Beat the distressed

This thuggish state Rep. in Hawaii is a real piece of work. He decided to show the homeless in his district who's boss, with a fucking sledgehammer. He patrols his district and destroying the meager belongings of the downtrodden.

Brower has waged this campaign for two weeks, estimating that he’s smashed about 30 shopping carts in the process.

You have to watch the video at the link to truly appreciate how creepy he is but it gets worse. Tom Brower is considering physical confrontation next.

...I want to do something practical that will really clean up the streets," he said.

"I find abandoned junk, specifically shopping carts, and I remove them. I also create a situation where those carts can't be pushed around the city. I think it's a good thing," he said.

"I don't want to be threatening to anybody," Brower said. "I think it's threatening to steal things and then walk around with them like it's their own."

Brower said he has yet to take a cart from a homeless person who's pushing it, but that may be coming. He supports other efforts to remove abandoned property. The sledgehammer approach is his way of pitching in.

If you watched the video, he doesn't actually remove them. He smashes them with the sledge and leaves them piled up for the city to remove. Which is about the meanest, most cost ineffective way to deal with abandoned carts. For one thing the carts he smashed all looked perfectly operable. He could just return them to the stores. Those carts are expensive. I'm sure they would be happy to get them back. Furthermore, stealing shopping carts has been long been the practice among the homeless. By destroying the one they already have, it just encourages them to steal a fresh one.

And how does this help the homeless get off the street anyway? Maybe he could spent some energy on finding solutions to homelessness instead of working out his frustrations with a sledgehammer. Austin, TX has a homeless problem too. They're not vandalizing property there. They're building a self-sustained Community Village for the homeless outside of downtown.

Stupid spending priorities

I was surprised to learn we could eliminate homelessness for less than the cost of what we spend on Christmas decorations. Which is not suggest people shouldn't decorate for Christmas. I assume much of that money goes to small U.S. businesses like tree growers and florists.

But I'm posting this infographic because it shows where our government's spending priorities are focused. If the deficit alarmists were serious they would be looking at big money corporate welfare instead of nickel and diming social programs for working class Americans.

The corporate write offs for meals and entertainment looks ripe for elimination. Why shouldn't they be absorbing that themselves as the price of doing business. Particularly at time when corporate profits have risen to obscence levels while the working man's wages have lost ground. And, of course, there's no sensible reason to continue to subsidize the oil industry. Those should have been eliminated years ago.

Income inequality

A study in contrasts. "Cities and counties are reporting a sharp increase in homeless families as the economic crisis leads to job loss and makes housing unaffordable." The numbers are grim, the most startling being the 139 children younger than 18 living on the street on their own in the Phoenix area. A rise of 40% in the number of people living in their cars in the Seattle suburbs.

Via Buzzflash, the annual pay of 200 chief executives at 198 public companies that filed their annual proxies by March 27 and had revenue of at least $6.3 billion. I guess we better give these guys another tax break. The last one apparently didn't trickle down quite far enough.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Orlando's charity free zone

Libby Spencer

Via Avedon, here's a charming story to brighten up a Christian holiday. Eric Montanez, was arrested in Orlando, FL for assault and battery on hunger in homeless people, by use of a deadly weapon - a ladle. Montanez, a member of that dangerously subversive group, Food not Bombs, was caught as result of undercover surveillance and arrested after officers filmed him doling out food to hungry people.

Police reportedly "collected a vial of the stew Montanez was serving as evidence."

The Orlando law, which is supported by local business owners who say the homeless drive away customers but has been challenged in court by civil rights groups, allows charities to feed more than 25 people at a time within two miles of Orlando city hall only if they have a special permit. They can get two permits a year.

Well isn't that great. Feeding the hungry once every six months ought to hold them.

Leaving aside the discriminatory and inhumane aspects of the law, it's only a misdemeanor charge. It raises the question, why the hell are police officers conducting undercover sting operations over this in the first place? The case isn't worth the cost of the vial in which they stored the evidence. Shouldn't they be spending their time looking for thieves and terrorists or something?