Texas Red: A cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable public education, lack of health care

“A report that concluded that a faulty investigation led to the execution of a Texas man won't be reviewed by a state board as planned after Gov. Rick Perry abruptly removed three people from the panel. The report criticized the arson finding that led to Cameron Todd Willingham's execution for the deaths of his three daughters in a 1991 blaze.” Dave Mann, a reporter with the Texas Observer, discusses the case on NPR’s All Things Considered.Texas Governor Fires Commissioners Probing Arson

Rick Perry is a devotee of Cleon Skousen, “scholar-turned-conspiracy theorist whose “The 5,000 Year Leap” re-packages Mormon ethics into an argument that the founding fathers were inspired by 28 “fundamental” and divine beliefs in the creation of America.” Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and W. Cleon Skousen

New Yorker - Willingham 

           This mentality (or perhaps lack of) should be very familiar to Americans.It is similar to the mentality of the people we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan---fundamentalist, violent and misguided.

It is a fundamentalism bolstered by ambition.It is what our Founders feared--- that partisan and individual ambition for office would be greater than ambition for what is right for the republic and its citizens. This is an ugly example.

The removal of three members of a panel set to review the facts surrounding the execution of what many believe was an innocent man by Rick Perry must be seen for what it is.

Perry’s defenders say the governor has the authority to do what he has done and that the terms of the three members of the panel were near their end.

Viewed from another frame this is an issue of importance to the entire population of the state.The investigation would have reviewed what may be systemic flaws.That benefits the process as a whole and had the additional potential of providing facts with which to silence critics.

But if what pundits believe is correct then this was just one more goper (GOP member) “preemptive” strike on transparency for purely political reasons.Perry just didn’t want the pesky distraction of an investigation that might prove that an innocent man was executed on his watch.After all there are elections to be won.

Perry’s refusal to fund the nine member panel only exacerbates his insistence on ignoring the evidence.

His actions or more correctly lack of actions is reprehensible and possibly actionable if not impeachable.That---with the exception of a few free thinkers---the fine folk of the Lone Star state are behind Perry speaks volumes about Texas Red.

For more info:

• Texas Governor Fires Commissioners Probing Arson

• Trial By Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?
• The Price of Innocence
• Texas: The Death Penalty, the prison-industrial complex, and compassionate conservative Christians