Thursday, May 28, 2026
PMT: The not-end of a war
When he asserted that the war with Iran could only end with "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER," President Trump might have been right. The problem is, it won't be Iran that surrenders its goals for the conflict. In truth, that might not be a bad outcome-- Trump would declare victory, say that their navy was sunk, etc., and just pull out, without ever achieving his top objectives of regime change and destruction or removal of enriched uranium. Perhaps the Strait of Hormuz would re-open... but that merely returns things to the state of play before the war.
If that 'declared victory/actual defeat' doesn't happen, this will be a low-level forever war with occasional flare-ups. Here's why:
-- Iran's leaders aren't going to give up power or the uranium without a major loss of pride. And they know that they can put Trump off without giving him either thing.
-- Trump's military pressure isn't what he hoped. He did go all-out on an air war, and Iran survived. The Iranians have likely learned from the experience and will be even more resilient in the future-- they are much better at modern drone war that the US seemed to expect.
-- Geography works in Iran's favor. They have home-field advantage in the conflict, most importantly-- and that is a significant advantage. They also have supply routes, open or furtive, in several directions, including with Russia through the Caspian Sea (where the US has no possible sea presence).
-- The US public opposes the war, and if it gets hotter into the mid-terms, the war (and everything that comes with it, including high gas prices) could be a determining factor in House and Senate outcomes. That means that without a declared victory/actual defeat, Trump will politically be unable to escalate the war to the point where achieving his two top goals might be possible.
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Those who give us hope: Pope Leo
Pope Leo, the first American to become the head of the Catholic Church, chose artificial intelligence as the topic of his first encyclical, which is a pastoral letter advising on Catholic doctrine. Like some before him, Leo aimed this at a world that includes Catholics rather than simply to Catholics.
His message was nuanced and complex. He did not dismiss A.I. as a kind of evil. He was clear-eyed about the moral challenges A.I. presents to all of us. Fundamentally, Leo (like his predecessors) is in the pursuit of recognizing human dignity, and he sees the ways this is now threatened.
One prominent point he made regards the use of A.I. in warfare-- that is, the de-humanization of killing people. He argues that A.I. must be "disarmed."
He also argues that A.I. must serve humanity in whole, rather that to serve as an agent that concentrates wealth and power in fewer hands. He is right on about this, of course-- and I don't see how, in our economic system and political state, the proliferation of A.I. can do anything other that concentrate wealth and power, as the value of labor withers.
It saddens me that so many Catholic institutions (including the one where I work) seem to have bought completely into the vision of A.I. promoted by corporations. Faith organizations have the ability and duty not to take on the mantle of the wealthy to the disadvantage of the poor, and we are failing at that. Perhaps Pope Leo is pointing to a better way.
Tuesday, May 26, 2026
When AI shows us our real shortcomings
A fascinating article in the New York Times titled "Doctors, This is Why Our Patients are Using ChatGPT," written by Columbia Univ. medical professor Helen Ouyang, lays out an uncomfortable truth: sometimes AI is more humane than humans. She describes her treatment for some problems revealed by blood tests. Her own doctor was barely there for advice, urging "diet and exercise" before signing out. ChatGPT, on the other hand, offered her specific advice, allowed for a dialogue, and accompanied suggestions with encouragement. In other words, the computer creation provided the human touch that actual humans in the medical field often don't offer.
As much as the article offers positives for this one AI application, it also is a harsh critique of how humans are performing those same tasks. Medical care-- driven by profit/cost metrics and other factors-- just don't do much with the "care" part of the job.
In my own field, something similar is playing out. Big law firms are finding that AI can do much of the discovery work that young associates usually handle, and clients are pushing them towards that efficiency. That transition reveals a truth I have known since I was a young associate: that for many of those civil discovery tasks, you never needed someone billing the high rates charged for associate work. Paralegals or others could have done it just as well for less. But... the profit model for law firms depends on billing out lots of associate time.
Overall, I see more downside with AI than upside (and I will say more about that tomorrow when I write about the fascinating encyclical issued today by Pope Leo). But if it does a little to push us towards being more human and caring, I see the good in that. Thanks to Prof. Ouyang for telling that truth.
Monday, May 25, 2026
Grad poems
IPLawGuy nailed it this week:
High School grad day, yawn
A relief, time to get out
College, I was drunk
Law School, NOW I'm done!
Happy to get diploma
And start my career!
A relief, time to get out
College, I was drunk
Law School, NOW I'm done!
Happy to get diploma
And start my career!
