#to have the bar raised because of others' sanctioned actions?

[dankusner]

TEXAS SUPREME COURT Suits against AG, deputy argued

At issue:

Were the two out of line in alleging swing-state wrongdoing

At 2:05

AUSTIN — The Texas Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday in a case that could determine whether top officials with the attorney general’s office can be sanctioned for making allegedly false statements about election fraud in a 2020 petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

At issue Thursday was whether a lawsuit accusing First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster of professional misconduct — and a similar lawsuit against Attorney General Ken Paxton — was a legitimate accusation of wrongdoing or a partisan ploy to punish a political opponent.

The case stems from a December 2020 petition, led by Paxton and Webster, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s electoral victories in four swing states.

The Texas petition, joined by 21 Republican-led states, argued Texas had uncovered proof of “significant and unconstitutional irregularities” that affected the election results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The court dismissed the lawsuit four days later, ruling Texas lacked standing to challenge methods adopted by other states to run an election.

Justice Jimmy Blacklock questioned whether the right or wrong of Webster’s actions changed depending on political perspective.

“In November of 2020, those allegations sound entirely reasonable and probable to about half the country, and they sound outrageous and sanctionable to the other half of the country,” Blacklock, one of nine GOP justices on the all-Republican court, said during oral arguments Thursday.

“The obvious difference between the two groups of people is their political perspective and their interpretation through the lens of politics of disputed and controversial events related to an election,” Blacklock said.

Lawsuit filed in 2022

The Texas state bar’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline filed a 2022 lawsuit asking a state district court judge to reprimand Webster for alleged violations of state ethical standards that prohibit lawyers from conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.

Webster was accused of misrepresenting that Texas had “substantial evidence … that raises serious doubts as to the integrity of the election process” in the four battleground states.

The lawsuit accused Webster of professional misconduct by making “dishonest representations” to the Supreme Court.

The alleged false statements included charges that unregistered voters and “illegal votes” skewed election results, and that a glitch with Dominion voting machines switched votes away from Donald Trump.

Texas also argued the states unconstitutionally revised voting procedures in response to the pandemic.

The commission filed a similar complaint against Paxton about three weeks later.

Michael Graham, appellate counsel from the state bar’s chief disciplinary counsel’s office, acknowledged the commission doesn’t know if Webster “knowingly” made false statements to the Supreme Court.

But he said the commission’s process wasn’t political.

“The whole construct of that attorney disciplinary system has been created by this court with help from the Legislature to try and avoid exactly the political problems you’re concerned about,” he said.

Graham said a grievance filed against Webster was dismissed by the commission’s chief disciplinary counsel but reinstated on appeal, leading to an investigation that found “just cause” to proceed toward disciplinary action. Webster then opted for a trial in district court instead of accepting a public reprimand.

Graham said it would have been political to dismiss the complaint “because it’s the attorney general or it’s the first assistant attorney general” and the office didn’t want to open “a can of worms.” Webster, and later Paxton, sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing their actions were protected by the separation of powers clause in the Texas Constitution and by sovereign immunity, a principle that protects government officials from lawsuits and liability for official actions.

View of AG’s office

Solicitor General Aaron Nielson with Paxton’s office said the commission’s idea of a sanctionable offense is “so broad that every [Texas law license] is at risk.”

“The main complaint they have is about the legal theories, which we know were only resolved last year by the [U.S.] Supreme Court,” he said.

The attorney general constantly has to make “hard calls” that don’t always break along party lines, Nielson said.

“The types of positions that the state has to take are going to be difficult and controversial, and it’s not just our ability to bring things. It’s our ability to defend actions by the other branches as well,” he said.

Nielson said the attorney general’s office won’t be able to represent the state’s interests if it “can’t make those types of calls because we’re worried about some bar complaint.”

A trial judge dismissed the lawsuit against Webster, but an appeals court reinstated it.

Webster appealed to the Supreme Court, leading to Thursday’s oral arguments.

A decision from the court is expected in the coming months.

Paxton also sought to dismiss his lawsuit. A separate judge rejected that request, and an appeals court upheld the ruling.

Paxton’s appeal to the Texas Supreme Court has not yet been acted on.

[louehvolution]

.

[ceterisparibus116]

In the comics, Matt's identity going public means he's automatically disbarred. And I get it, really.

But... why can Jennifer Walters be a lawyer as She-Hulk, then? 👀

So Matt doesn’t get disbarred because of the fact that he’s Daredevil; he gets disbarred because being Daredevil necessarily means committing crimes (which trigger disbarment). I don’t know Jen as well (but I want to know her more!) but I don’t think She-Hulk necessarily commits crimes. And if she does commit crimes, it's more likely that she wouldn't get convicted (or wouldn't even get charged in the first place) because she's more of a superhero than a vigilante.

The difference, at least in Marvel, between superheroism and vigilantism seems to be: a) the superheroing is legally sanctioned (like with the Accords, ugh), and/or b) the superheroing is responsive to a problem no one else can solve, whereas vigilantism seeks out problems the police could theoretically solve.

Idk if the Accords are even in place in She-Hulk and I hate them anyway, so I’ll ignore the possibility that Jennifer's activities are legally sanctioned, and instead focus on B.

Legally, if two people are in a fight and I run out to help, I could potentially get charged with a crime. At first glance, this seems to apply to both Matt and Jennifer. The question is whether they'd get convicted, and that depends on whether they can raise a valid "defense of others" affirmative defense. A defense of "defense of others" requires proving that: 1) they responded to an immediate threat; 2) their actions were necessary; and 3) their actions were proportionate.

Matt’s actions are not always responses to imminent threats (pretty much anything he does to deal with Fisk, for example, is dealing with a future threat), and even when they are, they’re rarely proportional.

Maybe Jennifer is more…judicious…with her violence? Maybe she responds only when necessary, with proportional force, in response to an imminent threat?

Even if Matt and Jennifer both get charged, Matt is more likely to actually get convicted, which means he'd get disbarred but she might not.

Alternatively, maybe the jury would engage in jury nullification shhh you didn’t see that here, and refuse to convict either of them regardless of whether they actually satisfy the requirements of defense-of-others.

But another difference between Matt and Jennifer is scope and obvious nature of threats. In the show, the threats Matt faces aren’t often really super-villainous. Fisk is scary, but it’s not like a Chitauri-invasion-level threat. The most super-villainous threats Matt faced were Hand-related, and the general public doesn’t know anything about them. Whereas Jennifer might deal with bigger/more obvious threats that the general public is aware of.

The reason this matters is that prosecutors are accountable (um, theoretically, anyway) to the people of the state/county. No prosecutor in their right mind would try to bring a case against Jennifer when she's dealing with giant threats that no one else can handle because they know that no jury would convict her. So she wouldn't get charged in the first place.

And without the conviction, the Bar Association would have to find ethical reasons to disbar her, and no ethical violations would necessarily stem from being She-Hulk.

Contrast this with Matt, who was pissing off police and politicians long before he was recognized as a hero, and people are still suspicious of him, and sometimes when he takes action, it's not immediately obvious why he's doing it and whether it's okay.

It's the difference between punching an alien (an obvious otherworldly threat) and torturing the human trafficker on Claire's roof.

I feel like this is very rambly. Does all of this… make sense?

[cherrywoes]

ni. (acanthus.)

KAKASHI BRAIDED HER HAIR for her when it became evident she couldn’t do it by herself. Despite the extensive wrap job he had done on her arm, soaked in antibacterial gel and burn spray, he had been too late to catch the damage to her nerves. What little medical ninjutsu he did know had salvaged the damaged muscle underneath and prevented boils, but the upper layers of her skin had been utterly ruined. She had range of motion, but it came with pain, and flexing of sensitive muscles that weren’t quite ready to be moving yet. So, he braided her hair—it was not as neat as if she had done it herself, was messy with inexperience, but it kept the longer lengths out of her face and, for the most part, she looked like Sakura again.

She didn’t ask him where he had learned to braid. She also didn’t ask him about the scroll he tucked into the bag he had packed for her—filled with spare clothes, necessities, anything she could wish for as a girl going into virtual exile—that looked suspiciously like a summoning scroll, the wooden end ornate and the Hatake clan symbol carved into it. It looked nothing like the summoning scroll he used for his dogs, but she kept her inquiries to herself and focused on the mission statement she held in her burn free hand.

“Amegakure and Kumogakure.” Sakura traced the names written in red with a single finger. He paused from where he was tucking pre-made seal papers and explosive tags into a side pocket, turning his head back towards her incrementally to indicate she had his attention. “The last I heard we were on neutral terms with both villages. What happened?”

Kakashi hummed as he unzipped the secondary larger section of her pack and tossed a handful of nutrigrain bars inside, along with five bottles of water and a flask that she assumed was also filled with water. She watched him sneak a tin of jasmine pearls in there as well. “No one knows. One day, out of the blue, they declared they had an alliance and set their sights on Suna, Iwa, and Konoha. Tsunade didn’t think they had enough shinobi to do it—it turns out they did, and in vast droves too. They’d been planning it for a while, I think.”

“But Konoha hasn’t declared war with them; why not?” Sakura rolled the mission statement back up against her thigh, using her hand to tie the tiny string together messily. “We’re allies with Suna and Iwa, we should be helping them.”

Sakura forgot, momentarily, that she had no say in matters like war, or even Konoha at all, and chided herself mentally for forgetting such an important fact. She was as good as dead to Konoha, and she knew they hoped she would die on the battlefield in the end.

She, secretly, hoped she did too.

“We are. Discreetly.” Kakashi zipped up the pack and hefted it experimentally. Deeming it light enough for her to carry, he set it beside the door frame and took a seat beside her on his raggedy couch. It was green, littered with claw marks and obscure stains that looked like blood, and had Gai’s taste written all over it. “It would be illegal for normal Konoha nin to do what the War Ops do in wartime. There are rules, sanctions that prevent unjust actions between nations. The War Ops are similar to ROOT, but far worse, in my opinion. I was never part of it, but Genma was, at some point. They forsake the village in the name of the village, sabotage what they can, kill who they can, and when the war is done, whoever’s left alive will return and reinstate their Konoha citizenship, wiped clean of their crimes during the war.” He paused, then, his only visible eye filled with guilt and sadness. “But you won’t be able to come back when it’s all said and done. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I have no other choice, do I?” Sakura shrugged lamely, ignoring the pull of her skin beneath the bandages. “It’s alright, Kakashi. I deserve it for everything I’ve done. If they consider my crimes paid for dying on the battlefield, then that’s fine. I don’t see any reason to try and escape it.”

He was quiet for a moment, looking away from her and through his living room window, just barely lit with the first rays of dawn. She had maybe an hour before she had to report to the rear gates towards Amegakure. “Konoha will miss you. They might not realize it, but when they need you most, they will remember what you did for them.”

“Other than killing their friends and family?” She raised an eyebrow and laughed, but it was a pathetic imitation of one. “Maybe. But it’ll be too late by then.”

“Maybe.”

Sakura reported to the gates when Kakashi couldn’t put it off any longer. She carried her pack on one shoulder, wearing the uniform that had been delivered to his front door in the dead of night while they had slept. There were no identifying crests on the dark flak jacket, no familiar stitching in the hems or seams, and the fabric was foreign, exported from the hidden island nation of Hanagakure. While it was comfortable and stretchy, the long sleeves pulled and dragged on her bandages, irritating the previously calm skin. The rest looked like standard ANBU attire, save for the mask they had given her when she arrived at the gate. It was black and white, opposite of the red and white that ANBU typically wore, and depicted the face of a crow upon it: a silent jab that crows brought death, just as Sakura brought death to her teammates.

She may have found it funny had it been happening to someone else.

“Be safe,” Kakashi said as two War Ops members moved to flank her cautiously. There was no need for farewells; they had already said them the previous night. The dew on the trees evaporated as the sun rose higher in the sky, as the village woke and got ready for a new day. “And take care, Sakura.”

“Thank you, Kakashi-sensei. For everything.” And then she was snapping on the mask with one hand, pinning her braid to the back of her head, and was gone, vanishing into the trees with the two War Ops members as if she had never been there at all.

“Wait!” Ino Yamanaka’s shrill yell broke through the admittedly peaceful silence the morning had brought. Birds startled at the sound and took to the sky. She looked worse for wear, her once neat hair bedraggled and frizzy, dark circles lining her eyes. Behind her, following at a slightly more hasty pace than he was used to, was Sai, his pale face pulled into an expression of aggrievement—Kakashi had never seen such emotion displayed so openly before, at least from the former ROOT member. “Shit! Kakashi, did I miss her?”

“Yo.” He gave them a two fingered salute and nodded his head towards the trees. “If you had been a few seconds earlier, you would have caught her.”

