Opposing the death penalty used to distinguish Democrats from Republicans. Now, across party lines, death is just another day at the office.

Give Them Death: Three Leading Democratic Candidates Support Capital Punishment
By Liliana Segura

When Clinton, Obama and Edwards took the stage before a mostly African-American crowd in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Monday night, they came brimming with concern for the plight of black America. From the disproportionate effects of the subprime loan crisis to the racially drawn pitfalls of U.S. healthcare, the black community, said Edwards, “is hurt worse by poverty than any community in America. And it’s our responsibility, not just for the African-American community, but for America, as a nation, to take on this moral challenge.”

Politicians like to see moral challenges when it’s convenient. The candidates have labeled the war in Iraq, global warming and the economy “moral challenges” before various audiences in the past few months. But there’s one topic the leading Dems systematically exclude from their morality crusade, one that begged to be addressed before an African-American audience in a Southern state: the death penalty.

It’s not news that African-Americans are disproportionately represented on death row. While 12 percent of the country is African-American, more than 40 percent of the country’s death row population is black — and although blacks and whites are murder victims in nearly equal numbers, 80 percent of the prisoners executed since the death penalty was reinstated were convicted for murders in which the victim was white. Study upon study in states across the country have discovered racial bias at every stage of the death penalty process, including one that found that the more “stereotypically black” a defendant is perceived to be, the more likely that person is to be sentenced to death. Add to that the fact that over 20 percent of black defendants who have been executed were convicted by all-white juries, and the racial reality of the death penalty becomes impossible to ignore.

Sure, all three candidates have given nod to our racist criminal justice system from time to time. At the South Carolina debate, Barack Obama acknowledged it as “something that we have to talk about,” specifically, the fact that “African-Americans and whites … are arrested at very different rates, are convicted at very different rates [and] receive very different sentences.” Edwards, speaking out on the case of the Jena 6, last fall, said, “As someone who grew up in the segregated South, I feel a special responsibility to speak out on racial intolerance.” Even Hillary has labeled the incarceration boom that followed passage of her husband’s crime bill — for which she lobbied hard — “unacceptable.” When it comes to criminal justice, she said in Iowa, “I want to have a thorough review of all of the penalties.”

Still, not one leading Democrat is about to make criminal justice reform — let alone the death penalty — central to his or her platform.

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Today’s photo of the day shows Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich. Yesterday, after a series of close losses, Big Homie decided to call an end to his presidential run. True to his word, Kucinich has refused to endorse any other candidates. Much love and respect to the only candidate representing the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.

Today’s video of the day is an Old School Jam. Anybody who had Video Music Box or Jukebox remembers this one!

There’s a national economy, and then there’s a ‘people’s economy.’ Guess which one will see more “relief.”

Is the Bush Stimulus Going to Help You?
By Noni Prins

The rhetoric surrounding George W. Bush’s economic stimulus package, as boastfully “bi-partisan” as it is (we are, after all, in an election year), indicates a complete lack of comprehension of the difference between this ‘national’ economy and the ‘people’s’ economy, and the extent of the gap between the two.

The unveiling of his plan was classic Bush: state something ambiguous about a $140 billion adrenaline shot, then have your cronies act as wingmen. Hence, at last Friday’s press conference, Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO, Hank Paulson was left fending off uncomfortable questions like: would the plan help “elderly people on fixed incomes?” His answer: “The Christmas season has come and gone.”

The national economy, as measured by large scale figures simply does not represent individual citizens’ economic circumstances. That’s why debate over whether we are in a recession or not misses the point of everyday financial realities for most of the population. According to the standard definition of recession (two quarters or more of a decline in GDP), we’re not there. In which case, Bush and Paulson are technically right in saying the economy is simply ’slow’.

But, that’s been far from the case if we consider the people’s economy (the people – as in all the American citizens who don’t fall into that upper percent of the nation’s wealth bracket). And very little in the President’s, or in most of the presidential candidates’ plans, will change this.

The highest bidder mentality of Wall Street and its elite private equity groups has exacerbated the sub prime and regular housing market crisis. As investment banks stuffed loans into packages of toxic speculative waste, actual people lost their homes, hurt further by media attention on those declining home values, which didn’t thrill new buyers.

In the process of trying to keep up escalating payments on their homes and home equity loans (backed by falling home values), people increased their credit card balances, suffering requisite late fees and higher rates, and ravaging 401K plans in desperation, during a time in which the values of those plans shrunk along with the falling stock market.

Don’t get me wrong. No one would scoff at an $800 tax rebate check in the mail, but at best, it may provide a month of relief. Meanwhile, it does nothing strategically to fix the barrage of corporate gouging that continues unabated and unregulated by the Washington powers that be (including those running for office). Seriously, wouldn’t it kill you if your health insurance premium rose just as you were about to cash that government rebate?

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