#state vs federal laws

[filosofablogger]

Who Needs School? Just Put 'Em To Work!

Much has been written about the history of children working and child labour laws in the United States.  Federal child labor laws are broad in scope, and many states have state laws that are more restrictive, as is only right and fair.  Children are children for the first 18 years of their lives, and then they are adults for the entire rest of their lives.  The focus during their childhood should…

[comergpure5]

Join the discussion on cannabis legalization with our comprehensive article, complete with a detailed list of where cannabis is legal in the U.S. Explore the nuances of state laws and share your insights with the community. Don't miss out on this valuable resource. #CannabisDiscussion #LegalizationGuide #JoinTheConversation 🌿🗣️

[patrickrobertslaw]

State vs. Federal Laws: Understand the Key Differences

The American legal system operates on a dual sovereignty structure. This means there are two sets of laws that can apply to you: state vs. federal laws. Each level of government has its own court system to prosecute violations of its laws. A good criminal defense lawyer helps you to understand the distinction between state and federal crimes can be crucial, as it significantly impacts the potential penalties, trial procedures, and your rights as a defendant.

[gorillaxyz]

im gonna do my nea on . state vs federal usamerican law. and the north and south.

there was a really good example question abt it in the powerpoint my teavher just showed us BUT even though its yknow. 120 year breadth of history. i would kms if people thought i picked the question just so i could talk abt hamilton for a bit

[carriesthewind]

Some comments on that last post about libraries have reminded me:

Many libraries and librarians consider it to be best practices to, if possible, not disclose a user's library records to anyone, even if the user is a minor and the person requesting information on them is a parent. This is not always possible; in the U.S., for example, individual states have different library confidentiality statutes, and school libraries are governed by federal law which generally permits parental review of records.*

If you are a minor or are in an high-control relationship, and you are considering whether you can safely use a library to search for resources or information you do not want your parent/abuser to know about:

Ask your librarian about their disclosure/privacy/confidentiality policy & laws (and if you are a minor, how it may apply to you). Ask if it may be different for print vs. digital vs. online materials. Ask them to help you double check your account and make sure you haven't given anyone else access (e.g. if you attach someone else's phone number to your account, the library may call them about books you have put on hold).

And good luck. <3

*The American Library Association has links to all the applicable state laws here, if you want to look up your state.

[theoutcastrogue]

A copyright lawsuit filed by several major publishers puts the future of the Internet Archive's scan-and-lend library at risk. In a recent appeal, the non-profit organization argued that its solution is protected fair use and critical to preserving digital books. This position is shared by copyright scholars, the Authors Alliance, and other supporters now backing IA in court.

The Internet Archive (IA) is a non-profit organization that aims to preserve digital history for generations to come. The digital library is a staunch supporter of a free and open Internet and began meticulously archiving the web over a quarter century ago.

In addition to archiving the web, IA also operates a library that offers a broad collection of digital media, including books. Staying true to the centuries-old library concept, IA patrons can also borrow books that are scanned and digitized in-house.

Publishers vs. Internet Archive

The self-scanning service is different from the licensing deals other libraries enter into. Not all publishers are happy with IA’s approach which triggered a massive legal battle two years ago.

Publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley, and Penguin Random House filed a lawsuit, equating IA’s controlled digital lending (CDL) operation to copyright infringement. Earlier this year a New York Federal court concluded that the library is indeed liable for copyright infringement.

The Court’s decision effectively put an end to IA’s self-scanning library, at least for books from the publishers in suit. However, IA is not letting this go without a fight and last week the non-profit filed its opening brief at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, hoping to reverse the judgment.

Support from Authors Alliance

IA doesn’t stand alone in this legal battle. As the week progressed, several parties submitted amicus curiae briefs to the court supporting IA’s library. This includes the Authors Alliance.

The Authors Alliance represents thousands of members, including two Nobel Laureates, a Poet Laureate of the United States, and three MacArthur Fellows. All benefit from making their work available to a broad public.

If IA’s lending operation is outlawed, the authors fear that their books would become less accessible, allowing the major publishers to increase their power and control. The Alliance argues that the federal court failed to take the position of authors into account, focusing heavily on the publishers instead. However, the interests of these groups are not always aligned.

“Many authors strongly oppose the actions of the publishers in bringing this suit because they support libraries and their ability to innovate. Authors rely on libraries to reach readers and many are proud to have their works preserved and made available through libraries in service of the public.

