury, swept up by immigration agents as he entered the courthouse to press a workers' compensation claim. His employer, apparently delighted that he might not have to pay for an injury caused by his business' negligent practices, called out: "I'm sending you back to Mexico... I have no use for you now." If that's not haunting, I don't know what is.

One quibble: the authors offer suggestions for more thoughtful enforcement of both immigration and labor laws, but these horror stories call for bolder solutions. An overhaul of immigration and labor laws would be a better solution still.

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.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Honduras's 'Bloodless Coup': What You're Not Seeing on TV
Posted by Avi Lewis, Al Jazeera English on October 27, 2009 at 7:43 AM.

This video is a trailer for the Fault Lines' coverage of the coup in Honduras. Watch Part One and Part Two of the full version of Fault Lines: 100 Days of Resistance.

I arrived in Honduras one week after ousted president Manuel Zelaya returned to begin his long spell of internal exile in the Brazilian embassy. With my crew from Fault Lines on Al Jazeera English TV, I went straight from the airport to a funeral. A week later, on our last night of filming, we attended another funeral. The first was for a 24-year-old woman, the second for a 50-year-old schoolteacher, and both active in the resistance to the coup. According to their families, both were killed for it.

The coup regime in Honduras is winning. Tepid pressure from the Obama administration is making it easy for the de facto government to run out the clock until the highly compromised elections in just five weeks. Whether or not international observers bless that vote, a new government will take power in Honduras and declare the stain of the coup removed, democracy restored. Absent the kind of meaningful sanctions Washington has so far been unwilling to impose, the status quo will triumph: the backers of the coup will go unpunished.

Unsurprisingly, the U.S. mainstream media is not reporting the story of what is really going on in Honduras. The de facto government and its backers invested $400,000 (that we know of) in bipartisan lobbying, and succeeded in implanting a deeply distorted narrative of events -- a nouveau cold war story starring Hugo Chávez as puppet master and Zelaya as marionette. Meanwhile, the voice of the social movement struggling to reform its country's constitution in the second poorest nation in the hemisphere has been all but ignored.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Hotel Owner Tells "Spanish" Employees to Change Their Names and "Speak Only English"
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on October 27, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

The AP reports that in Taos, NM, hotel owner Larry Whitten is under fire for his treatment of his Hispanic employees:

After he arrived, Whitten met with the employees. He says he immediately noticed that they were hostile to his management style and worried they might start talking about him in Spanish.

"Because of that, I asked the people in my presence to speak only English because I do not understand Spanish," Whitten says. "I've been working 24 years in Texas and we have a lot of Spanish people there. I've never had to ask anyone to speak only English in front of me because I've never had a reason to." [...]

Then Whitten told some employees he was changing their Spanish first names. Whitten says it's a routine practice at his hotels to change first names of employees who work the front desk phones or deal directly with guests if their names are difficult to understand or pronounce.

"It has nothing to do with racism. I'm not doing it for any reason other than for the satisfaction of my guests, because people calling from all over America don't know the Spanish accents or the Spanish culture or Spanish anything," Whitten says.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bong Water Counts as an Illegal Drug?
Posted by Jan Frel, AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 5:52 PM.

From the AP:

In Minnesota, bong water can count as an illegal drug.

That decision from Minnesota's Supreme Court on Thursday raises the threat of longer sentences for drug smokers in that state who fail to dump the water out of bong — a type of water pipe often used to smoke drugs

The court said a person can be prosecuted for a first-degree drug crime for 25 grams or more of bong water that tests positive for a controlled substance.

Lower courts had held that bong water is drug paraphernalia. Possession of that is a misdemeanor crime.

The case involved a woman whose bong had about 2 1/2 tablespoons of liquid that tested positive for methamphetamine. A narcotics officer had testified that drug users sometimes keep bong water to drink or inject later.

The war on fun continues, despite some recent progress.

Saudi Woman Journalist Sentenced to 60 Lashes For Working On Show That Talked About Sex
Posted by , AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 9:30 AM.

Reuters reports:

A Saudi court sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes in a case brought after a Lebanese television channel she worked for aired the sex confession of a Saudi man, the reporter and a lawyer said.

Rosana, 22, who did not want her full name disclosed, said a court in Jeddah convicted her on Saturday on grounds that the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. she worked for did not have proper authorization to operate in the Islamic kingdom.

The ruling follows the sentencing by the same court of Mazen Abdul-Awad to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes earlier in October after he appeared on an LBC show and talked about his sexual exploits.

The show has sparked a public outcry in the U.S. ally, one of the world's most conservative countries, where clerics have wide-ranging influence and control.

"I had nothing to do with Mazen Abdul-Jawad's show. The verdict was just because I cooperated with LBC," the female journalist told Reuters.

LBC is a popular channel in Saudi Arabia, and many Saudis tune in to its Western-style entertainment programs and talk shows.

Read more here.

GOP Senate Obstructionists Trying to Reverse 2008 Election
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on October 24, 2009 at 2:33 PM.

According to People for the American Way, dozens of Barack Obama's nominees -- many in key positions -- are still waiting to get started as Republicans threaten to filibuster their confirmation and the White House and senate leadership seem (inexplicably) cautious about using their 60-vote majority to ram them through. It's largely flown under the radar.

TPM:

In 1949, a change to Senate rules allowed members to filibuster executive branch nominees. Senators tend to believe (or at least to say) that, within bounds of decency, the White House deserves to be able to staff the executive branch as it chooses; and in the 60 years since then, the practice has been used sparingly.

Until Barack Obama came to town.

"Between 1949 and 2009 there were 24 nominees on which cloture was forced," Baker said. "In just the first 9 months of the Obama administration, there have been five such votes."

Despite a record of rather extreme appointments, there were 7 cloture votes during the 8 years of the Bush administration. Of the 29 times such votes have occurred in American history, 20 have been over Democratic nominees and 9 over Republicans. Not surprisingly, before Obama took office, over half of all cloture votes of executive branch appointees had occurred during the Clinton administration -- 13.

Bubba holds the record, but Obama is on pace to shatter it with cloture votes on 28 nominees, more than all other administrations since 1949 combined.

I would just point out how ridiculous this makes the whole wing-nut kerfuffle about Obama's "communist" and unaccountable "czars" -- the officials he is supposedly slipping in around the senate confirmation process. Not that it wasn't already ridiculous -- George W. Bush appointed more czars than Obama, and several of those Fox News and others have attacked as unconfirmed czars (8 out of 30) were actually customary positions filled by people who were in fact duly approved by Congress. But the hypocrisy of leveling the charge while dozens of Obama's appointees still await confirmation 9 months into his term in office is mind-jangling.

Finally, let me just add that People for the American Way is especially interested in one nominee whose block by Republicans has been particularly galling: Dawn Johnsen, Obama's pick to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Council. OLC advises the executive branch on the law, and during the Bush administration it was packed with right-wing ideologues with an expansive view of executive power (to say the least). It's where  people like "torture memo" authors Jay Bybee and John Yoo basically told the White House it could do anything it wanted as long as they said it had something to do with terrorism.

Johnsen's eminently qualified -- she served as acting head of OLC during the Clinton years, she's been endorsed by former heads of the OLC under both Republican and Democratic administrations; her Republican senator, Dick Lugar, has endorsed her.

The problem for the GOP -- aside from their instinctive desire to play petty games with Obama's nominees -- is that she's really good.  As The New York Times reported, her appointment to head the OLC after the Bybees and Yoos brought it so much well earned infamy represents the kind of change Obama promised but has so far failed to deliver in many other areas:

Ms. Johnsen, a law professor at Indiana University, was an unsparing critic of memorandums, written by lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush administration, that said the president could largely ignore international treaties and Congress in fighting terrorists and that critics have portrayed as allowing torture in interrogation.

The broad reading of presidential authority was “outlandish,” and the constitutional arguments were “shockingly flawed,” Ms. Johnsen has written. While her language was harsh, the memos have largely been withdrawn, and among lawyers a consensus agreeing with her views has emerged.

Nonetheless, Republicans have denounced her comments.

If you'd like to see Dawn Johnsen's nomination get an up or down vote, sign PFAW's petition here.

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!"

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Alan Grayson Schools GA Wing-Nut Paul Broun on Constitution
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on October 23, 2009 at 11:50 AM.

Two of the House's most vocal members spar over the GOP's ongoing jihad against ACORN. Hat-tip to Jill C. at Brilliant at Breakfast, who adds: "It's frightening that Republicans who know absolutely nothing about the Constitution are allowed to create law in this country."

