Blog Archives

Democrats! For The Love! RAISE THE DEBT CEILING!

9/28/2021

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

DEMOCRATS! FOR THE LOVE! RAISE THE DEBT CEILING!

As anyone knows who's been paying even the slightest attention to the news over the past few days, the United States could be on the brink - no, make that already is on the brink - of an economic disaster that would make the 2008 collapse look like a day at the circus.
The situation is that, for better or worse, our country runs on debt. The national debt is a business. People and businesses invest in it, they borrow against it, they take out loans, they pay back loans, the process hums along smoothly. However the debt ceiling - the maximum amount of debt that the country can legally incur - was reached back in July and since then the U.S. has been slowly running out of cash to keep the American financial process running, pay existing bills, and cover the continuous costs involved in the day-to-day operation of our country.
Should the United States, the strongest, most stable economic entity on the planet, actually run out of cash and subsequently default on our debts the result would be, according to economists the world over, a financial crisis not only on the national level, but on a global level. In our country among the aftereffects of a default would be that there would be a government shut-down in the midst of the pandemic, Social Security payments would not go out, U.S. troops and federal civilian employees would not be paid, food assistance benefits would stop, retired military and government employees would stop receiving their pensions, and businesses would falter. Inflation would skyrocket and the stock markets around the world would plunge and the planet would tumble into a deep recession, if not a depression. All this is apparently in the cards if the debt ceiling isn't raised, and fast.
But here's the thing: There's nothing to raising the debt ceiling. Congress can do it in one quick vote. Congress raises the debt ceiling all the time. Congress - Democrats along with Republicans - voted to raise the debt ceiling twice during the Trump administration, which was necessary after Donald Trump cut taxes then went on a spending spree even before the COVID pandemic,

Still, Democrats voted to raise the debt ceiling because even when a President's devil-may-care attitude about finances blows a trillion dollar hole through the debt roof, you raise that roof to keep the country from defaulting and causing a global financial crisis.
Now that the debt ceiling needs to be raised again, this time under Biden, Senate Republicans under Mitch McConnell are refusing to vote for the raise, and promise to filibuster if Democrats try to pass the ceiling raise on their own.

He and the Senate Republicans intend to sit back, cross their arms and enjoy the show of the United States government falling into default and shut down and our country crashing into a state exponentially more miserable than where we are now with the interminable COVID pandemic. Enjoyable this would be for Republicans because come the 2022 elections they could blame all the misery on Biden and the Democrats.
But even amidst the cruel recalcitrance of the Republicans there's still a way to avoid a default of our national debts. There's a fast-track congressional process that Democrats could pursue that would bypass a Republican filibuster. This process is really what Republicans are trying to force Democratic members of Congress into undertaking so that during the 2022 elections Republicans will be able to put together campaign ads in which they can point fingers at Democrats for raising the debt ceiling.
So, then, Republicans see this debt crisis as a win-win for themselves: The Democrats will have to take responsibility either for raising the national debt or for the country falling into default. Either outcome will yield good campaign material.
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, don't want to use the fast-track process to raise the debt ceiling for the same reason: they don't want their vote to be used against them by the Republicans during the midterms. Democrats want the vote to be bipartisan so that Republicans are sharing the responsibility, especially since it was the Republicans who voted for the Trump tax cuts that created the need to once again raise the debt ceiling.
And so Congress is basically playing a game of high-stakes political chicken with the welfare our country and the whole world at stake.
I am not so naive as to hope the the Senate Republicans will relent and vote to raise the debt ceiling. They have too much to gain from a national disaster during Joe Biden's administration.

My hope is in the Democrats, that they'll be the ones to put political ambitions aside and do whatever they must - and do it fast, before time runs out - to save our country and the world from more suffering. If the Republicans would be happy to sit by and watch our country put to the economic sword, I beseech the Democrats to be the ones who would not let that happen even if it meant handing over a political victory to Republicans. I beseech the Democrats to be the ones who care.
And you know what? In spite of all the political hay that Republicans may try to make of Democrats raising the debt ceiling, the truth is that by next year voters aren't really going to remember or care much about the debt ceiling. Unless our country is plunged into a terrible recession or depression brought about by the United States defaulting on our debt. Then we'll all care, and we'll all remember who let it happen.

