Hot Potato Mash

VIDEO EXLUSIVE: Vincent Bugliosi Supports Compassionate Release Of Manson 'Family' Member Susan Atkins

Susan Atkins spent the last 37 years in a California state prison for the murders of the actress Sharon Tate and musician Gary Hinman. Tate, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant with director Roman Polanski's son, unsuccessfully begged Atkins for mercy stating, according to prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, "please let me live so I can have my baby."

Atkins, however, showed no compassion and replied to Tate, "look bitch I do not have any mercy on you, you are going to die," before stabbing her to death.

Now Atkins, who suffers from brain cancer, has had her leg amputated and has been given six months to live, is requesting that the state parole board grant her a "compassionate release". Surprisingly Bugliosi, who sought the death penalty for the entire Manson Family and opposes parole for of all of its members, supports Atkins' petition.

"I'm not sure that you can say that just because she was this monster that 37 years later under these new conditions that it necessarily follows that we cannot give her whatever little mercy it is," Bugliosi said. "I think it's a non-sequiter to say that," he continued before adding, "and if she were not in the condition she's in obviously I would be against her ever being released on parole."

The state parole board will also likely consider the testimony of the surviving relatives of Atkins' victims, many of whom oppose any mercy, before issuing it's ruling in the coming months.

The L.A. Times has more

UPDATE: Bugliosi appears to be in the minority when it comes to Atkins compassionate release.

"Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders" (Vincent Bugliosi, Curt Gentry)

DEMOCRATS COLLUDING WITH BUSH TO GUT 4th AMENDMENT TO COVER THEIR OWN CULPABILITY

That's right folks. Democrats will pass a Bill in the House tomorrow that will eviscerate the 4th Amendment and grant after the fact immunity to lawbreaking corporations in an effort to cover their own asses. Is it possible to get any more craven?

To put this law in context, even the Republican controlled Congress couldn't get this legislation passed. But now that the Dem leadership has been exposed to have had knowledge about the Bush administration's illegal spying on Americans (and did nothing), Dems are jumping at the bit to coverup their actions.

And just where o where is Barack Obama? As the Democratic Party leader all he need do is make a simple phone call telling Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to shelve the destruction of the 4th Amendment until after the election. Yet, despite his repeated claims to be adamantly opposed to this legislation and for the rule of law, he remains dead silent. Nice leadership.

Face it people, unless Barack Obama changes course by tomorrow he will prove himself to just another politician. And the right wing noise machine will be able to rightfully claim that Obama is all rhetoric and no substance.

PLEASE CALL THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN AND TELL THEM TO KILL THIS BILL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE: (866) 675-2008 [Dial 6, then 0, on the menu]

Keith Olbermann

Democracy In Action... In Korea

The Bush administration fights to prevent meatpackers from testing for mad cow disease:

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone should test its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive tests on their larger herds as well.

A quarter-million Koreans protest in Seoul during a 72-hour-long marathon candle vigil against the import of US beef...

How great is this story? Here we once again have the Bush administration whoring for industry to the detriment of the American people. Yet, the mainstream media doesn't cover the story and Americans don't have a clue about it. But 250,000 turnout over three days to protest the sick actions of the American government in KOREA!

Of course the media can't report the ginormous protest because that would mean informing Americans about the disgusting actions of the Bush administration.

(h/t Big Dan)

Bush administration, democracy, Korea, mad cow

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Ambassador Joe Wilson Comments On Karl Rove Subpoena

Last Thursday Keith Olbermann began an excellent conversation with George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley about  Karl Rove being subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee by stating:

“Joe Wilson's dream of watching Karl Rove frog marched out of the White House in handcuffs is long since gone. But a new dream has been born tonight. What about a Turdblossom perp walk out of the front door of Fix news.”

Later that night I asked Ambassador Joe Wilson to comment on Olbermann's statement and the Karl Rove subpoena. While Ambassador Wilson was unsure whether or not Congress will be able to get to Rove, he was certainly supportive of the effort:

“Whether they will actually be able to get to Karl I don't know. But it's great to keep the pressure on him. It forces him back on defense. It's amazing to me the extent to which these guys have operated with absolute impunity, absolute disregard for American law and American jurisprudence.”

