Category — Death Penalty

Vermonters of all political persuasions can get behinds this novel and green innovation. Rechargeable batteries in series connected to a capacitor delivers proper amperage with a short cycling time.

Solar-Powered Electric Chair

AUSTIN, TX—Garrett Durning of the Texas Environmental Defense League has spent the last three months campaigning tirelessly for the installation of solar-powered electric chairs in state prisons. “Texas wastes more than 500,000 watts of electricity on every criminal it executes,” Durning told reporters Monday. “We live in the 21st century, and it’s high time we acted like it. Let’s stop depleting our non-renewable fossil fuels. Solar power is a more energy-efficient way to execute the condemned.” Durning added that wrist and ankle restraints should be made of hemp rather than leather, the use of which is cruel.

Furthermore, by using found and recycled materials the state can save a tree. I’m sure the Burlington/Middlebury peoples artist collectives will create a suitably shaped device honoring the victims and all with no carbon footprint.

Toss aside a harmonic convergence of this level dispassionately. I should say not!

I’m not a huge fan of the death penalty; however, there certainly are crimes which merit the punishment.  And even though I know all the hand-wringing over the use of lethal injection is really aimed at stopping the death penalty, the argument itself doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Even if the injection causes pain and suffering, is it more cruel and unusual than what the murderer did to the victim?  And what about the emotional scars family and friends deal with for the rest of their lives?  When the victim and loved ones’ suffering is considered, the potential suffering of the perpetrator doesn’t really seem that bad.

A conglomeration of old time radicals, brain-burned dope smokers, and the terminally lost used to stagger round chanting, “Don’t trust anyone over 30” and “Question authority.” These ancient lefties, the ones that survived and can locate the dawn, unfortunately didn’t take their own advice. All grew to over 30, which is, for many, happenstance. The second postulate has direct personal control potential.

Al Gore prophesies global doom in 10 years. Nostradamus and Ted Danson owned a crystal ball business too, neither with any accuracy. Danson actually predicted the seas dying 8 years ago if the U.S. didn’t mend its habits. We didn’t and the seas didn’t. Who questioned Danson’s authority? When did Gore get a degree in Climatology? Do Gore’s myrmidons question his authority? Nah! The parade of tinfoil chapeaux line up, stepping off in routestep. Each marching to a different drummer, they generate a hellish clangor analogous to simultaneously listening to NPR news and Metallica in the same earphones.

These prosaic progressives never question authority. That’s one mantra that applies only to the proles for official consumption. Instead, they encircle their temples like the crazed and discolored caryatids of Grecian architecture guarding against any intrusion of logic.

Let the ruby radicals answer these questions. Why is it’s permissible to: burn a flag but not a cross, the Bible but not the Q’oran, in schools, teach about Islam but not other religions, support abortions but not the death penalty and finally make identity theft a felony for citizens but a ticket to guest worker status for criminals?

We should be questioning authority, particularly those seated in D.C.

The Lowell Sun endorsed Kerry Healey today:

We have no doubt that Kerry Healey is the best candidate in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race. She is intelligent, articulate, thoughtful and exceptionally qualified to lead the Bay State toward a bright future.

Unfortunately, Healey’s qualities have been blurred by a campaign that did well to expose Patrick’s weaknesses on key issues but did not work hard enough to highlight Healey’s many strengths. Healey the governor will be far superior to Healey the candidate.

Her 50-point plan is a detailed blueprint for how she will govern, while her Democratic opponent, Deval Patrick, has been evasive about what he will actually do and how he means to do it. He speaks generally of bringing “hope,” but we can’t help but wonder how expensive that hope will be to the taxpayers of Massachusetts.

On education, Healey supports merit pay for the best teachers, particularly for those working in underperforming schools and those teaching math and science. She wants to lift the cap on charter schools to give parents and students more options, raise the mandatory age of school attendance to 18 to keep kids from dropping out, and retain the MCAS as a graduation requirement.

Unlike other candidates, Healey won’t water down public education in Massachusetts. She understands that a solid academic foundation will allow students to attend college, excel in their careers and boost the state’s economic growth.

Healey supports rolling back the income tax to 5 percent, as approved by voters in 2000. She took a no-new-taxes pledge, will work to reform the state’s pension system to eliminate fraud and abuse, will penalize businesses that hire illegal immigrants and will push to allow municipalities to purchase health-care insurance through the state, a move that would save struggling communities millions.

It is clear Healey understands the concerns and needs of Massachusetts taxpayers and municipalities. She knows residents need good schools, lower taxes and safe neighborhoods, and she will strive to provide those necessities.