Ross Douthat's Gay Marriage Moment of Truth: It's Embarrassing to be a Bigot
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Majikthise on October 23, 2009 at 11:30 AM.

Self-styled social conservative columnist Ross Douthat admits that he's uncomfortable discussing gay marriage in public because he opposes it for no good reason:

The question came from Christopher Glazek, a fact-checker at The New Yorker, who wanted to know whether Mr. Douthat and Mr. Salam believed that former RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, who has apologized on behalf of his party for the Southern Strategy, should also apologize for the Republican party's gay politics.

At first Mr. Douthat seemed unable to get a sentence out without interrupting himself and starting over. Then he explained: "I am someone opposed to gay marriage who is deeply uncomfortable arguing the issue in public."

Mr. Douthat indicated that he opposes gay marriage because of his religious beliefs, but that he does not like debating the issue in those terms. At one point he said that, sometimes, he feels like he should either change his mind, or simply resolve never to address the question in public. [NY Obs]

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

An 83-Year-Old Republican Vet Talks About the Need for Equal Rights for Gays
Posted by BarbinMD, Daily Kos on October 22, 2009 at 2:00 AM.

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.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The United States Can't Afford the Death Penalty. Literally.
Posted by , AlterNet on October 20, 2009 at 6:30 AM.

CNN reports:

At 678, California has the nation's largest death row population, yet the state has not executed anyone in four years.

But it spends more than $130 million a year on its capital punishment system -- housing and prosecuting inmates and coping with an appellate system that has kept some convicted killers waiting for an execution date since the late 1970s.

This is according to a new report that concludes that states are wasting millions on an inefficient death penalty system, diverting scarce funds from other anti-crime and law enforcement programs.

"Thirty-five states still retain the death penalty, but fewer and fewer executions are taking place every year," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "But the overall death row population has remained relatively steady. At a time of budget shortfalls nationwide, the death penalty is turning into an expensive form of life without parole."

His group commissioned the study released Tuesday.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Dept of Justice Eases Off Medical Pot
Posted by John Nichols, TheNation.com on October 19, 2009 at 3:30 PM.

During the 2008 campaign, one of candidate Barack Obama's best applause lines was a promise to restore respect for science when it came to federal policy making.

On Monday, President Obama kept a piece of that promise when his Department of Justice issued a directive ordering agency lawyers not to prosecute individuals who use or prescribe medical marijuana in states that have legalized the drug for that purpose.

"It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana, but we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal," explained Attorney General Eric Holder. "This balanced policy formalizes a sensible approach that the Department has been following since January: effectively focus our resources on serious drug traffickers while taking into account state and local laws."

In the overall scheme of the drug-policy debate, this is a relatively small -- and cautious -- step.

But for medical-marijuana advocates, the administration's formal embrace of a more responsible approach represents a major breakthrough.

"This is a huge victory for medical-marijuana patients," says Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, a medical-marijuana advocacy group. "This indicates that President Obama intends to keep his promise … and represents a significant departure from the policies of the Bush administration."

The jury is in on medical marijuana and the evidence argues for removing barriers -- federal, state and local -- to its use by patients seeking relief from pain and nausea associated with cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis and other debilitating illnesses and conditions.

The Obama administration's move respects that evidence. As such, it represents a clearer embrace of science with regard to drugs and drug policy by a White House than we have seen since the days when Jimmy Carter explored enlightened approaches.

As New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey said Monday, "Today, common sense won out over ideological stubbornness as our nation's law enforcement agency formally adopted a new and well-balanced policy on medical marijuana use. Across the country, individual states have enacted laws that allow individuals who are sick and suffering to use medical marijuana with a doctor's prescription only to have DOJ officials arrest and prosecute them anyway. This was a policy that was misguided and wrong from the start and I'm very pleased that the Obama administration's Justice Department, under the leadership of Attorney General Holder, has put an end to it."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

To Profit-Driven Contractors: All Rape Cases Must Go Before the Law, Period
Posted by Sady Doyle, Comment Is Free on October 16, 2009 at 1:30 PM.

Say, here's a concept: if you act to keep violent criminals out of jail, you are probably not working in your country's best interests, and shouldn't be called upon to defend it. It's a notion that was passed into law recently, with U.S. senator Al Franken's amendment to the defense appropriations bill stating that military contractors which prohibit their employees from taking rape and sexual assault cases to court would not receive funding or contracts from the U.S. government.

