John Pfaff

Oh, I saw the previews when it came out and the premise still haunts me to this day.

A few years ago I assumed I must have mis-remembered the premise and checked out its Wikipedia summary.

Nope. Coronary-inducing stupidity.

Absolutely torching the trustworthiness of a once-highly respected agency critical to the public health of a massive nation, all bc a rage-filed con man appointed a worm-riddled crackpot to burn it, and his family’s storied reputation, to the ground.

Trust that’ll take a generation to rebuild.

Unanimously? What is going on?

Which, to be clear, is not rhetorical. I mean that sincerely. What is going on?

Idiocracy is a 2006 American science fiction comedy film co-produced and directed by Mike Judge from a screenplay written by Judge and Etan Cohen based on a story written by Judge.

In case that’s too oblique a reference (not to the movie everyone knows, but its director).

Step aside, Nostradamus, Mike Judge is the new sheriff in town.

Such a good and thoughtful explanation.

Thanks!!

EOs are nothing more than interoffice memos to executive officials from their boss, giving them some orders.

EOs are nothing more than interoffice memos to executive officials from their boss, giving them some orders.

EOs are nothing more than interoffice memos to executive officials from their b

EOs cannot overturn state or federal laws.

EOs cannot overturn state or federal laws.

EOs cannot overturn state or federal laws.

EOs cannot overturn state or federal laws.

EOs cannot overturn state or federal laws.

EOs cannot overturn state or federal laws.

EOs cannot overturn state or fede

So if a state passes a law he doesn’t like, he’ll retaliate by making it harder for red rural parts of that state to get online?

Like his FEMA bans that hurt red parts of blue states?

The state-level red-blue maps has absolutely poisoned our political minds abt where voter types actually live.

Oh! Ok, that's good at least. Still irked about the EC tho.

LM Miranda still needs to apologize for omitting the Electoral College and the NY Post from the musical, tho.

You can't just gloss over Hamilton's two worst contributions to the US.

Months ago, we got tickets to Leslie Odom Jr return to play Burr in Hamilton. At first, I was dreading going, bc it'd suck to see all the optimism of our potential amidst its total collapse.

I'm much more up for it now, tho. Things are bad, but also lots of impressive acts of resistance, at scale.

Have you seen evidence of actual recruiting successes here at any sort of scale?

What I've seen is mostly police departments being mum about impact (while complaining about ads), with a few saying "no losses yet, bc who would give up higher pay for less respect?"

But is there newer data?

Congress can abolish entire non-Supreme fed courts. They did it as recently as 1982.

What that does to the judges is less clear, and apparently Congress has a habit of relocating them to avoid the issue.

But one could at least dilute the damage: spread Old 5th Cir judges out across new circuits.

One of the longest-shot Congress-takes-fixing-this-country-seriously moves I'd love to see is a Court Reorganization Law that gets around the impossibility of impeachment (no Blue Wave will net 2/3 of the Senate) and abolishes entire circuits to (maybe?) fire the judges on them.

He used "Democrat Party" early on in his opinion, a well-known right-wing partisan "insult" meant to put down Dems.

That's a clear, unambiguously aggressive political view in a politically sensitive opinion.

The sort of thing a healthy 5th Circuit would take steps to sanction.

But yeah, the 5th.

And I’m planning on preempting Hochul’s next rollback of bail reform by scrawling “nuh-uh, no you don’t!” on a used McDonald’s napkin.

I have just as much authority to do that as Trump does, and the napkin would be just as legally binding.

Stop describing EOs like Magic Regal Decrees.

The Worst Statistic: Recidivism In the first post in what will be a period series looking at our official crime stats and what they mean, here I dig into “recidivism,” an incredibly important number that is measured p…

After a too-long hiatus from blogging, I have a new post up, as part of what I hope will be a period series looking at what our crim legal stats really mean.

To start, one of the most important but messiest to actually understand and use: recidivism.

A mess to think about, and a mess to measure.

Also, it wasn’t even a crime! It wasn’t even self defense! There’s no duty to help when the other person puts themself in harm’s way! Which is exactly what happened here.

Anyway, why can’t teen dramas get technical criminal and evidence law doctrines correct?! Is that too much to ask?!

Newlywed Adams officials David Banks, Sheena Wright may not get ‘pillow talk’ privilege in fed probe: experts Saturday’s Martha’s Vineyard wedding of embattled Big Apple schools Chancellor David Banks and First Deputy Mayor Sheena may appear to give the pair cover in a potential federal crimina…

My home-sick-from-school daughter just finished Gossip Girl, told me the ending, and … the law part of me is offended.

Getting married after a possible crime* to claim spousal privilege for that crime is NOT how that works!

Tho two Eric Adams officials apparently thought it was!

Context matters here.

Teachers are not known as insular communities that regularly seek to undermine the civilian in charge of them.

The police are. Notoriously so. We even have a popularized term for it (“thin blue line”).

Which makes her claim hit differently.

The Worst Statistic: Recidivism In the first post in what will be a period series looking at our official crime stats and what they mean, here I dig into “recidivism,” an incredibly important number that is measured p…

After a too-long hiatus from blogging, I have a new post up, as part of what I hope will be a period series looking at what our crim legal stats really mean.

To start, one of the most important but messiest to actually understand and use: recidivism.

A mess to think about, and a mess to measure.

one thing about this is that in the wake of all of this kirk is basically forgotten. he was barely cold in the ground before his allies — before his *wife* — started scheming over what they could take for themselves. a real life parable.

The “canceled people” database listing victims of cancel culture, which includes oft-repeated cases such as Bret Weinstein (Evergreen State College) and James Damore (Google), has a little over 200 entries across 18 years.

canceledpeople.org

The silence of the Harper’s Letter crowd has been a DEAFENING tell.

And I don’t mean just Mamdani. We saw this w De Blasio as well.

And it isn’t specific to the NYPD. Across the US, police depts often adopt oppositional views of the mayors and other civilians to whom they nominally report.

A baronial class that enforces the laws but see themselves as above them.

She’s not supposed to be a fierce advocate for the POLICE.

She’s supposed to be a fierce advocate for MANDANI’S POLICIES.

He’s her boss, not the police unions.

But this makes it clear how the police view themselves as separate from, and adversarial to, the mayor.

I mean, prosecutors?!

“Bob murdered Joe, but should we retaliate by prosecuting Bob? When will this end?” asked no prosecutor ever.

Just seems to show they don’t see “tried to destroy democracy” in the same light.

You know how you avoid a harmful back-and-forth?

When the forces of liberal democracy get back in power they use every possible civil and criminal tool to obliterate the autocrats until they can’t do a damn thing.

This isn’t hard. We PUNCH Nazis, and authoritarians, and fascists.

Not shake hands.