The backchannels of criminal defense lawyers were on fire.

Have you? Never. You? Nope, can’t even imagine it.

The buzz was about the government’s motion to dismiss the information against Michael Flynn. It wasn’t even a defense motion, with the government conceding the point in response. It was the government’s motion. After a plea. After it prevailed against every attack. After General Flynn went through his plea allocution, under oath, admitting to the commission of the crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2). Continue reading →

KC Johnson caught it right away.

While others (like me) were still reading and processing the new Title IX regs, the Washington Post was already up and running with the story and, to its credit, sought comment from presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and target of Tara Reade’s accusations, Joe Biden. And “his campaign did not reply.” Continue reading →

It took 2033 pages to try to create the appearance of acknowledging every cry, claim and demand, real or imagined, considered by the Department of Education before finalizing its new regulations for Title IX sex hearings. If you’ve got a lot of time to kill, and aren’t put off by the prospect of little payback for your investment, there are some nuggets in there worthy of note.

But what is mostly notable is that after three years, thousands of lives and screams of outrage that persist, most of which are false or absurdly hyped, it’s neither as big a deal, nor as much of a change, as anyone would have it. What becomes quickly clear is that the new regs are horse designed by committee, an effort to smooth over ruffled feathers, to provide some facsimile of the accouterments of due process that its predecessor, the 19-page 2011 Dear Colleague Letter, was deliberately crafted to overcome, and otherwise punt the hard problems, such as the impossibility of creating a viable definition of “consent” which was tacitly adopted, to colleges to figure out for themselves. Continue reading →

Of the many potential arguments available in support of the lockdown, self-quarantining, mask wearing and, as will soon become ubiquitous, an army of apps and hireling to “trace” people, linking the means of controlling further outbreaks of COVID-19 to gun control is likely the worst. It’s unsound on a theoretical level. It’s needlessly divisive. It’s destined to further distinguish the deplorables who need to work to keep their businesses alive and feed their families, and who in the minds of urban editorial writers, are the sort of people who love guns.

Yet, the New York Times’ Opinion Writer at Large,* Charlie Warzel can’t control his worst impulses.

I first saw it on Twitter. “Someone poke holes in this scenario,” a tweet from Eric Nelson, the editorial director of Broadside Books, read. “We keep losing 1,000 to 2,000 a day to coronavirus. People get used to it. We get less vigilant as it very slowly spreads. By December we’re close to normal, but still losing 1,500 a day, and as we tick past 300,000 dead, most people aren’t concerned.” Continue reading →

The patron saint of the woke, Senator Elizabeth Warren, has proffered a new rule worthy of consideration.

Elizabeth Warren on the Hill today said Joe Biden gave a “credible and convincing” denial to the Tara Reade allegations, and says she’s proud to have endorsed him.

It’s not that I take issue with her reasoning, per se, as an accused’s denial is tantamount to pleading not guilty. That pretty much covers the accused’s side of the equation until the accuser proves her claim. Some might argue that Warren is being just a wee bit disingenuous, saying this only for the sake of Biden and with utterly no sincerity toward any other man. Oh, you cynical wags. Continue reading →

The 2020 Pulitzers are out. Not only did I not win (again), but there seems to be a theme in who did, and it’s well represented in the Prize for Commentary.

Hannah-Jones won for the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which has not only had an enormous influence on the discussion of American History, but has given rise to a mass reinvention of the history curriculum in American public education. Continue reading →

Ed. Note: Greg Prickett is former police officer and supervisor who went to law school, hung out a shingle, and now practices criminal defense and family law in Fort Worth, Texas. While he was a police officer, he was a police firearms instructor, and routinely taught armed tactics to other officers.

There are certain things that police officers can do that will never raise a question about their actions, and certain things that will always cause questions to be asked. One of the latter is shooting someone with a bean bag when they are standing with their hands up, and another is shooting someone in a moving vehicle.

Either of these cause grief for the department and, in most cases, both are prohibited by policy, except for very limited exceptions. The death of Michael Ramos at the hands of Austin Police on April 24, 2020 is already causing the department grief. Continue reading →

Even the last of the trailing indicators, Elizabeth Bruenig, can’t avoid facing the one thing, the only thing, that is known with absolute certainty now.

This is collateral damage that Democrats — who have spent the last few years championing the #MeToo movement — should be loath to incur. Democrats who subject Ms. Reade’s allegations to a level of scrutiny not widely applied to accusers in similar circumstances — such as Christine Blasey-Ford, who famously came forward during the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court to allege that he had sexually accosted her in high school — also open up past and future cases to reproachful disregard. Conservatives, like my colleague Bret Stephens, can see the plain gulf between how Democrats have approached sexual assault in politically advantageous cases versus Ms. Reade’s, and the evident hypocrisy threatens to discredit the entire enterprise.

Continue reading →

If I were to take to social media to explain how to perform brain surgery, there’s a fair chance no one would care. You see, I’m not a brain surgeon. I’m not even a physician. There is no reason in the world why anyone would think that I have a clue what I was talking about. So while I might spew utter nonsense, no one would care because it’s coming from me. Wise choice.

Why then would anyone care what Candace Owens, who was coincidentally born the same year as my daughter, has to say about COVID-19? And yet, when she twitted about it, it was deemed to be of sufficient importance that it got her kicked out.

Continue reading →

The Supreme Court’s crazy foray into technology, the “teleconference” for oral argument, is a mere day away, and it can’t come soon enough for advocates of cameras in the courtroom. On the one hand, there’s the question of how this telephone tag will play out for the advocates doing the arguing. Experience ranges from “tastes like chicken” to “it’s awful,” based on the level of truthiness of the critic.

But there’s the “other hand,” that SCOTUS will allow us groundlings who can’t spend our days waiting on line for a seat in the courtroom to hear oral argument live. It’s not as good as livestreaming, but it’s real life in real time. For the first time, anyone who wants to listen can do so. Mind you, transcripts are available, but they require reading which, apparently, is more work than most otherwise passionate people are willing to put in. Or there are the post-argument reviews by pundits, which vary in accuracy from views that confirm the bias of the passionate to views that are totally garbage. Continue reading →