It was nothing more than dumb luck that I saw this twit.

@nytopinion @BretStephensNYT This is so irresponsible. For many readers, anything that comes out of the times has its authority. They don’t know you hired an idiot.

— Monica Potts (@MonicaBPotts) April 28, 2017

Not that anyone cares what Monica Potts, whoever she is (but she has that blue tick, so she must be twitter-important) says, but Nate Silver, tarnished though he may be after his botch of the election outcome, says so too.

The Truth Is More Important Now Than Ever, Except If You’re Reading Our Op-Ed Page

Continue reading →

So what if Jeff Sessions doesn’t realize Reefer Madness wasn’t a documentary, but a propaganda film, best watched high to achieve maximum enjoyment. The opposing viewpoints, far from the quiet of Main Justice, are locking arms behind him. If they have their way, Sessions may end up a hero, prescient in reviving “just say no” as the cell door slams.

It’s the opioid epidemic. Not problem, but epidemic. The thing about using words like epidemic is that they scare people. They make people leap to the conclusion that this problem is so extreme that it must be fixed. Immediately. By any means possible. And this is the word of choice on the left and the right. When consensus appears, hold on to your hats.

German Lopez at Vox says it completely changed his view of legalization of drugs. Apparently, this 2012 graduate of the University of Cincinnati* knows a lot of addicts.

By the time I began as a drug policy reporter in 2010, I was all in on legalizing every drug, from marijuana to heroin and cocaine.

Continue reading →

Press releases are great, especially when they’re all about really important things like reducing the United States prison population by 50%.

As part of its effort to achieve a 50 percent reduction in the U.S. jail and prison population, the ACLU Campaign for Smart Justice today announced a new multi-year initiative to overhaul the power wielded by prosecutors.

Overhauls are great, particularly when the overhaul is of power wielded by prosecutors. Who doesn’t want to see that happen, John Pfaff?

The ACLU’s initiative includes a series of high-impact, locally driven prosecutorial reform campaigns in a number of states across the country, beginning in Philadelphia where #VoteSmartJustice is underway to educate voters about the district attorney race in the May 16 primary.

Continue reading →

It was only a year ago that everyone who didn’t share your feelz was racist and sexist. Good times. Now, they’re fascists and nazis*. This is a problem, because they’re running out of horrible names to call people, but that doesn’t mean they can’t stop a rose parade in Portland.

Across the nation, peaceful protest against President Trump continues. But a violent fringe has been using Trump’s rise as a justification for political violence, as if his authoritarian impulses justify authoritarianism from his opponents.

This tiny faction knows that most of their compatriots on the left are committed to nonviolence, so they frame their aggressive actions as a narrow exception to the rule.

Is it a tiny faction? One would suppose, despite the lack of any metric by which to determine it one way or another. We would certainly prefer to believe the faction to be tiny, because if not, then mass hysteria has turned America into its worst nightmare. Continue reading →

Scammers made a small fortune off robocalls that purported to be from the IRS. They tapped into two things that characterize America: ignorance and fear. Some recipients of the calls had no clue that the IRS, not to mention the legal system, didn’t work that way, that they didn’t call up people to inform them they were going to be prosecuted unless they paid money. And people fear the IRS, that universally despised branch of government, that brutal bureaucracy, that can and will destroy lives.

Doubts? Sure. Want to roll the dice? A lot of nice people didn’t. Great way to run a government, guys. The New Orleans District Attorney’s office played a variation on the same game.

The notice Tiffany Lacroix received in November had “SUBPOENA” printed at the top, next to a logo of the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office. It ordered her to meet with a prosecutor to discuss the upcoming trial of Cardell Hayes, charged with murdering former Saints player Will Smith.

“A FINE AND IMPRISONMENT MAY BE IMPOSED FOR FAILURE TO OBEY THIS NOTICE,” it declared.

To a criminal defense lawyer, this subpoena might fail miserably to suffice.  Continue reading →

It was a, ahem, shocking confession. Shot:

“Some time ago, outside the statute of limitations, I drove 60 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone,” said Roberts, drawing laughter from those in the courtroom. But the chief didn’t crack a smile.

Chaser:

“I was not arrested,” he added.

For all you sanctimonious, self-righteous prigs who want all those bad hombres to get life plus cancer before sending them “home,” cut the bullshit. We, and by we, I mean you as well as me, all break the law. Some worse than others, but none of us, not even Chief Justice John Roberts, is so pure, so perfect, that he’s managed to live his life like Caesar’s wife. And I don’t care who you are or what lies you tell yourself or others. You don’t either. Hell, you don’t even know 90% of the laws, if not more, that can be broken on a daily hourly basis. Continue reading →

Somebody wanted a job. Somebody was a Millennial. Hilarity ensued.

Application

I applied online. I interviewed at Pollard PLLC.

Interview

Jonathan Pollard is one of the rudest and unprofessional hiring managers I have ever encountered in my job seeking experience. After applying for the job, he sent me a one-paragraph critique of my writing samples, instead of simply telling me that my experience is not the right fit for his firm. A direct quote from his email to me: “My English and history professors at Cornell would have ripped this to shreds (as I just did)”. This is an incredibly inappropriate way to speak to a job seeker and is probably a good indicator of his management style…I suggest that the company outsource its’ hiring needs to a recruiter who is familiar with the hiring process and the decorum that comes with the hiring process. This type of behavior is completely unacceptable.

Well, somebody’s feelings were hurt. After all, isn’t it the employer’s duty to engage in behavior that’s completely acceptable to the 23-year-old twinkie who wants a job? Pollard, a non-compete lawyer, sees it a little differently. Continue reading →

The circus surrounding Ann Coulter’s speaking at Berkeley may be over, or not, as it appears that proxies will speak the words she was supposed to speak before her student sponsors pulled the plug and she canceled. Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, who is in a terrible position between the First Amendment and his passionate tuition payers, tries to rationalize what happened.

