Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

This chaos was totally avoidable.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

No one could have predicted…

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / A Very Sick Society

A Very Sick Society

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If you have never viewed a real life sociopath, click below the fold and watch Louisiana DA Dale Cox on 60 Minutes. The man is distilled evil.

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107Comments

  1. 1.

    rikyrah

    in terms of right and wrong and justice and injustice…

    I can’t imagine what it is like to be innocent and have your freedom taken away. It shakes me to the core because I can’t think of few things more evil.

    they DESTROYED that man’s life. too his life away from him. Destroyed his family. they did nothing wrong?

    GET THE PHUCK OUT OF HERE.

  3. 3.

    Culture of Truth

    I was thinking the same thing. The utter callousness, the indifference, the insistence that taking away 30 years of someone’s life was fine, because he wasn’t killed by the state, was incredible.

    If Obama took away all white people’s guns for 30 years, would he be okay with a shrug and a $20 gift card?

  4. 4.

    JPL

    I’m not sure that I can watch the rest of the video. An eye for eye is not good enough for Cox. Let him spend 30 hrs not 30 years in solitary and see how he does.

  6. 6.

    Warren Terra

    A transcript for those who prefer it or can’t stream the video right now. It’s a quick, horrifying read – especially the part where after thirty years in prison he gets released with a $20 gift card as compensation, most of which goes on lunch.

    The attorney who prosecuted him, Stroud, sounds a bit more thoughtful than Cox (after an initial staggeringly tone-deaf statement), but Cox indeed sounds like a monster. Also, Cox sounds typical; for the most part the people who have that job are paid to be exactly this type of monster. Some, like Stroud, maybe get a bit better in retirement.

  8. 8.

    jurassicpork

    “I’m not in the compassion business.” Not even a recognizance of the fact the reporter was asking him as a human being and not as a prosecutor how he’d felt about a man being on death row for three decades for a crime he didn’t commit.

  9. 9.

    patrick II

    So, based on this and the last thread, here’s how it seems to work. If you are black and “might” have killed someone, you get the death penalty. If you are a white policeman and there is video documenting your killing someone, you walk.

    As the D.A. in the above video states, (American) justice is not fair — in large part because of people like him.

  10. 10.

    dedc79

    They had a trusts and estates lawyer assigned to defend him in a death penalty case?! That’d be like having a pediatrician perform a heart transplant.

  11. 11.

    dnfree

    @patrick II: Excellent way of putting it. And if you’re black and spend 30 years on death row for a murder you didn’t commit–well, “stuff happens”. I kept wondering if this guy would be quite as accepting of injustice if it had been his son falsely convicted.

    He’s been back over the case records and can find nothing wrong with how it was handled. Well, if the wrong person was convicted, maybe you should look a little harder.

  13. 13.

    Corner Stone

    I’ll be surprised if there is not a movement to draft Dale Cox into the R presidential primaries.
    My God.

  17. 17.

    Corner Stone

    People would really feel awful if Ford had been executed before there was alternate testimony. But, it would have been legal. So, bygones.

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Warren Terra:

    Dear Christ. I thought the “$20 gift card” reference was hyperbole. A joke in questionable taste.

    Not sure I can read the transcript, let alone watch the video. I’ll probably end up doing both, but in the meantime I could really use a picture of the piglets as a kind of palate-cleanser.

  19. 19.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Corner Stone: Why is it the same RWNJs who despise and distrust the government (from the IRS to the Post Office down to their local DMV) have no problem with it administering the ultimate punishment?

  21. 21.

    Corner Stone

    @JPL: How do you guess someone says he’s glad an innocent man didn’t get murdered by the state, but he’s comfortable about all the rest on death row?
    Good Christ.

  22. 22.

    Nellie

    The DA says he’s comfortable with how it turned out. Fuck his comfort. I’m normally not a retributive person, but I find myself thinking may that tragedy that you so casually dismiss, sit on you and sit on you hard, DA Cox.

  23. 23.

    Corner Stone

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Why is it the same RWNJs who despise and distrust the government (from the IRS to the Post Office down to their local DMV) have no problem with it administering the ultimate punishment?

    Because they know it won’t ever be any one of means (as they see themselves). It will always overwhelmingly be blacks and browns, poors and poor whites.
    And those people can’t possibly actually be innocent. If they didn’t do this, they did something else just as bad.

  24. 24.

