Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
No bio...
User ID: 863
So, how's that whole Elon free speech Twitter thing going? Turns out, not great. An article from Mike Masnick over at TechDirt has the details. Basically, back in November, shortly after Elon finished buying Twitter, he noted his belief in free speech was so strong it extended even to leaving up the Twitter account @elonjet. For those who don't know the @elonjet Twitter account used publicly available data to Tweet whenever Elon's private plane flew somewhere. Elon tweeted:
My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk
The man behind the account, Jack Sweeney, also operated a bunch of other plane tracker accounts for other billionaires (including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and various Russian oligarchs). As of today it seems the @elonjet Twitter account, along with all the other plane trackers and even Sweeney's personal account, have been suspended. Apparently this suspension is pursuant to a new Twitter rule about sharing personal information:
Under this policy, you can’t share the following types of private information, without the permission of the person who it belongs to:
...
live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes, actual physical location, or other identifying information that would reveal a person’s location, regardless if this information is publicly available;
It took a whole month for Elon to craft a policy to ban the account he specifically said he wouldn't ban due to his commitment to free speech. So much for the idea that the limits of Twitter moderation would be anything like "only illegal speech." It also seems (according to the TechDirt article, and I tried this myself) that you can't even tweet links to @elonjet accounts on other platforms (like Facebook or Instagram). Amusingly Elon's original tweet from November now has a Community Note on it noting what the account that was being mentioned in the tweet was and the fact that it's banned.
Twitter files dump about the internal deliberations on how this policy change and these bans came about when?
ETA:
Seems @elonjet was unsuspended. Apparently the new policy requires "slight" (no word on how long that is) delay before posting info. Although, at the time of this edit the account appears to be suspended again. Link.
ETA2:
Elon now claiming that legal action is being taken against Sweeney. Would love to hear what legal action he's alledgedly taking.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1yr ago
I don't know why people in this particular debate are so obsessed with intuiting the answers to empirical questions. It is not the case that nobody has ever tried to measure the sport performance related effects of gender transition. Here is a BMJ meta-analysis from 2021 of 24 different studies. What do they find? Basically what you'd expect. 1-2 years on HRT decreases strength related performance pretty substantially. The study subjects retained some advantage over cis women but were significantly worse than cis men.
In keeping with the muscular anabolic effects of testosterone and the mixed effects of oestrogens, studies using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry report decreased LBM (0.8%–5.4%) in association with GAHT. Twelve months of GAHT also decreased muscle CSA (1.5%–9.7%). However, a further 12 or 24 months of GAHT did not always elicit further decreases in muscle CSA. Strength loss with 12 months of GAHT also ranged from non-significant to 7%. Taking these strength parameter data collectively, and in consideration of cisgender women demonstrating 31% lower LBM, 36% lower hand-grip strength and 35% lower knee extension strength than cisgender men, the small decrease in strength in transwomen after 12–36 months of GAHT suggests that transwomen likely retain a strength advantage over cisgender women. Whether longer duration of GAHT would yield further decrements in strength in transgender women is unknown.
n contrast to strength-related data, blood cell findings revealed a different time course of change. After 3–4 months on GAHT, the HCT or Hgb levels of transwomen matched those of cisgender women, with levels remaining stable within the ‘normal’ female range for studies lasting up to 36 months. Given the rapid fall in Hgb/HCT to ‘normal’ female levels with GAHT, it is possible that transfemale athletes experience impaired endurance performance in part due to reduced oxygen transport from the lungs to the working muscles. This postulate is consistent with findings reported in one of the few studies conducted in athletic transwomen. In this study, the race times of eight transfemale distance runners were compared at baseline and after one or more years of GAHT. After adjusting performance for age, the eight runners were not more competitive in the female category (after GAHT) than they had been in the male category (before GAHT). Given this, and that the changes in Hgb/HCT follow a different time course than strength changes, sport-specific regulations for transwomen in endurance ver strength sports may be needed.
And trans women tended to be less strong than average cis-men even pre-transition.
