FYP Education

Listen to RM121: 12 pack of Corona w/ Theresa Robertson Ph.D., LCPC

Andy 0:00
Recording live from fyp Studios, east and west, transmitted across the internet. This is Episode 121 of registry matters layer. We’ve made it yet another week. How are you tonight?

Larry 0:10
Well, we did make it another week. I don’t I don’t know how many more we’re gonna make it with this epidemic, but hopefully a few more.

Andy 0:16
Well, I will I will bring something up on that. But before I do that I want to introduce so we do have a guest joining us tonight we have Theresa Robertson from Pennsylvania. She is a PhD and I don’t know what an L CPC is. Teresa, can you tell me what that is real quick,

Theresa 0:30
a licensed clinical professional counselor.

Andy 0:33
Hmm. And so you’re, yeah, yeah. How about that. So you’re a licensed psychotherapist and practice private practice. You’ve been involved in advocating for rational sexual offense law since 2016. And you are active at both the national and state levels. You’re a founding member of parcel which is the Pennsylvania affiliate for Nassau, and you currently serve as the executive director, and you are a member of the Pennsylvania reentry Council and co chair of the park Subcommittee on those who have sexually offended and you are engaged in research related to addressing psychological consequences of public registration and you have presented these results nationally and internationally, you’re super passionate and working hard towards solutions to both prevent sexual abuse and honors the inherent worthy worth and dignity of all human beings. Holy cow. I like it.

Theresa 1:25
Yeah, I like it too.

Theresa 1:28
I like it too. We’re all doing a lot.

Andy 1:30
And how are you in the great state of Pennsylvania tonight

Theresa 1:33
in the great state of Pennsylvania all as well. I’ll buy it out. I forget now they keep adding different counties. To the stay at home order. My my county was added last night at 8pm. So

Andy 1:49
then what does that mean? Does that mean like no movement except for to the grocery store or a restaurant still serving food just only take out?

Theresa 1:57
Yeah, restaurants are closed. In house but you can get curbside service. You can go out to get food, you can go out for medical things you can go to work if you work at a lot what the governor calls a life sustaining industry. So the liquor stores are closed.

Theresa 2:20
But could be life sustaining for certain people.

Theresa 2:22
Well, yeah, and that’s that was a big concern at first but you can still buy beer and wine in the convenience stores and supermarkets because there are people who love literal it’s it’s life threatening if they could not get get that so Wow, it just can’t get hard liquor but the alcohol content and the beer and wine do so.

Andy 2:42
Well, half. And Larry, before the show, I was having a chat with one of our listeners and he he wanted to know how old you really are and I’m not gonna divulge this information. But he wanted to make sure that you were in like, not in one of the risks zones and you know, do you have an under under light conditions, not just for the podcast, but because he likes you.

Larry 3:04
Ah, so well I’m I’m anxious that I am in the one of the elevated bands but they get more elevated as you get older but I’m over 60 so they’re cautioning those people particularly if they have any respiratory are any any any challenges which I don’t have? Actually for a person this age I’m in relatively spectacular health other than a little arthritis. In fact, I enjoyed last time I was in Georgia with my lifetime friend that that is his health is not as stellar has to take his blood pressure and his pulse and everything I said, put that damn thing, Omar, and let’s just see what he could. He couldn’t believe how low my pulse rate was. So how low my blood pressure was. And that’s what the.bc is

Andy 3:51
low because you’re actually dead.

Larry 3:54
The doctrines have told me that my heart will not be what takes me out because of what a low heart rate and how strong my heart Against course, that means it probably will be what takes me out. But today, they tell me that we’ll have to worry about a heart attack anytime soon.

Andy 4:07
And not to turn this into the Larry. What’s your daily routine is but you do exercise I’ve caught you either somewhere near a treadmill or something like that before you exercise halfway regularly, don’t you?

Larry 4:17
I do. I’ll do a daily brisk walk on a treadmill. And I do a little bit of flexibility stuff, which I should do more than the little bit that I do. Because as we get older, our bodies are stiff. And I tried to overcome some of that, but it’s not nearly enough.

Andy 4:32
Probably all of us could say that. It’s not enough except for the Ironman triathlete, kind of whatever, marathon runners. We have a jam packed show full all kinds of stuff, Larry, and we’re trying to keep the coronavirus stuff to a minimum but like there’s no more oxygen in the room pretty much of anything else going on in the news even though there’s still stuff going on around. It’s kind of it’s hard to not focus on anything Corona cuz it’s all Corona all the time. Don’t you think?

Larry 4:58
It is. It’s really devouring it definitely just don’t have anything that that compares to this. And my lifetime, I think many lifetimes before mine, we don’t have anything. And one of the things that we have different now is, as we just didn’t say this had been, we’d had the capacity to transmit information the way we do today in 1918. And the and the what was called the Spanish flu, which actually probably should have been called the American flu since it started in Kansas. But what we just didn’t have the information remember radio hadn’t even the first stations hadn’t signed on the air till 1922. And we had primarily your distribution would have been newspapers. And then the newspapers in the major cities will was when you went outside of major city, you have weekly newspapers, and you just didn’t have the information if we’d have known what we knew medically and we’d had the ability to transmit information around, we probably would have acted in a similar way at 1918, if not worse, but we just didn’t know any better. And that’s where you had the contrast in cities between Philadelphia St. Louis or St. Louis. Apparently practice social distancing and Philadelphia blew it off and they had many times to fatality and infection rate in in Philadelphia.

Andy 6:10
What’s interesting about the social distancing thing is I went to Sam’s Club this morning and I have a buggy and the buggy with buggies at Sam’s are very big. And it kind of keeps you the right distance away from the people that would be in front of you. But the people behind me were like, almost touching my tush. And I’m like, have we not heard about this yet? And I almost like maybe I should just turn the card around. And you know, just make a whole circumference for to mark my territory, like, get away. I’m sure for those of you who are not in the south buggy is a colloquial term for a shopping cart. Oh, I see. I’m not from the south. So I learned Huggy somewhere else.

Larry 6:50
Well, it’s very common in the south, but I never hear that term anywhere else on the south that people refer to it as a as a shopping cart. So what is your from up.

Theresa 7:01
I’m sorry, Andy, but that was a first for me, I think because you were at Sam’s Club so I kind of figured out what you’re talking about, but I’ve never heard anyone use that.

Theresa 7:15
Maybe it isn’t maybe it’s a western Pennsylvania thing I don’t know.

Theresa 7:19
So it’s up.

Larry 7:21
Oh, the well when when I was in the south Wait, that’s what we thought when someone was sent out to do to get into buggies. I mean, that was what it is still commonly used. But other if you if you didn’t, if you weren’t familiar with that colloquial term, you think of a dune buggy made are but but it’s just not about as common outside the south, but we don’t want to spend a bunch of time on it. Just remember that our global audience they would not know what a buggy is. Interesting.

Andy 7:49
Well, Larry, here’s my question for you. And Teresa, feel free to chime in on this. Have you read the 800 page 2 trillion plus bill that just got signed?

Theresa 7:59
Absolutely not. Larry,

Larry 8:02
I thought you were directing that to Teresa.

Andy 8:04
No, I was directing. It’s both. He was like, No, just chime in whichever Have either of you read at all?

Larry 8:08
I wasn’t even aware that it had been released yet. I know that it’s rumored to be between eight, nine or maybe 1000 pages, but I have not read it. No, I haven’t.

Andy 8:19
And is it common Do you think for you know, and when we talk about decisions here on a pretty regular basis, or you know, laws, and there are a dozen pages, maybe something like that. Here’s 800 pages. And I recall in a massive legislation thing that happened maybe a decade a little bit more ago, and we don’t know what’s in this thing. And so do you think it’s pretty common that the legislators would not have read something of this magnitude upfront?

Larry 8:46
It is very common, and in fact, the process that they used on this statement as Bill was was, it did not afford itself too much time to read it. Because, remember, it started in the Senate. And then when it finally passed the Senate after, after lots of negotiations, the house was told you really need to pass it the way it is. And the all the negotiations meant changes were being made continuously up until the senate actually passed it. And then the house basically passed it the next day. So therefore, it would be almost virtually impossible for anyone who wanted to read 900 or 1000 pages. But it’s not uncommon at all. That was an unfair criticism that was leveled about the Affordable Care Act that no one had read it. No one reads any of this stuff in its entirety. You glance at the summary you grant glance at key parts of it that interest you, but federal legislation is extremely

Theresa 9:45
complex when

Larry 9:48
nobody reads it.

Theresa 9:49
Right. So it was the same with the the tax that the tax legislation, the tax cuts last year,

Andy 9:57
thousands of pages was that was it okay? Yeah. And then that is a comment will always come out of like, well, we’ll know what it does when it happens or, you know, something like that.

Larry 10:07
Well, that was a comment that was taken out of context with what, what was what Leader Pelosi said at the time. I think she was Speaker Pelosi at the time. But she said that, that Americans, once they found out what was in it, which what she was, what she was acknowledging is that most Americans, such a comprehensive piece of legislation would have no idea what was in it. But once they found out about the good points that were in it, like the precondition prohibition against not insuring, and the big aim to keep the student the household member to age 26. And there was many provisions in there that Americans and even Trump administration have decided that they support all of a sudden, but that was the context that was taken out of it. And when you when you’re politically opposing someone, it’s really fun to take something out of context and play it. Over and over again and that’s what they did that was that the opponents of that a federal takeover of health care and they did focus groups on that and that sounded really really good because I don’t want no federal takeover my health care and then they came up with that in the death panels and that that was all it was all a politically motivated thing about that people don’t read it and intellectually honest seldom does a piece of legislation get read by any member of Congress in its entirety they just can’t

Theresa 11:36
anything else to add Teresa?

Theresa 11:38
Nope. Sorry.

Theresa 11:41
This is Larry’s territory.

Andy 11:43
Oh, I totally know that but maybe you have something going on and I just want to make sure that you feel free to chime in anytime I don’t want you to feel left out what we’ll get to definitely stuff that’s in your in your neck of the woods here in just a minute.

Theresa 11:55
Yeah, good.

