Thanks for this quick, direct summary. I've really been enjoying your work here, David.
I wonder why an American congressional candidate is posting a video from a Russian source. (Although I really don’t have to wonder very hard.)
Not a reflection on David, because like him, I don't have to wonder very hard about that either. And as an American citizen who insists that despite our many flaws and failings and fallings-short we still have much to be proud of as a nation and as a people, the rather obvious explanation for why a member of Congress is getting her news from a Russian source is a reason that causes me to experience no small amount of shame.
They've also become familiar to a lot of people. The way one- or two-button joysticks used to be. I don't see the use of a game controller as a problem at all or why this was ever an issue. The kind of controller used for piloting the craft had nothing to do with why the sub imploded.
The Kavanaugh concurrence raises a seemingly obscure point: if there is federal jurisdiction on oversight of an election decision like a map at all, there's going to be federal review. And that federal review can include review of pure state law questions. Now, Kavanaugh is clear that federal courts must be "reasonable" and "deferential" in such analysis, but also must not "abdicate" oversight.
Meaning: This case wound up within acceptable parameters before it came to us, so good job NC Supremes, but we reserve the right to sound off on other maps that we don't like.
But you're not considering the partisan angle. If a state legislature AND ONLY A STATE LEGISLATURE can draw maps, then there is nothing to stop California from throwing out the then-unconstitutional independent commission map and gerrymandering to something like a 49-5 split which all the political mapheads assure us is quite possible. Republicans would never get control of the House of Representatives again.
The only thing that would stop that from happening if the MAGAs win in NC would be California Democrats' lack of ruthlessness. (And to be fair, that's a reasonable gamble on their part.)
If anyone actually cared about federalism or voter autonomy (as opposed to result), then this might be a fine result, and one that proves my thesis that law and culture have a reciprocating catalytic relationship rather than one of effect-and-cause.
But no one cares about federalism or voter autonomy, and abortion is the tentpole issue that proves this is true: however much they may protest about process, people only actually care about the result.
Heads up for SCOTUS this week. Still undecided as we head into the last decision days of June are: Groff v. DeJoy (standards for on-the-job religious accommodations); Counterman v. Colorado (what constitutes a "true threat" to remove a statement from First Amendment protection); Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic Int'l (can overseas trademark violations count for domestic trademark confusion); Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown (who has standing to challenge Biden student-debt relief plan and if it's either individual student loan payors or states, the merits of those challenges); and biggest of all, Moore v. Harper (do state legislatures have plenary, unchecked power to regulate elections including drawing legislative maps).
(Comment edited to convert listing of cases into an actual list.)
You know, from the photograph, it doesn't look that bad -- if your thing is the chicken drenched in apple butter. Doesn't appeal to me but I can see how some folks would like that. But I am quite confident your detailed review is correct.
I think we've all had something like this -- a meal that by all rights ought to have been good, but the food itself doesn't deliver on the setup from everything else around it. Such a disappointment.
I always enjoyed myself at the Edwards Air Force Base airshow back when they still did that; when they stopped, it turned out some locals in that part of SoCal loved it so much they formed a charity and started hosting their own airshow off-base. So we could no longer get the Thunderbirds (USAF) but did get to see the Blue Angels (USN) and they did a rather similar show. I've run across shows in my travels throughout the west, sometimes intentionally and sometimes by accident to my great delight, including one time at MCAS Miramar. Hanging around to watch that made me late for a family get-together but I've few regrets.
Paranoia, paranoia
Everybody's coming to get me
Just say you never met me
I'm running underground with the moles, digging holes
Hear the voices in my head
I swear to God it sounds like they're snoring
But if you're bored, then you're boring
The agony and the irony, they're killing me
I'm not sick but I'm not well
And I'm so hot 'cause I'm in Hell
I'm not sick but I'm not well
And it's a sin to live this well
Em writes of criminal defendant clients clinging desperately to wish-it-were-true advice from non-lawyer "advisors" like fellow inmates, moms, etc. I have had cognate experiences in my civil employment litigation practice. I believe I've told the story here on these pages of this blog how much of my time and effort is spent urging people to make "toilets or ice cream choices" when people insist on choosing "toilets," frequently at the urging of non-lawyers (in my case, it's very often a spouse) dispensing ill-informed "advice" or sometimes woefully incomplete autodidacticism ("I did my own research") to reject favorable settlement proposals. I'm sure other practitioners in other disciplines have similar stories as well.
What matters is that the advice is pleasing to the client and therefore they want to believe it's true. When this impulse takes control of the client's decision-making matrix, it often takes drastic efforts on the part of the attorney to make them act in their own best interests. Like "If you don't follow my advice, I have to withdraw as your lawyer." In my experience, that mostly does the trick, and gets the client to ruefully and reluctantly choose "eating ice cream" over "cleaning toilets."
