Fatal mess

By Carl 

I wish I could say Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin will lose sleep over this, but somehow I doubt it.

Clayton Lockett, 38, was declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first of three drugs in the state's new lethal injection combination was administered. Three minutes later, though, he began breathing heavily, writhing, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow.

The blinds were eventually lowered to prevent those in the viewing gallery from watching what was happening in the death chamber, and the state's top prison official eventually called a halt to the proceedings. Lockett died of a heart attack a short time later, the Department of Corrections said.

"It was a horrible thing to witness. This was totally botched," said Lockett's attorney, David Autry.

"Botched" is legalese for "full metal fuck up."

You may recall a story from a few years back where certain drug manufacturers refused to sell combinations of medications to states that maintained the death penalty. Corporate conscience. Whoda thunk?

And whoda thunk corporations would have more soul than many governors in the South? They scurried to find new ways of killing inmates, and hit upon this combination.

Which has now failed at least twice this year alone.

We've turned our prisons into an industry: private corporations make profits off human beings when they are incarcerated, they make profits when inmates get sick, and they make profits when they are killed.

This is immoral. End of discussion.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Federal judge rules Oklahoma's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This is happening -- in Utah, now in Oklahoma. Federal courts are weighing in on state laws that are inherently discriminatory, and what they're finding is that those laws ought to be struck down, that in essence those laws are profoundly un-American: 

U.S. Senior District Judge Terence Kern ruled Tuesday that Oklahoma's ban on marriage equality is unconstitutional.

The ruling is stayed pending appeal, meaning marriages will not occur immediately in Oklahoma.

In striking down Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriage, U.S. District Judge Terrence Kern described it as "an arbitrary, irrational exclusion of just one class of Oklahoma citizens from a governmental benefit."

"Equal protection is at the very heart of our legal system and central to our consent to be governed," Kern's 68-page decision says. "It is not a scarce commodity to be meted out begrudgingly or in short portions. Therefore, the majority view in Oklahoma must give way to individual constitutional rights." 

Republican Gov. Mary Fallin points out that the ban was passed in 2004 with 75 percent popular support, but of course majority rule does not supersede Americans' foundational rights. (Slavery was once a popular thing, too, remember.) Perhaps Fallin and her fellow bigoted Republicans ought to read the Constitution they claim to hold in such high esteem. (It's also rather hypocritical to be so democratic when it suits their far-right agenda.)

I still think it's important for democratically-elected legislatures to legalize same-sex marriage and thereby to put a democratic stamp on marriage equality. But there's also a role for the courts to play alongside legislatures, and it's good to see federal judges like Kern taking a firm stand against what is nothing other than blatant discrimination that treats gays and lesbians like lesser citizens, if citizens at all.

On the road to single payer

By Mustang Bobby

All those Republican governors who railed against government-run health care back in 2010 are making it come true, at least in their states:

Late last week more than a dozen Republican governors declared that they will not build the insurance market exchanges called for by the Affordable Care Act, including prominent names like Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, John Kasich of Ohio, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Rick Perry of Texas.

On Monday, Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma joined them, declaring in a statement that it "does not benefit Oklahoma taxpayers to actively support and fund a new government program that will ultimately be under the control of the federal government."

The original deadline for states to notify the Department of Health and Human Services on whether they intend to build their own exchange was last Friday, but the administration extended it to Dec. 14. About a dozen Republican governors are weighing their options, including Chris Christie of New Jersey, Rick Scott of Florida and Terry Branstad of Iowa.

The Affordable Care Act encourages each state to build and operate its own exchange — a regulated, subsidized marketplace where consumers and small businesses can shop for insurance plans. If a state declines, the federal government has the power under the health care reform law to build one for it.

The decisions carry important implications for the long-term arc of Obamacare, which supporters and opponents alike agree is here to stay now that President Obama has been re-elected. The Obama administration wants states to build the exchanges so they have an incentive to make the law work. If the federal government takes over, state-level Republicans have a scapegoat in case things go wrong.

There's no telling how it will work out; different states have different needs, and HHS can only do so much, but if it works as well as Medicare, it might be better than what the states can come up with on their own despite all the rhetoric about "local control."

What I think is both troubling and predictable is that these governors are willing to put a lot of their citizens' health and well-being at risk just to score political points with their re-election base (hi, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida). How many people have to get sick and die quickly for him to avoid getting primaried by a teabagger?

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)