On tap for the Angola State Prison menu: White meat?

James O’Keefe, the guerilla videographer who along with his partner, Hannah Giles, caught ACORN employees last year giving advice to their pimp and prostitute personas with respect to setting up prostitution rings is in a wee bit a trouble.

Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility.

Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana. All four men were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

O’Keefe who was making conservative insurgency tactics hip, was fond of quoting leftist community organizing pioneer, Saul Alinsky. Allow us to offer one up on O’Keefe’s behalf: You do the crime, you do the time.

Can’t say as there’s anyone less we would want to trade places with considering he and his merry band of “plumbers” are looking at fines, jail time and a disgraced legacy. Heckuva job, guys.

Exit question: does this mean Hannah Giles is available?

Chart of the day

In the wake of our Governor’s bizarre proposal for constitutional amendment that would require the state to spend more on higher education than it does on prisons every year, we present the chart below.

(click on image to enlarge)




Uh, yeah. Spending doesn’t seem to be the problem as spending and staffing (though we’re not sure that is accounting strictly for teachers or admin. as well) have risen dramatically over the past 40 years while scores have flat-lined, or looking at it optimistically, the scores have stabilized.

No… with prison populations rising, there might just be something else afoot here.

We’ll let our favorite scold, KT, explain things here.

P.S. As you will note, the graph is for high school seniors, which will account for the quality of education in grade, middle and high school. That is why the Governor's proposal for college/university level education is so non-sensical.

Wanted: warm, caring and nuturing environment in which to call home

Headline from yesterday's U-T: Judges seek major inmate reduction

A special panel of federal judges tentatively ruled yesterday that California will have to reduce its prison population by tens of thousands of inmates to relieve overcrowding over the next several years.

Now, what could possibly go wrong with that?

On the bright side, there will be some real estate freed-up down in Cuba, shortly, to help ease this umm.. manning crunch and just think of all the money that our cash-strapped state will be able to save by not having to feed, clothe and house tens of thousands of inmates.