Budget Kremlinology

He looks like he was Photoshopped into that picture.

Yeah, or a carboard cut out was shoved in.

Listening to Democracy Now re: Troy Davis. He always declines a last meal.

@JNOV: I love that phraseology: always refuses the last…

@JNOV: I hope that Ginsburg can convince four others to go with her to vote for the stay. I think she has 2 with her (Kagan and Breyer). Sotomayor used to be a prosecutor, so I don’t know whether she’d vote for the stay. Kennedy of course is the big question mark.

Jeffrey Toobin is saying that the delay probably means that someone is writing a dissent to the denial of the stay.

Stay of execution denied.

@SanFranLefty: Damn. This makes me ill.

@SanFranLefty: So they had the papers for what, 3 hours? How much consideration could they have given to the issues? Or were they just playing with him before they kill him, cat-like.

@SanFranLefty: Did Toobin just say that the lack of a stated dissent means the decision is unanimous?

@Dodgerblue: my friend wrote, “I read the stay application… not very promising. They’re asking for a stay for the court to consider a cert petition they plan to file. They hint it has something to do with the clemency process, but there’s no argument in it and no clear explanation of what the ground will be.”

It’s 11:02.

It has started.

Time of death: 11:08 p.m.

The South – still fighting the Civil War in the courtroom and at the ballot box. The GOP must be destroyed.

@JNOV: Well, that’s a loser. Kinda late to hide the ball with the Supremes.

@JNOV: What a country. Serious candidates for President don’t believe in evolution, and we kill dozens of people every year in cold blood.

@Dodgerblue: Yes. Meanwhile, Lawrence Brewer was executed in TX for the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. I’m disturbed that people aren’t more upset about the State killing its citizens.

@Dodgerblue: About 5 years ago, NPR had a haunting series of stories about the people who worked on executions at the Huntsville prison in Texas, and the impact it had on them. No one lasted very long on execution duty, and many were permanently scarred. Counseling has been requested for the officers who had to work the Davis execution. My heart goes out to them as well as to Davis’ family and supporters.

@blogenfreude: 60 percent of Americans support the Death Penalty. Republicans are just a symptom.

@nojo: If they were asked under what circumstances and even in those cases in which the case was shaky or sentence drawn under suspect circumstances it would drop to close to zero. I’d like to see the questionnaire and the method the polling agency used to draft a survey cohort.

@nojo: Of that percentage, I wonder how many of them considered themselves to be Right-to-Lifers. If it’s over one percent, the hypocrisy doth boggle the mind.

@FlyingChainSaw: There’s certainly a nuanced answer to the question — I would be in favor of the Death Penalty if I could be assured of fair and just administration — but we don’t live in a nuanced country. The moment you have to explain something, you’ve lost.

Remember the old argument that the best way to get rid of the Death Penalty would be to televise executions? On the one hand you risk a return to the days when hangings were occasions for picnics, but on the other hand it would be more honest.

You know, like televising war. Whatever happened to that?

I’ve tried many cases and argued many appeals, including death pemalty cases. It’s horrifying that a person’s life can be ended by our criminal courts.

@Dodgerblue: You’re made of stronger stuff than I am — after hearing the stories from people who have done the death penalty appeals, there’s no way I could do that.

@nojo: Sister Helen made that argument a few years ago to the California Department of Corrections when they were changing the protocols for execution after the federal judge said their method of lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment.

A Letter About Proposed Amendments to the Lethal Injection Protocol in California
June 26, 2009

To: Mr. Timothy Lockwood
Chief of CDCR Regulation and Policy Management

From: Sister Helen Prejean, csj
3009 Grand Rt. St. John #5
New Orleans, LA 70119

PUBLIC HEARING
Regarding Proposed Amendments to Title 15, Article 7.5, Sections 3349

Dear Mr. Lockwood,
All of my remarks about the proposed amendments to the lethal injection protocol center around this theme: KEEP THE WINDOW OPEN MAKE THE TORTURE AND KILLING TRANSPARENT.

Sadly, it is the personal experience I have had of accompanying six human beings to their deaths at the hand of the state that urges me to give this testimony.

KEEP THE WINDOW OPEN as the execution team goes about strapping down the person to be killed and as they insert the intravenous lines, including cut downs that may be necessary if there is difficulty in finding a suitable vein.

KEEP THE WINDOW OPEN during the administration of the poisonous chemicals and as the person is dying as well as after the person has been killed, as the medical professional verifies the death and as the corpse is put into a body bag and removed. Do not conceal any part of the killing process, and do not hide the identity of the personnel who carry out the killing, including the medical personnel. If we feel no need to protect the identity of legislators who have enacted death as punishment on the statute books or district attorneys who seek and secure death sentences, or juries who sentence people to die or judges who pronounce sentence, why do we hide the identity of those who carry out the killing, including those who concoct and administer the lethal chemicals and the medical personnel who supervise the proceedings?

KEEP THE WINDOW OPEN TO THE MEDIA so the citizens can witness the killings done in their name and which, perhaps, they themselves have called for. Through media coverage let legislators see the killings they have desired and mandated into law, and require district attorneys who procured the death sentences to witness the killing they sought.

DO NOT KEEP OUR EYES FROM SEEING THE DEATH AGONY of the person being killed by use of a paralytic drug. Are you aware that in hearings about lethal injection, veterinarians have testified that in the euthanasia of animals they no longer use paralytic agents because such drugs prevent them from seeing if the animal is in distress as they are dying? Use of a paralytic agent in the killing of a human being may be the most cowardly act of all. Its sole purpose is to hide the death agony from the eyes of those who witness the death. What if, for whatever reason, the sleeping barbiturate does not take effect? What if those being killed at our hands are fully conscious but, because of paralysis, are unable to move a finger or cry out as the potassium chloride burns through their veins and convulses their heart? If these killings are legitimate and legal, why do we take such pains to shield ourselves from seeing the agony they necessarily entail? The curtain that must be removed is not only the curtain on the window of the execution chamber at San Quentin, it is the curtain masking our own hearts toward these killings of our citizens, which we claim to want, yet are so reluctant to face.

I wrote the books, Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents, and give talks around this nation to bring people face to face with state-sanctioned killing and what it does to us all. May my testimony advance the day when the great state of California will forever consign to a museum the instruments and policies and protocols of state killing that we address today.

there is no cold blooded killing more barbaric than state sanctioned murder. oh noes noge….under what guidelines would you consider it acceptable? or “fair and just?” i say NONE. period. as dodge pointed out, our criminal justice system is just too criminal and that is the least of my objections. who ARE we? once again, my species embarrasses me.
gallop says 69%. excuse me while i go vomit.

@matador1015:
i’d wager way more than 1%. life is to be protected!—until they’re born.
and who were those people milling about outside the prison waiting? the ones with no signs. waiting for the hot dog vendor, no doubt.