Four forensic pathologists agree that Larry Swearingen, set to be executed Tuesday, could not have committed the 1998 murder that sent him to death row.

The four include the medical examiner whose testimony helped secure Swearingen’s guilty verdict. That medical examiner now says college student Melissa Trotter’s curiously preserved body could not have lain in the East Texas woods for more than 14 days — and probably was there for a much shorter time.

The results mean Swearingen was in jail when the 19-year-old’s body was left behind, the pathologists say.

At the least there is significant objective doubt as to whether or not Swearingen could have committed this murder. All attempts to have the courts review this evidence or reconsider have fallen upon deaf ears. It is now down to appeals to mercy from a hangin’ Republican in order to extinguish all options.

Update: Fed court intervenes, grants appeal, execution is stayed. Fantastic!

Welcome back, billmon.

In addition, next week that tradition of service continues as roughly 2,000 of New York’s citizen soldiers will be shipping out to Afghanistan. On behalf of the State, I will be there to wish them well, share our pride, and offer our prayers for their safe return.

And when they do return, we owe them our gratitude, but also something more – we owe them the chance to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities at home they have so honorably fought for overseas. In the name of all of those who have served on our behalf, I will send you a bill guaranteeing New York’s returning combat veterans a benefit that covers the full cost of SUNY or CUNY tuition, and that can be used at any college or university in New York State.

That’s a fantastic idea and a great, if inadequate to the debt owed, tribute to those who have served this demonspawned administration in their ill begotten war.

Spitzer’s taken on a number of highly powerful, highly funded, anti-we, the People interest groups since his time as an AG. Right on, Elliot.

This doesn’t surprise me. Republicans have long been hypocrites when it came to the religious right. Even Ronald Reagan, the darling of the right-wing, ridiculed the Christian conservatives.

But Bush embraced the Bible thumpers with carefully-orchestrated public enthusiasm while he cursed like a sailor and ridiculed them behind closed doors. He called the Constitution a “goddamned piece of paper,” refers to political enemies as “fucking idiots” and lies without remorse to Congress, the American people.

Kuo’s book uncovers another sham by the Bush White House, another callous use of supporters for political gain and another lie from an administration whose record is built on deception.

God’s gonna get ‘em for that.

Be good to have less lies, suffering and death!
That’s the whole problem with being a diplomatic nation, no war!

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Patricia C. Dunn, the former chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard, and four other people will be named in indictments expected to be filed by California’s attorney general today in the spying case at the company, according to lawyers involved in the case.

In addition to Ms. Dunn, Attorney General Bill Lockyer intends to indict Kevin T. Hunsaker, a former senior lawyer at H.P.; Ronald L. DeLia, a Boston-area private detective; Joseph DePante, owner of Action Research Group, a Melbourne, Fla., information broker; and Bryan Wagner, a Littleton, Colo., man who is said to have obtained private phone records while working for Mr. DePante.

All of those named face four charges: using of false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, unauthorized access to computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit each of those crimes. All of the charges are felonies.

Carly “the Hatchet” Fiorina’s coming to Hewlett Packard was the worst thing that ever happened to that company (most notably, the merger with Compaq, which was almost as bad as AOL-Time Warner). Fiorina drove a former flagship company into an amorphous, unweildy limpid and that, combined with her unethical, self-serving corruption, irretrievably sullied HP’s name (Fiorina is GOP, of course). In short: she ran that company into the ground… and got a $21 million severance package for her troubles.

Dunn was Carly’s replacement and it looks like she brought the culture of corruption with her. Unethical, amoral, and apparently illegal.

There’s an interesting parallel between the corporate illegalities and spying and the actions of the current administration (you know, the one with the “CEO” president), but I think it goes back further than just this administration. The current corruption, from WorldCom to Enron to HP can be traced to the unending GOP attempts to deregulate anything and everything associated with capitalism.

Should we be surprised? Perhaps, but only that these guys got caught.

The civil suits to follow should be quite entertaining.

Democratic leaders expressed strong support today for Ned Lamont, who won a narrow victory in Connecticut’s Democratic Senate primary last night over the incumbent, Joseph I. Lieberman, and said the election result showed that Mr. Lieberman was too close to President George Bush.

Mr. Lieberman, meanwhile, filed papers in Hartford to seek reelection as an independent candidate, and said in a televised interview that there was no one who could persuade him to give up the race.

The man of “principle” shows what his principles really are about – preserving his entitled position. I hope he gets everything that he deserves in this race – humiliation, pain, and defeat.

On with the Nedrenaline!