She caught the Katy, left me a mule to ride...
For today's Dear ShitFerBrains, we are delighted to bring you a couple of fine old-timey emails, one of which called us all sorts of names but which actually turned out to be, to our surprise, correct! The other one was just kind of goofy.
Subway's Jared lost a lot of weight, gained a lot of prison time, and lost an appeal. These yo-yo diets can't be healthy.
Here, since you're too fucking stupid to actually read the filing, I have the single sentence where the word "sovereign" was used:*The Supreme Court offers more guidance on the issue of the
sovereign party’s ability to exercise authority: “But whether a
judicial judgment is lawful depends on whether the sovereign has
authority to render it.” (180 LED 2D 765, 564 873 McUbtrye Ltd. v.
NICASTRO)*
That's it, the pedo did not claim to be a sovereign citizen, the Judge got it wrong and here Wonkette is spreading the fake news like a common fucking Republican.
What the what? We're a bunch of Republicans, and Jared Fogle is NOT a sovereign citizen? We had to admit, that sounded like something we'd better at least try to debunk, because virtually everyone was reporting that Fogle had filed a sovereign citizen motion, had it denied, and had a good laugh over it. We started by looking up the case cited, "McUbtrye Ltd. v. NICASTRO" which turned out to be a typo for "McIntyre v. Nicastro," a case in which the Supremes ruled a product liability case couldn't be brought against a British company in a New Jersey court, because legal stuff that isn't important to this post.
That was a dead end, so we went looking for Fogle's actual filing, because darned if we're too fucking stupid to read it. Here's the thing: The two-page ruling by District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt, dismissing Fogles's case, is all over the web, but it takes a bit of looking to find Fogle's actual weirdass filing, which was written by a jailhouse lawyer. We finally found it at The Underground Bunker, a blog mostly dedicated to chronicling and debunking Scientology weirdassery, by Tony Ortega, former editor of the Village Voice and RawStory.
Son of a gun, it looks like "NarCONonFraud" was right! You see, Frank Pate, the jailhouse lawyer who helped Fogle with his appeal, is also a crazy "Independent Scientologist" convicted of fraud, so that's why Ortega knew the name. And after looking closely at the document filed by Pate on Fogle's behalf, Ortega concludes that Judge Pratt blew it here:
Pate may be full of shit, but what he’s arguing is that Fogle shouldn’t have been subject to federal charges for what were admittedly horrific crimes.
As our correspondent "NarCONonFraud" notes, the only appearance of the word "sovereign is in the passage above (the "McUbtrye" typo is Pate's), and in context, it's fairly clear Pate isn't referring to Fogle as a "sovereign" citizen, but rather, that "the sovereign party" is the U.S. government, which Pate argues somehow shouldn't have jurisdiction in the case. In denying the motion, Judge Pratt appears to have jumped to the conclusion that because a jailhouse lawyer's sloppy filing included the word "sovereign," then Fogle was claiming to be a sovereign citizen. But as Ortega notes, the rest of the filing doesn't actually look like the usual SovCit combination of pseudo-legalese and word magic:
Sure, it reads like a jailhouse lawyer filing, and it’s a bit pompous, and it may be completely full of shit, trying to get a disgusting sexual predator off on a technicality, but it really isn’t a sovereign citizen document, and we’re surprised the judge and the Courthouse News read it that way.That said, we’re very happy that Fogle and Pate are doing time, and we’d like to see them stay right where they are.
So congratulations, "NarCONonFraud," you appear to be correct, and Judge Pratt appears to have rejected Pate's motion for the wrong reason. She probably should have rejected it because the jurisdictional argument is crap and the Supreme Court case was only about product liability involving a foreign company, not child porn. We'll update our post with a prominent link to today's Dear ShitFerBrains, because while it would certainly be funnier to think the former Subway dude had gone SovCit on us, it really looks like he hasn't after all, sadface :( . And while it's doubtful the real arguments in the filing would get Jared sprung, the filing should have been tossed on its own dubious claims, not a specious claim Fogle never made. We've learned an important lesson in journamalism: read the original documents whenever you can, you fucking cunt.
Now, about that "like a common fucking Republican" slur...
Our other deleted email came to the Wonkette Tipline, and isn't related to any particular thing we published; it's just some amusing spam from some guy -- also named Tony!!!! -- who sends us Rightwing Jesus stuff from time to time, with subject lines like "THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS PURE EVIL AND MUST BE ABOLISHED!" and "ARREST BARACK OBAMA FOR HIGH TREASON AGAINST US AMERICAN CITIZENS!" and the rare non-capslocked "All the Evidence Barack Obama Might Actually Be a Demon" -- apparently "Tony" didn't read the GQ piece with that headline, which is all sarcastic and stuff.
In any case, "Tony" was kind enough to include us in the list of recipients for this message of love and hope with the subject line "TO ALL IN THE VIOLENT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD..............." which really did have fifteen periods in it. It was sent to an impressive list of recipients!
to AMERICA, GOD, God, Jesus, Soldier, Christians, Abortion, Democrats, Ministers, Obama, Obama, Sean, Tammy, Pray, Atheists, Christians, Democrats, Wonkette Tips
How did "Tony" get GOD's email address? Does God in lowercase have a separate one, like for non-business mail? And why is only one soldier getting this email? Darned if we know. But here is your vital missive, all of you, from "Tony":
TO ALL IN THE VIOLENT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO MURDER, ATTACK INNOCENT PEOPLE, RAPE WOMEN AND BOYS, STARVE PEOPLE, LIKE THE ROCKET MAN IN NORTH KOREA, JUST REMEMBER ONE MAJOR ITEM.JESUS CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD, DID NOT LIKE VIOLENCE OR CRUELTY!
That important message is followed by this beautiful art picture, in which Jesus appears to be wearing flesh-tone spandex bike shorts under his loincloth:
Please, Lord... Give the rich a tax break.
Now knock it off with all the violence, or Tony's going to have to photoshop YOU into his impressive pictures of Barack Obama awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to people he never awarded it to:
[subject:] I JUST KNEW THAT OBAMA GAVE A SEXUAL PREDATOR AWARDS OUT!to: Democrats, Abolish, Everyday, Wonkette Tips
We suppose God may have said something about not lying with fake Photoshops, but a good Jesus fan like "Tony" knows that abolishing Democrats Everyday is a mission that may need the occasional nudge now and then.
And finally, a bit of Comment Moderation bookkeeping regarding a weird Disqus glitch that has popped up -- literally! -- for quite a few folks who have sent us worried emails. For reasons we can't begin to fathom, Disqus is popping up what looks like a notice that you've been banned, when in fact you have not. When you start typing a comment, you may get a notice that looks like this:
Yes, I've gotten that and so has Yr Editrix! But here's the good news: for most people who see that, they're not actually banned and there's no need to ask us to "fix" it. Just type your comment and click the "Post as YourNameHere" button, and you should be in fine shape. If you were actually banned, you would be unable to post, and instead of your comment showing, you'd see nothing but the text box with your attempted comment, and the same "you are banned" message. I'm banned at Gateway Pundit, for some reason, and here's what I get when I try to comment there:
So don't worry if you get the "you have been banned by Wonkette" message the moment you start typing. No need to contact us unless you click "Post" and your message still doesn't appear -- then we'll see what's up. Please do not panic.