1 Comment

From The Chaos, A New Kitchen Begins To Sprout

9/26/2021

2 Comments

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

FROM THE CHAOS, A NEW KITCHEN BEGINS TO SPROUT

...Continued from 9/19/2021
The darkest hour may be just before dawn, but in the case of a kitchen remodeling job the darkest hour has to be just before your torn-apart kitchen starts to be put back together again.
For me that darkest hour was last Sunday, that is, a week ago today, when, after having gone through the first week of demolition, electrical reconfiguration, and reconstructive drywalling, my kitchen looked like this:

...while the rest of the first floor remained in its state of dusty general chaos.
However the next day, Monday, the cabinets arrived, and piece by piece,

...row by row,

...we watched our kitchen begin to grow.

By Tuesday I'd gained sufficient clarity to be able to decide on the color of the new refrigerator, stove, microwave and dishwasher we'd be adding. I'd previously thought that in order to offset the blonde wood cabinetry white would be the best color for the new appliances. But when I saw the cabinets with their silver hardware,

...I had an Aha! Silver! moment and decided on silver, aka stainless steel. I shared my decision with the cabinet installation team leader who tipped me off that I should try to purchase the four pieces as a set, as one can often get a discount in buying this way.
And so Tuesday evening Tom and I ventured out to Lowes,

...where we looked over the wares,

...and did, in fact, succeed in snagging ourselves a four-piece Frigidaire set at a 10% discount.
By Thursday afternoon our sink and dishwasher were gone and all the cabinets were in place and wrapped up, ready for the drywallers who would arrive the next day to put the finishing touches on the walls and ceiling.

Also on Thursday the countertop rep came to take the final measurements for the countertops. The rep told us that our counter tops would arrive on October 7, the date we'd been given by our project manager. He also told us that we were lucky that we had ordered our countertops when we did, back in June. He said that orders placed these days had a delivery date twenty-seven weeks out. He said it was due to a shortage of workers to cut the materials, load the materials, drive the materials, and do all the other things that need to be done to get the materials to the customers.
And I thought, And a few days ago there were thousands of Haitians huddling under a bridge outside of Texas who would do anything for a job cutting, loading, and delivering materials to customers. Companies need workers. Refugees need work. Is this rocket science?
Anyway, there will be no further work done on our kitchen until October 7 when the counter tops are scheduled to arrive, and the next day the new sink will, hopefully, be installed.
Until then my house will remain a quiet mess and my sinkless kitchen will stay under wraps.

I will survive.

2 Comments

It Happened At Subway

9/23/2021

0 Comments

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

IT HAPPENED AT SUBWAY

I suppose it can't exactly be said that for most of last week I had a case of the blues. After all, I was in the process of getting a brand new kitchen, so what was there to be blue about? Even if my house was full of workers and noise and dust and disruption and looked like this,

...I was on my way to a new kitchen, right?
I guess it would be more accurate to say that I had a case, not of the blues, but of the blahs, which seemed to be compounding daily along with the growing accumulation of dust, mess, and botheration.
By last Thursday Tom and I were four days into the morass of the remodeling project and feeling like we'd been in it for four months or years.
As I'd done on the three previous days, I headed out at lunchtime to Subway to pick up some sandwiches.

