🚂 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 Palestine, Texas is fighting back against the rail industry. Facing similar railway problems as East Palestine, Ohio.

⬛️ A lawsuit between Palestine, TX and Union Pacific is emblematic of larger changes that have reshaped rail over the past few decades.

The lawsuit
🔶️ In April 2021, Union Pacific met with Palestine employees to deliver the news: the freight car repair shop would close in 60 days, and their jobs would be eliminated.

🔶️ The closure was part of its improvement plan to implement precision scheduled railroading principles across its system, the Palestine Herald-Press and other media reported. Union Pacific can “conduct its work more efficiently in other locations” rather than sending freight cars thousands of miles out of the way for repair to the “severely outdated” Palestine shop, the company argues in court filings.

🔶️ Railroad executives herald “PSR,” as it’s known in the industry, as a practice that increases efficiency. While rail executives, regulators and industry critics argue the semantics of the practice, it generally works like this: rather than trains departing after shippers have filled them as they long had, rail companies now run trains under strict schedules that they dictate.

☣️ The Norfolk Southern train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023 was 150 cars long. Investigators did not cite the length of the train as a direct cause of the derailment, but a ProPublica report indicated PSR principles could have been a contributing factor in a similar derailment.

🔶️ “When I left we had nearly 100 people — they actually added people because our safety was excellent, production was great,” Lohmeyer said. “And then all of a sudden precision railroading comes in and one day we wake up and they cut off 30 people.”

🔶️ Palestine and Anderson County petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to hear the case earlier this month. If the court refuses to hear it, or agrees that the state court judgment enforcing the contract is void, no legal paths remain to keep the jobs in town.

🔶️ For locals like Lohmeyer, it’s hard to imagine Palestine devoid of its replica cabooses and rail monuments, tributes to the town’s history. But like the railmen who have spent most of their working days in the car shop, they may be forced to say a bitter goodbye.

⚡️ “When they finally leave Palestine, I’m for taking every caboose and running them over with a bulldozer,” Lohmeyer said. “I worked for them for 41 years. I have no loyalty to them anymore.”

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/transportation/2024/05/21/the-rail-industry-is-changing-a-small-texas-town-is-fighting-back/

https://archive.ph/WPNhV

🇺🇸 📝 Texas Anon: "You know it's f—ed when a boomer says he has 0 loyalty to his employer after 41 years."

https://t.me/CIG_telegram/47748

🇳🇱 The EU is pushing back against Geert Wilders' immigration plan

The plan to opt out of the European laws has put Mr Wilders’ incoming four-party Right-wing coalition government on a collision course with Brussels before it has even taken office.

The government plans call for a maximum reduction in migrant numbers without giving a hard figure. The agreement includes austere reception centres, a hold on processing asylum applications and only temporary asylum being granted.

“An opt out clause for European asylum and migration policies will be submitted as soon as possible to the European Commission,” the coalition said in its pact.

Mr Wilders said the plan would make the Netherlands less attractive for asylum seekers, adding that “people in Africa and the Middle East will start thinking they might be better off elsewhere”.

The coalition says it would also strive to limit free movement for people from countries joining the EU in the future.

🔗 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/16/dutch-government-set-for-immigration-showdown-with-eu/

🗄 Archive

🇳🇱🤝🇮🇱 — In a move pushed by the Conservative PVV Party led by Geert Wilders, the slogan 'from the river to the sea' is now a call to violence and should therefore be punishable in the Kingdom of Netherlands, thus outlawing the famous Pro-Palestine slogan

🔗 De Telegraaf (@telegraaf)

🇳🇱🤝🇮🇱 — Dutch Right-Wing Leader Geert Wilders on Twitter/X:

PVV motion passed!

From the river to the sea punishable!

Well done Maikel Boon!

🔗 Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv):

🇮🇪 Ireland mulling cuts in supports for asylum seekers and Ukrainian refugees

The planned cuts will mean that Ukrainian refugees in serviced state accommodation, regardless of when they arrived here, will receive a social welfare payment of €38.80 for adults and €29.80 for children.

There are currently thousands of Ukrainian refugees on the Jobseeker’s Allowance rate of €232 per week, but under the new plan, the payments will be cut in three months’ time.

