Putin dies and ends up in hell. After a few years, the devil calls him in and tells him that he is being paroled back to Moscow for good behavior. Putin arrives in Moscow and goes to his favorite bar and orders a small pitcher of vodka. He starts talking to the bartender. “I’ve been away for a long time, Tovarisch, and I have been out of touch. Do we still hold Crimea?” “Yes,” the bartender replies. “How about the Donbas?” “That, too,” says the bartender. Putin is hesitant to ask, but he jumps in the deep end, “Do we have Kyiv?” “Yes, we have Kyiv.” “That’s wonderful!” says Putin and pulls out his money to pay for his drink. “What’s that?” asks the bartender. “Ten rubles,” says Putin, “eight for the drink and two for you.” “Rubles? We haven’t used rubles for years. The price is ten Euros.”
I am delighted to announce that David Yellen, a distinguished and accomplished educator, mentor, author, and innovator has been named the new dean of the School of Law.
Dean Yellen previously served as dean and professor of law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law from 2005 to 2016 and is currently the chief executive officer of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver, an independent research center that works nationally to improve access to justice and effectiveness of the civil justice system.
While under his leadership, the Loyola University Chicago School of Law was often cited as one of the most innovative law schools, instituting a master’s level degree track for non-lawyers and implementing distance learning for the Juris Doctor program long before the COVID-19 pandemic forced higher education institutions to accelerate remote and hybrid learning environments. David Yellen, who also served as dean of the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, where he held the Max Schmertz Distinguished Professorship, was often listed among the 25 Most Influential People in Legal Education by National Jurist magazine.
Following his tenure at Loyola, he was named president of Marist College from 2016 to 2019, where he led the planning for a new medical school for the institution. Among other notable appointments, he has been the Reuschlein Distinguished Visiting Professor at Villanova University School of Law and twice served as a visiting professor at Cornell Law School.
Eminently qualified to lead the School of Law into our centennial and beyond, Dean Yellen, whose expertise is in criminal law, earned his Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Princeton University and graduated cum laude from Cornell Law School. He also served as counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. He will take the helm of the School of Law on July 1.
I want to extend my sincere thanks to former Notre Dame Law Dean Nell Jessup Newton for her exemplary service and leadership as interim dean of Miami Law since September 1, and also my grateful appreciation to Professor Stephen Schnably for providing his steady hand as acting dean of the School of Law during the transition to the appointment of Dean Newton.
The School of Law search committee, expeditiously led by Guillermo Prado, vice provost for faculty affairs and dean of the Graduate School, did extraordinary due diligence in its national search for our new dean at the School of Law. Their selfless commitment to this important work is much appreciated.
Please join me in welcoming Dean David Yellen and his wife, Leslie Richards-Yellen, to the U.
Most maps of the state of abortion law in the US usually show Florida as a state where abortion will still be legal after the US Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. That’s because Florida State Supreme Court precedent holds that abortion is a right protected under the Florida Constitution.
Indeed, the Florida Constitution, unlike the US federal Constitution, explicitly protects an individual’s right to privacy (against the state, not against private parties, alas).
As recently as February 2017, a majority of Florida Supreme Court justices supported abortion. The court struck down a law that required a woman seeking an abortion to wait at least 24 hours between meeting with a doctor and obtaining the procedure.
Justice Barbara Pariente quoted her late colleague Justice Shaw’s statement from In re: TW that the state privacy provision “is clearly implicated in a woman’s decision of whether or not to continue her pregnancy.”
But don’t let that fool you. In contemporary Florida, your rights don’t mean much.
It not uncommon for city or county governments to rip off taxpayers by handing valuable land cheap to developers, or even subsidizing development whose benefits will run primarily or even entirely to the mega-wealthy. That is the story of many a sports stadium.
But only in Miami would the beneficiary of one giant taxpayer ripoff, indeed the largest in area history to date (the Marlins stadium), do a video mocking another proposed ripoff, here the Melreese giveaway. That’s the giveaway of a huge park that will supposedly be used for a soccer stadium, but which camouflages the fact that most of the land will be used for a mall and other private profit-making buildings. Is the video fueled by envy that the new ripoff would smash the Marlins’ record?
See the video at Twitter. Be warned that it contains language that people from more delicate parts of the world may consider unfit for polite company.
10. They refuse to answer the four questions without a subpoena.
9. They demand a recount of the ten plagues.
8. They defend not increasing the minimum wage on the grounds that according to Chad Gadya it still costs only two zuzzimto buy a goat.
7. The afikomen is hidden in the Caymen Islands.
6. They refuse to open the door for Elijah until they see his immigration papers.
5. They attack Moses for negotiating a deal with Pharoah because why would we negotiate with our enemies?
4. They don’t understand why the Egyptians didn’t cure the plagues with hydroxychloroquine.
3. They omit the parts about slavery from the Haggadah because it reminds them of Critical Race Theory.
2. They keep saying “when do we get to the miracle of the Jewish space lasers?”
And the number one sign that you might be at a Republican seder:
1. They end the seder by singing “Next year in Mar-a-Lago.”
Stolen from Digby, which itself offers an appropriately tangled pedigree.
Update:Steve Sheffey wrote me to claim authorship, and to say he has a newsletter.
I’m actually quite depressed about this, as I fear that it vastly increases the odds that Governor Evil will become the Republican nominee, and perhaps even the next President.
Predictable punch line, but still funny:
