One of the choices that had to be made in writing about the massacre of Charlie Hebdo was whether to publish the cartoons that gave particular rise to the offense.  I decided to do so.  In retrospect, I would not have made a different choice.

It has nothing to do with the content of the cartoon, and I feel no compulsion to offer the standard caveat about religion or offense.  I made my decision based on the fact that I support the right of free speech, regardless of content or offensiveness, and by publishing the cartoon, use my soapbox to support the fact that Charlie Hebdo would not be intimidated into silence at the end of a gun.

David Brooks, at the New York Times, might call this an immature message.  Perhaps even a puerile message.

In most societies, there’s the adults’ table and there’s the kids’ table. The people who read Le Monde or the establishment organs are at the adults’ table. The jesters, the holy fools and people like Ann Coulter and Bill Maher are at the kids’ table. They’re not granted complete respectability, but they are heard because in their unguided missile manner, they sometimes say necessary things that no one else is saying. Continue reading →

When confronted with choices, people often make the wrong one, particularly under unusual circumstances and great stress.  When that happens, we have a name for these people: defendants. It’s not that they’re necessarily bad people, or malevolent, but that they made a choice that gave rise to a cop deciding to arrest them.

Upon reflection, when things are calmer and they have had an opportunity to think through their choices more clearly, they would have made a different choice.  Sometimes, they realize they were impetuous. Sometimes, they realize they went with the gut, which failed them.  Sometimes, they just didn’t think at all. But the situation demanded something, whether commission or omission, and they responded in a way that gave rise to their arrest.

Sometimes, the wrong was no greater than to ask a question when a cop was commanding them to shut up. Sometimes, it was to assert a bit of human dignity when a cop demanded subjugation.  The cop’s view was that the person needed to blindly obey and he would have been fine. The person’s view was that, as a normal person, he meant nothing more than to assert what he deemed ordinary interaction.  In retrospect, he might have chosen differently.  But he didn’t. Continue reading →

On the one hand, he admits it.  On the other, he does so to deflate criticism that his position is biased.  But on the third hand, his argument, regardless of his bias, is utterly idiotic.

Yep, I admit it. I have predispositions. I’m a cop. Though technically retired, I’m still a cop. I’m biased towards the profession, especially since we have so few champions in the legacy wing of the media. And I’m sensitive to people who never in a million years would dare to experience what we experience on a daily basis. Yet they unashamedly use stats to paint a picture they want painted about who we are and what we face.

— Jim Glennon

Glennon doesn’t just preach to the choir of special blue snowflakes, who are under such horribly unjustified pressure by a public that doesn’t appreciate how they risk their lives for us.  No, this was an attack on a “smooth talker” who ” cites stats, many put out by the ACLU and other organizations not particularly fond of the profession of Blue,” like the dreaded National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, FBI and Bureau of Justice Statistics. Continue reading →

People died because of this. Fanatics were outraged because of the content of its expression, and killed them. Many are outraged at the violence, but too fearful of publishing it lest some fanatic be outraged and do the same to them.

They say they want free expression, but they refuse to take any personal risk for it.  Let Charlie Hebdo take the risk. Let the people at Charlie Hebdo die.  They will weep over their deaths, but they won’t show the courage to stand up against the murders.  Who?

As for the present day, CNN, NYT, AP, NBC, ABC, the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, and the CBC, will *not* be running Charlie-Hebdo cartoons.

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In the past, I’ve been critical of the New York Times for tip-toeing around significant issues for fear of upsetting someone with its microaggressiveness.  Yes, I’m only kidding about the microagressiveness part. While a bastion of progressiveness, the Gray Lady has proven remarkably circumspect in its refusal to call out wrongdoing in clear, plain language. This time, not so much.

Call this what it is: a reckless, coordinated escalation of a war between the police unions and Mr. de Blasio and a hijacking of law-enforcement policy by those who do not set law-enforcement policy. This deplorable gesture is bound to increase tension in a city already rattled over the killing by the police of an unarmed man, Eric Garner, last summer, the executions of two officers in Brooklyn last month, and the shootings on Monday of two plainclothes officers in the Bronx.