“Damnit.” Ino sunk to her knees on the ground, dirtying her skirt and tears beginning to stream from her eyes. Sai, though he was not crying, knelt beside her and rested a hand on her back, rubbing awkward circles on her back in an attempt to soothe her. “I wanted to apologize to her—I didn’t think—”

“Ugly doesn’t blame you, Beautiful,” Sai said in that same blank tone. “You’re her best friend.”

“What kind of best friend am I?!” Ino wailed, a dark red flush crawling up her neck, a product of rage, anguish, and sadness. “I’m the one who practically had her sentenced to death! I’m the one who reported her! If I had just kept my big fat mouth shut, maybe—!”

“Ino,” Kakashi sighed, kneeling down to her height and grasping her shoulders. Sai paused, giving him a knowing look, and stood, taking a few steps back to deter the growing crowd of civilians flocking to the gate. “Sakura would have been caught eventually. It’s alright. She doesn’t blame you. This way, she knew what was coming; she believes she deserves it, so she doesn’t hate you for it. She hates herself.”

Ino hiccuped, her tears growing steadier and faster. “Then why do I feel like I just killed my best friend, Kakashi?”

He closed his eyes and tamped down the flare of anger in his chest. “Because you probably did.”

Sakura heard Ino’s cries from half a mile away. The War Ops were determined and moved fast, neither speaking a word to her as they leapt from tree branch to tree branch, infusing chakra into their steps to move a little bit faster, to push her a little more harder. She was able to keep up with them but only barely, her heart tugging her back to comfort Ino, to see the village one last time. She had to stop herself several times from looking back for a brief second, just to see if she could make out a head of pale blonde hair, and focused on the rapidly moving backs of her escorts, their nondescript brown and black hair the only hints of color on them.

While they were fast, they were also silent, but Sakura could taste the animosity crawling all over them anyways. They had likely been briefed on her status, and there was always a chance she would be fighting with a relative of someone she had killed, be it Yamanaka, Hyuuga, Akimichi, or a civilian. She would not only be watching her back for their enemies, she would have to watch out for her allies, too; there would be no friendships made here, she thought grimly, and adjusted the straps of her pack. Kakashi had been smart to add a lightening jutsu to it so it wouldn’t hinder her progress, but it would be a nuisance if she had to fight with it on.

Though, if her latest fights had been anything to go by, she was more likely to obliterate organs and brains with a single rush of chakra than breaking bones with blunt, chakra enhanced fists. She would have to test it when they arrived at camp—some miles away near the borders of Ame—or if they chanced upon a group of rogue ninja along the way. And her seal needed to be examined, too, but she didn’t trust any one of the War Ops members as far as she could throw them. Her own abilities would have to be enough.

“Caravan, three o’clock. Possibly rogue ninja.” The first ninja, a woman, held her arm out in an order to pause. Sakura landed lightly on the tree branch behind her, eyes darting over the horse mask she wore and then into the underbrush, where she could just barely make out the wheels of a carriage and several men dressed in what appeared to be Amegakure gear. “No. Amegakure forces… Six chuunin and four jounin. Orders, Crane?”

The second ninja hummed in thought. Sakura would recognize the sound of Neji Hyuuga’s voice anywhere, her gaze hyper focused—the long brown hair, slight build, the way he carried himself… She should have guessed. As far as she had been aware, Neji had been sealed by his clan and virtually disappeared from the public eye, but if this was what he had been doing for the past year or so, then she would have to be wary.

“Engage hostiles. Horse, crowd control. Crow… close combat. Fight to kill.”

Sakura scowled behind her mask. He was already putting her at risk of death. She shouldn’t have been surprised; the last time she had seen Neji, they hadn’t been on good terms. If this was how the rest of her life was going to be while they fought this war, she would rather throw him to the wolves and fend for herself.

Their orders received, the triad scattered to surround the caravan. The contents were obscure, but Sakura could make out the kanji for ‘explosive’ on a barrel tied to the top. They were nearly thirty or forty miles out from Konoha, so they were clearly intended for the village, perhaps to weaken the defenses or take out enough ninja to cause an issue.

The plan of attack was clear. Sakura would be forced to go in first; Neji would come in with Horse and keep them all limited to the small pathway and prevent them from vanishing into the forest. It was a smart plan… if only it had gone as she thought it would.

Sakura leapt down from her perch on a branch and slammed down on a man’s shoulders hard enough that the chakra in her feet sliced clean through the ball and socket joint and severed his arms from his torso. It hadn’t been intentional, but she sawed a kunai across his throat anyway, arterial spray flying into the air in an elegant arc. It was warm and wet as it poured down her face and absorbed into her clothes, but she couldn’t linger on just one. She shoved the body to the ground, the impact causing her knees to jolt unpleasantly, and darted for the nearest ninja in her line of sight.

He was large, burly, with cracked teeth and eyes full of red blood vessels. The vest he wore was more kevlar than a standard vest, so when Sakura tried to force her kunai through it, she was met with enough resistance that she had to change her plan. She swung her fist towards his face, intending to break his jaw and slam the delicate bones in his nose bridge up into his skull, but he caught the chakra laced hit with his bare hand, unaware of the horror crawling over Sakura’s face as her razor sharp chakra tore through skin and muscle and flesh and bone, all the way up to his elbow, bits of gore and shorn veins flying through the little crowd they made.

Horse and Neji never came to back her up.

When the man screamed, hand flying up to grab at his bicep, she lunged forward and ground her fist into his skull. She heard the crack of bone and the soft give of brain matter and then he was dead, slumping at her feet, blood pooling between the webbing of her toes and sinking into her brand new shoes.

She was on her own, she realized, and had been set up quite spectacularly. Horse and Neji’s chakra signatures were well on their way towards Amegakure and fading fast. This must have been the elders’ plan: set her up, get her killed, and no one would be the wiser if she died due to foul play.

Sakura slaughtered her way through the Ame nin with tears burning in her eyes and a knot in her throat that she couldn’t work through. She had thought she had been done with crying when she had left Konoha. She had thought she would be stone hard and cold when she left, unmoving, and stalwart in the face of her own death. Instead, she was as scared as the day she had faced off Orochimaru in the Forest of Death; as scared as the day Sasuke had knocked her unconscious and left her at the gates; as scared when she killed that poor girl when she was trying to heal her instead. Terrified, even, and fear fueled her anger, which fueled her determination to live.

She wanted to live. But did she even deserve it, anymore?

The last of the Amegakure ninja fell to her feet, his head rolling to a stop against a tree stump. A large lake of blood, demolished organs, and gore had grown the more she killed, and the mark on her forehead stung something fierce, as if someone had taken a hornet stinger to her skin and was painstakingly drawing out the circles and lotus flower like a cruel tattoo.

Sakura reached under her mask and brushed the tears away, blood streaking across her cheek and the corner of her eyes. There was nothing left to do now but move forward. She could let them believe she had died and flee to a far away country where no one would think to look for her; but a darker part of her, whispering in the back of her mind, told her to go to Amegakure, to show Neji and Horse that she was worth more than a few chunin and jounin, and when they weren’t looking, stab them in the back as they had her.

She closed her eyes and sighed. “An eye for an eye, right?”

With one last cursory glance to the ninja she had killed, she began heading towards Amegakure, following the invisible trail that Neji had left behind.

一 (ichi) | masterlist | 三 (san)

[nicklloydnow]

“The status of the embryo in the first trimester is the basic issue that cannot be sidestepped. The embryo is clearly pre-human; only the mystical notions of religious dogma treat this clump of cells as constituting a person.

We must not confuse potentiality with actuality. An embryo is a potential human being. It can, granted the woman’s choice, develop into an infant. But what it actually is during the first trimester is a mass of relatively undifferentiated cells that exist as a part of a woman’s body. If we consider what it is rather than what it might become, we must acknowledge that the embryo under three months is something far more primitive than a frog or a fish. To compare it to an infant is ludicrous.

(…)

That tiny growth, that mass of protoplasm, exists as a part of a woman’s body. It is not an independently existing, biologically formed organism, let alone a person. That which lives within the body of another can claim no right against its host. Rights belong only to individuals, not to collectives or to parts of an individual. (“Independent” does not mean self-supporting — a child who depends on its parents for food, shelter, and clothing, has rights because it is an actual, separate human being.)

(…)

It is only on this base that we can support the woman’s political right to do what she chooses in this issue. No other person — not even her husband — has the right to dictate what she may do with her own body. That is a fundamental principle of freedom.

(…)

The anti-abortionists’ attitude, however, is: “The actual life of the parents be damned! Give up your life, liberty, property and the pursuit of your own happiness.” Sentencing a woman to sacrifice her life to an embryo is not upholding the “right to life.” The anti-abortionists’ claim to being “pro-life” is a classic Big Lie. You cannot be in favor of life and yet demand the sacrifice of an actual, living individual to a clump of tissue. Anti-abortionists are not lovers of life — lovers of tissue, maybe. But their stand marks them as haters of real human beings.”

“Some of Rand’s first and most important remarks on abortion are found in a lecture she delivered in December 1968 at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston, entitled “Of Living Death.” In this lecture, she draws a stark contrast between her secular, individualist philosophy and the religious philosophy of the Catholic Church, and on this basis critiques the Catholic opposition to birth control and abortion.

In Rand’s view, human beings have a fundamental moral right to pursue their own individual lives and happiness. For this reason, they do not have an obligation to serve some alleged higher goal or plan. To suggest that a woman has a “duty” to undergo childbirth amounts to treating her not as an individual human being with personal values, but as a “brood-mare,” and — especially when she is forced to undergo risky childbirth — as “a screaming huddle of infected flesh who must not be permitted to imagine that she has the right to live.”

(…)

For this reason, Rand had contempt for opposition to abortion in the name of the “sanctity of life.” Here again in “Of Living Death,” she explains why only the individual woman (and not the embryo or fetus) has a right to life:

An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not yet living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right — which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body? The Catholic church is responsible for this country’s disgracefully barbarian anti-abortion laws, which should be repealed and abolished.

(…)

Many conservatives oppose abortion in the name of “personal responsibility,” but this is a sham. To prevent a woman from ending an unwanted pregnancy is to deprive her from taking control of her own life. “The task of raising a child,” Rand observes, “is a tremendous, lifelong responsibility, which no one should undertake unwittingly or unwillingly.”

For Rand, abortion rights protect women who decide not to undertake the responsibility of raising a child. In “The Age of Mediocrity,” her 1981 critique of the Reagan administration’s appeasement of (in her words) “militant mystics,” she explains how this right protects women who want to lead real human lives, rather than endure a state of “living death”:

As I have said before, parenthood is an enormous responsibility; it is an impossible responsibility for young people who are ambitious and struggling, but poor — particularly if they are intelligent and conscientious enough not to abandon their child on a doorstep nor to surrender it to adoption. For such young people, pregnancy is literally a death sentence: parenthood would force them to give up their future and condemn them to a life of hopeless drudgery, of slavery to a child’s physical and financial needs. The situation of an unwed mother, abandoned by her lover, is even worse.

Rand suggests that those who would condemn a person to the “horror” of this life of drudgery are motivated “not [by] love for the embryos, which is a piece of nonsense no one could experience, but [by] hatred, a virulent hatred for an unnamed object.”

(…)

Because Rand thought that most opposition to abortion rights was motivated by hatred, not by any genuine concern for human life or individual rights, she did see the abortion issue as a kind of “litmus test” for judging political candidates.

In her 1976 “Last Survey,” she urged her readers not to support Ronald Reagan’s nomination as the Republican candidate for president because of his opposition to abortion rights. In response to another question about abortion that year, she said of Reagan: “If he doesn’t respect that fundamental a right, he cannot be a defender of any kind of rights.”11 In a separate comment on the 1976 Senate election in New York State, Rand remarked on James Buckley’s anti-abortion platform:

Anyone who . . . denies the right to abortion cannot be a defender of rights. Period. . . . What they have in mind is to enslave every human being who is alive enough to have some kind of sexual life — to enslave him to procreation like the lowest kind of farm animal, lower than that because when farm animals are bred, the breeders at least take care of them. . . . But here you make young people, people in love, slaves to involuntary procreation, and you don’t tell them what to do about it. . . .

Religionist conservatives are out to destroy the two-party system in this country, they are out to destroy the Republican Party. Now the Republican Party, like any “defenders” of free enterprise all over the world . . . is very busy trying to commit suicide. . . . [T]he religious conservative[s] . . . are pure fascists. They are not even for free enterprise; they are for controls, and what’s worse, they are always for spiritual, moral, intellectual controls. Oh yes, they might leave you some freedom to work for a while; it’s intellectual freedom that they want to cut. . . .

