Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Another Modern Horror

From Robert Paul Wolff, a link to a new modern horror: what Prof. Wolff and his sources call a Chechnyan concentration camp for homosexuals.

My first thought was that perhaps the source was mistaken, but sadly snopes.com confirms the story, at least in its broad details, although it quotes an Amnesty International official as saying, “that it’s preferable, based on what we know, to refer to them as secret detention sites. ‘We should always be careful about using the language of ‘concentration camps.'”

Posted in Politics: International | Comments Off on Another Modern Horror

The Most Brutal Political Ad of 2018? (Updated)

Brutal doesn’t have to mean angry or loud. Get a look at this ad for David Brill in Arizona:

UPDATE: There’s more than one of them!

Posted in 2018 Election | 1 Comment

I Guessed Wrong

Brett Kavanaugh wins coveted Roy Moore endorsement.

This is not the Onion. It’s real.

The original source is a TPM article, Moral Authority Roy Moore Urges GOP To ‘Take A Stand’ And Back Kavanaugh. It explains:

Failed Senate candidate Roy Moore, who was accused of sexual misconduct by nine women, has decided that the time is ripe to throw his support to fellow accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Posted in Law: The Supremes, Onion/Not-Onion | Comments Off on I Guessed Wrong

Kavanaugh’s Bright College Years

Seems that Judge Kavanaugh was a DKE as an undergrad. DKE was notoriously the most most drunken (well, maybe tied with a singing group) and least evolved student organization when I was an undergrad at Yale, only a few years before Kavanaugh. It is not a good recommendation for a Judge, much less a Justice. Certainly not disqualifying on its own, but it helps set a context for other things.

Someone kindly sent me a link to an old Yale Daily News article about what DKE was up to the year Kavanaugh was a sophomore, which includes the photo above. Kavanaugh was already a member by then. Nothing to be proud of, although one should be careful to note this is guilt by association; he’s not in the photo. But those guys hung together.

Posted in Law: The Supremes | Comments Off on Kavanaugh’s Bright College Years

China?

Mexico Didn’t Pay For It

Brad DeLong writes, “I need to understand China. I do not understand China. How can I learn to understand China?”

They covered this at Yale. Jonathan Spence in his Introduction to Chinese History told us, when we got to the modern era, that there were three things we should never believe when we heard them: “1. ‘The check is in the mail.’ 2. ‘I’ll respect you in the morning'”…ok, it was the early 80s, … “and 3. ‘I understand what is happening in China.'”

Posted in Politics: International | Comments Off on China?

Vertebrate Paleontology

Congress gets a spine and nobody notices because it’s about Yemen.

Read this very interesting piece of Congressional vertebrate paleontology and thought, “Dan would like this; it’s the sort of thing he’d want for his rebooted White House Watch.”

But of course, it turns out that he wrote it.

Posted in Dan Froomkin, Politics: International | Comments Off on Vertebrate Paleontology