Healey would fight for lifetime parole for Level 2 sex offenders, to reinstate the death penalty for felons convicted of killing law-enforcement personnel, provide loan forgiveness for students pursuing in-demand careers like engineering and forensic sciences, and to make housing more affordable for first-time home buyers. Unlike Patrick, Healey has concrete plans that, with the support of the Legislature, will allow such changes to occur without piling more taxes on overburdened residents.

There’s a lot to be said for checks and balances in government. It’s the reason the GOP has held a lock on the corner office for 16 years. The people of Massachusetts know that the Democrat-dominated Legislature is less inclined to bust open the piggy bank and reach for the taxpayers’ wallets with a Republican governor standing guard.

Taking office amid a recession in 2002, Gov. Mitt Romney and Lt. Gov. Healey refused to tax their way out of a fiscal crisis, and for the past two years the state budget has included a $1 billion surplus.

Although Patrick claims that the state has lost 148,000 jobs under Romney-Healey, his numbers are just plain wrong. The state has 148,000 fewer jobs now than when the state reached its peak, but that peak was reached in February 2001 — nearly two years before Romney and Healey took office. According to the Department of Workforce Development, the state’s job market has rebounded by 61,000 jobs since it bottomed out in December 2003.

A moderate Republican, Healey will continue to halt some of the Legislature’s financial extravagance while reaching out across party lines to get things done and unify our polarized political arena.

The Sun is pleased to endorse Kerry Healey to be Massachusetts’ next governor.

I voted for Healey today since I will be at a conference in Edmonton on election day.

I urge everyone to vote for her on Tuesday so that we can have some check on the Democratic legislature. Without that check, you might as well just hand over your wallet at the polls.

PLEASE don’t waste your vote on Mihos!!! He has no chance of winning and anyone who votes for him is effectively voting for four years of Deval Patrick.

The Kerry Healey campaign released a new ad yesterday that looks at Deval Patrick’s work on a case that spared a convicted cop killer from the death penalty.

Hat tip to WRKO morning host Scott Allen Miller for putting the ad up on YouTube. I have added his blog, The Scotto Blog, to our blogroll.

The Boston Globe notes that Massachusetts’s next governor is likely to be the first African-American or woman to hold the office. But does that really matter to you? The gender and ethnicity of the candidates doesn’t make them any more or less qualified to lead the state. With only 7 weeks before the election, let’s focus on the issues.

However, focusing on firsts allows liberals to sidestep issues. When the Supreme Judicial Court forced gay marriage on us, liberals rejoiced because it was a first. They had finally beaten California in the race to implement liberal social policy. The last thing they wanted to discuss was why a court was writing laws.

It’s a similar play for Patrick. The Globe doesn’t want to tell you that he is going to raise your taxes. They don’t want to discuss his support for giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. They don’t want you to know he is soft on crime and opposes the death penalty. They don’t want you to focus on the fact that his “plans” are really just feel good slogans with little substance.

Being the first of anything to be governor of this state doesn’t mean you’re the right person to lead us forward. We need a lot more detail on the candidates’s plans and a lot less on the firsts they might set.

Now that Democrats have sorted themselves out, let’s take a look at their man—Deval Patrick.  Deciphering Mr. Patrick’s website is not really that difficult.  It’s a mishmash of contradictory policies, doublespeak, and things that just won’t work.  For example, here is his take on healthcare:

I see health care as a common good - like clean air, safe streets and effective education - and so I believe that government has a role to play in assuring that the conditions exist for the health care system we all want.

Translation:  Mr. Patrick favors socialized medicine along the Canadian single payer system.  How much is that going to cost the state?  Canadian healthcare is a disaster.  How does he propose avoiding a similar result here?

And interestingly enough, taxes are not even listed as a major issue on his website.  Think your property taxes are too high?  Deval Patrick doesn’t.  Want your state income tax rolled back to 5% like the voters approved?  Deval Patrick doesn’t.  In fact, every issue and solution he mentions involves more spending so forget about significant cuts because taxes are going up.

Next, we have the interesting conundrum of exactly how he’s going to create jobs without altering the state’s tax and regulatory environment.  Instead of pledging to make regulations less onerous for business, he has offered to limit those processes to no more than 6 months, but what business can wait that long in a globally linked economy?  And how exactly is he going to get venture capitalists to invest in the state and wouldn’t they do so anyway if it made sense without his “prodding”?  How is he going to make operating in the state more attractive when he also wants businesses to help build affordable housing by contributing to his plans?  He wants to tighten enforcement of the labor laws, which is another expense that business must shoulder.

