All You Need to Know About This Editorial...

...is that it Cites the Passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in Support of his Proposal.

But a little background is necessary to understand how devastating this is to his argument.  Today in the New York Times, Constitutional Law Professor Louis Michael Seidman advocates that we should ignore the constitution.  No, I am not exaggerating.  The title of the piece is “Let’s Give Up on the Constitution” arguing that Congress and the president should conspire to violate the Constitution and presumably the Supreme Court should just look the other way or rubber stamp it.

You could go step-by-step, tearing apart the flimsiness of his argument, but that isn’t necessary.  All you have to do is cite the passage when he brings up the Alien and Sedition Acts as a precedent supporting his proposal.  Here’s the money quote:

No sooner was the Constitution in place than our leaders began ignoring it. John Adams supported the Alien and Sedition Acts, which violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech.

Mind you, if you read the whole dumb article, he is not citing it as a negative precedent, an outcome to be avoided.  He is not saying that ignoring the Constitution is a bad thing.  He thinks it is a swell idea.  And he cites the Alien and Sedition Acts, which most historically aware people consider to be an affront to Constitutional Freedom, as setting a precedent he would like to apply to other cases.

So... Piers Morgan is Offering a Two-Fer?

That was my immediate thought, when I read the headline to this editorial by Piers Morgan:

Deport me? If America won't change its crazy gun laws... I may deport myself says Piers Morgan

You got that America?  If you don’t change your laws, Piers Morgan will deprive us of the privilege of his presence.  And then you will be sorry!

And of course my thought is: “Really?  So if we don’t pass the laws you want us to, we get to keep our Constitutional freedom and you will leave the country, too?  So what is the down side?”

Of course he has been pimping his “victimhood” ever since the petition to deport him appeared on the White House website.  Mind you, it would be wrong to throw him out of the country just because he offended us.  The First Amendment does apply to aliens, too.  But honestly, I take it more as a joke than a serious effort to get him deported, of no more legal consequence than flipping him the bird.  I doubt most of them really would want him forcibly deported if it came down to it.  And more relevant to my point, does he have any fear of this really happening?  Even a little bit?  One can only guess what is in another person’s heart, but I am guessing…  no.

By the way, this man who stands in judgment of our laws shares some of his deep insights in this editorial, such as this revelation when he fired guns for the first and only time, at a firing range:

My Petition to Pardon David Gregory

Regular readers of this site and my twitter feed know several things.  First, David Gregory and certain unknown others at NBC are at risk for being prosecuted due to his apparent unlawful possession of a high-capacity magazine in the District Columbia.  Second, you know that I am appalled that he could be prosecuted for violating a law that I consider to be in violation of his Second Amendment rights.  And third, you know I have suggested that Obama might pardon him.  Well, I have written a petition at the White House’s website seeking just such a pardon, but the space in which to make my case was too small.  So, if this works, I am going to direct anyone reading the petition to read my entire argument for the pardon of Mr. Gregory and every person who has been unjustly prosecuted under this law.  I hope you enjoy it and you do sign the petition.  After all, if we get enough signatures, it will require an official White House response.

Expect this post to be updated without a notation of such updates as I work to put up the petition and this post and the crosslink them both.

The petition is here.  As of this writing, the White House website states that it will not be publicly viewable until it reaches one hundred and fifty signatures.  So please help!

On the other hand, there is a petition to prosecute him, here, which just seems mean-spirited.

Will David Gregory Be Asking Barack Obama For a Pardon This Sunday?

As regular followers on Twitter or readers of Twitchy know, I have been having waaaaay too much fun with David Gregory’s potential legal problems.  As you might recall, last Sunday, David Gregory interviewed the NRA Wayne LaPierre about gun control and at one point he held up an alleged high capacity magazine, and asked him if this should be banned.

Of course there was one slight problem.  Such magazines are banned in D.C.  Rut-roh.

And then we learned the police were actually investigating this as a potential crime.  Rut-roh.

