Today's Daddy State

They seek to alter reality itself.

From AL.com:

Investigators are scrambling to determine how many parents may have lost jobs, custody of their children and more after the owner of an Alabama laboratory was arrested for altering the results of drug and paternity tests.

AL.com reports that Ozark, Ala. police officers charged 36-year-old Brandy Murrah with two counts of forgery after authorities received evidence that someone had forged the results of two drug tests performed by A&J Lab Collections, which is owned by Murrah. Now authorities say that the two cases might just be the tip of the iceberg, alleging that multiple drug screenings may have been changed by Murrah, who, despite all appearances to the contrary, I cannot stress enough—is only 36 years old.

Murrah had a contract with Dale County’s Department of Human Resources Dependency court to perform drugs and paternity test on individuals involved in custody cases, but was not involved in criminal cases. The lab company was paid by the individual or reimbursed by DHR, if the testee could not afford it.

- and -

In 2013, Murrah was arrested and subsequently pleaded guilty to five counts of credit card fraud. She was sentenced to three years probation and yet somehow, the woman who was actually convicted of fraud was allowed to handle sensitive screenings that determined the futures of entire families.

To be clear, I don't know what Ms Murrah's political alignment is, but would it come as some great shock to find out she self-identifies as "conservative"?

Privatizing government is generally a very bad idea, even though we should always look to farm out some functions - not everything should be kept in-house.

But when this is the result:

“We have no idea at this time how many people did not get their children back because of Ms. Murrah’s alleged fraudulent reports,” Dale County, Ala., District Attorney Kirke Adams told the Dothan Eagle. “In my opinion, all cases affected by Murrah’s alleged actions must be redone in order to be fair.”

...and you just fucking know Murrah was taking a little something under the table on occasion, then it's gotta be really obvious that nobody's saving one fucking dime by allowing the private sector to handle it.

When the fuck did we start thinking it's OK not even to do a little oversight to make sure this kinda shit is less likely to happen?  Oh yeah - I forgot - budget cuts and that "starve-the-beast" bullshit from Grover Norquist.

Put the tax code back to where it belongs so we can adequately fund the proper functionality of government.