Listen to RM111: We Can’t Have Movements That Strip Us Of Our Fundamental Rights

Andy 0:00
Registry matters is an independent production. The opinions and ideas here are that of the hosts and do not reflect the opinions of any other organization. Recording live from FYP Studios, transmitting across the internet. This is Episode 111 of Registry Matter. Larry it’s 111. Were you born in the year 111?

Larry 0:24
That was actually very, very close.

Andy 0:26
huh? You’ve been alive that long?

Larry 0:30
I’ve been trying to find the exact stone they chiseled it into so I can be certain but it’s more on through all the years. So, we’re thinking it might be in that in that zone there but I’m not sure the exact year.

Andy 0:43
So, when Moses was bringing the tablets down, I heard he had 15 commandments, you tripped him and one of them broke. That’s how it ended up to just be 10. So, it’s your fault?

Larry 0:50
I guess so. Yes.

Andy 0:54
Do we have any late breaking news that we need to cover before we dive into what’s going on with all of the hot topics for the night?

Larry 1:00
I don’t have any late breaking news, this juicy that we would want to cover like we normally do.

Andy 1:05
I do have something to share with you. We had a guest on the podcast, I don’t know, three months ago, an attorney and I just saw his co-host post something on Twitter that he would like for his kids to watch a program called Cosmos that National Geographic has picked up for a second season and the person that hosts this during the summertime maybe, maybe it was even a year ago got accused of sexual misconduct and all that metoo movement type stuff. And they delayed production of showing and releasing of the show and while they conducted an internal investigation. So, he’s like man, I would really like my kids to watch this program. But because this creepy dude is the one hosting it, do we have any other astrophysicists in the world that haven’t done creepy things? They just did an internal investigation and they said “Hey, you know, we didn’t find anything that we could pursue.” So, they moved everything back to where it was. And I’m just so very bothered by where’s the due process? And I’m sure we’re gonna have some articles in here tonight about that. But why is it so hard to? Like? Why can’t we just accept that you have to then bring forth evidence? You can’t just say this person accused me, therefore you’re guilty now you’re a piece of crap and go home?

Larry 2:21
Well, I don’t understand what’s complicated about it. The desire is to have more convictions. And to make these alleged victims whole, and these pesky things called due process, it’s just an impediment. They know what they did. And again, when I think what we said last podcast when I talked about the governor or the podcast before last episode, where I talked about where the where the governor of New Mexico got to break all the rules, and she got to revictimize the poor accuser. But we just can’t have that Andy, we’ve got to get these people made whole the quicker we get these “perps” off the street, the sooner these people can begin to heal, and I don’t know why you don’t understand that.

Andy 3:12
I guess I’m just not wired or smart enough to. All right.

Larry 3:16
Well, well, well, what’s complicated about it?

Andy 3:20
Well, um, so we have something that’s called Eighth Amendment you have life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and all that stuff and due process and not getting locked in a cage and all that stuff without all of those protections. So, someone just accuses you and you have your whole life ruined because of an accusation. I’m not saying we shouldn’t believe that the victim has some sort of evidence to present I just don’t think that we should throw everybody under the bus just because there’s an allegation.

Larry 3:48
Well, let’s just let’s just explore a little intellectual honesty here because I’ve pontificated for many of the 110 previous episodes about the importance of how difficult it should be and how the founders intended it to be difficult to put people in cages. And it was better that guilty go free than innocent be incarcerated. You’ve heard that over and over again.

Andy 4:05
Yep.

Larry 4:06
Well, let’s examine that because the founders when it comes to impeaching a president, they did the same thing, they created a very, very, very difficult process to impeach a President. They did not want the whims of the people to come along and have buyer’s remorse about someone they had duly elected and put into high office. So, I’m just wondering if that same principle applies to the accusers of the president. The process is designed to be when you were when you have to go through a two-step process of going through the house, which is the people’s house and then you have to go through the Senate, which at the time the founders founded the country, the senators were not even elected directly by the people, but you have to have a two thirds majority to remove a president from office. I would say the same principle ought to apply to this. I mean, everybody knows I’m no Trump fan.

Andy 4:58
Yeah, I agree.

Larry 5:00
But I do respect to due process of law. And until the evidence is overwhelming. This president gets to occupy the office.

Andy 5:16
Certainly, because you know, 60, whatever. Was it? 16? Yeah, 16 million people put them in office. So that’s what the will of the people wants. I get that it should be hard to remove him. I totally get it.

Larry 5:27
So, you, you buy into the same notion that that, that I buy into about it should be hard to put people in cages. And it should be hard to remove a president and it is hard, as this president will not be removed from office. Not by me, but may be removed by the voters, which is not looking very likely, but he won’t be removed by this process. And I think everyone that’s following it to any degree realizes that.

Andy 5:48
And I think, I don’t know if we touched on it on the podcast. It does feel skuzzy to me, that the leader of the senate comes out says, “Well, I’m going to work with the President’s defense team to make sure this this, you know, just moves through and we can just almost like file a motion to, to squash it.” I don’t remember what the terms were. That sounds scuzzy to me,

Larry 6:08
It may in fact sound skuzzy, but we weren’t given a lot of guidance in terms of how these processes were to, this process it’s actually two processes. It’s the step one of the of the impeachment articles being adopted, which closely resembles an indictment and the step two of a trial. But we didn’t get the kind of we didn’t get the kind of guidance from the founding fathers, it might have been hot in Philadelphia, they might have been trying to get out of there. And they, they might have not thought this through carefully. This may have been the end of a long journey. But they didn’t tell us that evidence is required. They didn’t tell us that evidence can be excluded. They didn’t tell us anything other than like with a with a regular guilty innocence. They I think they gave us some guidance in terms of the unanimous unanimity of the jury verdicts and I don’t know how the couple states that were doing that got away with it. But Certainly, the jury of citizens of the persons accused peers, but in this process, we did not get a lot of guidance in terms of how to do it. So, as I have said, on this podcast multiple times, elections have consequences. The people who are in the majority make the rules. So, the Pelosi crowd made the rules and the house, and the McConnell cloud crowd get to make the rules in the Senate.

Andy 7:26
One, one tiny little caveat that I will put in there, we both found our clips. You found a Lindsay Graham one and I found a McConnell one back in the Clinton impeachment. They were like, well, we need to see we need to hear from witnesses. We need all of these things. And now they’re like well, we don’t need to see any of this stuff. I mean, I guess you could say it’s two different two different presidents two different situations. So, you would apply different rule sets but at the time, they said they wanted evidence. And now they’re like, we need to move on

Larry 7:55
Well you need to play that last clip so we can say what that is.

Andy 7:58
Oh, so I should play that?

Video Clip 8:01
called Vegas mind Mars is a farce. It’s an act of hypocrisy. It’s a terrible way to treat a guest on your show. And you know, it.

Andy 8:08
Hypocrisy.

Larry 8:10
So, so also, Mitch. And let’s say you’re both big hypocritical. And at the time they make those quotes, they did not realize it was early. It was 20, little over 20 years ago. They did not realize that those quotes would be so easily retrievable at the time. You wouldn’t you wouldn’t? You wouldn’t have been thinking along those lines. What you would have been thinking is that well, that the major networks which we only had three and CNN in those times I don’t think that I don’t even think Fox was on the air in ‘98.

Andy 8:43
No, very close to that it’s in that ballpark. Yeah.

Larry 8:46
But they would have they would have been thinking that they could say that with a straight face, and no one would play it back later. But they did say that they did say witnesses were necessary, but it’s one of the many hypocritical things that goes on in the world of politics. Again, the voters of those two states can hold those two, Mitch happens to be up for reelection this year. They can hold him accountable. If that hypocrisy bothers them. It doesn’t by view, I suspect that he’ll win reelection from state of Kentucky

Andy 9:16
And to take on that tiny little detour. My understanding he’s one of the most unpopular senators in the chamber.

Larry 9:25
Well, let’s wonder, I don’t know how we could come to that conclusion. How does he manage to get the votes together to be the majority leader? How does he know that if he saw unpopular?

Andy 9:32
Yeah, I just understand that in his state, he has something of like 30 or something percent popularity, whatever. But apparently, nobody that runs against them is any more popular, so you just win.

Larry 9:45
Well now you’re talking about within the Chamber of his colleagues, he’s unpopular.

Andy 9:49
No, I’m talking in the state of Kentucky. I’m talking about Kentucky.

Larry 9:50
Yeah. Well, six years ago, he was popular enough to win the election reelection.

Andy 9:54
Totally understand. I’ve just that is my understanding. And I could be wrong, but I just think I’ve heard in passing that he is a ridiculously unpopular senator in his state. But again…

Larry 10:03
Didn’t they say the same thing about Ted Cruz when he just won reelection in 2018 in Texas?

Andy 10:04
I didn’t hear it.

Larry 10:05
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He managed he managed to get be reelected against the guy who was running for president, his name’s escaping me at the moment.

Andy 10:22
Beto O’Rourke.

Larry 10:27
So, but yes, there were there were there was. There was some hypocrisy there. Yes.

Andy 10:28
There seems to be a lot of it. All right.

Video Clip 10:33
I’m for reforming our criminal justice system. Too many people are locked up in America.

Andy 10:39
Well, the first one comes from the guardian. And US states moved to stop prisons, charging inmates for reading and video calls. I can’t fathom Larry how I mean, one of the things that we would want in the United States is for people to read more. Anything, I don’t care what it is they should read more and more and more and we should perhaps pay them to read. But no, in prisons, we’re going to charge them. What is it four cents a minute to read? I think it says, this is asinine. It’s crazy. It’s five cents a minute. Unbelievable.

Larry 11:19
Well, I just don’t understand. We’ve got the hard-working taxpayers out there, trying to make a living, paying taxes to get their kids educated. And there’s no free lunch for them and you want. That’s the problem with liberals as they always think there’s a free lunch that they want to just hand out money. And, you know, somebody’s got to pay the cost to this technology. Somebody’s got to pay for this. I mean, why not let the inmates pay for it? I mean why do I have to tax the hard-working citizens of this state? When these people are we already feeding them? We’re taking care of their medical care. We’re already doing all these things and then you want to mollycoddle more with a computer. What is it next that you’re gonna want?

Andy 11:58
Well, I think that uh, we should restrict them from having contact visits or at least in person visits and we should move everything to a really shitty voice chat system that kind of cuts out and breaks up all the time too. It’s not even the quality that you and I are using for free here now. It is much, much lower. I think that would be better.

Larry 12:20
Well, that’s exactly where the article this podcast later is going to talk about that but that’s where it’s I don’t know how to address it because it’s a reflection of the voters. And there’s voter apathy towards making life better for prisoners behind the walls. we’re already getting we’re already been they’ve raped and pillaged and plundered society, and we’re having to take care of them already. And then you just want to drive up the cost more and more. I mean, what next? I mean, where does it end with you, with you liberals?