Of interest, compared with cisgender men, hormone-naive transwomen demonstrate 6.4%–8.0% lower LBM, 6.0%–11.4% lower muscle CSA and ~10%–14% lower handgrip strength. This disparity is noteworthy given that hormone-naive transwomen and cisgender men have similar testosterone levels. Explanations for this strength difference are unclear but may include transwomen actively refraining from building muscle and/or engaging in disordered eating or simply not being athletically inclined, perhaps influenced by feelings of an unwelcome presence in sporting arenas. Taken together, hormone-naive transwomen may not, on average, have the same athletic attributes as cisgender men. The need to move beyond simple comparisons of cisgender men and women to assess the sporting capabilities of transwomen is imperative.
Anyway I think the whole discussion is kind of dumb. Different athletes have all kinds of different advantages due to biological features. Is there some level of biological advantage at which point intra-group competition becomes unfair? Is the advantage a top trans woman has over a top cis woman larger than the advantage Michael Phelps had over his fellow Olympians? One can't help but notice that no one was interested in banning people from competing in sports due to biological advantage until the discussion was about trans women.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
11mo ago
Trump v. United States, the presidential immunity opinion, dropped this morning. In broad strokes it goes like this:
1. For those acts that are pursuant to the President's "conclusive and preclusive" authority there is absolute immunity.
2. For those acts which are official acts by the President but not covered by (1) there is a presumption of immunity that can only be overcome by showing the prosecution would pose no "dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch."
3. For those acts which are unofficial there is no immunity.
4. Those acts for which the President has immunity cannot be used as evidence to demonstrate any element of a crime for which the President would not have immunity.
I think it's just incredible that the six justices in the majority looked at the Navy-SEALs-assassinate-a-rival hypothetical and went "yep, sounds right, no liability." Roberts' majority opinion even mentions the President's orders to the armed forces as one of the things that falls under (1).
I think the way is clear. Biden orders Trump, the six justices in the majority, and let's say the next 2-3 top Republican candidates whacked (just for safety). He probably gets impeached and removed but can't go to jail (thanks SCOTUS!) Harris takes over as President and I think it's unlikely she would also get impeached. Dems don't want to hand the presidency to Mike Johnson. That gives Harris plenty of time to stack the court. Republican convention in disarray due to the deaths of their prominent candidates. Biden obviously out, he'd be ineligible anyway if impeached and removed. Dems probably dump Harris to create a clean break with Biden admin, clearing the way for Whitmer/Newsom/Pritzker/whoever.
The above is fan fiction, of course.
It seems many blue tribers saw him complaining about a fact check and seeing a win. Why would you complain about fact checking other than if you were lying? This is another example going back to Scott's post about the media rarely lying. Hey, they're temporary asylum seekers, so since they were allowed in with little hindrances to speak of, they're legal. Fact checked. This is an example of why I tend to dislike fact checking in a debate. It introduces an opportunity to use unfavorable framing on an opponent with lawyerspeak on technically true things. Let the candidates do it themselves if they want.
Temporary Protected Status and Asylum are different legal protections, with different criteria and processes. More generally, what does the term "illegal immigrant" refer to? I am under the impression it refers to people in the United States without a legal status that permits them to remain. That very literally does not include people with TPS (like the Haitians in Springfield have). if "illegal immigrant" includes even people who have legal permission to be here, what precisely are the boundaries? Are there green card holders who are "illegal immigrants?"
It's also kind of funny to hear Vance complain about the CBP One app since it was launched in... October 2020 by the Trump administration!
But he is really dragged down on this issue. It's lame he has to defend election denial claims in the first place, and leave room for challenging more later. I know many of you have strong feelings on the truthfulness of the claims. I will say this: if someone goes and makes those claims, they shouldn't run again.
Forget election denial claims. What ought to be disqualifying is his statement that he would not have counted the lawfully cast electoral college votes. Nobody should be Vice President who cannot affirm the simple fact that the Vice President's role is ministerial, a fact Republicans would instantly discover if Kamala Harris acted otherwise.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
More developments in DeSantis' political stunt of sending some migrants to Martha's Vineyard.