An “ally” . . . who comes close to you, but starts from opposite premises is much more dangerous than a mild enemy. I would vote for a liberal over Buckley any time.12

She maintained this position during the 1980 presidential election as well. She said that even though she would often vote Republican, she would not vote for Ronald Reagan because of his deference to religious conservatives and opposition to abortion:

I regard abortion as probably the most important issue, because the anti-abortionists have such evil motives. Because they have no interest in human beings, only in embryos; and because they want to tie down a human family to the reproduction of . . . an animal farm. . . . That’s what a creature like Reagan [wants]: . . . he comes out . . . for . . . his right to dictate to young people what they’re going to do with their life; are they going to have a chance at a career or are they going to be breeding animals? I cannot communicate how despicable that is.”

“A “right,” as Ayn Rand observed, is “a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context.”43 The purpose of this principle is to identify the fundamental actions that an individual must be free to take to live as a human being—actions such as living one’s life as one sees fit (the right to life), acting on one’s judgment (the right to liberty), keeping and using the products of one’s effort (the right to property), and expressing one’s ideas (freedom of speech). A person’s rights, when recognized and protected, enable that individual to act free of forcible interference from other people.

(…)

The campaign against abortion rights does not take place in a political vacuum. A woman’s right to control her body connects logically and legally to our other rights, including those in the economic sphere. The antiabortion movement threatens to undermine all rights by demanding false rights for embryos and fetuses.

Most obviously, laws restricting or banning abortion directly violate a woman’s fundamental rights. Such laws violate her right to life, not only by threatening her with death and disability, but also by barring her from living a life of her own design. They violate her liberty by preventing her from controlling her own body and seeking abortion drugs and services in a free market, as well as by imposing criminal punishments if she seeks or obtains an abortion. And they violate her right to pursue her own happiness by forcing her into unwanted pregnancy and motherhood.

Moreover, antiabortion laws directly infringe economic liberty. Such laws forbid voluntary economic activities and exchanges, such as a doctor providing abortion services or a pharmacist selling abortifacient drugs. They also infringe the rights of drug companies to research, produce, and sell drugs that might abort or harm an embryo or fetus. Some abortion bans, particularly those based on “personhood” from fertilization, would likely have even further-reaching effects, such as outlawing the birth control pill and the intrauterine device (IUD) because their use might prevent the implantation of a zygote in a woman’s uterus. The most common fertility treatments would be outlawed, too, because they involve the creation of multiple embryos outside the womb, only some of which are implanted.45 In short, antiabortion laws violate the rights of individuals to produce and trade.

Bans on abortion compound these rights violations by imposing criminal penalties on abortion seekers and providers.46 Under “personhood” laws, these penalties would be draconian: Every abortion, even in the earliest stages of pregnancy, would be premeditated murder, on par with killing an infant or any other person. So a woman who has an abortion could face criminal prosecution and punishment, possibly including a lengthy prison sentence or even the death penalty. A woman’s boyfriend, husband, friend, or doctor who assisted her likewise would face criminal prosecution. This concern about criminal prosecution is not merely hypothetical. Recently, an Idaho prosecutor pressed felony charges against Jennie Linn McCormack for taking the abortion drug RU-486; a judge granted her a preliminary reprieve.47 In 2010, a 21-year-old Australian woman faced seven years in prison for taking RU-486, while her 22-year-old boyfriend faced three years for helping her obtain it (a jury found the couple not guilty).48 In 1975, U.S. physician Kenneth Edelin was convicted of fetal manslaughter for performing an abortion for a 17-year-old girl, even though the girl’s mother begged for the procedure for fear that the girl’s abusive father would harm her upon discovering the pregnancy.49

In addition, antiabortion laws establish dangerous precedents for sweeping rights violations in other spheres of life. For example, laws based on the premise that abortion is “socially destructive” or “harmful to women” violate the woman’s right to seek medical care based on her own best judgment. In so doing, they sanction other paternalistic laws, such as forbidding overweight people from buying certain foods deemed unhealthy by the government, or requiring everyone to purchase health insurance. Laws restricting abortion coverage in insurance policies do not merely violate freedom of contract but also encourage even more political wrangling over costly health insurance mandates.50 Similarly, if politicians are entitled to force a waiting period on women seeking abortion, then what is to stop them from enacting waiting periods on any activity, from buying a gun to selling stocks? Requiring abortion providers to include unscientific and other disputed claims in counseling violates their freedom of conscience and professional ethics—and encourages politicians to demand warnings for other goods and services that some people may oppose. In short, restrictions on abortion pave the way for countless other rights violations.

However, the antiabortion crusade threatens rights in an even more fundamental way—by demanding laws founded on religious beliefs rather than observable facts. Claims of divine commands, including the supposed “rights” granted by God, are nothing more than arbitrary, baseless assertions: There is no evidence for the existence of a God, let alone for any morally binding edicts from such a being. Any laws based on religious stories and dogmas will necessarily clash with the objectively demonstrable rights of individuals and the laws that properly protect those rights. Consequently, the antiabortion movement, particularly in conjunction with the broader “social conservative” agenda of the religious right, poses a grave threat to all our liberties.

If abortion should be outlawed because some people imagine that God imbues the zygote with the right to life at the moment of conception, then our whole system of laws could be rewritten to reflect popular tenets of Christianity—and individual rights would be systematically violated in the process. For example, if, as the Baptists claim, devout Christians should eschew alcohol, then perhaps alcohol should be banned across America, as happened under Prohibition—rights of property and trade be damned.51 Because Jesus regards lust in the heart as adultery (Matthew 5), perhaps pornography should be banned—a goal Michele Bachmann has already endorsed—even if that violates the rights of contract, expression, and voluntary association between consenting adults.52 Any claimed right to ban activities or goods on religious grounds necessarily clashes with our actual rights of property, contract, and speech.

(…)

Properly understood, individual rights are moral principles arising from facts about the requirements of human survival and flourishing in society. Those facts can be observed and understood by every person who chooses to observe reality and think. The recognition and protection of rights enable individuals to live together peacefully in a society, each pursuing his own life and happiness while respecting the equal rights of others. In a free society, each person may believe whatever he wishes and act on those beliefs, but he may not force others to conform to his religious faith or otherwise violate their rights.

The lives, health, and happiness of millions of American women depend on legal abortion. A woman’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness entitles her to seek an abortion if she deems that her best course, because every woman is an individual human person, whereas a fetus is not.

To establish and maintain a free society, we must recognize that our rights logically entail one another and stand or fall together. To fight for liberty, we must reject baseless and contradictory notions of fetal rights, and we must protect women’s rights to their bodies. All of our liberties depend on it.”

“Try as I might, I could not find a single influential libertarian exerting their influence on behalf of the freedom of the women of Texas. Despite the Texas government’s extreme coercion and its egregious violation of their most basic personal freedom. Despite the majority of libertarians who say they are pro-choice. Despite the Party’s own platform and stated beliefs.

I would like to be wrong. Please let me know if you see any influential libertarians in the media protesting the Texas outrage. Or marching in the streets on behalf of women’s reproductive freedom.

But if I am understanding all this correctly, I have to conclude that a libertarian is someone who will defend a woman’s right not to wear a medical mask during a pandemic, but inexplicably holds that choices about her body, her health, her economic situation, and her entire life trajectory, belong to the government. Let freedom ring?

Maybe it’s time to fix what’s wrong with libertarianism.”

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Leaving home to be happy at work (LI) The key to finding contentment and fulfillment in the workplace may be moving abroad, CNBC says. A new MetLife employee study focusing on 2,675 full-time staffers found satisfaction among 91% of those working overseas or who were foreigners in the U.S. on a work visa, compared with 73% of locals.

Security Forces Arrest 31 Cartel Suspects in Raid on Mexico City Drug Labs--Authorities (Reuters) Security forces arrested 31 suspected cartel members on Tuesday in a raid on a warren of clandestine tunnels and alleged drug laboratories in Mexico City, authorities said.

Venezuelans buy gas with cigarettes to battle inflation (AP) Motorists in socialist Venezuela have long enjoyed the world’s cheapest gasoline, with fuel so heavily subsidized that a full tank these days costs a tiny fraction of a U.S. penny. But the economy is in such shambles that drivers are now paying for fill-ups with a little food, a candy bar or just a cigarette. Bartering at the pump has taken off as hyperinflation makes Venezuela’s paper currency, the bolivar, hard to find and renders some denominations all but worthless, so that nobody will accept them. Without cash in their wallets, drivers often hand gas station attendants a bag of rice, cooking oil or whatever is within reach.

Unrest erupts in Bolivia as opponents accuse Evo Morales of trying to steal election (Washington Post) Opponents and observers cried foul as incumbent Evo Morales appeared to be carving out a narrow first-round victory in Bolivia’s presidential race, even though early election returns had suggested that a runoff was likely.

Brazil’s Senate Gives Final Approval to Pension Reform (Reuters) Brazil’s Senate on Tuesday gave final approval to a landmark reform of the country’s social security system, in a step seen as key to stabilizing public finances and the economy.

Death Toll Rises to 15 as Violence Wracks Chile for 5th Day (AP) Rioting, arson attacks and violent clashes wracked Chile for a fifth day Tuesday, as the government raised the death toll to 15 in an upheaval that has almost paralyzed the South American country long seen as the region’s oasis of stability.

Oslo police shoot to stop man driving on sidewalk, 3 injured (AP) An armed Norwegian man stole an ambulance and drove it along a sidewalk in Oslo on Tuesday, injuring two toddlers as police tried to stop him by opening fire.

China’s surveillance state (Foreign Policy) China is rapidly expanding its cybersurveillance beyond Xinjiang, where technology is used against Muslim minorities. It is targeting so-called “key individuals”--such as paroled criminals, drug users, and religious believers--in a broader state surveillance project that affects tens of millions across China, Emile Dirks and Sarah Cook write for FP.

Hong Kong Government Withdraws Bill That Sparked Protests (AP) Hong Kong authorities on Wednesday withdrew an unpopular extradition bill that sparked months of chaotic protests that have since morphed into a campaign for greater democratic change.

Kim Orders South’s Buildings at Resort in North Be Destroyed (AP) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the destruction of South Korean-made hotels and other tourist facilities at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort, apparently because Seoul won’t defy international sanctions and resume South Korean tours at the site.

Retaliation on the Turkish border (Foreign Policy) The Turkish offensive against Syrian Kurds has led to retaliatory strikes in border towns within Turkey--killing at least 20 Turks, Kurds, and Syrians. The conflict has reopened old wounds in Turkey’s southeast, where the majority Kurdish population has experienced decades of conflict.

Russia Says Up to 500 People Have Fled Captivity in Northern Syria (Reuters) Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that Moscow estimated that up to 500 people, including Islamist fighters, had escaped from captivity in northern Syria after their guards left their posts.

Russia, Turkey hold talks on future of border region (AP) As the leaders of Russia and Turkey sought to work out the fate of the Syrian border region, the United States ran into a new hitch in getting its troops out of Syria, with neighboring Iraq’s military saying Tuesday that the American forces did not have permission to stay on its territory. The Iraqi announcement seemed to contradict U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who a day earlier said the forces leaving Syria would deploy in Iraq to fight the Islamic State group. The conflicting signals underscored how the United States has stumbled from one problem to another in getting its troops out of Syria after President Donald Trump abruptly ordered their withdrawal.

Iraq Inquiry: Excessive Force Used on Protesters; 149 Killed (AP) An Iraqi government-appointed inquiry into week-long protests earlier this month has determined that security forces used excessive force, killing 149 people and wounding over 3,000.

Army tries to reopen roads as Lebanon remains paralyzed (Reuters) Security forces are trying to persuade protesters to reopen roads across Lebanon through peaceful means but will not use force if they refuse, a security source said on Tuesday as the country remained paralyzed by anti-government demonstrations.

Cairo Schools Close, Day After Heavy Rainfall Causes Chaos (AP) Egypt has closed schools and universities in Cairo and companies saw only skeletal staff show up at work after heavy rains pummeled parts of the country’s capital the previous day, causing massive traffic jams and flooding many key roads.

Egypt’s options dwindle as Nile talks break down (AP) The latest breakdown in talks with Ethiopia over its construction of a massive upstream Nile dam has left Egypt with dwindling options as it seeks to protect the main source of freshwater for its large and growing population. Talks collapsed earlier this month over the construction of the $5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is around 70% complete and promises to provide much-needed electricity to Ethiopia’s 100 million people. But Egypt, with a population of around the same size, fears that the process of filling the reservoir behind the dam could slice into its share of the river, with catastrophic consequences. Pro-government media have cast it as a national security threat that could warrant military action.

South African airlines ground flights after faults found at SAA maintenance unit (Reuters) South African Airways (SAA) and other carriers grounded aircraft and canceled domestic flights on Tuesday after South Africa’s aviation regulator instructed the loss-making state airline to address problems at its maintenance unit.

[scriveyner]

Unfinished and Incomplete, Week 4: Samflam untitled SW sequel

So, way back in the recesses of time, somewhere around, oh, early 2016, there was a Samurai Flamenco Star Wars AU called “anything but ordinary.” I wrote a few typetriggers outside of the original fic but that was it.

