#extraterritoriality

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Blue states should play “constitutional hardball”

NEXT WEDNESDAY (October 23) at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, GEORGIA, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

Nothing's more frustrating that watching the GOP smash norms and decency to advance policies that harm millions of Americas, unless it's that, plus Democratic officials stamping their feet and saying, "C'mon guys, play fair."

The GOP's game is called "constitutional hardball." Think: Mitch McConnell refusing to hold confirmation hearings on Obama's federal judiciary appointments, not never for Merrick Garland's Supreme Court seat – then filling the Federal judiciary with the least-qualified, most FedSoc-addled lunatics in US history, all for lifetime appointments.

As bad as this is at the federal level, it's even worse at in the states, especially the Republican "trifecta" states where the GOP holds the governorship and the state house and senate, where shameless gerrymandering and legislative attacks on hard-won ballot measures are the order of the day. GOP-held state governments engage in rampant interstate aggression, targeting out-of-state abortion providers, publishers, and journalists.

This is a one-sided Cold Civil War, because state Dems, for the most part, are unwilling to play hardball in return (the closest they come is when, say, California sets strict emissions controls and manufacturers adopt them nationwide, rather than making special cars for the giant California market). Republicans engage in constitutional hardball and Dems refuse to fight back, a phenomenon called "asymmetrical constitutional hardball":

https://columbialawreview.org/content/asymmetric-constitutional-hardball/

Writing for The American Prospect, Arkadi Gerney and Sarah Knight make the case for symmetrical constitutional hardball:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-10-18-playing-hardball/

The pair argue first, that the best way to get Republican state houses to play fair is to credibly threaten them with retaliatory action. They cite the recent attempt at a last-minute change the way that Nebraska's Electoral College votes are apportioned, which would have given all of five the state's EC votes to Trump. Maine threatened to effect the same change to its Electoral College system, which would have given all four of its EC votes to Harris. Nebraska surrendered.

But there's also a second advantage to playing Constitutional Hardball: it makes blue states better. For example, Minnesota gives free college tuition to exceptional low/middle-income students. Neighboring North Dakota got tired of losing all its smartest kids Minnesota schools and created its own subsidy. As Gerney and Knight point out, Minnesota (and other blue states) still has a huge advantage when it comes to attracting top talent, because attending university in a state with legal abortion is vastly preferable (and safer) than doing a degree in a forced-birth state.

Red states are bent on making life horrible for some really great people. The hardworking, talented Haitian migrants caught in the Springfield pogroms that Trump incited would be a fine addition to any blue state town – anyone who's got the gumption to haul ass out of a failed state and make their all the way to Springfield is gonna be a fantastic neighbor, citizen and worker, just like my refugee grandparents and father, who endured a million times more hardship than their neighbors ever did, getting to Toronto, finding jobs, and starting their family.

Influxes of young, hardworking immigrants are especially good for rural towns with dwindling populations. No wonder rural towns with above-average net migration swung for Biden in 2020.

All over America, families are despairing of their lives in red states. Whether you're worried that you or someone you love might need to terminate a pregnancy, or you're worried about gender-affirming care for you or a loved one, you can put your worries to rest in a blue state. Same goes for nurses and doctors who are worried they can't do medicine unless it accords with the imaginary dictates of Bronze Age prophets as claimed by pencil-neck Hitler wannabe Bible-thumper with a private jet and a face from Walmart. Fill the blue states with great schools, libraries and hospitals, and invite everyone who wants to do their job in a free country to come and work at 'em. Line every state border with abortion and mifepristone clinics, and set up billboards advertising the quality of life, the jobs, and the freedom in blue state America.

Every blue state public pension fund should ban investments in fossil fuels, and invest like crazy in renewables, especially in Texas, to hasten the bankrupting of the petro-kleptocracy that controls the state. Blue states should tack surcharges on goods imported from "right to work" states where unions are effectively banned, to compensate for the additional product testing needed to ensure that scab products are safe to use (ahem, Boeing).

