FELONIOUS FUNK

A lot of noise has been made over the so-called "sanctuary cities" within the U.S.. These cities harbor illegal immigrants and refuse to turn over any illegals to the Feds no matter their history. The argument against these policies is that these people are breaking the law, that some of them have felony records and that we are a nation of law and order. Despite the pleas to stop these policies and form a cohesive national policy, nothing is being done by Congress. After giving this considerable thought, I've come to the conclusion that the reason Congress is slow to react to sanctuary cities is because they live in the biggest sanctuary city of all...Washington D.C..

Felons in the U.S. have a very hard time fitting back into society. If your convicted of even a minor drug law, say, possession of Marijuana, you will soon find that a felony conviction has a lot of serious restrictions attached to it. In most states within the U.S. you can no longer work in a school, become a police officer, hunt or own a gun. The Federal government will not let you join the military, get financial aid, vote, or work in a lot of it's departments. But fear not, there is still one place where felons are welcomed with open arms, Congress.

That's right, you can't work in a school or join the military if you have a felony conviction, but you can run for House Representative or even a Senate seat without worry. Even though you can't even vote for yourself. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find another organization that has more felons in it than Congress.

This has led some Congressional watchdogs to try to make an issue out of the fact that up to twenty former members of Congress are drawing full government pensions despite the fact that they committed their felonies while in office. And these pensions are pretty damn sweet and are handed out to people who are mostly multi-millionaires anyway. Is it too much to ask that people we put in the public trust at least don't commit any felonies while they're in office? Oops, sorry, I forgot who I was talking about. Anyway, this isn't the first time the issue of Congressional pensions for felons has come up. Back in 2003, H.R. 1098 was introduced in Congress and was promptly killed. I guess this kind of resolution just doesn't get much traction. Since then several attempts have been made to reintroduce a bill putting an end to this waste of our money with no success.

In this time of fading retirements, harsher and harsher penalties for the average citizens (you can end up on a sexual predator list for "mooning" someone) and all-time low Congressional favorable ratings (and you thought Bush's were bad). I thought it would bring you some comfort to know that our Congressmen and women will be well taken care of. Even if they stole from you, lied to you, or cheated you. I have to go now, someone is going to hit that chair I threw out the window and onto the street. H.C.