There is little personal news. If my wounds keep healing as they should, I’ll go back to Vibra on Friday afternoon. The pain should be more manageable by then.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
I cannot do today’s puzzle (average 6:26). To do it click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From NY Times: In the long legal struggle against the death penalty, the future has in some ways never looked brighter.
In a passionate dissent in June, Justice Stephen G. Breyer invited a major challenge to the constitutionality of capital punishment. This fall, Justice Antonin Scalia all but predicted that the court’s more liberal justices would strike down the death penalty.
But lawyers and activists opposed to the death penalty, acutely conscious of what is at stake, are bitterly divided about how to proceed. Some say it is imperative to bring a major case to the court as soon as practicable. Others
“If you don’t go now, there’s a real possibility you have blood on your hands,” said Robert J. Smith, a fellow at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute of Harvard Law School. His scholarship was cited in Justice Breyer’s dissent from a decision upholding the use of an execution drug that three death row inmates argued risked causing excruciating pain.
worry that haste may result in a losing decision that could entrench capital punishment for years.
A dissent by Justice Stephen G. Breyer in June was seen as inviting a death penalty challenge. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
But others are wary. “There are reasons to be cautious about pushing the court to a decision too early,” said Jordan M. Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas.
The divide is partly generational. Many veteran litigators have suffered stinging setbacks in the Supreme Court, and they favor an incremental strategy. They would continue to chip away at the death penalty in the courts, seek state-by-state abolition and try to move public opinion.
Some younger lawyers and activists urge a bolder course: to ask the Supreme Court to end capital punishment nationwide right away.
As much as I believe hat the death penalty is state sponsored murder that must be outlawed, I do not trust the Fascist Five Injustices of SCROTUS (Republican Constitutional VD) to do it. We need an incremental approach as long as the Republican Reich controls the court.
From Daily Kos: This morning Scarborough appeared to have a severe cognitive collapse during a segment about the Republican Party’s debate-o-phobia (video below). Like most of his ideological allies, he is suffering from the delusion that the American media, owned by a handful of megalithic, multinational corporations, is dominated by liberals. Scarborough set off on a rant about the absence of conservatives on nightly news programs, Sunday shows, and in the executive suites. He badgered his guests to come up with examples of Republicans in those roles, and insisted that they could not do it.
Barf Bag Alert!!
Joe and the Republican Reich are not satisfied with normal pro-Republican media bias. They want a debate panel to include himself, O’Lielly, Hannity, and Glen Beck.
From Omaha.com: TransCanada wants a Keystone XL timeout.
The company on Monday asked the State Department to suspend consideration of its controversial pipeline while Nebraska officials review its route through the state.
Rachel Maddow covered this topic very well.
Keystone pipeline dead? Company requests suspension of permit
Elana Schor, energy reporter for Politico, talks with Rachel Maddow about the broader context and likely political calculations behind TransCanada’s request that their U.S. permit for the Keystone XL pipeline be suspended.
Like Rachel said, TransCanada is trying to keep the pipeline alive by suspending it in their hope that Republicans take power and approve it. That must not happen.
Cartoon:
According to Sen. Jon Tester, "On Tuesday, November 7, 1916, Montanans elected Jeannette Rankin to the U.S. House of Representatives. She was the first woman ever elected to Congress. Montanans elected her four years before all women in America even had the right to vote."