And Christine, I have no idea....:
Old high school photo
Wearing a white collar... why?
I don't remember.
Wearing a white collar... why?
I don't remember.
I appreciate Anonymous chiming in, too!:
Cap decorations!
Glitter, sequins, bedazzle
So much sparkly joy!
Glitter, sequins, bedazzle
So much sparkly joy!
Sunday, May 24, 2026
Sunday Reflection: Loss of a mentor
I graduated from law school in May of 1990, full of ambition and lots of questionable ideas. My first job out of school-- and one of my best-- was clerking for District Judge Jan E. DuBois of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. It was a year that shaped my life, and Judge DuBois, who died last week at age 95, was a huge influence on me. The picture above (taken years later) doesn't exactly capture the joy and intellectual badinage we shared.
His son Marc wrote a fantastic obituary for him, which you can read here. It reflects the fact that Judge DuBois was hard working and remarkably talented. That impacted different people in different ways.
With the clerkship, I came in hot. On my first day, he came into the office I shared with Hope Freiwald, waving around something I had written, disagreeing with my take. I looked at his comments, and marched right into his office and made my case. Our conversation was edgy, fast, and deep. I worried I was offending him by pushing back but soon realized I was wrong-- he loved that kind of exchange. Those were some of the best discussions of my life.
Like many of my mentors and collaborators, Judge DuBois was Jewish, and that identity was important. I wonder sometimes about that; the truth is that as much as I identify (genuinely) as Christian, many more of my close fellow travelers in the law and on justice issues are Jewish than Christian. Judge DuBois, among so much else, gave me some insight into why that might be... but I will save that for another day. For now, it is enough to remember and honor someone who was better to me than I often deserved.
Saturday, May 23, 2026
Boston
On Thursday night, my phone rang a little after 9 pm. It was Dan Rea, who has a call-in show at night on WBZ, a giant 50,000-watt AM station in Boston that has a directional antennae that sends the signal westward-- I remember being able to pick it up sometimes at night on my little Radio Shack radio as a kid, lying in bed and amazed that I could hear people so far away. Rea wanted to talk about the sentencing of Amie Bock here in Minneapolis (he had read something I had said to CNN that day), and I jumped at the chance-- I love that radio station.
My favorite thing about that station generally is the callers-- the accents are amazing, and from different parts of New England. Which kind of makes this clip appropriate:
Friday, May 22, 2026
Haiku Friday: Graduations!
It's that time of year! I love graduations-- an unbridled, happy time. So let's haiku about that this week. Here, I will go first:
Meeting the parents
Like unearthing the secrets:
"That's where that came from!"
Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 syllable pattern and have some fun!
Thursday, May 21, 2026
PMT: Understanding the $1,800,000,000 "fund" DOJ has created
When the DOJ very clearly lost its independence from the White House at the start of Trump's second term, people speculated what might happen, mostly envisioning politicized prosecutions (which happened). But I don't think anyone thought the President would sue the government and then "settle" that suit in a deal that gives him and his family immunity from IRS investigation or claims and creates a $1.8 billion fund for those such as the January 6 insurrectionists and election interferers who faced prosecution under the Biden administration.
Here is how it all played out:
-- In September of 2020, a former government contractor named Charles Littlejohn leaked some of Donald Trump's old tax returns, that then were published in the New York Times. They revealed (among other things) that he paid no tax at all in 10 of the 15 years prior to 2016. Trump, as President, had often promised that he would release his tax returns at some unnamed point in the future, but never did so.
-- Littlejohn is currently serving a 5-year sentence for leaking the documents.
-- In January of 2026, Trump, his two oldest sons and the Trump Organization filed suit against the IRS for the leak of the tax returns, seeking $10 billion. Critics argued that the suit was time barred, against the wrong defendant (it was Littlejohn who leaked the docs) and did not present an actual adversarial case since the plaintiffs (Trump) was the head of the defendant (the federal government). The judge seemed especially interested in this last point.
-- This week, Trump withdrew the suit and announced a settlement with the DOJ (who act as lawyers for the IRS). That settlement basically gives Trump and his family immunity from tax actions and sets up the $1.8 billion fund-- it bars audits "forever." Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche (who very much wants the plaintiff, Trump, to make him the AG), defended the deal to irate members of Congress on Tuesday.
Interestingly, all of this is a product of Trump's unique viewpoint and the actual creation of a "Unitary Executive" where the executive branch of government acts effectively as the alter-ego of the president.
Will Congress act?
