I've never liked the death penalty. When I was a reporter, I saw several cases where the wrong person was prosecuted, and unless you have enough money for a good defense attorney, there's not a lot you can do if you're caught up in that kind of nightmare.

So I've always opposed the death penalty, with one exception: Polluters. From the dumpers who unload toxic chemicals in a small stream where children play, to politicians and organized crime figures who bring tons out-of-state toxic waste into unsuspecting communities, there's nothing that makes me more angry.

Because you've poisoned a place where children play. You've polluted a watershed, and people will eat the fish they catch there. Toxins will seep into the soil, and the air. And while it may be impossible to prove anytime soon, you've almost certainly killed people.

Now, we're hearing all kinds of stories that indicate that BP executives, managers, regulators and engineers either knew or had serious concerns that the Deepwater Horizon rig was at risk for an explosion.

And what else have we seen? A "Three Little Pigs" memo where BP makes it clear it's cheaper to pay long-shot damages than to make the rig safe. Memos where engineers warned of danger. Interviews with BP employees who talked about how the safety tests were rigged.

If you gave your friend a ride to the 7-Eleven, and while you were sitting in the car waiting, he pulled a gun and killed someone during a robbery, you could be tried for murder. Just for sitting there, just on the off chance that you knew something and were knowingly involved.

I think the fine people who are poisoning the world deserve the same treatment. Don't you think we should start applying that same legal standard to corporate malfeasance? No, we can't create a law specifically to punish BP - but we can make a real impression on all the other multinational corporations.

And I'll bet some smart D.A. or U.S. Attorney can find a way to make it happen.

After the Citizens United ruling from the Supreme Court, we were all pretty depressed. After all, the tidal wave of money that washes through the political system is downright devastating to democracy. And what are the odds that our spineless Congress will fix it in any meaningful way?

Ah, but we do love our law and order. If we can institute the death penalty for reckless endangerment of our national resources and the human beings affected, we will have finally created a constitutional way to counteract the effects of money in our political system.

Think how much it would do to clean up corporate corruption if employees could say to their managers, "I could get the death penalty for covering that up -- and so could you." Imagine if they were required BY LAW to report their bosses for telling them to cut corners on high-risk products because it was cheaper - or risk being tried if something goes wrong.

Talk about (finally) being held accountable. Wouldn't you love to see it happen?

In China, when executives are found to have manufactured items that are killing people -- well, at least they have the good grace to kill themselves. We can't count on that; we don't have enough healthy shame left in this country.

Here's Patty Larkin with "Metal Drums", a song she wrote about the Superfund site in Holbrook, Massachusetts:

News broke like a lightning bolt
Across a red hot sky
In the blue TV light
Joanne O'Donnell cried
Seemed like the kiss of death
Hung in the air
When a whole town found out
They'd been poisoned for years

BAGnewsNotes: Underneath the Hood

litbrit: The view (and racket) outside my window: St. Petersburg tea baggers attend party of NO class

Cogitamus: Dear Blue Dog Bartlebys: Do your 'effin jobs or quit

the peoplesvoice: The great foreclosure robbery of the 21st century

naked capitalism: Goldman, Fed, Citi getting preferencial allotments of H1N1 vaccine

Infrastructurist: The Daily Dig: Strangest Bridges Edition

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We already pointed out this audio recording of the 911 call placed by the lone survivor of that botched home-invasion robbery carried out by Shawna Forde and her gang of Minutemen. But further listening reveals a number of details about the crime.

It begins simply:

"Somebody just came in and shot my daughter and my husband."

The dispatcher begins asking questions and obviously dispatches deputies to respond. As she's asking about the killers, the victim cries out:

"They're coming back in! They're coming back in!"

An exchange of gunfire ensues. When the woman comes back on the line, she explains:

"They told us that somebody had, um, escaped jail or something and they wanted to come in and look at my house or something. And they just shot my husband. And they shot my daughter and they shot me."

"... Oh my God, I can't believe they killed my family."

She explains that the killers walked up cold-bloodedly to her daughter, 9-year-old Brisenia Flores, as she cowered and cried, and shot her two or three times anyway.

Later in the call she tells the dispatcher that the shooting began when her husband became suspicious of the invaders and asked them about their guns.

We also learn that the shooters were two men -- both tall, one white with a painted face, the other Latino -- and a "shorter fat woman."

That very much describes the gang that was arrested this week.

Scott North and Jackson Holz have more details on the tape.

