US Politics: The Bully Culprit

[ThinkerX]

Biden proposes a tax on unrealized gains affecting people making 100+ million a year. FOX, meanwhile, is blaming the expiration of the Trump tax cuts on Biden.

 

Biden Proposes Twenty Five Percent Tax on Unrealized Gains (msn.com)

[Altherion]

31 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Biden proposes a tax on unrealized gains affecting people making 100+ million a year. FOX, meanwhile, is blaming the expiration of the Trump tax cuts on Biden.

 

Biden Proposes Twenty Five Percent Tax on Unrealized Gains (msn.com)

I have a very hard time seeing this kind of tax go anywhere in a divided Congress. It would be nice to tax the billionaires somehow, but it's not clear how such a tax would work: would they have to sell some of their holdings (and therefore realize the gains and be subject to a different tax) or would the government take payment in kind?

[Zorral]

Ha! The WaPo does a story on the WKCR, the Columbia radio station from which, for better or worse, I brought updates of the NYPD on campus, storming Hamilton Hall, earlier this week. Evidently one of the primary reason the WaPo (not the NYT!) seems to deem this worthy of its own coverage is its belief that the Columbia protests were a primary impetus for the spread of the protests to campuses all over the country. 

As police swarmed Columbia, its student radio station kept broadcasting
More than 20,000 listeners across the world tuned in to the students’ report

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/04/columbia-radio-wkcr-protest-coverage/

Quote

 

As New York City police assembled around Columbia University on Tuesday evening, student journalist Tanvi Krishnamurthy typed out an all-caps tweet from the college radio station’s account: “PLEASE TUNE IN NOW.”

Police were in riot gear. Demonstrators were chanting outside. Pro-Palestinian protesters had barricaded themselves in a university building. With the country wondering what would happen inside Columbia’s gates — and onlookers and other reporters blocked from the campus — WKCR’s student journalists began delivering a live picture of the tumult that couldn’t be found anywhere else.

Despite heavy police presence, university orders to go inside and a lack of sleep and supplies, the team of 18 undergraduates broadcast the news to the nation as an extraordinary series of events unfolded on Columbia’s campus. More than 21,000 people streamed the broadcast online and countless others listened via FM radio, as social media users spread the students’ reporting. ....

As New York City police assembled around Columbia University on Tuesday evening, student journalist Tanvi Krishnamurthy typed out an all-caps tweet from the college radio station’s account: “PLEASE TUNE IN NOW.”

Police were in riot gear. Demonstrators were chanting outside. Pro-Palestinian protesters had barricaded themselves in a university building. With the country wondering what would happen inside Columbia’s gates — and onlookers and other reporters blocked from the campus — WKCR’s student journalists began delivering a live picture of the tumult that couldn’t be found anywhere else.

Despite heavy police presence, university orders to go inside and a lack of sleep and supplies, the team of 18 undergraduates broadcast the news to the nation as an extraordinary series of events unfolded on Columbia’s campus. More than 21,000 people streamed the broadcast online and countless others listened via FM radio, as social media users spread the students’ reporting. ....

 

At the time, as commented here, I found some irony in the fact that the Pulitizer had a place in the students' reporting, which was their and my coda to their coverage of the night:

Quote

.... It even drew the attention of the Pulitzer Prize Board, which commended Columbia students — who also included the Columbia Daily Spectator reporters and journalism graduate students — saying they “worked to document a major national news event under difficult and dangerous circumstances and at risk of arrest.” (The Pulitzer Prizes are housed at Columbia.) ....

It was difficult and dangerous to the kids too, not to mention exhausting as they and WKCR had been on it since April 17th.

Quote

 

.... By the time the world began tuning in between 8 and 9 p.m. Tuesday, some of the WKCR students had been up for nearly 36 hours, covering the protesters’ occupation of Hamilton Hall the prior night. With entry to campus barred, the 10 reporters there had to stay if they wanted to have anyone to cover the story. Their colleagues had been running food and battery packs to the gates all day, passing the supplies through the bars.