Larry 11:56
Well, let’s let’s let’s do a little bit more on the on the stainless bill because that wasn’t all I wanted? That wasn’t all I wanted to say. I, I, I think I support the stimulus bill. I don’t really know, because I don’t know what all is in it. I do know that we have an unprecedented crisis, and the government has exacerbated it with the lockdown. So not and again, I’m not saying that I’m criticizing any of the government decisions. But it’s one thing when the economy shuts down because of lack of demand or the credit crisis, and because of the bubbles that mean different bubbles that burst back in 2008 2009. It’s another thing when the economy is relatively firing on all cylinders. Doing performing quite well is when when a pandemic comes along, and you’re ordered to shut down and so I’m not going to criticize the stimulus per se. But what I would like to use this as a moment to educate people about how the process works, because one thing has driven me crazy through the years is that they All those who are the PFR. So for those listening for the first time this person is forced forced to register. There’s this constant criticism about how the various things like the the Adam Walsh Act in 2006, was passed without any debate in the middle of the die, and all these sinister things. And then they said the same thing when the international Vegas law passed in 2016. None of that was true. Just as if it is everything that happened with this, everything went exactly according to how the system was designed to work. They, for whatever reasons, Speaker Pelosi in the house decided that they weren’t going to be in DC and I don’t know what their reasons were. But since they weren’t in DC, and this crisis was unfolding, the leadership at the behest of the president wanted to put together an economics an economic package. And they started with talking about taking off social security taxes off payrolls for employers, that’s off to the individuals Then they move towards this broader package. And it was put together by the Republican leadership. And they put it forward and they couldn’t get it to the finish line to the Senate because of the rules of what we call cloture. Meaning you have to have 60 votes, which is a super majority of Republicans only have 53 votes. So therefore, they could not move. They’re originally designed Republican proposal to the finish line to the Senate without negotiating so therefore, when the democrats refused to join and closure on something that they had not had any input on. That was low, intense negotiations, the republicans wanted to have a less accountability for businesses and democrats did about the hundreds of billions of dollars. And the democrats wanted more to flow directly to workers like the extra a week of unemployment on top of your state benefits that you’re going to be receiving. And so we ended up with a negotiated package that passed the Senate 96 to nothing there since the house wasn’t in session. The question becomes how to pass it because it has to pass the House. And there’s a process called unanimous consent. And that means that of the four and 35 members of the House, if a single member disagrees with it, then they can’t, they can’t pass it by unanimous consent. And that’s a normal standard, appropriate parliamentary procedure, you can do that. When you’re having a meeting, you can say I move that we passed this by unanimous consent. And if one person on the board of directors or one person in that group raises their hand, then you get to have debate. Well, I anticipated and so did the talking heads at that base. Some people have opposition to that. So they weren’t able to pass it by unanimous consent. But unanimous consent is a process that exists to move things quickly, or there’s unanimous agreement. That’s why they call it unanimous consent. Why do you need to have a debate if everyone agrees that this is in the best interest of the nation? Well, there was a there was a representative from Northern Kentucky. That did not agree. That decided he wanted to stick his hand out and say I don’t agree with it. But spending this much borrowed money without having some discussions. So therefore they had to achieve a quorum in the house. They had to override his objections have the minimum amount of debate. And then they took a vote and they passed it. And now it has been signed by the President. There was nothing sinister about how this was done. There was nothing sinister about how they were ball shack was passed, there was nothing sinister about how international Megan’s Law passed with when it went or when it went to the process. And then it went back for concurrence to the house after the senate amended it they put the passport marker on as an amendment isn’t nothing sinister at all happened. That is the way the process was designed to work and it worked exactly the way it was designed.

Theresa 16:46
What about

Andy 16:49
from his point of view, or from the point of view of all the other people that had to then come back to, you know, a potentially infected area because there are people in Congress that are being tested positive and whatnot. You know, Mitt Romney was false. But Rand Paul tested positive. You know, now you’re putting these people directly in the path of having this done. Couldn’t they do it remotely? Couldn’t something like that go in place?

Larry 17:13
Well, the technologically Yes, it could be. But institutional rules change very slowly, because we have these long traditions of Halloween that they’re so certain about the decor of the house and the columns that are followed and the hair, you hear you and all this stuff. And so even though the technology exists, the house I mean, the television existed for a good I think about close to 40 years before we had cameras before, before we allowed cameras on the House of Representatives. I think television started in the 40s and it went to the late 70s before Steve spent at least 30 years. So so their rules don’t permit that apparently, to do the debate remotely, so they have to achieve a Physical quorum, so therefore enough members had to return. But this representatives named Thomas Massie, he was elected in 2012. And he promised that when he ran that he was going to be fiscally conservative. And he was not going to be signing off on deficit spending. And citizens of his district elected him. And he’s trying to keep true to his word. Now, make it clear, I could just about guarantee you without knowing anything about the guy, that I wouldn’t support much of anything that he stands for. Because I think it’s silly to think we can downsize the federal government to the size it would take to balance our budget. I’ve said that on this podcast. Therefore, I doubt that I would be in favor of hardly anything this man stands for. But I do favor that a person who runs for office and who gets elected on a platform that they be allowed to do what his conscience dictate. I think the President was wrong to tweet out about him being a third rate, Congressman, and he should be stripped of his membership in the Republican Party. And I think the democrats like john kerry, who was the candidate for president Secretary of State. I think Senator Kerry, Secretary Kerry was also wrong. The citizens of this district that he represents they will decide, and it’s not his fault that Congress decided to go home, the House of Representatives decided to go home. They didn’t have to go home. They could have stayed in DC and dealt with this crisis. The Senate stayed there. So we have to find out why they went home. And who actually caused the risk. It wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t representative Massey, Massey. He did make the decision to adjourn to recess the house.

Andy 19:32
I understand. I understand. Now, can we move on? Sure.

Larry 19:37
Thanks.

Theresa 19:40
Alright, so here’s a break like it’s always an educational opportunity. I hate to pass it up.

Andy 19:45
Oh, I know. I get it. That’s totally fine. Here is late breaking news.

You You drop this in on me just a few moments before the show and this is a may versus Ryan. And do you want to over what’s going on here.

Larry 20:03
We’re not going to spend a lot of time we’ve talked about it on previous podcasts for those long term listeners. And we just got this yesterday. So it truly is late breaking news. But it’s the case that narshall did an amicus submitted an amicus brief on some time back a couple years back maybe more than two years, but it’s been some time back. And the issues at the time were that, that the the sexual battery in Arizona did not require that the person that the state proved that they that they intended to commit that you’ve you can touch the person and commit the battery without having a sexual intent. And the person had to has to prove under Arizona law that they didn’t have a sexual intent to touch him was for a legitimate reason, reason. And so we felt that the burden shifting was unconstitutional. So we opined because the district judge on his heaviest claim had said that that statute was unconstitutional. We weighed in and said yes, the District Judge got it right. Well, unfortunately, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit didn’t see it that way. This is this is a very tragic outcome because he was convicted of five counts, sentenced to 15 years consecutive on each one. He was one of the rare people that got released from prison upon his habeas was pending because the judge issued immediate release forthwith. When he granted habeas relief. Back in 2017, the district judge did an unusual thing and said, release this man immediately. He’s been out for three plus years now. No problems. And the Ninth Circuit said nope.

Theresa 21:39
We extinguish your claim about the the burden shift and big constitutional because it was for close procedurally abandoned. And then they said, Your ineffective assistance of counsel is doesn’t fly because your counsel was very effective. He went to trial he was convicted. And the issue was the jury had deadlocked and then the They wish to reconvene and start deliberating after they had been dismissed. And neither party objected at the time and the two of the three judges on the appellate panel said, well, that’s an ineffective assistance. I mean, brilliant minds can disagree about whether you could let a jury continue to liberate and some people think it’d be in the best interest of the defendant to have the jury go on because they might be permanently deadlocked and he might get a mistrial and walk away, and a state may not retry him. So So ineffective assistance of counsel is a very tough thing to prove. And if any of our legal beagles read this opinion, it’ll be very helpful you to learn that it’s just almost impossible if your attorney is breathing, and then do anything that resembles defending you. They there’s broad latitude allowed for them to make decisions on terms of strategy. And you don’t get the benefit of hindsight to look back and say, Well, if he had if he clearly we know now that letting the jury Continued deliberating was not such a brilliant idea because they convicted him. Well, we didn’t know that at the time and the appellate review discourages looking back to see, because you didn’t know that information at the time. He thought it was a wise decision at the time. And he didn’t object.

Andy 23:16
That’s very complicated. Larian very nuanced.

Larry 23:18
It’s very sad. Also, we’ve gotten to know this, this person, and he’s been a thriving productive member of both the state chapter and Arizona, the National chapter. And he’s also been productively employed and doing quite well. And as the dissent dissenting judge pointed out, this probably means the rest of his life in prison because he’s not a spring chicken to begin with. And he’s got to finish on a 75 years and he’s only served 10. So whatever good time reductions they would be under Arizona law, which I don’t know. But if you’re already 4550 years old, and you’ve got 75 years to do, even if they give you a day for a good time, there’s a good chance that you might not survive prison and get out again.

Theresa 23:59
Yeah, too. He’s a good deal. I know him as well.

Theresa 24:03
Well, the only the only question is what do you do from here and as we’ve described as you, as you continue to appeal cases, the funnel, the spout gets narrower and narrower because doctrines continue to decline. He’s only got a couple more options now take him take him ask for full court review by the entire night circuit, which has over 20 judges more than 20 judges, they seldom grant that because everybody would want it. Or he can file a cert petition with US Supreme Court which they like grant about 1% of them. And those are all long shots or he can ask the governor of Arizona for clemency if they have that power, which we know that for a sexual offense, it would be a long shot even if the governor has that power. So so his options are very, very, very limited and very sad that this has come to this.

Andy 24:52
Very, very sad. Huh? Well, Teresa, if you would be so very kind you this got brought up just before we We started recording as well. And this is you guys had a press release that got published in relation to tell us about what’s going on here.

Theresa 25:08
Yeah, just found out about it. Wow. Yeah, just before we started this evening, so that the press release was picked up. So last week actually on this, we’re waiting. We have been waiting for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to issue opinions on five different cases. One that was heard in October for that were heard November argued, and the one that was argued in November was commonwealth of the butler. And that was the superior and that’s the one the press release was related to that. So the Pennsylvania Supreme Court released their decision last week, and we were very unhappy about it. Because they did not rule in the appellants favor, basically the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. This the this person had argued that the SDP designation in Pennsylvania was unconstitutional using arguments from mew knees to and the Superior Court agreed with him. So that was a great win. However, it was appealed and went to the Supreme Court and there and, and they’ve, they’ve reversed that decision so the Superior Court applied meanies the the Supreme Court says that the Superior Court applied munities incorrectly because s VPS are a separate class. And the Supreme Court said in their opinion incorrectly, that because studies show that s VPS are much more likely to recidivate that they are a significant danger to society. And so it’s not punitive, it’s a collateral consequence. So that that ruling just came out last week. And we were very excited. We sent a press release out. And just before this, this podcast, we found learn that at least one of the outlets has picked it up. So that’s good. Getting a voice. And they were they I read it quickly before, before we started and it looks like they did a good job in terms of presenting what we put out there. So. So that’s the butler case, nonetheless, my understanding so some of the folks that parcel have talked with two attorneys in the state who are allies. And they agree that the language that was in this particular opinion is pretty favorable in terms of how the Supreme Court might be leaning in these other four cases that are coming up. That they’re they’re thinking That these, these next opinions that are released, hopefully within the next month or so, all the well, three of them challenge the constitutionality of SORNA to in Pennsylvania one of them is challenging civil commitment for minors in Pennsylvania. But the three that are looking at SORNA to it appears that the language in the butler opinion might be a little bit of a hint that it that those three will come out in our favor.