Donald Trump, however, is a victim not only of his own ego but his own charisma. He will never want for attorneys who will take him on as a client and who will subordinate their own advice to advice conforming to his desires. He has found that switching lawyers causes delay and chaos and sometimes, favorable things result from delay and chaos. Attorneys who assert themselves against his will at critical times wind up being fired, publicly maligned, and stiffed for their fees, so it's not hard to understand how competent counsel might be in short supply for TFG.
But my point here is that Trump may well be a client for whom a lawyer's usual methods of asserting herself to force the client to act in his own self-interest will not be particularly effective.
ThTh1. I *AM* a lawyer and I'm mortified. I'll admit to having not back-checked every case I've ever cited -- shame on me -- but when I've done that, I've taken citations from VERY reliable sources. Fellow California lawyers can attest to the universality and reliability of the Rutter Guides, and the Witkin Legal Encyclopedia.
These yahoos asked ChatGPT for a brief, and filed it. seemingly having barely read it. Malpractice seems too gentle a word for this, but the poverty of the English language is such that we'll have to stipulate that this is as unthinkable as a catcher telling the batter what pitch is coming next.
This is not an R&D funding model I've ever seen before. Am I missing something, is this a one-off, is this the future, where the government absorbs 100% of the risk?
Does this current incarnation of Russia fragment further into quarreling mostly-independent oblasts? Does it get a new strongman to replace Putin? Does it become a not-great-but sincere parliamentary democracy like Iraq? Who's controlling the nukes in each of these scenarios? Who controls trade policy? I'm not sure that there are any other realistic options than these, and my money would be on Putin getting removed as head of state with varying degrees of gentleness and replaced with a different strongman ruling effectively autocratically with a thin outward veneer of democracy, much as what we see there today.
Most of us are old enough to remember what the Soviet Union falling apart looked like. Promising from a pro-democracy perspective for about a year, and then Boris Yeltsin inevitably fell in the river both literally and figuratively.* And it's been a kleptocratic autocracy ever since.
Whether it's fragmentation, decapitation-and-recapitation, or flawed parliamentary democracy, I don't see how the corruption goes away, I don't see a government and culture predicated upon a strong rule of law in the manner of western European or North American democracies.
* Former mayors of capital cities named Boris seem to wind up not working out well as heads of national government in the long run.
I appreciate (and mostly share) your perspective on the numerous other classified information offenders discussed here. It's useful perspective and a good summary of all the "But whatabouts" that we see in the discourse too much.
Remember, yes there are two tiers of justice at play. Trump is on the better of the two, the one reserved for the wealthy, privileged, and powerful. That's why he was given multiple chances to cooperate and turn over documents and had he done so, he'd fit right in somewhere with the other examples set forth above. People who are on the lower tier, who lack the influence and notoriety of Donald Trump or any of these other powerful people, they get treated like Reality Winner (currently in prison, fighting for basic dignity as a transwoman) or Edward Snowden (effectively in self-imposed exile).
I haven't discussed the Mar-a-Lago bathroom security breach with my father, as he and I rarely discuss politics anymore for the sake of remaining emotionally close and warm with one another as family ought be. I do recall him arguing to me way back in 2016, "I can't in good conscience vote for Hillary, If I had done what she did when I held a clearance, I'd be in prison right now and probably wind up dying there." I wonder if he remembers saying that, I wonder what he thinks of Trump. I don't intend to ask him.
We may also take heart that many of the white supremacist or modern fascist groups that stocked the ranks of the J6 rioters and peripheral milita groups around the country have taken significant hits and many of their leaders are now in prison, and at least a substantial minority of their former believers have been disillusioned (by failure if nothing else).
That doesn't mean the danger you write of is now in our past. It means we aren't in as much trouble as we were on January 6, 2021.
On “Is Zelenskyy Canceling Elections?”
Thanks for this quick, direct summary. I've really been enjoying your work here, David.
Not a reflection on David, because like him, I don't have to wonder very hard about that either. And as an American citizen who insists that despite our many flaws and failings and fallings-short we still have much to be proud of as a nation and as a people, the rather obvious explanation for why a member of Congress is getting her news from a Russian source is a reason that causes me to experience no small amount of shame.
On “The Titan and the Comet”
They've also become familiar to a lot of people. The way one- or two-button joysticks used to be. I don't see the use of a game controller as a problem at all or why this was ever an issue. The kind of controller used for piloting the craft had nothing to do with why the sub imploded.
