…you need to read this article about their legal history. I said “holy shit” more than once reading about all the legal games those two litigious assholes have engaged in. It’s all they do! Sue people! Steal land by suing people! Threaten people with lawsuits! Their neighbors hate them! Their family, what’s left of it, hates them!
My favorite part was where McCloskey’s father sent him a birthday card and a bag of dirt promising him ownership of a 240 acre farm, but didn’t actually bother to get a legal transfer of ownership. Later, Mark McCloskey was written out of his father’s will — I guess a lifetime of being an asshole to everyone around you has that kind of consequence — so what does he do? Guess! He sues everyone!
In March 2013, in Phelps County, Mark McCloskey sued his father and his father’s trust over the gift. The birthday card and earth, he claimed, were sufficient title because they met the legal definition of “livery of seisin,” a ceremony performed in medieval England for the conveyance of land.
In 2016, a special judge ruled against him, writing that “Exhibit 1 attached to the petition is a birthday card, not a deed” and that it was too late to claim ownership of part of the farm. The archaic legal claim, the judge ruled “does not operate as a matter of law to transfer title to real property.”
Mark McCloskey filed a defamation case against his father and sister in 2011, dismissed it in 2012, and refiled it in 2013. By the time of the final filing, Bruce McCloskey was living in a memory care unit in Ballwin; he died in 2014.
McCloskey now claims his life was ruined by the notorious photo of the happy couple threatening protesters passing by with guns. I don’t think that’s what ruined it. I hope the two of them face a bitter, lonely, hate-filled life together from now on, they’ve earned it.
I have a special, deep antipathy to litigious assholes, I must confess.
Police got warrants and took the rifle and the lawyer turned in the pistol yesterday https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/mccloskeys-served-with-warrant-police-take-rifle-shown-in-viral-pictures-st-louis-protests/63-c6059a94-528c-4fa5-8fea-4a87fba31f1c
You have to take a survey to read that article, but it’s worth it.
“One of the rules prohibited unmarried people from living together. Several neighbors said it was because the McCloskeys didn’t want gay couples living on the block.”
It’s completely bananas. It reminds me too much of the time the owner of Base Camp Brewing pulled his illegally modified AR-15 on some homeless people about two years ago. Way to fuck up your life. Don’t bring out guns to intimidate peaceful unarmed protesters. It will not go well.
It’s worse than that. That site is one which fails to understand the EU’s GDPR, and, very probably based on IPv4-address geolocation, bans people in the EU from reading it. They — and numerous other sites who do this — seem to have incompetent, if any, legal advice. The problem? The GDPR applies to an EU citizen(? resident?) regardless of where in the world they are. Hence, geolocation-based filtering accomplishes nothing (other than to piss off people who geolocate to the EU, whether or not they are EU citizens / residents), and the shiteholes who do this are still (potentially) in violation of the GDPR.
(I am aware there are tricks to get around this technological and legal incompetence — which is entirely not the point…)
Alas, before those two earned their 15 minutes of notoriety I always associated their name with the last really respect-worthy Republican, California Rep. Pete McCloskey.
The most disturbing part is that they are not abusing the legal system. That’s how it is meant to be used to one’s advantage. Civil courts are bullies weapons. See also: Donald Trump.
Why wish for this when you can wish that they finally get on each other’s nerves enough to divorce, and then sue each other as well?
The photo didn’t “ruin their lives.” Their own actions did. If you don’t want something you’re doing photographed, don’t do it in public.
Yet more alleged adults who need to learn that we all are responsbile for our actions and their consequences.
@6
that is a sure thing soon as they get to the point of understanding that they do not want to be possessions of the other .
uncle frogy
@1 Not from their cold dead hands then .
2) @ Ray Ceeya Do you mean the stltoday article? It told me I’d used up my freebies and needed to unblock ads. So I read it on the Wayback Machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200711170442/https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/portland-place-couple-who-confronted-protesters-have-a-long-history-of-not-backing-down/article_281d9989-373e-53c3-abcb-ecd0225dd287.html
Their rating and people’s comments on facebook were terrible before people started dogpiling. It was down to 1.0 when the scumbags turned off the reviews.
they also robbed a diner in the early 1990’s.
(This is a joke)
@ drew
I understand your scepticism about the law; but it can also be a tool for progressive causes. We refer to this quote a lot with our campaigns:
“The law cannot save those who deny it but neither can the law serve any who do not use it. The history of injustice and inequality is a history of disuse of the law. Law has not failed–and is not failing. We as a nation have failed ourselves by not trusting the law and by not using the law to gain sooner the ends of justice which law alone serves.”
Their Passover beehive temper tantrum stood out.
But he does own part of the farm….a small bag of it.
@12 yeah they probably call each other honey bunny and pumpkin as well
For those that don’t want to try to get through the paywall/”survey”, ABC News has picked up the story here:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/police-execute-search-warrant-home-gun-toting-couple-71732868?cid=clicksource_4380645_2_heads_hero_live_headlines_hed
One thing I saw in that article that hasn’t been mentioned previously…they have a three year dispute going with the HOA over who owns a small bit of land. Mr. MCloskey said that he pulled a gun on a neighbor who walked across it.
Wonder if the HOA will toss them out over this stuff?
Alan Robertshaw 13,
That is a nice sentiment in the quote but “the law” is an abstract idea that only has the value we assign it. I think Drew’s point is that the law can be and has been easily subverted by moneyed interests for decades if not centuries.
@MikeSmith. #12:
Ringo and Hunny Bunny have really let themselves go…
Man, they’re real pieces of work…