Please Tell Curmie This Is the Worst Case of Police and Prosecutorial Overreach This Year. Please.

 

Seriously, posting this is what generated a felony charge.

You will recall, Gentle Reader, that in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there was a flood of backlash against anyone who dared to suggest on social media that the late Mr. Kirk might not have been the Second Coming.  Curmie wrote specifically about Darren V. Michael, who was fired by Austin Peay State University for having the temerity to point out the irony that someone who proclaimed that “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment” should himself be the victim of gun violence.  There were plenty of other cases, as well, of course, but punishing a tenured theatre prof who sometimes says things that administrators don’t like sorta resonated at Chez Curmie.

Curmie, a retired tenured theatre prof did, after all, write that he “is not ‘celebrating’ the death of Kirk, although he does believe the world to be a better place without his racism, misogyny, trans- and homophobia, Christian nationalism, mendacity, and general assholitude.”  That comment might have gotten him in big trouble had he been employed at a state university in a red state at the time. 

Anyway, revenons à nos moutons… APSU officials backed down, a little, when it became clear that their action was not within hailing distance of due process.  Michael’s termination was changed to a suspension; Curmie has been unable to find any more details.  He did learn that a substantial majority of Faculty Senators voted “no confidence” in the university president, Mike Licari.  The motion “failed” because the vote was 23-12; a two-thirds majority is required for such resolutions.  Curmie is well aware that such votes have only symbolic significance, anyway: the Faculty Senate, Chairs Council, Deans Council, and Staff Council at Curmie’s former employer all voted “no confidence” in a president unanimously, and the Regents kept him around… until they let him go a few months later with a fat buyout and a promise to totally lie say good things about him to prospective employers. 

As it happens, however, Mike Licari isn’t the biggest freaking idiot in Tennessee, and Darren Michael’s suspension isn’t even close to the harshest and most illegitimate punishment for obviously protected speech.  Curmie only found out a couple days ago about the case of Larry Bushart, a retired police officer (!) who was incarcerated for 37 days with a $2,000,000 bond for posting a meme.  Yes, really.

The specifics: Bushart, who posts a lot of memes, some of them in rather poor taste, posted one to a message thread about a vigil for Charlie Kirk of then-candidate Trump saying, a day after a school shooting in Iowa, that “We have to get over it.”  Bushart, who was as unimpressed as Curmie was of the orgiastic keening over Charlie Kirk, appended a note: “This seems relevant today…” (That’s the post at the top of this page.) Bushart’s son notes the obvious: that his father was pointing out “the hypocrisy in honoring Charlie Kirk while ignoring other tragic incidents of mass violence.”  That can get you arrested in Tennessee, of course.  Sixth-graders are expendable, after all.  Sleazy millionaire podcasters are important!  The official charge was Felony Insufficient Sycophancy “Threatening Mass Violence at a School.” 

That’s a result of an overbroad law that only grandstanding Republicans could support.  Children’s advocates opposed the legislation.  The ACLU argued that “This legislation is worded so broadly that it could potentially criminalize a wide range of adults and children who do not have any intent of actually causing harm or making a threat -- people who are actually just exercising their constitutionally-protected right to free speech.”  But this is Tennessee; of course, this inanity became law.

So… this case…  You see, Gentle Reader, in what passes for a brain in Sheriff Nick Weems (what a delightfully Dickensian name for this buffoon!) and Sheriff’s Investigator Jason Morrow, “This was a means of communication, via picture, posted to a Perry County, TN Facebook page in which a reasonable person would conclude could lead to serious bodily injury, or death of multiple people.”  Uh, no.  No reasonable person would conclude that.  

The good news is that there are, apparently, precisely zero people in the community who interpreted the meme the way these bozos did.  Indeed, as Liliana Segura writes for The Intercept article linked above, “there were no public signs of this hysteria. Nor was there much evidence of an investigation — or any efforts to warn county schools.”  FIRE requested the school district for any communications pertaining to the case, including the terms “shooting,” “threat,” and “meme.”  The response: no records.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch. 

