Support CARES Act
I’m taking a break from taking on the Tribune to share a more pressing concern.
Reason.com reports on a resolution currently being circulated by Senate Republicans. It calls for rescinding home confinement for several thousand federal prisoners who were transferred from prison to home because of COVID-19 risk.
Idaho’s Jim Risch has signed it.
This resolution is a move to fix something that “ain’t broke.” The government did many things during the pandemic that proved counterproductive. In contrast, this release program is one that did — and is doing — some good.
“CARES Act home confinement is an example of a program that is working — rehabilitating people while holding them accountable, all while driving down costs and maintaining community safety,” says Kevin Ring, vice president of criminal justice advocacy at Arnold Ventures.
Among the successes is a recidivism rate that’s nearly a third of that for the prison population (17% vs. 43%).
Both the Senate and the House have to pass a resolution to overturn the Justice Department’s decision to continue the program. No House activity exists as of this writing.
The Senate resolution is S.J. Res. 47. One can read its summary here: bit.ly/46SsVfH.
The Reason article can be found here: bit.ly/40twypX.
Please read them both. If you agree that the program should continue, please reach out to your federal senators and representatives.
Please politely let them know that you support continuing the CARES Act home confinement and oppose S.J. Res. 47.
Thomas A. Hennigan
Asotin
Five weeks of horror
Palestinian farmers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank are being denied access to their land to harvest their crops of olives, grapes, figs and almonds, which are an important source of income. Soldiers with the Israeli Defense Forces turn them back at gunpoint. The soldiers also tell them, “This is not your land; it’s our land, so you must forget it.”
The mayor of a local town recently told an NPR team, “This is nothing new. Their goal is the land and they’re using the war as an excuse to seize the land.”
In Qatar, journalist Chris Hedges watched a live feed of Israeli tanks firing point blank at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility.
“A deliberate attack on a hospital, a deliberate war crime, a deliberate massacre of the most helpless civilians, including infants and the very sick,” Hedges says.
In five weeks of horror, Israel has massacred tens of thousands of innocent civilians and reduced an area once home to millions to total rubble.
Hedges says Europe’s indifference is bad enough, but the active complicity by the United States is despicable. “Nothing justifies this,” says Hedges. “Absolutely nothing.” He says Joe Biden will go down in history as an accomplice to genocide.
Hedges states further that the U.S. and Israel are showing the world that international and humanitarian laws, including the Geneva Conventions, are meaningless pieces of paper. The obvious Israeli plan to resolve the Palestine issue is “Palestine without Palestinians.”
Mike Epstein
Clarkston