Ambassador Wilson also gave a superb talk Thursday night covering all aspects of his ordeal with the Bush administration:

“The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity: A Diplomat's Memoir” (Joseph Wilson)

Technorati Tags: Ambassador Joe Wilson, John Conyers, Karl Rove, Valerie Plame

John Wayne: White Supremacist, McCarthyite, Draft-Dodging, Republican Icon

The first chapter from Glenn Greenwald's new book, "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics", is all about John Wayne, or as Greenwald calls him, the "Pioneer of the Great American Hypocrite". And while the "Duke" was unquestionably a conservative Republican and a hypocrite, what really stands out is what a deplorable human being he was. A few shocking excerpts:

John Wayne in a 1971 Playboy interview:

"We can't all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks. I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe in giving authority and positions of leadership to irresponsible people."

Wayne was also an anti-communist McCarthyite in the 1950's who regularly accused Hollywood figures of being communist. But even worse, Wayne held his despicable views long after the "Red Scare" ended. In 1969 he told a Time reporter the following:

"I think those blacklisted people should have been sent over to Russia. They'd have been taken care of over there, and if the Commies ever won over here, why hell, those guys would be the first ones they'd take care of -- after me."

And despite being a draft-dodger during WWII when almost everyone served in the military -- including fellow actors James Stewart, Clark Gable and Henry Fonda -- Wayne called teenagers who fled for Canada or Europe during the Vietnam War "cowards," "traitors," and "Communists."

Is there any question that Wayne would be a perfect fit in today's Republican Party?

"Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics" (Glenn Greenwald)

Technorati Tags: Conservative, Glenn Greenwald, Hypocrite, John Wayne, McCarthyism, Racist, Republican, White Supremacy

BUSH LEAGUE JUSTICE: Rep. Wexler: 'IT'S TIME FOR CONGRESS TO STAND UP AND GET ANSWERS'

Dan Abrams revisited the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman in light of Karl Rove's refusal to testify before the House Judiciary Committee in an excellent segment last night with Gov. Siegelman and Florida Representative Robert Wexler.

Towards the end of the piece Gov. Siegelman gave an excellent summary of where we stand:

“Karl Rove and this administration have thumbed their nose at Congress. They have clearly engaged in systematic and calculated abuses of power relating not just to the abuse at the Department of Justice but to other areas of importance to the American people. And Congress, rightfully so, should press Karl Rove to come and testify under oath and answer these questions.”

And Rep. Wexler agreed by calling on the House Judiciary Committee to issue a subpoena to Rove:

“We need to literally uphold the checks and balances that this administration has so abused.” And, “no American citizen has the right to ignore a Congressional subpoena. Not Karl Rove. Not anyone else.”

Beyond agreeing on the need to subpoena Karl Rove all three men also agreed that the Siegelman case is much bigger than about the innocence of one man. Here's Rep. Wexler on the bigger picture:

“What we are witnessing is a pattern of abuse of power by the Bush administration. It happened when they fired several US Attorneys for political reasons and Mr. Bolton and Ms. Miers refused to testify before Congress. It now is happening with the issue of torture. We have asked, subpoenaed, the Vice President's Chief of Staff to come before Congress and answer whether or not the administration illegally ordered the use of torture. It's time for Congress to stand up and get answers”.

And speaking of the bigger picture, you will note that I get almost 4 seconds of air time beginning at the 2:05 mark! 

Technorati Tags: Dan Abrams, Don Siegelman, Karl Rove, MSNBC, Bush League Justice, Robert Wexler

Yacht Party

From the Courage Campaign:

The most extreme high priests of the tax cut cult operate right here in
California. Because Democrats do not hold a two-thirds majority in our
state legislature, a small minority of Republicans is able to hold
Californians hostage to a $20 billion state budget deficit, refusing to raise taxes on the super-rich.

It gets worse. Much worse. While California's future is being put in grave jeopardy, the tax cut cult is refusing to close a tax loophole for yacht and private jet owners.

Schools closing. Social services slashed to the bone. And right-wing Republicans are letting the uber-wealthy off tax-free on yacht and private jet purchases. It's no wonder the California Republican Party has been re-branded as the “Yacht Party” by the netroots.

