Blog Posts

The NAACP claims I posted a racist image and has called me out for it. The accusation has made the news. Now bloggers have weighed it. So am I a racist?
I guess I am if you think that being a racist means not recognizing the claims of people of color for special treatment on account of their...

Folks: The Connecticut NAACP condemned me today for re-posting a photo of a group of beer cans wearing hoods and surrounding a brown beer bottle on Facebook. Ku Klux Coors, I called it. It was sent to me by someone who could not believe that Facebook censored it as violative of the site's...

The resignation of Donald Trump’s chief personal lawyer, John Dowd, brings to mind an aphorism often discussed, but rarely publicly acknowledged, among lawyers: “You can lead a client to the courthouse, but you can’t make him think.”
Dowd, it...

Here’s a shout out to the students in Introduction to Criminal Justice, CJUS 1111, Western New Mexico University. Andy Warren, the professor, informs me that this blog is required reading for the class. Send him a note thanking him for me.
In general, I post...

There is a school of thought that holds there is no such thing as bad publicity for trial lawyers. Thus all manner of lawyers blog, tweet, and otherwise dive in front of any media that will get their name in print. But how low will a lawyer go to capture the front page of the New York...

I'm inaugurating a new feature on this blog: quick reviews.
If you're like me, there just isn't enough time to read. I'll post reviews here of things I've enjoyed. Perhaps it will help you to identify what to read next. I'd appreciate your returning the favor.
All The Light We Cannot...

I've never really thought of Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, as a prophet. The former general, politician and university president seemed more of a technocrat, a dry-as-dust sort of fellow fit for the 1950s, but not much more. He was Ozzie and Harriet's president; not...

Richard Kopf, a U.S. District Court judge in Nebraska, writes a blog. The other day, he vented about the Supreme Court's recent decision in Hobby Lobby, the decision that extended the fiction of corporate personhood to the point of now offering the law's protection to "corporate" beliefs. The...

I was startled to learn that manipulation of federal "no-fly" lists takes place simply as a means of recruiting potential informants: Young Moslem men are from time-to-time placed on the lists by federal authorities and then given a choice: Want to be treated as no threat? Then act like one. Tell...

I saw an interview of Nicco Mele on PBS, and was intrigued enough to read his book, The End of Big: How Internet Makes David the New Goliath. I am glad I did.
Mele does a good job of illustrating how "radical connectivity" -- the internet's capacity to reach across traditional...