The Berkeley College Republicans invited Ms. Coulter without consulting with the university about the date of the event. This meant we at the school were unable to identify a place and time that could satisfy the extensive but necessary security requirements.

Out of the box, his excuses beg questions. Was “consultation,” a word chosen in lieu of the word Dirks meant, permission, necessary? The problem wasn’t the lack of a place, or a date conflict, not that those would be limiting factors to the students or speaker, but the school’s claimed security logistics. Ironically, Dirks’ omits that the driving force was his Antifa problem.

As a compromise, the college identified other dates and times for the event — during a forthcoming reading week or early in the fall semester — during which secure venues would be available.

Continue reading →

There was no surprise when ICE unveiled the nuts and bolts of its insufferably-named “Victims of Immigration Crimes Engagement” office, or VOICE. During his address to Congress, President Trump said he had ordered DHS “to create an office to serve American victims”* of the undocumented. DHS Secretary John Kelly alluded to it in a memorandum that was released about a month afterwards.

But now that its plan for the victims has been laid out in full, its contents are just as generic, and effective at murdering words, as the President’s previous statements and Executive Orders.  Let’s start with what’s listed under the subheading “what services are available to me as a crime victim through VOICE:”

VOICE will afford victims and their loved ones a single point of contact to obtain information regarding criminal aliens in ICE custody. That could include getting automated custody status information, getting additional releasable case history about the perpetrator, or having an ICE representative explain the immigration enforcement and removal process.

Automated custody status information? That’s already in place.  DHS has an online inmate locator system, where any primate can go online and find out where the person’s being detained. There’s even an 800 number that someone, equipped with the culprit’s alien number, can check the status of his case in immigration court. But ICE failed to even mention that basic tidbit.

Additional releasable case history about the perpetrator? Guess the formidable folks at VOICE will guide victims as they go through public online court dockets. ICE representative will explain the immigration enforcement and removal process? Are these people (lawyers, JDs, or someone who took a crash course?) going to be capable of explaining, over the phone, the intricacies of the process that involves detaining, holding, and deporting individuals?

Will they be able to explain the uncertainty that ensues when the criminal rubber hits the immigration road? If so, immigration law practitioners may want to start looking for jobs at Dairy Queen Taco Bell.

Moving backwards, VOICE’s objectives are listed as such:

• Use a victim-centered approach to acknowledge and support immigration crime victims and their families.
• Promote awareness of rights and services available to immigration crime victims.
• Build collaborative partnerships with community stakeholders assisting immigration crime victims.
• Provide quarterly reports studying the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States.

Now, a moment of silence for all those slaughtered words, as Orwell does somersaults in his grave. “Victim-centered approach?” “Promote awareness of rights?” “Collaborative partnerships?” This is all meaningless babble. No detailed plan, just a bunch of “feel good” words strung together incoherently. So far, the only ones hearing the victims’ voices will be the talentless saps that will run the call centers.

At best, this is a lame attempt at a tummy rub, which will only reach the dumb or the terminally misinformed. As it is, this VOICE project is, as Glenn Greenwald put it, “dangerous and disgusting. And exploitative beyond relief.” At worst, it will make people dumber and put people’s lives in danger. All this talk about informing about the inmate’s whereabouts can lead to some of the crazies thinking they can go on a lynching expedition at an immigration jail, where they will be met by people with guns.

Notice what was absent from the VOICE website? A blueprint for making victims “whole”: giving them counseling, cash, or having their voices heard in court. I doubt that whoever drafted the VOICE plan realized that the criminal courts and prosecutors are the ones, for better or worse, who try to do those things for the victims. So was it probably an omission due to misinformation. Or perhaps they’re just cheap.

In any event, victims are not heard in immigration court or by ICE, as any “sentencing” has already been done in the criminal courts, and there are no victim impact statements in immigrationland.  If you lose in immigration court, the only sentence is an order saying “you’re outta here,” notwithstanding any cries for “justice” coming from anyone.

Like deportation proceedings, the debate over victims’ rights is complex stuff. It’s usually those who’ve spent time in the trenches who can shed some light on what may improve the state of affairs, and what can make it worse.

The content of the VOICE website is an oversimplified and misguided version of what happens on the ground. Its approach to the law and the dynamics of deportation is arrogant and dangerous. But its self-righteous and self-pitying approach to victims is what makes this tripe all the worse, because it may leave victims worse off than they were in the first place.

*He followed that by saying, “we are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media, and silenced by special interests.” That statement is removed from reality: undocumented immigrants who commit crimes are usually given an extra dose of smear by the media, and those without status don’t have “special interests” who serve them by silencing their victims.

The people of Flint, Michigan, have suffered what should be one of the most devastating failures of government ever. Sorry, Trump haters, but you don’t come close. Yet, it’s failed miserably to gain much traction. After all, what’s the big deal about some lead in a city’s water supply damaging the brains of children?

But for those who can’t get the hell out of Flint, the problem remains, so they held a “town hall” type meeting about it with Flint’s mayor, except it was in the House of Prayer Missionary Baptist Church. Flint Police Chief Tim Johnson wasn’t about to let this meeting get out of hand.

“I just want to make sure this meeting goes off the way it’s supposed to and that everybody’s respecting everyone,” he said. “Please don’t be in here trying to disrupt this meeting, because if you do I’m going to escort you out and I’m only going to take you to the back door and then you’re going to jail. I’m not going to play with nobody tonight.”

And by “disrupt,” Johnson meant behave the way he thinks people should in church. Continue reading →