"Fathers of aborted fetuses can sue for wrongful death in states with abortion bans, even if the abortion occurs out-of-state."

"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."

Wrote Jonathan Mitchell, a prominent antiabortion attorney, quoted in "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" (WaPo).

Mitchell is the lawyer for Collin Davis, the man who is not suing his ex.

"The Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous..."

"... an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents — obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public documents — illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms. The work, much of which remains unknown to the American public, came into clearer view earlier this year when DHS announced a new 'Disinformation Governance Board': a panel designed to police misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) that allegedly threatens U.S. interests. While the board was widely ridiculed, immediately scaled back, and then shut down within a few months, other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring social media now that its original mandate — the war on terror — has been wound down...."

From "TRUTH COPS/Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation" by Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang (The Intercept).

ADDED:

One day after a major story from @lhfang and @kenklippenstein proving the US Govt and Security State are directing Big Tech on what to censor, the #2 Senate Dem tries to radically restrict what "free speech" means in a way that contradicts all 1A caselaw:https://t.co/gzFnNaKAlQ

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 2, 2022

"Contact tracing has helped Asian countries like South Korea and Singapore contain the spread of the virus, but their systems rely heavily on digital surveillance..."

"... using patients’ digital footprints to automatically alert their contacts, an intrusion that many Americans would not accept Massachusetts is opting for an old-school, labor-intensive method: people.... The idea of training a corps of contact tracers is emerging in many places at the same time, as leaders think ahead to the point when social distancing constraints will be lifted.... It is built around one-on-one telephone interviews of newly diagnosed patients and their contacts, so that subjects must answer the phone when it rings.... The downside of human contact tracing is that it is expensive, can overlook contacts a subject may not recall, and, some argue, is too slow for a fast-moving virus.... Within the next two hours, the case investigator will aim to reach the patient by phone and compile a list of every person he or she had been in close contact with for 48 hours before the onset of symptoms. The names of the contacts — the expectation is 10 people per new case — will then be passed to contact tracers, who will attempt to reach each one by telephone within 48 hours, calling back three times in succession to signal the call’s importance. For now, tracers are not leaving messages or call back numbers...."

From "An Army of Virus Tracers Takes Shape in Massachusetts/Asian countries have invested heavily in digital contact-tracing, which uses technology to warn people when they have been exposed to the coronavirus. Massachusetts is using an old-fashioned means: people" (NYT).

Reading the headline, I thought that article would be more of a pitch to go to digital surveillance, but it's promoting hiring huge numbers of contract tracers. Does that seem likely to work well in America? The Times doesn't come out and say it, but one might expect Americans to rankle at digital surveillance. The Times is politically correct enough not to lean heavily into the notion that surveillance is an "Asian" approach, but the implication seems to be there. The corollary is that the personal, individual connection is more suited to Americans.

But is it?! It's all about phone calls — phone calls from unknown numbers. Do we even answer the phone when we don't know the caller? I don't.  And what's your reaction when a call comes through without showing the caller's number — especially if they call back 3 times and never leave a message? I would never answer that call. Would you? Would the average American?

The article begins with an anecdote about a caller who not only gets the phone answered, but talks to a woman for 45 minutes. The 2 of them "giggled and commiserated." So... I'm sure some people pick up and love to talk to a stranger about their personal predicament. But I don't believe that's the way most of us Americans are using the phone these days.

The NYT should lay out the digital surveillance option and let us judge for ourselves whether it's superior to these hordes of human telephoners. If I'm protected from digital surveillance, then explain to me why the government that wants to call me on the telephone has my number? If you already can get to my number, then maybe when it's a matter of life and death, you should just go ahead and do the digital surveillance needed to trace the contagion and spare me the nonsense of a nice lady calling on the phone to giggle and commiserate with me for 45 minutes.

IN THE COMMENTS: I Have Misplaced My Pants identifies the worst flaw with the personal approach to contacts tracing:

"As part of its 'media monitoring,' the DHS seeks to track more than 290,000 global news sources as well as social media in over 100 languages..."

"... including Arabic, Chinese and Russian, for instant translation into English. The successful contracting company will have '24/7 access to a password protected, media influencer database, including journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc.' in order to 'identify any and all media coverage related to the Department of Homeland Security or a particular event.' 'Any and all media coverage,' as you might imagine, is quite broad and includes 'online, print, broadcast, cable, radio, trade and industry publications, local sources, national/international outlets, traditional news sources, and social media.' The database will be browsable by 'location, beat and type of influencer,' and for each influencer, the chosen contractor should 'present contact details and any other information that could be relevant, including publications this influencer writes for, and an overview of the previous coverage published by the media influencer.' One aspect of the media coverage to be gathered is its 'sentiment.' Anyone else just pull their blanket up over them a little more tightly? Just me?"

