(Crossposted at Political Cortex - but soon we will no longer cross-post on a regular basis! So come to the Cortex and help us grow!)
Yes, California tax dollars are being put to work in a PR campaign against a death-row inmate scheduled for a Dec. 13 execution.
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. - As murderer and Crips co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams tries to stave off execution next month, California prison officials have launched an unusual counterattack against the notion that he has redeemed himself behind bars.
The Corrections Department earlier this month posted a press release on its Web site about the upcoming execution, detailing Williams' crimes and asserting that he has been a gang leader while on death row at San Quentin Prison.
More stupid ass bullshit below the flip.
On its Web site, the Correction Department said of Williams: "By 1994, having firmly entrenched himself as the leader of the Crips at San Quentin, he wielded his power as his lieutenants and other minions were dispatched to carry out his objectives." The paragraph was removed a day after it was posted following a call from The Associated Press.
Daniel Vasquez, who was warden at San Quentin from 1983 to 1993 and wrote a letter supporting clemency for the last death row inmate executed, said he had never seen such an inflammatory statement in a press release from the prison.
"It's like they're trying to drum up business for death row," he said.
The story details Williams' supporters, who say he's redeemed himself in prison through writing children's books steering kids away from gang life. State prison officials say he's still running the Crips through henchmen from his cell, although the Los Angeles Police Department denies hearing any such rumors from the gang unit.
Whether he's a reformed hero now or still running the Crips, I have no idea (I have guesses, but they're immaterial). What bugs the shit out of me is why my taxpayer dollars are going to fund a PR campaign against him on a state website. What the hell is the purpose of that? Are we all going to vote on this? Is this yet another goddamned proposition I've got to take a night course in? No, it's not. As a California resident, in this specific case, I have no say now. And at heart, it's really not even the money that is bugging me so much; it's the feeling that I'm being "pitched" all the time by all levels of government in my life, even if there's no place for my opinion in the process. For fuck's sake, either execute or don't, but quit trying to bamboozle me with state money that you got from ME about something I can't influence.
Enough already. Go fix a pothole or fund a school or vaccinate a poor child or house the homeless, and quit with the endless, useless PR crapola.
