The Many Faces of US Politics...

[weareros]

Much more likely the trend to call Musk the President and Trump his veep will gnaw at Trump. Will be surprised if those two are a duo within a year or two. Clever strategy by the opposition, although not without some truth based on Musk sticking his oar into everything, even the Irish election.

[seafoid]

Trump and Musk will fall out sooner or later. The near shutdown shows that Musk isn't clued in politiically. The deal was not what Musk specified. 

[Eamonnca1]

The death penalty's on the way out in the US. Support for it has been steadily slipping, plus the mechanics of it are too complicated. They can't get their hands on the lethal injection drugs because European drug manufacturers refuse to sell it for execution purposes. This sometimes results in untested concoctions being used, which leads to botched executions which further undermine support for the practice.

Inmates spend so long on death row that there's a good chance a governor will come along at some point and commute the sentence. With federal charges it might be different, that'd take a Democratic president to commute the sentence, which could probably happen in a lame duck session.

I'd be very surprised if your man got executed.

Do they not bother with the electric chair anymore?

Bullet to the head be the simplest and cheapest option. (Not for this fella but for some cases where it is warrantee) 

Electric chair use is very rare now. Again it results in painful and long drawn-out executions which undermines support for the practice.

I'm a bit surprised that firing squads aren't used, but again I'd imagine the violence of it probably turns people off.

The way the British did hanging was quick and painless. There's a great film called Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman from 2005 that takes an inside look at the way the British handled capital punishment up to its abolition. They saw it as their job to get it over with as quickly as possible and minimise the amount of suffering. Pierrepoint once went to America to hang condemned prisoners and was a bit horrified to see them standing on the trapdoor for several minutes while the charge sheet was read out and all sorts of time-wasting nonsense happened. The British approach was to get the condemned onto the trapdoor and dropped before he even knew what was happening. It was about as humane as it got, but was still barbaric.

[Eamonnca1]

Much more likely the trend to call Musk the President and Trump his veep will gnaw at Trump. Will be surprised if those two are a duo within a year or two. Clever strategy by the opposition, although not without some truth based on Musk sticking his oar into everything, even the Irish election.

There's a lot of truth in that. I give this bro-mance about three months.

Musk will probably end up trying to undermine Trump eventually, like Scaramucci is now. It didn't take Scaramucci long to figure out the administration was full of idiots. I don't know if Musk is smart enough to spot the same thing, but Musk and Trump are likely to be at odds over international trade. Musk will want to be able to buy stuff cheap on the foreign market and export his cars, Trump will be working against that. Their interests are not aligned.

I'm just glad I just got a popcorn maker.

[trileacman]

The way the British did hanging was quick and painless. There's a great film called Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman from 2005 that takes an inside look at the way the British handled capital punishment up to its abolition. They saw it as their job to get it over with as quickly as possible and minimise the amount of suffering. Pierrepoint once went to America to hang condemned prisoners and was a bit horrified to see them standing on the trapdoor for several minutes while the charge sheet was read out and all sorts of time-wasting nonsense happened. The British approach was to get the condemned onto the trapdoor and dropped before he even knew what was happening. It was about as humane as it got, but was still barbaric.

Barbaric punishment for barbaric crimes. It was interesting to note that Biden did not commute all the death row inmates which is at least a tactile recognition that some crimes do indeed deserve capital punishment.

[Eamonnca1]

Thought experiment: For the crime of rape, do we hire a professional rapist to rape the convicted rapist on behalf of the state? Should we?

[Milltown Row2]

Thought experiment: For the crime of rape, do we hire a professional rapist to rape the convicted rapist on behalf of the state? Should we?

Just castrate them, physically (preferably) or medically take away their urge to do it ever again

[whitey]

https://x.com/kenklippenstein/status/1871376644356903418?s=46&t=lH_6NhrWXceXekvYr1XRpg


Wow-head of the Teamsters on their interactions with Kamala Harris


https://www.foxnews.com/media/democratic-strategists-concede-party-brand-in-toilet-thats-being-generous

Just in case some of you were wondering how Harris lost. Article is from Fox, but quotes are from a NY Times online piece

[RedHand88]

Thought experiment: For the crime of rape, do we hire a professional rapist to rape the convicted rapist on behalf of the state? Should we?

