This just may be what comes of the triumphant cry of the warrior who knows but one truth, and who is determined to destroy all those who stand in its way: Salman Rushdie, laying in a pool of blood on a stage at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. He was getting ready to speak to a group of like-minded souls about the United States as a refuge for writers exiled elsewhere.
Then a long knife in the hands of a mad man struck, again and again and again. A furious 24-year-old stormed the stage, nearly killing Rushdie before stunned onlookers could subdue him.
You want...
August 13, 2022
What we need is another Kerner Commission, and what we’re being offered is a Watergate Committee. The result will be a committee that convicts the canary for dying in the mineshaft. Come the fall of 2022, and, more importantly, the fall of 2024, the toxins in the mineshaft will be that much worse.
I am referring, of course, to last week’s first public hearing by the House Select Committtee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. The eight-member panel unveiled its opening statements in a prime-time presentation choreographed by a...
June 12, 2022
Setting Twitter aright should be a simple matter. Here’s what Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, should do.
Clean house. Start at the top, with Twitter’s top lawyer Vijaya Gadde. She and her legion of censors should be shown the door. They tried to transform idiosyncratic standards of taste into governing principles for what could and not be said on this quintessential public forum. They failed. Send them packing.
Musk bought Twitter because its corporate culture stifled free expression. Armed with a community standards policy vesting discretion in staff either to...
April 27, 2022
Who owns the English language?
I ask because I am under fire for using the “n” word without permission.
I’m branching out professionally, making the seamless and easy transition from criminal defense lawyer to stand-up comic. The differences aren’t all that great. In both instances, you stand before strangers challenging preconceptions. Criminal law is about defending alleged transgressors; good comedy is about transgressing settled expectations and piercing the pretentions of the unctuous.
There are few...
April 21, 2022
November 13, 2020
Social media censorship is a red-hot topic now. Conservatives are outraged by a perceived bias against their content by the likes of...
February 24, 2021
The best thing about the pandemic? I’ve discovered podcasts. One of the best is Lex Fridman’s, called, simply, Lex Fridman...
June 30, 2021
The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s decision to vacate the conviction of Bill Cosby and discharge...
November 13, 2019
UNITED STATED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
CAMERON L. ATKINSON, Plaintiff, :
v.
FACEBOOK, INC., : MARK...
June 20, 2021
Among the world’s mysteries is the transformation of naked power into authority. Yes, from time immemorial, there have been those...
February 6, 2022
Public service is thankless, and nowhere so much so as in Hartford, where good men and women go to battle ceaselessly over crumbs. Rarely do people...