They were also risking discipline for ignoring a university order to shelter in place. Later, some would be blocked by police from entering the station studio. Others would be kept inside the journalism school under threat of arrest. Meanwhile, the news would unfold.

All that time, WKCR 89.9 would stay on the air. ....

 

Partner and I, safely here at home, listened to their coverage on an actual radio, though most, I think, did it via streaming, and then those -- like I did to here -- posted updates on various other online sites.

Here's a photo of the kids who did it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?

 

[Fragile Bird]

23 hours ago, Spockydog said:

It's going to take some Fourteenth Century level protesting before these bastards will listen to us again. They have too much money and power.

So let's fucking have it. Despite my dodgy knees, I'll be first over the Tower walls.

 

No peasant revolts were successful, were they? Unless you want to count the French Revolution. But a major cause of the French Revolution was the fact that in his eagerness to harm the British by supporting the American Revolution (not really peasants leading people over the wall there) the king bankrupted France and people were literally starving in the streets. And an estimated 3.5 million died as a result, which Wikipedia tells us was the population adjusted equivalent of French losses in WW 1. For all the talk of anti-war protests here, I hardly think the potential death of millions would be looked forward to.

Writing that brought a line I recently heard to mind: the reason why the rich can never understand the poor is because they don’t understand why the poor don’t just ring the dinner bell if they’re hungry.

[A True Kaniggit]

7 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

No peasant revolts were successful, were they? Unless you want to count the French Revolution. But a major cause of the French Revolution was the fact that in his eagerness to harm the British by supporting the American Revolution (not really peasants leading people over the wall there) the king bankrupted France and people were literally starving in the streets. And an estimated 3.5 million died as a result, which Wikipedia tells us was the population adjusted equivalent of French losses in WW 1. For all the talk of anti-war protests here, I hardly think the potential death of millions would be looked forward to.

Writing that brought a line I recently heard to mind: the reason why the rich can never understand the poor is because they don’t understand why the poor don’t just ring the dinner bell if they’re hungry.

Challenge accepted. I’m about to google the phrase “What peasant revolts were successful?”. 
 

I’ll be back with the findings in a bit.  

[A True Kaniggit]

Just gonna do a quick copy paste of the first thing that popped up.

"Medieval Japan had several succesful peasant revolts where debts got cancelled, such as the Choho, Kakitsu and Kaga rebellions. The Samogitian uprisings helped bring about the collapse of the Teutonic Order state. The remensas in Catalonia helped curtail the rights of the clergy."

[Spockydog]

7 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

No peasant revolts were successful, were they?

It wasn't the only factor, but isn't the 1381 Peasants' Revolt widely credited with being the beginning of the end of serfdom in England? Heh, it also occurred following a deadly plague, during a time of great inequality when the poor were being made poorer to fund the wars of their Norman overlords.

I fancy Boris Johnson would make for an excellent Simon Sudbury analogue.

Edited May 5 by Spockydog

[Fragile Bird]

20 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Just gonna do a quick copy paste of the first thing that popped up.

"Medieval Japan had several succesful peasant revolts where debts got cancelled, such as the Choho, Kakitsu and Kaga rebellions. The Samogitian uprisings helped bring about the collapse of the Teutonic Order state. The remensas in Catalonia helped curtail the rights of the clergy."

Congratulations! That did not come up when I googled the same phrase. 

There were two Samogitian uprisings, Wikipedia tells me, the first one failed and the second one provoked the Teutonic Knights to declare war on Poland. If your peasant revolt brings war to a third country maybe you think that was a success story, maybe not so much for Poland. And after Polish-Lithuanian forces defeated the Knights, damned if the Samogitans continued conflicts, so to hell with them.

As for the remensas (auto correct keeps changing this word) their rebellions brought some relief but the they were still serfs in the end. The UK peasant revolts were actually more successful in bringing reform, even though they were failures. ETA @Spockydog

One of the more famous Japanese peasant revolts ended up with 37,000 peasants being beheaded. Man, those Japanese didn’t screw around. And none of them changed the system, though taxes may have been reduced.

