Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
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User ID: 863
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
21d ago
My point, and what I assume workers would be concerned about, is that you don't get certain parts of your retirement (specifically the Basic Benefit Plan) if you resign your position with the government (as opposed to retiring). The OPM page on the Federal Employee Retirement System specifies:
FERS is a retirement plan that provides benefits from three different sources: a Basic Benefit Plan, Social Security and the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Two of the three parts of FERS (Social Security and the TSP) can go with you to your next job if you leave the Federal Government before retirement. The Basic Benefit and Social Security parts of FERS require you to pay your share each pay period. Your agency withholds the cost of the Basic Benefit and Social Security from your pay as payroll deductions. Your agency pays its part too. Then, after you retire, you receive annuity payments each month for the rest of your life.
So you get 8 months of pay but you don't get your post-retirement annuity (unless you get another job with the government and retire through that).
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
21d ago
All federal workers also received an offer to resign immediately. If they accept, they will get their current salary and benefits until September (an incredibly generous 8 month severance package). All they have to do is reply with the word "resign".
I can't help but perceive this as being a way to get federal workers to give up their retirement benefits but I am not a legal expert. You can read the full email here. Relevant paragraph:
Given my impending resignation, I understand I will be exempt from any “Return to Office” requirements pursuant to recent directives and that I will maintain my current compensation and retain all existing benefits (including but not limited to retirement accruals) until my final resignation date.
Is the implication of that last clause that ones' benefits ("including but not limited to retirement accruals") will not be maintained post-resignation date? "Give up whatever pension you've earned for 8 months pay" sounds less good I think? Although that probably depends on how much you've accrued. There's also a federal law that restricts how long agencies can put employees on administrative leave to no more than 10 days per year.
So by law you're probably going to have to work most of the time beyond when you've accepted this offer through the actual resignation. Logistically it seems like people who accept will be getting paid out as if they were working (a biweekly check or whatever) rather than as a lump sum. The deal seems to be "keep working for 8 months and then quit." I guess the idea is your agency cuts back your duties in a way that is not legally "leave?" Seems like the only way this could work.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
23d ago
Edited To Add. Just a way to specify the content was not in the original comment.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
23d ago
They won't have to choose. A judge will enjoin this before the week is out.
Illinois and other states claiming that federal Medicaid portals are not working as of this morning. The memo contains a footnote carving out Medicare and Social Security but not Medicaid. I doubt this freeze persists through the end of the week. Someone who was a recipient of a federally authorized grant is going to sue and a court is going to enjoin this in short order.
ETA:
Lawsuit and request for TRO already filed.
ETA2:
Politico has posted what is alleged to be a spreadsheet of the list of impacted programs. I'm sure there's something in here for everyone. Hope people weren't relying on their WIC or SNAP benefits!
ETA3:
Turns out end of the week was wildly conservative. I'm seeing reporting the judge assigned to the lawsuit above granted the TRO from the bench a few minutes ago, lasting at least until Monday Feb 3rd.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
30d ago
Probably not. Their cited basis is they are individuals who are currently pregnant who will have children born more than 30 days from now that will be impacted by the order.
I predict a TRO or preliminary injunction before the week is out. The ACLU has already announced its intention to sue.
ETA:
Lawsuit already filed in the District of New Hampshire.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
I feel like this comment still comes back to the notion of being subject to the criminal law, rather than political allegiance. The reason the quote from The Schooner Exchange v. M’Faddon talks about it being "obviously inconvenient and dangerous to society ... if such individuals or merchants did not owe temporary and local allegiance, and were not amenable to the jurisdiction of the country" is that if people did not owe such allegiance then they would not be subject to the criminal law or the jurisdiction of courts of the nations such individuals were in. It seems like the proposed logic here is that the lack of a "license" (implied or otherwise) to enter is supposed to imply a lack of that temporary and local allegiance and that lack of temporary and local allegiance implies a lack of jurisdiction necessary for the 14th amendment to come into effect. Somehow that lack of temporary and local allegiance and related jurisdiction doesn't mean that courts actually lack jurisdiction though (such as for criminal prosecutions) even though that seems like the take The Schooner Exchange would imply. If the local and temporary allegiance is not intertwined with the jurisdiction of courts for the prosecution of criminal matters where comes the concern about the lack of such allegiance being dangerous to society?
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
This seems very straightforwardly false. I've worked with a lot of women, none of whom have had relationships with management.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
Unfortunately not. I saw them linked elsewhere. I do with discoverability of things like this was more of a priority for the government.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
I think one can generally be (and feminists are) pro-sex generally while thinking particular categories ought to be prohibited or warrant additional scrutiny.
Are you saying we should restrict all sex at the workplace and in any relationship where power dynamics could be employed?
I think those relationships at least warrant extra scrutiny but I wouldn't be opposed to a general prohibition.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
Situations like this are precisely why progressives are skeptical of employee/employer sexual relationships and it sounds like it was worse here because Gaiman and Palmer were also providing Pavlovich housing as part of the deal. If your combination landlord/boss came onto you one day might one go along with it even if they didn't want to? Might the implicit threat of "I could make you unemployed and homeless" convince someone not to resist? I hardly think we can generalize from "a woman might pretend to enjoy sex to keep her job and housing" to "no women anywhere can be treated with as having agency."
In any case I feel very comfortable asserting that ~no one enforces their own desires and boundaries as they might like 100% of the time. Do you tell your boss how bullshit it is every time they drop work on you that you think you shouldn't be doing or have to do? Do you bitch to your spouse every time they want to do That Thing they like but you don't? Or do you sometimes suck it up and do the thing with a smile anyway? Sexual assault is an extreme case of this but the consequences of not doing so (unemployment, homelessness) probably seemed pretty extreme to Pavlovich.
