On Thursday's All Things Considered, NPR's Richard Gonzales slanted towards homosexual activists who laud the Obama administration's recent move to slacken its deportation policy and allow foreign-born nationals in same-sex “marriages” to stay in the United States without a green card. Gonzales found an opponent of the new policy, but noted that ” his objection has nothing to do with sexual orientation .” The correspondent highlighted the plight of Bradford Wells, a resident of San Francisco's infamous Castro district, whose Australian partner's permission to stay in the country is about to expire. He stated that Wells ” has good days and bad days ….[He] has AIDS and a host of related ailments. His primary care-giver….Anthony John Makk, a citizen of Australia….entered this country legally…. he's applied for a green card. But he's been rejected because under the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, the federal government doesn't recognize their marriage…. So, he's left in a legal limbo, and the upsets Wells .” After playing two clips from the San Francisco resident, Gonzales continued that ” Wells's cloud of uncertainty may soon lift . Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it will concentrate on deporting criminal offenders. Less priority will be given to deporting individuals who came here legally, have strong family and community ties, and are the primary caretakers of a U.S. citizen. A spokesman says that it can include gay and lesbian married couples “
Continue reading …Asked the biggest difference between himself and George W. Bush, Texas governor and new Republican White House front runner Rick Perry answered, “I went to Texas A&M. He went to Yale.” Which isn’t far from the truth. After all, their pronouncements on policies and personal beliefs are eerily similar . And when it comes to donning the executioner’s hood in the death penalty mecca that is Texas , Rick Perry and George W. Bush are almost indistinguishable. As the Washington Post documented, Governor Perry is America’s reigning death penalty champion, exceeding the body count of his predecessor in Austin: In his nearly 11 years as the state’s chief executive, Perry, now running for the Republican presidential nomination, has overseen more executions than any governor in modern history: 234 and counting. That’s more than the combined total in the next two states — Oklahoma and Virginia — since the death penalty was restored 35 years ago. Perry’s apparent enthusiasm for Texas’ popular death penalty process doesn’t end there: He vetoed a bill that would have spared the mentally retarded, and sharply criticized a Supreme Court ruling that juveniles were not eligible for the death penalty. He has found during his tenure only one inmate on Texas’s crowded death row he thought should receive the lesser sentence of life in prison. If this all sounds hauntingly familiar, it should. During the 2000 campaign, Americans were introduced to another Texas governor who was unapologetic about condemning his state’s residents to death. George W. Bush carried out 152 executions during his days as Governor of Texas, sparing only one death row inmate after his routine 15 minute clemency review . Even those similarly adopting Jesus as their favorite philosopher could expect no leniency from Bush. When his allies on the religious right pressured him to spare murderess turned jailhouse born-again Christian Karla Faye Tucker , Governor Bush displayed his trademark resolve – and compassion. As Time recounted in 1999: Tucker Carlson of Talk magazine described the smirk Bush wore as he mimicked convicted murderer turned Christian Karla Faye Tucker begging, “Please don’t kill me,” something she never actually did. Bush’s seeming bloodlust towards criminal defendants almost derailed his 2000 presidential campaign. During his second debate against Al Gore in October 2000, Bush was asked about his position on hate crimes laws in the wake of the brutal dragging death of African-American James Byrd in his home state of Texas. His disturbing response – accompanied by a sickening grin – produced gasps among the audience: “The three men who murdered James Byrd, guess what’s going to happen to them? They’re going to be put to death. A jury found them guilty. It’s going to be hard to punish them any worse after they get put to death.” Even the tone-deaf Bush sensed he had crossed the line. In the third debate , he wisely retreated, acknowledging he was “not proud” of Texas’ number one ranking in executions. As President, George W. Bush maintained his hard line towards criminals and upholding their punishments. His administration argued – unsuccessfully – before the Supreme Court that developmentally-disabled and under-18 death row inmates too deserve their chance at the gallows. Attorney General Gonzales announced that the Bush department of Justice would push for new, harsher mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Booker decision. Shortly before his resignation, Gonzales unveiled new federal regulations enabling the Attorney General to “fast-track” executions in state capital punishment cases. If anything, Rick Perry has been even more zealous than George W. Bush when it comes to flipping the switch on Texas’ death row inmates. While President Bush sought to intervene in 2007 on behalf of Jose Ernesto Medellin and 50 other Mexican citizens