Let’s do the math. At the lower figure Christopher cites of $189,000,000 divided by California’s 90,600 prisoners (you can look it up), that yields a cost of $2,086 per pad, versus a retail average (before any bulk discount) of about $150 per tablet.
This is how Democrats reward their allies. Pay for a service to be delivered at a markup that would make Cornelius Vanderbilt blush. Pocket most of the difference and return some to the politicians in the form of campaign contributions. Rinse and repeat. These are third world levels of graft and it goes on all the time. I’m sure the Republicans aren’t completely innocent of this either.
Exactly Sea Sentry. “This is how Democrats reward their allies. Pay for a service to be delivered at a markup that would make Cornelius Vanderbilt blush. Pocket most of the difference and return some to the politicians in the form of campaign contributions. Rinse and repeat.” We can be thankful that people like Chris Rufo, Nick Shirley and others with the help of DOGE concepts and AI is helping identify the fraud that the massive Democrat/Progressive Industrial Complex has created for so many years. And with no help from MSM. Sometimes I find it remarkable that Republicans can get elected with what they are up against.
Elizabeth, I used to see this kind of stuff when I lived in South America. It was laughable and I used terms like “banana republic.” I don’t use that term anymore. We’re worse. It’s SO embarrassing, but here we are. Ugh.
Agreed Sea Sentry. I like history--worked in a Holocaust Edcation Center for many years. We are at the edge of the cliff ----it's as bad as 1930's Germany. But I hang on to the hope that enough sane people can learn from history, speak out, fight vback--and save the country.
I agree, the term ‘banana republic’ sounds too good for this, because that is pure grift, which is immoral but probably has been around forever and while deplorable, is somewhat easy to understand. What we have now is delusional leftists who are more interested in promoting their immorality and envy than in lining their pockets - scary stuff.
Good question. We’ll never know. Publicly traded companies have to trace, audit and report every dollar online. But our government, our tax dollars? Darkness. California auditors couldn’t find what happened to $24 billion in homeless funds between 2019-2024. The tablet ripoff is just another rounding error.
Gavin "Saving our Democracy" Newsom abolished the death penalty even after it was placed on the ballot and reaffirmed by 53% of the voters. So much for direct democracy!
But Progressive aristocrats know better than the rest of us do, as they are gifted with special powers of empathy that grant them both intellectual and moral superiority, all thanks to their infallible Social Justice dogma. This is why they will never relinquish their social engineering projects—open borders, open prisons, racial preferences in jobs and college admissions etc—as these are sacred crusades and obligations to them, noblesse oblige as filtered through a Critical Studies prism.
Our Progressive overlords are as addicted to cheap virtue as our lower classes are addicted to cheap calories. They are hooked on moral narcissism, especially as they privatize all the gains and socialize all the losses.
As long as it takes. I'm pro-life all the time, every time, even in the hard cases.
As a Christian, I believe it is appointed once for man to die and then the judgement. Death is the final foreclosing of the opportunity for submission to Christ. The theologian Peer Kreeft puts it well: "in the end, everyone gets what he most loves, either God or something else." I want as many people as possible to get God. Even murderers.
In an unstable country, the death penalty is necessary. In a very poor state, it may also be necessary. During times of civil unrest or war as well. But a large, modern, first-world state is capable of ensuring that a murderer never poses a danger to the public again without significant per-capita cost and without resorting to execution. Therefore, I believe they should. (Pope Benedict made this argument 20 years ago and convinced me.)
Thank you for exposing yet another flagrantly aberrant Newsom policy. How can Americans, Californians accept such deviance on the part of Newsom and his state government. Luckily in America there is free speech to inform the public and eliminate such politicians.
If this is widespread, I would be nervous about these individuals matriculating back into society after feeding their brains with pornography, even possibly child porn. That makes them even more dangerous in my eyes.
AH--the "whataboutism" argument. People who are convicted sexual offenders or murderers have already shown what they are capab le of doing. Feeding them more fodder to stay aggressive and violent seems even worse them dumb
He wants to share the utopic existence those of us in California enjoy with the unenlightened, gun-clinging, Bible-reading, deplorable masses who occupy the rest of the country. For your own good of course.
When the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is talking about "reentry resources" for inmates on death row, they're not even trying to hide the game plan anymore.
In my seminars for homeschool parents about safe access for teenagers, I give a simple rule: "securing a portable, unlimited access, internet connected device is impossible."