Vivir Latino points out that there's been a disturbing theme in some of the coverage -- suggesting that perhaps the family somehow had it coming:

Something that tends to happen when the media covers these types of horrors, is double victimization. In an effort to answer the question why, subtleties, like how immigration has been racialized and how Latinos, painted as immigrants, are criminalized and dehumanized, get swept under the rug.

It certainly does raise the question: Why are the media paying so little attention to this story? Are they still wedded to their favorite narrative, that the Minutemen are just some big "neighborhood watch"?

As we said, that's some neighborhood watch.

I guess they're too busy covering that all-important David Letterman protest.

The lies that are told by right wing extremists know NO bounds. What Rep. Virginia Foxx said on the floor yesterday in attacking the hate-crimes bill was inexcusable. I will try to take some action against her.

From Media Matters Action Network:

Rep. Virginia Foxx Called Matthew Shepard Hate Crime "A Hoax"

Summary: On April 29, 2009, in a speech on the House floor, Rep. Virginia Foxx claimed that Matthew Shepard's death was merely the result of a robbery gone bad. While his killers Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson did rob him, they also admitted that they were well aware of his sexual orientation and pretended they were gay to lure him away from the bar he was in at the time. The most striking feature of the case, of course, is that during the course of a normal, simple robbery, the victim is not generally beaten, tied to a post, and left for dead.

Matthew Shepard's Death Was A Hate Crime, Not Simply A Robbery

Rep. Foxx: "The bill was named after a very unfortunate incident that happened, where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. The bill was named for him, the hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's, it's really a hoax, that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."[House Floor Speech, 4/29/09] All the evidence clearly indicates that this was a vicious hate crime, not a robbery gone bad...read on

America Blog says:

A hoax? Belittling the brutal murder of a 21-year-old college student? And Republicans wonder why their angry, hateful, pathetic party is now only 20% of the US population.

Dave N: I've written about the Shepard case a great deal, including in my book Death on the Fourth of July. Probably the chief source of misinformation about his murder was a 2004 ABC News report, which I debunked at the time:

Continue reading »

After years of brutal and what should be criminal business practices by America's credit card industry, it appears that some relief may be in sight.

WASHINGTON – Federal regulators on Thursday adopted sweeping new rules for the credit card industry that will shield consumers from increases in interest rates on existing account balances among other changes.

The new rules aren't set to take effect until 2010, but they're welcome nevertheless.

The new rules prohibit:

_Placing unfair time constraints on payments. A payment could not be deemed late unless the borrower is given a reasonable period of time, such as 21 days, to pay.

_Placing too-high fees for exceeding the credit limit solely because of a hold placed on the account.

_Unfairly computing balances in a computing tactic known as double-cycle billing.

_Unfairly adding security deposits and fees for issuing credit or making it available.

_Making deceptive offers of credit.

I've had to deal with several of the above issues in the past and know first hand how quickly credit card fees and increased interest rates can bloat your balance and spiral out of control. Luckily, I was able to stop the bleeding, but thousands of people have not been able to do so and have ended up in financial and personal ruin. These regulations are long overdue.

dKos:

It was announced on Air America Radio, Jon Elliot's show tonight, that Randi Rhodes was attacked in a park in NYC walking her dog.[..]

A fellow blogger's account from the UK:

Sideshow - Uk

Get well soon, Randi Rhodes. I don't usually have time to listen to her show but I tend to leave AAR on when I'm in front of my computer - but when I heard Lionel sitting in for her, I just turned it off. Sorry, I just can't listen to him. But right now I'm listening to John Elliot and he says Randi was attacked last night while she was walking her dog. She wasn't carrying a bag and was just in sweats, and she was beaten up pretty badly and had some teeth knocked out. Elliot is saying it sounds like it was neither a sexual assault nor a robbery and he suspects it was political. The way things are going, he could be right.

Without any information (or confirmation) I think we should be careful about assuming motivations behind the attack. I'll only say on behalf of C&L that we wish Randi a speedy recovery.

Joe Gandelman has more...

UPDATE: Thom Hartmann just read the official AAR statement on his program:

October 16-NEW YORK-On Sunday evening, October 14, Air America host Randi Rhodes experienced an unfortunate incident hindering her from hosting her show. The reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded. Ms. Rhodes looks forward to being back on the air on Thursday.

