Do NOT wait until November 3rd, or even late October.
If your ballot arrives in the mail, check all the boxes on the envelope, see that your signature matches your best ID, that your name and address are perfect, and that required documents are copied and included. Call the election board and/or an Election Protection group to go over the details, and to find out if you can walk in your ballot.
Many sports arenas will be used right up to and/or including election day. Go there if you can.
Wear your mask and social distance.
Bring your envelope and all your ID. Bring (or BE) an election protectionist.
Some polling centers offer a choice between voting on paper or by machine. ALWAYS insist on paper.
Some offer computerized marking devices. Do it by hand if you can.
Some may let you personally insert your finished ballot into the digital scanning device that will count them all. DO IT!
If you can’t go in personally, some states may let your ballot be walked in by a family member or an authorized citizen (be careful: requirements vary, and “vote harvesting” is illegal).
If you mail in your ballot, or drop it in a collection box (if there are any), do it NOW.
If your ballot gets in early enough, some election workers may actually call you to come in and “cure” errors you might have made on the envelope.
At least a million votes were not counted in 2018 because they came in late.
Nearly all 2020 voting will be done on paper ballots and fed into digital scanners.
Even in big numbers, the digital images they create can be read almost immediately, once the last ballot is scanned (the ballots themselves stay for recounts).
Some supervisors will senselessly trash the images once they’re counted, and even these relatively simple machines can be hacked.
But if the scanners are used properly, and are NOT connected to the internet (there’s no reason to connect them), the 2020 threat of long vote-count delays and sinister electronic theft will be far less than with hackable touchscreens.
Meanwhile, Trump’s sabotage is already obvious at the postal service, and in key states like Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
Trump could still send in troops to destroy ballots, scanners, and more. He will trash any outcome he dislikes. We must plan for that.
But we can’t let him distract us from FIRST demanding a fair election with a clear mandate.
If you marched for George Floyd, march NOW into your local voting center.
2020 is already bringing vastly expanded paper balloting, enhanced early and mail-in voting, and a generational shift in poll workers.
But saving our democracy and our ability to survive on this planet demands a protected election and a well-prepared aftermath.
That means ALL OF US!!
Harvey Wasserman’s GUIDE to the 2020 election is at www.grassrootsep.org. He co-convenes the Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Zoom on Mondays, 5-6:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Join by writing to him at solartopia@gmail.com. His People’s Spiral of US History awaits Trump’s departure at www.solartopia.org.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
FOCUS: Roger Stone Calls for Martial Law Should Trump Lose Martin Pengelly, Guardian UK Pengelly writes: "Roger Stone, whose 40-month prison sentence for lying to Congress and witness tampering in the Russia investigation was commuted by Donald Trump, has said Trump should seize total power and jail prominent figures including Bill and Hillary Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg if he loses to Joe Biden in November."
Trump meanwhile promises to ‘put down’ leftwing protests and says US Marshals killing Portland suspect was ‘retribution’
The long-time Republican dirty trickster, who has a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back, offered the startling advice on Thursday, in a call to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars online show.
Stone was sentenced in part for lying about contacts with WikiLeaks during the 2016 election regarding emails hacked from Democratic party accounts. In turn, special counsel Robert Mueller and the Senate intelligence committee suspected Trump lied when he said he could not recall discussing the leaks with Stone.
Stone did not turn on the president. He had his sentence reduced on the recommendation of attorney general William Barr but he still faced prison before Trump acted. His conviction stands.
Citing widely debunked claims of fraud around early voting, absentee balloting and voting by mail, Stone told Jones Trump should consider invoking the Insurrection Act and arresting the Clintons, former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, Zuckerberg, Tim Cook of Apple and “anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity”.
He also said: “The ballots in Nevada on election night should be seized by federal marshals and taken from the state. They are completely corrupted. No votes should be counted from the state of Nevada if that turns out to be the provable case. Send federal marshals to the Clark county board of elections, Mr President!”
Nevada has not gone to a Republican since 2004 but is shaping up to be a crucial contest this year. Biden leads there, but polls have tightened. On Saturday, after a planned rally in Reno was cancelled because of coronavirus restrictions, Trump staged an event which disregarded such strictures in Minden. His rhetoric was not far removed from that of the man he spared prison.
Attacking the Democratic Nevada governor, Steve Sisolak, Trump said: “This is the guy we are entrusting with millions of ballots, unsolicited ballots, and we’re supposed to win these states. Who the hell is going to trust him? The only way the Democrats can win the election is if they rig it.”
Stone said: “Governor Sisolak is a punk. He should not face down the president of the United States.”
