News and Views for February 2023
Welcome to We’ve Read News and Views for February 2023. Thank you for being a subscriber. As Spencer Smith would say, “things in the world are looking really bad, but because of the eventual return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, things are also looking really good.” Council for National Policy darling Donald Trump supposedly mentioned to anonymous sources, as reported by RollingStone, that if elected in 2024, he will expand the use of the federal death penalty and bring back methods of execution, including firing squads, hanging, and guillotines. Trump mentioned that he wants to televise footage of the executions including showing condemned prisoners in the final moments of their lives. Trump also discussed televised group executions. “The [former] president believes this would help put the fear of God into violent criminals,” a RollingStone source says. “He wanted to do some of these [things] when he was in office, but for whatever reasons didn’t have the chance.”1
I usually do not give too much credence to anonymously sourced claims. However, Donald Trump has made numerous similar campaign promises and statements in the past. In 1989, Trump took out ads in New York newspapers urging the return of the death penalty for the “perpetrators” of the Central Park Six case. Decades later, all six men were exonerated after a prison inmate, serial rapist, and murderer, Matias Reyes, confessed to the rape and/or physical assault of Trisha Meili and other women in Central Park that occurred on April 19, 1989. Seminal DNA evidence also proved that Reyes was Meili’s rapist. In October 2002, after five of the men were acquitted of all charges, protests occurred outside Trump Tower because his 1989 newspaper ads had unjustly negatively influenced public opinion and caused outrage against the Central Park Six during their trial.2 3 4 5
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