    Warren Terra

    @efgoldman:
    All attempts at smutty innuendo aside, including my own above, I rather wish they’d chosen some other symbol that could be bought into with less courage and by more socially conservative students. Teddy bears, for example, or blankies. Something to mock the gundamentalists without sidetracking the conversion.

  25. 25.

    Corner Stone

    @wmd:

    What are you playing at?

    Oh, bother. It’s my wife’s.

    She doesn’t use it because she’s alone.

    Quite the opposite, actually.

    We use it, and we love it.

  27. 27.

    James E Powell

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Why is it the same RWNJs who despise and distrust the government (from the IRS to the Post Office down to their local DMV) have no problem with it administering the ultimate punishment?

    Because they despise the people upon whom the ultimate punishment is administered.

  28. 28.

    JPL

    @Corner Stone: Hey Justice worked didn’t it? The didn’t want to use tax payer money to give Ford because he could have known about the robbery. No charges that he did, but what the heck.. Why not say that he knew about other events also. I’m sick..

  29. 29.

    max

    So, based on this and the last thread, here’s how it seems to work. If you are black and “might” have killed someone, you get the death penalty. If you are a white policeman and there is video documenting your killing someone, you walk.

    Yes. Exactly. That was why I said that if the white guy who shot the kids in the SUV (in Jacksonville) based on Stand Your Ground would’ve have been on the railroad to the death chamber even if the kids in the SUV had threatened him with an actual shotgun.

    Basically, if you’re white and wealthy you can get away with pretty much everything but murder – and you might get off even then. (This is known as being a pillar of the community.)

    If you’re white and middle-class and you (actually) get busted for something you can get out of quite a bit of trouble with a good lawyer. (This is known as being a decent citizen who made a mistake.)

    If you’re white and poor, you’re in bad trouble if you get busted whether you did it or not. (This is known as being a potential troublemaker/criminal – even if you’re just walking down the street.)

    If you’re a black person of any class and you manage to survive getting arrested for anything, you’re still in deep deep shit. (They will know you as a ‘nigger’.)

    max
    [‘Been that way my entire life – which is I sit in wonderment at all the times the white people are SHOCKED that we have a giant gulag system with black people being lucky if they don’t get killed before they get there.’]

  32. 32.

    Corner Stone

    @dedc79:

    They had a trusts and estates lawyer assigned to defend him in a death penalty case?! That’d be like having a pediatrician perform a heart transplant.

    It’s like what MHP was talking about this weekend, a culture of punishment. Where that’s what we do to people who disobey. The prosecutor was consumed by a culture of winning, a culture of ambition at the expense of people who aren’t them.

  33. 33.

    Cain

    Jeezus, sometimes this country really fucking puts me out of sorts. That said, it is still better than a lot of other countries where justice is way way harder.

  34. 34.

    trollhattan

    @efgoldman:
    Compare and contrast: Texas/California.

    Coming within the same week another deadly pair of shootings on college campuses, California’s Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill banning concealed weapons from schools and universities, a measure that drew renewed attention after the massacre at an Oregon community college

    The legislation, SB707 by Democratic Sen. Lois Wolk of Davis, will prohibit people with concealed weapons permits from carrying firearms on school and college campuses.

    People who have concealed carry permits would be allowed to carry firearms within 1,000 feet of a public or private K-12 school, but not on the grounds.

    Retired law enforcement officers who are authorized by their former agency to carry concealed weapons would be exempt. Police chiefs and school districts could also set their own concealed weapons policies.

    Gun owners’ groups said they would sue to challenge the bill that Brown approved on Saturday.

    Interestingly, the legislation also comes at the same time other states — notably Texas — are considering laws that would permit students and teachers to carry concealed weapons into school classes

  36. 36.

    Corner Stone

    @JPL:

    The didn’t want to use tax payer money to give Ford because he could have known about the robbery.

    But Justice was somehow served by keeping him on death row for 30+ years at taxpayer expense.
    These fucking guys and their sick, evil BS.

  37. 37.

    Lee Rudolph

    @Warren Terra: The choice of dildo was at least partly motivated by an apparent university rule against open-carry dildos (as it were…I mean, the article doesn’t go into the details of the rule, but I can’t believe that concealed carry could be at issue), combined with the (new?) state law allowing students to carry firearms on campus. Second Amendment wordplay aside, I doubt there are any restrictions on teddy bears.

  38. 38.

    dedc79

    @Corner Stone: Interestingly, here in Washington, DC, lawyers from federal agencies sometimes get assigned to the District’s criminal docket as prosecutors to get trial experience. Although I think they typically handle misdemeanors not felonies.

  40. 40.

