Maybe we should all start rehearsing something like this and see how it plays out for us when all the tariffs start kicking in:
“I’m sorry, Mr. Retailer, our president said the foreign countries pay the tariffs. So I’m gonna need you to knock your price increase off my bill. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Do you think it’ll work? I’m skeptical.
Received this news in an update from our Missouri Press Association friends. It’s official. The Cole County Circuit Court decision that invalidated the court redaction statute will stand.
What this means is if you encounter an issue with redacted witness names in court filings you can now confidently state that witness redactions requirements in Section 509.520.1 (4) and (5) have been declared unconstitutional.
According to the Missouri Press Association’s attorney, the Missouri Attorney General’s office informed the plaintiffs in Gross v. State of Missouri, 24AC-CC04658, pending in Cole County, that it would not appeal the trial court’s decision to invalidate a law mandating blanket redaction of witness names in court records.
Journalists and reporters everywhere, including here at your Landmark, are applauding the witness name redaction ruling. We’ve seen some court documents in certain cases so heavily redacted it was next to impossible to determine exactly what was alleged to have happened–and more to the point, being alleged by whom–which made it tough to piece together a news story featuring a series of events that readers could follow.
Did you know that entire case files can be closed if the litigants are in agreement and a court finds “good cause?” It seems good cause can mean different things to different judges, and often it is easy to find some reason that strikes a judge as “good cause,” according to our Missouri Press Association attorney. As a result, proceedings, records and entire case files can disappear from CaseNet, the online court record system.
I’ve seen this happen on multiple occasions. On one occasion several years ago while searching for information on a case that I knew had existed only to not be able to find online records about it, I asked an attorney: “Is this guy immune to Casenet?” The question drew a chuckle, which didn’t answer my question. Or maybe it did.
Anyway, the Missouri Press Association’s attorney also plans to continue a push for a new court rule that would require notice and a hearing and a finding of compelling circumstances. Under this new rule, “compelling circumstances” for closure would not include embarrassing matters or the “litigants’ desire for confidentiality.”
The MPA attorney likes to wisely point out that even the Missouri Supreme Court has said: “Justice is best served when it is done within full view of those to whom all courts are ultimately responsible: the public.”
City of Platte City had considered privatizing its refuse collection (that’s trash pick-up to us common folks) but that proposal is now off the table, at least for now. In fact the city will be ordering a new trash truck and hopes to have it delivered in the fall.
More on this story at a later time. Maybe, if you’re feeling the need for trash talk. If not, we’ll just end it here.
Just heard on 96.5 The Fan this morning while making the short drive to work that the average Major League batting average for all big league hitters this year is .237.
Lol. Wut? That’s rough. Is the cause extremely good pitching or extremely terrible hitting? Either way, this translates into a lot of hard-to-watch games. So apparently it’s not just the Royals who can’t hit. Though let’s be real, the Royals are near the bottom (next to last, the last time I checked) for average runs scored per game.
Maybe MLB should juice the ball or something.
The NBA playoffs started Saturday. Which means they’ll wrap it up sometime around Halloween, I think. No, I don’t have an NBA pay your mortgage pick, since I don’t watch NBA games until they get to the Finals, and some years not even the Finals will draw me to the TV.
I did, however, listen to a spiel by an acquaintance in Las Vegas who loves the NBA and follows it closely. He listed compelling reasons why he believes the best of seven first round playoff series between the Knicks and the Pistons will go more than 5.5 games, and said he wouldn’t be surprised if the heavy underdog Pistons win the series. So I’ve got $50 on the series lasting more than 5.5 games. I also risked $50 on the Pistons to win that series, which if it hits will pay at 3-1 odds and give us more pizza on mailing days at The Landmark.
So even if you–as I do–think the NBA is mostly a junk product, I just gave you something you can cheer for or against. Still not going to watch the games, though.
That’s not to say that I totally tune out the NBA. I do glance at the standings once a while. And I’ll do some occasional reading about the league and the teams. Recently I read an in-depth journalistic piece, really well done, about the Denver Nuggets and how they decided to fire their coach and general manager with just a few games remaining in the regular season. I’ll try to explain more next week. Just know that after reading that piece I became a Denver Nuggets fan, at least for this year’s playoffs.
Still not going to watch the games, though.
(Find Foley not watching the NBA playoffs. Email him at ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)