I, of course, decided to write more and started a sequel where the stakes would be raised and actually firmly cement Gotoyoshi as a couple but this was around May of 2016 and A Certain Series Dropped In June of 2016 and, well. I wandered off. Don’t even remember where I was actually going with the fic at this point, lmao, so have the 1400 words or so that I’d actually written for the untitled sequel.

The small holo was monochrome, green and black and degraded with age. Chunks of data were missing now, the top of a shoulder, half of a hand used to gesture, part of her face. Her eyes were gone, but her smile remained. She was recounting a story and he’d hit record on the transmission halfway through, transfixed, and she got notification of the action and laughed. There was no longer any audio.

Gotou laid his hand on the small workstation, close to the projector, but he didn’t reach to turn it off. He let it play all the way through, the smile on her face open and warm, the distraction when she’d glanced away from the comm unit; the sudden violent static of a transmission ended prematurely. He watched the static for a long moment, then reached to the projector and shut it off. There was silence in the small cabin. Then, from the common area, the piercing wail of an astromech droid in distress. Gotou tilted his head back and closed his eyes as the wail continued unabated. After a solid ten, fifteen, twenty seconds of screeching he rose to his feet and slapped the panel control, leaning his head and shoulders out into the corridor and stared toward the common. “What?” He found the R5 unit scooting frantically across the small space, zigging and zagging around the jump couch and tables. The common area had been empty for a while now, and the ship felt smaller somehow, and colder for it – even if there was a highly excitable, anxiety-ridden astromech droid that he was constantly tripping over present. “What?” Gotou repeated himself, because the droid had chosen to ignore his queries, maintain its rapid pace and doing a loop past the cargo pilot. “What is it?” The droid skidded to a sudden halt, and its flowerpot dome twisted around rapidly, focusing on Gotou as if the droid had forgotten that it wasn’t alone on the freighter. It whistled and beeped, then tilted its body back, the holo projector on its side whirring to life and displaying a still, three dimensional image on the floor between them. It was Masayoshi. Sitting on this very floor, looking up; at Sunny no doubt as he recorded the message, one hand outstretched as if to entice the viewer in closer. He was wearing that infernal cloak he’d taken to, all wrapped up in it like the Jedi he apparently wanted to be, and Gotou knew the contents of the message by heart by now. Every time, it was like a fresh stab in chest. He ignored the still holo image and instead focused on the droid. Sunny was beeping at him insistently; Gotou barely knew enough binary to effective communicate with the ship’s nascent AI; Sunny’s rapid-fire dialogue of beeps and whistles was far beyond his proficiency level. “That holo is old news,” he said. “I thought I told you to delete it a month ago.” The droid tilted its body forward, as if it was offended, and let out a rude blatting sound. The image of Masayoshi disappeared, to his relief. He couldn’t stand to look at him. “If you seriously got me out of bed to piss and moan about a good for nothing loafer, I’m going to put you out the airlock,” Gotou said, and moved past the droid. Sunny bleated again, a mournful noise, and Gotou looked back to see a new holographic projection. Clearly the droid had jacked in to the holonet and had been scouring news articles and releases across the quadrant, because it had picked up some wanted posters that the First Order was circulating around the major metropolitan hubs of the trade route. Masayoshi’s headshot was exceedingly good quality, and recent. He looked well, his tawny blond hair longer than it had been, ends curling up and most of it gathered into a small spiky ponytail at the base of his neck. It was taken recently, it had to have been, and Masayoshi was staring off to the side, not in the direction of the photographer, and giving out that easy smile that made Gotou’s heart beat funny. It wasn’t directed at him, though. Not anymore. “Turn it off,” Gotou said harshly, and the droid’s slide whistle pierced the air like a knife. “He’s fine, everyone’s on a First Order wanted poster these days. It’s like a right of passage.” The droid beeped mournfully and Gotou turned his back on it, ducking into the cockpit. # Hatred is a tool of the Dark Side, Gotou-san. Let go of your anger, it only binds you. # "Twenty thousand," the Quarren said without looking up from its datapad. "What are you trying to take me for? This cargo's worth at least fifty." Gotou stood at the foot of the loading ramp, blocking access to the cargo bay on his ship. Several of the small reptile-like crew members were eyeing him, sizing Gotou up and Gotou ignored them as best he could. "I was promised fifty by Uuryi." "Uuryi's no longer in charge." The Quarren looked up finally. Its skin was a greyish hue, it looked sickly in comparison to the other Quarren rushing about the loading docks. "All I can give you is twenty." The short tentacles that obscured the amphibious alien's mouth rustled in amusement, which only made Gotou fume more. "I had to run down a First Order blockade in the Serres system to even get these supplies here-" "I suggest you take the offer," one of the other traders unloading called as he passed, pushing a hover skiff. "Before Sul drops it to fifteen." Gotou snarled and glowered at the Quarren, but the Quarren's face was unreadable. "Sithspit. I'll take the twenty." It ended up being eighteen, and he still had to fight for that much. Gotou sat in cockpit of his ship with his boots on the console and looked at the meager credit balance in his account. Eighteen thousand, instead of fifty. It wasn't worth running the blockade, the Interdicter almost certainly got a capture of his IF/F frequencies and ship name. He was going to have to pay to get that information sliced again. He could really use a slicer on this ship. "Hey, droid," Gotou called over his shoulder, and he heard the R5 unit whistle in acknowledgement. "You got a slicing package in that datadump brain of yours?" The rude raspberry sound he got in response told him all he needed to know. Gotou sighed and stared up, out of the cockpit's transparisteel windows at the spread of stars above, twinkling through the thick atmosphere. "Eighteen thousand, and I'm gonna have to spend it all on a slicer." # He was in port at Aridiloh Na when he heard of the Resistance's victory against the First Order. It was a major rout, for the first time the band of rebels had taken on several Interdictor cruisers and managed to bring down two of them; one successfully captured and the other destroyed, crashing into the moon of an inhospitable, uninhabited planet. Thousands of First Order troops dead, a major victory for the slowly growing rebellion. Gotou sat at the bar and watched the holofeed with his chin in his hand as he listened to the talking heads on the First Order's Officialy Sanctioned State Channel discuss how absolutely devastating it was for the Resistance to fight back against the reach of the nascent New Empire.

[phroyd]

From giraffes to sharks, the world’s endangered species could gain better protection at an international wildlife conference.

The triennial summit of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), that began on Saturday, will tackle disputes over the conservation of great beasts such as elephants and rhinos, as well as cracking down on the exploitation of unheralded but vital species such as sea cucumbers, which clean ocean floors.

Extraordinary creatures being driven to extinction by the exotic pet trade, from glass frogs to star tortoises, may win extra protection from the 183-country conference. It may even see an extinct animal, the woolly mammoth, get safeguards, on the grounds that illegal elephant ivory is sometimes laundered by being labelled as antique mammoth tusks.

Ivonne Higuero, the secretary general of Cites, said: “Cites is a powerful tool for ensuring sustainability and responding to the rapid loss of biodiversity – often called the sixth mass extinction – by preventing and reversing declines in wildlife populations.”

The destruction of nature has reduced wildlife populations by 60% since 1970 and plant extinctions are running at a “frightening” rate, according to scientists. In May, the world’s leading researchers warned that humanity was in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the planet’s natural life-support systems, which provide the food, clean air and water on which society ultimately depends.

“We do depend on biodiversity,” Higuero said. “It is not just an environmental issue. There are so many species that, if they went extinct, would be sorely missed and we just don’t realise it.”

Matt Collis, the head of the NGO IFAW’s delegation at Cites, said: “Illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade, coupled with habitat loss and other human-made threats, has decimated many species so that they are now at a tipping point for future survival. It is vital that countries come together to do all they can.”

The Cites agreement regulates the international trade in wildlife, from live animals to skins and timber, and unlike other international conventions can punish countries that flout bans by barring them from lucrative markets.

In the run-up to the meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, conservationists have called for sanctions against Mexico, home to the vaquita, a porpoise on the edge of extinction with only about 19 left alive. The vaquita’s demise also illustrates the deadly role of criminals in the destruction of wildlife. The illegal wildlife trade is estimated to be worth $7bn to $23bn a year, ranking only behind drugs, human trafficking and weapons.

“The vaquita is really a poster child for what is happening in terms of international criminal networks and wildlife,” said Higuero. “They use wildlife like drugs, prostitution and arms, because the financial rewards are high.”

The vaquita is killed as bycatch when fishers target the totoaba, a large fish whose swim bladder can sell illegally for $20,000 a kilogram in China because of its supposed medicinal properties.

“People have been killed,” Higuero said. “The [drug] cartels are involved, they are heavily armed and it seems the navy and police can’t control it, so you have a governance crisis.”

She said the area of sea involved was just a quarter of the size of Los Angeles: “If we can’t protect this, what hope is there for anything else?”

Clare Perry, a senior campaigner at the Environmental Investigation Agency, said: “This is the last chance for Cites to spur real action to save the vaquita. [Otherwise] that will be on us, a major extinction on our watch at the hands of criminals.”

Vietnam will also come under pressure, after independent analyses found it was the largest destination for illegal elephant ivory and rhino horn. Margaret Kinnaird, head of global wildlife at the WWF, said: “Vietnam has been of great concern for many years now – much more has to be done.”

Another flashpoint will be opposing proposals on elephants, of which about 20,000 are poached every year for the illegal ivory trade. Southern African countries, home to large populations, want to loosen restrictions to raise funds for conservation. But others on the continent want to make the ivory ban even broader.

Higuero hoped progress might be made by focusing on a goal all the countries share – to improve their citizens’ lives. “[Local communities] want to put food on their tables, education for their children, hospitals and healthcare,” she said. “It is very easy for people from outside to say ‘don’t do this, don’t do that’ but what are the options we can give them so they feel they are gaining something from taking care of nature?”

The most unusual proposal at the summit is to put an extinct species – the woolly mammoth – on the list of species for which trade is restricted. “It would absolutely be the first time,” Higuero said. “The fear is that elephant ivory is being traded as if it were mammoth ivory.”

The summit may also bring good news, with some species being taken off danger lists because their populations are recovering. One, the vicuña, is a relative of the llama and provides extremely valuable wool. Higuero said the prospects of the animal had been improved by getting local communities involved in their conservation. “This is definitely a demonstration of how successful you can be when there are issues of humans and wildlife living side by side,” she added.

A quartet of Australian rodents may also be struck off the list of species in which all trade is banned, for the simple reason that no one wants to buy the greater stick nest rat, the false swamp rat, the central rock rat and the Shark Bay mouse.

Phroyd

[bountyofbeads]

Pompeo Calls Saudi Attacks ‘Act of War’ as Trump Vows New Iran Sanctions https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/world/middleeast/us-iran-saudi-arabia.html

Pompeo Calls Attacks on Saudi Arabia ‘Act of War’ as Trump Tightens Iran Sanctions(NOT AGAINST THE UNITED STATES) #NoMoreWars

By Richard Pérez-Peña and Edward Wong | Published Sept. 18, 2019 Updated 2:45 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted September 18, 2019 4:30 PM |

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran on Wednesday of having carried out an “act of war” with aerial strikes on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia last weekend, and he said the United States was working to build a coalition to deter further attacks.

Mr. Pompeo’s words were the strongest so far from any American official regarding the attack on Saturday in Saudi Arabia, which severely impaired production at the leading oil exporter and raised fears that tensions between Iran and the United States could escalate into a new war.

Despite Mr. Pompeo’s statement, President Trump pushed back against another American military entanglement in the Middle East, speaking only of unspecified new sanctions on Iran.

Asked about a possible American attack on Iran, Mr. Trump told reporters in Los Angeles: “There are many options. There’s the ultimate option and there are options a lot less than that.”

In Saudi Arabia, military officials displayed what they described as physical evidence that Iran had been responsible for the attack, but did not specify how they intended to respond or what they expected from their American allies.

The Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition for more than four years, have said they were responsible for the attack. Iran, a strong ally of the Houthis, has denied any responsibility. American and Saudi officials have said the Houthis had neither the sophistication nor the weapons to have carried it out.

“This was an Iranian attack,” Mr. Pompeo said. “We were blessed there were no Americans killed in this attack, but anytime you have an act of war of this nature, there’s always a risk that could happen.”

Mr. Pompeo spoke to reporters at the end of a flight to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of the country, to discuss the intelligence on the attack and actions. Mr. Pompeo also planned to visit the United Arab Emirates on this emergency trip before returning to Washington.

“That’s my mission here, is to work with our partners in the region,” he said. “We will be working with our European partners as well.”

“We’re working to build out a coalition to develop a plan to deter them,” Mr. Pompeo added.

He dismissed the claim by the Houthis that they had attacked the oil facilities. “The intelligence community has high confidence that these were not weapons that would have been in the possession of the Houthis,” Mr. Pompeo said. “As for how we know, the equipment used is unknown to be in the Houthis’ arsenal.”

