Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) : Today’s “Moron” Award Winner

Congratulations to….

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)

Today’s “Moron” Award Winner

This isn’t the first Award presented to Tommy. In the past, he has been the recipient of two (2) Awards in various categories. Those awards are listed at the end of this article and can be viewed by going to the listed categories.

Tommy is yet another loser lawyer that learned early on after graduating from law school just how difficult it would be to earn a dishonest living practicing law. Therefore, Tommy opted to go into the second most ethical profession (used car salesman No. 1), politics.

In November 20014, Tommy succeeded in duping the voters of Arkansas into electing him as a member of the U.S. Senate.

During a recent (mid-May 2061) speech at the ultra-conservative Hudson Institute, Tommy decided to give a speech about the criminal justice system. Tommy argued that policy goals like mandatory minimum sentences, restoring voting rights for felons and reducing barriers to employment for ex-offenders are misguided and “dangerous.”  (Mollie Reilly, Huffington Post) Tommy went on to tell his like-minded ideologues:

• “The claim that too many criminals are being jailed, that there is over-incarceration, ignores an unfortunate fact: For the vast majority of crimes, a perpetrator is never identified or arrested, let alone prosecuted, convicted and jailed.”
• “Law enforcement is able to arrest or identify a likely perpetrator for only 19 percent of property crimes and 47 percent of violent crimes.”
• “If anything, we have an under-incarceration problem.”

Tommy finished up with his moronic rant by saying:

• “The truth is you cannot decrease the severity and certainty of sentences without increasing crime. It’s simply impossible.”

Tommy’s laughable speech was in keeping with his ongoing attempts to stop Senate legislation aimed at reforming the criminal justice system. In fact, Tommy the Buffoon (my sincerest apologies to Buffoons) has wasted a lot of his time at taxpayer expense to trying to persuade fellow senators to oppose any legislation to improve the criminal justice system. Tommy has repeatedly and falsely claimed that passage of any type of remedial criminal justice reform would lead to the release of thousands of violent criminals.

It’s a well-documented fact that the United States has the largest prison population in the world. There are at least 2.3 million inmates of federal or state prisons, local jails or juvenile correction facilities. (source: Criminal Policy Research at Birbeck, University of London)

The table below clearly demonstrates that rather than having the taxpayers pay exorbitant yearly costs to incarcerate their fellow citizens, they’d be better financially if the paid to have them go to college. In fact, tuition costs at Ivy League Schools was cheaper than annual incarceration costs in New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. (Prison costs ca. 2012, Tuition costs ca. 2015)

North Dakota taxpayers are paying more than two times as much to lock up their citizens then it would have cost if they paid their tuition at a private college like Jamestown.

And lastly, the greatest benefit to the taxpayers in opting to pay college tuition rather than incarceration costs is the undeniable fact that a college graduate will be paying taxes after he or she graduates.

These facts in and of themselves disprove Tommy’s hyperbolic (BS) virulent opposition to prison reform.

Congrats Tommy; keep up the good work! We should let everyone know of your amazing record as one of Americas Least Appreciated “Moron’s”; you are far too humble.

Arrogant Ass Award Winner = 1

Humanitarian Award Winner = 1