As Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett begin, which may well prove more important and desirable to Republicans and conservatives than re-electing the repugnant yet bloated Darth Cheeto, it brings a series of opportunities. The first is that Barrett will be confirmed, putting a fifth or sixth, according to how one counts them, conservative justice on the Supreme Court.

The risk here is grossly exaggerated, because most people have no clue how SCOTUS works and conflate the Court with a political branch of government. Most cases before the Court are mundane legal matters. Most decisions are uncontroversial, bordering on boring. And the Court deals with shockingly few cases anyway. But it’s the handful of controversial issues, past, present and future, that capture the political imagination and can have a monumental impact on how society functions. Continue reading →

The killing happened last June. The decision not to prosecute the deputy who shot her was made mid-September. Given how much outrage toward wrongful police shootings and killings is pulsing across the nation, one would have expected this killing to have made national news, sparked nationwide protests, something. There was nothing. Outside of the Kansas City area, no one knew. No one cared about the killing of Hannah Fizer.

Fizer stopped her car about 10 p.m. that day between two restaurants near the 3500 block of West Broadway Boulevard. Family and friends say she was driving to her job at an Eagle Stop convenience store when she was pulled over.

The deputy, who has not been identified publicly, said Fizer refused to identify herself when she was stopped. She told the deputy she was armed with a gun and was going to shoot him, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Continue reading →

Regular readers of the Friday Funny know I make a point to not go for the same gag twice in two weeks. I hope you’ll forgive your humble humorist; the last month has seen my quiet mountain town lock 2000 college students in isolation due to COVID, a loose “tiger” within city limits, and a plane make an emergency landing on the interstate.

No, I’m not making any of that up. I appreciate your understanding. Let’s get to it. Continue reading →

It was maybe 15 years ago. I was helping with an auction for our local bird sanctuary, and cajoled a kayak manufacturer into donating a pair of “his and her” kayaks. They were to be delivered a few days before the auction through a third-party courier and everybody was thrilled about it.

The day came for delivery and the courier showed up in a van with the two kayaks in the circle in front of Casa de SJ. I asked the driver, who was a black man in his twenties, if he could pull the van around the back to the garages. He told me “no,” he was late and in a rush. We argued a bit about the fact it would take him all of about three seconds, but he grew more adamant, and finally pulled one of the kayaks out of the van and threw it to the ground. He then drove off. Continue reading →

Some argue that the answer is more black cops on the force, but that didn’t help 17-year-old Alvin Cole.

Wauwatosa Police Officer Joseph Mensah will not face criminal charges in the fatal shooting of Alvin Cole, District Attorney John Chisholm announced Wednesday evening.

Mensah shot and killed Cole on Feb. 2 outside of Mayfair Mall. Police said the 17-year-old had fired at officers first before being shot. A report from an independent investigator found, however, that “Cole did not fire at Officer Mensah or any other officer. Cole shot himself in the arm while running away from the officers.”

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Whether the Supreme Court’s decisions are grounded in falsehoods or falsehoods are picked up to justify a decision isn’t necessarily clear. It’s likely to happen both ways, as empiricism has become both tool and weapon in lawfare. But the fact that it happens really isn’t in dispute.

The Supreme Court has indeed said the risk that sex offenders will commit new crimes is “frightening and high.” That phrase, in a 2003 decision upholding Alaska’s sex offender registration law, has been exceptionally influential. It has appeared in more than 100 lower-court opinions, and it has helped justify laws that effectively banish registered sex offenders from many aspects of everyday life.

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As if anyone needed another example of the disconnect between reality and the fantasy of Critical Race Theory, the People’s Republic of California has made reopening contingent on a basic logical fallacy: correlation does not imply causation.

It has been clearly documented that certain communities – low-income, Black, Latino, Pacific Islander, and essential workers – have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 in terms of higher rates of infection, hospitalizations, and deaths.  These disparities create a public health imperative to address exposure in all communities, including especially those disproportionately impacted, as a measure to protect all communities. Continue reading →

Vice presidential debates tend to be a bit more fun than presidential debates because two (and maybe Admiral Stockdale) people get to pitch their qualifications for the best do-nothing job in Washington. After all, the essential job of being vice prez is to be there in case the president dies, and what are the chances of that happening? But this time, the chances aren’t bad. In fact, they are fairly good, which means that the VP might well become the president. Suddenly, it all matters.

The New York Times endorsed Joe Biden for president, which certainly shocked no one. It wrote a lengthy editorial in support of its nomination, which could just have easily been one sentence: He’s not Donald Trump. That’s really all there is to say about Biden, who sought the nomination before, when he was younger, stronger and more vital, but America wanted nothing to do with him. It wasn’t that he was a bad guy. He wasn’t. He just wasn’t up to snuff. Continue reading →

Not long ago, one of the lawyers involved in the transgender litigation twitted that he could not be civil to his opposing counsel. The reason was clear: his adversary denied his existence. The lawyer was transgender and the issue was about the rights of transgender people, and the opposing counsel argued against the position taken by the transgender lawyer. This was was white supremacy. This was transphobia. This was evil, and he could not, would not, be civil to someone who was evil.

Ari Cohen, formerly of FIRE, twitted a thread of advice to baby lawyers about civility.

Baby lawyers: if your mentor is a jackass to opposing counsel (or OC’s staff) for no good reason, find a new mentor yesterday.

I’ve had many strenuous disagreements with OC, and have snarked about a claim or two. But I’ve never found it hard to treat OC like a human being. Continue reading →

In concurring in the denial of cert., Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Sam Alito, seized upon the opportunity to present his views on the conflict between religious liberty, a right expressly protected under the First Amendment, and the “right to same-sex marriage,” which he describes as “read into the Fourteenth Amendment” in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Several Members of the Court noted that the Court’s decision would threaten the religious liberty of the many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman. If the States had been allowed to resolve this question through legislation, they could have included accommodations for those who hold these religious beliefs.

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