   Might I have been feeling just a weence sorry for myself for having to venture out once again for our lunch, which we'd then eat on the front porch to escape the racket and particulate matter permeating the atmosphere inside our house? Mayhaps.
In any case, I went to Subway, stood in line with my fellow customers, ordered my sandwiches, advanced to the check-out counter, inserted my credit card into the scanner, and added a fifteen percent tip.
   "One seventy-nine," said the cashier, a girl who looked to be in her early twenties .
My snap internal reaction was, a hundred seventy-nine dollars for two sandwiches?  I looked at the cash register to see that the screen showed a total of $1.79.
"Uhhh," I said, looking from screen to cashier to screen to cashier.
"Your lunch is free,*" said the cashier.
"Free?" said I.
"Uh-huh," said the cashier. "The customer before you paid for your lunch."
I peppered the cashier with Who's, What's, When's, Where's, and Why's while I tried to recall what the customer in front me, to whom I had not been paying attention, had looked like: I visualized an Asian man about my age with grey hair and and a goatee wearing a baseball cap, red tee shirt and black gym shorts. I craned my neck to try and see us him somewhere outside through the plate glass window.
"He's gone," said the cashier.
"But I want to at least thank him," I said. This was true, I did want to thank him. It wasn't that I was in need of someone to buy me lunch, not at all, but his treat was an unexpected gift, a surprise that greatly cheered me up, a random act of kindness that made me laugh and brightened my day and blew away the wood and plaster dust that had been clouding my spirit. And for this I wanted to thank the man, whoever he was.
"Don't worry about thanking him," said the sage young cashier. "He wanted to pay it forward. You can thank him by paying it forward for somebody else sometime."
Indeed I intend to.

* I was too flummoxed at the time to ask about the $1.79 if the lunch was free, but I'm guessing that that could have been the tip I left.

0 Comments

Good-Bye, Old Kitchen

9/19/2021

2 Comments

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

GOOD-BYE, OLD KITCHEN

I suppose it was high time for a new kitchen. Though fourteen years ago we replaced the disreputable-looking, then thirty-five-year-old counter tops with new Formica and the ratty and equally aged floors with new linoleum and added backsplashes where none had been, the cabinets were still the originals, just shy of fifty years old.
Still, even though the cabinets have been screaming "1972" for years, it seemed that the longer we had them, the more accustomed we grew to them. And then there was a part of me that found it hard to reconcile replacing something that, though inarguably old-looking, was still perfectly functional. Another part of me didn't want to go through the hassle and inevitable aggravation of a major remodel. And another part of me didn't want to spend on a kitchen update the money that we might - theoretically - spend on another trip to Spain (see https://www.andlightenyourpack.com/),

...or Hawaii (See https://www.ailantha.com/blog/the-maunawili-falls-trail-and-the-pupukea-beach-tide-pools),

...or maybe even some far away place with a strange-sounding name that might be calling to me.

But then, of course, along came the COVID-19 pandemic and now here we are following the legions staying at home and improving their inescapable surroundings.
In truth, however, the real driver of our decision to redo the whole kitchen was a rogue patch on our fourteen-year-old linoleum where the seam had for years been shrinking, separating, cracking, and discoloring, until we were left with this:

The floor needed to be replaced. We decided to drag the rest of the kitchen - and ourselves - along with it.
We took the first steps of the remodeling process last spring. In March it was finding a contractor. In April, May and June, it was meetings and conversations with the sales rep, the project manager, the design manager, and the the electrical contractor.

...and it was it was picking out new cabinets, counter tops. backsplash, sink, and ceiling lights.
As for the decor of my new kitchen, I had only one vision: It had to go with my sea green, 1950's-era Formica-topped kitchen table.

This table had been Tom's family's kitchen table when he was growing up,

...and was passed down to Tom and I by his parents a few years after we were married.
Here's me feeding somebody at the table back in 1982.

I've always loved this table. And so I chose every new kitchen accoutrement with our green table in mind.

In July exploratory holes were cut into the soon-to-be-knocked-out soffits.

And in August we could breath at least a partial sigh relief that all the design decisions had been made and the construction schedule communicated to us by the project manager.

And so the weekend before our start date of Monday, September 13, we said good-bye to our old kitchen, took some photographs to remember the room by as it was,

...and got to work clearing everything out of the kitchen,

...piling it all up elsewhere,

...then covering in plastic what might be in dust's way.