Earlier at a news conference in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, the Saudi Defense Ministry showed what it described as debris from the attack site and videos that appeared to be from surveillance cameras on the ground.

“This attack was launched from the north, and was unquestionably sponsored by Iran,” said Col. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for ministry.

He said Saudi officials were still trying to determine exactly where the strikes had originated.

In Iran, state media reported Wednesday that American obstruction might force President Hassan Rouhani to miss the annual United Nations General Assembly next week in New York.

The attack on Saturday, which Saudi officials said involved some two dozen drones and cruise missiles, temporarily cut Saudi oil processing in half, shaking global markets and worsening the tensions between the United States and Iran that have prevailed since Mr. Trump took office.

Mr. Trump has already imposed punishing economic sanctions on Iran and some of its top officials, in what the administration has described as a “maximum pressure” campaign to force Iran to negotiate new limits on its nuclear program and stop its sponsorship of militant groups across the Middle East.

On Wednesday morning, he wrote on Twitter that he had told the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, “to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran.” It was not immediately clear how extensive the latest round of penalties would be, but Mr. Trump later that details would be released within 48 hours.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran responded to the announcement on Twitter, writing that Mr. Trump was “escalating U.S. economic war on Iranians.”

Iran and the Houthis have described the airstrike on Saudi Arabia as retaliation for the extensive bombing by the Saudis that has killed thousands of people in Yemen.

American and Saudi officials have said that the weekend attack clearly used Iranian weapons. The Americans have also said that evidence that has not been made public points to a strike launched from Iran, to the north, not from Yemen, to the south.

“This attack did not originate from Yemen, despite Iran’s best effort to make it appear so,” said Colonel al-Maliki, the Saudi spokesman.

He also said that 18 drones hit one site and four cruise missiles hit another, and that three missiles fell short.

It was not clear how the evidence shown by the Saudis indicated that the attack came from the north, or did not come from Yemen. Nor did the Saudis make it clear whether they were saying that Iran had the kind of indirect involvement, through supplying munitions and training, that it has had in previous Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia, or something more direct, like Iranian personnel taking part or the attack’s having been launched from Iran.

The Houthis have launched missiles at Saudi targets before, but none of the attacks had the scale, sophistication or practical impact of the one on Saturday.

Mr. Trump and Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, have been expected to attend the annual United Nations General Assembly session in New York next week, and there was even speculation this summer about a possible face-to-face encounter between them.

But on Wednesday, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported that an Iranian advance team had been unable to go to New York to prepare for the meeting because the United States had not granted visas. As a result, it said, Mr. Rouhani and his delegation might not attend the gathering, which runs from Tuesday through the following Monday.

Mr. Trump has said repeatedly that he is open to a meeting with Mr. Rouhani, which would be the first between leaders of the two countries after four decades of antagonism, but Mr. Rouhani has said that Iran would not agree until the United States lifted economic sanctions.

Mr. Rouhani sent a formal note on Monday to the United States denying an Iranian role in the drone attack and warning that any American action against Iran would bring retaliation,  Iranian state news media reported on Wednesday. The note went through Swiss envoys who act as go-betweens because the United States and Iran do not have diplomatic relations.

Last year, Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 accord limiting the scope of Iran’s nuclear program, and reimposed sanctions that had been lifted as part of the deal. This year, Mr. Trump has hit Iran and Iranian officials with new rounds of sanctions.

The main penalties seek to choke off Iran’s international oil sales, the heart of its economy. They bar any company doing business with Iran from using the American banking system, whose reach is so vast that Mr. Trump’s actions apply to many overseas businesses.

After Mr. Trump began imposing more sanctions this year, several tankers were damaged near the Persian Gulf, and Western governments said they had been sabotaged by Iran, which Tehran denied. Iran has also seized several foreign vessels in or near the Strait of Hormuz, including a British-flagged tanker it has held for two months.

Analysts have described those episodes — and, possibly, the attack on Saudi Arabia — as one prong of a two-pronged strategy to pressure other nations to provide sanctions relief, by showing that Iran can interrupt world oil supplies. The other prong, analysts say, is that Iran began exceeding the limits on its nuclear program under the 2015 deal.

[nomoreemails]

why aren’t we all talking about how bad it feels to be alive

Sometimes, when I’m on drugs, I have a great time and can watch a whole season of Planet Earth and be totally ecstatic about sloths, or lie on the ground in the dark joyfully listening to a really bad album on repeat. But recently, more often than not, I’ll think one single solitary thought about climate change or mass shootings or U.S. imperialism or the opioid crisis or the state-sanctioned obesity in the Pacific Islands and spiral until I’m thinking about all of those things at once and having a complete fucking meltdown. I’ve also developed pretty bad insomnia since moving to New York. You can probably guess why. 

I’ve finally come to accept that I mostly hate living here. There are a lot of reasons, chiefly among them that everyone here is obsessed with developing a brand and also that in most cases I would rather individually pull 30 hairs out of my head than try to get from point A to point B. But living here also forces you to face the reality of the United States, which is that economic and social mobility are a lie. Cities like this are sites of two class tiers, one for the “knowledge class,” college-educated people who work in fields like engineering, writing, business, policy, etc — for whom upwards mobility actually is attainable — and then the other sector that performs service work for them. 

Obviously there’s some overlap (if I hear one more Brooklynite who works in publishing and went to an Ivy League lament their second restaurant job they need to pay the bills, I’ll scream), but if you’ve ever lived in a major U.S. city you’ve probably observed this too. Every day I watch my Twitter feed (mostly white, liberal, college-educated folks who also work in journalism) wring their hands over Amazon warehouse conditions and taxi driver suicides and wage theft at the hands of the gig economy, and then we all go home and open packages delivered Amazon workers, take Ubers because they’re cheaper, get food delivered by some guy who almost died five times trying to bike to your place and then gets his tips stolen by his employer. I don’t think it makes you a bad person to use these services. But, personally, every time I think about how boundlessly I have exploited labor invisible to me for the sake of minor conveniences, I want to stab myself in the face. Does everyone else feel like that?

All this to say — I feel suffocated, on a daily basis, by all the ways that I’m complicit no matter what I do. I’m overwhelmed by everything all the time. It’s hard to respond to texts or be present in my relationships when so much of what’s on my mind is so abjectly wretched, especially when the source has little to do with me and my choices (which my friends can advise me upon) and everything to do with the external world (which they can’t). 

A few days ago I posted something to my Instagram story in the middle of the night, after hours of staring at my ceiling in the dark. Against a black background, it read: “Do u ever get super stoned and end up on the most depressing rabbit hole imaginable on wikipedia and cry and lie in bed awake thinking that all of human modernity was a mistake and that u wish we could all just die off immediately in a mass extinction? 🌟it’s great🌟”. This seemed to hit a nerve among my friends: within minutes, one responded with that laughing-but-also-crying emoji; another said “tbh yeah,” another said, with utmost sincerity, “every time, which is why I can’t get stoned anymore.” 

So, everyone else does feel like this? Is any of this normal? How is anyone expected to be functional under the system of exploitation designed hundreds of years ago by a bunch of megalomaniacal men who created the self-destructing dystopia we live in? Every day I trudge to work, sit at my desk, read the news, wonder why I bothered to get out of bed. Am I actually, I don’t know, clinically depressed and anxious, or am I just experiencing run-of-the-mill side effects of living under the circumstances we do? 

For many of my peers and me, it feels especially cursed to be in in our early twenties right now. On top of everything else….. our personal lives suck, by definition, and nothing we care about matters. Why try to improve your work situation (in which you’re likely getting underpaid in a position you’re overqualified for, or being treated like a weasel, or maybe both), pay off your student debt, learn anything about personal finances, figure out what you want to do with your life, have any long-term dreams at all when there’s a very real possibility you’ll die suddenly in a shooting or slowly, excruciatingly, with climate change? 

I used to despair over other things, like: whether to choose an easy, comfortable lifestyle by becoming an engineer, or going another route. If working any job at all would inevitably compromise my principles, one way or another. Whether I felt authenticity and fulfillment in my relationships. The yearning for community and belonging. The moral backing of my day-to-day actions, or lack thereof. (And also, obviously: whether to buy those shoes, what to do with my eyebrows, if I was gaining weight, if I was losing weight.)

I still think about most of those things, but now it feels luxurious to agonize over interior minutiae, to ignore the larger existential scarcity of participating in a society and a world in decline.

I find it frankly insane that in the span of one hour I can think such thoughts as “if Tobin Heath and Christen Press aren’t secretly married I’ll kill myself” and “I wonder how much money is in my 401(k)” and also, as I survey the absurd amount of trash my household has generated in two days, “what’s the point of existing if all I do is put permanent garbage on this planet?” I mean, I’m not even going to see whatever’s in my 401(k) until the year 2060 — what am I expecting, to have a totally normal and chill retirement because the world in 2060 will be totally normal and chill? I’m not even really expecting to be alive in 2060. What’s the point of plotting out my trajectory, financial and otherwise, for even the next ten years, much less 40, when pretty soon we’re all probably going to be living in bunkers eating cockroach jelly as we watch artificial projections of polar bears and sequoias? 

Being alive right now kind of feels like experiencing the churning annihilation of stability, of beauty, of moral purpose, of all the things I’ve believed since childhood I would live my life pursuing. 

On an ethical basis, I want to resist cynicism, keep myself from acclimating to the barrage of atrocities brought upon by the Trump era, stay despairing, stay angry. On a practical basis, I also want to remain functional. It’s an impossible psychological position to straddle, like giving myself a black eye every night to remind myself to feel pain while doing a job that fully depends on my having an unbruised face. When, for example, another mass shooting happens, I almost feel myself having an out-of-body experience, knowing that it never stops being sickening and astonishing but also that it has become common, unremarkable, and that to be able to get out of bed and go to work and blandly say good when someone blandly asks how are you and see my friends and talk about anything other than how awful everything is, I have to be able to raise my own misery bar. But that, of course, only adds to the cycle. It’s almost worse to know you’re capable of adjusting. 

Recently I logged back into Tumblr for the first time in years, just to see how things are over here. One post read, no context necessary, “looking for a group of 5 to 7 women who will sit on the floor and wail with me in grief.” Another: “why are we still here? just to suffer? every day i get emails.”

Why are we still here? Just to suffer, beg hot celebrities to dismember us, try our best to ignore the cognitive dissonance of our constant warring desires to live ethically and also to enjoy our lives, both impossible? Every day I get emails; every day I want to reply, just once, I am not going to uphold my responsibilities because we live in a ravaged world. I feel sick with anxiety pretty much all the time. Do you, too?

[motorcyclecave]

MIPS Is Pulling No Punches With Motorcycle-Helmet Protection

Mike Tyson understood how the human brain works. When the lethal second half of the former world heavyweight boxing champion’s trademark combination—right hook to the body, right uppercut to the jaw—hit home, the powerful punch often rendered the recipient unconscious. In fact, “Iron Mike” won 26 of his first 28 fights by knockout or stoppage, with no fewer than 16 of those coming in the opening round of the match.

Swedish neurosurgeon Hans von Holst and business partner Peter Halldin (a researcher at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm) claim approximately two-thirds of all motorcyclists—not to mention bicyclists, equestrians, pedestrians, and skiers, among others—who hit their heads in falls do so at some angle to the ground, not a perfectly straight vertical drop, potentially subjecting their brains, helmeted or not, to the same “rotational motion trauma” as a Tyson knuckle sandwich.

RELATED: MIPS Helmet Technology

In the mid-1990s, von Holst and Halldin envisioned a system that could help protect the brain from these types of blows. Extensive research and testing ultimately led to MIPS—an acronym for “Multi-directional Impact Protection System”—in which a low-friction layer permits 10–15mm of sliding action independent of the direction of impact. According to von Holst and Halldin, that movement can significantly reduce sudden-rotational-energy transfer to the brain and lessen the likelihood of the stretching, tearing, or twisting associated with concussions and other brain injuries.

Some background: von Holst founded KTH’s neuronic-engineering department, “a cross-scientific cooperation between the Karolinska Institute and KTH aiming to develop technological solutions to medical problems, primarily within neurosurgery.” Halldin teaches biomechanics and neuronics there. Svein Kleiven, renowned for his finite-element model of the brain—a primary research tool for MIPS, of which Kleiven previously was a part owner—is the department head.

MIPS has thus far licensed its patented technology to 60 helmet manufacturers in the bicycle, snow, equestrian, and motorcycle spaces. The flexible, thin plastic insert—often in plain sight, sometimes disguised in a stretchy, Lycra-like fabric—is typically installed between the interior comfort padding and the EPS liner of the helmet. A dime-size yellow MIPS decal affixed to the lower left rear of the shell is the only external visual cue to the insert’s existence.

