Eric Bramwell was, as burglars go, lousy at it. He was no jewel thief on the French Riviera. He didn’t didn’t steal priceless art or antiquities. He had his eye on something smaller, more utilitarian, more . . . universal. A TV remote. Seriously, Bramwell was such a loser that he stole clickers.

Authorities alleged that Bramwell entered the common area of the apartment building in the 100 block of Cross Street on Aug. 1, 2015, and stole the universal remote to the television set.

Not only did he aim low, no, even lower, when he picked his chosen target, but he couldn’t even manage to pull it off without screwing it up.

But, prosecutors say, Bramwell dropped a glove while at the complex, and a DNA sample taken from it was matched to Bramwell’s DNA in a database of convicted felons, which led to his arrest.

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Myer Sankary wants you to sign a petition. Because something wrong is happening and it must be stopped. The wrong person is speaking.

One of the largest book publishers in the country, Simon & Schuster, just rewarded a white supremacist spokesperson with a massive book deal.

Milo Yiannopoulos – a Breitbart publisher and spokesperson for white supremacy – has made a name for himself as a mouthpiece for hate speech. Yiannopoulos was banned from Twitter last year after leading a campaign of racial, anti-Black and sexual harassment against actress Leslie Jones. The harassment driven by Yiannopoulos was so severe that Jones had to temporarily quit Twitter. Now he’s getting $250,000 from Simon & Schuster to promote his hateful ideas.

Demand Simon & Schuster cancel the white supremacist book deal!

If you hate Milo and what he has to say, you can always not buy his book. If no one buys his book, then Simon & Schuster will get the message that they pissed away a quarter mil on a bad dude who says and does bad things that other people won’t buy. Continue reading →

Pete Wells was caught in a bind. He couldn’t complain about the mission.

To start, they intend to build a network of small restaurants that people in some of the country’s poorest, most neglected urban neighborhoods can afford. Beyond that, though, the chefs hope that their example of progressive labor practices, interior design attuned to the pulse of the city and cooking that shows responsibility for the health of both customers and the environment will spark a reformation of the fast-food industry.

The only problem was the food sucked.

“I’ll have the chicken noodle soup,” I said.

“It’s actually chicken no-noodle soup,” the woman at the counter answered, as nicely as possible. “It’s got rice, not noodles.”

It turned out there wasn’t any chicken in it, either.

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Public Editor Liz Spayd has been charged with breaking the news.

We did a story a few days ago that said we don’t have a reporter in New Jersey right now. Look, I wish we had the resources to have what we used to have in New Jersey and Connecticut, but the reality is that we don’t. And I think to do the window dressing of having one reporter running around doesn’t quite make it.

While the Gray Lady grasps to its “paper of record” legacy, New York is part of a tri-state region that includes New Jersey and Connecticut. Well, it used to, anyway.* Now, the Times can’t afford a reporter for these states? Not even one. The old Metro desk may not even bother with New York for much longer.

I’m not being coy. I don’t think so, if you think past the actual desks. I think of Metro as everything from local investigative reporting, which we do a lot of, to local culture reporting, which we do a lot of, to local business reporting, which we do a lot of. So I’m not sure people will see the word “New York” appear less in The New York Times. I think they will see less — and I have already seen less — incremental New York news coverage.

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Did Shiva Ayyadurai invent email in 1978? Who cares? Not me, but Dr. Ayyadurai does.  So too does Techdirt’s Mike Masnick, because that’s the sort of stuff that interests him. All of which is fine, because there’s no reason in the world for Mike to not be interested in whatever he’s interested in, and no reason for Mike to give a damn whether or not it interests me.

But what does interest me is that he, and Techdirt, and others involve with Techdirt, are being sued to Charles Harder, the lawyer funded by Peter Thiel to “get” Gawker in the Hulk Hogan case. For what? For disputing Ayyadurai’s claim of having invented email. Or at least, the email we use today.

41. On or about March 8, 2016, Defendants published on their website, Techdirt.com, an article authored by Defendant Masnick with the headline: “Guy Who Pretends He Invented Email Whines At Every Journalist For Writing Obit Of Guy Who Actually Helped Create Email,” a true and correct copy of which is attached hereto as Exhibit N (the “March 8, 2016 Article”). This article contains multiple false statements of fact about Dr. Ayyadurai which Defendants knew to be false at the time the article was printed and published, or had reckless disregard for the truth, including, among others: Continue reading →

Every lawyer is, by definition, an expert. If you wanted to call a lawyer to the witness stand to ask her legal opinion, the only qualification required would be bar admission. But, of course, every lawyer is not an expert in the non-legal definition. More significantly, put ten lawyers on the stand and you’ll get ten different opinions, a few of which may be totally batshit crazy.

