The propaganda war is full on.
Kill your TV now, before it’s too late.
Feel Safer Yet?
Today Texas executed its 400th prisoner since the US reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Johnny Ray Conner, 32, was killed by lethal injection.
“What is happening to me is unjust and the system is broken,” he said in his final statement.
In 2005, a judge overturned Conner’s death sentence and ordered a retrial, claiming his lawyers had been ineffective. In January, a federal appeals court reversed that decision.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the US has executed more than 1,090 prisoners since 1976. A third have been carried out in Texas.
Are we to believe the population there is that much more evil? (Current president notwithstanding, this is not a trick question.)
Loose Lips
With friends like these…
Often, the only thing the Black Caucus can agree on is that they are black. A former Caucus chair likened his job to “herding cats.”
Some old wounds festered over Obama speaking at the Legislative Black Caucus’s annual gala April 13. Some senators – who happen to be on Hillary’s payroll – wanted her to speak, but they lost the fight. Obama lit up a crowd of over a 1,000 and made a bucket of money for the Caucus at $75 a head.
Sen. Darrell Jackson, whose Sunrise Enterprise is working for the Clinton campaign, is rumored to be soliciting a candidate to run against Caucus stalwart Gilda Cobb-Hunter for her Orangeburg House seat. Gilda’s not on any candidate’s payroll or bandwagon, and has made no secret that while she hasn’t endorsed a candidate, Hillary isn’t high on her list.
“We’ve got a lot of good Democratic candidates, and one of them is going to win, ” Gilda told a Progressive Caucus meeting Aug. 18. “We’re all going to have to work together to make it happen and it makes no sense to treat tomorrow’s allies as today’s enemies.”
Gilda is the conscience of the Black Caucus, as well as the backbone of the Legislature. There are powerful forces that wish Gilda would go away. There are pitiful forces that wish Gilda would disappear because she makes them look, in her words, “spinally challenged.”
Sen. Jackson needs to pick his enemies more carefully and tend to business in his own district.
Iraq Reality Check
Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist.
Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant.
Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant.
Omar Mora is a sergeant.
Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant.
Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant.
Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.
this is their NYT OPED
VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space†remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.
A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.
War Profiteering
War Profiteering Corruption from Lexington County to the White House
by Tom Turnipseed
A businesswoman in my home county of Lexington, SC, pleaded guilty on Aug. 16 to defrauding U.S. taxpayers of $20.5 million in shipping costs for Pentagon supplies. According to a front page story in The State newspaper, “Charlene Corley, 46, pleaded guilty to a nine-year fraud that included charging the Pentagon $998,798.38 for shipping two 19-cent bolt washers.â€
The State reported Pentagon records showed that C&D Distributors, co-owned by Ms Corley and her sister Darlene Wooten, received $455,000 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq. Ms. Wooten committed suicide in October, 2006 and Ms. Corley’s attorney contended Corley was a victim of her deceased sister’s activities, but federal prosecutors said Corley “knew the shipping costs, worked with local suppliers to get equipment for the Pentagon, corresponded with the Defense Department and was a contact on the computerized forms used to bid on the contracts.â€
Federal prosecutor Kevin McDonald said, “These twin sisters split the assets. Charlene Corley and Darlene Wooten equally shared in the proceeds of this fraud.†With the proceeds the sisters bought 4 beach houses; 3 Mercedes S and SL models; a 2007 BMW 550i; 5 slightly older Lexus models; a 23-foot outboard Suntracker boat; a 10 foot inboard Kawaski jet, and a vacation to Alaska.
Tricky Dicks
It’s been 33 years since Richard Nixon resigned in the face of impeachment. To mark the occasion, Democrats.com launched a Dump Dick video contest to get folks to connect the dots that link Dick Nixon and Dick Cheney, and to question arguments now being made against impeachment.
Check out the top contenders here.
Tee’d Off About Free Speech?
Our webmaster, Steve, poses a question after hearing the news of Bush protesters’ recent court win:
Feds pay $80,000 to couple arrested for wearing Bush protest T-shirts: Read story at ABC News.
How much are the Feds paying Brett, again?
-s
Happy 14th, Garden of Grace
Columbia’s Garden of Grace United Church of Christ honored the Network this morning with its annual community service award to recognize the work our members are doing to advance gay rights in South Carolina. “Equality comes in one size,” said Brett Bursey as he accepted the plaque from Pastor Andy Sidden. “And it fits everyone.”
Today Garden of Grace celebrated its 14th year with ice cream and a slide show trip down Memory Lane. The photo montage tracked the history of the congregation, including the building of the new church on Atlas Road, where they moved two years ago.
It was our first service at the church, and we were gratified to see how diverse a congregation it was. (Looked kind of like a Network meeting.) Congratulations to all of them for creating and sustaining a faith community that excludes no one and reflects the true values of a loving Christ. Here in the Bible Belt, ironically, that’s sometimes hard to find.
Becci Robbins
Examining School Choice
School Choice Not the Best Option for African American Children
By Hayes Mizell
Resting in their heavenly repose, South Carolina’s civil rights pioneers of the 1930s and 1940s must be scratching their heads. A prominent African-American state senator, also a Democrat and minister, says many of his generational peers are longing for the days of racially segregated schools. Another minister says most African-American children “fared better when we were segregated.â€
These leaders are understandably frustrated. Too many children are not reaping the academic gains that African-Americans hoped would follow public school desegregation. On last year’s state achievement test, more than 40,000 African-American students in grades three through eight scored “Below Basic†in English/Language Arts. An average of 60 percent of all African-American students in third through eighth grade performed at the Below Basic level in science.
There is some good news. Thousands of African-American students are performing well, scoring at the highest levels, “Proficient†or “Advanced,†on the state test. However, thousands more have the unrealized potential to do so.
Get Sick With Us
See SICKO and find out how YOU can fight for universal health care.
The SC Progressive Network and the newly formed group South Carolinians for Universal Health Care will hold a special screening of Michael Moore’s documentary SICKO at 3pm on Aug. 26 to promote public awareness of the need and practicality of universal health care.
SICKO will be shown at the Nickelodeon Theatre, 937 Main St. in Columbia. The screening will be followed by a public discussion led by a panel of experts.
Tickets are $10. Proceeds go to the host organizations to promote universal health care. Tickets are limited. For reservations, call the Network at 803-808-3384.