Texans guilty of murder

The adult citizens of Texas collectively committed a murder in 1993, acting through the instrument of their state government, when they executed Ruben Cantu, an innocent man.

An excellent Slate piece by Dan Markel describes the evidence of innocence and lays out the heartbreaking story:

While on death row, Cantu wrote, "My name is Ruben M. Cantu and I am only 18 years old. I got to the 9th grade and I have been framed in a capital murder case." Notwithstanding Cantu's protestations, Texas executed him at the age of 26 for his alleged role in a murder-robbery. (Because he was only 17 at the time of the crime, Cantu would have been spared execution had the situation arisen more recently.)

Here's hoping Markel is right that good may come of this:

Looking forward, Cantu's tragic end might well accelerate the gradual dismantling of the death penalty. Other factors—such as the economically forbidding cost of capital punishment and newly galvanized Catholic opposition to executions—are also sure to contribute. Indeed, just last week, a report from New Jersey revealed that the state has spent a quarter of a billion dollars on its death-penalty system even though it has yet to execute anyone. Perhaps that's a sign of success; but $250 million is a lot of money that might have been better used to prevent and prosecute other crimes.

This week the 1,000th person since the "modern period" of execution began in 1976 is scheduled to be killed. How many of those 1,000 were in fact truly guilty may never be known. (Aside from Cantu, serious doubts about two other cases have recently been raised.) But we have found our David Gale. And unlike the movie character, Ruben Cantu was not a willing martyr. It's time for Texas and other states to call a moratorium on executions. It's time to renew the national conversation about whether the costs and consequences of the death penalty are compatible with, and expressive of, the benchmark established long ago by the Supreme Court, namely, "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." Absent compelling evidence that executions (even of innocents) are saving lives through deterrence, one lost innocent is too many. Any more would be a crime.

How Bush can win

Fred Kaplan at Slate lays out a terrifying scenario. Please someone tell me the flaw in his logic, because it seems like we're gonna get screwed out of all this.

Bush's Can't-Lose Reversal
Wednesday's speech will set the agenda for withdrawal from Iraq.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, Nov. 28, 2005, at 7:14 PM ET

Brace yourself for a mind-bog of sheer cynicism. The discombobulation begins Wednesday, when President George W. Bush is expected to proclaim, in a major speech at the U.S. Naval Academy, that the Iraqi security forces—which only a few months ago were said to have just one battalion capable of fighting on its own—have suddenly made uncanny progress in combat readiness. Expect soon after (if not during the speech itself) the thing that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have, just this month, denounced as near-treason—a timetable for withdrawal of American troops.

And so it appears (assuming the forecasts about the speech are true) that the White House is as cynical about this war as its cynical critics have charged it with being. For several months now, many of these critics have predicted that, once the Iraqis passed their constitution and elected a new government, President Bush would declare his mission complete and begin to pull out—this, despite his public pledge to "stay the course" until the insurgents were defeated.

This theory explains Bush's insistence that the Iraqis draft and ratify the constitution on schedule—even though the rush resulted in a seriously flawed document that's more likely to fracture the country than to unite it. For if the pullout can get under way in the opening weeks of 2006, then the war might be nullified as an issue by the time of our own elections.

The political beauty of this scenario is that, even if Iraq remains mired in chaos or seems to be hurtling toward civil war, nobody in Congress is going to call for a halt, much less a reversal, of the withdrawal. The Republicans will fall in line; many of them have been nervous that the war's perpetuation, with its rising toll and dim horizons, might cost them their seats. And who among the Democrats will choose to outflank Bush on his right wing and advocate—as some were doing not so long ago—keeping the troops in Iraq for another five or 10 years or even boosting their numbers. (The question is so rhetorical, it doesn't warrant a question mark.)

In short, Bush could pull a win-win-win out of this shift. He could pre-empt the Democrats' main line of attack against his administration, stave off the prospect of (from the GOP's perspective) disastrous elections in 2006 and '08, and, as a result, bolster his presidency's otherwise dwindling authority within his own party and among the general population.

No wonder he was crying

Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's plea agreement detailed the bribes he accepted. Especially notable are the two antique commodes and the "hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash." When you plead guilty to bribery, do you have to give the stuff back?

