Whipped Cream Difficulties

Obit watch: Linda Riss Pugach. You may not have heard of her, but she was at the center of one of the most sensational crimes of the 1950s. Miss Riss was 22 years old and was dating a married lawyer, Burton Pugach. He kept promising to get a divorce, she kept pressing him, he got fed up and hired people to throw lye in her face. Miss Riss was blinded. Mr. Pugach was charged, convicted and spent 14 years in prison.

But wait, there’s more! Mr. Pugach’s wife divorced him while he was in prison. After he got out in 1974, he married Miss Riss, and they remained married until she died. There was a documentary about the case in 2007, “Crazy Love“, that featured interviews with both Mr. and Mrs. Pugach; I have not seen it, but it is apparently available from Amazon for instant viewing.

Oh, look! The lying sack of shit Joe Manchin is starting to feel the heat!

As a hunter with an A rating from the National Rifle Association, Mr. Manchin gave advocates for new weapons laws reason for optimism after he said last month that gun firepower and magazine capacity might need to be limited.
But now, Mr. Manchin, who affirmed his support for gun rights by running a campaign commercial in 2010 showing him firing a rifle into an environmental bill, says he is not so sure. One of his local offices has been picketed, and even some of his most thoughtful supporters are cautioning him that stronger background checks are about all the gun control they can stomach.

More:

After talking with the group for nearly two hours, Mr. Manchin left the meeting saying he was not at all comfortable with supporting the assault weapons ban favored by many of his colleagues in Congress.

And it isn’t just Manchin:

Of far greater concern are Democrats who are up for re-election in 2014. Those include senators like Max Baucus of Montana, who was awarded an A+ rating from the N.R.A. Mr. Baucus has worded his comments on the subject carefully, bracketing them with gun rights-friendly language, like saying the “culture of violence” needs to be seriously examined along with any changes to the law.
There is Senator Mark Begich of Alaska, who has said flatly that he would not support a new assault weapons ban, and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, who initially came out in support of the ban but has been more circumspect recently, saying in an interview last week that he would want to see the language of any such legislation first.

Keep those cards and letters coming, folks. If you need help finding your senators and representatives, you’re welcome to email me.

Back in August, I noted the reversal of the murder convictions in the case of Baithe Diop. The other shoe in that case has dropped: three of the men, who had been convicted of murdering Denise Raymond and spent 17 years in prison, were released last night. Ms. Raymond was an executive with Federal Express: the prosecution’s original theory of the crime was that her murder and Mr. Diop’s were tied together. (The other two men in the case were convicted of Mr. Diop’s murder, and had their convictions overturned in August, but were not convicted in the Raymond murder.)

The N.C.A.A. said it uncovered evidence that its investigators contracted with a criminal defense lawyer for the booster at the center of the Miami case to obtain information they should not have been able to access. The N.C.A.A. had been examining allegations that the booster, Nevin Shapiro, gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, as well as other benefits, to dozens of Miami athletes.

Wow. When the NCAA president is calling the conduct of his own people “shocking” and “stunning”, yeah, there’s a problem.

As I have stated before, I Am Not A Lawyer. So perhaps there is a gap in my understanding. Let me see if someone can clarify it for me: on what authority does a judge order someone to stay out of an entire city?

[State Rep. Matt] Krause, one of the chamber’s more conservative freshmen, filed House Bill 627 to prevent federal gun regulations — such as expanded background checks and limits on magazine sizes, now under debate in Washington — from being enforced in Texas when a firearm is manufactured, sold and used within the state’s boundaries. If a gun never leaves Texas, it cannot be subject to federal interstate commerce laws, the bill says.

The Statesman suggests this bill may be unconstitutional. To which I say:

1. Tenth Amendment, mofos!
2. Oh, when we’re talking about guns, it’s unconstitutional and bad law. But when we’re talking about marijuana, all of the sudden, it’s okay for the states to have “medical marijuana” and “legalized marijuana”.

Can’t have it both ways, people.