Brought to You by...Big Oil? Washington Post hides industry sponsorship of energy debate

Fair

The Washington Post had a two-page spread in its September 11 edition devoted to a "debate" on energy policy. But industry critics were missing from the picture. Why? Perhaps because the oil industry, undisclosed to Post readers, was sponsoring the discussion. 

"Ahead of 2012 Vote, Energy Generates a Lively Debate," read the headline on page 14. Washington Post Live editor Mary Jordan explained, "Huge natural gas and oil finds...have drastically changed America's energy outlook." She went on to note, "Gas burns cleaner than coal," before admitting that "there are environmental concerns with 'fracking.'"

The two-page spread that followed was presented as an election-year discussion of U.S. energy policy. As Jordan explained, the debate grew out of discussions held at both the Republican and Democratic conventions. Those forums were sponsored by the Post and the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

But the Post failed to credit another sponsor: Vote4Energy.org, whose logo appears on the Post Live website that features the forums. What is Vote4Energy? It's a project of the American Petroleum Institute, the main lobbying group of the oil and gas industries.

So if you're wondering why the Post's feature failed to include bonafide critics of the energy giants--voices that might speak out against fracking, strongly advocate for renewable energy or take climate change seriously--that would seem to be the answer. Some of these issues were raised, but mostly in passing.

Instead, the Post featured excerpts from the invited guests. On the Democratic side, that meant Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer--an enthusiastic supporter of fracking--and Rep. Ed Markey (Mass.), who seemed to endorse more gas drilling, along with Sen. Mark Begich, who touted oil and gas drilling in his state before mentioning renewables. On the Republican side, readers heard from Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas and Bill Maloney, a candidate for governor of West Virginia, who declared global warming to be "nothing but a hoax."

The right was also represented by the Heritage Foundation's Kim Holmes, Margo Thorning of the Koch-backed American Council for Capital Formation and Karen Harbert of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Industry views were provided by Melissa Lavinson of Pacific Gas & Electric, Kevin Book of Clearview Energy Partners and David Holt of the Consumer Energy Alliance, an industry-aligned advocacy group. There were also comments from Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations, Paul Bledsoe of the Bipartisan Policy Center and Josh Freed of the centrist think tank Third Way.

Entirely missing from this "debate" were environmentalists or any strong critics of the fossil fuel industry.

In a video of the discussion at the Republican convention posted on the paper's website, Emily Akhtarzandi--the Post's "strategic partnership executive"--credited the American Petroleum Institute in her opening remarks, saying the group "saw value in making today's conversation possible."

Indeed they would; arranging a "debate" that excludes your critics participating is very valuable. And so is seeing that one-sided discussion spread across two pages of the biggest newspaper in the nation's capital.

It's not the first time the Post has been caught selling itself to corporate sponsors. In 2009, the paper cooked up a plan to have publisher Katharine Weymouth host "salons" at her home at which, for $25,000, corporate underwriters could rub shoulders with politicians as well as Post reporters and editors (Extra!, 9/09). Draft marketing materials promoted the project as a chance for industry reps to "build crucial relationships with Washington Post news executives in a neutral and informal setting."

After Politico (7/2/09) broke the story, the resulting uproar scrapped the plan before it got off the ground. This time around, the paper has gotten even more brazen, selling not access to journalists but essentially two critic-free pages of advocacy presented as news.

Shouldn't Post readers have been told that what they were reading was less a news feature and more like an advertisement?

Interestingly, the paper published a letter last month (8/4/12) complaining about the Post's failure to cover a large anti-fracking protest in D.C. that ended at the offices of...the American Petroleum Institute.

ACTION:

Ask the Washington Post to explain why it failed to disclose that its September 11 energy feature was essentially sponsored by the oil industry.

CONTACT:

Washington Post

Ombud

Patrick Pexton

202-334-7582

ombudsman@washpost.com

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New York Times Working for Mittens? Pulls his Quotes from Article

Fair

At Huffington Post (9/13/12), Ryan Grim and Michael Calderone are raising questions about the somewhat mysterious disappearance of a New York Times news article:

On Wednesday, the New York Times published a provocative story bylined by David E. Sanger and Ashley Parker, leading with the news that Mitt Romney had personally approved the blistering Tuesday night statement on the attacks in Libya and Egypt that landed his campaign in trouble.