Andy 12:56
The point that I would also like to drive home there and I totally know that you’re just like playing devil’s advocate is the long term aspect out of that if someone reads they are probably going to be more informed, and it will just improve their overall roundedness of their character. So, it’s almost like we should pay them to read. And actually, that reminds me, I recall as a kid, like the girl that lived across the street from me, she was a super Brainiac, and she would go around and she would do some sort of a pledge drive, whatever, hey, if I read X number of books, will you give me $1 book $5, a book, whatever, and she would read 20 books in the summertime. And we would pay her to read, you know, she would donate it to some charity or some, you know, whatever organization she was involved in at school. But we should probably encourage instead of setting up barriers for people reading as much as we possibly can, because you can educate yourself while reading. You talk about it all the time of When was the last time someone picked up a rag and, you know, learn something on a weekend or something like that, instead of watching a football game or going to Hooters

Larry 13:56
Gee did I say that?

Andy 13:58
I’ve heard you say it, maybe you haven’t said it publicly, but you certainly have said something similar to me.

Larry 14:06
So, but I do find I do find these things problematic but try to look at it from the prison administration side, they’re being squeezed also, prison administrators have been squeezed for all the things that they have to be responsible for that have been largely delegated and dumped on prisons, you know, the opioid crisis, they all end up in prison. They all don’t end up in prison. But the mentally ill people they’ve got so many of those were in prison. And prisons have gotten more and more expensive to operate. And various it’s the very rare jail administrative prison administrators that actually has control over who comes in. They’re usually sent there. courts send them there and impose these sentences, these sentences are reflective of the will of the people. So, the prison administration is in a predicament where, where there’s a constant need for more and more funding. And there Looking for revenue angles all the time, you know having engage in conversations with corrections officials. That’s the battle they’re always fighting and looking for ways to offset costs and offload cost and trying to fund the operations ‘cause when you go to legislators looking for more money for institutions. That’s just not really high on the priority list for funding. It’s just not glitzy I’m going to find I’ve got an old VHS tape if it hasn’t degraded where the director of Minnesota prisons was interviewed back in the 80s and he was talking about, he said we have a good prison system here. He said but don’t go and campaign on having a good prison system and win votes on it. He said because that’s just not a vote getter. He said you do it because it’s the right thing to do. And as prison administrators are constantly squeezed, they’re looking for this and this is and they sit in their staff meetings and come up with these: “Well, we can raise somebody this way.” And the cynical would think well, of course they’re putting it in their pocket, but I don’t think I don’t look at everything with such cynicism. But I suspect the financial pressures are driving some of these decisions. That doesn’t make them the right decisions. But I suspect financial pressures are driving some of this motivation to charge inmates for everything.

Andy 16:12
And just to cover one last little piece before we move on, though, is who’s the one that bears the most burden? Friend of mine while I was gone, his family was able and believe me, it did not dent their budget at all. He would actually get money put on multiple people’s books, so he could spend more than the $50 a week on store goods. It wouldn’t matter to him for him to spend $4.44 cents a minute reading, but you got somebody else that’s just shy of indigent. And you know, the burden is totally on their family that mom’s trying to put 10 or 20 bucks a month on his books that you know, she’s scraping by as it is. That’s not fair to them.

Larry 16:50
Tt certainly isn’t. Now, my curiosity kicks in when you make a statement like that because I have this thirst for knowledge, and I want to know So I haven’t been in prison. So, I would like to know, when you’re running money through other people’s books, because you’re spending in excess of what you’re allowed to, that can trigger an examination to wonder if that inmates being exploited. And then I’m wondering what is what is the typical handling fee? So for example, if you wanted $50 put on your books, and you have someone do that, what would a typical handling fee be based on your experience be because somebody is going to the person who’s got to be the diversion for that money? I mean, A) you have to trust and make sure they don’t spend it on themselves, but B) What’s, what’s their cut?

Andy 17:41
I want to say I remember something of either 10 or 20%. So, somebody might get $10 a store for that 50 bucks. Yeah, and someone in chat says it’s 20%. So yeah, so for 50 bucks. You’d get $10 a store call and give them 40 bucks.

Larry 17:55
Uh huh. Well, that’s good information to have. So, you have to be affluent enough to have extra funds available. And then you have to be willing to give up approximately 20% of the of the revenue so that you can do so you can funnel that.

Andy 18:09
just for some stupid zoom zooms and Wam-Wams and cinnamon rolls and soups, man, I mean like, that’s how this dude made it like, like, seriously man, they serve food, it is not great food or good food even. And you need all that extra carbs and garbage stuff. But that’s what he did.

Larry 18:25
So well, further down the article it said that those who read slower could mean inmates can be charged $12 to $18 for a 200-page book. Now that’s funny.

Andy 18:36
That’s garbage. garbage. I mean, you know, I can’t I can’t I really don’t want to stay on this one that long. But all you can do in there is they’re warehousing you What else are you supposed to do? So, it’s like the easiest thing. You want people to stay out of trouble. You don’t want people slamming dominoes because that pisses some people off. You don’t want people jamming on the TV, because that pisses some people off. Like the only thing that you can do that will not piss everyone off is read. And they’re squeezing that to make it so that you can’t do that in private and now you’re having your time to read restricted. That’s garbage.

Larry 19:09
So well, it is.

Andy 19:11
Alright, well, then we should move over to the Philadelphia Inquirer where my probation officer is not a fun place to be. This one looks like it’s a frickin’ party. What’s going on with this one at a Philadelphia?

Larry 19:23
I was fascinated by this because those who listen to the podcast know that through the episodes, I’ve talked about probation should be a helping hand. And it should be a helping hand, not with looking for ways to send you to incarceration. It should be ways to motivate you, to inspire you and to equip you to succeed. And it appears that that’s what they’re doing and this liberal bastion of Philadelphia, and they’re having good results if you’re to believe this story.

Andy 19:55
It can’t be it’s gotta be fake news.

Larry 19:57
It’s got to be Yeah, because nothing like this could work. But it says it seems to be working New York City around 80% of people on probation complete it successfully in Philadelphia 49% do so the shift began in 2010 when the predecessor and I can’t pronounce these names, but can you pronounce? Can you pronounce that cher-raldy? Cheraldy was hired to run the city’s probation department and probation You should not fear your PO, then your appeal is not supposed to let you do anything and everything you want to do your PO is supposed to guide you and move you towards a law abiding life and equip you for the challenges of society because the PO as a representative of society, would want you to succeed because you’re going to devour a lot fewer resources, if you’re paying taxes and working. So therefore, my job is to help you succeed. I mean, that is not a complicated formula.

Andy 20:57
It isn’t, but I’m sure I have shared this before there’s a friend of mine in Augusta, he gets out he maxes out he does 10 years. And he goes to treatment, which I know isn’t probation but goes to a treatment class and coming up around the Christmas time season, so it was probably like four years ago last month. And that person says, I need you to take your, your maintenance polygraph, and he says, I don’t have the money for it, and she goes, Okay, that’s fine. I will drop you from class, which will be a probation violation, which then you’ll get revoked and then you get to go back and visit your best friends in your cellblock. Like, that doesn’t make sense to me. So, he titled pawned his car so you can afford to pay for the poly

Larry 21:39
and that that’s a story that you hear all too frequently. That this happens now, of course, they’re a business and they don’t I mean they’re good capitalists. They don’t want to carry unpaid people. So again, if society were serious about wanting to rehabilitate these people, society would make sure that this treatment has any value and it continues. And I know people are gonna say, “Well, Larry don’t you understand. If they do that, then nobody would pay, and the whole system would come crumbling down because everybody would be looking for it for free.” And that may be, what we need to do is that treatment that’s helping a person rehabilitate might, should be free. Maybe that’s the discussion we need to have. And then there’s the other side of that argument, if you make it for free do people value it if you provide it for free? That’s the age-old debate about something is that is it appreciated and valued? If there’s if there’s nothing if there’s no sacrifice to? I don’t have the answer to that either.

Andy 22:37
But you will find you will find cases on both sides that someone would appreciate it, you will also probably even like a one to one. All the people that actually appreciate it are the same number of people that actually would just take complete advantage of it. And then you have everybody in between that is probably the typical.

Larry 22:53
So, I did find the statistic I was looking for a byproduct as violation still about 50-45% over five years. And on this experiment of liberal do-goodism and they’re trying to move this same experiment to Philadelphia. But this is this is what probation should be about is I’m here to help you succeed.

Andy 23:10
Should we have like weekend picnics with our Pos?

Larry 23:13
No having weekend picnics with POs but helping people to understand the most basic skills that people need. Often people in the criminal justice system do not have those skills. Absolutely. And I understand people are gonna say, well, Larry, don’t you get it? that still parents’ job to teach those. But the parents failed. And we can’t when they when they reach adulthood and they don’t have those skills. I guess we could say yes, your parents failed. You didn’t pick the right birth canal. So therefore, we give up on you. That’s not the life that That’s not that’s not what I want to see in my society. I want my society or my country to help people who didn’t win the lottery, and who did have parents who failed them. I want those people to be supported and helped with training and resources so that they can work a 50-year career and be prosperous and successful. That’s to our advantage. They need to be paying taxes as Lindsay Graham said when he when he championed the first step act, he said these people need to be out working paying taxes. I rarely agree with him, but I agree with him on that.

Andy 24:36
Can you back up, back in your day, did you get to pick your birth canal?

Larry 24:41
Yes, yes.

Andy 24:43
Ah, Okay. So somewhere in there that plan that program got shut down because I didn’t get to pick anything

Larry 24:48
well, but they used to do that you pick where you want to be born the country and the parents and yeah, I don’t know why that surprise you.

Andy 24:57
Oh, alright then hey, well, let’s go back over the Guardian which happens to be not a US oriented. I mean, I guess they have a bureau here because there’s a podcast that I listened to it that there’s a guy from the from the Guardian, but he is from Wales or something like that he’s got a thick accent. The hidden scandal of US criminal justice, rural incarceration has boomed. So apparently where you have really low population centers out there in the sticks, I’m sure almost all of New Mexico is like this. They build up jails. So, A) they can house them all there, and then it’s a boon for jobs too. This also seems like kind of like, we shouldn’t incarcerate people to fill a quota because of jobs need. That seems like a very perverse incentive system.

Larry 25:44
Well, it’s not quite as simplistic as what this article paints the picture of what happens in real life as you have is you have a constantly expanding need for spaces and urban areas are very expensive and very difficult to build spaces. When you when you when you go into an urban setting, if you’re going to if you’re going to put a correctional facility, it’s very difficult. I mean, think about that. Look at your Georgia Department of Corrections. Can you name the number of facilities that are in Atlanta proper that belong and are owned and operated by the Georgia Department of Corrections?

Andy 26:20
like in the metro area? probably.

Larry 26:22
No in Atlanta proper in Atlanta. So, can you pioneer in the city of Atlanta?

Andy 26:27
Basically none. I mean, there might be one or two but very little.

