Will they be serving turkey tomorrow on Riker’s Island? Or at Brooklyn House of Detention? Or the Tombs? Or thousands of jails across the country? It’s Thanksgiving. It’s a day when families should sit down together, eat a traditional meal, whatever your tradition may be, and reflect on the good things we’ve enjoyed over the past year.

It’s hard to do in jail. For some, that’s their own fault, having perpetrated bad things on other people. For others, they hurt no one, except themselves, but there are laws dictating our every move and they’ve broken them. And then there are the others, the innocent, the not-too-guilty, the people who sit on the Rock because some kid prosecutor mumbled the words “$1000 bail, your Honor, because reasons.” And there is a judge who has neither the time, information nor interest to do more than order “whatever.”

These people will sit in their chairs in a jail mess hall on Thanksgiving. They’re not a threat to society. They’re not evil. They won’t abscond or rush out to rape your daughter. They just can’t make bail, which was never needed and isn’t justifiable, but imposed nonetheless. Continue reading →

Until yesterday, the name Emily Lindin meant nothing to me. It never found its way onto my radar. I never read anything she’d written. It was just a name. And yet, a banal twit from Lindin caught the eye of many, myself included, yesterday.

She followed up with the usual litany of insipid excuses, from “believe the victim” to all “women are oppressed.”  Continue reading →

What would the FCC say about it?

“Hey guys, I am just going to have you leave. You said a couple words that break FCC violations,” the manager says, according to the video, which appears to be lightly edited for time. “And so for today I am going to have you stop your show. Specifically tranny. That is a hate slur it is not allowed on radio. I need you to leave.”

Hate slur? Is tranny a prohibited word? Why no, that’s not one of the seven words you can’t say on air.

“Did you really have to call the police?” the students ask. Continue reading →

When an academic comes up with an idea so utterly inane and ridiculous, no one knows about it unless Real Peer Review reveals the folly. But these aren’t ordinary times, and so Indiana lawprof Jennifer Drobac gets to offer her modest proposal at Vox instead.

Every year thousands of adults sexually exploit teenagers — though rarely do these predators receive the notoriety that Roy Moore has achieved. Given the prevalence of the problem, it’s important to recognize how and why teenagers are particularly vulnerable to adult sexual predation, by drawing on our current understanding of psychology.

At Vox, there’s no need for cites, like where she gets this “thousands of adults sexually exploit teenagers.” And in a better world, peer review would rip her to shreds word for word. Adults? You mean 18-year-olds? Exploit? You mean have some sort of vague sexual relations? Predators? What?  Continue reading →

In some respects, doing business successfully is simple. When revenues exceed expenses, you get profit. Make a profit and you’ve got a viable business. Make a sufficient profit to make the effort worthwhile and you stay in business. But that’s not where it ends in a city where every business is regulated within an inch of its life.

There are issues. Do people want to buy what you’re selling? Even if they do today, will they tomorrow? Will the cost of your product increase, whether because its manufacturing costs have increased because of higher minimum wage or more costly benefits, or because government saw you were doing too well and wanted its slice of your pie? And then there are the ancillary rules, like whether the place you shop has two steps, preventing wheelchairs from entering unimpeded. The list goes on.

And finally, there is the rent, which is always too damn high. But the guy who owns the building is in business too, and what he sells is the space you occupy. He’s inundated with regulations and the expenses associated with keeping the building clean and standing. He’s taxed. And taxed. And sometimes nobody wants to buy what he’s selling either. Continue reading →

Among the many things shared by Harvey Weinstein and Al Franken, Kevin Spacey and Roy Moore, is that none of them have been convicted of a crime. Weinstein might, but he hasn’t yet. Another thing shared is that they have seen their jobs, careers, ambitions and positions lost or put at risk of being lost.

But since these are all bold-faced names, and their actions are parsed by media so that everyone knows they’re guilty regardless of evidence or argument, we don’t lose sleep over this minor detail that they’ve not been convicted of anything. Charles Blow reminds us that the shit is about to flow downhill.

It is impossible to say too often or loudly how important a moment this is, when many women feel brave and empowered enough to speak up about being sexually assaulted or harassed by powerful men.

It feels like a watershed, like something is fundamentally shifting.

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There’s money to be made on the streets. You won’t be making it. You’ll be paying it. It’s been there for decades, but to the extent municipalities didn’t make the roads go cha-ching, it was merely self-restraint. That’s gone. It started with the drug dealers. Move on to the drunk drivers. Now, it’s anyone with the misfortune of being in the crosshairs.

Denver cab driver Semere Fremichael got caught up in an undercover prostitution sting. He was innocent—he thought she wanted a ride, not sex for pay—and was acquitted by a judge.

His taxi, however, got taken for a rough ride. Denver’s Fox affiliate has an excellent two-part investigation showing how the city attorney’s office is using civil asset forfeiture to cash in by snatching vehicles like Fremichael’s for even low-level crimes, and even when their owners aren’t convicted.

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Florida changed its driver’s license? Well, that’s special.

Banks, businesses and agencies that require people to present picture identification should be aware that the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has changed the look of its state-issued licenses and ID cards.

The change occurred in Alachua County last week, and the Alachua County Tax Collector’s Office, which handles the issuance of state-issued licenses and ID cards in the county, wants people to know the different-looking cards are here.

“Last week, one of our employees who had the new driver’s license went to a bank to do a transaction, and the teller was suspicious of the new look of the driver’s license,” said John Power, Alachua County tax collector.

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A confession: Not only do I read the New York Times, but I read Axios. Who?

Less than a year after Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei launched the media startup Axios with plans to upend the way news organizations deliver stories and advertising, the company is plotting a major expansion of its newsroom.

Its “bio” on twitter is more Axios-like: “Smart brevity worthy of people’s time, attention and trust.” Short blurbs of news with a sentence, maybe a paragraph, following about why it matters. It’s the Vox ‘splainer model with 1/100th the number of words murdered.

So what makes it special? Continue reading →

If Ian Millhiser didn’t exist, we would have to invent him. He’s the obviously smart guy who nonetheless has no problem twisting facts, arguing fallacies, rationalizing reality to reach the goal. He is the ultimate “end justifies the means” kind of guy. For me, he’s a bellwether of just how irrational one has to get to reach progressive Nirvana.

In his speech to the Federalist Society, a group so despised by progressives for its brutal politics and slavish adherence to reason, the last and, according to progressives, least legitimate Supreme Court Justice, Neil Gorsuch, cracked a joke.

The premise of Gorsuch’s joke is that he was unfairly attacked during his confirmation hearing because he reached a result that was required by the law. A judge may be presented with a law, Gorsuch began his joke, and “immediately know three things.”

One, the law is telling me to do something really, really stupid. Two, the law is constitutional and I have no choice but to do that really stupid thing the law demands. And three, when it’s done, everyone who is not a lawyer is going to think I just hate truckers.

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