US: The decline of the death penalty

Executions have fallen by half since 1999. The number of new death sentences is about one-third what it was at the 1996 peak. Even in Texas, long the leading practitioner, death sentences are off by 80 percent. Several states that retain capital punishment have not administered a single lethal injection in the past five years.

The exoneration of 138 death row inmates has weakened public support for the ultimate sanction. In a recent Gallup poll, 64 percent of Americans endorsed it, down from 80 percent in 1994, while opposition has nearly doubled.

A survey commissioned by the Death Penalty Information Center found that 61 percent prefer that murderers get some sort of life sentence instead. As a budget priority, the death penalty was ranked seventh out of seven issues.

Read the editorial at the Chicago Tribune
Also read John Duty: human guinea pig in Oklahoma's cruel experiment

QuestionsView Results

Can the FCC rule the Internet?

The sound and fury over the Federal Communications Commission's attempt to exert regulatory power over the Internet largely ignores one important reality.

The legal footing for the authority the FCC has tried to claim with its Tuesday vote is so shaky as to make these rules a tenuous proposition at best.

It would be prudent for Congress to study the issue in hearings and come up with proposed changes in law that would give the FCC the legal wherewithal to take a light approach to regulating the Internet.

Of course, the political reality of Republicans taking control of the House might not make that idea very feasible, but that doesn't change the fact that Congress is the appropriate venue for the matter.

Read more:Editorial: Can FCC rule the Internet? - The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_16922886#ixzz193cvXGKK

Bitter Memories of War on the Way to Jail

by Chris Hedges

We reached the fence. The real prisoners, the ones who blindly serve systems of power and force, are the mandarins inside the White House, the Congress and the Pentagon. The masters of war are slaves to the idols of empire, power and greed, to the idols of careers, to the dead language of interests, national security, politics and propaganda. They kill and do not know what killing is. In the rise to power, they became smaller. Power consumes them. Once power is obtained they become its pawn. Like Shakespeare’s Richard III, politicians such as Barack Obama fall prey to the forces they thought they had harnessed. The capacity to love, to cherish and protect life, may not always triumph, but it saves us. It keeps us human. It offers the only chance to escape from the contagion of war. Perhaps it is the only antidote. There are times when remaining human is the only victory possible.

Read full article here

Obama’s Afghanistan Talk Is Vietnam Time Warp

by Matthew Rothschild

When President Obama spoke on Thursday about Afghanistan, it was like being in a Vietnam time warp.

“This continues to be a very difficult endeavor. But I can report that thanks to the extraordinary service of our troops and civilians on the ground, we are on track to achieve our goals.”

Flashback to November 1967, when President Johnson had ordered a Pentagon review. “The President took control of the campaign to dramatize progress to the American people but in ways that grossly exaggerated future military prospects,” writes Larry Berman in his book, Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam.

Read full article here

Obama Is Suffering Because of His Achievements, Not Despite Them

by Todd S. Purdum

With this weekend’s decisive Senate repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for gay service members, can anyone seriously doubt Barack Obama’s patient willingness to play the long game? Or his remarkable success in doing so? In less than two years in office—often against the odds and the smart money’s predictions at any given moment—Obama has managed to achieve a landmark overhaul of the nation’s health insurance system; the most sweeping change in the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression; the stabilization of the domestic auto industry; and the repeal of a once well-intended policy that even the military itself had come to see as unnecessary and unfair.

Read full article here

Have Election Results Hurt Democrats or Republicans More?

MORE: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704828104576021900230935000.html

NEW CNAS REPORT OFFERS STRATEGY FOR SECURING U.S. INTERESTS IN AFGHANISTAN BEYOND 2011

In Responsible Transition, Barno and Exum provide policy recommendations - military and political - for how the United States and its NATO allies can get from summer 2011, when U.S. and coalition troops begin to draw down in Afghanistan, to 2014, when U.S. forces transition to a residual force and transfer full leadership of operations to Afghan security forces. Barno and Exum also consider "spoilers," or disruptive events, that could affect the success of any plan, including: a terror attack on U.S. soil originating in Pakistan; an adversarial Pakistan; a resurgent Taliban; and Afghan National Security Forces failure. Key recommendations include:

Read full article here

Obama finally stands his ground

by Dana Milbank

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of President Obama. I 'm not particularly proud of the tax-cut deal he and the Republicans negotiated. But I'm proud that he has finally stood firm against the likes of Peter DeFazio. 

One White House official told me that Obama will build a "shifting set of coalitions, issue by issue" over the next two years. If so, and if Obama will no longer allow those in the Capitol to run his presidency, he'll have a strong couple of years.

Read full article here

Photo: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=1582&picture=barack-obama">Barack Obama</a> by Petr Kratochvil
549QJABBPRAR