Limited government? What's that?

So, Mr. Limited Government, what should we do about the budget shortfall in Texas?

Cut funding for public education, you say. Really? Is that the best option we can come up with? You want to lay off teachers and ease up on class sizes? What kind of message does that send out?

How about reducing the amount the taxpayers spend on security details for the governor when he's not conducting state business? You know, set an example.

In September 2011, Gov. Rick Perry spent almost $400,000 on security details traveling around the country sticking his foot in his mouth and coming in below "Other" in the polls. Since his reelection in 2010, Gov. Goodhair has racked up more than $750,000 in security expenses for his travels outside the Lone Star State.

If Gov. Perry is willing to be so hypocritical when it comes to spending your money, just what the hell do you think you're in store for if he makes it to the White House? He is more than happy to spend your money chasing a pipe dream but he can't be bothered to find money to restore funding to public schools.

So, Gov. Perry, why don't you take a few minutes and explain to us your vision for limited government?

P.S. I understand how you might need to wait for your speechwriters and press people to stop by and drop off your talking points because God knows it's hard work making George W. look like a genius.

In the eye of Newt

Back in December of last year I wrote a post about a conservative group that recognizes the current right wing mantra of "lock 'em all up," isn't working. The name of the group was Right on Crime. And who is one of the people behind Right on Crime?

If you guessed Newt Gingrich, you are correct.

Only, as the law profs over at Sentencing Law and Policy point out, you'd never know it from the campaign rhetoric.

From the Right on Crime website is a reprint of an editorial written by Mr. Gingrich and Mark Earley about how to cut down on recidivism. I'll include some of the highlights.

If two-thirds of public school students dropped out, or two-thirds of all bridges built collapsed within three years, would citizens tolerate it? The people of Georgia would never stand for that kind of failure. But that is exactly what is happening all across the U.S. in our prison systems. 

Last year, some 20,000 people were released from Georgia’s prisons to re-enter our communities. If trends of the past decade continue, two-thirds of them will be rearrested within three years. That failure rate is a clear and present threat to public safety. 

Not only is this revolving door a threat to public safety, but it results in an increasing burden on each and every taxpayer.

What those on the right don't seem to realize is that if you want to lock someone up and throw away the key, someone's got to foot the bill. Either you have to spend more money to run the state or you have to find the funds from someone else's basket.

Just as a student’s success isn’t measured by his entrance into high school but by his graduation, and a bridge’s value isn’t measured by its completion but by its long-term reliability, celebrating taking criminals off the street with little thought to their imminent return to society is foolhardy. 

The key to public safety and fiscal sanity is not just getting dangerous people off the streets but also making sure that men and women who eventually leave prison have changed and can stay crime-free on the outside.

Another thing the right wingnuts don't seem to think about is what to do with folks once they get out of prison. You can't just turn them back out on the street because they are virtually unemployable due to their criminal record. If you don't offer some type of assistance they will be forced to return to a life of crime just to survive.

Now, of course, the editorial then morphs into an advertisement for (yet another) religion-based organization with its hands out asking the state for funds.

But, aside from the plug, at least someone on the right of the political spectrum is looking beyond mere campaign rhetoric and actually asking how might a problem be solved. I may not care for Mr. Gingrich's politics in general, but, I do applaud his willingness to think outside the box when it comes to the problems in our criminal (in)justice system.

Fight the clutter!

I know my desk is in there somewhere...

Maybe not quite that bad, but I think it's time for another good cleaning of the ol' office.

Book review: Vulture's Picnic

Prince William Sound. Southern Louisiana. The Gulf of Mexico. The Caspian Sea. Ecuador. Nigeria.

In his latest book, Vultures Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum, Pigs, Pirates and High Finance Carnivores, investigative journalist Greg Palast takes us on a frenzied world tour of the damage wreaked by the oil companies and financial speculators (or thieves, as the case may be).

From Houston to New Orleans to Alaska to Liberia to Switzerland, Mr. Palast does as Woodward and Bernstein were told to do in All the President's Men - follow the money.

What follows is a tale of how transnational capital has decimated the lives of the poor across the planet. The oil companies polluted the people and the environment and the vultures of high finance have swooped in and forced foreign governments to kowtow to the will of their corporate overseers. The result of his investigation will open your eyes and make you think twice about what you think you know.

You'll recall that after the Exxon Valdez ran aground that folks cut up their Exxon credit cards, dipped them in oil and mailed them back. My wife refuses to go to an Exxon station to this day. But guess who was really at fault for the disaster in Prince William Sound. Not Exxon. BP - you know the company that portrays itself as green as a hemp-wearing tree hugger - was in charge of the terminal at Valdez. BP was in charge of ensuring that the clean up equipment was there. But guess what? There was no clean up equipment. But, for the good of the Seven Sisters, Exxon bent over and grabbed its ankles.

After the Transocean disaster in the Gulf, it was BP's turn to grin and bear it. But the boys in green weren't the ones making the decisions out there. All of the sisters were supposed to have a plan in place just in case a deep water well went to hell - and, as you know by now, there was no plan.