The impetus for the bill -- and the resistance against it -- sheds light on how rape can be excused or minimized and how the interests of corporations can take priority over human life.

In Baghdad in 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones claims, she was gang-raped by her colleagues at KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton. Her injuries, including torn pectoral muscles, tearing of her vagina and anus and ruptured breast implants, were confirmed by a physician, who said they were consistent with rape. He then handed the rape kit over to her employer, KBR. And KBR, according to Jones, locked her in a storage container, posted an armed guard outside of her door and denied her food and water.

The rape kit given to KBR disappeared, not to be seen again until 2007. When it resurfaced, it was missing doctors' notes and photographs -- which, along with the fact that Jones was drugged and could identify only one of her assailants, effectively annihilated her chances in a criminal case. KBR also denied her the right to take them even to a civil court, saying that what had been done to her was a mere "personal injury in the workplace," and could -- according to her contract -- be resolved only by arbitration.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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.)

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Outrage: House Sneakily Passes Bill Banning Release of Photos Showing Detainee Abuse
Posted by Nick Baumann, MotherJones.com on October 16, 2009 at 10:30 AM.

President Obama has won his fight to ensure that the Defense Department can conceal evidence of its employees' wrongdoing. On Thursday, the House passed a measure allowing the DoD to withhold essentially any photos of detainee abuse that it doesn't want the public to see. The move is a huge defeat for the ACLU, which has been fighting a years-long legal battle to obtain such photos under the Freedom of Information Act. But now an amendment  sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), makes all that moot and slashes a huge hole in FOIA. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) was a key figure in stopping Lieberman's photo suppression bill the first time around. In a floor speech Thursday, she explained that this time, the provision was slipped into the Homeland Security spending bill during the conference between House and Senate negotiators -- "apparently under direct orders from the Administration."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Schwarzenegger Creates Harvey Milk Day While Rejecting Trans Rights
Posted by Cara, Feministe on October 16, 2009 at 9:30 AM.

You may have heard that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed into law a bill that will create a Harvey Milk Day, honoring the slain gay politician and icon. It’s the first time that any LGBT person has been honored in such a way, so obviously people are excited about the symbolism.

What has been receiving some blog coverage but little mainstream media attention, however, is the fact that at the same time Schwarzenegger signed this bill, he vetoed a couple of others -- one which would have made it easier for transgender people born in California to correct their birth certificates to the proper gender and name, and another which would have helped to combat sexual violence against LGBT prisoners.

With regards to the former, a birth certificate is probably the most important piece of identification that any of us have. While it's not used on a daily basis, it's often the document on which our other pieces of identification are based, though most of us who are cis have the privilege and luxury of not thinking about it. When a trans person's identification does not match their identity, it sets them up for being outed against their will -- and subsequently creates a large risk of them being accused of fraud, harassed, denied basic services and care, and/or violently attacked. The bill would have made the difficult process of correcting the document just a tiny bit easier -- and by the way, wouldn’t have cost taxpayers anything.

The latter piece of vetoed legislation, Schwarzenegger called "unnecessary." But unnecessary to whom? It's really rather well known that LGBT prisoners face hugely disproportionate sexual violence in prisons, a place where rape already runs rampant. This is especially so for cis gay and bisexual men, who are regularly targeted for prison rape, and for trans women, who are often placed wrongly in men's prisons and thus put at extreme risk for sexual violence from cis inmates. The only way the governor does not know this is if he's willfully ignorant on matters over which he's supposed to be governing. And so to say that it's unnecessary for sexual orientation and gender identity to be taken into account when deciding how to safely house prisoners is outrageously callous, and a massive slap across the face to those LGBT inmates who have been or will be sexually assaulted by assailants targeting them for their identities.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol Launch "Keep America Safe": Check Out Their Logo
Posted by Ateqah Khaki, Blog of Rights on October 16, 2009 at 5:30 AM.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald pointed out an interesting coincidence today. He writes:

The ACLU has long had as its motto for  its National Security Project: "Keep America Safe and Free." Here is their new logo:

Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol just created a new organization…Its name is Keep America Safe and this is its logo:

It’s as though they took the ACLU's logo and wrote the "Free" out of it, depicting America as nothing more than a single-minded, fear-based Security State.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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.)