Andy 28:37
Do you want to chime in anything that

Larry 28:39
I didn’t get the opportunity to read it so I probably wouldn’t be able to add anything to what Theresa said. And congratulations to getting your press release. That’s one of the cover. That’s once one thing that we really strive is to get the media to discussing and contacting us to ask us for our viewpoint rather than just go into the prosecution. First go to the law enforcement apparatus. So congrats on that.

Theresa 29:04
Yeah, thanks. Getting a voice.

Andy 29:06
Yeah, just a quick roll back. What is an SVP again?

Theresa 29:10
Yeah, so sexually violent predator. So in the state of Pennsylvania the sob sex sex sex offense assessment board has a process by which they determine whether or not anyone who has been convicted of a sexual crime is a sexually violent predator. We have serious problems with that process and and don’t believe that, that the way risk is determined in this state is indicative of whether or not someone actually is a sexually violent predator or not. But that’s another story all together. So that’s what the term is.

Andy 29:54
Okay. And is that a standard there is that a standard that applies equally across All of our 75 states,

Larry 30:02
which senator has added and

Andy 30:05
determining who is or isn’t an SVP?

Larry 30:07
Well, every state doesn’t have a sexually violent predator. We don’t have such a creature here.

Andy 30:13
So right out of the gate, the answer is no,

Larry 30:15
because the answer is no. And then some some state Some states have a process by which it’s determined through the court, which Pennsylvania does not show the court. The the they have to have a hearing against them due process that I’m sure it’s flawed, but but it doesn’t just automatically do so a B doesn’t have the final say. So according to my understanding that it has to be it has to be determined by the court after they’ve had a hearing. Is that correct?

Theresa 30:39
Yes, it’s but but basically, they rely heavily on the

Larry 30:43
well, they’re not experts on the subject matter, but there is a due process adversarial proceeding where they where they have judicial review.

Theresa 30:51
There, there is a due process but the actual of the actually Butler originally in the Superior Court challenge Due processes as being flawed, and it was after Butler after the superior court’s decision, it was determined that they they should have that this should be determined beyond a reasonable doubt which which it is not.

Larry 31:20
So. Well, I agree with you on the due processes. It’s kind of like the the risk system in Arkansas that exists to give someone the level one through four. It’s not it’s not a perfect process. They go through an assessment process at Pine Bluff. And then there is there is a due process. It’s always flawed because the offenders never provided the resources that they need. The standards are usually too murky in terms of who bears the burden, and it leaves it leaves the court in an alert if they if they find if it’s a decision by a judge. And if the judge has to be elected like they are in Arkansas, It’s better to to err on the side of caution.

Theresa 32:03
It’s not the assessor process.

Larry 32:06
The processes are are not going to be, they’re not going to be perfect. But But what due process doesn’t mean a perfect process.

Theresa 32:17
I agreed the one of the reasons it’s a I think a big issue here in Pennsylvania is because there isn’t consistency number one, in terms of, of the assessment processes. And the other thing is the restrictions on people with that designation, are pretty horrendous people in Pennsylvania who have an SDP designation, are required to go to mandated counseling for the rest of their lives.

Theresa 32:46
I assume that they pay for it too, right?

Theresa 32:48
Yeah, yeah, they pay for it too. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, as a therapist, I can tell you that there’s a saturation. You know, when ethically we should not be providing services, someone who’s not benefiting. And if there’s a saturation point, you would Yeah, but you’re there. you’re required to be there. Even though you can no law, you’ve already reap all the benefits you can from this process. Nonetheless, for the rest of your life, you’re in treatment.

Andy 33:17
I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go too far down this rabbit hole. But can we go there for a minute about like the treatment providers and getting paid and releasing them? And the what’s the word that conflict of interest in letting someone go from your revenue stream?

Theresa 33:31
I’m sure I mean, I’ve I don’t, I am not. Actually, I’m not even licensed. I’m licensed in another state. And I don’t provide mandated treatment. So I’m not in that in that realm. I am a member of that. But that is focused mainly on therapy that I provide to maps minor attracted persons who have not offended as well as research that I’ve done. for dealing with people who are on the registry, so I’m not in a position I’m kind of hemming and hawing. Because I don’t I don’t have real specifics in term and what I know about what goes on in terms of this, you know, treatment. And the revenue stream is from the, you know, from my work it with parcel and what I hear from people in the states who are on the registry and the fact that magically, people can successfully complete treatment when their probation ends, or in the case of an SVP, they die. It and that’s just not individualized treatment. So I can’t help but think that, you know, one person might be in treatment for six months and somebody else for seven years. You know if that person was in treatment for seven years and then with the paperwork is all signed off, the treatment plan is completed this person completed successfully. And it happened to be the week before they were released from probation or parole. However, my if that person had been released from probation or parole after two years, they would have completed after two years. So I mean, that’s, that makes me go, huh, you know, kind of things that make it go Hmm. So I mean, I don’t have any, any inside knowledge but, and I will say this, though, I have heard from folks in the community too, who have that there are some some people out there who are really happy with their providers, and one in particular, who’s actually a partial board member who was in a very, I would say sketchy treatment program and was kicked out He this particular person is a designated SVP. And he is not on paper. So he’s not on parole or probation, but he is because he has an SVP required to go to therapy for the rest of his life. Our our state law says that you must go to therapy at least once a month, and his provider insisted that he go every week for the rest of his life. And he, part of the treatment agreement was that no one is allowed to be on any social media. And this particular person had a Facebook account, and the treatment provider found out about it and kicked him out of the program. He lives in a relatively rural part of the state and that provider was the only provider available. If he had not found another provider, he would have had to go back to jail even though his he was not a pro probation, but because he was a an SVP, he would have had to continue or continue therapy, if and he didn’t, he would, he would that he would go back to jail. So he ended up finding a provider that was quite a distance away, he had to, he still does have to travel to get to that provider, but he’s quite happy. Because that particular provider provides services that are pretty state of the art. He focuses on good lives model and the whole person as opposed to the relapse prevention model that is so popular in this country. And so, uh, you know, I don’t want to, but what I’m saying is like, just like anything else, there’s a continuum, you know, in terms of quality of provision, and, and I’m sure that there are some providing services in a way that has nothing to do with when somebody happens to not be in parole probation anymore. And when they’ve actually, you know, reaped all the benefits they can possibly reap. Nonetheless, it doesn’t make it. Okay. That the other end of the spectrum,

Andy 38:06
I think we can move on to our normal content. I think I think I think, and one of the main reasons why I wanted to have Teresa on is because so many of our people are even extra impacted, while at the same time better prepared for this whole lockdown for everybody. But I wanted to get the specific insight from Theresa on dealing with the different levels of stress for registrants in general, but now also with Cova 19. And maybe some of these things can apply to quote unquote, normal people, as you know.

Theresa 38:41
Yes, absolutely.

Larry 38:44
The first article,

Andy 38:46
I happen to be listening to a tech podcast where I found this and the title is is how a futurist copes with uncertainty. And I hear this woman speaking quite often and she’s pretty stellar. She does advisement Work for large companies. And she put together a very Beginner’s Guide to dealing with trying to figure out like pros and cons of things or pit this idea against another idea, Larry, I think you do this naturally, when you’re trying to analyze the strategy behind looking at bill like we’ve talked a bajillion times about the the Georgia case with the with the signs, and what is their next move going to be just always trying to plan out your next chess, move your next chess, move your next chess move, so that you can you can see what’s coming down the pike and nothing ever then surprises you? Well, of course they were going to do this. And I was really intrigued by this article, in that it described how just different ideas, different scenarios that you could use for pitting the different elements of things against each other.

Larry 39:49
Are you are you wanting my comments are Teresa’s because she’s the expert on this. So

Andy 39:54
all of the above I want to because because you Larry are certainly adept at planning ahead. You know, we’ve talked about why weren’t the hospital administrators prepared for all of these things? And it seems like you could build a matrix of knowing what’s coming down the pike. And of course, Teresa being the expert in the field and dealing with people as as clients that you have specific examples of dealing with the various stresses that are related to the registry.

Theresa 40:18
Right, with uncertainty. Yeah, I mean, why don’t you begin? Well, I will tell you like one of the things when I looked at that article that struck me was this, there’s a focus on the preparation. And I can’t talk about you know, preparing for the pandemic, but in terms of people preparing for dealing with the uncertainty, uncertainty that’s related in this pandemic. I mean, that’s a very skillful thing for any of us to do to kind of look ahead, think about what might happen and what we need to be prepared for that just makes common sense and in terms of our own well being mental health as well as health, health. Ever, I think that it’s equally important as important for folks to kind of do that. And then move on, not move on. But move back, move back into the present moment. A lot of the folks that I’m have worked with this past week, who are having difficulty are having difficulty because they’re trying to prepare for the unknown. And they want all the answers and we’re not going to have the answers and we can’t do it. And that just increases our stress. So being able to reasonably Kind of, yeah, I need a couple weeks of food in the house. I need to make sure that I’m I have a the ability to contact my mother on a regular basis to check in and make sure she’s okay with it. Whatever it is, like we think about that stuff. We have our little plan. And we’re not going to cover all the bases. But in order for us to be able to feel as calm as possible under these really trying situations. really be in this present moment. Right? So I think we need to find a balance between preparation and living our lives in this moment.

Andy 42:10
Very interesting, Larry, describe, if you would, how you look at things like from policy point of view from a politics point of view and start pitting that against how you strategize out and try and reduce uncertainty in dealing with legislature or even in your own life personally.

