Earlier today, ThinkProgress reported that Texas Judge Tom Head told a local television station that President Obama would turn over American “sovereignty” to the United Nations if reelected, that Obama’s actions would potentially trigger “civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war,” and that such a conflict would culminate with “UN troops” led by President Obama invading Lubbock, Texas. We swear we are not making this up. There is video.

Today, Judge Head clarified his remarks, explaining that it is his obligation to prepare for an Obama-led United Nations invasion as Lubbock County, Texas’ Director of Emergency Management:

I’m not saying we’re going to take [newly hired law enforcement officers] and stand in front of the UN. I have to think of, as emergency management director I have to think of worst case scenario, and I used that as an example yesterday. Okay, in my opinion, the worst case scenario politically and financially right now is if Obama and the Senate Democrats stay in power. Okay, because I have some opinions what they’re doing and what they’re trying to do if they stay in power. And I have to prepare for that, okay.

Does that mean I think the UN’s going to come rolling into Lubbock? No. That probably isn’t going to happen. An F-5 tornado probably is not going to come into Lubbock. I’ve got to prepare for it, though.

It is tempting to attack Judge Head for injecting politics into the profoundly non-partisan task of emergency management. But a more important question is probably what happens if Head is right that he needs to prepare for every possible worst case scenario. Indeed, it does not appear that Judge Head has taken any steps whatsoever to prepare his county for a coming zombie apocalypse — an emergency scenario that is exactly as likely as an Obama-led invasion of United Nations soliders.

A study by Loyola law Professor Carlos Berdejó and Berkeley business Professor Noam Yuchtman finds that elected judges in Washington state hand down demonstrably higher sentences during the lead up to their reelection bid, and that this spike in sentences drops shortly after the election is over:

According to the Wall Street Journal, “the authors identified a 10% increase in sentence length from the start of a judge’s term to the election (or, for judges who ran opposed, to the filing deadline for running, several months earlier).”

Our Guest Blogger is Inimai Chettiar, a Leadership Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

This week’s St. Louis Patch dispatch reported this story:

Wakita Shaw’s troubles started with a $425 payday loan, the kind of high-interest, short-term debt that seldom ends well for the borrower . . .  Shaw was surprised in May of last year to hear that the St. Louis County police were looking for her. She and her mother went to the police station. They arrested her on the spot. They told her the bail was $1,250… People do go to jail over private debt. It’s a regular occurrence in metro St. Louis, on both sides of the Mississippi River.”

Last week, a San Diego paper covered how motorists given speeding tickets for $35, actually end up owing the state $235 (including a criminal conviction fee, state court construction charge, and DNA identification fee).

Similarly, Ricardo Graham was incarcerated in Rhode Island for 40 days because he couldn’t pay court fees. He was jailed and held for a bail of $745 – while the state paid $4,000 to incarcerate him – and lost his job due to his imprisonment.

Across the country, states and local governments are raising and aggressively collecting criminal fees and fines (including court fees, jail stay fees, and even public defender fees). Often, failing to pay these fees lands people in jail. Courts are supposed to hold hearings to determine whether a person has the means to pay before punishing them for nonpayment. Instead, courts are bypassing this key constitutional safeguard and simply jailing those who can’t pay their fees.

At the same time, private companies and collection agencies are increasingly using state courts to collect civil debts (like loan payments and medical bills). They file lawsuits against debtors and often fail to serve them with notice of court dates or intentionally serve them at incorrect addresses. When debtors do not show up, agencies procure arrest warrants from courts, leading to incarceration of the debtors. Bail is usually set at an amount equal to or higher than the original fees and fines they defendants couldn’t pay in the first place. All this has amounted to a return of debtor’s prisons, which the Supreme Court has found unconstitutional.

But what is really going on here? The North County Times puts it best: “a quest for revenue.” The rising fee amounts and scale of collections are often driven by struggling states’ and cities’ efforts to close their budget gaps. Meanwhile private companies are attempting to procure their lost profits from the poor. These fines are an effort to raise revenue of a few hundred dollars in the hope of trying to close millions of dollars in budget gaps or lost profits. These types of fiscal policies are unsustainable, irrational, and just plain bad economics. Having taxpayers foot a bill of $4,000 to incarcerate a man who owes the state $745 or a woman who owes a predatory lender $425 and removing them from the job force makes sense in no reasonable world.

