It was a, ahem, shocking confession. Shot:

“Some time ago, outside the statute of limitations, I drove 60 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone,” said Roberts, drawing laughter from those in the courtroom. But the chief didn’t crack a smile.

Chaser:

“I was not arrested,” he added.

For all you sanctimonious, self-righteous prigs who want all those bad hombres to get life plus cancer before sending them “home,” cut the bullshit. We, and by we, I mean you as well as me, all break the law. Some worse than others, but none of us, not even Chief Justice John Roberts, is so pure, so perfect, that he’s managed to live his life like Caesar’s wife. And I don’t care who you are or what lies you tell yourself or others. You don’t either. Hell, you don’t even know 90% of the laws, if not more, that can be broken on a daily hourly basis. Continue reading →

Somebody wanted a job. Somebody was a Millennial. Hilarity ensued.

Application

I applied online. I interviewed at Pollard PLLC.

Interview

Jonathan Pollard is one of the rudest and unprofessional hiring managers I have ever encountered in my job seeking experience. After applying for the job, he sent me a one-paragraph critique of my writing samples, instead of simply telling me that my experience is not the right fit for his firm. A direct quote from his email to me: “My English and history professors at Cornell would have ripped this to shreds (as I just did)”. This is an incredibly inappropriate way to speak to a job seeker and is probably a good indicator of his management style…I suggest that the company outsource its’ hiring needs to a recruiter who is familiar with the hiring process and the decorum that comes with the hiring process. This type of behavior is completely unacceptable.

Well, somebody’s feelings were hurt. After all, isn’t it the employer’s duty to engage in behavior that’s completely acceptable to the 23-year-old twinkie who wants a job? Pollard, a non-compete lawyer, sees it a little differently. Continue reading →

The circus surrounding Ann Coulter’s speaking at Berkeley may be over, or not, as it appears that proxies will speak the words she was supposed to speak before her student sponsors pulled the plug and she canceled. Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, who is in a terrible position between the First Amendment and his passionate tuition payers, tries to rationalize what happened.

The Berkeley College Republicans invited Ms. Coulter without consulting with the university about the date of the event. This meant we at the school were unable to identify a place and time that could satisfy the extensive but necessary security requirements.

Out of the box, his excuses beg questions. Was “consultation,” a word chosen in lieu of the word Dirks meant, permission, necessary? The problem wasn’t the lack of a place, or a date conflict, not that those would be limiting factors to the students or speaker, but the school’s claimed security logistics. Ironically, Dirks’ omits that the driving force was his Antifa problem.

As a compromise, the college identified other dates and times for the event — during a forthcoming reading week or early in the fall semester — during which secure venues would be available.

Continue reading →

There was no surprise when ICE unveiled the nuts and bolts of its insufferably-named “Victims of Immigration Crimes Engagement” office, or VOICE. During his address to Congress, President Trump said he had ordered DHS “to create an office to serve American victims”* of the undocumented. DHS Secretary John Kelly alluded to it in a memorandum that was released about a month afterwards.

But now that its plan for the victims has been laid out in full, its contents are just as generic, and effective at murdering words, as the President’s previous statements and Executive Orders.  Let’s start with what’s listed under the subheading “what services are available to me as a crime victim through VOICE:”

VOICE will afford victims and their loved ones a single point of contact to obtain information regarding criminal aliens in ICE custody. That could include getting automated custody status information, getting additional releasable case history about the perpetrator, or having an ICE representative explain the immigration enforcement and removal process.

Automated custody status information? That’s already in place.  DHS has an online inmate locator system, where any primate can go online and find out where the person’s being detained. There’s even an 800 number that someone, equipped with the culprit’s alien number, can check the status of his case in immigration court. But ICE failed to even mention that basic tidbit.

Additional releasable case history about the perpetrator? Guess the formidable folks at VOICE will guide victims as they go through public online court dockets. ICE representative will explain the immigration enforcement and removal process? Are these people (lawyers, JDs, or someone who took a crash course?) going to be capable of explaining, over the phone, the intricacies of the process that involves detaining, holding, and deporting individuals?