Larry 26:31
So, it’s what you run into is the problem of you need space because society through their elected representatives have decreed that people receive hefty prison sentences and you have a constant flow in and need for space. And you have rural land available where people have largely abandoned these rural areas. And the migration over the last several decades has been away from rural areas. If you look at the population shift, you don’t see Sumter county growing. You see Sumter county shrinking in Georgia. And you see, fall to the cab Clayton Cob Gwinnet and Newton And all those counties closer in the metro, you see them growing. What, what you need, when you have a dying rural area, is something to make people want to stay there. So, what happens is, land is cheap. Labor is plentiful, and you end up with a correctional setting there. So, states build their prisons there. And then the counties also realize that there’s money to be made because the states are generally chronically short of space. And they’re looking for ways to enhance their budget, because they don’t like to text their declining population anyway, so they look to build. Well, let’s say we have, we have need for 80 beds will they’ll take care of our population. Let’s build a 350-person facility. And we can sell those spaces to the federal family which includes immigration, customs, ICE, we can sell them to the BOP we can sell them to the marshal service, and we can sell them to state prison, and we can sell them to the surrounding Counties. so, you end up with, it becomes a tool of economic development. And so, you end up with a major employer at a dying county with that employs the people that are left there that want to work. That’s what happens.

Andy 28:16
Let me ask you this question. So, there’s a lot of stuff in the news about why you can’t do this kind of tax. You can’t do that kind of tax because that’s wealth redistribution. Isn’t this a form of wealth redistribution?

Larry 28:32
Well, I’ll answer that simply everything is wealth redistribution. Any system you devise is wealth redistribution. And wealth redistribution is okay, depending on which way it’s being distributed. And I’m on my soapbox now, but if the people in the conservative persuasion are on the receiving end of wealth redistribution, they’re fine. It’s only when they’re on the giving end that they have problems with it. And I’ve talked about Essential Air Services subsidized for rural areas, they’re fine with that wealth redistribution. I talked about rural telephone service where they actually used to string up lines, the conservatives are just fine with that wealth redistribution. When I talk about postal services being closed because of the high cost of running postal delivery, they’re just fine with that wealth redistribution, I mean, we can go on with rural electrification, we can go on and on. They’re fine with that wealth redistribution. But when you start redistributing the other way, where you start subsidizing things that are going to primarily urban dwellers, then they have a real problem with that. But yes, this is wealth redistribution. these are these are state facilities being built in a rural area that are bringing millions of taxpayer dollars and jobs to a rural area that’s helping those economies flourish. And that’s the reality of it. But let’s say everything is wealth redistribution. It just depends on which side of If you’re on the receiving end of it, you’re fine with it. If you’re on the giving sides where you’re getting less wealth than what you’re paying out, then you have a problem with it.

Andy 30:06
Hmm. Is this another one of those hypocrisies?

Larry 30:11
This is definitely hypocrisy.

Andy 30:14
Is that going to be the title of this particular show it’s gonna be hypocrisy.

Larry 30:18
Now our transcription is how is he going to deal with this word hypocrisy it’s going to pop up several times. How is how’s the automated transcriber going to transcribe that word as we keep mispronouncing it?

Andy 30:32
I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be like H-Y-I-pocrisy? I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe it’ll be something that has to be fixed throughout the whole program because of hypocrisy.

Larry 30:43
But yes, wealth redistribution is a sore spot for people, and you know as, as the wealth has been over the last generation been more and more centralized and fewer and fewer people. We’ve had a massive wealth redistribution, but it’s been in favor of the haves more than have nots. The middle class has largely stack they did it and in reality, may have even gone backwards. I haven’t studied those numbers close enough to see what a middle-class wage in 1992 would be equal to today to see if they’ve in fact gone backwards. But I can say that they’ve stagnated, that the growth when you adjust for inflation since ‘92, has been, has been negligible in terms of middle-class income growth. But in terms of the executives and the and the higher-level management, the elites their income has grown exponentially, exponentially, in the last 25 years.

Andy 31:34
And then there’s an article from the Associated Press that New Mexico jails ban on-site visits, offers video chats. sweet and they show a picture of a little boy talking to his mom on what looks to be a very crappy little screen and like she’s not in the frame very well. She might be too short. Maybe she can’t adjust it. I don’t know what’s going on the inside of the walls. You know, so the other thing that that seems to be the point or seems to be a very important point is to bring someone out of prison, the most important thing and maybe it’s not the most important thing is to have family support to be connected back out there so that you would be incentivized, you would have a reason to not go out and redo your criminal activity. So maybe we should let families visit maybe they could hold hands on top of the table. I know people do nefarious things in visitation. But I think that having this little boy hugging his mom saying Mom, I miss you. I sure hope that you go on the straight and narrow when you get out so we can be together and be a family but nope, they got him on a video screen that looks like garbage.

Larry 32:36
Well, let’s be clear. This was the San Juan County Detention Center which is the county jail for the far northwest four corners area of the state, and they didn’t have contact visits to begin they were visiting through the through the glass through the telephone. But now they don’t they don’t take them to the booths anymore to the glass they do it without them actually entering the facility because entering the facility to get to that secure location where they could talk behind the glass. According to the jail administrators offered too many opportunities for contraband to enter the facility. So now, so now we’re going to make it more convenient. They don’t even have to travel. They can do it from the comfort of their own home.

Andy 33:19
Does it even say that in there because I mean, this picture does not mean he is totally there in a prison-oriented environment to do that. The video chat.

Larry 33:27
The way tt was reported in the news here, it was said that they were going to make it available to people would not have to travel. But I don’t know if they’re actually going people that don’t have a setup at home, there’d be some people who wouldn’t have the setup maybe they’d have to come to the jail to do it. Because that would be a good thing to charge them for that also.

Andy 33:45
Oh, certainly another revenue stream. Sweet.

Larry 33:46
Yeah, so that would make sense.

Andy 33:48
Well, let me let me share this other story. So, when I first started my little adventure, my kid is brought in and he is like propped up he was 15 or 16 months at the Time just a tiny little dude, you know, still big fat diaper on big head all that. And he sees me sitting across the glass and all he could do was like, he was just banging on the glass trying to like, dude, like you’re I can’t get to you like this is heart wrenching it is garbage, garbage, garbage garbage that we treat people this way.

Larry 34:19
Well, again, if the voters of San Juan county did not want that they could clearly communicate that to the county officials and the county commission could step in and say sheriff, we really don’t want you to run the jail that way. If the sheriff flips the bird to voters or get a chance to decide whether he should stay in office, so it’s not as if there’s not remedies. But as far as I’m aware of, there’s been no real pushback, the citizens are just fine with it because it’s going to make the security easier, and it’s going to make less contraband and it’s going to keep everybody safe.

Andy 34:54
Sweet we should we should move everything that way. We should probably we should Institute so like a no contact policy just in society. We shouldn’t have to act with humans period.

Larry 35:07
I think you might be onto something here.

Andy 35:09
There’s actually a movie where they explore that as part of the fundamental theme. It’s called a I want to say that’s the Demolition Man with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley, gosh I can’t think of his name anyway. Like, the whole premise of the movie is there is no swapping of fluids. Yeah, I know. So anyway.

Video Clip 35:31
And it really isn’t about what Harvey has to convince me of. It’s about what the evidence has convinced me off.

Andy 35:37
So that is the attorney representing one of the attorneys representing Mr. Weinstein is Donna Rotonneau. And there was an interview that I found with her on Fox News, and she was like, it doesn’t you know, I have seen like the evidence presented to me, he is he should be found innocent in a courtroom because there’s not enough to go through. So, this is a couple articles out of the New York Times profiling the attorney. And then there’s another one profiling about him trying to move to a new campus because people like on the jury are already trying to sell book rights and things like that.

Larry 36:15
So Well, I appreciate when I read the story, I should have saved the quotes, but she says some stuff very similar to what I say. And she can get away with saying it because a big female she doesn’t have the same standard of being a chauvinist, uncaring guy. But she actually believes that evidence should be required to convict a person. I mean, imagine that.

Andy 36:39
Can you tell me what the definition of this word evidence is? Because I don’t know that I’ve ever heard this word before.

Larry 36:43
Yeah, she she’s, she’s under the belief that there that there should be evidence. So, I think it’s, I think it’s a good article, and I’m glad that she is on his team. We need a fair trial. We need evidence. And we don’t need people who are not a part of this case to be allowed to testify but which is what’s going to happen. The 404b evidence is gonna through in galore but that’s that. That’ll sink anybody’s ship.

Andy 37:16
There’s another there’s another quote in there it says, “it sad that men have to worry about being complimentary and pleasant to a woman.”

Larry 37:23
That’s a very chauvinist thing to say. Why would Why would a man have to worry about that? As long as he says something that isn’t sexual. You can complement a woman.

Andy 37:32
Yeah. But then everybody has their own lines on where you would cross between like, Hey, nice ass, which obviously would be offensive. But if you say, Hey, your hair looks nice today. Well, would you say that to a man? Like, so then you end up being sexist. This is incredibly challenging times.

Larry 37:50
Apparently, she’s only lost one case of a client named DeMarco Whitely a 19-year-old football player who was convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl and sentenced to 16 years.

Andy 38:04
I bet you she charges a few hundred dollars an hour.

Larry 38:07
I bet she’s not cheap. So, but she deserves it. She gets results.

Andy 38:13
I gotta agree.

Larry 38:15
So, but that’s why I put it in here just ’cause it’s kind of an anomaly to have someone mimicking what I believe saying it publicly and not fearing of all the backlash that she’s got I’m sure she gets hate mail. I’m sure she’s getting some bad backlash, but she’s saying what needs to be said.

Andy 38:32
The Fox News thing that I got that clip from seemed like the I don’t know who it was that was interviewing her she was not friendly with her. She was it was definitely a tough interview for her because she was almost, you know, attacking her saying, Well, how do you? You know, how do you explain that, you know, these meetings took place and she’s like, I’m not saying that the meetings didn’t take place. And I’m not saying that there wasn’t sex. I’m saying that the woman went into the room. With she wasn’t like strapped down and forced to do things that may have or may not have occurred. So, there is some level of complicity and then you can’t have buyer’s remorse after the fact. I’m not trying to litigate all those points and send all the hate mail to me, which is crackpot@registrymatters.co. That’s your email address, by the way Larry. so, I it’s just incredibly challenging and troubling to me how you are supposed to defend yourself against all of those allegations and accusations.

Larry 39:31
Well, she talks about constitution the fundamental right of presumption of innocence we can’t you know, we can’t have movements that strip us of fundamental rights. Now people professed great belief in that document, but yet they’ve willingly stood by and said yes at every step of the way. They’ve it’s kind of like when they interview a sex offender, they always say aren’t you responsible for this predicament of all these unconstitutional things are being imposed. Every sex offender I’ve ever seen that’s on the registry has always said yes. And every person who’s interviewed should say, No, I’m not responsible for unconstitutional laws. And we should have been saying a long time ago when people say that, that wherever you victimizing these people wouldn’t that have to be cross examined? We should be saying, No, that’s not what we’re doing. That’s the fundamental design of an adversarial system. That is precisely what the system was supposed to do. There’s no victimization here. It’s unpleasant. You’re trying to put a person in a cage. And before we can let you put that person in a cage, we have to examine your allegations and your evidence, and it’s your burden the State to carry and it’s not their burden to carry anything anywhere. It’s your burden prosecutor. It’s your burden accuser to carry the day with evidence, not emotion, evidence.

