Tag: california

California’s Courage Campaign, which describes itself as the online organizing hub for nearly 400,000 progressive Californians, has produced this video, asking viewers to sign a petition to the State Supreme Court asking that 18,000 same sex marriages already performed in California be allowed to stand, and that Proposition 8, banning gay marriage, be overturned.

In the other corner: Kenneth Starr.  It’s a powerful video that speaks for itself, so I will stop typing:

Great news.  A California Court of Appeal has invalidated California’s lethal injection protocol because the state failed to comply with the state’s Administrative Procedure Act.  The decision(pdf format) in Morales v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, holds that the State’ lethal injection protocol, “STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAN QUENTIN OPERATIONAL PROCEDURE NUMBER 0-770 EXECUTION BY LETHAL INJECTION, is invalid and it enjoins California “from carrying out the lethal injection of any condemned inmates under OP 770 unless and until that protocol is promulgated in compliance with the APA.”

The more than 660 prisoners on California’s death row should briefly sigh some relief.  There is little doubt that the regulation will be re-enacted, but the struggle against state killing in California goes on, and today’s ruling is a great victory.

The Mercury News reports:

A state appeals court on Friday ensured further delays in California’s already inert death penalty system, finding that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration did not follow proper procedures when it attempted to revise the state’s lethal injection method to get executions back on track.

In a 14-page ruling, the San Francisco-based 1st District Court of Appeal upheld last year’s decision by a Marin County judge, who found state officials failed to provide public scrutiny of plans to overhaul California’s execution method. The appeals court ruling, if it stands, would force the state to go back to the drawing board in its efforts to bring the execution system into compliance with a federal judge’s concerns that the current method is unconstitutional.

The appeals court ruling will have a ripple effect on California’s bogged down capital punishment system. A broader legal challenge in federal court to California’s lethal injection method cannot move forward until the state comes up with a revised procedure, and that is now tied up further as a result of the appeals court’s findings.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Ronald Matthias, who supervises the state’s death penalty cases, was still reviewing the decision and could not predict the next step. But the state can either appeal to the California Supreme Court or move forward with public review of the proposed lethal injection reforms, and either process would take months or longer.

Executions in California have been on hold for more than 3 years because of challenges to the state’s lethal injection protocols.  The 2006 Judge Fogel stopped all California executions, but provided a number of steps state officials could take to ensure that executions were carried out humanely. The governor then ordered state prison officials to come up with a new plan.  The plan called for improved training and supervision of execution team members, as well as the construction of a new, modernized execution chamber. But plan was challenged in state court under the argument it violated state procedures that require public review, and Fogel put the federal case on hold until that issue was resolved.

Is the issue resolved now?  No.  The state can either try to adopt a new protocol, following the law, or it can appeal.  Either way, state killing cannot resume until the issues are resolved.

I applaud today’s ruling, and I compliment all of the people who have worked so diligently to stop state killing in California.

http://www.cindyforcongress.org

Pelosi has been a disaster as speaker of the House, and a traitor to the Constitution.  She has removed impeachment from the table, enabled Bush’s warrantless and illegal surveillance of American citizens, continued to fund the occupation of Iraq, and supported the nearly one trillion dollar blank check to bail out Wall Street.  Whatever your party affiliation, whatever other feelings you might have about the candidates, if you care about your country and the direction in which it is headed, now is the time to make genuine change for the better.  Unseat Nancy Pelosi, vote in Cindy Sheehan, and send a message to the rest of Congress: NO MORE!

Miscegenation:

The term “miscegenation” has been used since the nineteenth century to refer to interracial marriage and interracial sex, and more generally to the global process of racial admixture that has taken place since the Age of Discoveries, particularly through the European colonization of the Americas and the Atlantic slave trade.

Historically the term has been used in the context of laws banning interracial marriage and sex, so-called anti-miscegenation laws.

It is therefore a loaded word and is considered offensive by many.

Cross posted from EENR Blog

That’s right.  Gary, Charlotte and I went for our first precinct walk this weekend together in Aliso Viejo, California.  Oh man, not a good weekend to start, it was very hot and we waited until early evening to grab walking shoes and knock on doors in our very own neighborhood.  Why not start where we live?  Our community is in the heart of the 33rd State Senate district.

This will be our cheapest and best way to get the word out about Gary’s campaign and for now we are knocking on all the doors.  Republicans, Declined to States and Democrats.  We’ve found Republicans to be very receptive to meeting the candidate, especially when it’s quite doubtful that the Republican candidate will do any walking at all.  

And this is the best lesson we learned, talking to people is the best way to get them to vote for you.  And we even found some lovely Democratic neighbors who want to donate and volunteer.  What more can a grassroots campaign ask for?