Obama's new executive order could force convicted criminals into American government positions

Sunday, November 29, 2015 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: executive orders, ban the box, criminal background checks

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(NaturalNews) Millions of Americans already believe that many federal officials are either criminals or people who engage in what would be considered criminal behavior if a private citizen were to do the same thing. Now, President Obama is set to put pen to an executive order that would place actual convicted criminals in the federal workforce that you pay for with your taxes.

In recent days, Obama – doing his best to continue "transforming America" right up to his last day in office more than a year from now – signed an order that forbids government agencies from inquiring about the criminal history of any applicant, effectively hiding past criminal convictions and behavior from the agency and its staff (and from the American people footing the bill).

"Ever in search of benefits to hand leftist constituencies, Democrats have decided to give goodies to their most natural constituency of all: criminals. According to The Associated Press, President Obama will announce executive orders Monday attempting to prevent screening for prior criminality in government hiring," columnist Ben Shapiro wrote at Breitbart News on November 2.

The initiative is being dubbed "ban the box," words used by Obama himself to describe the program that prevents federal agencies from asking about criminal history until later in the interview process. As expected, all of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination – Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley – have all brayed their approval at the effort.

Did Obama ask your opinion on this before he took his action?

"The box" is the check box on federal job applications indicating whether applicants have ever been convicted of any crime. Lost in all of this is the fact that there will be major costs involved in changing paper applications to reflect the new policy and changing government application web sites such as USAjobs.gov to remove "the box." Nobody ever talks about this aspect of policy change, however.

In addition to allowing convicted criminals access to federal employment, Obama said he also wants to move to prevent public housing (again, paid for by you, the taxpayer) from hampering efforts by convicted criminals to gain access to those subsidies as well.

Did you get to vote on this? Did your representative in Congress get to vote on this? No, you didn't and they didn't. Obama just thought it up and did it, regardless of what you think (if you oppose this) or what your congressional "representative" thinks.

"So, in short, we all get to hire unhireable employees with criminal backgrounds, and subsidize those who wouldn't be able to find housing because they have committed crimes," Shapiro observed, adding that this is a common theme among Democrats and their constituencies:

All of this merely represents the latest in a string of attempts by Democrats to reach out to those at odds with law enforcement. Last summer, Obama visited a federal prison, where he told prisoners that as a former user of both marijuana and cocaine, he could have ended up in prison, too. "These are young people who made mistakes that aren't that different from mistakes I made," Obama said. "The difference is they did not have the support structure, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive these mistakes.

Ignoring the realities of rewarding criminal behavior

The president fancies himself as some sort of "revolutionary" on this issue, giving "second chances" to people who he intimates have somehow been treated unfairly by the justice system.

In fact, those who have been jailed for drug crimes or any other crime were provided a lawyer if they couldn't afford one; were given an opportunity to prove their innocence at trial; and were provided with a jury that heard the facts of their cases.

They weren't "treated unfairly"; they were treated to the very justice system Obama claims to cherish and uphold. What's unfair about that?

Furthermore, Obama's actions ignore the very real consequences of drug-related criminal activity, such as the deaths of countless (mostly black) individuals and the destruction of inner city neighborhoods (and with them any opportunities for the young people living there to have a decent shot at a better life).

Part of the reason that criminal histories follow criminal convictions is because they are supposed to serve as a deterrent to engaging in criminal activity to begin with, insofar as that works. As an aside, Shapiro notes that the recidivism rate remains high: 68 percent of released criminals re-commit crimes within three years and 77 percent of them do within five years. Of course, Obama wants us to ignore that.

Next up? You can bet Obama will be pushing to allow convicted criminals the right to vote, thereby removing yet another deterrent to criminal activity.

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

USAToday.com

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