Will they be able to explain the uncertainty that ensues when the criminal rubber hits the immigration road? If so, immigration law practitioners may want to start looking for jobs at Dairy Queen Taco Bell.

Moving backwards, VOICE’s objectives are listed as such:

• Use a victim-centered approach to acknowledge and support immigration crime victims and their families.
• Promote awareness of rights and services available to immigration crime victims.
• Build collaborative partnerships with community stakeholders assisting immigration crime victims.
• Provide quarterly reports studying the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States.

Now, a moment of silence for all those slaughtered words, as Orwell does somersaults in his grave. “Victim-centered approach?” “Promote awareness of rights?” “Collaborative partnerships?” This is all meaningless babble. No detailed plan, just a bunch of “feel good” words strung together incoherently. So far, the only ones hearing the victims’ voices will be the talentless saps that will run the call centers.

At best, this is a lame attempt at a tummy rub, which will only reach the dumb or the terminally misinformed. As it is, this VOICE project is, as Glenn Greenwald put it, “dangerous and disgusting. And exploitative beyond relief.” At worst, it will make people dumber and put people’s lives in danger. All this talk about informing about the inmate’s whereabouts can lead to some of the crazies thinking they can go on a lynching expedition at an immigration jail, where they will be met by people with guns.

Notice what was absent from the VOICE website? A blueprint for making victims “whole”: giving them counseling, cash, or having their voices heard in court. I doubt that whoever drafted the VOICE plan realized that the criminal courts and prosecutors are the ones, for better or worse, who try to do those things for the victims. So was it probably an omission due to misinformation. Or perhaps they’re just cheap.

In any event, victims are not heard in immigration court or by ICE, as any “sentencing” has already been done in the criminal courts, and there are no victim impact statements in immigrationland.  If you lose in immigration court, the only sentence is an order saying “you’re outta here,” notwithstanding any cries for “justice” coming from anyone.

Like deportation proceedings, the debate over victims’ rights is complex stuff. It’s usually those who’ve spent time in the trenches who can shed some light on what may improve the state of affairs, and what can make it worse.

The content of the VOICE website is an oversimplified and misguided version of what happens on the ground. Its approach to the law and the dynamics of deportation is arrogant and dangerous. But its self-righteous and self-pitying approach to victims is what makes this tripe all the worse, because it may leave victims worse off than they were in the first place.

*He followed that by saying, “we are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media, and silenced by special interests.” That statement is removed from reality: undocumented immigrants who commit crimes are usually given an extra dose of smear by the media, and those without status don’t have “special interests” who serve them by silencing their victims.

The people of Flint, Michigan, have suffered what should be one of the most devastating failures of government ever. Sorry, Trump haters, but you don’t come close. Yet, it’s failed miserably to gain much traction. After all, what’s the big deal about some lead in a city’s water supply damaging the brains of children?

But for those who can’t get the hell out of Flint, the problem remains, so they held a “town hall” type meeting about it with Flint’s mayor, except it was in the House of Prayer Missionary Baptist Church. Flint Police Chief Tim Johnson wasn’t about to let this meeting get out of hand.

“I just want to make sure this meeting goes off the way it’s supposed to and that everybody’s respecting everyone,” he said. “Please don’t be in here trying to disrupt this meeting, because if you do I’m going to escort you out and I’m only going to take you to the back door and then you’re going to jail. I’m not going to play with nobody tonight.”

And by “disrupt,” Johnson meant behave the way he thinks people should in church. Continue reading →

As a frosh in labor history class, my professor, Roger Keeran, sought to instill the virtues of anarcho-syndicalism. The Wobblies, after all, had the best songs, and the Pinkertons sucked. Professor Keeran was hardcore pro-labor with a smattering of socialism to boot, but I liked him.

He took disagreement well, with a smile, knowing that while he believed what he believed, others would disagree. He never held it against me that I wasn’t ready to vote for Eugene V. Debs, and we all enjoyed the music.

But this anon prof’s tale, presented at Inside Higher Education, reflects not merely the true believer side of pedagogy, but the death of intellectual integrity. As to why her mind was lost, it’s unclear. But lost it was.