Monday, September 13, the demolition crew arrived as scheduled, and commenced demolishing our kitchen.

Tuesday and Wednesday, it was the electrician's turn come and organize the wiring that had been behind the old soffits,

...and give us recessed ceiling lights.

Thursday and Friday the drywaller came,

...and our kitchen was a dust desert.

During this time our household activities have, obviously been rearranged.
We eat lunch - which I've been buying every noon from Subway - on the porch,

...and dinner has been microwaved left-overs from a stash of meals I cooked up last weekend (I'll probably spend this week-end cooking up next week's provisions) which we eat in the living room on a folding table on which we clear away a spot.

Breakfast, which is catch-as-catch can, is also usually consumed at the folding table.

And so has gone our first week of kitchen remodeling, replete with all the inconvenience we signed up for, but gloriously on schedule so far. One week down, three to go.

2 Comments

Oh Great, Now We're Enemies With France

9/18/2021

0 Comments

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

OH GREAT, NOW WE'RE ENEMIES WITH FRANCE

In a nutshell, Australia had a $60 billion deal to buy a dozen submarines from France. In the meantime the United States snuck behind France's back and offered Australia better deal for a better sub. Australia dropped the France deal and took the U.S. deal. Britain is somehow involved in the stew on the side of the Americans and Australians, but I'm not altogether sure how. Now France is somewhat ticked with Australia and Britain, but is enraged with the United States and has called back it's ambassadors from Washington and also cancelled what was to be a joint Franco-American celebration of a Revolutionary War battle.
But here's what I'm wondering: When we're told that France is enraged against the United States, what exactly is meant by "France?" and "The United States?" Is "France" the 67.06 people who live in that country and are they all now the enemies of the 328.2 million of us who live in the U.S,?
Or does "France" and "The United States" really refer to the leaders of each of those countries,

...and the billionaire submarine-makers who stand to gain more billions from the submarine deal?

They're the players who have the dog in this fight. Surely not us Americans and not the French, all of us who, though living on other sides of the pond, are just trying to cobble together reasonably pleasant, productive lives for ourselves and make it through this miserable pandemic.
As for Australia - that to say the 26.35 million good folks who go about G'day-ing each other, not the the Prime Minister,

...or the Commander of the submarine fleet - do those Australian citizens really care whether their navy's submarines can stay underwater for weeks - as the more conventionally-powered French product can - or weeks, months, years, depending on how much food they can stock - as the American nuclear-powered subs can? (BTW, I'm assuming that nobody weighed in with the Australian sailors who'll soon have to stay submerged indefinitely what they think of the the French vs. the American product).
The reason Australia wants the subs is to keep an eye on China, which everyone seems to think to a good idea. Except that France - that is to say the President of France and the French billionaire submarine makers - want to be the ones to sell Australia - that is to say, the Prime Minister and the submarine fleet Commander - the eyes.
All of this begs a really big question: Why are all these wealthy, resource-rich countries worried about their war games and war toys when The United States, France, Britain, Australia, China and the rest of the World - and I'm talking about the human population, not the leaders or the military construction billionaires - are suffering in the midst of a terrible pandemic? Aren't enough
people dying as it is without these countries spending their time and resources on their plans and their machines designed to make more people die? Why don't the U.S., France, Britain, Australia, and China forget about their hostilities and their submarines and form an alliance to defeat the insidious enemy that's decimating all their economies and sickening and killing all their people?

No, instead these leaders will make us, the people of each country, believe that the people of the other countries are our friends or enemies depending on what profits their position of power,

...and lines the pockets of the billionaires.

What fools we mortals be.