facing execution in Texas, Governor Perry took the other side and won: Still, Perry has been an aggressive advocate. He battled the Bush administration in the Supreme Court when the president tried to force state courts to review the death sentences of 51 Mexican nationals who had not been allowed to consult Mexican authorities. The court ruled in Perry’s favor, 6 to 3. More disturbing still, Perry’s dead men walking has apparently included innocent men . As the Post reported, “death penalty opponents say 12 men on Texas’s death row have been exonerated.” And as Mother Jones detailed: He refused to stay the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, and, after the fact, when the evidence began to overwhelmingly suggest that Willingham had been innocent, he replaced three members of the commission that had been reviewing the case. (Perry stands by the execution, insisting that Willingham was a “monster.”) After two decades on death row, Anthony Graves was released only after a lengthy investigation from Texas Monthly showed that he had been wrongfully convicted. For Perry, the Graves case was a feature and not a bug. “He’s a good example of, you continue to find errors that were made and clear them up,” Perry told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. “So I think our system works well.” George W. Bush couldn’t have said it better. (This piece also appears at Perrspectives .)
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Abdolreza Soudbakhsh murdered after work at Kahrizak detention centre, where mass torture and rape was alleged The son of an Iranian doctor who was killed after examining the rape victims of the country’s 2009 unrest has spoken for the first time about the motives behind his father’s assassination. Abdolreza Soudbakhsh, a physician and professor at Tehran university, was shot dead by men on a motorcycle as he left his office last September. At the time of his assassination, Iranian officials denied his murder had anything to do with the cases of alleged rape in Kahrizak, a detention centre that Iran used to imprison many of the opposition activists caught up in the protests following the country’s disputed presidential elections. Many protesters are believed to have been tortured to death in Kahrizak and several have claimed they were raped. But the doctor’s son Behrang Soudbakhsh said in an interview with Fereshteh Ghazi of Roozonline, an opposition website, that his father had indeed examined the rape victims of Kahrizak and was under pressure to remain silent about those who died under torture. Kahrizak became a scandal for the regime when Mohsen Rouholamini, the son of a former senior advisor to the Revolutionary Guards, was named among prisoners who died in the centre. After Rouholamini’s death, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered the closure of Kahrizak but the opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi later spoke out about the extent of rape inside the centre after meeting some of its victims. “[My father] was told to say that the victims of Kahrizak had Meningitis. He asked to see the dead bodies and when he examined them, he concluded that they had died under torture and not Meningitis,” Behrang Soudbakhsh said. “Once he said that how could they rape an 18-year-old kid so severely that he died after that? How could they rape the children,” he asked. The doctor was planning to leave Iran on the night of his assassination, which his son said suggested he was killed to prevent him from revealing more information. Soudbakhsh Sr had given an interview to Deutsche Welle’s Persian network a few weeks before his death, in which he had mentioned rape inside prison. “They were thinking that my father was going to the US to reveal his information in details in an open society. My father was one of the few experts in Iran who had precise information [on the issue],” Soudbakhsh Jr said. “They killed my father because he didn’t want to lie and he didn’t lie.” According to the doctor’s son, Soudbakhsh was wearing a bulletproof vest at the time of his assassination. He was shot where the vest did not protect his body by a gun with a silencer. His son said this showed the killers were aware he was wearing the vest. Soudbakhsh Jr said the police refused to co-operate with an inquiry into his father’s death. According to witnesses who spoke to the son, but who have spoken in public, the killers appear to have been so unworried about being caught that they did not cover their faces. But the dead man’s family has been unable to watch CCTV footage of the incident. Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and its intelligence unit are believed to be the main groups responsible for the suppression of protesters in the country’s post-election unrest. Families of the dead protesters have appealed to the UN human rights special rapporteur, Ahmed Shaheed, to investigate the events related to the 2009 unrest but Iran has signalled it will not allow the monitor to enter the country. The scandal has also taken the life of another Iranian doctor, Ramin Pourandarjani, known as the “Kahrizak doctor”, who examined the inmates in the detention centre. He died in November 2009 under mysterious circumstances. Iran Middle East Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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Abdolreza Soudbakhsh murdered after work at Kahrizak detention centre, where mass torture and rape was alleged The son of an Iranian doctor who was killed after examining the rape victims of the country’s 2009 unrest has spoken for the first time about the motives behind his father’s assassination. Abdolreza Soudbakhsh, a physician and professor at Tehran university, was shot dead by men on a motorcycle as he left his office last September. At the time of his assassination, Iranian officials denied his murder had anything to do with the cases of alleged rape in Kahrizak, a detention centre that Iran used to imprison many of the opposition activists caught up in the protests following the country’s disputed presidential elections. Many protesters are believed to have been tortured to death in Kahrizak and several have claimed they were raped. But the doctor’s son Behrang Soudbakhsh said in an interview with Fereshteh Ghazi of Roozonline, an opposition website, that his father had indeed examined the rape victims of Kahrizak and was under pressure to remain silent about those who died under torture. Kahrizak became a scandal for the regime when Mohsen Rouholamini, the son of a former senior advisor to the Revolutionary Guards, was named among prisoners who died in the centre. After Rouholamini’s death, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered the closure of Kahrizak but the opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi later spoke out about the extent of rape inside the centre after meeting some of its victims. “[My father] was told to say that the victims of Kahrizak had Meningitis. He asked to see the dead bodies and when he examined them, he concluded that they had died under torture and not Meningitis,” Behrang Soudbakhsh said. “Once he said that how could they rape an 18-year-old kid so severely that he died after that? How could they rape the children,” he asked. The doctor was planning to leave Iran on the night of his assassination, which his son said suggested he was killed to prevent him from revealing more information. Soudbakhsh Sr had given an interview to Deutsche Welle’s Persian network a few weeks before his death, in which he had mentioned rape inside prison. “They were thinking that my father was going to the US to reveal his information in details in an open society. My father was one of the few experts in Iran who had precise information [on the issue],” Soudbakhsh Jr said. “They killed my father because he didn’t want to lie and he didn’t lie.” According to the doctor’s son, Soudbakhsh was wearing a bulletproof vest at the time of his assassination. He was shot where the vest did not protect his body by a gun with a silencer. His son said this showed the killers were aware he was wearing the vest. Soudbakhsh Jr said the police refused to co-operate with an inquiry into his father’s death. According to witnesses who spoke to the son, but who have spoken in public, the killers appear to have been so unworried about being caught that they did not cover their faces. But the dead man’s family has been unable to watch CCTV footage of the incident. Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and its intelligence unit are believed to be the main groups responsible for the suppression of protesters in the country’s post-election unrest. Families of the dead protesters have appealed to the UN human rights special rapporteur, Ahmed Shaheed, to investigate the events related to the 2009 unrest but Iran has signalled it will not allow the monitor to enter the country. The scandal has also taken the life of another Iranian doctor, Ramin Pourandarjani, known as the “Kahrizak doctor”, who examined the inmates in the detention centre. He died in November 2009 under mysterious circumstances. Iran Middle East Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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Tory MP for Corby claimed earlier in week that ‘morons’ had threatened her children by email Police have arrested a 61-year-old man over online threats against Tory MP, Louise Mensch. The Metropolitan police said the man was arrested in Gloucester in connection with an investigation into “malicious communication and threats made via email and a social networking site”. Mensch claimed earlier this week that “morons” had threatened her children by email. A Scotland Yard spokesman said the police central e-crime unit and officers from the Palace of Westminster had been involved in the arrest. The spokesman said: “The 61-year-old was arrested at an address in the Gloucester area on suspicion of sending malicious communication. “He has been taken into custody at a Gloucestershire police station where he remains.” Mensch has three children and was elected as MP for Corby last year. On Monday she claimed that her children had been threatened by email and said she had passed the message to police in the House of Commons. She added: “I don’t bully easily, kids. Or in fact at all.” Louise Mensch Crime Social networking guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Tory MP for Corby claimed earlier in week that ‘morons’ had threatened her children by email Police have arrested a 61-year-old man over online threats against Tory MP, Louise Mensch. The Metropolitan police said the man was arrested in Gloucester in connection with an investigation into “malicious communication and