Glenn Kirschner – Justice Matters Compilation of Legal Stories for the Month of August 2021
Ring of Fire – Anti-Vaxxer Facing Felony Charges For Selling Fake Vaccine Cards. Sheesh! Double facepalm.
MSNBC – Kevin McCarty Threatens Tech Companies Over GOP Phone Records
Now This News – Cow Stuck in Tree After Hurricane Ida Hits Louisiana (no words0
Vox – How oysters can stop a flood
Rob Rogers – Cowboy Diplomacy
Beau – Let’s talk about the US exit and criticism….
Thursday, I got a reply to my request for information on visitation. There’s no exemption for the pandemic to the rule that if you don’t visit for a year you have to start over with a new application. But I was provided with an email address, and I was prepared for that answer, so I emailed the application off as – actually, as three attachments – and got my email returned by the mail system. The error message included the phrase “too many hops,” and just in case that had anything to do with attachments, I started over with the app and credentials, got them into a single pdf, and re-sent – and got it back again. To make a long story shorter, yesterday I asked around, and part of the problem ended up being that DOC email addresses can’t read caps. Anyway, the application is at DOC now, and, since this is not my first rodeo, I’m confident it includes enough (possibly more than enough) information to sail through. And the DOC will notify me by email when it has.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-qanon-shaman-plea-negotiations-after-mental-health-diagnosis-lawyer-2021-07-23/
Reuters – Exclusive: ‘QAnon Shaman’ in plea negotiations after mental health diagnosis
Quote – In an interview, defense lawyer Albert Watkins said that officials at the federal Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, have diagnosed his client Jacob Chansley with transient schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety. The BOP’s findings, which have not yet been made public, suggest Chansley’s mental condition deteriorated due to the stress of being held in solitary confinement at a jail in Alexandria, Virginia, Watkins said. “As he spent more time in solitary confinement … the decline in his acuity was noticeable, even to an untrained eye,” Watkins said in an interview on Thursday. He said Chansley’s 2006 mental health records from his time in the U.S. Navy show a similar diagnosis to the BOP’s.
Click through for details. This is a situation of a type which explains why I don’t score a 9 or higher on being anti-authoritarian. The point of appealing to mental illness as mitigation is – though it’s seldom stated – the feeling we all share that a person should not be punished for something which is not, or not entirely, his fault. I feel that too. I feel it as a moral principle, not just as an emotional response. But the corollary is, if it is caused by a condition which is inseparable from the person, that person still meeds to be restrained somehow for the safety of the public. No, it shouldn’t be a prison. But – as, thanks to Ronald Reagan and other Republicans is currently the case in the US – prison is the only option, then prison it needs to be. Yes, we need to find better ways. But until and unless we do, that remains the hard truth.
Politico – Alabama governor says ‘it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks’ as pandemic worsens
Quote – [T]he remarks from the governor grew more pointed when she was pressed on what it would take for greater numbers of Alabamans to get their shots. “I don’t know. You tell me,” Ivey said. “Folks [are] supposed to have common sense. But it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”
Click through for more. Here’s proof there are still Repuiblicans who have not completely lost it. Just not enough of them. And they are still Republicans.
Daily Beast – Liz Cheney Is Saving Pelosi, the GOP, and Maybe America From Themselves {OPINION}
Quote – In applying this analogy to Jan. 6, Cheney represents one legitimate political worldview and Democrats represent the other. If Pelosi should name Rep. Adam Kinzinger—a Republican, Air Force veteran and member of the Air Force National Guard—to the select committee, as she is reportedly considering doing, she would be reinforcing this function and adding an additional check on Democrats who might be tempted to exploit the situation for their own political agenda. (And if you think Dick Cheney’s daughter is some sort of RINO now, that probably says a lot more about you than it does about her.)
Click through for his full argument. No, she’s not a hero. But I can respect a person who holds their beliefs with integrity, even if they are wrong. m And in this case – in this case – she is not wrong.