“Because these publishers have such concentrated market power […], authors that want to reach wide audiences rarely have the negotiating power to retain sufficient control from publishers to independently authorize public access like that at issue here,” the Alliance adds.

This critique from the authors is not new. Hundreds of writers came out in support of IA’s digital book library at an earlier stage of this lawsuit, urging the publishers to drop their case. [...]

Copyright Scholars Back IA

In a separate amicus brief, several prominent legal and copyright scholars, many of whom hold professor titles, raise similar arguments. They believe that IA’s lending system is not that different from the physical libraries that are an integral part of culture.

“Libraries have always been free under copyright law to lend materials they own as they see fit. This is a feature of copyright law, not a bug,” the brief reads.

What is new here, is that publishers now assert full control over how their digital books are treated. Instead of allowing libraries to own copies, they have to license them, which makes it impossible to add them to the permanent archive.

“The major publishers refuse to sell digital books to libraries, forcing them to settle for restrictive licenses of digital content rather than genuine ownership. Moreover, publishers insist they can prevent libraries from scanning their lawfully purchased physical books and lending the resulting digital copies.” [...]

[tanadrin]

What’s the case for an upper and lower chamber?

In my opinion, none.

The historical situation is that the upper chamber had more power and the lower was a sop to the common folk and petty nobility: this is why the House of Commons was formed (originally from knights of the shire and the representatives of cities that had been granted special rights by the Crown), and only later, after a very long process of constitutional evolution in Britain, did the Lords transform into a consultative body that was adjunct to the Commons, where the real power lay. For a while, even after you started to have something that looked like modern government in Britain, you still frequently had PMs drawn from the Lords--and still could, in theory, except that the convention is they come from the Commons.

In the U.S. example, the goal was simply to split the difference between a popular chamber (the House) and a chamber representing state governments (the Senate, whose members could be chosen by any method provided for under state law, but originally were usually chosen by state legislatures). This is because the people who drafted the U.S. constitution hated and were suspicious of popular democracy, because they were rich landowners and slaveholders whose positions were untenable in the long run if everyone in the country could vote and was equally represented.

Obviously they didn't put it like that--they spoke of the hotheaded hoi polloi, the changeable will of the people--but they were massive Romeaboos, and all the populist leaders who whittled away at the Roman republic managed to do so because they were willing to centralize power, to take it away from the baronial elite of the Republic, and to use that power in service of people further down the org chart. In service of themselves too, of course--these were not altruists--but it was the particularly Roman instantiation of the crown-vs-barons struggle, where the common folk usually side with the Crown, because the barons are bastards who abuse them directly.

(Very many "tyrants" in history were "tyrants" only in that they gave a raw deal to the barons in their particular social order, and very many events which we now describe as movements toward a more equitable distribution of power were in fact a very shitty deal for the majority of the population--the peasants--because it gave the barons even more license to abuse their serfs.)

And the American founders knew all this, and they were all barons, and they didn't like the idea of a federal government that was too effective, so they sprinkled it with veto points and also totally failed to anticipate the rise of modern political parties. (Which weren't exactly what they had in mind when they warned against factionalism--that was more about sectional interests. But still, they did totally fail to anticipate how this system would work as party politics developed.)

In a system of democratic government like the U.S. has now, where it is widely acknowledged the rule should be "one adult citizen never convicted of a felony who can get the day off work to stand in line and has a photo ID = one vote" the U.S. Senate is an inexcusable anachronism. Indeed, the Supreme Court has ruled that state senates modeled on the exact same principle as the U.S. senate (say, one county one senator, as the constitution of my home state Tennessee has it) are unconstitutional, because they violate the equal protection clause.

More recently, many countries have approached the idea of an upper chamber as a sort of "chamber of experts" meant to review and advise on legislation. This kind of makes sense in theory, I guess, but if voters want subject-matter experts to make policy, they can vote them in; in practice, any system of appointment or ex officio qualification is going to select for political lackeys without democratic mandates, and it's also just a bad idea to have people with significant power over the legislative process who do not have democratic accountability. The problem of creating legislation is never that we don't have enough smart people willing to offer their opinions; the problem is brokering functional compromises between interest groups and resolving incentives that push the process toward dysfunctional outcomes, which isn't really something you can fix just by fiddling with the composition of your upper house.

