Phrase of the Day: EXECUTIONS HALTED

[I missed this story in the midst of a slew of other news items.]

I have been following the case of Richard Glossip, an inmate on Oklahoma's death row after being wrongfully prosecuted and given the death penalty, for about a month-and-a-half.  On September 30, Governor Mary Fallin granted a last-minute stay of execution..  That stay, after a previous one for just two weeks, was for thirty-seven days.

That stay is now currently indefinite, as are all executions in Oklahoma.  In my September 30 post, I referred to the stay as having a "strange reason" behind it, even with the statement from the Governor's office mentioning the center of the controversy, a drug called potassium acetate.  It turns out that potassium acetate was incorrectly sent to the prison by Oklahoma's supplier of drugs for Richard Glossip's execution.  Potassium chloride, not potassium acetate, is required by Oklahoma's lethal injection protocols.

As a result Governor Mary Fallin has halted all executions indefinitely until the state Attorney General finishes investigating and wrongdoing in relation to not following proper procedures. 

I invite you to read up on this situation with the following articles:

All Oklahoma Executions on Hold After 'Crazy' Drug Snafu

Delays as Death-Penalty States Scramble for Execution Drugs

Terry

 

Phrase of the Day: START A NEW ROUTINE

Last week, following the shooting on the campus of Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, President Obama made a statement regarding the shooting itself and guns in America in general.  In it, the President said:
        "...as I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I
        said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers
        are not enough.  It’s not enough.  It does not capture the heartache and grief
        and anger that we should feel.  And it does nothing to prevent this carnage
        from being inflicted someplace else in America -- next week, or a couple of
        months from now."
He added:
        "But we are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses
        or want to do harm to other people.  We are the only advanced country on
        Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months."

The President addressed the current state in this country regarding these shootings and their aftermath:
        "Somehow this has become routine.  The reporting is routine.  My response
        here at this podium ends up being routine.  The conversation in the
        aftermath of it.  We've become numb to this.  We talked about this after
        Columbine and Blacksburg, after Tucson, after Newtown, after Aurora,
        after Charleston.  It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict
        harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun."
He included Washington's response to these killings:
        "And what’s become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose
        any kind of common-sense gun legislation.  Right now, I can imagine the press
        releases being cranked out:  We need more guns, they’ll argue.  Fewer gun
        safety laws.  
        "Does anybody really believe that?  There are scores of responsible gun
        owners in this country --they know that's not true.  We know because of the
        polling that says the majority of Americans understand we should be changing
        these laws -- including the majority of responsible, law-abiding gun owners.
        "We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire
        agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so.  And yet,
        we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how
        we could potentially reduce gun deaths.  How can that be?"

Just yesterday, not one, but two on-campus shootings took place in America, hours apart -- one at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, and one at Texas Southern University in Houston.

Going back to President Obama's news conference last week, he issued the following challenge to news organizations:
        "I would ask news organizations -- because I won't put these facts forward --
        have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who’ve been
        killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade and the number of
        Americans who’ve been killed by gun violence, and post those side-by-side
        on your news reports.  This won't be information coming from me; it will be
        coming from you."

Now that is a great idea!
 

The line at the top represents gun deaths in the U.S.
The line at the bottom represents deaths from terror attacks in the U.S.

While terror attacks in the U.S. have decreased 72%, gun attacks have gone up 14%.  In 2004, there were almost 400 times as many gun deaths as there were terror-related deaths.  By 2013, that number shot up to over 1600 times as many.  That means that in ten years (2004-2013), the ratio between gun deaths and terror-related deaths has quadrupled.

It seems to me that where we spend our money, time, and resources needs to change.  Mental health is a huge part of this problem as is access to guns; it is not either/or.  It is not a case of responsible and mentally-stable people going around killing people.  Why responsible gun owners and organizations that claim to support responsible gun ownership refuse to get behind addressing both parts of the issue while clouding the issue by claiming the government is out to take away everyone's gun is beyond my comprehension.  (Okay, it's not really beyond my comprehension ... it's that very clouding of the issue that compounds and extends the problem.)

I do not often use memes to make a point, but I feel the one below is germane and succinct while saying so much:

Mental health care in the United States is, of course, a huge problem unto itself.  In light of these mass shootings, however, care and access are unequivocally intertwined.

I would suggest that President Obama got it right about his observation of the routine quality surrounding one shooting after another after another.  Language is a part of how we address issues.  One example is our government talking about preventing terror attacks on U.S. soil.  With that in mind, maybe the first step, as far as how we identify the problem, should be this:

Terry

Phrase of the Day: STAY GRANTED

In a last-minute, and completely unexpected, move, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin gave Richard Glossip a stay of execution!

Even though her office argued in favor of the use of midazolam, the controversial lethal injection drug, in the case of Glossip v. Gross, she cited, of all things, its use in the lethal injection process.

Here is the statement from her office today:
        "Governor Mary Fallin has issued a 37 day stay of Richard Glossip’s
        execution to address legal questions raised today about Oklahoma’s
        execution protocols. The stay will give the Department of Corrections
        and its attorneys the opportunity to determine whether potassium
        acetate is compliant with the state’s court-approved execution
        procedures."
       "Last minute questions were raised today about Oklahoma’s execution
        protocol and the chemicals used for lethal injection," said Fallin. 
        "After consulting with the attorney general and the Department of
        Corrections, I have issued a 37-day stay of execution while the state
        addresses those questions and ensures it is complying fully with the
        protocols approved by federal courts."
        The new execution date will be Friday, November 6.
        "My sincerest sympathies go out to the Van Treese family, who has
        waited so long to see justice done,” Fallin said.

A strange reason, but a stay of execution is a stay of execution.  Hopefully, an innocent man will be let free.

If you haven't yet read my blog about this case, please click here.

Terry

Film of the Day: THE ANATOMY OF A GREAT DECEPTION

Yesterday, here the United States, the nation marked the fourteenth anniversary of the attacks on 9/11.  Fourteen years later, it remains a divisive event.  There are those who are in sync with the official story and those who are not.  While I consider myself a healthy skeptic, I am in the latter of those two camps.  As the events on that terrible day unfolded, and in the weeks and months that followed, I, like so many others, was overcome with many emotions. As the years passed, many questions arose for me and I began to think about all that had happened much more deeply.

Today's film, director David Hooper's first, is The Anatomy of a Great Deception, which discusses his personal journey in researching the events of 9/11.  It is a thought-provoking project into the events of that terrible day that, for Hooper, began with "one simple, innocent question"..

Dismiss this as conspiracy ramblings if you will, but I sincerely invite you to give Mr. Hooper's film a watch.  You just might find it was worth it.



Terry

Phrase of the Day: RULE OF LAW

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you have likely heard of the case of Kim Davis.  Davis is a county clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky.  Beginning late last month, some same-sex couples came to the county clerk's office to obtain a marriage license.  (The U.S. Supreme Court declared same-sex marriages legal back in late June.)  Davis refused, citing "God's authority" as her reason why she refused.  In fact, it had reached the point very quickly where Davis was not issuing any marriage license to any couple, gay or straight, in order to avoid issuing licenses to same-sex couples.

Davis recently petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case; the Court turned her down.  In fact, Davis had been ordered by a judge about a month ago to issue marriage licenses.  For nearly a week, Davis went before a federal judge several times.  Each time, the judge told her that legally she could not refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.  Davis remained defiant, and was held in contempt of court and put in jail last week.  In court, she told her clerks to not issues marriages licenses.  After being questioned by the judge, the judge told the clerks they had to issues marriages licenses to all couples under the law.  Five out of the six clerks agreed.  The one holdout was Davis' son, Nathan.

The following day, eight couples, six gay and two straight, obtained marriages licenses.  Some of the gay couples had tried to obtain a marriage license a couple of times; some had tried six times, day after day.  Many of them had entered into a class action lawsuit against Davis to be granted marriage licenses.  While a fine by itself would have also been appropriate for Davis' contempt charge, the judge felt that her legal defense fund, the Liberty Counsel, would be able to pay the fines for Davis with no problem while she continued to refuse to break the law.  In response to her being put in jail, the chairman of the Liberty Counsel, Mat Staver, has stated that Kim Davis has been treated like a criminal solely because she is being forced to go against her religious conscience.

In fact, Mr. Staver feels as though Kin Davis' is similar with what went on in Nazi Germany.
          "[W]hat happened in Nazi Germany, what happened there first, they
          removed the Jews from government public employment, then they
          stopped patronizing them in their private businesses, then they
          continued to stigmatize them, then they were the ‘problems,’ then they
          killed them.         
          "Back in the 1930s, it began with the Jews, where they were evicted
          from public employment, then boycotted in their private employment,
          then stigmatized and that led to the gas chambers.  This is the new
          persecution of Christians here in this country."