The most succinct encapsulation was this, from a local resident commenting on the story on radio station WOPC’s page: “A man is in jail because the sheriff didn’t use google.”  Weems was still trying to spin it that Bushart created “mass hysteria to parents and teachers,” and did so intentionally.  That makes the sheriff both an incompetent idiot and a liar.  Curmie awaits Donald Trump’s appointment of Weems to a high-level position in the FBI, ICE, or ATF.  He has all the credentials that seem relevant to Dear Leader, after all.

OK, two things in the category of “the best Curmie can do to excuse this idiocy”: 1). Mr. Bushart is, at least at times, a self-described “asshole.”  2). The meme references “Perry High School”; one of the local schools is Perry County High School.  You will note, however, Gentle Reader, that as even the arresting officer declares, assholitude “is not illegal,” absent legitimate threats of violence or similar intentions of criminality.  And the high school referred to in the meme is, as noted above, not in Tennessee, but in Iowa.  Bushart’s comment makes it clear that he was referencing that event from over a year earlier.

OK, Curmie’s distaste for Charlie Kirk is evident.  That doesn’t mean that his murder was anything but abhorrent, or that those who idolized him and mourned his loss publicly shouldn’t be allowed to do so.  But posting a meme shouldn’t get you fired, and it sure as hell shouldn’t get you arrested.  What’s worse, of course, is the active collusion of multiple figures in the (in)justice system.  True, Nick Weems would come in third in a battle of wits with a broken stapler and a corn dog.  Hell, he’d even lose to Mike Licari.  

But there’s also an unnamed prosecutor who not only didn’t laugh in Weems’s face but actually requested a delayed hearing in response to Bushart’s lawyer’s reasonable claim that bail of $2 million for a nothingburger case like this might be un peu de trop.  And there’s General Sessions Judge Katerina Moore, who granted that request.  Someone should have stopped this absurdity before it embarrassed everyone involved.  They didn’t, at least until the coverage went viral.

This case is so ridiculous, it’s almost inevitable that FIRE got involved.  Charges against Bushart have now been dropped, but that’s clearly not enough.  He lost his post-retirement job, was confined for over five weeks on an absurd charge because bail was set at a level no normal person could afford,  and missed the birth of his granddaughter.  He’s going to sue, with FIRE’s assistance, and he’s going to collect.  Bigly.  

Chris Eargle, who created the “Justice for Larry Bushart” Facebook page, posted on the “Re-Elect Weems for Sheriff” page, “Unwise persecution of people for their political views will cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.  He should never be allowed near public office again.”  He’s right, of course, on both counts.  If only the problem were limited to one boneheaded sheriff in a jerkwater county in Tennessee…

Updates, Revisions, and Reconsiderations

Today, we’re re-visiting and updating a few stories Curmie has posted this calendar year.  The First Felon’s antics are too predictably heinous to bother to mention, but his minions are still fair game.

Pete Hegseth.  Back in January, Curmie wrote that “The reason not to confirm Hegseth is that he is spectacularly unqualified for the job.  It’s not all the negatives; it’s the utter absence of any positives.”  Curmie stands by that statement; certainly any competent President, even one stupid enough to have appointed him to begin with, would have fired his ass after the Enola Gay kerfuffle and especially that Signal chat business.  Still, the fact that he remains the perfect storm of arrogance and stupidity seems pretty relevant, too.

The Cortland Standard.  Back in March, Curmie mourned the demise of the daily newspaper in the small city where he went to high school.  A couple months later, on Curmie’s anniversary, as it happens, came the story that the paper had been bought out of bankruptcy and would be back in business on a Tuesday through Saturday schedule, effective May 17.  This matters little to the overwhelming majority of readers of this blog, but it may portend a trend… we can hope.

Sarah Inama.  March was also when Curmie wrote about Ms. Inama, an Idaho middle school teacher who ran afoul of racist morons school administrators for a poster that proclaimed “Everyone is welcome here.”  Yes, really.  She is now in a new district, where administrators rejected the “guidance” of the state Censor in Chief Attorney General, who asserted the poster was political and therefore prohibited; instead, they declared in a memo sent to all staff that “‘Everyone is Welcome Here’ is the law.  It is not a political statement.”  We’ll see how this all plays out.