If you didn't already know the migrants were not even in Florida when they got on the flight. The migrants started in San Antonio, Texas. The Bexar County Sheriff (which covers San Antonio) has announced a criminal investigation into the matter. They do not currently have the names of any suspects or particular statutes in mind that may have been violated but they have started an investigation. I'm not an expert on Texas law but it seems to me their law on unlawful restraint may be applicable. The law provides:
(1) "Restrain" means to restrict a person's movements without consent, so as to interfere substantially with the person's liberty, by moving the person from one place to another or by confining the person. Restraint is "without consent" if it is accomplished by:
(A) force, intimidation, or deception;
...
(a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly restrains another person.
Did DeSantis' agents move a person from one place to another by deception such that the persons so moved did not consent? Seems like it to me! If any of the people so moved were children under the age of 17 the offense is a state jail felony otherwise it is a Class A misdemeanor.
On the civil front some of those same migrants have filed a class action lawsuit against DeSantis (maybe flying them to the island full of rich lawyers was unwise.) There are 12 listed causes of action in the complaint (starting on page 23 in the pdf). These range from violations of constitutional rights (since this was ostensibly done under color of law, using state government funds) to regular torts like false imprisonment, fraud, and infliction of emotional distress (intentional and negligent).
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1yr ago
What about hugging?
Yes, nonconsensual hugging is generally bad.
What about hand shakes?
I am not sure how you do a nonconsensual handshake? But yea, bad.
Back pats?
Nonconsensual ones are bad, yes.
Was my old aunt sexually abusing me when I was 10 and she'd plant a big lipsticky kiss on my cheek?
Maybe!
Did I sexually harrass my dad when he was lying in a hospital bed in a coma and I kissed his forehead?
Probably not.
Or am I being outrageous?
Yes.
Is it bad, but the same way answering your phone in the library is bad rather than sexual abuse?
It is (much) worse than answering your phone in a library but probably not as bad as the median example of conduct described by the term "sexual abuse."
But is answering your phone in the library bad enough to lose your career over?
Probably not, but forcibly kissing a woman might be.
Could there be a middle ground perhaps, where it's not something people should do moving forward but we don't crucify this guy for not being American?
People learn what to do and not to do because of the consequences for the things they do. I am pretty sure he is criticized for forcibly kissing a woman, not for "not being American."
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
Let me see if I understand correctly.
In Biden's case the staffers who discovered the documents immediately alerted NARA to their existence, turned the documents over, and are cooperating with the governments investigation into how the documents came to be there.
In Trump's case NARA learned Trump had documents bearing classification markings after some were included in boxes of presidential records Trump returned to NARA. NARA told Trump they were going to inform the FBI of the classified docs. Trump asks NARA not to tell the FBI, but produces no further documents. Eventually NARA informs the FBI. The FBI gets a subpoena for all documents at Mar-a-Lago bearing a certain set of classification markings. Trump turns over some documents and (falsely) certifies that those documents are all the ones in his possession that are covered by the subpoena. The FBI, by means not fully public yet, develop probable cause to believe Trump has further documents covered by the subpoena which he has not produced. A magistrate judge issues a warrant and the FBI execute that warrant. In the course of executing the warrant the FBI discover their probable cause was correct and Trump had lied about compliance with the subpoena.
Now, maybe some very damning facts will come out in the Biden case. It is a developing situation after all. But on the basis of the facts I know so far the differential response by law enforcement and related entities seem totally explicable.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I mean, I think they have a belief that a crime was committed, just not an awareness of exactly what statute it violated.
Imagine the police find a dead body. They probably form a belief that a crime has been committed but exactly what statute will be applicable can depend on as-yet-unknown factors (like the perpetrators state of mind). I do not think the police in such a case are "fully into 'I'll find you the crime' territory."
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
10mo ago
I just want to know: how much of a biological advantage is too much, such that it's unfair to have people who don't have that advantage compete against people who do have it. That's the motivation for having some kind of testosterone limit for women's competitions right? That it would be unfair to have those women with less testosterone compete against those with more. I can't help but Notice this ostensibly general objection about biological fairness seems to only exist in the context of how much testosterone women's bodies produce. Is it fair for other men's swimmers to have to compete against Michael Phelps with all his biological advantages? What about Usain Bolt? Are the advantages Khalif might have due to her biology greater than the advantages others have due to their biology?