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bill O'Reilly Takes on Sexy Dancing High School Girls
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on October 14, 2009 at 2:19 PM.

Bill O'Reilly, who hasn't been sued for obscenely propositioning a coworker in over 5 years (5 years and a day), often bemoans our 'anything goes' sexual culture. On a recent show, O'Reilly and "culture warriors" Gretchen Carlson and Margaret Hoover took on the latest harbingers of America's moral decline: sexy dancing high school girls.

The segment singled out a song team from a Sacramento high school. "At Rio Americano High School in Sacramento California, a song team displayed their talent ... for the student body" says O'Reilly pointedly. That really clever double entendre is followed by an overly long segment of footage from the performance, ensuring Fox viewers have time to truly appreciate how gross the young, pretty girls really are. 

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

White House Muddying the Waters on Gay Rights
Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog on October 13, 2009 at 4:24 AM.

John Harwood went on CNBC yesterday and, in the context of a discussion of the gay-rights march, said that "the White House views this opposition as really part of the 'internet left fringe.'" We've since heard from a White House spokesman that that's not really the administration's attitude toward gay-rights activists or lefty bloggers, and Harwood has said that the quote is accurate but was a reference to lefty bloggers rather than gay activists.

I'm seeing this as a very deliberate self-contradiction two-step.

I saw the Bush White House do something like this back in 2004. There was a tough presidential race that year, and days before the Republicans were about to hold a convention in which they were going to fire up the base, very much including the religious-right base, Dick Cheney went out and said he personally supported allowing states to legalize gay marriage. That was clearly an attempt to mollify moderates without alienating fundamentalists -- the president still supported banning gay marriage altogether, as did the party platform, but soccer moms heard a different message.

The deliberate muddying of the message was the message.

That's what's going on now. Obama reached out to the gay community -- and yet he wants to be seen as not being tight with gays or the angrier lefties. So a friendly journalist leaked this remark -- this deniable remark -- which has since been, um, denied. And now the message is muddied. The mixed signals are meant, I think, to confuse supporters of gay rights and wavering but potentially Democratic-voting non-liberal voters (including non-white social conservatives) in, oh, say, New Jersey and Virginia.

Did I say "friendly journalist"? Yeah -- John Harwood seems quite close to the Obama White House. He's interviewed Obama a number of times during the campaign and presidency. I don't believe he'd have messed up his extraordinary access to the president by delivering a message the White House didn't want delivered.

But, as I say, it's a message the White House also wanted to deny. So it was made deniable.

I think most White Houses do things like this. That doesn't make them any less ugly.

Former Bush General Defends DADT: "Gays Can Serve In the Military; They Just Can't Serve Openly"
Posted by Faiz Shakir, Think Progress on October 12, 2009 at 8:00 AM.

In his speech to the Human Rights Campaign, President Obama pledged to "end" the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. That comment was the subject of a debate [Sunday] morning on NBC's Meet the Press. Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) expressed his support for Obama's position, but emphasized that it needs "buy-in from the military." Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers struck a different note:

HOST: Do you have an opinion about whether it's time?

MYERS: Well, I take some exception with what Senator Levin said because gays can serve in the military; they just can't serve openly. And they do. And there's lots of them. And we're the beneficiary of all that.

Levin rolled his eyes after hearing Myers’ remark. Gen. Barry McCaffrey said "there's no question it's time to change the policy." Asked for his thoughts, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) avoided making any clear statements. Watch it:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Stupidity of "Zero-Tolerance": 6-Year-Old Suspended For Bringing Food Utensil to School
Posted by Allison Kilkenny, True/Slant on October 12, 2009 at 7:00 AM.

NEWARK, Del. -- Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing with his karate instructor and his mother's fiancé by his side to vouch for him.

Zachary’s offense? Taking a Cub Scout utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about joining the Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary now faces 45 days in the district's reform school.

via It’s a Fork, It’s a Spoon, It’s a … Weapon? -- NYTimes.com

When great tragedy happens in this country (say, planes flying into towers or two young men shooting up their high school,) Americans typically react in the following fashion:

1. Freak the fuck out
2. Believe whatever the loudest politician tells them
3. Assign blame to a convenient, but usually incorrect target
4. Participate in a reactive, hyper-totalitarian government policy
5. Repeat at next tragedy

The list applies to the post-9/11 hysteria, but it also applies to post-Columbine America. "Zero-tolerance" policy arose from the string of shooting sprees in American high schools. As usual, schools did not thoughtfully analyze what kind of school environment (complete with hierarchical sects and rampant bullying) is inspiring such horrific shootings. Rather, schools followed steps 1 through 5, and opted for a hyper-totalitarian state within a state where children are all treated as suspects, including little Zachary Christie.

