Of all the mistakes we could make whilst arguing a case this, most assuredly, is NOT one of them.
“Listen, you’re not understanding the issue. Try reading the briefs and not your clerk’s notes….” Yeah, that could happen.
And
“I understand your confusion, having not read any of the cases I have cited …” Sure, that might slip out.
But this mistake? NEVER ever ever.
There was some confusion about courts being open Thursday July 3 with Governor Detain Immigrant Children closing state offices. It appears Courts are open. Ask for a Jury. Don’t waive speedies.
The big beautiful bill is being debated in the senate on Monday, Of the many many many problems (like paying for tax cuts by reducing health insurance for about 11 million Americans by making it nearly impossible to qualify and stay insured) are not only the canceling of tax cuts for wind and solar energy but the actual tax increases on those industries. Why is this so important? We are in the midst of a third revolution- AI. And AI runs on vast data centers that consume enormous amounts of power. The centers can be powered by wind and solar energy, but now we are removing that option.
How much power are we talking about? By 2030 data centers alone will require more electricity than what is now consumed in the US for all manufacturing. So naturally the geniuses in DC want to cripple our ability to cleanly and cheaply produce that energy. Smart.
Also, skip those shots. Flu. Covid. Measles. Mumps? Fake news. Cod liver oil cures all. Here’s a heart warming story on why no one needs the measles shot anymore(note that this is sarcasm.) Measles is now killing Americans. Something that we would have never said or written in 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. But this is 2025 and we are speeding towards the dark ages as fast as many in Washington can take us, Prayer cures all- until your appendix bursts and you need a surgeon but won’t agree to her wearing a mask during surgery (masks don’t work right?) or giving you anesthesia full of drugs you haven’t researched.
Two sad stories.
First, the U of Virginia caved to blackmail and fired their very popular and talented university president to resolve a Justice Department investigation. The crime- U of V did not sufficiently dismantle its DEI programs expanding inclusivity in the college experience, thus violating, in the view of DOJ cretins prosecutors, the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The DOJ demanded the resignation of President Jim Ryan to settle the investigation., Truly Orwellian. The article is here.
And here is the sad story of the son of Moroccan immigrants whose parents cannot accept his sexuality.We have a take on the end of the op ed piece which we will share later after you have read the story which is here,
YOUR MONDAY FUNDAY Brain teaser.
Four men are in a room.
Barack is reading a book.
Joe is playing chess.
Bill is texting on his phone.
What is the fifth man doing?
(Donald is absent, playing golf).
This is a plea. Maybe it can be dismissed as a plea made by a grumpy Non-Gen X,Y,Z,A male blogger. But maybe you should pause a moment and consider it.
First, what we are not asking. Keep your phone on whilst waiting for your case to be called in court. The Judge is playing candy crush on her screen on the bench, so there is no reason why you should not be trying to advance to the next level.
Keep your phone on during that bad Hinge date because maybe you get a Tinder match and can hook up once you ditch Mr. I’m getting an MBA to work at Goldman Sachs and then in twenty years I’m going to use my Art History Degree to open a Bed and Breakfast in Bend, Oregon and decorate it in post modern 1870’s Egyptian Street Art, or Ms. I left my job at an advertising firm and make 40K a month as a food and bar influencer for NYC concentrating on FIDI so please take my IG and Tik Tok…
We get it. You need your phone. We all do.
Flash back to last year. Rumpole is blissfully wandering through the Van Gogh exhibit at the Met in NYC on Fifth Avenue. We are a member so we don’t wait in lines. In the galleries there are an overwhelming number of tourists. We can tell by the foreign languages they are speaking. And we can tell because they ALL- EVERY ONE OF THEM - have their phones out and are relentlessly and furiously recording every single picture. A middle aged Asian woman from China, her brow furrowed, darts from Van Gogh to Van Gogh, a ten second video and vroom! She’s elbowing her way to the front of the next one to do the same. It’s like the paintings are the plans to the Atomic Bomb and she’s Ethel Rosenberg. *
Recently, some idiot tourist sat on a crystal chair in the Palazzo Maffei in Verona, Italy, breaking it. Last week a tourist in the Uffizi in Florence backed into a 17th century painting of Fernando de Medici, tying to replicate Medici’s pose for their selfie.
In the Met, few were contemplating Van Gogh’s masterpieces. The golden wheat fields, the beguiling self portraits, one done months before the artist took his own life. The impact of art on the soul was lost. The experience became one long post card- a picture of the leaning tower of Pisa, or the Eiffel Tower, or Buckingham Palace- I was here- LOOK. LOOK AT ME NEXT TO VAN GOGH’S SUNFLOWERS … I WAS HERE… I DID THIS….DON’T YOU WANT TO BE ME?
No, we don’t. There is not one piece of art that has not been digitized and is not available for free on line. So why lose the experience of art on the desperate desire to prove you saw the painting?
It makes no sense.
We can spend an hour looking at one or two Rothkos and get lost in the wonder of how a few stripes of paint on a canvass makes us feel. And then we can repair to a favourite coffee shop in the West Village and debate Rothko’s influence over a dark espresso and crusty croissant. Is there not a better way to spend a day? How can anyone who races through an exhibition with their phone out recount how the art affected them if they don’t spend time contemplating the picture?
It makes no sense.
One last analogy. Imagine watching Tom Seaver in 1969 pitch a two-hit shutout as the Miracle Mets were on their way to an improbable World Series victory. Seaver was one of the great pitchers of all time. We saw him do this at Shea stadium that year. The sound of the ball popping in the catcher’s glove is indelible. The frustrations on the faces of hitters who could not figure him out remains with us to this day. And we had no phone. No camera. We just sat and watched and were washed over in the experience of being there.
