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Update: Arizona execution takes nearly two hours
Tonight on the show, we covered the breaking news of an execution in Arizona that took nearly two hours to complete. The Arizona Department of Corrections used a new cocktail of drugs, including one -- midazolam -- that has been linked to other executions that did not go as planned.
Witnesses to the execution today describe the prisoner as gasping for air more than 600 times. One compared it to watching a fish that had been thrown on shore, opening and closing its mouth. The execution lasted so long that lawyers for the prisoner asked the courts to stay the execution in progress. "He is still alive," they told the court.
They did not get that order. But they did get a court order requiring the county medical examiner to preserve tissue from the body and to take blood samples by 11 P.M. Eastern tonight. On the show, attorney Dale Baich told us the local medical examiner had said he would not comply with a court order to draw blood from the executed prisoner by that deadline. From the interview:
Ahead on the 7/23/14 Maddow show
Tonight's guests:
- Mauricio Marin, reporter for CBS's Tucson affiliate KOLD TV. He witnessed the execution today.
- Dale Baich, attorney for Joseph Wood, witnessed botched execution today
- Thomas Kaplan, reporter for the New York Times
Here's executive producer Bill Wolff with a video preview of a show you should not miss:
Wednesday's Mini-Report, 7.23.14
Today's edition of quick hits:
* Ukraine: "Two Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jets were shot down on Wednesday in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border. The planes were downed in an area of heavy fighting between government forces and Russian-backed separatists, near where a Malaysia Airlines jet was blown out of the sky on Thursday, killing 298 people and drawing international dismay."
* Unimaginable: "Parents who lost three young children and their grandfather when Flight MH17 was shot down by pro-Putin rebels revealed that they now 'live in a hell beyond hell.'"
* Middle East: "Israel faced new political and economic pressures on Wednesday to negotiate a halt to the 16-day-old Gaza war, with its rising toll of death and destruction, as cease-fire talks ground forward and the Israeli tourism industry was upended as major foreign airlines extended their suspension of flights over fears of Palestinian rocket fire."
* U.N.: "The United Nations Human Rights Council voted to establish an inquiry into human rights violations in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories at a special session on Wednesday in which the top human rights official, Navi Pillay, said Israel and Hamas had likely committed war crimes with indiscriminate attacks on civilians."
* Intelligence released: "The Obama administration, detailing what it called evidence of Russian complicity in the downing of a Malaysian airliner, on Tuesday released satellite images and other sensitive intelligence that officials say show Moscow had trained and equipped rebels in Ukraine responsible for the attack."
* A career-ender for Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.)? "An examination of the final paper required for Mr. Walsh's master's degree from the United States Army War College indicates the senator appropriated at least a quarter of his thesis on American Middle East policy from other authors' works, with no attribution."
* House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is blasting President Obama for supporting a 2008 human trafficking law. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) is blasting President Obama for opposing the same 2008 human trafficking law. Hmm.
* Confirmation now appears certain: "The Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved President Obama's pick to lead the troubled Veterans Affairs Department, sending his nomination to the full chamber. Senators voted 14-0 for former Procter & Gamble executive Robert McDonald to run the agency, which has been rocked by a scandal over falsified reports over how long veterans were waiting for care."
At the intersection of Ted Cruz and bad charts
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) really wants to deport Dream Act kids. I mean, he desperately wants to deport them. The far-right senator knows these young people have been living, working, and studying in the United States for most of their lives. And he knows America is the only home they've ever known.
But the Texas Republican has nevertheless made kicking these young people out of the country his "top priority." Cruz is approaching this with a zealotry that's rather unnerving, and he's urging other GOP lawmakers to do the same.
This is no excuse, however, for bad charts.
Fox hosts blast 911 calls from immigrants
There's obviously no point in getting too excited about every foolish remark uttered on "Fox & Friends," but this story by way of Emily Arrowood, is pretty extraordinary, even by Fox standards.
On July 23, Fox & Friends centered a discussion on how undocumented immigrants in Brooks County, Texas are "bombarding" the police department with 911 calls. Host Brian Kilmeade ... suggested Brooks County emergency response services might be strained because, "not only are they understaffed and lacking resources, now they've got to deal with illegal immigrants who have no business being here."As an example, the program aired two emergency calls from Spanish speakers each identified on-screen as "Immigrant." In the first, a distressed male requests emergency assistance for his cousin, whom the man described as "turning blue." Another call featured a man and woman explaining to the 911 operator that they have not had access to water in three days.
During the on-air interview, Kilmeade asked the deputy, "So those calls, you have to respond to, even though for the most part, when you get there you realize, they're not even American citizens?"
Co-host Steve Doocy added his concerns about "a small Texas town" that's "forced to answer 911 from stranded illegals in Spanish."
How the show knows that Spanish-speaking people in Texas who call 911 are "illegal immigrants who have no business being here" is unclear. Maybe they're Spanish-speaking Americans with an emergency. Maybe they're tourists.
More important, though, is what "Fox & Friends" would recommend as a remedy to this perceived problem. Should there be some kind of test in which 911 operators check callers' citizenship status before dispatching first responders?
Let's pause for a quick refresher on the point of 911 operations.
Congrats Washington, you finally did it. You broke the democracy. Voter participation is cratering http://t.co/oQY7nwsNlQ
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) July 22, 2014
What is the 'working group' working on, exactly?
It's been a few weeks since President Obama presented Congress with a pretty credible package to address the humanitarian crisis at the U.S./Mexico border. Congressional Republicans have made clear that they don't like the White House's proposed solution, though they have no alternative of their own.
At least, not yet. Robert Costa reports that House Republicans are nearly ready to present their own proposal, which would mandate deploying National Guard troops for no particular reason, and require reforms to the Bush/Cheney law that provides a legal process for these unaccompanied Central American children.
Rep. Kay Granger (R-Tex.), who led the House GOP "working group" tasked with tackling the issue, planned to share her team's recommendations during the closed-door weekly House Republican meeting. On her way in, carrying a binder of papers and pamphlets, Granger said a vote on her proposals "should happen right now.""Every day that we delay, thousands more come across the border," she said.
Actually, no. That's incorrect. "In the first 14 days of July, Customs and Border Protection officials apprehended an average of 150 unaccompanied children per day in the Rio Grande Valley -- a figure that has plunged from about 355 per day in June," we learned yesterday.
Presumably, if an elected member of Congress is tasked to lead a "working group" on the border crisis, he or she would not only have access to detailed information, but would also know that claims such as "every day ... thousands more come across the border" aren't true.
It's important to have this policy debate, but it'll be a more constructive debate if policymakers stick to the facts.
And the facts tell us that despite the recent crisis, illegal immigration is actually down sharply.