It was the middle of the semester, and we were covering rape culture. As any feminist instructor who has ever taught about rape culture probably knows, covering this topic is challenging for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes we encounter students who realize that they have been raped who come to office hours looking for resources. Other times, students learn that they have actually perpetrated rape and struggle to reconcile that with their images of themselves as “good people” and “not one of those (usually) guys.” And many feminist instructors, especially those who are women, know all too well what it is like to navigate the “mansplaining” of a few men students who would like to ardently deny that rape culture exists.

Continue reading →

When local government, or a college campus, announces it’s a Sanctuary, they rely primarily on one thing: emotional people having no clue what it means. Plenty of words about respect of immigrants, with a caveat that says to the extent permitted by law. The goal of the announcement is a good one, to calm the fears of its residents, whether rational or irrational. Its secondary goal is to not let Trump’s gaming immigration fears undermine the ability of a locality to function.

But it’s largely a publicity stunt. And so too was the Executive Order purporting to threaten loss of federal funds to Sanctuary Cities. In its argument to Judge William Orrick, the government admitted as much.

The Government does not respond to the”>Counties’ constitutional challenges but argues that the Counties lack standing because the Executive Order did not change existing law and because the Counties have not been named “sanctuary jurisdictions” pursuant to the Order. It explained for the first time at oral argument that the Order is merely an exercise of the President’s “bully pulpit” to highlight a changed approach to immigration enforcement.

In other words, it was a big show put on for Trump’s supporters to create the appearance of doing something different than what was done for decades. There’s no mileage to be gained from saying, “we’re going to do pretty much what the federal government has always done.” Continue reading →

The Supreme Court declined to grant cert in Salazar-Limon v. City of Houston, a qualified immunity case in which the primary issue was whether summary judgment was properly granted. This was a petty question for so august a court, which constrains its limited resources to bigger issues than did the court below get it wrong.

In concurrence with the denial, Justice Sam Alito argues that the plaintiffs raised no material issues of fact.

Every year the courts of appeals decide hundreds of cases in which they must determine whether thin evidence provided by a plaintiff is just enough to survive a motion for summary judgment or not quite enough. This is one such case. Officer Thompson stated in a deposition that he shot Salazar-Limon because he saw him turn toward him and reach for his waist in a movement consistent with reaching for a gun. Record, Doc. 39–2, pp. 29–30, 33. Remarkably, Salazar-Limon did not state in his deposition or in an affidavit that he did not reach for his waist, and on that ground the Court of Appeals held that respondents were entitled to summary judgment.

Salazar-Limon says he turned away from the cop, was ordered to turn around and then, essentially, immediately shot. Alito is right, he never specifically says he didn’t reach for his waistband. Continue reading →

The legal lunacy, promoted by such legal scholars as Howard Dean, and empowering the special snowflakes to leap out from behind rocks to engage in physical violence, isn’t new. America went through a similar escapade long ago when the sides were switched and the hated speech came from the dreaded commies.

In Douglas’s book, The Right of the People, he wrote, “In recent years, as we have denounced the loss of liberties abroad we have witnessed its decline here in America.”

On May 11, 1958, Mike Wallace interviewed Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, an icon of what was then the left, about free speech and civil liberties. Change commies for haters and it is as fresh and important today as it was then. Continue reading →

Like many, the story she told failed to move me. That Alice Goffman was white or female didn’t matter a whit. What mattered was that she didn’t demonstrate a sufficient grasp of the legal system to not make people stupider.

She goes long on problems, though somehow neglects to mention that less appealing side of the problem, like when one kid murders another kid to steal his sneakers, or because he tried to horn in on his drug spot. There are certainly wrongful arrests and convictions. There are also proper arrests and convictions. Didn’t anyone tell her?

Yet, in the world of sociologists, she was something of a rock star, having spent six years “embedded” with black, inner-city youth in Philadelphia. That’s a commitment, if nothing else. She taught at University of Wisconsin, Madison, but took a visiting professorship at Pomona College. Yes, that Pomona, part of the Claremont-McKenna group, where “black intellectuals” knew all the right words and none of their definitions.

Yet again, there was anger at Pomona. Goffman was not their flavor of prof. Continue reading →