"No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny."
"And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves"
-The Simpsons
Well, finals are over. That last one was pretty brutal, with lots of math. and no way to get partial credit on questions that just asked for a dollar figure and a citation to the tax code.
2.667. That's the required GPA to stay in the program. That's a B-, if you haven't been in school for a while. We'll see.
The standard also suggests some grade inflation since I was in law school the first time. The minimum to complete the NYU LLM was the midpoint of the grading curve at UGA in the 1990s. Half of my classmates would've been ineligible to graduate. Surely these guys in Greenwich Village aren't going to boot half the student body.
With no study plan today and nothing but a string of meaningless Zoom hearings and phone conferences ahead, I had time to read the paper this morning. That was a mistake. One of my favorite NYT essayists, Bret Stephens, has officially kissed the ring, and written that it's time to give DJT the benefit of the doubt because, after all, he did a really good job the first time, and what about Bill Clinton and the Bidens?
I get why he's passing under the yoke as our next Roman Triumph awaits in a few weeks. Look at poor George Stephanopoulos and ABC, publicly apologizing and agreeing to pay the Cheeto Messiah $15 million to settle a defamation suit for suggesting in an on-air talk piece that Dear Leader was adjudicated a rapist.
In case you missed it: the reason he sued ABC for defamation was that the New York court adjudicated that he sexually assaulted a woman (one of dozens, it seems). Under New York criminal law, rape requires using that flaccid thing hanging below his beltline. Jamming one's digits into an unwilling woo woo doesn't count.
So it was an intentional lie and a smear, get it?
This is what's coming, friends. My overpriced and weaponized profession, always eager to swing through the courthouse door for a buck, is participating in a shakedown by suing whoever DJT wants taken down. This week it's the Des Moines Register, for publishing a poll right before the election that was wildly inaccurate.
You can be right as rain, or maybe just turned out to be wrong through no fault of your own, but it'll cost you seven figures to fight the battle.
And if you lose? I've got some bad news for you, sunshine: a defamation judgment isn't dischargeable in bankruptcy because it's considered a willful wrong. The creditor lawyers will follow you to the grave.
So there's that.
And the plutocrats are lining up to fund this adventure, bowing and genuflecting and dropping off seven figure checks at Mar a Lago for his inauguration fund, which in fact can be spent on pretty much whatever he wants. Two of the biggest news outlets, the LA Times and the WaPo, are actually owned by part of the billionaire elite, which is why they endorsed Trump by silence in the days before the election. They know the price of speaking the truth these days, if one has a pulpit of any elevation, is financial ruin. Better to be on the side of power, now that there's no longer any hell below us, and above us only sky.
Not a great day.
My computer says we'll see some snow later. I figure this is the last full day here with our lovely Christmas tree all decorated for the season. Peg didn't want to buy one in the first place because decorating mandates taking it down at some point. So I'll do it myself tomorrow sometime.
But the decoration job was one of her better efforts. I'll sort of miss it when it's gone, and plan to leave it lit up for one final day, with the blinds open so the neighbors can share a little holiday cheer.
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