• $200,000 toward the purchase of his Arlington, Va., condominium.
• $140,000 to a third party for the "Duke-Stir" yacht, which was moved to his boat slip for his use.
• $12,000 paid to an antique store for three night stands, a leaded glass cabinet, a washstand, a buffet and four armoires.
• $7,200 paid to an antique store for a circa 1850 Louis Phillipe period commode and a circa 1830 Restoration period commode.
• $13,500 toward the purchase of a Rolls-Royce.
• $17,889.96 for repairs to the Rolls-Royce.
• $9,200 paid to a manufacturer for two Laser Shot shooting simulators.
• Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to him and a company he controlled.

A question I too have asked

Emily Messner at the Post asks: "Why Am I Still Getting E-mails from John Kerry?"

I got an e-mail yesterday from John Kerry urging me to vote in the Virginia election today.
Why am I still getting e-mails from John Kerry?

You know at the end of Ferris Bueller's Day Off -- after the credits have rolled and a wounded
Mr. Rooney has pulled off in the school bus with the gummy bear girl -- when Ferris comes down the hall and says, "You're still here? It's over! Go home. Go!"

That's how I feel about John Kerry. It's time to go back to being the junior senator from Massachusetts. It's over. Go home. Go!

Yes, git! Git I told ya! With your mumbling and bumbling, shitty campaign running, windsurfing bullshit, git on.

Sherry Boyles for Texas Democratic Party chair

Mike Hailey reports on his Capitol Insider that:

Austin lawyer Sherry Boyles has apparently decided to throw her name into the ring of contenders for Texas Democratic Party chair.

Boyles, a former state party official who fell short in a bid for railroad commissioner in 2002, will join North Texas activist Boyd Richie as the only two candidates so far in the race to replace State Chairman Charles Soechting, who intends to step down when his term ends next summer.

I say run, Sherry, run. While it may have been a bit hard to see her as a natural for RR commissioner, she's ideally suited to be state chair. Her stump speech about being the daughter of a Baptist preacher in NE Texas speaks to Rs and revs up Ds alike.

She knows politics, she's smart, she can raise money, and she's young. You won't see her bringing in George Shipley. We might even see, gasp, some fresh, creative ideas. And hopefully, having worked for, seen, and learned from the devastation caused by Molly Beth, Sherry will actually be able to recruit and keep talented staff.

Also of note:

While Boyles only received 42 percent of the vote in duel against incumbent Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, she finished with more votes than any other Democrat in a non-judicial statewide contest with the exception of John Sharp in the lieutenant governor's race and Kirk Watson in his quest for attorney general that year.

Some good news out of Texas

As reported in NYT, "Union organizers have obtained what they say is majority support in one of the biggest unionization drives in the South in decades, collecting the signatures of thousands of Houston janitors."

In an era when unions typically face frustration and failure in attracting workers in the private sector, the Service Employees International Union is bringing in 5,000 janitors from several companies at once. With work force experts saying that unions face a slow death unless they can figure out how to organize private-sector workers in big bunches, labor leaders are looking to the Houston campaign as a model.

Note that SEIU is one of the breakaways from the AFL-CIO. The secessionists are the future of labor.

With its campaign to organize the janitors, the union has focused on two groups it says are pivotal if labor is to grow again: low-wage workers and immigrants. The janitors, nearly all of them immigrants,
earn just over $100 a week on average, usually working part time for $5.25 an hour.

Focusing on these two constituencies is what has made labor in Los Angeles such a force. Los Angeles is the only major area where private sector union membership is increasing. They should send TX AFL-CIO staff there to learn the model and bring it back home.

The union announced its campaign last April, but two years earlier, it sent a community liaison to Houston who helped line up backing from the city's mayor, several congressmen and dozens of clergymen, including the Roman Catholic archbishop, Joseph A. Fiorenza. The archbishop even celebrated a special Mass for janitors in August and spoke at the union's kickoff rally, telling the janitors that God was unhappy that they earned so little and did not have health coverage.

Way to go Bill White, for backing this. And also this archbishop. We need more religious voices speaking for the left.

