Politics Plus

I am pleased to report that a Federal Appeals Court has stopped the state of Texas from killing Robert James Campbell.  While the court did duck the issue that using unknown drugs from a secret source runs the rick of depth by slow torture, they did discover that Texas had hidden evidence that he is not mentally competent to face execution.

A little more than two hours before he was scheduled to be put to death here, a convicted murderer was granted a stay of execution by a federal appeals court on Tuesday so the courts could review his claim that he is mentally disabled — a disability, his lawyers argued, that state agencies had long known and concealed.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans granted the request from lawyers for Robert James Campbell, 41, who had been set to be the first inmate put to death in America since a botched execution in Oklahoma last month drew attention to the methods, drugs and secrecy surrounding lethal injections.

The court had refused to intervene in the execution based on Mr. Campbell’s lawyers’ contention that the state was withholding crucial evidence on the drug to be used. But it issued the stay on a second argument made by Mr. Campbell’s lawyers on what the law refers to as mental retardation… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Rachel Maddow covered this Republican blood lust.

Texas already had three other tests that showed the same results, but had denied that they existed. that’s how desperate these so-called Pro-Life Republicans are to kill. The same Republican executioners lied to a pharmaceutical manufacturer, claiming to be a hospital to get drugs fore execution. That’s how desperate these so-called “Pro-Life” Republicans are to kill. They are a moral stain on the face of this nation.

Republicans define life as something that begins at conception and ends at birth.

Inequality is the stock in trade for the Reich on the right, that is, the Republican Reich.  They represent billionaires, high end millionaires, and corporate criminals.  They want to create even more inequality.  Conversely, fighting inequality is the stock in trade of the Reich on the left, that is, Robert Reich.

…There is no single solution for reversing widening inequality. Thomas Piketty’s monumental book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” paints a troubling picture of societies dominated by a comparative few, whose cumulative wealth and unearned income overshadow the majority who rely on jobs and earned income. But our future is not set in stone, and Piketty’s description of past and current trends need not determine our path in the future. Here are ten initiatives that could reverse the trends described above:

1) Make work pay. The fastest-growing categories of work are retail, restaurant (including fast food), hospital (especially orderlies and staff), hotel, childcare and eldercare. But these jobs tend to pay very little. A first step toward making work pay is to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, pegging it to inflation; abolish the tipped minimum wage; and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit. No American who works full time should be in poverty.

2) Unionize low-wage workers. The rise and fall of the American middle class correlates almost exactly with the rise and fall of private-sector unions, because unions gave the middle class the bargaining power it needed to secure a fair share of the gains from economic growth. We need to reinvigorate unions, beginning with low-wage service occupations that are sheltered from global competition and from labor-replacing technologies. Lower-wage Americans deserve more bargaining power.

3) Invest in education. This investment should extend from early childhood through world-class primary and secondary schools, affordable public higher education, good technical education and lifelong learning. Education should not be thought of as a private investment; it is a public good that helps both individuals and the economy. Yet for too many Americans, high-quality education is unaffordable and unattainable. Every American should have an equal opportunity to make the most of herself or himself. High-quality education should be freely available to all, starting at the age of 3 and extending through four years of university or technical education… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Robert Reich>

This is only three of ten steps in how to combat inequality from Republican warfare against 99% of Americans. His ten steps are only a small part of an extensive article on inequality that breaks the problem down so precisely that even Tea Baggers could understand it, if the were willing to think for themselves. Information you can’t afford to miss. Please click through.  Once again the Reich on the left is right.