The great state of California — the one that can't keep its power grid running, can't keep its citizens from fleeing, and can't figure out why businesses are relocating to Texas — just spent $18 million of taxpayer money giving free tablets to state prisoners. And in a twist that will shock absolutely no one who has ever met a human being, the inmates are using them to watch porn.
Your tax dollars at work, folks.
This is what Sacramento calls "digital equity." Not digital equity for the parents in Fresno who can't afford a laptop for their kids' homework. Not for the veterans sleeping under overpasses in Los Angeles. No — digital equity for convicted felons who now have a better streaming setup than half the people paying for it.
$18 million. Let that number roll around in your head for a second. Eighteen million dollars — not for roads, not for wildfire prevention, not for the crumbling schools, not for the small businesses getting smash-and-grabbed into bankruptcy. For prison tablets. That inmates use to watch pornography. As reported by Louder With Crowder, this is the latest entry in California's never-ending contest to see how aggressively it can insult its own taxpayers.
You couldn't write this as satire. If you pitched this as a sketch — "what if a state spent $18 million so prisoners could watch porn on iPads" — a comedy writer would say it's too on-the-nose. Too unrealistic. Nobody's that stupid. And yet here we are, because California never misses an opportunity to prove that yes, they are in fact that stupid.
Let's put $18 million in perspective. That's roughly 180 teachers' salaries. That's fire equipment for dozens of stations in a state that burns down every summer. That's a meaningful dent in the homeless crisis that has turned downtown San Francisco into something out of a dystopian movie. But instead, Sacramento decided that what convicted criminals really needed was a quality content experience.
And here's the part that should make every Californian's blood boil — the state is hemorrhaging residents. People are leaving California in record numbers. They're packing U-Hauls and heading to Florida, Texas, Tennessee, anywhere that doesn't treat taxpayers like ATMs with legs. The population has been declining for years. The tax base is shrinking. And the geniuses in the state legislature looked at the budget and said, "You know what we need? Prison porn tablets."
This is the same state that released thousands of inmates early because of "overcrowding," the same state that reclassified felonies as misdemeanors so the crime stats would look better, the same state that lets shoplifters walk out of Walgreens with armfuls of merchandise because prosecution is apparently too much effort. But hey — at least the guys who are still locked up are comfortable.
The "digital equity" branding is the cherry on top. Only in California could bureaucrats slap a social justice label on prison pornography and expect applause. Digital equity. As if giving a convicted felon a tablet is striking a blow against systemic inequality. As if the guy doing eight years for armed robbery is being oppressed because he didn't have a screen to scroll.
If you're still living in California and still paying California taxes, I genuinely don't know what to tell you. Your government just told you — with a straight face and an $18 million receipt — that prison inmates' entertainment is a higher priority than your quality of life.
But sure. Keep voting the same way. It's clearly working out great.