Which led to my fun:

This is your chance, @davidgregory! You can help get DC's assault weapon ban declared unconstitutional! breitbart.com/Big-Journalism…
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) December 25, 2012

So, @davidgregory, do you think DC's ban on assault weapons works? Cause it didn't stop you breitbart.com/Big-Journalism… #NoWayNRA #GUNCONTROLNOW
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) December 25, 2012

FREE LEGAL ADVICE, @davidgregory. If they charge u w violating the DC gun laws, make sure your lawyer challenges the law on 2nd A grounds.
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) December 25, 2012

In fact, @davidgregory, I am admitted in DC. I would be happy to represent you in a challenge to DC's gun laws breitbart.com/Big-Journalism…
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) December 25, 2012

Los Angeles Actively Aids Criminals in Pursuit of Gun Control

Now let me start by saying that ordinarily I don’t have a problem with gun buyback programs. While I do believe that wider gun ownership makes everyone safer and makes our republic safer, I am pro-choice on gun ownership, so why would I care if you are induced to sell to the city which in turn will destroy your gun?  I also think it is quite unlikely to be useful, and thus a waste of money, but besides budgetary concerns, I normally have no deep, principled objection to these photo-ops.

But there is a creepy little gem hidden in this otherwise positive story about a gun buyback program in L.A.  It starts out nice enough:

L.A. gun buyback program breaks a record

More weapons are gathered by the city of Los Angeles than at previous such events. The effort was so successful that the city ran out of supermarket gift cards and got a private donation.

By Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times

7:36 PM PST, December 27, 2012

A one-day gun buyback event in Los Angeles on Wednesday gathered 2,037 firearms, including 75 assault weapons and two rocket launchers, officials said. The total was nearly 400 more weapons than were collected in a similar buyback earlier this year.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the collection at two locations was so successful that the city ran out of money for supermarket gift cards and got a private donation through the city controller to bolster the pot.

Oh joy!  But there is a dark side to all of this, buried toward the end:

NY Paper Helpfully Shows Criminals Where the Soft Targets Are

Or: “Respectable Newspaper Doxxes Thousands of Gun Owners.”

For the last few days I have joked that if a liberal really believes that guns don’t deter crime that they should hang a sign outside of their home declaring it to be a gun-free zone.  The joke being that they won’t do it, because they know that in truth the criminals' fear of being met with an armed homeowner keeps people safe.

Well, the New York state paper the Journal News has done the next best thing.  Ben Shapiro calls this intimidation towards gun owners, and that was probably the intent, but I suspect that won’t be the main effect of this breach of people’s privacy.  As Shapiro reports:

Today, the Journal News in upstate New York, owned by Gannett, published the names and addresses of all gun permit holders in the Westchester and Rockland county areas of New York....

The newspaper didn’t even feel it necessary to publish a rationale for that violation of privacy – publishing the names and addresses of gun owners makes them more vulnerable to robbery when they aren’t at home, since criminals will know where the guns are.

And it’s that last line where I respectfully disagree with Shapiro.  Let me show you the map, sort of:

The difference between this map and the real one is that the Journal News version is an interactive map, so if you go to their site and click on a dot with your mouse, you can get the name and address of the permit holder.  So an enterprising criminal could literally map out each street and know which houses are safe to break into, and which are not.  And if you go and read the article that all of this comes from, Shapiro is right: there is not the slightest attempt to justify this conduct.

But still, I do not believe that the main effect of publishing this map will be to intimidate those who lawfully own guns.  Instead, I suspect right now criminals are looking at these maps and saying, “I better rob people in the areas without dots.”

One final question.  If someone is robbed in these areas, and during the robbery they are murdered, and it is found that the murderers picked out the victim by consulting with the Journal News’ interactive map, is there any possibility of liability for the Journal News?  I admit I am not sure myself.  What is for certain is that this is grossly irresponsible.

Still if you don’t have a permit in New York, I suggest you get one and get armed, and maybe ask that their dot be added to this map.  Ordinarily those of us who own guns keep everyone safer because criminals never know what house might have a gun owner inside.  Well, now they know who is an easy mark: the Journal News has told them.  I am sure the defenseless residents of their communities will feel much safer as a result.

Incidentally, the comments section on the article is not pretty.  This is not going over well.

