When Florida’s governor targeted progressive prosecutor Andrew Warren, he used the same rhetoric that’s thrown at others across the nation, blaming them and their decarceral policies for the “catastrophic rise in crime” that isn’t actually happening, and certainly not in the way claimed.

In announcing the suspension, DeSantis excoriated Warren for being a “woke” prosecutor more interested in social justice than in enforcing the law. He warned of a “pathogen” spreading in U.S. cities — progressive prosecutors trying to reduce incarceration rates they see as overly punitive and that disproportionately affect people of color. He said prosecutors like Warren have caused “catastrophic results” in other states.

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They can be entertaining. They can be interesting. They can, on rare occasion, be enlightening. They can. They rarely are. Yet, Jane Coaston says today’s column will be her last at the New York Times, not because she’s gone legit but so that she can focus on her podcast, The Argument.

This is my final newsletter for The Times, and I’ve valued having this space in which to wax philosophical about sports and culture and history, but I’m looking forward to focusing on my podcast, “The Argument.”

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Salman Rushdie is 75, an age to which many thought he may not make it after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa (with a $2.5 million bounty) because he wrote a book, The Satanic Verses. After the ’90s, he chose to live his life and no longer be guided by fear of assassination, which worked well until he was stabbed by 24-year-old Hadi Matar in his neck, arm and liver. He’s on a ventilator after surgery, expected to suffer loss of an eye, nerves damage in his arm and liver damage. If he lives.

Rushdie was a huge proponent of free speech. Not just the First Amendment kind, but the concept. He signed onto the Harper’s Letter, which rather than persuade the scolds of the left to be tolerant of ideas that challenged their hatred, became a list of people to denigrate as dark “intellectuals” for their failure to be woke. Continue reading →

PREVIOUSLY ON THE FRIDAY FUNNY:

Some things in life couldn’t be compromised on, the Sheriff decided that day.

Those things were the rule of law, the US Constitution, quiet dishwashers and functional central air.

NOW, ON WITH TODAY’S INSTALLMENT: Continue reading →

Not that long ago, people wrote things by hand. I know, but the ability to do so was a skill of some value before computers and printers, and then who needs printers anyway, right? But in 1874, someone got the bright idea to compile all federal statutes into a code, and the duty to do so was given to the Reviser of the Federal Statutes.

Most critically, scholars and courts have overlooked the originally-enacted version of Section 1983, which contained a provision that specifically disapproved of any state law limitations on the new cause of action. For unknown reasons, that provision was not included by the Reviser of the Federal Statutes in the first compilation of federal law in 1874. This Article is the first to unearth the lost text of Section 1983 and demonstrate its implications.

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Dan Alonso emphasized to me the phrase “burden of transparency,” as if such a burden existed, because who isn’t making up new burdens these days? But the battle being fought yesterday was who had the “duty” to come forward with the warrant executed* at MAL. While Trump claimed to have the “warrant” that put his “beautiful home” under “siege,” he demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland release the warrant and explain himself.

Of course, if there was anything in the warrant that Trump could use, no matter how hard the spin required, for his benefit, he would have plastered that sucker everywhere. Trump is not shy about anything that benefits him or any lie needed to justify it. But here he didn’t, which suggests that whatever he had either couldn’t be used in any way to help him or was pretty darn bad for him. Continue reading →

At Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene discusses whether San Bernardino County, next to Los Angeles County and with 2 million residents, can decide to secede.

Can they do that? Why, yes, they can, but only with permission of the state from which they’re seceding as well as of the federal government. Article IV, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution provides, Continue reading →

The percentage of black Americans was 12.4% as of the 2020 census. Not all were descended from slaves, as some came later or are foreign born. The percentage of women is 50.1%, presumably making the percentage of black women in the United States 6.2%. So of the 331 million people in America, that leaves more than 20.5 million who are black women. While the percentage itself may be relatively small, 20 million is still quite a lot. Without that group, it would still take something exceptionally special to stand out, to stand apart from the rest.

Serena Williams has never let tennis define her.

