MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
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User ID: 896
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
21hr ago
It's much safer to transport a pregnant woman across state lines than it is to lose your medical licence. (Which the State can take without the inconvenience of a jury trial). If you are trying to #resist, it's also more theatrical (providing the State isn't stupid enough to press criminal charges and attract the publicity associated with said trial). So people are doing that rather than fighting abortion bans.
If red states actually try to enforce laws against travelling to get an out-of-state abortion, then the shit is going to hit the fan in way which is unlikely to end up well for the pro-life movement, so they don't.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
21hr ago
At least from reading the supreme court opinion, that is not the impression I got. Of course, most doctors won't read the opinion. Instead, they'll get their information from rags like ProPublica so you might well be right.
The doctors in this case got their information from the Texas attorney general, who publicly threatened to prosecute them if the lower-court order allowing them to perform the abortion didn't hold up on appeal (as, in the end, it didn't).
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
21hr ago
That's because the Texas authorities specifically intended (based on both the text of the law and Paxton's jawboning in the Cox case) to make women carry non-viable fetuses until medical confirmation of fetal death - or to term, for non-viable fetuses which don't die until cut off from the placenta.
The issue in the Cox case is that Texas Republicans want Cox to go through several months of pregnancy, an unnecessary C-section, and six figures of medical bills (which Texas Republicans think she should not get help with, because the government fucking you in the ass is just life, but the government taxing me to pay for the lube when it fucks you in the ass is socialism) in order to achieve the spiritual benefits of watching a baby die in an incubator instead of aborting it. SCOTUS in Dobbs correctly ruled that this is within the powers of the State of Texas, but it didn't rule that it was a good idea.
This isn't even a case where rare corner case is acceptable collateral damage in order to prevent the large number of elective abortions. Paxton's intervention was widely praised by the pro-life movement because this is a type of case they care about. (Obviously not enough to support parents of severely disabled children who would be eugenically aborted if that was legal, because socialism again, but enough to ruin lives because it's for the children works on both sides of the aisle).
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
21hr ago
It is worth noting that under these standards the loss of a limb does not constitute a medical emergency. The definition of "abortion" is strict so doctors who X-ray a pregnant woman with a broken leg are safe despite the risk to the fetus, but I can see why this sort of thing does not engender trust between the medical profession and the Texas authorities. [With this definition of "medical emergency" and fetuses entitled to 14th amendment protection as people, it arguably would be illegal to X-ray a woman with a broken leg because it irradiates a nonconsenting fetus, although I suppose the father could consent on behalf of the fetus]
There is also an interesting bit of drafting, in that the list of "major bodily functions" in section 4 is arguably surplusage, because section 3 says that only life-threatening conditions can count. A cynic would say that section 4 is designed to make the exception look broader than it is. There are definitely pregnancy complications which are not life-threatening but are sufficiently dangerous to the bodily functions listed in section 4 that a doctor could be obliged (by the usual canons of medical ethics, and EMTALA) to perform an abortion that Texas law prohibits.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
22hr ago
England would stick with the US and FVEYS would become the new NATO.
In the scenario we are looking at (where NATO breaks up because Trump offers parts of eastern Europe to Russia as a sphere of influence), this is a tough call. Trump and Russia are extremely unpopular in the UK - we just had a general election where the Trumpy party got 14% of the popular vote and 5/650 seats. And that was with the other three medium/large parties proudly supporting Ukraine and Farage shutting up because he knew that even among his target vote being pro-Russia was a loser. Starmer, essentially everyone in his government, and the civilian Establishment/Deep State would all want to choose Europe over a post-NATO MAGA US, and would by default have public support to do this. (There is, unsurprisingly, an even broader consensus that being forced to choose is a disaster and that we should hedge in so far as it is possible).
Under normal circumstances, if Starmer tried to do this he would be foiled by the UK national security Deep State, who are integrated with their US counterparts through arrangements like FVEYS in a way which would be ultra-painful to unwind.* But Trump is appointing a DNI who is sympathetic to Russia with a mandate to purge the US national security Deep State of the kind of people who make FVEYS work. So the UK Deep State has the choice of "Do we stick with our friends and risk being shafted they get purged and Tulsi sends all our secrets to Moscow, or do we throw our hat in with the dastardly Frogs who are at least sane?" And that is a sufficiently close call that "the elected politicians we nominally work for favour Europe" could be a deciding factor.