Melissa Calhoun.  Ms. Calhoun is believed to be the first Florida teacher fired for referring to a student by their preferred name without explicit parental permission.  Curmie described her case, up to that point, in April.  She was, indeed, de facto fired for the offense of having some respect for a student.  She claims she knew the student before the stupid law went into effect and used the offending appellation out of habit, “an unfortunate oversight.”  This may or may not be true, of course.  Over the summer, there seemed to have been a settlement by which Calhoun could keep her teaching credentials for a year of probation, but the district won’t rehire her or even allow her to volunteer for this academic year.  Calhoun is apparently looking for work outside education, and there is speculation that a lawsuit may be forthcoming.

Kilmar Abrego-Garcia.  It’s unlikely we’ll ever get to the truth about what crimes KA-G may or may not have committed years ago.  As Curmie wrote in April, the first round of this ever-evolving brouhaha was about due process, period, the end.  The feds didn’t have a case, but they sent him off to a Salvadorean gulag, anyway.  The Trump administration then dawdled when SCOTUS unanimously demanded his return.  He did eventually arrive back in the US, but was almost immediately under investigation related to that traffic stop in Tennessee in 2022. 

We’re now hearing the feds claim that he was smuggling illegal aliens because he was in MS-13.  Previous attempts to show such gang membership have been laughably inept, but now there are “co-conspirators” ready to testify against him… in exchange for something, no doubt.  Anyway, now the government wants to send him off to Liberia, of all places.  And right now.  Don’t ask why, Gentle Reader, you probably don’t want to try to track the tortured logic.  The chances are pretty good that literally everyone involved in this case on either side has told at least one egregious lie.  But once again, due process is the issue. 

Boy My Greatness.  Back in September, Curmie wrote about the suppression of a student-directed production of Zoe Senese-Grossberg’s play at the University of Central Oklahoma.  The university decided to blame the utterly unwarranted censorship on the theatre department.  Curmie commented, “Gentle Reader, if you believe the decision was de facto made by the theatre department, Curmie has some ocean-front property in Kansas he’s willing to sell to you for cheap.”  No, this level of stupidity could only be perpetrated by administrators. 

UCO juniors Maggie Lawson and Liberty Welch might have been a little staggered by the abrupt (and stupid) cancellation of their play on campus, but it didn’t take them long to recover.  They told their cast that they had the option to leave because trying to produce it on their own was going to be more complicated than a production at school.  Curmie, with decades of experience in such matters, knew exactly what the response would be: “rock on, we want to do it.”

The company started a GoFundMe, hoping for $2000 but expecting “like, $200 and, like, a high five. Like, ‘you go girls!’”  They brought in just short of $10,000.  And they found a venue.  And they opened their show on October 23, two weeks after they were originally scheduled to go up at OCU.  Word is, it went well.  Of course it did.  Those extra barriers just added another layer of incentive.  Curmie is proud of those students, even if he does hope they’ll get the hell out of Oklahoma so they won’t need to go through this crap every time they want to do something more controversial than Harvey or You Can’t Take It with You.

Scams and Things That Smell Like Scams.  Curmie wrote in particular about the barrage of letters pretending to be from an insurance company with which Curmie was already affiliated (they weren’t, of course), and an ad for the UpSide app with an absurdly exaggerated claim.  Well, Curmie heard that same UpSide ad just a couple of days ago, and yes, they’re still making shit up.  He also got another scammy letter about his car insurance… and last week one about his homeowner’s insurance.  At least they’re branching out?

But the commercials for various gambling apps and “you must act now” crap aimed at folks on Medicare are getting annoyingly ubiquitous.  Back in the days when there was a functioning Consumer Protection Bureau, there’d be a chance to get the objectively false claims off the air.  The Trump administration is taking notes for their own next scam.

The Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.  The good news is that none of the nine universities contacted by the DOE signed on to that absurd document.  Seven, including Curmie’s undergraduate alma mater, rejected it outright; the other two supplied comments but didn’t agree to the terms.  Another trio of universities, including Curmie’s doctoral alma mater, were contacted after the first nine schools had made their decisions.  Exactly how specific things got is unclear—university officials say they were not asked to sign the document, but made it clear they wouldn’t do so, anyway.  It remains to be seen if the Trump administration is willing to listen to what university leaders are saying or if they’ll keep up the blustering and bullying tactics.

