99XWatch.org

Rightwing Mythology on WMD Goes Unchallenged

In the 6:30 News Pile a conservative caller echoed rightwing mythology that "Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were secretly shipped to Syria before the March 2003 invasion".  The March 2005 addendum to the "Duelfer Report" stated:

Based on the evidence available at present, ISG [Iraq Survey Group] judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place.  However, ISG was unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials.

True to form, conservatives seem to have no problem with quoting the second sentence of the above paragraph, out of context from the first. 

It should be noted that it was Jimmy Baron's strong criticism of Bush that precipitated the conservative caller.

Supreme Court Divided, TL&J Unanimous

In a 5-4 Decision, the United States Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for juvenile offenders. In this morning's 7:30 news pile, Toucher, Leslie, Jimmy, and Wally all voiced opposition to the decision, while failing to articulate the rational behind it. They took one caller, who, as well, opposed the decision.

A listener to the show might conclude that most people support executing those under 18. In fact, the majority of the country, indeed the world is opposed to executing juveniles. As Justice Kennedy wrote: "only seven countries other than the United States have executed juvenile offenders since 1990: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, [and] Nigeria. Since then each of these countries has either abolished capital punishment for juveniles or made public disavowal of the practice." "30 States prohibit the juvenile death penalty." Among the 20 states where executing juvenile offenders is legal, "in the past 10 years, only three have done so: Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia."

Text of decision.