On Sunday, on ABC’s This Week, senior Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller also attacked moves to facilitate voting by mail in Nevada. He also called Sisolak a “clubhouse governor … who, by the way, if you go against him politically … politically speaking, you’ll find yourself buried in the desert”.
Trump and his campaign have also consistently claimed without evidence that “antifa”, or anti-fascist, activists represent a deadly threat to suburban voters that will be unleashed should Biden win. Commenting on a Daily Beast report about leftwing activist groups planning what to do “if the election ends without a clear outcome or with a Biden win that Trump refuses to recognise”, Stone told Jones the website should be shut down.
“If the Daily Beast is involved in provably seditious and illegal activities,” he said, “their entire staff can be taken into custody and their office can be shut down. They wanna play war, this is war.”
Stone also advocated “forming an election day operation using the FBI, federal marshals and Republican state officials across the country to be prepared to file legal objections [to results] and if necessary to physically stand in the way of criminal activity”.
In an interview broadcast on Saturday night, Trump told Fox News he would happily “put down” any leftwing protests.
“We have the right to do that. We have the power to do that if we want. Look, it’s called insurrection. We just send in and we, we do it very easy. I mean, it’s very easy. I’d rather not do that, because there’s no reason for it, but if we had to, we’d do that and put it down within minutes, within minutes.”
The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the president to use federal troops to enforce federal law. Last used in 1992, it was much discussed this summer, amid protests over racism and police brutality arising from the killing of George Floyd by officers in Minneapolis.
In his interview with Fox News, Trump discussed an incident in the city in which US Marshals shot dead a suspect in the killing of a member of a rightwing group.
“There has to be retribution when you have crime like this,” Trump said.
He also said protests such as those in Portland would lead to “a backlash” from the political right, “the likes of which you haven’t seen in many, many years”.
People said we would lose our readership. No. People said we would lose our subscribers. No. Our readers and our subscribers are still here. Our readership is actually growing.
We need just a small percentage of our Readers to be Supporters to function. But we cannot function without it.
Al Franken | A Quick Lesson in Math for Donald Trump Al Franken, Al Franken's Website Franken writes: "Now caught on tape telling Bob Woodward that he knew how deadly serious the Coronavirus was all along, President Trump is telling the American people that he misled us for our own good. You know, so that we wouldn't panic." READ MORE
A neighborhood in Oregon. (photo: Deborah Bloom/AFP/Getty Images)
Vice President Mike Pence talks to supporters after speaking at the Latter-day Saints for Trump event on Aug. 11, 2020, in Mesa, Ariz. (photo: Ross D. Franklin/AP)
The Surprise Religious Group That Could Decide Trump's Fate Alex Thompson and Laura Barron-Lopez, Politico Excerpt: "In 2016, Mormons rejected Donald Trump in numbers unheard of for a Republican nominee - viewing the thrice-married, immigrant-bashing Republican as an affront to their values." READ MORE
Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, attends the Republican National Convention on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 27, 2020. (photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
This story was produced in partnership with Injustice Watch The Department of Homeland Security has become an armed extension of Trumpism.
On Wednesday, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security stood before his colleagues and delivered the 2020 “State of the Homeland Address,” detailing the many ways in which his department was living up to its post-9/11 mission and supporting President Donald Trump’s agenda. Everyone on the DHS livestream was socially distanced and wearing masks — everyone, that is, but Ken Cuccinelli, the department’s “senior official performing the duties of the deputy secretary.”
Last month, the Government Accountability Office issued a report concluding that both Wolf and Cuccinelli are illegally occupying their positions atop DHS. But what the two men lack in legal authorization to work, they make up for in fealty to the president. Teeing up the crowd for Wolf’s remarks this week, Cuccinelli spoke of threats to “our cherished homeland” and said that “after decades of putting global interests ahead of the safety and the prosperity of our citizens, this administration has boldly put America first.”
Wolf, a former Transportation Security Administration lobbyist, struck a similar tone in his prepared remarks, drawing applause when he mentioned Homeland Security’s role in policing protests in Portland, Oregon, and his department’s ongoing efforts to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. The event had just barely concluded when the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence published a 24-page whistleblower complaint accusing Wolf, Cuccinelli, and other current and former DHS leaders, including former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who was also present at Wednesday’s address, of illegally manipulating and politicizing intelligence to bolster the president’s talking points and policy objectives in numerous ways across multiple years.
The man behind the complaint was Brian Murphy, a war on terror veteran who ran Homeland Security intelligence operations and served as a principle adviser to the secretary of DHS and the director of national security. Though complicated by the fact that Murphy himself had previously been accused of overseeing disturbing surveillance practices earlier this year, the whistleblower complaint marked the latest revelation in a long line of stories suggesting that DHS has become the armed extension of a Trumpian political project.