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1yr ago
One thing that I don't understand is why nobody "inside the kitchen" don't notice how weird their attempts at propaganda seem.
I don't think most people think "white woman protagonist with black man love interest" is "propaganda." Like, propaganda for what? Would it be propaganda if they were both white? If it was an asian woman and a white man? What is the non-propaganda interracial pairing? What makes such a pairing not propaganda?
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1yr ago
I feel like Popehat's Rule of Goats applies. "Yea I made a bunch of Nazi references, but I wasn't doing it sincerely!" Ok, well you still made a bunch of Nazi references. I am somewhat sympathetic since I had my own edgy-4-chan-humor phase when I was younger, but I also did actually have a bunch of unironically racist opinions at the time.
These arguments strike me as so divorced from reality that it’s difficult to bridge the gap. These jokes are not actually making light of Hitler, Nazis, and the KKK. They are making light of online lefties being pathologically obsessed with speech. Referencing Hitler isn’t funny; what’s funny is watching online lefties think that referencing Hitler indicates a deep seated hatred of Judaism and a real desire to exterminate non-whites. It’s the overreaction that’s funny. Or another way to put it – edgy Hitler jokes are shibboleths indicating that the speaker doesn’t buy into the predominant lefty internet culture. The speaker signals that he has such little concern for the culture that he considers stifling, censorious, and ridiculous, that he invokes the greatest taboo possible. IMO, this is the essence of edgy 4-chan humor.
I am confused. If this is what IH is doing then isn't getting threads like the ones you've linked the point? Those threads (the leftist overreaction) are the punchline to the joking references, right? The point of the jokes was to make leftists think he was a Nazi! Is it surprising or disturbing that he succeeded? So he spent a bunch of time and energy making references to try and convince certain people he was a Nazi, he succeeded, and now... those same people need to be convinced he's not a Nazi? Why spend all the time and energy in the first place convincing people you were a Nazi!
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
8mo ago
On the one hand I agree that Trump was effectively stymied by checks and balances from doing many things he wanted to do in his first term. On the other hand it's not like got none of his goals accomplished. Trump's election (and subsequent Supreme Court appointments) are pretty directly responsible for overturning Roe, for one example. Many of his judicial appointments issue, frankly, insane rulings trying to enact conservative political priorities. Stopped only by the Supreme Court of the United States. The idea that Trump's presidency had no lasting impact on the United States is simply not true.
On the threat-to-democracy front I think the obvious angle is that Trump tried to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election and regularly disparages the legitimacy of any election he loses. Forget the riot on Jan 6th. Here are some simple facts, not reasonably in dispute:
1. As of December 15th 2020 all states electoral votes had been cast and transmitted to the United States federal government. These votes were sufficient to elect Joseph Biden as the next President of the United States.
2. Additionally, some other individuals in particular states purporting to be those states' lawful electors had transmitted their votes to the United States federal government.
3. Thereafter Donald Trump and some members of his inner circle started a pressure campaign to get Mike Pence to declare that, as Vice President, he had the sole authority to decide which electoral college votes were valid and should be counted. They wanted Pence to use this power to either:
a. Count the votes cast in (2) rather than (1) for particular states, ensuring Trump would be re-elected as President OR
b. Declare that no valid votes had been cast from certain states and therefore neither candidate had achieved the needed majority and the election would be decided by the House. Which Trump would almost certainly win.
Of course, the Vice President does not have the power to decide which EC votes were lawfully cast. No Vice President has ever claimed or exercised this power. The abuses it enables are extremely obvious. Why would any ticket ever fail to be re-elected? Indeed, this is obvious because I suspect approximately none of the theories proponents would accept Kamala Harris doing anything like this with the results of the 2024 election.
I think a lot of people freak out about Trump because there is a perception that there is a Way Things Are Done that he neither does not know or does not care about. Sometimes this leads to our system of checks and balances stymieing his policy goals (see the million cases his admin lost for not following the APA) but sometimes it comes down to the bravery of individual people like Mike Pence. This concern specifically is enhanced by Vance being on record that he would not have certified the 2020 results like Mike Pence did.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1yr ago
Of course, on seeing this news I immediately wondered why it would count as "punishing" women to prevent them from doing something men don't generally have the option of doing (that is, making money by flashing breasts).