Iowa Supreme Court to Men: You Can’t Be Expected to Control Yourselves

That’s one takeaway, from the recent case of Nelson v. James H. Knight DDS, P.C. et al. declaring that a woman could be fired for being an “irresistible attraction.”  Of course this grabs headlines for all kinds of reasons, namely because Rule 5 applies to respectable news organizations, too.

And of course for the sake of evidence—and not for those Rule 5 purposes, of course—let’s put up a picture of the plaintiff, Melissa Nelson, here:

Daily Caller Infected with Malware? (Update: Cleared!)

Update: It appears to have been cleared up.

Beats me, but that is the warning I keep getting in Google Chrome and I got it on my phone, too.  I have put in public inquiries on the matter, but for now two things.

First, don’t go to the site until google gives you the all clear.

Second, if you are a blogger like me, take the Daily Caller off your blogroll.  Temporarily, of course.  Because as Mr. Hoge was kind enough to report, if you link to Daily Caller, you get flagged as a gateway to malware.

Speaking of, since I will be updating my blog roll soon, any suggestions from you on which sites to include will be appreciated.  I have been needing to do this for a while.

Two Quick Notes on Video Games and the NRA

No super-deep point to this post, but I wanted to add some information on two issues related to the topic of the NRA’s denunciation of certain video games.  To put things into context, here’s what LaPierre said on the subject:

And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here’s one: it’s called Kindergarten Killers. It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn’t or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it?

Then there’s the blood-soaked slasher films like "American Psycho" and "Natural Born Killers" that are aired like propaganda loops on "Splatterdays" and every day, and a thousand music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life. And then they have the nerve to call it "entertainment."

But is that what it really is? Isn't fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography? In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes — every minute of every day of every month of every year.  A child growing up in America witnesses 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches the ripe old age of 18.

Now, I said yesterday and I continue to say it today, video games are not at fault in this and to LaPierre’s credit he doesn’t suggest taking any action beyond public shaming.  But just two points have come up in conversation that deserves a little more illumination.

First, yes the NRA did make a video game.  It’s called NRA Gun Club.  Here’s a picture of it:

NRA Leader Wayne LaPierre’s Frustrating, Brilliant Statement

I admit I didn’t get to watch it, and see how the delivery was made, but I have read over this transcript provided by the NRA and it is both frustrating and it is brilliant at the same time.  Everyone who knows me decently knows I chaffed at certain parts but even as I did, I recognized even those parts had a subtle intelligence.

After the ordinary and expected condemnation of the Newtown massacre, he starts by explaining why the NRA has been officially silent:

Out of respect for those grieving families, and until the facts are known, the NRA has refrained from comment. While some have tried to exploit tragedy for political gain, we have remained respectfully silent.

Which isn’t a great explanation for their silence but it is a decent one and it does get in a jab at those who have had a rush to judgment.

Then he launches into a broadside on gun-free zones.  Now I have long felt that the solution is to let teachers carry on campus.  I do not think it is practical to put armed guards at every school.  I mean one wouldn’t be enough because it only designates to the maniacs who he should kill first; so you would have to hire at least two, probably more like a minimum of five, armed guards or police officers for each school.  And with what money will we hire them?  No, I think it makes infinitely more sense just to let teachers have guns.  So I disagree with this, but it is still brilliant:

Fire Erik Loomis... to Defend Freedom of Expression

I have long joked that Twitter is the greatest engine of self-beclownment ever invented.  Too many people tweet when angry (and perhaps a little drunk), so that if you are kind of an idiot, you will reveal yourself to be one.  Ask Brooks Bayne!  Or for that matter, Anthony Weiner.

So in that vein, University of Rhode Island History Professor Erik Loomis has become a twitter celebrity in the last few days for all the wrong reasons.  Since the massacre in Newtown, Loomis has beclowned himself by saying the following on Twitter, as documented at Popehat:

I was heartbroken in the first 20 mass murders. Now I want Wayne LaPierre's head on a stick.—

Looks like the National Rifle Association has murdered some more children.

You are goddamn right we should politicize this tragedy. F__k the NRA. Wayne LaPierre should be in prison. [Cursing censored by me.]

