I assume she will get a settlement, the city (the taxpayer) will pay for it and nothing else changes. There will be even less money for infrastructure repair and people will keep voting for the same people.
snazypaparazzi 17 minutes ago [-]
I think everything is consistent with the perspective Texas represents toward the united states. It's fine if Texas doesn't implement reforms and fails. (There are 49 other states and may the ones that invent or adopt the best practices survive.)
smt88 10 minutes ago [-]
What do you think “fails” means exactly? How does Texas fail in a way that doesn’t harm innocent people in both Texas and the rest of the country/world?
Texas is larger (in both population and economy) than most countries in the world.
infinite_spin 7 minutes ago [-]
I'm not a lawyer, but I think qualified immunity should not apply to constitutional violations. Giving an opt-out for those violations is antithetical to the very substance of our (US) constitution.
nkrisc 31 minutes ago [-]
Yikes, they’ll have to arrest most of the current federal administration if they ever set foot in Texas if that post meets the criteria for that particular law. That’s going to cause problems.
dpe82 26 minutes ago [-]
Oh don't worry, the enforcement is extremely selective.
kibwen 18 minutes ago [-]
Never heard of Ken Paxton, I suppose?
skrebbel 4 minutes ago [-]
who?
vsgherzi 5 minutes ago [-]
This is dumb af. There should be an extremely small subset of things you can say online that get you arrested. This is definitely not one of them. I hope she she’s and it’s sets a precedent for cases after. I’d hate to see a ruling like the UK. While is vervently disagree with some of the awful things they post they shouldn’t be arrested for it.
thekevan 7 minutes ago [-]
The city issued a boil water advisory about about 13 or 14 days after her arrest.
mvdtnz 21 minutes ago [-]
How does a town in the richest nation in the history of the planet not have the resources to get clear drinking water flowing through their taps?
beAbU 18 minutes ago [-]
Presumably because they are spending their money prosecuting people complaining about bad water.
Money does not grow on trees, you know!
autoexec 6 minutes ago [-]
We have more than enough resources, but a lot of people don't want to pay taxes to clean it or restrain corporations from polluting our water supply inn the first place. I'm guessing that plenty of people in this woman's own town were cheering Trump slashing the EPA's budget and deregulating clean air and water. Just this week the administration announced plans to kill off or delay limits in the amount of PFAS in the drinking water. They argue it's too expensive to limit or filter the poison but then give no-bid contracts out to their unqualified friends for tens of millions of dollars and spend billions bombing other countries for no reason so it's pretty clear where the priorities are.
umvi 17 minutes ago [-]
Water is handled at the city level, not the federal level. If you have incompetent local leadership, this can happen. Incompetent local leaders can (and have!) bankrupted their cities.
azinman2 12 minutes ago [-]
Texas also is all about no/low taxes.
SJMG 3 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
balderdash 5 minutes ago [-]
complete and utter incompetence by local elected officials. If one of the richest towns in America (average home price of >$2m) can do it - just imagine how bad it can be in "average" towns...
Cuz all that wealth belongs to about 14 people and everyone else gets police harassment and poison water
SilverElfin 50 minutes ago [-]
The craziest part is the police defending this action as a “cut and dry” case. Meanwhile the lawsuit this woman just filed will hurt taxpayers and not the corrupt city officials and police that caused this. We need to ban all forms of immunity - none for cops, politicians, or judges. They need to be personally liable for their actions.
thot_experiment 44 minutes ago [-]
It's absolutely not the slightest bit crazy if you've paid attention to how cops behave at any point in the last history of the country. 100% agree about personal responsibility. You must understand that when the cops says that oversight means they can't do their job, that means they view their job as bullying, harassing and killing citizens, so yea, we should put a stop to that. 1312
ggoo 28 minutes ago [-]
> It's absolutely not the slightest bit crazy
Imo, speaking like this normalizes their behavior - it was crazy then and it's crazy now.
Bender 27 minutes ago [-]
I will not put the blame on the bobbies, that's too convenient. Someone had to order them to do this. That's who needs to be permanently ousted from all levels of government and their voting rights rescinded.
abofh 21 minutes ago [-]
Nobody has to order people to do anything if it's in their self interest. Yes corruption flows downhill, but until they flip, just following orders isn't a defense.
queenkjuul 20 minutes ago [-]
Lmao no this is just American police chiefs doing what they love to do, guarantee this whole thing starts and ends in that PD
Bender 2 minutes ago [-]
From the PDF looks like Trinidad City Councilwoman Marie Bannister and Trinidad Police Chief Charles W. Gregory, may have started this. Texas needs to start pruning there.
queenkjuul 21 minutes ago [-]
[redacted] all police but don't pretend it isn't crazy. Not every country is like this.