The only way to do it is to limit 1 of those 3 features: make it not portable so there's no privacy (the shared computer in the kitchen for example); limit the Internet (install hard filter software); limit the Internet connection itself (a limited or no-data plan for a smartphone). The best plan is all 3 of those. Most parents I've talked to implement at least 2.
How could that be done in a prison environment?
All access is on computers in the prison library or fixed screens facing the cell doors. Software is installed to allow real-time remote monitoring by guards w/o inmate notification. Bandwidth limits prevent extended video downloads.
However, that would violate their inmates right to privacy (hugh!) so it sounds like CA Dept of Corr has done the exact opposite of this across the board.
There's some legitimate reason to allow computer access, both communication and educational, both of which can be rehabilitative. I think you took my last line as serious when it's actually facetious though. I gave specific strategies for how all 3 of my methods could be implemented in a prison setting, but the powers that be in CA are so concerned with not inconveniencing the incarcerated in any way that they won't do any of them.
I can't speak to what goes on in the state prison system, but someone I know was in a CA county jail. HIs family had to purchase time (minutes) for him on his device so that he could make calls. Who pays for Diaz's minutes? Does the state prison system pay for inmates phone time or does someone like Diaz have people on the outside buying for him? The young man I know got limited call time because his family couldn't afford unlimited access.
5 cents per text and 16 cents for a minute of video. very high rate! not sure how it is paid. but with 90k sex starved men as a customer base you can imagine this as an icky scheme to milk families of prisoners for $$. plausible.
Good to know Scott Peterson can masturbate watching the news clips of his dead wife and tiny baby boy washing up on the shores of the Bay and so can Charles Ng who tortured 11 women in cages in 1983. Always better with a visual.
I’ve long thought that simply locking criminals in cages is a poor way to prepare them for eventual release. What system would be better isn’t necessarily obvious, but it would likely need to focus on instilling discipline and self-control. Leave it to California—and Governor Hair Gel—to start with the low bar of improving on incarceration, and somehow end up with something worse.
No and frankly I think your question is rather silly. The focus of the story was death row inmates, but the program applies to all state prisoners, nearly all of whom will eventually be released. Many — perhaps most — will go on to commit additional crimes. Over the centuries, societies have tried imprisonment and even harsher punishments in an effort to reduce crime, yet the results have nearly always been disappointing. Today, there are roughly two million inmates in the combined federal, state, and local correctional systems in the United States. Housing them costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Ironically, the very people who are victimized by crime are also forced to pay to house, feed, clothe, and provide medical care for the offenders.
Because incarceration has become a massive industry involving prisons, contractors, healthcare systems, and bureaucracies, there are powerful institutional incentives to maintain the status quo. Yet for the taxpayers footing the bill, programs that genuinely reduced recidivism would be a bargain. Beyond the financial savings, the benefits would extend to the inmates themselves, their families, and the future victims who might be spared if fewer offenders returned to crime after release.
Christopher Rufo’s entire formula is emotional panic masquerading as systems analysis.
A few inmates abusing prison tablets suddenly becomes proof that rehabilitation itself is decadent and dangerous. Meanwhile he skips the actual structural questions: recidivism rates, oversight failures, cost comparisons, or whether the program reduces violence long term.
That’s because “porn on death row” generates outrage clicks. “Institutional design tradeoffs” doesn’t.
The bigger situation is the funding behind these programs being little more than giving your friends contracts which have excessive prices as compared to the costs.
Is wasting taxpayer money to reward your supporters also OK with you?
Amazing how fast the argument changed from “rehabilitation is decadent liberal insanity” to “government contracts are corrupt.”
Glad we agree.
Now apply that same energy to the Pentagon losing trillions, private prison contracts, defense contractors charging taxpayers $10,000 for bolts, and pharmaceutical companies writing healthcare policy through lobbying.
Funny how “taxpayer waste” suddenly becomes urgent the second prisoners get tablets instead of Lockheed getting another missile contract.
No, the point is you entered the thread defending an article framed around “porn on death row,” then pivoted into a generic anti-corruption argument once the emotional framing got challenged.
That’s not “whataboutism.” It’s identifying selective outrage.
If your actual position is “all politically connected wasteful contracts are bad,” then congratulations, you accidentally agreed with my structural critique instead of Rufo’s moral panic framing.
The difference is I’m arguing from systems analysis and you entered defending an article engineered around outrage-trigger words like “porn on death row” because emotional panic spreads faster than statistical evidence.
One approach asks whether a program works overall.