Andy 41:04
And one thing to add to that would be not mob rule either.

Larry 41:07
That is correct. It is supposed to be evidence. It’s not supposed to be a mob. We have mob. This is a mob scene going on with Weinstein. He’s approximates have a fair trial. I mean, did you see the way that Los Angeles indicted him as his trial was about to get underway? I mean, that’s all intended. I can’t I don’t have any evidence which I require. That was a coordinated thing between the two prosecution offices. But it certainly is possible that that there was some discussion. And if even if there was not any discussion, this is a terrible thing to do. Let the person get their trial in New York, see what happens. He may get life without parole, and then you don’t even need to spend a penny of your community’s money because he’ll never walk free again.

Andy 41:56
70 years old too.

Larry 42:00
Right. I’m saying the LA prosecutor didn’t have any reason to need to file charges on the eve of trial. They did that because it’s hot in the news and they got themselves on the news and possibly coordination, but like I say, I don’t have any evidence. I’m only just saying possibly, because I would require evidence to go beyond saying that this is conspiracy. We have no evidence of that.

Andy 42:22
I do understand. Well, next up we have a couple articles that are related to which I to me I’m just super-duper fascinated by it. One of them is from Microsoft blog and the other one…

Larry 42:34
Well we have another Weinstein article here also.

Andy 42:36
Well, we kind of get away we’ll go back to what we touched on it because he’s trying to move the trying to move on, he’s trying a different place.

Larry 42:44
Yes, he has asking for a change of venue, which is to move the trial out of the location, and that’s likely to go nowhere. It’s very, very hard to get a change of venue and The burden is on the person moving for the change of venue, they’re still presumption of anything you have to come in with evidence to show why you can’t get a fair trial, which it costs money to come that evidence, you got to come up with surveys, and questionnaires and evidence. And it’s a very expensive thing. A trial like this would be very costly to move. Because all of a sudden, if you set up downstate, or upstate, or whatever they call outside New York, if you set this trial up, you’ve got to carry all the players to that location, the judge, the bailiff, the prosecution team, the defense team, you’ve got and you’ve got a trial that’s gonna run for weeks. And so, it just very unlikely that they’re going to get a change of venue but that that will sell their article here and said that he wants a change of venue which is likely to be denied.

Andy 43:46
Don’t you think that the judge would have already put some sort of gag order on there’s a there’s a quote in there says last week another potential juror posted a message on Twitter asking if anyone could help him leverage his jury service to promote his new novel. A witty black comedy He wrote. isn’t that like, I’m unkosher?

Larry 44:03
Well, sure it is. But these are human beings and they have desires to make money and to be famous and to me. So, you’re going to be dealing with flawed moral human beings. And then they’re going to say that they’re not biased because there are people who want to sit on this jury. This means a lot to folks, if you sit on this jury, you’re going to be sought after for a long, long time.

Andy 44:25
I assume that this trial will go on for months and months and months.

Larry 44:30
I’m assuming it’s gonna be several weeks. I don’t know if it’s going to be months and months, but it’s not going to be a two-day trial.

Andy 44:36
And those people potentially are, you know, you got to go ask for time off of work and all that stuff. And yeah, there’s gonna be a circus around your house as they find out who the individuals are that are on the jury.

Larry 44:47
Well, that’s why we give them numbers and we don’t we don’t let out who they are until after the fact. So, they won’t they I mean, I can’t say that leakage won’t occur, but the intent if for the jurors to be revealed while their embattled on this case, or any case.

Andy 45:02
So that message there, you totally know who it is. If the person is posting on Twitter asking for any help, I mean, he’s not just juror number 101 saying that on Twitter, I assume.

Larry 45:14
Is this a seated juror that’s already been seated for the trial?

Andy 45:15
I guess it says potential juror.

Larry 45:18
I guess that juror wouldn’t have been seated.

Andy 45:22
Okay. So, he may have screwed the pooch. Is that the expression?

Larry 45:27
He’s already been already been excused.

Andy 45:30
All right, then. Is there anything else that I missed then by that one? No, that’s good.

Unknown Speaker 45:35
Kindness of has become self-aware.

Andy 45:38
So, we can move on to my favorite thing of technology. And a couple articles one from Microsoft. And another one from Engadget talking about Microsoft shares the new technique to address online grooming of children for sexual purposes. And I’m just super interested in this because of it being technology that they’re using artificial intelligence to look at the chat history of people to determine if they are acting in a predatory way, as an adult to a child, which I think is super interesting, but it does seem that it would be also hard as how do you learn what is predatory without the actual outcome of it being predatory? You could have, you know, like risky chat or something like that. But that’s not necessarily predatory. until you actually crossed the line. You’d have to have some sort of threshold for it to learn what that line is.

Larry 46:29
Well, I’m not a guru about tech, but I’m assuming I’m far from a guru. But I’m assuming that that there that there are. The ability exists out there to monitor chat conversations in real time. I’ve heard that anyway. So if a person if a person says, I’m 14, and you say, how would you like to meet up at the where’s the Starbucks so where are people or work or wherever you’d meet a 14 year old wouldn’t that if you had an algorithm that could pick that up, wouldn’t that be predatory behavior?

Andy 47:05
That might be but potentially since you, you, you’ve already like slam dunked the ball on that one, start scaling things back to where, you know there’s significantly more nuance and things move significantly slower in how somebody might try to communicate with a with a minor of, you know, where do you Where does the line get crossed that that triggers a think but and also the other we to push this back into your realm Larry of where you would be the expert. Where does it cross the line of it being something that would interest the DA?

Larry 47:41
while when there’s a law broken, that’s where it that’s where it should cross the line, what should they be interested in? Is it against the law in most states for an adult to meet up with a 14-year-old at Starbucks? Probably not.

Andy 47:56
Yeah, I mean, that would unto itself be predatory. It probably would move there because a 30-year-old has not a lot of business to be with a 14-year-old.

Larry 48:06
But well, you would. And this day you would have to prove you could meet that burden if you could prove that the purpose of the meeting at a Starbucks was to engage in illicit sexual activity it’d be a violation of the law. But if you never mentioned sex, and you said you wanted to talk about the resignation of President Nixon, and you had a person who had great interest in civics, you wanted to meet at the Starbucks, there would be no crime.

Andy 48:35
Mhm.

Larry 48:38
But now you surprised me because you’re the big believer in technology being the solution to all problems. And we can have the computer sentence everybody, we don’t need human beings. So here it is. We’re trying to use the technology to do great things to try to try to derail predatory behavior. And now you’re having doubts. Now I’m confused.

Andy 48:57
Don’t be confused. There are things that I think it, This could, I would. So, we get a lot of pushback from people that think that all of our people should be allowed to run around willy nilly on Facebook. And Facebook being a not privately a publicly held company, but they’re not a they’re not a government entity that they can or cannot shut down people’s accounts. I am of the opinion that they can, if they so choose if you break their terms of service, same thing with YouTube, same thing with Twitter. So, if Microsoft decides to deploy a technology within their platform that says you have crossed the lines of by these behaviors, they just shut you off of their platform, it doesn’t necessarily cross the line of being anything criminal. So, you’re just you’re just accepting their terms of service and they say you shouldn’t do anything that would be inappropriate with someone under the age depending on your local laws may vary, blah, blah, blah. This is just a tool for them to help police their system from people being assholes.

Larry 49:56
Okay, so now I’m more more confused, are you for or against it?

Andy 49:59
I’m interested in technology, so therefore I’m for it. But as depending on where this goes, I’m definitely against the facial recognition stuff being used by police. But this being within Microsoft’s platform, if they then turn these things over to the DA, I probably would have a problem with that unless someone actually then goes and does something nasty, but that’s a crime after the fact which all crime would be after the fact, wouldn’t it? There’re no crimes before the fact.

Larry 50:24
Well, if you turn something over to the DA, theoretically, if there’s, if there hasn’t, if the line hasn’t been crossed, at the most the DA could talk to the police and say would you go out and do a knock and chat, there’d be nothing to prosecute. I keep telling people when they say that, they want to get all this treatment, but they can’t get in treatment, because of the report rules. And I tell them until you cross the line until you’ve broken the law, you can get all the treatment you want. If you cannot go in and get all the treatment that you want after you’ve crossed the line. If Microsoft turns over stuff to the DA, and there hasn’t been, the line hasn’t been crossed. There could be no prosecution legitimately, if someone hasn’t gone over the line of what’s lawful behavior, meeting the kid 14 to talk about President Nixon at Starbucks, it would be hard. I mean, you would, you could possibly say contributed to the delinquency of a minor because that’s a very broadly written statute in most states. And probably most parents would not want their 14-year-old to go meet with a 35-year-old at the Starbucks to talk about President Nixon. So that might fall within the zone of contributing to delinquency because delinquency of a minor is really whatever the parent or guardian doesn’t want them to do. Yeah. So, you might get but it if they report stuff, what’s the problem? If there’s, there’s no law broken, what was the problem? They you, you should be all in favor of this.

Andy 51:51
I am in favor if you haven’t crossed the line, and they’re just using because there’s too many. There’s too many messages going by for anybody to actually read them. So there Just using this to weed out the wheat from the chaff is the other expression.

Ready to be a part of registry matters. Get links at registry matters dot CEO. If you need to be all discreet about it, contact them by email registry matters cast@gmail.com you can call or text a ransom message to 74722744771 to support registry matters on a monthly basis. Head to patreon.com slash registry matters. Not ready to become a patron. Give a five-star review at Apple podcasts or Stitcher or tell your buddies that your treatment glass about the podcast. We want to send out a big heartfelt support for those on the registry. Keep fighting. Without you we can’t succeed. You make it possible.

Andy 51:59
Let’s move over to an article from the appeal. Georgia to execute a man for a crime That no longer gets the death penalty. I gotta think, Larry, that if you get convicted of a crime back in the year 111 when you were born, and somewhere in there, they have decided to change the law that would not have you being prosecuted under the death penalty. It just seems humane, that we wouldn’t then pursue the death penalty after the fact like, you know, hey up, I understand that you got sentenced to death. But today, you wouldn’t get sentenced to death. So, we’ll let that one slide and you’ll just get life without parole. It just seems a more humane thing to do, but not here in Georgia.