The policy is broader than "don't flash your breasts." According to your link it prohibited any content that "deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks or pelvic region." I have no trouble believing that women were modded for content that men got away with. If a guy did a squat stream that prominently displayed their ass (maybe for form demonstration reasons) would Twitch mod it for sexual content? What if a woman did the same? I have no trouble believing Twitch would mod the woman but not the man. I think there is a pretty straightforward sexist implication to "men are allowed to do this thing but women aren't."
Why don't we say it "levels the playing field" to prevent women from using their sex appeal to crush their competitors on a gaming platform?
Because the conception of Twitch rules as existing to level some competitive field between streamers is nonsensical? Should Twitch ban streamers who are too good at games, because they'll get more viewers by being better? Should Twitch ban face cams, because more attractive streamers will get more viewers? Or maybe mandate face cams! No hiding for you uggos, you might get undeserved views! Make everyone use a voice modulator to have the same voice, some people might have nicer voices that lead to more viewers!
I guess someone realized that if you allow streamers to turn your site into OnlyFans with Vidya, then the women are going to drop their tops and the men are going to just... use filters?
Wat? How many men on Twitch do you think are currently using filters to become women to get people to watch and sub?
I don't actually know, I don't use Twitch because I play video games and have no interest in watching others do so, but I am decrepit and out of touch so whatever.
You didn't need to put this here, it's apparent from the rest of your post.
Now I'm left pondering the apparent Fisherian runaway of human beings trying to become--virtually, at least--teenage-presenting (cat?)girls as quickly as possible.
Wat. What fraction of twitch streamers do you think are involved in this "Fisherian runaway?" What fraction of, say, the top 100 or 1000 streamers?
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1yr ago
I've read the discussion on the destruction of General Lee's statue in Charlottesville in last week's thread. I got the impression that many commenters here are prone to come up with explanations why the official removal of the statue was at least unsurprising or objectively justified from a culture war perspective, and I get that. But it seems they aren't focusing on the palpable difference between legally removing a statue and destroying it in a furnace. Because as far as I'm concerned, it's a big step from one to the other.
I mean, they didn't just melt it down and throw it away or something. They're melting it down for the purpose of creating some other art piece based on community input. At least, that's according to the proposal submitted by Jefferson School African American Heritage Center that the City Council accepted. It is a literal transformation of a symbol of Virginia's racist, white supremacist past to one of its more egalitarian present. The symbolism is the point.
And what happened to Lee's statue certainly cannot be explained by financial considerations either, as I'm sure that whatever arrangement that was on the table for putting it away as a museum piece was cheaper than melting it down in a furnace.
I think this misapprehends the process. The city solicited proposals on what to do with the statue. The people who made the proposal the Council accepted were responsible for all the costs of transporting it, melting it down, etc. It didn't cost the city anything.
In the end, the only sufficient explanation I can come up with is that local authorities were afraid that Lee's statue, no matter where it were to be placed, was likely to become a site of pilgrimage for right-winger heretics opposed to the culture-warring leftist interpretation of race relations in the US, hence the statue's destruction.
That seems like a pretty reasonable fear? The initial decision to remove the statue was the impetus for the Unite the Right rally. Where a white supremacist murdered someone and injured 30 others.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1yr ago
Not sure I agree. I can imagine a scenario where it would be sensible to describe A as having gotten B drunk, or drugged them with alcohol. An obvious example would be A adding some more potent alcohol to B's drink without B's knowledge or consent.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1yr ago
It is absurd to infer that women want a thing to be done to them because they read fiction about it being done to other people.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but Desantis's campaign coordinator said they were all given brochures of Massachusetts and info on Martha's Vineyard. Seems like if that's true then your points are completely moot. Hard to argue that you tricked somebody if you gave them a pamphlet of their destination in advance.
What if the pamphlet contained information that was false?
