Random News and Notes 21 March
We start today’s edition of RNN in Monsey NY. Monsey is a heavily orthodox/haredi Jewish suburb of NYC located in Rockland County, just north of the City on the west side of the Hudson river. A postal worker there was filmed assaulting a small child.
I described the neighborhood in detail above for a reason. It is being reported that the as-yet unnamed mail carrier – a 39 year old male from Stoney Point – is a Muslim. He was charged with Endangering the Welfare of a Child and Attempted Assault in the Third Degree and released on his own recognizance. Both charges are misdemeanors under the NY penal code. The endangering charge is the more severe, a class A misdemeanor, and punishable by a $1000 fine and up to one year in jail.
SCOTUS released an opinion yesterday in a case styled Olivier v City of Brandon. The case involved a street preacher named Gabriel Olivier. Olivier was arrested, pled guilty and fined for violations of a city ordinance that restricted protests and demonstrations near a public amphitheater to a designated area. He then filed §1983 First Amendment lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against future enforcement. The district court and a three judge panel of the 5th Circuit held he was barred from filing his suit because of a precedential case called Heck v. Humphrey. Heck holds that a plaintiff cannot recover damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for an allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment—or for other harm from actions that would render a conviction or sentence invalid—unless the conviction or sentence has first been reversed on direct appeal, expunged, declared invalid by an authorized state tribunal, or called into question by a federal habeas corpus writ. This “favorable termination” rule, drawn from the common-law tort of malicious prosecution, prevents § 1983 claims from effectively challenging the validity of an outstanding criminal judgment and avoids parallel or conflicting litigation over the same underlying events.
A unanimous Supreme Court held that Heck was inapplicable and remanded the case for further proceedings.
The Kagan authored opinion held that because Olivier was not seeking any type of relief regarding his conviction and only sought proscriptive relief against further convictions/arrests the case was not barred by the holdings in Heck as the relief sought was not related to the underlying conviction and therefore did not violate the favorable termination rule.
Epic Fury News
CENTCOM Commander ADM Cooper gave another update. According to the Admiral, U.S. aircrews have flown more than 8,000 sorties, hitting 8,000 targets including thousands of missiles, drones, and much of Iran’s navy threatening the Strait of Hormuz.
There are multiple reports stating the Iranian uranium enrichment facility at Natanz has been hit. Initial reports say it was a joint US/Israeli effort, but that seems unlikely to me as the Israelis do not have bunker-buster bombs or any tactical aircraft large enough to carry them.
A second Marine Expeditionary Unit is headed to the Gulf. This time it is the Boxer amphibious ready group and the embarked 11th MEU. The Boxer ARG consists of the Boxer, USS Comstock, and USS Portland.
They will join the USS Tripoli ARG and the 31st MEU who are already on-station.
Translation from Persian: A video sent by a citizen from Isfahan on Saturday, March 21, shows the flight of a fighter jet. On Saturday, IRGC media reported that the Natanz uranium enrichment facility had been attacked.