But hours later, the newspaper wiped the story out and replaced it with a significantly rewritten piece bylined by Peter Baker and Ashley Parker….

The later version, which appeared on the front page of Thursday's paper, fleshed out the controversy with more details, but no longer included a couple key anonymous quotes from people close to the candidate, one who offered the rationale behind Romney's decision–to call out the Obama administration for supposedly "sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks"–and another who criticized it.

HuffPost quotes an email it got from Peter Baker, the co-author of the second version: "As we reported more through the day, we found Republicans criticizing Governor Romney on the record, so why use an anonymous one?" Baker said. "There are too many blind quotes in the media and we try not to use them when it's not necessary."

But there are obviously not a lot of "adviser[s] to the campaign" going on record to criticize Romney's statement. Ironically, the original piece's allowing an insider to air views that would otherwise probably get them fired is one of the rare fully justified uses of anonymous sourcing in campaign journalism–which is generally used to protect insiders from embarrassment over how much they gush about their candidates (FAIR Blog, 8/20/12).

And no one from the Times explains what happened to the quote from the other adviser, the one where they say, "We've had this consistent critique and narrative on Obama's foreign policy, and we felt this was a situation that met our critique." As Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall (9/12/12), who seems to have been the first to call attention to the switched articles, paraphrased: "So basically, we saw this thing happen. It fit with our campaign narrative. So we pounced."

What's worrisome about the switcheroo and the disappearing quotes is that the New York Times (7/16/12) has already acknowledged that it sometimes gives sources in both parties "final editing power over any published quotations." As Jeremy Peters reported (FAIR Blog, 7/16/12):

Romney advisers almost always require that reporters ask them for the green light on anything from a conversation that they would like to include in an article.

Which is not the same thing as allowing a source to retract a quote that's already been published–but it's too close for comfort.

UPDATE: New York Times Washington bureau chief David Leonhardt's assurance to Talking Points Memo (9/13/12) that "the campaign did not complain about the Web version of the story" does not add up. A quote that was attributed to an unnamed adviser became a quote from a named adviser, Lanhee Chen, in the final version–but with the juicier half of the quote deleted. Of course the Times didn't start using his name without talking to him, so obviously some kind of negotiation went on. If the Times wants to maintain these negotiations did not amount to "complain[ing]," that's a semantic game.

As for the deletion of another unnamed adviser's criticism of Romney, Leonhardt said: "We didn't need that quote for the story to make the point that Romney's response yesterday was clumsy…. The story said that and showed that without the quote."

The point of that quote, however, was not that Romney's response was clumsy, but that someone in Romney's own camp thought his response was clumsy. Ordinarily that would be considered newsworthy; that the Times saw fit to drop it is highly mysterious–if it wasn't the result of a complaint–or let's just say "input"–from the Romney campaign.

Fox News Censors All Their Own Polls

Kos

Lebanan (PA) Vol Fire Department Hosted a White Power Show - Again

OPP

For the fourth reported time in the past few years, neo-Nazi Keystone State “Skinheads” held a concert at the Prescott Community Fire Dept. on Friday, this one featuring among other bands, 13 Knots, the band Wade Michael Page belonged to before he went into a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin and killed six people before killing himself.

At least 25 cars were seen in the parking lot of Prescott Ave. banquet hall, many of them sporting out of state tags as far out as Florida and Tennessee. Approximately 80 people had attended, including members of Confederate Hammerskins as well as the Atlantic City “Skinheads”. Because of the low turnout, the bands performed shorter sets than usual, and all the bands scheduled to perform were there except Chaos 88, whose guitarist, Kenny Souder also plays in the band the Hard Way. That band, which was barred from an actual Battle of the Bands event near Philadelphia earlier this year, was performing the same day at an event in New Jersey sponsored by the Pagans Motorcycle Club. Instead, Chaos 88’s lead singer performed with his reunited former band Aggravated Assault. [MORE] 

How imperialists have succeeded with an Islamophobic film in diverting attention from their crimes

LizziePhlean

The Islamophobic film that has sparked violent protests in numerous countries, in my view, was clearly designed to divert attention from imperialist aggression and to reignite the falsely premised "clash of civilisations" debate. A blog post by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb today explains so perfectly why: 

The attack on KFC in Lebanon and the protests in Libya and elsewhere demonstrate that while Salafis, Wahhabis and related categories of Islamists and their supporters, are more than happy to tolerate various degrees of military, political and economic imperialism in Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon and of course Palestine, they will not countenance cultural and ideological imperialism. 

