The Goat Pen

interesting read...

MADISON - The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked Democratic Gov. Tony Evers from issuing any new public health emergency orders to mandate face masks without the approval of the Republican-controlled state Legislature.

In a 4-3 decision, conservative justices in the majority declared the statewide mask mandate invalid and ruled Evers exceeded his authority in issuing multiple emergency declarations over the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Evers used the emergency orders to require face coverings be worn indoors statewide after lawmakers opted not to.

"The question in this case is not whether the Governor acted wisely; it is whether he acted lawfully. We conclude he did not," Justice Brian Hagedorn, writing for the conservative majority, said.

State law says governors may issue health emergencies for 60 days at which point the Legislature must approve an extension. Evers has argued he may issue new emergencies without their approval because the pandemic's threat has changed, similar to emergency declarations over separate flooding events in the same river.

Hagedorn said state law governing public health emergencies "must be read to forbid the governor from proclaiming repeated states of emergency for the same enabling condition absent legislative approval."

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, writing for the minority, said: "This is no run-of-the-mill case. We are in the midst of a worldwide pandemic ... with the stakes so high, the majority not only arrives at erroneous conclusions, but it also obscures the consequence of its decision."

Evers said in a statement his actions during the pandemic have aimed to "keep Wisconsinites healthy and safe, and I’ve trusted the science and public health experts to guide our decision making."

"Our fight against COVID-19 isn’t over — while we work to get folks vaccinated as quickly as we can, we know wearing a mask saves lives, and we still need Wisconsinites to mask up so we can beat this virus and bounce back from this pandemic," he said.

Senate Majority Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, said Evers' "repeated abuse of emergency powers and pervasive violation of state statute created a state of chaos and had to be stopped."

"Today’s ruling vindicates the Legislature as a co-equal branch of government and will expand freedom and opportunity for the people of Wisconsin," he said in a statement.

“If you just saw our Matt Gaetz interview, that was one of the weirdest interviews I have ever conducted,” Tucker told viewers of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” after the segment finished.

Gaetz appeared on the show hours after The New York Times first reported that the Department of Justice is investigating whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid her travel with him across state lines—a violation of sex trafficking laws....

The interview then veered into more personal territory, as Gaetz deemed the allegations an attempt to “smear” his name, appealing to Carlson that he should know the feeling as “I’m not the only person on screen right now who has been falsely accused of a terrible sex act.”

“You just referred to a mentally ill viewer who accused me of a sex crime 20 years ago,” responded Carlson.

Gaetz again pulled Carlson into the situation, saying that the two had gone to dinner “about two years ago” and Carlson had met a friend of his who had been “threatened by the FBI” and told “she could face trouble” if she didn’t confess to authorities that Gaetz was part of a “pay-for-play scheme.” “I don’t remember the woman you are speaking of or the context, at all,” said Carlson, who at multiple points in the interview said he could not understand what Gaetz was saying.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcev ... cdc4fc7530

hedge wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:29 pm “If you just saw our Matt Gaetz interview, that was one of the weirdest interviews I have ever conducted,” Tucker told viewers of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” after the segment finished.

Gaetz appeared on the show hours after The New York Times first reported that the Department of Justice is investigating whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid her travel with him across state lines—a violation of sex trafficking laws....

Lets say he did this. I'm not saying he did. Maybe the whole this is bullshit. But just for the sake of argument in this forum, lets say he did.

Okay if we are saying he did it and we are saying she consented (at age 17) and lets further say that he brought her over state lines to a state where the age of consent might have been as low as 16 (so not a state crime) would this be a federal issue with the Mann Act?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Act

In this time and age of #MeToo and #BelieveAllWomen and all of that, I think we tend to toss around terms like Sex Trafficking way too much. I'm not a lawyer. Hedge, if I remember correctly, you ARE a lawyer (but I'm not sure) but I think there is a real difference between transporting a girl over a state line (thus making it a federal issue) to have "legal consenting" sex with her based on nothing other than GEOGRAPHY vs transporting a girl over state lines to sell her ass to someone else. And if Matt wasn't so damn cryptic with Sean Hannity just now I might be believing that he was set up. But his argument was all over the place which makes him look suspicious.

"Hedge, if I remember correctly, you ARE a lawyer"

Not quite. I am a felon, though, who got popped with a federal charge for precisely this "crossing state lines" language which constitutes a federal crime. I agree that a consenting 17 year old female shouldn't be considered "sex trafficking," but if that's the law, and he did it, tough shit. I didn't think what I did should be a crime either, but guess what, I went to prison. If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for Gaetz...

hedge wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:54 pm "Hedge, if I remember correctly, you ARE a lawyer"

Not quite. I am a felon, though, who got popped with a federal charge for precisely this "crossing state lines" language which constitutes a federal crime. I agree that a consenting 17 year old female shouldn't be considered "sex trafficking," but if that's the law, and he did it, tough shit. I didn't think what I did should be a crime either, but guess what, I went to prison. If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for Gaetz...

Fair enough.

