Governor Brown’s signature made it official today: beginning in October 2019, if you are arrested and charged with a crime in California, your pretrial level of freedom will not be determined by your level of wealth. …In theory.
California will become the first state in the nation to completely end cash bail after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a sweeping reform bill Tuesday. It will give judges far more power over who gets released from jail as they await trial.
“Today, California reforms its bail system so that rich and poor alike are treated fairly,” Brown said[…]
It’s certainly removing money as an official part of the equation.
Under Senate Bill 10, Californians arrested and charged with a crime won’t be given the option of putting up money or borrowing it from a bail bond agent. Instead, county courts will use risk assessment tools to help judges determine if a defendant can be safety released before trial.
[…]It’s a huge shift, and one that gives judges far more power over pretrial release decisions.
While nearly everyone involved in the bail fight in California, save for the bail industry, agreed that the current system is unfair and often punishes poor defendants while releasing wealthy defendants even if they pose a public safety, not everyone who supported bail reform is on board with the bill. Some civil rights groups that had championed the issue of bail reform [including the California ACLU] oppose the bill, saying it now gives too much power to judges who may have their own biases.
And not just power to judges. The use of ‘risk assessment tools’ brings to mind ProPublica’s controversial 2016 report on apparent racial bias in COMPAS recidivism-risk software.* And just like the judges, these tools, whether software or some other standardized rubric, are being given a lot of power.
My own internal scorecard sees: a good cause, Republicans opposed, Democrats in favor, and law enforcement officially neutral. That’s something I would usually support. But then, I also usually like the ACLU’s opinions, and such scorecards aren’t always right. What do you folks think?
*Good article on that reporting and the ensuing dispute, plus the overall topic of algorithm bias, at the MIT Technology Review. tl;dr: Impartial systems are by their nature biased. One must take care to make sure the included biases are the intended ones, and that the intended ones are just.
Doug R
Canada prohibits bail bondsman. You gotta put up the cash yourself.
jonas
But there will always be some outlier case that “slips between the cracks” — an otherwise “low risk” offender who gets released and then goes out and commits some horrendous crime. It will, of course, be a complete outlier statistically, but the media will report on it endlessly, and the judge who allowed the offender out will be crucified and forced to resign and there will be some measure on the ballot in 3 seconds requiring anyone arrested for anything more than a speeding ticket to be held on no less than a $1million bail or something.
Just watch.
Yutsano
I’mma let you finish but…
GO BETO GO!!!
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
Way back in the day I used to do pre-trial sentencing investigations that included a scoring process (this was in FL in the 1990s). After all my experience in government over the years I highly doubt they have improved in the intervening time. The bias sill bring against the poor. The screening tool back then emphasized stability–a place to live (preferably with family), a job (that they will lose as soon as their boss finds out they are on probation or they don’t have because they have been stuck in jail), and drug free (thru forced AA/NA attendance, a recipe for failure).
Also a fun fact about California in the 1990s…It was rumored that their probation caseloads were so large that it was easy to get by with little supervision. So easy that sex offenders would try to transfer to CA to get out from under the intensive community supervision mandated by FL law. The pedophiles dreamed of Cali beaches free of their ankle bracelets. Knowing this, of course, few transfers were ever granted.
Yarrow
@Yutsano: Nobody likes Ted Cruz.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Ted Cruz’s socks don’t like Ted Cruz.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: “New Ted Cruz Campaign Ad Features His Kids Begging For Beto O’Rourke To Be Their New Dad”
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Ted Cruz’s children don’t like Ted Cruz.
Major Major Major Major
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ:
We really must do something about the fact that our main method of addiction treatment is, like, forcing people to join a weird religion.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: @Yarrow: He spends much more time with his socks.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I feel sorry for anyone or anything that has to spend any time with Ted Cruz.
JCJ
@Major Major Major Major:
I always thought that those programs essentially try to substitute one addiction (drugs, booze) with another (religion)
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: It works for some people but for so many it does not. There are better ways and they should be offered as options.
NotMax
Woo-hoo! New router set up and chugging away.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow:
This is generally the way of religions, yes. It’s unconscionable that it’s the only option.
smike
@Yutsano:
GO BETO GO!!!
You had me at GO BETO.
Ruckus
@JCJ:
That’s a part of it. Some groups a much smaller part, others…….
