In one of my recent posts, I uttered a remark that I said was common around criminal courts:

Nobody ever said criminals were smart.

That statement kicked up enough private comments that I’m glad I’m no longer an active judge and so I don’t have to worry about having to respond to a complaint at the Judicial Qualifications Commission. I did get a few of those in my day, but only one got past the front end screening.

Every judge I know has a short list of lawyers who are complete pains in the ass. …

I get weary — and we should all get weary — of accusations that this or that politician wants to “tax and spend” or that it’s wrong for the government to manipulate the distribution of wealth.

Everything government does involves taxing and spending and those two acts, perforce, redistribute wealth. The pertinent questions are (1) Tax whom? and (2) Spend for what?

Redistribution of wealth? The two presidents since WWII who are consensus picks for the POTUS hall of fame — Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan — -probably redistributed more wealth than their peers, albeit in different directions. Other presidents present the same choice with smaller numbers: Robin Hood or reverse Robin Hood?

Robin Hood was a thief and famous for calling out the abuse of taxing and spending powers by the government of Prince John…

Like the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman, the Yellow Rose of Texas was not a rose nor was it from Texas.

Reasonable people can differ on both “empire” and “yellow,” but the bright colored bloom most agree to be in the folk song is a kerria, named after the Kew Garden “plant collector” who identified it in China, William Kerr.

While the plant was claimed to be native to Japan, Kerr collected it in China. The taxonomists had opined that the “yellow rose” was Japanese by the time it was recorded with “japonica” in the scientific name. …

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. asked us to cast a vote for him rather than Donald John Trump because, he said, the soul of America is at stake.

That’s a scary argument on many levels, not the least of which is the implied threat to suck us back before the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, when rulers were thought to be anointed by God. Scary or not, it might be true.

I tried to teach my undergraduate students that it takes more than a correct choice between legal and illegal to make a correct choice between right and wrong but the latter choice must still be made. …

I’ve even heard people I would have thought knew better criticize the Framers for the procedural steps they wrote down as prerequisite to nullifying an election. I’ve now watched three impeachments, four if you count the involuntary departure of Richard Nixon, and the claim of election nullification is always lurking.

Of course, it’s true that the result of an election is being nullified. Would it sound better if described as “giving the voters a mulligan?” Donald John Trump did not bring to the White House the education or the experience we have come to expect, he never got a majority…

I have but one and a half remarks before I ask my Buick 6 to whisk me to the Temple VA where I get my second COVID 19 shot.

First, jurisdiction is a sticky thing. In the law, we claim jurisdiction “attaches” to a set of parties as if with screws or bolts. Actually, the first image that stuck in my mind as I saw Mr. …

If some contemporary admirer of JFK (or Ted Sorensen) wished to write a second volume to Profiles in Courage, it would be a very short book.

The last senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), seemed to take pride in his nickname, Grim Reaper, perhaps because it was directly connected to the source of his power, his ability to steer the senate away from situations that might require “his members” to cast a difficult vote. The primary difficulty to be avoided was controversy in their home states.

The issue is not having one’s true position smoked out by the vote. There might not even be a true position. The issue is having to cast the sort of vote that is bound to cost political support among those…

The new President of the United States, Joe Biden, says we need to get in harness and pull in the same direction if we want to get anywhere. That is a self-evident fact given the way our Congress works. It’s much easier to stop legislation than to pass it.

The fact of how to break the logjam begs the question where do we wish to take the logs when we have them floating free? Biden suggests we are facing four interlocking crises that must be addressed.

(Russell digression™ There is another problem big enough to choke a Clydesdale that is too widely distributed in space and time to describe it as a crisis. Biden is not saying it out loud for the sake of the need to construct something resembling national unity to get anything at all done about the four crises he is proposing to engage.

Underlying all…