The Washington Business Journal details a hearing yesterday before the D.C. City Council in support of two bills put forth by council members  Michael Brown and Marion Barry aimed at helping ex-cons get work.

One bill, submitted by Councilman Marion Barry, D-Ward 8, would protect ex-convicts under the city’s Human Rights Act by preventing employers from using conviction or arrest records to make hire decisions in most cases. A less stringent bill, sponsored by Barry and Councilman Michael Brown, D-At large, would require Mayor Adrian Fenty to create a strategy to incorporate returning convicts into housing, education and job opportunities.

Oh, Marion, please tell us more:

“My philosophy is if you do your time, you have served your time, you’ve paid your debt to society. If you’ve paid your debt, that should be it,” Barry said. He said he had submitted the same bill under former Mayor Anthony Williams, which passed the council but was vetoed.

I bet you’re expecting me to say something kind of mean here.  I would, but it’s just too damn easy.  It’s like teeball.  I prefer a challenge so I won’t.

But I will rip on the sheer stupidity of this entire event.

Essentially what Barry’s bill says is that you become a protected citizen under the Human Rights Act if you infringe on the rights of another person by robbing, raping, or murdering them, do your jail time, and get out.

Please tell me you see the ignorance of this thinking.

Brown’s bill, on the other hand, says essentially let us (the D.C. government) spend taxpayer money we know we don’t have to offer a program that will in all likelihood become either incompetent or corrupt or both so we can appear to be doing something about a perceived problem.

Here’s the harsh reality, convicts.  Your actions have destroyed the ability of most people to trust you.  Call it unfair all you want.  That is the reality.  The people you now want to trust you and give you a job didn’t make you commit crimes.  You did that all by yourself.

As a result, it is your responsibility to earn back that trust and here’s a hint: Running to the council and whining for help never earned anybody a damn thing.

It might be unfair that when you get a job you have to do something way below your abilities because they don’t trust you with money or people’s personal information.  It might also be unfair that you have to work twice as hard as the next asshole to show the bosses they can trust you to do the right thing when nobody is looking over your shoulder.

Bottom line:  Actions have consequences.  Be a man and earn back the trust.  Don’t go whining to a bunch of politicians for a handout.

“In politics, strangely enough, the best way to play your cards is to lay them face upwards on the table.”

H.G. Wells

I’m not a big fan of conspiracy theories.  Most of them are total crap. But when a politician is dragged reluctantly into preserving records for future scrutiny by concerned citizens, the press, and of course political enemies then you have to at least be concerned.

Case in point: Fenty administration routinely destroyed government e-mails

In late 2007, Mayor Adrian Fenty tried to give himself the authority to destroy electronic records every eight weeks. After hearing months of outrage from government watchdog groups and facing emergency legislation that would have forbidden the practice, Fenty announced that he was withdrawing the proposal early last year.

But the administration was destroying the records every two months until at least May 2008, Office of the Chief Technology Officer program officer Robert Mancini said in a recent affidavit obtained by The Examiner.

“Because there is no retention schedule for e-mails for the District of Columbia government and because of cost and storage considerations, it was the general practice of OCTO to retain backup tapes [of e-mails] for [a] period of 8 weeks, after which the tapes were recycled and copied over,” Mancini wrote in the June 15 affidavit.

Did you catch that political B.S.?  “because of cost and storage considerations” we got rid of the stuff after 8 weeks.

Are we really to believe that the city government actually took into consideration cost?  This from the same government who has routinely screwed program budget after program budget by spending without concern for costs.

The Examiner continues:

After The Examiner began asking questions about his affidavit, Mancini issued a statement, which he said he hoped would clear up the “confusion [that] has ensued relative to the e-mail data backup practices” of his agency. The practice of routinely erasing e-mail tapes, he said, ended in May 2008.

That’s good timing: The following month, the D.C. Council passed a law forbidding the government to destroy e-mails until Fenty came up with some kind of preservation policy. The law gave Fenty 60 days to draw up the rules. He still hasn’t submitted the rules.

So the council gave the mayor 60 days to come up with a policy and now a full year later the policy hasn’t been submitted.

It’s pretty simple, Mr. Mayor.  If you have nothing to hide then let the people know how those documents are being preserved.  Otherwise the people have no choice than to believe you don’t want them seeing what you are really up to.

Perception is reality–especially in politics.

I am just now rolling into town as the new kid on the block, but I have a lot to say.

First up will be the Bravo Sierra being thrown about by these D.C. council members and assorted other bureaucrats on the Metro crash.  I’m looking at you, Jim Graham.

I’m ready and they better be.  Stay tuned…