Fair enough, but telling the minority group they should try to outnumber the majority group is not exactly helpful

Betsy Rader is an employment lawyer at Betsy Rader Law LLC, located in Chagrin Falls, Ohio

Being addicted to drugs is not a crime (although I should probably shut up before Thomas and Alito and the rest remember this ruling exists), and I can't believe we'd have weaker civil rights protections for people who are not accused of crimes but just have a health issue

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_v._California?wprov=sfla1

Moreover, throwing an addict into detox is just a waste - unless they want to be there they're just going to use again as soon as they get out (and since they lost whatever tolerance they were used to having it's more likely to lead to an OD)

They talk nicer, but in reality

Personal possessions, including medicines and necessary medical devices, are routinely thrown away. It's a quotidian event that Leilani Farha, the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing, described as a "cruelty" that she hasn't seen in other impoverished corners of the world.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200110121732/https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/10/794616155/sweeps-of-homeless-camps-in-california-aggravate-key-health-issues)

"'The idea that a government would deny people those services ... when they have nowhere else to go suggests a kind of cruelty that is unsurpassed," Farha told Business Insider. "It's an attempt to erase people. Worse than erase — I can only use the word annihilate. It is a denial of someone's humanity.'"

...

Under international human rights law, governments are required "to apply the maximum of available resources to upgrading informal settlements" like slums, shanty towns, and homeless encampments.

https://web.archive.org/web/20181110192439/https://www.businessinsider.com/un-expert-san-francisco-homeless-cruelty-2018-11

"The struggle in the south is to legalize and regularize encampments," she said. "Here, the struggle is simply to be able to create an encampment. In the south, there's sort of a blind eye that has turned. Once an informal settlement is created, it's established. Whereas here, they can't create them."

In the Bay Area, Farha talked to many people who were temporarily living in an encampment before they were ordered to move by city officials during a "tent sweep."

"It's damaging because they always have to move," she says. "They're treated like nonentities. Sometimes they say (belongings are) put in storage, but more often they'll dump everyone's possessions into one Dumpster. It's horrible. It's not dignified. The people have nowhere to go. It's illogical. It's tragic."

https://web.archive.org/web/20180124154330/https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Leilani-Farah-UN-rapporteur-homelessness-SF-CA-12519117.php#item-85307-tbla-23

Nice words don't change the fact that we're violating international law and abusing vulnerable people, they actually make it a lot worse because a lot more people would recognize what we're doing and be horrified if moderate Dems didn't do this propagandizing bullshit.

Passed out but not ODing or other medical emergency sounds like sleeping to me for all intents and purposes (like, passing out drunk isn't the same as actual sleep for the person's brain, but for society there's no real difference)

I'm of the opinion that unless someone is an imminent threat to themselves or someone else we can't be doing involuntary commitments, because a) involuntary commitments are almost always super traumatizing and set the person's journey to mental health backwards a few steps (maybe they get the resources they need from being committed and they leave the facility a few steps ahead, but most often they're just held and medicated for 72 hours and back out on to the street, and either way they're entering the facility worse than they had been if they're being forced into it), b) we just don't have enough beds at these facilities (let alone staff and other rehabilitative resources)

I really don't like that Kelly worked with Joe Manchin to attack the environment - https://web.archive.org/web/20240710182356/https://www.eenews.net/articles/manchin-kelly-urge-biden-to-open-new-gulf-oil-leasing/

Out of all the likely names I've seen, Roy Cooper (well liked governor from a swing state) seems like the one with the fewest turds on his record. He made some rough pro-Israel statements in October, but when progressives in his state complained he met with them and started stressing the need to protect Palestinian civilians after that (who had just gone entirely unmentioned in his first statements).

e; ftr, either way I'm voting for Harris

Fuck JD Vance and his stupid piece of shit book

From a quick glance at my résumé, you might think me an older, female version of Vance. I was born in Appalachia in the 1960s and grew up in the small city of Newark, Ohio. When I was 9, my parents divorced. My mom became a single mother of four, with only a high school education and little work experience. Life was tough; the five of us lived on $6,000 a year.

Like Vance, I attended Ohio State University on scholarship, working nights and weekends. I graduated at the top of my class and, again like Vance, attended Yale Law School on a financial-need scholarship. Today, I represent people who’ve been fired illegally from their jobs. And now that I’m running for Congress in Northeast Ohio, I speak often with folks who are trying hard but not making much money.