Which brings up... Dave McNeely's latest column asking if "our state and national leaders are truly Christian." The answer, No.

To live a life Christ would have applauded, we need to take care of the least of those in our society—the poor, the downtrodden, the underprivileged, the blind, the marginalized, old folks, and most of all, he children just getting started in life.

[...]

Think about the recent proposed budget cuts in Washington for services designed to help people at the bottom of the income scale. Meanwhile, think of all the tax cuts designed primarily to benefit not the needy, but the wealthy. Think about the habit in Texas to approve ever more regressive taxes—like a higher and broader sales tax, and gambling -that shift the tax load those who can least afford it.

Think of balancing a budget shortfall in Texas by cutting programs aimed at those who need our help most.

For McNeely that's pretty ballsy.

Best radio interview ever

Ok, maybe not, but it’s pretty good. Colin Powell’s former chief of staff on Democracy Now. It doesn’t get any more damning than a career military intelligence officer who teaches intelligence at the Army War College and was in the middle of this process eviscerating the distortion of intelligence and the decision-making that got us into Iraq. He calls the speech to the UN “the low point” of his professional career, talks about torture and Abu Ghraib, calls for Bush to clean house of the "Cabal" that hijacked the war process, and oh yeah, he’s a lifelong Republican.

Go Murtha, screw you Granger

As has been widely reported:

The congressional debate over the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq escalated Thursday when a House Democrat with a reputation as a hard-nosed defense hawk called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

"It's time to bring them home. They've done everything they can do," said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

[...]

Murtha, a 73-year-old decorated Marine veteran who served as an intelligence officer in Vietnam, is widely respected by his colleagues on military matters. His stance has the potential to influence others in Congress who are nervous about falling public support for the war.

Kudos to Murtha for his retort to Cheney:

"I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that," said Murtha. "I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."

And screw you to Kay Granger for this remark:

But Rep. Kay Granger, a Fort Worth Republican who also sits on the defense appropriations subcommittee with Murtha, slammed his call for a troop withdrawal as "reprehensible and irresponsible."

Referring to the U.S. war dead in Iraq, Granger said a pullout would mean that "their lives have been lost in vain." As of Thursday, 2,082 American troops had died in combat in Iraq, according to the Associated Press.

This is basically the R position. Sending our military off to die in vain, continuing to let them die in vain, OK. Admitting this is occuring, not OK, unpatriotic.

Jimmy Buffett to campaign for Kinky

Buffett will campaign, in moderation
By BILL ADAIR, Times Washington Bureau Chief

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Singer Jimmy Buffett says he will campaign for only two candidates in the 2006 election: Bill Nelson and Kinky Friedman.

[...]

Buffett said he was backing Friedman because "he's an old friend of mine and he wrote a great review of my book in the (New York) Times. "I like what he's doing."

[...]

Buffett told the students that countries are like rock 'n' roll bands, with three basic types:

democratic (with a small D) bands with four equal members who each want to kill each other;

benevolent dictatorships (he puts himself and his Coral Reefer Band in that category);

the ego-centric band, which has a leader "who doesn't give a damn about anybody else."

Smoking ban kills beloved bar, Owner forced to turn to Wal-mart

Lovejoy's closing in March
By Joe Gross
American-Statesman

Lovejoy's Bar and Taproom soon will be no more.

The beloved hangout at 604 Neches has been a downtown staple for 12 years, but plans to close toward the end of March.

[...]

"This has been coming for quite a while, but it came to a head through October," Tait said. "It's not just the numbers thing," he said blaming the smoking ban for driving the final nail into the bar's coffin.

"As a 25 year vet of the hospitality business, I hate the fact that I walk into work everyday and face negativity because people aren't allowed to do what they enjoy doing, which is have a cigarette with their beer" Tait said. "It's just uncomfortable. When your patrons tell you every day that they're not enjoying themselves, what are you going to do?"

[...]

"I'm thinking about opening a Wal-Mart," Tait said. "Those guys make money."

Suggest a title for Shrum's new book

Shrum-Di-Dum-Dum:Liberal To UnveilMysteries Of ’04

By Ben Smith

Robert Shrum, the political consultant whose words and ideas have helped define the Democratic Party for 40 years, has signed a contract to write his first book.