So in most modern parliamentary democracies, upper houses are reduced in power. Either they can't veto bills permanently (Lords), they can't originate money bills (Lords again), they only have input on certain matters (German Bundesrat), they're full of government appointees to ensure the government always has a majority in them (Irish Seanad), or the lower house can overrule them on most matters (Japanese House of Councillors). And the reason why is obvious: if your democratic mandate comes from the lower house, if that's where your government is being formed in a parliamentary system, if the whole principle of government is meant to be collective self-rule by the body of citizens, an upper house that is a check on that power is either definitionally redundant or a brake on democracy.

There are ways to ensure that a lower house is both representative and does not devolve into factional chaos. Proportional representation, four-year terms, constructive motions of no confidence (again, parliamentary systems only), etc. Plenty of countries and subnational entities have unicameral legislatures and are perfectly stable: Sweden, Norway, the Baltics, Portugal, Mongolia, South Korea, Peru [ok bad example nvm], all the states of Germany, all the provinces of Canada, most of the provinces of Argentina, Queensland, the vast majority of the states of India, and the three devolved legislatures in the United Kingdom.

Therefore in my opinion there is no good democratic case for an upper house. And all the undemocratic reasons why you'd want one are bad. Too much democracy is, in fact, a very rare problem for systems of government to have!

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Going to be honest, the more I see of “Oaky the Owl” and “meandmyowl” (same person) the more I’m convinced Leslie does not have this bird legally.

So since she’s located in north Salt Lake City, Utah you can use this page to submit an anonymous tip.

What’s not legal about what she’s doing? Well for starters, on her website she has a merch page. Not only that, but she also accepts a lot of donations and such during live streams and allows fans to pay her to bring the owl and give presentations about surviving near death experiences or the healing power of crystals, not just conservation or falconry.

Which is a bit of a problem due to, well, let’s see, she claims the owl is held on a falconry permit, right? And it’s a great horned owl, meaning it’s a species protected by the migratory bird treaty act. So what does that mean? It means she’s meant to comply with regulations from Utah's falconry regulations, AND the migratory bird treaty act’s federal regulation.

Alright, so what do those documents say about that exactly? Let’s start off with the Utah falconry regulations first, linked here if you’d like to read the entire document.

Article R657-20-28 subsection 5c clearly states that a raptor possessed under a falconry permit cannot be used in advertising or for commercial profit. The only profit a raptor held for falconry may garner would be if the bird is being used to promote conservation, biology, or falconry in some way. The gist of this is that you can use a falconry bird to, say, star in a documentary about falconry or the ecology of that species. You can have a gyrfalcon pose modeling a hood or jesses you are selling. You CANNOT use a falconry bird to sell phone cases or other merch for personal profit unrelated to the sport of falconry. Note as well that a falconer cannot be compensated for allowing their bird to star in a for-profit film, even when that film is about ecology or conservation.

Subsection 4e-4h vs. what is advertised on her page. Using the owl for any of the first four subjects is in violation of R657-20-28. The pricing she charges for these talks is not stated on her webpage and is only revealed if you email her an inquiry, meaning it’s a bit hard to say whether she is charging more than what would pay for the program, but honestly you can guarantee she is since she clearly has no interest in ethics or honesty in using this owl. Worth noting as well is that she allegedly claimed on a livestream that she does not hunt with the owl because she’s “an animal lover” which would also violate subsection 4e as the bird is NOT primarily used in falconry, because by her own words she has stated that the owl is not used for falconry in any sense.

You can read the full section on falconry in the migratory bird treaty act’s federal regulations regarding the sport here, but it’s almost identical to the rules further regulated by Utah’s state government.

TL;DR: you cannot lawfully use a great horned owl possessed by falconry permit to sell personal merch, draw people to your spiritual talks, monetize livestreams, or profit in any way. And you should use the link above to report this as this person is just keeping an owl as a pet to exploit for financial gain and fame. This breaks state and federal law and there must be consequences to harmful behavior such as this.

Edit: apparently this is her name.

That’s not her home address, it’s a PO Box which she has public so people can send her gifts so I’m not censoring it. Please include her last name in all future reports.

[scientia-rex]

I will never be impressed by someone who thinks they know more than I do about what information I’m allowed to share about my job.

Like, even if I wasn’t a doctor, I worked in research. I know what counts as deidentified data vs what could be identifiable. My job literally involved clarifying that for researchers so they remained in compliance with federal law.

When strangers try to bad-faith “you can’t talk about that” at me, I’m going to block them. Every time. Because if you think I’m sharing information that would let you dial in one specific patient, even if you knew my name, state, town, and practice, you’re wrong.