Murphy’s allegations ranged from inflating the number of known or suspected terrorists crossing the border, to the suppression of intelligence on right-wing terrorists, to the stifling of reports on Russian interference in the coming election. Murphy claimed that his efforts to push back on the senior DHS officials were met with retaliation and a demotion. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chair of the intelligence committee, described his complaint as “grave and disturbing,” adding in a statement, “We will get to the bottom of this, expose any and all misconduct or corruption to the American people, and put a stop to the politicization of intelligence.”
John Sandweg, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the politicization of Homeland Security operations under the Trump administration has been “tremendous,” and that it first began in the border and immigration realms and steadily expanded to include militarized Border Patrol BORTAC units deployed to arrest protesters in a major American city against the wishes of local officials.
“It’s at the point now where it’s really undermining the operational capability of DHS to work with the state and local governments,” Sandweg told The Intercept. “There’s going to be repercussions.”
In his complaint, Murphy claimed that in a series of meetings, Wolf and Cuccinelli personally intervened in an effort to doctor information related to the recent protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd, instructing him to “modify intelligence assessments to ensure they matched up with the public comments by President Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and ‘anarchist’ groups.” Murphy also claimed that the men improperly inserted themselves in the creation of a “Homeland Threat Assessment” report earlier this year, blocking circulation of the document out of concerns over how it “would reflect upon President Trump.”
“Two sections were specifically labeled as concerns: White Supremacy and Russian influence in the United States,” Murphy’s complaint said. The complaint went on to describe a series of meetings in May and June, as protests against police brutality spread to every state in the country, in which “Mr. Cuccinelli stated that Mr. Murphy needed to specifically modify the section on White Supremacy in a manner that made the threat appear less severe, as well as include information on the prominence of violent ‘left-wing’ groups.”
Murphy’s allegations come two months after an investigation by The Intercept that analyzed a trove of hacked law enforcement documents that were posted online under the title “BlueLeaks.” The materials included documents produced at the local, state, and federal level, including Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, otherwise known as I&A, where Murphy worked. The Intercept’s analysis focused on hundreds of documents produced during the recent protests that referenced “antifa,” a loose movement of antifascist political activists, and revealed glaring disparities between law enforcement’s depiction of groups on the right and the left.
In the case of antifa, the documents revealed that law enforcement intelligence was often vague, mixed up in online conspiracy theories or untethered to evidence of suspected criminal activity. On the far right, on the other hand, the documents showed law enforcement agencies across the country sharing detailed and specific information on the mobilization of armed groups looking to use the unrest as cover to attack law enforcement and protesters and set off a civil war. In July, the sergeant of an elite Air Force security unit with ties to the so-called boogaloo movement was arrested on suspicion of assassinating a federal court security officer and killing a California sheriff’s deputy, strongly suggesting that the online threats circulating at the time went beyond mere posturing.
During the protests, I&A shared intelligence that was both dubious and disturbing. On June 2, for example, the office circulated a tweet to law enforcement agencies across the country reporting that antifa was stashing bricks to “fuel protests.” As Mainer magazine later reported, the original source of the information was a pro-Trump biker who called himself “the wolfman” and previously spread conspiracy theories online.
At the same time, I&A circulated intelligence in late May detailing conversations inside an encrypted white supremacist Telegram channel, in which thousands of followers were encouraged to use guns, Molotov cocktails, and chainsaws to attack police and “spread racial hatred.” The following day, I&A published an intelligence note again describing conversations in another white supremacist Telegram channel, in which followers were encouraged to “engage in violence and start the ‘boogaloo’ — a term used by some violent extremists to refer to the start of a second Civil War — by shooting in a crowd.”
At the time, Trump, along with Wolf, Cuccinelli, and U.S. Attorney General William Barr were agitating for a crackdown on antifa, with Trump calling the movement a terrorist organization and Barr announcing that Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country would be called to root out leftist “agitators.”
The Justice Department has launched hundreds of domestic terrorism investigations in the weeks since, while a Trump Super Pac has used the antifa crackdown to raise money for the president’s reelection efforts.
On June 1, Trump boosted a tweet from Brian Kilmeade, in which the “Fox and Friends” co-host said he saw no evidence of white supremacists mobilizing in response to the protests. “TRUE!” Trump tweeted. Later in the day, Trump delivered an address in the Rose Garden threatening to use the military in response to the “professional anarchists” and antifa elements in the streets. He made no mention of groups on the far right. The next morning, DHS circulated a report acknowledging “media reports” indicating “that neo-Nazi, and other paramilitary far-right groups, are calling for terror attacks during the ongoing unrest throughout the United States.” According to a distribution list at the bottom of the report, the document was shared with the White House Situation Room, DHS headquarters, federal interagency operations centers, and state and local partners.