The other asks whether the headline can make suburban Facebook dads angry enough to share it.
Is there come evidence that CA prisons produce reformed people? I haven't seen any. Show me that people with porno tablets in prison have 1/2 the recidivism rate after 5 years and I'll go all in on pornos in prisons. Heck, show me that for ANY prison program and I'll back it to the hilt.
But notice how different it is from Rufo’s framing.
You’re asking for measurable longitudinal outcomes. Rufo led with “death row porn iPads” because emotional disgust spreads faster online than institutional analysis.
That distinction was my entire point from the start.
So what part of punishment or rehabilitation do these porn-enabled tablets provide? Just another Newsom “success” story that ought to make a brilliant political ad for his presidential campaign. Advice to his opponents: Simply list all of Gavin’s glorious achievements, which should scare the 💩 out of every American. He truly is beyond despicable. Thanks for exposing this Chris!
Let’s do the math. At the lower figure Christopher cites of $189,000,000 divided by California’s 90,600 prisoners (you can look it up), that yields a cost of $2,086 per pad, versus a retail average (before any bulk discount) of about $150 per tablet.
This is how Democrats reward their allies. Pay for a service to be delivered at a markup that would make Cornelius Vanderbilt blush. Pocket most of the difference and return some to the politicians in the form of campaign contributions. Rinse and repeat. These are third world levels of graft and it goes on all the time. I’m sure the Republicans aren’t completely innocent of this either.
Ah, but the language is so “moral “. Digital equity for justice impacted individuals. How cruel to question it!
You’re right. “Digital equity”… for convicted felons? George Orwell’s sequel writes itself.
Yup Definitely 1984 language. Also note the euphemisms are what helped the Nazis gt power and keep it.
Exactly Sea Sentry. “This is how Democrats reward their allies. Pay for a service to be delivered at a markup that would make Cornelius Vanderbilt blush. Pocket most of the difference and return some to the politicians in the form of campaign contributions. Rinse and repeat.” We can be thankful that people like Chris Rufo, Nick Shirley and others with the help of DOGE concepts and AI is helping identify the fraud that the massive Democrat/Progressive Industrial Complex has created for so many years. And with no help from MSM. Sometimes I find it remarkable that Republicans can get elected with what they are up against.
Very excellent math Sea Sentry. Obviously the Democrats in charge can't do math...and don't care how they spend other people's money.
Elizabeth, I used to see this kind of stuff when I lived in South America. It was laughable and I used terms like “banana republic.” I don’t use that term anymore. We’re worse. It’s SO embarrassing, but here we are. Ugh.
Agreed Sea Sentry. I like history--worked in a Holocaust Edcation Center for many years. We are at the edge of the cliff ----it's as bad as 1930's Germany. But I hang on to the hope that enough sane people can learn from history, speak out, fight vback--and save the country.
I agree, the term ‘banana republic’ sounds too good for this, because that is pure grift, which is immoral but probably has been around forever and while deplorable, is somewhat easy to understand. What we have now is delusional leftists who are more interested in promoting their immorality and envy than in lining their pockets - scary stuff.
Let’s hope. We’re going to visit Auschwitz soon as it turns out.
At least they produce bananas…
They're doing the exact same thing with the "free diapers" scam.
I wonder how much if the 189 million went to the bureaucracy to purchase and distribute and document all the tablets ?
Good question. We’ll never know. Publicly traded companies have to trace, audit and report every dollar online. But our government, our tax dollars? Darkness. California auditors couldn’t find what happened to $24 billion in homeless funds between 2019-2024. The tablet ripoff is just another rounding error.
Imagine actually opposing the death penalty for these scum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_California_Proposition_62
Gavin "Saving our Democracy" Newsom abolished the death penalty even after it was placed on the ballot and reaffirmed by 53% of the voters. So much for direct democracy!
But Progressive aristocrats know better than the rest of us do, as they are gifted with special powers of empathy that grant them both intellectual and moral superiority, all thanks to their infallible Social Justice dogma. This is why they will never relinquish their social engineering projects—open borders, open prisons, racial preferences in jobs and college admissions etc—as these are sacred crusades and obligations to them, noblesse oblige as filtered through a Critical Studies prism.
Our Progressive overlords are as addicted to cheap virtue as our lower classes are addicted to cheap calories. They are hooked on moral narcissism, especially as they privatize all the gains and socialize all the losses.
Everyone deserves every opportunity to repent before meeting their maker. Even scum.