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Much of the time, flipping between MSNBC, Fox and CNN would lead one to think each was from a different country, or perhaps universe, given what they deemed the big news story of the moment. Not so yesterday about dinner time, when each obsessed over a story that had never before been reported, the home of a former president of the United States had been raided pursuant to a search warrant.

Granted, Trump’s tenure was replete with “firsts,” from impeachments to insurrection to emoluments to his beautiful health care plan that’s going to be revealed right after infrastructure week. And now we can add search warrant to the list, which involves a series of decisions, from Main Justice deciding to seek it, a Magistrate Judge finding sufficient probable cause to issue it, and the FBI executing it. Anyone who clings to the belief that these decisions were made lightly or frivolously is foolish. You can bet that Mag parsed the application within an inch of its life to make sure it was bulletproof.

As of now, the rumor is that it related to the boxes of confidential documents that magically ended up at Mar-a-Lago, curiously abbreviated MAL, which bring Mal Maison to my mind. Why a search warrant is unknown. Did the government believe the return of the 15 boxes, which should never have been there or flushed down the toilet, burned in the fireplace or otherwise destroyed, was inadequate? Did it believe there would be a lack of cooperation with a request or subpoena? Did they suspect destruction?

But this was all about papers. Sure, secret papers, but so what? Without knowing what the papers were about, or to what nefarious purpose the papers would be put, they’re just papers. Nobody gets all worked up about papers. Plus, Trump being president, he was empowered to see the papers, and for better or worse, didn’t suddenly forget all he was while behind the Resolute Desk they day he got sent packing.

And they even broke into his safe, which of course they did because that’s what you do when executing a search warrant, even if it’s a mystery to Trump like pretty much everything else that happens in government, law or polite company. But some, other than Trump, haven’t take it well.

“I’ve seen enough,” Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, wrote in a statement that he posted online. “The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.”

And the online nutjobs are doing their best.

This is, of course, irrelevant to any rational consideration of whether the raid was warranted factually or legally, but it’s the best they’ve got given the lack of facts or logical arguments.

If Trump committed a crime, then he is no less culpable than any other person. Neither he nor Mar-a-Lago is immune from search, from the constraints of the same legal system and procedures that apply to everyone else. Yes, it’s unprecedented, but then, so was Trump in how little he either knew, understood or respected the law.

On the other hand, if you’re going to kill the king (only a quote, chill out), you best not miss. If this is only about some secret papers that never found their way back to the archives, is that the sort of “crime” that will deliver a knock-out punch? Indeed, that may not even relate back to Trump, at least provably, as it’s hard to imagine him risking a papercut by touching a piece of paper, or reading it if it contained so many squiggly lines that it would give him a headache. So if there, it could be hard if not impossible to connect it directly to him anyway.

So why? Raiding MAL is akin to throwing a bomb into the other sides headquarters, like it or not. Not only does it have to be legally justified, which I’ve no doubt it is as nobody would have done something so inflammatory unless they had this sucker locked down tight as a drum, but justifiable, meaning that the end result would be accepted by enough of a nation that this first, this unprecedented raid, would not come off as pure political theater.

Flipping through the cable news last night, MSNBC was losing their heads over this being “it,” they finally got him. Fox was losing their heads over this, ironically, being the overthrow of democracy as the Dems were taking out Fearless Leader. And on CNN, even Elie Honig got the law right, proving there’s a first time for everything.

Where do we go from here?**

*Tuesday Talk rules apply.

**Save your space alien and Soros conspiracy theories for your pals at reddit s/tinfoil. TIA.

The obvious failing of the argument that a violent, dirty or otherwise bad cop is “one bad apple” is that they’re not alone. Others were there when they beat or killed someone, lied on an affidavit, a report or in court, and did nothing. They didn’t stop them. They didn’t correct them. They didn’t prevent them from doing harm. Whether they’re “just” as guilty as the perp with a shield who did the damage, they are by no means “good cops.”

But that fails to do a few important things beyond internal cop culture putting protecting the public ahead of shooting random beloved dogs without reason. Where is the line? When does the duty to prevent a fellow officer kick in? How to do it and how far it goes? Is it “say something” or pull your weapon on your fellow cop and start a gun fight? It has the potential for a good deal of harm as well. Continue reading →