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November 30, 2014 9:37 am - NewsBehavingBadly.com

Republicans sure like to execute people but, like so much of what they do, the public gets a little uneasy when informed about the things they love to do. The Solution? Propose a law making the details of government executions secret.

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Republican lawmakers in Ohio are rushing through the most extreme secrecy bill yet attempted by a death penalty state, which would withhold information on every aspect of the execution process from the public, media and even the courts.

The draft legislation, framed by Republican state lawmakers Jim Buchy and Matt Huffman, has passed the state House of Representatives and now goes before the Senate. Republican leaders, backed by Ohio’s attorney general, Mike DeWine, want to ram it through no later than 17 December.

The move to erect a wall of secrecy is particularly alarming in Ohio, a state that has experienced no fewer than four botched executions in the past eight years. The most recent was the 26-minute death of Dennis McGuire in January, using an experimental two-drug combination. Eyewitnesses reported him gasping and fighting for breath.[su_csky_ad]

D.B. Hirsch
D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

32 responses to Ohio Republicans Want Secret Government Executions

  1. Carla Akins November 30th, 2014 at 9:43 am

    I’d say Ricky Jackson is the most alarming thing about this law. http://www.alan.com/2014/11/29/freed-after-39-years/

  2. mea_mark November 30th, 2014 at 9:59 am

    The real Death Panels are coming, and they are secret right-wing panels.

    • M D Reese November 30th, 2014 at 11:59 am

      Many are sitting openly on the Supreme Court.

  3. anothertoothpick November 30th, 2014 at 10:16 am

    If you have to keep a secret it’s because you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”
    ― David Nicholls, One Day

  4. crc3 November 30th, 2014 at 10:54 am

    Teapublicans (not just in Ohio) want to continue to build on fascist governing. Possibly the beginning of Nazi America?

    • rg9rts November 30th, 2014 at 11:24 am

      And you think that is an amusement park they are building

      • crc3 November 30th, 2014 at 11:48 am

        ?????

        • rg9rts November 30th, 2014 at 11:58 am

          Concentration camps

          • Robert Keith Johnston November 30th, 2014 at 3:46 pm

            They had both, actually.
            There were four “death camps”, with all located in what is modern-day Poland:
            Auschwitz-Bierkenau
            Sobibor
            Madjenik
            Treblinka.

            In these four camps, most of the “new arrivals” were sent to the gas chamber, with only a very few selected to toil as slave labor (with most of these gassed-and-cremated as well).

            The other camps (ie: Buchenwald, Malthausen, Dachau, Ravensbruch, Gross-Rosen) were mainly labor-type camps, where they they were worked to death (or died in more gruesome ways for breaking the rules).

            Check out The Holocaust Chronicle for the information (you can find it at your local library, or on Amazon.com) on the different camps.
            –RKJ

        • M D Reese November 30th, 2014 at 11:58 am

          In Nazi Germany, the “undesirables” were taken off to the death camps in buses which had pictures of happy people going off on “vacation” pasted to the inside of the windows.

      • FrankenPC . November 30th, 2014 at 12:09 pm

        Depends on who’s being amused.

  5. rg9rts November 30th, 2014 at 11:23 am

    Weren’t these the same clowns that howled about death panels???

    • M D Reese November 30th, 2014 at 11:56 am

      The very same. This is DIFFERENT though…in their minds.

      • FrankenPC . November 30th, 2014 at 12:08 pm

        It’s a totally other thing. This is totally, not like that other thing. At all. Move along.

        • M D Reese November 30th, 2014 at 1:41 pm

          (Not a damn thing to see here…)

      • GreatLakeSailor November 30th, 2014 at 2:44 pm

        Secret executions happen to “Them.”
        Death Panels on the other hand, those could happen to “Us”
        So Secret Executions are OK, ’cause there’s no way “I” could go from an “Us” to a “Them” No possible way at all. Nuh-uh. Nope. Zeeee-Row.

