“Nobody cares” seems to be a Republican approach to dealing with things with which they do not agree, or, worse, oppose because it does not affect them directly.

In the discussions on the House floor recently when it came to a bill to institute the same kind of oversight in dealing with antisemitism to dealing with Islamophobia.

In spite of the obvious bigotry exercised toward Muslims that we have seen on the news both in subtle and egregious forms going at one point right to the White House that had an animus toward Muslims that outshined its animus toward Transgendered people, they claimed to not know what this “alleged Islamophobia” is and, so, such a bill was unnecessary.

After one of yet another speech by the GOP members of the House that ignored the issue at hand as they railed against Pelosi, taxes, the Christianity that would make the country more of the “Christian nation”” they claim it is,  Rep Crenshaw from Texas, needing to make amends after having called members of the GOP Freedom Caucus “Grifters, and having to do so by being more GOP than the others, summed up the party’s attitude by asserting,

“It’s a season of misplaced priorities. Labor shortages, open borders, and foreign policy blunders. And my colleagues think that Islamophobia is what Americans care about.”

Unlike the GOP, most people can care about more than one thing at the same time, and I am sure Americans care about the mistreatment of fellow citizens as they also care about other things. Perhaps some of the party’s thinking is slightly askew because, having been raised in a Republican family home, their parents being incapable of feeding more than one child at a time as that would require thinking about more than one at a time, the resulting malnutrition, no matter how minor, may have affected the part of their brain that employs logic and critical thinking.

But let’s let the mistreatment of Muslims continue because the GOP has decided no one cares about that.

Nothing to see here. Just move along. We do not have to protect any segment of the population that some people don’t care about.

It was not too long after revelation that a group of concerned citizens in Bristol County MA gathered in front of the Ash St Jail in New Bedford, the oldest still operating jail in the country at 133 years of continuous use and occupancy having been built in 1888 to replace the jail built in 1829, because condition there are not acceptable.

Its age alone makes the continued use of the facility questionable and when questioned about its continued use in its present condition, the Bristol County sheriff, Thomas Hodgson who has an abominable suicide and recidivism rate, claimed he keeps it open because

“people don’t want to return to,” clearly showing that this is not a rehabilitative facility to return reformed or at least chastened people back into society, but as a punishment and threat that statistics show does not work.

Over the years the sheriff has been criticized for the way he runs his facilities, but he pushes such criticism aside by claiming that anyone who finds fault with how he does things is just being political, something that the sheriff who begged to be the chair but only got the position of honorary chairperson of the Trump reelection committee in the state actually and unapologetically does.

Proof of his faulty approach to his job and his inmates was exposed when the local Department of Public Health found code violations when it held an inspection as a result of concerned local residents of the county calling for one after the sheriff had claimed that his facilities were being better kept than most places during the first months of the Covid pandemic and that those who criticized him were only motivated by politics.

In his defense for those violations, the sheriff’s office released a statement that ignored the head of the DPH’s having said, when asked, that the state does not categorize violations as major or minor and would allow the report to speak for itself, that said,

“The violations found in the kitchen are minor and will likely be found in any large-scale industrial or commercial kitchen. Any equipment they found not working was repaired and most of the violations were corrected on site right in front of the inspectors.”

Rather than show things were perfect, it showed that he allowed conditions to be bad and only corrected them when an outside health agency had found what the citizens were concerned about.

And that was just in the kitchen.

If the concerns of the citizens were merely“the lies and other outrageous claims left-wing political activism groups keep peddling in the media and on social media”, why did he defend himself against such charges by bragging he fixed what the DPH had found. If these were all just lies, there would have been nothing to fix.

In defending his procedures during the Covid Pandemic and why he refused any outside advice or statewide county jail practices he explained,

“there was a separate COVID protocol that was constantly changing and evolving as CDC, DPH, and others kept adapting their recommendations and guidance. Typically, we add new sections to the infection control manual after the acute phase has passed because of the frequency of changes and updates.”

However, it was revealed during the DPH inspection that the protocols he claimed he had been following were not contained in the folder that they should have been in and were only inserted after the DPH found they weren’t there.

Also, regarding the conditions in the jail at the time and the reluctance to test inmates and staff, a judge had determined and ruled that,

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“Keeping individuals confined closely together in the presence of a potentially lethal virus, while neither knowing who is carrying it nor taking effective measures to find out, likely displays deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm. That is what the evidence shows here.”

After a seven month investigation by the state’s Attorney General’s office that resulted from the May 1, 2020 riot at his ICE detention center, the blame for which he laid squarely at the feet of the inmates, it was determined that

 “Our investigation revealed that the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office violated the rights of detainees by using excessive force and by seriously risking their health and safety.”

Again, the concerned citizens had been right in their criticism of how he ran that facility.

It was also found by in investigation out of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office that the A-1 ratings of his jail he would proudly point out to counter the concerns of citizens was from an organization to which he paid dues, being a dues paying member was required for a good rating, and one which would send a list of things they would look at weeks prior to inspection so those whose dues were paid in full could clean those things up beforehand.

Members of the association pay for the A.

Apparently, the things the DPH found were not on those lists over the years.

It would seem between the sheriff’s claims in defending himself and the concerns of local citizens, the citizens have been consistently correct.

Besides the county citizens expressing their concerns, Legal advocates, politicians elected to speak for the people and social justice and religious organizations have stepped in, so, criticism goes far beyond the peasants at the gate.

Skipping all the other concerns of the citizens and the defenses of the sheriff, after people gathered outside the Ask Street jail to advocate for its closure after a November DPH inspection found 80 health violations, and to sing some Christmas carols to the inmates in there, the sheriff showed his dyed in the wool shared attitude of his party, the GOP.

He sees no reason to change anything because,

“In the end, the average person doesn’t really care.”

It would appear otherwise as the average citizens have been expressing concerns, and it has been consistently proven that when paid attention to the criticism turn out to be true.

Many of the times he had been previously running things, he attempted to deflect by claiming criticizing him was a direct and insulting attack on his staff. This was patently u8ntrue as the public understands his staff has to follow his orders, so any criticism on how he ran his facilities is on him and directed at him.

In this present instance he is willing to defend his incompetence by throwing the people of the county under that same bus by acting as if he would address all this, but, why, the public doesn’t care.

His willful dereliction of duty should not be put onto the citizens of the county.

He is negligent and dangerous by choice, not something he is forced to be, in spite of his goodness, by an apathetic public whose existence as an apathetic public is belied by the number of investigations, lawsuits, rallies, marches and other actions to rein him in and have him do the job he has been elected to.

Not only does this person ignore those who vocally and visibly express their concerns, but he characterizes the people of Bristol County MA as cold, unconcerned people who allow his abuses tacitly.

Should a man with such an attitude toward the citizens be in charge of the facilities where county citizens, those who could never imagine it, could end up?

Do people really not care or is his defense the dismissal of the good people of Bristol County MA.?

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