Despite the intelligence circulating in his own office regarding threats from the far right, Cuccinelli continued to keep the focus on the left, tweeting, “Their silence is deafening. Cities across America burn at the hands of antifa and anarchists while many political leaders are refusing to call it what it is: domestic terrorism.”
Murphy and his office drew national attention in late July, when news broke that I&A had disseminated three Open Source Intelligence Reports summarizing the tweets of a New York Times reporter and the editor of a prominent Washington, D.C. national security blog; both had published unclassified DHS documents related to the Portland protests. At the time, Wolf said he had ordered a stop to the intelligence gathering and launched an investigation into the matter. Murphy was singled out as the official driving the intelligence collection, with sources telling the Washington Post that the former FBI agent had “earned a reputation at DHS for aggressively trying to expand the operations of the intelligence office.”
In his complaint, Murphy said the media reports concerning the collection of information on journalists were “significantly flawed and, in many instances, contained completely erroneous assertions,” and that “I&A never knowingly or deliberately collected information on journalists, at least as far as Mr. Murphy is aware or ever authorized.”
The expansive network of law enforcement fusion centers where I&A directs much of its work product have been the subject of years of criticism for exhibiting a “persistent pattern of violating Americans’ privacy and civil liberties, producing unreliable and ineffective information, and resisting financial and other types of standard public accountability.” As The Intercept reported in late July, I&A under Trump has repeatedly directed its intelligence-gathering efforts at immigration advocates on the border. DHS officials in San Diego oversaw a sweeping, binational intelligence-gathering operation targeting lawyers, journalists, and asylum advocates associated with the migrant caravans that became a key political talking point for the Trump administration during the 2018 midterm elections.
It is unclear what role, if any, Murphy played in those events, though his complaint notes that during his March 2018 to July 2020 tenure, he was “responsible for all intelligence activities in DHS.” He has been called to testify before Congress later this month, where those questions may come up.
Throughout the past three and half years, the leadership of DHS has been steadily hollowed out, resulting in a department increasingly run by allies of Trump’s anti-immigration adviser, Stephen Miller. To many Homeland Security veterans, the ascent of Wolf and Cuccinelli is the disturbing encapsulation of that trend — one former DHS official, speaking to The Intercept on background, described Wolf as a “back bencher” and “literally a joke.”
On Thursday, one day after Murphy’s complaint made news across the country, the White House sent a letter to the Senate formally nominating Wolf to head DHS. Twenty-four hours later, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, subpoenaed Wolf to testify before his committee, noting in a statement that the acting secretary had been dodging the lawmakers’ questions since protests picked up in June.
“This administration has so completely fueled the negative stereotype of the agency, that is going to have real world implications for the agency for years to come, not just in dealing with Congress,” Sandweg said. “I think they’ve done incalculable damage.”
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. (image: Kat Wawrykow/Eric Schmitt Facebook page)
Missouri Attorney General's Office Pushes to Keep Innocent People in Prison Emily Hoerner, The Appeal and Injustice Watch Hoerner writes: "Its decades-long commitment to upholding convictions - even those marred by police or prosecutorial misconduct - has left Missourians languishing in prison for years."
Joseph Amrine spent nearly a third of his life in prison condemned to die before the state’s case against him began to evaporate. Amrine was convicted in the murder of a fellow prisoner in a recreation room at the Jefferson City Correctional Center in 1985, and by 1998, several key witnesses recanted their statements.
In 2001, prosecutors under then Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon pushed for an execution date anyway, arguing two years later before the state’s Supreme Court that Amrine had already tried and failed proving his innocence through lower courts.
In one exchange, Justice Laura Denvir Stith asked Assistant Attorney General Frank Jung, “Are you suggesting … even if we find that Mr. Amrine is actually innocent, he should be executed?”
“That is correct, your honor,” Jung said.
The court disagreed, and Amrine was exonerated. But the Missouri attorney general’s office has fought to maintain convictions in potential innocence cases.
The attorney general’s office has opposed calls for relief in nearly every wrongful conviction case that came before it and has been vacated since 2000, according to an Injustice Watch and The Appeal review of court records and a national database of exonerations. That includes 27 cases in which the office fought to uphold convictions for prisoners who were eventually exonerated. In roughly half of those cases, the office continued arguing that the original guilty verdict should stand even after a judge vacated the conviction. (The office, however, played no role in at least 13 exonerations during that time period.)
This year alone, the convictions of three men were vacated after lengthy legal battles with Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office.
As the primary agency tasked with handling post-conviction issues, the office wields outsize influence over most wrongful conviction cases in the state. (State law allows local courts to handle cases where belated DNA testing could change a verdict, so a smaller portion of exonerations in Missouri are handled without the attorney general.)