Well, no. They won't. And that is its own conundrum...
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Those who give us hope: Luke Keller and the guys at FCI Sandstone
A few weeks ago I took my clinic students up to FCI Sandstone, a federal prison a few hours north of here. The visit was arranged by the staff there and Luke Keller, who serving a very long sentence for a narcotics crime.
Today I opened a package from Luke, and it was full of these three guys-- toys made by the men at Sandstone for the kids of my clinic students (two of them are fathers of very young children). It came with instructions about who was to get which toy.
That kind of generosity always takes my breath away. They listened when we visited, and remembered who had kids and how old and what they liked. Then they made these toys by hand with those kids in mind. The truth is that I am a long way from that kind of attentiveness and kindness, and the fact that I am shown the way by those in prison is a good lesson for me.
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Grading Time!
Grading isn't my favorite part of the whole professoring gig, but it is important to do it well. It's a lot easier, of course, since I got a sorting hat to help me out.
The part I struggle with, of course, is the judgment of it all. But assessment is a key part of the learning process, so off the hat and I go for the next week.
Having gotten partway through, I noticed one thing about my take-home finals:
(1) AI is surprisingly easy to spot in certain contexts, and
(2) It is not very good at sentencing. The obvious-AI answers are consistently underperforming students who didn't use it, so I guess for now I'm just going to grade it all straight-up!
Monday, May 18, 2026
On Freedom
There were some great haiku this week-- but only one from an identified person. And that was Des (and I love what she did):
Drive west from DC
on I- 6-6 through the pass.
Taking a deep breath.
on I- 6-6 through the pass.
Taking a deep breath.
We also had four anonymous entries. Here is #1 (I'm a sucker for an art history entry):
Rockwell’s Four Freedoms:
Of speech, worship, from want, fear
Portraits of the free.
Of speech, worship, from want, fear
Portraits of the free.
And #2:
Night skinny-dipping
At summer camp in Texas
Sense of weightlessness.
At summer camp in Texas
Sense of weightlessness.
And #3:
Freedom as a kid
Meant exploring with your friends
Magic discoveries!
Meant exploring with your friends
Magic discoveries!
And finally, #4:
I wake in my own bed
Go outside, walk in sunlight
Wear clothes that I choose.
Go outside, walk in sunlight
Wear clothes that I choose.
Sunday, May 17, 2026
Sunday Reflection: Beauty and Quiet
This week, on Friday morning, I was up early and walking in Memphis. My plane didn't leave until noon, and I had time and energy. I walked down South Main to the Central Station, where Amtrak rolls up once a day each way, going to Chicago in one direction and New Orleans in the other, and then back to the center of town.
The street were very quiet-- it was hard to believe it was a weekday in a fairly large city. I stopped to look at everything. The city reminded me a lot of Detroit-- the better art was on the street, not in the galleries, and it felt like a place that had found itself with plenty of space to spread out in.
The photo at the top, of the three black rectangles, I took at the other end of South Main, on a boarded-up building. I think that three posters had been up, then stripped off. But it struck me as being about three eras in the United States: Slavery, Jim Crow, and the present era.
The reason I was in Memphis at all was to see the new exhibit at the National Civil Rights Museum about the story of Robert Shipp and Veda Ajamu, brother and sister I have been lucky to know.
How lucky am I, to have a morning like that?
Saturday, May 16, 2026
TV used to be a lot different....
Friday, May 15, 2026
Haiku Friday: Freedom
Yesterday I was in Memphis at the National Civil Rights Museum, celebrating the opening of a new set of exhibits, including one about my former clinic client Robert Shipp and his remarkable advocate, his sister Veda Ajamu. It was a celebration of freedom, something we too often taken for granted. So this week let's haiku about something that freedom allows you, something bold or quite, profound or mundane. Here, I will go first:
I walk on the street
In sunshine; there's flowers
I might soon feel rain.
Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 syllable pattern and have some fun!
Thursday, May 14, 2026
PMT: The China Challenge
As the President arrives in China, one has to think that Chinese leaders believe they are in a good position.
For years, they have developed electric cars and clean-energy infrastructure to sell all over the world. The war in Iran and the US retreat from traditional and longstanding international relationships has created a fantastic opportunity for them: they can build huge market share worldwide in the things that international markets want the most as gas prices remain unstable (in the long term, it is instability, not just high prices, that disrupt the status quo).
