This is an attempt to post this rant properly. A number of people told me that the links in it were not working right, so here we go: This is a post about the Kenosha Sheriff’s race. Hold on. It’s going to be a bit of a long one. I have been getting some posts lately about the Kenosha Sheriff race. Almost all of them have been pro-David Beth. I will admit to not having thought much about this contest because, at the risk of sounding like an ideolog, I think it’s just a choice between two Republicans. Then I got a post from one ‘Angie Aker’ that read: “Im a fervent progressive. And Id rather lose my chance to vote in the Dem primaries than waste my chance to keep Dave Zoerner OUT of the sheriffs seat. Does that tell you anything? Im voting for Sheriff David Beth on August 12th. I hope you will, too.” The first thing that grabbed my attention was the statement “Id rather lose my chance to vote in the Dem primaries than waste my chance to keep Dave Zoerner OUT of the sheriffs seat.” Hey, Angie, we have an open primary system in Wisconsin, so I can vote in either primary and not lose my ability to vote in the other. To repeat her own question: “Does that tell you anything?” It told me that Ms. Aker either doesn’t know the law, or was transcribing a script that had been written by someone unfamiliar with said law, or both. Another thing that seemed strange to me, was that a self-described ‘fervent progressive’ would be so concerned about helping a man that harassed volunteers that were collecting signatures for the Walker Recall attempt. So I checked to see how she got to my page in the first place, and I found that hers was a sponsored post. It was put there because someone paid for it to be. I couldn’t help but notice that the pro-Zoerner posts that I receive are from actual friends of mine. This leads me to question just who is financing this stuff? This is important in light of the fact that Koch-style, rightwing, funding has trickled down into local races in places like Kenosha. Remember the last school board election? Investigative reporting is not my main bag, but I had to do at least a little looking. When I checked out the Beth website, I couldn’t but help noticing that it looked like it had been built from the same template that many of the newly spawned, right-wing, ‘grass-roots’ websites use. Is it just stylistic similarity? Maybe so, this is just my observation. After looking at his website I googled Sheriff Beth to see what I could learn about his record. The items I found were about what you would expect: a lot of news releases about public safety, commendation of officers, and some sad news about the shootings of deputies. Of course, there were also the reports concerning his badgering of the Walker Recall volunteers. Then I found one about Beth appearing in Madison and commenting on some legislation that was being fast-tracked in the capitol. The legislation makes it easier for evictions to take place, and allows landlords to dispose of a tenant’s property very quickly without much recourse for the tenant. Another provision allows landlords to keep secret from renters any housing safety violations that the landlords have committed. The bill was fast-tracked (announced on Monday, added to the agenda on Tuesday) because we are in Walker’s Wisconsin right now. Beth was there to speak in support of all of this. I haven’t gotten as deep into finding out as much as I would like about how he has reportedly saved the taxpayers $57 million dollars. But I did find out that it involves the housing of federal inmates on one hand and the release of offenders on the other. I find this disagreeable on a number of fronts. First: I disagree with the Prison-Industrial Complex’s practice of shipping prisoners all around the country for the fun and profit of Corporate Overlords. It takes prisoners and places them at far distances, often many states away from their families. This can make the rehabilitation of a prisoner all the more problematic. Another issue: Do prisons want to keep their worst offenders or will they try to send them to another state, like Wisconsin? Even non-violent prisoners can be very well connected in the criminal world. You hear a lot of concern expressed about the proliferation of gang contact throughout the nations’ prisons, yet they swap inmates around the country like cattle. The Sheriff also touts the fact that he is easing pressure on our jails through the increased electronic monitoring of non-violent inmates, released on a sort of Huber law variant. Two questions here: ‘Why are there so many non-violent offenders in jail in Kenosha in the first place?’ and: ‘Are their bunks being taken up by an imported prisoner because having one of them is more profitable?’ This may be the case, because Sheriff Beth is another proponent of the right wing axiom that the ‘department should be run like a business.’ This idea is, and always has been, problematic. Businesses are run to make a profit. A community law enforcement agency’s main concern should be the safety and well being of its citizens. I believe the old motto was “To protect and serve,” not “Use the citizenry as a source of earnings.” So far My impression of Sheriff Beth is that he likes to interfere with the right of the people to petition their government as reported in the Kenosha news: kenoshanews/news/sheriff_breaks_up_recall_walker_event_305179671.html As well as the national media: dailykos/story/2012/01/09/1053000/-Walker-s-Wisconsin-Kenosha-County-Sheriff-Says-Signs-More-Than-4-Wide-Not-Allowed-On-Public-Land And he wants to limit the power of the renter to make informed decisions about the safety of the place they live in, as well as make it easier for landlords to dispose of a renter’s property: wnow.worldnow/story/22146124/2013/05/02/controversial-landlord-tenant-bill-packs-public-hearing-room I don’t have any links to share at the moment concerning the prisoner swapping, but I have only just begun. Are these the kinds of attitudes and policies you want in control of the ‘long arm of the law?’ In full disclosure, I admit I am only scratching the surface, but my experience on this planet tells me, if it stinks this bad at this distance, there is something wrong here. This doesn’t mean the challenger, Deputy Zoerner, is off of the hook. He does have an advantage concerning inquiry into his policies because, let’s face it, he is somewhat of an unknown quantity, having never held the position. So far I have found him offering nothing to make me believe he is substantially any different than the incumbent. So this may really be, as I said above, just a choice of one Republican over another. Rant over for now.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 22:00:50 +0000