On “SCOTUS Rules in Moore v Harper Election Case: Read It For Yourself”
The Kavanaugh concurrence raises a seemingly obscure point: if there is federal jurisdiction on oversight of an election decision like a map at all, there's going to be federal review. And that federal review can include review of pure state law questions. Now, Kavanaugh is clear that federal courts must be "reasonable" and "deferential" in such analysis, but also must not "abdicate" oversight.
Meaning: This case wound up within acceptable parameters before it came to us, so good job NC Supremes, but we reserve the right to sound off on other maps that we don't like.
"
Clarity is the hallmark of good legal writing!
On “Open Mic for the week of 6/26/2023”
And oh my, egg on my face. I completely forgot about the affirmative action cases.
On “Sunday Morning! Richard III by William Shakespeare”
I'm reading Kim Stanley Robinson's "Aurora" and loving it. It feels sort of dreamlike despite a lot of hard science.
On “Open Mic for the week of 6/26/2023”
But you're not considering the partisan angle. If a state legislature AND ONLY A STATE LEGISLATURE can draw maps, then there is nothing to stop California from throwing out the then-unconstitutional independent commission map and gerrymandering to something like a 49-5 split which all the political mapheads assure us is quite possible. Republicans would never get control of the House of Representatives again.
The only thing that would stop that from happening if the MAGAs win in NC would be California Democrats' lack of ruthlessness. (And to be fair, that's a reasonable gamble on their part.)
"
...which is why process matters.
"
United States v. Texas is also a sign that SCOTUS is not going to defer to states just because they're states.
"
If anyone actually cared about federalism or voter autonomy (as opposed to result), then this might be a fine result, and one that proves my thesis that law and culture have a reciprocating catalytic relationship rather than one of effect-and-cause.
But no one cares about federalism or voter autonomy, and abortion is the tentpole issue that proves this is true: however much they may protest about process, people only actually care about the result.
"
Heads up for SCOTUS this week. Still undecided as we head into the last decision days of June are:
Groff v. DeJoy (standards for on-the-job religious accommodations);
Counterman v. Colorado (what constitutes a "true threat" to remove a statement from First Amendment protection);
Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic Int'l (can overseas trademark violations count for domestic trademark confusion);
Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown (who has standing to challenge Biden student-debt relief plan and if it's either individual student loan payors or states, the merits of those challenges); and biggest of all,
Moore v. Harper (do state legislatures have plenary, unchecked power to regulate elections including drawing legislative maps).
(Comment edited to convert listing of cases into an actual list.)
"
I have difficulty thinking of a better trend than this for alleviating the crisis of unhoused people.
On “On Being Served A Bad Biscuit and Offensively Bad Bacon”
You know, from the photograph, it doesn't look that bad -- if your thing is the chicken drenched in apple butter. Doesn't appeal to me but I can see how some folks would like that. But I am quite confident your detailed review is correct.
I think we've all had something like this -- a meal that by all rights ought to have been good, but the food itself doesn't deliver on the setup from everything else around it. Such a disappointment.
Anyway, I now know where to take you when you finally make it out here to Portland. I think you'll enjoy meeting Reggie.
On “Airshows and Americana”
I always enjoyed myself at the Edwards Air Force Base airshow back when they still did that; when they stopped, it turned out some locals in that part of SoCal loved it so much they formed a charity and started hosting their own airshow off-base. So we could no longer get the Thunderbirds (USAF) but did get to see the Blue Angels (USN) and they did a rather similar show. I've run across shows in my travels throughout the west, sometimes intentionally and sometimes by accident to my great delight, including one time at MCAS Miramar. Hanging around to watch that made me late for a family get-together but I've few regrets.
On “The MAGA Kennedy Democrats”
Paranoia, paranoia
Everybody's coming to get me
Just say you never met me
I'm running underground with the moles, digging holes
Hear the voices in my head
I swear to God it sounds like they're snoring
But if you're bored, then you're boring
The agony and the irony, they're killing me
I'm not sick but I'm not well
And I'm so hot 'cause I'm in Hell
I'm not sick but I'm not well
And it's a sin to live this well
On “Trump Learns the Hard Way: Free Advice is Worth What You Paid For It”
Em writes of criminal defendant clients clinging desperately to wish-it-were-true advice from non-lawyer "advisors" like fellow inmates, moms, etc. I have had cognate experiences in my civil employment litigation practice. I believe I've told the story here on these pages of this blog how much of my time and effort is spent urging people to make "toilets or ice cream choices" when people insist on choosing "toilets," frequently at the urging of non-lawyers (in my case, it's very often a spouse) dispensing ill-informed "advice" or sometimes woefully incomplete autodidacticism ("I did my own research") to reject favorable settlement proposals. I'm sure other practitioners in other disciplines have similar stories as well.