The Short-Lived Truce in Palestine.  Last month, Curmie credited Donald Trump for his efforts in bringing about a ceasefire and prisoner exchange in the Mideast.  He did warn that “There is too much animosity, too much destruction, too much history, to be overly optimistic.”  Sometimes Curmie hates being right.  The peace lasted less than a week, , and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of optimism for the future, although we can but hope that Trump and others will keep trying.  At least the hostages on both sides were released…

New topic next time!

Cynthia Erivo Does What “Security” Doesn’t

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo arrive at the
“Yellow Carpet” in Singapore

Curmie is behind, to say the least, in pretty much all things Pop Culture, and frankly isn’t much concerned about that failing.  Maybe it’s the “re-retiring,” this time almost certainly permanently; maybe it’s achieving septuagenarian status.  Whatever the reason, a fair number of big deal movies, for example, have gone unwatched.  Many, perhaps most, will stay that way: things Curmie should see are becoming increasingly replaced by things he wants to see.  Some few, however, are in the “someday” pile, films Curmie fully intends to see… eventually.

“Wicked” is in that category, and one suspects that its soon-to-be-released sequel will be, as well.  Curmie knows the basic story-line and that the two leads, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, are excellent singers; apparently, they’re both at least competent actors, too.  The films will be worth a look, even if musicals aren’t Curmie’s usual fare.

The pair of “Wicked” movies have also generated a fair amount of press for something that ought not to be particularly newsworthy: Erivo and Grande are actually close friends in real life.  Go figure, huh?  But that friendship really came to the forefront today in Singapore.  More on that in a moment.

Ariana Grande was already an established star in 2017 when Curmie became aware of her in a more substantial way than simply noting her fame.  On May 22 of that year, a suicide bomber killed 23 people (including himself) and injured over 200 (not counting about another 800 or more who were subsequently treated for psychological trauma) as people were leaving Grande’s concert in Manchester, England.  Victims included concert-goers and parents who were waiting to pick up their children from the event.  We heard about it here in the States, of course, but as it happens, Curmie arrived in London on university business a couple days later, and the coverage was unsurprisingly more extensive there.  Grande’s tweet after the bombing, “From the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don't have words,” became, at the time, the most-liked tweet in the platform’s history.  Yeah, that’s fine, but it’s really only what would be expected.

Understandably shaken, and indeed suffering from PTSD, Grande cancelled part of her tour and flew home to Florida.  No one could criticize her for that.  It’s what comes next that matters.  Only a couple of days after the bombing, she announced a benefit concert.  Such events take time to organize.  Or, at least, that’s the Conventional Wisdom.  Not this time.  The One Love Manchester concert was held in Manchester at the Old Trafford Cricket Grounds less than a fortnight after the bombing, and included appearances by a host of well-known performers, including Grande herself, Justin Bieber, Coldplay, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Pharrell Williams, Usher, Take That, the Black-Eyed Peas, and Liam Gallagher, among others.  A host of others appeared on video: U2, Paul McCartney, Demi Lovato, Jennifer Hudson, Twenty One Pilots, Dua Lipa, David Beckham, members of both the Manchester City and Manchester United football teams, and more.

The capacity 50,000 tickets were sold out in less than 20 minutes; fans who had attended the May 22 concert could apply to attend free of charge.   Manchester’s public transportation system offered free service to and from Old Trafford, and Uber said fares for fans travelling to or from the event would be donated to charity.  The event was streamed live to 50 countries, and the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund raised more than $23 million; not all of this was a direct result of the concert, but the lion’s share was.  And this doesn’t count the estimated £19 million raised by the British Red Cross during and in the immediate aftermath of One Love Manchester.  Oh, and Grande also donated proceeds from her singles “One Last Time” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” not so coincidentally the two songs that closed the benefit concert.

Here’s Dee Lockett, writing in New York’s Vulture section:

Less than two weeks after the attack, and with only a few days to privately process and mourn, Ariana returned to Manchester with an entire benefit concert she coordinated. ... She called in every favor, pulling in famous friends like Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber to show up for the grieving city. After meeting with a parent of one of the victims, Grande said she shifted the tone of the show from somber to celebratory because she understood that it was what her fans needed. ...