Apparently $MELANIA is live now too. There are like six different scam impersonation accounts in the replies, with hundreds of likes.
ETA:
To make this a bit more substantive, why assume the price action of $TRUMP is organic rather than wash trading in advance of a rug pull? It's not like Trump's previous crypto grift (anyone remember World Financial Liberty?) went all that well. Why do people want to buy this but not that?
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
au contraire I think the medical malpractice was a result of the chilling effect. They were afraid to give her an abortion due to fear or prosecution so they wanted confirmation of the much more bright-line exception in the form of the fetal heartbeat results.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
My point is that the "reasonable medical judgement" standard is an objective one, not a subjective one. Whether you committed a crime doesn't, necessarily, depend on whether you thought your actions were reasonable. Rather it depends on whether you can do a better job convincing a jury your actions were reasonable against the state trying to convince the jury they're unreasonable. Most doctors, understandably, do not want to take that risk! That is why they obsess over the fetal heartbeat thing. That is a much clearer line.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
Sure, but this is quite different than "the physician need only say some magic words and will thence be immune to prosecution."
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
This is precisely the opposite of what the Supreme Court of Texas held in Zurawski v. State. In that case the Supreme Court of Texas emphasized that the standard was objective and that if the State could prove that no reasonable physician would have authorized the procedure, then it would be criminal to perform. Quoting that case:
We examined the meaning of “reasonable medical judgment” in In re State. In that case, the trial court replaced “reasonable medical judgment” with “good faith belief.” While we observed some overlap, we held that the law does not permit an abortion based on belief alone. Rather, a doctor must identify a life-threatening physical condition that places the mother at risk of death or serious physical impairment of a major bodily function unless an abortion is performed.
The Center argues that such a standard means that doctors are susceptible to a battle of the experts when not every doctor might reach the same medical judgment in each case. We rejected such an interpretation in In re State. “Reasonable medical judgment,” we held, “does not mean that every doctor would reach the same conclusion.” Rather, in an enforcement action under the Human Life Protection Act, the burden is the State’s to prove that no reasonable physician would have concluded that the mother had a life-threatening physical condition that placed her at risk of death or of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion was performed.
The state is absolutely permitted to second guess the judgement of a physician and potentially inflict criminal penalties on them.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
I don't understand why people suddenly forget about chilling effects in this context. The government passes a law that bans doing X but it's ambiguous whether some similar behavior Y is part of X. Even if Y is not covered by X that ambiguity might chill people from doing Y if they think the government might prosecute them for doing Y. Even if the government ultimately does not succeed (jury acquittal) defending yourself in a criminal trial is not exactly free.
So, let's ask how the exemption for a medical emergency works. Is the standard subjective or objective? Does the physician merely have to say the magic words "I think there is a medical emergency?" Do they have to actually believe there is a sufficient medical emergency? Is their determination open to challenge by the state after the fact? Maybe you're pretty sure, in the moment, such a medical emergency exists. Are you "the state couldn't find a doctor who could convince a jury otherwise on pain of conviction of a first degree felony" sure? Especially if the alternative is, what, a medical malpractice or wrongful death claim? Your insurance probably covers the latter. It won't protect you from a felony conviction!
These laws fulfill their obviously intended effect of chilling doctors from providing abortions whether or not they have a fig leaf of an exception.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
Is that not the norm for anonymous wire fraud or whatever charge they're levying here? I'm near-certain none of the Does (none of the major ones, at least) live in the US.
Probably? Microsoft did secure subpoenas to various ISPs to try and determine the actual identities of the individuals involved. Whether that can be done remains unclear.
I'm a rube unfamiliar with the American legal system - what do the results of that typically look like in ghost cases like this? Does Microsoft get their damages, if yes then whence?
Microsoft is going to get a legal judgment from a US court that X individuals are responsible for Y damages. How likely they are to actually get Y damages likely depends on the legal jurisdiction that X individuals reside in and their perspective on enforcing the judgement of US courts. US courts, for example, won't respect foreign civil judgements regarding liability for speech where that speech would be protected by the First Amendment in the United States.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
Why rely on random anonymous compilations? Courtlistener has the full docket and will almost certainly be updated as the case progresses. So far looks like no defendants or lawyers for any of them have made an appearance. If the case continues this way the most likely outcome is Microsoft secures a default judgement against them.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
I guess I'm not seeing the angle where the employees should be grateful to the company. This sounds like it's cheaper for you to train them than it would be to hire replacements and additionally you hope they'll accept a lower salary. Should they be grateful your business didn't waste money firing and replacing them?
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1mo ago
I can only speak to my own experience but I expect companies have a lot of incentive not to do this proactively (though it varies by company). The upside is increased retention of people who might have left for a better offer. The downside is paying a bunch more money to people who were not going to leave anyway. Depending on what your turnover looks like the balance could tip either way. Ideally companies would target these raises precisely to the people who would leave without them but identifying them is probably hard, unless they self identify by negotiating with you and another company at the same time. I got my largest raise ever doing something like that but it was definitely nerve wracking. Concerns about retaliation or adverse action even if I stayed. Would not be surprised if people just take outside offers and skip the further stress of negotiating.
I think it is pretty common for any large entity (not just government) to have separate departments for authorizing payments and making payments. I am pretty sure in my own employer this is exactly how it works. If department or individual X with authority to authorize payments has done so it's not clear why department or individual Y should be second guessing them about whether the payment is permitted. Especially for large and complex operations it's not clear to me how the "department of writing checks" can also be expert in the subject matter of every other department and what they are and aren't authorized to spend money on. The accountability is (properly) located in the entity that authorized the payment, not the department that wrote the check. Blaming the department of check writing would be like blaming my bank for letting me send a bunch of money to gambling platforms.
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