Last Friday (July 31st) my wife, my daughter, and I were to fly back from Vancouver to New York City after our vacation in Canada’s Jasper and Banff National Parks. On arrival at Vancouver Airport, we began the usual check-in, got groped in security, and filled out customs forms. The US conducts all customs andContinue reading “The Offensive Stupidity Of The No-Fly List”
Category Archives: Law and Legal Theory
Same Sex Marriage Is Legal; Prepare For Doom, America
Same sex marriage is now a constitutionally recognized right in the United States of America. As usual, Justice Kennedy has confirmed that he is the only judge required for the Supreme Court to function. But danger awaits America. All across the land, divorces will break out, children will disobey their parents, and pedophiles will preyContinue reading “Same Sex Marriage Is Legal; Prepare For Doom, America”
Alan Dershowitz: A Hypocrite Grows In Brooklyn
Alan Dershowitz has long perfected the art of throwing a toddler’s tantrum – especially in his fulminations against the academic freedom that his fellow academics and he himself enjoys. Last year, when Omar Barghouti and Judith Butler spoke at a BDS-themed event at Brooklyn College, our esteemed academic hygienist threw a particularly epic fit. HeContinue reading “Alan Dershowitz: A Hypocrite Grows In Brooklyn”
The Cruelest Cut Of All: Punjabis Are Not White
In 1921, a certain John Mohammed Ali became a naturalized citizen of the US. In 1925, this grant of citizenship was contested (United States v. Ali 7 F.2d 728 (1925) by Martin J. Kilsdonk, a United States naturalization examiner. His affidavit: [A]lleges in substance that said defendant was born in Karpurthala, in the province of Punjab,Continue reading “The Cruelest Cut Of All: Punjabis Are Not White”
Lon Fuller On The Inability Of The Judiciary To Police The Police
In The Morality of Law: Revised Edition (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1969), Lon Fuller writes: In this country it is chiefly to the judiciary that is entrusted the task of preventing a discrepancy between the law as declared and as actually administered. This allocation of function has the advantage of placing the responsibility in practiced hands, subjectingContinue reading “Lon Fuller On The Inability Of The Judiciary To Police The Police”
Fearing Tenure: The Loss Of Community
In ‘The Clouded Prism: Minority Critique of the Critical Legal Studies Movement‘, Harlan L. Dalton wrote: I take it that everyone drawn to CLS is interested in specifying in concrete terms the dichotomy between autonomy and community. If so, talk to us. Talk TO us. Listen to us. We have lots to say, out ofContinue reading “Fearing Tenure: The Loss Of Community”
Nick Kristof Should Stick To High Profile Rescues
Nick Kristof writes on his Twitter feed: Activists perhaps should have focused less on Michael Brown, more on shooting of 12-yr-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland http://nyti.ms/1CHROG7 This is the kind of sensible, pragmatic advice that journalists like Kristof, safely ensconced in their opinion pages, are in the habit of handing out to unhinged radicals everywhere:Continue reading “Nick Kristof Should Stick To High Profile Rescues”
Mark Bennett Is A Sexist Tool
Over at the blog Defending People, Mark Bennett, a Houston-based criminal defense lawyer, writes a long, technical, closely argued post critiquing Danielle Citron‘s putative rebuttals of arguments–based on First Amendment concerns–against her proposals for ‘revenge porn’ laws. Bennett titles his post ‘F**ing Danielle Citron’ and at the end signs off thusly: P.S. “F**king” is fisking.Continue reading “Mark Bennett Is A Sexist Tool”
An Officer’s View On The NYPD Protests: Still Blinkered
Steve Osborne, proudly standing with his back to the Mayor and the city of New York, comes to tell us why the New York City Police Department has been throwing an extended tantrum that would put a toddler to shame. (Interestingly enough, the NYPD has given itself a ‘time-out’ and like harried parents everywhere, weContinue reading “An Officer’s View On The NYPD Protests: Still Blinkered”
Memo To NYPD: Don’t Let The Door Hit You On Your Way Out
Over the past few days the NYPD, offended by protests against their policing, and still in a huff at New York’s mayor, Bill De Blasio, for daring to suggest they might need reform, has gone on a work-stoppage of sorts, refusing to carry out arrests or hand out parking tickets or miscellaneous traffic summonses. Meanwhile,Continue reading “Memo To NYPD: Don’t Let The Door Hit You On Your Way Out”
Samir Chopra 