That is what our phone generation is losing- the experience of seeing and feeling. They are replacing it with the proof of presence. I WAS THERE. I DID THIS.
But can they answer the most important question of all: How did it make you feel?
* Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were innocent. But that is a post for another time.
Florida’s Governor (“ I don’t believe in Covid or Global Warming so how did I not get elected president?”) has announced the closure of State Offices on Thursday July 3 as well. So you can enjoy a long weekend celebrating American exceptionalism (like defunding HIV treatment in Africa!! USA all the way. Let people get AIDS every day!).
What a guy. Just don’t use the term “global warming” if you’re a state employee or you will find yourself Trumped.
The Gov is term limited. He has a year left. Perhaps there’s an animal shelter he can defund before he leaves. Or some low income food for the elderly programs he can shutter. Or some children of immigrants he can cuff in front of their class and have their friends loudly mock them for being foreigners before taking them out of kindergarten and to a concentration camp in the Everglades. The kind of things we now want America to be known for. Enough of that nonsense of feeding hungry children and innovating health care to end things like Smallpox.
You know, the kind of stuff it takes to run for the presidency.
BEARS
Summer time leads to fall and that’s the best time to tune into the Bear Cams of Katmai National Park in Alaska and watch Brown bears peacefully feed on the salmon run until the current administration approves of oil drilling at the Katmai falls.
Check it out here. This is our favorite on line activity (other than betting against the Marlins).
Update : In response to our snarky riff on the Problem Solving Judge, we had THE PROBLEM SOLVER spoon it right back to us, proving that she’s the right judge for the job.
Margie Verde-Yanez
Personally we think she should keep the title as is. Why not have a problem solving judge in an age when we have so many problems that need to be solved?
Here's your winners and losers, judge-wise. Pretty much all of the administrative judges from the prior administration are O U T out. So much for competence, as opposed to political payback being the deciding factor.
Take a look at the new lineup, and if you are a long time and careful reader of the blog, what title immediately would catch Rumpole's eye? The answer is below.
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SO....we cannot resist. There is a Chief "Problem Solving" Judge? Really? Because our well known view is that Judges are problems, and cause more than they solve (and this has nothing to do with the current "problem solver").
How does this work?
Hmm...I'm having a problem with solving Fermat's Last Theorem. What to do? Oh, wait! I know, I'll call the Problem Solving Judge.
Or is it like Dear Abby?
Dear Problem Solving Judge, I'm having a problem with my mother-in-law. She doesn't like my black beans and rice. But my husband tells me that I make better moros than his mother. My mother-in-law is now coming over every day to watch me make dinner. I can't think of anything to do other than cook a second dinner once she leaves. Also, I am having problems filing in probate. Can you help?
Cuban Cook & Probate Lawyer.
There is just so much here. Sometimes the blog-gods are just too generous to a humble blogger hacking away trying to post decent content. Days of draught and endless re-writes of posts trying to find something to say are rewarded when we learn there is a Chief Problem Solving Judge.
Look! In The Courtroom. It's Justice Roberts...It's Justice Cardozo, NO It's the PROBLEM SOLVING JUDGE
Yes, it's PROBLEM SOLVING JUDGE, strange visitor from another jurisdiction, who came to Miami with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal judges. PROBLEM SOLVING JUDGE, who can change the course of mighty rivers feeding the Everglades with an opinion, stop US steel from being sold with a simple injunction. And who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered Judge in a great metropolitan courthouse, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and no more continuances.
Ever want to take your favourite Judge, or prosecutor, or if you are a judge or prosecutor, your favourite defense attorney, and just pull the rip cord?
Now you can!
I Fly has opened up down the street from the REGJB (across from the new complex just over the bridge). Our little neighborhood is changing from small houses converted to law offices by defense attorneys in the 1970s (when you could take cash as a fee without risking indictment), into a touristy/shopping mecca.
This is how we imagine the tour bus script would read:
"And on your left is the Miami criminal courthouse, the scene of many lurid murder trials and drug trafficking trials straight out of Miami Vice. And as we pass the courthouse, on your left is the Dade County State Attorney's Office, staffed by lawyers who are very good at stating 'victim wants max' and who recently employed an experienced supervisor who withheld evidence in a murder case and then lied about it in court under oath. Their offices are called the Graham building named after Philip Graham, a former publisher of the Washington Post. Most prosecutors would tell you that the building is named after former Florida Senator Bob Graham, but they would be wrong.
Just down the street past the State Attorney's Office is the Public Defender's Office, and the interesting story about that is that their offices used to be the Miami Dade Police Department's Offices. And across from all of this is the Jackson Hospital Medical Complex where many a lawyer or judge has gone for medical assistance after a rough day in court."
So now after a hard day in court, you can go across the street, throw down a few at the bougee bar on the river (the Marine Bar it is not), and then go skydiving.
Have fun!
Bomb Damage Assessment.
Jaws was released 50 years ago today. It was, in our memory and experience, the first summer blockbuster movie.
People have their favourite lines, like "you're gonna need a bigger boat" said by Roy Scheider when he first sees the shark.
But in our humble opinion Robert Shaw as Quint stole the movie. Many point to Quint's Indianapolis speech as their favorite. "You know the thing about a shark is that he has lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a dolls eyes... I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So eleven hundred men went into water. Three hundred and sixteen come out, the sharks took the rest. June the 29, 1945..."
But this scene and his speech is our favorite. "This shark. Swallow ya whole. A little shakin, a little tenderizin and down you go...I'll find him for three. But I'll catch him and kill him for ten..."
Robert Shaw was just an amazing actor.