ProPublica has been collecting evidence of Trump’s “midnight regulations,” the last-minute rule changes he and his cruel administration want to impose before they leave office.
https://projects.propublica.org/trump-midnight-regulations
Most egregious perhaps is the rule change that brings back execution of prisoners by firing squad or execution. This from an administration that claims to be pro-life.
There have been no federal executions of prisoners for 17 years. Attorney General Bill Barr revived the death penalty in 2019. Eight Federal prisoners have been killed this year. Five more are scheduled to be put to death before Biden takes office.
Biden opposes the death penalty and is sure to reverse this cruel revival of barbaric practices.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The phrase “hoist by their own petard” comes to mind …
LMAO. I’m not going to get this exactly right because it’s from memory, but the gist is this:
Lincoln: “When I hear people talking about virtues of slavery, I get a hankering to see it tried on them.”
FYI… three states have Firing Squads on their list of acceptable methods of execution: Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/methods-of-execution
When was the last time anyone was executed by firing squad?
The execution of Gardner at Utah State Prison became the focus of media attention in June 2010, because it was the first to be carried out by firing squad in the United States in 14 years. Gardner stated that he sought this method of execution because of his Mormon background.
Lethal injection is no picnic either.
I’m opposed to the death penalty, but if we’re going to have it, firing squad is the best way. First, it’s the quickest, surest and least painful ways for the convicted
But more importantly, let’s give up this facade of “humane” execution by lethal injection, especially since we can’t get the “good” drug concoction any more. Let’s acknowledge what it really is – the murder of a human being. Let’s stop pretending that the current procedure is okay because it’s “medicalized” and “sanitized” and make people actually face the man they have to kill and the fact that they are actually killing him. If we’re going to be monsters, let’s at least own it.
The person facing a firing squad wears a hood, so he can’t see his killers and they can’t see him. Typically, one member of the squad fires a blank so no one knows who fired the fatal bullet. Shows a semblance of embarrassment about the whole ugly business.
That would be William Barr, Trump’s Attorney General, who resumed the federal death penalty after an almost two decade lapse. Are you suggesting that an appointee of President Trump is a “monster”?
I find it outrageous for anyone to proclaim that there is a “best way” of execution and claiming it is the “least painful”. How can anyone state with any certainty that the firing squad is the “least painful”? Given that it was the Trump Administration that CHOSE to resume federal executions in 2019, I would expect to hear harsh criticism of the Trump administration, not lecturing that the firing squad is the “least painful”.
Why is it so hard to harshly criticize the Trump Administration? They chose to resume federal executions in the first place, so anyone who believes that makes them “monsters” should be highly critical specifically of the Trump Administration!
This makes a lot of intuitive sense – especially if some still shots of firing-squad executions were made public. Might wake some of the brain-dead public up to what is actually going on. The whole concept of killing people humanely is right out of Through the Looking Glass.
However that’s just an intellectual exercise. In real life I’d only back outlawing the death penalty.
Please explain.
The Trump Administration chose to resume the federal death penalty in 2019 after nearly 2 decades where it was not used.
And now they chose to resume the firing squad as one of the methods.
Any reasonable person would assume that the very people who chose to resume the federal death penalty and then chose to resume firing squads to perform that execution were doing so because having firing squads is a positive thing for those who support executing people, period.
The one thing that Trump is a notable success in is popularizing unpalatable ideas like racism, white supremacy, police brutality toward protestors, white teens gunning down peaceful protesters. if anything, this is about popularizing executions, and it seems naive to try to make this into some sort of positive — an action by the people who specifically resumed federal executions.
Using guns to execute? How many of his gun loving base would sign up?
Trump and his justice department are truly depraved and twisted. There is nothing just about inflicting midieval torture on felons. How are poison gas, firing squads and the electric chair not cruel and unusual punishment? Revolting!
This administration might even bring back the guillotine.
Trump could have his ego rally and then, since ‘choice’ is so important…let the prisoner decide between hanging or guillotine.
