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Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

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Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#191

Post by rolandhvar »

vitally3643 wrote: post #181
ryandrake wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, an arrest on your record, even if you're acquitted and/or get a settlement for police wrongdoing, can still mess you up. There are employers and landlords who will ask you / check whether you were ever arrested, regardless of the outcome of the arrest . Mere involvement with Law Enforcement puts a permanent black mark on your record and can interfere with basic things for the rest of your life.

You must not have ever been poor because the idea of several thousand dollars right now completely obliterates any notion of "maybe less money later, possibly" Particularly if you're young and poor. Humans don't really work the way you're implying from your armchair.

There's poor and stupid, and then there's poor and smart

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#192

Post by borski »

ponector wrote: post #133
john_strinlai wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They did it to show that if you speak out against them, they'll arrest and inconvenience you. So the next person who gets a thought to speak out might decide not to bother. some of my students have expressed that they wish they could get arrested for a meme and walk away with a couple hundred grand. i, of course, have told them that they would be playing with fire. but they are still viewing it as a potentially lif…

Students are young and often have nothing to lose, aside from missing opportunities.

Opportunity cost is a real cost.

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#194

Post by jmyeet »

If you look at the legal system through the lens of "what benefits the wealthy or powerful?" you will more accurately guess what is going to happen and this goes from local issues such as this one all the way to the Supreme Court.

We just had the Broadview 6 case dismissed (with prejudice) this week. The Broadview 6 included former Chicago Congressional primary contender, Kat Abugazaleh. It was a bullshit set of charges for daring to protest an ICE facility. It was always going away but what was more disturbing is the prosecutorial misconduct [1]. The level of misconduct should rise to the level of disbarment. It will get referred to the bar and it'll probably be some slap-on-the-wrist sanctions however.

Prosecutors hold a lot of power and can make your life hell. They need to be held to a very high standard and any whiff of this kind of misconduct should forever bar you from being a prosecutor or a judge.

In this case the prosecutor basically engaged in witness tampering (effectively) with the grand jury proceedings and then tried to cover it up by redacting those parts of the grand jury transcripts. Those redactions basically amount to committing perjury, making false filings to the court under oath.

That's the lengths prosecutors will go to to crush protests. This goes equally for exposing incompetence, negligence or corruption by the town for mismanaging the water supply. This kind of overreach and misconduct is all too common.

[1]:https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/broadview-6-trial-cance...

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#195

Post by dylan604 »

kibwen wrote: post #50
nkrisc wrote: post #36

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.

Never heard of Ken Paxton, I suppose?

ahem, that's senator paxton /s

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#196

Post by lysace »

owenversteeg wrote: post #171
mvdtnz wrote: post #47

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?

The US is a huge country. In general it has excellent water; the US averages better than the EU. The Environmental Performance Index is a report that measures many things, and they have a handy section where they measure DALYs lost from sanitation and drinking water. For this section the US scores 96, within a few points of Switzerland (100), Sweden (97), Austria (96), Denmark (94), Belgium (93) and comfortably above…

On the other hand the US often relies on relatively crude chlorination to reach those levels, which those 'top' European countries don't. They instead put a strong emphasis on protecting the source water and then treating it via ozone, UV, biofiltration and slow sand filtration.

The taste of chlorinated water generally isn't tolerated.

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#197

Post by borski »

golem14 wrote: post #148
autoexec wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The federal government bails Texas out of the messes they get themselves into all the time (like their shitty power grid). Historically, Texas has often received more in federal funding than it contributes in federal taxes.

Is the Texas power grid shitty? Say, compare to California’s?

Yes. Both are shitty, but CA is at least shared with the national grid.

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#198

Post by john_strinlai »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #188
fc417fc802 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would being arrested for memeing be a black mark? It would be a hilarious talking point that I would be more than happy to chat with a landlord, employer, or literally anyone else about. Anyone who would hold that against you is pretty much a textbook example of a bad person (banal evil or some such).

I wouldn’t rent my house to someone who has been arrested for memeing. It’s an unnecessary risk with absolutely no upside for me. What happens when they decide to meme on their landlord?

>What happens when they decide to meme on their landlord

nothing? maybe a laugh? it’s a meme not a murder

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#199

Post by jshier »

ceejayoz wrote: post #130
wvenable wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Doctors and nurses will make mistakes in performing medicine. Making those doctors and nurses personally liable for honest mistakes is, IMO, excessive." How many other jobs can we apply this to?

And does it apply to, say, my tax returns?

Generally, yes. If you make a mistake in your return, the IRS is perfectly happy to accept an amended return, and you pay (or get paid) the difference (perhaps with a penalty fee). They usually only go after you criminally if they think you committed fraud.

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#200

Post by samrus »

dlubarov wrote: post #141
markoman wrote: post #43

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 await…

> the U.S. makes excuses for Israel's attack on its own USS Liberty in 1967. It's strange how this 59-year-old incident keeps getting brought up. Friendly fire happens all the time, and Israel apologized and paid reparations ages ago.

The conspiracy theory is that it wasnt just friendly fire but an attempted false flag. Make if that what you will
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