The office’s decades-long pattern of stymieing exonerations has left the wrongfully convicted languishing in prison for years. And its stance on exonerations has persisted as elected attorneys general have come and gone, regardless of political affiliation.
A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office declined to discuss its handling of wrongful conviction cases.
But former Justice Michael Wolff, who sat on the state Supreme Court during Amrine’s petition for habeas corpus, told Injustice Watch and The Appeal that the office operates as though its job is to keep convictions intact, “even if you might have convicted an innocent person.”
“You have to pretend that the criminal justice system is without error, and you can’t pretend that,” Wolff said.
The office is currently fighting efforts that would allow the release of Lamar Johnson, who was convicted of murder in 1995. Last year, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s review of the case uncovered evidence that prosecutors withheld information about payments made to the sole eyewitness who has since recanted his testimony. Police fabrications by the lead detective about a motive for the killing, false testimony by the same detective, and a failure to disclose information about a jailhouse informant led to Johnson’s wrongful conviction, Gardner found. And even though Johnson has the support of Gardner, Schmitt argued that local prosecutors lack the authority to vacate convictions. The chief of the attorney general’s criminal division said that giving local prosecutors the power “has the potential to undermine public confidence” in the criminal legal system.
Johnson’s legal team detailed the attorney general’s blanket opposition to claims by the wrongfully convicted in a court filing earlier this year. One of the lawyers, Lindsay Runnels, also clashed with the office when she represented Lawrence Callanan, who was exonerated in June.
Runnels said the attorney general fought for years to uphold Callanan’s conviction despite a local prosecutor’s admission that he instructed an eyewitness not to disclose exculpatory evidence in the case, in violation of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Brady v. Maryland.
She said the attorney general’s office behaves as if “they’ve never seen an innocence case.”
“They think the system bats 1,000,” Runnels said.
Several lawyers interviewed by Injustice Watch and The Appeal noted that the office’s handling of exoneration cases has remained static under the leadership of both Democrats (Jay Nixon and Chris Koster) and Republicans (Josh Hawley and Schmitt).
Sean O’Brien, who represented Amrine, linked the office’s seemingly reflexive opposition to innocence claims with Missouri’s devotion to the death penalty, favoring finality in court decisions. But that approach “blinds you to innocence,” O’Brien said.
Later this year, Schmitt will face Democratic nominee Rich Finneran in an election for the attorney general seat. In an interview with Injustice Watch and The Appeal, Finneran criticized Schmitt’s handling of wrongful conviction cases and said he’d do things differently if he is elected.
“It certainly seems as though Eric Schmitt at least has a reflexive instinct to defend every conviction, regardless of whether or not it was properly obtained,” said Finneran, who also blasted Schmitt’s reliance on procedural arguments and technicalities in Johnson’s case as unethical.
Tricia Bushnell, the executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project who has worked on wrongful conviction cases in Missouri, Kansas, and other states, said the attorney general’s “obstructionist” stance is disingenuous.
In the case of Johnson, whom Bushnell also represents, the attorney general argues that Johnson has to request relief through a different avenue where the attorney general instead of the local circuit attorney would represent the state.
“Except how will justice be found there when they denied justice to everyone who’s ever filed there?” Bushnell said.
In Ricky Kidd’s case, the attorney general clashed with lawyers from the Midwest Innocence Project for seven years over the process of petitioning a court to review and overturn his conviction. By the time his lawyers got the process going, a co-defendant admitted that Kidd was not involved in the 1996 double murder that landed both men in prison on life sentences.
“Every time I lost, it was devastating … like a boxer taking a gut punch,” Kidd told Injustice Watch and The Appeal. “The Missouri attorney general’s office is not arguing that we’re not innocent, they’re arguing technicalities.”
Kidd was exonerated last year. But he said the ordeal took an emotional toll on him and his loved ones, especially his children, who are still struggling to make sense of what happened to their family.
“They’re so angry underneath that they don’t know where to place that anger,” Kidd said. “The state is not an individual. My daughters don’t know how to process what has really happened to them.”
Joshua Kezer was exonerated in 2009, 15 years after he was wrongly convicted for the murder of Angela Lawless. Kezer’s attorneys said that an alternate suspect—who did not resemble Kezer—was identified in the case but that this information was not disclosed to them.
“They have never said we’re sorry, they have never said we’re wrong,” Kezer said of the attorney general’s office. “And that is unacceptable.”
More recently, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the attorney general’s office railed against the release of Donald “Doc” Nash. The 78-year-old Missouri man was accused of murdering his girlfriend in 1982 and convicted based in part on dubious expert testimony that has since been discredited—and may have also been fabricated.