    Roger Moore

    @Warren Terra:

    All attempts at smutty innuendo aside, including my own above, I rather wish they’d chosen some other symbol that could be bought into with less courage and by more socially conservative students.

    I don’t think those would achieve the goal. Dildos have two big advantages for their protest:

    1) They mock the ammosexuals’ guns as penis substitutes, which only a dildo can really do properly.

    2) Dildos are actually banned, so carrying them shows how ridiculously backward the rules are.

  41. 41.

    Corner Stone

    @dedc79:

    Interestingly, here in Washington, DC, lawyers from federal agencies sometimes get assigned to the District’s criminal docket to get trial experience.

    And actually I kind of agree with what I think you’re saying, as long as someone’s life/jailtime isn’t on the line. They should be exposed to a wide spectrum in some situations.
    My comment was more about Stroud saying he chuckled at the representation because he knew he was going to get over on them. The fact that they excluded all AA from the jury should have been the biggest appeal flag, right after the fact that he did not receive competent representation.

  42. 42.

    Warren Terra

    @Lee Rudolph: that makes sense. Still, you have to be an incredibly brave young women to openly carry a dildo, above and beyond the bravery of openly protesting gun culture, and it sidetracks the conversation onto sex jokes.

    @efgoldman: I thought about suggesting cheap garishly colored squirt guns, intended as mockery, but decided they exist to celebrate gun culture, at least in part, and could easily be misinterpreted as supporting gun carrying. Even a moderately realistic cap gun, more so.

  44. 44.

    dedc79

    @Corner Stone: I agree with you completely and I wasn’t suggesting an equivalence (although i don’t think the state is very well served by using novice prosecutors, everyone has to have a first trial at some point).

  45. 45.

    Warren Terra

    @Roger Moore: a teddy bear or blankie isn’t a penis substitute, of course, but it would satirize the way the gundamentalists use their weapons as emotional support objects, and their childish fantasies.

    I’m certainly not criticizing the dildo protestors: they’re brave, and they’re right on the several points they’re making. I just think a different protest might be joined by more people, and might make the anti-gun-carrying point more clearly and effectively.

  49. 49.

    Stan of the Sawgrass

    I’m not going to look up the actual case this was for, but “Justice” Scalia wrote an opinion saying that “actual innocence”– a legal term– is no bar to execution, as long as the victim.., er, defendant got a fair trial. It’s in the Konstitooshin– move along now.

  50. 50.

    Corner Stone

    @Big R: He owns his own practice and the boss there is a dirty fucking perv. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  52. 52.

    Corner Stone

    @efgoldman: I’m not really watching it either. I’m sort of watching it and videos on how I can rework my back patio garden for next year. It’s too much work for my mom now on the days she visits but I still want some produce on my own.

  55. 55.

    rikyrah

    Judith Browne Dianis @jbrownedianis
    #GlennFord was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer soon after his release from death row. Died penniless after the @60Minutes filming.

  56. 56.

    Corner Stone

    @dedc79: He faked corner fade, the CB bit HARD on it and Odell button hooked back to the middle. Eli just had enough to flick it at him and then Odell did the rest.

  58. 58.

    Corner Stone

    Is anyone else watching Blindspot? I kind of got past the high cheese of the premise and then epi 2 and 3 had me going, “huh”.
    Plus must add that Hulu commercial free is worth every penny if you could afford Hulu in the first place.

  60. 60.

    philpm

    I’ve never seen the perfect perversion of what “rule of law” means to many prosecutors until now. This video, in a just world, would absolutely disqualify him from ever practicing law again. Sad to say that this seems to be the norm in many parts of the country now, even is supposedly “liberal” ones.

  61. 61.

    Corner Stone

    The offense for SF is just really awful and terribad. No one knows where anyone else is supposed to be.

  63. 63.

    dedc79

    @Corner Stone: Yeah, he’s completely in their heads, as the announcers pointed out. The catch before that they all surrounded him, and it was like they were each waiting for someone else to try to tackle him.

  64. 64.

    PurpleGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    This is one of the kitten cams I watch. The momcat is Zelda, she had 4 tabby babies herself and adopted 6 little orphans. They are about 4 weeks old, the orphans a day or two older than Zelda’s own babies. The shelter is outside Vancouver, in Langley.

    http://livestream.com/accounts/14083503/Catsby

    Hoping they aren’t sleeping right now. They are in a playpen in a room at the shelter.