From "Department Of Homeland Security Compiling Database Of Journalists And 'Media Influencers'" (Forbes).

I see the word "bloggers" in there, so I guess I'll be insulted if I'm not included. Is the government going to determine my "sentiment"? I can't believe they could get it right. I'm not even sure you who read me all the time are getting it right, but I'd be interested to see just how the government would get it wrong.

"I am gravely concerned, Ann," emails Josh Earnest on behalf of the Democratic Party.

Gravely, eh? That's spooky. I'm scared! Josh Earnest was Obama's White House Press Secretary. (Had you forgotten? I had.) He says:

When I was press secretary for President Obama, my strategy was simple: I spoke directly with the president and didn't make a habit of lying to the American people.

Well, of course, you don't want to make a habit of lying to the American people. That's just pathological. A good press secretary lies when it serves a specific purpose. If you just make a habit out of lying, you lose the advantage of all the times when saying what's true is actually in your interest and you miss all the cute chances — like the one you're using here, Josh — where telling a cagy truth works the same way as a good straightforward bald-faced lie.*

You and I both know that's not how the Trump administration operates. Between the constant staff upheaval and drama, the rogue tweets, and overall failure to put the interests of the American people first, it's clear this administration is in utter chaos.

Apparently, Josh wants me to feel like I'm in a special club with him — "You and I" — and we have knowledge together and there's chaos. We "know"! Eh. I don't know. What makes tweets "rogue"? I don't even get the concept. Seems to me, Trump just talks to us directly when he's got something he wants to say.

He may be a rogue ("A dishonest, unprincipled person; a rascal, a scoundrel" or "A mischievous person, esp. a child; a person whose behaviour one disapproves of but who is nonetheless likeable or attractive" (OED)), but I don't agree that the tweets are rogue ("Aberrant, anomalous; misplaced, occurring (esp. in isolation) at an unexpected place or time" or "Inexplicably faulty or defective" (OED)).

And I really don't like seeing characterizations like that portrayed as "knowledge," especially when I'm being roped into it. I supposedly "know" things I don't even believe. And yet it's "clear" that there's "chaos"... and not just chaos, "utter chaos."

I feel like some clown named Josh just popped in to madly gesticulate and grimace. You're not going to alarm and activate me like that. But I never give money, so I'm just a recipient of over-inclusive email. I could unsubscribe, but then I couldn't write posts like this. You have my data and I have yours. You have your channels of communication, and I have mine.

Skipping ahead in that email:

I am deeply concerned that the Trump administration is doing lasting damage to the bond between the American people and their government -- and I can imagine you feel the same way.

I appreciate that he's admitting it's just his imagination now, but I must say I feel a little creeped out by the notion of a "bond between the American people and their government" that must be preserved. I believe in maintaining a separation between oneself and the government. It's dangerous for individuals to feel bonded to government. That sounds like fascism. I think if Trump is making individuals feel less oneness with government, that's good. I'm not a fan of chaos, but too much order is fascistic. I like my distance, separation, and objectivity. One thing I love about Trump — which was not true of Obama — is that we all feel so free and energized to criticize and insult him and just hate him. It's so wholesome... health-giving... salubrious.**

_______________________

* Yesterday, when I was complaining about Hillary, I said:

Hillary Clinton's approach to communication is so annoying. I'm not a Trump fan, but he's at least a straight talker — even when lying! It works for his fans and his antagonists. He's energizing. She, on the other hand, is such a pain. Imagine having to follow the daily blather of President Hillary Clinton.

Not all my readers share my sense of humor. Some people took the trouble to write comments telling me it didn't make sense to say that someone who was lying could be a straight talker. It makes sense to me. That's why you can have a bald-faced lie. Would you prefer a hairy-faced lie? More of a bearded hipster character?

** I love that word, "salubrious." It reminds me of the hardest I ever laughed during a live theater performance, as I told you — if you were reading back then — in 2004:

The play was [Turgenev's] "A Month in the Country," and at the beginning of a scene, where a number of things were going on, a minor character came out and said "The weather is very salaboobious today." Now that was supposed to be funny, but it was just way too funny compared to everything else that surrounded it, and in fact it brought peals of laughter that continued far into the scene.