Nash, who his attorney said suffers from heart problems, remained behind bars as COVID-19 spread through the facility where he was held. The state Supreme Court vacated the charges against him in July.
But even when the wrongfully convicted secure their release, their fight isn’t necessarily over. They must live with the fear that they could be tried again. In December, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist warned two newly released exonerees who had avoided a clash with the state prosecutor, “The attorney general is coming for you.”
Brad Jennings was released from prison two years ago and exonerated in the death of his wife. Still, Jennings feared that the attorney general would keep trying to lock him up. He was right.
Prosecutors from the attorney general’s office appealed a judge’s decision to vacate his charges, arguing that it was Jennings’s responsibility to locate forensic testing evidence that the police had not disclosed at trial that would support his innocence claim. In April 2018, a panel of Missouri Court of Appeals judges wrote in a decision that they found the state’s argument to be particularly repugnant.
“Everybody needs to know that the truth doesn’t matter to the attorney general’s office,” Jennings said. “It’s just whether or not they can get somebody convicted.”
Now that more than 40 prosecutors’ offices across the country have created units to review the integrity of past convictions, law enforcement’s reticence to address wrongful convictions is no longer the norm, said Miriam Krinsky, executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution.
Krinksy, whose group includes local elected prosecutors from across the country, told Injustice Watch and The Appeal that the Missouri attorney general’s office seems “wedded to an old way of doing business, that autopilot of defending convictions at all costs.”
That mentality can cause real harm in the public’s faith and belief in the criminal justice system, Krinsky said, especially when cases like Johnson’s draw the attention of the nation.
“When we have individuals who spent decades behind bars because someone is claiming someone is time-barred, that’s an embarrassment and that’s a stain on the entire justice system,” Krinsky said. “This is the kind of thing where the ripple effect of allowing these sorts of practices to remain in place extend beyond a single jurisdiction.”
Bob Ramsey, who has represented Missouri exonerees Mark Woodworth, Cornell McKay, and Jennings, said he’s seen the attorney general’s office use what he called “dirty tactics” since the early 1990s.
“I’ve seen them stoop to unbelievable depths to preserve a conviction, and to obtain a conviction,” Ramsey said.
Ramsey said that in Woodworth’s case, the attorney general’s office discovered a plethora of evidence that should have been disclosed by the state prosecutors to the defense before trial, then dragged the case out for years. The withheld evidence included three letters: one from the judge to an assistant attorney general who tried the case acknowledging the pair had discussed the case on several occasions; a second letter letter from the victim to the judge that prompted the calling of a grand jury in the case; and a third letter from the local prosecutor to the judge indicating that the surviving victim was “adamant” that they charge another suspect, as well as information that the other suspect had violated an order of protection against the victim’s daughter.
Platte County Circuit Court Judge Owens Lee Hull Jr. eventually removed the attorney general’s office from the case and appointed a special prosecutor; Woodworth was convicted for murder twice, and both convictions were later thrown out on appeal. Ramsey said he’s unaware of any professional consequences that the office or its attorneys have faced as a result of its misconduct in the Woodworth case.
The assistant attorney general who tried Woodworth at his first trial, Kenny Hulshof, went on to become a U.S. representative for Missouri’s Ninth Congressional District. He held his seat for 12 years. Hulshof was also one of the prosecutors who tried Kezer.
In 2008, Hulshof ran for governor but lost to Nixon.
Kidd said society—not just the wrongfully convicted—pays a steep price for innocence cases. Both victims and communities are deprived of safety, while taxpayers pay for years of imprisonment and legal battles surrounding tainted convictions.
“I think that’s enough for anybody to say, ‘Wait a minute we gotta do better, we have to respond in a way that’s more thoughtful for the people who put us in office,’” Kidd said.
Pulitzer Prize winning poet, songwriter and musician Bob Dylan’s lament to to the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. (photo: Bob Dylan/YouTube)
Sunday Song: Bob Dylan | Murder Most Foul Bob Dylan, YouTube Dylan writes: "The day they blew out the brains of the king. Thousands were watching; no one saw a thing."