* Left-wing lore in the UK is that the military has coup plots in place in case a Labour government tries to break the alliance with the US. It isn't clear how plausible this is because the anti-American wing of Labour has never been within sniffing distance of power. Corbyn came closest during the 2017-9 hung Parliament, but part of the reason why Johnson was able to run rings round his opponents was that the Remainer establishment were more committed to preventing a Corbyn government than they were to preventing Brexit - including 20+ members of the Remainer establishment who were Labour MPs.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
23hr ago
It may have been legally compatible with US neutrality law, but that does not mean that it was not a breach of traditional norms surrounding neutrality - it was very obvious to everyone that the US was not a neutral party, and that it was aiding Britain against Germany.
The US was, uncontroversially, legally neutral under international law during the Lend-Lease period - that's why Germany had to declare war after Pearl Harbour - everyone understood that they were not already at war.
This mattered - before Pearl Harbour, U-boats did not operate in US waters. After Pearl Harbour and the declaration of war, they did - the period between Pearl Harbour and the US putting effective anti-submarine defences in place is called the Second Happy Time (happy, that is, for U-boat captains) by military historians.
There is a big difference between an unfriendly country and a country you are actually at war with. There are times when this matters - in the case of the US vs the Soviet Union, it is why we are still alive.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
1d ago
(and as I understand it the US would be, legally, considered a co-combatant, so this isn't surprising)
Selling arms to a belligerent on normal commercial terms definitely doesn't breach neutrality under international law (although the arms shipments themselves are usually legitimate military targets). Nor does providing them on less-than-commercial terms (such as Lend-Lease in WW2, which was legally compatible with US neutrality). It isn't obvious why giving them away free would change the logic.
Russia has claimed that Ukrainians are unable to use western weapons without a level of in-theatre technical support which would make the supplier a co-belligerent, but I don't believe them.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
3d ago
The issue isn't Texas state courts, it is specific federal judges in the Northern District of Texas, plus the fact that the Northern District of Texas makes it possible for plaintiffs to choose their judge depending on which courthouse in the district they file in.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
3d ago
Are you a measles virus or something? From a human perspective, RFK is visibly malevolent in a very obvious way.
Before he got on the Trump train, RFK devoted a significant part of his activism to discouraging parents from vaccinating their children against measles based on false claims that vaccines cause autism. His activism caused a measles outbreak in Samoa with 83 deaths.
If we measure malevolence by the degree by which the harm-to-victim exceeds the benefit-to-wrongdoer, killing kids for social media klout is the worst.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
4d ago
This isn't a troll act. The intersection between people who can be effectively trolled with a troll act of this type and people who I, personally, find worth trolling (or negging, to use the locally correct technical term for the context I would be doing it in) approximately consists of hot feminists, a group you do not appear to belong to.
"Jokes about ugly women being ugly are always unfunny, even when well-executed" is learned polite behaviour, not a valid generalisation over unmodified human senses of humour. I am absolutely serious about this.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5d ago
It is utterly hilarious if you haven't learned to find misogyny unfunny. (Brainwashed liberal elite, father of daughters etc.)
Calling feminists ugly is evergreen humour, and this time the Bee executed well rather than just using it as a low-effort zinger.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5d ago
In lefty circles in the UK (and I assume the US is similar) the dogpiles were led by clueless cis allies and tumblrgendered headcases, not by actual trans people living as the opposite gender to their birth sex.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5d ago
The burst pipe was media confusion, not lies by the county. There had been a burst pipe in the morning in a different part of the building which delayed the opening of postal votes. The delay in the counting was an administrative screw-up. [As far as I can see, staff opening postal votes who had been working since the morning were allowed to go home at 1030pm. Some staff counting who were supposed to work overnight if necessary also left, and the party poll-watchers left with them, but the SecState office ordered them back to work after a short delay.]
