Of all the sites to raise the question, and of all the people to write about it, Ezra Klein at Vox says that going outside one’s “echo chamber” doesn’t serve to expand one’s understanding, but to increase polarization.

There’s a simple story for how the media is driving political polarization. Unlike in yesteryear, when there were three nightly newscasts and two local newspapers, the media today is fragmented, competitive, algorithmic.

We watch (because who reads anymore, amirite?) news channels that are flagrantly biased and feed us the spin on the news that confirms our bias.

This story suggests a straightforward solution: If only we crossed the informational aisle, if only the liberals would watch a bit of Fox and the conservatives would spend some time with Rachel Maddow, we would realize the other side is more like us than we thought, that they make some good points too, and our enmity and polarization would ebb.

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After Chief Justice John Roberts reiterated his opposition to cameras at the Supreme Court, Kansas Court of Appeals Judge Steve Leben took issue on the twitters.

Most judges in state courts believe part of our job is to educate the public about what we do. We will carry on. I’ve never seen a way in which educating the public about what we do and letting them see court proceedings (even through TV) has interfered with doing my job.

This raised a few questions, beginning with whether Judge Leben speaks for most state judges, whether it matters what judges “believe” regardless of what their prescribed statutory duties may be and whether it’s accurate to believe that they have a duty, beyond the job of judging, to “educate the public.” Continue reading →

The obituary for Madelyn Ellen Linsenmeir went viral. It was beautifully written and evoked the sadness for the needless loss of a human life. But the Police Chief of Burlington, Vermont, Brandon del Pozo, raises the question that few want to think about, likely because he and his officers fetch the dead bodies of junkies for whom no eloquent obit is written.

Why did it take a grieving relative with a good literary sense to get people to pay attention for a moment and shed a tear when nearly a quarter of a million people have already died in the same way as Maddie as this epidemic grew?

Did readers think this was the first time a beautiful, young, beloved mother from a pastoral state got addicted to Oxy and died from the descent it wrought? And what about the rest of the victims, who weren’t as beautiful and lived in downtrodden cities or the rust belt? They too had mothers who cried for them and blamed themselves.

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At the New York Times, David Leonhardt raises the unthinkable:

What if the Republicans Win Everything Again?

He does so for the fairly apparent purpose of motivating the troops, to remind them that despite all the noise they hear in their echo chambers, despite everything Rachel Maddow says nightly about how the Marshal of the Supreme Court will be arresting Darth Cheeto any moment now, despite the certainty that the majority of Americans are against them, it’s still possible that the Republicans could win.

Voters who lean Republican — including whites across the South — could set aside their disappointment with Trump and vote for Republican congressional candidates. Voters who lean left — including Latinos and younger adults — could turn out in low numbers, as they usually do in midterm elections. The Republicans’ continuing efforts to suppress turnout could also swing a few close elections.

If it happens, it won’t because the Democrats aren’t the better team, but because the Republicans are the evil team. Continue reading →

Just because someone tells a story doesn’t mean it’s true, so take with a big grain of salt both the story and the moral of the story, particularly given the fact that it appears on a site with a tendency to grossly color its posts to align with its agenda. But since Richard Cohen raised it, the tenuous connection between cause and effect arises.

I had dinner the other night with a classmate from law school who has spent the last 20 years as a New York jurist. We talked about the numerous trials she had conducted, and at one point, she told me that she could not believe how rude and abusive some male lawyers were to her. Like talking over her, interrupting her, and trying in many respects to run the courtroom and take it away from her.

Now, she is no wallflower, and I suggested (and here I give a big shout out to my partner Amy Epstein Gluck, the “Notorious AEG”) that this was sexist behavior on the part of the lawyers; that they would likely not do that to male judges.  Her response can be reduced to one word: “Duh.”