It worked in the Middle Ages and large crowds would come. Why not now? [GROSS!] Bringing the U.S. back to the Middle Ages seems to be the direction of this rotten administration. Debtors prison is the next step for all of those who can’t afford to pay their rent or who steal a loaf of bread to survive.
from History.com
[France] Convicted murderer Hamida Djandoubi became the last person to meet his end by the “National Razor” after he was executed by the guillotine in 1977. Still, the machine’s 189-year reign only officially came to an end in September 1981, when France abolished capital punishment for good
“This administration might even bring back the guillotine.”
Bring back? Did the US ever use the guillotine?
Máté Wierdl: Doesn’t the U.S. use the ‘best ideas’ that come from other countries?
Is it clear that firing squad is less humane than lethal injection?
The guillotine might be as painless as a lethal injection. However, the screaming crowds might upset everyone.
I can’t believe two of the comments on this thread. But, if we want to to there, why not get the views of someone who knew about this? From my notes on the memoir of Harald Poelchau, the prison paster of Berlin Plötzensee (and Tegel), where Third Reich political prisoners were executed:
“Poelchau documents with chilling detail what it was like inside the execution infrastructure. Executioners, who were mostly drawn from the butcher profession, had intervals of three minutes to conduct an execution, but with practice, they actually took seven to nine seconds. The victims were strapped onto a board while standing, the board was flipped ninety degrees and the blade came down quickly. Among the ‘skills’ of an executioner was the ability to correctly estimate the height of the person to be executed so that the neck could be put in the proper position without wasting time. Women had their hair cut short, above the neck.
“Soldiers sentenced to death were executed by firing squads, their final journeys on a horse drawn cart through the city where they could see everyday life as they neared their deaths, a particularly cruel process. Sometimes the carts were so full that it would take as long as three hours until the last was executed, forcing that person to watch every person taken away, listen to the shots, and often hear an additional shot if the firing squads did not do their jobs efficiently. Many of the members of the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt were hung from piano wire attached to meat hooks and their executions were filmed because Hitler intended to use them for propaganda purposes.”
The final point is key. Publicly sanctioned executions are political acts. As is “debating” about which form is “humane.”
GregB,
Yes, thank you. How hard is to to simply post (if you really aren’t a Trump apologist) that the Trump Administration was wrong to resume federal executions after two decades and it was wrong to bring back firing squads?
Instead the people who purport to be against executions somehow decide there are “best ways”?
And what will the Republican Jesus people say and do? One can’t be Pro-Life/Anti-Abortion AND Pro-Death Penalty at the same time. Me thinks this will expose some big hypocrisy among the praying masses.
But they almost all are. Interesting, huh?
And yes, “the Republican Jesus people,” as opposed to the folks who actually have understood some of what JC had to say.
Classic Jesus or Republican Jesus…that is the question. This is a classic example of WHY we need to have a huge separation of Church and State. This is going to be very interesting to watch…..in a grotesque kind of way. I certainly hope that this goes no further than hitting the news stream in an effort to rile and deflect from other issues. I’m sure there are plenty of Judges that are crapping their pants right now.
yup
Disobeying the cross, or simply hiding behind it?
I’m sure the televangelists Paula White (“strike, strike, strike!”), Kenneth Copeland (“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!”), Jim Bakker (“Buy my buckets of slops!”) and Joel Osteen, (“Buy, buy, buy your way into heaven!”) will be outraged and condemn execution by firing squad. NOT! I’m sure that they will find some quote from the bible that recommends death by firing squad even though there were no guns in biblical times.
In a way, the Bible is full of executions. People were nailed to crosses. People were murdered and lost their statues, when God told the Joshua led Hebrews to take the Pagans’ land. And the Hebrews had some form of capitol punishment too 😐
I want to see them asked their opinion on TV for all the world to hear/see. I truly detest these money hungry, non-Christian charlatans. They are nothing more than cult leaders.
