I would like to know if anyone has identified discrimination of post convicted people as a major factor to high unemployment in your communities and what have your communites done to eliviate this problem.
My view is, if people are not able to get jobs because of their convictions they will be roaming the streets broke while we are at work, and they will still be in the community.
They will still be our neighbors even if we allow apartments to discriminate against giving them housing they will still live in the apartments with someone else.
I feel the solution is to make it against the law for them to be discriminated against by employers where there is no conflict of interst relating to their crime and the jobs and also make it illegal for any housing community that rents to the general public to discriminate based on ta prior conviction when the person is no threat to the community.
If someone else has a suggestion please give me some guidiance to help me find a solution for the heads of these families I serve.
How do I have a bill proposed for this at the federal level, if we are really talking about re entry these people cannot possibly re enter when they cannot find a place to live and assume their parental roles as adults. If we won't give them a chance to really be free after they have given everything that was required of their sentences, we should not continue to punish them life is hard enough and they never finish their sentence it becomes a life sentence to them.
As Congress Lay Dying
by David Swanson @ smirkingchimp.com
The debate among progressive activists and commentators in recent weeks has tended to range from the leave-Obama-alone-and-he'll-fix-everything position to the stage-a-protest-at-Obama's-house-for-the-next-month position, including numerous stances in between those extremes. What all these positions share is acceptance of the incredible shift of power from Congress to the White House that we have seen in just the last eight years. It is in these concluding moments of the Bush-Cheney era that Congress's coffin is being constructed just outside our window, and I'm afraid that the peace and justice movement is picking flowers to bring to the funeral.
Congress is corrupted by money, media, and parties, and it has chosen its impotence. We've replaced a disastrous president with one who can't help but be in at least some ways dramatically better. Why in the world would we distract ourselves with worrying about Congress? The frightening reason is this: if we leave all power in the hands of the president, sooner or later all power will belong to someone even worse than Bush. The hopeful reason is this: the only possible path to truly transformative democratic change lies in re-empowering and reforming Congress. It may take some of us a few more months to consider the possibility of that. It may take us generations to prove it. The authors of the U.S. Constitution were closer to grasping it than we are.....
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/18991
Kristol Calls On Bush To Pardon Torturers And Wiretappers, Reward Them With Medal Of Freedom»
By Faiz Shakir @ thinkprogress.org
In his new Weekly Standard column, right-wing pundit Bill Kristol lays out a to-do list for President Bush before he leaves office. He urges Bush to deliver speeches “reminding Americans of our successes fighting the war on terror.” Kristol dreams, “Over time, Bush might even get deserved credit for effective conduct of the war on terror.”
After urging Bush to fight the incoming administration’s desire to close Guantanamo, Kristol concludes with this:
One last thing: Bush should consider pardoning–and should at least be vociferously praising–everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror, but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points. The lawyers can work out if such general or specific preemptive pardons are possible; it may be that the best Bush can or should do is to warn publicly against any such harassment or prosecution. But the idea is this: The CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan, should not have to worry about legal bills or public defamation. In fact, Bush might want to give some of these public servants the Medal of Freedom at the same time he bestows the honor on Generals Petraeus and Odierno. They deserve it.
In the Bush era, the Medal of Freedom has come to absurdly represent a reward for those who carried out policy failures at the urging of the Bush administration.............
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/29/kristol-medal-torture/
By Sen. RUSS FEINGOLD @ counterpunch.org
A departing president probably can't help thinking about the judgment of history. At the end of eight years, President Bush likely isn't any different. With the nation's attention focused on his successor, it may seem as if there is little opportunity left for the current president to affect how he will be viewed. But there is one power left -- the power of the pardon -- that could, if it's abused, create a controversy that both the president and the public could live without.
The power of the pardon is close to absolute. Short of interfering with their own impeachment, presidents can pardon whomever they choose. At the end of his term, however, this president should think twice before issuing pardons that call his judgment, and the integrity of the rule of law, into question.....
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.counterpunch.org/feingold11202008.html
PS. Senator Russ Feingold for Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (replacing Biden) - John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120277819085260827.html
I never heard too much about the Clinton Administration (including Hillary, she was part of the team) and how they could sit up there and look down on Barack Obama while they are party to the same criminals.
Wow. I can't believe they would continue to tell the American people one thing and do something else.
Extremely interesting reading!!
http://www.mishalov.com/Clinton_IndefensiblePardon.html
An Indefensible Pardon
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2DC103FF932A05751C1A96E958260
