#comprehensive reform

[livingwellnessblog]

California's Homelessness Crisis: Addressing the Tragedy of Unhoused Individuals and Mental Health Reform

In the heart of California, where dreams are often synonymous with palm-lined streets and golden sunsets, there exists a shadowed reality that has long eluded the postcard image – the homelessness crisis. The scale of this epidemic is staggering, with tho

In the heart of California, where dreams are often synonymous with palm-lined streets and golden sunsets, there exists a shadowed reality that has long eluded the postcard image – the homelessness crisis. The scale of this epidemic is staggering, with thousands of vulnerable individuals left to weather the harshness of the streets each night. California’s Homelessness Crisis and Mental Health…

[ruffaloon]

m*a*s*h s05ep14, "hawk's nightmare" (1976) // bill hader, it: chapter 2 interview (2019)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jessica Glenza at The Guardian:

A bill introduced by the US senator Bernie Sanders would dramatically expand access to oral healthcare by adding dental benefits to Medicare and enhance them in Medicaid, public health insurance programs that together cover 115 million older and lower-income Americans.

Despite Americans’ reputation for the flashy “Hollywood smile”, millions struggle to access basic dental care. One in five US seniors have lost all their natural teeth, almost half of adults have some kind of gum disease and painful cavities are one of the most common reasons children miss school. “Any objective look at the reality facing the American people recognizes there is a crisis in dental care in America,” Sanders told the Guardian in an exclusive interview. “Imagine that in the richest country in the world.” Nearly 69 million adults and almost 7 million children lack dental insurance. For those who have insurance, costs are often opaque and high. Multi-thousand-dollar bills are so common that the nation’s largest professional organization for dentists, the American Dental Association (ADA), signed an exclusive partnership with a medical credit card company. In 2019, more than 2 million Americans went to the emergency room for tooth pain, a 62% increase since 2014, and a crisis of affordability pushed an estimated 490,000 Americans to travel to other countries such as Mexico for lower-cost dental care.

“The issue of dental care is something we have been working on for years,” said Sanders. “It is an issue I think tens of millions of Americans are deeply concerned about, but it really hasn’t quite gotten the media attention it deserves.” Sanders said he had seen how poor dental health can affect every aspect of a person’s life – he described constituents who cover their mouths when they laugh or have been turned down for jobs because of missing teeth. Sanders said he recognized the importance of the issue by attending town halls in his home state of Vermont, “and learning how hard it is to get dental care, how expensive it is and [how] dental insurance [is] totally inadequate”. “Having bad teeth or poor teeth is a badge of poverty,” said Sanders. “It becomes a personal issue, a psychological issue, an economic issue as well.”

Sanders’ bill expands dental coverage by adding comprehensive benefits to Medicare; incentivizing states to improve dental benefits through Medicaid; and providing dental benefits to veterans through the Veterans Administration. Additionally, the bill would attempt to tackle some states’ dentist shortage by creating student loan forgiveness programs for dentists who practice in underserved areas, and increasing funding to non-traditional places to see dentists, including at community health centers and schools. Expanding dental coverage is exceedingly popular – recent polls show 92% of voters support the proposal, including an overwhelming majority of Republicans. Sanders said his proposal was good policy and “very good politics”.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has proposed a bill called the Comprehensive Dental Reform Act that would dramatically increase coverage for dental care for Medicaid and Medicare patients.

[rahabs]

The Tudors ran so Wulf Hall could shuffle awkwardly around reiterating the same tired old Tudor stereotypes while claiming to be something new.

[limerencehearted1997]

if kamala wins she is going to be atrocious on immigration so if that matters to you just brace for that

[avephelis]

queer spaces that are like "women and other safe space" are so uncomfortable to me. how do i explain that it feels safer to hang with The Boys and maybe risk being called a slur than take a step in your politically correct barely disguised gender essentialist hellscape.

[threeacresandacrow]

The New Yorker used to have someone on their staff whose education allowed for casual medievalism? And they trusted their readers to get the reference? Damn

[liyawritesss]

America would rather implode before admitting its wrongdoings, first and foremost

[heliological]

here's my proposal for renaming all the main series ace attorney games so their names make thematic sense. thank you

aa1 - ace attorney: trials and tribulations rfta - phoenix wright: ace attorney aa2 - ace attorney: spirit of justice aa3 - ace attorney: dual destinies aa4 - apollo justice: ace attorney aa5 - ace attorney: rise from the ashes aa6 - ace attorney: justice for all

[gabrielerner]

Important victory for immigrants and for everyone else

Last week, federal Judge Otis D. Wright II declared inconstitutional the practice of the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) known as “Knock and Talks” – hitting the door and chatting – for which the Agents enter with false identity to the patio or porch of a house where immigrants live with claiming they want to speak when their real purpose is to make an arrest. Judge Wright was…

[npzlawyersforimmigration]

The Annual Immigration Basics Program from ICLE agenda can be found copied below and also on our the NJICLE website. Join us to learn immigration basics:

https://njsba.com/event/us-immigration-basics-in-the-biden-harris-era-and-beyond-2/

[reformadirecta]

Encuentre su contratista perfecto: una guía de Reforma Directa.

