There are more stickers on a ladder than on a NASCAR race car, the purpose of which is to putatively warn you not to eat the ladder, insert it into your ear or climb up to the very tippy-top rung after injecting heroin into your veins. Okay, I exaggerate just a bit to make a point. Do you read the warning labels?

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy now argues that alcoholic beverages should have warning labels too.

Alcohol is a leading preventable cause of cancer, and alcoholic beverages should carry a warning label as packs of cigarettes do, the U.S. surgeon general said on Friday. Continue reading →

There are arguments to be made that many who participated in the insurrection of January 6, 2021 thought they were being patriots defending a nation from a stolen election, even though it was a nonsensical lie fed to the willingly delusional by an amoral narcissist who wasn’t strong enough to endure the humiliation of failure. There are arguments to be made that some sentences imposed on J6 insurrectionists were excessive, even though capital police were beaten and bloodied. But there are no arguments that January 6th didn’t happen as it was seen, experienced and suffered that day, as Trump gleefully watched. Continue reading →

It started last midnight, congestion pricing hopes to accomplish four things. The first is to improve air quality by reducing the number of cars in Manhattan from the Battery to 60th Street. The second is to reduce gridlock, cars unable to make it through an intersection blocking the cars trying to travel perpendicular such that a huge traffic jam ensues. Third is to fund mass transit, a morass of waste, filth and abuse that carries the majority of New Yorkers to work and play and threatens bankruptcy weekly.

The fourth is to prove that Democrats can run a city. Continue reading →

In his decision denying Trump’s Clayton motion. Justice Juan Merchan eventually addresses the final piece to his felony conviction in New York County, sentencing. The judge set January 10th, a mere week after the issuance of the decision, for sentencing, with the express reason being that the defendant be sentenced in advance of his assuming the position of president.

Finding no legal impediment to sentencing and recognizing that Presidential immunity will likely attach once Defendant takes his Oath of Office, it is incumbent upon this Court to set this matter down for the imposition of sentence prior to January 20,2025. It is this Court’s firm belief that only by bringing finality to this matter will all three interests be served. A jury heard evidence for nearly seven weeks and pronounced its verdict; Defendant and the People were given every opportunity to address intervening decisions, to exhaust every possible motion in support of and in opposition to, their respective positions in what is an unprecedented, and likely never to be repeated legal scenario. This Court must sentence Defendant within a reasonable time following verdict; and Defendant must be permitted to avail himself of every available appeal, a path he has made clear he intends to pursue but which only becomes fully available upon sentencing.

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Welcome to 2025! Weren’t we supposed to have teleporters and flying cars by how? What a ripoff. Anyway we at Simple Justice wouldn’t dream of starting this New year without properly saying goodbye to 2024.

Time for The SJ Year In Review!

Your humble humorist decided to embrace the modern age and use AI to assist in the penning of this post. Before anyone gets upset, I had a really difficult time defining this year in one word. So I enlisted the services of X’s Grok, Google’s Gemini and Meta AI. Here were the results: Continue reading →

There is probably no political operative more fun to watch than James Carville, talking in his twang, using normal-people words, and saying things that others lack the guts to say. The baseball cap and sweatshirt don’t hurt either. No fancy-pants outfit for Jimbo to lend him credibility. Nosirreebob. But as fun and likeable as he may be, does that make him right?

I’ve been going over this in my head for the past two months, all the variables, all the what-ifs, all the questions about Joe Biden’s re-election decisions and what kind of Democrat or message might have worked against Donald Trump. I keep coming back to the same thing. We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is and it always will be the economy, stupid.

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My pal Carl, who has attracted a very substantial following on the ex-twitters by being brutally fair and reasonable, has made surviving the ordinary routine of life in New York City into a running joke.

After the recent subway tragedy of a woman being set on fire, following the acquittal of Daniel Penny, many have asserted that New York has become a hellscape of violence and lawlessness. It’s not true. Indeed, New York is remarkably safe as cities go, and far safer than it was a generation ago. The murder rate is stunningly low. That’s the data, no matter what the images show. Continue reading →

I’ve never understood New Years resolutions. If you want to change something about your life, change it. What does the New Year have to do with anything? Others have explained to me that it’s just a device, an objective, external measuring line to start something that you want to do, believe you should do, but just can’t muster the strength, courage or grit to get done. So there you are, a line on the calendar to convince yourself that you’re going to give it a try.

As we close out 2024, yet another year that turned out more interesting (in the sense of old Chinese proverbs) than desired, have you resolved anything? Is there anything you want to change? Is there anything you think we, as a society, need to change? Continue reading →

It was once a hell of a town. It’s now broke. Myriad forces contributed to Chicago’s state of affairs, not the least of which is the city council’s refusal to confront its reality and do something about it, like raise taxes through the roof to pay for its profligate spending. But the kicker is that the can once down the road is now in their face, and no amount of praying or pretending is going to make the can go away. The can? Public employee pensions.

The Windy City’s woes are the product of decades of fiscal profligacy and a cautionary tale to policymakers in every region and at every level of government: Retirement benefits are like free junk food to politicians — everyone loves them, and the bills don’t arrive until later. They can be ruinous for a city’s long-term fiscal health.

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The restaurant business is notorious for failure. For the few able to fill every seat and charge exorbitant prices, the business model works. Same with fast food chains, whose business model is down to a science. But for a restauranteur like Yannick Benjamin, whose restaurant Contento was excellent, it seems the notion of business model was never considered.

After more than three years of service, during which The New York Times ranked us twice among the 100 Best Restaurants in New York City and the Michelin Guide gave me its sommelier award, I had to say goodbye to my talented staff and lifelong dream of owning a restaurant. The combination of inflation, rising crime that required us to pay for security guards and declining profits simply proved insurmountable.

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