From the complaint:
On information and belief, the brochure was manufactured by Defendants. The brochure echoed the type of false representation that had been given orally, including statements such as: “During the first 90 days after a refugee’s arrival in Massachusetts, resettlement agencies provide basic needs support including...assistance with housing...furnishings, food, and other basic necessities...clothing, and transportation to job interviews and job training...assistance in applying for Social Security cards...registering children for school....” The brochure had a separate section entitled “Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA),” which stated: “Provides up to 8 months of cash assistance for income-eligible refugees without dependent children, who reside in Massachusetts.” It had other sections that described “targeted services for . . . employment.”
On information and belief, this brochure was not prepared by the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants, or any other Massachusetts agency or immigration services organization.
On information and belief, Defendants manufactured the official-looking brochure— lifting language from the Massachusetts Refugee Resettlement Program, a governmental program with highly specific eligibility requirements for which no members of the putative class are eligible—in order to buttress their false oral representations to Plaintiffs in furtherance of the conspiracy described throughout this complaint.
The complaint also alleges that the migrants were told they were going to Boston and only learned they were going to Martha's Vineyard after boarding the plane:
Before the flight, class members were told they were heading to Boston, Massachusetts or Washington, D.C. But right before landing, they were informed they were in fact going to Martha’s Vineyard, an isolated Massachusetts island just south of Cape Cod, reachable only by plane or boat.
So DeSantis' agents lied to the migrants about where they were going and what would be available to them when they got to their destination. The migrants relied on these false representations for their "consent" to go.
"Not only that, they all signed consent forms to go. And then the vendor that is doing this for Florida provided them with a packet that had a map of Martha's Vineyard," said DeSantis.
"It had the numbers for different services on Martha's Vineyard. And then it had numbers for the overall agencies in Massachusetts that handle things involving immigration and refugees. So it was clearly voluntary."
The fact of signing a consent inform is irrelevant if the reason you signed is because someone deceived you about what you were consenting to. Similarly the fact that the packet had a map or certain phone numbers does not establish that their consent to being transported was not based on lies.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2mo ago
It's true. The HHS employees working on grants for brain cancer, or AIDs, or IVF, or whatever were responsible for why state governments decreed churches couldn't meet. I hope you understand why people like me hold people like you responsible for the economic devastation of Trump's tariffs.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
6mo ago
I gotta know. What is actually the ROI on fare enforcement? Here's an article from the AP written March this year talking about NYC sending an "additional" 800 NYPD officers specifically to check for turnstile fare evasion. According to the NYPD Police Officer benefits page the starting salary for an officer is $58580/year and grows to $121589/year at 5.5 years of experience. So the total cost to the city of just these officers is somewhere between $47M and $97M per year (assuming all are between 0 and 5.5 years experience). The fine for jumping a turnstile starts at $100. So in order to justify the cost of these officers they are going to need to ticket between 470k and 970k people. According to that same AP article 28k people had been ticketed so far that year. Here's a Gothamist article from September this year that claims about 70k tickets were issued for fare evasion in the first 6 months of the year. So those 800 officers turned a presumptive 28k tickets/3 months into 42k tickets/4 months, a gain of 14k tickets (or, $1.4M in fines). Set this against the payout of NYPD salaries in the neighborhood of $12-24M. A steal! As long as you're the NYPD.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
8mo ago
From the 2025 Mandate For Leadership Page 455 and 456:
Data Collection. The CDC’s abortion surveillance and maternity mortality reporting systems are woefully inadequate. CDC abortion data are reported by states on a voluntary basis, and California, Maryland, and New Hampshire do not submit abortion data at all. Accurate and reliable statistical data about abortion, abortion survivors, and abortion-related maternal deaths are essential to timely, reliable public health and policy analysis.
Because liberal states have now become sanctuaries for abortion tourism, HHS should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method. It should also ensure that statistics are separated by category: spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion. In addition, CDC should require monitoring and reporting for complications due to abortion and every instance of children being born alive after an abortion. Moreover, abortion should be clearly defined as only those procedures that intentionally end an unborn child’s life. Miscarriage management or standard ectopic pregnancy treatments should never be conflated with abortion.
Comparisons between live births and abortion should be tracked across various demographic indicators to assess whether certain populations are targeted by abortion providers and whether better prenatal physical, mental, and social care improves infant outcomes and decreases abortion rates, especially among those who are most vulnerable.
