Woooooo Killing People YEAHHHHH!!!

I was in class and didn't see this live, but looking at tweets and texts about this exchange really didn't do justice to how disgusting it was:



No matter how you feel about the death penalty, the idea that simply stating the number of people executed in texas is an applause line so so revolting it's hard to know where to begin.

Also, on that death penalty in Texas thing:

When, in 2004, new advances in arson science seemed to prove that death row inmate Cameron Todd Willingham had not, in fact, murdered his three children via arson, Perry denied a stay of execution. And when the Texas Forensic Science Commission, after taking the unprecedented step of reexamining the case, seemed on the verge of posthumously exonerating Willingham, Perry took the also unprecedented step of replacing three members of the commission. Just like that. Last year, meanwhile, when Texas Monthly helped spring an innocent man, Anthony Graves, from death, Perry pointed to the case as proof that the system works. Which is true—if your definition of a functioning criminal justice system is one in which courts wrongly sentence an innocent man to death, only for an intrepid journalist to swoop in and, after countless hours of work, help secure his release.

In fairness, Perry knows his audience and it does "take balls to execute an innocent man".