Rejecting cultural/ideological imperialism while countenancing and even allying with political imperialism does not make one an anti-imperialist, but merely anti-Western. To be sure, cultural and ideological imperialism must be confronted but only when situated within the wider framework of justice and the rejection of oppression; it must be guided by a specific political POSITION. Otherwise, it just distracts us from the bigger struggle against the Empire and Israel and plays into the hands of the US and Arab monarchs who are only too happy to launch inter-faith dialogue initiatives (the World Economic Forum’s Council of 100; the US-Islamic World Forum set up by a partnership between the Brookings Institute and Qatar; Saudi King Abdallah’s initiative for Interfaith Dialogue; Queen Rania’s Youtube interfaith campaign and other nauseating ventures) all designed to divert and sublimate anti-imperialist impulses by channeling them into strictly cultural avenues. In this manner, Islam is reduced to a cultural identity, an end in itself, rather than a means for achieving justice and liberating the oppressed. 

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Milton Hall's mother speaks to packed church, says Feds Reviewing Saginaw Police Killing of Black Man Shot 46 Times

MLive

Milton Hall's mother, Jewel Hall, spoke to a packed Saginaw church to show her appreciation for their support and to state that she is disappointed in the decision to not criminally charge the six Saginaw police officers who fatally shot her son.

Jewel Hall visited the Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church, 2115 Wadsworth, on Saturday morning.

After a church service, Hall took the podium overlooking the room packed with people. Several of her family members, including Pastor Michael Washington and former Buena Vista Police Chief Brian Booker, were in attendance. The Democratic candidate for the prosecutor's position John McColgan Jr. and former Saginaw police officer Charles Braddock were also in the church.

She opened with telling the crowd that had gathered she had good news to share.

"The lead attorney from the Detroit District Office of the U.S. Department of Justice informed me on Thursday, September 13, that two weeks ago they began a transparent, independent, comprehensive investigation into the Milton Hall shooting," she said.

The crowd roared and stood with applause. 

Saginaw County Prosecutor Michael D. Thomas announced on Wednesday that there would not be any criminal charges against the police officers who killed Milton Hall.

NAACP to Help with Appeal of Ga. Black Man who Killed White Man on his Property in Self Defense

WRL

The NAACP is getting involved in the case of a Wilson native who has served more than five years in a Georgia prison for a killing that he maintains was self-defense.

John McNeil and his family were the only black residents living in an upscale suburban Atlanta neighborhood in 2005 when he shot and killed a white man on his property. Witnesses corroborated McNeil's story that the man had threatened McNeil's son with a knife and refused to leave the property even after McNeil fired a warning shot into the ground.

Police initially ruled the case self-defense, but months later, the Cobb County District Attorney's Office pursued a murder charge against McNeil and won a conviction.

"The McNeil case is a prime example of the age-old unequal justice in the court system," Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, said in a statement. "The Castle Doctrine doesn't appear to apply to him. In Georgia, a black man's home is not a castle. His home means nothing before the law."

Georgia passed a Castle Doctrine law, allowing homeowners to stand their ground and use deadly force if threatened, a year after McNeil's shooting. The state law previously required homeowners to show they had tried to retreat before using deadly force in order to claim self-defense.

Barber, Georgia NAACP President Ed DuBose and national NAACP President Ben Jealous visited McNeil at Macon State Prison on Monday, and DuBose arranged for McNeil's wife to visit him on Wednesday.

Anita McNeil, who has since moved back to Wilson, flew to Georgia on a flight arranged by Wilson Mayor Bruce Rose and local business owner Jeff Chesson.