Yes, there's ample time for repentance before the sentence is carried out... even if it's carried out swiftly, as it should be.
How long will the repentence drag out carrying out the sentence?
As long as it takes. I'm pro-life all the time, every time, even in the hard cases.
As a Christian, I believe it is appointed once for man to die and then the judgement. Death is the final foreclosing of the opportunity for submission to Christ. The theologian Peer Kreeft puts it well: "in the end, everyone gets what he most loves, either God or something else." I want as many people as possible to get God. Even murderers.
In an unstable country, the death penalty is necessary. In a very poor state, it may also be necessary. During times of civil unrest or war as well. But a large, modern, first-world state is capable of ensuring that a murderer never poses a danger to the public again without significant per-capita cost and without resorting to execution. Therefore, I believe they should. (Pope Benedict made this argument 20 years ago and convinced me.)
Insanity.
Disgusting!
Thank you for exposing yet another flagrantly aberrant Newsom policy. How can Americans, Californians accept such deviance on the part of Newsom and his state government. Luckily in America there is free speech to inform the public and eliminate such politicians.
I worry that many ‘normal’ people out there are only using legacy media, and therefore will not get the message
If this is widespread, I would be nervous about these individuals matriculating back into society after feeding their brains with pornography, even possibly child porn. That makes them even more dangerous in my eyes.
As opposed to all the people on the outside doing the same thing?
AH--the "whataboutism" argument. People who are convicted sexual offenders or murderers have already shown what they are capab le of doing. Feeding them more fodder to stay aggressive and violent seems even worse them dumb
EXACTLY!
Taxpayers aren’t subsidizing people watching porn on the outside.
It's like taking guns away from law abiding folks because criminals use guns. What sense does that make??
Perfect analogy!
Your tax dollars at play...
Our tax dollars stolen by deception to pay off supporters of the power hungry.
And he wants to be our president?
He wants to share the utopic existence those of us in California enjoy with the unenlightened, gun-clinging, Bible-reading, deplorable masses who occupy the rest of the country. For your own good of course.
You mean the utopia that I fled🤣🤣🤣?
Our kids have been encouraged to start their lives elsewhere. My oldest moves to Raleigh, NC in 3 months.
I can't escape, but I won't curse the next generation with living here.
We literally woke up one morning and said “gotta go “. Nashville is great. Raleigh will be great.
We're going to get the benefit of all that enlightenment and cultural enrichment and we're going to get it good and hard.
Could it be that the democrats are going to start losing elections?
Or is this just wishful thinking? I guess time will tell.
When the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is talking about "reentry resources" for inmates on death row, they're not even trying to hide the game plan anymore.
Newsom is one EVIL SONOFABITCH! 🤬🤡😑
Or is it just the money
In my seminars for homeschool parents about safe access for teenagers, I give a simple rule: "securing a portable, unlimited access, internet connected device is impossible."
The only way to do it is to limit 1 of those 3 features: make it not portable so there's no privacy (the shared computer in the kitchen for example); limit the Internet (install hard filter software); limit the Internet connection itself (a limited or no-data plan for a smartphone). The best plan is all 3 of those. Most parents I've talked to implement at least 2.
How could that be done in a prison environment?
All access is on computers in the prison library or fixed screens facing the cell doors. Software is installed to allow real-time remote monitoring by guards w/o inmate notification. Bandwidth limits prevent extended video downloads.
However, that would violate their inmates right to privacy (hugh!) so it sounds like CA Dept of Corr has done the exact opposite of this across the board.
So it's hard to limit access for inmates to certain outlets means don't try? Give up and give in? How about no computers.? Read a book
There's some legitimate reason to allow computer access, both communication and educational, both of which can be rehabilitative. I think you took my last line as serious when it's actually facetious though. I gave specific strategies for how all 3 of my methods could be implemented in a prison setting, but the powers that be in CA are so concerned with not inconveniencing the incarcerated in any way that they won't do any of them.
"Diaz made 'thousands of calls' "
I can't speak to what goes on in the state prison system, but someone I know was in a CA county jail. HIs family had to purchase time (minutes) for him on his device so that he could make calls. Who pays for Diaz's minutes? Does the state prison system pay for inmates phone time or does someone like Diaz have people on the outside buying for him? The young man I know got limited call time because his family couldn't afford unlimited access.
5 cents per text and 16 cents for a minute of video. very high rate! not sure how it is paid. but with 90k sex starved men as a customer base you can imagine this as an icky scheme to milk families of prisoners for $$. plausible.
