Tag: taxes

Reparations Don’t Buy Justice, Dignity or Freedom

The problem with the idea of reparations is it redirects attention away from exactly where attention is needed: on individuals’ personal responsibility for their own unique lives.CARTOONS | MICHAEL RAMIREZVIEW CARTOON

And it redirects attention in such a way to encourage individuals to believe that some abstract, collective entity from the past is the cause of all their individual problems in the present.

Compensation for damages is a basic legal principle.

It’s about personal responsibility. Individual A sues individual B for damages caused. Exactly what the damages were and exactly how B injured A must be shown in a court of law.

Today, only a small fraction of our population has ancestors who were around before 1865 when slavery was legal. The idea of collective guilt, with no specific individual identified as causing the damage and no specific individual showing how he or she was damaged, doesn’t fly.

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Arizona’s $24-Million Prison Management Software Is Keeping People Locked Up Past The End Of Their Sentences

The Arizona Department of Corrections is depriving inmates of freedom they’ve earned. Its $24 million tracking software isn’t doing what it’s supposed to when it comes to calculating time served credits. That’s according to whistleblowers who’ve been ignored by the DOC and have taken their complaints to the press. Here’s Jimmy Jenkins of KJZZ, who was given access to documents showing the bug has been well-documented and remains unfixed, more than a year after it was discovered.

According to Arizona Department of Corrections whistleblowers, hundreds of incarcerated people who should be eligible for release are being held in prison because the inmate management software cannot interpret current sentencing laws.

KJZZ is not naming the whistleblowers because they fear retaliation. The employees said they have been raising the issue internally for more than a year, but prison administrators have not acted to fix the software bug. The sources said Chief Information Officer Holly Greene and Deputy Director Joe Profiri have been aware of the problem since 2019.

The management software (ACIS) rolled out during the 2019 Thanksgiving holiday weekend, which is always the best time to debut new systems that might need a lot of immediate tech support. Since its rollout, the software has generated 19,000 bug reports. The one at the center of this ongoing deprivation of liberty arose as the result of a law passed in June of that year. The law gave additional credit days to inmates charged with low-level drug offenses, increasing the credit from one day for every six served to three days for every seven.

Qualified inmates are only supposed to serve 70% of their sentences, provided they also complete some other prerequisites, like earning a GED or entering a substance abuse program. That law hasn’t been implemented in the Arizona prison system because the $24 million software can’t seem to figure out how to do it.

To be sure, legislation that changes time served credits for only a certain percentage of inmates creates problems for prison management systems. But that’s why you spend $24 million buying one, rather than just asking employees if they’re any good at Excel.

But that’s what has actually happened. With the expensive software unable to correctly calculate time served credits, prison employees are doing it by hand.

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New Mexico Gov. Grisham under fire for allegedly spending thousands of taxpayer dollars on groceries, alcohol, dry cleaning

New Mexico’s Democratic Governor Lujan Grisham is in hot water for allegedly using taxpayer money to buy herself groceries, liquor, and dry cleaning. Financial documents obtained by local media showed that in the last half of 2020, Grisham spent $13,500 on various expenses, including Wagyu beef, tequila, vodka, gin, and wine.

In addition to extravagant spending on alcohol and personal effects, reports say that individuals close to Grisham received significant raises that ranged between $7,500 and $12,000.

“It’s not what tax dollars ought to be spent for,” said Republican House Minority Leader Jim Townsend. “In the time when people are hurting all over the state, using their tax dollars to buy Wagyu beef has got to be a little bit disenchanting to many people. I think it’s just more of [an] indication of the problem that we have had and the governor has had connecting with people.”

Beyond questionable expenditures on the taxpayer dime, Grisham has also been criticized for issuing family gathering restrictions for private citizens throughout the pandemic while simultaneously holding large events and meetings of people at her mansion.

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National Guard To Stay In DC ‘Through Fall 2021’

A leaked email suggests that there are plans to keep the National Guard in Washington DC beyond the previously discussed deadline of March 12th, and throughout the Summer AND Fall.

A report by FOX 5 cites an internal email seen by reporters that reveals The National Security Council is asking the Department of Defense to engage Capitol Police on planning for post-March 12th support.

The report notes that there will be a meeting for agencies to discuss the matter next Wednesday, February 17th.

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Nancy Pelosi Pledges to Create a 9/11-Style Commission to Investigate the Capitol Riot and the GOP Goes Along

Fresh off a humiliating repudiation by the US Senate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided to double down in her quest to, Captain-Ahab-like, pursue President Trump to the ends of the earth to exact her vengeance.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that the House would move to establish an independent commission to investigate what led to a mob storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — one similar to the body that studied the 9/11 attacks for 15 months before issuing a sweeping 585-page report.

Two days after former president Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate of inciting the deadly attack, Pelosi (D-Calif.) signaled in a letter to Democratic colleagues that the House would soon consider legislation to form a commission to “investigate and report” on the attack and interference in election proceedings, as well as an appropriation to pay for enhanced security features on the Capitol grounds.

The GOP’s commonsense move would be to tell her that she can have her commission but that no one from the GOP will have anything to do with what is clearly a smear campaign. Unfortunately, that is not the way the GOP operates. If there is a chance to preen and profile before television cameras, our GOP senators can’t resist the catnip no matter the obvious agenda of such a commission.

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Schumer and AOC Team Up to Announce Taxpayers Now on the Hook for COVID Funerals, Including for Illegal Immigrants

If there’s one way to make sure COVID-19 deaths don’t go down, this is it.

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer joined forces this week to publicize a federal program that will reimburse the families of coronavirus victims up to $7,000 for funeral expenses for deaths from the disease that occurred in 2020 — even if the death involved an illegal alien.

And, according to CNN, Schumer said the lawmakers want the program to last as long as the pandemic does — which means the numbers are likely to show the pandemic lasting a good long time.

According to the New York Post, the program Schumer and Ocasio-Cortez introduced at a joint news conference in New York on Monday is part of the COVID relief measure signed into law in December by then-President Donald Trump.

Under the bill, $2 billion will go to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for COVID-19 funeral expenses, according to the Post, with about $200,000 million going to New York, the hardest-hit area of the country.

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