Living in Portland and seeing the Mayor a couple of days ago announce he was enforcing the camping ban starting on Monday, I pretty much expected this.
Frankly it’s overdue. The people who want to argue “what about human dignity??!?!?” are ignoring the realities of the situation:
“Those who accept offers of shelter won’t be cited, according to Wheeler’s office. For those who are cited, the courts will determine whether to waive fines. The ordinance says it encourages diverting people to assessment, emergency shelter or housing instead of jail.”
The article and ruling isn’t about Portland, it’s about Grants Pass.
At the center of the case is Grants Pass, a city of roughly 40,000 in southern Oregon with ordinances that bar camping or sleeping on public property or in city parks. The city’s rules define “campsite” as “any place where bedding, sleeping bag, or other material used for bedding purposes, or any stove or fire is placed.”
As far as I can find their ordinance has no such exceptions.
Thanks to the Supreme Court, it’s no longer Grants Pass, each municipality can set their own rules and in Oregon, it’s already been decided at the State level.
“HB 3115 requires that any city or county law regulating the acts of sitting, lying, sleeping or keeping warm and dry outside on public property must be “objectively reasonable” based on the totality of the circumstances as applied to all stakeholders, including persons experiencing homelessness. What is objectively reasonable may look different in different communities.
The bill retains cities’ ability to enact reasonable time, place and manner regulations, aiming to preserve the ability of cities to manage public spaces effectively for the benefit of an entire community.”
You seem to be overlooking that SCOTUS specifically ruled that it is constitutional to charge homeless people $300 for falling asleep outside with a blanket, which is what the thread was about.
Guess we’re about to find out what happens when you take 600,000 economically disparaged people and temporarily lock them up in an understaffed for profit penal institution that is currently in the middle of historically low classes of recruits. Im sure this will make everyone involved a better person.
SCOTUS: "Good news, everyone! We figured out how to keep up the prison population amid record low crime rates so you won't have to pay minimum wage, isn't that great?"
I know I should be used to it by now but it shocks me that there are likely millions of christian conservatives who would yell at you for this, even though this sentiment is literally echoed exactly by Jesus.
And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
That verse swings both ways. God isn’t counting all your good deeds for the ‘least of my brothers’, but none of your transgressions against them.
Conservative (and let’s be real, also neoliberal) Christians hate that verse. There are so few places in the NT where Jesus explicitly says “you will go to hell for this,” and that’s one of them. They get extremely uncomfortable if you make them think about how they believe they will one day have to stand in front of God and explain why they ignored this verse.
So naturally I advocate bringing it up to them as much as possible. There actually are a lot of deeply Christian people who are disturbed by the dissonance there, and for the most part the messaging just isn’t happening. Like, what is the biggest Jesus advertisement campaign right now? Probably the Protestant Buddy Jesus “He gets us” campaign, which doesn’t really say much of anything.
What was that thing Jesus said? Do unto others?.. the greatest commandment is to love one… give all your possessions and follow… something something… the least among you… snaps fingers Hate gay people! That’s what I’m supposed to do! Control women’s medical choices, and make sure gay people have no rights. of course!
I don’t know about elsewhere, but they’ve been doing it in California for a while now.
Edit: there have been camping bans that have been passed since 2016 in various cities and towns all over California. These bans specifically targeted the homeless, and the thugs in our police departments have been using them as an excuse to steal all their property, throw it into a garbage truck, including their IDs and other personal documents. Then they ticket them, and when they can’t pay the ticket they go to jail.
In San Diego they passed a camping ban last year, I’ve been protesting it since then. The Union Tribune probably.has some news stories, but they absolutely have been doing it, and I don’t have a subscription.
No clue. I have been focused on California since 2016. In my experience it is easier to enact local change, to influence state level changes, and later federal changes. I’m not really focusing on anything but my local city council meetings, and the various elections, especially judges, city council, and school board. Other than that I pay attention to my representatives / assemblymen, and senators at both the state and federal level. I do pay some attention to the presidential race, but as a leftist I have to hold my nose and vote for the milquetoast democratic candidate every single time for the last 5 presidential elections, and probably the 6th time in my life in November. Not one presidential candidate that I voted for in the primaries has ever gotten the nomination.
The case in question, namely Grant’s Pass vs Johnson, originated in an Oregon town. Another blue state.
TBH I wouldn’t be at all surprised if most of these recent laws come from Washington, California, and Oregon. They have the worst homelessness problems, and that’s partially due to the fact that all three states have historically had robust social safety nets, so it was safer to be homeless on the west coast.
Almost every state has some form of law outlawing homelessness. homelesslaw.org/first-national-study-of-state-law…The USA is a diverse place and homelessness affects different areas differently. If we want to make homelessness a crime we need to be sure to also provide a method to grandfather in or help those who are currently homeless.