Larry 42:29
Well, my my by nature, my DNA is to imagine, always imagine what can happen and then I’ll assign it a probability factor. If I had been asked to imagine a global pandemic, since I’m not an expert by any means this I wouldn’t have been able to have imagined something that’s that’s locked down the society the normal way we have, it has to us both what I would have been able to imagine and I’m disappointed that it Wasn’t imagined would have been in terms of preparation for the basics, we were not going to be able to justify having millions of respirators and ventilators available because they’re just too expensive. And when we have so many competing things for, for our limited public financing, we’re not going to be able to justify that, nor can we expect the hospital to have that. But what what, what does stress me a little bit is that, that basic things are not that expensive. They don’t have to don’t have the degradation of quality would be like, I’m wondering when, when hospitals simulate reasonably expectations of what could happen, you would think that they would model out if all the staff walked off the job one day that they would model that out, they would model out what would happen if the primary source of power went down? What would happen if the water got contaminated in their city because you still need to keep treating patients if the water gets contaminated for terrorists but something in the reservoir so you think They would model out that and you think they would model out things like, like surgical gowns and face mask and basic stuff. Again, how far do you take that? And where do you take your models and what could happen versus the cost? that that that would be required to prepare for that? surgical mask? facemask and surgical gowns are not that expensive, and they last quite some time. So you think that we wouldn’t be having this shortage because you think hospital administrators would have thought about having backup supplies, it’s the most basic stuff. And that’s what I think a job of a hospital administrator is and then we’ve been told that locals are so much more brilliant than those bureaucrats up in Washington DC. And therefore, I’m a little disappointed that I hear so much criticism of the administration. And I hear so little self critique and criticism of the local officials about what they should have done because my hometown over in Newton County, Georgia, they have they have a nice General Hospital about 100 beds. They have a Board of County Commissioners and a city administration. And they could have provided for provisions. And I’m sure the town would have been more than happy to count, it would have been more than happy to help them store up provisions that would have been needed in the event, our just in time inventory system of America, if the supply chain just got broken. So I’m a little disappointed in that stuff. But what I try to do is to try to imagine from a political point of view, or from an adversary point of view, if I’m in litigation, I tried to look at what I would do if I were representing the other side. If I were arguing the other side, and I try to imagine everything that they could come up with because I assume I’d have never assumed I’m smarter than the rest of the world. I assume that anything I can think of so can they, if I can think of it, it’s a concern, because if I thought of it, they’re probably going to be able to think of it. So that’s what I do is I go through all these, all these scenarios. If I were trying to pose this legislation, what would I do to kill it if it’s something we’re for and the other way around? If I’m trying to pass something on their side, what would they what would their logical moves be to try to do to us and get past our opposition. And I do a lot of imagining of what could happen and to consternation a lot of our listeners, because I end up making comments about in case of Pennsylvania when the when the when the decision came down, and munez, I had one of the loyal supporters up there really irate saying the hell out and I raised a little straw but very, very distressed, that I would say that they would do everything they could to protect the registration, including appealing it, including pass a new statute, that’s exactly what I would do. If I were in their position. If I had their job to do that’s exactly what I would do. It doesn’t require genius to figure this stuff out. If you’ve got a mob mentality out there that wants to keep the registry alive, and your existence depends on you also have a family to feed and you have a job to do. You would try to figure out a way to keep the registry alive because that’s where the people are. So it didn’t take a genius to figure that out. It’s like Ted Turner said when they asked him how he knew there was demand for news outside the standard network news cycles. He said, because everybody can’t make those. Those times he said, it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. So I don’t consider anything I figure out to be to be anywhere near approaching genius level. It’s just to me a basic knowledge of putting yourself in the other, the other other side’s position, and knowing what their concerns are. And when you do that, it’s really not that hard.

Andy 47:28
Teresa, and you have some tools that you wanted to talk about in helping people get prepared for different levels of uncertainty, not just registrants. But normal folks.

Theresa 47:39
Yeah, I’m not sure about being prepared for different levels of uncertainty. It’s just kind of being able to deal with to lean into the uncertainty that we have. Right now to take. You know, we’re all in this together, but it’s a lot tougher for some others. You know where we have this in Jeff and it’s social isolation, Panic of scarce resources, panic over information overload folks who are on the registry, some this they’ve been dealing with all along anyway. And now it’s exaggerated for for many, especially the social isolation piece and you know if, if I read this to you earlier, Andy if it’s okay, do you mind if I read this statement that I got, guys, so, so one of the one of the folks in Pennsylvania who’s on the registry, sent me an email in the chat. And he had this to say, which I thought was really interesting and very insightful. Brilliant actually is the word I used when I first came to me when I first read it. So he says, As a side note, I’m curious how the average Joe citizen likes living the way most of us have to live all the time. can’t work. must stay at home unless you have a valid reason to go out, do not associate with others, and people constantly afraid you will somehow infect them, which I just thought was just dead on. So on some levels, people who are on the registry are more prepared already to deal with this because we’ve had to, had to deal with it anyway, on on some level, but at the same time, it just, it also adds an extra layer for some people and their social isolation. So we crave social contact the same way we crave food. Our brains neurologically are designed to crave social connection as well. And that’s something people on the registry and many people have had to deal with. That, that isolation and not getting what they need is and then now there’s an even an extra life. On that some, it’s harder for some folks than for others. So even so, so moving forward and trying to be as intentional as we possibly can be, to get that social connection that we need in these uncertain times. And then terms of preparation, again, I’m going back to, there’s only so much we can prepare for as individuals. And we, you know, I don’t know about you, but I know at my house, we’re all every day or two, we’re kind of backing up and regrouping because there’s some new news or some new direction and some way that that we’ve got to as a group kind of get together and figure out okay, how are we going to deal with this? So so we do that as it arises. We have not like Larry said, I mean, I never would have imagined that I’d be in this position in this moment and was not prepared. What happened. Matter of fact, I got off I went to Brazil, I went to Brazil and, and five days into my 10 day trip, I found out my flight home was canceled. I didn’t, I didn’t dissipate that, and had to rush to the airport at three, three hours to get a flight back. And I was lucky enough to get it I, I got I got home five days after I left and was like in shock, like What in the world happened while I was gone? You know, everything was different in five days when I got back and I didn’t anticipate and wasn’t prepared for any of that. Nonetheless, I you know, had to deal with it. So it’s it rather than thinking that we can be prepared for this unknown, thinking, coming up with what we can but also continuing to bring ourselves in the moment like okay, this is it. I’m not prepared for this. I didn’t see this coming but here I am. In this moment, what can I do? That’s going to accommodate what I need, or what the people around me need as much as possible. So, um, so that’s, you know, in preparation, I see I do what we can, but mostly we need to be prepared to deal with the present moment with what comes up.

Theresa 52:21
So, how do you,

Andy 52:23
how do you? Yeah, but how do you know the questions to ask? And like my neighbor, he unloaded on me just a handful of days ago, he is, you know, just barely above minimum wage. He’s just a pizza delivery person, which is got to be just about the worst job you could have. Because you are forced to go to random people’s houses and hand them stuff and they’re gonna touch your equipment. You know, you have a pen or whatever. And he’s, like, unloading on me. And he’s telling me that I’m the problem because I’m not sympathetic. And I’m like, dude, I’m asking if you need food or money or toilet paper if you need anything, and I’m the one that’s unsympathetic, and even him. He knows myself. Situation all this stuff but he doesn’t have the tool set available to him to figure out what is overboard like going like maybe I don’t think you’re going to catch coronavirus by someone touching your pen for them to sign the check. And you take it back and if you then carefully and you sanitize it, I personally no medical expert, but I don’t think that puts you at risk.

Theresa 53:19
Yeah, well, actually it does. Um, the corona virus can live. I would be I would be uptight about handing a pen back to someone all day. So, but But anyway, to your question, what’s important is so is is to is to let people feel whatever it is they’re feeling and and be in this place where there is there’s no right or wrong way to feel in all this. So, basically validating what someone feels. So if someone is like, you know, I’m really uptight. You know, I have to talk to these people every day. I’m passing my pen back and forth. It’s simply not asking a question, but simply, but simply connecting with them. And by saying something like, that must be really hard for you, I can tell that you’re really feeling anxious about that. So basically validating one another. We’re all going through different things. I go through different things at different times during every day. And, and, and I think most of the people most of us do, we kind of go back and forth, depending on what thoughts and emotions are rising in any given moment. But what’s important is that we’re able to, to validate not only our own feelings, it’s okay to be afraid in this mode. You know, it’s okay to feel. I mean, there are people I’ve talked with who also were offended people because they were making you know, Cova 19th jokes. Well, you know, it’s okay to make jokes. Just Be careful who you make them with and make sure they’re there. Their jokes that are funny and not at anyone’s expense. As a 65 year old, I’ve heard a few that are at the expense of, of senior citizens. And while there some, many of them are clever, they’re not. They are a little unsettling as well. So

Theresa 55:22
you’re not ready to just sacrifice yourself for the

Theresa 55:25
same. Why not quite

Andy 55:28
know you’re old as Methuselah, are you ready to sacrifice yourself for the economy?

Larry 55:32
Well, I’m not sure. I’m not sure that I want to at this point. And it’s, it’s the thing, that from what we’re hearing those who have complications, the complications are significant in terms of the discomfort of being on the ventilator and that, you know, death is a certainty for all of us. But the, the the fear, most at least for me, I know the fear is not the death but the fear is how the death will come about. Dr Kevorkian so learner with us, so we don’t, we don’t get to check out on our own terms right now.

Andy 56:06
That’s true. That’s true. Um, anything else that you wanted to dive in there, Teresa before we move on to some of these other articles?

Theresa 56:13
Um, so I mean, in terms of cover, I mean, I really want to make sure that people are taking care of themselves, you know. So we know that people on the registry many can access internet right now. The general population is using social media and all kinds of resources on the internet to stay connected with others. And it would encourage me to watch Broadway plays online for free. There’s Netflix party going on now. Free Online classes, at universities, all kinds of things that we can do online to stay connected and to do it with other people. But there are other people on the registry who don’t have access to the internet. Either. Because of a restriction because of probation or parole, or because they don’t have the resources to be able to afford the internet or a device that will help them do that. So, you know, just encouraging people to do what they can, in terms of maintaining their normal routine as normal as possible, getting up at a decent hour getting dressed, not laying around in your pajamas, minimizing news consumption. So if we take in too much of this stuff, it’s just going to take us down. So staying informed, again, finding the balance, stay informed, but just enough to stay informed, not continually reading the news, about about the virus, organizing our living space. So when our external environment is all kind of chaotic and messy, it makes our in insights chaotic and messy to starting new rituals, learning, you know, I talked with somebody who’s decided he’s going to learn to speak speak Japanese so every day he you know, part of his daily ritual is he, he takes takes an hour and, and is starting to learn to speak Japanese, we’re doing art, you know, let your soul speak. There is a lot going on in terms of emotions that there that language just fall short. But we can if we use creative mediums like watercolors or messing around with some clay or just creating something, it really the process kind of opens up some of the emotional stuff that’s stuck inside of us. So those kinds of things. Um, I think most people are going to make it through here these days but these tough days we have coming but some aren’t. And I if it’s okay with you. I wanted to like just provide some information about crisis where people could reach out for crisis. If If this is too tough. For them, there is a disaster helpline that’s specifically related to Kovac 19. On the samsa site, um, and I believe I’m gonna just pass that information on to you or I can say it now it’s up to you, Larry, or, Andy. No, that’s it.

