Without money for court systems, the courts struggle to have the time to listen to the frightened.
Most people are frightened of speaking in public. In a courtroom, they can barely state their name for the record.
In order to bring justice to the usually silent, courts need to actively LISTEN.
THIS TAKES MONEY!
Judges need to be able to take the time to encourage people to tell their side of the story.
Interpreters need to be available to translate what people say.
Information about court appearances must be available on the telephone as well as on a website.
Clerks, court reporters, translators, facilitators, all need to be trained and paid a living wage.
As the method for resolving disputes, courts need to be safe places for people. Otherwise people may resolve their own disputes, using bullying and perhaps violence.
The US has few vigilantes, because we believe that the courts will judge and punish those guilty of crimes.
Court systems are an easy target for budget cuts, because the general public does not notice that there is a problem with the courts until they have to go to court to resolve a dispute.
This is like not paying your insurance for your house. If the house burns down, you are really in trouble, but if the house never burns down, gee what money you saved.
Well funded courts are insurance that, if you are treated unjustly, there is a way to achieve justice.
Jerry, please increase the budget for California courts. LET CALIFORNIA BE A SHINING BEACON OF JUSTICE FOR ALL.
Monday, May 22, 2017
Monday, May 15, 2017
THE BAD OLD DAYS
How can we afford to help people get through college if huge amounts of our money pays for putting non violent drug offenders into federal prisons, sometimes for life?
Attorney General Sessions wants to bring back the openly racist mandatory sentencing for federal criminals. The result will be that minority defendants will be sentenced to a lifetime in jail for the same amount of drugs that gets a white dealer a much lighter sentence. (This is because sentencing is based on the form of the drug. Ounce by ounce, crack cocaine used by minorities gets much longer sentences than the type of cocaine sniffed by the upper class.)
Alcohol prohibition did not stop people from being alcoholics. Drug prohibition will not stop people being druggies. Substance abusers need to recognize that they need help, and help must be available to those who want to learn to live their lives without being impacted by substance abuse.
I believe much of the anti-drug propaganda is funded by drug dealers who want to keep their enormous tax free profits. For instance, the "opioid epidemic" is not just opioids. Almost always, the autopsy reveals that the overdose may have been caused by a combination of opioids and antidepressant medication, which seems to be a lethal combination.
It is not surprising that violence in our inner cities has increased. Just before prohibition ended, the FBI tried its very best to stop alcohol consumption. The result was an unacceptable increase in violence, which led to the end of prohibition.
Escalating the futile War on Some Drugs has caused sharp increases in violence every time the tactic is tried. Session rails against the term "recreational drug".
Those of us opposed to the futile drug wars use the term "recreational drug" for a drug that is less harmful to the user and the person than alcohol.
TREATMENT FOR ADDICTION is the answer to misusing drugs.
Attorney General Sessions wants to bring back the openly racist mandatory sentencing for federal criminals. The result will be that minority defendants will be sentenced to a lifetime in jail for the same amount of drugs that gets a white dealer a much lighter sentence. (This is because sentencing is based on the form of the drug. Ounce by ounce, crack cocaine used by minorities gets much longer sentences than the type of cocaine sniffed by the upper class.)
Alcohol prohibition did not stop people from being alcoholics. Drug prohibition will not stop people being druggies. Substance abusers need to recognize that they need help, and help must be available to those who want to learn to live their lives without being impacted by substance abuse.
I believe much of the anti-drug propaganda is funded by drug dealers who want to keep their enormous tax free profits. For instance, the "opioid epidemic" is not just opioids. Almost always, the autopsy reveals that the overdose may have been caused by a combination of opioids and antidepressant medication, which seems to be a lethal combination.
It is not surprising that violence in our inner cities has increased. Just before prohibition ended, the FBI tried its very best to stop alcohol consumption. The result was an unacceptable increase in violence, which led to the end of prohibition.
Escalating the futile War on Some Drugs has caused sharp increases in violence every time the tactic is tried. Session rails against the term "recreational drug".
Those of us opposed to the futile drug wars use the term "recreational drug" for a drug that is less harmful to the user and the person than alcohol.
TREATMENT FOR ADDICTION is the answer to misusing drugs.
Monday, May 8, 2017
BIRTH DEFECT -- LIFETIME SENTENCE
Babies born with birth defects have a life time sentence of a pre-existing condition.
It is a fantasy that high risk pools can replace the requirement that health insurance covers all persons, regardless of pre-existing conditions.