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5d ago
The relevant case is State Farm. SCOTUS ruled 6-3 that punitive damages are fines regulated by the 8th amendment, with Thomas and Scalia dissenting on textualist grounds, and Ginsberg dissenting because she doesn't like insurance companies who deny claims. With the current batch of conservative justices, it could go the other way if relitigated.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5d ago
Child killers don't normally end up in civil court, because suing someone serving a life sentence isn't lucrative. But I assume that juries would be even more likely to award a telephone number against a child killer than they are against someone who runs around defaming grieving mothers.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5d ago
Private Eye still matters in the UK. It's relationship with the cathedral is somewhat ambiguous, but is more friendly than hostile.
My impression is that Last Week Tonight is relevant because it is the Schelling point for a certain type of pro-establishment left person to know what the current thing is.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5d ago
The justification for this ruling was that unstable people listened to Jones, right? So Jones is culpable. I don't even agree with prosecution under "incitement of imminent lawless action," it goes against our entire philosophy of law.
It wasn't a prosecution, it was a civil case. Jones isn't going to prison, he is just being bankrupted. (This wouldn't matter if lying was a fundamental right, but there are centuries of SCOTUS precedent that lying is only partially protected by the 1st amendment). Jones never denied defamation (unreasonably making a false negative statement about an identifiable person who is not a public figure, or "maliciously" making a false negative statement about an identifiable person who is a public figure), which has been a well-known limited exclusion from the 1st amendment right to free speech since the founding*, and damages are set to compensate the people he lied about. The only problem here is the general one that America lets civil juries set damages (vs. the criminal approach where the jury decides guilt or innocence and the judge determines the sentences) and if you irritate a jury enough they will award a telephone number even if the actual damage is an order of magnitude less. (There were 20 victim families, and reasonable compensation for the amount of shit Jones put them through would be low-to-mid six figures per family). But the principle that there are some kinds of false speech where the need to protect real individuals from being lied about has to be balanced against the free speech of liars is not particularly controversial.
If people committed crimes based on Jones's lies, the criminals bear full and exclusive criminal responsibility for their own behaviour, as is right and proper. But civil liability for what other people do on your behalf is the default, not the exception.
It's also why, and you can call it wasted rebelliousness, I consider this as absolute moral mandate to call Sandy Hook a hoax.
Though shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Not a morally complicated question given that these lies cause real damage to real people who didn't ask to have their kids shot by a madman.
* I notice that Trump and Musk have both suggested that Sullivan should be reversed, making it easier to sue for defamation. This doesn't stop their supporters considering them champions of free speech. Everyone on both sides of the aisle understands that malicious lies are a special case.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5d ago
His big selling points (to Trump) are that Trump worked with him on Latin America policy in Trump's first term.
The more I think about it, the more I think something like this is key. If Trump is self-aware, he knows that making nice to Mexico is a key part of a southern border policy that actually works. (Mexico doesn't want non-Mexican illegal migrants to the US to be stuck in Mexico, but they have a choice as to whether they keep them out of Mexico in the first place, or try to hurry them into the US.) And he knows that the person who is hands-on responsible for that needs to be not-him.
If the main job of the SecState in a Trump admin is to keep Mexico onside so they support rather than sabotaging US immigration policy, Rubio would be a good choice.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
Trump is a 2nd-term President - he doesn't have any meaningful political rivals. I can see him wanting to punish DeSantis for disloyalty out of wounded ego, but I can also see him not bothering.
The political rivalry that now matters is the battle to succeed Trump - between Vance and DeSantis (and others, but as the sitting VP and the most popular conservative governor they are the best-positioned candidates for the 2028 primary).
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
And it is also obvious that replacing a Senator is a much higher-leverage move than replacing a house member, in general.
Also that replacing a House member requires a special election, which means that the Republicans are down a seat (with a single-figure majority) until the special election can be held, a period which will include a key budget battle. Johnson has already warned Trump not to appoint too many Republican House members - it isn't clear to me how much this is a joke and how much is a genuine worry about the size of his majority.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
7d ago
My impression is that GOPe political appointees were responsible for more obstruction and sabotage than the Deep State.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
7d ago
Government workers enjoy the opposite of that.
Depends on which part of the government, and which part of the country.
