Nearly 20 years in court as a law-talking guy for plaintiffs, now a mix of stuff. Posts too much about politics. email max@kennerlylaw.com
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I complain about media outlets all the time, so credit where it's due to @wsj.com for this chart which says more than a thousand words could. There's no dancing around it, no explaining it away, there's just the ugly truth. www.wsj.com/wsjplus/dash...
"The Argument," where one of their first pieces, from the editor in chief, was about how liberals should stay on X because it's an exciting and engaging space that reflects the public.
It's increasingly hard to deny "what you see on X" is nowhere close to "what normal people think" and whoa boy is that a problem for mediocrities who constantly churn out reactionary anti-woke twaddle, hence the whining from Silver, the Harper's Letter guy, and that new Worst-of-The-Atlantic blog.
I absolutely do have a better sense of the electorate than a Democratic Senator palling it up on X with two right-wing shitbirds to compliment them on their COVID revisionism.
This ‘blue states closed schools too long’ narrative is becoming increasingly entrenched in the Polite Center but it’s arguable at best. Republican states had far more deaths during COVID and their students have roughly comparable learning loss.
Our boy is looking healthy!
I've never seen such a disconnect between Dem elected/staff/consultants and actual Dem voters. The latter understand what's going on. The former are awash in right-wing brainrot, hence @schatz.bsky.social blaming COVID mitigation and BLM marches for the GOP's wanton destruction of public health.
![@EsotericCD It was in this moment that many of us hanging on to a thin sliver of trust in our institutions irrevocably lost faith in them. One of the most poisonous blows to public trust in living memory - worse than the effect of the Iraq War in many ways. RFK Jr is a direct result of this. Quote Steve Guest @SteveGuest · Aug 31 Politico 5 years ago: [screenshot of article falsely claiming public health officials lied about COVID measures then abandoned them for BLM protests] Views](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ddvus7otnqtlh7fdooxm6qat/bafkreihsypwydo5rcis7mc54cwct6h33l5co477nvh7g7hs7na2fz4jl3q@jpeg "Click to view full size")
The mental fitness of elderly Presidents has been such an important issue for the media lately, so I expect wall-to-wall coverage of how President Trump has once again thrown a fit about one of his own signature policies, showing no awareness of how it arose or who executed it.
Indeed, Truth Social is the primary means by which the President communicates with the public. The Department of Justice routinely points to it as the source of Presidential decrees. Good times, very normal, very cool.
Mark is right, although I confess I am a hypocrite here, for I wholly support the "remigration" of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. They have failed to assimilate to our cultural norms and instead have tried to impose their foreign backwards ways upon us, and so must be removed to protect our heritage.
The President of the United States used his primary official communication channel, a private website he owns, to post about a public health issue. As an engaged citizen, I wanted to see it, but first I was presented this cheap pop-up ad for a scam. Real global superpower stuff going on here.
The Art of the Deal.
This whole thread is just appalling. The hearing arises from the Trump admin conspiring with a foreign country to violate a federal court order in the middle of the night so it can deny due process to children who escaped dangerous circumstances.
Look at this sloppy question, which seems to ask for teachers' own opinions about ideal district policy, but offers answers about the scope of the First Amendment
I expect nothing from PragerU and I'm still disappointed. This is one of their big hateful issues yet none of these are correct. "Chromosomes?" They think it's "typical" for a newborn to have their 23rd chromosomal pair reviewed, and that's what goes on the birth certificate? Please.
It's often said he sounds terrible because he has spasmodic dysphonia but that's not the whole story. He's had that for decades but his voice used to be much better; the dumbass didn't "trust the experts" so stopped his approved Botox treatment that was working and got an unapproved useless implant.
LOL at "marry a man who says let me ask my wife first," which I interpreted as the speaker suggesting you marry a man who responds to a marriage proposal with "let me ask my wife first."
It's Maria Montessori's birthday so do whatever you want, there are no gods, no kings, no rules, you are imprisoned only by your lack of imagination.