California attempted to have a high risk pool. The insurance was both prohibitively expensive and often unavailable due to lack of funding. People who lost their jobs were devastated to learn that they could not afford the COBRA policy offered and that the high risk pools were also not affordable.
I think it is time to explore the idea that people can buy into the Medicare insurance plan.
I find it distressing that some Republicans are joyfully trying to destabilize ObamaCare. A policy of attempting to break the current system ignores the multitudes whose lives were saved or improved by ObamaCare.
I am pleased with the temporary, through September, budget. Except it does include a huge amount of new debt to pay for the military and border patrols. It seems to me that Republicans only hate debt when they are running for office. Once they are in office, they seem to believe that debt is better than taxes.
Democrats can also be short sighted. I support the so called sanctuary city idea. But to totally refuse to cooperate with federal immigration is dangerous and does not help immigrants who are being deported.
For instance, many rural California counties make money by incarcerating immigrants who are being deported. The county provides jail space, but the federal government pays the county for the jail space. If the immigrant is not held in a jail in California, the federal government can put them in a jail anywhere in the country. At least an immigrant who is incarcerated in California has access to California attorneys.
By the time something is a federal problem, it is a complex problem that is not easy to solve. If the problem was actually easy to solve, it would have been solved by local or state government, or by private industries or charities.
It is a fantasy that high risk pools can replace the requirement that health insurance covers all persons, regardless of pre-existing conditions.
California attempted to have a high risk pool. The insurance was both prohibitively expensive and often unavailable due to lack of funding. People who lost their jobs were devastated to learn that they could not afford the COBRA policy offered and that the high risk pools were also not affordable.
I think it is time to explore the idea that people can buy into the Medicare insurance plan.
I find it distressing that some Republicans are joyfully trying to destabilize ObamaCare. A policy of attempting to break the current system ignores the multitudes whose lives were saved or improved by ObamaCare.
I am pleased with the temporary, through September, budget. Except it does include a huge amount of new debt to pay for the military and border patrols. It seems to me that Republicans only hate debt when they are running for office. Once they are in office, they seem to believe that debt is better than taxes.
Democrats can also be short sighted. I support the so called sanctuary city idea. But to totally refuse to cooperate with federal immigration is dangerous and does not help immigrants who are being deported.
For instance, many rural California counties make money by incarcerating immigrants who are being deported. The county provides jail space, but the federal government pays the county for the jail space. If the immigrant is not held in a jail in California, the federal government can put them in a jail anywhere in the country. At least an immigrant who is incarcerated in California has access to California attorneys.
By the time something is a federal problem, it is a complex problem that is not easy to solve. If the problem was actually easy to solve, it would have been solved by local or state government, or by private industries or charities.
Friday, May 5, 2017
PUTIN'S PLAN -- KILL THE EU
Propaganda can be VERY POWERFUL. Fictional news gets LOTS of attention. Robots pretending to be people post comments designed to trigger your deepest fears.
The easiest fear to trigger is that a stranger is going to take your children, all your food, your life, or your job.
Since fear is irrational, the only way to fight propaganda is to be rational.
Rationally, we know that Putin is making every effort to support candidates who might remove their country from the EU.
France is holding an historic election. Please, France, pay attention to what happened in Britain and the US. Listen to your basic values of liberty, equality and fraternity. Russia wants you to treat Muslims in the same way the Vichy treated the Jews.
Putin succeeded in fooling the British into leaving the EU. Worse, Britain is unwilling to admit that propaganda influenced the election, and that rational Brits think leaving the EU is expensive, dangerous, and plays into Putin's hands.
It is fairly amazing what is happening in the US now that the robot trolls no longer control most of our social media.
Please France, learn from the mistakes made by your closest allies. Do NOT vote for Le Pen.
The easiest fear to trigger is that a stranger is going to take your children, all your food, your life, or your job.
Since fear is irrational, the only way to fight propaganda is to be rational.
Rationally, we know that Putin is making every effort to support candidates who might remove their country from the EU.
France is holding an historic election. Please, France, pay attention to what happened in Britain and the US. Listen to your basic values of liberty, equality and fraternity. Russia wants you to treat Muslims in the same way the Vichy treated the Jews.
Putin succeeded in fooling the British into leaving the EU. Worse, Britain is unwilling to admit that propaganda influenced the election, and that rational Brits think leaving the EU is expensive, dangerous, and plays into Putin's hands.