Wayne LaPierre is a criminal and should be in prison for complicity with murder. 27 counts.—

Can we define NRA membership dues as contributing to a terrorist organization?

Larry Pratt and the group Gun Owners of America are terrorists and should be dealt with as such.

The right-wing intimidation campaign against me for saying the NRA was a terrorist organization continues. Will not succeed.

Dear rightwingers, to be clear, I don't want to see Wayne LaPierre dead. I want to see him in prison for the rest of his life. #nraterrorism

In addition to that, Twitchy catches him saying the following:

Random Thoughts on the Second Amendment

If you follow me on Twitter, you will see I have been in the trenches for the last few days defending the second amendment against those who would leave me unable to defend myself and my wife.  And yeah, I take it personally.  So I thought I would share a few thoughts and knock down some common arguments I have heard against the right to bear arms in addition to my thoughts the other day.

1.         Anyone who talks about the Second Amendment in terms of hunting is missing the point.  Do you really think the founding fathers would have enshrined the right to hunt in the Constitution?  In places where hunting was a matter of survival, there was no need for constitutional protection because no politician would be fool enough to ban it any more than anyone would ban the drinking of ordinary water.  In places where it was not necessary for surival, it was too trifling a matter to constitutionalize.  The founding fathers had just finished throwing off the shackles of British tyranny and they didn’t do so with sternly worded letters; they did it with guns.

Seriously, the founders believed that one had a God-given right to rebel against tyranny.  The Seal of Virginia glorifies the killing of dictators.  How do you expect for that to happen without guns?

Big picture, I have long referred to the First and Second Amendments as the rights of rebellion.  The founding fathers believed in a moral, but not legal, right to rebel.  The doctrine is enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.

But at the same time, no government can legalize its own destruction.  There is no legal right to secede or rebel.  It is not workable.  So one can only appeal to the moral right of rebellion if the government has become tyrannical.  And the founding fathers did believe this could happen here.  As Franklin quipped, this is a republic, if we can keep it.

Westboro Baptist Church Doxxed?

I won’t link to it this directly, so you will just have to trust me on my reportage.  I have seen a purported doxxing* of the Westboro Baptist Church.  It contains a list of many purported members, their purported addresses, phone numbers, emails, etc.  And it purports to have been done by the hacker group Anonymous.

I am saying this very precisely.  I don't know if the info is genuine and I don't know whether Anonymous really is involved.  But what I see purports to be 1) their info and 2) done by Anonymous.

This is apparently done in retaliation for the Westboro’s recent threat to picket the funerals in Newtown, to pile onto the grief this family already feels their additional ugliness.  Apparently they missed the whole “love your neighbor” portion of Jesus teachings, or even the concept of loving the sinner and hating the sin.  (Which is not to imply any of these children or their families have sinned, but if you are twisted enough to believe that—as these Westboro idiots do—that still doesn’t justify this ugliness.)

I have zero sympathy for the Westboro Baptist Church, but this is still wrong.  And moreover, one should be extremely concerned that this information might not even be accurate.  Whoever did this is someone who openly associates with a criminal hacker group.  And you are going to trust their word, their research?  Even if the doxxers are telling the truth as far as they know, the information might be out of date.  People move.  Phone numbers get ditched and reassigned.  You have to trust their honesty and their diligence, and I trust neither.  So let me say as clearly as possible, don’t go find the information, and don’t actually act on it.

If you want to do something about the Westboro idiots, let me suggest two things.  First, model yourself after the conduct of these kind people who peacefully blocked the Westboro protests in the past:

This morning in La Plata, Md., the hate group’s parade of absurdity received quite a response: More than a thousand counter-demonstrators showed up early, established themselves on the rights-of-way around the church, and prevented the “God Hates Fags” crowd from getting anywhere near the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Terry Honeycutt.

A few minutes ago, I called Holly Smith, one of the organizers of the counter-demonstration. I was surprised to hear no shouting or noise in the background. “American flags as far as the eye can see,” she told me. And the Westboro crowd? “They are up at a gas station probably a mile up the road, because they couldn’t get any closer,” she said. “We’re in the shoulder for probably ten deep for at least 300 yards.”

