We just finished the first full week of April and the weather authority is telling us we’ve got another booger of a storm coming to the Deep South. We here at Enon Holler World Headquarters are under a severe thunderstorm warning until tomorrow, the fifth one in four weeks, and some parts of Arkansas are seeing ping pong-sized hail. The weather folks are calling it a possible “derecho,” which seems to be a straight line of storms with hurricane-force winds. Lovely. Stay safe and keep an eye on the weather if you’re in the line of fire, neighbors.
Okay, the news, let’s get to it. Again, I find Florida Representative Matt Gaetz distasteful enough without having to wade in this sordid sex scandal he’s found himself in, but events force my hand. He’s now being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for paying from the Bahamas women to travel to the U.S. for sex. He’s also accused of trafficking a seventeen-year-old girl, which would be statutory rape.
This comes on the heels of news that his wingman in such escapades, one Joel Greenberg, is close to testifying about his dealings with the Distinguished Asshole from Florida. Greenberg, a former tax collector, apparently used the internet to search for soiled doves, even leaving records of such in his Venmo account. Bright lad, here.
The investigation has also pulled in New York Representative Tom Reed. This guy came to people’s attention after being accused by a lobbyist of fondling her at a campaign event back in 2017. He owned up to it and had said he wouldn’t run for re-election, but apparently, he’s got a whole new mess to worry about. Furthermore, the scuttlebutt around Washington is more Congress critters might be tied up in all this, as Gaetz was prone to showing pictures of his conquest on the House floor.
He’s lawyered up with attorneys that represented Trump on tax evasion charges, former Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher (the guy booted from the Navy for being a bastard that Trump pardoned), people who were caught up in Robert Mueller’s initial probe, and a former New York Attorney General accused of sexually assaulting women. So, good luck there. Word going around that this will most likely go to trial, so get ready to hear way more than you ever wanted to know about Gaetz’s “Oh-face.”
Speaking of court, the second week of fired Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin’s trial on multiple counts of murder is in its second week. Accused last summer of causing the death of George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for almost 10 minutes, Chauvin is still being interrogated by the prosecution, and, to my untrained eye, it’s not going well for him. The defense is trying to argue that Floyd’s health problems and drug use caused his death at the exact moment Chauvin put his full weight on Floyd’s neck, coincidentally enough. This is being refuted by a number of medical experts, including the coroner that worked the case.
Pre-existing conditions certainly didn’t help, they say, but the main cause was Chauvin putting all his weight on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and twenty seconds. Furthermore – and this is the really interesting part – fellow law enforcement officials, current and retired, are testifying that Chauvin used excessive, unnecessary force in restraining Floyd, including kneeling on his neck for nearly five minutes after he died.
One doesn’t want to get ahead of oneself and say this could represent a major shift in the problems many Americans are having with the police. The “thin blue line” where cops button up to protect their own and “qualified immunity” saving them from prosecution more often than not has stuck in the nation’s craw something fierce lately. Good news on that front, as New Mexico’s Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill making it easier for citizens to sue all governmental agencies that violate their civil rights. This essentially dumps qualified immunity when protecting police against brutality charges, so good job there. The Land of Enchantment joins Colorado in removing qualified immunity as a defense and Connecticut passed a law last year severely curbing the defense, rendering it almost toothless.
On a personal note, New Mexico is lovely and the people are very nice. Also, the legislature voted to legalize recreational marijuana earlier this month. It’s still waiting on Governor Grisham’s signature to make it a law, and most reports are saying she’s amiable to the idea. Regardless, New Mexico is very lovely and the people are extremely nice, so go visit.
Dear Y'all 