Sweet Home Alabama??

Sweet Home Alabama!

Check out this great article on Alabama and the Death Penalty.

"If you are a poor person of color accused of a capital crime in Alabama, what stands between you and the death penalty?"

Not much according to Nancy Goldstein.

Goldstein includes some very revealing facts and statistics:
1. Alabama has no statewide public defender system
2. All 19 of Alabama's appellate court judges are white
3. 41 of 42 of Alabama's elected District Attorneys are white
4. Odds are 1 in 3 that a jury will be ALL White
5. Since 1975, courts have found that prosecutors illegally excluded black people from serving as jurors in at least 28 cases
6. Alabama's death row population has doubled in the past decade 3-10 times greater than that of other Southern states
7. Though black people account for 26% of AL's population - nearly 63% of its prisoners are black
8. Since 1975 - 70% of those executed were black

Goldstein asks, where all of the ardent supporters of the so-called "culture of life" have gone when it comes to routine execution of citizens who face inadequate counsel in a biased system???

“There’s been a stunning silence from people who talk about the value of life when it comes to these issues,” Stevenson sighs. “And this is disingenuous. We don’t have to execute people to protect public safety. While the Pope is explicit about being against execution, American political leadership, including Catholic leadership, is not only silent, but also resistant to any portion of the ‘culture of life’ that refers to the death penalty. The black church, which has given us a great deal of support, and communities of color have been the exceptions.”

The most disturbing fact was:

In last November’s election, 51% of Alabama’s voters upheld a statewide referendum to keep segregation-era wording which required separate schools for “white and colored children” in its constitution.

Not to mention Alabama Senator Richard Shelby was one of the few who opposed the recent anti-lynching legislation!

A Must Read!

Has Bush Lost It?

Check out this article. It speaks for itslelf - so not much analysis needed. Link and text below.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7218.shtml

From Capitol Hill Blue

The RantIs Bush Out of Control?By DOUG THOMPSONAug 15, 2005, 05:46

Buy beleaguered, overworked White House aides enough drinks and they tell a sordid tale of an administration under siege, beset by bitter staff infighting and led by a man whose mood swings suggest paranoia bordering on schizophrenia.

They describe a President whose public persona masks an angry, obscenity-spouting man who berates staff, unleashes tirades against those who disagree with him and ends meetings in the Oval Office with “get out of here!”

In fact, George W. Bush’s mood swings have become so drastic that White House emails often contain “weather reports” to warn of the President’s demeanor. “Calm seas” means Bush is calm while “tornado alert” is a warning that he is pissed at the world.

Decreasing job approval ratings and increased criticism within his own party drives the President’s paranoia even higher. Bush, in a meeting with senior advisors, called Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist a “god-damned traitor” for opposing him on stem-cell research.
“There’s real concern in the West Wing that the President is losing it,” a high-level aide told me recently.

A year ago, this web site discovered the White House physician prescribed anti-depressants for Bush. The news came after revelations that the President’s wide mood swings led some administration staffers to doubt his sanity.

Although GOP loyalists dismissed the reports an anti-Bush propaganda, the reports were later confirmed by prominent George Washington University psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank in his book Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. Dr. Frank diagnosed the President as a “paranoid meglomaniac” and “untreated alcoholic” whose “lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions and pumping his hand gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad” showcase Bush’s instabilities.

“I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed,” Dr. Frank said. “He fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated.”

Dr. Frank’s conclusions have been praised by other prominent psychiatrists, including Dr. James Grotstein, Professor at UCLA Medical Center, and Dr. Irvin Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Medical School.

As a recovering alcoholic (sober 11 years, two months, nine days), I know all too well the symptoms that Dr. Frank describes and, after watching Bush for the past several years, I have to, unfortunately, agree with him.

Conversations over the last few weeks with longtime friends who work in the Bush White House confirm even more what Dr. Frank says and others have suggested.
The President of the United States is out of control. How long can the ship of state continue to sail with a madman at the helm?

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue

Enough said? Wow? I don't know about you but whenever someone says GD - it just makes me cringe. Nothing funny about that word. Not surprising Bush's mouth is more like that of a sailor - cause he definitely is no saint.

Sheesh.