Saturday Morning Open Thread

Saw a nice summary by Andrew O'Hehir on Salon:

Indeed, the jogger case did capture much of what was wrong with New York and America, but not exactly the way we thought it did at the time. It illustrated the way we respond to powerful narratives about race, sex and gender, even when they turn out not to make sense. It represented a massive failure of law enforcement, journalism and public imagination, and it led to the last major wrongful-conviction case of the 20th century. As is eerily depicted in “The Central Park Five,” a new film co-directed by legendary documentarian Ken Burns, his daughter Sarah Burns and David McMahon, what happened to a 28-year-old investment banker named Trisha Meili on a pleasant April night in 1989 fed all too perfectly into the public’s anxiety and hysteria.

All the men were eventually cleared, but not after spending the best years of their lives in prison. I do wonder, though, how the liberals suitably outraged by this miscarriage of justice yet support Obama's drone war manage such a level of cognitive dissonance.  It's wrong to throw innocent men to the prison-industrial-complex based on poor defense and corrupt cops, but death by executive fiat is just peachy.

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What will they do when Predator Drones come to America?

Unreasonable Liberal's picture

If drones are good enough for Pakistanis far away from any battlefield, why aren't they good enough for the US of A? rubbed out overseas. There was even a Democratic governor at the time, so why not just take him out and save the expense of an arrest and trial?">Troy Davis was accused of murdering a police man, far more than most of the people we've rubbed out overseas. There was even a Democratic governor at the time, so why not just take him out and save the expense of an arrest and trial? And Richard Jewell while we're at it...cops lives could be at risk if they tried to arrest a bomber, doncha know....

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That is just incredible.

Glinda's picture

How do these people live with themselves?
 

What they've found since implicates not only Hayne, but a host of police officials, prosecutors, even judges who knew Hayne was deficient and offering dubious testimony, but did nothing to stop it.

How does the trial judge refuse to give money to the defense for an independent autopsy and then the Supreme Court dismiss the evidence of an independent autopsy when the defendant was able to obtain money to have it performed later?

Rather, the justices said, it was evidence Havard should have produced at his initial trial. Of course, Havard couldn't have produced such evidence, because the trial court refused to give him funding to hire his own expert.

There are just so many things wrong with this case.  Justice was in no way served at all.

Again another example of the poor not getting a fair shake.

I'm curious, though, why the Innocence Project settled the defamation suite for 100K. 

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Thank you for posting this. I look foward to watching both of

Glinda's picture

them.

Me, too :

I do wonder, though, how the liberals suitably outraged by this miscarriage of justice yet support Obama's drone war manage such a level of cognitive dissonance.

Here is an interview from November 12.

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Good Morning

priceman's picture

That is a travesty of Justice. I want to see that documentary.

And you're right; Obama's drone war and Obama's drug war with private prison lobbyists in his justice department makes him complicit on a federal and state level in all the problems so the "just go yell at your city council and state government" cognitive dissonance purveyors need to actually learn some facts. The drug war and the culture it spawned built up and enhanced by the national security state Obama built up and enhanced is complicit in all of these race related travesties of justice. It makes them easier to conduct so like i tell them when they try to use this as an excuse to pretend Bradley Manning doesn't matter because he is white, I say don't pretend you care about these issues when defending your precious neoliberal President.

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Walmart to further burden taxpayers

aigeanta's picture

Walmart's New Health Care Policy Shifts Burden To Medicaid, Obamacare

 

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, plans to begin denying health insurance to newly hired employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, according to a copy of the company’s policy obtained by The Huffington Post.

 

Under the policy, slated to take effect in January, Walmart also reserves the right to eliminate health care coverage for certain workers if their average workweek dips below 30 hours -- something that happens with regularity and at the direction of company managers.

Gee, nobody could have ever seen that coming down the pipeline.

*Facepalm*

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Wow, if only they had had the chance to ...

BruceMcF's picture

... push for an employer mandate (pay or play).

What's that? They had an employer mandate in, and had to drop it to get to 60 Senators? Which they couldn't do anyway and passed it through reconciliation anyway?

The big post election news is that the Obama administration is signaling they are not going to be "negotiating with themselves" as they proposed a "Grand Bargain" that would cause a less severe recession than the one that the Republicans proposed to cause.

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