[momkat]

If you are in the USA today, go VOTE!!!

So many people only vote in presidential elections when it is the smaller more local elections that have so much control over your lives!!! The president is not a king and can effect NOTHING if they have a hostile congress!! Congresspeople come from smaller local government offices! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

If you don't show up to vote against, then you are voting for. A mediocre candidate who votes FOR you in office most of the time is still better than a hostile candidate who will vote against you while in office. If you can't vote for, then at least vote against!

Vote LOCAL!

School Board – Your local School Board is responsible for:

Content of your sex education including gay sex & safety, and all the sexual variants that real people have.

whether gay marriage can be talked about in school

whether a child gets called their chosen name vs their dead name in class.

all policies about trans kids, including anti-bullying policies

whether or not your school has to tell parents that you are identifying as queer. (If a kid is not telling their parents that they are some form of alt/queer/non-b THERE IS A REASON FOR IT. Schools telling these parents can result in abuse, shaming, being kicked out of the house, being 'beaten straight' etc.)

Access to gender affirming care in the clinic or counselor's office

Book bans – school book bans are often used as a step/justification for book bans at the local library.

The content of your history class. Whitewashing slavery. Whitewashing Nazi Germany. Whitewashing colonialism.

And much, much more. In addition, School Boards are often a stepping stone to larger offices. The progression is: School Board, City/County board, State office, National office. If you want state and national officials to support you, you have to grow them at the LOCAL LEVEL!!!

City/County Government:

How much money schools get. (And therefore can effect/dictate policies.)

How much money cops get. (And therefore can effect/dictate policies.)

How much money public services (firemen, local health services, libraries etc) get.

Local government regulations & laws (i.e. being arrested for 'indecency' because you are in drag.)

And again, don't forget that these are the 'feeder' offices that lead to government offices. These people go on to state offices!!

Your STATE Legislature is responsible for:

All abortion policies. Since Roe v. Wade has been tossed there is no federal prevention against any abortion policies.

All sexual health policies. From birth control to sex changes. Their laws can range from sensible to inhumane.

All CIVIL RIGHTS policies that are not explicitly guarded and monitored by the federal government are left up to the states. Take a look at Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Arizona, etc. if you want examples.

And, of course, they can dictate policies to smaller municipalities (see City/County).

The most likely State office that leads to the presidency is Governor or a state. If you want better presidents, you need better governors!

Gerrymandering:

“But...but, but... I am gerrymandered so it doesn't make a difference if I vote!!” It DOES! If you are in a gerrymandered district and the crazy left wing crusader wins with a landslide because you DID NOT VOTE, then their party will keep putting in crazy right wing crusaders! If the vote is closer, EVEN IF YOU LOSE, their party is more likely to put in a more centrist candidate because they don't want to risk losing the seat. In addition, voting records are used to determine 1) the NEXT time areas are redistricted and 2) To show severe gerrymandering to courts to OVERTURN gerrymandered districts and force a redistricting. Right now there are people who are wining court case after court case to force redistricting of gerrymandered states and they are using voting data to do so!!! VOTE!!!

Please re-post this. Please blaze this. Please pass it on. PLEASE VOTE!

[spacelazarwolf]

Tipping vs shoplifting anon here, thanks for your response. One more thing though, aren't employers supposed to make it up to waiters if they don't meet the regular minimum wage with tips? Unless I'm misunderstanding the law, I got it from the elaws section of the US Department of Labor website.

i was gonna answer this like a normal person but my autism decided to go overboard.

minimum wage for servers and if/how much their employers are required to credit them depends on the state. some states require employers to pay servers full state minimum wage, but some have a different minimum wage for tipped employees which is where the tip credit comes in. for example, missouri's minimum tipped wage is $6/hr, and state law requires that employers ensure employees are making at least $12/hr. and iirc this doesn't mean they have to look at how much the employee got in tips per hour and if there was one hour they got no tips they'd have to pay them an extra $6, it just means their wages plus tips should average out to at least $12/hr. and the thing with tipped work is that there is an expectation that you will make more than the minimum, which is why employers get away with paying tipped employees so little.

so say we have a hypothetical server who lives in missouri. they work on average around 25 hours a week, usually serving an average of 3 tables per hour and each table's check is usually around $40. if none of their tables tipped for a month and their employer was forced to make up the difference, before tax they would make a total of $1,200. if all their tables tipped an average of $10, before tax they would make a total of $3,600.

