Tag Archive for law

Life-Saving Meds: A Great Idea

May 24, 2019 Comments Off on Life-Saving Meds: A Great Idea

Many people depend on insulin just to stay alive. Pharmaceutical companies know that–and take advantage of it. They have raised their prices for this relatively inexpensive drug by 1000% over the last 20 years, leading people to cut down on their doses in order to afford it or to share with a loved one, thus endangering their health and lives. But they have no other choice.

Remember that this is a drug whose discoverers, back in 1922, sold the patent for a single dollar to the University of Toronto with the assurance that it would be available for all who needed it

Now Colorado has stepped in. They just passed a bill that no one can be charged more than $100 (yes, one hundred) a month out-of-pocket for their month’s supply of insulin. In addition, the bill requires an investigation into the pricing of that drug and a report given to the governor by 2020.

The 400,000 Colorado citizens will have to wait until Jan. 1, 2020, for the law to go into full effect, but at least they have hope.

Seems to me that this would be a good law for all the other states to enact.

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Is That Legal?

September 6, 2018 Comments Off on Is That Legal?

There’s SO much arguing back  and forth about what is legal. As today’s Thursday Thought quote points out, that isn’t the real issue.

“Something must happen so as to touch the hearts and souls of [all people] that they will come together, not because the law says it, but because it is natural and right.”  — Martin Luther King, Stride Toward Freedom, 1958

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Keep Your Privacy Private

July 6, 2018 Comments Off on Keep Your Privacy Private

Californians are getting the power to protect themselves. What is your state  or country doing?

Starting in 2020, Californians will have the power to control whether or not online companies can keep or sell our data.  Currently, online companies collect all sorts of information about us and use it either to bombard us with advertising or profit from it by selling it to others who attack us with ads…and worse.

Although the new law isn’t as strong as the one in Europe, it’s the strongest in the U.S.

Start bombarding your lawmakers with demands that they enact similar legislation.  We all deserve to avoid giving up part of our private lives every time we search or buy on the internet, go  to a website,  or download a movie or e-book.

Remember: Their taking our data isn’t just a bother to us; their having our information can also endanger us, especially the most vulnerable among our family and friends.

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I Have to Vent

June 20, 2018 Comments Off on I Have to Vent

I’m sorry, but today I need to vent. I’m watching all those kids who are alone although warehoused with hundreds of other kids, scared, wanting their parents, not knowing what’s going on or what will happen to them five minutes from now, feeling that they must have done something really bad to be in the situation they’re in.

And what am I hearing from the adults who can do something about this? Depending on who’s speaking, it’s the fault of 1) the President, 2) Democrats, 3) Republicans, 4) government agencies, 5) the kids’ parents, 6) Obama, 7) Obama and Bush, 8) current law….

It really, REALLY bothers me that the only activity going on to alleviate these kids’ misery is a bunch of hot air–blame rather than action. Yet, if politicians set aside their political bias, narrow allegiance, and eye toward re-election, they CAN do something. The President can sign yet one more Executive Order in his long string of them. The Democrats and Republicans can stop bickering and pass legislation with enough of a majority to override a possible Presidential veto. Government agencies can do what they’ve done recently to create this  problem in the first place, namely reinterpret the pretty broad law. It’s too late for the parents to help their kids, because they’re already here. But where are all the other adults?

Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but even my conservative friends are crying along with those children.

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Do You Trust that Contractor?

June 12, 2018 Comments Off on Do You Trust that Contractor?

We’re in the build/repair/replace/remodel season. It’s also choose-a-contractor season. Who to trust? Of course, you’ll ask friends and neighbors, and you’ll read Yelp reviews (may be of questionable value). You finally call some to get estimates (of course, you’ll get at least three).

One more thing: How much do they want up-front? Here’s where you can do an integrity-check. Do they ask for more than the law allows? For example, in California, they can ask no more than 10% of the total estimate, or $1000, whichever is less. That’s the law.

There are two questions to ask yourself, then. One is, what’s the law in your state? The other is, how much can you trust someone who asks for more in advance? That is, if he’s breaking the law, how honest is he?  —  Something to think about.

 

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Goodbye First Amendment

February 28, 2017 2 comments

Can someone please explain to me–WHY?

Isn’t it bad enough that, for a long while, we’ve been seeing hate crimes against people because they are or are perceived as Muslim?  That they’re being killed, attacked, and their places of worship desiccate?

NOW it’s Jewish people.  In the first two months of this year–two months!– there have been 90 hate crimes in 30 states against Jews, their centers, their schools, and their cemeteries.  30 is over half our total number of states.  What does that say about us as Americans?

According to Pew Research, “There are about 4.2 million American adults who say they are Jewish by religion, representing 1.8% of the U.S. adult population. But there are roughly 5.3 million Jews (2.2% of the adult population) if the total also includes ‘Jews of no religion,’” plus  2.4 million adults who claim a “Jewish background” (raised Jewish but have converted to another religion or no longer “feel” Jewish).  Plus another 1.2 million who weren’t raised Jewish but feel they are, in some way, Jewish.

