They were imprisoned for life for a crime that, at most, should have netted them a couple of years behind bars. When they were young, Jamie and Gladys Scott facilitated a robbery that netted the robbers $11. The women had no prior criminal history. No one was killed and the boys who actually committed the robbery escaped with a few months in jail after fingering the young women in a plea-bargain. But the sisters were sentenced to life.

 Now, sixteen years later, Governor Haley Barbour is releasing the Scott Sisters from prison. But it’s not for the reasons you might suspect. They aren’t being released to right a long-ago wrong. They’re being released because th eldest sister, Jamie Scott, requires dialysis treatments which are costing the State of Mississippi about $200,0000.00 a year, and the younger of the two sisters has agreed to donate one of her own kidneys in exchange for their freedom:

After mulling over the matter for several months, Gov. Barbour announced in late December that he would not pardon the sisters, but would instead indefinitely suspend their sentences.

Gov. Barbour said he had acted in part out of concern over Jamie Scott’s health, but also to relieve the state of the cost of her dialysis treatment, approximately $200,000 a year.

“The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society,” Mr. Barbour said in a Dec. 29 statement. “Their incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott’s medical condition creates a substantial cost to the state of Mississippi.”

That’s some mighty fine Christian compassion for ya!

A newly elected GOP congresswoman from Tennessee makes the best case yet for the need for a Public Option in the Health Care Reform Act… but, of course, being a Republican she’s completely oblivious to that fact.

[ Daily Kos Flash video not available. ]

The importance of the public option for Health Care Reform is nowhere more evident than here: the Public Option wasn’t intended merely as a way for the Government to get involved in the business of providing health care insurance. It was needed to prevent health insurance providers from blackmailing the government by threatening to rescind coverage to certain groups, or pull out of certain markets altogether. With a public option in place, the government could have called their bluff, inviting insurance companies to forgo the profits they might gain from servicing a particular market. As it is, health insurers now have enormous leverage over future legislation regarding coverage and pricing.

(Via: Daily Kos)

As you’ve probably heard by now, one of the first moves of the new GOP majority in congress was to call for a reading of the U.S. Constitution from the House Floor. And if you weren’t paying attention, that’s probably what you though happened today. The Las Vegas Sun, for instance, reported on the incident thusly:

Despite it being the government’s founding document, it’s the first time it’s been read out, every article, signature, and amendment, on the floor of the House of Representatives. But the event wasn’t just in homage to the founding fathers. It was also a sign of the new influence of the Tea Party, for whom adherence to the Constitution was — as Nevadans will remember from Sharron Angle’s senatorial campaign — a major rhetorical campaigning point during the 2010 midterms.

But was that what really happened? As a matter of fact, no, that’s not what really happened. Read more »

“In his defense, I’ll say that sometimes, when you’ve been out to sea for a while, cut off from everything, you start to think things that you would never normally do are actually a good idea,” he said. “You do stupid stuff to stay sane.”

A U.S. Navy sailor aboard the Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. Enterprise, commenting on homoerotic training videos filmed and broadcast on the ship’s closed circuit video system by then XO and current Ship’s Captain Owen Honor.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

As long as we’re sharing, here’s my all time favorite Christmas classic, Christmas At Calvary:

Actual I sh*t you not lyrics:

I love to spend Christmas at Calvary.
The most beautiful gift was given.
When God himself, and mercy decorated a tree.
The most beautiful light there is shining.
I love to spend christmas at calvary.

Merry Christmas Stinquers!

As a follow up to yesterday’s piece on Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour’s selective memory of the civic activities of the  Yazoo Citzen’s Councils, I’d ike to direct Stinquers to Atlantic Monthly blogger Ta Nehishi-Coates’ must-read posting on the true activities of the local chapter Haley Barbour’s favorite gathering of good ol’ boys. Coates writes:

In 1954, the NAACP determined to bring five test cases to force integration in the Mississippi public schools. Yazoo County exhibited some of the worst disparities in the state, spending $245.55 on every white child, but only $2.92 per black pupil. So the NAACP gathered fifty-three signatures of leading black citizens of Yazoo City, the county seat, on a petition calling for integration.

Their courage was met with outrage. Sixteen of the town’s most prominent men called for a public meeting, to form a White Citizens’ Council and respond to the petition. Several hundred turned out on a hot June night, including journalist Willie Morris, who watched in mute disbelief as the best men of the town outlined their response: Read more »

Remember when the BP oil spill was being touted as “Barack Obama’s Katrina“? Despite the fact that Coast Guard vessels were on site working the spill from day one, and the Federal government mobilized heavily to contain the disaster, partisan critics of the Obama Administration insisted that not enough was being done to prevent oil from reaching Lousiana shores. And because it is an article of faith among the news media that every instance of Republican incompetence, corruption or greed must be counterbalanced by a corresponding incidence of Democratic incompetence, corruption or greed much of the new media and the chattering classes seemed perfectly happy to go along with the idea that the BP oil spill was, indeed, “Barack Obama’s Katrina.” Of course, to sucessfully argue this point it was necessary to show that there were effective countermeasures available that the administration, either through sloth or incompetence, was failing to implement. Enter Lousiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Always ready to savage the government for doing too much useless volcano monitoring, Jindall took to the airwaves to denounce the administration for not doing enough useful berm building. Berms, we were told over and over again, were the immediate, desperately needed, effective solution to the oil spill problem that the Administration was, for inexplicable reasons, failing to implement. There was only one little problem with this urgent claim: the experts disagreed. The building of berms, they told us, was an expensive way to accomplish very little. But never mind. All we heard from Jindall, the right-wing talks shows and much of the media was berms, berms, berms… and so under pressure from local legislators and the relentless, right-wing message machine, the Obama administration relented and pressured the Army Corps of Engineers to approve Jindal’s dubious project.  Read more »