At age 62, Mr. Shrum has been a writer for most of his career, and is, in his way, one of America’s best-known. Phrases like “Come home America” and “The dream shall never die”—both part of the political lexicon—are his. But beginning with a stint as a speechwriter for John Lindsay (a Republican who became a Democrat in the early 1970’s), Mr. Shrum has given and sold his words to others. The only books he’s taken credit for writing are a series of debate manuals that he wrote for the American Enterprise Institute to help pay the bills at Harvard Law School.

The new volume, sold for six figures to Simon & Schuster and expected to be released in the spring of 2007, will be all his.

“It’s about politics and what I’ve seen, the lessons I draw from it,” Mr. Shrum told The Observer in a
telephone interview, adding that he didn’t think the book would fit into the usual categories of political publishing. “I don’t know how you separate the fabric of your experience from the vision you have of where the party is or where the party ought to come out.”

Mr. Shrum declined to discuss the book in any further detail, though it was sold based on a thick partial manuscript, according to his agent, Flip Brophy.

So far, possible suggested book titles include:

"My Life As A Loser"
"The Pied Piper of a Desperate Party"
"Overweight and Out of Touch"
"How to Profit From Failure"
"Candidates I Have Loved and Failed"

Suggest your own...

Dan Savage has an interesting proposal:.

If the Republicans can propose a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, why can't the Democrats propose a right to privacy amendment? Making this implicit right explicit would forever end the debate about whether there is a right to privacy. And the debate over the bill would force Republicans who opposed it to explain why they don't think Americans deserve a right to privacy - which would alienate not only moderates, but also those libertarian, small-government conservatives who survive only in isolated pockets on the Eastern Seaboard and the American West.

Of course, passing a right to privacy amendment wouldn't end the debate over abortion - that argument would shift to the question of whether abortion fell under the amendment. But given the precedent of Roe, abortion rights would be on firmer ground than they are now. So, come on, Democrats, go on the offensive - start working on a bill.

Savage thinks it could finally put to rest whether the undefined "right" to privacy in the Constitution protects abortion, sodomy, birth control, etc. I don't know how the hell you actually word a constitutional amendment like that, but why the hell not? Then we can challenge drug laws with it.

I also think privacy is good issue for the Dems generally, esp. when the enemy is big corporations. By making privacy a core value, we could talk about genetic discrimination by insurance companies, identity theft, government databanks and the PATRIOT Act.

It could help us in the new battleground states of the West. Brian Schweitzer could run on it.

Quote of the day

"It's kind of like virginity. It is hard to get back." -- Pollster John Zogby on Bush regaining the public trust, Houston Chronicle, 11/15

Hard to get back... unless you're born again!

Learn How to Start Over If You’ve Lost Your Virginity. Also, Grammy Winner Rebecca St. James says, "True Love Waits."

Beer beer beer!

Drinker's Delight: Beer May Fight Disease
A Unique Compound in Ale Intrigues Oregon Researchers

Along with tea, coffee, red wine and chocolate, beer may be added to the list of foods containing disease-fighting micronutrients.

By JOY VICTORY
Nov. 7, 2005 —

"Mmmm … beer."

This oft-repeated sentiment of Homer Simpson is a mantra for the millions of beer drinkers in the United States. As popular as beer is, however, it often has gotten a bad rap as a calorie-loaded beverage that only serves to create paunchy beer bellies and alcohol-fueled lapses in judgment.

But that negative image may begin to fade: Research is showing that beer could join the ranks of other guilt-inducing but wildly popular foods — chocolate, coffee and red wine — as a possible disease-fighter.

It turns out that beer hops contain a unique micronutrient that inhibits cancer-causing enzymes. Hops are plants used in beer to give it aroma, flavor and bitterness.

[...]

What Stevens and others are discovering is that xanthohumol has several unique effects. Along with inhibiting tumor growth and other enzymes that activate cancer cells, it also helps the body make unhealthy compounds more water-soluble, so they can be excreted.

