Thinking about the Texas abortion law brought me back to something I learned while researching my book. In 1918, within months of coming to power, the Bolsheviks passed a new Family Code, which, among other things, made it easier for women to get child support. 1/
A woman could compel a man to pay child support even if she was not married to him. Moreover, the man had to start paying child support months *before* the baby was born. 2/
Though the Soviet government ultimately changed this law, there was an understanding, created in part by early Bolshevik feminist writers, that child bearing was a public good, rather than a private one. As such, the public has to share the burdens it placed on women. 3/
If you don’t know me and where I stand on the Soviet Union, let me repeat: I am no fan and my family fled the place as refugees. I happen to be working on a book about the Bolshevik feminist experiment, which is why this tidbit came to mind when thinking about Texas. 4/
The Soviet Union, btw, was the first country in the world to legalize abortion. They did so in 1920. One of the founding mothers of the USSR, Inessa Armand, wrote that women cannot be forced to carry a child against their will. 5/
Anyway. My point is this: a lot of women in America have abortions because they cannot afford to raise a child in the most expensive country in the world to raise a child. Others are worried about economic opportunity it would cost them. 6/
If you are anti-choice and you want to make sure women carry every pregnancy to term, why not make the person who created the pregnancy contribute? Why not have men pay child support to the women they impregnate? Surely, it is not the woman’s responsibility alone? /end
P.S. I recognize that there will be limitations and exceptions to this, including whether a woman wants to have this man—perhaps her rapist—in her life forever. But I just wanted to share this idea of burden sharing, at least economically.
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The fines the Russian government threatened to levy would've been ruinous, yes, but I'm old enough to remember when the motto for @Google, co-founded by Moscow-born Sergey Brin, was "Do no evil."
Apparently, the Kremlin threatened specific @Google employees with prosecution. A good summary of what @navalny's "Smart Vote" is—and how effective it has been—is here, from @meduza_en. meduza.io/en/feature/202…
Completely floored by the beautiful, poignant story-telling I'm seeing on this anniversary of 9/11.
Here's @LeilaFadel's powerful story on a young Muslim man whose life was changed by the surveillance and religious profiling of Muslims after 9/11: npr.org/2021/09/11/103…
Today, my good friend Roman @Dobrokhotov, head of @the_ins_ru and Russian partner of @bellingcat, had his home searched and was taken for questioning. He's been released but all his electronic equipment and passport have been seized. All part of the wave of repression in Russia.
@Dobrokhotov@the_ins_ru@bellingcat The current wave of political repression in Russia is unlike anything we've seen in the post-Soviet era. Yet the world seems resigned that that's just how Russia is. But there are real people at the heart of this, fighting for their freedom at great risk to themselves.
Roman has two small children and two elderly parents, whose apartment was also searched today. But knowing Roman, this isn't going to stop him. Would that we all had that kind of bravery and commitment to the cause.
Sunday read: For a long time, people like me who were foreign correspondents saw Facebook as a tool that would *help* democracy, not hurt it. I asked @sheeraf about this: ckarchive.com/b/68ueh8h84wpr
Sheera, the author, with @ceciliakang, of a new best-selling book about how Facebook became so dangerous to democracy, told me how she witnessed the shift from “Facebook will spread democracy” to “Facebook helps authoritarians” in real time while based in Cairo.
She also talked about how no one in Facebook’s executive ranks anticipated this because they all come from similar, sheltered backgrounds. It is another point in why diversity at the top matters.
"There are so many fucking Trump books," says one book editor, wondering what we're learning from any of them. Or as one industry insider quipped, “What are we going to find out in these books? That Trump threw a banana at John Kelly?” My latest:
So about that Guardian story about that document Putin allegedly signed authorizing an operation to put Trump in the White House? I spoke to a fmr intelligence officer who handled that intel in real time and they were…skeptical. (My latest: ckarchive.com/b/68ueh8h8md7z)
The other thing that should make you skeptical: the byline on that story.
And it’s not just that Manafort/Assange story that Luke got wrong. He was known for stories that sounded amazing and sensational—but were thinly sourced.