Not A Bribe?


 

 

Memorial Day is over so many of us are looking forward to what is usually a short work week and what we hope will be a nice weekend, which at this point in the weather forecast promises to be more or less sunny. But over the long weekend, much hasn’t changed in the world around us.

 

The hunger strike at Delany Hall, where detained immigrants are being kept is still on a hunger strike which GEO, the private company that runs the facility, says doesn’t exist.  Complaining about moldy breads and slop that would make your stomach turn, the detainees say enough is enough. 

 

Your tax dollars and mine are supporting this corporation to the tune of about $164 per detainee.  Awarded a 15-year – yes, that’s right! –contract, GEO has made substantial contributions to the PACS and super-PACS that elected the man who’s giving them the contracts.  A bribe?  Under a 2024 Supreme Court decision only if there is a definite quid pro quo agreement is t a bribe. Money given in anticipation of favorable treatment doesn’t constitute a bribe.  Really, now?  Amazing.

 

Prayer for the Day

 

Complacent with our lives, we avoid painful truths,

    Preferring the darkness to the light,

Caught in our own ineptitude, we flounder in despair,

   Refusing to accept your grace. 

Forgive us and move us beyond our self-satisfaction

   And bring us into true repentance opening us to your life

In the name of the One who is your life in the world,    

   Even Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen 

 

Thoughts for the Day

 

No matter what your immigration status is, you shouldn’t be treated with anything less than dignity in this country

Governor Mikie Sherrill at Delaney Hall.as she was denied entry, May 25, 2026

 

In an act of real bravery and obvious desperation, detainees wrote a letter about the conditions that they are facing here at Delaney Hall. Not enough food, no medical care, and conditions they call torture—conditions any of us would recognize as torture.”

            U.S. Rep. Monica McIver, following visit at Delaney Hall, May 18, 2026

 

Fine speech is not becoming to a fool; sill less if false speech to a ruler.

   A bribe is like a magic stone in the eyes of those who give it,

      Wherever they turn, they prosper.

            Proverbs 17: 7-8