that's a huge difference. the first would put you well below the poverty line, especially if you have a family. you would likely not qualify to rent any apartments unless you had a partner whose income could make up the difference, and even though you would qualify for some federal assistance, it's difficult to get and maintain. the second would allow you to qualify for significantly better housing and especially if you had a partner's income to rely on as well you could easily pay for health insurance and other necessities. and all it took was everyone at the table chipping in a few bucks.

if 10 people decide to steal $10 in pencils from walmart, walmart says "darn" then maybe files a loss prevention report. if 10 of our servers tables decide not to tip $10, that's $100 the server could have used to pay their bills or buy groceries. that's not to say tipping is in any way a good model for paying employees. it has an incredibly racist history, and relying on customers to basically pay your employees for you is fucked up. but until the system changes, tipped employees will continue to rely heavily on tips for their livelihood, and i will continue to consider tipping to be a moral imperative.

[filosofablogger]

"What Next?" You Asked ...

Late last night I read Heather Cox Richardson’s daily newsletter, Letters from an American, and the first two paragraphs caused my jaw to drop to the floor.  The lust of some people to turn this nation into an all-white, straight, male-dominated Christian nation has gone too far!!!  I must share that newsletter with you … January 13, 2024 By Heather Cox Richardson 14 January 2024 Last night a…

[thecurioustale]

A Supreme Court Ruling that Should Not Be Enforced

I think the Chevron Defense ruling last week is the most dangerous decision by the Supreme Court this year, as it will immediately begin to disrupt the the entire federal executive's ability to function and will directly lead in the coming years to the dismantling of environmental protections, worker protections, regulatory oversight, and much more.

But today's ruling on presidential immunity is, by far, the most unconstitutional ruling of this term, and one of the most breathtakingly unconstitutional rulings I have ever seen or learned about by the US Supreme Court. It is up there with Citizens United (corporations are people), Plessy vs. Ferguson (segregation in schools), and Dobbs (stripping people of acknowledged constitutional rights).

I understand the need for individual officeholders to have blanket immunity from civil litigation (so you sue the organization, not the person) and even some qualified criminal immunity for that officeholder's official activities. But what the Supreme Court did today, in its 6–3 ruling, is declare that the US president need only declare or construe or even simply believe that they are acting in an official capacity, and, therein, they are immune from all criminal liability unconditionally.

The President of the United States is now above the law. Full stop.

For years I have wondered where we should draw the line on lawless behavior and extremism from our courts, especially the US Supreme Court. The thing about our rule of law is that you have to accept the outcome of court cases; if you don't you are basically calling for violent revolution whether you realize it or not, and at an absolute minimum you are calling for chaos and unrest.

I have always asserted that Neil Gorsuch's votes on the Court should not be recognized, as his appointment to the Supreme Court was the result of a power grab by Mitch McConnell. But of course as more time passes this becomes more and more unlikely. And Kavanaugh and Barrett's appointments I have no choice but to accept as legitimate, so even if Gorsuch were not counted this ruling would still have been a significant 5–3 majority.

Citizens United was real close for me to delegitimizing the ruling majority on the bench at the time, and the more recent Dobbs ruling actually crossed my personal line and made all of the justices who signed it unfit to hold their offices, but I figured that it would still be better to resolve the problem by passing a federal abortion rights law when Democrats next have the opportunity and continuing to try to flush the fascist judge problem out of the judiciary through maintaining control of the White House and Senate and appointing new judges over time.

But this ruling, now, raises the possibility by at least an order of magnitude that our constitutional system of democracy and rule of law in America will be dismantled by the next sufficiently extreme or unscrupulous Republican president, be that Trump himself or whomever else.

Just to give you an idea of the landscape that we now live in, Joe Biden could, at this moment, order military special ops teams to assassinate Donald Trump. Hell, he could do it himself: He could walk up to Trump and pull the trigger. And he would be completely immune from criminal prosecution for it now or ever. And that's just the beginning.

If not corrected, this will be used someday to overthrow our democracy. And by then it will be too late for us to do anything about it through peaceful means.

In 2020 I worried that, even if Biden won the presidency, it would just be four years of calm before the real storm began. At the time I wasn't thinking about another Trump presidency but rather the committed fascists high in his party who want to succeed him. Cruz, DeSantis, the usuals. Trump is a buffoon with very little self-control, but a lot of these other people are smart cookies. In 2024 my worry remains relevant: We are one step closer today to handing the fascists our country.