Using high-speed photography and assorted sensors in its own state-of-the-art lab (helmeted rubber-covered aluminum head forms are dropped from 2.2 to 3.1 meters onto a 45-degree anvil), MIPS has validated its claims time and again. So why isn’t every motorcycle-helmet maker chartering flights to Stockholm to broker a deal?

“If they take safety seriously, they should,” Halldin said. “Sometimes they don’t think consumers will pay anything extra for safety. Also, when we started we understood the bike and ski markets were simpler to start to work with for a smaller company like MIPS.

“We restarted our work to attract the motorcycle helmet brands,We have succeeded with motocross, but street helmets have been more difficult.”

“In the last three or four years, we have restarted our work to attract the motorcycle-helmet brands,” he added. “We have succeeded with motocross, but street helmets have been more difficult.”

In fact, leading brands such as AGV, Arai, HJC, Schuberth, Shark, and Shoei do not use MIPS in any of their products. Bell (whose former parent company, BRG Sports, once owned a chunk of MIPS) sells five helmets—two street and three dirt—fitted with MIPS inserts. Kabuto also uses MIPS in its street helmets.

RELATED: Bell MX-9 Adventure MIPS Helmet Review

“Angular acceleration” and “rotational motion trauma” might not be dinner-table talk, but in racing circles such terms keep brains whirring day and night; after all, riders are the sport’s greatest asset. Wearable airbags, once the butt of jokes, are now mandatory in MotoGP, Moto2, and Moto3. Beginning this year, helmets used in MotoGP and World Superbike competition must pass new FIM homologation requirements. Only designs that meet current ECE, JIS, or Snell standards may be submitted for testing. And yes, oblique impacts are part of the Swiss sanctioning body’s certification protocol.

The FIM doesn’t work directly with companies that supply technology to manufacturers because such association might suggest one approach is perceived as better than another.

“We only want to verify the results,” FIM Marketing Director Fabio Muner explained. “Everybody can have his own idea about the shape of the helmet, the technology of the EPS, MIPS, etc. We want to raise the bar for safety and verify everything is worthy of world-championship riders.”

MIPS is not without competition. Arguably the most high-profile challenger is 6D, which claims its proprietary Omni-Directional Suspension (ODS) technology “allows for 6 degrees of free-motion displacement during an impact, regardless of your head shape, angle of impact, or how tight your helmet fits.” Unlike MIPS, 6D designs and manufactures its own street and off-road motorcycle, bicycle, and even youth helmets.

MIPS, meanwhile, must sell a traditionally conservative industry and, ultimately, consumers on the execution of a concept that isn’t easy for all to grasp. One thing is certain: Whereas helmet discussions have in recent years come to revolve around pricing and features—overall fit, ease of face-shield replacement, removable/washable comfort liners, number and effectiveness of vents, even colors and graphics options—safety is once again at the forefront of the conversation.

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from Motorcyclecave https://motorcyclecave.org/mips-is-pulling-no-punches-with-motorcycle-helmet-protection/

[lahoreherald]

Social media platforms hot topic, "What to do with the Taliban"

Because of America’s rapid exit from Afghanistan after two decades of occupation. Social media platforms discussing a hot topic to make difficult political judgments. These corporations will have to raise new concerns when the infamously vicious repression group. The Taliban, tries to promote itself as Afghanistan’s legitimate government. To consolidate control and take over power, the Taliban’s use of social media platforms has anticipated to increase as political and government officials become more prominent.

A number of steps have taken by Facebook to protect its users from probable repression should Taliban rule come to fruition. Nate Gleicher revealed a variety of additional measures taken by Facebook during the past week on Twitter. Those in Afghanistan may now ban their accounts quickly. Remove postings from their history, and prohibit anybody who isn’t a friend from downloading or sharing their profile images with just a single click. Facebook has also removed the ability for users to browse and search friends lists of people in Afghanistan. On Instagram, pop-up notifications tell Afghan users how to quickly lock their accounts. As all the social media platforms discussing the hot topic, “what to do with the Taliban?”. And all platforms have also banned Taliban accounts.

The Taliban have banned from Facebook for years because of Facebook’s prohibitions on violent organizations. Taliban would no longer have access to accounts they made for themselves or on their behalf “A Facebook official informed the BBC.

Whatsapp Banned Afghan Taliban Accounts

The Afghan Taliban have not listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department, but the Taliban operating outside Pakistan have had that name since 2010. Although they are not on the list of foreign terrorist organizations, the Afghanistan-based Taliban have designated. As a terrorist group under United States economic sanctions after September 11.

While the Taliban have also banned from WhatsApp, which has owned by Facebook. Platform-to-end encryption makes enforcement of these rules difficult on WhatsApp. Over the past three years, the Afghan army and Taliban have depended on chat applications to communicate. Although Facebook does not allow the Taliban to use its platform. The organization used WhatsApp as a means of announcing plans to take control of the Afghan people. And suppress resistance in a very rapid and painless sprint to power For Afghans to use as a sort of hotline, the Taliban even set up a WhatsApp number. But Facebook immediately took off the account.

Recently, Facebook’s Vice President for Content Policy Monica Bickert said that the site will analyze. And make its own choices regardless of whether or not the United States finally removed the Taliban from its list of sanctioned terrorist organizations. As Bickert put it, “we must look at whether or not they’re still breaking our standards on hazardous organizations.”

Youtube & Twitter Reaction Towards Taliban

YouTube also claims to have barred the Taliban from its website, similar to Facebook’s allegation. If US sentiments against the Taliban shift, it appears that YouTube’s move is also in line with sanctions.

A YouTube spokesman told, “YouTube complies with all relevant sanctions and trade laws, including any US penalties”. So, “if we uncover a suspected Taliban account, we’ll shut it down.” We also ban anything that incites violence.”

Twitter is still used by Taliban spokesperson Zabihula Mujahid for frequent updates on the group’s actions in Kabul. Kari Yousaf Ahmadi, another Taliban spokesman, also publishes freely on the platform. Instead of a blanket ban like Facebook and YouTube, Twitter will apply its standards upon publishing.

TIKTOK Sees Taliban as a Terrorist Organization

If the Taliban expand their presence on social media, other platforms could be faced with the same solution. According to NBC News, TikTok sees the Taliban as a terrorist organization and will not allow anything praising that group on its platform.

The Taliban don’t appear to be gaining a foothold outside of the most popular social networks. But it’s not hard to imagine the former insurgent turning to alternative platforms to rebrand his image as the world watches.

As for what may happen if the gang utilized the platform. Twitch has appropriate regulations that accommodate for “out of service conduct” when it comes to banning users. These guidelines were developed in response to Twitch streamers reporting violent conduct and sexual harassment.

The new rules also apply to accounts associated with violent extremism, terrorism, or other serious threats, whether the act was committed on or off Twitch. This definition is likely to prevent the Taliban from establishing a presence on the platform, even if the US lifts sanctions or changes its terrorist duties in the future.

Read Also: Facebook and Instagram Delete Abusive Comments From Singer Lizzo Social Accounts

Published in Lahore Herald #lahoreherald #breakingnews #breaking

[orbemnews]

Republican state lawmakers look to empower partisan poll watchers, setting off alarms about potential voter intimidation Bills in several states would grant new authority to poll watchers — who work on behalf of candidates and political parties — to observe voters and election workers. Critics say it could lead to conflict and chaos at polling places and an improper targeting of voters of color. In Texas, a measure under consideration by the Republican-controlled legislature would grant partisan poll watchers the right to videotape voters as they receive assistance casting their ballots. Meanwhile, in Georgia, the state’s controversial new voting law makes it explicit that any Georgian can challenge the qualifications of an unlimited number of their fellow voters. The new law comes after a Texas group, True the Vote, teamed up with Georgia activists last year to question the qualifications of more than 360,000 voters ahead of two Senate runoff elections. Most counties dismissed True the Vote’s challenges, but Georgia’s new statute requires local election administrators to consider these challenges, threatening them with state sanctions if they don’t. “If you believe that these challenges aren’t going to be racially targeted, then you are crazy,” said Marc Elias, a leading Democratic election lawyer who has sued on behalf of voting rights groups to stop the Georgia law from taking effect. “This is going to become a tool of voter suppression by Republicans in the state of Georgia.” The moves to empower partisan actors come after record numbers of voters turned out in 2020. States relaxed election rules to allow more voting by mail and the use of drop boxes to avoid spreading Covid-19. That turnout surge in states such as Georgia helped Democrats seize the White House and the majority in the US Senate. As part of their failed efforts to overturn the election results, former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly argued fraud could have occurred because Trump-aligned poll watchers lacked sufficient access to the voting and counting process in several states. There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Around the country, Republican legislators have responded with measures that grant more authority to poll watchers. A new analysis by the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice found that, as of April 15, lawmakers in 20 states had introduced at least 40 bills to expand poll watchers’ powers. New powers proposed in Texas Poll watchers are partisan volunteers who, as their name implies, “watch” or observe what’s happening at polling places. Their primary function is to help ensure their party or candidate has a fair shot of winning the election. Both political parties deploy them. Federal law prohibits harassment of voters, and most state laws prevent poll watchers from interfering with the voting process. In Texas, bills moving through the state legislature would give them new authority. One Texas provision gives a poll watcher the right to record images and sounds at a polling place — including at the voting station if the poll voter is receiving help “the watcher reasonably believes to be unlawful.” A separate measure bars election judges — the poll workers who preside over each precinct — from removing poll watchers unless the watcher “knowingly or intentionally” tries to “influence the independent exercise of the voter of another in the presence of the ballot or during the voting process.” It also threatens election workers with misdemeanors for knowingly preventing poll watchers from observing the process. “It’s a surveillance role,” Sarah Labowitz, policy director of the ACLU of Texas, said of the way the proposed laws treat poll watchers. “It really empowers the poll watchers over the voter and the election judges.” In a recent interview on CNN, the bill’s sponsor, GOP state Sen. Bryan Hughes, said the videotaping provision will “make sure voters are casting their ballots — not being influenced by someone else.” He described the taping as akin to a police body camera that will help resolve disputes between poll watchers and election officials. The law provides for the tape to be sent to the Secretary of State. Floor action on sweeping election bills in the Texas House could happen as early as next week. In Florida, the observation requirement during signature-matching raised concerns among election supervisors. In an interview Saturday on CNN’s “New Day,” Mark Earley, the supervisor of elections in Leon County, said the law will allow observers to see the ballots via video feeds — after election officials worried about poll watchers crowding secure areas. “But many counties don’t have the technology or the money to make that happen or even the space to make that happen, so there’s still concerns going forward with that,” he said. Fraught history Poll watching and citizen challenges have been fraught issues. State laws in the 19th century made it difficult for African Americans to vote and to prove their qualifications — even after the 15th Amendment granted Black men the right to cast ballots. In Florida, for example, a challenged voter needed to produce two witnesses to vouch for him. But the law said election officials needed to know each of the witnesses — which a Brennan Center study on the history of voter challenges described as an enormous hurdle for Black voters. Polling places in segregated Florida were staffed by White residents who were unlikely to know African American witnesses. Last year’s election was the first presidential contest since 1980 in which the Republican National Committee could conduct its own poll watching operations. A federal consent decree had barred the RNC from the practice for more than three decades after the national party targeted Black and Latino voters in New Jersey. The operation, carried out during a 1981 gubernatorial election, involved posting armed, off-duty law enforcements officers at polling places in heavily minority communities. It also included erecting posters warning the area was being patrolled the “national ballot security task force” and offering a $1,000 reward for reports of violations of state election laws. The consent decree ended in 2018. Carol Anderson, an historian and professor of African American Studies at Emory University, said the new proposals build on a history of voter intimidation that long has targeted people of color. “What’s built into this is the inequality of the system itself,” she said. “You know that somebody who is Black or Hispanic will not be able to go up into an all-White precinct and start challenging those voters without having a massive law-enforcement response.” She called the wave of new laws “infuriating.” “It’s infuriating because we’ve done this dance before,” Anderson said. “We know what a Jim Crow democracy looks like and the damage it does to the United States of America and to its people.” Georgia challenges One provision of Georgia’s controversial new election law requires that watchers can observe procedures at ballot tabulation centers. But the measure that could have a far greater impact sets out new requirements for handling challenges to voters’ qualifications. In the run-up to the US Senate runoffs, True the Vote teamed up with Georgia residents to challenge the qualifications of more than 364,000 voters whose names it says appeared on databases from the US Postal Service and commercial sources as having changed their addresses. Voting rights advocates counter that the change-of-address information is not a reliable way to determine eligibility and could unfairly target students, military personnel and others who temporarily change where the receive mail but remain eligible to vote in Georgia. Most Georgia counties opted against taking up the challenges. But under the new law, local election boards must set a hearing on a challenge within 10 business days of notifying the voter of the challenge. “Failure to comply with the provisions of this Code section by the board of registrars shall subject such board to sanctions by the State Election Board,” the law adds. Elias said it will be impossible for election officials to comply with requirements to hold a hearing on each voter challenge when outside groups mount tens of thousands of such challenges. “It’s going to require these counties to drop everything and adjudicate these hearings before the election,” he said. “How the hell is a county supposed to do that?” That failure to do so, he said, could give state officials grounds to sanction local election officials and invoke other provisions of the new law that allow the state elections board to replace local superintendents. Voter challenges could lead to long lines and chaos at the polls on Election Day, he added. Rep. Barry Fleming, the Republican architect of Georgia’s new law, did not respond to several interview requests from CNN. Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder of True the Vote, cast her effort as a push to clean up Georgia voter rolls as election officials prepared to send out absentee ballots in the runoffs. Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock prevailed in those races, giving their party control of the US Senate. In that election, Georgia relied on signature matching in absentee voting. The new law now requires voter identification to cast absentee ballots. Engelbrecht, who rose in conservative politics as a Tea Party activist in Texas, has aggressively pursued claims of voter fraud, including in the 2020 election. In an interview with CNN, Engelbrecht said the challenges she supported in Georgia involved so many voters because she took a broad brush — examining the voting rolls in every one of state’s 159 counties — to avoid targeting any particular group of voters. “We, as a country, should agree that accuracy in voting matters,” Engelbrecht said. “There has to be some standard of we’re going to make sure when people move away that we don’t send a live ballot that doesn’t require any standard or identification or no way of tracking it once it’s opened and voted. That just begs for controversy.” This story has been updated with additional information. CNN’s Kelly Mena contributed to this report. Source link Orbem News #Alarms #empower #intimidation #lawmakers #Partisan #Politics #Poll #Potential #Republican #Republicanstatelawmakersaregivingpartisanpollwatchersnewpowers #setting #settingoffalarmsaboutpotentialvoterintimidation.-CNNPolitics #state #Voter #watchers