Larry 53:37
Well, see therein lies the nuance, so I’m going to come at it from a different angle than what you would expect. It is, it was the judgment of the court. And it was the order. So, the people who are in charge of executing the orders and sense of the court, you’re opening up a Pandora’s box if they say well, it shouldn’t be that much time. So, under today’s Law, they would have only got 30 days. Under yesterday’s laws, they got two years. So, I’m going to unilaterally decide to open the floodgate and let that person out. That’s not the way the system works at the time the death penalty was the penalty for that crime and he was sentenced to death. Now, this, this illuminates the need when you when you reduce penalties, to actually deal with what happens with the people who have previously been convicted, which no one wants to touch that because it’s complicated requires a lot of administration to figure out and to undo convictions like if you if you downgrade something from a misdemeanor from a felony to a misdemeanor. Then you’ve got all these people who are convicted felons, that wouldn’t be convicted felons today. Well, the state of Georgia when they did this, all they had to have done was to say that anyone who was previously sentenced that those sentences would be automatically converted. They could have put that into statute. They didn’t. So, we assume that legislators know what they’re doing, that they know the ramifications of their actions and Just like when they reduce the penalty that that the, the approximate age there was a high-profile case from Georgia from Janara Wilson was his name. And he had had sex with a with a girl consensual sex. And they gave him a whole bunch of prison time eight or 10 years and then they changed that because they were close enough in age, they made it a misdemeanor where he could, a person could get no more than a year in jail. And they didn’t want to release all the people who’d previously be convicted, but they did release Janara Wilson and, and Thurbet Baker, who was the Attorney General of Georgia at the time, he said it’s my job, and I swore that I was going to do my job and these people were sentenced, and I am going to make sure that they stay in prison. And so, they served all their time. That’s what Mr. Baker said. So, I think that we would probably need to fault we’ve got fault and we’ve got credit. The fault is the legislature for not doing the job thoroughly. And the credit goes to a system in Georgia that very few states have. Georgia has a politically insulated Board of pardons and paroles. If this had to go through the chief executive of the state Brian Kemp would not have granted this. What ultimately happened was execution was scheduled for Thursday night, and the Georgia Board of pardons and paroles which operates in secret and is accountable only to themselves. They decided that this was not right. And they decided to exercise their executive functions and they granted him clemency and converted him to life in prison. But if Georgia had the citizen had the citizens where the citizens could have weighed in on this I just about bet you the public opinion in Georgia would be that this man, by golly he was sentenced to that death, and he ought to have paid his price for his crime. But that secret Board of pardons and paroles conducted a hearing and decided to commute his sentence.

Andy 56:53
Brian in chat asks, isn’t there a general legal principle that if a law lessons a punishment for a crime that anyone sentenced Under that crime have a right to request resentencing.

Larry 57:03
No such principle I’m aware of. That was a whole fight about Obama’s administration when they reduced the crack cocaine disparity, and all these people in federal prison for long periods of time for the for the crack and the cocaine prisoners were not serving such long sentences. And Obama had to commute and had to reduce their sentences. And he engaged the National Association of criminal defense lawyers to put together clemency packages, asking for his attorney general encouraged clemency packages. So, I can give these people the relief because the law didn’t do that.

Andy 57:41
So, you’re just done for. You gotta get a lawyer to get yourself re sentenced.

Larry 57:46
While you don’t get yourself re sentenced. Obama gave the people clemency that were convicted. If they had served as much time as would have been required by the new law, they were eligible for clemency. They had to behave themselves in prison and there were some criteria. That’s why he needed the application packets. And that’s why that they sought the NACDL’s assistance so that they could get those people out of prison. That’s one thing that led to a significant reduction in the federal prison population while he was president. The first time in 40 years I might add that the federal prison population only went down was during the during the second term of President Obama. But that’s neither here nor there. But though there’s no principle I’m aware of that says if the crimes are reduced, unless they’re specifically crimes, the statutory changes are presumed to be prospective enforcement but not retroactive. So, it works both ways. When there’s when there’s, we’re trying to have it both ways here. We’re trying to say you can’t impose anything retroactively. And that’s what the Ex Post Facto clause does prevent. But a law doesn’t automatically. If it’s less than the penalty, it’s not presumed to be retroactive unless it’s specified that it has to be retroactive. And they don’t do that because of the complexity. You’ve got 26,000 people in prison that did the same thing. They don’t want to go through all the work of unraveling all those people.

Andy 59:07
That’s true, it would be. But just from the difference of death or not death, which would be a very, very small number of people, but I get your point.

Larry 59:18
That would be far fewer. Yes, you would have far fewer people. In Georgia, I’d be interesting to see specifics on how many people were sentenced under the old law for death that are still alive and haven’t been executed, because Georgia does a pretty good job of executing people. Yeah, yeah, they’re in the top five. But it would be interesting to see but like when would you change this? This criminal justice reform it’s one of the battles we’re going to fight and when on the off chance that something’s reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor because lawmakers are beginning to recognize the felony status what that does to you first your life, trying to figure out how you would undo all those felony convictions that happened for the last several decades. I mean, some of them would be dead it wouldn’t matter. I doubt different states would come forward. Say, “I want to clear my father’s name because he wouldn’t be a convicted felon after this change” But the people that are still alive Well, I mean, that would be a significant undertaking to change all the records to reflect that that was a misdemeanor. We can’t be doing all that.

Andy 1:00:23
Let’s move over to this news journal online. This one is super quick, and I just want to get your take on it. Because it’s just buried in the middle of it, but it says a Representative Tom leak of Ormond Beach. Bill is seeking to prohibit bail for certain sex offenders was filed in October just days after Volusia County Judge reversed his earlier decision to grant Mark Fuggler release on $200,000 bail. The release of the former Embry Riddle Aeronautical University professor and sex offender while his 15-year prison sentence was under review generated harsh criticism from Many including Sheriff Mike Chitwood. So, is that common that just like one class of crime would be ineligible for bail?

Larry 1:01:11
Well, let’s just put this in the context this this individual Fuggler was convicted of several counts and the, they, they pronounce that Volucia. But the judge, the judge, the judge granted him an appeal bond because that’s within the purview of a trial court. Now the legislators have been trying to take that away from us as well because the metoo movement says that once a person is convicted should never breathe air again. And despite the facts, that there might be legitimate issues on appeal. They need to be sitting in that jail cell while they’re appealing. So, an appeal bond or supercilious bond, they’re becoming have become very rare, but this judge had the audacity to grab a bond. It didn’t sit very well with the sheriff. So, he went on a campaign blasting the judge. And judges get elected in Florida, and the state filed a motion to reconsider which I’ve got that in the show notes. But the reconsideration was granted. And his appeal bond was revoked. But the real consequences are because of the high-profile nature of this, Florida is going to put a restriction in the law that doesn’t give judges the limited power, it takes away the limited power they have to grant a supercilious bond. And there are legitimate reasons why people, I mean, our court system is not perfect. And some people that have the wherewithal would appeal just because they have the ability to appeal. But some people who are appealing feel like they have come up short on due process at some stage of the process that that egregious mistakes were made. And some people just say I’m straight out innocent. I want to appeal. So, you got to appeal from prison as the way this was headed.

Andy 1:03:07
It seems like that makes it much harder.

Larry 1:03:11
It makes it far harder when you’re appealing from prison. And, but that’s like I say that’s also driven by the metoo movement. The victim’s advocacy, the victims industrial complex, doesn’t want anybody to have due process. They don’t want anybody to have appellate review. They don’t want anyone to have habeas corpus review. They want you just to go ahead, say guilty, or they’re going to, they’re going to find you guilty anyway. But they want you just to go ahead, go away, and rot in prison. And then when you come out, if you manage to get out, they want to hound you for the rest of your life with additional punishment that was not a part of the sentence. They want to continue to stack registry requirements. They’re constantly lobbying for more and more restrictions that weren’t a part of the sentence. They’re always willing to insert themselves into any removal process you get from the registry. If the state provides a removal process, they demand to be heard. Of course, the registry isn’t supposed a part of your punishment. But somehow, they’ve decided that it’s their inherent right to be heard on that. I mean, we’re headed towards where due process is going to be nothing.

Andy 1:04:15
Yeah. You seem to have gotten back up on the soapbox.

Larry 1:04:21
I did. I’m off. People are people are sick of hearing me.

Andy 1:04:26
Yeah. Or they’re also sick, right?

Larry 1:04:29
They could be sick. I think they’re sick of hearing me. That’s why that’s why our numbers are growing up.

Andy 1:04:35
They are growing up, Larry. Well, I will attest to that they are growing.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:39
Now, as I was saying, drugs are bad, you shouldn’t do drugs. If you do them your bad, because drugs are bad. It’s a bad thing to do drugs and your bad by doing drugs. That would be bad, mkay?

Andy 1:04:56
From the Marshall project, people on probation and parole are being denied perfectly legal, medical weed. Despite statewide legislation or legalization, some counties banned probationers and parolees from using medical marijuana. So, the chronically ill turned to less effective and more addictive prescription drugs. Just before we even go into anything, alcohol is perfectly legal to drink me as a much older adult male at this point in time in my life. But my handler say I can’t drink it, and what am I supposed to do about that? So, doesn’t this sort of fit into the same area?

Larry 1:05:33
It does, and they’re taking a slightly different tact they’re saying, and they’re right about this as much as I hate to give them credit for being right, because generally they’re not. But if you look at your conditions of your supervision, almost everyone out there, if you pull your conditions they will say, comply with all state, federal and local laws. So, they’re taking into position that since it’s still against the law federally, that we can’t in good conscience allow you Break the federal law. I mean, we’re supposed to be holding you accountable to the law not encouraging you to break the law. I mean, has it you have to give credit for that they are they are doing what they’re following the letter of that JNS. If it says obey all state & federal laws, what are they supposed to do? Say Well, only the federal laws that we agree with, that we don’t disagree with.

Andy 1:06:21
Except for when this crosses the line that the couple people that they profile on this article, have gotten prescriptions from doctors say you know, for things like seizures or chronic pain, and maybe they rub some of the CBD oil around their lips or like on their gums and it helps them not have seizures or have reduced pain so that they can function. I would call it an asshole move that they say Nope, sorry. We’re going to lock you up if you test positive for dope because of this.

Larry 1:06:49
Well, what this was going to do is this is going to be litigated. We’re going to have a body of case law develop, it’s going to take some time, but we’re going to have a body of case law. There’s two ways this could be solved. We could put pressure on Congress to take this off the schedule one narcotics list. And that is something that I wish the Trump administration would do because they would be, they would be in the best position to do it. Anything that the democrats try to do, is vilified because they’re trying to turn loose a tidal wave of criminality on the citizens. But if Trump administration would take the lead on this, they would not get vilified, I promise you. If you can find a democrat that will vilify them for trying to legalize and take marijuana off the schedule one list, I would be so shocked I’d almost offer you $1,000 to do that. But so, they could take the lead on doing this. That would be one way to get it off the schedule one. For the Trump administration to say Congress please remove this and Congress would, would, would be that Trump wants the Republican Party and the democrats are forward anyway, this will be a unanimous thing, it’d be easy to do. Yes, there would be bipartisan support. So that’d be one thing that could be done. The other thing in the absence of that which if the Trump administration does not lead the way there’ll be litigation. Instead we’ll have to have people argue that this is a government intrusion in a legitimate area of medical practice, where, where the where that the government is depriving the doctor of their, but with the doctor patient release and the conservatives claim they’re all about that doctor patient relationship. They respected that when they were having a debate about the Affordable Care Act and about how they want to preserve the decision between the doctor and the patient and how so. So that’s what’s going to have to happen. If it’s not removed from the schedule, then we’re going to have to have litigation and it’s going to take we’re going to have inconsistent decisions. The Alabama supreme court’s going to say it’s okay for probation do this because it’s a violation of federal law. And the Michigan Supreme Court’s gonna say it’s not okay because it interferes with a doctor in the patient’s relationship. And it’s the state deciding medical care, and we’re going to have decisions all over the map. But that’s what it’s going to take to change this.

