Day: May 10, 2007

Florida’s Crist — Crank Up the Death Machine!

Buck Banks

Although Tennessee beat Florida to the punch in dropping its death penalty moratorium by offing a prisoner Wednesday, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist lost no time in getting our great state back on the state-sanctioned murder list. Florida and Tennesse were among 37 states that had suspended killing prisoners because of questions over whether lethal injection was really less painful than, say, hanging by the neck or having a couple million volts of electricity shot into your cranium.

The state has made some changes at Starke, the state penitentiary where we mete out the ultimate punishment in these here parts. They made the death chamber bigger, installed video cameras and locks for the wheels of the gurney, so it doesn’t roll when the injection is made. All that is supposed to get our average time between injection and death back down in the 15-minute range, which is deemed humane, compared with the 34 minutes it took us to off the last guy.

But one thing hasn’t changed — the three-chemical combo that Florida has used for years to put down the ultimate offenders. Turns out it took 34 minutes for Angel Diaz to die, not because of the chemical mix, but because the needle was pushed through his vein and the drugs were absorbed slowly rather than quickly. Besides, we haven’t had any official post-execution complaints about the potion from the guilty ones.

I have a suggestion. Screw the moratorium. Ban execution in the United States. We’ll save piles of money on prosecutions and appeals, the perps will still be terminated in prison and we won’t be a member if the real Axis of Evil — the four nations that account for 92 percent of the world’s executions: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and us.

Sussing Out Bush’s Never-Ending Surge

Buck Banks

Political analyst Craig Crawford equates the pattern the Bush administration has established with Congress with Muhammad Ali’s infamous boxing tactic he used against George Foreman — the “ropa dope.” By laying back on the ropes, Ali was able to prolong the fight until Foreman wore himself out whaling away on him.

The White House might be preparing the way for another “ropa dope” of Congress.

Crawford sees the same kind of tactic at work in George Bush’s surge, which seems to somehow keep getting extended. As Crawford sees it:

Back in December, when Bush announced his new Iraq strategy, his GOP war supporters — and even the White House itself — had pinpointed this summer as the soft deadline for determining whether it is working. But early last month the president announced that the troop boost would not even be completed until June, thus buying a few more months.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., among others in their party, are now settling upon September as a deadline. But the White House might be preparing the way for another “ropa dope” of Congress. Yesterday the Pentagon announced that another 35,000 troops were notified that they are likely to be heading to Iraq by December. That suggests that, come September, the White House will be asking for a reprieve until the end of the year — and possibly beyond.

Bush Nominee to Replace Call-Girl Scandal Figure Made Infamous Racist Remarks

Jon Ponder

To replace Randall Tobias, the State Dept. anti-prostitution czar who admitted using the services of the D.C. Madam (and who likened ordering a call girl to ordering a pizza), Pres. Bush has nominated Henrietta Holsman Fore, a California heiress whose record includes an infamous racist harangue:

A Wellesley College trustee’s remark that blacks preferred pushing drugs to working in a factory has precipitated an emotional debate on this bucolic campus already grappling with charges of racial insensitivity…

The trustee, Henrietta Holsman, a 1970 graduate of Wellesley who runs a manufacturing concern in Los Angeles, resigned from the board last weekend after apologizing for her comments, which also cast aspersions on the work ethic of Hispanic and white employees. But in a letter to the college newspaper, Ms. Holsman reiterated her statement that she had trouble keeping black assembly-line workers from going “…back to the street to earn more money … selling drugs.”

In her lecture, Ms. Holsman also said she had found Hispanic workers to be lazy, white workers resentful of having to work with machines, and Asians, while very productive, likely to move on to professional or management jobs. [NYT, 2/12/87]

With a statement like that in her past, naturally Pres. Bush nominated Fore to run human relations for the State Dept., a post she has held since June 2005. Prior to that, she headed the U.S. Mint.