by Thomas Keister

Okay, let me get this straight...the Obama Administration plans to go ahead with a reported $237 million purchase of Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois, whether or not Congress decides to allow terrorism suspects to be transferred there.

If all else fails, the plan is for the facility to house high-security federal inmates. Fair enough. I mean, after all, it is a prison. So why not save the nearly quarter-billion dollar price tag to the taxpayers and use the prison, as it stands now, to house inmates already serving time in Illinois?

For starters, the state of Illinois is like two-thirds of the other 49 states in the country, so broke if it cost a nickel to take a shit, they would have to puke. Second, President Obama is pushing for the purchase to "fulfill both of the goals of reducing federal prison overcrowding and transferring a limited number of detainees out of Guantanamo."

What? Seriously? The solution to reducing federal prison overcrowding is to buy an empty prison and fill it right the hell back up? This is neither hope nor change. Solving overcrowding in the federal prison system by merely adding more cells, and at a cost of $237 million, is a "let them eat cake" answer that hardly has anything to do with the question at hand.

Ending federal prison overcrowding should be an easy fix. Cut loose all the non-violent drug offenders serving proxy time for a kingpin that will never be caught, or boosting a self-important prosecutor's political ambitions, and not only would you reduce overcrowding, but you might even find enough space for the real criminals- the murderers, rapists, meth dealers, and hot female teachers banging students for a smack on the wrist. If you want to argue the War on Drugs with me, that's fine...one you get a coherent argument that possessing an ounce of weed is worse than statutory rape or sex abuse.

Bottom line: This sounds like a prime example of President Obama's "shovel-ready" spiel, only you do not want to know what that shovel is handle deep in...