0 Comments

Banana Pear Bread

9/16/2021

4 Comments

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

BANANA PEAR BREAD

Last week I found myself in possession of a lone spotty, over-ripe brown banana well past its eating prime. Ah, I lamented, if only I had a second spotty, over-ripe banana I could whip up a loaf of banana bread.
However it just so happened that I also had in my fruit bowl two spotty, over-ripe pears. I looked at the banana and the pears and the idea hit me: might there be such a thing as banana pear bread? I decided to find out.
Now, this was not the first time I'd dabbled in pear pastry. A few months back I also found myself with a surplus of ripening pears,

...and had decided to try making a pear pie. The result was surprisingly auspicious. (See https://www.ailantha.com/blog/pear-pie).

And so I pulled out my banana bread recipe, substituted the two pears for one of the bananas,

...and came up with:

Banana Pear Bread
1 banana
2 pears
1 cup sugar
a dash of cinnamon
1/2 cup shortening, butter, or margarine, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan with shortening, butter or margarine (Not oil spray) .
Peel and thinly slice the banana and pears.

Mix the banana, pears, sugar, cinnamon, shortening and eggs. Beat about two minutes at medium speed.

Add the flower, baking powder and baking soda. Beat into a batter, about two minutes at medium speed.

Pour the batter into the greased pan.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Cool for ten minutes, then remove from the pan. Cool completely before cutting.

The bread looked pretty nice out of the oven, but after it was cooled came the taste test.
Tom gave it a rousing thumbs up.

Theresa pronounced it better than banana bread.

As for me, I think I'd say this: If you are a true banana bread purist who savors the banana, the whole banana, and nothing but the banana, then this bread may not be your jam.
But if you're willing to travel off the egg-beaten path flavor-wise, then I'd recommend giving banana pear bead a try if for no other reason than that this loaf came out super, melt-in-your-mouth moist and tasty. Not exactly banana bread-style tasty, but tasty unto itself.

Not that it hurt to slather on the butter.

4 Comments

Concrete

9/11/2021

13 Comments

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

CONCRETE

Over the summer while our daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren were visiting us from Los Angeles,

…Tom recruited our son-in-law to help with some heavy-duty projects around the yard and house,

…including an area of cracked concrete in our garage.
The men used a concrete saw to cut out the broken patch of floor.

…then they hauled the chunks of concrete into a pile outside the garage.

This was by no means a huge pile of concrete; when it was removed the hole it left was an irregular quadrilateral, about five feet long on one side, maybe six on the other, by two, two-and-a-half feet wide on either end, with another little rectangular area at the top. The hole was about four inches deep, more of less.

And yet the relatively small amount of concrete that had filled that relatively small hole looked so heavy to me lying there in in a pile in my front yard. I doubted I could easily lift even the smallest chunk.
I asked Tom how much that pile of concrete weighed. “Just about half a ton,” he said.
“Half a ton?” I said. “That little pile of concrete weighs a thousand pounds?”
"Probably close to it,” said Tom. “Concrete is heavy stuff.”
Incredulous, I did the math:
To refill the hole they would use thirteen sixty-pound bags of concrete, plus twenty-six gallons of water with which to mix it. One gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds. Altogether that’s 996.84 pounds. Just about half a ton.

This morning I found myself thinking about the little pile of a half a ton of concrete that was in my yard. And I wondered how many tons of concrete lay on the ground on that day twenty years ago after the world came crashing down.

13 Comments

Good-Bye, Lucy

9/9/2021

4 Comments

Books by Patti liszkay
available on amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

GOOD-BYE, LUCY

Although Lucy - also known as Lucita - lived most of her fifteen years as our family pet,

...she was technically my daughter Claire's cat.
Claire acquired Lucy in 2006 during the months she worked in Chacraseca, a jungle village on the outskirts of León, Nicaragua.
Here's Claire at the market in Masaya,

...and here's her sister Theresa playing with some of the village children when she came for a visit.

...and here's me riding on the city bus in León when I was there visiting Claire. (I eventually gave up my seat to a bent-over old lady who said, "Gracias, chela." ["Thank you, white woman."]).

At that time Claire's living quarters were in a house in León which she shared with some elderly Maryknoll nuns and from which she commuted each day to "Chacra," as the village was called.

