I swear, sometimes it seems like every jerk in the Commonwealth has ended up in the Pennsylvania legislature. What a collection of rare specimens! What is even more alarming is that these trilobites reflect the mentality of about a quarter of the population of the state, the idiot fringe who elected them. It's scary as hell!
Both chambers of the legislature are crammed with prime examples of the kinds of folks who would have done us better service if they'd been abortions.
But, if they are nothing else, your legislature is amusing.
Just consider two of the troglodytes' embryonic laws. Both are stupid, so they are sure to be enacted. Both will cause great injury and expense, so they're perfectly fitted to Ridge's agenda. Both reflect the degree of evolution of the minds of your legislators.
The first of these bad ideas is Senator Greenleaf's "Russia gambit." In my view Greenleaf is one of the most dangerous and ridiculous of your legislators. I believe that he suffers from a serious and dangerous personality disorder. What can you expect? He was collected into the legislative terrarium of absurdity by about 20% of the most questionable residents of Bucks and Montgomery counties outside Philadelphia, a known breeding ground for some very peculiar species of Homo slitherous.
So, Greenleaf and his political bedfellow, Mike "Velcro-Fingers" Fisher, cooked up this great pap: the "Keep-The-Perverts-In-Jail-Forever" law. The idea behind the law is that if somebody says that a guy is dangerous and has a "personality disorder" the state can keep the guy in jail forever! All it takes is for the majority of folks to not like the way the guy thinks and for them to say that the guy may be "dangerous" in the future.
Everybody knows that perverts are nuts, don't they? I mean, who would actually lap a lap? Who would actually have sex with a sixteen year-old? Only nuts, right? So, lock them up forever.
To get away with their law, Greenleaf and his political mutants want to simply change the signs on the outsides of the prisons. From now on, we'll call them (are you ready?) "hospitals!"
The nicest thing about Greenleaf's brainstorm is how well it will evolve over time: perverts today, drunks drivers tomorrow, Democrats the day after that. If you don't think like Greenleaf and your charming Attorney General, Michael "I swear I'm innocent" Fisher, and if they can suggest that you are "dangerous" to somebody, you better expect to be in a "hospital" soon!
But the senate jerks aren't the only ones dreaming up legal silliness. In the House of Representatives, Jerry Birmelin, that intellectual giant from Dyke County, and his clot of amoeba-brains have the "Blood-From-A-Stone" law.
Birmelin's innovation is based on the absurd premise that the state should steal, sorry, seize, money from prisoners' accounts to pay for "restitution," costs and fines. It all makes you appreciate how truly primitive the legislative mind really is!
Prisoners have only tiny amounts of money. For a whole month of slave labor the prisoner makes on average about $35. That's in a month, remember. It's hardly enough money for the prisoner to buy television service and the food and essentials that he needs to make up for the shortages of the state.
Most prisoners struggle by with little gifts from family and loved ones. Otherwise they would be utterly destitute. Even now, very few have enough money to get into court to fight for their rights and their innocence.
Of course, that's the whole idea; keep the prisoners penniless and helpless. Don't give them a chance to get legal help.
The moron-monsters who make your laws have such a murky view of reality that they can't figure out that their Blood-From-A-Stone law is dangerous as well as stupid and cruel. When you get people (even scum bag prisoners) desperate enough, they rebel, riot and fight. One riot costs $47,000,000.00 and likely several lives. That's a hundred times more money than the inane scheme would collect.
Mostly the "blood" won't be sucked from the stone, but from the poor families of prisoners; from the husbandless families. But that sort of people seldom vote, so who cares if they get bled dry? Certainly not the fools in your legislature!
While Birmelin is certainly a dilly of a throw-back, he's not alone. Consider his fellow member of the House, Davie Mayernik. This guy's a Democrat and you'd think he'd know better, but a rocket scientist he ain't.
Mayernik's one of those guy who is obsessed with pennies and oblivious to dollars. His crusade is against prison "idle pay." The poor dear just can't seem to figure it out.
Thanks to Pennsylvania's very long prison sentences, more and more prisoners are simply too old, infirmed or sick to work. Thanks to prison conditions, many have been driven mad and are too insane to work. For those invalids, the humane state pays a tiny stipend, about $15 a month. The guys mostly use the money to buy television service and to keep themselves occupied and out of trouble. Some buy a little bit of desperately needed food or a few bars of soap.
Marvelous Mayernik doesn't want those prisoners to get that pittance. It's not enough that they're old or sick or crazy. He wants them hungry and penniless. Don't you feel safer in your warm beds at night knowing that the crippled prisoner is without the few pennies he needs to watch TV and so to keep from causing a problem for the guards?
The real abuse of "idle pay" is with the prison guards. Guards do utterly nothing. They get paid big money for being idle. On average each one of them sucks over $4400. a month in "idle pay." Marvelous Mayernik has a hard time calculating that $4400 a month is a lot bigger problem than $15 a month. It's a Neanderthal trait.
Return to Politicians Menu page.
Return to Bad Laws Menu page.
Return to HOMEPAGE.