The Stella awards are given for the year's most interesting verdicts in lawsuits.
SEVENTH PLACE
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
We have a major problem with police beating civilians to death. There is a simple way to stop all that. Instead of hiring tough guys to be police, hire people who do not want to beat or shoot others. New Zealand did that, and police brutality came to a quick end.
Do not hire brutal people to police us.
Jack de Selby noted that our newly elected leadership in the House of Representatives maintains that life begins at conception. In that case, when you were born, you were roughly 9 months old. I am a year older than I thought.
But the Constitution, as amended, states that people become citizens at birth. For roughly nine months Kevon McCarthy was an illegal immigrant in Bakersfield without papers. Later he sold sandwiches in the back of a yoghurt shop owned by a relative.
The Supreme Court justices recently had themselves investigated by an employee. The Court wanted not to find out that Samuel Alito had leaked his balmy decision to cancel Roe. As you know, the investigation succeeded.
If I am suspected of a crime, I would like to be investigated by my employee. I don't have an employee at the moment, but I will hire one if needed.
I saw Assemblyman Vince Fong of Bakersfield on TV. He said that under Democrats, "everything is going wrong." And that's how I'd feel if I lived in Bakersfield.
I once found myself standing about twenty feet from Martin Luther King, Jr. He was talking to a small group of UCLA students, and I joined them. At other times--I was an unremarkable working class student--I shook hands with JFK and voted for Robert Kennedy in the California primary. The murders of these three leaders changed the direction of the decades that followed, the years of Reagan, Clinton, Bush and tRump.
Two women have stepped up to run for Dianne Feinstein's senate seat in two years. Barbara Lee of Berkeley has been a strong progressive leader. Katie Porter, a representative from Orange County, is used to tough races. They will likely have competition, perhaps from Adam Schiff and Ro Khanna, two excellent choices, it seems to me.
To run for senate in California, a candidate will need to raise around 20 million dollars or more.
Any of the four will make a first-rate senator. People will wait to hear what they have to say. My first reaction is that Katie Porter works at the next level. She's more than competent. My guess is that two Democrats will make it through the jungle primary and then face off in the general election.
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The Missouri Republican super-majority leaders, rural stakeholders and morons, seem intent on clarifying the dress code for women elected to the state legislature. Basically they want female representatives to cover their arms "to show respect." For what is worse in Missouri than a disrespectful woman?
When it comes to specific coverings, Repubs are willing to compromise and call cardigan sweaters "jackets," as long as they hide the skin.
Cardigans are not jackets--that is a lie.
Respect is something one earns by telling the truth and so on. You don't get respect by putting on thicker clothing. That's why I suspect a hidden motive, probably the likelihood that if male Missouri Repubs glimpse a woman's bare arm, they will fly into a form of madness much like that of rutting elks. They will butt heads, pee on each other, kick out, etc.
Also women's ankles remain a major danger. Rumors of a new requirement that women wear knee boots or waterproof leg gaiters with crampons and mesh stockings have reached the press.
The Missouri ban on covid masks remains in effect.
Elie Mystal has suggested that Attorney General Garland appoint a special counsel to run the Department of Justice--Garland himself is fair but useless. I remember when Attorneys General did things, and Mystal is right. Garland functions as a superfluous, neutral appendix to the department.
Like Comey of the FBI, Garland seems determined to act out how unbiased he is. Bends over backwards. If he had to choose between Grant and Lee, Garland would appoint Jefferson Davis as special counsel, so no one could think him unfair.
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