Andy 59:18
Okay, so numbers and websites.

Theresa 59:19
Yep, you can call the disaster helpline for Cova 19. The samsa line is 800-985-5990. Or you can text the words we’ll all all together, no spaces, talk with us to the number 66746. Talk with us. 266746. And then there’s the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Their number is 800-273-8255. They have an online chat chat. And you can get there at by going to suicide prevention lifeline.org backslash chat, backslash, and you can contact them by texting ta lk talk to 741741. I also, you know I mentioned about being in the moment, a bunch of times. I think it’s really important. And there are meditation apps and apps, mindful apps, mindfulness apps that are free. Insight timer is one calm is another ca lm they’re both excellent. They have thousands of, of practices on there anywhere from five minutes to 25 minutes if, if you’re interested. They’re also to two websites. Self compassion.org meditations we need, this is a time we need To be very pro social, not just with ourselves but with everyone else. There’s, you know, kindness and compassion, the sensitivity to our suffering with a desire to alleviate and prevent it goes a long, long way, in terms of our being able to tolerate the difficult, so there’s compassionate mind foundation in the United Kingdom. I didn’t write that website down. I’ll send it to you, Andy. But you can go to self compassion.org and they have self compassion, meditations.

Theresa 1:01:36
guided meditations.

Andy 1:01:39
Yeah, antastic that all sounds really great.

Theresa 1:01:41
It is good stuff.

Andy 1:01:43
Well, we will move on and cover our normal battery of articles. And the first one is going to come from law 360 federal prisons can send more inmates home, but will they? Larry, I think that you’ve said that the other nations are sending their folks on and I think we have some article are talking about it but the US never quite seems to figure out how to do this.

Larry 1:02:04
Not in a number set, other nations are doing it. And what I would encourage the Attorney General actually directed to the Attorney General The United States is oil bar directed the bureau presence, which is, which is within the Department of Justice. So he DLP director reports to the attorney general has directed them to to be more aggressive and who they who they released, they’ve had these powers always for a long time. Not always but for a long time. But we have the timidity factor. And this administration doesn’t have to be as concerned about the timidity factor because this administration has the ARB before their name, and they’re not going to get vilified as much as you are. If you have a D. and you make a mistake. And you can look back at Willie Horton and when the when hw ran against governor Dukakis in 88. How he got Willie was it He got vilified for Willie Horton. Horton having a furlough in the state of Massachusetts and committed a crime. But I would encourage this administration, you’re not going to get vilified. If you send 10s of thousands of people home. It’s inevitable, statistically, someone is going to mess up. Go ahead and be honest and accept that that someone will mess up. But then let’s adopt a law enforcement. What they say, Don’t judge 23,000 that you sent home by the 17th that mess up? Yeah, let’s deal with the 17. That’s what the cops say don’t judge the 10s of thousands of good officers, by the few does of it screw up and I agree with them. But let’s apply that across the board. Let’s go ahead and be aggressive and be on the safe side and put these people in an early release on electronic control. halfway houses writing such thing left out there because they’re probably also in the same position. But let’s get these people out of these confined institutions, which we’re going to talk about later. We got some pictures coming up from California. But go ahead and do it. You’re not going to get vilified for it. Take some change, you’re

Andy 1:04:16
nuts. But you’re not talking about somebody that gets, you know, convicted of murder yesterday to say, Oh, we got this virus you go home tomorrow. You’re talking about people that are they’ve been there a while they’ve proven some kind of track record. Maybe they’re at that front end of where they’re, they could be released on parole, maybe like, hey, extend that out to more people. You just mentioned like electronic monitoring. Like there there are tools in place that could be used to figure out what people could be sent home. They’re just not doing

Larry 1:04:46
well. I will I would, I would probably not be as selective as you’re talking about. If it’s the right circumstances or present, I would even consider people that were recently I would consider sending Harvey Weinstein out because he’s medically fragile I know that the victims advocates are going to probably burn my house down tonight when they hear this. But But he has probably a death sentence now and that wasn’t his sentence. his sentence was confinement. And we can terrify him without having him in the danger zone that he’s in that

Theresa 1:05:21
there’s an article. This is not not confirmed. There’s a couple Harvey Weinstein’s stuff Weinstein has tested positive for kovat 19.

Larry 1:05:32
Yes, we have that event listed as one of the articles. We have that, but I would I would be. What I’m trying to get across is this administration has political capital, because a won’t be vilified by the democratic side. If some people mess up. And if they do mess up, we will say, well, we did it on the side of humanity being compassionate trying to keep an epidemic from spreading, but then all killing thousands of people. As I present, we made the best decision we thought we could at the time. And we knew at the time we made the decision that some people were going to mess up. But those subs, that small number that messed up, we’re dealing with them. Just exactly what the police say that you should do. When they mess up. You deal with that police officer. You don’t you don’t vilify the entire police force because of the bad one bad apple.

Andy 1:06:26
I’m constantly intrigued by that idea. I my whole notion of what I think of police officers Now I know that when when someone is knocking on my door telling me that they’re going to perform bodily harm to me, I’m going to dial 911 and expect the police to show up and I would thank them and kiss their feet as they show up. But at the same time, I see them driving around, I see them turn on their lights and drive through red light or they they speed down a road. You know, I’ve just they do that because they can and I’m not saying they all do it but you could just see it on a very regular basis that there’s a certain amount of scope creep of them. The abuse of power and I’m kind of off the topic a little bit, but I just constantly see that go by.

Larry 1:07:06
So well of this on this federal prison. They go ahead and act aggressively, take some chances. Do what we have to be at least as smart as Iran is.

Theresa 1:07:19
And they’ve they’ve sent 10s of thousands of pounds,

Andy 1:07:22
wasn’t it? 50 I saw a bozo. jailers ad

Theresa 1:07:26
wasn’t at 80,000 and they’re sending more. I mean, their particular hard hit, but

Andy 1:07:31
solder keg of having people like locked inside of a box and they’re like, they will all just I don’t know if they’ll all die, but I mean, that’s it. I keep thinking of horror movies where something gets spread around and just mass pandemonium and we have you know, people are dying and riots breaking out. It’s just horrible.

Larry 1:07:47
So, but I’m hoping that there’ll be more aggressive than so far I’ve seen the indication that they’ve got, we’ve got a county jail here with 15 to 1700 people and they were all proud of themselves. They released 12 people Know that least a dozen inmates really you think that’s gonna make a difference that will make a difference for those 12? If they’re vulnerable they are. They’re the happy lucky ones who got out of the power kick. So it makes all the difference in the world with them and their families. But in terms of 1700 they’re still there. They did

Theresa 1:08:15
not. Yeah, I heard from a mother of someone who’s prison today. she, her son has been approved to be paroled in August. And she’s wondering why it is. He can’t get out now, given the threat and the risk of being imprisoned. Now with this virus spreading what would stand in the way of folks moving forward with something like that, Larry?

Theresa 1:08:46
Well, I don’t know that I don’t know the system and PA well enough, but what what I’ve what I’ve given as advice is that even though you don’t have the power to do something, you can do it anyway in a health crisis and Unless there’s a challenge mounted and like, for example, we’ve got a primary coming up here. There’s there’s all this talk about what to do about the primary. And I said, Well, to me, it’s not a complicated thing at all. Have the governor asked the Secretary of State to issue a proclamation saying that based on the powers that that that she believes he has based on a public health crisis, that that we’re going to postpone the primary. And unless there’s a challenge asserted in court, then it would stand even though they don’t technically have the power. And I’m not asking for people to go out and just invent their own law. And in fact, we’re filing lawsuits in Georgia for that very reason. But this requires, legislators are not in session so we can’t have the legislature of New Mexico run to Santa Fe. And make a law saying that the primary can be postponed, just do it. Do what the captain did. That was saving the Indianapolis one All those men were in the shark infested waters. And he turned on the lights on his vessel and said, until we can get these men out of the water, we’re going to be a sitting target for all the German subs that are out there ready to fire on us. And he took a chance, he would have been court martialed, and he would have been vilified if his ship had been suck, but he just did it. And that’s what we need to do here. Just do it. So Theresa, I don’t know if they have the power to move up his release date. But just do it.

Theresa 1:10:33
Simple and if nobody challenges it, you had the power.

Andy 1:10:36
Isn’t this then like the the representative in Northern Kentucky that we talked about a few minutes ago? You know, if if these people start releasing all you know, the torrent of all the prisoners, whatever, then they’re going to pay the price, you know, come the next election cycle and they don’t want to face that risk.

Theresa 1:10:54
That’s exactly what the timidity is. So they simply say, well, we don’t have the power Well, in extraordinary situations, I mean, we have a lot of case law, including when the US Supreme Court said the internment of Japanese was okay. In a national emergency. We’ve got we’ve, since we don’t have a lot of case law in terms of pandemics in terms of what powers I can’t imagine a court saying, You can’t release these people put them back in jail. I don’t see that happening. So just have courage and do it. Do it responsibly. But do it quickly.

Andy 1:11:34
Because one of the articles that we have is from WP war and it’s mostly just a little five minute audio clip and there’s more than 50 inmates in New York, Rikers Island, the jail complex there. What did we determine last week late is it 15,000 people are there

Larry 1:11:49
originally constructed in the 1930s

Andy 1:11:51
right and so they have 50 inmates and if this explodes if this you know if one person can transmit it easily to 20 or 30 or 50 people 50 people expands exponentially at a very fast rate, you end up with 15,000 people have it probably in a matter of two days or something like that.

Larry 1:12:09
And then the question becomes of those we know that everybody doesn’t die. We know that from from from the global experience. But what we don’t know is how many people will die that didn’t have to that’s that we’ll find out later at the end of this, if we don’t take any action. And I would rather be on the side of taking precautions and trying to keep people from dying, they were not sentenced to death. We need to always remember that.

Andy 1:12:32
And so Brenda just said, I spent suspect it’s too late most jails and prisons to stop the spread, which I would completely 100% agree with you. And then the next logical step would be that the prison medical system doesn’t have the capacity at all to handle this kind of thing. So and I wouldn’t say that the civilian sector is able to do with it, but they probably can do better than what the prison has. So we’re back to the same thing of letting people go on a more aggressive posture than not letting them go.