Most beers made today are low on hops, however, and so don't contain much xanthohumol. But beers known for being "hoppy" — usually porter, stout and ale types — have much higher levels of the compound. Oregon's microbrews ranked particularly high, Stevens said, which is not surprising: U.S. hops are grown almost entirely in the Northwest.

Still, no one knows how much beer is needed to reap the benefits. Mice studies show that the compound is metabolized quickly by the body, so it's hard to get a large amount in the body at one time, Stevens said.

"It clearly has some interesting chemo-preventive properties, and the only way people are getting any of it right now is through beer consumption," he said.

By the way, I love that the reporter who wrote this piece is "Joy Victory". How appropriate. I'm drinking a sixer of Sierra tonight!

Bush vs Nixon

The bloggers at Tiny Revolution note that, since polling began, Nixon is the only two-term president with lower approval ratings at a comparable point in his presidency than GWB:

GALLUP
Johnson 66% (Oct. 1965)
Reagan 63% (Oct. 1985)
Clinton 57% (Oct. 1997)
Eisenhower 57% (Oct. 1957)
Truman 49% (Oct. 1949)
Bush 39% (Oct. 2005)
Nixon 29% (Oct. 1973)

They also graphed both Bush's approval rating and disapproval rating against Nixon's.















Also, if you go to Google Fight, "Bush and Corruption" beats "Nixon and Corruption" by a landslide, 12.9 million to 1.4 million.

Now I thought that might be a bit unfair to GWB, after all, dad's Iran Contra mess might be included. So I tried "'George W. Bush' and Corruption" vs. "'Richard Nixon' and Corruption" and Bush still beat Nixon 3.9 million to .4 million.

Daschle unleashed

"He has turned so many corners, he is now just turning in circles" -- Tom Daschle on Bush.

Thank you Rosa Parks, for giving us Condoleezza Rice

Unsuprisingly, GWB dispatched Condoleezza Rice to speak at the Rosa Parks's memorial in Alabama:

Without Rosa Parks' bravery, Rice says she 'would not be standing here today'

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Rosa Parks was remembered Sunday by hundreds of mourners for her defiant act on a city bus that inspired the civil rights movement and helped pave the way for other blacks, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Cascades of roses surrounded Parks' casket in a chapel bearing her name at St. Paul A.M.E. Church, where she was once a member.

Rice said she and others who grew up in Alabama during the height of Parks' activism might not have realized her impact on their lives, "but I can honestly say that without Mrs. Parks, I probably would not be standing here today as secretary of state."

It always bothers me when speakers at memorial service make their speech more about them than the deceased, especially political speakers. It's one thing to note a personal gratitude or connection, and maybe Rice's remarks were more wide-ranging, but Condi is basically saying let's celebrate Parks because I'm Secretary of State.

Even if Rice weren't the public face to Black America of an administration with a 2% approval rating among African Americans, it seems a little arrogant.

Parks was an NAACP officer, an organization Bush refuses to even meet with. Parks worked for Democratic U.S. Rep. John Conyers from 1965 until retiring in 1988, a Congressman who's been at constant battle with the adminstration Rice serves in, an adminstration which just nominated a Sup Ct candidate with a bad record on racial discrimination issues. Condi helped sell and continues to defend a war with a disproportionate impact on African Americans.

There were many kind and appropriate things Condi could (and may) have said. But it was the wrong occasion to hold herself up as a triumph for Parks's legacy.

For a take on Rice, see Eugene Robinson's column from last week:

What Rice Can't See

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; Page A21

Like a lot of African Americans, I've long wondered what the deal was with Condoleezza Rice and the issue of race. How does she work so loyally for George W. Bush, whose approval rating among blacks was measured in a recent poll at a negligible 2 percent? How did she come to a worldview so radically different from that of most black Americans? Is she blind, is she in denial, is she confused -- or what?

[...]

As we were flying to Alabama, Rice said an interesting thing. She was talking about the history of the civil rights movement, and she said, "If you read Frederick Douglass, he was not petitioning from outside of the institutions but rather demanding that the institutions live up to what they said they were. If you read Martin Luther King, he was not petitioning from outside, he was petitioning from inside the principles and the institutions, and challenging America to be what America said that it was."

The civil rights movement came from the inside? I always thought the Edmund Pettus Bridge was outside.