But legislators find it more politically acceptable to increase criminal fines than to raise taxes. Many also find it more politically acceptable to send more and more poor people to prison rather than to invest in impoverished communities to offer individuals a way out of poverty. With this type of policymaking prevailing to overcome the Great Recession, it’s no surprise that the number of Americans near or below the poverty level has reached an all time high. Americans can only climb out of economic turmoil with policies that make economic sense – for all of us. Charging poor people insane amounts of fees and then imprisoning them when they can’t pay is definitely not one of those policies.

Judge Tom Head, a county judge in Lubbock, Texas, announced on a local television station that he would personally join the resistance against a United Nations’ takeover of American sovereignty, which he says will occur if Obama is reelected:

[Obama] is going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the UN. Okay, what’s going to happen when that happens? I’m thinking worst case scenario here. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. We’re not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations. We’re talking Lexington-Concord take up arms and get rid of the guy.

Now what’s going to happen if we do that, if the public decides to do that? He’s going to send in U.N. troops — with the little blue beanies. I don’t want ‘em in Lubbock County. Okay. So I’m going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say ‘you’re not coming in here’. “And the sheriff, I’ve already asked him, I said ‘you gonna back me’ he said, ‘yeah, I’ll back you.’”

Watch it:

This is not Judge Head’s first foray into the deepest cesspools of anti-Obamaism. In 2009, Head posted a picture of nine people who were arrested while wearing Obama t-shirts, accompanied by the text “Did you ever see anyone arrested wearing a Bush T-shirt, or for you older folks, an Eisenhower?, Gerald Ford?, Ronald Reagan?, even Nixon?, or any political t-shirt? There MUST be a message here, but I can’t quite grasp it, or maybe I’m afraid to.”

Moreover, Head’s brand of paranoia is hardly limited to low-level county officials in Texas. Ted Cruz, the Texas GOP’s U.S. Senate candidate, published an article last January claiming that billionaire George Soros is leading a global United Nation’s conspiracy to eliminate the game of golf.

This morning, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) revealed that GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan urged him to drop out of his U.S. Senate race after Akin’s “legitimate rape” comments made him a liability to Republicans nationally. Yet Ryan’s attempt to stick a knife into the increasingly toxic senate candidate cannot be squared with Ryan’s long record of working with Akin to curtail reproductive freedom and redefine rape. Ryan and Akin cosponsored a “personhood” bill that would not only prohibit rape survivors from seeking an abortion, but would likely treat terminating a pregnancy that results from rape as a homicide crime. Similarly, Ryan and Akin partnered on a bill seeking to prevent Medicaid recipients who are raped from obtaining an abortion unless they are victims of “forcible rape.”

Nor is this a new position for Paul Ryan. The man Mitt Romney wants to be a heartbeat away from the presidency claimed that abortion should be illegal except for “cases in which a doctor deems an abortion necessary to save the mother’s life” as far back as his first House campaign in 1998. Throughout his career Ryan’s view has been consistent and unambiguous — rape survivors are out of luck.

In an interview with a local Pittsburgh television station yesterday, Ryan was given the opportunity to revise his position now that he is half of the Republican Party’s national ticket. He refused:

QUESTION: Should abortions to be available to women who are raped?

RYAN: Well, look, I’m proud of my pro-life record. And I stand by my pro-life record in Congress. It’s something I’m proud of. But Mitt Romney is the top of the ticket and Mitt Romney will be president and he will set the policy of the Romney administration.

Watch it:

Once again, Ryan’s “pro-life record in Congress” includes seeking to ban abortions in the case of rape.

Ryan did appear to distance himself from his “forcible rape” bill. Echoing President Obama, Ryan flip-flopped from his previous attempt to treat “forcible rape” survivors differently from other women who are raped. He now claims that “rape is rape and there’s no splitting hairs over rape.” This concession means very little, however, in light of his blanket opposition to abortions for women who are raped.

Ryan’s position is that all pregnant rape survivors should be treated the same — the government should force them to carry their rapist’s baby to term.