But what you probably didn't know is that the Transocean disaster wasn't BP's first rodeo. Out in the Caspian Sea, BP used a nitrogen-concrete blend to seal a well and, let's just say that didn't work out so well. But we're sold the line that what happened out in the Gulf was an accident. Once, my friends, is an accident. Twice is a pattern.

And, if you have trouble staying awake late at night, just read the section on the backup diesel generators at nuclear plants around the world. Here's a hint... Mother Nature wasn't to blame for the meltdown at Fukushima.

Saturday morning run

While y'all are reading this, I'll be running 31 miles through the woods at Huntsville State Park. Have a great day!

First they came for the (alleged) terrorists...

On Tuesday the U.S. Senate had the opportunity to put the rule of law ahead of fear-mongering and politics -- and failed spectacularly.

By a vote of 61-37 the Senate defeated an amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would remove three troubling provisions that have raised the spectre of a presidential veto. The bill, if passed, would allow the U.S. to hold those suspected of involvement with terrorism - including US citizens - indefinitely without charge. In other words, forget about that American concept of innocent unless proven guilty; if los federales suspect you're involved in terrorism, you are guilty unless you can prove otherwise.

The bill would also require civilian law enforcement to turn over anyone suspected of terrorist activities into military custody. The bill would also place further restrictions on the transfer of detainees at Guantanamo who were cleared of all charges.

Holding a suspect indefinitely without bringing charges makes a complete mockery out of our criminal (in)justice  system. Without being informed of the specific charges against him, an inmate can't muster a legal defense and his right to a speedy trial is taken away. The very notion of indefinite detention should make us all shudder - but it won't. After all, who's going to raise a stink about someone accused of plotting to blow up a building? He's not a person, he's a terrorist. He has no rights.

But once you've demonized one group of defendants, it makes it easier to demonize the next group. And who will that be? And who will stand up to challenge the state then?

Liberty is a funny creature. We all have the right to be left alone by our government. But, at the same time, that means we can't be protected from every possible threat out there. It's a trade-off we make. The more freedom and liberty you have, the less security you get. And vice versa.

What's more important to you?

When we allow the government to take away our rights - no matter how tangentially - we are allowing the fox into the hen house. There will always be a rationale. C'mon, these are really, really bad people.

It's happened to the Fourth Amendment. Where once we were protected against unreasonable search and seizure, today it's little more than a piece of paper. In the name of security and efficiency we have allowed one of our most important freedoms to be whittled away to nothing.

Today it's suspected terrorists. Who will it be tomorrow?

You gotta blame someone

Last March protesters took to the streets of Bahrain demanding a voice in the governance of the oil-rich kingdom. Imagine that - in this day and age of democracy busting out all over, we have the vestiges of an era in which someone grabbed a bigger stick and declared himself to be king. How could that cause any problems?

As is wont to happen when an authoritarian regime is challenged, the security forces (providing security for whom?) were whipped into a frenzy and went into a murderous rampage against their own citizens. Now let's just think about that for a moment. Armed personnel (thugs?) in the employ of the government are ordered to beat, maim, intimidate and kill anyone who dare speak out against the regime. The same regime that puts on its smiley face and tells the people to be patient - that reform is in the works.

Nope. Wrong answer. What we have is a government that has lost all legitimacy. Once a regime turns its armed forces on its own citizenry, it has lost whatever moral authority it may have had in the first place. And any member of the security forces (or police or army or whatever the hell you want to call the thugs) that follows an order to turn his weapon on a fellow citizen is guilty of a crime.

But there's more. You see the Bahraini government decided that it wasn't enough to beat, maim and kills its own citizens. After all, the victims who were still breathing had to get medical treatment somewhere. With all apologies to Shakespeare, the king decided the first thing he needed to do was kill the doctors.

Punish the doctors, that's right. Forget about the dead and the wounded. Forget about the army pointing its weapons at the people it's supposed to protect (well, that's what we're told the military and police do - in reality their job is to protect the chosen few.)

Twenty doctors, nurses and medics were convicted of inciting the people to overthrow the government and were sentenced to between five and 15 years in prison. Forget about the soldiers that shot, maimed and killed their fellow citizens - they went back to their barracks and got some commendation or ribbon to pin to their uniforms. But the medics who did what doctors do got the whip.

Maybe some of the medics wanted to see the government overthrown. Maybe some were part of the protests. Who cares? They were tried and convicted for tending to the wounded and trying to save their lives. They were punished for treating the citizens who were injured at the hands of their own government.

Bowing to international pressure (and to an international panel's report that found "abuses" in the government's crackdown on protesters -- I guess you could call killing protesters to be abusive. I prefer to call it murder), the medics were retried on Monday.

Maybe the regime tries to make nice and hope everything blows over. But you can't unring the bell. And, no matter how hard you scrub, you can't wash away the blood on your hands.