Larry 1:13:00
So well. Yeah. And when you mentioned parole, just we were talking about the federal what the Attorney General bar hit. We don’t have parole, the federal system, they abolished at 1984. So what we have is you serve all your time, less than 50% good time that you can earn in any year. And then the

Andy 1:13:18
file is gone slightly outside of his control to even say, hey, look, I’m issuing an executive.

Theresa 1:13:24
They have they have four they have provisions for frail inmates and for medically infirm today compassionate release, I have various things that he’s asking them to look more liberally. But I’m saying, Mr. Attorney General, even if you go a step further than what you think you have the authority for, no one on our side is going to vilify you. You only have to look,

Larry 1:13:46
just look at this.

Theresa 1:13:49
We’re not going to file anything because you’ll let too many people out. We’re not going to claim you’re turning loose a tidal wave of crime on the United States like they did President Obama when he tried to get some people out of prison. We’re not going to do that, just do it, and you’ll be fine. Some people will mess up, go ahead and announce that that you expect of these 26,000 that you released that there will be some people who mess up. And we’ll do what we do to the cops that mess up. And the cops will support us because they believe that you should judge each individual and not the whole group. So we let 23,000 prisoners out of the federal system, and 17 mess up. The cops would of course say we’ll deal with those 17 messed up, we don’t paint the whole 23,000 but that brush, I would be very confident they would say that because that’s what they tell us to say about them. That that’s the way we’re supposed to look at them when they mess up.

Andy 1:14:40
You don’t think the victims advocates would rise up and challenge any of the state problems

Theresa 1:14:43
they probably would win a debate forum with the victims advocates were say we need to say what I just said they were not sentenced to die.

Andy 1:14:51
And they weren’t sentenced to be treated cruelly either they were sentenced to be confined and have lots of liberties and stuff like that.

Larry 1:14:58
And then they They can have severe restrictions on their liberty outside the walls of the prison. that’s a that’s a misnomer that you can’t have, that you can’t people can be punished horrendously and not be behind prison walls.

Andy 1:15:10
Moving up to the NBC article, the one thing that says in there in the subtitle of it, it says that they would release temporarily 70,000 people would, would the provisions in the federal statute be like, hey, you can go home for a month, two months, whatever, while we resolve these issues, but you’re gonna report back to this institution, you know, come June 1, or something like that. What’s your

Larry 1:15:33
which article are you looking

Andy 1:15:34
at? I’m looking at the NBC News one, it says Corona virus prompts prisoner releases around the world. You’re smoking some funny weed again?

Larry 1:15:42
Oh, yeah. Nope, nope. Nope. I see. That NBC. So yeah, that that was the one where it talks about countries that are releasing people far more aggressively than than we are here in the US.

Andy 1:15:55
Yeah, totally. But so there in the subtitle, it says that they’re temporarily freed, do you think that we would send our people home and then say, hey, come back to prison at some point, you would

Theresa 1:16:07
want to play a bit better? It would depend on the posture of their sentence. Since we have in the federal system now, we’re focusing exclusively on the federal system at the moment. Since we already have that for the final component of your federal prison. You’re supposed to get some halfway house time as a community release time anyway. If they weren’t within that zone, of course, they wouldn’t go back to prison. I don’t think if they if they stayed out long enough that they were that they would have been released anyway. But someone who was serving a much longer period of time when this crisis goes by, unless the president decides to commit their sentences. Yes, they would go by to prison. It’d be unfortunate, but that’s what would happen.

Andy 1:16:42
Yeah. Because it’s just such a hostile environment for this kind of situation. Being in prison. It’s just so hostile for humans to be around this virus.

Larry 1:16:51
Well, I would I would say that that that if we let 10,000 out for this emergency And the emergency abates within a year. And only 24 of those people have messed up that perhaps we could look at going ahead and shorten their sentences, because I think they would have proven themselves to some degree. Now, that would be a really aggressive posture. But again, this administration can do things because of that they would never jeopardize the US citizens security. It’s kind of like we’ve had this discussion before. Republicans, conservatives can do things that that that liberals can’t do. And then vice versa, it works the other way. Also, no republican president could have ever signed the welfare reform bill that Bill Clinton signed in 1996. Because if a republican had dare sign that they would have vilified him to know when they held their nose and let Clinton sign it because he was a Democrat. So they withheld a lot of the criticism that a republican would have gotten. So it’s a two way street. I’m not just dumping on the conservatives.

Andy 1:17:54
Yeah, no, yeah, I mean, the team, Team Blue would be able to sign things that are In their camp and Team Red consigned for things that are in their camp, and I totally I totally get what you’re saying. Teresa, what do you think the the psychological impact is of being inside the powder keg, you know, actually like being in the pot that we’re calling black, while the corona virus is spreading around and you don’t know if your bunkmate your neighbor or somebody in the dorm has it? That’s got a Yeah, it’s getting around people psychologically.

Theresa 1:18:24
Yeah, no, absolutely and completely and it’s funny, I was talking to my, my own son or when he was in prison, there he the prison he was in went on a lockdown for two weeks. He was he was 19 years old at the time. He’d never been in prison before. But there was a virus that was had spread through the prison and they locked the prison down. And he was terrified. He was telling me today, you know how grateful he is that he is not you know, that, that he’s not in right now. And I’ve gotten emails and contacts from parents who have people you know, it’s not just the people on the inside, although that is awful, completely and totally powerless. And to have this thing that, you know, I think, I think on the chat, you know, there was the acknowledgment is that this thing is spreading through the prisons, it’s like too late to put this back in the box and it’s happening and there you are, you’re trapped. So psychologically, it is devastating for the folks that are in there and it’s also devastating for their family, because they’re so powerless and there’s nothing they can do. You know, I liked Larry saying, just do it, just do it. But the people that have the power to just do it aren’t and, and, and it is harming people, not just physically but also from a psychological perspective. They’re completely and totally, they’re, they’re in threat. So you know, we have three primary emotion regulations, some Our threat system, which is great, because we’re always kind of looking for what’s going to take us out our drive system, we accomplish things and move forward, get excited about stuff in our suiting system, where we can become and contented and just be. And the folks that are in prisons right now, and to a lesser extent, their families are pretty much firmly planted in their threat systems. And in that place, the only emotions that arise are anger, anxiety and disgust. And that’s a really painful place to be.

Andy 1:20:35
which kind of makes an interesting segue over to an article that I found today over at Vox and its governors are starting to close their borders. The implications are staggering. You know, a prison is something that we can sort of visualize as being an enclosed container, a self contained container, and, you know, just expand that out to either like your city or your county, but eventually you move up to the state level. It seems kind of crazy to me that you would be denied Entry if you’re on a plane that’s landing, and you’re, you know, you’re, you’re coming from New York City, and like, sorry, you got to go hang out somewhere for 14 days. I mean, that’s almost, you know, it’s a similar situation, hey, we’re clean here. We don’t want you people here.

Theresa 1:21:15
Right? So everyone, we have this, this threat going on on a macro level, as well as the individual level, like entire states, entire countries. I mean, China doesn’t want is not letting Americans in anymore because we’re bringing the fires back. And

Andy 1:21:33
you think they can actually do this layer? Can they like shut down the state borders isn’t something there’s something in that article that talks about the constitutionality of being able to move around the states freely?

Larry 1:21:42
Well, there again, we’re in uncharted territory, because in normal circumstances, yes, but we’re not in normal circumstances. And I think the courts are going to be a little bit hesitant to stop. I mean, you have said in a minute of our private conversations about how we should defer to the medical experts. This is something that medical experts are strongly recommending as to stop the movement of people and stop the social connections and to distance one another. And I think that, that, in normal circumstances, it would be very problematic. And I would I would not support at all, but in these situations that we’ll find ourselves in right now. I think the courts if such a challenge is asserted, I think the courts are going to be relatively deferential to the health authorities and to the executives that were elected that are that are implementing these restrictions. So I think there’s a good chance that they’ll withstand additional scrutiny and and and they’ll they’ll probably be coming back and visited in a short period of time. As the situation unfolds, if this subsides substantial I think that they can’t become permanent fixture in American life but I think that probably within the initial challenge

Theresa 1:22:49
very very it’s it’s you know, it’s it’s just harkens to a different time where you actually had

Andy 1:22:57
you know, you had Scots against the Irish again, I mean, pitch to me it sounds just like oh, you’re from the New York. So you can’t come to me. It just reminds me of something like that.

Larry 1:23:05
Well, it does. I mean, it’s absolutely

Andy 1:23:08
no something we’ve never, ever had any sort of notion to even conceive of that we would be like, no, we’re just Americans dammit. Not, not from this region or that region. It’s just so weird to me.

Larry 1:23:18
But we’ve accepted quarantine as a law app for a long, long, long time. And it’s effectively a quarantine from the hotspots. And and so I think, yes, we want to think I think they would probably the courts would be very hesitant, and I hope no one jumps off of a bridge because I said that, but I think that the court actions would be turned aside or brushed away until this until this a Bates. And I think again, like if the Ohio be the example, Governor dewine decided to postpone the primary. And somebody did go to court said you can’t do that. And he said, Oh, but I can’t. And the judge said Oh, but you can’t and he says but watch me And he did. And there was no way they could force an election when the governor said, I’ve shut it down. I mean, how’s the court gonna step in and conduct an election?

Andy 1:24:07
Certainly. And then also, since it’s such a time based thing like, well, the dates already passed. So a few we’ve moved on, and we’ll have it at a later date. What are you going to do now? It’s already

Larry 1:24:16
well, that’s, that’s the thing with this, that these, these orders, I hope that this doesn’t become American way of life. I hope that they are that this is as as temporary and as temporary as it could possibly be. But we’re constantly bouncing between what the health health experts are being very, very, very cautious about everything. And if we defer to everything, health experts, I don’t think we would ever unlock the country again. So at some point, you got to balance we’re going to have to balance between letting the country fall apart from being locked out, or we’re going to have to find out what the appropriate risk is and how we can mitigate the risk within a higher risk of members of our population. We know that that that that it doesn’t affect all age groups are the same way we know that everybody can catch it now we first thought early on that that that was that teenagers and kids could get it we’ve since learned that they’re, they’re being diagnosed with it. But But we still we still the statistics still seems to suggest that it ravages older people more than it does younger people so so we may have to people my age and up may have to suffer more inconvenience to try to stay safer. Right.

