Wednesday, I remarked that this week’s “debate” looked like two old men with delusions of being professional wrestlers attempting to cut promos on each other. This was especially troubling for the President, who’s actually in the WWE Hall of Fame. For those of you unfamiliar with that tidbit, no, I did not make that up.

So today we’re going to discuss the fine art of cutting a promo. Let’s be realistic, we’re not getting any actual debates out of Trump or Biden. If they’re going to trade insults they need to do it in an entertaining fashion that actually draws people in. Continue reading →

It’s been one of those mornings when my posts rang hollow, even to me. I’ve already trashed three because they ranged from pedantic to polemic to petty. Nothing worth your time to read.*

There has been a nagging concern about what’s left after Trump, as our institutions are condemned and hated by both right and left. Like it or not, Trump will eventually go away, maybe sooner rather than later, and we will be faced with the question of whether to return to normality, a nation with deep problems but, on the whole, pretty damn good, or a burned out shell of a society at war with itself and each other. Continue reading →

The allegory of the Emperor’s New Clothes has such ubiquitous application these days as to be rendered trite. Yet, its message still matters. When used in favor of the loudest screamers on social media, it gets applause, but that’s not really the message. It’s safe and easy to agree with all your pals. It’s hard, almost impossible, to say out loud what the passionate masses don’t want to hear.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett did that in Doe v. Purdue. KC Johnson* did that in the Wall Street Journal. Continue reading →

As nominations for the Supreme Court coming from the Trump administration go, Judge Amy Coney Barrett is pretty darn good. Her ruling in the Purdue Title IX case was exemplary. Her position on civil rights is strong. How she might rule on the ACA or abortion remains something of a mystery, but the assertion that she is a guaranteed vote to end them is wildly speculative, as she has made clear that she strongly believes in the legal doctrine of stare decisis.

Hey, Trump could have nominated Jeanine Pirro. And as much as Merrick Garland has been idealized by the Dems because of the offensive Republican refusal to give him a vote, he was no great hero of liberal jurisprudence. Judge Barrett wouldn’t be Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but then, no one would expect Trump to nominate a Justice Ginsburg, and it’s hardly clear that if the next Supreme Court justice were nominated by Joe Biden, the person would be any more Notorious than Barrett. Continue reading →

It was a shitshow. Worse than that, because it can always get worse, there was never a chance that it would be anything but a shitshow from the outset. Trump came in with the purpose of proving to his hard core right wing fringe supporters that he was the tough guy they so admire in him. And when asked by Chris Wallace, who was completely incapable of reining in Trump, to condemn white supremacy, the most Trumpian of things Trump could say came out.

Stand Back. Stand By.

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The idea of a grand jury moving for the disclosure of the grand jury transcript is simultaneously bizarre and interesting. By law, they are sworn to secrecy for sound policy reasons, and since their role is not about them, they have neither a right nor interest in challenging the law. Yet, a grand juror in the presentation against the cops involved in the killing of Breonna Taylor got a lawyer and made the motion.

The unnamed juror filed a court motion on Monday seeking the release of last week’s transcripts and permission from a judge to speak publicly to set the record straight. Hours later, the office of Attorney General Daniel Cameron granted both requests, saying that the juror is free to speak and that recordings of the session will be made public.

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On the one hand, if 43 out of 47 students working at the Washington Square News, a quasi-independent newspaper of New York University, determined that their working conditions were so intolerable that they could no longer suffer the paper’s new advisor, Dr. Kenna Griffin, they did the right thing. They quit.

On the other hand, that doesn’t make their complaints sound, just theirs.

Three weeks ago, a student-run newspaper with ties to New York University got a new editorial adviser: Kenna Griffin, a former reporter and editor who had taught journalism at Oklahoma City University for 16 years. She started advising the paper, Washington Square News, remotely from Oklahoma.

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Someone gave the New York Times “more than two decades” of Trump’s “tax return data,” and they published it. Had Trump revealed his returns, as has become the norm for presidential candidates since 1974, this would be old news. But since Trump refused to do so, and since it’s Trump, the billionaire stable genius super businessman dealmaker, it’s . . . something.

What does the tax data mean? He didn’t pay any taxes for 10 of 15 years, and paid $750 in the year he was elected. Does that make him a tax genius or a lying business failure? Beats me. I’m no tax expert, and tax returns bore me to tears. It wouldn’t be surprising that he was able to use the tax regs to his advantage by milking every deduction and passive loss carryforward and using them to his advantage. It also wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he was drowning in debt. I’ve known quite a few people who lived the life of the wealthy until some intervening good fortune saved them from the scheme crashing down on them. Or the scheme crashed down on them. Continue reading →

Sifting through the vast array of ever-shifting attacks, and denials that they are anything more than strawman cries, against the now-nominated Amy Coney Barrett has been amusing, sad and pathetic. But the worst of it isn’t the usual cries by the civically illiterate, who have no clue what judges do or are supposed to do. The worst is that the groundlings are being manipulated by those who do.

To be fair, it’s too easy. Judge Barrett is being attacked/not attacked for being a Catholic, for adopting black children, and for her love/hatred of stare decisis. Smart people are arguing with surprising vehemence about how Judge Barrett will bring the “conservative” majority to 6-3 (because 5-4 isn’t a majority?), upon which every decision some cherish will be reversed and every decision some despise will be redoubled. By the way, that’s always been the way people have understood stare decisis, even though it’s a tenet about judicial stability. Continue reading →

Judge Laurie Smith Camp died in her sleep this past week. She was only 66 and so far as anyone knew, healthy. An honors graduate of Stanford and Editor in Chief of the Nebraska Law Review, she was brilliant and likely our best Chief Judge. But so much more important to me was the person I knew and came to love like a sister.

Social intelligence, kindness, class, sensitivity and graciousness was her essence. Most of you don’t remember Grace Kelly, but Laurie and I would. So, I will end with photos of these two women who radiated a pure goodness that I cannot adequately express.[1] You will understand then why tears run down my checks as these photos stare back at us. Continue reading →