threats made via email and a social networking site”. Mensch claimed earlier this week that “morons” had threatened her children by email. A Scotland Yard spokesman said the police central e-crime unit and officers from the Palace of Westminster had been involved in the arrest. The spokesman said: “The 61-year-old was arrested at an address in the Gloucester area on suspicion of sending malicious communication. “He has been taken into custody at a Gloucestershire police station where he remains.” Mensch has three children and was elected as MP for Corby last year. On Monday she claimed that her children had been threatened by email and said she had passed the message to police in the House of Commons. She added: “I don’t bully easily, kids. Or in fact at all.” Louise Mensch Crime Social networking guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Click here to view this media When, exactly, do statements like these shift from protected speech to sedition? Gheen: Once again this isn’t just Obama, this is a group of people, we’ve been reading about them for five or ten years now about how they plan to integrate the economies of North America and to do so in a way to do so that bypasses the legislatures, that’s been in all the materials that we’ve read and here it is in front of us. They’re integrating the workforce of North America and the populations of North America and they did just bypass the legislatures. The same cabal has such influence with the media and the Associated Press, I’ll give you example and I haven’t totally mentioned this on the air before, right after Obama did this I got a call from an Associated Press writer out of Washington, D.C., she’s like ‘what’s your initial reaction’ and I said, ‘this is, Obama has just exceeded his constitutional authority and acted in a dictatorial manner which we believe removes all legitimacy for his presidency and that we’re gonna be calling on the Republican to remove this man from office as soon as possible.’ And I didn’t say just impeachment. I said remove him from office because some people are also leaning to the words ‘treason’ and talking about the military coming in or somebody just coming in taking this guy into some form of arrest if we’re doing this . I mean what do you do here? What does a nation do when this happens? We may have to try to have to gather in the streets and demand that Obama step down. But you know when you talk about doing that, you’re gonna gather in the streets of Washington D.C. which where Obama has a support rate of 88% of the blacks and Hispanics who live there. Wingnut William Gheen is from the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC). ALIPAC claims to be a PAC formed to “address the disparity between the public’s desire for more control of illegal immigration and the actions of lawmakers.” It’s really a thinly-disguised hate group. In 2010 Dave Neiwert wrote about their dirty, lying efforts to lobby against the DREAM Act. It seems Shawna Forde may also have had ALIPAC links , at least, if wingnut Jim Gilchrist is to be believed. But President Obama’s directive to limit deportations to immigrants with criminal records seems to have driven Gheen right off the edge and into a place he shouldn’t be. Via Right Wing Watch : Americans for Legal Immigration PAC’s William Gheen is out in force after we at People For the American Way’s Right Wing Watch reported on an interview with Janet Mefferd in which he said that “extra-political activities” that he described as “illegal and violent” might be the only way for people to stop the “Dictator Barack Obama.” Gheen told Mefferd that the Obama administration is “putting out videos and propaganda telegraphing what I believe to be a conflict with White America they’re preparing for after they get another 10 or 15 million people in the country to back them up.” He went on to say that his group is now referring to the president as “Dictator Barack Obama” and said, “If you’re looking for a peaceful, political recourse there really isn’t one that we can think of, and I’m really not sure what to tell people out there than I guess they need to make decisions soon to just accept whatever comes next or some type of extra-political activities that I can’t really talk about because they’re all illegal and violent.” Gheen has since released a “ clarification ” of his comments. “I have made it very clear that I disavow any form of violence on many occasions,” Gheen said, “I cannot delve into the options Barack Obama is forcing on Americans that are concerned about the illegal alien invasion of America.” He blames Obama for forcing people “into a decision between submission or more revolutionary means” and added that he is considering “ending efforts to influence elections or Congress because I feel that such measures will not be enough to change the course of America.” Alan Colmes interviewed Gheen on his radio show yesterday and gave Gheen an opportunity to clarify his statements about violence, dictatorship and executive privilege. Gheen chose to tiptoe around and walk away from his statements on the record. Listen to what he said. Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Again, when does speech become sedition? I would say calling for a military coup to trample on the Constitution and remove a democratically elected President from office might qualify, don’t you think?
