Dallas salon owner defies state closure order but still comes out ahead.

Texas patriot Shelley Luther is serving a 7 day jail sentence for giving the control state the middle finger.  After apparently She had ripping up a cease and desist letter from the county in front of a cheering crowd she was found to be in criminal and civil contempt for ignoring government mandate to keep her hair salon closed.  Her punishment was $500 per day for each day the salon was illegally open  along with the jail time.

During the punishment phase, the judge offered to waive the jail time if only she would apologize in a dramatic way "If you would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge that your actions were selfish, putting your own interest ahead of those in the community in which you live" (then he would leave it at the fine and waive the jail).

To that she said "fuck you".  Actually she was nice about it but the net net was still fuck you.

"Luther refused. "I have to disagree with you sir, when you say that I'm selfish because feeding my kids is not selfish," she said. "I have hairstylists that are going hungry because they'd rather feed their kids. So sir, if you think the law is more important than kids being fed then please go ahead with your decision but I'm not going to shut the salon.""

 

OK so here is where it gets interesting.  Governor Abbott is the one who made the edict.  But after the court enforced his edict, "Abbott released a statement saying he disagrees with Moyé's (the judge) decision."

 

Abbott went on to explain,"As I have made clear through prior pronouncements, jailing Texans for non-compliance with executive orders should always be the last available option," he said. "Compliance with executive orders during this pandemic is important to ensure public safety; however, surely there are less restrictive means to achieving that goal than jailing a Texas mother."

 

To make matters worse for the judge, Ted Cruz piled on by calling the ruling "nuts." and TX atty general Ken Paxton grandstanded by calling the sentence "shameful abuse of judicial discretion."

"I find it outrageous and out of touch that during this national pandemic, a judge, in a county that actually released hardened criminals for fear of contracting COVID-19, would jail a mother for operating her hair salon in an attempt to put food on her family's table," Paxton said in a press statement. "The trial judge did not need to lock up Shelley Luther."

 

 The take-aways from this are:

1. The Texas authorities tried to get the gun dealer to close his shop.  They came to his shop in person and told him in no uncertain terms that he was in violation.  The gun dealer told them to beat it.  Instead of sending the cops to arrest and jail him, they decided it was in everyone's best interest to change the rules on the fly in order to declare the gun store "essential".  Of course a hair cutting place is more essential for most people than a gun store but hair professionals are not a credible threat to shoot you in the fucking face if you come in there with cops trying to demand this and that.  Gun store owner might be more of a risk for this.  Solution: save face and avoid danger for bureaucrats by declaring the guy essential and then going on to find a weaker person to attack and control.  You know, like a hair salon owner.  They are not known for having large stockpiles of guns and ammo.
2. The message that the courts will be getting here is that these executive orders really don't mean very much. They are more likely guidelines than laws.  The judge missed the nudge nudge wink wink that was implicit.
3. People see this shop owner as having moxy for standing up for what is just common sense: the right to work so you can eat.  The proof is in this gofundme which was created April 23rd with a goal of raising $500k for her.  In less than 2 weeks it is funded at more than $400k. It will certainly reach the goal of $500k.  The threat is now that this she-wolf will use the money and go into attack mode in the court system.  This could turn out to declare that these "executive orders" are not real laws.  They are more like opinions.  That would be a total gut punch in the side of tyranny because it is far easier to take these steps alone than to have to go through a legal process of creating a law.  This move is going to embolden others to simply say I will not comply.  You get too many people saying that and big government will have a real problem on its hands because when government show fear, the herd will pick up on it and then they will demand even more freedom.