Attorney General Ken Paxton has sent a civil investigative demand to Seattle Children's Hospital, demanding data on all Texas patients traveling for care, despite having no jurisdiction there.
He wants to out trans Texans so they can be harassed and assaulted by the God-loving Republicans living in Texas without getting his own hands dirty. Never mind that "Thou shalt not commit adultery" thing in the bible... you're just taking it out of context.
Just wait, this will happen with abortions too. They are testing the ground now. If a Republican ever get the white house again, they will use the feds to extradite doctors to Texas.
People need to be yelling about this until they can't yell anymore. I don't give a fuck if it ruins Christmas.
Yeah, this 100% feels like a trial balloon. It's obviously ridiculous but it's going to test some legal statute that will crack the door for whatever Gilead shit they actually intend. Probably abortion rights. First they came for the trans people, etc etc.
My heart goes out to anyone trapped in Texas or any other Gilead state.
Who gets jailed? If huge corporations can't go to jail for the evil shit they do "even though they are people" then a hospital protecting actual people won't go to jail either.
Nah, they are going after the people in the hospital that deny the order, not the hospital itself. The people in Seattle will be fine as long as they stay in Washington and their state and the feds refuse to extradite, but anyone charged may have trouble when traveling to other states and will be unable to travel through Texas without legitimate fear of detention.
The people in Seattle will be fine as long as they stay in Washington and their state and the feds refuse to extradite, but anyone charged may have trouble when traveling to other states and will be unable to travel through Texas without legitimate fear of detention.
If Texas does somehow arrest a Washington state resident that works at a hospital that denied this request when that worker was visiting Texas, and that was upheld but state and federal courts, this could backfire in a BIG way on Texas. Other states could put out warrants on Texans, like Paxton or any other Texan involved in executing this law, in every other state in the nation.
Instead of others haven't to worry about stepping foot in Texas, Texans would have to worry about ever stepping foot out of Texas.
Pax-turd needs to realize that if he's going to play the "state's rights" angle, that means other states have rights, too, and Texas has no dominion over Washington state. I personally have mixed thoughts about elevating states over federal law... we're the UNITED States, not fifty sovereign countries.
Also, shouldn't this dingus be in jail? I thought he was charged with corruption so egregious even the nee-haw state couldn't ignore it.
An obvious issue here is that they could try to get someone picked up and extradited. Even if progressive states like Washington don't have any of that you have to worry about other states when you drive through or have a layover.
Consider the midline of the country you have North Dakota, South Dakota Nebraska Kansas Oklahoma or Texas
Dumb about important stuff, yeah, but this is just playing to his hate filled base since when he inevitably fails he can blame wokeness or some other conservative talking point. If you think of it as free campaigning to angry bigots it makes a lot of sense.
I’ve been concerned Texas and other states would be looking for this kind of thing for abortions as well. Everyone has been telling me that this kind of thing is impossible and no one would ever try to go after a patient based on medical procedures done out of state.
I’m also concerned that Texas could issue an arrest warrant for medical personnel or people facilitating abortion travel who reside in California (for example) such that it becomes inadvisable to drive through Texas, or even have a layover.
It’s not paranoia if they’re actually after you.
IIRC the way the law works now is that any private citizen, regardless of whether or not they have any sort of relationship with the pregnant person, can sue anyone who “facilitates” abortion for Texas citizens. That includes taxi drivers, family members, maybe even gas station workers, etc. There is also a county that is (or has been) attempting to ban the usage of fucking roads to get to abortion facilities in other states, effectively barring you from travelling anywhere if there is a possibility you may be pregnant. Freedom!
It's inadvisable to drive through Southern states already due to cops. They hold that the normal constitutional protections don't apply due to the border, they have deported American citizens, they have been caught planting drugs, the vast majority of civil asset forfeitures are people who had under $1000 seized without evidence literal highway robbery.
Then there were the ladies who were legally kidnapped and taken to a hospital to have their buttholes search on a vague suspicion of drugs
Texas state troopers caught on camera probing women’s privates aren’t isolated incidents: lawyers
Basically you may or may not get raped or robbed by the police even before this unpleasantness.
But wait there's more if you are pregnant and they believe you represent a danger to your fetus they reserve the right to hold you until you give birth in a prison shower like they did to that druggy chick!
You see, Paxton and the GOP are the IN group and their trans victims are the OUT group!
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition ... There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” --Frank Wilhoit
too scared and useless to take on the gangs and criminals, so the Texas AG goes after hospitals and patients.. wonder if the Texas Rangers are gonna ride out and grab a fugitive doctor and patient..
They could, but it's a pretty progressive city, so there's nothing to lose and everything to gain for anyone public-facing in Seattle to be seen telling Paxton to fuck off.
Also, on a much less cynical note, making a bigot with grotesque demands look thoroughly foolish this time could create a precedent that could save lives in less clear-cut cases.
Tl;Dr: Telling Paxton off as loudly as possible (figuratively speaking) is both the opportune thing to do AND the right thing to do.
I'd like the news outlets to follow up on this. Next week. In two weeks. In three weeks. And how many times it takes to make it irrelevant and still prove that the original talking point is completely worthless.
They won't. Because it's a waste of space in the first place. I wish they'd treat it like that to begin with.
My suggestion is for anyone working in the medical field who disagrees with these policies to leave Texas post haste.
The faster this happens the more quickly the people will revolt once every single individual in the state knows someone personally who was harmed by these policies. The anecdotal suffering of individuals is the only thing that ever causes widescale political action as far as I can tell.
Until that suffering is undeniable for a large enough percentage of the population to overcome their cognitive dissonance, nothing will change.