Really, Delaware? The six-year-old is going to shank someone with his Swiss Army knife? Such overzealous, reactionary policies distract from the very real problems in schools: low test scores, budget cuts, bullying, and so on.

In Going Postal, author Mark Ames looks at the phenomenon of school and workplace shootings in America, but rather than assigning blame to obvious (and incorrect) targets like Marilyn Manson, Ames digs deeper. He proposes that modern workplace and school violence emerged soon after Reaganomics began in the 1980s when the wealth divide widened, and Reagan did everything in his power to support his friends, the CEOs of corporations, while screwing the workers. The result is a corporate culture where Americans work harder for longer hours for less. They have no job security, are buried in debt, and occasionally one of them snaps and shoots their co-workers.

Ames argues -- quite convincingly -- that schoolyard and office massacres are modern-day slave rebellions. The overly oppressive and exploitive nature of hyper-Capitalism, the neutering of unions, and the overall degradation of employees, neighborhoods, communities, and society have resulted in a culture of fear and violence. While Bowling For Columbine blamed the guns, Ames blames the culture, which includes reactionary policies like "Zero tolerance" that end up hurting innocents like Zachary while the real causes of our sick society go untreated.

Even if one doesn't buy the "Blame Reagan" theory, Ames's solution of treating the sickness, and not just the symptoms, is compelling enough to warrant some kind of implementation. The opposite approach, which is the current "solution" of treating workers and students like suspects, is an excellent way to breed more paranoia, fear, and violence. If kids weren't ready to snap before, a day of bag inspections, metal detector, and locker searches guarantees they’ll at least hate their schools if not harbor fantasies of putting down their oppressors.

Furthermore, the problem goes deeper than the workplaces and schools. The culture itself is sick, which is why America has a military budget that is almost as much as the rest of the world’s defense spending combined, and is over nine times larger than the military budget of China, and yet Americans feel more afraid, and more paranoid, than ever. Everyone is against us, we're told. Everyone hates our freedom, and our amazing culture. China wants to overtake us. The entire Middle East wants us dead. Europeans laugh at us, and think we’re stupid. Emperor Penguins are plotting something. Canada is about to attack.

And then there's Iran. Don't even get us started on Iran.

Until Americans decide to break this addiction to "The List," this cycle of irrationality will continue into the foreseeable future. Sadly, it doesn't seem as though Americans or their politicians remember the catastrophic mistakes that led to the invasion of Iraq because they’re repeating the exact same behavior with Iran. Let's consult "The List." Are American’s freaking out? Check. Do they believe what the loudest politicians tell them (namely that Iran is an imminent threat to the US)? Check. Are they participating in a reactive hyper-totalitarian government policy? According to the Pew Research Center, a strong majority -- 61% -- of Americans say that it is more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action. Check.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Video: Obama Pledges to End 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' at Speech to LGBT Community
Posted by AlterNet Staff on October 10, 2009 at 9:23 PM.

Posted to YouTube by firedoglake


FIND THE REST OF THE SPEECH AFTER THE JUMP

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bobby Jindal Fires State Worker After She Criticizes Him Publicly
Posted by Zaid Jilani, Think Progress on October 10, 2009 at 8:10 AM.

The Advocate reports today that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal fired Melody Teague, a Department of Social Services contract grants reviewer, after she publicly criticized the privatization of state services during a forum held by the state’s Commission for Streamlining Government. While Jindal maintains that he fired her due to her handling of a food stamps program started after Katrina, a member of the Commission insists that she was targeted for speaking out:

Melody Teague, a state Department of Social Services contract grants reviewer, was informed she was fired because of problems with the disaster food stamps program that she was drawn into during the Katrina aftermath, her attorney, Mark Falcon said. [...]

The issue first entered the spotlight Tuesday after Commission for Streamlining Government member Leonal Hardman, of Baton Rouge, said Teague was unfairly targeted because she spoke out publicly at the streamlining forum.