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For reasons that are obviously clearer to the editors of the New York Times than to me, Roxane Gay has taken on the role of Dear Abbey. Why one would choose someone who wallows in outrage and misery to give advice to the lovelorn is a mystery, but could explain the existential angst of so many of its readers, particularly those who survive Michelle Goldberg’s internal emotional turmoil.

So Dear Roxy it is, with no expectation of millennials marrying, having children, not divorcing or finding a guiding philosophy not grounded in nihilism.

Dear Roxane,

I am a 43-year-old, single, never-been-married, educated mother of one and would like advice on love. I’m navigating dating life and need to fully understand the difference between loving someone, being in love and having a soul mate. I love the idea of love and would very much like to spend the rest of my life with a man, but find myself having commitment issues because I am afraid of choosing wrong. I see couples that have been married 10, 15, 20 years who get divorced and seem to be completely fine with it. It’s scary to me because I would like my marriage to last a lifetime. Am I overthinking this totally or being too paranoid? Or do you really never know, because only time will tell?

Sincerely,
Where the hell is the love of my life?

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The best part of the New York Court of Appeals memorandum opinion in Haug v. SUNY Potsdam is that it’s thankfully short. A wag might contend that its brevity is due to the fact that the rationale was so thin, so shallow, that there were simply no more words to offer.

Then again, the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court because somebody totally screwed up the names, is a court of limited jurisdiction to address only law, not facts. Thus, the facts can only be found in the Appellate Division, Third Department, opinion.

Petitioner was a freshman at respondent State University of New York at Potsdam (hereinafter SUNY) in September 2014. In the early morning hours of September 7, 2014, he ran into a female student (hereinafter the complainant) with whom he had been friends for several years, and the two had sex in her dormitory room. The complainant reported to campus police shortly afterward that, while she had not declined to engage in sex and gave no “gesture saying that [the sexual encounter] wasn’t welcome,” she had been sexually assaulted.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing not only fell short of the level of public interest reflected in the Kavanaugh hearings, but couldn’t muster even one Democratic senator. It’s not just that there was no audience to play to, to give Spartacus speeches or put on an incompetent cross, but that this was a “recess” hearing and, well, they would rather be on the playground than at work. Still, the nominee faced some serious questions from senators of her own side.

“I can see your résumé. You’re a rock star, but I think to be a really good federal judge you’ve got to have some life experience,” Kennedy said. “Williams & Connolly is a great law firm, a lot of great lawyers there. Tell me why you’re more qualified to be on the Fourth Circuit than some of the Williams & Connolly [lawyers] that have been there for 20 years, 25, 30 years in the trenches.”

“Again senator, my experience in the federal courts of appeals and the Supreme Court are why I’m qualified. Not only the depth of that experience but the variety,” she replied. “The judges on the courts of appeals get a wide variety of cases, and I have that experience in criminal law, prisoner petitions, products liability, intellectual property, commercial disputes, constitutional issues.”

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The kerfluffle (and it is truly a kerfluffle, nothing more) about Senator Elizabeth Warren’s native American ancestry provides the backdrop to the overarching question of whether she’s entitled to facts or truth. Her truth.

A defender of the faith offered this in response to the ridicule sent Warren’s way.

Warren suffers from epistemic injustice where her assertions of heritage are given unjustly low weight based on stereotypes associated w/her identity. It’s her story, her family’s story, her truth. Why a need to deny her identity that has informed her entire life?

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Former Biscayne Park Police Chief Raimundo Atesiano wanted to keep the mostly white suburb of Biscayne Park under control during his tenure, and part of that meant closing every crime, no matter what. So his small police force of 12 did just that.

The two former Biscayne Park police officers testified before a federal grand jury about how the department’s ex-chief pressured them to arrest people of color and others for crimes they did not commit in the leafy bedroom community north of Miami.

Dayoub, 38, and Fernandez, 62, testified that Atesiano’s goal was to achieve a 100 percent burglary clearance rate, even if it meant pinning unsolved break-ins on people who were innocent victims, according to newly filed court records.

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