To increase the pressure on Republicans in Sacramento to close this
yacht tax loophole, we need to make this “Yacht Party” brand stick. That's
why the Courage Campaign and California Nurses Association have just
teamed up to produce a new 60-second TV ad that strips naked the
shocking nature of the California Republican Party's priorities.

“Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe” (Arianna Huffington)

Technorati Tags: Tax cuts, Yacht Party

MUST WATCH: Glenn Greenwald On Democracy Now

Part 1 (9:53)

Part 2 (8:02)

Democracy Now mashup of ABC debate questions (3:09)

“Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics” (Glenn Greenwald)

Technorati Tags: amy goodman, democracy now, media, Glenn Greenwald

The Three Trillion Dollar Shopping Spree

Check out the great site that accompanies the video.

“The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict” (Joseph E. Stiglitz, Linda J. Bilmes)

AWARENESS TEST

The above video (1:09) has 2.5 million views on YouTube in the last month which makes it one of the most popular videos to ever come out of the UK. And while the short ad is ultimately a public service announcement warning drivers to watch out for bicyclists, it evidences important shortcomings in the human brain. Specifically, there is much in life that we miss or get wrong and yet remain convinced of our correctness.

For example, the brain often plays similar tricks on us when it comes to eyewitness identification during crimes and then at criminal trials. Every year an estimated 77,000 people become criminal defendants after being identified by a witness. Further, studies have shown that juries convict at a far greater rate (68%) with eyewitness testimony than without (18%). Legal experts note that next to a smoking gun, “nothing carries as much weight with a jury as the testimony of an actual witness.”

The above numbers are highly problematic when, contrary to conventional wisdom, studies show error rates as high as 50% when people are asked to identify people they saw for a relatively short period of time. Worse, wrongful identification skyrockets (70% in one study) when people are asked to identify a person of a different race.

Scientific experiments involving brain scans have provided some answers to why this occurs. White people, for starters, tend to “look at someone's hair and eye color” which is “not very helpful if they're being asked to distinguish amongst black people or Asians” where “hair color and eye color really don't vary too much”, says one Stanford scientist.

The real world consequences of this are devastating. According to the Innocence Project, 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing involve eyewitness misidentification. And thousands of innocent people like Julius Earl Ruffin (middle), who spent 21 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, are incarcerated every year because of faulty eyewitness testimony.

So the next time one sits on a jury or, god forbid, witnesses a crime, remember the video above and that things are not always as they seem.

“Eyewitness Testimony: With a new preface by the author” (Elizabeth F. Loftus)

“Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind, and the Past” (Daniel L. Schacter)

Technorati Tags: civil_liberties, Crimes, Eyewitness Testimony, incarceration, Brain

The Bush Admin Cares About Corporations Not People

Elizabeth de la Vega writes about worker safety in, “Bush's OSHA: No Laws? No Crimes”:

Unfortunately, OSHA started becoming anemic during the 1990s, and now it is positively spectral. With fewer employees than it had 30 years ago, yet twice the number of workplaces in its charge, OSHA would need 133 years to inspect every business over which it has jurisdiction.

The far more serious problem with OSHA's performance, however, is that, under the Bush administration, it has deliberately avoided setting any significant industrial standards. (To be precise, it has set one, regarding the permissible level of workplace exposure to the known carcinogen hexavalent chromium, but only after a court ordered it to do so.)

OSHA's abdication of its duties is not a matter of incompetence. It is, as Rep. John Barrows (D-Georgia) pointed out in a March 12, 2008, Workforce Protections Subcommittee Hearing of the House, Education and Labor Committee, a purposeful unwillingness to act. Or, to put it more colorfully, as Barrows did:

“When you've got an agency that don't know its job or don't care about its job, or has all kinds of reasons for not doin' its job, it's a little bit like goin' bird huntin' and havin' to tote the dog.”

OSHA's failure to enact mandatory standards has not only been fatal to its mission; it has been fatal to the workers.

Sadly, we will never know how many thousands of lives have been lost as a result of the Bush administration's lax approach to worker safety.

