Thursday Open Thread

13 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

1. September 2, 1901: Speaking at the Minnesota State Fair, U.S Vice President Teddy Roosevelt utters one of his most famous lines for the first time: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

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   1. Still, a great MO.

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2. The front page of todays’ Grand Junction Daily Sentinel is a doozy. Will someone smarter than me post the link…or a screenshot even… Thanks.

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   1. 

      To avoid being arrested and spending a night in jail, Mesa County Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley turned herself in to the Mesa County District Court on Wednesday and was advised of charges of felony burglary and misdemeanor cyber crimes against her in relation to a personnel matter and ongoing investigations of her and her boss, Clerk Tina Peters.

      As a result, the court ordered the 66-year-old Knisley not to enter the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder’s Office at a time when local, state and federal criminal investigations are ongoing into possible felony charges for breaching election security, according to her arrest warrant that initially was to be executed last week.

      The charges are independent of those criminal investigations that are focused on her, Peters and others by the Mesa County District Attorney’s Office, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

      Full story at https://coloradosun.com/2021/09/01/mesa-deputy-clerk-knisley-charges/

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      1. PewPew removing her name from the LLC bribery scheme as a pathway to exoneration? Is her legal team led by Fletcher Reede?

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         1. When I read about her "erasure" from the LLC, I was wondering about the legal AND communication advice being given to her.  If I didn't know better, I'd think she was using the well-known and Car Talk endorsed firm of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe.

            Then I wondered about her deciding support well-known legal eagle Rudy Giuliani — but he's probably busy with his career on Cameo and hoping there will be an offer for his next film role.

            So, can someone up in her District let us know who is advising her?  Or I guess we could assume she's bound by an NDA signed in order to get someone/s advice????

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      2. The "voter-fraud believers" of Mesa County (and the ivermectin users all over the country, the Trumpsters who anxiously awaited his reinstatement in August, the climate change deniers, etc, etc) need a 2008 John McCain moment – "no, ma'am, no, ma'am."

         If we can't get what's left of sanity in this country pulled together to determine who governs and how we're governed, we're in deep trouble. 

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         1. I like Queen Elizabeth II. But she is so old and divinely chosen and there is that whole third great-grandfather George III thing. 

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   2. The front page is a doozy but I have to ask – why hasn't a reporter asked Janet Rowland if she regrets her support for Tina in the Republican Primary?  For that matter if she regrets her very active support for Lauren Q-bert?  Janet is skating free and inquiring minds want to know.

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      1. Janet Rowland has always been given a large berth when it comes to stuff. Remember her infamous rant about beastiality back in 2006?

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3. WTFF ????!!???? . . . 

   McCarthy Threatens Technology Firms That Comply With Riot Inquiry

   The top House Republican said his party would retaliate against any company that cooperated with an order to preserve the phone and social media records of G.O.P. lawmakers.

   https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/us/politics/mccarthy-capitol-riot.html

   . . . Kevvy musta’ found hisself a MAGA supply of Adderall-and-Propecia-laced orange-aid somewhere ???

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   1. (not that anyone would actually use the law to rein in MyQevin™)

      

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4. WOTD from Ian Millhiser at VOX: “The staggering implications of the Supreme Court’s Texas anti-abortion ruling“

   Great legal analysis of the Supreme Court shadow docket ruling on the Texas law banning abortions.

   The law normally prevents situations like this by allowing a party who faces an imminent risk of legal harm to sue to block a law before it is brought to bear against them. But, of course, SB 8 was drafted to frustrate such lawsuits. And the Supreme Court has now endorsed Texas’s effort to frustrate a pre-enforcement lawsuit.

   …

   we are long past the point where the Court avoids resolving difficult legal questions in shadow docket orders. During the pandemic, the Court handed down a pair of shadow docket decisions that completely revolutionized its approach to “religious liberty” cases, severely limiting a seminal Supreme Court precedent in the process.

   Similarly, the Supreme Court on August 24 ignored decades of prior decisions warning that judges should be very cautious about interfering with American foreign policy, effectively ordering the Biden administration to open diplomatic negotiations with Mexico to reinstate a Trump-era immigration policy that the new administration tried to end. This decision was also handed down on the shadow docket.

   The Roberts Court, in other words, is perfectly willing to make sweeping legal pronouncements in shadow docket orders when conservative litigants ask them to do so. But now that a group of litigants who are hated by conservatives asked the justices to hand down a similar order, the five most conservative justices insist upon judicial modesty.

   …

   Imagine, for example, that New York passed a law permitting “any person” to sue gun owners and collect a $10,000 bounty from those gun owners. Or, for that matter, imagine if a state allowed anyone to file a lawsuit against Justice Samuel Alito, seeking a $10,000 bounty every time Alito used the word “the.”

   Does anyone think this Supreme Court would rule that a law authorizing thousands of harassment suits against gun owners is compatible with the Second Amendment? Or that it would force those gun owners to hire lawyers and litigate a seemingly endless stream of lawsuits to avoid paying a bounty?

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