Donald Trump is on a killing spree: as his time in power comes to an end, the president seems intent on executing as many people as possible. On Thursday night, Brandon Bernard was put to death by lethal injection at a prison in Indiana. Bernard’s was the ninth federal execution this year; four more are planned before Joe Biden’s inauguration on 20 January.
It’s hard to overstate just how unprecedented and sadistic the Trump administration’s flurry of federal executions is. The overwhelming majority of prisoners who are put to death in America are executed under state law, rather than by the federal government. Since 1927, when record keeping began, 37 federal executions have occurred. There hadn’t been a federal execution for 17 years until this summer, when Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death. What’s more, there hasn’t been a federal execution during a presidential lame-duck period for 130 years. The last one was in the 1890s during the presidency of Grover Cleveland. “It’s hard to understand why anybody at this stage of a presidency feels compelled to kill this many people,” the director of the Death Penalty Information Center said. “This is a complete historical aberration.”
Racking up executions during the last weeks of your presidency would be disgusting at the best of times. Doing it during a pandemic that has killed almost 300,000 Americans takes callousness and cruelty to a whole new level. Particularly when you are a party that has branded yourself “pro-life”. I know words don’t have any meaning any more but does being pro-life really mean ramping up the death penalty, reinstating archaic practices like death by firing squad and poison gas, separating migrant children from their parents, escalating drone strikes, attempting to strip healthcare from people, and trying to cut food stamps during a pandemic? If so, then Trump is going to go down as the most pro-life president in American history. He certainly looks set to become the president who has executed the most people in over 130 years. If the next four executions proceed as scheduled, Trump will have put to death about a quarter of all federal death-row prisoners.
The Trump administration, to be clear, isn’t under any pressure from the American people to do this. A majority of Americans (60%) support life in prison over the death penalty, according to a 2019 Gallup poll. A majority of Americans, it should be noted, also want to keep abortion legal. Republicans don’t really care what the majority of Americans want. They don’t care about democracy. They don’t care about the “sanctity of life”. All they care about is power. In many ways, this end-of-term execution spree is nothing more than a perverse power trip: Trump is killing people to “own the libs”.
First federal execution of a woman in 70 years
Lisa Montgomery is scheduled to die on 12 January; the first woman to be federally executed since 1953. Montgomery was sentenced to death in 2007 after murdering Bobbie Jo Stinnett and cutting an unborn baby out of her womb. Her crime was undeniably awful, but her lawyers and activists have argued that she committed it while in the middle of a psychotic episode. Montgomery was reportedly sexually trafficked by her mother as a small child; she has suffered horrific sexual and physical abuse since childhood. Montgomery is also set to be transferred to an all-male prison for execution, which her lawyers say would trigger a “catastrophic psychiatric breakdown”. None of this absolves Montgomery – but there is nothing to be gained from killing her except a compounding of cruelty.
Argentina’s lower house approves bill legalizing abortion
The landmark bill allows for voluntary abortions to be carried out up to the 14th week of pregnancy. This is a massive deal: in Latin America, abortion is only legal in Cuba, Uruguay, some parts of Mexico, Guyana and French Guiana. (Chile and Brazil make exceptions in the case of rape.) In 2016 alone, nearly 40,000 women were admitted to public hospitals in Argentina for complications arising from illegal abortion.
Global female prison population rises by 100,000 in past decade
“The number of women in prison globally is climbing at an alarming rate – even though they are typically convicted of low-level, nonviolent crime,” said Olivia Rope, executive director of Penal Reform International.
A women’s football match in China called off over hair dye
One of the player’s hair was deemed “not black enough”, apparently.
Saint Dolly Parton saved a child’s life
Not only did the singer fund a Covid vaccine, it seems she whisked a small child away from the path of an oncoming vehicle while shooting a new holiday movie. Dolly 2024, anyone?
Men bored of helping out with the kids
There was a 58% increase in the time British men spent on childcare, according to a study done in May. Now it seems that men are bored of helping out, and the burden of childcare is once again being disproportionately shouldered by women.
The forgotten trend of 19th-century women’s endurance walking
The long-distance walkers were known as “pedestriennes” and were “labeled as everything from ‘symbols for women’s rights’ to ‘morally disreputable figures’”. Can you imagine walking hundreds of miles in a petticoat and corset? It’s hard enough in Lululemons. On a somewhat related note, you can instantly make your week better by reading about Annie Edson Taylor, the first woman to go over Niagra Falls in a barrel. She was a 63-year-old school teacher who thought the stunt would help fund her retirement. (It didn’t.)
A woman will probably walk on the moon in 2024
Nasa has announced 18 astronauts who will be travelling to the moon under the Artemis program; nine of them are women.
The week in poultryarchy
The holiday movie nobody ever asked for has finally arrived! Mario Lopez is starring as Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Colonel Sanders in a short Lifetime movie called A Recipe for Seduction. While this is obviously a marketing stunt, it’s worth noting that a lot of content these days is just wanton product placement disguised with a few plot-lines. Watching a KFC movie has never been on my bucket list; nevertheless I have to admit that a 15-minute commercial about a sexy chicken chef does feel like a fitting way to round off an incredibly unpalatable year.
