These are not the times to be caught in the middle of a dumpster fire unless you’re ready to get burned. That Bill Maher lit the fire isn’t surprising, though his courting outrage is his bread and butter. That he put Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse in the middle of his fire was, well, one of the possibilities that Sasse should have anticipated. After all, Sasse knew Maher was Maher before he went on the show.

Shortly after 10 p.m., Mr. Maher, the comedian and host of HBO’s “Real Time,” was talking to Mr. Sasse on his program about the boundaries between adolescence and maturity, and how adults in California still dress up for Halloween.

When Mr. Sasse said this did not happen in his state, Mr. Maher said, “I’ve got to get to Nebraska more.”

Mr. Sasse replied: “You’re welcome. We’d love to have you work in the fields with us.”

Mr. Maher said: “Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house nigger. No, it’s a joke.”

Maybe it was a joke to Maher, because he’s so edgy, but saying “no, it’s a joke,” doesn’t make it funny. Continue reading →

In the scheme of historical novelists, Dame Hilary Mantel is kind of a big deal, so when she says something, people listen. And what she has to say isn’t going to endear her to those who prefer to rewrite history.

Women writers must stop rewriting history to make their female characters falsely “empowered”, Dame Hilary Mantel has said.

Mantel, the Man Booker Prize-winning novelist, said writing about women in history was a “persistent difficulties” for her contemporaries, who “can’t resist” retrospectively making them strong and independent.

The genre of historical novels is a fascinating one, the intersection of historical accuracy and an interesting, if wholly fictional, story. Continue reading →

When news broke that Evergreen State College was shut down by police because of a “direct threat,” obvious questions went unanswered. A direct threat of what? By whom? Why? Surely there would be answers coming soon enough. The media reports said nothing. A day later and they still say nothing.

Evergreen State College, which has been in the national spotlight after protests over race boiled over last week, closed Thursday after receiving a direct threat.

The school of about 4,500 students in Washington state posted this warning: “College closing immediately. In response to a direct threat to campus safety, the college is closing immediately for the day. All are asked to leave campus or return to residence halls for instructions.”

A spokeswoman for the school wrote in a text message Thursday afternoon that a threat had been called in to local law enforcement and that the president decided to close the school temporarily out of an abundance of caution.

Continue reading →

There was once a time when these two things could be true:

1. You could disagree with a policy
2. You were unwilling to lie about the law to achieve your goal

Good times, but they are gone, as the newly formed law prof anti-Trump blog takes a dive down the rabbit hole to counter those academics who, while disagreeing with policies, refuse to use their scholarly cred to achieve their goal at the expense of academic integrity.

Interestingly, the few academics willing to call out intellectual dishonesty, compared to the many empowered to spew whatever nonsense serves their ends, appear to be making significant headway. Not because they appeal to an audience of Trump fans and supporters, but because those people who refuse to forfeit their integrity for the cause appreciate their honesty. This is apparently driving the intellectually dishonest to abstraction. Continue reading →

One of the most intriguing headlines ever launches Mark Osler‘s commentary at the Messiah who shall not be named:

The Problem with the
Justice Department

It’s a building full of prosecutors.

Come on. You’ve got to love that. But why is that a problem?

Imagine an incoming president of the United States announcing that he or she would take advice on criminal justice matters exclusively from a Federal Defender’s office. Moreover, the new chief executive intends to put the defenders in charge of federal prisons, forensic science, and the clemency process. After all, the president might argue, the defenders understand federal criminal law from the ground up, have a rich understanding of the social conditions that lead to criminal behavior, and are the federal attorneys most responsible for ensuring individual Constitutional protections. Continue reading →

Beyond the diehards who believe that there is no limit to what must be done to stop Trump from being Trump, the question of undermining legal doctrine for this purpose at the risk of creating new legal doctrine that will prove disastrous to future presidents and their ability to exercise the authority of their office looms huge. For the shallow, this is easily misunderstood as not hating Trump enough. But it has nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with law.

