Fire emergency doors with big red signs about alarms going off are very confusing. Who could possibly know that it meant a fire alarm, and that by pushing the bar that said “alarm” would set off an alarm and not just open the door that said “emergency exit only”?
That would be New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman. Continue reading
At the New York Times, Peter Coy makes a convincing argument that the only way to address the deficit is to raise revenues, or in human terms, raise taxes. Of course, money already spent by the government has to be paid for, eventually, even if it was spent on things we would have preferred it not be spent on. Going forward, it would be nice to think that money will be better, more wisely, more effectively spent, but what are the chances of that happening? And so, future expenditures will have to be paid for as well. By taxes.
You don’t hear this from either Republicans or Democrats because calling for higher taxes is seen in Washington as politically fatal. As I said, it requires imagination. When you step back from the daily tit for tat, it’s hard to imagine any way to fix the nation’s finances in the long term that doesn’t involve more tax revenue. As Sherlock Holmes said, “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
We’re approaching October, and that means it’s time for my yearly guide to a stress free, happy Halloween for all readers of the Friday Funny.
If you’ve been reading my work for the last two years, you know by now I love Halloween. It’s fun to watch the kids get dressed up and roam the neighborhood with other children in search of the best candy hauls that evening. It’s a fun night where kids and their parents can let loose a little and just have fun with ghouls, ghosts and things that go bump in the night. Continue reading
It would be fair to say that no one, even a judge, would take issue with a woman attorney using the salutation “Ms.” It’s not because a state Supreme Court ordered it, but because it has evolved into standard use. And, indeed, there is good reason for that happening, since the marital status of a woman is irrelevant in most contexts. But when a court has to order it, it means that it’s not standard and the court has compelled the introduction of a politicized non-standard usage into its legal proceedings.
That is what the Michigan Supreme Court has done. Continue reading
When a dear buddy lost his brother in a car accident while we were in college, I came home for the funeral to be with him and give him someone to talk to. One of the things that brought him comfort was told to him by the rabbi, that if all the people in the world threw their troubles into a big pile and got to pick anyone’s trouble to take out, they would choose their own.
We all have our problems and, much as we care about others and would like to be there for them, help them if we can, we no more want their problems than they want ours. We are not them. They are not us. So be it. So how did sympathy become something only bad people gave? Continue reading
After test driving that cool new Toyota Corolla, you ask the salesperson at the dealership “what’s the best price you can do?” He tells you he has to talk to his manager, then returns with a price written on a piece of paper and tells you, “That’s the best deal we have, and it’s only good if you buy it now.” He’s lying to you, of course. You know it. He knows it. Then the negotiating begins and maybe you buy or maybe you walk, but the one thing you know with absolute certainty is that it’s neither the best he can do nor a deal that disappears if you don’t take it.
That’s the way that business is conducted, over and over, and everybody knows it. Yet, it violates New York Executive Law § 63(12). Continue reading
In a saner world, a presidential candidate suggesting that the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff should be put to death would be a big deal, not to mention the sort of assertion that would kill any presidential aspirations and raise serious questions of the need for committment for mental health observation. But that’s not our world, and it’s little more than Trump’s daily call for violence against his detractors and enemies, which seems to grow hourly.
Should he not be asked by journalists why he would say such an insane thing? Since he won’t take the stage in the Republican candidates’ debate where he has nothing to gain and much to lose if something too batshit crazy for even his adoring fans comes out of his mouth. Or perhaps another lie too obvious or too stupid to overlook? The pitfalls for Trump are many, but then, isn’t that true when he’s being interviewed? Continue reading
During the height of #MeToo, random stories, true or false, honest or exaggerated or completely fabricated, made the rounds with almost no pushback. After all if you were accused, that was all others needed to know to demand that your job be lost, your friends abandon you and your future be ruined. Good times. But are such accusations immune from attack because of the public concern surrounding #MeToo?
Kaija Freborg decided to post an implicit accusation of rape(?) against her dance instructor and sexual partner, Byron Johnson, on Facebook. She was being #MeToo fierce. Continue reading
At Sentencing Law and Policy, Doug Berman notes yet another academic arguing how the dreaded plea bargaining should be changed. Georgia State prawf Russell Covey’s law review article, Toward a More Comprehensive Plea Bargaining Regulatory Regime, which he argues addresses the harmful effects of unregulated plea bargaining.
America’s plea-bargaining system is famously informal. While there is a smattering of state and federal regulation of guilty pleas, the practice of plea-bargaining itself remains almost entirely untouched by law. Because plea bargaining is the mechanism by which the vast majority of criminal convictions are secured — upwards of 95% by most estimates — this means that almost all criminal convictions are the product of an essentially unregulated, and in many ways entirely lawless, process. There is an increasing awareness of the harmful effects of an unregulated plea bargaining system and the ways that this lack of regulation enables highly coercive practices that effectively deprive most criminal defendants of their constitutional right to trial. The corrosive effect of plea-bargaining’s dominance is unmistakable and the continuing lack of meaningful regulation of it threatens the basic integrity of the criminal legal system.
Cheerleading has become more varsity sport than the old idea of young women in short skirts shouting “go team.” Cheerleaders are recruited like top athletes and given scholarships if they are at the top of the pyramid. At Northwestern, the cheerleader coach and athletic staff decided to get the most bang for their buck out of cheerleaders, including Hayden Richardson, who sued under Title IX and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act,
For her participation on the team, Richardson received scholarships in both 2019 and 2020. In 2019, she received a $5,500 scholarship, and in 2020 the scholarship amount was $4,041. Id. As part of joining the team, Richardson was required to sign a contract. The contract, referred to by Richardson as the Spirit Squad Contract, laid out the terms of her membership on the cheerleading team. Continue reading