What matters is that the advice is pleasing to the client and therefore they want to believe it's true. When this impulse takes control of the client's decision-making matrix, it often takes drastic efforts on the part of the attorney to make them act in their own best interests. Like "If you don't follow my advice, I have to withdraw as your lawyer." In my experience, that mostly does the trick, and gets the client to ruefully and reluctantly choose "eating ice cream" over "cleaning toilets."
Donald Trump, however, is a victim not only of his own ego but his own charisma. He will never want for attorneys who will take him on as a client and who will subordinate their own advice to advice conforming to his desires. He has found that switching lawyers causes delay and chaos and sometimes, favorable things result from delay and chaos. Attorneys who assert themselves against his will at critical times wind up being fired, publicly maligned, and stiffed for their fees, so it's not hard to understand how competent counsel might be in short supply for TFG.
But my point here is that Trump may well be a client for whom a lawyer's usual methods of asserting herself to force the client to act in his own self-interest will not be particularly effective.
On “Thursday Throughput: Chat GPT Is Not Your Research Assistant”
ThTh1. I *AM* a lawyer and I'm mortified. I'll admit to having not back-checked every case I've ever cited -- shame on me -- but when I've done that, I've taken citations from VERY reliable sources. Fellow California lawyers can attest to the universality and reliability of the Rutter Guides, and the Witkin Legal Encyclopedia.
These yahoos asked ChatGPT for a brief, and filed it. seemingly having barely read it. Malpractice seems too gentle a word for this, but the poverty of the English language is such that we'll have to stipulate that this is as unthinkable as a catcher telling the batter what pitch is coming next.
"
This is not an R&D funding model I've ever seen before. Am I missing something, is this a one-off, is this the future, where the government absorbs 100% of the risk?
On “What What a Prince Thinks About”
This is supposed to be Edward VIII? He certainly seems to have a thing for American women...
On “How Far Is Too Far In Supporting Ukraine?”
What does Russia falling apart look like?
Does this current incarnation of Russia fragment further into quarreling mostly-independent oblasts? Does it get a new strongman to replace Putin? Does it become a not-great-but sincere parliamentary democracy like Iraq? Who's controlling the nukes in each of these scenarios? Who controls trade policy? I'm not sure that there are any other realistic options than these, and my money would be on Putin getting removed as head of state with varying degrees of gentleness and replaced with a different strongman ruling effectively autocratically with a thin outward veneer of democracy, much as what we see there today.
Most of us are old enough to remember what the Soviet Union falling apart looked like. Promising from a pro-democracy perspective for about a year, and then Boris Yeltsin inevitably fell in the river both literally and figuratively.* And it's been a kleptocratic autocracy ever since.
Whether it's fragmentation, decapitation-and-recapitation, or flawed parliamentary democracy, I don't see how the corruption goes away, I don't see a government and culture predicated upon a strong rule of law in the manner of western European or North American democracies.
* Former mayors of capital cities named Boris seem to wind up not working out well as heads of national government in the long run.
"
Tout ce qui est vieux redevient nouveau.
On “Open Mic for the week of 6/12/2023”
Not the obituary any of us were hoping to read today.
On “The ChatGPT Lawyer Case: Mata v. Avianca”
My cringe muscles wore out.
On “Debunking Trump’s Defenders”
I appreciate (and mostly share) your perspective on the numerous other classified information offenders discussed here. It's useful perspective and a good summary of all the "But whatabouts" that we see in the discourse too much.
Remember, yes there are two tiers of justice at play. Trump is on the better of the two, the one reserved for the wealthy, privileged, and powerful. That's why he was given multiple chances to cooperate and turn over documents and had he done so, he'd fit right in somewhere with the other examples set forth above. People who are on the lower tier, who lack the influence and notoriety of Donald Trump or any of these other powerful people, they get treated like Reality Winner (currently in prison, fighting for basic dignity as a transwoman) or Edward Snowden (effectively in self-imposed exile).
I haven't discussed the Mar-a-Lago bathroom security breach with my father, as he and I rarely discuss politics anymore for the sake of remaining emotionally close and warm with one another as family ought be. I do recall him arguing to me way back in 2016, "I can't in good conscience vote for Hillary, If I had done what she did when I held a clearance, I'd be in prison right now and probably wind up dying there." I wonder if he remembers saying that, I wonder what he thinks of Trump. I don't intend to ask him.
On “What the Trump Indictment Means”
Fortunately, this is what I think most people these days think of with the phrase "Crossing the Rubicon."
We may also take heart that many of the white supremacist or modern fascist groups that stocked the ranks of the J6 rioters and peripheral milita groups around the country have taken significant hits and many of their leaders are now in prison, and at least a substantial minority of their former believers have been disillusioned (by failure if nothing else).
That doesn't mean the danger you write of is now in our past. It means we aren't in as much trouble as we were on January 6, 2021.