The point isn’t that the ten lawyers who disagree are wrong, but that “expertise” does not assure a “correct” opinion. Indeed, there often isn’t a correct opinion, but there are incorrect opinions. And this is just as to law. There are an infinite number of issues upon which opinions can be formed. Some require no expertise (which tastes better, chocolate or vanilla?) and every opinion is just as valid as every other (yes, there will be that person without taste buds. Just stop). Other areas of inquiry require a foundation of base knowledge before a person can have a legitimate opinion at all, after which valid opinions can be formed and debated.

But at the Federalist, Tom Nichols (@radiofreetom*) raises the populist attack, the death of expertise.

I am (or at least think I am) an expert. Not on everything, but in a particular area of human knowledge, specifically social science and public policy. When I say something on those subjects, I expect that my opinion holds more weight than that of most other people. Continue reading →

Remember all that speech is violence stuff? Turns out that it’s a double-edged sword for University of Connecticut soccer player Noriana Radwan, who “flipped the bird” after a win that ended up costing her a scholarship.

Giving the middle finger after winning a soccer game was all it took for Noriana Radwan to lose her full athletic scholarship at the University of Connecticut.

Now she is suing the university for violating Title IX by punishing her more severely than a male athlete would have been.

The lawsuit, filed in the District of Connecticut, raises far more than just an allegation of discrimination on the basis of sex, that guys who did something “wrong” weren’t punished as harshly as Radwan. The indictment of UConn’s treatment of Radwan raises the full panoply of due process failures that have become the hallmark of college treatment of students. Continue reading →

After the revelation of the video of the horrific treatment of a special needs white man by four black men and women, spinners spun to characterize the beating, knifing, toilet-water-drinking, and abuse in a way that somehow would distinguish it from the hypocritical rush to vilify others. The tables turned, the races reversed. Neither gender nor race fit the paradigm, and an intellectually challenged 18-year-old just to make everything worse.

But the day before all of this hit the fan, Paul Caron posted an “op-ed” by Daryl Jones, interim Dean of Florida A&M Law School, entitled “The Racial Rules That Keep Us Apart.” Timing can be a bitch.

Jones’ post was about Oregon Lawprof Nancy Shurtz’s boneheaded decision to wear blackface to a Halloween Party. But it wasn’t a post from the perspective of an academic. Nor a scholar. Not even a dean. In fact, Jones’ post had nothing to do with law at all. Rather, Jones wrote as a black person because, he explained, the racial barrier can never be broken.

Somehow, I am made to feel defensive by calls for her punishment.  It just makes me very uncomfortable and I don’t want her stoned in the public square for my vindication.  If I were on the faculty at Oregon I would feel compelled to protest the crowd’s outrage ostensibly expressed in recognition of my heritage and feelings.  But I might just sit, quietly grinding my teeth and hoping that the whole thing would just die down.  It is the punishment, the demand for this poor woman’s head on a platter that makes me uncomfortable.  There are clear dangers in an African American saying so.  I imagine that some colleagues might shake their heads in disgust at my own lack of outrage.  There is always the danger of being labeled an “uncle tom” or an apologist for racists if one doesn’t adopt the hot tone of indignation.  Or just plain ignorant.

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In the waning hours of his second term, the President of the United States of America was faced with an awful decision. Should he spend what remained of his time and capital accomplishing the criminal reforms he believed to be critical to the nation, or write a 53-page article for Harvard Law Review?

President Obama opted for the second choice.* The first three paragraphs of his introduction will not only give you the flavor of what’s to come (footnotes omitted, as they cite back to his own words).

Presidencies can exert substantial influence over the direction of the U.S. criminal justice system. Those privileged to serve as President and in senior roles in the executive branch have an obligation to use that influence to enhance the fairness and effectiveness of the justice system at all phases. How we treat citizens who make mistakes (even serious mistakes), pay their debt to society, and deserve a second chance reflects who we are as a people and reveals a lot about our character and commitment to our founding principles. And how we police our communities and the kinds of problems we ask our criminal justice system to solve can have a profound impact on the extent of trust in law enforcement and significant implications for public safety. Continue reading →

It’ s impossible to tell from the New York Times article whether a rape occurred, as its substantive description is limited to the conclusory allegations:

The case involved a woman, a sophomore, who had met a player on Stanford’s powerhouse football team at a fraternity party one Saturday night. They went back to her room where, she said, he raped her. He said they had consensual sex.

For the unwitting, the word “rape” carries horrific connotations. For anyone following the devolution of definition, the word means nothing. In criminal law, rape is a crime, and crimes are comprised of elements, specific conduct usually combined with a mental state of the accused.*

On campus, it means whatever the accuser feels it means, at the time, the next day, a year later. This doesn’t mean that the accuser wasn’t raped. It doesn’t mean she was, either. It only means that we lack sufficient information to have a clue. Continue reading →