I don’t receive happy personal emails about interior or exterior design anymore. I receive unhappy personal emails about public corruption – frame-ups, deadly prison conditions, and more – but I don’t receive all of the emails that are sent to me.
The current email I can’t receive via my Comcast or gmail address is a cleaner copy of the correspondence below sent from Florida US Senator Marco Rubio to Gemma Pena in mid-December regarding the ongoing mistreatment of her mentally ill son, Kristopher Rodriguez, by the Florida Department of Corrections.
The Guardian newspaper has written about Kristopher and Gemma. I titled a post that acknowledged their article Gemma’s journey: to hell and back … repeatedly.
The Guardian didn’t mince words:
After her son tore off his penis with his bare hands in his cell, Gemma Pena thought Florida’s prison authorities might see his illness. They’d see he needed a hospital, instead of solitary confinement.
“No,” she said. “That’s when the nightmare really started.”
The Guardian is read worldwide, but apparently not by Marco Rubio. But The Miami Herald has also written about Kristopher and Gemma:
Gemma Pena traveled from Hialeah to Tallahassee to plead with a House committee Tuesday to establish a prison system that is “less lethal to our mentally ill” and “holds prisons more accountable.”
The New York Times editorial board addressed the mass incarceration of the mentally ill today. They threw in the the word “inhumane” near the end of their opinion piece, as if someone had belatedly pointed out their iciness, and they looked to soften it somewhat, without a rewrite. Given the bipolar nature of the NYT, we won’t know if the legislation and programs they referred to are part of a push to privatize mental health care until later. Of course, privatizing mental health services would be a disaster. All privatization is disastrous. Do the math.
I know better than to ask Marco Rubio to hold Comcast accountable for providing the services I pay for; I’ll instead address Comcast and the FCC directly on Twitter. Perhaps there will soon be a legitimate “alt” or “rogue” FCC to bring into the mix.
Come to think of it, “alt” or “rogue” Twitter @SenateGOP and @HouseGOP accounts aren’t out of the question. They may even be inevitable.
Teddy Roosevelt Republicans aren’t big on environmental destruction, exploitive labor practices or corporate subsidies; Lincoln Republicans aren’t big on selectively trampling the rights of certain groups of people; Eisenhower Republicans aren’t big on an out-of-control Military Industrial Complex.
Tides turn, trends reverse … everything can change for the better, overnight. The Roosevelt/Lincoln/Eisenhower Republicans can rise again. Resist until they do. Please.
Kristopher’s life depends on it, so do tens of thousands of others.
Thank for describing the real Florida Senator we have. Yes I testify that all being said by you is absolutely correct and I will Love to have face- face Mr. Rubio so he can tell me what has he done for our severely Mentally ill in prison other than PROFIT out of them.
Gemma Pena
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I greatly admire your courage, Gemma, and hope that you’re soon successful in securing services for Kristopher that will optimally restore his physical and mental health. Nothing is impossible, not even overcoming the heartlessness of public servants who only pretend to care.
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