Rekindle8090 28 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
Bilal_io 46 minutes ago [-]
I hear you, but there has to be some balance between full immunity and no immunity at all. The one thing that comes to mind is rich and powerful people, because they have unlimited resources to sue and ruin the lives of cops, judges and politicians, which would lead to these officials avoiding to hold rich and powerful individuals accountable even when they have committed crimes.
ben_w 42 minutes ago [-]
I'm not a lawyer, but what you're describing sounds to me like an example of strategic lawsuits against public participation, just where the targeted "public" isn't a member of the general public but a public servant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
mcdonje 32 minutes ago [-]
"would"? There is currently a disparity in how rich and poor people are policed.
I get the point that there should be some limited immunity so they can do their jobs. Debatable, but worth the debate.
The argument about the repercussions of eliminating immunity is logical. It just seems like one of those things where there are multiple factors contributing to undesirable outcomes, and that makes it necessary to talk to experts.
thot_experiment 40 minutes ago [-]
You're so close! Instead of patching the issue maybe let's solve the root problem of spiky power distribution among humans. We don't need to make sure cops have immunity to prosecute powerful people. We need to not have powerful people.
(though realistically speaking yes there's probably some level of procedural immunity that probably makes sense, similarly with business bankruptcies not ruining the people who start the business)
Ar-Curunir 32 minutes ago [-]
I agree with you, but most people aren’t ready to engage with basic anarchist arguments
p1esk 25 minutes ago [-]
We need to not have powerful people
What does this even mean?
queenkjuul 18 minutes ago [-]
Make currently powerful people less powerful and currently powerless people more powerful.
C'mon, HN users forgot how to think? Forgot to ask Claude?
jghn 14 minutes ago [-]
These lawsuits need to be charged against the police pension funds, not the city coffers
Bilal_io 11 minutes ago [-]
I agree with you
rightbyte 47 minutes ago [-]
Exactly which types of politicians, judges etc would be targeted by liability do you think? The unrighteous politicians? The judges in favour of those in power?
nozzlegear 42 minutes ago [-]
In my experience (I sued my town for violating my first amendment rights), the city will have insurance that will cover any damages or settlement they have to pay. Their premiums will likely go up, but the impact to taxpayers is probably minimal.
thinkingtoilet 43 minutes ago [-]
Just more actions from free speech loving Republicans. Exactly like that guy in Tennessee who got $800k.
casey2 39 minutes ago [-]
Even making them pay their own lawsuit insurance premiums would be enough to stop 90% of abuse.
No change will happen until cities stop using police revenue for discretionary spending.
6stringmerc 54 minutes ago [-]
Not surprised. Tarrant County told the US Marshals my styrofoam cooler with vomit in it was a “bomb threat” and charged me with use of a DEADLY WEAPON. Honestly. If my public defender hadn’t colluded with the Prosecution it wouldn’t be on my record today.
This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better in the US. I’m a nonviolent cripple. Meanwhile a pardoned Jan 6 rioter just told a City Counsel “they should be strung up” and isn’t even being charged. Totally depends what team you’re on right now.
vjvjvjvjghv 50 minutes ago [-]
"Meanwhile a pardoned Jan 6 rioter just told a City Counsel “they should be strung up” and isn’t even being charged."
A great candidate to get some money from the lawfare fund.
nadermx 1 hours ago [-]
Imagine the town of flynt getting arrested for having your government fail you.
markoman 25 minutes ago [-]
This type of treatment of citizenry by the State of Texas, and its various (and especially red) localities should be all one needs to see of where conservatives (and Christian Naitonalism) will take our country in the future -- should they get their way. Republicans hope to enable just such a future by scaring Americans with made-up visions of transsexuals 'grooming' their children, yet they cleverly hide what awaits behind the curtain. The is the same curtain that hides why Israel is supposed to be so very, very important to the U.S. but not so much that we make them state #51. This is the magical (read: Biblical) rationale that the U.S. makes excuses for Israel's attack on its own USS Liberty in 1967.
Saying nothing of the future of abortion & contraception, U.S. conservatives base their worldview on sexuality & reproduction and seek to burden it with fixtures that we have already spent hundreds of year to free ourselves from. At the same time, they take their eye off the ball of keeping our country competitive in the world. How embarrassing it is now to have the Chinese president suggest that the U.S. is in decline and that it shouldn't get caught in a Thucydides Trap.
Yet, that is where Trump has put us indeed.
bfkwlfkjf 54 minutes ago [-]
Land of the free
nozzlegear 45 minutes ago [-]
This is newsworthy because it's a clear and flagrant violation of her rights.