Are we prepared for forsake the legitimacy of law and precedent to get this guy?

In the New York Times, Cardozo lawprof Kate Shaw seeks to create the “conceptual ledge,” that rational stopping point that prevents the slide down the slippery slope into oblivion.

What weight, if any, should the words of a United States president have in court? It’s not a question the Supreme Court has ever answered. But if the Trump administration asks the court to hear this case, and the court agrees to do so, the outcome will almost certainly turn on this issue.

The Fourth Circuit’s travel ban ruling does something never before done: it goes behind the facially lawful exercise of authority by a president and condemns it as unconstitutionally motivated based on the statements of a candidate and his “surrogates.” There was no denial that the president has the authority to do as Trump did: Continue reading →

In Part 1, I addressed intra-district sentencing disparity in the District of Nebraska.  I presented eight tables containing judge-specific sentencing statistics for fiscal years 2015-2016[1] and I asked for insights from readers of Simple Justice. As promised, I now set out some of my thoughts and respond to several of the interesting, and often funny, comments.

I start with two assumptions. The great bulk of the readers of SJ loathe the Sentencing Guidelines. Also, I assume that many of you don’t like Attorney General Sessions, and are particularly worried about his May 10, 2017 memo that, among other important aspects, requires federal prosecutors to charge “the most serious, readily provable offense.”

I don’t want to argue about the Sentencing Guidelines writ large, whether Sessions is a dolt or whether you prefer Attorney General Holders’ previous (and dainty) way of doing business. Indeed, if you are now a CDL in the federal trenches, you have no choice but to “Cowboy up” and deal with the legal realism of the moment. Continue reading →

The bluegrass state has a blue job problem. People just don’t want to be Kentucky State Troopers.

They’ve got some strict rules in Kentucky. There was that 60 college credit thing. And then, there’s the summer tat problem, which totally sucks after the permanent remembrance of that drunken night with the white sheep. What to do? Continue reading →

The cop’s best gal, Heather McDonald, has tried to single-handedly undo one of the few reforms to policing that nearly everyone, cops excepted, else has agreed goes beyond the pale: racial profiling.* Her weapon of choice? Redefinition.

The anti-“racial profiling” juggernaut must be stopped, before it obliterates the crime-fighting gains of the last decade, especially in inner cities. The anti-profiling crusade thrives on an ignorance of policing and a willful blindness to the demographics of crime. Yet politicians are swarming on board. In February, President George W. Bush joined the rush, declaring portentously: “Racial profiling is wrong, and we will end it in America.”

Too bad no one asked President Bush: “What exactly do you mean by ‘racial profiling,’ and what evidence do you have that it exists?” For the anti-profiling crusaders have created a headlong movement without defining their central term and without providing a shred of credible evidence that “racial profiling” is a widespread police practice.

This would be terrible if true. The good news is that its not true. The generous view is that nobody told McDonald, so she’s left to her own devices. Continue reading →

Hard as it may be to imagine an elitist country club in Jersey, Princeton existed. But it’s trying desperately to shed its old legacy Ivy image to appear more like the second-tier Ivies where the poor and downtrodden had a chance of admission.

Eisgruber and his colleagues have made real and rapid progress. Princeton was until recently among the country’s least economically diverse colleges, overlooking hundreds of qualified low-income high-school students each year.

No more. Only 6.5 percent of the class of 2007 received Pell grants, which typically go to students in the bottom half of income distribution. The share among the class of 2017, which graduates next week, is 14.9 percent. The share in both this year’s and next year’s freshman class is 21 percent.

The changes aren’t just about one statistic, either. Princeton is also enrolling more middle-class students and low-income foreigners, who are ineligible for Pell grants.

The mothers at Rosemary Hall are aghast, now that there is no longer a guarantee that one’s roomie will be suitable for a dinner invitation. But it’s not just that they don’t know which fork to use. Continue reading →