(This post is -- obviously -- part of today's Blog Action Day.)
If you're a conservative then you can keep on doing what you do best: deny, delay, obfuscate and avoid. If you're anyone else, you can help educate the ignorant.
Pew Center for Global Climate Change's Facts and Figures (great for those who want the charts and graphics and clear explanations). Even more comprehensive data at their Climate Change 101 series.
CAP's Top 100 Effects of Global Warming includes “Say Goodbye to Pinot Noir”, “More Bear Attacks”, “Malaria Spreading in South America”, and “More Stray Kitties”.
“Willingham was a monster,” Perry said. “Here's a guy who murdered his three children, who tried to beat his wife into an abortion so he wouldn't have those kids. Person after person has stood up and testified to facts of this case that, quite frankly, you all are not covering.”
“This is a bad man. This is a guy who in the death chamber in his last breath spews an obscenity-laced (tirade) against his wife.”
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Referring to yesterday's report that former Texas Forensic Science Commission chair Samuel Bassett was replaced because he refused to yield to pressure from the governor's legal advisers to quell the investigation:
“If somebody felt like they got pressured, that's his call, not ours. My folks don't feel that way at all,” Perry said.
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Back to Willingham and the case:
“He (Willingham's defense lawyer) will tell you that this man was a monster. He has come to clearly believe in his guilt,” Perry said. “He said that study that Mr. Beyler came forward with (that declared the fire was not arson) is nothing more than propaganda by the anti-death penalty people across this country.”
“How many courts looked at this? There were nine federal courts that looked at this case. Nine federal courts. It was before the Supreme Court of the United States four times. Now surely you're not saying the Supreme Court of the United States fouled up four times?”
“We have a system in this state that has followed the procedures and they found this man guilty at every step of the way. You have one piece of study that everyone is glomming onto and saying, ‘Ah-ha!.'”
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Completely reprehensible, as we have all come to expect from Perry.
This is going to get much worse for the governor if his only defense continues to be to blame "libruls" and "the media".
Lawyers representing Gov. Rick Perry on two occasions grilled Austin lawyer Sam Bassett on the activities of his Texas Forensic Science Commission, telling him its probe into a controversial Corsicana arson case was inappropriate and opining that the hiring of a nationally known fire expert was a “waste of state money,” the ousted commission chairman said Tuesday.
Bassett, who served two two-year terms as commission chairman before Perry replaced him on Sept. 30, said he was so concerned about what he considered “pressure” from the lawyers that he conferred with an aide to state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who reassured him “the commission was doing what it's supposed to do.” ...
Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle confirmed the lawyers met with Bassett, but only for routine, informational purposes. “They did not ask him to discontinue this review,” she said.
No, I'm sure they didn't. They just told him it was a "waste of state money". And made a few other 'suggestions' that left Bassett with the distinct impression that he was being "pressured" to drop the investigation.
Bassett said he was called to meet with then-General Counsel David Cabrales and Deputy General Counsel Mary Anne Wiley on Feb. 3. Bassett described the session as progressively confrontational.
As Bassett outlined the commission's investigations of the Willingham case and that of Brandon Lee Moon, an El Paso man wrongly convicted of sexual assault, Cabrales told the chairman “he didn't think those kinds of investigations were the kind contemplated by the statute,” Bassett said.
“I think he said something along the lines that we should be more forward-looking, more current rather than examining older cases,” Basset said. Later in the discussion, Bassett said, he was told the Moon investigation was appropriate, but the Willingham case was not.
Bassett later reviewed the statute, and, feeling vindicated, sent a copy to the governor's lawyers along with a copy of the complaint that prompted the Willingham investigation.
At one point, the lawyers asked Bassett how the panel chose Beyler to review the Willingham case. Bassett said he explained state regulations, requiring the soliciting of bids, were followed. When Wiley asked how much Beyler had been paid, Bassett said he responded, “$30,000, maybe a little more.”
Wiley then remarked, “That sounds like a waste of state money,” according to Bassett.
Bassett said he was a novice in the role of commission chairman and was uncertain how to interpret the lawyers' remarks.
“I was surprised at the level of involvement that they wanted to have in commission decision-making,” he said.
After the February meeting, a representative of the governor's office for the first time attended commission meetings.
Bassett was summoned to a second meeting with Wiley on March 19. That session seemed less confrontational, he said, although Wiley mentioned there was concern the Legislature might discontinue the commission's funding.
“She wanted the commission's focus to be more on liaisons with crime labs, oversight of existing facilities and so forth,” he said.
Nice prevarication, Ms. Castle.
The case continues to rise in national profile, but the travesty simply doesn't seem to be sticking to the governor among the Texas electorate. Attitudes about him appear to be hardened.
Can Kay Bailey make this an issue in the primary? Does she dare? It may take her months to decide whether criticizing the governor's decisions regarding the case is worth risking the flak she'll take from the pro-death penalty Republican base.
Furious polling is no doubt currently underway by all sides to determine their POV. Mike Baselice is staying up way too late trying to figure out a way to spin this to Perry's advantage.
Update: Via BOR, the report last night from "AC360"...
OK, I know, it’s just some conservatives who’ve been exhibiting what they, in a different context, surely would describe as “Hanoi Jane” behavior. Others who haven’t taken leave of their political senses—and are familiar with the concept of manners—responded to President Barack Obama’s unexpected award with equanimity and even grace. Sen. John McCain, for example, offered his good-natured congratulations.
Some of Obama’s most strident critics, however, just can’t give it a rest. They use words like farce and travesty, as if there were always universal agreement on the worthiness of the Nobel peace laureate. Does anyone remember the controversy over Henry Kissinger or Yasser Arafat or F.W. de Klerk?
The problem for the addlebrained Obama-rejectionists is that the president, as far as they are concerned, couldn’t possibly do anything right, and thus is unworthy of any conceivable recognition. If Obama ended all hunger in the world, they’d accuse him of promoting obesity. If he solved global warming, they’d complain it was getting chilly. If he got Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu to join him around the campfire in a chorus of “Kumbaya,” the rejectionists would claim that his singing was out of tune.
Let the rejectionists fulminate and sputter until they wear themselves out. Politically, they’re only bashing themselves. As Republican leaders—except RNC Chairman Michael Steele—are beginning to realize, “I’m With the Taliban Against America” is not likely to be a winning slogan.
...
What I really don’t understand is the view that somehow there’s a tremendous downside for Obama in the award. It raises expectations, these commentators say—as if expectations of any American president, and especially this one, were not already sky-high. Obama has taken on the rescue of the U.S. financial system and the long-term restructuring of the economy. He has launched historic initiatives to revolutionize health care, energy policy and the way we educate our children. He said flatly during the campaign that he wants to be remembered as a transformational president.
The only reasonable response is McCain’s: Congratulations. Nothing, not even the Nobel Peace Prize, can set the bar any higher for President Obama than he’s already set it for himself.
