Appeals court thinks defendant may be innocent but denies appeal

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A federal appeals court thinks John Kinsel (pictured to the left) may be innocent, but that will do him little good.  Kinsel’s 1999 conviction for aggravated rape drew a sentence of life without parole.  Barring intervention, he will die in Louisiana’s Angola prison.

The federal court acknowledged the obvious: when the single witness to a crime recants her testimony there should be a new trial.

Unfortunately, the Anti-Terrorism Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (passed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing) makes it virtually impossible to pursue a federal appeal once you have had your first bite of the apple.  The fact that the single witness changed her story after the initial appeal makes no difference. (more…)

Is Grover Norquist controlling the government he hates

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Grover Norquist

In this New York Times article, Frank Bruni points up just how ideological Grover Norquist really is. He is obsessed with strangling the federal government, “reducing it in size until you could drown it in a bathtub,” as Norquist puts it.

In a post awhile back, Alan Bean argued that Norquist has captured the U. S. Government. I took exception to that claim. But, however the debt ceiling battle turns out, Norquist has won.

Will his victory be permanent, or a Pyrrhic victory which turns back on the Groverians when people see the perils of that philosophy when it moves beyond a right wing rant to actually being enacted? Even if it is rejected in two, four, or six years I fear it will cost the most vulnerable among us dearly in the meantime.

But read Bruni for yourselves.

Charles Kiker

Retired pastor, founding board member of Friends of Justice

Taxes, and a Dangerous Purity

By FRANK BRUNI

Published: July 30, 2011

WHAT does the face of antitax absolutism look like?

It has a tentative beard, more shadow than shag, like an awkward weigh station on the road from callow to professorial. It wears blunt glasses over narrowed eyes that glint mischievously, and its mouth is rarely still, because there’s no end to the jeremiads pouring forth: about the peril of Obama, the profligacy of Democrats and the paramount importance of opposing all tax increases, even ones that close the loopiest of loopholes.        (more…)

Is Rick Perry having second thoughts about The Response?

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You may be wondering what happened to The Response, Texas Governor Rick Perry’s Christians-only pray-for-America extravaganza.  This article in the Texas Observer should bring you up to date.

One word of caution.  Although the Observer piece gives the impression that The Response has been an unmitigated disaster for Governor Good Hair (as Molly Ivans called him), Mr. Perry’s political fortunes have risen considerably since The Response hit the airwaves.  The folks associated with the event may sound silly to worldly sophisticates like Rachel Maddow, but it sends all the right signals to the conservative wing of the Republican Party.  In other words, the Texas Governor’s stock is rising with the most powerful political and social movement in recent American history.

Meanwhile, Perry has been balancing the political ledger by supporting New York’s support for gay marriage on states’ rights grounds.  AGB

Is Rick Perry Getting Cold Feet Over the Response? 

 

Forrest Wilder

You’ve gotta wonder if Rick Perry may come to regret “initiating” The
Response, his Christians-only prayer rally. As I documented in a cover
story for the Observer, Perry has thrown in with a strange band of
fundamentalists from the bleeding edge of American Christianity. (more…)

Confederate license plates in Texas?

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By Alan Bean

Please check out the Progress Texas website and consider signing the petition which is explained below:

The Sons of Confederate Veterans want to display the Confederate flag on Texas license plates. You can do something to stop that right now.

This conservative group proposed a Texas specialty license plate  featuring the controversial and offensive image of the Confederate flag.  They want to harken back to the days of conflict, civil war and racism  that plagued America and the south.  We need your help to stop this  symbol of oppression from being put on cars across Texas.

The application to put this racist relic out for public consumption went before the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles board and stalled  with a tied vote of 4 to 4 – the 9th board member Ramsay Gillman  unexpectedly passed away before the vote.  Rick Perry must now appoint a 9th member to the board who will be the deciding vote on this  controversial issue.  With all eyes on Perry’s political future, your  voice makes a difference. (more…)

Marlowe’s Mississippi

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By Alan Bean

Lara Marlowe generally writes for an Irish audience, but when she turns her attention to the American South it is wise to take notice.  American journalists are generally reluctant to address our nation’s racial history honestly and openly; aggrieved southerners wail and lament when they feel mistreated and misunderstood.  Nowhere is this more true than in Mississippi.  But Marlowe’s carefully crafted piece on the Magnolia state draws on the insights of those who know the region best.

Most of the sobering facts cited below will come as no surprise to readers of this blog.  But how many Americans know that the public schools of Mississippi lost half a million white students when the feds finally got serious about school integration in the South?   A recent article in The Christian Century, notes that “only 2 percent of high school seniors could name the social problem that the Supreme Court addressed in Brown v. Board of Education.” (more…)

Marlowe: The Unrepentant South

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I first met Lara Marlowe of the Irish Times in 2004 when she was crisscrossing the country researching stories on George W. Bush’s America.  Since then, she has been following the Friends of Justice blog and occasionally references my opinionated outbursts in her articles. 

Marlowe is now stationed in Washington DC and writes about America for an Irish audience.  Her column on the Neo-Confederate movement is the first of a series of articles on race, the South and the heritage of the civil rights movement.  (She contacted me while I was in Meridian, MS and I put her in touch with some allies who should be featured later in the week.) (more…)

Rick Perry’s curious bedfellows

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By Alan Bean

I got an email from Justin Elliott earlier this week inquiring about “The Will to Secede”, a post about Rick Perry’s ties to neo-Confederate groups I published a couple of years ago.  The post, which to date has received just under 10,000 hits, highlighted the work of Dallas researcher and neo-confederacy expert, Edward Sebesta who has documented the Texas Governor’s close ties to unabashedly racist groups like the The Sons of Confederate Veterans.

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Movement building in an age of scarcity

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By Alan Bean

How do we organize in a world of steadily declining resources?  It isn’t just that non-profit organizations are struggling to stay afloat; the economy of the United States has entered a period of decline that will not end in your lifetime or mine.  Dissidents are good at critiquing what is; we aren’t always adept at anticipating what will be.  We can no longer proscribe solutions rooted in the assumption of ever-expanding national wealth.  Storm clouds are gathering on the economic horizon. (more…)