If I were the president at this moment, I would declare this ruling invalid. Because it is. Not only does it have no basis in the Constitution, but it upends some of the most fundamental assumptions of our Constitution and our whole legal regime. I would go before the public and say "This ruling is illegal. This ruling gives me the power to assassinate anyone I want; to run criminal enterprises from the Oval Office; to commit fraud and extortion and embezzlement of your money as taxpayers; to imprison my political opponents, shut down the free press, and forcibly remove from office any judge or police officer with the gall to rule against my actions or try hold me accountable. This ruling makes me a king. That is what makes it illegal. As the leader of the executive branch of our government, I have a duty not to enforce an illegal and unconstitutional ruling, and I am directing all federal agencies to similarly disregard it. Neither I nor any other US president should be placed above the law."

And believe you me, I would be tempted to go a lot further, including appointing six new justices on the Court and no longer recognizing the old six. But for the sake of the country and the way we do things in this country I would limit myself to the above action of refusing to recognize this one ruling.

I understand that this opens a Pandora's box. That's how the fascist resurgence in this country has worked: Republicans will do something completely unreasonable (like gumming up judicial nominations), forcing Democrats to break norms just to get the people's business done (like eliminating the judicial filibuster), which Republicans then turn around and exploit to their advantage (as by using their time in power to appoint whomever they want to the courts). But I think this is the way it has to be. We can't let this ruling stand. The other problems—Citizens United, Dobbs—can be fixed through legislation. This one can't, except maybe by a law that specifically declares that a president is not above the law, which I'm not sure would itself be constitutional. In any case, another problem with that is that fascists are selective in their application of the law. They have no problem ruling in favor of conservatives, but will never permit that exact same legal reasoning to then benefit their ideological enemies.

But yeah, this is bad. The Chevron ruling will begin to erode our federal executive in horrible ways, and this immunity ruling sets the stage for nightmarish conduct by a future president.

I didn't watch the debate the other day, or any of the analysis after the fact. I know who I am voting for, and, on some level, I didn't want to have to watch Biden's inevitably uncharismatic performance. And then everyone started melting down and crying that the sky was falling, so I went and watched a short clip of Biden's worst moments, and I get it. That performance goes beyond the stutter that often wrongly gets conflated with dementia. But in this case he clearly lost his train of thought and he did it on-stage in front of millions of people. That's a rough day.

I still don't think the mate is senile. I have seen plenty of people have the meltdown that he had, and I have had that meltdown myself. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. But even if Joe Biden were hunched over in a wheelchair drooling out the side of his mouth, I would still vote for him, and gladly. Because not voting for him is a vote for Trump, and I would not vote for a candidate who spent the whole debate lying and who himself is a traitor, an egomaniac, a convicted felon, a con artist, a failed coup plotter, and an ethically bankrupt, intellectually stunted manchild. And because, moreover, he has run a good administration. He has good people around him, and can be ably succeeded by Vice President Harris if needed. When you vote for a president you are voting not just for an individual but for a team, and that team's ethos, and I have no doubt which team, which ethos, I support. We are asking the wrong person to drop out of this race.

Anyway! President Biden is going to speak to the public tonight about this court ruling. I don't know what he will say. I don't expect anything meaningful a la refusing to enforce the Court's ruling, but it sure would be nice. President Trump should be prosecuted for his alleged crimes on January 6 (which is the trial most directly impacted by this ruling), crimes of which Trump is unambiguously guilty and which are "alleged" only in the blindfolded eyes of Justice for the sake of due process. America needs this accountability, or we will suffer terribly for want of it in the future.

[anarchywoofwoof]

tomorrow will mark week number 3 without my vyvanse. needless to say, it has not been the easiest 3 weeks of my life.

that being said, this is probably a fitting time to remind everyone that there are quantifiable reasons for the ongoing stimulant shortage, which is projected now to last through 2024 despite federal attempts to remedy the problem.

first, while yes, there has been increased access to medications via telehealth, keep in mind that people with long COVID are using ADHD drugs to treat their symptoms. this is a proven medical approach that has not been accounted for in the ongoing production of ADHD medications.

about 41.4 million Adderall prescriptions were dispensed in the United States in 2021, up more than 10% from 2020, and it's anticipated that number will rise again.

but that is a problem, because US health officials are purposefully hampering production, not having considered the differences in treating an illness such as ADHD vs. disorders that may require opioids:

what’s different about ADHD is that the first-line treatment is a stimulant drug with the potential for misuse or addiction — and so it’s a matter not just for pharmaceutical companies but for law enforcement. The Drug Enforcement Agency has hedged on the side of keeping production of these drugs down to limit the potential for abuse. The fear is that Adderall would follow the same path as opioid painkillers: careless overprescribing would lead to an epidemic of drug addiction — this time, to stimulants.

