Philip Rosmarin

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

There’s a sucker born every minute.

But Donald Trump knows better. He knows there are two suckers born every minute. As I write this, four million five hundred sixty-six thousand nine hundred eighty-eight suckers have been born since the big boy was too lazy to take the stairs to announce his candidacy to become the worst, most vile, most corrupt, but not quite most overweight president in the history of the United States.

Luckily none of those suckers can vote for him this time out. But more than sixteen times as many suckers voted for him in 2020, and there is no hard evidence that any of them have gotten any smarter.

In fact there seems no limit to how far they’ll go to prove what pretty patsies they are. They’re more likely to send him money than buy their own babies any new pairs of shoes.

Falsify business records to cover up another crime? Buy me some lawyers; after all, I did it for you. And you oughtn’t worry that your money will go to the lawyers rather than to your favorite fascist — he’s too rich to be bothered with paying bills.

Steal top secrets and share them at parties? Hey, I’m just like you; these make for great stories I get to tell again and again. Though he may have told them to too many for actual legal security — so please, keep the checks coming.

Overthrow the government of the United States? You never liked it anyway; I’m just the expression of your will. For that, you gotta pay.

Rape a woman? Send me money; I did it for you, and I hope you enjoyed it. He’s boasted of raping and otherwise sexually mishandling many many women, and over two dozen have said so. He has a habit of paying folks to shut up about what he’s done. Or, really, you do.

Why do so many Americans keep going down this same rat hole, for this same rat? Why not dust off the rat mess and do something different.

Next time he asks you to pay for his sins, send him something more like what he’s really playing you for.

A bag of lollies.

A small one will do.

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

I can’t remember the last time I cited the Bible in a brief to the court, or closing argument to a jury.

Can’t remember the last time I said, you know what the Torah tells you. Or, you better not question the Quran, or put down the Upanishads, or mess with the Mahayana, or even tussle with the Tao.

Maybe that’s because Colorado is one of those states that take separation of church and themselves a little more seriously than some. I don’t know why, but Alabama comes to mind.

That state’s Supreme Court decision governing in-vitro fertilization cites God (no doubt a respectable if not legal authority) forty-one times. Quotes the prophet Jeremiah, and some probably lesser authorities like Petrus Van Mastricht, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and Charlton Heston — no, sorry, that was Moses.

The court’s Chief Justice, who provided most of those cites, says of the embryos:

“Carving out an exception for the people in this case, small as they were, would be unacceptable to the People of this State, who have required us to treat every human being in accordance with the fear of a holy God, who made them in His image.”

Would that the court actually do that, with considerably larger people, who happen to be woman, or black, or 2SLGBTQI+, or…well, you know what I mean.

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

The number of civilians killed in U.S. post-9/11 wars is more than four hundred thirty-two thousand.

Two million civilians died in the Vietnam War. One and one-half million in the Korean War. In World War II, thirty-eight million. Six million of those last were Jews, whose genocide led to the establishment of the Jewish state, Israel.

The Israel-Hamas War may have taken as many as nineteen thousand Palestinian civilians, if you can simultaneously believe both sides’ accounts.

Israel’s been hauled before the International Court of Justice after an allegation by South Africa that it is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in its war against Hamas. So far nobody has suggested that the leaders of Hamas — whose founding charter openly calls for genocide against Israelis, and in fact any Jew that can be found anywhere else — be called before any court.

I wonder why.

The author, neuroscientist, and philosopher Sam Harris, whom I’ve called on before to unravel this sort of knot, wonders too, and I wish everyone with a moral compass, and everyone without one, would hear him out, on “5 Myths about Israel and the War in Gaza.”

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

The year I turned eighteen I fenced épée for the University of California at Los Angeles. I was recruited by my roommate, who was a junior British sabre champion who flew through the air with the greatest of ease.

I don’t remember any of us ever thinking we could get in trouble for fencing.

But today a thirty-year-old Russian épée champion is in trouble for fencing. I’m not sure exactly what law Sergey Bida broke, but Vladimir Putin has put his name on Russia’s most-wanted list for denouncing his country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Bida left his country in protest, much as many boys my age did in my fencing days to protest my country’s war in Vietnam.

He still wants to fence — for the United States at the Paris Olympics in July and August.

He has just nine words for Putin.

“Here,” he said, at his California dacha, “I feel more free. I breathe more free.”

Touché.

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

“God made me do it.”

That’s never been an especially successful criminal defense in the courts I’ve practiced in. Tell you the truth, I’ve never even considered trying that one on. It might work in Texas, where lots of defendants claim that, and folks even blame God for Ted Cruz.

So it was with a fair degree of surprise when I heard that defense raised in my own state. It’s a civil case, but has the potential of becoming a criminal case as well. The Securities Commissioner for the State of Colorado has accused an online-only pastor of not only shepherding his flock, but also fleecing them, of more than three million dollars. That’s how much he sold in cryptocurrency the Commissioner claims was worthless.

Don’t ask me how hundreds of people invested their money with a guy who doesn’t even own a real pulpit, but evangelical Christians put a lot of faith in, well, faith.

The pastor had told his flock that “the Lord brought this cryptocurrency to me. He said ‘Take this to my people for a wealth transfer.’”

Me, I’m pretty sure God doesn’t talk like that.

After the Commissioner filed the complaint in the Denver County district court, the pastor walked his story back a little bit, saying it’s possible “I misheard God.”

Now, I know God mumbles — she’s mumbled a few things to me I could never figure out — so it’s possible he misunderstood part of the conversation. But he says he even argued with God.

“Lord,” he said, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t have any experience in this industry. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t want to be caught up in something.”

Thereby setting up another defense, one that may never have been tried before in any court.

Entrapment.

Entrapment by God.