Our tax dollars at work?/Local and state gov't

[Lainey]

Couldn't find a thread to fit this, but under the category of seeing tax dollars get wasted, I'm posting this link to our local Sheriff Joe's latest:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/23/959411/-Sheriff-Joe-Arpaio-takes-out-115-chickens-with-extreme-prejudice--and-Steven-Seagal-helped

Anything this crazy happening with your local elected reps, or does AZ win the Crazy Crown this week?

[iris lily]

Our county government head created a $70,000 year job for his buddy's son. All county hiring is frozen, but for this job.

Our U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, financial watchdog of Congress, forgot to pay $287,000 in taxes for her airplane it was discovered this week. I hate when that happens, don't you?

But what ticks me off almost as much as the above bozo actions is the sanctimonious editorial in our local liberal newspaper which patted Claire on the head for being so upset about her fiasco and framing it as a Republican opportunity to do mischief at election time.

[bae]

One of our highly-paid county council members, who is famous for being unprepared for meetings and a bit grumpy, has sunk to new levels this week, and the local news rags are calling him on it:

http://www.sanjuanislander.com/images/contributed/county/council/howie.jpg
http://www.sanjuanislander.com/images/contributed/county/council/howie-2.jpg

Yes. He's now sleeping during the meetings.

[Yppej]

There is so much corruption in my state, I wouldn't even know where to start. Hiring of politically connected ex-cons by the Probation Department maybe.

[loosechickens]

Actually, Yppej....who better to work with ex-offenders and people on probation than "ex-cons" (as you call them)? Now, the "politically connected" part, if true, is not right, but I applaud assisting people who have served their debt to society, into productive and useful work, and someone who has "been there" would have much more credibility to the people they are working with in Probation, than someone who had never walked in their shoes.

[Yppej]

I have to disagree. If I apply for a secretarial job with the state I have to pass a background check - but someone working with criminals doesn't have to?

[loosechickens]

There's good reason why so many drug and alchol counselors are recovering substance abusers themselves, and there is good reason why ex-offenders make very effective counselors for people on probation.

When our relative was in Federal prison, they had a program for those reaching the ends of their sentences, and the motivational speaker who talked with them about the difficulties that would face them coming out into a population very resistant to them and the fact that they had committed crimes, how to succeed, and most importantly, being a role model as to how that could be done successfully, was the person who had served a twenty year sentence herself in Federal prison.

We also noted that when our relative was released from Federal prison, not one single native born American citizen was willing to give this college educated, personable, skilled former business owner who had committed a very minor crime, a chance at any kind of a job. EVERY person who offered him a job (three of them) were immigrants to this country.

The sample was too small to draw anything but anecdotal conclusions, but from talking to prospective employers, our relative felt that the immigrants came from countries where people who had been released from prison had paid their debt to society and should be assisted toward a re-entry into a productive life, where the native born Americans seemed to have an attitude of "once a criminal, always a criminal", which affected their willingness to offer employment.

We shall just have to agree to disagree, I guess. Because I feel that the very best people to help those on probation or who have found themselves in trouble with the law are people who have walked some miles in their shoes, and come out safely on the other side, and can serve as positive role models for the fact that these people, too, can achieve success.

Perhaps the problem is in making people applying for a secretarial job pass a background check, as opposed to considering the person themselves, and making a decision based on that, as opposed to just eliminating anyone from consideration who has any kind of a record. The U.S. is now incarcerating a larger percentage of its population than nearly any country in the world, and most of those people will re-enter society, so our national attitude toward restricting jobs to those who have never been trouble might better be rethought.

Especially since much recidivism is caused by ex-offenders being so discriminated against in hiring, that they are unable to make it in the outside world, and end up re-offending and going back through the revolving door again.

Without supportive family, some fairly major expense in helping our relative re-enter society, and the chances extended him by immigrant employers willing to hire him, he may well have failed in his re-entry, rather than been the success that he is becoming again, ensuring that he'll never be among the percentage who return to prison.

Sorry....not meaning to pick on you, particularly, and there was a time when I would have agreed completely with you......but that was before I got right up close and personal with the fact of having a family member with a felony record, and how life is for that population. Believe me, every person on probation NEEDS someone who has stumbled and yet managed to recover and go on to a productive life, to let them know it's possible. Because circumstances around them tell them differently, every day and in a myriad number of ways. JMHO

[Alan]

...Perhaps the problem is in making people applying for a secretarial job pass a background check, as opposed to considering the person themselves, and making a decision based on that, as opposed to just eliminating anyone from consideration who has any kind of a record. The U.S. is now incarcerating a larger percentage of its population than nearly any country in the world, and most of those people will re-enter society, so our national attitude toward restricting jobs to those who have never been trouble might better be rethought...


It would probably be easier if we weren't such a litigious society. Most mainstream employers simply can't afford to take on the liability associated with a known felon.


Especially since much recidivism is caused by ex-offenders being so discriminated against in hiring, that they are unable to make it in the outside world, and end up re-offending and going back through the revolving door again.


We all make choices in life. If someone "re-offends", they do so with the knowledge of the consequences and a seeming acceptance of them. I have a younger brother who spent 8 years in a Federal prison after his third drug related arrest and conviction (he wasn't using them on the third time, he was manufacturing and distributing them). After three years on the outside, he is now in a half-way house for violating the terms of his probation. He's not a victim. All of his problems could have been avoided, he simply chose not to.

