in advance of an urban forum he will host in December.
He joins Gov. www.democraticunderground.com/Howard Dean, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Civil Rights icon, Congressman John Lewis (D-GA).
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Please share widely!
New York’s Mayor DeBlasio Endorses Clinton…
She’s rejecting calls to abolish the death penalty.
I’m sure this is a position that will evolve.
Matches my views on this exactly, reserved for the worst of the worst.
The evidence is overwhelming that the death penalty is an atrocious policy – incorrect application, racial disparities, no general deterrent effect, greater public expense than imprisonment, the inability to even conduct the practice in a way that is even effective (let alone humane) etc. etc. It’s really not even a close call.
The idea that it can be applied correctly and in only limited circumstances is just wishful thinking.
It’s no different than the reasoning behind supporting torture (only in the cases in which torturing the person would elicit information to definitely save thousands of lives). Those situations are mainly just hypotheticals, but by allowing the practice at all you allow for the abuses and incorrect judgements of those applying the practice.
It (like torture) is a practice that has no place in a civilized society.
it’s reserved for people who don’t have the funds to mount a strong legal case. It’s reserved for people who have the ‘wrong’ color skin. It’s reserved for people with mental health issues. It’s reserved for people who are actually innocent.
The statistics on the results of the death penalty are horrible, Christopher. In a day and age when the country is turning against the death penalty fast, and states can’t even figure out how to kill people without botching it, there is *no* place for a Democrat running for President who supports the death penalty.
This is disqualifying, and I hope there’s huge anger in the primary over it.
What I am, and I believe she is, saying is that it SHOULD be so reserved. Obviously, the case has to be ironclad and not applied to people who lack capacity due to age or mental circumstance. I obviously strongly disagree it is disqualifying. Timothy McVeigh, for example deserved death IMO and almost all the ones that fit my criteria happen to match his skin color.
There is no way to absolutely guarantee that innocent people will not continue to die in state executions. It is estimated that 4% of death-row inmates are wrongly convicted. Once they die, there’s no way to undo that wrong. Furthermore, every time someone is killed for a murder they didn’t commit, the actual murderer gets away. In those cases, your need for vengeance is not even filled; you’ve just generated another murder.
If you understand the evidence, you cannot accept allowing the practice to go on, even if you support putting the “worst of the worst” to death.
Thinking that the death penalty can be implemented perfectly is entirely unreasonable, even if it is a popular opinion.
…of those wrongfully executed probably wouldn’t meet the criteria I am proposing for the death penalty anyway. I have no need for vengeance, thank you. Are you doubting the guilt of Timothy McVeigh, the Boston Strangler, Son of Sam, etc.?
None of the three you mention were a threat to society after incarceration. Society is no worse off, and is arguably BETTER off, with Charles Manson behind bars and alive. I reject your assertion of having no need for vengeance — there is no other motivation for killing someone once they are safely incarcerated.
In my view, society is justified in killing a criminal in order to prevent the criminal from further harming society. No person who is in custody and being led to a death chamber meets that criteria.
What you advocate is immoral.
…you hear about criminals who manage to have reach beyond the prison bars that seem not to hold them. I completely understand and respect that some will take an absolute view toward killing; I’m not quite there. To be clear you won’t see me leading the charge or dancing on anyone’s grave. If it is abolished generally or if a prosecutor elects not to seek it or a jury opts not to apply it, I’ll shrug and move on. I just think there should be relative severity, or at least that it be considered. If murdering one person in the first degree gets you life without parole then murdering multiple people ought to get you worse.
A parent who kills the beloved puppy of a child is, in my view, commits heinous moral sin. It does lifelong damage to the victim. The parent won’t even be prosecuted, never mind go to jail. A raped woman who aborts the resulting twins, by this argument, commits a “worse” crime than a woman who chooses to abort her pregnancy because she doesn’t want to use birth control. I reject the premise that there is some kind of calculus that can be applied to killing. Should a dictator who orders the genocide of millions be tortured, rather than “just” executed, because his crime was so awful? More than one society has done just that.