Find Your Perfect Contractor: A Guide to Direct Reform" is a comprehensive handbook designed to assist individuals in their search for the ideal contractor for their renovation projects. This guide provides valuable insights, tips, and strategies for navigating the process of hiring a contractor directly, bypassing intermediaries or third-party services. From outlining the steps involved in identifying reputable contractors to providing guidance on negotiating contracts and overseeing project progress, this guide equips readers with the knowledge and tools necessary to ensure a successful renovation experience. Whether you're renovating a kitchen, bathroom, or entire home, "Find Your Perfect Contractor: A Guide to Direct Reform" offers practical advice and resources to help you find the right contractor and achieve your renovation goals with confidence.

[otatma]

alright so the consistently excellent @curlicuecal challenged me in a thread about justice and prison reform after a weird comment. and the more I thought about it the more I realized there's a pretty large rant there which I definitely started in the middle of.

so, I'll put more of that rant down here. yes, on the reading comprehension website. (if you are a minor, or if you have any concerns at all about the limits of your reading comprehension, I implore you to keep scrolling and not click the readmore. this is a messy topic.)

I'll try to keep it as straightforward as I can while remaining lucid.

the first thing to address is the definition of crime.

if a ceo sails in to some company, sacks half their workforce, kicks years of products out the door that actively hurt people, tanks all their goodwill, dumps gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere, drives species to extinction, ruins hundreds of thousands of lives, and so on... that is crime on a planetary scale.

if some politician systematically sabotages their own nation's ability to respond to a deadly plague, and then tells countless lies about how that plague is actually harmless, leading to millions of preventable deaths from that plague, that is also crime on a planetary scale.

if a spree killer blows up a building and kills a thousand people, that is a massive crime.

if some politician were to tell countless lies, spend vast resources on propagating those lies, cultivate a population of brainwashed people who believe those lies over reality, and then try to overthrow a lawful government by whipping those brainwashed people up into an angry mob, that would be a crime.

if someone commits murder or rape, that is a crime.

if someone grows a thousand pounds of marijuana and sells it to people, that is not a crime.

if someone fucks nasty and needs an abortion one or nine months later, that is not a crime.

if someone amuses themselves or manages their pain with heroin or methamphetamine or nanobots or some amazing new thing that someone invented last week, that is not a crime.

if someone steals a loaf of bread or a blanket to keep themselves from starving or freezing, that is not a crime. likewise for squatting in unoccupied housing, etc.

if someone decides that their gender assigned at birth isn't the right gender for them, that is not a crime. same deal if we feel weird about what they do to present the right gender for them. same deal if we for whatever reason feel weird about the people they like to fuck. those are not crimes.

if someone has a disability, visible or otherwise, that is not a crime.

if someone writes a fiction story where any of the above is depicted, even in loving detail, that is not a crime.

fairly simple stuff, but it bears repeating. the first and most important thing that needs fixed is the way we define crime. right now the worst criminals are running the world, because many of our definitions of crime are screwed up. right now millions of innocent people are imprisoned and enslaved, because many of our definitions of crime are screwed up. (and kept that way by the interests of vulture capitalism, but I digress.)

most of the human beings in prison right now shouldn't be there, and the reason they shouldn't be there is because many of our definitions of crime are screwed up.

the second thing to address is the way crimes are tried.

I don't like our court system.

I don't like judges running a court the way a captain runs their ship. (racist judge? racist judgments.)

I don't like voir dire. I'm not even entirely sure I like jury trials, given the state of education in our society (but I digress).

I don't like forcing people into plea bargains against their own interests.

there are myriad problems with the way we actually try crimes and the way we get verdicts out of that process. it needs reform. maybe we could start by throwing out every idea that we inherited from European settlers and putting something together from what remains. maybe that's stupid. I genuinely don't know. but what we're doing right now is super not working.

the third thing to address is the way we treat those we've convicted as criminals.

sticking someone in a big stone and metal box with a bunch of slave drivers doesn't fix them, it makes them worse. we've proven this many times over. 99% of convicted criminals need a hand up - assistance from social workers, better opportunities, a change in circumstances (e.g. not forced to find a place in a society that is wildly prejudiced against them), release from the demands of a vulture capitalist system (again I digress), etc.

so, given all that, I do still see a need for at least one prison in our society. this is the fourth thing to address.

there comes a point where a society needs to stop someone from doing the thing they're doing. this is why I led with the examples of the berserk CEO and the narcissistic politician.

the scale of their ability to cause harm makes their rights secondary to the rights of the people they are hurting, in that many more people will get hurt if they're left to do what they want than will get hurt if they're restrained. this is the point where it no longer matters if we make them worse - because ignored, they will make everyone else worse.

in a society where the ideal is that everyone should be treated the same under the law, leaving berserk CEOs and narcissistic orange politicians free to run around mass-producing lies and harm violates that ideal.