Create joint occupational licensure rules across blue states: if you're certified as a teacher, nurse, hairdresser or auto-mechanic in New York, you should be able to carry that certification with you to Minnesota, California, or Maine. Create multi-state funding pools to build public housing. Offer med-school scholarships to the smartest red state kids, at universities where they'll learn evidence-based obstetrics rather than the Lysenokist nonsense taught at the Roy Moore College of Pediatrics and Obstetrics.

Dems have to get over their fear of "states' rights" and start playing state-level hardball. This doesn't mean escalating cruelty. Quite the contrary: every cruel measure enacted as red state red meat is a chance for blue states to extend a kindness, and capture even more of the best, brightest and kindest of the nation, creating a race to the top that Republicans can only win by abandoning their performative cruelty and corruption.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/18/states-rights/#cold-civil-war

[lenrosen]

Italy and Switzerland adjust alpine border because of climate change. Other border and extraterritorial tensions from climate change are expected for the rest of the century.

[viragfold]

Területenkívüliség / Extraterritoriality

A Mária Valéria híd közepén megálltam egy meditációs gyakorlat erejéig… úton Párkányba, Juhász Rokkohoz, aki egy művészeti rezidenciaprogram keretében a 61. Hídőr.

Kontextus / Context: LINK1 / LINK2

[acehalah]

mind chess is one of my fave mechanics like yes ill tell eustace he deserves nothing and feel really bad about it

[pretiosissimus-sanguis]

French enclaves in JERUSALEM:

monasteries & Israeli pig-raising crisis 🐷(1962).

"Domine, salvam fac Rempublicam!"

Crazy Borders: France’s Holy Lands | ARTE.tv Documentary

[jaronofthebored]

Fun fact: the AAi1 credits in the Collection accidentally seemingly reveal that for some reason, Ambassador Alba is - for whatever reason - loaded just out of frame, facing backwards, during this scene. (see a little below upper left corner)

This is not visible in the original Nintendo DS version, or in the normal version of this scene. The camera is seemingly moved over slightly in this flashback to focus on Badd, whose credits scene immediately follows, letting Alba into frame.

[vonlipvig]

if i have to read the phrase “extraterritorial rights” one more time, i might have to kill someone or maybe myself

at least “the ends justify the means” was (imo) a little funny in dd. i’ve just started the last end section of aai1 yesterday, and i feel like i saw “extraterritorial rights” like, 10 times already. pray for me 😔

CAN'T TOUCH THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ah, turnabout ablaze. truly like walking through the scorching, fiery pits of hell. many a ds were thrown against a wall thanks to this guy and his extraterritorial rights.

keep going, erlande. be strong. you'll see the light at the end of the tunnel (aai2).

[edgeworthscowlick]

Chazza is correct.

[jhsharman]

"wrong number"

Siri technology advances or contracts or something. I'm 1996 they had this figured for early 21st Century, just around the corner. Though the language almost implies they had set a plain old answering machine for -- rounding from 1996 -- the early 21st century.

The story is now permanently in 2000, which given how you would have to reconfigure the anachronisms is just as well.

[evilquinzel]

This is the Overlay version of Alya skin! - Skin details category; - Female; - Teen+; - All species; - 4 versions; - HQ compatible.

- Custom thumbnail. - Images were taken with HQ mod.

*LINK*

If you search for any item I use on this sim, you can go to my TSR page where I answer faster!  

[liberate-te]

PORTE DE LAPITA

[sohosaturn]

the fact that the government has confirmed that aliens not only exist, but that they’re inter-dimensional beings, that they’re watching us from the moon, and they have some of them SOMEWHERE to experiment on -

- and i STILL have to continue living an average life, doing my daily tasks and routines while the world falls apart in front of my eyes…that’s so unfair.

i’m TIRED of living through massive historical events, i’m at my last straw!!!

[interrupted-reverie]

I want to know everyone's one Oddly Specific Like and Dislike that would be on their Danganronpa report card

[kugamoogle]

It's time I finally came clean....

I actually really like AAI Case 5

I hope you all can forgive me

[theblackestofsuns]

Extraterritorial (1971)

George Steiner

Atheneum

[norvicfiddler]

Ace Attorney Tier List - Game by Game.

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth - Rank #7/10

Case List:

Turnabout Visitor

Turnabout Airlines

The Kidnapped Turnabout

Turnabout Reminiscence

Turnabout Ablaze