Looking at PMC-tier jobs, the military officer corps is more prestigious than comparably competitive private-sector careers in the red tribe, and comparably prestigious in the pro-establishment bits of the blue tribe. The career foreign policy bureaucracy is the other way round, of course. Teaching is almost always government work, and carries more social prestige than you would expect given the average SAT score of Ed school entrants. In my area (finance) government jobs are prestigious because quite junior people at a regulator or in the Treasury can make quite senior people at banks jump.
At the blue-collar level, law enforcement and various types of public safety work analogous to firefighting are pretty prestigious, as is the NCO corps (at least within the red tribe).
The point is that there are a lot of jobs that are "cool jobs" to a subset of the population that mostly can't be done outside the government, and very few of them come with the "government job" stigma. The "government job" stigma as I perceive it mostly relates to people doing and supervising routine office work (DMV staff being the paradigmatic example), who are assumed to be lazier and dumber than their private-sector counterparts.
There is also a set of jobs where the prestige doesn't change when you move between the private and public sectors because the job doesn't. A professor at a State university enjoys the same prestige as a professor at a comparably elite private university. A doctor or nurse doesn't gain or lose prestige if they take a job at a VA or municipally-owned hospital. If anything, a USPS (or Royal Mail in the UK) postman enjoys more prestige than a UPS/DHL/Amazon deliveryman.
The goal should be for people to react to someone saying they work for the feds with the same respect and fascination as say, a rocket engineer for SpaceX.
SpaceX is a small, elite firm, so the fair comparison is a small, elite part of the government. But I think in most bars in most of America, a Navy Seal is less likely to be buying his own drinks than a SpaceX rocket engineer.
In any case, the question isn't "How do you make a senior policy-making role in the Commerce department prestigious?" because those types of roles are already ultra-prestigious. The question is "How do you make the IT guy at the SSA who makes sure pensions are paid on time as prestigious as the IT guy at Google who keeps the site up?" - because those are comparably responsible jobs.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
7d ago
It seems to me that at some times and some places large-scale murder-suicide becomes a meme in a specific oppositional culture (see this Hanania essay for what an oppositional culture is). The best example is the cult of the "martyr" (i.e. suicide terrorist) among Salafi Jihadis in most places, but not in Saudi Arabia or Taliban-ruled Afghanistan where Salafism is not an oppositional culture. This started with the use of suicide terrorism as a not-obviously-insane tactic by Palestinians against Israel, but nowadays it is mostly copycats copycatting other copycats Four Lions style. As pointed out downthread, homegrown Islamic suicide terrorists in Europe were using cars for mass killings often enough that authorities are putting countermeasures in place and "diversity bollards" has become a meme.
Something similar has happened in US Red Tribe, with Columbine being the thing that the trails of copycats lead back to. If you are a disaffected Red Triber then shooting up your school or workplace is something the exists in the range of culturally conceivable options, in the same way that blowing yourself up on public transport or driving a van into a crowd is something that exists for a disaffected Muslim in western Europe.
Are we seeing the formation of an oppositional youth culture with a form of memetic murder-suicide in China? I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
7d ago
Does anyone have any ideas about what is going on with Marco Rubio as SecState?
Rubio's substantive political views are those of a swamp neocon on foreign policy and a conventional GOPe conservative on domestic policy. He isn't noted for his personal loyalty to Trump (to put things lightly). So what is Trump's motivation for appointing him? Rubio is a Ukraine war sceptic, but there are lots of Ukraine war sceptics with foreign policy experience who are closer to Trump. This looks like the same mistake Trump made appointing Tillerson in his first term.
This is sufficiently hard to explain that I am finding the left-wing conspiracy theory plausible (that the point isn't to get Rubio into the Cabinet, it's to get him out of the Senate, and Trump has already agreed with DeSantis on who will be appointed to the vacant Senate seat, probably a Trump family member).
Conservative Republicans want to cut Medicaid and ACA subsidies. They haven't said where or how much by, but they're in government now and are going to have to start making decisions. I acknowledge that both GOPe and MAGA republicans like to talk a good game about cutting spending and not do it, but if you take the right seriously about their spending plans then ACA subsidies are on the way out and Medicaid is going to see deep cuts in order to protect Social Security, Medicare and military spending.
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