It seems to me that the point of the parable of the widow’s mite is to dismiss this kind of moral “reasoning”. I don’t believe that giving $1,000 is a thousand times “better” than giving $1, and I don’t believe that killing 10 people is ten times worse than killing 1. I believe we are instead commanded to be generous and we are commanded to not commit murder.
A convicted killer is not a threat to society while he or she is behind bars. Your example of someone with a “reach beyond the prison bars” sounds like a rationalization to me. I’m not sure what you mean, but whatever it is is a failure of the prison system — any discipline for that should be surely be directed at whomever causes the breach.
I absolutely stand by the idea that multiple murders are worse than one, certainly worse than killing an animal (though you CAN be prosecuted for animal cruelty, for the record). I don’t understand the abortion analogy. Absolutely no to torture under any circumstances. Reach beyond the prison bars refers to organized crime and the like where people have this way of ordering hits on the outside. We disagree philosophically, but there’s nothing more to be said.
Exactly what do you accomplish by killing a criminal, besides vengeance?
It’s largely a legislative and judicial issue. I’ve read somewhere that President’s could order clemency for the federal death row and instruct federal prosecutors not to impose it, but that is about it. Neither the President nor Congress could stop states from imposing it, even if the federal death penalty is banned via legislation or overturned via court order. I suspect the justices any of the Democratic candidates appoints to SCOTUS will be against it, as are the four liberals on the court now. Like marriage equality or marijuana legalization, abolition will have continued state by state success.
I do give Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley a ton of credit for working to ban it in their respective legislatures. O’Malley banned it in Maryland and Bernie just introduced legislation to eliminate the federal death penalty in the US Senate. Reading Hillary’s remarks, I sense an aversion to it in most cases where it is applied now and limiting it’s scope to mass murderers. I still strongly disagree with that myself, but it’s better than the cavalier attitude George Bush or Rick Perry held on this topic.
… A president Reagan holding Federal Highway Funds hostage against states refusing to raise the drinking age to 21…
In addition, there is a lot of play between the FDA and the states importation of lethal drugs for injections….
Or, put another way, there are pressure points for the Feds to apply to the states that could be very very effective. So I reject the notion that the President or Congress are helpless in the face of states bloodthirsty natures. They can apply pressure and end this.
….but I’m getting uncomfortable with the government by federal fiat using funding. It’s wrecked education, and it could wreck justice. I feel more comfortable with the Massachusetts “safe harbor” in these areas than hoping for benevolent feds. Plus, there’s the whole matter of the Constitution…
There is little the President can do beyond using the bully pulpit (which is huge), but it is very much a values issue.
I am a total cynic, but her remarks strike me as exactly the type of thing that’s poll-tested to ensure broadest appeal. I feel the same about recent “evolutions.” I can’t really sense her heart.
…but even there the President has no formal role.
if she walked on water you lefties would bitch and whine that she couldn’t swim.
I’ve been publicly opposed to the death penalty all my life but I will never — ever—let the perfect be the enemy of the good by becoming a single issue goo – goo liberal purist.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
… litmus tests and then there are litmus tests…
… water-walking aside, when a persons life is at stake the perfect can truly become the enemy of the good. That is not at all the case with regard to emails…
Certain decisions are more important than other decisions. A decision about life and death is a decision I take seriously. If Hillary Clinton wants to be cavalier about the death penalty she will have earned my distaste. I care little about emails or whitewater or any of that stuff. But when it comes to the death penalty there are… ahems… penalties to pay for being on the wrong side of that issue.
Or, put another way, never let the candidate be the enemy of the politics.
I’m sympathetic to your argument. If capital punishment really is important enough to you to make it a deal-breaker to get your vote, then I respect your decision to not support that candidate.
But still — by that standard, have there been ANY candidates that got your vote? I’m not trying to be snarky, I just don’t remember candidate’s stances on the issue in this campaign or any recent campaign.
I guess it’s because the issue itself just doesn’t matter that much to me. I have a position on a long list of issues. I can’t remember a Republican presidential candidate that hit my answer on more than a handful of them. I can’t remember a Democratic candidate that lined up with all of them.
I tend to be distrustful of any bromides like we’ve been kicking around here. Yes, there are aphorisms that express particular perspectives and sometimes those provide novel insight. I think that’s about as far as I’m willing to take them.
If a candidate’s stance on capital punishment is your litmus test, so be it. I join you in opposing it. It is not, however, going to be a major factor in my vote.
state sponsored murder, often applied to the innocent and disproportionately applied to minorities, the poor and mentally ill, is a “foolish litmus test?”
Wow. Just wow.
“if she walked on water you lefties would bitch and whine that she couldn’t swim. […] I’ve been publicly opposed to the death penalty all my life but I will never — ever—let the perfect be the enemy of the good by becoming a single issue goo – goo liberal purist.
Fredrich, have you ever wondered to yourself if there’s anything at all that Hillary Clinton could say or policy position she could hold that would make you pause for a second and have reservations?
the real enemies of the people are at the gate ! And they are the right -wing, KNOW – NOTHING, PUKE FASCISTS that will destroy our world while they distract you to take your eyes off the prize with shiny single issue objects.
This is a fight to the death for the heart and soul of our country. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
” Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive. And don’t ever apologize for anything.” PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Do you honestly believe that?
Save that apocalyptic bullshit for when she’s facing Donald Trump in a general.
no?
Wait a minute… are we on BMG, or RMG?
Why is a democrat using the word lefties like an insult?
If you’re not happy with lefties, there’s another party out there for you.
when they are forced to explain their madness they are losing.
During his brutal race for the Texas Senate Lyndon Johnson was admonished for calling his opponent ” a pig fucker.” LBJ replied : ” I know he’s not a pig fucker. I just want to make him deny it.”
Fred Rich LaRiccia
. . . are you LBJ or his opponent?
Clearly, Clinton’s candidacy warrants constant updates to the BMG faithful. Because the LEFTIES here are so easily wooed to the frontrunner bandwagon by chiding exhortations to ignore their misgivings.
Even if I were a Clinton supporter, I would find these hysterical and repetitious advertisements tiresome.
Every Democratic nominee since Willie Horton sunk Dukakis has backed some form of the death penalty. I seriously doubt that Rye, Doubleman, or anyone else here who supposedly won’t vote for a bloodthirsty Hillary Clinton didn’t vote for Gore, Kerry, or Obama or won’t vote for her in the general.
Martin O’Malley banned it, but he also had a friendly majority. Great on Bernie for filing his bill, I will bet anyone here $100 it will not pass this session of Congress. Any takers?
I’m an ardent opponent of the death penalty in all cases, whether it’s the Boston bomber who maimed CRLS classmates of mine or the unknown assailant who killed my grandfather. I am disappointed by Hillary’s position, but other than the limited steps I outlined above, there is really very little the President can do. The OP was about the last of the progressive holdouts endorsing Hillary, it has nothing to do with the death penalty, and I seriously doubt anyone here won’t vote for her if she is our nominee and maintains that position. I am also confident she will at least reform it as part of her broader racial justice package. There are many great reasons to vote for Sanders or O’Malley over Clinton and vice a versa. Let’s keep it positive as best we can on all sides, and keep the debates reality based.
…though doubleman did kind of hijack the post (and yes, I responded so I guess I share responsibility) about something not really relevant to the DeBlasio endorsement.
… but considering the content of most of these pure cheerleading posts that lack any real commentary or context, there wasn’t much to discuss regarding the original post.
But this decision by her is extremely disappointing. In 2015, there are even republicans coming out against the death penalty. Hillary can, too, and the democratic electorate should put a *ton* of pressure to get her to walk this back — just like its made her walk back on Keystone and TPP.