All night, Ariana performed without breaking, but that was when she had others by her side. ... When it was just her alone with her fans for her finale cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” the floodgates opened. In what will likely go down as one of the defining moments of her career, she paused the song, looked out to her audience, which was already sobbing along with her, then resumed the music to nail yet another impossible note.

Yeah, Ariana Grande is Good People.

You know who else is?  Cynthia Erivo.  As the stars were arriving on the yellow (as in Yellow Brick Road) carpet for the Singapore premiere of “Wicked: For Good,” a young man leaped over the barrier, charged towards Grande, grabbed her and pulled her towards him.  We know who it was and what he looks like (he’s done this kind of shit before, most recently at a Katy Perry concert), but he’s seeking publicity for himself and Curmie will be damned if he’s responsible for even one person knowing his name.  This guy will be referred to here, now and forevermore, as Assclown Boy.

Remember, Grande still suffers from PTSD, so this assault had to be especially disturbing.  Plus, of course, she might weigh as much as 100 pounds after a big meal; she’s going to be pretty easily overwhelmed physically.  She was quite apparently shaken by the incident.  The so-called security team failed utterly.  Cynthia Erivo did not.  Responding both sooner and with considerably more urgency than the folks whose job it was to protect the stars, Erivo went Full Mama Bear, no doubt at some risk to herself, immediately interposing herself between Assclown Boy and Grande, pushing him away and screaming at him.  He’s lucky the security team did belatedly arrive on the scene, or ritual disembowelment might have been on the day’s agenda.  Fucking with Ariana when Cynthia is around is extremely contra-indicated.  (Michelle Yeoh gets credit, too, but it was Erivo who really took charge.)

No one can solve every problem or prevent every bad thing from happening.  And it’s easy to be empathetic if it doesn’t cost us anything more than a few hollow words.  What’s harder and far more admirable is to recognize what can be done and to do it.  Female singers don’t have a monopoly on this stuff, but a lot of them sure do seem to be good at it: Dolly Parton.  Taylor Swift.  Ariana Grande.  And now Cynthia Erivo.  Whether we’re fans of their music or not, we need to recognize that the world is a better place for their presence in it.

Not to Be a Wet Blanket, But...

As you might suspect, Gentle Reader, Curmie sees a lot of material from leftie sources—The Other 98%, Occupy Democrats, Robert Reich, and so on.  There’s a general sense of gloating there about the results of Tuesday’s elections.  And there’s a lot of scurrying around on the right, looking for someone to blame.

True, the headlines suggest a pretty clean sweep for Democrats: the mayoral race in New York, the governorship in New Jersey, all of the most significant races in Virginia, the ballot initiative in California to counter Texas’s gerrymandering.  Comments on various posts suggest success in other places, as well: flipping the county council here, turning a GOP supermajority into a simple majority there, etc.  And there don’t seem to be a lot of stories about Republican gains.  The Trump administration is apparently being recognized for the cruel, incompetent, and otherwise embarrassing regime it is, and down ballot Republicans are paying the price.  Good.

So there is indeed some cause for celebration, but Curmie thinks a lot of the pundits on both sides are over-reacting.  Those two gubernatorial races resulted in Democrats succeeding other Democrats into office.  And is it really a surprise that that Californians tend to be liberals, or that Zohran Mamdani won against the likes of Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa?  The only question was whether he’d get a clear majority in a three-way race.  (He did, at least apparently.)  Yes, those were legitimately the biggest stories, but it’s rather like being amazed that the Dodgers made it to the post-season again.

Trump may be indulging in yet another narcissistic fantasy in believing that the fact that his name wasn’t on the ballot was a contributing factor in Republican losses, but he does have a point that the shutdown hurt the GOP at the polls, because voters rightly blamed it on Trump, Johnson, et al., despite their obviously desperate spinning that it was all the Democrats’ fault.  Had Johnson kept his members in D.C. and even pretended to negotiate in good faith, it wouldn’t have been quite as obvious that it was all a ploy to delay seating Adelita Grijalva, thereby protecting a certain someone from confirming our suspicions about those Epstein documents.  Luckily (?) Johnson is nearly as stupid as he is mendacious.

