Crazy salad

Students in other countries trying to understand how America works must be astonished at the mishmash of laws and law enforcement we take for granted.  In the UK, for instance, all the police are administered by the Home Office and the penalty for stealing a car in Liverpool is exactly the same as it is in Cardiff.  The US is more like fifty principalities waiting for a Bismarck to combine them into one country.  Factor in the wide latitude given to judges, and American justice becomes a combination coin-toss and blindfold darts.  As Robert Klein put it with mild exaggeration, "Smoke a joint in Texas and it's consecutive life sentences, no chance of parole or visitors.  Shoot somebody in Rhode Island, you can't watch television for a week." 

I thought of this when I read that Virginia became the first Southern state to abolish capital punishment.  But it was already on my mind as the story of 1/6 -- and we might as well start referring to this terrorist attack in the style of 9/11 -- continues to unfold.  The top story today concerns "QAnon Shaman" Jacob Chansley a/k/a Jake Angeli a/k/a Jack Sprat, whose lawyer says he lost twenty pounds from being denied organic food.  (Do they weigh prisoners every week?)  A judge in DC ordered that he get his free-range prunes or whatever is required by the religion Chansley made up.  Over in Texas, Jenny Cudd expected the judge to approve her four-day "retreat" in Mexico; instead, she and her friend Eliel Rosa were hit with new charges, all felonies, so maybe not.  (Hate the Mexicans, love their beaches.)  Riley June Williams, charged with stealing a laptop from the Speaker's office and trying to pass it to Russian intelligence, was released in the custody of her mother despite being an adult of 22, by an indulgent Pennsylvania judge.  

Where's Kyle Rittenhouse?  He was last seen downing beers in a Wisconsin bar, wearing a "Free As Fuck" shirt.  He's 18, but it's all right -- his mom was there along with some Proud Boys.  This is the same woman who drove him from Antioch, Illinois, to Kenosha last August to shoot three people, two of them fatally.  A Wisconsin judge set bail at $2 million, which he raised in November with help from Mike Lindell and others.  But mail to the address he gave the court is returned and even Mom says she doesn't know where he is.  It's not her money.  Parenting is hard work!  And Wisconsin judges seem unfamiliar with ankle-monitor technology.

A couple of Pennsylvania patriots called Mark Aungst and Tammy Bronsburg a/k/a Butry were ratted out apparently because they annoyed the other Trumpites on their chartered bus.  They kept everyone waiting and Aungst was "intoxicated."  One by one the dimes are dropping.

Remember Bill Price?  The Florida lawyer who gave people explicit instructions on how to register at his brother's address in Hiram, Georgia, so they could vote in the January Senate elections?  Yeah, he kind of got lost in the rush of events but he's still being investigated for election fraud.  He's a Republican, by the way.  He deleted the ratfucking seminar but Facebook never forgets.

Given the vagaries of law enforcement in the Theoretically United States it's anybody's guess how these and other cases will turn out.  Assassinate the mayor and a city supervisor in San Francisco, serve two years because the cupcakes made you do it.  Vote in Texas while on parole and you get more than twice as much time.  Robert Klein was joking, but he wasn't.