Andy 1:08:55
That sounds just like same sex marriage.

Larry 1:08:58
That’s exactly what’s gonna happen eventually. A few years out, it may make its way to the US, US Supreme Court. And we’ll get some guidance or hopefully public policy will change. If all the people listening to us, which there’s now what about 56,000? If, yeah. If all the people listening to us would call their representatives to serve them in Congress and say, Look, why are we still scheduling marijuana as a narcotic? Why, why are we doing that? When 30 some odd states have made it legal for medical.

Andy 1:09:30
I will just put a pin in there that the guy that we voted to be president, put an attorney general in there says that, you know, marijuana is a gateway drug to all the bad things.

Larry 1:09:39
Well, that attorney general’s no longer there. I don’t know. I don’t know what bar’s opinion is, but that one’s no longer there. But Trump has a lot of political capital and he could burn a little bit of it on this issue if he chose to.

Andy 1:09:51
doesn’t even seem like he would have to burn it. He would have almost everybody on board with him to begin with.

Larry 1:09:56
He would they’re probably the Tom Cotton so there’d be some people From a deeply conservative states would say, I ain’t gonna have no part as Mr. pres and I support you, but I can’t do this, so we gonna have to just agree to disagree, but it would be very minimal opposition.

Andy 1:10:13
I do understand anyway, I just think that that as you were just saying to call your local representative and tell them this, I think that we the people are very poopy for making it so that people that have medical conditions that weed can fix. It is still not legal for you to get weed to fix it. I think that is just an atrocious abomination of how we treat humans in this country. just my opinion.

Larry 1:10:36
I agree. I agree with that opinion. I never thought I’d come around to this but now that at this age when you get as old as I am, when you when you find the pains of life, and you find so many testimonials about how they’re able to live with pain management, far better than what the pharmaceutical garbage that that they can manage their pain and have a positive Life. I’ve certainly come around to seeing the light and I think it’s sad that here we still are in 2020 with this as a scheduled drug where people can be put in federal prison for a little bit of marijuana now there’s truthfully probably not very many people in federal prison for just possession they don’t prosecute those type of cases. But the potential is there.

Andy 1:11:20
Yeah. And I mean there certainly you know, in the states where you can’t smoke it here you can get the oil and stuff here finally, and let’s not forget that our neighbors to the north just said let’s just make it all legal. Not all of it but all of the marijuana legal so it’s across all of Canada, it’s legal up there. That just happened very recently handful of months, I think.

Larry 1:11:40
I think we talked about on the podcast.

Andy 1:11:42
we very well may have. Did you know that this recent article was coming out because I it just showed up and I was like oh that’s kind of cool with a profiling some women from the movement.

Larry 1:11:52
I did not know about it, but it’s a lengthy read but it’s very good.

Andy 1:11:56
It is very good. So, it profiles Sandy, who is Part of NARSOL and then Janice Bellucci out there in California. And then Vicki from WAR, which is the women against the registry, it is a very lengthy read. And I think Janice is the only one in there that doesn’t come to the issue by like a family member. Like she was just like my friend forever ended up committing a crime 100 years ago, and now he’s dragged into this registry stuff. So, she decided to pull her legal expertise to, to try and help and go for low hanging fruit where things are crappy in California with like resident s, not residents, prisons and Halloween kind of things that we did in Georgia here recently. So yeah, it was a good article. I just wanted to bring everybody’s attention to it. It was on the front page of Reason on the website that I saw it.

Larry 1:12:48
Great article.

Andy 1:12:49
Yep. All right. And then to close it out, Larry, I have a super duper fun little audio clip to play. And we can we can beat it around for a minute about hypocrisy.

Video Clip 1:12:59
I just want to Personally hand publicly go on record supporting this resolution before us this evening. You know, guys, it’s simple like a lot of them have said, the Constitution needs no explanation. It’s been enforced for several hundred years now, it’s easy to understand, it says what it means. It means what it says. And last time I read the Declaration of Independence, it specifically reminds all of us who were endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, which means God given among these life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and that governments were instituted among men specifically to secure our God given rights. And it says when government becomes destructive to the audience, meaning when they go above and beyond, trying to secure our liberties and trying to take them is the right of the people to alter or abolish that government, either by voting, or ultimately, God forbid to use our Second Amendment rights to protect ourselves from tyranny. And I’m just asking all y’all to unanimously join our sister counties of Wilkes, Surrey, Stokes, Lincoln, and Cherokee and get on board with this thing and publicly demonstrate to us that you’re willing to uphold and honor the same oath I took when I put my hand on God’s word And held my other hand up to him and swore that I’d give my life to defend that constitution. And I hate I’m not trying to be disrespectful. But regardless of what y’all do, or don’t do, I’m not going to enforce an unconstitutional law. *Applause breaks out among the crowd*

Andy 1:14:33
So, I think that comes on the heels of some sort of movement to create some gun control, pull back on people having weapons and whatnot. But he’s sitting there as the sheriff of that county saying he is not going to enforce an unconstitutional law. And I would really like that same Sheriff to go Well, I’m not going to enforce these laws against these registrants who, you know, post their supervision, they should have all the rights restored. I’m not going to force them

Larry 1:15:00
I think that’s a great point, it begs the real question that, um, he mentioned the book, and he’s talking about the Bible. But he put his hand on the Bible and said he would enforce the laws and all laws, even unconstitutional ones until they’re declared so by court. He put his hand on the Bible and said he was going to enforce that law. Now, if he can’t do that, in good faith, he should resign from office, but it is his job to enforce the laws and they’re presumed constitutional and they’re only unconstitutional once the court have said so. It’s not for him to unilaterally decide that anything that’s passed in that area is unconstitutional. We can we can we can fill this air with quotes from Scalia saying that, that that that there’s still absolute rights for all guns at all circumstances. He’s acknowledged that there can be controls. There already are controls that the feller prohibition and additional prohibitions already controls, and he has admitted that you can’t own any type of weapon. He doesn’t know where the boundaries would be. But he admitted there’s to be, this this sheriff is just plain out wrong. I mean, he’s, he’s, he’s being hypocrite, but he’s just plain out wrong. His job is to enforce the law until the courts prescribe that it’s not constitutional. That’s his job.

Andy 1:16:20
And if I may try and put a finer point on that, as, as I understand this, I’m going to speak in dumb people terms that I understand. We have judges that don’t legislate or execute. We have legislators that don’t adjudicate or execute, and we shouldn’t have the executive branch judging or legislating. So, the sheriff should just say, hey, it’s illegal to run this red light. I believe you ran the red light; we’re going to go through the process to figure out if you ran the red light and cite you and all that stuff. He doesn’t get to interpret the law. Is that the right way to understand that?

Larry 1:16:55
Well, that’s what I’m saying. He doesn’t. He can prioritize and allocate his resources. If he doesn’t want to make that a high priority, I have no problem with that. If he says, Well, you know, you people past it, but that’s fine. I don’t have the manpower. And I’m not going to go out and try to find the manpower. And we’re not gonna be looking for guns to confiscate. It’s not gonna be a high priority for us. But if it happens fall in our lap, we’ll enforce it. But for him to proclaim it’s unconstitutional, he doesn’t get to do that. And that’s what he’s doing.

Andy 1:17:24
I understand. I’m glad that you pointed that out to me when I brought it up to this morning because I was like, hey, that’s hypocrisy. We need to talk about that.

Larry 1:17:33
It is definitely hypocrisy and that that same group of people was criticizing Obama when he was in the office of the president and he chose for his administration department of justice to no longer defend the DOMA is that was now the Defense of Marriage Act, which was the prohibition of same sex marriage. And the Sean Hannity crowd, I could probably dig up some quotes, but they said, President Obama has unilaterally decided that he’s the interpreter of the Constitution. And he’s just not even gonna show up in court to argue to defend the laws, which the Department of Justice is obligated to do. That’s amazing how that when it’s something that you disagree with which a lot of conservatives were not in favor of same sex marriage. They thought they thought it was an abomination. One person said, I’m not going to fight this anymore. I’m just going to acquiesce that its unconstitutional, but magically now those same people, did you hear the cheers going up in that room, when he said he wasn’t going to enforce the law?

Andy 1:18:34
Absolutely, and all of them were, you know, NRA wearing, you know, gun toting people and all that.

Larry 1:18:39
So that’s also hypocrisy.

Andy 1:18:41
Yes.

Andy 1:18:43
Well, anyway, I just want to bring it up because it caught my attention this morning when I was looking through Twitter. And then the last thing that we have is you brought this up five minutes before the show Mother Jones and Florida Supreme Court says ex-felons must pay fines before regaining their vote. So, this is a on the heels of them doing their state constitution amendment number four, I think it was where they allowed felons to vote. And tell me what the law reads.

Larry 1:19:10
Well, the reason why I brought this in is because there was a little bit of hypocrisy on my part because I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand the amendment. I mean, we cover stuff from all the states and we just don’t have enough time to do the depth on every article that would really do justice. So, they when they voters passed a constitutional amendment, I did not realize that it had been worded the way it was. There had been a hearing that there had been challenges to the actual amendment being placed on the ballot. And the, the before it went to the voters, in 2018 there was litigation, because there was there were people who said it was confusing in terms of what the amendment provided for. Well, it turns out that the governor DeSantis did not know what where it was because in 2019 the legislature passed a law saying that you had to pay all your fines and fees and the economic part of your sentence to be eligible to be restored. And I was a bit critical. I said, Well, there they go again. They just have this great fear that that these people that have convictions, these felons, they’re going to somehow go out and vote liberal. And I saw it through partisan eyes. Now I look at this decision. Now this is an advisory opinion. And courts are very rare to give advisory opinions, but in Florida since 1968 they noted in the opinion here that they that they’ve offered advisory opinions in rare situations for 50 plus years. And the governor asked, hey, we’ve got this amendment, and we’ve got this statute that requires people to have their fines and fees paid. And so, they looked at it and they said, well, actually that’s exactly what it meant, because it says what it means. We are literally interpreting the words and it says all and what does what does all terms mean?

Andy 1:21:10
Last time I checked, it means everything.

