Creepy Milestone

According to this article, the U.S. is scheduled to hold its 1,000th execution this week since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

There is some discussion in the article that the public perception regarding the death penalty has been slowly turning against this practice, at least since 1994:

A Gallup poll last month showed 64 percent of Americans favored the death penalty -- the lowest level in 27 years, down from a high of 80 percent in 1994.

"There's now considerable public skepticism about whether all those being executed are really guilty and that has cast doubt on the whole system," said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Interestingly enough - or not - Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma account for more than half of the executions since 1977. More. Than. Half. At the time when Not-My-President was first nominated to be president, Texas led the nation in executions. Who is to say that at least one of these people executed were innocent? According to this article first published in Rolling Stone on July 6, 2000, Bush has said repeatedly that "he was confident of the guilt of those inmates executed under his charge." But as this 2003 Salon article shows, innocent people do, in fact, get executed. And how - as in the case of Texas Convict Charles Dean Hood - can you even guarantee that someone on Death Row has received a fair trial?

This should have been the foreshadowing of that now-popular Bushism, "stay the course." Again, from Reuters:

Republicans in the U.S. Congress are trying to pass legislation to speed up executions, complaining that the time between conviction and execution, which usually exceeds 10 years, is too long.

With all their pro-life posturing, why are the Republicans in such a hurry to kill? Nowhere is this bloodlust more evident as it is in Mr. Go Fuck Yourself's vehement support of torture. Why do the Republicans hate life so much?