Edited May 5 by Fragile Bird

[A True Kaniggit]

1 minute ago, Fragile Bird said:

And none of them changed the system, though taxes may have been reduced.

Haha. 
 

Just last week a friend of mine told me she was ready to leave, she just had to find her shoes and glasses. 

[A True Kaniggit]

10 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Congratulations! That did not come up when I googled the same phrase. 

Don't blame me for your weird Canadian internet.

[Zorral]

Why are the pro-Israel protestors merely called 'counter-protestors' without identifiers, instead of pro-Israel protestors, while those who are calling for ceasefire, divestment of federal and university funding for death dealing corporations -- to the planet just generally as well as specifically people -- are called pro-Palestinian protestors?

Really the blob media at the least should include identifiers for these 'counter-protestors' as 'funded by Billionaire so-and-so' and 'including Proud Boys' etc.

Why does the WaPo headline a story that's supposed to be about Trump trials and all the issues that make These Times feel so drastic and foreboding focus almost all of the wordage on the campus protests (while saying nothing about WHY there are 'pro-Palestinian protestors', an issue, which by their own words involve so few people, and have been peaceful until the cops and 'counter protestors' arrive -- have a red filtered grainy foto of some kids standing somewhere that looks like the entire surroundings are on fire -- when there have been no fires?

Anyway it's all gleefully distributed distraction from the murder, starvation and violence committed upon Gaza and the Palestinians even as I type and you read. We must never speak of the reasons -- or the history -- there are for protesting to this atrocity of a war. Not only students, not only US students, protest this war.  In the meantime, of course, Israel insists that starvation is not occurring in Northern Gaza.

And in the meantime as well, Israel is shutting down, within Israel, any coverage of what is going on in Gaza.

Can we say 'gaslighting' boyz 'n girlz?  Especially when we get to see the very occasional photo of Palestinians waiting for some food distribution, and the children and everyone else are skin and bones? While those who are trying to get some nutrition to the Gazans insist that starvation is rife?  I mean, you, know, these people are there on the ground. They ought to know right?  

 

Edited May 5 by Zorral

[Spockydog]

When I was a boy, a couple of gobby musicians pointed at the famine in Ethiopa, and the world agreed how awful it was and that something had to be done. 

Now we have an entirely man-made famine, affecting millions, and the people protesting it are being labelled terrorist sympathisers and/or anti-semites.

Fuck this timeline. 

Edited May 5 by Spockydog

[Martell Spy]

Texas man wants court order to investigate woman’s out-of-state abortion

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/05/us/texas-abortion-collin-davis-colorado/index.html

Quote

 

A Texas man is seeking a court order so he can depose a woman he was dating who traveled to Colorado to get an abortion, in a case that may have ramifications in the ongoing legal battles over abortion rights.

Collin Davis, a resident of Brazos County, filed a legal petition in March stating that on February 20 — the day after he learned the woman intended to obtain the abortion — he retained an attorney, who sent the woman a letter requesting that she preserve all records related to her plans to terminate the pregnancy.

According to the petition, the letter warned that he “would pursue wrongful-death claims against anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child.”

Davis argues that the deposition is necessary to determine whether there was a violation of the Texas wrongful-death statute, which the petition references alongside a Texas civil code that includes among those defined as individuals “an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.” His petition additionally points to Texas’ civil enforcement six-week abortion ban, known as SB 8.

The woman filed a petition for court records to be sealed so her identity would remain anonymous, her attorney told CNN. She began dating Davis in November 2023 and found out that she was pregnant in January, according to the petition.

The case, which was reported on by The Washington Post on Friday, is being cited by abortion rights supporters who fear that anti-abortion advocates will use — or at least threaten to use — strict abortion laws to target abortions obtained even in states where the procedure is legal. Texas’ law, passed in 2021, targets doctors and those involved in facilitating abortions, not the women who undergo the procedure themselves, but opponents say that legal uncertainty about restrictions in a post-Roe America has the intended consequence of intimidating women.

Davis is seeking the deposition to obtain information about those involved in the abortion, including the identity of the doctor who performed the procedure in Colorado, and he considers filing a lawsuit against all of them, according to the court filings.