There are tens of millions of people who live within reasonable driving distance of Newtown, Connecticut.  This template is not difficult to follow.  Find out when the funerals are, and show up, and form a cordon to keep the Westboro idiots far, far away.  Be peaceful, be loving, and be in their way.  Call it passive (and lawful) resistance, which has a long and honored tradition in this country.

And of course do not engaged in violence or property damage, or even disobey any police officers.  Just stand in their way and lock arms and say, “you shall not pass.”

The second suggestion is that when one of these Westboro idiots passes on, we picket their funeral.  Give them a taste of their medicine.

Obama’s Official Twitter Account is Following Another Pornblogger

So I tweeted out a link to my last post on the crime in Connecticut and gun control, and I always get curious about who retweets me and one stuck out, a twitterer going by the name PlayBoyMan.  So I was morbidly curious about whether this was a pornbot or what, possibly wondering if I should block this person and I got one of the funnier profiles on the web, telling us for instance that “I’m that dude that loves big boobies.”  Well, yes that only narrows it down to almost every straight male alive.  But it was just something that made me smile and laugh, and not worth a post until I noticed something.  Here’s a clean screenshot.

And here’s one, with the important part circled.

Yes, the official twitter account of Obama is following a porn blogger.  And of course people will remember that this is not the first time, with Twitchy reporting in October that this account previously followed “I Like Tits Daily” then unfollowed it, and then followed it again.  So apparently whoever runs the official Obama twitter feed is a boob man.

A Few Thoughts About the Crime in Connecticut And Gun Control

I had some court business to attend to and I was caught up in other things.  You can catch up on the story in many places.  Here’s one link that seems pretty good.  But I wanted to share some overarching thoughts.

First, bloggers, twitterers, the news media, etc. need to really learn to hold off on following each breaking “detail” in an event like this.  I cannot recall a single time when the people reporting such an event first was also getting it right.  For instance, during the Gabby Giffords shooting I recall hearing that Giffords was dead at one point, which thankfully is not true.  Meanwhile Judge Roll was reported as dead, then wounded, then not wounded at all, before we found out that he was killed instantly after all.  Or take the West Virginia trapped miners story from a bit back.  At one moment the breaking news was all but one of the miners were alive; and then we found out that in fact all but one were dead.  Can you imagine being one of the families, being told your loved one was probably alive one moment and then told he is probably dead the next?  I have no doubt that this misreporting was all an accident, but the results for the families were just plain cruel.

Another case in point is that the media reported that the killer was Ryan Lanza.  Then various people started bothering people who were named Ryan Lanza, on Facebook and twitter.  Of course people missed the obvious reality that the killer was dead and someone was tweeting and updating the relevant accounts, suggesting that this “Ryan Lanza” was not the killer.  And then we find out that the killer was not Ryan, after all: that was the name of the brother of the killer.  The killer was Adam Lanza.  So any unrelated Ryan Lanzas who were being harassed today—perhaps even put in danger by people who didn’t realize that the killer was actually already dead—have the additional absurdity of not even sharing a name with the killer.  On twitter, I tried to encourage a sense of restraint, though I felt like I was holding back a breaking dam with a toothpick.

Second, while I am getting sick of the politicization of every tragedy, I am not going to overly object to people talking about gun control today.  I don’t support gun control, but let’s have this out.  If we can’t stand up for the Second Amendment today, we are just going to lose the argument.

The reality is the “lets ban all guns” theory is simply a bit of what I call “silver bullet utopianism”—that is the idea that a large and complex problem can be solved easily with a proverbial silver bullet.  And it is utopianism, with dangerous consequences in real life if we don’t wake up from it.

So... Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is Back in Place in Afghanistan?

That is one of the weirder upshots of this story involving the coming revisions to the Army handbook for soldiers serving in Afghanistan.  Now apparently the original story is in the Wall St. Journal, but that is behind a paywall and I haven’t paid, but...  you can see it heavily excerpted elsewhere, such as here, here and here.  It’s all about stopping so-called “green-on-blue” attacks, where Afghan soldiers we had been working with suddenly betray us and kill us.  The reason for this, according to the manual’s authors, is apparently we are not appeasing enough of their sensitivities:

The proposed handbook embraces a hotly debated theory that American cultural ignorance has sparked many so-called insider attacks—more than three dozen of which have claimed the lives of some 63 members of the U.S.-led coalition this year. The rise in insider attacks has created one of the biggest threats to American plans to end its major combat missions in Afghanistan next year and transfer full security control to Afghan forces in 2014.

