Making the Cruel More Usual
Stuart Goldenberg
The U.S. Supreme Court in April denied a Missouri death-row inmate’s request to avoid an agonizing death. The inmate, Russell Bucklew, had asked to be killed by poison gas rather than lethal injection, which due to a rare congenital condition will likely cause tumors on his face, head, neck, and throat to rupture as he suffocates to death on his own blood. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s 5-4 majority, sniped that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment does not guarantee executed persons “a painless death.”
Stuart Goldenberg
Only a Test
Teachers at an elementary school in Monticello, Indiana, were left with bruises, welts, and abrasions after being shot in the head “execution style” with plastic bullets by sheriff’s office workers during an active shooter training drill. “They told us, ‘This is what happens if you just cower and do nothing,’ ” said one of the teachers.
They Just Can’t Get Over Her
A tally by Media Matters for America found that Fox News and Fox Business mentioned Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a total of 3,181 times during a recent six-week period—an average of seventy-five times per day. Fox host Tucker Carlson, for example, has called the dynamic Democratic Congresswoman “idiot wind bag,” “pompous little twit,” “fake revolutionary,” “moron and nasty and more self-righteous than any televangelist,” and “bartender.”
Udder-ly Ironic
U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, who recently filed a $250 million defamation case against Twitter and individual tweeters for making fun of him online—one example cited in the lawsuit said the tweeter “Devin Nunes’ cow” called him “udder-ly worthless and it’s pasture time to mooove him to prison”—is a cosponsor of a 2017 bill called the Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act. It did not pass.
Stuart Goldenberg
The Trump Effect
A new study by the University of North Texas has found that counties that hosted campaign rallies by Donald Trump in 2016 have seen a 226 percent rise in reported hate crimes compared to counties that didn’t.
Steve Knecht Has a Teeny Weenie. Just Kidding!
A Wisconsin school district has banned “mock awards” that objectify cheerleaders’ bodies after it came to light that Tremper High School in Kenosha was giving out honors including “Big Booty” and “Big Boobie” at an annual banquet. The school’s principal, Steve Knecht, defended the awards, writing one parent that they were “meant to be funny” and “just joking around.”