        • M D Reese November 30th, 2014 at 4:11 pm

          And they don’t want to tax the filthy rich because they all think that they will win the lottery someday…geniuses, all.

  6. Hirightnow November 30th, 2014 at 11:24 am

    Unconstitutional.

  7. arc99 November 30th, 2014 at 11:24 am

    It is uncanny how right wingers are consistently most guilty of the policies they pretend to oppose.

    They rail against Sharia law, then turn right around and use the Bible to justify legislation.

    They warn of the evils of big government, but have no problem mandating what must occur in an office visit between a doctor and a woman seeking an abortion.

    Now they want to hide behind a wall of secrecy while they carry out taxpayer funded policy. The taxpayers who foot the bill for these executions will have no way to determine if their tax dollars are being put to the best use.

    Right wingers love to call us lefties “socialists”. Personally, I find that being called a socialist by a bunch of closet fascists tells me that I am doing the right thing.

    • Roctuna November 30th, 2014 at 11:47 am

      I’d say the fascists came out of the closet around 1980 and they’ve been getting more strident ever since.

    • M D Reese November 30th, 2014 at 11:56 am

      Hear hear!

    • GreatLakeSailor November 30th, 2014 at 2:12 pm

      Agreed. Paragraph 4: I’d come to the same conclusion, but one based not on “what the peoples representatives are doing with/best use of tax dollars” but rather, “what the peoples representatives are doing in our name/with our empowerment

      Maybe I’m pickin’ at nits, but for me the moral implications of secret executions is far and away more important than money.

  8. M D Reese November 30th, 2014 at 11:55 am

    It cracks me up on how the tough-on-crime party wants to do its dirty work in secret.
    We have this little Constitution thingy–the same Constitution that they all claim they want us to get “back” to.

    • FrankenPC . November 30th, 2014 at 12:07 pm

      Forget that! This is the same party that relentlessly claims communism is the most horrible thing on the planet. Yeah, well, secret executions are VERY communist.

      • M D Reese November 30th, 2014 at 1:44 pm

        True that. If I tried to make sense out of the thoughts in their heads, my head would explode.

  9. Roctuna November 30th, 2014 at 12:21 pm

    Goes hand in hand with this kind of thinking

    http://crooksandliars.com/2014/11/boxcar-conservatives

  10. neworleans878 November 30th, 2014 at 12:52 pm

    Why stop there? Let’s make the whole judicial process secret! Bring back the Star Chamber!

  11. whatthe46 November 30th, 2014 at 2:08 pm

    well, if its botched, no one will know a thing about it. i get it now.

  12. Warman1138 November 30th, 2014 at 5:02 pm

    The GOP in Ohio are having a ”Happy Orwell” moment. But seriously, once you open this door then it’s only a matter of time before other things related become secret. Like arrests, indictments, jails, prisons, law enforcement, courts; etc. will become shrouded in mystery and misinformation.

    • whatthe46 November 30th, 2014 at 6:33 pm

      much like the ferguson prosecution.

  13. Spirit of America November 30th, 2014 at 7:47 pm

    The bill has 3 main components:
    1. The compounding pharmacy’s name isn’t a matter of public record for 20 years unless needed. Plus the administrators/participants are given the same.
    (personally I agree w/this. the injection is made per person, not sell a gallon and use over/over. if something goes wrong, then the name of the cp is divulged for the investigation/trial, but not until then)

    2. Voiding agreements to ban drug sales.
    (disagree w/this provision. for several reasons actually)

    3. Prevents the Ohio State Medical
    Board from revoking or suspending the license of any physician who
    provides expert testimony on the state’s death penalty.
    (I agree w/this part as well. the revoking/suspending because of providing testimony shouldn’t happen for any topic. juries need data, not to mention the free speech aspect.)

  14. Dave Lanson December 1st, 2014 at 3:47 pm

    We have the chance to become another El Salvador or Chile. We’ll have our own “disappeared” who simply cease to exist.