UPDATE #2: We're getting conflicting reports on exactly how Randi got hurt. So without Randi Rhodes's own statement clearing up the speculation, we'll stick with just wishing her a speedy recovery.

And the culture of life continues...

Via The Telegraph UK:

A man convicted of shooting dead a store clerk during a robbery has become the 400th person to be executed by Texas since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

The southern state accounts for almost a third of the 1,091 American executions over the last three decades, and this year it will be responsible for almost two thirds - 21 out of 35 judicial killings so far.

About 14 protestors gathered outside the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, as Johnny Conner - who has never confessed to his crime - was executed by lethal injection last night.

Conner, 32, was convicted in 1999 of killing Kathyanna Nguyen, 49, by shooting her in the face during an attempted robbery of the Houston petrol station and convenience store where she worked.

"What is happening to me now is unjust and the system is broken," Conner said as he lay strapped to the execution gurney. Read more...

George Bush has turned the killing of human beings into an art form, so it comes as no surprise that he and Alberto Gonzales are attempting to fast track executions nationwide by doing away with the appeals process for death row inmates. (h/t Dcup)

NY Times (reg. req'd) did an article on Libby's commutation and how hesitant Bush has historically been in granting clemency in trial verdicts. We know all this, so I'll spare you the whole article. But one little paragraph caught my attention:

In his memoir, Mr. Bush wrote about agonizing over the case of Karla Faye Tucker, who in 1998 became the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War. Ms. Tucker, who was convicted in the ax murders of two people during a robbery in 1983, had become a born-again Christian while in prison, and her case drew support from across the political spectrum. Mr. Bush described feeling "like a huge piece of concrete was crushing me" as he waited with aides for Ms. Tucker's execution. It was, he said, "the longest 20 minutes of my tenure as governor."

Wow. Twenty. Whole. Minutes. Do you suppose that was before or after he did this?

Jihad Watch: Rober Spenser will not apologize for his mistaken reporting over the "New Jersey Murders"

"Is that all it was? Hatemongers trying to stir up trouble and portray a robbery as something it wasn't? There is no doubt whatsoever that that is how the media elite will portray the weeks between the discovery of the bodies and the arrests of McDonald and Sanchez. But legitimate questions remain, and I am neither going to apologize or accept Mahmoud's "hatemonger" tag for asking them."

Again it's the media elites fault.

"I hope that facts will come out at the trial that will explain some of the features of this case that make it appear not to have been a simple robbery"

Spencer is hoping that it's a hate crime to prove himself right!

"This was reported in the New York Post and attributed to an eyewitness who saw the threat on the site at the time."

Well here's a major problem with the story. He is relying on The New York (Murdock) Post. They do have a good sports section though.

"If the motive was robbery, why was the family killed?"

Umm...To cover up the robbery? Not to be identified. They are criminals.

"If the motive was robbery and the family presumably surprised McDonald and Sanchez by being at home, leading the pair to murder them, why were the murders done with such precision? Why was so much care taken to slit their throats in a uniform manner?"

I can't even begin to respond to this.

"The Copt gave me the names of all four, along with phone numbers and other details for two of them. I had no idea whether or not the information I had been given was true, and I never claimed that it was...The only time I spoke to an official there, he was unfailingly polite but unmistakably condescending and clearly believed nothing that I had to tell him."

So he is complaining about information that HE can't verify but has enthusiastically given, and is upset because the were condescending. It sounds like they thought you were a crackpot.

"That it was just coincidental that a couple of lowlifes happened to murder this family in the same manner in which Muslims murder blasphemers and other enemies of Islam?"

Yes.

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I don't usually print comments because people can say some pretty wacky thinks, but here's a few anyway.
I still think there is an Islamic jihad angle in there.

Looks like they lifted the script from the old book/movie; "In Cold Blood".

I'm puzzled by the fact that robbers don't usually slit throats. It's quite uncommon.

As sad is it may sound, I truly hope that these murders can be tied to Islamic intolerance.

At the risk of being racist, I will admit that Hispanic criminals like to use knives a lot more than others. They like to get personal with their victim or adversary.

and finally: I'm reminded of Ann Coulter's words in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks in which she wrote....(put in your best guess)

Even Michelle Malkin apologized: "Since January, I've blogged several times about the "hate crime in Jersey City Heights" involving the Armanious family. I was wrong."

(Please read the full article, as I have edited sections to make them fit and will probably be accused of misleading you. Thanks to Eschaton for the term"Wanker of the Day"