Larry 1:21:12
So, they say since the word all is in there, completion of all terms, that all would include not only the duration of your sentence, but all things that are the four corners of the sentence, including the fines and restitution. So, they’re saying we’re strict. We are textualist. We look at this and all means all. So therefore, I have to say that I was wrong, because I thought this was politically motivated. This is just nothing more than just strict construction, going by the statute being a textualist. And if that’s the type of justices that the people elected to, I think they like their Supreme Court by popular vote, but if that’s the type of justices they put on the Supreme Court, this is a very rational interpretation. Because all means what it says. It’s kind of like you are a person, right? You did travel to Nebraska, didn’t you? You didn’t register in Colorado, didn’t you? Why are we here? Well, that’s what this advisory opinion is saying that they’re looking at this. And it says what it says and there’s they don’t see the ambiguity.

Andy 1:22:17
All right, then I got nothing for it.

Larry 1:22:21
I have a 20-page opinion but there’s, there’s a lot of notes made throughout there for those for those legal beagles who like to who like to think of themselves as textualist. Look at this, this is a fine example sample of textual interpretation.

Andy 1:22:35
All right go read the show notes over at registrymatters.co there will be a link to the that you can pull it from our site with Larry’s fine highlights.

Now for our final segment, Larry, we are going to continue traveling down the path of becoming the most awesome person to go to your legislator and make all the changes necessary from where people have traffic lights all the way through where bridges are going to be built. And then all the way of course, to taking down the registry in your neighborhood. My first question to you is, how do you find what is going on in the legislature? How do you find the calendar for even like when you should be paying attention to anything to be paying attention to? I don’t like where would someone begin at trying to like, quote unquote, watch a bill?

Larry 1:23:28
Well, I would, I would assume every state I have gone to look for the legislative website, they all have something that approximates a website, and some are more user friendly than others. But you would start by knowing when your legislature is in session. And so, you go look on they probably have a tab called calendar. So, you’d look on the Find out the session date, so they call a calendar or a session dates and find out if they’re in session. So that’s how you find out that they’re meeting. They meet 15 days one year and 30 days the next every other year. In my state they meet 30 days one year, 60 days next year.

Andy 1:23:08
So, is there a rationale behind that?

Larry 1:23:10
The rationale is that that the people need to get in, get out, get the work done quickly. Okay. Yeah, when statehood at the time, but the state was admitted 107 or eight years ago, there was a lot of smaller population issues weren’t as complex and that’s what the constitution set up and it hasn’t been changed.

Andy 1:24:27
And that would be a constitutional change to bring them in for a 60- and 90-day session on opposite years, something like that?

Larry 1:24:33
It would be a constitutional change. We’re fixed in the constitution for length of our sessions. Now that doesn’t preclude special sessions, which can be called by the legislature themselves or they can be called by the executive. The legislature has to have three quarters of the legislators calling for extraordinary session the only way they can come into session, but the governor can call a special session practically any time

Andy 1:24:56
and are you speaking specifically for your state or Pretty much all?

Larry 1:25:01
In my state. Well, special sessions are provided for in every state that I’ve looked at the mechanisms where the legislators could call themselves into session. I don’t know about those provisions. But I’ve not known of a chief executive who could not call the legislature to session. I’ve not run across that. So, I think I got one governor can have a house sometime where they need to the legislature, legislators to be in session.

Andy 1:25:25
Let me ask you this. I, it seems that this is roughly the time of year that everybody unless it’s a year-round legislature, but the part time ones. This seems to be the time of year that they’re all doing their things. Is that consistent or does somebody do it at the end of the summer?

Larry 1:25:41
Now this is very consistent. They say generally, most states are on a fiscal year cycle, which runs July 1 through June 30. The federal government used to run that same cycle until 1975. But they were on the same fiscal cycle, but they just couldn’t get the budget down in time. So, they went to the Secretary We’re mid-October 1 through September 30. And they still don’t get the budget done. So, you hear all these continuing resolutions, and all these catch all spending bills, because they just can’t, they can’t adopt the 13 or 14 different agency appropriations and get them done in time. So, so but yeah, it’s pretty common that they would be that bid session early in the year.

Andy 1:26:20
And Okay, so now that you’ve identified the calendar, I you know, and I wrote down a handful of questions, and by all means, you should usually the way I just am trying to fish out what I think is important. Is after you know what the calendar is, it seems like even before that maybe you want to know what the bills are to then have a reason to go look at the calendar. Which way would you do it to see to what would be the most logical flow?

Larry 1:26:46
Well, if you were looking at my legislature, you would look at you look at those, there’s a tab called bill Finder. And you can look at you can look at the bills now they’re there, they’re titled, and they have numbers. So, they’ll have the have started House Bill one and basically and many legislators are allowing legislators are allowing pre filing now so these before they’re even Galilean they can pre file a bill doesn’t do anything other than just ls the public know what’s out there. And the old days before we had pre filing, you did not know what was gonna happen until they gambled in. That’s when you could introduce a bill but down you can pre file so like if you go to our when I went yesterday, we had like 189 house bills already pre filed. I’m like 112 Senate bills already pre file. So, you go, you can you can scroll through them looking at the title. If the title interest, you that you can click on the bill and it’ll print you up a PDF or a text copy of the bill. And then there’s keyword searches, you can start putting in keywords. Well, a lot of our audience is going to be interested in sex offender, so you put it that is keywords. But that’s not the only word you’d want to put in. I mean, you would want to put in probation Role assault is at number three, any keyboard you can think of that might appear in a bill you put it in. And it’ll bring up bills that have those words somewhere into. And, and you may find something that that you missed when you did your title search, but you were looking at two bills by title. When you do when you do probation, you may find something that didn’t pop up or you’d like it aggravated because they might be wanting to change the level of an offense to an aggravated so you just put the word in aggravated, see what pops up, right and click on that bill.

Andy 1:28:32
So that was you preempted my question of like, what would be termed so obviously, sex, sexual offense would be one of the terms.

Larry 1:28:41
That would be one but like say you could just you could just start throwing words out there. Like I just went through a litany of words you can throw into your keyword search.

Andy 1:28:50
Yeah, I’m just trying to help build some sort of little roster of words that people might be able to use to help well outside of the obvious

Larry 1:28:59
probation. parole, violent, aggravated. Okay. sexual rights.

Andy 1:29:08
And when you do find those now, you’re faced with reading 100 pages or 20 pages or however long the bill is you got to go read it and the written legally is are they

Larry 1:29:19
not really some cases but you in state legislatures, you typically don’t have those like two bills like you do in the federal system, you would find a bill that could be anywhere from couple three pages up to 30 pages, 40 pages, but it’s not to hundreds and hundreds of Bill pages you see in the federal system. So, I mean, no one it serves, not a soul that serves in Congress reads those bills, and they’re lied to you if they tell you they do. They don’t. They don’t it’s not it’s not practical to have 1100 a piece of page piece of legislation and actually read that. Yeah, I know that that came up during the Obamacare thing. And then I guess I’m trying to what was the big piece of legislation that everyone was pitching a That, you know, 2000 pages long that nobody read. I don’t remember what that one was. The affordable, Affordable Care Act was a big was a big one. But it happens all the time. But with these appropriations were these big men must catch all spinning bills. There are many hundreds, if not thousands of pages of stuff tucked into those bills, nobody, nobody reads. Probably

Andy 1:30:25
the most recent biggest piece of legislation that would have gone through at the federal level,

Larry 1:30:28
and No One No One read that.

Andy 1:30:30
Of course not. And so I want to say that there was a quote, somewhere along the way, in either one of those two is like, well, how are we going to find out about this, like, well, we’ll find out about it when it happens, and someone challenges it, no one knows what’s in there.

Larry 1:30:43
That is correct. And it’s sad, but that’s the reality. That is the reality of a complex world we live in today. We’re not living in the 1780s. So, government is far larger, doing far more things.

Andy 1:30:59
And when you follow A bill that says it’s going to do all the terrible things to all of our people. What are you would want to know? Or would you want to know where it is in the process? How many co-sponsors? Has it been signed? Has it been voted on? Is it in committee? Can you shed some light on all of those different things?

Larry 1:31:21
Well, you’re, you’re sort of like a one No, the posture legislation right now in our state, everything’s in the pre file, and then it’ll stay there until the harvest and then can move would be Tuesday at noon when they gavel in nothing, and we’ll move on Tuesday. And nothing will move for several days because in order for anything to move in a 30-day session, it has to be germane to either the budget, or it has to be specifically requested by the governor. So, it has to have an executive message. So, they have a committees committee and both the House and Senate that were that they go through a humanity test to see if there if there’s a Thursday executive message for legislation. So, before things start cranking, they have to meet a target of a Jermaine. And then this is not the case in Pennsylvania, it’s not the case. So, I’m only speaking from Sabre as the most experienced. So, in our 30-day session, they’ll be going through the committee’s committee to find out if they if they’re germane to the session. And then at that point, when they retirement, you may they’ll be released to their next committee assignments, which will be at least two more committees, we want everything to two committees. So, when you look at the code system they have, they’ll tell you what committees that’s been assigned to. And that’s where the action is

Andy 1:32:30
mostly there on the Judicial Committee or something like that.

Larry 1:32:34
Well, as an architect particular state, we have we have the bulk of things going through public affairs of the house. We have a public affairs in the Senate and we have the judiciary in the house gesture and senate so if it’s the house bill is going to get through the judiciary if I can pronounce that right and then it’s going to go to the to the Public Affairs Committee, as it’s called the consumer Health consumer and Public Affairs Committee and then it’s going to go to judiciary committee that is going to go the floor. But you can see at any given time where it is, and you can, you can pull that committee schedule and see if that bill is all in it. Now those who whine and whine about they didn’t notify me of anything. That let me just tell you how we used to have to find out what was on the calendar. I was gonna ask you about this. Yeah, we will. The way we used to find out what was on the calendar was you would drive yourself to the Capitol before we had the internet. And you would ask for the daily bill tracker. And you looked at the bill tracker to see where things work. And then when you saw what committee was in, you would go to the committee office to see if it was on that day’s agenda. And then you would get in suite with the committee staff and try to see if it was going to be on the next committee meeting. So that’s a Monday, Wednesday, Friday and started that Wednesday, you’re going to ask what do you think this is gonna be on Friday? They’re gonna say we don’t know. So, then you will say well, would you mind if I call you back on Friday. You because I don’t live in Santa Fe, I don’t want to come up here. So, then you would call the committee secretary and say, is that on the calendar today? And they would say, No, it isn’t. And then you would say thank you. That’s the way we used to have to do it. And the people gripe about the way the information is now at your fingertips of what we used to have a really hard time. Yes, it’s really, really early, there’s no sacrifice and getting, there’s absolutely no effort. Now as the session goes into the waning days, things move really, really fast here really fast, because you’ve got hundreds of bills, and you’ve got a short period of time to cover them. And if a bill has made it through a substantial part of the process, it only has one committee to go and it would have to go to that to that chamber. So it says house bills made it through the through the three committees that’s going to go through because that was your main test, and then it’s made it to the house or it’s been approved, that has made it to the Senate, and it’s made it through one of the two committees. Then every bill the Senate passed It has one community to go. The sponsor sizzles bills are begging for hearing time. They’re begging that chair to please schedule my bill. And everybody is doing the same thing. Can I get all the calendar? There’s only two more weeks of the Judiciary Committee. Will you hear my bill? Please? Madam Chairman, Mr. Chairman, what you hear about Bill, and they’ve got all these people knocking on the door, what their bills hurt, and you just can’t get to all of them. So, somebody has to be told, oh, sorry, your bills are gonna get a hearing. Sorry, yeah, we’ve got we’ve, here’s what we’re going to hear. And that’s the power that a chair has. So, getting to getting to be in good with a chair helps you a lot on what’s going to happen because if you ever relationship with the chair, the chair will tell you. In our case, most of the time we’re not wanting bills not to be heard. We’re in the killing business. And I dare say most advocates across the country they’re the killing business are not in the passing business.

