Political unrest

Sorry guys but I have to get up on my soapbox today and vent for a minute.

I have known and continue to learn that local politics are biased, hypocritical and have no true bearing on reality. Unfortunately, it affects us all and there isn't much that we can do about.

Cases in point;
Look at several local sheriff races and/or prosecutor races for next month's elections. In Clark County we have races in both. The encumbant prosecutor has a well-known reputation for being hard on convicts. Don't blame him though, the juries have been much harsher. It is an ideal situation for police officers, well... those of us with a lick of sense. There are officers that are voting for his opponent because the current prosecutor, "doesn't do anything" to convicts. His opponent is running on the platform that he is too hard on people. Is that not stupid?
The shriff's race is equally easy to pick. The current Chief Deputy who has about a billion training hours, has ultimately run the office for years, is an expert witness in virtually every field, trains not only police but forensics analysts and, by far, is the most qualified person on the Planet to be sheriff. His opponent has been in and out of law enforcement and, although he is a nice guy, has no experience in management, little training and qualifies less than I do to be sheriff. But he has a strong family name and numerous people in the community are going to vote for him simply because they know his family. That is absolutely insane, it's an election for the premier law enforcement officer for the county, not the high school popularity contest.

State politics have been just as frustrating for me. My job and the livelihood of the DTF are dependent on Federal and State grant monies and there is a group of people in Little Rock that have the sole authority to award or deny our funding. These freaking idiots are challenged every year with deciding who gets what amount of money and for what reasons. Worse yet, they lie about funding every time you talk to them about it. They have no idea what they are doing. They told us last year that the more active units would get more funding, lie. They said we would get the same amount of State funding regardless of Federal cuts, lie. They said units that were not productive would get cut totally, lie. They said the application process would be competative and the information in the application would be considered, lie. They funded pretty much everyone that asked for money and cut everyone a uniform amount, which damn near shut me down. This year? Well, so far they said that larger cities (who can afford to operate without additional funding) woudl get cut, lie. They said rural areas, such as ours, would get at least the same amount as last year, lie. They have three proposed funding equations, each of which cut us another 20, 38 or 44%.

I would just assume be kicked in the nuts than be lied to. Especially about this, the lives of six officers and their families ride on this decision. Moreso, without a DTF in this area, there will not be effective enforcement, which means the drug problem gets worse, not better. They meet today at State Police Headquarters to discuss the proposed cuts and funding. I expect around 3:30 today I will know the unfortunate fate of the DTF and will likely show my ass (again) to the State Drug Director.

I don't know what it costs to bond out of jail on a disordely conduct charge, but I think it would be money well spent. Be careful who you vote for, Huckabe is solely responsible for my changing of political parties. And he is entertaining a run for the presidency? Get the hell out of here!! He has pardoned more people out of prison than all of the governors of all of the surrounding States combined, and does so without explanation. He has appointed people to serve on boards and committees to manage millions of dollars and they don't know what they are doing. Yeah, he lost a lot of weight, he ran a marathon, so what? Sign an endorcement deal with Subway or Weight Watchers, but get the hell out of office. It's our fault, you know, for voting him into office in the first place.