Hillary Clinton has sewed up the politically established Democrats. She might even win with those endorsements and the constituencies they bring. But where the tire meets the road is with the under 40 voters who are overwhelmingly in Bernie’s camp. To me they represent the future that some of us are going to have to depend on to get along.
HRC’s messaging overlaid on her past positions does not give them confidence in her candidacy. Bernie is still very competitive in NH in spite of every Dem pol in the state endorsing Hillary. I also notice VP Biden and Elizabeth Warren are not in the go alongs for Hillary as yet.
I was in Derry NH last night in a filled room of young people, many with children in tow. Bernie asked how many had student loans. About 2/3rds of the room raised their hands. Then he asked individuals if they care to divulge what interest they are paying. One after the other, 6%, 8%, 11%, 16%. “Wow,” Bernie said, and vowed to fix that. The audience leapt to their feet with a stunning ovation for the man from Vermont.
Maybe Hillary has caught on to this as a Joanny-come-lately, but I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of that filled auditorium. Bernie connects with people who are seeing him for the first time. Hillary is depending on the politically connected. It’s an interesting contrast. The pundits have said she will win with this cohesive force that votes. Bernie will have to win over those with more independent thinking, and those who have not voted before. Bernie’s climb is very steep, but much less so than when he started.
He will also be putting his ads out soon which is another point. Secretary Clinton has been saturating the air waves with no great bang for the buck.
and I’d like to see it abolished nationwide. But I don’t see this issue as disqualifying. (1) The federal death penalty, which is where the president would have actual authority, is imposed very rarely. The real action is in the states, and I can’t see a President Clinton’s position (or President Sanders, for that matter) having much impact on whether Greg Abbott in Texas wants to execute someone. (2) The notion, floated above, of the federal government withholding federal crime-related funding from states who impose the death penalty strikes me as far-fetched and counterproductive. (3) On the other hand, I do like the idea of the FDA becoming more involved in regulating drugs used for executions. Nothing Clinton has said is inconsistent with that – indeed, taking a “hard look” at the death penalty would surely include just that, given the attention the issue has received recently. (4) I am not aware of any evidence that “the country is turning against the death penalty fast.” The polling seems to indicate the contrary. While support has indeed declined somewhat over the years, it still polls well over 50% for at least some crimes, AFAIK. If I’m wrong about that, I’d be pleased to be corrected.
We should use a modern revamp of the guillotine. In private. Cheap and effective.
It would be much more humane than current practices, but it’s far too gruesome for the public to stomach (which is exactly what state-sanctioned murder should be).
I actually agree that old-fashioned execution methods such as the firing squad and the guillotine are preferable to the gruesome nightmare that lethal injection has become. But I think it should be public. If we’re going to do it, we should require that society see it.
I can just see the crowds of donald trump voters frothing at the mouth to watch the brown person get his head cut off.
That said, I do really dislike the idea of “life in prison”. Honestly: if I was a criminal, I would opt for the gallows rather than indefinite incarceration. Then there’s the cost.
Some people are beyond rehabilitation. Oftentimes they got eff’d with so badly as children they never even stood a chance in life and now are passing on the pain to others. What are you supposed to do? If someone is too dangerous to be free, is locking them in a cell for 40 years really humane?
This debate isn’t cut and dry. All human life has value, but like the Republicans who want women to bring every pregnancy to term even if they would starve after, being “alive” doesn’t constitute “living”, and locking someone up for their entire life rather than just giving them a swift death isn’t exactly a show of mercy. But like the executions that take place in private, those struggles take place out of the public eye so we don’t need to think about them. Out of sight, out of mind.
I’d take a bullet to the head before life in prison. what would you pick?
We might leave the choice to the convicted killer. Oh, but that would be suicide, and suicide is “immoral”.
I don’t care whether locking somebody up is humane or not. I also don’t care how much it costs to keep them locked up. Once they are behind bars, they are no longer dangerous.
When we execute somebody, it is WE who are immoral. In my view, it is murder. When we order the act, in my view we are accessories to murder.
I, frankly, don’t even see the need for a debate.
hiding it from the public makes it easier for botches to go unnoticed, so David’s spot on about his point.