The ‘pro-life’ party strikes again
Donald Trump is on a killing spree: as his time in power comes to an end, the president seems intent on executing as many people as possible. On Thursday night, Brandon Bernard was put to death by lethal injection at a prison in Indiana. Bernard’s was the ninth federal execution this year; four more are planned before Joe Biden’s inauguration on 20 January.
It’s hard to overstate just how unprecedented and sadistic the Trump administration’s flurry of federal executions is. The overwhelming majority of prisoners who are put to death in America are executed under state law, rather than by the federal government. Since 1927, when record keeping began, 37 federal executions have occurred. There hadn’t been a federal execution for 17 years until this summer, when Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death. What’s more, there hasn’t been a federal execution during a presidential lame-duck period for 130 years. The last one was in the 1890s during the presidency of Grover Cleveland. “It’s hard to understand why anybody at this stage of a presidency feels compelled to kill this many people,” the director of the Death Penalty Information Center said. “This is a complete historical aberration.”
Racking up executions during the last weeks of your presidency would be disgusting at the best of times. Doing it during a pandemic that has killed almost 300,000 Americans takes callousness and cruelty to a whole new level. Particularly when you are a party that has branded yourself “pro-life”. I know words don’t have any meaning any more but does being pro-life really mean ramping up the death penalty, reinstating archaic practices like death by firing squad and poison gas, separating migrant children from their parents, escalating drone strikes, attempting to strip healthcare from people, and trying to cut food stamps during a pandemic? If so, then Trump is going to go down as the most pro-life president in American history. He certainly looks set to become the president who has executed the most people in over 130 years. If the next four executions proceed as scheduled, Trump will have put to death about a quarter of all federal death-row prisoners.
The Trump administration, to be clear, isn’t under any pressure from the American people to do this. A majority of Americans (60%) support life in prison over the death penalty, according to a 2019 Gallup poll. A majority of Americans, it should be noted, also want to keep abortion legal. Republicans don’t really care what the majority of Americans want. They don’t care about democracy. They don’t care about the “sanctity of life”. All they care about is power. In many ways, this end-of-term execution spree is nothing more than a perverse power trip: Trump is killing people to “own the libs”.
First federal execution of a woman in 70 years
Lisa Montgomery is scheduled to die on 12 January; the first woman to be federally executed since 1953. Montgomery was sentenced to death in 2007 after murdering Bobbie Jo Stinnett and cutting an unborn baby out of her womb. Her crime was undeniably awful, but her lawyers and activists have argued that she committed it while in the middle of a psychotic episode. Montgomery was reportedly sexually trafficked by her mother as a small child; she has suffered horrific sexual and physical abuse since childhood. Montgomery is also set to be transferred to an all-male prison for execution, which her lawyers say would trigger a “catastrophic psychiatric breakdown”. None of this absolves Montgomery – but there is nothing to be gained from killing her except a compounding of cruelty.
Argentina’s lower house approves bill legalizing abortion
The landmark bill allows for voluntary abortions to be carried out up to the 14th week of pregnancy. This is a massive deal: in Latin America, abortion is only legal in Cuba, Uruguay, some parts of Mexico, Guyana and French Guiana. (Chile and Brazil make exceptions in the case of rape.) In 2016 alone, nearly 40,000 women were admitted to public hospitals in Argentina for complications arising from illegal abortion.
Global female prison population rises by 100,000 in past decade
“The number of women in prison globally is climbing at an alarming rate – even though they are typically convicted of low-level, nonviolent crime,” said Olivia Rope, executive director of Penal Reform International.
A women’s football match in China called off over hair dye
One of the player’s hair was deemed “not black enough”, apparently.
Saint Dolly Parton saved a child’s life
Not only did the singer fund a Covid vaccine, it seems she whisked a small child away from the path of an oncoming vehicle while shooting a new holiday movie. Dolly 2024, anyone?
Men bored of helping out with the kids
There was a 58% increase in the time British men spent on childcare, according to a study done in May. Now it seems that men are bored of helping out, and the burden of childcare is once again being disproportionately shouldered by women.
The forgotten trend of 19th-century women’s endurance walking
The long-distance walkers were known as “pedestriennes” and were “labeled as everything from ‘symbols for women’s rights’ to ‘morally disreputable figures’”. Can you imagine walking hundreds of miles in a petticoat and corset? It’s hard enough in Lululemons. On a somewhat related note, you can instantly make your week better by reading about Annie Edson Taylor, the first woman to go over Niagra Falls in a barrel. She was a 63-year-old school teacher who thought the stunt would help fund her retirement. (It didn’t.)
A woman will probably walk on the moon in 2024
Nasa has announced 18 astronauts who will be travelling to the moon under the Artemis program; nine of them are women.
The week in poultryarchy
The holiday movie nobody ever asked for has finally arrived! Mario Lopez is starring as Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Colonel Sanders in a short Lifetime movie called A Recipe for Seduction. While this is obviously a marketing stunt, it’s worth noting that a lot of content these days is just wanton product placement disguised with a few plot-lines. Watching a KFC movie has never been on my bucket list; nevertheless I have to admit that a 15-minute commercial about a sexy chicken chef does feel like a fitting way to round off an incredibly unpalatable year.