  70. 70.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @pseudonymous in nc:

    There was a piece about Cox in the New Yorker during the summer. He, let’s be clear, a racist sociopath. And he’s up for election as county DA this month, and will win.

    Quote from that piece:

    When a journalist … asked Cox for his response [to Stroud’s condemnation of the death penalty, based on Glenn Ford’s case], he said that he thought courts should be imposing the death penalty more, not less. “I think we need to kill more people,” he told her. “We’re not considered a society anymore—we’re a jungle.”

    Cox does not believe that the death penalty works as a deterrent, but he says that it is justified as revenge. He told me that revenge was a revitalizing force that “brings to us a visceral satisfaction.” He felt that the public’s aversion to the notion had to do with the word itself. “It’s a hard word—it’s like the word ‘hate,’ the word ‘despot,’ the word ‘blood.’ ” He said, “Over time, I have come to the position that revenge is important for society as a whole. We have certain rules that you are expected to abide by, and when you don’t abide by them you have forfeited your right to live among us.”

    Emphasis mine. Psychopathy, all his.

  71. 71.

    east is east

    And I lay traps for troubadours who get get killed before they reach Bombay. Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name.

  73. 73.

    Lavocat

    I watched the whole piece just a few hours ago.

    I turned to my wife and said “This fascist could justify anything he wanted. He’s pure fucking evil.”

    Somewhere Hannah Arendt is laughing, telling us she told us so.

  74. 74.

    Nutella

    We have certain rules that you are expected to abide by, and when you don’t abide by them you have forfeited your right to live among us.

    Cox has forfeited his right to live among us. He’ll keep on keeping on, though.

  75. 75.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Corner Stone:

    I’ve been thinking of watching it but hadn’t decided. So you think it’s worth a look?

    Is Gotham on Hulu? That’s another one I think I might like to watch, but the first season is not in the on-demand bin.

  76. 76.

    benw

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Why is it the same RWNJs who despise and distrust the government (from the IRS to the Post Office down to their local DMV) have no problem with it administering the ultimate punishment?

    They don’t like paying taxes, paying for stamps or shipping, or paying for car registration, but enjoy people dying.

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:

    but he says that it is justified as revenge. He told me that revenge was a revitalizing force that “brings to us a visceral satisfaction.”

    Reminded me of this:

    for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

    Shorter Cox: “ha ha, shut up, you stupid God, killing makes me feel really good!”

  77. 77.

    trollhattan

    @Lavocat:

    Somewhere Hannah Arendt is laughingweeping, telling us she told us so.

    Small reconfig. We have met the enemy, and he….

  79. 79.

    dedc79

    There needs to be a study done of the incidence of heart attacks among NY Giants fans and how it compares to the general population.

  80. 80.

    Roger Moore

    @Corner Stone:

    He owns his own practice and the boss there is a dirty fucking perv. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    Even that doesn’t mean that pr0n is safe for work; there’s always the risk of a sexual harassment lawsuit if a subordinate is offended. It’s probably only SFW for people who work at home.

  81. 81.

    rikyrah

    @Corner Stone:

    Is anyone else watching Blindspot? I kind of got past the high cheese of the premise and then epi 2 and 3 had me going, “huh”

    I watch it. And, making Jane Doe the childhood friend that changed forever the trajectory of his life is a plot point that I’m willing to give in order to make the show go forward.

    A friend described it as ‘ The Blacklist, where her body’s tatoos are Raymond Reddington.’

  82. 82.

    dedc79

    There needs to be a study done of the incidence of heart attacks among NY Giants fans and how it compares to the general population.

  84. 84.

    Warren Terra

    @Steeplejack (phone): Gotham is on (and I think exclusive to) Netflix.

    But don’t bother. The cast are talented, the production values impressive, but it has the most appalling writing I’ve ever seen. It seems to be written by twelve year olds to be watched by ten year olds. Everything that it might be entertaining to figure out is immediately spoiled in the script, and none of the characters or plots make any sense – not even internal logic in a cartoonish unreality.

  85. 85.

    Corner Stone

    @Roger Moore: He’s not in a cube. If he opens Kink.com in front of employees that is 100% on him.*

    *To be fair, I was fucking with him. He’s dirty AF but what he does in the work place? No fucking dildo gun or automated idea.

  89. 89.

    PurpleGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: These babies still do spend much of the day sleeping but they are starting to play together and do scampy stuff. What I like at this site is that they have the cam up close. At John’s cam (Seattle), he has it set across the room from the kitties.

  90. 90.