Twas a dark day in Dallas, November ’63 A day that will live on in infamy President Kennedy was a-ridin’ high Good day to be livin’ and a good day to die Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb He said, “Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?” “Of course we do. We know who you are.” Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car Shot down like a dog in broad daylight Was a matter of timing and the timing was right You got unpaid debts; we’ve come to collect We’re gonna kill you with hatred; without any respect We’ll mock you and shock you and we’ll put it in your face We’ve already got someone here to take your place
The day they blew out the brains of the king Thousands were watching; no one saw a thing It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise Right there in front of everyone’s eyes Greatest magic trick ever under the sun Perfectly executed, skillfully done Wolfman, oh wolfman, oh wolfman howl Rub-a-dub-dub, it’s a murder most foul
Hush, little children. You’ll understand The Beatles are comin’; they’re gonna hold your hand Slide down the banister, go get your coat Ferry ‘cross the Mersey and go for the throat There’s three bums comin’ all dressed in rags Pick up the pieces and lower the flags I’m going to Woodstock; it’s the Aquarian Age Then I’ll go to Altamont and sit near the stage Put your head out the window; let the good times roll There’s a party going on behind the Grassy Knoll
Stack up the bricks, pour the cement Don’t say Dallas don’t love you, Mr. President Put your foot in the tank and step on the gas Try to make it to the triple underpass Blackface singer, whiteface clown Better not show your faces after the sun goes down Up in the red light district, they’ve got cop on the beat Living in a nightmare on Elm Street
When you’re down in Deep Ellum, put your money in your shoe Don’t ask what your country can do for you Cash on the ballot, money to burn Dealey Plaza, make left-hand turn I’m going down to the crossroads; gonna flag a ride The place where faith, hope, and charity died Shoot him while he runs, boy. Shoot him while you can See if you can shoot the invisible man Goodbye, Charlie. Goodbye, Uncle Sam Frankly, Miss Scarlett, I don’t give a damn
What is the truth, and where did it go? Ask Oswald and Ruby; they oughta know “Shut your mouth,” said the wise old owl Business is business, and it’s a murder most foul
Tommy, can you hear me? I’m the Acid Queen I’m riding in a long, black limousine Riding in the backseat next to my wife Heading straight on in to the afterlife I’m leaning to the left; got my head in her lap Hold on, I’ve been led into some kind of a trap Where we ask no quarter, and no quarter do we give We’re right down the street from the street where you live They mutilated his body, and they took out his brain What more could they do? They piled on the pain But his soul’s not there where it was supposed to be at For the last fifty years they’ve been searchin’ for that
Freedom, oh freedom. Freedom cover me I hate to tell you, mister, but only dead men are free Send me some lovin’; tell me no lies Throw the gun in the gutter and walk on by Wake up, little Susie; let’s go for a drive Cross the Trinity River; let’s keep hope alive Turn the radio on; don’t touch the dials Parkland hospital, only six more miles
You got me dizzy, Miss Lizzy. You filled me with lead That magic bullet of yours has gone to my head I’m just a patsy like Patsy Cline Never shot anyone from in front or behind I’ve blood in my eye, got blood in my ear I’m never gonna make it to the new frontier Zapruder’s film I seen night before Seen it 33 times, maybe more It’s vile and deceitful. It’s cruel and it’s mean Ugliest thing that you ever have seen They killed him once and they killed him twice Killed him like a human sacrifice
The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son The age of the Antichrist has only begun.” Air Force One coming in through the gate Johnson sworn in at 2:38 Let me know when you decide to thrown in the towel It is what it is, and it’s murder most foul
What’s new, pussycat? What’d I say? I said the soul of a nation been torn away And it’s beginning to go into a slow decay And that it’s 36 hours past Judgment Day
Wolfman Jack, speaking in tongues He’s going on and on at the top of his lungs Play me a song, Mr. Wolfman Jack Play it for me in my long Cadillac Play me that ‘Only the Good Die Young’ Take me to the place Tom Dooley was hung Play St. James Infirmary and the Court of King James If you want to remember, you better write down the names Play Etta James, too. Play ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ Play it for the man with the telepathic mind Play John Lee Hooker. Play ‘Scratch My Back’. Play it for that strip club owner named Jack Guitar Slim going down slow Play it for me and for Marilyn Monroe
Play ‘Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’ Play it for the First Lady, she ain’t feeling any good Play Don Henley, play Glenn Frey Take it to the limit and let it go by Play it for Karl Wirsum, too Looking far, far away at Down Gallow Avenue Play tragedy, play “Twilight Time” Take me back to Tulsa to the scene of the crime Play another one and “Another One Bites the Dust” Play “The Old Rugged Cross” and “In God We Trust” Ride the pink horse down the long, lonesome road Stand there and wait for his head to explode Play “Mystery Train” for Mr. Mystery The man who fell down dead like a rootless tree Play it for the Reverend; play it for the Pastor Play it for the dog that got no master Play Oscar Peterson. Play Stan Getz Play “Blue Sky”; play Dickey Betts Play Art Pepper, Thelonious Monk Charlie Parker and all that junk All that junk and “All That Jazz” Play something for the Birdman of Alcatraz Play Buster Keaton, play Harold Lloyd Play Bugsy Siegel, play Pretty Boy Floyd Play the numbers, play the odds Play “Cry Me A River” for the Lord of the gods Play number 9, play number 6 Play it for Lindsey and Stevie Nicks Play Nat King Cole, play “Nature Boy” Play “Down In The Boondocks” for Terry Malloy Play “It Happened One Night” and “One Night of Sin” There’s 12 Million souls that are listening in Play “Merchant of Venice”, play “Merchants of Death” Play “Stella by Starlight” for Lady Macbeth