Food for Thought:
Maybe it’s just me, but ever since Pres. Biden’s Inauguration, it seems like there’s definitely been a better vibe in America. Not that there’s been one huge paradigm shift to explain it, but a number of small “Feel Good” ones. So I decided I would share a few of them.
The story of a “Snowstorm-Induced Impromptu COVID Vaccine Clinic” is what really got me thinking – things ARE getting better.
Twenty Josephine County Public Health workers had finished a vaccine clinic in rural Cave Junction, OR and were on their way back to Grants Pass to finish administering the six doses they had left. But a jack-knifed semi-trailer truck closed the highway for hours.
Realizing they wouldn’t make it back to home base to give the last six Moderna vaccines before they expired, they decided to create an ad hoc impromptu vaccine clinic right there on the snowbound highway.
Like the Pfizer version, Moderna’s COVID vaccine must be used within six hours after it comes to ambient temperature.
Even though they were accompanied by an ambulance which could manage any untoward reaction, it was still difficult to find six willing recipients. Partly because that area of Oregon is not pro-vaccine. (Josephine County voted for Trump 62% to 36%.) And no doubt anyone would be a bit dubious about a knock on your car window while stuck in a snowstorm asking if you’d like to get a shot.
Going car-to-car, it took the team 45 minutes to get their six “yeses”. And fittingly, the last person to get the last leftover vaccine was a woman who hadn’t made it on time to her appointment earlier that day because of the snow. A perfect ending!
So six lucky people got (as a six-y/o calls them) their “Fauci Ouchie” shots … al fresco!
While not receiving as much coverage as Amanda Norman’s well-deserved rendition of her “The Hill We Climb” poem, for a certain niche population (myself included) there was another special inclusive moment early in the Inaugural ceremonies.
When Georgia fire captain Andrea Hall (first ever African American female fire captain in Fulton County, GA), it was very personal. For the first time ever, the Pledge of Allegiance was both simultaneously spoken and signed. She did it as an homage to her late father, who was deaf.
Describing her use of sign language as a very intimate experience – like being able to speak another language – she said she had decided shortly after being asked to do it in ASL sign language.
“You’re between Lady Gaga and J. Lo. I mean, come on, that’s it. And I have like my little 15 seconds of something.” Hall said, “Those are too hard to be sandwiched between, so I need to put some meat between there, you know?”
At a time of such division — especially at a place like the Capitol, which is recovering from the January 6 insurrection — perhaps the words of the pledge say it all.
“It was written for little children who were immigrants,” Hall said. “And in some way, we’re all immigrants. You know, we’re a mishmash of people from all over. And I think that’s the significance of it. It’s a way to unify all of us by speaking those thirty -one words.”
A little dose of Schadenfreude at Donnie’s expense would also count as a “Feel Good” offering. And Lord knows Trump richly deserves it.
Jane Mayer, a reporter for “The New Yorker”, provides a video of the Trump Hotel in Washington – now BARREN and EMPTY! In fact it looks a lot like the lobby from Jack Nicholson’s movie, “The Shining”.
📍Trump Hotel, DC – Looks like they drained the swamp pic.twitter.com/dgDg3HxRbp
— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) January 27, 2021
I’m not an accountant, but I bet having NO occupants will have a negative impact on one’s cash-flow.
I know I’ve mentioned the Cathedral Arts Project Flower Festival at St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha. In the past I’ve gone most years, or at least every other year, with family and friends. It’s a wonderful daytrip for a unique experience.
Florists from the Omaha Metro are assigned different areas of the Cathedral (which is really quite beautiful) to decorate. And while you wait your turn to take the tour throughout the cathedral, there is music from different choirs, orchestras, organists, etc. (Obviously lost on me, but the others all love it.)
This year because of the pandemic, it’s going to be a virtual tour. So I thought you might enjoy taking a look online.
Typically the show runs from Friday through Sunday – but I’m not sure how long it will run online.
2020 Cathedral Flower Festival — Cathedral Arts Project
Saint Cecilia Flower Festival 2021 – Final on Vimeo