During the forum, state Treasurer John Kennedy went out of his way to repeat to Teague she would not be punished for her comments. Hardman said he is concerned the termination is a sign of a larger effort to silence state workers.

(HT: Huffington Post)

Homeland Security Pledges to Reform Nightmarish Immigration Detention System
Posted by Staff, RestoreFairness.org on October 9, 2009 at 1:34 PM.

This week, Department of Homeland Security unveiled an ambitious plan to reform its immigration detention system, a largely unregulated network that includes 312 county and city prisons, many of whom have been accused of health and security violations. That's what Breakthrough's powerful new campaign Restore Fairness wants to keep seeing - a government that is restoring due process back to a broken immigration system. At the campaign's centerpiece is a 9 minute video Restore Fairness, produced in partnership with an amazing range of 26 leading organizations spanning human rights, immigration, and community based groups, that features interviews with influential Members of Congress, immigration judges, civil society leaders, and ordinary families affected by harsh immigration laws.

Watch the video:

Looking at the immigration landscape in the aftermath of 9-11, the campaign calls for a reshaping of immigration laws that often arrest people without warrants, hold them in inhumane detention conditions, and deport them without a fair trial. Like Ana Galindo and her husband Walter Chavez, legal permanent residents with a 10-year-old U.S. citizen son, who were raided, without a warrant in their home by armed immigration officers who finally admitted they were looking for the wrong person, traumatizing their son for months afterward. Or June Everett who lost her sister, a 53 year old grandmother, to immigration detention because of alleged medical negligence. Or Jean Pierre Kamwa, a torture survivor from Cameroon who came to the U.S. seeking freedom and shelter from persecution, but instead was greeted with 5 months in mandatory detention till he was ultimately granted asylum.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Right-Wing American Terrorists Issue YouTube Threat
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on October 7, 2009 at 1:26 PM.

There is no universally agreed-upon definition of the word "terrorism." As I've often said, the reason it's next to impossible to define the term is that everyone wants it to mean: 'violent acts in the pursuit of political goals with which I disagree.'

That aside, most agree that attempting to influence public officials through a threat of violence is an act of terrorism.

Watch this, from domestic terrorists purporting to be part of the newly re-energized "patriot movement" (it has no audio):

Is this any different than the videos Al Qaeda releases from time to time?

UPDATE: Looks like they took the video down. Here's a description via SPLC:

It advises President Obama and other prominent people (“Our Dear Leader and co.”) to “leave now and give us our country back” and to do so by next week.

“If you stay,” the silent video message continues, “ ‘We, The People’ will systematically dismantle you, destroy you and reclaim what is rightfully ours. …

“We are angry and we are ready to take back the rights of the people. We will fight and We will win. …

“Dead line [sic] for your national response: October 15, 2009

“Thank you to all patriots who support our cause. … Be prepared for when the fateful day of the declaration of war is nationally announced.”

Sotomayor Comes Out Swinging on First Day in the Court
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on October 6, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

Yesterday was the Supreme Court’s opening day, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor took an active role in oral arguments. Sotomayor “displayed no reticence on the first day of her first term on the court; in the two cases on the docket, she asked as many questions and made as many comments as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.,” reported the Washington Post. “The only sign of her newness was that she at times forgot to turn on her microphone before posing a question.” McClatchy also observed that in just an hour, she actually asked “more questions than Justice Clarence Thomas has asked over the course of several years.” Thomas has gone three years straight without posing a question during oral arguments.

DHS Renews Deal With Show-Boat Sheriff Arpaio
Posted by Staff, America's Voice on October 6, 2009 at 12:22 PM.

From America's Voice:

Controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Maricopa County, AZ, has told various local media outlets that he has signed a new agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and will continue participating in what is known as the 287(g) program.  If this claim is true – Arpaio has a history of dissembling and exaggerating, and DHS has been notably silent on what is transpiring – it is a deeply disturbing development. 

The 287(g) program was originally conceived as way for local police and federal immigration authorities to work together to apprehend those in the country without authorization who have committed serious crimes and are a danger to the community.  But under the Bush 287(g) program, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Arpaio wannabes in other localities have been given a long leash to target ordinary immigrants living and working in the U.S. without immigration papers – people who may have violated federal, civil immigration laws, but are committing no crime.  Such excesses have turned a number of local communities into areas where immigrants – both those here legally and those here without papers – are terrorized in an apparent quest to drive them out of the jurisdiction.  They have created conflict with other policing agencies who are concerned about the impact on crime reporting when a portion of the community is afraid to work with the police. 