But really it is a way for those who can, to gain sobriety with their own desire and help/encouragement from people that have been and are going through the same thing. It’s an organized support group with rules.
It of course doesn’t work for everyone and I’d bet when forced upon someone, like by law, there is a much larger religious slant. Which would put off a lot of people.
IOW it can work for people who want it to work bad enough to work within the group peer pressure. If you don’t give a shit, don’t plan on progress.
Now for the disclaimer. I know people for whom it’s worked. I’ve never used it or been in a meeting as an observer.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: I went to an “Atheists & Freethinkers” AA meeting one time. Much of the discussion was about what a truly secular AA might look like. Nobody was quite sure.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s free man! Can’t be paying to get someone clean, no siree bob. Even though the problem is that people need and maybe even desire to get clean but of course have no money to pay for it. So the entire system suffers because cheap fucks, complain about the drugs and booze. Tis a quandary.
OTOH I know of a meth addict that the judge offered treatment or….. This moron was at least smart enough to take the treatment. And stay clean.
smike
@dmsilev:
Somebody really needs to create that ad.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
Well yeah. The whole thing was based upon having a religious slant to it so without that what you have is group therapy with nothing to replace the drugs/alcohol. Which takes a lot more work but then not having a religious crutch seems better to me.
II written here before on a few occasions on my ordered to attend group therapy at a navy hospital, in a locked ward that I had to be let into/out of daily with mostly Vietnam combat marines who were having problems adjusting to first of all being shot at for a year, second, having to shoot at people for a year, and third having to readjust to a world with neither of those. It was bizarre to say the least. I can still see some of the faces and it’s been over 45 yrs ago. The takeaway is that in my 2 months attending group, I never saw anyone checked out, you know got the actual help they needed. Kind of like AA failures, except with locked doors.
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major: A lot of people need… something… to organize their lives around. I’ve been told that, for many alcoholics/junkies, part of the addiction is that the thought & effort of getting the next fix fills that something hole. The social/religious aspects of AA are useful to such people, because organizing their days around ‘When is my next meeting / where can I find a meeting right now / hey I can call my sponsor’ replaces ‘Where is my next fix coming from’.
So, yeah, it works for some people and not for others (including those who don’t have that kind of motivation driving their addiction). And, as with too many other religions, the most fervent converts decide that since it improved their lives, correct application would improve everybody’s life. If it doesn’t work for you, it’s only because (a) you’re a heretic, and/or (b) you’re not doing it ‘correctly’.
As a person of faith, I’m glad the program works for the people it works for… but I would be glad if so many of its defenders weren’t such evangelists!
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Ruckus: @Major Major Major Major: I know quite a few people for whom AA worked and continues to work but they all went of their own volition. Forced treatment, of any kind, does not work. Our Justice System hasn’t figured that out yet primarily because our society is too focused on punishing people rather than preventing recidivism.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
You took the words right out of my mouth. There are better and more effective treatments than NA/AA, but NA/AA are free programs run by volunteers, so of course cheap-ass Americans think it’s a cure-all.
I will give a similar disclaimer that I do know people who are successful with AA and did not become religious fanatics. It seems to work for people who don’t have an interior moderating switch and the constant group support and feedback helps keep them on track, but IANA psychologist or psychiatrist.
@Major Major Major Major:
G read an essay by a woman who decided that her “higher power” would be gravity. It worked for her since it actually is a very large force outside of her control that she can count on.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
I was also a local mental health counselor for over 3 yrs. Had clients, we were not allowed to call them patients, have to be a doc for that, I’d see them one on one for an hour weekly and also man the phones, it was a suicide hot line as well. Counseling is a tough gig. You have to work the client to find out what is wrong, get them to provide workable solutions and be very careful not to become too involved. I’ve seen it done very, very well, I’ve seen it done not so much. Some you can help, some can scare the crap out of you…. I’ve been shot at 4 times and that wasn’t as scary as one hour I spent with a very mixed up agitated young man. We also had a young girl who would call and could tell a story, with a different voice and such consistent detail and delivery that most people thought it was a different person. For some reason her voice clicked with me and so I got her file and had to up date it every time she called. I got to where I could make notes as to what to listen for so others wouldn’t be tricked. This girl should have become a writer, man could she make up good stories. If I recall she was 13-14 yrs old.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: @Anne Laurie: I just wish that they would be up-front that their book-thumping ritual confession group, which opens and closes with Christian prayer, maybe isn’t super secular.
