In 1987, the body of 37-year-old Peggy Hettrick was found in a field in Fort Collins, Colorado. Investigators, led by Lt. Jim Broderick, suspected a 15-year-old boy named Tim Masters because he lived near the field and created violent artwork and writing which seemed, to some people, to match the injuries to Hettrick’s body. There was not enough evidence to charge Masters, and little happened in the investigation until 1997, when Broderick decided to have Masters’ art and writing analyzed by a forensic psychologist, who supported Broderick’s theory. Masters was then charged with murder and was convicted in 1999, at the age of 27, and sentenced to life in prison, even though there was no physical evidence against him. In 2008, DNA testing excluded his DNA from the crime scene and he was cleared and released from prison.
Now, Broderick has finally been charged with eight counts of perjury for his role in Masters’s wrongful conviction. He allegedly made false statements during the investigation, preliminary hearing, and trial and faces up to 6 years in prison plus a $500,o00 fine for each count.
I think it is about time that those responsible for Masters’s imprisonment be held responsible. He spent nine years in prison, even though the evidence shows that he is most likely completely innocent. Masters’s rights were violated, and whenever someone’s rights are violated, someone is responsible for that violation and ought to be punished. In this case, the people responsible are the law enforcement personnel who tried to pin the crime on Masters despite the lack of evidence against him. The evidence so far suggests that Broderick is chief among those people, and it’s time for Tim Masters to see justice.
On Tuesday, Missourians will vote on a ballot measure to outlaw the individual mandate, the part of health insurance reform that requires all Americans, except those who are unable to afford it, to have health insurance. From Missourians for Health Care Freedom, the organization that supports the initiative…
“Patients should have the right to pay directly for medical services with their own money. That’s because when consumers control the dollars, the patient makes the medical treatment decisions… Preserving the rights of patients to pay directly for medical care ensures that patients – not government bureaucrats – decide which doctor to see or what medical treatment to choose.”
Support Proposition C!
The Democratic National Committee decided to try to be cute and create a parody of conservatives called the Republican Tea Party Contract on America. The items on the “agenda:”
- Repeal the Affordable Health Care Act (Health Insurance Reform)
- Privatize Social Security or phase it out altogether
- End Medicare as it presently exists
- Extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy and big oil
- Repeal Wall Street Reform
- Protect those responsible for the oil spill and future environmental catastrophes
- Abolish the Department of Education
- Abolish the Department of Energy
- Abolish the Environmental Protection Agency
- Repeal the 17th Amendment
This list doesn’t seem half bad!
Take, for example, abolishing the “Affordable Health Care Act.” That would (gasp!) allow people to decide for themselves whether or not to buy health insurance. Contrary to what the mock Contract says, abolishing this law would not “put insurance companies back in charge” but would restore some freedom to consumers. If forcing everyone to buy health insurance doesn’t put insurance companies in charge, nothing does.
And abolishing Social Security isn’t a bad idea either. People should be able to decide for themselves how or whether to save for retirement instead of having money taken from them. People who have paid into Social Security are entitled to receive benefits, but if Social Security was phased out starting with people who are just entering the work force, then people would no longer need it because they would be able to keep their own money and save, spend, or invest it as they wish.
If the DNC was being serious with this Contract, then I would applaud them for having some good ideas. Not perfect, but good overall. It’s too bad they’re being sarcastic, because instead they just come off as ignorant and mean-spirited.
Senator John Kerry (D-MA) is facing a lot of flak for docking his and his wife’s yacht “Isabel” in Rhode Island, where he doesn’t have to pay taxes on it. I actually don’t think there is anything wrong with Kerry’s decision (and the author of this letter in the Globe agrees with me!).
Kerry is a typical Democrat who has voted for tax increases on the national level several times, so his desire to avoid the 6.75% Massachusetts sales tax does come off as inconsistent…but maybe Kerry is starting to realize how excessive taxes are in Massachusetts. I don’t agree with Kerry’s opinions about taxes if his votes are any indication, but I agree with his decision to try to avoid the sales tax (if that was, indeed, the reason behind keeping the boat in Rhode Island). When a tax is unjust, people have the right to do anything they can to avoid it.
Unfortunately, Kerry just said that he will pay the roughly $500,000 in state and local taxes that he would have owed had he kept the yacht in Massachusetts. I wish he had stuck to his guns in order to make a statement against the recent sales tax hike. Wouldn’t it be awesome if our Democratic senior senator took a stand against the ever-growing, ever-spending government of Taxachusetts?
Edit: As Jeff Jacoby points out, Kerry isn’t even doing anything illegal. He is just living his life in the way that makes the most financial sense, given the tax laws.
Famous psychiatrist Keith Ablow blogged about an advertising campaign from Final Exit Network, a pro-assisted-suicide organization, which is posting billboards along highways that read “My life. My death. My choice.” Dr. Ablow argues that these billboards could trigger people with depression to commit suicide, and that the organization should be held liable if that happened.
I disagree. All that the billboard says is that people have the right to choose whether to live or die. It doesn’t encourage anyone to kill themselves or say that dying is a better decision than living; it just says that both are valid choices. If someone decides to commit suicide, it means that at that point in time, they believed suicide to be the best option. In my opinion, people have a right to make that decision, even though it is drastic and in some cases might be rash.
People commit suicide because their lives are so miserable that they would prefer death, whether because of a terminal illness, low self-esteem, being tormented or bullied by others, or some other reason. These things are the causes of suicide that need to be solved, not some billboard proclaiming that you have the right to decide for yourself how and when to die (which is true). Billboards do not force anyone to commit suicide, nor can they truly cause suicide, and the creators of such billboards should not be held responsible for anyone’s deaths.