Over 13 million.  That’s a lot of fellow Americans.  That’s a lot of fellow human beings.  Why do we  allow it to happen?  Why do we turn a blind eye toward our countrymen whose only “crime” is being associated with a religion?  When something is as widely accepted and practiced as this is not stopped, it may not be a law but it has the force of law.

Goodbye, First Amendment.

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Signing Your Life Away

September 1, 2015 Comments Off on Signing Your Life Away

The Nov. elections will be here before we know it.  Right now, groups and organizations are starting to spread out to collect signatures on petitions to put their pet issue on the ballot.

Think before you act.  Don’t sign your life away.  That’s what you may be doing if you take the petition thrust at you and sign it just so you can get your groceries home before they melt.  Read that petition before signing it, especially the actual text of the proposed law. Don’t ask the person with the clipboard for clarification, because, if passed, the law will say what the text says, not what you or the signature-gatherer hopes it will accomplish.

Also, the gatherers have their own agenda, whether it’s to be paid for another signature or to get their viewpoint passed into law.  Go through it carefully. Is the wording clear and specific?  Do you want the law to be exactly as what’s written?  Most importantly, does everything in it conform to your moral values?  If so, sign it.  Otherwise, walk away.

Signing a petition is a small but important step toward changing unfair, oppressive, discriminatory laws.  Let’s just make sure that we vote for the ethical laws we think we’re asking for.

 

 

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Bill Cosby’s Medal of Freedom

July 16, 2015 2 comments

I’m going to say something very unpopular here: Bill Cosby should keep his Medal of Freedom.  For one thing, under the criteria for the medal, he earned it.  The criteria is that recipients must be “Americans who have contributed richly to the national life some way.”  There is no morals clause.  Cosby did contribute, by making us laugh–often at ourselves–and by making many people forget that the family man on TV, who was so much like us, was actually Black.

Remember that year, 2002?  The U.S. invaded Afghanistan; there were constant news stories of Israelis and Palestinians killing off masses of men, women, and children; the Pope brought priest child abuse fully into the open; an asteroid came close to crashing into the earth; floods ravaged our relatives and friends in Eastern Europe; stories of the carnage of the Beltway bomber filled our newspapers and magazines; a Chinese plane crashed and another disintegrated, killing hundreds.  We needed some laughter to release the tension.  Cosby gave us that laugh.

The other reason he should keep the medal is that he has been accused but not convicted of some horrible acts.  Admittedly, he looks as guilty as Satan.  However, all people are protected under our law and are innocent until proven guilty.  We don’t get to apply that rule of law selectively, even if we feel down to our toes that a person is guilty.

All this is academic, of course, because whoever thought up the award didn’t conceive of a time when they’d regret giving it to someone.  Therefore, there’s no way established to take it back.

 

 

 

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Helmets do NOT Save Lives

June 15, 2015 Comments Off on Helmets do NOT Save Lives

It’s a lie that helmets save motorcyclists’ lives, despite the fact that wearing one is the law in many states.  Well, statistics show that solid, approved ones do.  However, many riders favor the “pretend” ones?  You know, the novelty ones that are not up to federal safety standards.  These are called “brain buckets” for obvious reasons or “loophole lids”  because, well, Officer, I AM wearing a helmet….  But they are cheaper, lighter, and more comfortable than approved helmets.  And the cops can’t readily spot the difference.

Finally, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)  is working on the problem.  They are proposing rules to stop the flow of these dangerous helmets from overseas and the Internet and find ways to make it easier for cops to identify them out on the road.

Once  new regulations are approved and put into place (it will take two years), NHTSA estimates that 235-481 people will not die annually in states that have helmet laws if everyone who uses novelty helmets switch to approved helmets.  Even a small number makes a difference: if 5% – 10% novelty-users switch, 12 – 48 lives would be saved each year.

And that’s not mentioning all the people whose lives are traumatized because they were in an accident where the motorcyclist died because he thought he was being so smart.

 

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Nebraska, Death, and Shame

May 29, 2015 Comments Off on Nebraska, Death, and Shame

Nebraska lawmakers have banned the death penalty, even overriding their governor’s veto.  I congratulate them on realizing that the “eye for an eye” law was–listen up, Christians–the old law, replaced by a new Law of humanity and reason.  They came to understand that the death penalty, on the moral level, is unequally applied and too permanent in cases when guilt is later disproved; on the practical level, far too expensive; and, on the emotional level, seldom brings victims’ families the peace they long for.  Lawmakers saw that the practice was not justice but simple revenge.

Nebraska is state #19 (plus DC).  We’re well past 1/3 of our civilized nation’s ridding itself of the practice, as much of the rest of the major nations have done.  Yet we’re so far away from even 1/2.

I’m sad to say that my state, California, is on the wrong side of those percentages.  If you live on that side, urge your state’s lawmakers to do something about ending this national shame.

 

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