That's a way of thinking about it that I had never considered before. We become so invested in the punishment for the criminal that we never think of what the punisher is actually doing.

[Look-Up!]

That's false equivalence though and not at all relevant. It's not how the penal system works at all.

If someone gets the death penalty for a heinous crime say by stabbing a random 50 times. They are not put to death by stabbing. Some crimes deserve the death penalty and it's a reflection on the perpetrator only.

[Eamonnca1]

That's false equivalence though and not at all relevant. It's not how the penal system works at all.

If someone gets the death penalty for a heinous crime say by stabbing a random 50 times. They are not put to death by stabbing. Some crimes deserve the death penalty and it's a reflection on the perpetrator only.

I don't see how it is. But if you wanted to make it a more accurate comparison to the death penalty, we could issue our state-sponsored rapist with lube so that the act is carried out more "humanely" in the same way that the state usually tries to make the execution as painless as possible. Does that make it okay?

[thewobbler]

That's false equivalence though and not at all relevant. It's not how the penal system works at all.

If someone gets the death penalty for a heinous crime say by stabbing a random 50 times. They are not put to death by stabbing. Some crimes deserve the death penalty and it's a reflection on the perpetrator only.

I don't see how it is. But if you wanted to make it a more accurate comparison to the death penalty, we could issue our state-sponsored rapist with lube so that the act is carried out more "humanely" in the same way that the state usually tries to make the execution as painless as possible. Does that make it okay?

No.

The chances of a rapist who has been lubed and sodomised by the state, being able to function as a normal person upon release has to be minimal to zero.

A more suitable approach was explained above.

A better approach again would be to give them the choice to be chemically neutered and released after a short sentence, or to deny themselves this option and serve an extended sentence.

[Look-Up!]

That's false equivalence though and not at all relevant. It's not how the penal system works at all.

If someone gets the death penalty for a heinous crime say by stabbing a random 50 times. They are not put to death by stabbing. Some crimes deserve the death penalty and it's a reflection on the perpetrator only.

I don't see how it is. But if you wanted to make it a more accurate comparison to the death penalty, we could issue our state-sponsored rapist with lube so that the act is carried out more "humanely" in the same way that the state usually tries to make the execution as painless as possible. Does that make it okay?

Ah here that's crazy stuff you're talking. It's completely false equivalence. More or less, the death penalty is carried out where someone cannot ever be rehabilitated or released back into society because of what they are and don't deserve life for what they've done. Those people DO exist. There are nuances involved of course and burden of proof is a grey area but that's a very long and different conversation.

The lube stuff is crazy and I'm not getting into a conversation like that. Wobbler is correct. Couldn't think of anything worse than sodomising a rapist and then sending them on their merry way back into society and thinking "that sure showed him". Castration is a very appropriate response along with a long prison sentence but there are also nuances involved. Murder is murder, you have a body. But rape is often a claim, one persons word against another. And in the case of false claims, what is the appropriate punishment against the accuser? But that's another pandora's box and you are getting into territory of dissuading genuine rape victims of reporting the crime because of fear of not being believed. In cases where quilt is beyond doubt though, especially in child rape cases, there is no punishment too severe. Absolutely none!   

[trileacman]

That's false equivalence though and not at all relevant. It's not how the penal system works at all.

If someone gets the death penalty for a heinous crime say by stabbing a random 50 times. They are not put to death by stabbing. Some crimes deserve the death penalty and it's a reflection on the perpetrator only.

I don't see how it is. But if you wanted to make it a more accurate comparison to the death penalty, we could issue our state-sponsored rapist with lube so that the act is carried out more "humanely" in the same way that the state usually tries to make the execution as painless as possible. Does that make it okay?

A bizarre and illogical course of argument.

There are people in prison who will never be released. I don't see how lifelong incarceration is any kinder or nobler than capital punishment in cases like that. It would seem Biden's motivation was as much due to the 6th commandment as anything else.

[Eamonnca1]

LWOP is cheaper than capital punishment, and it's possible to release a wrongly-convicted person and give them some sort of life back. You can't resurrect a wrongfully-executed person.