Worried about illegal immigration?  Deval Patrick isn’t.  It isn’t a major issue on his site, nor is it mentioned in his Issues Overview or Press Releases.

Think murderous thugs deserve the death penalty.  Deval Patrick doesn’t.

His website is chock full of inconsistencies and policies that simply don’t mean anything.  Deval Patrick is simply not the right man for governor.  Let’s hope the voters in the general election see it too.

So, Lincoln Chaffee (R?-RI) would not put UBL to death? Is this guy a Republican or what?? If you won’t support a death sentence for UBL, who would you suport it for?

Disclosure: I am not a huge fan of the Death Penalty. But Bin Laden? I would flip the switch myself!!

Still think the death penalty never applies?

Moussaoui called an Army officer who crawled on his belly to safety beneath searing smoke “pathetic” and ridiculed a Navy officer who wept as she described the loss of two colleagues.”I think it was disgusting for a military person” to cry, Moussaoui said of the testimony of Navy Lt. Nancy McKeown. “She is military, she should expect people at war with her to want to kill her.”

Asked if he was happy to hear her sobbing, he said, “Make my day.”

Prosecutor Rob Spencer asked Moussaoui: “So you would be happy to see 9/11 again?”

“Every day until we get you,” the 37-year-old Frenchman responded with enthusiasm.

Would anybody still like to argue for a ban on the death penalty when you have people like Moussaoui running around? The death penalty may offend liberal sensibilities, but in this case it so clearly applies.

Argue that it should be used more sparingly, but an outright ban is irresponsible. A lifetime in prison seems very inappropriate in this case.

Nersciguy raises an interesting issue regarding my post on Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker.

Roper (finding as unconstitutional the death penalty for under 18 convicts) & Kelo (finding as constitutional the use of eminent domain for the support of private development) were two of the worst non-Constitutional recent decisions by the Supreme Court; that said, state supreme courts should follow these rulings in order to uphold the rule of law until a future Supreme Court reverses the bad decision.

Waiting for the Supreme Court to correct itself is the proper path in the vast majority of cases. Public confidence in the judiciary is a vital part of a properly functioning legal system and suggestions of judicial sedition are not to be taken lightly. However, why swear an oath to defend the Constitution if there are no circumstances under which you might be called upon to do so?

There is certainly leeway for interpreting the Constitution, but this does not give the Court absolute discretion to incorporate foreign law or rewrite sections of the document as they see fit. In some respects, waiting for the Court to correct itself gives them legislative power and diminishes the Constitutional role of the Congress. I would argue that upholding the law means upholding the Constitution and may conflict with what the Court says it means. Having said all of that though, it would have to be a truly landmark decision changing the fundamental nature of the Constitution for me to support such measures, but it does make for interesting debate.

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

First off, I’d like to say I’m very grateful for the opportunity to write on this blog. I was born in Massachusetts and lived there for awhile until my family moved to Vermont, where we stayed until my early teens when we moved to North Carolina. So though I don’t live there anymore I feel I have a connection to New England through my family that still live there and childhood experiences. I even still root for the Pats and the Sox. Beyond that, I enjoy a lot of geeky things – I played the trombone in high school and college marching band, I’m a big Star Trek fan, and my video game collection takes up a good sized bookcase.

I am a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in Physics. And though North Carolina is a red state, Chapel Hill is certainly an island of blue in it. I like to think, however, that having my views challenged so often by the student body made me actually think about my views and ask if they were really correct. As is apparent by my writing here, I weighed the facts and realized that liberalism is indeed, as a prominent radio host is want to say, a mental disorder. Even my fiancée, who’s a recovering liberal, found the lack of intelligent discourse on the left appalling enough to hop the political fence. And all that was before I even met her. Speaking of marriage, after this summer I may move somewhere else, anywhere from Kentucky to Rhode Island. But I’ll always be a Yankee (especially to her) and I’ll always be a Tar Heel (especially in the NCAA tourney). Hence the name.

Politically, I’m mostly conservative with a good helping of libertarian (mostly on the social issues). I’m anti-death penalty, pro-life, and pro-gay rights, though not gay marriage. So take all that for what you will. One thing that irritates me about some conservative commentators these days is that I will listen or watch them take a position that is correct but then bumble the defense of it. They argue like a liberal – thinking completely with emotions, not the brain – and I want to avoid that when I can. I hope to say something to get people thinking once in awhile, and I look forward to being here.