Andy 1:25:29
Let’s move over to an article from the crime report that says prison, jail data show incarceration myths. Uh, what about six or so myths down there that we should kind of go over briefly talking about how people perceive how prisons are, but actually what they actually are. What did you want to cover here, there.

Larry 1:25:49
That’s what I wanted to talk about is that we we have, we have this myth about rear releasing, and if we just scroll through very quickly nonviolent drug offenders within mass incarceration well The problem is that wouldn’t a percent of the prisoners are not non violent drug offenders so we would still have a record amount of people incarcerated so that won’t do it and made it so step. And then we hear the people on my side, private prisons are the corrupt heart of mass incarceration, but actually for the 9% of all inmates, incarcerate the United States are private so if you totally totally disbanded private prisons, we’re still the the incarceration capital of the world. So so then the other the other points are people in prison for violent sex crimes are too dangerous to be released really there as soon as the recidivism data doesn’t show that and and then Then what about prisons or factories behind fences to provide companies with huge slave labor? And in fact, that’s also debunked. I mean, there are there there is are some people working for for very low wages, but that’s not what prisons exist for. Just provide company slaves and slave labor. And then there’s the part about community supervision as the best way to reduce incarceration. But this study, this toolkit contends that the conditions imposed on people under supervision, which is one of my pet peeves are often so restrictive that they end up failing and the Becket prison. 168,000 people in 2016 were incarcerated for technical violations.

Andy 1:27:21
Wow. 160,000 people, and the feds have something of 200,000 people, right?

Larry 1:27:28
Right, a little less, but

Andy 1:27:30
so and the 200,000. Okay, so somehow we can we can fudge some numbers. So the people that were really locked up for some kind of technical violation almost matches the federal prison population, just in 2016. And that would happen again, probably in 2017 18. And 19.

Larry 1:27:47
I would, I would, I would speculate so and for just

Andy 1:27:50
missing your curfew for for, for drinking some alcohol or something like that while you’re on supervision, and that violated the rules.

Larry 1:27:58
And that’s, that’s the next Have your famous technology that you’re so fond of having, the more we’ve deployed that technology, the more stuff we can detect that we wouldn’t have detected in yesteryear. We didn’t know if you made curfew late and yesteryear cuz we didn’t have any way of figuring out unless we sit on an office or your house. We didn’t know if you were drinking in yesteryear unless we happen to stumble upon it. We didn’t know if you traveled to an exclusion zone in yesteryear where they said don’t go within so many feet we didn’t know all that. And technology has allowed us to know a lot of stuff that we didn’t know about people that are under supervision which leads to a lot more violations of a technical nature.

Andy 1:28:34
There we got a backpedal I derpy me here. I missed a an article that showing some photos from prisons in California where they’re like, just inches their feet apart of each other.

Larry 1:28:46
Oh, yeah, I looked over that myself.

Andy 1:28:48
Yeah. Teresa, what do you think about people living in such close proximity to each other?

Theresa 1:28:55
Well, it’s, there’s those those images were just horrifying. And certainly the cabinet wasn’t just that they were in such close proximity when an vironment self said, what’s going on in our outside environment has a whole lot to do with what goes on in our insides. And they’re the conditions are were just pretty horrific and chaotic and and filthy, the ones shot of the restroom was was, there was a broken sink and it was dirty. And these are people who are sick, and they’re now they’re sick. And there is a deadly virus going around particularly deadly people who are already compromised health wise and older. And so No, I mean, we’re just right back into this living in this system and the threat and the threat system and being consumed with anxiety and stress, hopelessness, all kinds of just really bad ways to be. I mean, it’s Just this is, you know, we put people in cages a period. And it’s inhumane all the way around. I mean, not even if you’re sick, but but when you’re sick, it makes it all that much worse. And it’s it’s just unspeakable and unacceptable. But it’s what we do.

Andy 1:30:18
When I when I look at these, these images, I’m just like, oh, that’s that’s exactly how it looked. That’s exactly how it looked when I was there. Wow. Yeah, no, it just doesn’t seem that foreign. It’s like, Oh, that’s how it just it was for six years for me. Ah, ah, it is really crazy.

Theresa 1:30:38
Oh, Andy, what was it like for you cycle?

Andy 1:30:41
I just, I don’t I don’t, I don’t I don’t know how to how to word it. And I don’t want to, like end up, classify myself as some. I just a chameleon. And it’s like, this is just what it is. And I can compartmentalize things and just, like accept it for the time and when things change. I’ll just, I’ll just change my spots when it comes time that I need to change my spots.

Theresa 1:31:03
Yeah. Yeah. And, and that is, you know that acceptance is is a is a pretty skillful thing to do. And you don’t really go there. Yeah.

Andy 1:31:13
I just I grew up in an incredibly hostile environment where, and I don’t want to go into this but I, my parents were alcoholics. It was a very hostile, but so I learned from my entire upbringing that I do not know which parents are coming home. So I had to be a chameleon, just my entire life. And then two branches of service, basic training and all that stuff and dealing with military so it’s like, it wasn’t that weird to me to be doing it.

Larry 1:31:39
Well, Larry, what do you want to cut? Go ahead.

Theresa 1:31:42
Oh, surely unpleasant. Yeah, of course.

Andy 1:31:44
But But you can’t you can’t do anything about it’s like, I can’t make them open up the door. I can’t make them serve better food. I can’t make somebody put money on my books so I can get some store call. I you know, I can’t make the dude down the way like hey, you’re a wimpy looking white dude. I’m going to come beat your ass. I can’t do anything about those things. So I just have to take them as they come.

Theresa 1:32:04
Right. And and you had that ability to do accept them as they come, then they’re the folk but the folks that don’t have that they can’t, can’t accept it. It takes that real, unpleasant pain and turns it into a whole new level.

Andy 1:32:21
Unbelievable. Larry, let’s look through the remodeling. I would

Larry 1:32:24
like to cover the lawsuits. The two articles that the Guardian that the not the Guardian, that’s the wrong one, but about San Diego. The actual lawsuits because we are going to be having a conference call tomorrow that only the people who are patrons will possibly get this and high and by the time it makes it everyone else the call will have already occurred. But at four o’clock eastern time tomorrow we have a conference call talking about these lawsuits and the potential for more of them, but it relates to the Forced continuation of check ins for people who are required to register for the P f Rs. Theresa when you’re talking about a registrant we’ve come up with a term that a list and provided an SPF or PFR what’s that person forced to read persons forced to register? Uh huh. So, so we, but the Alliance for constitutional sexual offense laws has filed three. And I think the fourth one is going to be filed by the end of Friday and I don’t know if it did get filed about the continuation. So you have you have conflicting requirements, you have the requirements that that you that you self quarantine that you’re that you shelter in place, and then you have the requirement that law says if you don’t come see us, we’re going to lock you up. And you have the shelter in place if you if you’re going out for any reason other than food, or medicine. We’re gonna lock you up. As a deaf, that’s a difficult position to be put into narshall called for.

Theresa 1:34:06
I forgot how many days ago we released a press release, and we did get some attention around the country. On on the press release, we call for all agencies to suspend in person requirements for checking in. We understand that said your statute, we understand that in many cases, it’s in your statutes. In the case of California, it actually is in the statute, but we understand it narshall did it said many state statutes, again, just do it. Nothing is going to happen to you. Nobody’s going to file a lawsuit. I don’t think the sex offenders that are on the registry are going to file a lawsuit and say we want to be in your office, and we want to do our check ins so so the people the PF ours, we’re not going to file a lawsuit. The people who fund your local law enforcement if it’s a county agency, in the case of a case of most of our states, it’s done by county local law enforcement, the county commissioners or the city can counsels are not going to try to impeach their officials for trying to protect their staff. So again, just do it. Nothing bad is gonna happen. No, no but well, well that’s right. You don’t have to advertise it widespread you can you can communicate what the offender population. But in order for something to be, as we said you can do it until you’re stopped. Whether or not you have the authority you could do anything until your stop. No one is going to try to stop you from doing this. The offenders are not going to try to stop you. And the county commissioners are not going to try to stop you. They want their deputies and their police officers to be safe. And no one is going to think anything about it. If you just do it. Don’t wait for a law to be changed. Don’t wait for someone else. Do what the captain did. I wish I knew that or can remember the name of that vessel but it was only in Indianapolis was suck and all those bands were in the water and I Almost about 80% of them either drowned or eaten up by sharks. But there was there was a couple hundred 300 men being in the water, dog paddling. And he said, we’re not going to sit here in the darkness and let these men not know that we’re here. And so he fired up all the lights on the ship and said we’re going to, we’re going to give them pulp until we can get them out of the water. Give these people hope. If you don’t care about them, which probably some of you don’t, there are some good. There are some good sheriff’s departments out there. They’re good leaders and law enforcement. But even if you don’t care about the offenders, keep your staff safe, do the right thing. Stop the interaction, follow the social distancing, and stay recommended. And we’ll pick this nonsense up later, when the crisis when the governors and the local health officials lift the quarantine and the restrict and the social distancing requirements. Just do it.

Andy 1:36:51
To that though. Last week, we have the article from Minnesota. I think Nebraska, Nebraska is where it was where the sheriff’s was just like, no, you’re coming in here, don’t care. Come in here register.

Larry 1:37:04
That was Douglas County, which would be Omaha would be the seat that was sorry, that was wrong. Okay.

Andy 1:37:09
So it’s certainly going out there and somebody in chat says now that the lawsuit has brought attention to it, they’ll dig in their heels and they’re like, Damn right, you’re going to come in here register.

Larry 1:37:18
I don’t know that they will. The The, the one against San Diego was dismissed because of procedural because it didn’t qualify for the type of relief, as I tell. People hear me say from time to time, you have to file the right cause of action. And you have to seek the relief within the vehicle that’s appropriate for the relief you’re seeking. And they the Court refused to let it go forward because they said it didn’t meet the criteria for the type of action. But that doesn’t mean that she can’t refile it, and she will refile it quite competent. She’ll refile it using the correct vehicle. But I believe that these that these cases will gain some traction and I believe that some judges will take the risk of Bay Persky, these are all in California, but I think some of the judges will Take the risk of being persecuted, they’ll do the right thing. And they’ll say, No, we’re going to suspend this for the health crisis. And then we can resume later. But in California, they have all the cover they need because it is in the statute to begin with. This is an invented requirement that law enforcement is put into place because they don’t want to do anything other than what what they’ve always done which is have people come down and see them in person, but it’s not required that they come in in person.

Theresa 1:38:24
They could do it by email or by phone or some other method.

