Well, if I had any time, which I don’t, I’d write about Hillary Clinton’s decision to make the drug and mental health epidemic a front and center part of her campaign.
I’d also write about Bill O’Reilly’s family values. I don’t write about Bill-O very often, but this one is worthy of a mention.
Okay, I gotta scoot. See y’all later.
If I get a vote on what you write about when you do have time, I’d vote for the former rather than the latter. I’d like your take on it.
There are many progressive issues that can be tapped for broad electoral support but just recognizing the issues is not enough. Obama got away it because we so wanted change we read into his recognizing statements that he would actually do something about it. Hillary doesn’t represent change so she won’t get that kind of pass. She will have to say what she will propose to do about it to reap any progressive electoral reward. For starters, how about treating drug addiction as a medical instead of a criminal issue and provide funding for mental health services for those who can’t afford them but need them the most. But before finding some new issues how about her taking a position on the fast track trade agreement before Obama gets to pull a Bill Clinton.
For starters, how about treating drug addiction as a medical instead of a criminal issue and provide funding for mental health services for those who can’t afford them but need them the most.
Did she give any specifics? I have to read it later to find out. Needless to say, I don’t have faith she’ll do the right thing as you mention.
Currently she wants to end jail time for minor drug offenses, which in and of itself would make her the most liberal reformist on drug policy nominated in my lifetime. I’m interested to see what she comes up with for opiate abuse, which her campaign announced was going to get a major focus. A campaign focused on real top health issues – imagine that!
End jail time for minor drug offenses makes her the most liberal reformist in your lifetime? That is really sad. Cleaning up Bill’s mess is nice but it’s not going ignite progressive voters. Yes, deal with opiate abuse without driving people with chronic pain to cheaper heroin. Give the medical community a chance to help us understand how to help these people. We need an end to the drug war.
Jail time for possession goes way back before Clinton. And opiates kill 17,000 Americans annually, many times what were killed before prescription opiates were so widespread. Somebody wanting to take actions that could easily save 10,000 lives per year gets this progressive voter excited. Plus a serious ding on the prison-industrial complex? Big time excited.
True, she’s unlikely to propose a radical list of drug reforms which put her on the far left of the issue. More likely a “civil unions” type of first step reform proposal, which I hope goes slightly beyond ending criminalization for minor drug offenses.
If she can also tie the drug issue with the over criminalization and over incarceration issue generally in this country, truly a crime in itself, then she’ll win points from the left of her party and most in the middle. There’s plenty of room for her to talk up this and make it an important campaign issue going forward. And I think she would be riding a trend wave on this one that puts her in step with the public’s changing attitudes.
Mere dreams. You are asking the imoossible. She is not one to get down to brass tacks, no way.
Since I’ve been doing extra reading and even taking a class on climate science I’m to the point where the necessity to put climate change front and center with all other things seen through that lens is what I’m looking for. Whether it be health, education, infrastructure or immigration; everything would benefit from a paradigm shift.
As for Orally, none of that would surprise me if true. The guy obviously has some anger management problems.
I was slightly taken aback hearing on a recent Bill Maher show that the host considers Billo a friend. There was a brief lively exchange between him and a black entertainer guest who was taking the anti-Orally line most liberals have, with Maher pushing back vigorously. I just wish the entertainer had been better prepared to go through the list of Orally self-inflating lies he’s been caught in recently, none of which was mentioned iirc.
But I probably shouldn’t have been too surprised by Maher, a mixed bag humorist but mostly good, who also considers liar Ann Coulter a friend, and probably a few other frequent RW guests like the toxic Grover Norquist.
A mental health epidemic? Sanity breaking out all over?
Don’t we wish.
What a truly BS campaign issue. People want jobs. That’s the issue. Focus on jobs.
Mental health? Important, as a sometimes member of various psychiatry and psychology groups. Distinctly secondary, tertiary, even lower.
And it can be morphed into “soft on crime” which is not a winner in any sense.
Really? Cause every time there’s a mass shooting, the GOP swears it has nothing to do with guns and everything to do with mental health. Why not take that argument away from them? And how many police shootings are mental health related? And it’s medical care, which is something liberals are supposedly in favor of. I don’t think she’s going to run on nothing but mental health changes, but I can’t see any downside to standing up for doing the right thing here.
Gee, wonder what Hill’s position on the TPP is? Oh, yeah, forgot that she has $3M in speeches from Sili Valley in the last year or so. She is gonna be FULLY ON BOARD of giving away more American jobs to more H-1Bs.
Say, you folks notice that Fossil Watches/Brand has now fired all their IT workers and brought in a bunch of high-tech H-1b scabs? Wonder what Hill has to say about that? But that’s easy – has Fossil paid her off yet?