Feel free to send comments to Yankee.Tar.Heel@gmail.com

Hannity and Colmes just played a clip of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer whining about Court criticism. Here’s a clip:

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said Tuesday that rulings on difficult subjects like gay rights and the death penalty have left courts vulnerable to political attacks that are threatening judicial independence. Breyer urged lawyers to help educate people about court responsibility to be an independent decision-maker. “If you say seven or eight or nine members of the Supreme Court feel there’s a problem … you’re right,” he told the American Bar Association. “It’s this edge on a lot of issues.”

Sure Stevo - I won’t b*tch about the Court as long as you don’t take my house. McCain in Training (MIT) was shaking his RINO head “yes” the whole time:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was speaking with Breyer, said: “The politics of judges is getting to be red hot.” He said Supreme Court rulings on the Pledge of Allegiance and Ten Commandments have captured the public’s interest and polarized Democrats and Republicans.

Actually Lindsey, the pledge and the ten commandments only seem to divide liberal judges - both are favored overwhelmingly by the people. AND what’s most frustrating: If Scalia (or better yet, Karl Rove) suggested that dissent somehow caused a particular branch of government to operate dysfunctionally, the left’s scream of fascism would be unbearable.

Anlke Biters states the obvious about Justice John Paul Stevens’ revealing remarks on the death penalty over the weekend:

will he [Stevens] follow the example of Justice Scalia, who recused himself from the Pledge of Allegiance “under God” case because of comments he made in a speech? Just a thought.

No one should be holding their breath on that one. Over the years, Justice Stevens has consistently chosen to politicize the Court and reject precedence. Of course, you would never know that by following the MSM.

The new liberal talking point is that Republicans, led by conservatives, seek to blur the lines between separation of church and state. Liberal Democrats like Howard Dean and Al Gore have given us a primer on what is ahead in the next election cycle - those who oppose abortion, gay marriage or euthanasia are religious zealots. Liberals cite the Schiavo affair and the judicial filibuster as evidence the GOP is hell bent on making America a theocracy.

The most conservative Republicans have responded by calling liberals “anti-Christian.” GOP Majority Leader Bill Frist was attacked for his appearance on Justice Sunday because of the religious association. Republican leaders have cautioned to attack the Democrats on religion, most likely because they fear a backlash in the MSM.

However, throughout this entire debate, Democrats have never had to explain the origin of their positions on “values” issue. On the other hand, it is widely accepted that the GOP’s positions, for the most part, are rooted in Judeo-Christian values. No one has ever really looked at the origin of the left’s positions on the most divisive issues facing this country. So I will.

Liberal values gained traction in the late 1960’s after the Civil Rights movement. Liberals successfully coupled civil rights for minorities and women with social policy such as abortion and the death penalty. And, who advanced most of these ideas? - the Supreme Court. Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision to legalize abortion, was the birth of the culture war in America. Overnight, the Court became the final arbiter of all things controversial and more importantly, unsettled.

Liberals then formed a counter-culture based on humanistic values purposely disassociated from anything remotely religious. The value system was based on a morally relative view of values and was used to advance some of the most controversial Supreme Court rulings in this country’s history such as Roe. The movement suffered serious setbacks in national elections soon after because Ronald Reagan’s 1980 platform created a home for socially conservative (and active) voters.

The culture war has seesawed back and forth throughout the years with conservatives having most of their success in the 1980’s and liberals in the 1990’s. President Clinton’s impeachment was probably when the fight reached fever pitch and the liberal movement has suffered electorally ever since. Last fall, President Bush successfully used Reagan’s formula to become the first President since his father to win a national mandate.

As a conservative who does value the separation of church and state, I ask Republican leaders to start questioning the origin of liberal philosophy. The GOP has to expose the roots of modern day liberalism for what it is - a cult formed in the post-War, post- Civil Rights period designed to remove everything remotely religious from the public sphere.

True conservatives seek to give the states the right to choose what religion they want to follow - a humanistic counter-culture that was founded on moral relativism or the Judeo-Christian values this country was founded on. I am willing to let the people decide. Are liberals?

I have been busy at work this week, but I thought I would take a minute to comment on the Terri Schiavo case since it’s the headline story. While I disapprove of Congress stepping in, Terri’s case shows on full display what is wrong with the liberal courts. If only Ms. Schiavo had viciously murdered someone - then, maybe the Courts would have more sympathy for her. The hypocrisy of people like Maureen Dowd, Judy Woodruff and other MSM artifacts have been on full display this week and it’s disgusting. They love to gush over polls that show for once, the public agrees with them. Unfortunately, they don’t harp on polls showing Americans overwhelmingly in favor of public displays of the Ten Commandents or the death penalty.
I can’t imagine what Terri and her family are going through. I would hope that whatever she is feeling is quick and painless, but that usually doesn’t happen when you starve someone to death.