It so happened that the house had a mouse problem. The little critters would be heard scratching around in the walls and rafters. Claire learned that a neighbor's cat had had a litter of kittens, and so she asked the neighbor if she could have one of the kittens to be a mouser. The neighbor invited Claire to help herself, and Claire chose the little black one, for whom she paid the neighbor seventy-five cents.
As it turned out, little Lucita had no appetite for chasing mice. What she loved, however, were the giant Central American cockroaches (blaberus giganteus - and BTW, that's not me holding the roach in the picture),

...that also shared residency in the house.
Lucy ate the roaches and left the antennae and wings, which Claire would find gathered into neat little piles around the house. One time during my visit when I was taking a shower I spotted a blaberus giganteus - a good three-incher - crawling up the wall of the the stall. Aw, now where the heck is that kitty, I rhetorically wondered.
After spending the better part of a year working in the jungle, Claire decided to do a stint as a volcano tour guide for Quetzaltrekkers.

Quetzaltrekkers is a volunteer non-profit group that raises money for Las Tias, a shelter for street children in León,

...by leading tourists on hikes up the the volcanoes in the vicinity of León.

Volcano guide Claire with two volcano visitors - her brother Tommy and sister Theresa - hiking Cerro Negro.

After Claire started working for Quetzaltrekkers she and Lucy left behind Lucy's beloved cockroaches to move into a room that Claire rented from a family with a house in the center of León, close to the Quetzaltrekkers office.
When Claire returned home to Columbus, Ohio she brought Lucy with her. Claire would ever after swear that it took far more paperwork and administrative imbroglio for a cat to leave the country than for a person.

And so our little Nicaraguan immigrant kitty joined our family of animals at that time, our odd-eyed cat Tansy,

...and our house bunny Daisy.

Tansy and Daisy hanging out.

Claire eventually left Columbus for Chicago, where she works these days as the charge nurse on the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit at Northwestern Hospital.

But Lucy stayed with us, and after a while we no longer thought of her as the cat from Nicaragua with the notable back story, but just our sweet Lucy,

...who loved her catnip toy,

...and good music,

...and holidays,

...and snitching my ice cream,

...and my chair,

...and stalking the fat resident groundhog in our backyard,

...and sitting in the garden,

...and all her family, except maybe Dory, who joined the family a few years after Lucy.

And we loved our Lucy.

Last week Lucy left us to cross over the rainbow bridge. Perhaps it was providence that her time came on a day when Claire and her husband Miguel happened to be visiting us from Chicago.

Claire called Lap of Love,

...and kind, soft-spoken Dr. Nellie came to our house,

... consoled and comforted us,

...let us say good-bye,

...then took Lucy to the other side.
Now Lucy will always be out in the garden where she loved to be,

...while throughout the day I find myself reflexively glancing at the back door, wondering if Lucy wants to come in.

4 Comments

Abortion Vigilantes And Bounty Hunters? Theater Of The Absurd In The Wacky New Texas Law

9/4/2021

0 Comments

Available on Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

ABORTION VIGILANTES AND BOUNTY HUNTERS? THEATER OF THE ABSURD IN THE WACKY NEW TEXAS LAW

Has anybody read about the particulars of the new Texas anti-abortion law? I mean beyond that the law prohibits all abortions for whatever reason - unless the mother goes into a life-endangering medical emergency - past six weeks from conception?
I just finished reading a couple of articles on the Texas law and, frankly, what I've read has blown my mind. Not because the law is so harsh, repressive, and misogynistic, which it is, but because it's so wacky.
Apparently post six-weeks abortions are now illegal in Texas, but - and this is according to the New York Times - "No law enforcement officer or other government official is tasked with upholding the new law. In fact, they are explicitly barred from doing so." Rather, the law is meant to be policed by private citizens who bring lawsuits against abortion providers. Not against the women seeking or receiving abortions; in fact the law forbids suing those women, the principle being, I suppose, that a woman mustn't be held responsible for making such a decision for herself.

