As long as we have a federal death penalty, it ought not be used selectively, but we shouldn’t have a federal death penalty. And it doesn’t matter who the criminal is or what they did.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Bernie Sanders approves this message. Hillary endorses the selective application of capital punishment. She also likes the selective application of all laws.
AP – Clinton faulted on emails by State Department audit This is the State Dept Inspector General audit report and it must not be forgotten that there was no IG during HRC’s tenure at State.
To paraphrase Leona Helmsley: Only the little people comply with the Federal Records Act.
also every previous SoS as well, let’s not pretend this is bigger than it is
Not according to the State Dept IG report. So, how about you stop repeating lies?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestiefer/2016/05/25/state-department-report-on-email-vindicates-cli
nton-rather-than-nails-her/#298df94e2c7d
Citing a secondary source to refute a primary source takes some chutzpah.
On item that is directly responsive to your “every previous SoS as well,” claim (and the OIG did look at all the previous SOS and included the findings in the report):
you didn’t link directly to the IG report either
Actually I did if you bothered to scroll down. But did intend to and then neglected to provide an easier to read link in my last comment; so, here’s the OIG report.
To be sure, no one willing to vote for Hillary is going to vote for Trump instead now.
But with Sanders supporters already being asked to hold their noses and vote for her, it can’t help to intensify the stench.
And I use the word advisedly. To review:
1. During her tenure, the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual instructed employees:
So when she said that private email was “allowed by the State Department”, she was lying. Or, if you want to be generous, she was indulging in the family penchant for arguing what “is” means.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/hillary-clinton-emails-state-report-223574
IL JimP, If they all did the same, they can all be locked up together in the same cell for incompetence and negligence. Or in return Chelsea Manning can be pardoned, Edward Snowden allowed to come home free and the pressure on Julian Assange can be removed. Is it a deal? Would Hillary Clinton go for it?
That depends. Has public polling support for it reached 53% yet?
Based on her record with same-sex marriage, that’s her “my thinking has evolved” threshold.
Exactly.
This is what you get in America. Plus new wars.
I would get rid of it due to the arbitrary nature of its enforcement, as well as the alarming number of errors in judgment that have been made (as an aside, I find it strange that the media tends to obsess about errors in death penalty cases without questioning whether the same types of errors are present in non-capital cases – i.e., whether there are fundamental problems with how jury trials find facts and assess guilt). However, in an imaginary world where it was 100% clear that someone was guilty of a truly reprehensible crime and there was no issue of arbitrary enforcement, it would be a closer call for me.
Good point. Is it a big step forward to allow 40 years in jail for an innocent person?
Just had one overturned the other day here. Young man (originally) served 20 years of a 40 year sentence for a rape he didn’t commit.
In one sense Voice no it is not a step forward to allow any innocent person to be incarcerated because of the inadequacies of the system we use.
But in a much larger sense he was released, ALIVE.
His family wasn’t told sorry we screwed up, cannot undo that one cause he’s dead.
Indeed. Sanders position is too reactionary anyway. “Jail for life” with no chance of parole is not something we should accept.
Obviously in this world of “no life sentences” there is a chance that someone will end up remaining there for life for cause, but nothing guaranteed.
Doesn’t the victim’s life have any value? I was sick to my stomach at the release of the woman who stabbed Sharon Tate 16 times in the belly. That should have been her punishment.
It is completely dependent on how one views the purpose of the criminal justice system. Theres a balance between punishment and justice, which should outweigh the other under such circumstances, and whether the ultimate goal is to enact punishment or actually reduce the number of people in prison. We often talk about the carceral state in this country, and a lot of people seem to think that most people are there for non-violent stuff. The fact is if we ever hope to reduce our incarceration rate to anything resembling a level of human decency, a lot of criminals who are there for acts of violence are going to have to be freed and released.
Then we better start having weapons training in our schools because people will have to defend themselves.
Actually seabe, if the delusional “war on drugs” could be curtailed, especially the totally illogical war on Marijuana, we could very quickly lower the prison population.
several easy steps could be implemented;
1. Immediate release of any person serving time for either possession of sale of mj. No if’s ands or buts.
Total amnesty for pot heads and their dealers. Let the anti drug religious fundies scream to holy hell, but that would do two things
lower the prison polulation, and remove the “crime” of simply getting high from the police’s ability the harass people.
2. Stop putting people in prison for a medical issue, usage of drugs to resolve personal/psychiatric issues even if those issues are minor. Treatment as the ONLY avenue to law enforcement.
those two would have
relevant numbers;
Look at the numbers of people who are being harassed by antiquated laws and think of the wasted dollars spent in doing so.
Just by removing all laws about pot, and laws about possession from the table we go from, 1,561,231 to 182,663 arrests for hard drug trafficking. 677,575 people would be getting treatment for their addiction, not the threat of jail time.
There would also be another effect that hasn’t been discussed, the parole and probation departments overload. We currently have 3,910,647 people in the US on either probation, 853,200 on parole.
That would certainly cut their workload, and the more serious criminals could be closely monitored when they weren’t chasing pot heads around any more.
If we got the drug problem out of prison we could work on the over crowding issue, but then the bigots who use the drug laws to harass people of color, IE differences between powered and crack cocaine sentence guidelines, do not want to change things, people who are trying to use the political process to force their personal religious views on the society as a whole don’t want to change any thing. And of course the people involved in the arrest and incarceration industry don’t want to change because they might lose money in the process.
But to improve both the over crowding issue and the immorality issue of forcing others to live by your personal issues things might have to change.