👀 apnews.com/article/paxt...
IMHO, these are all inextricably intertwined: 1) authoritarianism 2) eugenics & racism & sexism 3) vandalism of public goods, property, and services 4) pseudo-science & anti-science They feed into one another and they never travel alone. Find one, and you'll find elements of all the others.
This sounds entirely on point for both Amar and Vance.
These are my patients. Kids dying of brain cancer. Kids and families desperate for treatment and hoping to find a cure through experimental therapies. Trump is dismantling science and children with brain tumor are the victims. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/w...
"When the public asks, 'How did we get here?' after each mass shooting, the answer goes beyond NRA lobbyists and Second Amendment zealots. It lies in large measure with the strategies of firearms executives like Richard Dyke." www.propublica.org/article/how-...
Good to see more on this; LLMs are inherently inefficient, and new generation improvements mostly come from making that even worse. Pair this with NVIDIA's earnings call. They see the future of AI so processing-heavy the limiting factor will be the cost and difficulty of powering the data center.
This is appalling, criminal, and the GOP plan for everywhere: block cheap renewables in favor of expensive gas turbines. It won't even provide enough power, there's a 3-5 year backlog for turbines. We'll all pay far higher electricity bills to be sicker and to do more environmental damage.
If you've never seen Trent Reznor corpsing during "Head Like A Hole" because he can't believe that a dude dressed like Santa Claus is crowdsurfing—and I'm guessing you haven't—you may want to watch this clip from last night's NIN show in Philadelphia. The fun starts about 1:30 in.
average Dem strategist: we must focus on bipartisan policies that undercut Republican attacks average Dem voter: having studied the denazification of Germany, we must raze the RNC and leave JD Vance clutching a single wool blanket in a cell after we strip him of everything
In frustration, I asked a law professor (Michael Libonati), "is anything in the law real?" He replied: "Burdens." That's why Manners' framing here is so important. The question isn't how much has Congress limited POTUS, but how much it has allowed. The burden is on POTUS to prove he's allowed.
It's mostly left unspoken, but part of what drives the debate about marijuana legalization is that legalization threatens the current state of 4th amendment jurisprudence.
Not sure if I should laugh or cry or both because the instructor at this traffic stop CLE described a person as suspicious because they were "palms sweaty, mom's spaghetti."
Yesterday I did a CLE on blockchain (my deadline is coming up, can't be choosey now) and I can't put into words how incredibly painful it was. At one point they remarked that, in the event of litigation, jurisdiction can be very important. Yeah, you think?
CLE instructor just went over State v Bonds (NC), in which part of the justification was, at a red light, "defendant had a blank look on his face and stared straight ahead." Yup, suspicious.
Fulfilling my CLE requirements with a class on traffic stops and did you know that reading this post is consent to a search and also not reading this post is suspicious and thus probable cause for a search and in fact you should have already stopped so you are fleeing so lethal force is okay.
Not sure what @schumer.senate.gov means here, he was given the choice of being "party to [Republican] destruction" at the last budget impasse; he decided in favor of it and rallied other Dems to join him. He'll just do it again and say "the Baileys" told him to. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Old Soviet joke for today: A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves. After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?” “I’m looking for the obituaries.” “The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.” “Not the one I’m looking for.”
Much like "how to use Narcan," in an ideal world you wouldn't need to know how to clear ammo out of an AR, but in our world you might really encounter this situation, so here you go.
Guy who doesn’t know anything thinks you shouldn’t either. ht @danhon.com
NEW — I wrote about the resignation of SSA's chief data officer just says after he blew the whistle on a major data vulnerability, including the full text of his blistering email and how his allegations confirm those made by a previous whistleblower and a former employee back in March:
Two things they teach in law school: 1) don't use "very [adverb]" 2) don't use "clearly" Those are empty presumptuous words which show your argument lacks substance. So I got a chuckle out of the dissent's argument for why the GOP-invented "major questions" doctrine magically doesn't apply here.
