California has become the Soviet Union. Wars have been started for less than what they are doing.
South Carolina decides to initiate all sorts of ways to carry out the death penalty. Their arguments even have anti-death penalty experts on edge.
And people are really, really dumb.
Dumbass of the Day
We Had a Revolution for Less
According to Fox News:
George Sheetz spent 50 years in construction, saving his money. He bought a vacant lot not far from Lake Tahoe and planned to build a house there for his retirement.
But when Sheetz went to get a building permit, he was issued an unexpected “traffic impact mitigation” fee for over $23,000. The county legislature created the fee a few years earlier to help pay for roadwork.
“That’s when I started getting pissed off,” Sheetz told Fox News. “I said, ‘this is ridiculous.’”
Sheetz has built several homes throughout his life, so he was familiar with the typical administrative processes and costs.
“‘Well, you don’t have to build here,’” he recalled a county official saying after he complained. “‘Go someplace else.’”
The reason the state is doing this came from Sheetz attorney, Paul Beard:
“They asked him to pay for traffic impacts caused by other uses and developments like retail development and office development. Why should he have had to pay for those pre-existing deficiencies and for those impacts caused by other uses?”
Why Not?
According to Fox News:
Lawyers for a group of South Carolina death row inmates who have run out of appeals argued to the state’s Supreme Court that two of the state’s forms of execution — the old electric chair method and the new firing squad method — are cruel and unusual punishments, although the state claims that “painless” deaths are not mandated.
The lawyers for the four inmates also argued that a 2023 law created to allow lethal injections to restart hides too many details about the new drug and protocol used to kill inmates.
This, as 33 inmates sit on South Carolina’s death row. There has not been a formal moratorium on the death penalty, but the state has not performed an execution in nearly 13 years after the drugs it used for lethal injection expired and companies refused to sell more to prison officials unless they could hide their identities from the public.
South Carolina purports that all three execution methods are consistent with existing protocols, saying “instantaneous or painless” executions are not mandated by law.
“Courts have never held the death has to be instantaneous or painless,” wrote Grayson Lambert, a lawyer for Republican Gov. Henry McMaster’s office.
During a hearing, the justices questioned whether the firing squad should be considered a banned unusual punishment since it has only been used in the U.S. three times in the past 50 years, all of which were carried out in Utah. They also questioned the electric conductivity of the human skull and asked if modern science has found the electric chair to be more painful and cruel than a century ago.
A lawyer for the inmates admitted that if the court bans electrocution and the firing squad, and if the state can show the drugs used for lethal injection are the right potency and purity and the method matches what is used by other states and the federal government, then they do not have a basis to stop an execution.
“I want to make sure it is humane as possible,” attorney John Blume said.
People Really Need to be Told This?
According to the BBC:
US Secretary for Transportation Pete Buttigieg posted on X (formerly Twitter) to say that all current vehicles require the driver to be engaged “at all times”.
However, one driver admitted his video was a prank.
Tesla and Apple have been contacted for comment.
Videos posted online show people in the drivers seats of cars which have an autonomous mode, while wearing the Apple headset over their eyes.
One was reposted by Pete Buttigieg, who wrote: “Reminder – ALL advanced driver assistance systems available today require the human driver to be in control and fully engaged in the driving task at all times.”
Another video, posted on the day the Apple Vision Pro became publicly available, showed a man appearing to get pulled over by the police while wearing the headset in a Tesla.
However, Gizmodo reports that he said it was a “skit” he made with friends, reporting that he “drove with the headset for 30-40 seconds”.
Apple’s user guide warns against using its headset while driving, while Tesla says drivers should always “maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle,” even when it is in autonomous mode.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68215614.amp
This is Becoming the Norm
According to the Post Millennial:
On Wednesday, Arizona state Senator Juan Mendez (D) proudly honored Satanists at the state capitol in Phoenix.
Mendez claimed that Satanists are under “arbitrary” and “tyrannical” religious persecution and gave the group glowing praise as he welcomed them to the capitol grounds before a committee hearing.
https://thepostmillennial.com/az-democrat-senator-promotes-satanism-in-arizona-state-capitol