An American Appoggiatura

"In any discussion of the problems in our world today, racism must rank high. Not because we are soft-minded liberals obsessed with countless crimes throughout history induced by colour, religion, tribalism or chauvinism of one kind or another. But because the poison which we hoped and believed had been eradicated in our own time by the knowledge of the ultimate evil- the gas-chamber murders committed by the Nazis--is in fact still present, not in any one area of discrimination or racism, or in a restricted number of specific rulers or governments, but in all humankind. I call it "Inner Racism."-

Gitta Sereny, "The Healing Wound"

Monday, June 29, 2015

THERE WAS LOVE ALL AROUND AND HEALTH AND NOW, THE DEATH PANEL

by SE, June 29, 2015

"And because some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution, we have held that the Constitu- tion does not require the avoidance of all risk of pain. Ibid. After all, while most humans wish to die a painless death, many do not have that good fortune. Holding that the Eighth Amendment demands the elimination of essen- tially all risk of pain would effectively outlaw the death penalty altogether." -

Samuel Alito

Today Americans were witness to what truly is an institutional Death Panel - the one the Republicans and their fellow party-ers, the John Birchers, warned us about in their ongoing fear campaign against the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). This Death Panel

THE TRUE AMERICAN DEATH PANEL

is made up of five so-called justices of the U.S.Supreme Court and as fair and surprisingly heroic as this court was last week - saving "Obamacare" from what was in truth a bogus attempt to undermine it entirely and then proclaiming in a 5-4 vote that Gay persons can marry throughout this land wherever they live, the shame that the vote wasn't unanimous will live with the four "dissenters" for as long as people value freedom and decency - today it ruled (Glossip v. Gross) that Oklahoma ( and the rest of the death imposing states) may indeed use a drug called midazolam to kill its very bad persons- even if it doesn't work quite as well as the label says because -now I've just read the Death panel opinion penned by that remarkable legal shaking head, Sammy Alito, but once so far, but..- the petitioners, the death row residents themselves, didn't prove they knew enough chemistry and more importantly they couldn't name another means of killing themselves that fit the court's protocol. For an enlightening and morbid course in Death Panel 101 you owe it to yourself to read the skewed reasoning of "Justice" Alito and while you're at it take a peek at Scalia's arrogant and rather warped reading of the law - Clarence Thomas still hasn't learned to read yet - and then compare these to Justice Sotomayor's dissent - and weep.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf