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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 11 days

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Shortly after wrapping up an inaugural legislative session in 2019 that included hiking the state’s minimum wage, legalizing cannabis and passing a historic $45 billion statewide construction program supported by expanded gambling and a host of increased taxes and fees, Gov. J.B. Pritzker sought to reassure a group of Chicago business leaders that he wasn’t just another tax-and-spend liberal.

Addressing the Executives’ Club of Chicago, Pritzker, a billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune and a prominent tech investor, said he would pursue a “rational, pragmatic, progressive agenda” that ultimately would pay dividends for the state budget and Illinois’ economy.

“I’m a businessman. I’m a progressive. I’m a believer in growing the economy and lifting up people’s wages,” Pritzker said at the time.

Now in his second term and preparing to play host to this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, while also eyeing his own future White House run, Pritzker’s identity as a self-described “pragmatic progressive” is being put to the test. The state faces its most challenging budget outlook since the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the governor continues to grapple with controversies over his handling of criminal justice issues and leaders on both sides of the political divide say Pritzker’s approach sometimes falls short of fully addressing the state’s biggest problems.

The latest assessment of Pritzker’s strategy will undoubtedly play out in Springfield in the coming weeks.

With March primaries come and gone, work is underway in earnest on approving a state spending plan for the coming budget year before the General Assembly’s scheduled May 24 adjournment. The proposal Pritzker laid out in February attempted to build on past progressive successes — such as last year’s expansion of state-funded preschool programs — without overpromising and potentially jeopardizing the state’s hard-won credit upgrades, a core accomplishment the governor guards jealously.

It’s a balancing act that’s key to Pritzker’s political persona as he builds his national profile, and one that will hinge on the governor’s ability to satisfy Democratic lawmakers who want more money for their legislative priorities while not resorting to the kinds of budgetary gimmicks that created the state’s long-running fiscal instability.

“Obviously the governor and his administration carry forward sort of a number of elements of the core progressive banner in terms of policy and program, and that’s a part of an identity,” said Joe Ferguson, president of the Civic Federation, a nonpartisan budget watchdog. “What is not usually coupled with that identity is fiscal responsibility. … This sort of fiscal responsibility is a kind of kryptonite against the narrative that would usually come from conservatives.”

‘ISN’T ROOM FOR OTHER SPENDING’

While Pritzker promotes the “pragmatic progressive” agenda publicly, he also pushes it privately. In a February text to state Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth of Peoria, the top budget negotiator for the House Democrats, the governor noted that “almost all of the few new things” he was introducing in his budget plan were at “no cost (or very low cost).”

“There is a bunch of stuff focused on the Black caucus, including addressing maternal mortality,” Pritzker wrote to Gordon-Booth in the message, obtained through an open-records request. “But there really isn’t room for other spending this year.”

Indeed, Pritzker’s plan both dabbles in progressive priorities — a child tax credit and a sales tax measure that will skim some funds away from big retailers — while also keeping an annual increase in school funding to the minimum amount required by law and steering clear of more structural tax changes pushed by progressives.

A few points the governor made in his proposal seemed tailor-made for bipartisan appeal: a $12 million child tax credit for low- and moderate-income families and the elimination of the state’s 1% sales tax on groceries.

While also popular with Republicans, elimination of the grocery tax has progressive appeal because Pritzker has framed it as an effort to abolish a regressive tax that hits those on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder the hardest. It’s also a tax cut that is easier on the state’s bottom line in a tight budget year because revenue from the tax flows not into the state’s coffers but to local governments.

The day after Pritzker’s budget address in February, state Sen. Donald DeWitte, a St. Charles Republican, said he was “thrilled” Pritzker proposed scrapping the grocery tax, but he said the governor should also be devising a way to ensure local governments don’t pass the burden of the lost revenue onto residents. While it’s possible Pritzker could be trying to appease the GOP, the proposal doesn’t go far enough, DeWitte said.

“Any opportunity to take stress off of Illinois families is a good thing,” said DeWitte, a former mayor of St. Charles who also serves as one of the Senate GOP’s budget negotiators. “But there are always ramifications that have to be dealt with, and so far, I don’t think the administration has been willing to deal with the ramifications of simply removing that tax without considering the other side of that revenue equation, which is the hit that will go to local governments.”

The Civic Federation still is evaluating the governor’s budget proposal, including the idea of eliminating the grocery tax, but Ferguson said it’s important to look at that idea in the full context of all the state funds that flow to local governments.

“You have to do the math on what additionally has been sent to the local level with what is essentially being taken away with the grocery tax and see what it amounts to,” Ferguson said. “It amounts to a far less dire situation than the localities appear to be projecting.”

Another idea with the potential to attract Republican support is the child tax credit. But both DeWitte and some progressives find themselves in the odd position of agreeing with each other in supporting the idea but also thinking it could be more ambitious.

“The governor has allocated $12 million for this, and that just doesn’t get you very far,” said state Rep. Will Guzzardi, a Chicago Democrat who co-chairs the House Progressive Caucus.

Democratic state Sen. Mike Simmons of Chicago has introduced a more robust tax credit than the one pitched by Pritzker; it would cover families with children up to age 17, rather than age 3.

Negotiations for the credit, as well as the rest of the budget, are ongoing.

“It was a win that the governor put this in his budget. It allows us to have this discussion at another level,” Simmons said.

TIGHT FISCAL REINS

Several of the governor’s belt-tightening measures — from increasing school funding by the bare minimum to cutting back on state-funded health care for immigrants who are in the country without legal permission — have drawn scrutiny from his political left.

While Pritzker speaks frequently about the importance of education funding and brags about boosting funding for elementary and high schools by more than $1.4 billion since taking office, the reality is that he’s only kept up with the minimum target of increasing state funding by $350 million per year.

Advocates long have warned that those increases are not enough to meet the state’s goals of adequately funding public schools under a state aid formula signed into law in 2017 by his predecessor, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Failing to go above the minimum increase has been a long-running source of frustration for Rep. Will Davis, a Democrat from south suburban Homewood who was one of the sponsors of the 2017 school funding overhaul and chairs the House Appropriations Committee that oversees K-12 funding.

“We tried to put a trajectory out there to try to get to full funding. And the reality, I don’t think we’ll ever actually get to that,” said Davis, who for years has pushed for at least a $500 million increase annually. “But we have to make bigger strides to at least show that we’re trying to get to what we would call full funding.”

Although Davis notes the education funding formula was crafted when Rauner, not Pritzker, was in office, the Democratic lawmaker said that doesn’t alter his overall message to Pritzker.

“Governor, why not work with us? Let’s make sure that we find the resources so that we can ramp up the funding in a different way,” Davis said a few days after Pritzker pitched his budget.

This year, Pritzker and state lawmakers will face added pressure to boost school funding from the politically progressive Chicago Teachers Union, which has signaled it will be looking to Springfield for more money for Chicago Public Schools as it negotiates a new contract with a City Hall run by its strongest ally, Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Tensions between Pritzker’s progressive ideals and his pragmatic approach also have arisen over state-funded health insurance for older Illinois residents who are in the country without legal permission.

The debate over how to deal with ballooning costs in the program delayed passage of the state budget last year, a dispute between Democratic factions — including Black and Latino lawmakers and moderates and progressives — that was only resolved when Pritzker agreed to a deal that gave his administration the power to rein in the program’s costs.

His moves to close enrollment for younger participants, begin charging co-pays and, more recently, to stop offering the program to green card holders who are in a five-year waiting period for federal Medicaid benefits, have drawn the ire of immigrant rights and health care advocates and some progressive lawmakers.

Last month, for example, Rep. Norma Hernández, a Democrat from Melrose Park elected in 2022 with the backing of progressive stalwart U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, criticized the latest move as a “short-term cost-saving measure, not a long-term” solution.

In his proposal, Pritzker suggested spending on the program from the state’s general fund be reduced to $440 million, which is $110 million less than what was committed this fiscal year. But the administration is also proposing spending nearly $200 million more on the program from other funding sources, with much of that money coming from a federal match to emergency services funding.

The maneuvers have created some dissonance between Pritzker’s actions and political rhetoric. In a news release touting the expansion of eligibility to those ages 42 to 54 in 2022, he declared: “From day one of my administration, equity has been — and will always be — our north star. Everyone, regardless of documentation status, deserves access to holistic health care coverage.”

‘GROW THE PIE’

In the longer term, some progressives are looking for additional moves that would bring in more revenue from the richest Illinoisans and large corporations, Guzzardi said.

A tax change for retailers was one example that made it into the proposed budget, Guzzardi said. Pritzker proposed capping the money retailers can keep from sales taxes, essentially resulting in higher taxes for those businesses and more revenue for the state.

Beyond that, progressives have other ideas “about how we could grow the pie,” Guzzardi said.

“The governor’s introduced budgets don’t include those ideas, that’s true. But working within the framework of the dollars that we have, I think the governor has done a really strategic job of investing those dollars in our shared progressive priorities,” he said.

Since Pritzker’s boldest progressive proposal to change the state’s tax structure — a state constitutional amendment to create a graduated-rate income tax — was resoundingly defeated at the ballot box in 2020, thanks in large part to efforts by the state’s business community, the governor has focused on more arcane ways of boosting state tax revenue.

Aside from the retailer sales tax change for next year, an idea that’s been proposed and rejected previously, Pritzker is also suggesting limiting an inflation-based increase in the personal income tax exemption, essentially increasing taxes on individuals by $93 million.

PRISONER REVIEW BOARD TUMULT

The state budget isn’t the only arena in which Pritzker at times has had to triangulate his progressive policy positions with pressures from the political center and the right.

Recent tumult at the state Prisoner Review Board brought the spotlight back on the Pritzker-controlled institution that decides which state prisoners are paroled.

The makeup of the Prisoner Review Board has changed noticeably during Pritzker’s time in office — early on being labeled by Republicans as too liberal and later being criticized by some prisoners’ rights and criminal justice reform advocates for taking too hard of a line and preventing older inmates from getting the paroles they sought, moves conservatives applauded.

But in March the review board became a focus yet again when parolee Crosetti Brand was charged with stabbing 11-year-old Jayden Perkins to death and seriously injuring his mother, with whom Brand used to be in a relationship.

Released on parole in October for a separate crime, Brand was back in state custody in February after he allegedly tried to break into the residence where Jayden and his mother lived. But a three-member review board panel decided to release Brand after determining the panel didn’t have enough evidence from Jayden’s mother’s allegations to keep him behind bars.

Days after the attack made headlines, the board’s chairman, Donald Shelton, and another member resigned.

In announcing one of the resignations, Pritzker said it was clear “that evidence in this case was not given the careful consideration that victims of domestic violence deserve” and suggested reforms could be made to the way the board functions.

For Pritzker, the resignations should be “a feather in his cap,” showing that he’s willing to admit there was a grave mistake within an agency that falls under his purview, said Christopher Mooney, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

But Mooney also said the board’s actions in the Brand case could entice Republicans or any other detractors to politicize Jayden’s death and use it against Pritzker if he tries to run for president.

It’s been done before, Mooney said, referring most notably to the 1988 presidential election when Republican George H.W. Bush used the early release of Willie Horton, a Massachusetts murderer who went on to commit other crimes, to paint Democrat Michael Dukakis as soft on crime.

Already, Senate Republicans have used Jayden’s death against the governor.

Illinois Sen. Jason Plummer, a Republican from Edwardsville who sits on the Executive Appointments Committee, blamed Pritzker in two lengthy social media threads about the board’s shortcomings, criticisms he echoed at a news conference and in an appearance on Fox News.

Although Pritzker called for additional training for review board members on how to handle cases where domestic violence is involved, the Senate Republicans are pushing for broader changes.

Their proposal includes requiring that appointees to the board have 20 years of experience in the criminal justice system as a prosecutor, criminal defense attorney, judge, probation officer or public defender. The GOP plan also would require victims be immediately notified of a prisoner’s release under certain circumstances and increase transparency requirements for the board.

While Senate Republicans were previously successful in 2022, when crime was a key campaign issue both statewide and nationally, in pressuring Democratic colleagues to oppose a couple of Pritzker’s appointments to the board, it’s unclear whether the GOP’s superminority will be successful again.

But Mooney and other observers have questioned how effective the Republicans will be.

