Un-effing-believable:
A Texas woman who bragged in a Facebook live stream about storming the U.S. Capitol can vacation in Mexico later this month, a judge said Friday, as the defendant’s case expanded significantly with new federal charges.
Jenny Cudd’s attorney had asked the judge to let her travel this month to Riviera Maya on a four-day trip with employees of her flower shop — “a work-related bonding retreat for employees and their spouses,” attorney Farheena Siddiqui wrote in a motion, saying Cudd attended her scheduled court appearance and has stayed “in constant contact with her attorney.”
Noting that neither Cudd’s pretrial services officer nor the government opposed Cudd’s request for “pre-paid, work-related travel” Feb. 18 through Feb. 21, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden wrote that the defendant has no criminal history and said there is “no evidence before the Court suggesting the Defendant is a flight risk or poses a danger to others.” …
The new charges are more serious. The most significant, obstruction of an official proceeding, is a felony that falls under a section of federal law related to tampering with a witness, victim or informant. It carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and potential fines. [WaPo]
A willing, even eager participant in a riot that turned into an insurrection, as well as an avowed anti-masker who has therefore endangered public health, is permitted to take a planned working vacation because … why again?
Of course, there’s a flight risk. Given the evidence, the Court hasn’t thrown out the prosecution, suggesting it has a good chance of success. The defendant is accused of very serious charges, and more charges, including attempted assassination of members of Congress are quite possible.
And she’s not a flight risk?
And then there’s this pack of goofs:
The Supreme Court’s order late Friday night that California must allow churches to resume indoor worship services reveals a conservative majority that’s determined to guard religious rights and is more than willing to second-guess state health officials, even during a pandemic.
Under restrictions imposed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), almost all of the state was under an order to ban indoor religious services as officials battle the raging coronavirus pandemic. It is the nation’s most severe restriction, and the court said in an unsigned opinion that it violates the Constitution.
Instead, the justices imposed their own rule: The state must allow indoor services but may limit attendance at 25 percent capacity. The court left in place — for now — a ban on singing and chanting at those events, activities the state said were particularly risky for spreading the coronavirus. [WaPo]
Does SCOTUS have the public health expertise to make these sorts of judgments?
No.
On the other hand, the state of California has the expertise and the data to make these judgments. You can see SCOTUS‘ uneasy acknowledgment of this fact: The court left in place — for now — a ban on singing and chanting at those events, activities the state said were particularly risky for spreading the coronavirus.
Once again, we have fact-free reasoning – the equivalent of mental masturbation, and about as productive – of Neil Gorsuch, IJ[1], who wrote
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, writing for himself and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., said the court last fall made it clear that states may not enact looser regulations for businesses and other activities than for houses of worship.
But “once more, we appear to have a state playing favorites during a pandemic, expending considerable effort to protect lucrative industries (casinos in Nevada; movie studios in California) while denying similar largesse to its faithful,” Gorsuch wrote.
He added: “If Hollywood may host a studio audience or film a singing competition while not a single soul may enter California’s churches, synagogues, and mosques, something has gone seriously awry.” …
The decision came in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom.
I keep waiting for pews to appear in my local grocery store or slaughterhouse, where the faithful cluster together and yet, somehow, don’t become super-spreader events.
Look: Gorsuch’s words are not the words of a considered legal opinion. It’s the words of a carefully trained, paranoid theocrat-wannabe, who is convinced the State Executives are replete with atheists, agnostics, and members of various non-standard sects who are using the pandemic to diminish the influence of the properly religious.
Given the facts on the side of his perceived persecutors, he’s not going to win this article on rhetorical points. No, he’s going to win this argument using the sheer power of sitting on SCOTUS. And that is quite shameful.