The trip marked the first time she has seen her husband in two years. In that time, his mother has died, and Anita McNeil has suffered a recurrence of breast cancer, with the illness spreading to her liver and lungs.

"I'm not only fighting for my husband, but I'm fighting for the homeowner who should have the right to protect their home, for the father who should have the right to go home to make sure that his child is safe and for John, who I know wouldn't have hurt anybody unless he really felt his life was threatened," she said.

NAACP officials said they are concerned that Anita McNeil might not live long enough to see the fight to free her husband through to the end.

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U.S. inquiry finds Portland police use excessive force

AP

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced the results of an investigation into the Portland Police Department, saying officers use excessive force against mentally ill people — violations that include frequently discharging stun guns without justification.

The findings were the result of a federal civil rights investigation initiated last summer after a series of police shootings, many involving mentally ill suspects.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez said the Department of Justice and the city have reached a preliminary agreement on reforms, such as increased training, expedited investigations and increased community oversight of the changes.

Perez said the DOJ found that encounters between the Portland Police Bureau and “persons living with mental illness too frequently result in the unnecessary use of force or in a higher level of force than was necessary."

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White Lies and Arizona’s Culture of Fear

CounterPunch

SB 1070 was passed in 2010.  It brought an immediate reaction both inside and outside Arizona. A boycott was called, which quickly dissipated. For a time, unions and progressives outside of Arizona held rallies in Phoenix. However, Arizona’s anti-racist campaign was quickly eclipsed as struggles in Wisconsin and Ohio took center stage. Not wanting to offend local contributors the Democratic Party turned the other way and allowed Blue Dogs and others to make their arrangements as political judgments dictated their choices.

A few progressive writers uncovered the motivations behind 1070 for which many people claim credit. Kansas attorney general Kris Kobach who considers his anti-immigrant crusade a substitute for military service was one of the hooded authors.  Most claim that the impeached Senator Russell Pearce was the author of 1070, which was signed into law by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) in April 2010.

Meanwhile, other than the legal strategy – from my perspective – much of the outrage over the law leaked from the punctured balloon. More and more political judgments were made. Politicians of all stripes hardly mentioned that Pearce was only a bag man. The mainstream media forgot that the authors of the bill were the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA),and  the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC); they drafted SB1070 “to protect the profitability of private prisons funded with taxpayer dollars.”

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Reagan’s Personal Spying Machine

NY Times

IN 1961, when Ronald Reagan was defining himself politically, he warned that if left unchecked, government would become “a Big Brother to us all.” But previously undisclosed F.B.I. records, released to me after a long and costly legal fight under the Freedom of Information Act, present a different side of the man who has come to symbolize the conservative philosophy of less government and greater self-reliance.

When Reagan needed government help, he was happy to take it, which is particularly interesting in light of the current debate over “entitlements,” and which might give pause to members of both political parties who speak glowingly of the Reagan legacy.

The documents show that Reagan was more involved than was previously known as a government informer during his Hollywood years, and that in return he secretly received personal and political help from J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime F.B.I. director, at taxpayer expense.

Reagan’s F.B.I. connection is rooted in the turbulent years of post-World War II Hollywood, a time when, Reagan has written, his worldview was coming apart. His film career, his marriage to Jane Wyman and his faith in the political wisdom received from his father, an F.D.R. Democrat, were all faltering.

The timing was thus significant when, one night in 1946, F.B.I. agents dropped by his house overlooking Sunset Boulevard and told him that Communists were infiltrating a liberal group he was involved in. He soon had a new purpose; as he wrote, “I must confess they opened my eyes to a good many things.”

The newly released files flesh out what Reagan only hinted at. They show that he began to report secretly to the F.B.I. about people whom he suspected of Communist activity, some on the scantiest of evidence. And they reveal that during his tenure as president of the Screen Actors Guild in the ’40s and ’50s, F.B.I. agents had access to guild records on dozens of actors. As one F.B.I. official wrote in a memo, Reagan “in every instance has been cooperative.”

