Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters was built to defend the different. Mutants travel (or teleport) from all over the world to shelter within the institute's walls, and learn to cultivate their abilities to protect what makes them unique. For those of us who sadly lack the X-gene, copyright law provides something similar: it safeguards the rights of the unique and gifted by protecting their original creations.

Let's talk about particle physics, the Southern District of New York and SDNY's recent history of confusing firings during the Trump Administration. When the Trump Admin took over in 2017 several US Attorneys were asked to resign. Preet Bharara was the US Attorney at the time for SDNY and President Trump assured him he would keep his gig despite several US Attorneys getting dismissed under the new Admin. But, shortly thereafter, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Bharara anyway. Sessions then handpicked Geoffrey Berman to replace Bharara on an interim basis of 120 days. The Trump Admin needed to pick a replacement in that timeframe and have them confirmed by the Senate. Instead of doing that the 120 days lapsed and the Court appointed Berman using the power of the judiciary to occupy the position until a new candidate was confirmed by the Senate.

It's Pride month and the US Supreme Court ruled that federal employment laws protect LGBT employees in Bostock v. Clayton County. Gorsuch authored the 6-3 majority opinion. And while the majority opinion is something to raise the rainbow flag for the dissent chose to evoke the jolly roger. (More on the pirates below!)

So how did we get to a point where obvious police misconduct escapes civil damages? The problem goes back decades. To keep things narrow and to avoid going over items that are constantly already in front of your face 24/7 I'm going to focus on one area of law that constitutes an abject failure and deserves to be shot into the vacuum of space: Qualified Immunity.

Barstool is a media conglomerate that started with a focus on sports and branched out into other arenas pretty successfully. The company is headed up by Dave Portnoy who has his own abrasive yet comedic online persona. They also host a popular podcast, Call Her Daddy. I practice law at an intellectual property firm in California and when I read in the New York Times that a legal dispute and Internet drama had come to a head I took a dive down the rabbit hole to try and figure out what happened.