In Arpaio’s case, his heavy-handed sweeps of Latino neighborhoods have led to widespread fear, deep divisions in the community, 3,500 lawsuits, a U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation, and a nationwide reputation as the Bull Connor of our generation. 

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Guns Kill People ... Who Own Guns
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on October 6, 2009 at 10:39 AM.

The debate over guns strikes me as odd. I can't quite grasp why it's viewed as a left-right issue -- a matter of ideology -- as opposed to a rural-urban divide. I've owned guns myself when I lived in the boondocks, but in a city, packed in like sardines with lunatics of all stripes, I'd prefer there be as few guns as possible within range of my windows.

Obviously, it's not easy to have a liberal gun policy in rural areas and stricter controls in cities, but in my mind, that tension should at least form the parameters of debate (and if you look carefully at who's on which side, it often does; think about Rudy Giuliani's outspoken support for gun control, or the fact that even the most progressive Dems from rural districts oppose it).

But gun-rights absolutists -- I don't like "gun nuts" -- answer that dense cities are precisely where firearms come in handiest. After all, you never know when you'll have to fend off a band of roaming zombies in the big city.

And similar arguments extend to just about everywhere they'd like to carry. In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, one pro-gun blogger wrote that the lesson we needed to learn was:

...we should be crusading to abolish 'gun free zones.' History has shown us time and again that, rather than protecting children, gun free zones actually endanger them. They endanger them by creating a magnet for homicidal psychopaths who know they will meet no resistance, and they endanger them by preventing responsible adults from deploying the means to defend the innocent and counter the threat of the evil.

That's built on a profoundly silly idea -- that we're all potential John Waynes who just need to be in the right place at the right time in order to heroically save the day with our shiny heaters. Ordinary people, if heavily armed, can be their own SWAT teams! Same for home defense -- the cops might take minutes to respond to a call, but your H & K is right there in the drawer, loaded and ready for bear.

I've always thought there was more mindless machismo to the argument than common sense, and a new study appears to back up that view:

In a first-of its-kind study, epidemiologists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found that, on average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. The study estimated that people with a gun were 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not possessing a gun.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Texas Governor Rick Perry Is Trying to Cover Up the Execution of an Innocent Man
Posted by Bob Moser, Texas Observer on October 5, 2009 at 8:00 AM.

The exercise of raw power is truly stunning to behold.

Gov. Rick Perry has replaced three members of the Forensic Science Commission, which is investigating whether Texas -- under Perry's administration -- executed an innocent man in 2004.

The Statesman and the AP are reporting that one of three deposed commissioners is chairman Sam Bassett, an Austin defense attorney.

Perry has installed as chairman John Bradley, the district attorney of Williamson County and one of the state's most notorious tough-on-crime advocates.

Bradley's first act? He canceled Friday's schedule meeting at which the commission was supposed to discuss the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, an apparently innocent man executed in 2004. Willingham was convicted of killing his three kids by starting a 1991 house fire. His case was recently featured in the New Yorker.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Fear Not Libs, the Religious Right is Prayin' for Your Soul!
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on October 1, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

From the Washington Post:

A conservative Christian organization affiliated with Jerry Falwell's Liberty University has decided to take a less partisan and more prayerful approach to the "radically liberal" age of Obama. The Liberty Council, a nonprofit that defends religious liberties, is encouraging its supporters to "Adopt a Liberal" and "pray earnestly and intensely for them."

[...]

Liberty's prayer list of liberals includes Democrats and Republicans -- President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but also California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Sure, this confuses politics and religion. And, yes, it reinforces the idea that one's ideological opponents not only hold different opinions, but are fundamentally flawed as human beings -- with damaged souls in need of divine intervention. As such, it no doubt feeds, in some small way at least, the growth of eliminationism on the right.

But, hey, I'm all for it. I figure it keeps these folks off the streets and out of trouble.

PS: the "religious left" -- or at least Sojourners' Jim Wallis -- isn't above praying for its ideological opponents to change their ways, presumably with similar effect.