I didn't know what the fuck you guys were talking about until a few minutes ago. I still don't really know other than Gaetz is accused of some sex thing with a kid that is apparently just above the age of consent?

so reading up on it, apparently Gaetz father wore a wiretap for the FBI in an effort to capture on tape him being extorted? I'm not sure why the father was wearing the wire but it seems unrelated to the sexual thing with the 17 year old

also 3 unnamed sources from the FBI leaked this?

for the love of god, can we not have an FBI that is professional and just does their job without political headhunting? Why are they tight lipped on Hunter Biden but leaking this to the NY Times?

We are past due for a house cleaning of hundreds of government employees who disregard the standards of their job to take a stand politically, and stop talking about anyone.

Hunter. Heh.

I haven't been following the Chauvin case very much but I did read that the prosecution brought in an MMA fighter as an expert witness and he said he witnessed a murder as well and define what Chauvin did as a choke hold. I think if I was on the defense team I would have tried to nip that in the bud. They also brought in an emt who claims she offered to do CPR on Floyd, but she didn't indentify herself as an EMT and wasn't in uniform. She also was allowed to giver her opinion on the situation as an expert.

On the defense side they have a video that showed that Chauvin knee was actually on the shoulder blade of Floyd and not his neck - you guys can provide your own opinions on that but that was also supported by a police academy training video that showed Chauvin doing exactly as he was trained to subdue a suspect. Of course how long he held that suspect in that position is the issue.

The trial apparently is bringing out some clarity. This the narrative I had read, but its second hand and clearly bias against Floyd. I think the narrative is that Chauvin was high when in the store passing the counterfeit bill - and there is video evidence to support he was not acting as a coherent person in the store, he then returned to his car, unable to clearly function and sat in his car for some time - at least long enough for the police to be called and arrive. When the police approached the car he put drugs in his possession in his mouth in an effort to hide them when being searched (this is actually a pattern of behavior shown by a previous arrest but the judge will not allow that to be introduced into court), and due to the police interrogation taking so long while being placed in the back of the police SUV, the drugs started kicking in resulting in him spitting them out. Now he wants out of the police car for whatever reason, perhaps he knows he is about to go to jail, or they will see the drugs in the car, whatever, and the combination of his decision to become increasingly agitated in the car and the drugs kicking in resulted in his erratic behavior for which Chauvin eventually felt compelled to restrain him.

Now Floyd is restrained with a lethal amount of drugs in his system and he is apparently somewhat cognizant of it resulting in his declarations of I'm dying and pleading for help

This is key for the defense because they can claim that Floyd died of a drug overdose, not the restraint from Chauvin.

I think its going to be an uphill battle, but maybe the claim that Chauvin was following police procedures as documented in this case , regardless of the objections of Floyd and people around them could be a letter of the law sort of thing. I have mixed feelings about whether justice will be served, but I believe it will center around whether the police had an obligation to Floyd that overrides their concern for their and the public's safety. I know that's weak but it seems a pretty solid approach to the defense, especially now that the judge has allowed the jury to hear about the ingestion of drugs by Floyd

I just also read that the judge is not going to allow Floyd's state of mind and emotional pleas to be entered into evidence , which I think has to be a positive for the defense here. A man crying out for his mother as he is dying on the ground would definitely create sympathy from the jury.

I don't know that I'm up to speed on it but I've read 4 or 5 articles in the last 15 minutes or so.

Interesting theory I was on IC: "Murdoch probably ordered the code red since Gaetz was talking of going to Newsmax. They are trying to burn down one of Trump nation's favorites before he takes viewers away. If they can splash enough mud on him, newsmax won't hire."

I just read a headline that said Fox won't hire him so thats interesting. I didn't even know the guy wasn't a politician any more. Or was he ever, fuck I dont' know who the guy is.

I remember Ron Paul being in that situation

He would vote against spending bills but when they passed, he worked like hell to make sure his district was well represented in receiving funds.

He felt there was no hypocrisy on his part. I guess I agree.

hedge wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 9:06 am

If he was fucking a 17 year old girl, likely he needs to do a little time in prison.

If this is another UVa or Duke Lacrosse situation, likely we will not find out what her name is and this story will quietly go away.

But we are going to find out.

I suspect nobody in here is going to watch a Rachel Maddow segment, but here's one that gives some interesting backstory to the Gaetz fiasco. It starts with some dude who was elected as tax collector for Seminole County in Florida, and soon after he was elected he started hiring his buddies and buying law enforcement gear at an alarming rate. He started pulling people over and flashing a badge and he also (when he was arrested) was found to have a large number of fake ID's on him. He was buddies with Gaetz and there are photos of them together at the White House and also many mentions of Gaetz on this fool's twitter feed. He is currently in jail awaiting trial for (wait for it) trafficking in underage girls. Pretty sure the investigation of Gaetz is directly related to this guy. It's the video on the bottom under the title "The even weirder backstory behind the bizarre Gaetz sex trafficking investigation story." Pretty good reporting if you ask me...

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

no shortage of old guys trying to fuck 17 year old girls is it