Phil Ochs was scathing in his attack on what was then known as “Limousine Liberals,” the ones who gave money and held parties for the “right” causes in their Park Avenue apartments or Hamptons oceanfront home. They said the right words, voted for the right people and gushed in their support of the downtrodden, as long as they stayed a safe distance away. It later produced an acronym, NIMBY, to express the phenomenon, not in my back yard.

Yet, in one of the most progressive areas of one of the progressive cities run by one of the self-proclaimed most progressive mayors, the uber progressive people of the Upper West Side of Manhattan don’t let history or their claimed values concern them. The homeless have infested their streets and when it’s about their children walking to some private academy through the homeless, when they have to step over them to get to Whole Foods, the life they worked so hard to achieve is threatened and they’re not going to take it. Continue reading →

Happy Friday, everyone! I decided this week we’re going to make a bit of a departure from the usual material here, so today we’re going to discuss a movie: “Hudson Hawk,” the 1990s ensemble action/comedy film starring Bruce Willis.

I’m not going to even attempt to sell you on the strengths of this movie, because there are none. In fact, held against the scope of Bruce Willis’s works, “Hudson Hawk” might be the worst Bruce Willis film ever. Every great artist has an occasional flub, and in the case of “Hudson Hawk,” the flub is so spectacular you absolutely must take a couple of hours out of this weekend and view it. Continue reading →

When my son was fencing in high school, most of the people he trained with were Asian. While the kids practiced, the parents talked. One of the benefits of being a smart student and top fencer was being recruited to good schools, and yet the mother of one fencer whose son was brilliant, hard-working, a great fencer and, on top of everything else, one of the nicest kids I ever met,* remonstrated.

Her: What are the chances he’ll get in, an Asian science nerd?

Me: About the same as science nerd Jewish kid from Long Island.

She wanted her son to go to Yale. I wanted mine to go to MIT. Mine got in. Hers did not (though he did very well, nonetheless). Yale discriminates. We knew it then, and the Department of Justice says so now. Continue reading →

No doubt he means well. They always mean well when they passionately push for righteousness, even if this time it comes from the college president of the University of Southern Maine, located in the other Portland. It’s not a well-known school. It’s not highly rated. But if Glenn Cummings has anything to say about it, it will be in violation of the law.

The University of Southern Maine has asked all members of the community to sign a “Black Lives Matter Statement and Antiracism Pledge.” The pledge cites Ibram Kendi, who popularized the concept of “antiracism.” Continue reading →

For decades, the fight on the side of criminal defense lawyers has been to break the public and judicial mindset that cops don’t lie.

Why would he lie? He doesn’t know the defendant and has no reason to harbor any personal animosity toward him. Why would he lie about him?

This was the common refrain from judges as you argued that the officer’s testimony was false, at least about a critical fact such as whether the defendant consented to a search or admitted an element of a crime or the “poignant” smell of marijuana emanated from the car. There was no video. There was no recording. It was a cop’s word against a defendant’s. Why would the cop lie? Continue reading →

It takes a special brand of twisted to indulge in the sophistry of justifying looting. And yet, here we go again.

Black Lives Matter Chicago warned Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday that the renewed civil unrest that’s gripped the city throughout the summer won’t end until “the safety and well-being of our communities is finally prioritized.”

Since when did breaking into stores equal “civil unrest”? Not rioting. Not looting. Nope. Civil unrest. And just how civil unrestful does Black Lives Matter Chicago threaten? Continue reading →

There will be a first round of commentary explaining what Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris, the “1st woman of color on a major ticket” as the New York Times puts it on its front page, means, followed by a round of damning the commentary for taking a woman, and then a black woman, to task, when “no one ever challenges a male candidate for vice president” like that.

But is Harris, as Chryl Laird argues, finally the recognition by the Democratic Party of its most loyal constituents?

Yet the significance of this decision and its meaning for Black women, the most loyal members of the Democratic Party, cannot be overstated. Black women’s commitment to the party has often gone unacknowledged, but they have been tirelessly loyal to the Democratic Party for generations. Continue reading →

For a brief and shining moment, woke radicals decided that Hispanic people were being oppressed by the word “Latino,” and so they did as they’re wont to do, changed the word to the ingenious “Latinx.” It turned out there was only one flaw in the plan. Hispanic people overwhelmingly hated it.

A Vox ‘splainer made a typically comical pitch for why the word was “catching on” with everybody but Latinos, not that the 98% of them mattered. Probably just self-loathing Latinx, as the woke rationalization for why anyone wouldn’t do as they decided was fabulous goes. Continue reading →

Someone asked the other day, “why is it different now?” An old criminal defense lawyer replied, “Because I can talk to six thousand people instantly with a device in my pocket.” Most of the time, those six thousand won’t care, but when the call goes out over social media that it happened again, the cops killed another black person, this time a 15-year-old, it goes viral.

No, no evidence is needed. Few ask the obvious question, “What happened? Why?” Oddly, it’s almost been trained out of people, to learn of an outcome and not ask anything, not wonder why, the outcome occurred. Dead black guy? Good enough. Black lives matter. Except this time, it was mostly wrong. Continue reading →

As was clear to Southern District of New York Judge John Koetl, there was nothing about the new Title IX rules to justify a delay in their imposition. So Princeton’s decision to change its procedures to comply with the new rules on August 3d might seem like a wise choice.

During an Aug. 3 webinar open to the University community, the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) voted to approve a revised Title IX policy to comply with federal guidance — as well as a separate “University Sexual Misconduct policy” addressing incidents outside of Title IX’s recently-narrowed scope.

But Princeton took it a step further, and in a somewhat different direction. Continue reading →