• A national disgrace.
• The Nation: The Killing of Troy Davis.
• A typical wingnut response.
• Tonight’s GOP debate: same as the last one.
• But…class warfare!

Comforting to know that being put to death without any physical evidence and seven of nine witnesses recanting is still possible in this country. And they say things aren’t like they used to be in ‘Murica. [Engage USA! chant macro]

Sarah Brightman and Antonio Banderas — The Phantom of the Opera, from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 50th birthday celebration at The Royal Albert Hall.

Over the last year, one phrase has continually popped up to justify a lack of investment to help create jobs and grow the US economy – “economic certainty.” This phrase was used to justify and praise the extension of the Bush/Obama tax cuts in December. It was used for the Debt Ceiling increase. It is being used to justify the Super Committee efforts and the push for another tax holiday for corporations on their overseas profits.

The House failed to pass a stopgap continuing resolution to fund the government today, as Democrats mostly held together to reject the bill, which included a cut to a clean vehicles loan guarantee program to offset disaster relief funding.

The reason that the minority Democrats had leverage at all was because House conservatives refused to vote for the stopgap bill, which funds the government for two months in Fiscal Year 2012 at the level of spending agreed to in the debt limit deal. Those 48 conservatives wanted to break the deal and cut spending to a lower level than the agreed-upon amount. And John Boehner couldn’t whip them to his side.

The debate on the topic of North Carolina’s discriminatory, job-killing marriage amendment was really over before it began when bill sponsor, the bigoted State House Majority Leader Rep. Paul “Skip” Stam (R-Apex) passed out two documents to the attendees at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Law today. In his opening remarks he gleefully referred to the “Act Concerning Marriages (1669)” handout (below) as if it were some holy text representing law in North Carolina. He seems to have forgotten that in 1669, blacks were slaves and they couldn’t even marry one another. That’s a real tradition to uphold.

The Federal Reserve released their statement after an unusual two-day meeting to assess possibilities for expanding monetary policy. As expected, they plan to do a version of “Operation Twist,” where they swap short-term debt for long-term debt in an attempt to lower long-term interest rates.

The President’s deficit reduction plan includes a non-trivial swath of Medicare and Medicaid cuts, including some cuts for public health and prevention, as well as means testing and higher co-pays for certain services.

We’re told that most of the cuts are to providers. In fact, the largest portion of cuts comes from a rebate by drug manufacturers, basically forcing the drug companies to charge lower prices for their sales to Medicare.

UPDATE 2: Supreme Court refuses the stay, will not block the execution.

UPDATE: The Supreme Court of the United States has temporarily issued a reprieve while they consider the case. Could be minutes, could be hours, could be seven days.

The Georgia Pardons & Paroles Board is set to execute Troy Davis at 7 pm ET on International Day of Peace. Troy Davis’ attorneys filed a motion for an emergency stay of execution. Lawyers wrote, according to Huffington Post, “No physical evidence has ever conclusively linked Mr. Davis to the murder and significant suspicion rests on the man who implicated Mr. Davis to the police originally.” The Board denied the motion. The defense also wanted a certificate of probable cause to appeal. That was denied too.

The percentage of young American adults between the ages of 18-25 without health insurance decreased over the past year, while the percentage of adults over 26 without insurance increased, according to Gallup.