...

Manufacturers are not mandated to report the reasons for a drug shortage and any public information they do provide can be vague. That has proven true with the Adderall shortage too. However, experts say that the role of the federal government in regulating one of Adderall’s active ingredients makes this shortage distinct. One of the active ingredients in Adderall is amphetamine, and therefore the drug is regulated as a controlled substance under federal law.

...

The DEA also sets annual production quotas for Adderall, as with other controlled substances that have recognized medical uses, based on estimates of legitimate medical and scientific needs, as well as the potential for diversion and abuse. However, those quotas are not well understood; while the agency announced in 2019 that it was allowing for more production of Adderall, given the apparent growing need in the patient population, we still don’t know exactly how much production has been authorized or the limits set for individual companies. “The DEA gives the companies a set amount of raw material ‘quota’ to manufacture these products, but we don’t know which company gets how much,” said Erin Fox, a pharmacist at the University of Utah and leading expert on US drug shortages. “Some companies say they’re short, but DEA says that they haven’t used it all, so lots of finger-pointing.” Indeed, the companies that produce Adderall and its generic version have cited both a shortage of the active ingredients and an increase in demand to explain their ongoing shortages. But another factor, new limits on the dispensing of the drug at US pharmacies, is making the situation worse. In 2022, drug distributors reached a settlement with most states over their role in the proliferation of prescription opioids that helped create an addiction and overdose epidemic. Bloomberg reported this week [in April 2023] that, as part of that settlement, secret limits were placed on the dispensation of controlled substances last July [2022]. That has in turn prevented pharmacists from filling the prescription of every patient who comes to their pharmacy with an Adderall order. According to Bloomberg, in essence, manufacturers are supposed to limit a pharmacy’s supply of drugs covered by the Controlled Substances Act, which includes opioids as well as stimulants. Pharmacists can only fill a certain number of prescriptions over a set period. But there has been widespread confusion over these rules because the pharmacists themselves don’t know what the limits are or when they are approaching them. Sometimes, they won’t know their access to Adderall has been cut off until trying to fill a prescription.

in other words, the ass-backwards failure that is America's "War On Drugs" continues to rage on, this time at a pharmacy near you.

rather than approaching a complex situation that requires a delicate understanding of the plight of the common person suffering with mental health issues or other disorders that affect their daily life, the US Government has chose a brute force, one-size-fits all approach. because when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

as i highlighted above, this problem will continue throughout 2024. in other words, no end in sight.

one side note, as someone who has the (misfortune) of working in the industry: the technology sector is going to feel this at some point, if not already, given their heavy reliance on Adderall to get anything done. the Class War eventually comes for us all, in one way, shape or form. tech bros are going to realize that they aren't as immune as they maybe once thought.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By Steve Corbin

According to a May 15 NBC News report, there are a multitude of issues that voters must discern about Joe Biden, Donald Trump and the independent presidential candidates before voting on Nov. 5. Logically, the importance of each issue differs between and among America’s 161.4 million registered voters.

One issue missing from the NBC News report that has become a focal point of the Biden camp, Make America Great Again Republicans and third-party candidates is democracy vs. authoritarianism. Specifically, on Jan. 20, 2025, will the duly elected and inaugurated president of the United States keep America as a democracy that dates back to the 1630’s in the New England colonies, or will it be the start of changing the country to authoritarian fascism?

If you’ve not heard of Project 2025, it’s very worthy of your independent investigation. Project 2025 is a playbook specifically created for Donald Trump and his supporters to use in the first 180 days of Trump’s 2025-29 presidential administration. The far-right extremism-based Heritage Foundation proudly takes claim for facilitating the creation of the 887-page turning-democracy-into-an-authoritarian-country document.

Project 2025’s two editors had assistance from 34 authors, 277 contributors, a 54-member advisory board and a coalition of over 100 conservative organizations (including the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Heartland Institute, Liberty University, Middle East Forum, Moms for Liberty, the National Rifle Association, Pro-Life America and Tea Party Patriots).