ETA as Mnem notes, it’s actually opt-out Christianity; the default state is that the Christian God is your higher power, but if you want to come up with something else, it’s allowed.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
If you see my comment at #25 you will notice that I had, a long, long time ago the experience of being a counselor. Indeed a trick that works for some is to get the person to find something else to focus on. Some humans seem to have issues fixating on things or people. Finding a safe focal point can be the tripping point to getting some people to open up and look at their situation rather than wallow in it. In some cultures people carry talismans. I picked up when over in Europe that some people carried 2 coins that they never spend, that they carry in their pockets to rub when they feel the need to. I’m not sure of the reasoning but it’s not harmful and hell, whatever it takes to get through the day that isn’t harmful can’t be all bad.
jl
Thanks for a very important and timely post, MMMM. The bill’s nature and fate have taken several unexpected and rapid turns. So, I needed some good info on it.
Roger Moore
@Anne Laurie:
I think part of what worries me about twelve step programs is that they even copy the proselytizing part of religion. The 12th step (“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”) even formalizes proselytizing as part of the cure. That really bothers me.
AThornton
It is generally accepted 12 Step Programs achieve a 8 to 12 percent success rate. For AA it is said 40% of all attendees stop going after a couple of meetings. Compare to a 2005 article in the journal Addiction where Deborah A. Dawson, et. al., calculated a natural recovery rate for alcoholism of 24.4 percent — that is, over the course of a year, 24.4 percent of the alcoholics studied simply quit.
In my own case I stopped a five decade addiction to cigarettes using Varenicline which inhibits the “boy-o-boy I predict is this going to feel GREAT!” dopamine receptors in the nucleus accumbens, breaking the addictive cycle. Statistically tho’ Chantix has a reported 14 to 19 percent success rate but – ah-HA! – I knew enough to keep smoking for a while which does a negative double-whammy to the addictive cycle according to research out of Finland.
The basic problem is we don’t understand the Neurobiology of addiction. The basic reason for that is we are at the early baby steps of understanding the Neurobiology of Primate* Behavior. It’s only recently we’ve found intra-cellular RNA transfer between neuronal nuclei which is a real mind-blower, the full impact of epigenetics has yet to be grasped, the matter of neural/glial interactions, and the cotransmission of neurotransmitters such as Dopamaine{GABA/Glutamate} from, e.g., the Ventral Tegmental Area along the bidirectional mesocortical and mesolimbic pathways …
and etc. etc. etc.
What is needed is a gallumping increase in funding for basic research in Biology as well as basic research in Neurobiology. Once we’ve got a handle on What the Heck is Going On we can progress to searching for therapies that would have a success rate above the natural “spontanous” cure rates. Given the fumb phucks running this country loathe Science and especially Biology – Evolution & all that – I don’t hold much hope.
* Yes we’re primates. Deal.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
The person I know best who’s in recovery says that, when she first stopped drinking (with AA), she decided to get healthy, so she became a vegetarian. Then a vegan. Then an anorexic. Because the problem isn’t alcohol per se, it’s not having a natural “off” switch to tell her when her hobby or enthusiasm is going too far. She really has to stay focused on moderation in all things, and she can’t have any alcohol because, once her inhibitions get lowered, she will drink until she passes out every. single. time. Because that’s how her brain is.
Ruckus
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ:
As I stated above I know of one person who was offered a pretty good deal, take treatment for meth addiction successfully and stay out of jail. He chose wisely and went to every session and has been very successful in staying clean. His was “forced” in that one way was a great deal and the other sucked donkey balls. He had a “choice” but really it wasn’t. At least for him. But yes he had a choice. Be real stupid or not. I’m not all that encouraged though that this seems to have been his one good decision in over 50 yrs
Mnemosyne
@AThornton:
Our friend BellaQ hasn’t posted recently, but she does keep up with the latest mental health issues and let me know that we do, in fact, have some pretty effective treatments for addiction. However, as Ruckus alluded to above, they’re expensive because they require a lot of one-on-one and professional group therapy, and most insurance companies won’t pay for the entire process. If you were around when our bloghost was seeking in-patient treatment, he had to go through a ridiculous rigamarole to find a place that would let him check in even though the insurance company had pre-approved it.