Illinois law forces hairdressers to take training — 1 hour every 2 years — in detecting evidence of domestic violence.

The NYT reports.

The rule was inspired by the spirit of camaraderie in hair salons, said State Senator Bill Cunningham, one of the chief sponsors of the amendment. For some women, those salons are a safe space, where they can sit among other women, drop their guard and confide about life as their hair is braided or colored, or their nails trimmed and painted....

So, it's a great place for government to plant informants. 

The final version of the law, which was signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner in August, does not require salon workers to act on their suspicions, but helps them to recognize warning signs and provides them with resources to pass on to victims so they can get help — such as safe houses or hotlines — get restraining orders or get access to legal professionals....

The curriculum emphasizes the importance of letting clients take the lead in disclosing details about their personal lives....

This gets my Big Government sounds like a creepy stalker tag.

It's interesting that the state doesn't require salon workers to report anyone to the police or to social services. It's not like the way psychotherapists must submit to compulsion. But the state does require the training, repeated training, and it is willing to deprive hairdressers of their license — their livelihood — if they don't comply.

And do I detect condescension in the NYT's attitude toward the sort of women who find "camaraderie" in hair salons?

"Ready, Ann?"

In the email:



It's like getting email from The Grim Reaper.

No, I am not ready. Not yet. Back off.

"A smart city doesn’t have to be as Orwellian as it sounds."

"If businesses act responsibly, there is no reason why what sounds intrusive in the abstract can’t revolutionize the way people live for the better by offering services that anticipates their needs; by designing ultraefficient infrastructure that makes commuting a (relative) dream; or with a revolutionary approach to how energy is generated and used by businesses and the populace at large."

The last paragraph of "'Smart Cities' Will Know Everything About You" in the WSJ.

"Could Barack Obama's great week mark a turning point in his poll numbers?"

"After months of stagnant approval ratings, a new CNN/ORC poll finds that for the first time in more than two years, 50% of Americans approve of the way Obama is handling the presidency. And his overall ratings are bolstered by increasingly positive reviews of his treatment of race relations and the economy."

ADDED: After posting that, the very next thing I saw was email from "Barack Obama" (the email address is democraticparty@democrats.org) that read:

Ann --

A few weeks ago, one of the Republicans running to follow me in this office referred to me as "the outgoing president."

Now, it is technically true that I'll be leaving this office in about 18 months. And our opponents are counting on the values and ideals that have been at the foundation of my presidency following me out the door.

But they're forgetting one important thing: These have always been your values, too.

The other side is betting that your passion -- your desire to make change -- is coming to an end. And right now, you have a chance to prove them wrong.

Pitch in $10 or whatever you can and be one of the last 23 people we need to step up in your community before tonight's deadline....

One of the last 23 people we need to step up in your community? That's weird. Too weird. Who responds to that kind of creepy particularity? The President of the United States is counting heads, in my community? If I were paranoid, I'd be freaked out that the number is 23. I've favored that number since the 1970s.

"Wisconsin GOP Advances Bills Controlling How People On Welfare Eat And Pee."

Headline at The Huffington Post.

I know. I should punish The Huffington Post for distorting things to such an absurd degree, but it is so absurd that it's self-undermining — the "pee" part is just about requiring drug tests — and, besides, HuffPo also has this headline: "Florence Henderson Describes How Former NYC Mayor John Lindsay Gave Her Crabs."

Look how handsome John Lindsay was:



If you're going to get crabs from a New York City mayor, he's the one. There have been 109 NYC mayors, going all the way back to Thomas Willett in 1665. I can't say I know what they all looked like — and did they have crabs? — but here's DeWitt Clinton, who's not that cute, but I love the painting:



DeWitt Clinton (March 2, 1769 – February 11, 1828) was also a U.S. Senator and, most notably, a governor of New York. His great achievement was the Erie Canal:

Many thought the project was impracticable, and opponents mocked it as "DeWitt's Ditch." But in 1817, he got the legislature to appropriate $7,000,000 for construction.... The cost of freight between Buffalo and Albany fell from $100 to $10 per ton, and the state was able to quickly recoup the funds it spent on the project through tolls along the canal... [T]he New Hampshire Sentinel [wrote:] "His exertions in favor of the great Canal have identified his name with that noble enterprise, and he will be remembered while its benefits are experienced... Yield credit to Clinton, and hail him by name."

Hail, Clinton!