Re-establish mental health facilities. There is a very large prison contingent in itself.
Agree, and enlarge it enough, and fund it enough, to take over all mental health issues, including drug addiction.
I agree with all of that. That’s common sense, obvious, and should be done. But it won’t actually substantially cut into our prison population.
You have to release violent offenders
Not to mention even when we legalize, people still get arrested. However, legalization of all drugs (to me) is a no brainer, but legalizing MJ is what I’ll take for now. See? And they said I can’t be pragmatic.
ot:
hat tip-POU
this phuckery here!
Because, of course, the Former First Family should go live in THE HOOD.
PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.
……………………….
The Obamas Are Moving to Kalorama After the President Leaves Office. Ugh.
By Hillary Kelly on May 24, 2016
Today National Journal reported that, after leaving the media hanging as to the nature of their plans, the Obamas have finally made their decision on which DC neighborhood to call home after they leave 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and Kalorama is the winner. “The White House is staying mum on exactly which house,” they reported, “but the neighborhood is rich with possibilities.”
The neighborhood is also rich, period, a fact which has seemingly escaped most of the outlets that have reported the news. This isn’t exactly a surprise: the President earlier stated that the first family was choosing between Kalorama and Embassy Row, an equally tony neighborhood directly adjacent to it. Their home in Chicago, which they bought for $1.65 million in 2005 and is valued at just over $2 million, is a whopping 6,200 square feet and is set in chi-chi Hyde Park. And for the last eight years they’ve been roaming the hallowed halls of the most in-demand residence in the nation (aside from any of Martha Stewart’s houses, which, let’s face it, must be a delight). So the Obamas are no stranger to luxe living.
……………………………………………………….
“Imagine the good it could do a struggling DC neighborhood if he moved in
and established himself as a figurehead of the community, showing his
face at local spots and bringing a sense of excitement”
The important part:
If it was good enough for Warren Harding, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Herbert Hoover, it should be good enough for writing memoirs with access to the Library of Congress and the National Archives.
It makes eminently good sense to me.
It will be interesting to see whether they return to Hawaii or Chicago subsequent to Sasha’s graduation from high school. Or on to new adventures. He will be 55 when he leaves office. How he conducts his post-Presidential career will be as significant as that of his younger predecessors.
The two things we can predict with confidence:
The last execution in South Carolina was in 2011.
It could be that the prosecution’s death penalty request becomes academic in the US before long.
It does seem that random murders have increased since the Illinois Death Penalty was repealed. Of course, it could be just increased reporting or selective reporting but most of these crimes seem to be perpetrated as casually as Halloween vandalism in my day.
Murders in IL are down. Doesn’t break out random vs. non-random, but haven’t seen any reports anywhere that indicate that the ratio has changed.
“it could be just increased reporting or selective reporting “
If it bleeds it leads. Fear drives ratings.
Or selective attention. Which also goes along with increased reporting .
As a practical political matter, it’s not a good idea to put forth such an unpopular idea during an election year with a weak candidate with high negatives already.
Independents already view Liberals as living in a dream world, more concerned with criminals than their victims.
Wisconsin county clerk objects to weekend voting because it gives urban areas `too much access’
25 MAY 2016 AT 15:52 ET
A Wisconsin county clerk testified in federal court this week that weekend voting should be eliminated because it gave urban areas “too much access” to the polls.
In a hearing on Tuesday, Republican Waukesha County clerk Kathleen Novack spoke in favor of voting restrictions signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker (R) between 2011 and 2015, which opponents argue suppress the votes of non-whites.
According to The Cap Times, Novack said that voter ID restrictions and reduced early voting had caused “virtually no problems at all” in Waukesha County, which is about 95 percent white.
Novack argued that the state should end weekend voting because it gave an unfair advantage to large urban areas, where minorities are more likely to support Democrats.
“If there’s an office open 30 days versus an office that’s only open 10 work days, there are obviously voters that have a lot more access than someone else,” Novack insisted. “There has to come a point where it’s just giving over-access … to particular parts of the state.”
When she was asked if some voters had too much access, Novack replied that there was “too much access to the voters as far as opportunities.”
The county clerk added that long lines in urban areas were actually a sign that voters had enough access to polls.
“Apparently access is an easy thing or they wouldn’t have long lines,” she opined.
>>access is an easy thing or they wouldn’t have long lines
and up is down.
Every person on this site who claims Trump is a better option and they are voting for him should have this pinned to their chest.
‘Oh, in four years after America crashes, we will get our pony!’
Racist crackers will be in charge, and this stuff will get worse.
.
Like many here, I was once reflexively opposed to the Death Penalty, but George W Bush showed me the error of my ways, by the handling of the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein.
Because sometimes, rarely, a high official has behaved so murderously, with near genocidal effect, that their guilt is manifestly clear, and the deaths of tens of thousands cry out for the most severe punishment.
Ordinary murders? No death penalty.
But Dubya, Cheney, Rumsfeld? Short drop, long dangle, justice at last.
In my case, it was just the opposite. Bush’s torture of Jose Padilla showed me that no government can trusted with that ultimate power.
Disagree, forcing them to serve the rest of their earthly existence in an 8 x 10 concrete cell would be much worse for them then the short drop ever would.
I’m a firm believer when Timothy McVeigh realized HE killed all those kids, he wanted to die. The justice system helped him get his wish, however for me, him setting him in another 8 x 10, and making sure he knew of every missed birthday would have been a much better punishment to him.