Our healthcare system is terrible at treating addiction because it’s terrible at treating chronic illnesses of all kinds, mental and physical.
Jay
https://warisboring.com/the-world-turns-without-america/
“One thing already seems clear in the Donald Trump era. The world will not turn out to be the American president’s playground. His ultra-unilateralist, rejectionist policies on trade, the Iran denuclearization agreement, the costs of defense and climate change are already creating an incipient anti-Trump movement globally — and in the United States, as well.
To a remarkable degree, the countries he has targeted are banding together to oppose him and his policies. That still inchoate but gathering opposition assures that, whatever Trump’s view of America may be, it is no longer — in the phrase coined 20 years ago by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright — the “indispensable nation.”
A long read, but worth it.
Ruckus
@AThornton:
That’s a pretty good overview!.
As a neurological patient with what looks like a major neuro disease, I can attest that the learning curve is close to the bottom rung. Part of the problem is that while we are all homo sapiens, we do vary pretty widely in how things work. And don’t. So finding a treatment is pretty difficult because there is almost always more than one that makes any difference at all even with a no cure, but slowing product. And some things with normally very low side affects can have major issues with some people. As I can attest to with first hand experience. It’s interesting playing lab rat, even if something doesn’t do as expected or others have experienced.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne:
Naltrexone has actually shown a lot of promise as a cheap harm-reduction tool, but lots of policymakers and doctors are allergic to cheap harm-reduction strategies.
Brachiator
I wonder whether risk assessment tools work at all, in addition to any bias on the part of judges.
I have similar questions about treatment programs.
For some people, I guess, “something organized” works as a treatment program, and it may not much matter what that particular something might be.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Ruckus: Well as Mnem’s story points out, for many alcohol or Meth or whatever isn’t usually the core problem. Addictive brains tend to overdo everything. We simply don’t understand enough about addiction and are too quick to brush it off as some moral failing. My own experience (anecdotal at best) in working with alcoholics is that there is typically some underlying, untreated mental health issue.
Martin
I’m not sure why the great concern here. Judges have been abusing the bail system forever, so I’m not sure how removing cash bail really changes things all that much.
What this does is eliminate the basic assumptions behind cash bail allowing the state to focus on the fairness issue without the usual economic/blame the poor shit. Is it perfect? Of course not, but it’s progress.
Roger Moore
@AThornton:
My suspicion is that one of the things we’ll discover when studying addiction- and I think there’s already evidence pointing this way- is that it isn’t a single thing. There will turn out to be several different mechanisms of addiction that respond differently to the same treatments. So, for example, some kinds of addiction will turn out to be neurochemical and may require treatments that get at the underlying neurochemistry to have much chance of a cure; there may potentially be several different common neurochemical problems that cause different kinds of addiction. Some other kinds may be purely behavioral. And the underlying mechanism of the addiction will be much more important to deciding a treatment than the thing the addict is addicted to, though some subjects of the addiction will be more common with some mechanisms than others.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I would say, totally unofficially, that she has an addictive personality, as you say, she has no internal moderating influence. It wouldn’t matter what she used, if it gets an acceptable high, she’s going for it. It doesn’t have to be a chemical to get there either, as you also pointed out. She obsesses about everything. The only thing that works for her is either to be taught how not to, if that is even possible with her or for her to obsess about moderation. But it does sound like a chemical issue with her as well. But probably if she was to take medication for it she would stop when she felt better because in her mind it’s working, she doesn’t need it any more. So goes the roller coaster.
AThornton
@Mnemosyne:
At the moment we have is highly successful management regimes and protocols. In my own case every couple of months something triggers a thought about having a cigarette. To me that means even though I haven’t had a cigarette in years and I’m successfully managing the addiction I’m still not cured.
I concede we may not have the same definition of “cured.”
Jay
My Mom went through AA, and quit. The most important parts of AA are not the pseudo religion, but the tools and shared experiences that help people repair their relationships with others.
My Dad became what’s known as a “dry drunk”, he quit drinking but didn’t repair his relationships. My sister spent 40 years not having a relationship with him. It took me over 10 years to go from a relationship with massive boundaries, to a better relationship, then another 15 years to build a healthy relationship. My brother used my Dad as a bank, up until he had kids. At that point in time, using the tools I gave him and the experience of building a relationship with me, he built his way up from babysitter, to Grandfather.