The madness has to stop. The problem is not that a two-week suspension of “broken windows” policing is going to unleash chaos in the city. The problem is that cops who refuse to do their jobs and revel in showing contempt to their civilian leaders are damaging the social order all by themselves.

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After the Weev trial, I talked to Tor Ekeland.  Rarely did someone want so badly to be a criminal defense lawyer, a trial lawyer, but realized that he was up to his eyeballs in shit while being at step one in preparedness.  Tor had the will, but not the way. Not yet, anyway.  But he was one of those few who would get there, no matter what.

Weev, who has a future as poster boy for internet psychosis if trolling doesn’t pay off, picked his lawyer because of his name, Tor, even before he met him.  Ironically, Ekeland came by it honestly, his parents being Norwegian, but whatever.  Weev summed up his lawyer well:

As for Tor Ekeland, Auernheimer offers his highest praise. Tor, he says, “is a very competent legal scholar and theorist [and] also a relentless motherfucker that takes no bullshit and can hold his own in a street fight.”

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There will be no shortage of commentary today about some yokel councilman from Frederick County, Maryland.  Already, the witticisms are flowing, like “he who must not be named,” and Powerline has already created an award in his name to go with the Green Weenie award.

Yup. This would be Kirby Delauter, whose official bio is endearingly small town:

Kirby Delauter
Council Member – District 5

Kirby Delauter is the son of Russell and Marlene Delauter. He resides in Thurmont, Maryland, with his wife Tina. They have four children: Maureen, a graduate of High Point University in Highpoint, NC, lives in Thurmont with her husband Blaine Schildt; William, a graduate of Virginia Tech; Emily, a student at Salisbury University in the nursing program, and Sam a student at Catoctin High School. Continue reading →

TRIGGER WARNING: Graphic unpleasant judicial imagery ahead.

Why do judicial chambers have bathrooms?  Because judges use them.

One of my first comments when I discovered Judge Kopf’s blog, Hercules and the Umpire, was that the judge could be “awkward.”  It’s not that Judge Kopf was saying anything that others don’t say, but that he was Judge Kopf.  As lawprof Rick Hasen points out at every possible opportunity, plain talk by a judge is “inappropriate.” It is undignified.

In response, Judge Kopf has taken the position that Hasen needs to grow up. Judges are people.  The position of judge is an office. They use bathrooms. Just like lawprofs.  Just like lawyers.  Just like everyone. Continue reading →

The putative purpose of the §1983 suit before the Eastern District of Missouri in Grand Juror Doe v. McCulloch is to gain the ability to speak freely despite the law that prohibits a grand juror from doing so.  In the usual case, grand jury secrecy makes sense. But this isn’t the usual case.

As the District Attorney, Robert McCulloch, already put on a dog and pony show of self-serving faux transparency to show what a great job he did in sabatoging the indictment of P.O. Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, what’s left to hide?

But the complaint, drafted by Anthony Rothert of the ACLU of Missouri, was a smart bit of legal writing.  Regardless of the outcome of the action, the grand juror’s message was laid bare:

19. From Plaintiff’s perspective, the presentation of evidence to the grand jury investigating Wilson differed markedly and in significant ways from how evidence was presented in the hundreds of matters presented to the grand jury earlier in its term. Continue reading →

Following the disgraceful conduct of NYPD officers, in uniform and in front of national media, turning their back on Mayor Bill de Blasio for not loving them enough, Commissioner Bill Bratton tried his hand:

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is so worried his cops will turn their backs to his boss, Mayor Bill de Blasio, at another NYPD funeral that he sent out a memo to shame them into good behavior, sources told The Post.

“A hero’s funeral is about grieving, not grievance,” began the four-paragraph plea, which is being read at precinct roll calls ahead of slain Officer Wenjian Liu’s Sunday service.

This was a curious effort, short of a command but a plea where Bratton put himself on the line. Continue reading →