“As it stands right now, it doesn’t sound like it’s going to go very far,” Mooney said the day after the board’s resignations were announced. “No. 1, because Pritzker’s all over it.”

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an-onyx-void · 1 month

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Pregnancy care has changed in alarming ways since Louisiana banned abortion : Shots - Health News https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/03/19/1239376395/louisiana-abortion-ban-dangerously-disrupting-pregnancy-miscarriage-care

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magicspun · 2 days

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https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/colombia-becomes-first-country-restrict-us-beef-due-bird-flu-dairy-cows-2024-04-25/

Colombia becomes first country to restrict US beef due to bird flu in dairy cows

By P.j. Huffstutter and Tom Polansek

April 25, 2024

CHICAGO, April 25 (Reuters) - Colombia has restricted the import of beef and beef products coming from U.S. states where dairy cows have tested positive for avian influenza as of April 15, according the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It is the first country to officially limit trade in beef due to bird flu in cows, in a sign of a broadening economic impact of the virus that has restricted poultry trade globally. Colombia imports a small amount of beef from the U.S. annually, according to government data and market analysts.

In a notice, opens new tab this week on the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service website, which was last updated on April 22, the agency said the ban includes beef products derived from cattle slaughtered in Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota and Texas.

Colombia imposed temporary restrictions on raw bovine meat products, the notice said. If exporters have a valid import permit, shipments may still be held at the port.

The restrictions come as the U.S. government said it will require dairy cattle moving between states to be tested for bird flu starting on Monday, as federal officials ramp up their response to an outbreak that has bled over into the U.S. milk supply.

The measures aim to contain the spread of bird flu, which has been reported in eight states and 33 dairy herds since it was first detected in late March in Texas. A person exposed to cattle tested positive for the disease and suffered conjunctivitis.

To date, no U.S. beef cattle have tested positive for bird flu, government officials said.

Colombia is the only country that has officially imposed restrictions on U.S. beef exports over the H5N1 outbreak, said Joe Schuele, spokesman for the U.S. Meat Export Federation, an industry group.

"We don't feel that import restrictions related to the avian flu outbreak have any scientific basis," he said, adding: "It's certainly a big deal for exporters who are doing business in Colombia and for their customers."

USDA officials are talking with Colombia about the issue, Schuele said.

Trading partners have requested additional information on the government's epidemiology, Rosemary Sifford, USDA's chief veterinary officer, said in a webinar on Thursday.

"We are responding to their requests for information as we receive them, to provide information that assists them in mitigating any trade impacts," Sifford said.

USDA officials did not say which trading partners asked for such information.

#xx fyi butter; hard cheeses and breads like croissants/brioche freezer well. whey protein and complete pancake mixes only require water.#us news #us food #us beef #fda #cdc #food #beef #colombia #bird flu #avian flu #h5n1 #animals #health #public health

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reasonsforhope · 4 months

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"The Biden Administration last week [early December, 2023] announced it would be seizing patents for drugs and drug manufacturing procedures developed using government money.

A draft of the new law, seen by Reuters, said that the government will consider various factors including whether a medical situation is leading to increased prices of the drug at any given time, or whether only a small section of Americans can afford it.

The new executive order is the first exercise in what is called “march-in-rights” which allows relevant government agencies to redistribute patents if they were generated under government funding. The NIH has long maintained march-in-rights, but previous directors have been unwilling to use them, fearing consequences.

“We’ll make it clear that when drug companies won’t sell taxpayer funded drugs at reasonable prices, we will be prepared to allow other companies to provide those drugs for less,” White House adviser Lael Brainard said on a press call.

But just how much taxpayer money is going toward funding drugs? A research paper from the Insitute for New Economic Thought showed that “NIH funding contributed to research associated with every new drug approved from 2010-2019, totaling $230 billion.”

The authors of the paper continue, writing “NIH funding also produced 22 thousand patents, which provided marketing exclusivity for 27 (8.6%) of the drugs approved [between] 2010-2019.”

How we do drug discovery and production in America has a number of fundamental flaws that have created problems in the health service industry.

It costs billions of dollars and sometimes as many as 5 to 10 years to bring a drug to market in the US, which means that only companies with massive financial muscle can do so with any regularity, and that smaller, more innovative companies can’t compete with these pharma giants.

This also means that if a company can’t recoup that loss, a single failed drug can result in massive disruptions to business. To protect themselves, pharmaceutical companies establish piles of patents on drugs and drug manufacturing procedures. Especially if the drug in question treats a rare or obscure disease, these patents essentially ensure the company has monoselective pricing regimes.

However, if a company can convince the NIH that a particular drug should be considered a public health priority, they can be almost entirely funded by the government, as the research paper showed.

Some market participants, in this case the famous billionaire investor Mark Cuban, have attempted to remedy the issue of drug costs in America by manufacturing generic versions of patented drugs sold for common diseases."

-via Good News Network, December 11, 2023

#united states #us politics #biden administration #executive order #prescription drugs #medical news #healthcare #healthcare access #biden #big pharma #drug prices #public health #nih #national institutes of health #good news #hope

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4ngel-inc · 4 months

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ok but like what if i moved to england to get my doctorate when im done with my master's program eeeep !! ╥﹏╥

#— misc ୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆#the thought has been bubbling in my head for so long #just going somewhere completely on my own and doing new things meeting new people !!#i live in the US rn #every time i bring it up to my friends they're like DO IT #i'm spinning #i've already looked into phd science writing programs there #a phd in public health is on my mind heavy lately !! :>#two writing degrees and a science degree like i feel they would compliment each other so well !!

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dontmean2bepoliticalbut · 2 years

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contemplatingoutlander · 2 years

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This is an excellent, must-read analysis of gun issues in the U.S. by Nicholas Kristoff. Here are some excerpts:

America has been shaken — once again — by mass shootings. On May 14, a gunman killed 10 people in a supermarket in Buffalo. On Tuesday, at least 19 children and two adults were killed in Uvalde, Texas. It was the deadliest shooting at an elementary school since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary.

This essay originally ran in 2017, after a shooter killed 26 people in a Texas church. But the issue is still tragically relevant, and will remain so until America tightens its gun safety policies.

America has more guns than any other country

The first step is to understand the scale of the challenge America faces: The U.S. has more than 300 million guns — roughly one for every citizen — and stands out as well for its gun death rates. At the other extreme, Japan has less than one gun per 100 people, and typically fewer than 10 gun deaths a year in the entire country.

We have a model for regulating guns: automobiles

Gun enthusiasts often protest: Cars kill about as many people as guns, and we don’t ban them! No, but automobiles are actually a model for the public health approach I’m suggesting.

We don’t ban cars, but we work hard to regulate them — and limit access to them — so as to reduce the death toll they cause. This has been spectacularly successful, reducing the death rate per 100 million miles driven to less than one-seventh of what it was in 1946.

....Use a public health approach instead.

[...] The left sometimes focuses on “gun control,” which scares off gun owners and leads to more gun sales. A better framing is “gun safety” or “reducing gun violence,” and using auto safety as a model—constant efforts to make the products safer and to limit access by people who are most likely to misuse them.

What would a public health approach look like for guns if it were modeled after cars? It would include:

If someone steals my iPhone, it’s useless, and the same should be true of guns. Gun manufacturers made child-proof guns back in the 19th century (before dropping them), and it’s time to advance that technology today. Some combination of smart guns and safe storage would also reduce the number of firearms stolen in the U.S. each year, now about 200,000, and available to criminals.

We also need to figure out whether gun buybacks, often conducted by police departments, are cost-effective and help reduce violence. And we can experiment more with anti-gang initiatives, such as Cure Violence, that have a good record in reducing shootings.

Fewer guns = fewer deaths

It is true that guns are occasionally used to stop violence. But contrary to what the National Rifle Association suggests, this is rare. One study by the Violence Policy Center found that in 2012 there were 259 justifiable homicides by a private citizen using a firearm.

Lax laws too often make it easy not only for good guys to get guns, but also for bad guys to get guns. The evidence is overwhelming that overall more guns and more relaxed gun laws lead to more violent deaths and injuries. One study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that a gun in the house was associated with an increased risk of a gun death, particularly by suicide but also apparently by homicide.

See the rest of the article for more important information and commentary.

#gun culture #gop #us politics #texas shooting #uvalde shooting #common sense approach to gun violence #public health #nicholas kristof #the new york times

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panuccispizza · 6 months

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my tbh of the day... get the fuck out of online queer/discourse spaces and get the fuck into things that you enjoy and bring you enthusiasm and inspire you. meet queer people in those spaces. you will be happier btw.

#this is targeted at people vaguely 18+ and more specifically queer people who have been out of the closet for longer than like a year #like if youre not a babyqueer anymore you have no use in spaces that are catered specifically to educating and discoursing babyqueer topics+#and literal shit from cishet people.#the internet is now full of lgbtphobic fascists that want to make the lives of trans people just miserable online and offline #and getting out of public online trans spaces and unfollowing big name trans accounts or groups will help you out #if this is something that is bothering you psychologically #and i promise it gets better the further you put down the Toxic Tome of Transphobia (twitter/your phone on r/ftm #etc)#i deleted twitter and my old reddit to make a fresh new one where i only follow my interests + hobbies and nothing about who i am #and oh wow am i happier. bored! but your supposed to be bored sometimes. its important for your mental health to experience underwhelmingnes #transphobia effects your mental health in rancid awful ways and you cant ignore it forever and scrolling and muting only does so much #sometimes you have to just leave. for yourself #its ok to leave.#its ok to take care of yourself. you are your only self and your only life and you need to protect it with your FULLL fucking heart

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3vocatio · 1 year

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peeped here out of curiosity (i know u have good takes and rb good/interesting takes + filtered words don’t work when viewing blogs and i’ve filtered every single om tag ever) and uknow what? while there’s aspects of the (supposedly) satan-focused i greatly enjoyed (mostly as writing inspo and just the enjoyment of the moment itself more than its part in the overall narrative tbh) i was endlessly frustrated by the fact that diavolo got the true highlight. i couldn’t place why the hell it made me so annoyed but you’re right—the real main character of the story was diavolo and it annoys the hell out of me that satan was painted as more of the bad guy. despite having the most screen time, satan felt like he was simply a means to an end, with the end being some way to show/remind the audience all of diavolo’s princely qualities that often get sidelines in favor of his usual behavior in events.

like. i greatly enjoyed seeing satan lose his shit to the point of terrifying crowds of demons. i liked seeing him lock himself away after to try and process everything by himself. the bits of vulnerability when mc finally manages to speak to him? love. (not that much of it is actually new info but i do enjoy that it’s there)

but the rest of everything else has me pulling at my hair. especially the ending… i wanted mc to ask for something that would be primarily to satan’s benefit after all the bullshit that happened. (and also satan thanking diavolo for giving mc his stars felt… idk. it felt like it encapsulated how a lot of the story key part felt; reminding us that diavolo’s the actual ‘hero’ here and not satan.)

ahdksjakdja so yknow. just some thoughts i wanted to send you. i didnt wanna log into my om blog even though i probably should for thoughts like this >.>;; once again a majority of my real fun came from rewriting everything, which i guess is something since almost all of the non-bday om content for the last several months hasn’t even gotten me inspired enough to bother rewriting anything.

/end yet another rant abt om content shdjssjs

hello...pretend i responded to this first /j

to validate what you mentioned, i also only enjoyed snippets of that event (though as we know, it's been like this for most obey me events for a long time); diavolo aside, witnessing satan compose himself with such sincerity and generousity felt like a blessing tbh. he knows his limits, he knows what upsets him and he should be listened to, even if he gets emotional about it. so what! most of us become emotional when defending something we hold close to our hearts, and satan was no different.

i've said this in the other ask you sent, but you came back right on time as the new lore-focused obm game has been announced! satan was one of their focal points that they mentioned, as well as lore surrounding the (pre & post) celestial realm, solomon, and the attic. it's gotten the entire fandom riled up including myself, and everything looks promising so far :)

i was wondering why the spacing between events in-game have been getting longer and longer, and i'm glad to know it's because they're putting importance on quality over quantity. they began making baby steps in the previous "single character-focused" events, but i'd like to mention that i am very satisfied with the release of simeon's new birthday event, especially when you compare it to the first one for symbolism reasons.

i won't go in-depth about it now unless someone asks me to share my thoughts, but it was the right amount of promising writing i needed to give me hope. for you specifically, satan didn't delve into any cat shenanegains and when he confronted lucifer & brought up a good point, he was acknowleged and listened to. everyone did such a good job...aaaa <3

#﹒❝ birdsong #tbh if you dont wanna use your obm account then by all means--dont!#personally speaking i've found it so relaxing going on account(s) that i feel safe in--it's similar to living a new era of your life #safe isnt really the right word--liberating is more like it #if you feel like taking a longer break than anticipated who's gonna stop u from continuing it #there'll still be people waiting for you..!#besides taking breaks from familiar yet larger public circles is good for ur health #anyways im gonna say it here instead of the main post but rewriting everything becomes fun until the media u rewrite #becomes redundant and repetitive #which is why discussing/criticising those with friends is a lot better #as i said before things are beginning to look a lot more promising so im crossing my fingers hoping that this is s/lmares redemption arc

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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A New York City directive allowing first responders to enforce a state law that allows them to potentially involuntarily commit people experiencing a mental health crisis can proceed after facing legal challenges by mental health advocates, a judge has ruled.

The ruling, issued Monday by U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty in the Southern District of New York, denied a motion brought by individuals and mental health organizations in December. The legal challenge asked a judge to issue a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the city’s implementation of the policy.

The motion was filed on December 8 as part of an existing lawsuit that alleges New York City has consistently failed to provide safe and appropriate care to New Yorkers experiencing mental health crises. The plaintiffs argued the city’s plan is unconstitutional and violates an individual’s “freedom to live without unlawful seizures and excessive force by law enforcement.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams first announced the directive in November as part of an attempt to address concerns about homelessness and crime.

Adams said it was a myth that first responders can only involuntarily commit those who displayed an “overt act” showing they may be suicidal, violent or a danger to others, CNN previously reported. Instead, he said the law allowed first responders to involuntarily commit those who cannot meet their own “basic human needs” – a lower bar.

New York Lawyers for Public Interest, a non-profit civil rights law firm, said in a statement to CNN it was disappointed by the court’s ruling.

“The rights of New Yorkers with mental disabilities, particularly those who are unhoused, remain imperiled by the city’s new involuntary removal policy. Our litigation challenging the city’s use of New York Police Department officers as first responders when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis continues,” reads the statement from the firm, which was one of the plaintiffs in the December lawsuit.

Nicholas Paolucci, the director of public affairs at the New York City Law Department, said in a statement to CNN that the defendants are “pleased the court agreed plaintiffs have no legal standing to halt the Mayor’s sound and compassionate plan.”

NEW YORK CITY’S PLAN DRAWS CRITICISM

As part of the city’s plan, New York Police Department officers and first responders will get additional training to help them make such evaluations and a team of mental health technicians will be available, either via a hotline or video chat, to help them determine whether a person needs to be taken to a hospital for further evaluation, CNN previously reported.

The city also plans to develop specialized intervention teams to work side by side with NYPD officers.

Adams said first responders weren’t consistently enforcing the law because they were unsure of its scope, reserving it only for cases that appeared the most serious.

New York state enacted a law in 2021 to allow first responders to involuntarily commit a person with mental illness who needs immediate care. The directive led to a mixed response from officials, who acknowledged the challenges of properly and humanely treating mentally ill people.

“This is a longstanding and very complex issue,” NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said in a statement. “We will continue to work closely with our many partners to ensure that everyone has access to the services they require. This deserves the full support and attention of our collective efforts.”

Mental health advocates argued in their legal challenge that the city’s policy will authorize officers with “little to no expertise in dealing with individuals with mental disabilities…to determine whether an individual should be forcefully – often violently – detained against their will.”

“If the Involuntary Removal Policy is permitted to continue to be implemented, Plaintiffs and countless other New Yorkers will suffer irreparable harm, including a substantially increased likelihood that they will be subjected to unlawful detention and involuntary hospitalization just for exhibiting behavior perceived by a police officer to be unusual – whether the individual has a mental disability or not,” the advocates’ December motion stated.

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