The Ensuring Accurate and Complete Abortion Data Reporting Act of 20239 would amend title XIX of the Social Security Act and Public Health Service Act to improve the CDC’s abortion reporting mechanisms by requiring states, as a condition of federal Medicaid payments for family planning services, to report streamlined variables in a timely manner.
The CDC should immediately end its collection of data on gender identity, which legitimizes the unscientific notion that men can become women (and vice versa) and encourages the phenomenon of ever-multiplying subjective identities.
Sure there isn't a literal "every state should have report every pregnant woman to the feds" merely "every state should have to report how every pregnancy ended to the feds." If you think the latter wouldn't be used to prosecute alleged violations of a federal abortion prohibition you're a fool.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1yr ago
To a first approximation there is a culture war because different groups of people have different ideas about how society and government ought to be ordered and these ideas are often mutually incompatible. Disagreements about these questions are often acrimonious because they are moral questions about justice and fairness. This can turn disagreements about these issues into a perception that other people are immoral or evil for their position on the issue in question. Each tribe hates the other for approximately symmetrical reasons having to do with believing that the way the other side wants to order society is bad (for different definitions of bad).
3) Why does the blue tribe hate the red tribe?
To concretize my first paragraph a bit you can read the deluge (1, 2, 3) of stories of women with life-threatening pregnancy complications being denied abortions because they weren't life threatening enough. I think the legislatures that inflicted these conditions on these women are evil.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I would be interested in hearing what your proposals to "fix it" are. I think the reason few to no people offer solutions to the issue is that there are not any solutions people operating in a broadly liberal framework would find permissible.
From my own liberal perspective, nobody is owed a girlfriend, or relationship. If you (or a lot of young men) are unable to get someone you want to be in a relationship with to also want to be in a relationship with you, that's a you problem. Relationship formation is that good old double coincidence of wants. It's not enough that you want to be in a relationship with someone, you need to find someone who also wants to have a relationship with you.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1yr ago
Since tomorrow is the last (so far) scheduled day for releasing opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States I wanted to take some time to contrast the court's treatment of a pair of cases this term. These cases are Trump v. Anderson and Trump v. United States. The former case is the case out of Colorado about Trump's ballot eligibility. The latter case is the case out of the DC Circuit concerning Trump's claim to presidential immunity for his actions on Jan 6th 2021. I can't compare the reasoning in the opinions of the two cases (we still don't have a decision in the immunity one) but one thing I, and other court watchers, think is suggestive is the timeline of each of these cases. I link to SCOTUSBlog above because they provide a convenient timeline that I'll reproduce here.
In the case of Anderson the petition for cert was filed on January 3rd and granted on January 5th. Oral argument was scheduled for February 8th and the decision was issued March 4th. That's 61 days from petition for cert to decision, which is incredibly quick by SCOTUS standards. The nature of the case makes this understandable. After all, it's a question about whether a major party's chosen candidate can be on the ballot in one (and perhaps many) states. The decision was also unanimous which likely goes some way to explaining the short turn around from oral argument to a decision.
In the case of United States the petition for cert was filed on February 12th and granted on February 28th. Oral argument was scheduled for April 25th and we still do not have a decision yet. Note that just the time from granting cert to oral argument is almost as long (57 days) as the entirety of Anderson, from cert to decision. This also ignores the fact that the special counsel filed a motion for cert before judgment all the way back on December 11th 2023, which SCOTUS declined. This decision is also strange. Is there any decision the District of Columbia Court of Appeals could have issued that SCOTUS would not have granted cert on? This effectively added three months to the case (the appeals court issued its decision on February 6th) for what seems like little reason. There is some expectation that this case should take longer because there is likely much more dissent among the justices as to the correct outcome compared to Anderson, but this fact does not explain actions like the long wait until oral argument or declining the petition for cert before judgement. One would think the criminal trial of an ex-president who is also a candidate would be a pressing matter but the justices don't seem to think so.