The US Supreme Court, US Government, etc. could rule against Jim Bakker and others, but rarely have. In fact, Jim Bakker has a new wife and ministry. 😐
The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Hasidic Jews, who overcrowded a room over a rabbi’s grandson’s wedding. Where were the women or Womyn? Everytime I see them in the news, it’s just men! 😐
I’m very liberal about crime. No death penalty ever! No jails ever! Criminals should just live among us. They’re human beings too. 🤯🔔
Jeffrey Dahmer living amongst us?! Yikes! But I guess you were joking, yes?
No, I’m a very Liberal Democratic, maybe ultra Liberal Democratic. 🙂
Generally, people forget that Jeffery Dahmer was the rare White guy in the School to Prison Pipeline. ☹️
Barr doubtless likes the spectacle of the thing. So, he wants this for all the wrong reasons. He’s a sick man.
I understand Albert Camus’s argument that if we are going to execute people, we should do it publicly. We shouldn’t look away. But I don’t agree with him. People get used to these things. They become inured. And as a result the society as a whole becomes more brutal.
Here’s the deal about the death penalty: If we impose it, then the state will sometimes make mistakes and murder innocent people. That’s unacceptable.
DNA testing has shown just how incredibly often it happens that innocent people are convicted of murder.
“People get used to these things. They become inured. And as a result the society as a whole becomes more brutal.”
Thank you for expressing that so well.
That’s exactly what has happened to white supremacy. And with the lies of the Trump Administration. Our society has become inured to them, instead of outraged.
Even today, I see the president of the US simply making up stuff, and his lawyers threatening harm to those who tell the truth, and it shocks me that the outrage is so muted (especially those who seem more outraged that anyone would criticize the White House for reinstating this “least painful” method of execution).
Very dangerous to assume that public exposure to something does anything but normalize it.
well said
State Attorneys General have formed an organization called The Midnight Watch that is tracking a slew of last-minute regulatory changes that the Trump vandals are carrying out in order to trash the environment and line the pockets of the wealthy. It’s a long, long list.
Wordsworth’s “The child is father of the man” is a prophetic insight brain research is bearing out. Robert Sapolsky in his master work, Behave, writes his sole act of free will is choosing what color socks to put on. A philosopher whose name I can’t recall remarked that if he had been present at the Big Bang he would be able to predict the future.
Bob Shepherd’s remarks above should run chills up every feeling person’s spine. The mistaken execution of just one man should be enough to put the death penalty out of the social mind, no matter our immediate “primitive” reaction to “kill the son-of-a-bitch.”
Why don’t we propose to make “White Collar Crimes” like those Trump and his “friends” have engaged in for their entire careers a capital crime. Then they would be risking facing their preferred “firing squad!”
I am a Michigander, we did away with capital punishment in 1847, except for treason and that law has never been used or enforced. It is high time that the USA and the individual states decided to stop living in the time before 1847 and join Michigan in the Modern World.
That isn’t happening anytime soon. ☹️
Another thing nobody talks about is the price the cities and citizens pay psychologically when their location is the one “meting out the justice”.
How does this form a child’s mind when their school bus drives by the local penitentiary where, on a regular basis, people are executed? How do you feel as a sick person when your medical doctor also helps with the executions? How do the people who “assist” with these as part of their job feel? No comments please about how awful these people are because they’ve all grown up in this environment. In every single state until the last 25 years or so we as Americans has been allowing this. Children are part of their environment and they are raised with the values of their communities. Generation after generation sees this horrible act as less repulsive because of having been raised in this environment.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1998-12-23-1998357045-story,amp.html
“Some cases get to him more than others: There was the convict who seemed mentally deficient, not really cognizant of what was going on, and who had been horribly abused as a child, Sorge said. There are the convicts whom he has previously interviewed on death row.
And then there is the doctor who pronounces the executed person dead.
“He’s the same doctor in the emergency room at our hospital here,” Sorge said. “I sometimes wonder, what if I have a traffic accident and I’m brought there and I see him over me.”