However, according to the law, anyone else in Texas - besides the woman who gets the abortion - who "aids or abets" in the carrying out of a woman's abortion can be sued not only by anyone in Texas, but by anyone anywhere in the United States. The category of people who can be sued includes not only the medical personnel who perform the abortion, but anyone who is even tangentially involved, such an Uber driver who brings a woman to a clinic or someone who helps a woman pay for an abortion.
A plaintiff who sues someone for violating the abortion law will be awarded $10,000 if their case is successful, the money to be paid by the person who aided or abetted with the abortion, who must also pay all their own legal fees as well as those of the plaintiff. If someone brings a frivolous lawsuit against someone else - say there's a neighbor you hate and so you groundlessly accuse them and sue them for breaking the "aiding and abetting in an abortion" law - the defendant is still required to pay their own legal fees, even if the lawsuit is deemed ridiculous and thrown out, nor can a frivolous plaintiff whose suit is thrown out be punished by being required to pay the defendant's legal costs.
And this Texas law that takes its enforcement out of the hands of the public criminal justice system and puts it into the hands of vigilantes and bounty hunters, this law that defies Logic 101, was upheld by the Supreme Court, five:

...to four:

The Court made the ruling quietly and hastily just before midnight on Wednesday, without the law having been fully briefed or considered by lower courts, which, frankly seems a somewhat sketchy move for the United States Supreme Court. In truth, even some of the justices seemed not quite to know what to make of the thing they'd been called upon to so quickly adjudicate.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who ruled against upholding the Texas law,

...said he would have temporarily blocked it from going into effect until there was more time to determine whether this was a case of a state passing a law then avoiding responsibility for it by delegating the law's enforcement to the population at large.
Astute observation, Chief Justice.
In the meantime, in the two days since the Texas anti-abortion law was upheld, anti-abortion websites have popped up on the internet asking for tips on alleged violators of the law. However, at least one of these websites, a Texas Right to Life site called, "Pro Life Whistle Blower," has already been deluged with phony tips by TikTok activists.

TikTok is obviously better at responding to absurdity than the Supreme Court.

References:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/03/us/what-is-texas-abortion-law-as-equals-intl-cmd/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/us/supreme-court-texas-abortion-law.html

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/02/1033048958/supreme-court-upholds-new-texas-abortion-law-for-now

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/03/1034008380/tiktok-texas-abortion-ban-spam-website-activists

0 Comments

​BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY​AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

​​DEMOCRATS! FOR THE LOVE! RAISE THE DEBT CEILING!

​BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY​AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

​​FROM THE CHAOS, A NEW KITCHEN BEGINS TO SPROUT

​BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY​AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

​​IT HAPPENED AT SUBWAY

​​GOOD-BYE, OLD KITCHEN

​BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY​AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

​​OH GREAT, NOW WE'RE ENEMIES WITH FRANCE

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY​AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

​BANANA PEAR BREAD

​BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY​AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

Books by Patti liszkay​available on amazon

​GOOD-BYE, LUCY

Available on Amazon

​ABORTION VIGILANTES AND BOUNTY HUNTERS? THEATER OF THE ABSURD IN THE WACKY NEW TEXAS LAW

Archives

Categories

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

DEMOCRATS! FOR THE LOVE! RAISE THE DEBT CEILING!

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

FROM THE CHAOS, A NEW KITCHEN BEGINS TO SPROUT

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

IT HAPPENED AT SUBWAY

GOOD-BYE, OLD KITCHEN

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

OH GREAT, NOW WE'RE ENEMIES WITH FRANCE

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

BANANA PEAR BREAD

BOOKS BY PATTI LISZKAY
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

Books by Patti liszkay
available on amazon

GOOD-BYE, LUCY

ABORTION VIGILANTES AND BOUNTY HUNTERS? THEATER OF THE ABSURD IN THE WACKY NEW TEXAS LAW