Reagan went on to make his fight against Communism in Hollywood a centerpiece of his talks as spokesman for General Electric in the 1950s. Those eventually became broader warnings about what he saw as creeping socialism. The founding fathers, he declared in his 1961 speech, believed “government should only do those things the people cannot do for themselves.”

But that guidance apparently didn’t apply to Reagan himself. According to F.B.I. records, in 1960 he turned to the federal government for help with the kind of problem families usually handle themselves. That March, his close friend George Murphy reached out to an F.B.I. contact, explaining that Reagan and Ms. Wyman, now divorced, were “much concerned” about their estranged daughter, Maureen, then 19. She had moved to Washington, and, her parents had heard, was living with an older, married policeman.

According to an F.B.I. memo: “Jane Wyman wishes to come to Washington to perhaps straighten out her daughter, get her back to Los Angeles, but before doing so desires to know the following: (1) Is [the man in question] employed as an officer of the Metropolitan Police Department?; (2) Is he married?; (3) Is his wife in an institution and what are the details?; and (4) Any other information which might be discreetly developed concerning the relationship.”

At F.B.I. headquarters, supervisors reviewed a background report on Maureen Reagan that they had prepared the previous year, when she applied to work at a federal agency. It provided a glimpse of her family life and quoted an administrator at Marymount Junior College, in Arlington, Va., from which she had dropped out: “Maureen was the victim of a broken home, and because she had resided in boarding schools and been away from parental contact so much of her life she was an insecure individual ‘who could not make up her mind’ and did not achieve goals set by herself or others.” [MORE] 

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Anti-Muslim Movie Trailer by Sam Bacile

YouTube

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Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Office Allegedly Altered Evidence To Cover Up Denial Of Insulin To White Diabetic Prisoner Who Later Died: “This Is Jail. Get Over It.”

DailyDolt

Readers, please add Maricopa County, Arizona to your mental list of places not to get arrested in. Yes, white people, even you.

Deborah Braillard, age 46, was arrested and booked on a minor drug possession charge in January of 2005. Despite being a diabetic, Braillard was not given insulin or any other medication or medical care for four full days, until she was eventually brought to the hospital in a diabetic coma. She died 18 days later of complications from diabetes, and her family’s civil suit against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is now proceeding at trial.

According to the pretrial deposition testimony of the guards and inmates who witnessed the incident, Braillard was constantly moaning and crying out in pain, asking for help, repeatedly vomiting, defecating on herself and having seizures.

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Three killed, 40 injured as Tunisian protesters clash with police, scale US embassy walls

Rt.com

At least three people have been killed and 40 wounded near the US embassy in Tunis as protesters attacked the compound, climbing the gates of the diplomatic complex and tearing down the US flag.

After a few hours of violent and deadly clashes between outraged protesters and police officers, security forces managed to expel the demonstrators from inside the embassy compound.

The clashes took place after protesters left Friday evening prayers and marched to the embassy. Demonstrators had been protesting peacefully for hours when about 300 started to break through the gates. Witnesses reported that the embassy’s US flag had been replaced with a black flag. Protesters set fire to trees and smashed windows. 

A large fire and thick plume of black smoke was seen inside the compound. Police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd and protesters lobbed rocks at the security forces. Later police opened fire to suppress an assault on the embassy, but it remains unclear if  rounds or rubber bullets were used. 

Petrol bombs were thrown at a separate part of the embassy, causing fire as security forces continued to launch tear gas and warning shots.

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Protesters torch KFC in Tripoli, Lebanon

Rt.com

Demonstrators in Tripoli, Lebanon, burned down a restaurant belonging to US-based chain KFC in protest against an anti-Islamic film mocking the Prophet Muhammad. At least one person was killed and 24 were wounded in the clashes with police.

Following Friday prayers, hundreds of demonstrators massed in protest against the Pope's three-day visit to Lebanon and shouted anti-American slogans.

The chants included "We don't want the Pope," and "No more insults [to Islam]," witnesses reported.

Security forces fired warning shots into the air in an attempt to disperse the protesters, who marched from Tripoli’s Al-Mansouri Mosque to nearby Nour Square.