 

 

[Zorral]

O ya!  

22 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Texas man wants court order to investigate woman’s out-of-state abortion.

So it gets investigated -- i.e. peering deeply into a woman's personal life.  So what is going to do? Continue on with prosecuting her to be tried for murder, she and everyone she may or may not know?  Would he have paid child support.  We don't think so.  This is a vengeance case, paid for because he ain't got no money honey, by somebodies else, who wouldn't pay for the child either.  They are paying to have her put on trial, humiliated and imprisoned along with everyone else they can think of.

One wonders ... if they did that and she was in another state where abortion is perfectly legal, is it now time to file for extradition?

Shades of the Fugitive Slave Act, also enabled by a SCOTUS judge.

[maarsen]

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

O ya!  

So it gets investigated -- i.e. peering deeply into a woman's personal life.  So what is going to do? Continue on with prosecuting her to be tried for murder, she and everyone she may or may not know?  Would he have paid child support.  We don't think so.  This is a vengeance case, paid for because he ain't got no money honey, by somebodies else, who wouldn't pay for the child either.  They are paying to have her put on trial, humiliated and imprisoned along with everyone else they can think of.

One wonders ... if they did that and she was in another state where abortion is perfectly legal, is it now time to file for extradition?

Shades of the Fugitive Slave Act, also enabled by a SCOTUS judge.

Aren't medical records private and protected, and since when do Texas laws apply to Colorado? This should be tossed out asap.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

One wonders ... if they did that and she was in another state where abortion is perfectly legal, is it now time to file for extradition?

Yeah, I think that is indeed the overall goal of the anti-abortion movement. It's pretty rich given if you listen to any Republican moderate on abortion rights (Yes, they exist) is they point to abortion rights being protected in blue states as the reason no  needs to worry too much about the issue and indeed it's completely safe to keep voting GOP. I'm not surprised by this, but I am shocked that this is moving so quickly as for as moving towards the slave catchers regime.

As for this individual creep, I think the goal is to eventually sue the woman, doctors, or anyone that helped her. Bunch of harassments suits. I would not be surprised to see the Texas courts give full approval. These are the same courts that keep ruling to abolish the ACA immediately and other garbage. And of course he's already harassed the woman by taking these actions and causing news stories.

Edited May 5 by Martell Spy

[JGP]

35 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Aren't medical records private and protected, and since when do Texas laws apply to Colorado? This should be tossed out asap.

Should be but it won't, she's a Texan. They've brought in more than a few laws to track and penalize out of state seekers.

[Zorral]

Not if you go by Judge Tawny.  And other, um readings, of law and the Constitution.

This story's been quite covered.

Venues such as the WaPo last week go more deeply into the hows, whos, whys, etc. and the legal details.  Remember, this is TEXAS.

Texas man files legal action to probe ex-partner’s out-of-state abortion
The previously unreported petition reflects a potential new antiabortion strategy to block women from ending their pregnancies in states where abortion is legal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/05/03/texas-abortion-investigations/

Quote

 

.... The previously unreported petition was submitted under an unusual legal mechanism often used in Texas to investigate suspected illegal actions before a lawsuit is filed. The petition claims Davis could sue either under the state’s wrongful-death statute or the novel Texas law known as Senate Bill 8 that allows private citizens to file suit against anyone who “aids or abets” an illegal abortion.

The decision to target an abortion that occurred outside of Texas represents a potential new strategy by antiabortion activists to achieve a goal many in the movement have been working toward since Roe v. Wade was overturned: stopping women from traveling out of state to end their pregnancies. Crossing state lines for abortion care remains legal nationwide.

The case also illustrates the role that men who disapprove of their partners’ decisions could play in surfacing future cases that may violate abortion bans — either by filing their own civil lawsuits or by reporting the abortions to law enforcement. ....

.... Davis’s petition includes no evidence of illegal activity. Davis’s former partner ultimately obtained her abortion in Colorado, Davis claims in the court documents. Mitchell suggests in the petition that people who helped her procure the abortion could be found liable.

