Blog Posts

This just may be what comes of the triumphant cry of the warrior who knows but one truth, and who is determined to destroy all those who stand in its way: Salman Rushdie, laying in a pool of blood on a stage at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. He was getting ready to speak to a group...

Legitimacy, the near magical property that distinguishes the use of naked power from lawful authority, is conferred upon the state in three ways, the German sociologist Max Weber taught a century ago. There is tradition, of a sense of authority derived ancient custom and usages; think of...

Elections have consequences, I get that.
But do we really have elections so that familial legacies can be seeded?
Rumors swirl that Connecticut United States Senator Richard Blumenthal is busily at work advancing the cause of his son, Matthew, to be...

If you want to know what a legitimation crisis is, look no further than the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin. At night, you will see buildings burning. This in response to the police shooting of a young man named Jason Blake.
Jason is black.
The officer...

I am convinced that I am an artificial intelligence alarmist for the same reason that I like dystopian and apocalyptic literature. What I don’t understand is why the secret hope for catastrophe. The current pandemic has certainly called my bluff. Be careful what you wish for, I...

The New York Times unveiled a massive new editorial campaign in Sunday’s paper. “The America We Need,” the front page of the Sunday Review section announces. The entire front page of the section is an illustration of folks appearing to work in a medical lab;...

I’m not sure what the new normal will look like for litigators in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, but several things seem obvious enough.
First, I doubt seriously that any juries will be selected until sometime in 2021.
Why? No one is...

It’s hard not to be anxious just now. A new virus sweeps the globe, killing some, and making many more ill. Never in most of our lifetimes has there been a threat like this. Sure, it’s like 9/11, in some respects, but when terrorists struck we mobilized and united behind fear of...

I pre-ordered Edward Snowden’s Permanent Record, his autobiographical memoir of how he came to be – well, what did he become? Is he a traitor? Or a hero? Such is the confusing character of our times that I could see, prior to diving into the book, a case for both...

This is the pre-prepared portion of the talk I gave to the Hartford County Bar Association for Law Day this year:
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LAW DAY 2019
HARTFORD COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH HATE SPEECH?
We’re here today to celebrate Law Day under the...