By the way, "crabs" are pubic lice, pthirus pubis. From Amy Stewart's "Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects":

Body lice evolved from head lice about 107,000 years ago, around the time humans started wearing clothing. Pubic lice, however, are more closely related to gorilla lice— and were transferred to humans through some sort of intimate physical contact with gorillas, the precise details of which remain a mystery....

Pubic lice... lock their claws around a strand of hair and almost never let go. Their habit of feeding in one place for most of their life means that their feces accumulate around them, making for a truly unpleasant situation. They inhabit all parts of the body covered in coarse hair, including eyebrows, chest hair, mustaches, armpits, and, of course, pubic hair.... Because pubic lice can only survive a few hours off the host... [s]exual contact is really the most efficient means of transmission, which is why the French call pubic lice papillons d’amour, or butterflies of love.

Now, here's Florence, singing about the butterfly of love:

Creepy email subject line from the Democratic Party: "I don't see your name on this list, Ann."

Quite aside from creepiness, there's the flat-out lying: a "personalized, official Democratic Party membership card... will be a pretty cool thing to have."

"I'm really pumped up for tonight, Ann."

Creepy email.

The Mistrust List.

Interviewing Dan Pfeiffer (senior Obama adviser) on "Meet the Press" this morning, Chuck Todd put up what I'll call The Mistrust List:

I think one of your challenges though is a trust deficit that has been created over the last 18 months. I want to put up a graphic, whether you believe it's fair or not, it is a fact about all the different sort of government gaps over the last 18 months.

The heading on the graphic was "Trust in Government?" And it had the following bullet points, which I'm displaying here as Todd read them (with all the items, but some extra words):

• Edward Snowden stealing NSA files
• The VA fakes wait times
• IRS losing emails
• Healthcare.gov doesn't launch
• The president himself saying, "U.S. intelligence agencies underestimated ISIS."
• The DHS, the border failure with that surge over the summer, sort of failure, and of course...
• The Secret Service. 

Why should we trust that what you're saying about the CDC is able to handle [ebola]? You understand why there's more skepticism than normal.

On "Fox News Sunday," Chris Wallace teased his panel discussion in a similar (if less hard-hitting) way, premising a question about trust with a list of reasons for mistrust:

[W]ith growing concerns over Ebola, the Secret Service and the VA and IRS scandals, can we trust the federal government to do its job?

Unlike Dan Pfeiffer who could only lamely assert that when there's a problem "we deal with it," George Will was particularly good at leveraging himself off the Mistrust List. I mean, Will was so good that I suspect the teaser was designed to go with the material he had prepared. From the transcript (with emphasis and punctuation added based on the audio):

How to Screw With People On Line, by The Government.

Here's a diagram, one of several, prepared by the (British) government and divulged to us by Glenn Greenwald, "How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations":



That's not the thing that's supposed to screw with your head. That's them, behind the scenes, secretly formulating a devious plan to screw with your head. Are we supposed to be shocked/intimidated by these plans, or mildly irritated that people who went to grad school have acquired government jobs?



You know what would screw with my head? Sharing the internet with government operatives who are attempting to execute this plan? No: Having to sit through an in-person session where someone was doing a PowerPoint presentation with these diagrams.



Greenwald breathlessly asks: "Who would possibly trust a government to exercise these powers at all, let alone do so in secret, with virtually no oversight, and outside of any cognizable legal framework?" Could he make a diagram of that question? Seriously, what powers? It's the same old power to use language to manipulate our thinking that government has always used.

The defense against this well-known power is good reading skill, critical thinking, more writing and more reading and more debate. Be skeptical. There are mobys and sock puppets on the internet, and some of them are working for a government. Know it. What "oversight" or "cognizable legal framework" could possibly save us? If you don't trust the government, don't trust the government. Don't whine for the government to save you. Save yourself. I'm trying to save us... by laughing at those diagrams. Come on!

In Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus — protecting women from insufficiently absorbent underpants.

If you like your panties, you can keep your panties. But the government must insure proper standards, and if these ladies — pictures of protests at the link — think they like lace panties, please listen and learn. The Moscow-led Customs Union has a better, more scientific and expert understanding of what you really want, and it thinks that deep down inside, you are really very moist and lace does not absorb enough moisture.

ADDED: Confession. Meade found that article and emailed me the link. After I wrote this post and alerted Meade, he read it and said: "Thanks for being my cat's paw... my pussy paw."