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Suspected anti-Islam movie's producer may land in prison for probation violation

Rt.com

The suspected director of the now-notorious anti-Muslim video that sparked violent protests worldwide is now under investigation on whether or not he had violated his probation by using an alias to publish the movie.

­The 55-year-old Los Angeles man, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, claims that he was not the author of the “The Innocence of Muslims,” but only helped in managing and providing logistics for its production.

However, an anonymous law enforcement official confirmed to the AP on Thursday that Nakoula, who is currently on probation after serving prison time on financial crimes charges, was in fact behind the production of the film to an extent much larger than he was letting on.

Simply producing the film is not considered a crime under US law, but the terms of Nakoula’s release contain a clause barring him from accessing the Internet or using aliases without a probation officer's approval.

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Discovery Reform at issue in Jeffrey MacDonald Case: Prosecutors Intentionally Withholding Favorable Information from Defendants

NACDL 

Washington, DC (Sept. 14, 2012) – After spending the past 33 years in prison resulting from an unfair trial and a wrongful conviction, former Army Captain and medical doctor Jeffrey R. MacDonald is scheduled to get a meaningful day in court on Monday. The date is fortuitous, yet auspicious – September 17 is Constitution Day, commemorating the date that the Constitution was signed in Philadelphia 225 years ago.

There is no question that the crime was horrific. There is also no longer any question that MacDonald’s conviction was due to failures by the prosecution to live up to its constitutional duties to disclose evidence favorable to his defense and allow the defendant to present witnesses in his defense. Today’s hearing will also examine the written testimony of a former U.S. Marshal, now deceased, who was present when the lead prosecutor at MacDonald’s trial coerced a defense witness into changing her testimony and then lied about it to the court.

Discovery Reform Is Long Overdue

In America, if you are accused of a crime, you have the constitutional right to all information in the government’s possession that is favorable to your case. That was the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling nearly fifty years ago in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and it was the law of the land in 1979 when MacDonald was indicted for three murders he almost certainly did not commit. Yet it is a law that still has no teeth. Evidence is all too often withheld from the defense, negligently or intentionally to gain a strategic advantage for the prosecution, and there is very little the courts can do to correct the errors, even in the unlikely cases where such misconduct is later discovered.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which joined the Innocence Project and others in an amicus curiae brief on MacDonald’s behalf, has long sought changes in the federal discovery rules. Model legislation drafted by NACDL’s Discovery Reform Task Force would require the government to disclose to the defense all information favorable to the accused in relation to any issue to be determined in a federal criminal case and provide a range of sanctions for failure to do so.

Bipartisan discovery reform legislation was introduced in the Senate earlier this year. If such legislation had been in effect at the time of MacDonald’s trial, he would have had an opportunity to present all the evidence to the jury, if the case had gone to trial at all.

The MacDonald Case

“At long last, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina will begin the process of examining the evidence in the MacDonald case,” said NACDL President-Elect Jerry J. Cox on the eve of the hearing. “Not just the evidence against the defendant, as appeals courts usually do, and as the federal courts in the MacDonald case have done in the past, but the newly-discovered evidence of his innocence, and evidence that was withheld or suppressed at his 1979 trial. Most of that newly-discovered evidence has been in the possession of the government for over 40 years. MacDonald is only now getting his day in court where that evidence will be presented and, under instructions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, fully considered.”

According to the Fourth Circuit’s decision, the provisions of the habeas corpus statute mandate that “all the evidence” be viewed “as a whole.”¹ 

“As the Fourth Circuit pointed out last year when it reversed Senior Judge James Fox’s decision denial of relief, Judge Fox declined to take into account evidence of innocence that has been submitted in prior proceedings over the years. What’s worse is he also precluded other newly-discovered evidence – specifically, the DNA results and the affidavit of the mother of a key defense witness, Helen Stoeckley. The appeals court has finally instructed Judge Fox to consider all the evidence, as the habeas rules and case law require,” Cox explained.