Good to know Scott Peterson can masturbate watching the news clips of his dead wife and tiny baby boy washing up on the shores of the Bay and so can Charles Ng who tortured 11 women in cages in 1983. Always better with a visual.
I’ve long thought that simply locking criminals in cages is a poor way to prepare them for eventual release. What system would be better isn’t necessarily obvious, but it would likely need to focus on instilling discipline and self-control. Leave it to California—and Governor Hair Gel—to start with the low bar of improving on incarceration, and somehow end up with something worse.
Silly me. I thought prison was for punishment.
Do you think men who have raped and murdered little girls younger than 8 yrs old should be "rehabilitated and eventually released?
No and frankly I think your question is rather silly. The focus of the story was death row inmates, but the program applies to all state prisoners, nearly all of whom will eventually be released. Many — perhaps most — will go on to commit additional crimes. Over the centuries, societies have tried imprisonment and even harsher punishments in an effort to reduce crime, yet the results have nearly always been disappointing. Today, there are roughly two million inmates in the combined federal, state, and local correctional systems in the United States. Housing them costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Ironically, the very people who are victimized by crime are also forced to pay to house, feed, clothe, and provide medical care for the offenders.
Because incarceration has become a massive industry involving prisons, contractors, healthcare systems, and bureaucracies, there are powerful institutional incentives to maintain the status quo. Yet for the taxpayers footing the bill, programs that genuinely reduced recidivism would be a bargain. Beyond the financial savings, the benefits would extend to the inmates themselves, their families, and the future victims who might be spared if fewer offenders returned to crime after release.
Your post gave the impression you think all inmates will eventually be released.
Christopher Rufo’s entire formula is emotional panic masquerading as systems analysis.
A few inmates abusing prison tablets suddenly becomes proof that rehabilitation itself is decadent and dangerous. Meanwhile he skips the actual structural questions: recidivism rates, oversight failures, cost comparisons, or whether the program reduces violence long term.
That’s because “porn on death row” generates outrage clicks. “Institutional design tradeoffs” doesn’t.
So your arguement is a little bad is OK?
The bigger situation is the funding behind these programs being little more than giving your friends contracts which have excessive prices as compared to the costs.
Is wasting taxpayer money to reward your supporters also OK with you?
Amazing how fast the argument changed from “rehabilitation is decadent liberal insanity” to “government contracts are corrupt.”
Glad we agree.
Now apply that same energy to the Pentagon losing trillions, private prison contracts, defense contractors charging taxpayers $10,000 for bolts, and pharmaceutical companies writing healthcare policy through lobbying.
Funny how “taxpayer waste” suddenly becomes urgent the second prisoners get tablets instead of Lockheed getting another missile contract.
So now it's OK for political patronage to one group but not the other?
Where did I say I liked ANY wasteful spending of taxpayer funds?
Whataboutism simply isn't an arguement.
No, the point is you entered the thread defending an article framed around “porn on death row,” then pivoted into a generic anti-corruption argument once the emotional framing got challenged.
That’s not “whataboutism.” It’s identifying selective outrage.
If your actual position is “all politically connected wasteful contracts are bad,” then congratulations, you accidentally agreed with my structural critique instead of Rufo’s moral panic framing.
Dude, two (or more) things can be true at once.
And yes, I'm not in favor of waste and abuse of government spending. Are you?
Then we agree again.
The difference is I’m arguing from systems analysis and you entered defending an article engineered around outrage-trigger words like “porn on death row” because emotional panic spreads faster than statistical evidence.
One approach asks whether a program works overall.
The other asks whether the headline can make suburban Facebook dads angry enough to share it.
Is there come evidence that CA prisons produce reformed people? I haven't seen any. Show me that people with porno tablets in prison have 1/2 the recidivism rate after 5 years and I'll go all in on pornos in prisons. Heck, show me that for ANY prison program and I'll back it to the hilt.
That’s a perfectly legitimate question.
But notice how different it is from Rufo’s framing.
You’re asking for measurable longitudinal outcomes. Rufo led with “death row porn iPads” because emotional disgust spreads faster online than institutional analysis.
That distinction was my entire point from the start.
So what part of punishment or rehabilitation do these porn-enabled tablets provide? Just another Newsom “success” story that ought to make a brilliant political ad for his presidential campaign. Advice to his opponents: Simply list all of Gavin’s glorious achievements, which should scare the 💩 out of every American. He truly is beyond despicable. Thanks for exposing this Chris!