Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

gov.ca.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 319 posts

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#231

Post by roywiggins »

johncearls wrote: post #154
roywiggins wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He let who knows how many Americans back in from China without testing or quarantining them. Not much of a travel ban.

Quarantining is a fancy word for arrest, with zero cause. There were no "tests" at the time. And finally, thankfully, it is illegal to refuse an American citizen entry to the United States.

The cruise ship evacuees were involuntarily quarantined on military bases.

Quarantine in America is not new. https://www.lawfareblog.com/long-history-coercive-health-res...

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#232

Post by rlt »

tmh79 wrote: post #204
rlt wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you do, he will retaliate (by, for example, withholding badly needed aid) Has this actually occurred? I know NY asked for way more ventilators than they got, but as I understood it they were giving them out "just in time" rather than up front in case they were needed more elsewhere.

There are also lots of reports of confiscations of PPE: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/politics/coronavirus-f... https://www.firehouse.com/safety-health/ppe/news/21133559/fe... https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/fema-denies-involvement... I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but this smells real bad to me. The reports of confiscations are coming from democratic states, not republican states. And it seems like…

> https://www.firehouse.com/safety-health/ppe/news/21133559/fe...

On the other hand, does the fire department for a town of 27,000 people really need 30,000 gowns, or could those be put to better use elsewhere?

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#233

Post by kelnos »

new_time wrote: post #86
JoshTriplett wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would prevent any such pact from being legally binding on the states. It doesn't necessarily prevent states from coordinating at all.

Exactly, this seems like an friendly handshake agreement to cooperate with an official name and press release. OTOH, pacts like the popular vote compact signed by some states in the past few years is almost certainly unconstitutional.

> OTOH, pacts like the popular vote compact signed by some states in the past few years is almost certainly unconstitutional.

Why would that be the case? Electors are not bound by any particular (federal) rules in how they cast their votes. If we look at the popular vote compact as a friendly handshake agreement (to which electors are not legally bound), they are free to fulfill the handshake agreement and vote along with the national popular vote.

Of course, if a signatory decides last-minute to betray that agreement, there perhaps would be no legal remedy.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#234

Post by cjhopman »

kitotik wrote: post #87
RandomTisk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wanted to shut down travel from China in January, something he got reamed for politically by the media and the left. Damned if you do and all that.

Also, travelers from Italy and Spain have been able to enter quite freely.

Yeah, the west coast's virus outbreak is primarily traced to European sources, the bigger east coast one probably more so (but idk the data to support that). The China travel ban was not an effective measure of control, and experts knew that it wouldn't be. So either (1) whoever did it didn't listen to their experts or (2) it was intended to punish China, not as an effective measure of control.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#235

Post by jMyles »

tom-thistime wrote: post #183
jMyles wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dude...if we're talking about secession, we're talking about civil war. You begin your comment with this thesis, but without explanation. I think secession, in my lifetime, is likely. I think civil war is vanishingly unlikely.

The last time we had secession, we had civil war.

The conditions were different in almost every way.

True, we have another egomaniacal, racist, populist President who pretends to understand economics and business. Hopefully history will remember Trump more accurately than Lincoln.

But very little else is similar in these scenarios. Perhaps most importantly, we have the internet now, so the very need for a central government in our daily lives is substantially decreased.

And even if the conditions were similar, it's a sufficiently complex situation that merely noting the similarity isn't enough to suppose that war is likely (let alone inevitable) in such a scenario.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#236

Post by kelnos »

tathougies wrote: post #196
winter_blue wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republicans might claim to support state's rights, but they certainly aren't principled consistent supporters of it. Just take a drug legalization. Many Republicans have been vehemently opposed to it. Take a look at the Supreme Court decision Gonzalez v. Raich , where Steve Scalia no less, wrote that the feds could interfere with your growing some plants inside your own home for your own personal use. Remember that t…

My claim on this issue was mainly due to the current administration's relatively pro-state stance in this regard (COVID). I am not insisting that the GOP is universally pro-state. You are right that they are not when it comes to marijuana legalization and some other things (and shame on them for it).

The current administration is only pro-state inasmuch as it allows Trump to disclaim responsibility for failures while taking credit for successes.

For example, he knew that getting hold of medical supplies and PPE would be difficult, and that the federal government would fail at it, so he put it in the states' hands. He didn't want to be blamed for shutting down the economy and forcing people to isolate themselves, so he allowed the states to decide. But now he wants us to believe that the "heroic" decision to open things back up again will be his, and his alone.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#237

Post by jMyles »

spankalee wrote: post #197
tom-thistime wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time we had secession, we had civil war.

If any states try to secede in order to keep people as slaves , I would support another civil way to prevent it.

I don't want to get into a big thing, but I take issue with the idea that this was the motivation for support (in the Union government) for the war.

We remember Lincoln as an emancipator, but his words and actions don't support that. He was an advocate of institutional racism and drove away the people who actually wanted to end slavery, whether in peace or by war. He spent much more time discussing and devising his plan to deport and colonize all black people than he ever did working to end slavery.

I believe that our country missed a great opportunity to take an actual abolitionist position, which was being articulately and powerfully communicated by plenty of leaders who worked in better faith than the government ultimately did. I also believe that this missed opportunity is a substantial part of the reason that we still endure slavery today under the guise of a criminal justice system.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#239

Post by al_chemist »

lisper wrote: post #62
mjcl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a polite way of these states saying that they're not going to follow any 'national plan to reopen the economy' put out by the White House.

Exactly right. One of the rules of the game is that you're not allowed to say anything negative about Donald Trump even if (perhaps especially if) it is factually correct. If you do, he will retaliate (by, for example, withholding badly needed aid). So the governors have to speak in code. Listen to Newsome's news conference today and the answer he gave to a reporter about his reaction to Trump's announcement that the…

> you're not allowed to say anything negative about Donald Trump

Have you used Internet or watched American TV in last five years?

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#240

Post by elihu »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #15

As someone who lives in one of these states, I'm nonplussed at the announcement. It doesn't really seem to say anything concrete that I can tell. "We've agreed that we will use metrics...we are still deciding what these metrics will be." I thought the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order (in Washington state) wasn't unreasonable and wasn't just political babble, but I don't really know what to make of this piece. Anyone wan…

I guess it's significant that the three states have agreed in principle that they'll act together rather than each do their own thing. Maybe they can also be more ambitious in terms of testing and contact tracing by collaborating. They might also be able to collaborate in buying PPE and ventilators and so on rather than bidding against each other.
Post reply on HN