California's megalomaniacal mini-Czar of Prison Reform

Here come the feds! Here to rescue our poor ailing california prisoners---the majority of whom wouldn't be incarcerated in the first place were it not for the feds' 100-year plan to criminalize virtually every aspect of modern life which they can't tax or regulate---from the evil California prison system. Robert Sillen, sounding a little too much like a certain North Korean with a huge case of SMS (small-man sydrome), wants everyone to know to know that he's the new sheriff in town, and that with regards to costs, "Astronomical is in the eye of the beholder."

Seriously! No BS! He actually said that. And he was just getting warmed up, on his way to explaining that Schwareznegger's $100 million plan to upgrade the prison health care system was an insult to any self-respecting mega-bureaucrat's sense of largesse. Get real, Arnie, how could Robert dare to show his face in Washington knowing he only managed to rack the california taxpayers for an additional tenth of a billion dollars?! Hell, a quarter of billion will barely get this show on the road! But, of course, Sillen comforts us with the fact that we'll all (even those of us who are not currently in the pokey, dwindling though our numbers may be) be much better off because his plan to Marriot-ize our prison system will provide the "double-benefit of relieving crowding" and getting the sickies out of the prison system's general population.

I wonder how much consideration went toward the fact that once there are tens of thousands of prison-hospital beds to be filled, and thousands of ridiculously overpaid prison-hospital staff standing around tapping their toes and drinking (taxpayer-supplied) Starbucks double-cappalattacinos virtually every camper in the california penal system will eventually come down with one or another life-threatening malady, which will obviously require not only a million dollar operation but also the obligatory seven-year stay at the soon to be christened California Reformitory Public Health Care Rehabilitation and Convalescence Complex (which will have to be built somewhere high in the Sierras, not only for reasons of security, but also because it would surely be cruel and unusual punishment to ask these poor victims of society to convalesce in some place like, say, Death Valley or Fontana........well, actually, Fontana really might be asking a little much even for an ax murderer).

And as if all that nonsensical wasting of taxpayer capital isn't enough, herr fuerher Sillen says that within weeks he will "order pay raises for thousands of prison health care workers." In some cases he plans to DOUBLE their salaries, if effect making them some of the the highest paid state employees! Seriously. No kidding. I'm not making this up.

Why all the fuss over a bunch of murderers, psychopaths, child-molesters, meth-manufacturers and just plain human cockroaches? Becuase "We still have people dying every week in that system---needlessly---and we need to stop that." Come on, Robert, jeez, get with theprogram. That's the whole point! Why don't you just pack your bags and saddle up and ride off into the sunset, the long way around back to Washington. Find yourself a crusade that doesn't threaten to break the back of the world's 4th (or 7th, or whatever it is this week) largest economy. In fact, since you're bent on "saving Californians' money in the long run," here's a couple of suggestions:

1) Try getting the feds to kick down some more loot for a 50' wall from San Diego to South Padre Island, Texas.

2) Make it your life's work to get about forty or fifty thousand of the uncostitutional laws, taxes, regulations and official pains-in-the-ass stricken from the federal legal code. Such an altruistic undertaking, while ultimately fruitless, is at least pushing in the right direction in lieu of adding yet more to the already crushing burden of federal "intervention."

3) Enter psycho-therapy and try to find out what actually caused you to be such an iron-fisted megalomaniac in the first place.

4) Work to divert sufficient funds from NASA's budget; I'm sure with a mere fraction of that bumbling monster's funds we could put up our prisoners in all the various Wyndhams and Raddisons, and even give them an open ticket for room service and all the free porn they can consume!

5) Purchase a medium-size island, say somewhere between Alaska and Siberia, and hold a no-holds-barred last-inmate-breathing style Survivor contest. Make it mandatory for all violent criminals and we could eliminate a sizable chunk of the prison population in one fell swoop. Suggestion: Make it a pay-per-view event and you'll earn enough dough to build your hospitals and pay your loafers...and, best of all, you'll have the vermin killing each other just to get (back) BEHIND the bars (again) so they too can be on TV!.

6) Read the constitution and the bill of rights and all the various amendments and then explain exactly where it is that you find the (clearly enumerated) mandate for the federal government to step in and take over a state's prison system. Then get back to us.

7) Of course there are millions more ways to waste taxpayer's dollars, but I've got to get to work; I'm not finished paying my taxes for this year---it's only July.

Time to contract with Maricopa County and let Sherrif Arpaio (my personal hero) provide "health-care" for our prisoners: clean air, hard work, all the water they can drink and three squares a day...and pink coveralls.