But.

A couple of those Dems elected in Virginia, for example, appear to be pretty horrible folks; if and when they screw up (again), the “throw the bastards out” cries will be coming from the other direction.  Donald Trump is indeed petulant and immoral enough to impose punishments on New York for electing Mamdani, thereby making it more likely that he won’t fulfill some of his promises.  Of course, hoping an elected leader fails is a trait Republicans often accuse Democrats of exhibiting; it is, of course, projection of their own outspoken desires.  (Does the name Mitch McConnell mean anything to you, Gentle Reader?) 

California’s fighting-fire-with-fire gerrymandering initiative, albeit designed specifically to go into force only if Texas and other states go forward with their corrupt and self-serving practices, is also ethically suspect.  The phrasing may be a bit cliché, but Curmie really does believe that citizens should choose their legislators, not the other way around.

But what really got Curmie musing on election results was the list of constitutional amendments on the ballot here in his adopted state of Texas.  There were 17 of them (!), all of which passed, most of them comfortably.  Curmie voted against about half of them.  You can probably guess which ones: those that were obviously designed as handouts to wealthy folks, those that sure did seem like not so thinly veiled racism or transphobia, those that were variations on the theme of outlawing Sharia Law (forbidding things that had literally no chance of happening, anyway). 

Sure, Curmie’s property taxes are likely to go down (or at least not go up as much), and the funding for dementia research might well help Curmie directly.  Both his father and paternal grandfather had Parkinson’s.  (Curmie is OK and several years older than his dad was when he first started showing symptoms.  This could all change, of course.)  That’s good news from a selfish perspective.  But few if any of even the good proposals require a constitutional amendment; legislation ought to handle it. 

Those who voted against the ERA a couple of decades ago because they believed it superfluous—those guarantees of equality were already part of federal law, just not the Constitution, they claimed—are suddenly eager to make every protection for the ultra-wealthy constitutionally protected.  There was never, to the best of Curmie’s knowledge, any real attempt to impose state taxes on inheritance, capital gains, or securities transactions.  Curmie might think a couple of them would be a good idea, but they would have zero chance of ever being enacted in this state. 

Moreover, one of the cardinal attributes of the US Constitution is its brevity.  Texas’s version is a little over 12 times as long.  And it does seem that the state legislature could spend their time on important issues facing the state instead of worrying about, for example, whether non-citizens could vote.

Important to note here is the fact that non-citizens already can’t vote.  It’s illegal in national elections, and you can’t register to vote in Texas unless you’re a citizen.  Enshrining this amendment in the state constitution is an exercise in masturbation.  But it’s not simply the hollow sloganeering-as-policy that’s disturbing.  Several states allow legally resident non-citizens to vote in local elections.  This, frankly, makes sense.  Their kids are going to those public schools; they ought to have a voice in who’s on the school board.  But any chance to be xenophobic is one to be relished by too many Texans.  Or, rather, to give them the benefit of the doubt, they are swayed by simplistic slogans rather than by thoughtful consideration.

And that is the problem.  It’s not that a Republican-controlled legislature wants to flaunt its prejudices and its subservience to the ultra-wealthy—remember that literally every Republican Congresscritter voted against a proposal to raise the marginal tax rate by 2.5% on people making more than a billion dollars a year.  You read that right, Gentle Reader, “billion,” with a “b.”  The median family income in the US for 2024 was $83,730.  Such a family would take a little over 11,943 years (!) to get to a billion.  Curmie kinda thinks most folks could handle paying 39.5% on taxable income over $1,000,000,000.  Remember, that’s just on the taxable (post-deductions) part and just on the part that exceeds a billion, not on the whole amount.

No, GOP pols’ ritual fellation of the billionaire class is a problem, but not the problem.  We can expect no better from them individually, and certainly not collectively.  The problem is that citizens here in Texas, and one suspects elsewhere as well, not merely let them get away with such behavior, but actually endorse it.  They probably would be as outraged as the rest of us if they actually thought about things.  But they don’t, and the Fox Newses of the world will make sure they don’t.  Until that changes, the slide toward xenophobia and plutocracy will continue unabated.

Sometimes Curmie considers Eeyore an optimist.