Blog Posts

The so-called Proud Boys trial has finally started. A jury of twelve and three alternatives heard a half day of evidence last week. This week, the Government will present as many as a dozen more witnesses. In the weeks to come, a jury will hear evidence about the extent to which, if at all, the...

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...

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...

John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government has little to say about slavery, but what is said is said early. Chapter Four, entitled simply enough, Of Slavery, is but a couple of pages long. Bear in mind that the Second Treatise was published in 1690; England did not formally...

I submitted the following testimony to the Connecticut General Assembly in opposition to the so-called "Prosecutorial Accountability" act. The legislation is a solution to a problem that does not exist.
My name is Norman Pattis. I have represented people accused of...

It’s an open question in my mind whether Donald J. Trump committed a high crime or misdemeanor justifying impeachment. Were he a private citizen, I would say there is no question his speech on January 6, 2021, was protected. He no more incited a riot than do cheerleaders at a pep...

Although the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump has yet formally to begin, I can say this much: The House managers’ impeachment trial brief wins my vote as the better of the two briefs filed.
First a word on process.
An impeachment...

News that Donald Trump and his impeachment defense lawyers have decided to go their own separate ways raises questions about what will, and will not, take place at the impeachment trial set to begin on February 9 in the United States Senate.
Trump’s five lawyers apparently...

Elections have consequences, I get that.
But do we really have elections so that familial legacies can be seeded?
Rumors swirl that Connecticut United States Senator Richard Blumenthal is busily at work advancing the cause of his son, Matthew, to be...

Social media censorship is a red-hot topic now. Conservatives are outraged by a perceived bias against their content by the likes of Facebook and Twitter; liberals want to avoid hate speech and misinformation by adopting standards; and techies have all but resigned themselves to some...