It is fairly amazing what is happening in the US now that the robot trolls no longer control most of our social media.
Please France, learn from the mistakes made by your closest allies. Do NOT vote for Le Pen.
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!
My iPad keeps telling me that I may have won $1000. I NEVER reply to such ads. The virus I get will be expensive to fix, or I will get LOTS of trash emails and NO money.
Some of the email offers I get have fooled large law firms. Everyone seems to want something for nothing. I NEVER download an attachment unless I know who it is from and what it is about.
Emails from banks asking for ID information, Amazon free gift cards, warnings to change my password RIGHT NOW by clicking on a provided link -- all get my distain.
Even with all my vigilance, I still got a virus today. My entire computer stopped with a notice to call Microsoft at 855-624-0094. I panicked, took a photo of my screen and called my trusted techies at CorpWest in Campbell, CA. I followed their advice and my computer is now working and virus free. THANK YOU CorpWest.
Many people seem to be focused on the Mexican border. BAD guys can come into our country, they say. I have actually known many undocumented people. As a disabled person, sometimes the undocumented are the only persons I can find who are willing to work for a few hours moving boxes and cleaning floors and windows.
If we would stop the FUTILE War on Some Drugs, then the drug violence will stop in the same way that the bootlegger violence stopped when prohibition was repealed.
What is actually really hurting the old, the poor, the credulous, and the trusting, is the BILLIONS OF DOLLARS STOLEN BY HACKERS.
If you stupidly give out your banking password to a fake bank website, the bank can take the position that they are not responsible for the subsequent theft. Since the thieves are almost always NOT in the U.S., law enforcement has almost no way to get your money back or to put the thieves in jail.
It is my humble opinion that WWIII will be fought on the internet.
So is our country ready for the fight? Most of us have computers that are more modern than the computers used by most of the federal government. Many of the government's computers can not even load modern virus software.
Some of our power plants are using computers which take large floppy disks. I hope they are copying the disks often, as the floppy with my book died. I am lucky I kept a paper copy.
We are becoming more and more dependent on wireless communications. If cell phone towers go down, we will be helpless to even navigate home if our usual road is blocked.
Hordes of strawberry picking Mexicans pose WAY LESS danger than HACKERS living half a world away.
--BTW, the free trash pick up offered by California Waste Solutions is not free. The person paying the garbage bill can get two free pickups in one year, ending in July, I think.
Some of the email offers I get have fooled large law firms. Everyone seems to want something for nothing. I NEVER download an attachment unless I know who it is from and what it is about.
Emails from banks asking for ID information, Amazon free gift cards, warnings to change my password RIGHT NOW by clicking on a provided link -- all get my distain.
Even with all my vigilance, I still got a virus today. My entire computer stopped with a notice to call Microsoft at 855-624-0094. I panicked, took a photo of my screen and called my trusted techies at CorpWest in Campbell, CA. I followed their advice and my computer is now working and virus free. THANK YOU CorpWest.
Many people seem to be focused on the Mexican border. BAD guys can come into our country, they say. I have actually known many undocumented people. As a disabled person, sometimes the undocumented are the only persons I can find who are willing to work for a few hours moving boxes and cleaning floors and windows.
If we would stop the FUTILE War on Some Drugs, then the drug violence will stop in the same way that the bootlegger violence stopped when prohibition was repealed.
What is actually really hurting the old, the poor, the credulous, and the trusting, is the BILLIONS OF DOLLARS STOLEN BY HACKERS.
If you stupidly give out your banking password to a fake bank website, the bank can take the position that they are not responsible for the subsequent theft. Since the thieves are almost always NOT in the U.S., law enforcement has almost no way to get your money back or to put the thieves in jail.
It is my humble opinion that WWIII will be fought on the internet.
So is our country ready for the fight? Most of us have computers that are more modern than the computers used by most of the federal government. Many of the government's computers can not even load modern virus software.
Some of our power plants are using computers which take large floppy disks. I hope they are copying the disks often, as the floppy with my book died. I am lucky I kept a paper copy.
We are becoming more and more dependent on wireless communications. If cell phone towers go down, we will be helpless to even navigate home if our usual road is blocked.
Hordes of strawberry picking Mexicans pose WAY LESS danger than HACKERS living half a world away.
--BTW, the free trash pick up offered by California Waste Solutions is not free. The person paying the garbage bill can get two free pickups in one year, ending in July, I think.
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