Afghan leaders say Taliban infiltrators are responsible for most insider attacks. U.S. officials say the attacks are largely rooted in personal feuds between Afghan and coalition troops, though not necessarily the result of cultural insensitivity.

Last year, the U.S.-led coalition rejected an internal military study that concluded that cultural insensitivity was in part to blame for insider killings, which it called a growing threat that represented “a severe and rapidly metastasizing malignancy” for the coalition in Afghanistan.

The study was reported last year by The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. military at the time said the study was flawed by “unprofessional rhetoric and sensationalism.”

So in order to avoid such cultural misunderstandings, the following topics are supposed to be avoided:

Some Questions in the Patrick Moran Girlfriend-Beating Case (Update: More From the Girlfriend and the Police)

Update: We get a deeper statement from the girlfriend.  Her actual name is in the original version of the story, but I won’t include it.  Via Roll Call:

The younger Moran’s girlfriend, [censored], issued a statement in response to the media frenzy Wednesday afternoon.

“This was an accident that has been blown out of proportion,” [censored] said. “The statements in the police report are inaccurate. Pat and I were arguing, one of my high heels gave out, and I fell into the side of a trashcan. On impact, I fractured my nose. False conclusions were made as a result. I hope our privacy will be respected.”

Yeah, except...  as noted below, Pat Moran did plead guilty.  And it’s really hard to believe the cops would be mistaken about Moran grabbing the back of her head and slamming her into a trash cage.  Also please note that the Washington City Paper has the police report and has posted it online.  It adds what I suspected: that there were more than one officer at the scene witnessing this.  So why was it pled down, again?  This deserves a little more digging.

And, by the way, a now-proven assault in a public place is not a matter of privacy.  Just saying.

We resume the original post, as is, below the break.

---------------------------------------

Yes, I am back after a brief hiatus, and I want to talk about this breaking story about Patrick Moran, Congressman Jim Moran’s son, involved in beating up his girlfriend, because it raises a few interesting questions.  Let’s start with the basic story from the AP:

Guilty plea for son of U.S. Rep. Moran in assault case

By Keith L. Alexander and Ben Pershing, Wednesday, December 12, 2:51 PM

The son of U.S. Rep. James P. Moran pleaded guilty Wednesday to an assault on his girlfriend in front of a Northwest D.C. nightspot on Dec. 1.

Patrick B. Moran, 23, of Arlington, pleaded guilty to one count of simple assault, a misdeameanor. D.C. Superior Court Magistrate Judge Frederick Sullivan gave Moran a suspended jail sentence of 90 days and one year of probation.

Moran was also ordered to complete 50 hours of community service and domestic violence counseling, and not to “threaten, harass or assault” the woman as a condition of his probation, court records say.

A police officer saw Moran grab a woman by the back of her head and slam it into a trash can at about 1:23 a.m. in front of a nightclub called The Getaway in Columbia Heights, according to court documents.

Moran and the woman were separated by police, who later learned the woman was his girlfriend of six months. The two had argued inside the club after Moran spoke with another woman there, according to court documents.

Moran was initially charged with assault with significant bodily injury, a felony. The woman was bleeding “heavily” from her nose; according to court records; her nose and right eye were “extremely” swollen. The woman was taken to a hospital, and a paramedic told police her nose appeared swollen and her right eye socket was fractured.

According to a statement from a spokesman for Moran (D-Va.): “The Congressman strongly condemns domestic violence. As was stated in court by both his son Patrick and his girlfriend ... the situation was an accident.

“They were the only two people involved in the scene,” the statement continued. “In that sense, their statements are the only ones that matter. They are both very embarrassed by the situation, which involved drinking, and they are looking to move past it, and ask for their privacy to be respected.”

Calls to Moran and his court-appointed attorney Gretchen Franklin were not returned.