Andy 1:35:59
They were not in the business of making things better yet, we’re still in the business of trying to keep things from getting worse or

Larry 1:36:04
That is correct. Now, Ideally, we’d like to be in the passing business. But right now, that’s just not the reality, the situation, you’re in the killing business. So, your job, as a beginner is to figure out how to kill and slow down bad stuff to wreck the train. So, it doesn’t make it to the finish line. If it doesn’t get to the finish line, the governor can’t side.

Andy 1:36:24
And can we can we delve into that you’ve told me miscellaneous stories about you having the relationship and obviously, most of our people don’t have those kinds of relationships, but you can pull strings with people and I don’t want to throw you under the bus if you don’t want to talk about something with any level of detail. But hey, I don’t want this apple bill to go through. So, can you put on the bottom of the stack, and then maybe they run out of time for the day and then Hey, sorry, it didn’t get to be heard because it was on the bottom of the stack.

Larry 1:36:54
Well, it’s not quite that over you. There’s a lot more integrity and that the process of that what you would what you would do is you would tell the charity of the relationship, there’s some serious problems with this bill. And you give them a couple of things that are problems. And you tell them it needs further analysis. And that they the committees have analysts, so you get them, you get them to agree that they need to have more analysis done on the bill before the schedule. And then that few days that it takes to get the analysis done, maybe enough direct the trade because when analysis comes back, the chair might say gee, yes, that that I did know that. And I’m not going to prioritize this bill is not going anywhere. But yes, it’s not like just having a relationship. Say I’ll give you $500 to move this to Bob or stack

Andy 1:37:42
like that either. No, no, I didn’t mean it. Like nobody come across that was in my I compared a couple states. I just I just use the term sexual offense and one state had 17 in another state had like 250 bills pop up with that search term, but

Larry 1:37:59
that’s what that what that would be for one session that that would be going back for years and years and years. Nobody’s got 200 bills in one session. Oh,

Andy 1:38:08
okay. Yeah, I see. I thought that I was looking at it for only this current session, I thought but I totally could be wrong with that.

Larry 1:38:15
Yeah, I suspect I may not think Brenda would be she’s in chat. She could tell you the first year she got in this business they had they had dozens but not hundreds. It was it was thousands of bills dealt something to do with sexual fantasy sexual fantasy is a pretty broad term. So, if you’re if you’re doing if you’re doing a lot of criminal justice work, sexual offense could pop up. Sexual can pop up a lot. I mean, if you’re amending criminal sexual penetration, criminal sexual contact, which are our two primary vehicles for charging people sex crimes, if you put sexual, any legislation in there, so if there’s anything to do with deal with three strikes, that would pop up I mean, you can get a lot of a lot of hits by putting it into terms, this is not gonna be so easy that someone’s going to provide you a list of everything that might apply to you. If you’re looking for that you probably are in the wrong business. You’re going to have to do some you’re going to have to do some work. Everything. Everything that happens good in life generally requires a little bit of work unless you win the lottery of birth. And you inherited but this process is not totally without some effort.

Andy 1:39:22
Okay, yeah, you’re right, though. So, I’m looking at those Georgia one and it does go back a couple years. 17 bills in the last handful of years back to 17. Is what that goes, Okay. All right. You got it. You when you are the master,

Larry 1:39:35
I always plan that’s why I am here.

Andy 1:39:39
Yes, that’s why you’re paid the big bucks to be here.

Larry 1:39:42
Somewhere Someone has to hearing that think it sounds arrogant. You have to watch the movie MacArthur play starring Gregory Peck from 1977 when MacArthur Roosevelt Matt MacArthur was a little bit of the arrogant side, and he was he was the says that the President pulled him off from his command to meet with him because he was too busy running a war. And he asked, Mr. President, can I get back to my command? He said, I believe that the commanders places have to sing in the scene of the battle. And Roosevelt says, I agree with you entirely. Douglas. He said, that is why I am here.

Andy 1:40:22
Anything else that you think is important on this subject for this chapter of the Larry teaches how to lobby class?

Larry 1:40:29
I think that that anybody who actually wants to know more could be more specific with questions. So that way, we’re not going down a rabbit hole, we kind of we have an idea of where people are what’s most helpful. But the first thing really, truly is to go the website. Figure out when your legislature is in session, figure out what bills might pertain to your interest. It doesn’t have to be about sexual stuff. It may be that you want taxes to be cut in half. It may be that the that you want bridges to nowhere not to be built. It may be that you’re interested in public health, whatever your interests are nowhere not to be built. Why would you want that? Well, they built them all over the house a joke, but I can

Andy 1:41:09
I know there’s one. There was one by where my parents live in that I always thought that was funny. There was a bridge that like went halfway across the canal and like didn’t finish on the other side. Okay,

Larry 1:41:19
well, but see there again says things like that are taken out of context. When you when you have a capital L a process that sometimes takes years to complete. You seldom have enough money to do everything you want in one fell swoop because we don’t most states don’t finance things on the way they should. So, we might have 180 million dollars of capital outlay, which comes from a segment of our severance taxes. So, we might have $180 million. Well, you might have a project, your slice of that hundred 80 million, maybe 2.4 million for your slice, and you may have a project that’s going to cost 14 million. So therefore, you may start the project, hoping this you’re going to be able to procure additional capital L In a future year, and you may run out of capital because the next year the economy tanks, and that about a capital outlay dries up to half that or a third that or some cases, no capital outlay. So, it’s like people who don’t understand processes, all this stuff sounds conspiratorial and irresponsible, until you actually get behind the scenes and figure out how it works. And yes, there are sinister things that go on and yes, things could be better done. But it’s not as sinister as people believe. You know, I hear I hear criticisms are just totally indicative of people who have no idea how things are funded, and how things work. And it’s easy to criticize when you don’t understand something that that’s the case for all of us.

Andy 1:42:41
Definitely. All right. Well, if you do have questions, you could email crackpot at registered No, that’s not really the email address. You could email registry matters cast at Gmail. com and if it is of, I will forward it to Larry if it seems worthy. If you want to phone in a question, Larry, what’s the phone number? Hello, that is the best way to contact us because we’re just going to disconnect the number next week. If we don’t get a call. It’s 7472 to 74477. And then of course the show notes or if you want to leave comments on the website registry matters dot CEO, Larry I have a new way for people for an idea of how much people can contribute to the podcast if they’re so inclined.

Larry 1:43:25
And what is that it was late

Andy 1:43:27
season people sign us over their tax returns.

Larry 1:43:32
I think you might be onto something here. So, here’s the here’s the way they can do it. When they when they’re at h&r block or their local tax preparer. We can provide them a special account number because the IRS doesn’t care as long as the taxpayer wants that to go to that account. It doesn’t have to have the taxpayer’s number. It just has to be an account designated by the by the taxpayer. So, they could they could designate a special account for the refund that had it Why didn’t I think of that?

Andy 1:43:57
I don’t know. I was driving home last night. I was like ah I have an idea. It’s tax season.

Larry 1:44:04
We’re both. We’re both big silly,

Unknown Speaker 1:44:06
but I hope so. Yes,

Larry 1:44:09
we’re a big silly but there are a lot of businesses that built a significant amount of their revenue project projection and marketing into tax season to how to separate you from your tax refund. I mean, so I saw that in the car

Andy 1:44:23
business does that pretty, pretty successfully.

Larry 1:44:27
And they offer you tax refund anticipation loans, so that you can so that you could go ahead and start spending that money. So, it is it is it is bizarre, but yes, we appreciate every patron I don’t think we’ve been very complimentary enough complimentary of our patrons in 2020 and 22, half

Andy 1:44:46
halfway. We should totally thank all of our patrons individually, one by one by one by one and we will be saying 2000 names.

Larry 1:44:54
Well, that’s a little bit less than 2000. But we’re growing We are. We’re going to we’re going to hit 100 this year or we’re going to sign off.

Andy 1:45:04
Really? You’re making a hard claim.

Larry 1:45:07
Yes. If we don’t have honored by this year, we’re closing up shop.

Andy 1:45:11
All right, then. Well, Larry said it. So, you got about 350 days to get there. 345 days.

Larry 1:45:19
We can do it. Andy. We can do it. I know we can.

Andy 1:45:21
I know we can. Larry, we are. We are at an hour and 46 minutes, so we need to go. Let’s get out of here. As always, Larry, thank you so very much. I appreciate your time, your knowledge, your expertise, your humor and your knowledge from back before there was electricity and running water.

Larry 1:45:37
We didn’t even have water, much less running water.

Andy 1:45:40
You were here before water.

Larry 1:45:44
You had to you had to take a candle and you had to ask the camel if the camel would share some water with you because there was no place else to get it.

Andy 1:45:54
All right, Larry, I gotta go talk to you later. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jan/13/us-states-move-to-stop-prisons-charging-inmates-for-reading-and-video-calls

https://www.inquirer.com/crime/probation-nyc-new-york-neons-philadelphia-solutions-mass-incarceration-vincent-schiraldi-20200110.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/rural-incarceration-hidden-scandal-us-criminal-justice

https://apnews.com/40804cde022ec1fa77088da3988cc791

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/14/nyregion/weinstein-woman-metoo.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/nyregion/weinstein-trial.html

https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/01/09/artemis-online-grooming-detection/
https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/09/microsoft-project-artemis-online-child-abuse/

https://theappeal.org/georgia-to-execute-a-man-for-a-crime-that-no-longer-gets-the-death-penalty/
https://theappeal.org/jimmy-meders-clemency-georgia-death-row/

https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20200111/volusia-flagler-will-local-lawmakersrsquo-bills-on-smoking-age-fireworks-and-sex-offender-bail-pass

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/01/17/people-on-probation-and-parole-are-being-denied-perfectly-legal-medical-weed

https://reason.com/2020/01/18/sex-offender-laws-are-broken-these-women-are-working-to-fix-them/

https://twitter.com/1776Attitude/status/1217941787307921408?s=19

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/01/floridas-supreme-court-says-ex-felons-must-pay-fines-before-regaining-the-vote/

How to identify bills that need attention