Furthermore, having it done completely away from the public’s view means no one would have to grapple with what’s going on, since there wouldn’t be nearly the same kind of coverage. If we didn’t hear the stories of botched executions, would there be nearly as many states passing bans as there have been in the past couple decades?
None of that is to say there should be a spectacle component of it, but it’s public now and there aren’t mass gatherings to watch them and no one’s airing them on network TV.
In fact, a little more coverage — so more people realized the extent of how haphazard it all is — may increase opposition. Many people genuinely don’t know that the drugs being used routinely lead to botched procedures where people take hours to die, in complete and utter agony.
It shouldn’t exist, but for however long it does, it’s important there are watchdogs who can document it, report it and guard against abuse. We all need to know how ugly it is.
…but not for the sake of spectacle or alleged deterence, which sounds medieval.
But it will be the same way marriage equality and marijuana legalization has happened-on a state by state basis. I think the example of Nebraska where Christian conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and progressive got together to overwhelmingly ban it and even overturn the Governors veto was an inspiring example of a cross partisan approach that can be a model
for efforts in other states. As that effort increases we will gradually see it end, either in an Oberfell style SCOTUS decision or 50 state abolition.
I’m hopeful that the death penalty will be abolished in similar fashion, but I think it may take longer. There are fewer activists actively (and with funding) fighting for this and there’s not a similar broad appeal for the public because the death penalty is still an isolated thing, not something that majority experiences (like knowing LGBT individuals or having used marijuana themselves to no ill effect).
There are also fewer national leaders who might make it an issue. Clinton certainly will not be one.
I don’t think her position is disqualifying, but it is concerning, as are many of Clinton’s other positions or recent (and seemingly convenient) conversions. She seems to adapt to fall in line with progressive positions (at least during this primary), and although this still worries me about her values, it is encouraging that she will respond to pressure from the left. Without that pressure, and with some uncritical and blind cheerleading from Democrats, what will we get?
I’ll absolutely accept evolutions of opinion, especially when new evidence comes to light. But with the death penalty – what possible additional evidence could come out for one to change their opinion that it should be abolished?
I admit to being a terrible cynic when it comes to Clinton, and I think the only additional evidence that would impact her stance is a change in general polling from 60-40 in support of the death penalty to something more like 52-48.
I felt the way you did in 2008. I’ve also grown up and realized a lot of that is called “being a good politician” and responding to what the voters want.
When Obama does it on LGBT rights and flip flops twice on marriage equality (for it as an Hyde Park State Senator, against it as a national candidate, for it again as President)-we all shrug since we know it’s politics.
When Clinton does the same thing, she’s read the riot act. Obama flip flopped the wrong way in trade-anti NAFTA on the stump and pro-TPP in the White House and not a peep of outrage, Clinton flip flops the right way on TPP and Keystone and is read the riot act. Obama flip flopped the wrong way in the death penalty, opposing it as a state senator and backing it as a Senator and nominee. I don’t recall outrage at the time on par with the outrage expressed here. Men are called “cunning” and “transformative” while Hillary is called “cold” and “calculating” for doing much the same thing.
I am still backing Bernie, who has also evolved to become more electable, and I don’t generally view these kinds of changes as anathema in a politician-if anything it’s a basic component of the skill set. Knowing how to apply short term tactics to ensure the success of long term strategies is essential to a successful President. Were Hillary to support an expanded death penalty or stand in the way of the abolition movement or use support for it as a litmus test for SCOTUS, then it’s a big deal. My suspicion is that the death by a thousand cuts strategy will be more successful in the long run than running our nominee on a potentially losing issue in the general.
I don’t buy the gender argument at all. Obama was a pandering coward on equal marriage (and thankfully came around to the right side and in a huge way), and he’s wrong on trade deals. I didn’t give him a pass. It’s that type of stuff that has made him a pretty big disappointment (in many ways) to me. I supported him in 2008 with time and money and in 2012 blanked the ballot for President. I didn’t just shrug because it was “politics.” I don’t call Obama cunning or transformative and Hillary cold and calculating. It’s all pandering, although Clinton has a much longer record.
