Assorted Stupidity #121
- "Do your wife and father-in-law know about your girlfriends?" U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz tweeted at Michael Cohen. "She's about to learn a lot"." Because he tweeted this the night before Cohen was scheduled to testify before Congress, and because Cohen was not planning to testify about any girlfriends, that sure seems like a threat intended to influence the testimony of a person in an official proceeding, according to virtually everyone except Matt Gaetz. Gaetz insisted it was not witness tampering but rather something called "witness testing." He did not explain this concept further.
- Astoundingly, given that Gaetz was informed last night that what he did is quite possibly illegal, and he semi-apologized and deleted the tweet, he then showed up this morning before the Oversight Committee hearing, though he is not a member of that committee, and stood where he could be seen by the witness. I guess further testing was needed.
- If Gaetz still doesn't know about 18 U.S.C. section 1512, he should at least know where to find it, because he's a lawyer. I learned this because of the report that the Florida Bar has opened an investigation into whether this violates the rules of ethics (if it violates the statute, it certainly would), which would be irrelevant unless the Bar had, at some point, granted him a license. (It has.)
- Meanwhile, in another country, a member of parliament has been forced to resign after admitting to stealing a sandwich from a local shop because he was mad that the staff was ignoring him. "He took responsibility for [stealing the sandwich] and resigned of his own accord," the leader of his party said, "in line with [our] high ethical standards."
- "All I remember is waking up on the floor under the table," said an Ohio lawyer who seems very unlikely to be responsible for the 47-year sentence his client got last week for charges of domestic abuse, aggravated arson, felonious assault, and cruelty to animals. His client obviously felt otherwise.
- The owners of a golf course in Norway are asking the public for help in unmasking whoever has been misusing the holes for the past decade.
- "Police believe that at around 10 a.m. [the suspect] had agreed to exchange pants with a man and, after not liking the pants he received, stabbed the man in the back." The alleged wrongdoer then tried to get better pants from Eddie Bauer (the store), but that didn't pan out, either.
- Update #1: The guy who shot his friend last August after the two argued about whether Halle Berry would play Aretha Franklin in an upcoming biopic (the right answer: "no," but we would also accept "please don't shoot me") was charged with four crimes as a result. The shootee was seriously injured, but survived. The shooter claimed the fight was not about Aretha Franklin, as witnesses had claimed, but he would not tell reporters what it was about. Unless something has changed very recently, his case is set for trial on March 1.
- Update #2: You will of course recall that the U.S. Government was hoping to auction off almost a ton of not-especially-fresh paddlefish meat. See "United States v. 1855.6 Pounds of American Paddlefish Meat" (Nov. 14, 2018) and "Update: The Paddlefish Defendants Are Now for Sale" (Jan. 28, 2019). No one bought it. (No one even bid.) What happens now? Excellent question. Maybe keep an eye on eBay?
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