Friday Open Thread
Welcome to the Friday edition of your open thread. TGIF!!!! I’d like to thank everyone who came up and said “hi” at last night’s Deltweet event. It’s always good to meet readers, even if you don’t comment.
Oh what a surprise – evidence has surfaced of a second innocent man executed by the state of Texas. (This first was Cameron Todd Willingham, you can read his story here.) The governor at the time was George W. Bush. The current governor is Rick Perry (who in an interview with Jon Stewart said the 20th century was a failure), so I don’t have any hope that anything will be done.
A Texas man was condemned to death and executed in 2000 on the basis of hair that did not belong to him, according to the results of a recent DNA test.
A test by Mitotyping Technologies published by the Texas Observer magazine — which fought a three-year legal battle to gain access to the evidence — showed that Claude Howard Jones was “excluded as the contributor of this questioned hair.”
Jones – who had a long criminal record – had insisted that he was waiting in the car when his accomplice killed Allen Hilzendager during a liquor store robbery.
He was convicted of the 1989 murder, and denied several appeals, largely on the basis of that single strand of hair which police found at the scene.
Forensic science was limited at the time to examining the hair under a microscope, where it appeared to belong to Jones.
Forensic science was limited at the time to examining the hair under a microscope, where it appeared to belong to Jones.
The DNA test posted on the magazine’s website found that the hair likely belonged instead to the victim.
I don’t like talking about Rush Limbaugh because the story is usually the same – Rush Limbaugh says something mean, stupid and hateful. I guess that leaves you sort of immune to it. He said something especially mean, stupid and hateful yesterday, though:
We’ve got the Democrats worried that Clyburn’s getting the shaft because he’s not going to have a car, he’s not going to have a driver, he’s not going to have security, he’s not going to have any of the stroke, or the perks,” Limbaugh said. “A white, racist leadership of the Democrat party trying to ace out Clyburn.” Limbaugh got his information on Clyburn’s driver from Martin Frost, who appeared on MSNBC.
If Clyburn loses his race to be Democratic whip, he’ll either have to drop out of party leadership, or move into a lower-ranking leadership position, with fewer perks. Limbaugh claimed that this supposed avarice is what’s animating Clyburn’s fight to stay in leadership… and then noted that Clyburn could keep his car if he was willing to drive around the party’s white leader.
“Clyburn’s new position: driving Ms. Nancy,” Limbaugh said. “He’s not in the back of the bus, he’s in the driver’s seat. And she’s in the back of the car being chauffeured.”
There’s too many things in that statement to take apart the stupid. I will say that if you’re trying to make the point that other people are racist, you probably be better served by not turning it into a racist rant. But what do I know – I’m not paid millions of dollars to say horrible things on the radio.
Tags: Open Thread
I pretty sick of people saying “rush limbaugh” as though they are referring to a human being and not a pile of feces and blood soaked bedding.
And you’re not paid millions of dollars to get phony prescriptions for oxycontin and be stoned off your fat ass all day, either.
From the other side of the world, Obama is hearing us:
Good that he is hearing us – that is progress. But he still thinks we are retards who need to be drug tested, and he has the wrong priority. Time to get louder.
The number one priority should be to end the tax cuts for the rich, even if that means ending all the tax cuts including the middle class cuts.
Rationale: The lame duck session is the best and possibly the only chance to hammer a stake in the heart of the tax cuts for the rich. If that requires a full veto or a death in Senate committee, so be it. It would be relatively easy to re-implement the middle class tax cuts in early 2011, but impossible to kill extended tax cuts for the rich.
If we are still arguing about the Bush tax cuts in 2012, we lose. Again.
Democrats need to get on message explaining that everybody gets the middle class tax cuts on the first $250K of their income.
Nancy Pelosi is the only one left still saying the right things, even if she lost some credibility by not doing it when she had the chance before the election. Pelosi was awesome on NPR this morning.
Oh and by the way, if by January 1 the rich are still paying 36% PIT and 15% capital gains/dividends – Obama caved.
Maybe the only compromise worth making is raising Obama’s $250K limit to no more than $500K.
I heard Madam Speaker this AM and was delighted. I’m putting up a post on this shortly (if my phone ever stop ringing today).
Cave-in alert: The lame duck session is the last chance to close the carried interest loophole, which does not expire automatically.
Progressives asking the question: “Is Obama a republican”. In reviewing his record it appears he is. Robert Reich quesitons, “If Obama can’t or won’t take a stand now, when he still have a chance to prevail, when will he ever”? Krugman says, the “Commission was hijacked”, yes but it was Obama who put those people on that commission? They were not told to review social security which is good till 2030, so why did they? Does their “plan” fall into what Obama wants to do? Obama has trapped himself on this one.
On Social Security, Obama goes where no democrat dared to tread. Obama keeps pushing the GOP agenda. Since day one he exaggerated the debt and deficit. Dean Baker at the Center for Economic Policy Research has a great article in the Progressive Magazine.
No one made Obam empanel a “deficit commission”! No one made him appoint Simpson and Bowles. We didnt need a democratic president to flatten the progressive income tax on americans. We didn’t need a president to go after deficit spending or social security, but we sure got one.
Must See TV:
The slogan was not ‘Yes He Can,’ the slogan was ‘Yes We Can’
It’s too bad this guy was chased from the White House.
Obomba reneges on Afghanistan withdrawal.
12/01/2009 – “‘After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home,’ “start the pullout in July 2011″says president Obomba
11/11/2010 -” Forget July 2011, the date that President Barack Obama set to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan. The more important date is 2014…”
Before the fake liberals on this site sing: “Thank You for the lie, Mr. president ! Can we have another !!!
Consider that additional American war dead are projected to be 1,800. Then ask yourselves if re-electing an habitual liar for President, means you don’t really give a shit about “the troops”, much less about Afghans, whose bodies aren’t counted.
We are still in Iraq, so I am not sure why anyone would think we are going to withdrawl form Afghanistan.
The press may have stopped reporting on troops in Iraq, but trust me they are there, and there are over 100,000 combat troops in Iraq.