But there’s 4 weddings he never attended.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
My concern is that cheap harm reduction only puts a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. If you don’t also deal with the underlying mental health issues, the naltrexone only solves the single problem it’s being taken for.
Psychiatric and psychological treatment isn’t cheap, but it’s vital.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: well harm reduction isn’t a replacement for curative treatment. I’ve never seen the suggestion that it should be. For example, no government’s entire heroin-addiction policy is to set up safe injection sites, but you should still do it.
Ruckus
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ:
Oh I think there almost always is an underlying issue. It’s more sometimes people just like liquor or pot or whatever. They like the escape. For some it’s not even a particular escape, any escape will do.
It’s one reason our healthcare system is so absolutely broken. Mental health, teeth and vision. How in the living hell aren’t these heath care issues? Conservatives have had an issue with “fixing” the brain for decades. I think they realize that if they were to actually pay for people’s brains to actually function somewhat normally, they’d never get a single vote. Or maybe they think that they like how their brains are and think that’s normal.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
There’s a very common mode of thinking that opposes harm reduction strategies because they see the harm as a something that will scare people away from the harmful behavior. This is most common for behavior they see as a moral failing. So they’ll oppose naltrexone because they think fear of an OD will scare people straight and oppose contraception because they think fear of pregnancy will scare people into abstinence.
They never seem to get that it just doesn’t work; people will keep making bad decisions at least in part because they are bad about weighing the consequences of their actions. One of the best definitions of addiction, for instance, is that it’s a behavior people can’t stop even though they’re aware of its negative consequences, and blocking harm reduction strategies is obviously going to be completely ineffective in that case.
Brachiator
@Jay:
This sounds premature. Nations are reacting to Trump, but America is still large and in charge. The UN, NATO, the G7 or G8, NAFTA. Nations still want to trade with the US and have to deal with what the US puts down.
I recently read that Trump was going to hold back $200 million that the US contributed to Palestinian maintenance. Who is picking up the slack?
I also wonder whether Trump will do something stupid about the unraveling of Venezuela, and what other nations in the region might do.
NotMax
As we’re talking prisons, haven’t seen much here at all about the strike.
More here.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
It’s more that sometimes some people just like liquor or pot or whatever. But can actually take it or leave it.
OK that’s the correction for the above.
Now.
I’ve stopped drugs and liquor by just not taking them. No programs, no drugs, no counseling, no judges, it just wasn’t what I wanted to do anymore. But then I’m not the normal one, as most people require some event or assistance to stop.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
The anorexia thing was when she first went into recovery almost 15 years ago. She has since been able to develop tools and safeguards to help her figure out if she’s going too far with something. One of the tools that works for her is AA meetings — it’s the community where she can talk about her problems openly and always be accepted. So, it works for her.
@AThornton:
I have ADHD that sometimes flares up into depression, so I feel pretty confident in telling you there ain’t no such thing as “cured.” You can improve, and you can develop better tools to manage your thoughts and feelings, but mental health issues can’t be “cured” any more than type 1 diabetes can. It just is.
Other story time: my BFF’s father has schizophrenia. He was diagnosed while relatively young and his treatment has been very successful. However, when he encounters a major life stressor, he starts to have issues. Last year, he had to be hospitalized for it again and the family wasn’t quite sure why he had suddenly had a break. Then his wife of 50+ years was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I am convinced that his break was a response to his realizing that something was wrong with her even though her illness had not been diagnosed.
AThornton
@Ruckus:
Thank you.
@Roger Moore:
I agree wholeheartedly.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator:
Yes, yes he will.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
C’mon, this is America. Of course what we’re doing is making harm reduction services more available but not increasing accessibility to mental health services. We can give cops and EMTs (and librarians! In Philadelphia!) the drugs to reverse an overdose, but we can’t then get that person checked into a hospital where they can get detoxed and start treatment. We suck at following up.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
I bet your MLIS program didn’t include how to administer Narcan to library patrons:
https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/23/health/opioid-overdose-library-narcan/index.html
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: again, it’s not actually bad that these things are available to help people not die.