Source: I was threatened with a lawsuit by my own town for criticizing them online, but the ACLU helped me counter sue and win a settlement for violating my first amendment rights.
poly2it 39 minutes ago [-]
Was the comment you are replying to edited?
vjvjvjvjghv 51 minutes ago [-]
I assume you mean "Land of the fee"
47 minutes ago [-]
6stringmerc 53 minutes ago [-]
World Cup Tourists about to get some “civic lessons” if they buy that too much, mmmhmmm.
pstuart 20 minutes ago [-]
This is a textbook free speech issue, versus not being able to post your conspiracy theory on some web site which has nothing to do with free speech.
joshuafuller 30 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
breck 34 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
cboyardee 51 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
userbinator 53 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
stouset 50 minutes ago [-]
I would imagine it’s hard to be reminded of things that didn’t actually occur.
userbinator 46 minutes ago [-]
Wow. The brainwashing is still real, half a decade later.
If you think this is somehow "wrong" and that was "right", or vice-versa, you do not believe in free speech.
stouset 31 minutes ago [-]
Indeed the brainwashing is still alive and well.
It’s been five years since multiple COVID-19 vaccines have been widely available and administered worldwide, and just about the worst common side effects have been a small risk of mild, self-resolving myocarditis in mRNA vaccines and an increased risk of clotting for adenoviral vector vaccines which have been either discontinued or fallen out of use.
Past those, there have been rare (~5 per million doses) cases of Guillain-Barré or anaphylaxis, but those are broadly in line with risk profiles for other vaccines.
Despite repeated insistence from chronically-online nutjobs, the sky has not fallen, and the well-known, well-published, and well-studied risks of these vaccines remain drastically lower than the risks of actually contracting the disease they inhibit. Which is the whole goddamn point.
13 minutes ago [-]
galangalalgol 34 minutes ago [-]
To make it more explicit. Censorship is always bad. There is no censorship for the good of the people. If fewer people had gotten vaccines because we didn't censor claims it was dangerous, maybe more people would have died. Maybe hospitals would have shut down from crowding. We can't know for sure. But because that was censored, amongst other things, the trust in government dropped even lower. This in turn is allowing populists from both parties to win and local state and national levels. Populists always hurt the economy and damage individual freedoms. There is no substitute for trust, and it is a generational project to rebuild it. Censorship of any speech errodes it and harms all of us more than letting people who are probably wrong speak.
thinkingtoilet 42 minutes ago [-]
Provide proof of someone getting arrested for a social media post.
userbinator 37 minutes ago [-]
Did the ones posting about the water provide "proof" also?
queenkjuul 15 minutes ago [-]
Rtfa
nilslindemann 38 minutes ago [-]
Lying is not free speech.
GaryBluto 25 minutes ago [-]
It very much is.
nilslindemann 2 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
breck 31 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
gdulli 47 minutes ago [-]
We should call this obsession "longest Covid". Certain people will be on this until they die.
userbinator 34 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
Rendered at 19:23:28 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Texas is larger (in both population and economy) than most countries in the world.
Money does not grow on trees, you know!
https://observer.com/2010/07/the-collapse-of-east-hampton-ho...
Imo, speaking like this normalizes their behavior - it was crazy then and it's crazy now.
I get the point that there should be some limited immunity so they can do their jobs. Debatable, but worth the debate.
The argument about the repercussions of eliminating immunity is logical. It just seems like one of those things where there are multiple factors contributing to undesirable outcomes, and that makes it necessary to talk to experts.
(though realistically speaking yes there's probably some level of procedural immunity that probably makes sense, similarly with business bankruptcies not ruining the people who start the business)
What does this even mean?
C'mon, HN users forgot how to think? Forgot to ask Claude?
No change will happen until cities stop using police revenue for discretionary spending.
This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better in the US. I’m a nonviolent cripple. Meanwhile a pardoned Jan 6 rioter just told a City Counsel “they should be strung up” and isn’t even being charged. Totally depends what team you’re on right now.
A great candidate to get some money from the lawfare fund.
Saying nothing of the future of abortion & contraception, U.S. conservatives base their worldview on sexuality & reproduction and seek to burden it with fixtures that we have already spent hundreds of year to free ourselves from. At the same time, they take their eye off the ball of keeping our country competitive in the world. How embarrassing it is now to have the Chinese president suggest that the U.S. is in decline and that it shouldn't get caught in a Thucydides Trap.
Yet, that is where Trump has put us indeed.
Source: I was threatened with a lawsuit by my own town for criticizing them online, but the ACLU helped me counter sue and win a settlement for violating my first amendment rights.
If you think this is somehow "wrong" and that was "right", or vice-versa, you do not believe in free speech.
It’s been five years since multiple COVID-19 vaccines have been widely available and administered worldwide, and just about the worst common side effects have been a small risk of mild, self-resolving myocarditis in mRNA vaccines and an increased risk of clotting for adenoviral vector vaccines which have been either discontinued or fallen out of use.
Past those, there have been rare (~5 per million doses) cases of Guillain-Barré or anaphylaxis, but those are broadly in line with risk profiles for other vaccines.
Despite repeated insistence from chronically-online nutjobs, the sky has not fallen, and the well-known, well-published, and well-studied risks of these vaccines remain drastically lower than the risks of actually contracting the disease they inhibit. Which is the whole goddamn point.