Details of the reductions are still being worked out but the Government intends to implement them within 12 weeks.

Taoiseach Simon Harris has described the proposed cuts as “sensible” and the Government has argued that the move is not about appearing tough on immigration – now a major issue in political polling – but bringing the payments made to Ukrainians in line with those made to other asylum seekers and those made in other EU countries.

🔗 https://www.thejournal.ie/unhcr-concerned-ukrainian-refugees-ireland-payment-cut-6382825-May2024/

🇩🇪 Germany limits cash benefit payments for asylum-seekers as migration numbers increase

A payment card exclusively for asylum-seekers has been introduced in Germany, following the recent parliamentary approval of a new rule.

Under the new regulation, migrants are issued a card to access their benefits, which can be used at local stores and for services, but it limits their cash withdrawals and bans international money transfers.

The aim is to prevent migrants from sending money to family and friends abroad, or to smugglers.

🔗 https://www.euronews.com/2024/05/13/germany-limits-cash-benefit-payments-for-asylum-seekers-as-migration-numbers-increase

🧑‍🎓 🇩🇪 On the Alleged Decriminalization of CP in Germany:

⬛️ Bottomline is that Germany returned to 2021 penalties and the ensuing political fanfare is blurring these details.

📝 German anon - Generally, German law has 2 punishment categories:

1️⃣ Is the penal code, prosecuted exclusively at the federal level, the other are administrative codes (eg sanitation codes) which are managed and prosecuted by the relevant regional authority.

2️⃣ We distinguish also between a "crime" (verbrechen) and a lower form of it, possibly a "misdemeanor" (vergehen), where the conditions for prosecution are satisfied but no intent can be located.

🔶️ e.g. 15 year olds get CP convictions in Austria, but as a "vergehen". Because when the cops searched their phones in connection with other crimes (like assault and battery), they found CP. It's an almost U shaped curve in terms of age of suspect as well, 14-18 year olds are like 40% of suspects. Practically none 18-45 and then come the old pedos.

🔶️ What ive found so far implies punishments of 1-10yr, this is the motivation at the top of the draft law. It appears that they seriously increased the penalties in 2021 and now want to undo this because it has caused administrative problems.

🔶️ Basically once a crime reaches a specific magnitude it becomes subject to a different set of processing rules, which slows it down and makes it more expensive.

🔶️ The motivation continues, apparently, that "teachers and parents were getting charged in the process of trying to solve cases of cp in their lives". And then it mentions the problem with 14 year olds having this problem.

🔶️ German judges association already complained about this in 2020 before the changes were made

also
>submitting an opinion to a draft law in september 2020 which passes into law in june 2021

🔶️ Draft laws that are left hanging around like that either get binned by the end of the legislative period or revived towards the end of them for TV theatrics. The motivation for the german law includes sanctioning the lowest level of the crime. German law has a problem sentencing people when the minimum penalty is very high.

🔶️ eg. if you have 1 image and the minimum penalty is 1 year, you could effectively argue "disproportionate", and so the case gets dropped. German law requires this kind of flexibility due to how its organized. It hamstrings itself if you have too high of a minimum. So, ironically, if the desired effect is to be "tough on crime" you need to peg your minimum lower, not higher.

Because your total catch in the net would be greater, so to speak

🔶️ "pre-reform"
the 2020 opinion asked not to even perform the changes put in place in 2021, i.e. to stick to the old status quo all along. From what i understand, we have a law called the "penal case handling ordinance", which contains the rules of how to do criminal court proceedings.

🔶️ it includes "offramps", such as a paragraph about "closing a case if disproportionate use of state resources is to be expected". similarly, depending on the crime level (i suppose misdemeanor vs felony), there are specific offramps

🔶️ Felonies should be prescribed a different (larger, more complex) type of trial, whereas misdemeanors can be handled by clerks more or less. So as in 2020 with the judges association, and with the motivation we just read, it appears that the backlog is large and they need to process more cases faster.

⚖️ Really this rollback is just lubricant to the administration of law.

🇮🇱📞🇪🇬 — Israeli Prime-Minister Benjaamin Netanyahu to CNN: I hope Egypt understands that we will not agree to end the war before eliminating Hamas

https://fxtwitter.com/SkyNewsArabia_B/status/1793017694263918730