[newstfionline]

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Canada to relocate Afghans who assisted in war amid ‘rapidly deteriorating’ security situation (Washington Post) Canada announced plans Friday to resettle Afghans who aided the Canadian military and the country’s embassy and could face danger because of their work, as the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan nears completion and the Taliban mounts offensives to regain territory. Canada’s “path to protection” will be open to Afghans with a “significant and enduring relationship” with the Canadian government, although officials did not elaborate on how that would be defined. Those eligible, they said, could include interpreters, locally engaged embassy staff members, as well as a host of other locals who assisted the war effort such as cooks, drivers, cleaners, security guards and their families. The announcement followed weeks of pressure on Ottawa from lawmakers and advocates to resettle Afghan interpreters and other locals. Some veterans said they were so frustrated by the lack of a government plan that they were using their own money to relocate former Afghan colleagues to safer parts of Afghanistan. The governments of other NATO allies who fought alongside U.S. forces have also faced calls to do more to aid Afghan interpreters or to expedite their resettlement. In Australia, a retired army general burned his service medals in protest of what he said was a lack of government action.

The days of vaccine lotteries are waning. Here come the mandates. (USA Today) Getting a COVID-19 vaccine in summer 2021 could have given you a shot at a million dollars. Soon, not getting one could cost you your job. Health officials and politicians have tried to stay positive in recent months as vaccination rates plummet, turning to ad campaigns touting giveaways and lottery drawings. And then the ultra-contagious delta variant arrived. Now health officials say the nation’s lagging vaccine rates are creating a spiraling public health crisis as the unvaccinated rapidly get sick and the protective power of vaccines is given a “stress test.” A growing chorus of voices say people who resist vaccinations should face pressure—and consequences. Some hospital administrators agree, and healthcare workers who refused to get vaccinated have been fired or quit in New Jersey and Texas. In New York City, public health workers who refuse to get vaccinated will face weekly COVID tests. “Getting the vaccine (should be) the easy choice,” Dr. Leana Wen, a proponent of vaccine mandates, told USA TODAY. “Opting out has to be the hard choice.” Wen, an emergency physician and public professor at George Washington University, is among experts who say vaccine requirements should be seen as akin to laws against drunk driving and other reckless behavior.

Covid Explodes in Cancun, Los Cabos as New Wave Hits Mexico (Bloomberg) A third coronavirus wave fueled by the highly contagious delta variant is battering two of Mexico’s most popular tourist destinations on opposite coasts, Los Cabos in the Pacific and Cancun on the Caribbean. In Cancun, cases have soared to a point where the Hard Rock hotel has set aside two floors for guests with symptoms. Some hotels say they offer discounts for those in quarantine until they’re no longer contagious. In Baja California Sur, where Los Cabos is located, authorities are again rushing to add beds to strained hospitals, which reached 75% capacity last week before improving to 62% on Thursday. Beaches in the town of La Paz were ordered closed, though local media show many ignoring the order. Since Mexico hasn’t limited who can fly during the pandemic, both domestic and international tourists have flocked to the resort areas. Like much of Latin America, Mexico has been slammed by Covid, among the worst hit in the world.

Venezuelans Enduring Day-Long Waits to Fill Gasoline Tanks (Bloomberg) Venezuela’s capital city is once again rationing gasoline after output at state-owned refineries slumped, forcing motorists to endure day-long queues to top off tanks. Shortages have returned to Caracas, prompting drivers to prowl the streets for open filling stations as lines stretch for blocks in some areas. Because of breakdowns at Petroleos de Venezuela SA fuel-making plants, gasoline output has crashed by more than 40% since the end of June, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. Struggling with the impact of U.S. sanctions and scant foreign investment, PDVSA has been hit by failures at several of its largest plants. Just two of six refineries are currently operational, according to three people with direct knowledge who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the situation.

Germany: Devastating floods raise fears for future (The Week) Entire towns in western Germany were devastated last week by “the flood of the century,” said Susanne Scholz at Express, and the whole country is in shock. The images on TV news looked like they were coming from a tropical monsoon zone, not our first-world nation. Never did we think we would see our own citizens “trapped in houses on the verge of collapse, in danger of being swept away by masses of water.” Days of torrential rain caused rivers to burst their banks in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, and in neighboring Belgium and the Netherlands. While authorities say it’s too early to put a price tag on the damage, the images of submerged homes and electrical stations, obliterated bridges, and cars crumpled by fallen trees tell a tale of vast material loss. “The German language hardly knows any words for the devastation that has been wrought,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel. She praised the thousands of volunteers who came to bail water, load sandbags, and search for survivors.      “Disaster control clearly failed,” said Peter Tiede at Bild. State and local authorities responsible for evacuation warnings relied on smartphone apps that many Germans don’t have—and service was out anyway because the storms had downed the cell towers. Only old-fashioned sirens work in such emergencies, yet our few loudspeaker vans never left the depots. Public radio, meanwhile, “was playing pop music while hundreds of people were being washed away, houses collapsing, villages razed to the ground.” It’s simply inexcusable. “How bad will it get when such a flood hits a major city like Cologne or Hamburg instead of villages and small towns?”

To reach a peace deal, Taliban say Afghan president must go (AP) The Taliban say they don’t want to monopolize power, but they insist there won’t be peace in Afghanistan until there is a new negotiated government in Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani is removed. The Taliban have swiftly captured territory in recent weeks, seized strategic border crossings and are threatening a number of provincial capitals—advances that come as the last U.S. and NATO soldiers leave Afghanistan. Memories of the Taliban’s last time in power some 20 years ago, when they enforced a harsh brand of Islam that denied girls an education and barred women from work, have stoked fears of their return among many. Afghans who can afford it are applying by the thousands for visas to leave Afghanistan, fearing a violent descent into chaos. The U.S.-NATO withdrawal is more than 95% complete and due to be finished by Aug. 31.

Heavy rain in India triggers floods, landslides; at least 125 dead (Reuters) Rescue teams in India struggled through thick sludge and debris on Saturday to reach dozens of submerged homes as the death toll from landslides and accidents caused by torrential monsoon rain rose to 125. Maharashtra state is being hit by the heaviest rain in July in four decades, experts say. Downpours lasting several days have severely affected the lives of hundreds of thousands, while major rivers are in danger of bursting their banks. In Taliye, about 180 km (110 miles) southeast of the financial capital of Mumbai, the death toll rose to 42 with the recovery of four more bodies after landslides flattened most homes in the village, a senior Maharashtra government official said. Parts of India’s west coast have received up to 594 mm (23 inches) of rain, forcing authorities to move people out of vulnerable areas as they released water from dams about to overflow.

Vietnam locks down capital Hanoi for 15 days as cases rise (AP) Vietnam announced a 15-day lockdown in the capital Hanoi starting Saturday as a coronavirus surge spread from the southern Mekong Delta region. The lockdown order, issued late Friday night, bans the gathering of more than two people in public. Only government offices, hospitals and essential businesses are allowed to stay open. Earlier in the week, the city had suspended all outdoor activities and ordered non-essential businesses to close following an increase in cases.

Thousands protest lockdown in Sydney, several arrested (AP) Thousands of people took to the streets of Sydney and other Australian cities on Saturday to protest lockdown restrictions amid another surge in cases, and police made several arrests after crowds broke through barriers and threw plastic bottles and plants. There was a heavy police presence in Sydney, including mounted police and riot officers in response to what authorities said was unauthorized protest activity. Police confirmed a number of arrests had been made after objects were thrown at officers. Greater Sydney has been locked down for the past four weeks, with residents only able to leave home with a reasonable excuse. In Melbourne, thousands of protesters without masks turned out downtown chanting “freedom.” Some of them lit flares as they gathered outside Victoria state’s Parliament House. They held banners, including one that read: “This is not about a virus it’s about total government control of the people.”

Power outages cripple parts of the Middle East amid record heat waves and rising unrest (Washington Post) Record heat waves and crippling energy shortages across much of the Middle East are plunging homes and businesses from Lebanon to Iran into darkness and stirring unrest as poor families swelter while many of the rich stay cool with backup generators. Power outages have pushed hospitals to a crisis point. Family businesses are struggling to survive. In some cities, the streetlights barely work. Temperatures in several Middle Eastern countries this summer have topped 122 degrees Fahrenheit—50 degrees Celsius—including in Iran, which hit 123.8, and Iraq, which nearly matched last year’s record of 125.2. Decades of neglect and underinvestment have left power grids unable to cope. Drought has crippled hydroelectric generation. Economic crises roiling several countries mean governments are now even struggling to purchase the fuel needed to generate power.

Over 71% of Lebanon’s population risks losing access to safe water—UNICEF (Reuters) The United Nations warned on Friday that more than four million people in Lebanon, including one million refugees risked losing access to safe water as shortages of funding, fuel and supplies affect water pumping. “UNICEF estimates that most water pumping will gradually cease across the country in the next four to six weeks,” a statement by the U.N. body said. Lebanon is battling an economic meltdown that has propelled more than half of its population into poverty and seen its currency lose over 90% of its value in less than two years. The financial crisis has translated into severe shortages of basic goods such as fuel and medicine as dollars run dry. UNICEF said that should the public water supply system collapse, water costs could jump by 200% a month as water would be secured from private water suppliers.

[mynameisntburgerpants]

Underswap

send me an au and i’ll give you 5+ headcanons about it || accepting

I actually have a whole-ass text document about my own personal version of Underswap, making it more of a roleswap along the lines of my own personal swap AU (PLEASE ASK ME ABOUT THAT IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN ME MAKING THAT A REALITY) than a personality swap. This is gonna be a long one, so I’m putting it under the cut.

First of all, instead of Chara swapping with Frisk and Asriel swapping with Monster Kid for some reason (WHICH DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE CONSIDERING ASRIEL IS STILL ASGORE AND TORIEL'S SON), Asriel and Chara swap and Frisk stays where they are. I dunno what happens to Monster Kid, I guess they stay put too. Wouldn't make sense to swap 'em with Frisk. Maybe not even every single character would switch.

Toriel/Asgore swap:

Asgore was so ashamed of how Toriel received his idea for collecting the human souls necessary to break the barrier (that is, poorly) that he exiled himself to the Ruins, never to be seen again by monsterkind. Toriel finds herself, regrettably, taking Asgore's mantle on his promise, but she doesn't have it in her to do it and ends up just taking all the humans in under her wing--or would if any of them other than Frisk survived to get to her.

Asgore basically serves as the Goat Dad of the ruins, much like canon Toriel, but given his lack of self worth, he doesn't try to stop Frisk from leaving by sheer nature of the fact he thinks he couldn't if he tried. An optional sidequest before you leave the ruins allows you to engange in battle with him and subsequently spare/betray him (he is too strong to even hurt with your starting equipment and LV unless you betrayal kill him), which is required on the True Pacifist route--alternately, he stands in your way regardless in the No Mercy route, because no one else is left to stand in your way and he doesn't want the fact that he let you murder everyone outside weighing on his conscience.