I love him and feel for him but I cannot enable him by considering him as just another victimized person doing the best he can. That would be the worst thing for him, as I suspect it is for the vast majority of felons.

[Yppej]

I think there are very good reasons why people on probation are not allowed to keep in contact with people they knew in prison, why even subcontractors working in prisons cannot have a record, etc. I would not want an ex-offender I care about to be tempted into recidivism by taking a job around criminals, and I would in fact be concerned about the safety of some former criminals (e.g., gang members who have left a gang to go straight) being around current criminals.

[loosechickens]

Ah, would that we'd be so particular in not allowing the bankers and Wall Street criminals not to continue to fraternize......one is afraid that they might be among the MOST likely to re-offend.

Yep, we all make choices in life, and some people's poor choices pay off handsomely, and some peoples' don't.

I'm sorry to hear about your brother, Alan. I agree completely that people are responsible for their choices, and sometimes they continue over and over to make bad ones, but I also know that our relative's U.S. Probation officer told me that he had Federal probation people living under bridges, desperately trying to find jobs of any kind, who just could not manage to get hired for even minimum wage jobs.

we have the highest recidivism rate in the world, and a national attitude of prejudice against those who have made mistakes in their lives (and paid for them), surely does not help.

I don't blame people for having the views they have, because until very recently in life, I shared them. But experience has shown me the error of my ways, and my certainty of position has been very shaken, shaken to the point where I realize I didn't have a lot of understanding of realities in this department before. JMHO

[dmc]

Our senator McCaskill was nice enough to give $400,000 to the taxpayers. After she was caught of coarse. She billed the taxpayers for the use of her plane for political events, and has not payed her local taxes on the same plane for a few years. I guess the local school's didn't really need the money.

I wonder what she missed those years as state auditor.

[iris lily]

Our senator McCaskill was nice enough to give $400,000 to the taxpayers. After she was caught of coarse. She billed the taxpayers for the use of her plane for political events, and has not payed her local taxes on the same plane for a few years. I guess the local school's didn't really need the money.

I wonder what she missed those years as state auditor.

The local liberal talking head (Ray from the RFT) gives credit to McCaskill for coming forward , she could have just paid the tax and said nothing, according to him.

What a croc! It's not as though no one would have found out. No, Claire wanted to get this out and in the open now so that the voters will have forgotten about it by 2012. But I don't think so.

[Yppej]

Sounds like John Kerry not paying taxes on his yacht by registering it in RI instead of Mass. until he got caught.

[iris lily]

And now the guy who is running for county assessor hasn't paid real estate taxes from his business property because he says he was having a bad year and can't afford it! I am not happy that this is the Republican candidate! Bozos, all of them.

[The Storyteller]

Interesting day at our Oklahoma legislature. I was there to talk with my Senator about his position on a certain matter before that august body, then settled in the Senate gallery to observe the vote. The bill never came up, but while I was waiting a bill on livestock came on the floor. Seeings I'm accumulating a little, I perked up.

HB 1249 (http://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=HB1249) passed overwhelmingly in both houses. It removes the exemption to trespassing for entering another's land to retrieve your livestock without their permission. You can now be arrested and fined for doing so. So, if your cattle or goats, etc, get out and go onto your neighbor's land, you can (in Oklahoma) be forced to pay restitution if they damage crops etc, but you can't go and get them without the express permission of the landowner.

The bill is on its way to the governor for her signature.

Interesting debate, by the way. I never realized so many of our lawmakers owned cattle. About everyone except the bill's Senate sponsor, it seems. During the process, everyone's Oklahoma drawl kept getting deeper and deeper as they tried to out-cowboy each other. I was expecting any minute for one of them to prop a cowhide, spurred boot on his desk, tip his hat back, lean over and spit a chaw of t'backie into his trash can.

The funniest thing, though, was that it broke down party lines. How do you break cows getting out along party lines?

[iris lily]

What's the reason behind removing that exemption? Why now all of a sudden can't you go on your neighbor's property to get your cattle?

[The Storyteller]

That's the thing. It was never fully explained. There was an occasional reference to an "isolated incident", but that incident was never explained. Best I could figure was that folks didn't like the idea of someone coming onto their property regardless of the reason, even if that reason was a rational one and might actually be a good thing for the land owner.

You can, however, still go onto someone's property to post a political sign. Politicians are still exempted.

I just thought it was a weird thing to even take up legislative time, regardless which side it came down on.

The debate took 55 minutes, by the way. The next bill was on abortion. It took 25. If my union bill doesn't take at least an hour, I'll be ticked.

Well, more ticked. We're going to lose on it and our union will disappear, but at least give us more time and consideration than a bunch of cows.

[Lainey]

To most everyone's surprise, our gov here in AZ vetoed the so-called "birther bill." It would have required presidential candidates to provide evidence of their U.S. citizenship via a birth certificate.

This is the most recent of a few state bills where we believe the influence of moderate business people has caused our gov to back off from actually enacting favorite Tea Party legislation. Main reason of course is that it's giving AZ an extremist reputation which is bad for business.