Both sides have interfered with food shipments. I haven’t been reading up on this particular one, but in conflicts I’ve read about in the past in Africa, I know that seizing food has been a strategy in conflict – everyone needs food, so control of food in a region short of it is power and wealth. Black Hawk Down’s opening scene shows exactly that happening:
A UN source, who asked that their name be withheld due to the subject’s sensitivity, said both warring sides are posing obstacles, trying to prevent food from getting to areas controlled by their rival.
So you’ve got limited options.
One possibility is that the factions are gonna decide that this isn’t a great strategy, like, preserving the value of the civilian populace is important enough not to dick with food. But I assume that they aren’t unaware, and they’ve decided to go ahead with this. Sounds like the conflict’s got an ethnic aspect too, and if factions would rather kill off the other ethnic group rather than just making them submit, you’re probably gonna have a hard time convincing them not to do this.
This isn’t gonna be a peacekeeping mission. Those don’t deal with situations where one is in active opposition to one of the factions, but where both sides want there to not be conflict and just need a neutral party to act as enforcer of a peace agreement or something.
I don’t think that you’re going to have countries willing to enter into the civil war, force both sides to stop disrupting food.
I guess some people could flee the country, but it looks like only a small portion have so far – I’d guess that neighboring counties aren’t too happy about taking them. Looks like Egypt has the most, and it’s less than 1% of the country’s population, with Chad also being close. Sudan is super-poor; WP has them at 185 out of 194 GDP per capita, poorer than North Korea.
Starting in the 1990s, the increase in refugees from Sudan has forced UNHCR RO Cairo to shift its focus from education and training to the care and maintenance of refugees.[12] In Cairo, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is involved in helping process refugees for resettlement, moving refugees, and assisting with their medical examinations. IOM also conducts cultural orientation for the refugees to prepare them for resettlement in third countries.[12] The UNHCR regional office in Cairo (RO Cairo) is overextended, and after Somalis, the Sudanese (mainly southern Sudanese) represent the largest caseload.[13] A large number of Sudanese refugees in Egypt reflects the fact that many Sudanese travels to Cairo to obtain official recognition of their refugee status from the UNHCR. The Sudanese refugees in Egypt fall under two categories: those who are waiting for their status-determination interview and those who have been rejected or who are self-settled.[14] Between 60 and 70 percent of Sudanese asylum seekers have their applications for refugee status rejected.[14] Rejection and closure of a file have serious psychological and emotional implications for refugees. Many of those rejected, especially men, turn to alcoholism as a way of overcoming their problems. Others become mentally disturbed and there have been reports of suicide or attempted suicide upon receiving news of the rejection.[14] The unity of the family has been challenged by Sudanese refugees’ quest for UNHCR recognition. Women and children wait in Cairo for their UNHCR applications to go through while husbands wait in Sudan.[14] The difficulties of life in Cairo and the inability of some husbands to join their families in Egypt have forced some women refugees to abandon their husbands, remarry, and leave for resettlement.[14] In cases of rejection of a family application at the UNHCR, many men leave their wives and children and look for another single woman with UNHCR status to avoid responsibility.[14] Additionally, UNHCR RO Cairo does not recognize polygamous unions, and as such will not refer polygamists for resettlement to countries where polygamy is not permitted.[14] All of these factors have contributed to the break-up of families, divorce, and the abandonment of children. Finally, the UNHCR identity cards issued to refugees are not always recognized by the Egyptian authority. There have been situations in which people have been taken and detained for three to four days and then released, despite their UNHCR status.[14] A resident permit stamp on a valid Sudanese passport seems to offer more protection for refugees.[14]
Or one side could win and the war end, but as far as I know, that’s not expected to be imminent, and you can’t just wait years for food.
The fact that he waited until right before his reelection campaign to do this is fucked, there’s no reason he couldn’t have done this day one of his presidency, Obama could have done this day one of his presidency.
Whoever does best right before the election has better chances to be elected. We have the same issue in Canada. The prime minister of Quebec is just sending relief checks right before the elections as if it wasn’t clear voter buyout.
On the other hand, these veterans being pardoned 4 years earlier could potentially have cost Biden the election, cost America democracy, cost trans Americans their freedom, and cost West Bank Palestinians their lives. It’s a fucked up calculus but I can’t say I disagree. I blame this failure on the short memories of voters and on those who are working to make a Trump presidency happen.
With the 2024 presidential election coming up and the surgeon general’s declaration, gun policy will certainly be discussed by the candidates, who have differing stances on the issue. President Biden makes gun control a principal issue in his administration, using executive orders, legislation, and public calls on the gun industry to help achieve his goals of reducing the amount of gun violence in the United States.
Former President Trump has not maintained a consistent stance regarding gun policy since 2016. At times, he opposed background checks, assault weapons bans, and red flag laws. However, while in office Trump pledged his support of red flag laws, banned bump stocks, and voiced support for universal background checks.
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