ETA also naltrexone probably increases efficacy of treatment and definitely reduces use regardless
Jay
@Brachiator:
Canada and France promised the UNHCR to backstop any funding cuts.
Take the NAFTA bs. Canada, well the people who actually understand Trade Policy, have completely ignored the Current Mexican Administrations vebage about maybe “going it alone”.
Both Canada and Mexico are signatories to CPTPP, also known as TPPII, so there’s already a comprehensive Canada/Mexico and other’s trade deal.
Thank’s to Insane Clown POSus’s temper tantrum, 11 nations were able to quickly write an agreement with environmental, labour and soverignity protections written in, that Corporate America hates.
Cave on Foods, ( Save on Foods, a black joke about their flagship stores parking garage collapsing during the Grand Opening), Pattison Group, Canada’s 2nd largest grocery chain has had to replace “Product of the USA” labelling on fruit and vegetables with “Other”, because they were rotting on the shelf. Heinz has taken a massive hit. PetroCanada has a “Maple Leaf” campaign up that’s been a massive hit. No US or Saudi products or sources at any of their Gas Stations, Convenience Stores or Bulk Fuel Cardlocks.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
The site just reloaded while I was in the middle of typing, which is fucked up and bullshit, so I’ll make one last comment and then give up for the night:
Harm reduction treatments are useful to preserve someone’s life until they can get proper treatment. But this is America, so the only thing we offer people is repeated harm reduction protocols until they voluntarily wander into a free NA meeting to try and learn to treat their own mental health issues. That’s why I get annoyed when harm reduction gets brought up. It’s not supposed to be used to get people’s hearts beating again and then send them back out onto the street, but that’s all we do. Glad we saved your life for tonight, but that’s all we can offer, sorry.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: naltrexone has been shown to make patients less likely to drink and likely to drink less, and should be a frontline intervention for alcohol abuse. Even if the ‘true’ treatment fails, you have decreased the danger of, and damage from, abuse.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I agree with this whole heartedly.
As I said above, while we are all homo sapiens, we vary widely in exactly how we work. Diseases and deficiencies can vary widely as well both in degree and in reactions to them. I think it’s pretty well known that some people have chemical issues that can make addictions far worse and make some chemicals more addictive. As well we have chemical differences/imbalances that change how we respond to some chemicals. I get massive, extremely upsetting hallucinations from a medication that has an extremely low percentage of almost zero for that. But it does have that tiny percentage. My doc didn’t believe that made it contraindicated. So I made him contraindicated.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Easiest bet ever.
Will shithead make an ass out of himself today?
Do not take that bet unless you get to choose yes. Or the odds are several billion to one. And from someone who can and will pay up.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
No, it’s not bad and I don’t think Memns is saying that. What is bad is that is basically all we do.
We do heart surgeries all day long. Transplant lungs, livers, kidneys, etc. Need a pacemaker, we have several models to chose from and even in different colors!
Need to lose weight, join a fucking gym.
Need to stop drinking, go to AA and have an 8% chance.
Need to learn how to walk without falling down when your balance goes away or your brain doesn’t create dopamine, pay up sucker.
Need glasses to see to get to an $8/hr job or do it when you do, fucking squint.
Need I actually go on? Yes we can keep you alive, often under extreme circumstances. And quite often you will end right back in the same place because you don’t get one moment more than still alive. Unless of course you have lots of money or insurance, which mostly amounts to the same thing.
Yes the ACA helped to change that a bit and yet look were we are just a very few years later. This is not only a nominal healthcare issue it is a massive political one and the ACA was really only a very, very small but necessary first step. And how easy was that?
burnspbesq
Bail reform became a lefties-than-thou shibboleth, at the expense of thoughtful policy-making. I confidently predict that the new system will suck at least as much as, if not more than, the current system. And when it does, it’s creators will furiously rewrite history to obscure their involvement.
Wilmerism sans Wilmer is still Wilmerism.
J R in WV
I have gradually learned that commenting at 4 or 6 am after insomnia episodes is not always a wise thing. But the threads are often so interesting…
Thanks everyone for helping me get through the night!
The Moar You Know
@burnspbesq: Three words for a dead thread: Stanford Rape Judge
Coastal CA will grant bail to pretty much everyone, Inland to nobody. You can work out what will happen next.
TenguPhule
it will only work as long as honest honorable people use it.