Maybe I just need to grow up and learn that this type of pandering is good politics, and that’s why politicians who act like this are held in such high regard (including Clinton with her -6 favorability rating).
When you say he has evolved to become more electable, what do you mean? I can’t think of policy position he’s significantly watered down in search of some “electability” goal.
And please don’t misunderstand me – I’m not trying to support some hardcore progressive who will never compromise (and that is certainly not what Sanders is), but too much fluidity in perspective based largely on trying to align with a majority of voters is tough for me to accept.
I grew up in Cambridge and personally know committed “capital S” socialists who call him a fraud who sold them out and abandoned the struggle to get elected. The Liberty Union party he started out in feels the same way.
I don’t think that’s bad at all, my point is, as the Globe points out today-he found a way to find common ground with Republicans and business leaders in Burlington to advance his mayoral agenda. He didn’t seek the NRAs assistance in 1990, but they’ve endorsed him as the lesser evil over a moderate Republican and he didn’t stop them. Rachel Maddow got him on endorsing civil unions instead of marriage equality in 2004, recognizing that the timing wasn’t right since Vermont just came out of an ugly fight to be the first in the nation on civil unions.
These examples describe someone willing to compromise to get things done. They don’t describe someone switching positions to fit with most voters. In fact, they describe someone who has been remarkably consistent over a long career on major issues.
I think the marriage equality issue is illustrative. He supported marriage equality before that time and consistently has (he also voted against DOMA, which was not a popular position but so obviously the right one), but given the climate in Vermont at the time, he did not push for a battle on marriage. I think that is very different than being against equal marriage until 2010 or so. I prefer someone who has consistent principles but who knows when and on what issues to go to the mat.
I understand that true radicals may be angered by his compromises. They’d prefer more of an all or nothing approach. But are there real reversals on many important issues? There may be, but I don’t know of any.
I think if we dig in the weeds we see that both have made compromises during their careers, but your question is still largely unanswerable until either of them makes the White House. Many LGBT activists, including some who have endorsed Hillary, have argued that her current narrative regarding DOMA-it was the only way to block a marriage amendment-is false. Barney Frank, a longtime Clinton supporter, argues in his book and on the talk show circuit that it and DADT were in fact efforts to block worse outcomes and
move the ball forward.
I would argue on those issues it’s a bit of a wash for me. I also suspect Hillary is truly committed to criminal justice reform, based on her own history as a lawyer prior to becoming First Lady. The TPP reversal, her stances on financial reform, and her foreign policy remain open questions that won’t be fully answered until she is President. And I would argue, hashing out those answers now is why it’s a great thing we have a solid primary challenger in Sanders.
is who she* nominates to the courts, and how those nominations fare.
“how they fare” or are perceived as being likely to fare is probably the limiting factor for the next president.
It’s hard for me to see how Bernie or any of them do better than Clinton in terms of who gets on the courts. Maybe Clinton would be too cautious, or maybe the Senate would just freeze all judicial nominations for any of them.
—
*or he, in theory.
We know that Bill de Blasio was formerly Hillary’s campaign manager, right? It would have been more surprising if he hadn’t endorsed her.
I grew up in Cambridge and personally know committed “capital S” socialists who call him a fraud who sold them out and abandoned the struggle to get elected. The Liberty Union party he started out in feels the same way.
I don’t think that’s bad at all, my point is, as the Globe points out today-he found a way to find common ground with Republicans and business leaders in Burlington to advance his mayoral agenda. He didn’t seek the NRAs assistance in 1990, but they’ve endorsed him as the lesser evil over a moderate Republican and he didn’t stop them. Rachel Maddow got him on endorsing civil unions instead of marriage equality in 2004, recognizing that the timing wasn’t right since Vermont just came out of an ugly fight to be the first in the nation on civil unions.
Sorry.