    Corner Stone

    @Steeplejack (phone): Ummm. Hmmm. No, I can’t actually recommend it. I have watched epis 1-3 over and over again. I’m actually going to watch 3 again right now.
    Jane is a bad ass but still gets her ass kicked randomly. I did love the drone deaths, though. That was sick ass war pr0n the smooth way they obliterated people.
    I’m still on the fence. Let’s see what happens.

  91. 91.

    Suzanne

    @Roger Moore: This protest is awesome because it draws the precise parallel that guns, in the hands of these people, ARE sex toys.

    If some company made dildos that look like guns, the circle would be complete.

  92. 92.

    Corner Stone

    @rikyrah:

    I watch it. And, making Jane Doe the childhood friend that changed forever the trajectory of his life is a plot point that I’m willing to give in order to make the show go forward.

    I just don’t know. It seems like a short circuit for the development of the show.

  93. 93.

    Corner Stone

    I’m pretty sure only this place could go from a BS death row sentence to a dildo protest, all without grinding the gears.

  95. 95.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: I have to admit that I would laugh uproariously if I heard about a gun nut jerking off with a dildo gun and shooting oneself. That’s some natural selection at work right there.

  98. 98.

    Suzanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: I am jesting, of course.

    In all seriousness, I love the dildo protest, though. I wish I could find this great piece I read a few shootings ago about guns as male sexual fantasy objects. It is abundantly clear to me that this is, in part, a toxic masculinity issue, and I think the dildo protest fabulously lampoons that.

  101. 101.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Warren Terra:

    Thanks. I saw the first two or three episodes last season, then lost the thread and figured I needed to go back and see them in chronological order. I have been tempted by the promos for the new season. Glad to get someone’s opinion.

  102. 102.

    Warren Terra

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That phrase is horrifying. Not a dig at you, just horror at the fact that it could be written.

    I was listening to Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast (RHLSTP) last week, a hilarious and sometimes thoughtful interview podcast recorded in front of a live audience, two per session, and then released one per week. It was the end of a series, and the episode had been recorded back in late July for release in October. The interviewer and his guest were talking about some recent gun atrocity in the US, and realizing it the topicality of their reference would be lost one of them suggested there would almost certainly be a recent gun atrocity in the US again shortly before the episode came out. Sure enough …

    PS on a more cheerful note, you can watch the highlight of the recent series: Scottish sketch comic Limmy reading a story from his new book. Sort of a kid’s story, except for some strong language. And the funniest thing I’d seen in weeks.

  104. 104.

    J R in WV

    Watching that 60 minutes piece was hard. First the original prosecutor nearly broke down because he gained some insight and his conscience was accidently activated. I guess he did break down, really, although it was difficult to feel sorry for him.

    He did it to himself when he did it to the wrongly convicted man. But I’m glad he came to realize that some things are just wrong. Perhaps he did some things to help Ford, the victim in all this.

    But Cox is a monster, a walking horror out of lovecraftian fiction, but alive and kind of well down there in Louisiana.

    Not human in his psychology. I feel like people who know him probably feel this unconscious need to get away, and to keep him from being behind them in a dark parking lot.

    Hoping he doesn’t have close family who have to touch him!! Could he be married with children he would in theory have to teach morality to? Only Chlthu would allow that…

  105. 105.

    Tokyokie

    Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of these situations is that the innocent defendant believes in the integrity of the system and just assumes that the jurors will see things the right way. The charges are false, he knows it, and it’s just a matter of time before everybody sees it’s just a misunderstanding. But then he gets a court-appointed attorney who does exactly jack squat, and a prosecutor who’s hellbent on winning, the truth be damned. And before he knows it, his ass is headed toward a long stretch in a maximum-security state lockup.

    I’ve long contended that the penalty for prosecutorial misconduct should be whatever sentence said prosecutor sought at trial. And convicting an innocent man is, invariably, prosecutorial misconduct.

  106. 106.

    brantl

    And he’s not “narcistic” enough to believe that he’s never wrong, and he’s OK with having people executed, who aren’t guilty. What a dick, what an abysmal dick.

  107. 107.

    JGabriel

    @JPL:

    An eye for eye is not good enough for Cox. Let him spend 30 hrs not 30 years in solitary and see how he does.

    Now, now, let’s not be hasty. I don’t see any problem with letting Cox spend 30 years instead of 30 hours in solitary. After all, we can always let him out after 29 years if we change our minds – or make it longer. But if we let him out after only 30 hours, we’ll just have to go through the whole time-consuming process of putting him back in when he does something evil again a few days later.

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