Author: Dick

If you do the crime and are still doing the time, then you might just be a registered voter.

Something has been nagging at me for a couple of weeks. It was called to my attention that one of my neighbors, who is a convicted child molester and on parole for at least the next eight years or so, is a registered voter here in Jefferson County, Texas. I looked up the voter registration list online and sure enough, my child-molesting neighbor on parole is a registered voter.

I didn’t think people who were on parole could vote. The Texas Election Code states that a qualified voter is someone who:

(1) is 18 years of age or older;
(2) is a United States citizen;
(3) has not been determined mentally incompetent by a
final judgment of a court;
(4) has not been finally convicted of a felony or, if
so convicted, has:
(A) fully discharged the person’s sentence,
including any term of incarceration, parole, or supervision, or
completed a period of probation ordered by any court; or
(B) been pardoned or otherwise released from the
resulting disability to vote;
(5) is a resident of this state; and
(6) is a registered voter.

A week or so ago I called the local state parole office and asked if they knew why someone on parole could be registered to vote. The parole officer they gave me said she really didn’t know but thought after being on parole for a certain time that a parolee could vote. But she wasn’t sure.

Today I called the local voter registration office here in Beaumont. The person I talked with told me that, sure enough, if someone has yet to be discharged from parole then they can’t register to vote.

“But I can’t remove him from the rolls just on your word,” this person added.

Well, that’s fine with me because I was not the one who allowed him to register in the first place.

I don’t know how you feel about voting rights for convicted felons. If we really believe that these people “pay their debt to society” in prison and subsequently on parole then perhaps the right to vote is something society is should allow for the supposed redemption of the offender. But I do have problems with those felons who are on parole being registered to vote.

First of all, they are technically still serving their sentence. And, along with a driver license, the voter registration rolls are used for jury lists in the county. Perhaps the state has some failsafe method to keep paroled felons off juries such as doing a criminal records check on each potential juror. I don’t know if they do that or not. It would be interesting to find out. If a parolee landed on a jury by lying, let’s say for child molestation, that really would in the sickest sense of the word mean the defendant had a jury of his peers. At least one juror. And you’ve all seen enough “Perry Mason” and “Law and Order” to know one juror is all you need for reasonable doubt. It’s something to think about.

If only I had the solution to all of our border and security problems — and given that someone would listen to me if I had a solution — I’d be feeling a lot better about things. But I don’t have the solution or solutions or a magic wand or magic beans or even Magic Johnson so that means we have to leave it in the hands of the U.S. Congress and the president. And, that can’t be good.

I’m beginning to think that maybe Congress should meet every other year like our Texas Legislature. If they met even every five years it would be even better. It would be nice if we could pay congressional members what we pay our legislators as well, which is about $7,200 a year.

Oh well, if you’re going to dream you need to dream big. As far as the immigration issue, I haven’t a clue as to what should be done. We need workers. People need to work. We need to keep terrorists out but I don’t think a fence is going to stop them. I have the feeling something should have been done long ago. But it wasn’t. And I can’t help. Sorry.

It is Friday and a week full of tech writing just about has my head ready to explode. That would be rather messy, so I thought I would just provide a link to the latest in the search for our favorite missing whippet show dog, Vivi.

A Los Angeles Times article (found here on the Kansas City Star online) reports that whole roasted chickens were left out around the Flushing district of Queens this week as bait for Vivi. Hey, I like roasted chickens. I wish people would start leaving roasted chickens out here. I doubt Vivi would show up, but I danged sure will.

More importantly, the article reports that Vivi sightings have been made around Flushing such as this:

“At 3:45 a.m. Wednesday, a man was walking his Doberman Pinscher outside Flushing Cemetery when a whippet came to the cemetery fence and briefly touched noses with the Doberman before vanishing into the dark.”

It sounds like something out of a spy thriller. The Doberman and whippet touch noses before the whippet vanishes into the night. It’s some kind of dog code. Maybe the dogs of Flushing are in on Vivi’s hijinx. Maybe they were just being dogs.

One thing is for certain: The nation still has Vivi fever.

“‘It’s like alcoholism,’ said Bobbi Giordano, an animal rescue worker from Queens. You just have to find out where, when, why. It’s an obsession now. I don’t think it has to do with the breed, or that it’s a famous dog or anything. I don’t even think it’s the money anymore. I think it’s just the love.'”

I say show your love for Vivi this weekend. Wear a dog collar. You can tie a ribbon around it if you like. Or dress up as Vivi. Or pee on a fire hydrant. Just don’t do it in front of a cop.

I just tried logging onto In the Pink Texas. It looks as if they were hacked. I don’t know why people do the stupid s**t they do. I guess it’s because they can do it. Hey, I could probably pee my name in the snow if there was snow here because I can do it. That doesn’t mean I would do it. And I know that’s probably not a good example.

I was meaning to post something anyway about how much I really enjoy reading In the Pink Texas. It’s one of the wittiest blogs I read and the cast of characters who leave their comments daily and/or are contributors — people like John Cornyn’s Box Turtle — kind of make me feel like I am reading e-mail from my friends. Sad as that is to say. I don’t know any of these people with the exception of Eileen and I don’t personally know her. It is nonetheless a daily vice in which I indulge, checking out ITPT, and laughing my ass off.

The president’s right-hand man at the president’s left.

I watched a little of today’s White House press briefing on C-Span. Man, I don’t see how Scott McClellan does it. He stands up there and delivers the company line every day, hardly missing a beat. He reminds me of … Mr. Roboto.

“I’ve got a secret I’ve been hiding under my skin
My heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain I.B.M.
So if you see me acting strangely, don’t be surprised
I’m just a man who needed someone, and somewhere to hide”

But you know and I know that what you see on TV isn’t always real. I mean, yes, Scott McClellan is real but whether he is really the same Scotty you see at press briefings …

“I’m not a robot without emotions-I’m not what you see
I’ve come to help you with your problems, so we can be free
I’m not a hero, I’m not a savior, forget what you know
I’m just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control”

Actually, I spoke to Scott McClellan twice in my life that I can recall. Both times were before he was press secretary. One time was after a presidential press availability and Scott was the official Bush spokesmodel for the trip. I think I asked him a question but I really can’t recall because I had just returned to work after recovering from surgery and barely knew I was on the planet.

The other time I spoke to Scott was when I called him in his White House office. I was trying to get a quote for something or other from the White House. I called a sister paper’s reporter who had been covering the first Bush campaign and was still hanging around the White House. This reporter, whom I will not name, gave me Scott’s phone number at the White House. I called Scott and told him what I wanted and he said in his very annoyed Scotty voice: “Who gave you this number?” I told him. I don’t know if the reporter was just trying to yank Scotty’s chain by giving his phone number out to some reporter from the hinterlands or whether the guy just thought he was still hanging out with the governor’s people. To his credit, Scotty did put me in touch with someone who gave me a quote. That was probably one of maybe two or three times I had someone return my calls from the president’s place out of the maybe 20 times I tried.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For doing the jobs that nobody wants to
And thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For helping me escape just when I needed to”

This same reporter who gave me Scotty’s number also co-authored a story with me one time. I was in Crawford and the other reporter was in Washington. The other reporter dug up some information which warranted us both a mention in Dan Froomkin’s “White House Briefing” column on Washington Post online. Is that too pretentious of me? Sorry. I just mentioned that because, unlike Scotty, I may never be in Froomkin’s column again.

“Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, domo…domo”