Friday thoughts

Sometimes, my post contain multiple topics and ideas, and while they seem to all interrelate with tidy transitions to me, most see them as disjointed. So today, I will just do bullets my disconnected thoughts:

• This last week is probably the first time anyone other than Illinios voters and political junkies have even heard of Speaker Hastert. And their first impression: a guy who would rather keep a seat safe and save a couple million than protect teenagers from a known sexual predator.
  Hastert has become radioactive: no one wants him to raise money for them, let alone campaign with them. It is only a manner of time before he loses his job, either after or before November.


• Lohra Miller's "ask a cop" slogan referrs to the fact that the policeman's union of SLC and SL Co. Sheriff's union have endorced her. Why not just "say endorsed by county and SLC police officers?" Instead, people have defaced signs by mocking the slogan. i have seen the word "ask" struck through with and replaced with "kill" (which is terrible and I condone). Another has "Don't" inserted before "ask." Stupid slogan, if she just kept it simple with her "justice first" and a "endorsed" one would be better. "Ask a cop" requires the voter to do the work, and they won't.
  
  "Justice first" I found out, does refer to her critics of the DA's office, most of which are based on her lack of understanding or willful ignorance of the system.
  Her point that over 70% of sex crimes cases are dismissed when the defendant pleads guilty overlooks the fact that many times victims are unwilling to testify and sex cases tend to get weaker as time goes by: couples get back together, people forget details, stuff gets lost/destroyed, people move away, etc. The felony DUI cases dismissal rate is high because a felony DUI needs two certified DUI convictions within the last 10 years. These are often hard to obtain. Case numbers are misentered into the RAP sheet, files are archived or destoryed within a few years. Often, this means that a felony DUI charge is dismissed, and refiled as a misdemeanor DUI. So the notion that 20% of DUIs go away completely is eroneous.
  
  As to her charge that politics comes first, I haven't seen that personally.