Napstablook/Mettaton swap:

Napstablook owns a multimedia empire and a robot body thanks to Mettaton's help and encouragement. They're the underground's premier DJ and star, though they're genuinely kind and humble--not nearly as narcissistic as their cousin. Actually, Blooky ends up being one hell of a pushover even despite their confidence boost. Mettaton, still being a ghost, handles the PR side of things, but takes frequent breaks in the ruins.

Dr. Undyne designed Napstablook's robot body to be as shonen as possible--like, Kenshiro from Hokuto no Ken levels of ripped, which humorously juxtaposes their placid demeanor. Their battles are mainly rhythm game segments, given their affinity with music, but Undyne's Human Eradicatin' Weapons Systems frequently accidentally kick in to make things dangerous. Even when they just want to talk ;~;There could be a sidequest in which you help convince Undyne to build them a body that maybe isn't loaded with deadly weapons (good luck with that part) and an appearance more befitting their tastes and personality.

Sans/Papyrus swap:

Papyrus finds out through overhearing a conversation that he's just "too sweet/gentle" to be in the Royal Guard, but not being one to give up on his dreams so easily, he instead pushes for Sans to join the Guard, so Papyrus can live vicariously through him. Sans doesn't really care for it, but as long as his brother's happy, he is too. In trademark Sans style, despite him successfully making the cut for the royal guard, he doesn't really try. His puzzles are all extremely easy (if you can even call some of them puzzles) and his fighting ability is laughable at best, so he hires Papyrus to "help out." This serves a double purpose: so Sans doesn't have to do much, and Papyrus still gets to do what he loves, even if it isn't officially sanctioned by the highers-up.

If you try to kill Sans during your "fights" with him, he just conveniently avoids each attack and makes a snide remark--you have to betrayal kill him after having not tried to attack him for a few turns before you're able to spare him. Papyrus has some new tricks up his sleeve if you fight him as the judge of your sins, and he's a total damage sponge along the lines of Undyne the Undying.

Nice Cream Guy/Burgerpants swap:

Burgerpants runs a burger stand in Snowdin, but boy, he is not happy about it. But it pays rent, and nobody is hiring for the skill set he has, so he just begrudgingly does what he has to do to survive. Over the course of a Pacifist run, you help him get over himself depending on how well his burgers sell. The burger wrappers initially contain morbid observations about the world around him the first time you meet him, but he ditches the idea altogether because it's too much extra work, and just sells them plainly wrapped from then on.

Nice Cream Guy, meanwhile, works at the Nice Cream Parlor in Napstablook's resort. Mettaton gives him a hard time sometimes, but he genuinely seems to be happy, doing what he loves working for someone he looks up to. Napstablook actually treats him with respect compared to canon Mettaton with Burgerpants, and the place ends up being surprisingly successful. He hints at Burgerpants being immensely awkward around him but trying to make an approach nonetheless, and he finds it simply adorable.

Grillby/Muffet swap:

Grillby lives with his niece/daughter/other-younger-female-relative, Fuku Fire, in Hotland. He runs a moderately successful bar/nightclub where you would normally encounter Muffet in canon Undertale. He's trying to raise money to put Fuku through college. You have to pass through, but he mistakenly believes you're trying to get into the club despite obviously being underage and has a bouncer fight you off. Once the bouncer is talked down, Grillby realizes his mistake and opens up a limited shopfront for you, where you can buy non-alcoholic beverages that provide different buffs. If you kill the bouncer, he'll give you the alcoholic menu selection out of fear, with stronger buffs but debilitating side effects that affect your soul's movement in the Bullet Board. Frisk, being a child, is quite the lightweight. You don't encounter Grillby OR the bouncer on a No Mercy run, allowing you to loot the place for free, like the Snowdin shopkeeper.

Muffet's bakery in Snowdin is closed for business until after the Sans and Papyrus boss battle. During the hangout scene with Papyrus where he takes you there for the opening ceremony, Muffet is welcoming at first, but Papyrus tries to order something without having the money to pay the exorbitant price, and skele-daddles on outta there, leaving you to deal with Muffet's wrath. After calming her down, you get to see her friendlier side, convince her to charge more reasonable prices for her menu items, buy various Spider Pastries/Beverages, and talk to her about the situation of her kind. I said I don't like Underswap much at all, but I seriously dig the rollerskate café aesthetic that Muffet has going on in that AU, so that'll probably stay the same.

Undyne/Alphys swap:

Alphys built a mech suit that could change the face of the war against humanity, but unfortunately, operating it is such a complex measure that only she can figure out how to use it. Rather than letting her invention go to waste, Undyne promotes her to a high ranking position in the guard and, unable to find anyone else with Alphys's talents, offers to work as Royal Scientist in her stead, with her advice. You encounter her in a similar fashion to Undyne--she tries her hardest to block out her conscience in her attempts to kill you, but in a True Pacifist route, you manage to appeal to her conscience and eventually befriend her. The mech conveniently runs out of power during the final encounter, which is the only time you're able to kill/spare her. Else, it's impervious to all attacks. In the No Mercy Run, the mech switches to reserve power. The boss becomes straight up bullet hell, but as it expends more energy, it becomes more vulnerable to attack. Avoiding damage causes it to burn through energy faster than if you get hit, so you better Git Gud, as they say.

Undyne's favorite part of the scientific process? Blowing shit up, of course. Regardless, she turns out to actually be pretty good at the other parts, too. The lab is a complete mess when you first find it. Undyne was watching you on the screen, like canon Alphys, and came to root for you over time. She'd intermittently pipe in to taunt (or eventually cheer you on) over the cameras (with speakers attached) hidden throughout the Underground. In a True Pacifist route, you go down to the True Lab with her to find out about Alphys's DT experiments from before she was a member of the Royal Guard. She confronts Alphys about it, but ultimately she can't stay mad at her and they end up getting engaged anyway, because Undyne is more willing to look past Alphys's flaws than most of the fandom who assumes she created the Amalgamates deliberately out of malice, incompetence, or both.

Asriel/Chara swap:

Chara is Flowey instead of Asriel. Their soul ended up being bound to the being of a flower, and, given that they HAVE a soul, they still have the ability to feel emotions. This doesn't make them less mischievous, as they ARE detached from the consequences of their actions since they could previously just reset at any time. Initially, in a neutral route and most of a pacifist route, they decide they've had enough and try to kill you so they can go back to having their "fun" with the inhabitants of the underground (complete with an Omega Flowey sequence as per usual--if a lot more difficult because of the seventh human soul, but you can persevere through it). At the end of the pacifist route, they unlock the combined potential of seven human souls AND all the underground's monsters. You are physically incapable of hurting them as they can just load state back to before you hurt them. The only way to beat them is to bore them. Survive until they get bored of trying to kill you, and at that point you can try talking them into reforming, sacrificing their ultimate power to break the barrier and restore everyone back to their previous places. Unlike canon Undertale, since they still have their soul, they don't face the threat of turning back into a flower, but they do fear what might happen if anybody else saw them literally returning from the dead. You can choose to either humor them and let them stay behind with their thoughts, or talk them into coming with you to the surface, which affects how the Pacifist Ending turns out. They have a great deal trouble readjusting back to human society given their troubled past, but you managed to convince them to bear with you. Even after learning a valuable lesson about other sentient beings, they're a little uncomfortable with letting their guard down for fear of getting hurt again. Recovery doesn't happen overnight, after all.

Asriel's essence lived on in Chara's favorite bed of golden flowers, too. Frisk's sweater managed to pick it up, and, mistakenly thinking they were Chara, Asriel's consciousness latched on. Asriel serves as the game's narrator, much like the fan theory that Chara serves that end in the actual game. Whatever route you pick through the game shapes Asriel's character--he may not remember most of his life, but again, he has his personality. On a No Mercy route he initially pleads you to stop, questioning why you would hurt people like this, before eventually losing his childlike innocence and only narrating the bare essentials. He shows up at the end of the No Mercy route in his Hypergod form, as a being made of pure unfiltered LV, to directly call you out on your actions as the player, like Chara. Unlike Chara, you can't bargain to sell your soul to play the game again. He just locks you out of the game entirely, not wanting to watch those events unfold again. The only way to replay the game after a No Mercy route is to tamper with the game files yourself.Likewise, narrating a pacifist route, he's as chipper as ever--if having picked up a bit of snark from his time with Chara. He'll remark on situations that seem familiar for some reason you just can't place, and will try to reach out to Chara during the final Pacifist boss, before realizing they can't hear him. At the end of the pacifist route, you can choose to give up Frisk's soul to allow Asriel a second chance at life--again, affecting how the pacifist ending plays out. There would be some moral fuckery about whether it was the right thing to do, since that was Frisk's soul, not technically yours to give. It'd create an interesting parallel to the "you can't save everyone" narrative Toby had in mind, but on the other hand I also want it to be clear that Frisk is less a blank slate for the player to project onto, and more their own character that acts as an extension of the player's will--and giving the player that choice might run against that.

[sgreffenius]

Even David Brooks wants to climb on board Uncle Joe’s express train to oblivion. I can’t believe the stuff I read about what he wants to do. If Bernie or AOC wanted to do exactly what Uncle Joe wants to do, I doubt the favorable commentary would be quite this fulsome. We can’t imagine a man that old would lead us to ruin.

We’ve had our recent experiment with statism, only ten years ago. It went by the initials ACA. This reckless piece of legislation ruined Obama’s governing majority, caused untold disruption for millions of families, and in the end large portions of the structure just collapsed. Yet we have people who praise it, even now! They’ll tell you people don’t want to give it up. Give up what? The illusion of state-run health care that makes health care affordable for all?

When he wasn’t dabbling in health care, Obama’s ever-active pen kept us all busy in other ways. He had to review kill lists for overseas assassinations, conservative organizations who merit special attention from the IRS, deportation orders for people to be shipped away because we don’t want them here. shovel-ready infrastructure projects for bridges to somewhere, we just don’t know where, and of course billions legislatively sanctioned bribes and payoffs for political cronies, allies, and anyone else who might vote Democratic.

We have seen all of this before, under Democrats and Republicans. Both parties play the big government game. Both parties pretend that large expenditures do not bear costs, now or later. Someone thought up the idea - I think his name is Mr. Monetary Theory - that government can spend as much as it likes. In fact, it does not even need a budget. It just hands stuff out. If you don’t like it, give it back.

Thus we have encountered this stupidity before. FDR tried it. It failed then, whatever your teachers taught you in school. In fact, every state-run effort to create prosperity for families runs into the same problem: it does not work. You can hear the effort to ignore this experience in the current commentary. Either advocates try to convince you something worked, when it did not, or they say previous efforts did not go far enough.

We used to spend millions. That was not enough. So we tried spending billions. That was not enough, either. Now we spend trillions, under the delusion that at last, with twelve zeroes after the number, we will have success. What will happen when that amount fails? Will we go for fifteen zeroes? No one even knows what that number is called. But of course we do. Fifteen zeroes is a quadrillion. I’m curious where the Treasury will find that kind of money. I suppose when the entire international monetary system is denominated in dollars, you do not have to find it. It’s just there.

So Mr. Monetary Theory has that helpful ace, trick, or whatever you want to call the legerdemain that enables government to let a contract on just about anything. That does not bring prosperity to you and me. One thing brings prosperity to you and me: low taxes, and low public spending to go with them. Low taxes always bring prosperity. What does our good president want to do? Raise taxes. He even has his Treasury secretary explain to us why high taxes bring us prosperity.

High taxes and big budgets bring us prosperity because when government spends our money, it knows how to spend it better than we do. For example, when the Department of Defense uses our money to blow stuff up overseas, that’s better than if we use our money to buy new cars. Cars just sit in the driveway most of the time. When we do drive them, we cause all sorts of environmental harm. Whereas when we blow stuff up, people have to pay a lot for coffins and other funeral expenses, materials to rebuild homes, medical expenses, weapons replacement costs, contractors’ fees to repair roads and water systems, child care for orphans, and the like. That’s called the multiplier effect. That’s how wars pull us into prosperity, just like FDR did after Pearl Harbor.

Let’s take another example. Which would you rather have: a child who can read and write at a level that enhances success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics? Or a child stranded at home while teachers pop another piece of toast in the kitchen toaster, brew another cup of java, and kick back on the phone for a while before the next totally ineffective zoom session? That one should be easy: of course you want extra billions for teachers to relax at home, while your children get dumber and dumber in their homes! Children don’t vote. Teachers do.

So good luck, Joe. You tried to become president for the past thirty years or so. Now you’re in the White House at last, with opportunities to do things barred to you as Barack’s sidekick. Now you have some discretion, yet you have these progressive advisors and legislators who pester you to take initiatives they know will benefit other people. I wish you could open a U.S. history text a hundred years from now, to see how time treats you. If you go through with the initiatives you have laid out, I do not think you would be happy with the treatment you receive.