A self-described conservative, Vance largely concludes that his family and peers are trapped in poverty due to their own poor choices and negative attitudes. But I take great exception when he makes statements such as: “We spend our way into the poorhouse. We buy giant TVs and iPads. Our children wear nice clothes thanks to high-interest credit cards and payday loans. We purchase homes we don’t need, refinance them for more spending money, and declare bankruptcy. . . . Thrift is inimical to our being.”

Who is this “we” of whom he speaks? Vance’s statements don’t describe the family in which I grew up, and they don’t describe the families I meet who are struggling to make it in America today. I know that my family lived on $6,000 per year because as children, we sat down with pen and paper to help find a way for us to live on that amount. My mom couldn’t even qualify for a credit card, much less live on credit. She bought our clothes at discount stores.

Thrift was not inimical to our being; it was the very essence of our being.

With lines like “We choose not to work when we should be looking for jobs,” Vance’s sweeping stereotypes are shark bait for conservative policymakers. They feed into the mythology that the undeserving poor make bad choices and are to blame for their own poverty, so taxpayer money should not be wasted on programs to help lift people out of poverty. Now these inaccurate and dangerous generalizations have been made required college reading.

[Bolding added]

e; fixed link (hopefully)

If Books Could Kill is utterly fantastic, I really wish they did transcripts like the 5-4 podcast Peter's on

You think people should be involuntarily committed for sleeping on the sidewalk?

Here is a good backgrounder article I found - https://web.archive.org/web/20220923174640/https://mississippitoday.org/2022/09/23/friends-family-paint-picture-of-ole-miss-student-charged-with-murder/

e; better phrasing

Meanwhile, if they tried to do this to Israeli companies they could be arrested

This is basically the Mueller report all over again

DOJ: Oof, I really do not want to have to prosecute someone the Republicans like because they will make our lives hell in every single way, but this looks pretty bad... Ok, I'm just going to detail every single bad thing, but then just sum it up by saying the evidence doesn't quite establish things beyond any reasonable doubt and everyone can see what they want here.

Media: DOJ MORE OR LESS FINDS ROGER STONE SENTENCING ALL GOOD

Me: ... But, like four attorneys involved in this quit, and Bill Barr got personally involv-

GOP: Even the dad-gum librul media couldn't find anything on Trump, yee-haw!

e; y'know sometimes you have to read a sentence after you wrote it several times even to realize it really needed a comma somewhere

Relatedly, "A series of recent groundbreaking investigative reports unveiled what many advocates for police accountability have known for decades: Child sex abuse by law enforcement officials is far too common across our country. Systemic failures within policing—coupled with lax oversight by police departments, prosecutors, and judges—too often shield police officers from meaningful accountability."

Also, how's he going to vote for legislation in the Senate if he's VP? Unless Dems are willing to ditch the filibuster for this and let him exercise his ability to cast a tie breaker vote in a 50/50 situation this seems like evidence he's planning to remain a Senator.

Nah, we shouldn't be rewarding anyone who worked with Joe Manchin to attack the environment - https://web.archive.org/web/20240710182356/https://www.eenews.net/articles/manchin-kelly-urge-biden-to-open-new-gulf-oil-leasing/

Out of all the likely names I've seen, NC governor Roy Cooper seems like the strongest

Point of clarification - the NYT writer is calling for Harris to take anti-trans positions, Erin Reed (aka ErinInTheMorning) is pointing out how that's bad policy and bad politics

"If we aren't promoting the most skilled people in our society, how am I supposed to figure out where to invest all this money I inherited?"

Don't Heather Heyer Trump supporters please, thanks

the appeal to the Supreme Court is not about whether it was a good idea for the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals

The Supreme Court decides the scope of appeals and can ask for reargument if they think the parties are talking about the wrong issues

I think that it is in fact true that "Nothing in the Constitution compels a state court to provide a particular measure of deference to a state official’s confession of error."

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

If this travesty counts as a due process of law then the phrase has lost all meaning.

Denying him the photo op by refusing to go to his public event but having a private meeting with him to tell him he's a shithead war criminal who needs to stop interfering in our election (hopefully)