MORE: A "cat's paw" is, to quote the OED, "A person used as a tool by another to accomplish a purpose." Historical example:

1657 Killing is Murder 3 These he useth as the Monkey did the Cats paw, to scrape the nuts out of the fire....
1883 American 6 245 Making themselves mere catspaws to secure chestnuts for those publishers.

The use of the word "pussy" to refer the vulva or vagina goes back as far as 1699:

1699 T. Durfey Choice Coll. New Songs 7 Johnny..many Times Pussey had fed.
1790 A. Tait Poems & Songs 144 Thro' Susan's Holland smock or spare Or on her pussie for to stare.
1865 ‘Philocomus’ Love Feast i. 9 My poor pussy, rent and sore, Dreaded yet longed for one fuck more....
1879 Pearl Oct. 108 To handle, feel, and revel in such a luxuriously covered pussy and bottom, excited me more every moment.
1899 Mem. Dolly Morton 88 Two, or three of them put their hands on the ‘spots’—‘pussies’ they called them.
1913 L. Strachey Ermyntrude & Esmeralda (1969) ii. 12 I'm also sure that it's got something to do with the thing between our legs that I always call my Pussy....
1973 A. Powell Temporary Kings v. 258 Louis's stuffed a charming little cushion with hair snipped from the pussies of ladies he's had.

I hope that's not too pedantic... so pudendantic...

1841   F. H. Ramsbotham Princ. & Pract. Obstetr. Med. (1855) 33   These parts, closing and surrounding the genital fissure, altogether constitute the pudendum....
1922   A. G. Magian Sex Probl. Women ii. 31   The Vulva, or Pudendum, includes—(1) The labia majora and minora bounding the pudendal cleft. (2) The mons veneris. (3) The vestibule, [etc.]....
1993   B. W. Aldiss Tupolev too Far (BNC) 36   What I clutch in my hand is a fruit of the sea almond. It's..covered with a fine but coarse fibre like pubic hair. In fact, the nut resembles a girl's pudendum.

AND: The origin of "cat's paw" is a fable by La Fontaine, and it reveals why the quotes above include references to nuts.



(More of J.J. Granville's fantastic illustrations of La Fontaine here.)

"In the Civil War, Union balloons’ reconnaissance tracked the size of Confederate armies by counting the number of campfires."

My favorite sentence in the transcript of Obama's speech about reforming the NSA.

An occasion for my "Big Government sounds like a creepy stalker" tag.

Email received just now:

Joe Biden emails me with the subject line: "Ann."

Man, this gets my "Big Government sounds like a creepy stalker" tag:



He just emailed me yesterday. Back off, Government Man!

And don't make me the bogus subject of your communication. This is not about me, but you think I'm so doggedly self-interested that I get jazzed up by email purporting to be about me?

"If you've been watching what's been happening here in Washington over the past couple of weeks..."

Well, I haven't. I've been averting my eyes.

"... and you still think you need more reasons to support Democrats over Republicans, I'm not sure what to tell you."

Yesterday's email was about how Biden "can't understand" what Republicans are doing, and today's email is about how Biden doesn't know what to say to anyone who doesn't already agree with him.

I must be on the Democratic Party's special email list of Perpetually Puzzled People, and somehow it's been decided that the best name to slap on the "From" line in email to the PPP is Joe Biden.

When the government can turn off your household appliances....

"The National Grid is demanding that all new appliances be fitted with sensors that could shut them down when the UK’s generators struggle to meet demand for electricity. Electric ovens, air-conditioning units and washing machines will also be affected  by the proposals, which are already backed by one of the European Union’s most influential energy bodies."

"I think the businesses that bring these men in should also be accountable for not providing opportunities that keep them busy outside of work."

"They should check their employees before hiring (if they don't already) and get rid of those who commit ANY kind of aggression toward women or men. Their social responsibility goes beyond the gate or the door. Maybe the answer is for the towns like Williston to heavily tax the companies so that they can afford to police the men the companies employ. If business doesn't see itself more broadly as a player in the overall health of our society, government needs to step in."

That's a reader comment at the NYT article about all the single men working out in the oil fields of North Dakota, which we've been talking about over in this earlier thread. Please go to that thread to talk about the article more generally. I'm opening up this new thread for discussion of the proposition that business should be responsible for the after-work activities of their employees, that the tendency of men to go out after work looking for female companionship calls for the heavy taxation of business, that individuals looking for sexual relationships in their own free time ought to be conceptualized as an issue of collective "health," that overall societal health requires big "players," and that if businesses don't want to see themselves as the players, they leave a gap that government must fill.