Don’t worry, Mr. President. Help’s on the way Your brothers are coming; there’ll be hell to pay Brothers? What brothers? What’s this about hell? Tell them, “We’re waiting. Keep coming.” We’ll get them as well
Love Field is where his plane touched down But it never did get back up off the ground Was a hard act to follow, second to none They killed him on the altar of the rising sun Play “Misty” for me and “That Old Devil Moon” Play “Anything Goes” and “Memphis in June” Play “Lonely At the Top” and “Lonely Are the Brave” Play it for Houdini spinning around his grave Play Jelly Roll Morton, play “Lucille” Play “Deep In a Dream”, and play “Driving Wheel” Play “Moonlight Sonata” in F-sharp And “A Key to the Highway” for the king on the harp Play “Marching Through Georgia” and “Dumbarton’s Drums” Play darkness and death will come when it comes Play “Love Me Or Leave Me” by the great Bud Powell Play “The Blood-stained Banner”, play “Murder Most Foul” READ MORE
Tim Walton, an NBC News cameraman, covers the LNU Lightning Complex fire in Lake county, California, on 23 August. (Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters)
Most Wildfire Coverage on American TV News Fails to Mention Link to Climate Crisis Lois Beckett and Maanvi Singh, Guardian UK Excerpt: "Most news coverage of the wildfires raging in California, Washington and Oregon on American TV channels made no mention of the connection between the historic fires and climate crisis, according to a new analysis from Media Matters."
A media watchdog analysis found that just 15% of broadcast news segments over a September weekend made the connection to climate breakdown
Reviewing coverage aired over the 5-8 September holiday weekend, the progressive media watchdog group found that only 15% of corporate TV news segments on the firesmentioned the climate crisis. Aseparate analysisfound that during the entire month of August only 4% of broadcast news wildfire coverage mentioned climate crisis.
Wildfires are raging in states across the American west, burning record acreage in California, Washington and Oregon. Thewave of fireswas first sparked and stoked by a spate of unusual weather in August, including rare lightning storms that hit parts of California that were vulnerable to fire because drought and heat had dried out vegetation. The fires came before low-elevation, coastal parts of the state reached peak fire season in the autumn when fierce offshore winds have driven the biggest fires in recent years.
The fires that hitOregonin recent days were stoked by dry conditions and rare easterly winds.
Although untangling the weather conditions from climate crisis is complicated, it’s clear that overall, in recent years “fire risk is increasing dramatically because of climate change”, said Chris Field, who directs the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Global heating has given rise to drier, hotter conditions and more frequent, extreme droughts that have left the landscape tinder-dry and prone to explosive blazes.
Although California’s landscape has long been prone to fire, climate crisis has “put pressure on the entire system”, Field said, throwing it out of balance and giving rise to more extreme, catastrophic events. The current fires expanding with such explosive force have burned more acreage within a few weeks than what has burned in previous years.
A consensus of research has made clear that extreme heat and drought fueled by global heating has left the American west tinder-dry and especially vulnerable to runaway fires. A 2019studyfound that from 1972 to 2018, California saw a five-fold increase in the areas that burned annually. Anotherstudyestimates that without human-caused climate crisis, the area that burned between 1984 and 2015 would have been half of what it actually was. And aresearch paperpublished last month suggests that the number of autumn days with “extreme fire weather” – when the risk of wildfires is extremely high – has more than doubled over the past two decades. “Our climate model analyses suggest that continued climate change will further amplify the number of days with extreme fire weather by the end of this century,” the researchers write, “though a pathway consistent with the UN Paris commitments would substantially curb that increase.”
Climate crisis is not the only factor driving the barrage of blazes across the region. Ironically, a century of suppressing fires – extinguishing the natural, necessary fires in western forests and other wildlands to protect homes and timber – has led to an accumulation of fire-fueling vegetation. “A deficit of fire, concatenated with the effects of climate change have led us here,” said Don Hankins, a fire ecologist at California State University, Chico.
Media Matters singled out two TV news journalists who are regularly talking about the role of climate crisis: the CBS meteorologist and climate specialistJeff Berardelliand NBC’sAl Roker.
The Media Matters analysis also noted that so far, 2020 has been the third year in a row during which corporate broadcast TV news discussed the impacts of climate crisis in fewer than 5% of wildfire segments.
his story was produced in partnership with 