Meanwhile, we have used a significant percentage of our key weaponry in Iran, and build it pretty slowly-- and with some key components (especially rare earths) sourced from world markets that are dominated by China. That means that the risk to China of attacking Taiwan in 2027 (the earliest date some experts feel that is feasible) goes down significantly, if we are not able to bring fully-armed weapons systems to bear in the effort to repel an attack. There is the danger, too, that our protection of Taiwan is something that may be bargained away.
We will see what comes out this meeting-- but I worry we may not get the whole story.
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Those who give us hope: Graduates
My school will have our graduation this Saturday, an event that always makes me emotional. For three years, these student devoted their lives to studying, and we devoted ours to teaching them. Then, one day, they just up and leave, off to all corners to do things expected and unexpected, great and modest, remarkable and unnoticed. I am not good at good-byes.
They do give me such hope, though. In each one there is this remarkable potential, an ability to change some space for the better. I watch them go across the stage, and for many I have a specific memory, a moment in class or the hallway.
I was there once, full of excitement, fear and hope, having climbed to the top of a precipice only to jump off. And as I watch them, there I am again.
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
At the Venice Biennale
Someday I would love to go to the Venice Biennale, the giant art festival that tends towards the edgy. Nations sponsor a single artist or a small group, and the city is full of about 100 official installations.
It's not the Met. Denmark's entry this year is AI-generated porn on giant screens. Austria's features a nude woman jet-skiing. (I'm sensing a theme here). The Vatican's installation has a voice piece by Patti Smith.
One of the more intriguing installations is from Japan. Ei Arakawa-Nash has a piece, "Grass Babies, Moon Babies," involving over 200 baby dolls. If you choose, one will be assigned to you to carry around the space, evoking a variety of emotions. After touring the space, you can take your baby to a changing table, reveal a QR code, and receive a personalized poem.
Oh, and all of the babies are wearing sunglasses.
Monday, May 11, 2026
The Mash-Up
Awesome work on TV show mash-up last Friday! I loved this one from my mom:
Oscar the Grouch and
Laura Ingraham, what a team
for a Fox News show!
Laura Ingraham, what a team
for a Fox News show!
And CraigA is on it:
Ted Lasso plays darts
With Apprentice Donald J.,
loser gets fired!
With Apprentice Donald J.,
loser gets fired!
And IPLawGuy is going waaay back:
I would not believe
if the Man from UNCLE met
Maxwell Smart and Chief
On the other hand,
Robert Vaughn would be a match
for Miss Ninety-Nine!
if the Man from UNCLE met
Maxwell Smart and Chief
On the other hand,
Robert Vaughn would be a match
for Miss Ninety-Nine!
I like it, anonymous!:
I Dream of Jeannie
Mixed with Dancing With the Stars
Kinda Bollywood!
Mixed with Dancing With the Stars
Kinda Bollywood!
And this one as well:
Imagine this scene:
Brady Bunch at Sopranos
SOME Sunday dinner!
Brady Bunch at Sopranos
SOME Sunday dinner!
Desiree, I don't know what "Ghosts" is, but will find out:
All aboard! Let’s mix
Ghosts with The Loveboat. Question:
Will Trevor get pants?
Ghosts with The Loveboat. Question:
Will Trevor get pants?
And finally, more quality from IPLG:
Waltons - serious
Beverly Hillbillies - Not
John Boy/Ellie Mae?
Beverly Hillbillies - Not
John Boy/Ellie Mae?
Sunday, May 10, 2026
Sunday Reflection: Code is Soul
In 2000, Larry Lessig published a book called "Code, and Other Laws of Cyberspace." It became known for producing the catchphrase "Code is Law." That catchphrase has come to mean different things to different people, but a common theme is that once computer code takes over a function, it also tends to trump the law in that area. There were taxi laws, for example, until there were rideshare apps that just ignored those laws.
As AI creeps over us, I worry that code is soul, too.
I feel it when I hear a sermon, as I do too often, that feels like it was created by AI. I feel it when I read student work that is anything but heartfelt-- that matters when what you teach (as I do) is largely about injustice and tragedy, things that must be engaged with the heart and the mind. I feel it when I read "news" stories created by AI, that are just that little bit off, the "little bit" being the humanity of the teller.
Souls are individual. Code is collective. I see that conflict and the coming tragedy when I watch us lose the ability to tell our own stories, an ability that is already being lost among students as AI writes their papers, their poems, their essays.
There are billions, trillions even, of dollars that are urging us not to say no, to refuse to let computers take over those nourishers and outlets of the soul. But if we are to be truly human, to be children of God, at some point we must.
