Killing For Fun

 EVIDENTLY NOT CONTENT to have murdered hundreds of thousands of Americans through neglect, negligence, and plain old idiocy,the Trump administration has decided to leave town with a bang and a whimper, one final killing spree. In recent days the Department of Justice has ordained the execution of ten death row inmates, the first federal prisoners to have been put to death in more than sixteen years. More are yet to come, as the executive branch executes its power to execute, outgoing A.G. Bill Barr pulling the plug on a couple dozen lives on his way out Trump's dog house door. Not since the wild west days of president and former sheriff Grover Cleveland has such a shocking multi state shooting spree been beheld. Trump seems inclined to associate with and to deal with criminals, birds of a feather. Those who criminal activity personally benefit him, he defends, praises, or pardons, more of which is soon to come. When his criminal cronies get into trouble, he denies knowing them, prior to pardoning them, Why not? Those whose criminal behavior does not benefit him personally, we now know, Trump merely disposes of, like so much human garbage. Normally federal judges and juries sentence people to death and determine execution dates for federal prisoners. But the federal Justice Dept. supervises the entire federal judicial system, and under Trump, the Attorney General, normally independent, must do the president's bidding or risk his job, if not more. The current occupant recently lost his, as have several previous. Donald Trump will never know the names of the people he kills. They may be innocent, as many on death row have been proven to have been. Exactly what business it is of Donald Trump and his justice department to intervene in the criminal justice process simply to hasten the execution of selected condemned? Except, perhaps and assuming to president's true purpose is to expedite as much death as possible n his continuing anger over his recent election loss. This is further evidenced by his staunch refusal to even acknowledge the existence of the two greatest threats to the United States in the past one hundred years; Covid 19 ans climate change. then too, when one considers the president's  summary and spartan treatment of refugees, including desperately hungry families and their children, separating them and locking them in cages, one can easily see that Donald Trump is not an advocate of compassionate conservatism. Quite the opposite, actually.