Since the night of the murders, on February 17, 1970, Jeffrey MacDonald has maintained that the murders were committed by four intruders. After moving his youngest daughter Kristen to her own bed, he said he laid down on the couch and fell asleep:

Sometime later, he was awakened by his wife and oldest daughter's screams and looked up to see a woman with blonde hair wearing a floppy hat, boots and a short skirt carrying a lighted candle and chanting “acid is groovy; kill the pigs.” He said that three men, two white and one black, standing near the couch then attacked him, pulling or tearing his pajama top over his head which he then used to ward off their blows. The three attackers continued to club and stab him until he lost consciousness. When he awoke on the hall steps to the living room, MacDonald stated that he got up and went to the master bedroom where he found his wife dead. He said that he pulled a Geneva Forge knife out of her body and covered her with his pajama top and a bathmat. He then went to his children's rooms and unsuccessfully tried to revive them. After going to the bathroom to wash himself and calling the military police, he again lost consciousness.² 

The story was considered fantastic, and then-Capt. MacDonald was soon arrested by military police on suspicion that he killed his wife daughters in a fit of rage and tried to cover it up by tampering with the crime scene. A military judge found the charges “not true” the following October. Nine years later, MacDonald was indicted, tried and convicted in an unfair trial in federal court for the same crimes.

MacDonald has litigated his innocence and deprivation of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial long enough. The “newly-discovered” DNA evidence was submitted to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab (AFDIL) in 1998. The lab’s analysis, which turned up unidentified DNA proving the presence of intruders, took eight more years.³  The DNA evidence came from “unsourced” human hairs found at the crime scene. One hair was found with blood residue under the fingernail of daughter Kristen MacDonald and one two-inch hair with root and follicle intact found under the body of MacDonald’s wife, Colette.

It has been seven years since former deputy United States Marshal Jimmy B. Britt, now deceased, revealed that a trial prosecutor threatened defense witness Helen Stoeckley⁴, who would have testified that she was with the three men who invaded MacDonald’s home and who murdered MacDonald’s family.

“Nine years passed between the murders and MacDonald’s trial. Thirty-three years more have passed since the verdict. The exculpatory evidence in the case is powerful. The delays in the case have been tragic. The government’s refusal to correct its own errors demands a prompt resolution, for justice delayed is justice denied,” Cox said. “We need to reform the discovery rules to make sure a case like this does not happen again.”

For more information, visit NACDL’s Discovery Reform website at https://www.nacdl.org/Advocacy.aspx?id=21754&libID=21724.

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Conservative Group Ignores Court Order Requiring It To Disclose Donors Behind TV Ad

 ThinkProgress

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia District heard arguments Friday on an appeal in the Van Hollen v. Federal Election Commission case. A district judge ruled in March that outside groups engaging in signficant “electioneering communications” — ads run near federal elections that mention candidates but do not explicitly tell viewers to elect or defeat them — must disclose the donors funding their efforts. The impact of this ruling is limited, because most groups have exploited a loophole allowing them to circumvent the rules. Nevertheless, one group impacted by this decision has thus far failed to identify its big-money donors.

After years of failing to enforce disclosure rules mandated by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly known as McCain-Feingold), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) successfully sued the Federal Election Commission, demanding that it do so. The FEC said in July that it would enforce the ruling, retroactive to the date it was issued. Until such time as a court overturns the ruling, the Commission ordered, all reports of electioneering communications made from March 30, 2012-onward would need to include disclosure of all donors to the group who contributed $1,000 or more. As ThinkProgress reported, that meant just one group would have to amend its earlier filings to name its donors: Freedom Path. An officer for that Utah-based 501(c)(4) committee, which spent thousands of dollars on ads praising Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Mitt Romney, told ThinkProgress at the time that his group would have to consult with their legal counsel before making a statement on whether it intends to comply with the new rule.

Six weeks later, Freedom Path has not yet amended its reports. The Federal Election Commission’s report analysis division has not contacted the group to ask for additional information. The Commission has taken no enforcement action against Freedom Path to date, though it does not make ongoing enforcement investigations public. As a result, voters cannot determine who was truly speaking in the group’s advertising, even though this disclosure is currently required by law. Freedom Path did not respond to multiple emails and phone messages asking for comment.