Technorati Tags: bush, OSHA

'BUSH ORDERED WAR CRIMES'

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley: “It really is amazing because Congress, including the Democrats, have avoided any type of investigation into torture because they do not want to deal with the fact that the President ordered war crimes. But evidence keeps on coming out - the only thing we don’t have is a group picture with a detainee attached to electrical wires. I mean every time we see more evidence we have more and more high ranking people at the scene of this crime. And what you get from this is that this was a premeditated and carefully orchestrated torture program. Not torture, but a torture program.”

“Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law” (Marjorie Cohn)

Technorati Tags: olbermann, Jonathan Turley, torture

The Great Moral Issue Of Our Era Is The Illegal War In Iraq

Bob Fritakis writes at The Free Press:

“The great moral issue of our era is the illegal war in Iraq. Like the issues of slavery, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War in past epochs, silence on this issue equals complicity...”

“The slaves couldn't speak for themselves, nor can the more than one million Iraqis who have died as a direct result of Bush's war. The voices of 4,000 U.S. soldiers have been silenced as well...”

“The cost of the war continues to rise daily. The monthly cost exceeds the monthly cost of the Vietnam War (adjusted for inflation) by half a billion dollars.”

“And what has the war accomplished? The war has turned Iraq, an anti-Al Qaeda state with no ties to the terrorist organization, into a symbol for ”accelerated recruitment“ for Al Qaeda, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The country is now ”a training and recruitment ground (for terrorists) and an opportunity for terrorists to enhance their technology skills,“ according to the U.S. National Intelligence Council...”

“This military madness once again afflicts our nation, and our elected officials lack the courage to take a stand for peace.”

Supporters Of The Iraq Occupation Must Answer This Question

The NY Times' Nicholas D. Kristof believes that “staying in Iraq indefinitely undermines our national security by empowering jihadis”. He adds, that if you disagree with this assessment and “believe that staying in Iraq does more good than harm, you must answer the next question: Is that presence so valuable that it is worth undermining our economy?” All supporters of the continuing occupation of Iraq should be forced to answer that question in light of the following:

Granted, the cost estimates are squishy and controversial, partly because the $12.5 billion a month that we’re now paying for Iraq is only a down payment. We’ll still be making disability payments to Iraq war veterans 50 years from now.

Professor Stiglitz calculates in a new book, written with Linda Bilmes of Harvard University, that the total costs, including the long-term bills we’re incurring, amount to about $25 billion a month. That’s $330 a month for a family of four.

A Congressional study by the Joint Economic Committee found that the sums spent on the Iraq war each day could enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start or give Pell Grants to 153,000 students to attend college. Or if we’re sure we want to invest in security, then a day’s Iraq spending would finance another 11,000 border patrol agents or 9,000 police officers.

Imagine the possibilities. We could hire more police and border patrol agents, expand Head Start and rehabilitate America’s image in the world by underwriting a global drive to slash maternal mortality, eradicate malaria and deworm every child in Africa.

All that would consume less than one month’s spending on the Iraq war.

Moreover, the Bush administration has financed this war in a way that undermines our national security — by borrowing. Forty percent of the increased debt will be held by China and other foreign countries.

“This is the first major war in American history where all the additional cost was paid for by borrowing,” Mr. Hormats notes. If the war backers believe that the Iraq war is so essential, then they should be willing to pay for it partly with taxes rather than charging it. (emphasis added)

One way or another, now or later, we’ll have to pay the bill. Professor Stiglitz calculates that the eventual total cost of the war will be about $3 trillion. For a family of five like mine, that amounts to a bill of almost $50,000.

Read the entire Kristof Op-Ed.

“The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict” (Joseph E. Stiglitz, Linda J. Bilmes)

Technorati Tags: Nicholas Kristof

VIDEO: US Soldiers From Iraq And Afghanistan Testify About The Horrors Of War At Winter Soldier

Amy Goodman's introduction to Democracy Now's coverage of “Winter Soldier”:

JON MICHAEL TURNER: 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines.

KEVIN AND JOYCE LUCEY (Part 1): Parents of Corporal Jeffrey Lucey

KEVIN AND JOYCE LUCEY (Part 2):

JASON LEMIEUX: Marine sergeant served three tours in Iraq

Technorati Tags: Winter Soldier