I am not the first court watcher to note that that SCOTUS seems to move quickly or slowly depending on which one seems to operate more to Trump's benefit. Nearing the end of the term and with no decision yet in the immunity case makes me take a bit more conspiratorial perspective on the whole thing though. As I mentioned above tomorrow is the last scheduled day for releasing opinions and they still have opinions outstanding in 18 cases argued this term. They have been issuing opinions at a rate of 3-4 per scheduled opinion day this term so dropping 18 of them tomorrow seems unlikely. The most likely outcome is they schedule more opinion days next week and possibly the week after but it's possible they don't issue a decision in the Trump immunity case this term. There is a rather famous case where SCOTUS did not issue an opinion in the term it was argued. Instead releasing the opinion the next term, almost a full year after it was first argued.
The conspiracy angle on this is that SCOTUS doesn't issue a decision in United States v. Trump this term, instead waiting until after the November election. This ensures no action in Trump's criminal trial before the election. It also means some control over the most direct beneficiary of their decision. Perhaps if Trump wins in November we get a sweeping ruling immunizing large swatches of conduct. Perhaps if Biden wins we get a much narrower ruling immunizing a very small sphere of conduct.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
1yr ago
That Rasmussen survey is crap. Basically all of the described conduct can be legal depending on jurisdiction. Maybe you think it's all colloquially fraud, but that does not make it illegal. Just using my own state as an example:
17% of mail-in voters admit that in 2020 they voted in a state where they are “no longer a permanent resident”
That's totally legal in my state. If you are a US citizen living abroad and maintain a residence in Washington state you're allowed to continue voting at that residence. Or even if you live more permanently in another state but have not registered to vote in that state, you can continue voting at your Washington residence.
21% of mail-in voters admitted that they filled out a ballot for a friend or family member
This is legal in many jurisdictions, including mine, when the voter in question has a disability. From the AARP guide for Washington state:
Voting with a disability
When voting by mail, voters with disabilities can request assistance filling in their ballot from a person of their choice or by contacting their county elections office. Voters are required to sign the ballot envelope, but if the voter can’t sign the envelope, they may make a mark, such as an “X,” and have two witnesses sign the envelope.
When voting in person, those who need assistance filling in their ballot can receive help from either two election officials or a person of their choice. Each polling place is equipped with an accessible voting system. Get more information at the secretary of state’s website.
This also goes to the next Rasmussen question about signing a ballot for a friend or family member. Rasmussen makes it sound nefarious by combining "with or without" their permission but that distinction is pretty important! With permission it can be totally legal.
8% of likely voters say they were offered “pay” or a “reward” for voting in 2020
Again the equivocation between "pay" and a "reward." If someone offers you a sticker for voting, is that a "reward?" Would it be "fraud?" Note also that it is being offered for voting, not for any particular candidate.
I guess I don't really understand. This seems to me like one of the more straightforward cases against Trump, right up there with the classified documents.
1. In 2016 Michael Cohen committed several crimes to which he later pleaded guilty, including making an unlawful corporate contribution to the Trump campaign by paying Stormy Daniels.
2. Trump reimbursed Cohen for that payment to Stormy Daniels (in furtherance of Cohen's crime) from one of his businesses.
3. The payments to Cohen claimed to be pursuant to a retainer agreement that did not exist and pursuant to legal work that never occurred.
4. The reason for the description of the payments was to conceal Cohen's crime. Trump could hardly put "Reimbursement for unlawful campaign contribution" on the checks!
So we have (1) business records that were (2) falsified for the purpose of (3) concealing another crime. The theory of the case seems pretty straightforward? According to the evidence some of the checks were signed by Trump himself. Seems hard to argue he didn't know it was happening or approve of it.
What strikes me in all this is how this all could have been avoided if Trump were less of a cheapskate. According to Cohen's testimony Trump kept trying to put off paying Daniels until after the election (presumably to stiff her) and she kept threatening to call off the agreement and go public. Eventually Trump tells Cohen and Weisselberg to figure it out. Weisselberg claims not to have the money so Cohen goes and gets a HELOC (lying to his bank in the process) to pay Daniels (the unlawful campaign contribution). I'm pretty sure if Trump had just cut Daniels a check everything would have been fine. Candidates are allowed to spend as much money as they want on their own campaigns. Instead Cohen commits several crimes to pay Daniels and then Trump commits several crimes to reimburse Cohen. There was a less criminal way to do this!
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