Texas executes a man for robbery as Perry thumbs his nose at parole board

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles is so stacked with rightwing death penalty supporters that it almost never recommends commuting a sentence. But it did so the other day for Robert Lee Thompson on account of the fact that he didn't kill anybody. He was party to a robbery in which someone else shot and killed a store clerk, but Thompson was not the gunman. However, under a bizarre rule called the "Law of Parties" he was convicted of murder anyway and sent to death row. His last chance came when the parole board reviewed his case and recommended his sentence be commuted to life in prison.
Unfortunately for Thompson Gov. Rick Perry is running for re-election in a Republican primary where he has established himself as the ultimate wingnut, Tea Party, seccessionist in order to place himself to the right of rightwing Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. So he obviously felt that he could not do anything that would wreak of liberalism like commuting a death sentence, even if the guy wasn't a killer. So now Thompson is dead. He was lethally injected tonight. End of story.
Except to say that Rick Perry is a lowlife scumbag.

Express-News promotes lone conservative dissenter; ignores liberal majority

I'm still shaking my head over this article from the San Antonio Express-News on Wednesday.

Texas students will feel ashamed of this country instead of proud and likely get a liberally biased view of U.S. history if new social studies curriculum standards are not changed, says a dissenting member of a team responsible for the proposed guidelines.
...
Proposed curriculum standards covering U.S. history would “indoctrinate impressionable students that America is a terrible place,” says Bill Ames, a Dallas-area retired IBM executive who lost several 7-1 votes this year on one of the review committees developing the new standards.

The article goes on and on quoting this Ames fellow in depth. Later on, they quote another member of the panel defending its decisions but does not spend any time delving into their thoughts on social studies curriculum guidelines.

So ONE GUY gets all this attention. The lone dissenter on a panel of 7 experts. Why? Why should we care?? Probably for the same reason that the E-N ran several front page articles promoting Sarah Palin's new book. They must think that catering to rightwingers will somehow shield them from charges of "liberal bias" and that will somehow convince people to start buying the paper again.

Well, it ain't going to work because we are not talking about rational people here. We are talking about ideologues who will just find some other reason to continue believing their "liberal media is bad" doctrine. It doesn't matter how many times the E-N endorses Bush (twice) or Palin (once so far) for president. The "movement conservatives" will not change their opinion because it would require them to acknowledge that they are not always the victims and the underdogs fighting against a powerful, corrupt enemy.