Blog Posts


Playing The Race Card In Connecticut

Connecticut takes pride in creation of the nation’s first public defender system. Representation of the indigent accused of crimes is important work. Why, then, does the state seem content to let this proud legacy collapse amid the ugliest sort of squabbling?
In recent...

Election Denialism and "White Supremacism"

The other day I raised what I consider to be the dishonest rhetoric involving white supremacism. If you're white and you disagree with a person of color, some other emergent and privileged identity, or the progressive agenda embracing diversity for diversity's sake, you are immediately smeared as a...

Who Owns The Language?

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...

Let's Deconstruct Critical Race Theory

Rhetorical choices define our options in life. What you see conceptually is, in a sense, what you can aim at in terms of strategic behavioral choices. And so, in this era of so-called “Critical Race Theory,” I say we lay bare the choices the theorists are making. It’s...

How Much Will Pennsylvania Pay Mr. Cosby?

The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s decision to vacate the conviction of Bill Cosby and discharge him is a stunning rebuke of the prosecution. Not only is his conviction reversed; the Commonwealth cannot try him again for the sexual assault of Andrea...

Death Comes Calling -- Again

Many years ago, a colleague of mine started a gruesome game, he called it death bingo. At the beginning of each year, he’d invite folks to submit names into a pool. At year’s end, the person who forecast the most deaths won.
I never played the game. It struck...

Yo, Can You Spare Forty Acres And A Mule?

It was obvious to me one year ago that the pandemic would yield a time of extraordinary social tumult. Indeed, just over one year ago, I wrote in these pages about the general strike theory of the pandemic, how the viral contagion would be turned into an occasion to try to recast the...

Amend the Constitution to Bar Race-Based Transfer Payments

I wrote this almost a year ago. Friends thought I was howling at the moon. Now they think I was prophetic. Spread the word. We need to amend the federal Constitution to prevent race-based transfer payments and distribution of public goods. It was written as I watched the hullabaloo arising...

Playing With History: Neither A Jefferson Nor A Kinte Be

I have a confession to make: I never watched the television series “Roots,” nor have I read the Alex Hailey novel “Roots: The Saga of An American Family,” on which it was based. This despite the fact that the television series took the nation by storm in the late...

Reparations in Evanston -- Even Vonnegut Couldn't Sell This Plot

Evanston, Illinois is a university town, so I expect a certain amount of irresponsible silliness to emerge from its town hall. But using a sales tax on marijuana to fund reparations payments to black town residents is something even Kurt Vonnegut would have a hard time selling as fiction.
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© Norm Pattis is represented by Elite Lawyer Management, managing agents for Exceptional American Lawyers
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