Theresa 1:38:29
They could

Andy 1:38:31
and that’s what the lawsuit that’s what the last week or the week give you like a personal anecdotal story about that. I come home from you know, being out whatever dinner, this is, sometime last month, and there’s a business card, and I was like, I’ve guess it was like a UPS sticker and I and I look at it, it’s from the sheriff in the area that does the lieutenant whatever, that does the address verification. And I was like, you know, Larry tells me he’s not calling anybody Not required to call not going to do it. And so I waited on it for a day a call the next day and I said, Hey, you know, you left a card. He goes, Oh, just verifying addresses. Thanks. Bye. So I’m assuming because the thing was on my door unless someone passed it to me, because now I’m living at somebody else’s house, but I wouldn’t have known about it, unless I went to my house to get it. So he figured that that was good enough to have me registered. He didn’t see me at my door. He just left a card. So it seems you know, they could do other things if they wanted to. They just don’t. That is That is correct.

Larry 1:39:31
And And beyond that, the obligation is on the offender to report if they have any changes. There’s Yeah, very, very few states have an obligation that they go out check on you continuously. Now. Maryland tried that in their in their, their regulatory framework after they passed their their ramp up in 2009. That took effect to 2010. If I recall, they the regulations are republished with said that they shall continue to continuously verify the the residence address the registrants have And we would make comments about that. Well, what does What does the word continuous mean? I mean continuously, not from a statistics

Andy 1:40:06
point, from a calculus point of view. It’s infinity.

Larry 1:40:10
Right? But But if they’re radically, that would mean that as soon as you walk to our front door, you turn around, come back and read. And if you if you did, if you did not if you had that regulatory framework, which is why we scared them into not going through with that regulatory framework, whatever you did if the person offended, and some will I mean, there is that that small fraction of people that will offend again, then it would obviously be a little bit less than what should have been done, because the victim of that offense would say, well, when’s the last time you verified? Check that well, we checked up on him 37 days ago, what maybe should have been doing it every week, because then you have the benefit of hindsight?

Theresa 1:40:46
Absolutely.

Andy 1:40:47
Yeah. With it

Theresa 1:40:49
in Pennsylvania. Right now they’ve suspended registration, and folks have to report any changes with a paper If they’re unable to access the paper form, which is only available online, they can call. And, you know, to Larry’s point, we’re talking to me what we want is for the registry to go away, of course, but

Theresa 1:41:14
just an arbitrary nature of what’s going on. It’s like, oh, if we could do this now, why can’t we? Yeah,

Andy 1:41:23
I’ve been wondering that if all these measures that we do letting people go or suspending registration. If all these things go without the world entirely exploding, then why can’t they become the norm when all this goes away?

Larry 1:41:34
Absolutely. So Well, let me find it and how much of it will stay you know, I mean, some of this, some, some things are likely to change for once and for all for good. Um, that would be interesting. That is, that is my hope that we’ll see that some of this stuff was unnecessary. But the point makes that less likely source funding there and this administration has been very good about funding. They office and making sure that the law enforcement gets everything they need. That’s one of the that a military spending they have just lavished on but so I’m not I’m not as optimistic that that will go away. But again, they have the political capital, they could make it go away. If they were serious about cutting the budget, they could say well, gee, all the world as we know it demand we release 10s of thousands of prisoners. And we we stopped all this harassment of the people forced to register in all the words, but I don’t see it happening. And I know I’m not supposed to say that because it causes anxiety for folks, but I can’t help myself. And I wanted to correct myself on the barrel that actually passed the 2010. It was Nebraska who passed in 2009. So Maryland, Maryland did their their AWS bill in 2010.

Andy 1:42:43
And you wanted to cover something else, Larry, is this the the normal article,

Larry 1:42:48
Adela was good with just the the lawsuits and the covering the the there’s there’s more suits to come. And we’re hoping that that the threat of lawsuits that other states have California will get more law enforcement to suspend this in person contexts until this crisis has passed, or subside,

Andy 1:43:08
typically. But one of the statements that you just made was about defunding things somehow miraculously feeds right into a voicemail message that we got. I really think that you’re gonna have fun with this one there. Here we go. A voicemail message.

Larry 1:43:21
Hey, guys, hope everybody is doing okay. In these crazy weird times here. Obviously, we’ve never experienced anything like this. So I know my money doesn’t really matter to politicians, because they’ll just print more like this trillion dollar bailout package. So where are they going to get it? Well, it doesn’t matter they just printed anyway. But my point is, is be a good time now to write your politicians and tell them to defund the registry defund Angel IML defund this whole mess, but again, they don’t care where the money’s come from. So anyway, thanks guys, and F IP, he’d say, well, only the federal federal government can do that the states are not so privileged. But the I don’t think that that’s likely to happen. I wish it would support his his viewpoint. But I don’t see that we’ve become desensitized. I mean, we’re, we’re talking about a two and a half to possibly trillion bailout here. And, you know, they were so upset about the 787 billion that we did back in the depths of the recession when when Obama came to office. Just remember folks, remember, we had unemployment that have been rising for months, we had hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands of millions of jobs lost by the time he set foot into the Oval Office. And, and now we have the threat of that, and it’s a very real threat because of the 3 million unemployment claims that was submitted across the nation, which was about the same ratio that our state remember we had about a tenfold increase elimination the nation About about a tenfold increase in terms. So we’ve got, we’ve got a crisis coming. But I don’t think we’ve become so desensitized to deficit spending. And as long as the world is willing to fund our deficit spending, I think that the people have become so disconnected from it. And it’s become so irrelevant. No one’s talked by me. We haven’t really had a lot of discussion. On a serious note since ross perot ran for President 1992. I mean, the republicans went ahead when they had Obama and Clinton, they did they did magically, we’re very concerned about the deficit under both of those administrations. But it but it’s been a long time since we’ve heard anything about the deficit several years now. And I don’t think we’re likely to hear anything about the deficit because right now they’re saying, Just do whatever it takes. And I tend to lean towards agree with that. I mean, we’ve got a we’ve got a significant problem. And a lot of these people couldn’t help themselves. They were told you can’t come to work. They were told you won’t get a paycheck. their employers were told to shut down, but I’m hoping I’m hoping this works. Spirits finally sensitizes us, we as Americans, as whatever it is, I hope we become a little more sensitive to those who get in situations where they have not been able to function at a level that that would give them basic sustenance, because, arguably, you could say that all these companies should have had a rainy day fund, you could arguably say that all Americans should have had a rainy day fund. I don’t say that. But you could do that. If you believed in survival of the fittest, and that people are their own keeper, and they’re responsible. I believe we’re all in it together. And I believe that that this is probably the prudent course of action. Probably there’s some stuff in those and in that massive 800 page bill that that we would be very shocked about if we knew, but this is probably the right course of action. But we’re in this together. Hopefully, we’ll realize after this crisis, that those hundreds of thousands and maybe over a million people that are homeless on any given day, that may be We need to be just a little more compassionate to them as well.

Andy 1:47:04
I very much agree with you, Teresa, do you agree or do you not agree? You want to be a hard nosed person and say, No, you people should have the funding and stand up on your two feet.

Theresa 1:47:12
I told you, I’m not compassion. very

Larry 1:47:18
compassionate. What if they broke up their

Theresa 1:47:21
compassion Queen, compassion queen?

Larry 1:47:24
Well, well, I agree that there’s probably things in there that, you know, heard the debate. And the Republicans had their problems with the heaping on the state benefit is one of the things they were concerned about. And they said it would disincentivize work, they’re probably right. But on the other hand, the democrats had their issues with the lack of accountability and oversight of the hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate bailout. And, and those are genuine, both sides are right, there’s going to be abuse. There’s going to be people who will benefit there’ll be some who will take advantage of this. It’s human nature. You can design something that people can’t take advantage of. The reason why they did the is because even though the republicans do have a good point about it, it’s going to be more lucrative for some people not to work. And that’s going to possibly disincentivize. The employment, unemployment administrators tell them we can’t, we don’t have the systems in place that would easily identify what the person’s ending wages were, what their average wages were for the last leading up to where they got separated, because they look back over a 52 week base period that runs usually about two cores behind where we are right now. they would they would be looking at at a base period for your unemployment computation that may not even reflect what you’re earning on your recent job. Because if your wages for your most recent job may not be even in the base period. And so, so those debates were genuine, there was nothing wrong with having the debates, and that’s the way our system is supposed to work. Yeah, you have disagreement between the ideologies, you come to a compromise and we got this thing and it probably there’s some bad stuff in it.

Andy 1:49:00
I understand, Larry, we need to shut this all down. We do. Are you ready to shut it down?

Larry 1:49:04
I am. So if you want to be in contact with us 747-227-4477 and we call off the phone number first. Of course I do and if you want to write, and then that is another way to get ahold of us. Registered matters cast@gmail.com and the best thing to do of course, is to be a patron supporter@patreon.com slash register matters. And if you want to find out more about registered matters, you can find us out find us on the web at register matters.ca Oh,

Andy 1:49:43
man, dude, you did that all on your own. That’s amazing. That’s that’s sick, bro. That’s sick, bro. Teresa. You are an amazing guest. I can’t thank you enough for coming along and sharing all of your your Teresa knowledge with us.

Theresa 1:49:57
You guys are so much fun and It’s nice to be able to talk about such heavy things and see a little bit of lightness around it.

Andy 1:50:07
I try I try I try I don’t want this is such a serious and depressing subject. I try and make light of it whenever I can. Larry yells at me for laughing at things too much. How can people find you all your websites or your Twitter’s and yeah, that’s you want to tell people

Theresa 1:50:22
but anyway, yes it’s doc stocks 86

Theresa 1:50:26
yeah and my email is you can use the Teresa dot robertson@yahoo.com. Also, I’d encourage anyone who’s in the Pennsylvania area in the state of Pennsylvania to check out parcel.org and we are in dire need of help from folks who might be interested in helping us move forward. We have some great people working. Heading we will try to get up in Harrison burger we did until two weeks ago every Tuesday to talk with folks and we are doing everything we possibly can we really need tech people. If anyone’s out there in Pennsylvania that can help us with technology. You can check us out on a parcel.org and send an email, Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

Andy 1:51:27
Thank you again so very much, Larry. Is that it? Are we done?

Larry 1:51:31
We’re done. Good night, everybody. And thank you for what you used to say back. Good night chat. Good night, David. Good night from NBC News. I thought it was interesting. Good night, john boy. Now after the new sign out from NBC, NBC from way back, I totally know what you’re talking about the hurry. huddling safely to Huntley Brinkley report. Oh, okay. Tourists again.

Andy 1:51:53
Thank you. Thank you all everybody. Thank you In chat. I will talk to you soon. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai