Some offer a simplistic solution. There are too many dead in Gaza, so Israel should just stop. That would certainly have an impact on the number of Gazans killed, but then what? The hostages remain in captivity. Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel, until it’s next barbaric rampage across the border. And Israel just takes it because the alternative is terrible for Gazans?

.@chrislhayes: “There is no terrorist attack, no matter how horrific—and truly Oct. 7 was horrific—that can wash clean what we are seeing in Gaza and what we as Americans and our government are abetting. It must end. We must stop it.” pic.twitter.com/2nKYlWoaGl

— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) December 20, 2023

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Friends, we gather here on this blessed December day to send the year 2023 off into the sunset. It’s been an interesting year, and one with a lot to cover in what’s arguably the biggest post I do here all year So let’s get to the jokes, shall we?

Speed is the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of 2023. Specifically, the speed at which this year seemed to transpire and the speed at which the world seemed to catch on fire. Paying attention to this year, one could liken it to two grumpy puppies fighting in a dog crate. At one moment they’re sleeping, then they’re fighting and snarling at each other like mortal enemies. The difference between 2023 and two angry puppies, however, is the puppies eventually get bored and go back to sleep.

Let’s set the wayback machine to Continue reading →

Who cares whether Harvard president Claudine Gay is a plagiarist? Had she not blown up for her response to Rep. Elise Stefanik’s question as to whether calling for genocide was against the rules and policies of Harvard, few of you would have known her name, and certainly nothing about her spartan scholarly works. And yet, Republicans in the House are now calling for hearings into her academic veritas.

Harvard last week cleared Gay of “research misconduct” after plagiarism allegations emerged, but Education and Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) announced Wednesday that the panel had begun a review of Harvard’s handling of the allegations that she said were “credible.”

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Dog sniffs. Dog hits. Dogs have wonderful sense of smell and will alert either when they smell something, when their handler wants them to alert or just whenever because they’re dogs. Yet, dog hits remain one of the unmovable bits of probable cause despite their having no more validity than a coin toss because the Supreme Court justices, like all judges, love cute puppies.

Yet the New York Court of Appeals has decided there is a place even cute puppies can’t sniff without a warrant. Continue reading →

One might think defending the indigent would be woke enough to soothe the insipient outrage that permeates the majority of the membership of United Auto Workers local 2325, but as expressed in lawyerspeak by union representative Niteka Raina, it barely scratched the woke surface.

“Being a public defender should inherently mean you’re against f—ing genocide,” lawyer Niteka Raina wrote in a ranting email to coworkers obtained by The Post.

“But I guess legal aid is so desperate for attorneys the organization just lets anyone stay these days, oof.

“Ya dumbf—k genocide supporters,” Raina comtinued. “The united states and israel are both settler-colonial entities and both shouldn’t f—ing exist, ya dips—ts.””

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To get away from the Atlanta judge and jury, former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (as opposed to the other three chiefs of staff under Trump) argued that whatever happened with regard to his conduct in and relating to the Georgia 2020 vote, it was part of the job. In an opinion by a well-respected conservative, Chief Judge William Pryor, for a unanimous court, Meadows got one hell of a spanking for his efforts.

At bottom, whatever the chief of staff’s role with respect to state election administration, that role does not include altering valid election results in favor of a particular candidate.

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Two things can be true at the same time. The screws at Rikers can be a cruel, sometimes criminal, lot toward their treatment of jailed pre-trial and sentenced detainees. Some of these detainees are violent and uncontrollable. The ugly reality, and it is extremely ugly, is that jails are dangerous, awful places that do almost nothing well aside from segregating people from  outside society.

What they cannot do is isolate the bad dudes, whether they’re the corrections officers or the inmates, from others within the jail but for solitary confinement. The very progressive New York City Council wants to end the practice. Continue reading →

My pal Carl, better known on the twitters as @HistoryBoomer, was kind enough to stop by Casa de SJ for dinner last night. Among our varied conversations, not the least of which was his eating peccadilloes, we talked about the kids. As a prof, Carl has a closer view of what young people are thinking and saying than an old lawyer like me, and his sense was that the unduly passionate are mostly on the fringes, with the majority of students reasonable, kind and open-minded. It was truly good to hear.

But then, what to make of this Harvard/Harris poll? Continue reading →

In the fevered minds of “leftists” (for lack of another “acceptable” word, I’ll use the word chosen by Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet in their In These Times post and adopted by Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times), their once-fellow travelers are turning away from the truth and beauty and joining the right.

Joyce and Sharlet’s broadside largely obsesses over bold-faced name converts, from Matt Taibbi  and Naomi Wolf to Russell Brand and Dave Chappelle. Goldberg tries to take it a step further, because who among us doesn’t form our view of the world based on Russell Brand? Continue reading →

Hey everyone! Your humble humorist is still plugging away at the big bastard of a post I write every year—the SJ Year in Review. Don’t worry, that’s coming next week. I thought while we waited, I’d regale you with a retooling of a bit I came up with two years ago.

It’s the holiday season, after all, and this time of year we’re getting Christmas cards and those long-winded, rambling Christmas letters people send updating you on the lives of everyone in their families. Consider this my Christmas letter to you all this year. Except mine’s got better jokes than your Aunt Tammy’s and mine’s set to festive music.

Mr. Tom Lehrer, will you kindly get us started? Continue reading →