Antiabortion advocates have tried various tactics to dissuade women from traveling out of state for abortions. Idaho has passed a law making it illegal for someone to help a minor leave the state for an abortion without parental consent — which is currently blocked by the courts — and Tennessee is pursuing similar restrictions. Several Texas cities and counties have passed local ordinances attempting to stop women seeking abortions from using key portions of high-traffic highways.

Mitchell said in a statement that abortions that occur outside Texas can be targets for civil litigation.

“Fathers of aborted fetuses can sue for wrongful death in states with abortion bans, even if the abortion occurs out-of-state,” he wrote. “They can sue anyone who paid for the abortion, anyone who aided or abetted the travel, and anyone involved in the manufacture or distribution of abortion drugs.”

Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, described Mitchell’s statement and general approach as misleading “fearmongering.”

“People need to understand that it is not a crime to leave Texas or any other state in the country for an abortion,” said Duane, who is working with lawyers from the firm Arnold & Porter to represent the woman and others targeted in the Davis case. “I don’t want people to be intimidated, but they should be outraged and alarmed.”

Duane described the woman’s relationship with Davis as “toxic and harmful.”

Davis — who claims in the petition to have helped conceive what he calls his “unborn child” — did not respond to requests for comment. Mitchell declined to comment on Duane’s description of the relationship.

Abortion rights advocates say these types of legal actions amount to “vigilante justice” designed to intimidate people who have done nothing wrong. Duane and other lawyers representing the woman asked the court to redact the names of those involved from the public court filings, out of a concern for their privacy and safety.

The judge agreed to seal the original petition with the identifying information.

“The document at issue contains confidential and sensitive information including the Respondents’ full names ... and sensitive allegations about health care that the Respondents have a substantial interest in keeping confidential,” the judge wrote in an order signed Wednesday.

Over the past two years, many antiabortion activists have grown frustrated by what they see as a lack of enforcement of abortion bans — particularly as abortion pills become more widely available in antiabortion states because of growing online and community-based pill networks.

Some antiabortion advocates are searching for a way to crack down.

“You have laws being ignored systematically — so what are we going to do about it?” said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest antiabortion group. The pill networks, he added, “can and should be prosecuted.”

Several district attorneys in conservative areas told The Washington Post that abortion laws are difficult to enforce in practice, largely because they have no clear way to find out about these cases.

“First you would have to have some sort of complaining party … then law enforcement would have to do a full investigation,” said Kent Volkmer, county attorney for Pinal County in Arizona, where the Republican-led legislature has voted to repeal an 1864 abortion law. “I think it’s extremely unlikely that an abortion-related criminal charge would ever be submitted to our office.” ...

 

However!  This is how to get around confidential medical records! In fact, it's already happened, but that's another story.

.... If one of these cases did surface, Volkmer said, it would probably be reported by an employee of a doctor’s office who was aware of the abortion — or by the “purported father. ...

Paid informants aren't far behind, in fact are here in these states -- bounties on informing.

As states ban abortion, the Texas bounty law offers a way to survive legal challenges

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1107741175/texas-abortion-bounty-law

This, in 2022 already.

[The Anti-Targ]

On 5/4/2024 at 3:46 PM, Altherion said:

I have a very hard time seeing this kind of tax go anywhere in a divided Congress. It would be nice to tax the billionaires somehow, but it's not clear how such a tax would work: would they have to sell some of their holdings (and therefore realize the gains and be subject to a different tax) or would the government take payment in kind?

I wouldn't waste time worrying on behalf of mega millionaires and billionnaires. If they aren't financially savvy enough to manage the liquidity of their own investment portfolio they certainly pay people who are. The tax liability is all very predictable manageable for anyone who actually has a clue.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

15 hours ago, maarsen said:

Aren't medical records private and protected, and since when do Texas laws apply to Colorado? This should be tossed out asap.

HIPAA… yes.  They’re trying to get around HIPAA by using the full faith and credit clause saying the information sought is part of a legal investigation.  This one will be ugly but I suspect the Supremacy Clause will win out and the medical records should remain private.