Continue reading …So the beltway media has been abuzz this week about Senator Marco Rubio’s increasing national profile. Reporters have been experiencing a case of “starbursts” through their keyboards. They wrote up a slobbering profile of the freshman GOP Senator . Then just days ago Rubio gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan library. What is happening here is pretty obvious to anyone who wants to cut through the BS. Helpfully Dave Weigel tells us the obvious : 1) Buttered-up profile pieces . Easily done. The Reagan speech got Rubio a McClatchy storyabout how Nancy Reagan personally beckoned him to Simi Valley. “You’ve been identified as someone to watch on the national political scene,” she said, giving future Rubio-profile-writers an insta-quote for the beginning of the what-people-are-saying section. From McClatchy, we also learn that John Boehner quoted Rubio, and that this is significant. 2) Scene pieces. See the Frank story for that. Most of the early coverage of Rubio’s speech informed us that 1) he gave a speech, 2) the crowd was huge, and 3) he helped up Nancy Reagan when she stumbled. 3) Micro policy news. In the debt speech, Rubio, who had not taken a lead role in the debt limit debate, staked his position: There could be no putting off the “day of reckoning.” In Simi Valley, he came out for a gradual Social Security phase-out. Barack Obama did the same thing — the exact same thing! — in 2005 and 2006, when he was a freshman senator who was constantly asked whether he’d run for president. He didn’t take the lead in the “There Is No Crisis” fight to beat Social Security privatization, but he gave setpiece speeches about it, most notably at Knox College. But Obama was more subtle; his media team (led by Robert Gibbs at the time) kept most of his setpieces in Illinois. Rubio has no shortage of places in Florida to do this stuff. And yet he goes to California, and North Carolina. Of course reporters have to waste their time asking Rubio if he’s gunning for national office, and writing down his humble “no,” but this is a friendly exchange of total bullshit. There is another point here that is worth making. One may think that Rubio is making some kind of strategic mistake by positioning himself for the number 2 slot in the GOP ticket. Face it the record of elected Vice Presidents becoming President is not all that great. The ones who have succeeded have been marred with resignations and humiliating losses. The last two who angled for nomination also did not make it into the White House. Yet if you think about it, Rubio is actually making a very calculated move. In my honest opinion, whether or not Rubio becomes the next VP is moot because the Republicans are not going to win in 2012. Yes, there is I said it. Republicans are not going to win in 2012. Yes, I get that President Barack Obama has had a terrible summer and his numbers are low. But I do not see the President losing to chumps like Rick Perry, Mitt Romney or Michelle Bachmann (LOL). I am pretty sure Rubio’s strategic advisers know that as well. Yet Rubio has nothing to lose from running for the VP spot. Running for VP spot is extremely beneficial to Rubio because he will get the automatic national spotlight (look what it did for a joke like Sarah Palin). Even if the Republican ticket loses in 2012 – which it will – a VP nomination will essentially make Rubio an automatic favorite to get the GOP nomination in 2016. It will essentially ensure that 2015-16 run to nomination is more of a coronation for Rubio than a contest in the next GOP primary. So, what progressive and Democratic observers should do is start labeling Rubio is nothing more than yet another selfish politician, who is more consumed with his political self-interest than the interest of his party. I am guessing there are other Republican politicians who would be interested in that VP slot would be interested in threading that narrative. If Rubio becomes the VP nominee in 2012, it will be all about Rubio, just like in 2008 it became all about Palin. The question also becomes whether someone like a Perry or Romney would be interested in bringing in a guy like Rubio, who will most likely be looking ahead to 2016, rather than worrying about what will be an inevitable losing effort in 2012? Will someone ask these questions loudly during the nauseating Rubio tour or on the GOP campaign trail?
