Attorney General Wants to Go
Back to Gas Chamber
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In an interview this week with the Kansas City Star, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster suggested that Missouri should go back to using the gas chamber as its method of execution.
 The statement came on the heels of a request Monday by the Attorney General to the Missouri Supreme Court to set executions dates for two men before the supply of propofol, the state's current execution drug, expires next summer. Missouri announced last year that it was going to start using propofol when it was difficult to obtain pentobarbital, the most-used execution drug. No sooner than propofol was adopted by state officials, a federal lawsuit was filed and the Missouri Supreme Court has declined to set any executions until the litigation is resolved. The state has executed two men by lethal injection since 2005.
The last Missouri execution by the gas chamber was carried out in 1965. Thirty-nine prisoners were executed by this method from 1938-1965. Although its gas chamber was dismantled years ago, Missouri never removed the lethal gas option from state law.
Click here for the Kansas City Star article.
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Gas Chamber, a Cruel, Archaic Punishment
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Missouri is only one of four states that retains the gas chamber as its secondary method of execution.
Executions by lethal gas were carried out in an airtight chamber where the condemned would be strapped to a chair. A lever dropped cyanide pellets into a crock containing sulfuric acid that was situated under the chair. The lethal gas would asphyxiate the person.
The last execution in the United States by gas chamber was carried out in Arizona in 1992. According to the Death Penalty Information Center it was a botched execution. The person took 10-12 minutes to expire and was thrashing violently, moaning, gasping for air. One reporter witnessing the execution wrote...."This was a violent death...an ugly event. We put animals to death more humanely."
If Missouri were to reinstate the gas chamber, there is little doubt that it would be challenged in court as violating the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment". Such torture has no place in a civilized society.
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Religious Leaders Call For
Conscience Protections
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This week - just prior to the Independence Day Celebration - over 100 prominent religious leaders issued an open letter entitled Standing Together for Religious Freedom. The letter calls on the Obama Administration and Congress to respect rights of conscience and religious freedom.
The letter calls attention to various threats to religious liberty, including the mandate that all employers provide health coverage for contraception, sterilizations and abortion drugs. At a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, chairman of the bishops Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, said:
"As the Catholic bishops have said from the very beginning, the underlying issue with the HHS mandate is not about any specific teaching. In fact, other signatories on the letter do not share our view on contraception and probably disagree with us in many other ways, but they understand the core religious freedom issue at stake here."
Signers of the letter include representatives from the Southern Baptist Convention, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and Orthodox Christians and Jews. |
Pope Francis to Canonize
John XXIII and John Paul II Together
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A Vatican spokesman announced this week that Pope Francis will convene a gathering of Cardinals to set a date for the canonization of John XXIII and John Paul II later this year. Francis recently approved a second miracle attributed to John Paul II and has decided to move forward with the canonization of John XXIII because "no one doubts" the holiness of the Pope who issued the call to convene the Second Vatican Council which met between 1962 and 1965. |
Pope Francis Issues First Encyclical
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Pope Francis issued his first encyclical this week, a work entitled Light of Faith (Lumen fidei), which was begun by Pope Benedict XVI and recently completed by Pope Francis. The encyclical affirms Christian orthodoxy, and also encourages Christians to show an openness to those seeking God, regardless of what path they are on now.
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Your State Government: LIHEAP
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 In 2012, Americans overall spent less on home energy bills than they had in a decade. However, the neediest and most vulnerable still spend about twice as much of their income on energy bills as the rest of the population.
In 1981, Congress created the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and funds it annually through appropriations. In the last several years, budget cuts have affected this program.
This year's Sequestration cut the program by about $175 million in funding nationally. Even with the cuts, LIHEAP will be able to help thousands of people cool their homes this summer. Low-income families often cut back on other necessities to pay their energy bills.
The Associated Press has reported that in Missouri LIHEAP provided 147,003 houses with financial assistance for heating and 31,242 homes with cooling assistance in 2012. In Missouri, the average benefit was $199.
In the state of Missouri, LIHEAP is administered statewide by the Department of Social Services and implemented locally by Community Action Agencies.
LIHEAP offers assistance with cooling bills from now through September 30. Beginning on October 1, seniors and the disabled may apply for heating assistance, while all others can apply for heating assistance from November 1-March 31.
There is year-round crisis assistance as well. This year the state initially was given about $64,280,363 for LIHEAP funding.
Click here for heating or cooling assistance forms.
Weatherization is also key in keeping heating and cooling costs low. There are programs that will assist with weatherization, as it will help save the consumer more money in the long run by having more heating and cooling efficiency.
Click here to visit the LIHEAP Action Center for Missouri.
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If there was one thing the Founders dreaded most, the thing they felt could bring down good government the most rapidly, it was the curse of faction. In Federalist No. 10 James Madison defined faction in this way:
"By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interest of the community."
 | | President James Madison |
To counteract factionalism, Madison urged the participation of virtuous citizens. He would have wholeheartedly concurred with Blessed John Paul II who declared that: "Democracy needs virtue." Madison, however, believed that faction could never be completely eliminated if democracy were to be preserved: "Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an ailment without which it instantly expires." The cure was not to outlaw factionalism, which would be tantamount to declaring a dictatorship, but to protect the expression of many points of view through a republican form of government.
Instead of a direct democracy where a demagogue could incite a majority to run roughshod over the rights of a minority, Madison urged the representative form of government that would "refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations."
If Madison were to visit us today, what would he think? Would he consider the governmental structure he and his fellows patriots established in the 18th century equal to the challenges of the 21st century? No doubt he would take a close look at the influence of money in politics, the use of initiative petitions to bypass legislative deliberation and the powers of the judiciary.
One thing Madison would surely insist upon is that the structure of government matters. It can encourage either good or bad behavior in public officials. Structural questions may appear to be of only secondary concern, but, in fact, the mechanics of a government profoundly affect how well that government can promote the common good.
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The Pew Research Center has taken a closer look at the recent historic decline in U.S. birth rates. While birth rates have increased among women in their early 40s, it has dropped among younger women. Read the Pew report for more.
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