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House Republicans Plan Two Month Vacation, Leaving Key Bills Awaiting Action

ThinkProgress

House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced Friday that after next week, the House will stand in recess until November 13. His plan for a nearly two month vacation will undoubtedly allow more time for campaigning, but will leave several vital bills awaiting action.

Among the important legislation the House will likely not address before the November elections:

1. Violence Against Women Act re-authorization. Though a bipartisan Senate majority passed the a strong re-authorization bill in April, the Republican House leadership refused to allow a vote on the Senate version of the bill. The House passed a watered down version on a mostly-party lines vote, leaving victims to wait for House action.

2. The American Jobs Act. Republicans have been blocking President Obama’s jobs legislation for more than a year. Though House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) promised in 2010 that a GOP Congress would focus on job creation, he has blocked this bill’s immediate infrastructure investments, tax credits for working Americans and employers, and aid to state and local governments to prevent further layoffs of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public safety officials.

3. Tax cuts for working families. In July, the Senate passed a bill extending tax-cuts for the first $250,000 in annual income. The Republican House leadership has refused to consider the bill, holding it hostage to their demands for a full extension of Bush-era tax cuts for millionaires.

4. Veterans Job Corps Act. The Senate is currently considering bipartisan legislation to help America’s veterans find jobs. The Air Force Times reports that the Republican House has “shown no interest” in the legislation to support those who served the country.

5. Sequestration. A spokesman for Boehner said earlier this week that stopping budget cuts he voted for last August “topped our July agenda and remains atop our agenda for September.” While House Republicans have complained about the imminent spending reductions and passed a bill that would require President Obama to find offsets for spending cuts they don’t like, Republican Leader Canter could not name a single compromise he was willing to make to get a deal.

6. Farm Bill. Despite strong support for a 5-year farm bill from even conservative groups like the Farm Bureau Association — the House leadership has not scheduled a vote on the bill. The current law expires September 30. Without passage, 90 percent of the work of the Department of Agriculture could be defunded.

7. Wind tax credit. The Senate may act next week to renew an expiring wind energy tax credit. Despite bipartisan support — including from original author Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Examiner notes that the House is unlikely to pass the renewal. Despite GOP calls for energy independence, the expiration has threatened the wind energy industry and already led to job cuts.

These, in addition to drought assistance, postal service reform, addressing the Estate Tax, cybersecurity legislation, fixes for Medicare reimbursement rates and the Alternative Minimum Tax, and all 12 of the FY 2013 Appropriations Bills remain unaddressed.

Four years ago, Republicans objected when then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) adjourned Congress for a five-week August recess without bringing up their energy legislation. Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) shouted “Madame Speaker, where art thou? Where oh where has Congress gone?” Now, they plan a two month vacation, even if it means allowing vital programs to expire and working families to suffer.

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Venus and Serena Williams refuse to support documentary about their lives

 TheGrio

Venus and Serena Williams have withdrawn their support for an upcoming tennis documentary about their meteoric rise to stardom. The film, called Venus and Serena, which offers an exclusive look into the private lives of the sisters, was objected to over the content, especially the way the filmmakers portrayed their father, Richard Williams, as a controlling figure.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the sisters will not be attending the Tuesday premiere of the film at the Toronto International. Filmmakers Maiken Baird and Michelle Major expressed regret over losing the support of the Williams sisters.

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First lady Michelle Obama speaking request denied at school in Chesterfield, Virginia

The Grio

First lady Michelle Obama’s request to speak at a Chesterfield County elementary school, while on the campaign trail in Virginia, was rejected by the school officials, citing that it went against school policy.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the Chesterfield school officials refused to discuss the request made by the Obama campaign.

However, James Holland, a Dale District Supervisor, and the only Democrat on the five-member Chesterfield board said, “I do believe and think that Mrs. Obama, the first lady, should be allowed to attend a Chesterfield school.” He continued, “I know it’s not school policy. However, I just do not agree with that, because I think it’s an honor for the first lady to visit a school.”

The Obama campaign in a released statement said that the campaign considers a wide range of locations to when planning its events and the school was among the possible locations, however, the campaign decided on CenterStage theater as the preferred location to hold their event.

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