Continue reading …So the beltway media has been abuzz this week about Senator Marco Rubio’s increasing national profile. Reporters have been experiencing a case of “starbursts” through their keyboards. They wrote up a slobbering profile of the freshman GOP Senator . Then just days ago Rubio gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan library. What is happening here is pretty obvious to anyone who wants to cut through the BS. Helpfully Dave Weigel tells us the obvious : 1) Buttered-up profile pieces . Easily done. The Reagan speech got Rubio a McClatchy storyabout how Nancy Reagan personally beckoned him to Simi Valley. “You’ve been identified as someone to watch on the national political scene,” she said, giving future Rubio-profile-writers an insta-quote for the beginning of the what-people-are-saying section. From McClatchy, we also learn that John Boehner quoted Rubio, and that this is significant. 2) Scene pieces. See the Frank story for that. Most of the early coverage of Rubio’s speech informed us that 1) he gave a speech, 2) the crowd was huge, and 3) he helped up Nancy Reagan when she stumbled. 3) Micro policy news. In the debt speech, Rubio, who had not taken a lead role in the debt limit debate, staked his position: There could be no putting off the “day of reckoning.” In Simi Valley, he came out for a gradual Social Security phase-out. Barack Obama did the same thing — the exact same thing! — in 2005 and 2006, when he was a freshman senator who was constantly asked whether he’d run for president. He didn’t take the lead in the “There Is No Crisis” fight to beat Social Security privatization, but he gave setpiece speeches about it, most notably at Knox College. But Obama was more subtle; his media team (led by Robert Gibbs at the time) kept most of his setpieces in Illinois. Rubio has no shortage of places in Florida to do this stuff. And yet he goes to California, and North Carolina. Of course reporters have to waste their time asking Rubio if he’s gunning for national office, and writing down his humble “no,” but this is a friendly exchange of total bullshit. There is another point here that is worth making. One may think that Rubio is making some kind of strategic mistake by positioning himself for the number 2 slot in the GOP ticket. Face it the record of elected Vice Presidents becoming President is not all that great. The ones who have succeeded have been marred with resignations and humiliating losses. The last two who angled for nomination also did not make it into the White House. Yet if you think about it, Rubio is actually making a very calculated move. In my honest opinion, whether or not Rubio becomes the next VP is moot because the Republicans are not going to win in 2012. Yes, there is I said it. Republicans are not going to win in 2012. Yes, I get that President Barack Obama has had a terrible summer and his numbers are low. But I do not see the President losing to chumps like Rick Perry, Mitt Romney or Michelle Bachmann (LOL). I am pretty sure Rubio’s strategic advisers know that as well. Yet Rubio has nothing to lose from running for the VP spot. Running for VP spot is extremely beneficial to Rubio because he will get the automatic national spotlight (look what it did for a joke like Sarah Palin). Even if the Republican ticket loses in 2012 – which it will – a VP nomination will essentially make Rubio an automatic favorite to get the GOP nomination in 2016. It will essentially ensure that 2015-16 run to nomination is more of a coronation for Rubio than a contest in the next GOP primary. So, what progressive and Democratic observers should do is start labeling Rubio is nothing more than yet another selfish politician, who is more consumed with his political self-interest than the interest of his party. I am guessing there are other Republican politicians who would be interested in that VP slot would be interested in threading that narrative. If Rubio becomes the VP nominee in 2012, it will be all about Rubio, just like in 2008 it became all about Palin. The question also becomes whether someone like a Perry or Romney would be interested in bringing in a guy like Rubio, who will most likely be looking ahead to 2016, rather than worrying about what will be an inevitable losing effort in 2012? Will someone ask these questions loudly during the nauseating Rubio tour or on the GOP campaign trail?
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