THOSE are the only people that belong in prison. the corrupt, prioritized in order of the scale at which they can cause harm. not to reform them. not even to punish them. simply to stop them until the right specialists can figure out what their deal is, and the least harmful method of taking their power away for keeps. This is the only defense I can offer in favor of prisons.

our ongoing failure to treat honestly with this problem and enact a working solution is a massive miscarriage of justice. it isn't as bad as enslaving millions of innocent people and ruining the prospects of hundreds of millions more, though.

[spartanmemesmedical]

Access to Abortion Care: A Human Rights Perspective

Introduction:Abortion remains a contentious issue globally, with complex implications for public health, human rights, and social justice. This assignment delves into the multifaceted aspects of abortion care, emphasizing its significance in promoting comprehensive healthcare, human rights, and gender equality. Overview:The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as a state of complete…

[tramontane-fire]

It's a federal holiday (presidents' day) and so there are hardly any new jobs, like a weekend amount, and the recruiter has not Gotten Back To Me, no have any of the other jobs I applied to (because of the holiday, not because they don't want to hire me or anything. no one in their right mind wouldn't want to hire me).

Anyway what's so great about presidents anyway? the old ones were slave owners and war criminals and the new ones are tax felons and war criminals. when can we actually get a president worthy of a whole ass holiday?

[locustheologicus]

The Border Crisis is real:

This CNN article concerns me greatly, I help organize case management for the asylee community and this community has changed dramatically over this summer. Initially we received a community of Hispanic migrants, many young families in search of opportunities, coming from economically devastated countries like Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. Now they have been replaced by a huge North African community of men who come from Mauritania, Senegal, and Algeria. They too are in search of opportunities but we have not been able to gauge as well what it is they hope to achieve here.

This article highlighted a grave concern that we must take seriously, the border crisis is a national security crisis.

The episode sits squarely at the nexus of two of the thorniest and most politically fraught security challenges facing the Biden administration: terrorism and the border… Administration officials have also grappled with limited resources as they face a growing number of migrants at the US southern border. Migration patterns to the United States have changed dramatically in recent years, with people arriving to the United States from more than 150 countries – the result, officials say, of unprecedented mass migration around the world. 

This is not a theoretical issue for me. I am responding to this crisis at a local level in NYC and so these are real people and the security concerns, both for these migrants and for the city, are very real issues indeed. I have a sense that human smuggling is very much part of this crisis. The smugglers may not be present but their cargo is now here with us. Whereas the Hispanic community are more interested in jobs and resources for their children the North African community seem more interested in clothing and gift cards (although to be fair everyone wants gift cards). Soon we will have more intensive case management and this will allow us to understand their situation better.

But in the meantime I am making this appeal. For a long time I have advocated for comprehensive immigration reform. I think a political candidate that cares for the future of this country will need to have the courage to respond to this issue. I am not talking about just the presidential candidate, I am referring to every congressional politician. We should know their thoughts about this issue and how they propose to respond to this crisis. Not with empty values and ad hominem attacks on other candidates, but with a real response to this issue.

Comprehensive immigration reform means that we must allocate money and resources to evaluate the needs and causes of migrants to this country and the economic and social needs we have for this community. Immigrants have much to contribute to us, and our policy should support this. Nevertheless, we must also recognize the need to promote a humane national security policy that protects us all. It needs to protect them from the abuse of human traffiking and forced labor, and it needs to protect us from threats of terrorism.

And yes, I have some thoughts on this. Immigration regulation needs to have a regional response. In this case, we need to consider a North American response to this issue. Since the migrants are coming over the border we need to be strategic about this by promoting the social and economic development of our southern neighbor (Mexico and Guatemala) in order to completely eradicate the human smuggling ring there and promote a secure process to assess and evaluate incoming migrants. If a North American partnership could promote the economic development of our southern neighbors, then perhaps this could provide broader opportunities for migrants beyond our American cities. In responding to the full gamut of economic needs, we should develop smart work visas that respond to these needs. We should process these migrants so we can regulate and track them while being attentive in integrating them into the fabric of our culture and society. This means good and thorough citizenship classes that share our American wisdom and values.

Organizations like our own will continue to do what we can but this issue requires a national and regional response. I hope we can act on it before it's too late.