Project 2025 is a serious endeavor, if Trump returns to the White House, to make America a fascist country. After all, on May 20, Trump posted a video on his Truth Social media account depicting his 2025-29 administration as a “Unified Reich.” (Hitler’s Third Reich occurred from 1933 to 1945.)

Download the Project 2025 document (it's linked from this essay) so you can check out the disconcerting manuscript that tells Trump what specifically to do from Jan. 20 to July 18, 2025, to convert America into an authoritarian regime.

The 30 chapters of Project 2025 are a daunting read. Project 2025 proposes, among a host of things, eliminating the Department of Education, eliminating the Department of Commerce, deploying the US military whenever protests erupt, dismantling the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, removing sexual and gender protected discrimination and terminating diversity, equity, inclusion and affirmative action.

Additional mandates include: siphoning off billions of dollars of public school funding, funding private school choice vouchers, phasing out public education’s Title I program, gutting the nation’s free school meals program, eliminating the Head Start program, banning books and suppressing any curriculum that discusses the evils of slavery.

Project 2025 also calls for banning abortion (which makes women second-class citizens), restricting access to contraception, forcing would-be immigrants to be detained in concentration camps, eliminating Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, recruiting 54,000 loyal MAGA Republicans to replace existing federal civil servants, and ending America’s bedrock principle that separates church from state.

A news story in Politico described Project 2025 as an authoritarian Christian nationalist movement and a path for the US to become an autocracy. Several legal experts have indicated implementing the 180-day manual would undermine the rule of law and the separation of powers.

As noted earlier, Project 2025 is worthy of your independent investigation. So that you’ll be in-the-know as to what authoritarianism looks like, seriously consider reading one research-based book per month for the next five months as pre-election homework. Here’s my suggested reading assignment:

JUNE: "On Tyranny: 20 lessons from the 20th century," Timothy Snyder, 2017.

JULY: "Twilight of Democracy: The seductive lure of authoritarianism," Anne Applebaum, 2020. Chapters IV, V and VI get to the bottom line.

AUGUST: "Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America," Heather Cox Richardson, 2023.

SEPTEMBER: "Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America," Barbara McQuade, 2024. The 1,717 reference citations proves this is well researched and an honest read.

OCTOBER: "1984," George Orwell, 1949. Orwell’s novel shows Americans what life would be like under totalitarian and oppressive rule.

Reading even just one of these books will enable you to discern political candidate and party-based disinformation, misinformation and propaganda from truth, ready to vote on Nov. 5 and keep America a democracy.

[fairuzfan]

The problem with the Schengen discussion is that everyone (Europeans) are taught the benefits and only the benefits of it and don't really realise the downsides of it until something like a genocide witness gets blocked and barred in a single airport with no way to go anywhere. And even then the extent of such a ban isn't realised. What isn't realised is that the great freedom of movement they have also has the ability to become the greatest blockade for those who can't apply themselves to the privilege of being a European citizen BECAUSE the European countries have decided that they have shared autonomy on the topic and no more national sovereignty.

Something Americans understand very well if you view the EU (and the Schengen, which isn't the EU but covers it and more) as the federal government and the member states (countries) as the states of America. States/countries need to give up their authority/sovereignty. So that argument someone made is invalid as well.

It is in the same way that 'Brits being baffled' at how many 'privileges' they lost was because the same Brits voted for more autonomy on the entry of refugees. Supporting my earlier point that people are simply not understanding the two sides of a coin that their rights and privileges come with.

Not an EU-hater and I am happy for the Schengen Agreement (treaty) to exist, but it does stand for some criticism.

I hope Ghassan Abu Sitta manages to leave the airport and the country and isn't forced to be stuck like Mehran Karimi Nasseri for eleven years (at the same airport even!!! For shame!)

Yeah, I was thinking that this sounds like a federal system vs a state system in which the state can decide the federal system laws. Like in the case of for example, Alabama, just because Alabama made abortion illegal does not mean it imposes their laws onto other states.

But in this case, the country does not give up authority to the larger Schengen agreement, which is why that's so odd to me. Maybe this is because I grew up in the US but the idea that one country can enforce onto other countries different rules by enacting a rule within that country, seems so odd to me. Maybe that's an oversimplification, relating it to US states? I don't especially care either way, its not an area of interest beyond the enforcement of colonialism that has occurred within the last few decades (remember, the Mediterranean is a mass grave because so many European countries refused to accept refugees), but it's a viewpoint of someone from outside Schengen looking in, considering the political histories of these individual countries and how none of them, including Germany, really reckoned with their hateful pasts.