Mr.Staver, Kim Davis was jailed for breaking the law.  Period.

There are other county clerks refusing to issue marriage licenses, too, but I want to highlight a story out of Oregon.  Judge Vance D. Day, a circuit court judge in Marion County, Oregon, has recently refused to issue any marriage licenses in order to avoid issuing them for same-sex couples. He is under investigation for a series of ethics issues, one of them being his refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Even though in violation of the Supreme Court's ruling, Judge Day had immediately instructed his clerks to refer couples to other judges. 

While the situations of Kim Davis and Judge Day are similar, the approaches are vastly different. Judge Day immediately had other options to be presented.  Davis did not even want her clerks to issues marriage licenses, and maintains from jail that they still should not do so, even claiming the licenses are invalid.  Both are in the wrong in the sight of the law, but the judge at least gave options, where Davis wants to use her position to hold up the rights of others hostage.  She has even stated she would not resign from her position.  Judge Day is at least offering legal circumvention; Kim Davis is staunchly offering religious imposition.  Let me clarify, I do not feel Judge Day is correct, not at all, but at least he has currently suggested an alternate route.

Christian conservatives are condemning Davis' jailing as religious persecution.  That is their belief and they are entitled to that belief, but the contempt ruling is legal, not religious.  Let us look at the Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage.  In his majority decision paper, Judge Anthony Kennedy wrote that the plaintiffs were seeking "equal dignity in the eyes of the law" and that "[n]o longer may this liberty be denied".  Nowhere in the justices' decisions is it stated that they were ruling on religious beliefs and convictions, and nowhere do they state that everyone's religious beliefs must change.  Why?  Because the Supreme Court is not a religious body; it is a legal body, and thus has no jurisdiction over religious beliefs.

Mike Huckabee, a current Republican presidential candidate and Christian conservative, has stated that Kim Davis is facing what he calls "judicial tyranny" as a result of "overreach of the judiciary".  Once again, an intentional misinterpretation of the Supreme Court's legal ruling regarding equal rights as an anti-religious statement.  Kim Davis, and others who believe that way she does, can believe that way all they wish.  Legal issues and laws can coincide with religious beliefs, like murder, but those issues and laws still address legality alone and nothing more.

America is not a theocracy and was never intended by its founders to be one.  The separation of church and state is a tenet of that.  America is, and was always intended to be, a nation of laws. 

To be fair, Kim Davis has worked in the Rowan County clerk's office for roughly twenty-five years, and was elected as County Clerk on January 5 of this year.  So, after a quarter-century of working in the County Clerk's office, and roughly six months after her beginning as County Clerk, the Supreme Court hands down its ruling on same-sex marriage.  Clearly, the dynamics have changed; that cannot be denied. 

Still, if her private, individual religious beliefs are against same-sex marriage, but the position to which she was elected, which included an oath she took to uphold the Constitution, is a legal, government position, then the law must prevail.  The county clerk's office is not a religious institution.

How did Davis respond to this new dynamic?  With discrimination against same-sex couples by denying them their legal right to get married, citing God's authority and her religious beliefs as her justifications.  It is religious bigotry and entitlement, not religious freedom.

Does Kim Davis have a right to be County Clerk?  Of course, she does.  Still, to continue in that position, she has to issue marriage licenses to straight and same-sex couples because same-sex couples have the same right to get married as straight couples.  That is the nature of her non-religious position as County Clerk.

If Kim Davis is against same-sex marriage, then she should not marry a woman.  If Mike Huckabee, who is also a Baptist minister, does not want to perform a wedding for a same-sex couples, then he shouldn't.  (The Supreme Court ruling does not address individual religious beliefs or how churches and clergy have to perform their duties.) 

So, what's the problem?

For one, the misuse of the term "religious freedom".  The religious freedom granted by the Constitution is about the exercise one's religion and religion itself.  The "religious freedom" of which people like Kim Davis, Mike Huckabee, and others speak appears to be the freedom to rework and rewrite the fabric of this country.  Whenever those who wish to change the fabric of this country do not get their way, the automatic response is their religious freedom is being denied.

The other problem, which stems from the "religious freedom" arguments, is the rising tide of anti-secular law sentiment among many Christian conservatives.  It is a form of religious separatism.  It is not separation of church and state, but separation church from state ... or more along the lines of elevation of church over state. 

If Kim Davis was Muslim, Christian conservatives and, let's be honest, others would be against her, saying she should just do her job or step down.  And yet, if she was Muslim and refused to issue marriage licenses based on her religious beliefs, she would be doing nothing different that what is the case today.  (I would still say she was in the wrong and should issue marriage licenses.)  To say that there is a difference and Kim Davis, the Christian, is right is based in religious arrogance.

There are many countries that are theocracies.  Some of them are Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iran.  It is curious to note than no Christian conservative has stated that those countries are great examples of government rule.  If so many of them want religion to rule this country -- Mike Huckabee, for one example, when he initially ran for President in 2008, said he wanted the Constitution to be rewritten to be more in line with the Bible -- why don't any of them tout those other countries as examples?  The answer is religious elitism.

The case of Kim Davis boils down to someone behaving in direct conflict with the oath she swore to uphold ... someone not doing her job to its fullest extent ... and using a cloak of "religious freedom" as defense.  Those who support her and, perhaps, want to see America become a theocracy need to understand that, as a nation of laws, the law must prevail.  Those who are against same-sex marriage, citing their religion, show themselves to be unjust, seeing gay persons as second-class citizens who do not deserve equal rights. 

They also represent Christianity as religious colonialism.

Terry

Term of the Day: STAY OF EXECUTION (4TH UPDATE)

UPDATE 9/30/15: POPE FRANCIS APPEALS THE COURT TO NOT EXECUTE RICHARD GLOSSIP

UPDATE 9/25/15: OKLAHOMA ATTORNEY GENERAL REMAINS AGAINST NEW TRIAL

UPDATE 9/24/15: PSYCHIATRIC REPORT OF KEY WITNESS IN GLOSSIP CASE SURFACES

UPDATE 9/23/15: EXECUTION DATE REMAINS DESPITE WEAKENING CASE

I urge you, dear readers, to read this and both get involved and spread this post around as much as you can.  A man's life hangs in the balance.

The death penalty has been a divisive subject for years.  Its roots could arguably be traced back ages when early homo sapiens walked the earth (i.e. threats, real or perceived, that were met with violence and death).  The use of crucifixion under the Roman Empire, the use of the electric chair and lethal injection, and even the murders of innocent people during the Salem witch trials are all various examples of the death penalty.  It has been deemed necessary when dealing with criminals whose crimes (also real or perceived) are so severe that only putting them to death is deemed as just punishment.

There have been examples when the death penalty has been commuted, and the discovery of DNA several years ago has, at times, be a key element in getting convictions of varying degrees overturned.  There are times when people have not only be incarcerated unjustly, but even put to death unnecessarily. 

Today, I will highlight one such case.  The case of Richard Glossip.

I will be providing links to relevant sites, but I wanted to provide a very brief overview.  A murder took place at the Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on Janaury 7, 1997.  The victim was Barry Van Treese, the owner of the Best Budget Inn.  The man convicted of the murder is Justin Sneed, who was in charge of maintenance at the inn.  The manager, Richard Glossip, was on duty and onsite at the time.  Sneed was arrested and charged with Van Treese's murder.  Sneed implicated Glossip, saying Glossip had paid him to kill Van Treese.

Justin Sneed is serving a life sentence.  Richard Glossip is on death row.

Key points in this case include:

• Deal made by detectives with Sneed for implicating someone else
• Videotape of Sneed's confession, including the offer made by detectives, was never shown to any jury.
• Shoddy defense representation
• Sneed changing his testimony repeatedly
• No physical evidence to support Glossip's involvement

Richard Glossip is scheduled to be executed on September 16.  He has been on death row for seventeen years.

I first became aware of this case on a recent episode of the Dr. Phil television show.  I am not a regular viewer of his show, but I had seen commercials for the episode that featured actress Susan Sarandon.  Sarandon, played Sister Helen Prejean in the very powerful film Dead Man Walking.  Both Sarandon and Sister Helen appeared on the episode.  Below is that episode in its entirety.

Many of the points covered in the show are in the next link, but I would recommend you give it a read.  This is a link to Sister Mary Prejean's blog about Richard Glossip's case.  You will see links for signing a petition to Oklahoma's Governor Mary Fallin to give Glossip a stay of execution to allow all of the relevant evidence to come to light, to write to Governor Fallin directly, to write your local newspaper about this case, and more.  I would strongly encourage you to scroll down on the site and click on the DOWNLOAD THE TALKING POINTS link for an overview of this case before you continue.  Here's the link: Save Richard Glossip's life

There's even a website dedicated to Glossip himself, which includes information about his life and updates on his case.  Here's that link: Richard Glossip Is An Innocent Man

One wrongful death does not, and cannot, warrant or justify another wrongful death.  Please see everything presented here and get involved.  At the very least, I urge you to spread this post as much as you can on various social media.  The time is getting closer to September 16, Richard Glossip's scheduled execution date. 

An innocent man was killed on January 7, 1997.  Don't let another be killed on September 30, 2015.  Please help!

Terry

Term of the Day: TRADE AGREEMENT

[A quick word of thanks to you, dear readers, for pushing this blog past the 6,000 views mark.  Thanks to all of you around the world!]
 

When is a trade agreement not really a trade agreement?
How can you tell if it is a good or a bad thing?

To the first question, a trade agreement is not really a trade agreement when it really deals with the benefit of corporations and the detriment of people and their governments, thus creating a form of global corporatocracy.  The answer to the second question is you can tell if it is good or bad when you are not told about it fully, as if something is being hidden because it will cause more harm than good.

In short, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), touted as a trade agreement, is no such thing .. and it is really, really bad.

If you were frustrated and/or confused about Obamacare when it was being voted on and then passed and implemented, that will seem like nothing more than a mere conundrum compared to the TPP.  It would be an agreement among a dozen countries, including Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Japan.

The TPP would affect personal Internet use, prescription drug costs, intellectual property rights, and much more.

A little further down into this bowl of unpalatable alphabet soup is needed to understand how close things are to going from bad to worse.  Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) could fundamentally change how future trade deals can proceed in the future.  It allows for the President to send the entire text of the bill to the Congress for an up or down, strictly yes or no vote, without allowing any amendments to be tacked onto it.  This is far different from the usual involvement by Congress in trade deals.  The TPA is also known as "fast track".

On June 18th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the TPA by a vote of 218-210.  The U.S. Senate passed the bill by a vote of 60-38 just six days later.  Another bill, the TAA (Trade Adjustment Assurance), which is alleged to make the trade agreement more agreeable to unions, and which was originally bundled with the TPA, initially losing in the House, then passed the House by a vote of 286-138 on the same day the Senate passed the TPA.  (The Senate had originally voted in favor of the TPA/TAA bundle.)

The bill has gone to President Obama's desk and he has signed it.  His job now is to negotiate the terms of the agreement with other countries included in the agreement before sending the bill off to Congress for a final up or down vote.

The following videos will explain this far better.  The first is by economist, professor, and former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, Robert Reich.  It explains briefly about the TPA and the TPP.  It was released before the votes in favor of fast track were taken, but Reich is clear about his stance on the matter.

The next video explains more about the TPP, including who has had a say about its development and just how far reaching its effects would be.  (The Philip Morris v. Uruguay case mentioned in the video has not yet been decided.)

And this video, looking at it from a Canadian perspective, shows that there is more to come, including talks coming up very soon.

Does this worry you?  It should.  It should worry you very much.

Now, a global corporatocracy cannot really be achieved, or at least not come to full fruition, in the Pacific Rim alone.  Never fear, the TTIP is here.

The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which would be between the United States and the European Union, has been in negotiations for about a year-and-a-half already.  It is still in negotiations ... and those negotiations remain behind closed doors.  It would be an attack on the EU's national health system through privatization, the relaxing of banking regulations, a lowering of food safety (including the use of GMO foods) and environmental regulations in the EU, and much more.  It, too, like the TPP, is being touted as a trade deal when it is nothing of the kind.

Shockingly, the EU Parliament voted just days ago in support of the TTIP!  This article from last Fall and this article from yesterday, both from England's The Independent, provide even more detail on what is at stake and the recent Parliamentary vote. 

The TPP must be stopped!  The only thing being traded in this incorrectly described trade deal is trading what protections are and should be in place for the stripping away or degradation of those protections ... trading what is best for citizens for what is best for corporations ... trading individual countries' sovereignty for a global corporatocracy.  This cannot happen!

Here in the United States, I urge you to contact your Senators and Representatives and tell them, in no uncertain terms, to vote NO when the TPP comes to Congress for an up or down vote.  Make the TPP DOA.  Here's how:

Click on the image below.  It will take you to the website Contacting the Congress, which lists contact info for all members of Congress, Senate and House.

Anyone from any of the other countries listed in the posting should contact their elected officials, too.  Let your political representatives know in a loud, unified voice that the TPP must not be passed!

Terry