Read Transcript of RM116: Hypocrisy: Rod Blagojevich Becomes Enlightened
We recorded a day late, but I promise it isn’t a dollar short! Call this the hypocrisy episode. It just seemed to be story after story with hypocrisy within it. Larry goes on a bit of a rant about the inconsistency of pardoning people with a specific crime, characterizing that as being pro criminal justice reform, but his attorney general, William Barr, is still seeking maximum punishment for most crimes.
[1:20] We start off with a listener comment and question. Mike in Florida congratulates us for delivering the info without any fluff and no sugar coating. It is possible that we are wrong. And we hope we are wrong. But from our opinion, we don’t see that the legislature will just throw their hands up in the air and say “Well, we tried. We’re sorry. There’s nothing we can do.” [17:46] There are 200,000 people in prison that are older than 55. Their propensity to continue to do criminal things has probably significantly diminished. In this case, Madoff is in the final stages of kidney failure and has 18 months to live. He has filed for compassionate release. The Bureau of Prisons has denied his petition. And it does this very regularly and only approves about 6% of the petitions.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/opinion/bernie-madoff-release.html [21:30] Mary’s law is a terrible law giving “victims” more rights. It does this at the expense of the rights of the one accused. It sounds great that the victim needs to be made whole. In our criminal justice system, the victim of a crime is not an expert on crime. They are just a cog in the wheel. Just because they are the victim to a crime does not mean they are an expert on anything. Why do they then get a say in whether the convicted is released or not?
https://www.lex18.com/news/marsys-law-passes-in-senate-committee
https://www.courthousenews.com/victim-rights-measure-will-stay-on-wisconsin-ballot/
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2020/02/13/marsys-law-would-compromise-due-proccess-right-fair-trial/4713478002/ [30:00] A fantastic article written by Diane Diamond talking about how bloated, and ineffective the Sex Offender Notification and Registration Act is. She is syndicated across the United States in hundreds of newspapers. Great article and thank you Ms. Diamond.
https://www.abqjournal.com/1423258/its-time-to-purge-our-bloated-sexoffender-registries.html [32:15] I am not sure how we got to the point where a pregnant woman gets shackled to a gurney. However, South Carolina floats a bill to end the practice. I believe that the reason you make a law is to correct a problem. That means they do this in South Carolina which is disgusting and inhumane. What is wrong with people? Can an corrections officer not make an evolved decision?
https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/sc-lawmakers-consider-measure-to-end-shackling-pregnant-inmates/article_7512148e-528d-11ea-809f-877d5cc4a39c.html [37:20] At this jail in Dallas County, they are going to lose something of $3 million in revenue annually by reducing the cost charged to inmates for phone calls. What bothers me in stories like this is that we say we understand that a family is at the top of the list for lowering recidivism. However, if you gouge the people that are providing support, we are making it that much harder to let that person have support. In many cases, these individuals are pre-trial. Are they not presumed innocent? They should have their liberties reduced only to that which keeps the public safe, and them safe. They don’t have free-world funds to make expensive calls to their lawyers and families.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2020/02/18/why-dallas-county-is-about-to-drastically-drop-the-cost-of-a-jailhouse-phone-call/ [44:40] The Governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, ran on a platform of criminal justice reform and is a born against Christian. Nicholas Sutton was on death row. He spent nearly 40 years in prison. He eventually worked as an orderly to other inmates who had various physical ailments and helped them to visitation to see their family. He even protected an officer and saved his life. He petitioned to not be executed. He didn’t try to be released from prison, but just to not die. He was executed Thursday 2/20/2020.
https://theintercept.com/2020/02/16/tennessee-death-row-nicholas-sutton-execution/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/20/us/nick-sutton-execution/index.html [49:00] At prisons in Mississippi, it isn’t safe for inmates. It isn’t even safe for the guards. The main reason that a facility can run with a couple officers for a hundred inmates is because the inmates accept that there is the control of the institution. They are generally trying to go home and get back to their lives. Not always. But the vast majority are. But in many southern states, they have significant staff shortages. In Mississippi and Alabama they have 50% and 55% staff shortages. This makes the environment very unsafe; for everyone.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/02/20/mississippi-prisons-no-one-s-safe-not-even-the-guards [57:00] We talk about former Governor Rod Blagojevich being on with Anderson Cooper. The former Governor gets challenged on his exoneration record; a privilege that he is now the recipient of. It would seem now that Mr. Blagojevich has had a change of heart about how prison is on a person.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/02/20/rod-blagojevich-is-out-prison-thanks-kind-mercy-he-rarely-showed-governor/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0szDYfCpDQQ [1:06:00] We cover a clip where Senator Diane Feinstein is speaking with Justice Antonin Scalia about the separation of powers, and what discrimination means. It is a frequent question in our movement regarding services such as Facebook where they have a clause in their terms of service preventing those on the registry from being on their platform. It is somewhat challenging to understand that while you of course have the freedom of speech provided by the First Amendment, but that is only a protection from the government restriction that right. It says nothing to a private company instituting those restrictions. [1:18:00] A 33 year old teacher has sexual relations with two students who are the age of 16 and 18. Her sentence being harsh, or lenient isn’t in question here. The reason we’ve brought it up on the podcast is that if we were to reverse the genders, and it be a 30-something year old male teacher, and two teen aged females, the system would have ramped up and given the male teacher all of the time under the sun. He would have been buried under the jail. This is just to point out that hypocrisy of things. And please don’t go and give her more time. Give the male teachers less time.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7741563/Teacher-avoids-jail-time-pleading-guilty-having-sex-students.html [1:23:09] NARSOL has a piece condemning the actions of the Southern Baptist Convention. They have voted to expel a church in Midland, Texas for employing Reverend Philip Rutledge as their pastor. Mr. Rutledge is on the Sex Offender registry there. The congregation is aware of his status and they agree to employ the man.
https://narsol.org/2020/02/narsol-condemns-southern-baptist-convention-as-un-christian/ [1:27:40] Indiana is trying to win the race to put the youngest people on the sex offender registry. They have introduced a bill that would register juveniles as young as 12 years old. What is wrong with you people?
https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/publicsafety/indiana-bill-could-result-in-kids-being-sent-to-jail/article_07b9ae34-4922-11ea-9704-ab54f67da803.html
https://www.registrymatters.co/podcast/rm116-hypocrisy-rod-blagojevich-becomes-enlightened
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