I used to believe this argument, having grown up in a rural area myself. But they can only vote for "make policy bad, make everyone suffer" so many times before "I'm suffering because policy is bad" doesn't work anymore. If rural people wanted better policies, they'd have voted differently.
Yes. Rural voters keep making themselves clear: they do not want shared prosperity, they want everyone else to suffer. Look at PA. Rural legislators broke public transit and are promising to keep it broken forever. Why? Because their voters want us to suffer. www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/transpo...
This is good: With Trump/RFK destroying CDC, JB Pritzker's officials are exploring the possibility of buying Covid vaccines from manufacturers and distributing them in-state themselves, source tells me. Dem govs must step up and fill the void. New piece from me: newrepublic.com/article/1998...
Swole Batman: "I have a creed. I don't kill" Villain: "You're weak, you'll never—" Swole Batman: "... with guns."
Are you saying it took a lot of spine? ...I'll see myself out now.
This story has it all: aquaculture, Black Flag, Bernie Sanders, Star Trek as policy, John Hodgman, male tears, and a candidate citing Luthen’s monologue from Andor. Meet Graham Platner, the Maine oysterman trying to crack the senate. @grahamformaine.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/1996...
I just love capitalism.* * The government paying private companies to perform a government function and then on top of that giving them a financial incentive to perform it maliciously and harm people.
No, it is one sentence; you were using "sentence" to mean "punishment." No one can deny "AI performing pre-approval review on medical claims" is a punishment.
This painting is classic Lost Cause revisionism; it was commissioned after Truman ordered desegregation of the military. Army Secretary Gordon Gray was a nepobaby (daddy was chair of RJ Reynolds) who led the dubious "Gray Board" that yanked Oppenheimer's clearance. Real piece of work all around.
This Thiel lieutenant / eugenics freak thinks billionaires should have their own lawless artificial island countries ("seasteading"), there should be markets for selling human organs, and the FDA should allow drugs to be sold without evidence they're effective. www.citizen.org/article/jim-...
Frankly, I don't see how FSD is legal in the first place. It's not certified or approved by anyone. It's no different than if I was selling people a fake autonomous driving upgrade that I falsely described as "full self-driving" and which was programmed to manipulate/destroy data in crashes.
From a Constitutional standpoint, Vance's claim is *far more radical* than, say, expanding SCOTUS, gun control, or a wealth tax. Under Art I § 8, coining/borrowing money has always been up to Congress, not POTUS, and Congress set up the Fed to run the way it does. Vance wants all of that scrapped.
the thing that's so fucking infuriating about this is how much more that matters for the bottom 10% $1200 can be life or death at that level of income top 10%? $13K is nice, to be sure, but it's "maybe we'll take another vacation" nice not "oh good now we can afford to eat this month"
It is plainly relevant to the 1A conversation that the same entity claiming 1A rights, the LLM maker, says the LLM's output is not their speech or expression, and they take no responsibility whatsoever for its output, such responsibility falls entirely on the user.
One problem with LLM output being the protected speech of the company that made the LLM: the AI companies expressly disclaim any responsibility for it. They're not responsible for errors, for defamation, etc. You and I can't choose "it's only my speech when the law's good for me" so why let OpenAI?
Will Kim has been in America since he was 5 and is researching a vaccine for Lyme disease.* He's detained indefinitely over a 2011 misdemeanor marijuana possession charge. Outrageous. * Years ago, Lyme gave me a high fever and Bell's palsy right before a TV interview. 0/5 stars, did not enjoy.
I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don’t kill kids, antidepressants do. Just shut up. Stop peddling bullshit. You should be fired.
One thing Dave Cullen's book "Columbine" - the definitive account of the event - does is lay bare the colossal media failure when covering the story. He traces many myths to their origin and it's appalling how lazy the press is and how happily they latch on to lies that sound controversial.
Ah, yes, for all you young people: there was a relentless effort to manufacture a consensus that Columbine was caused by Goth culture, industrial music, and videogames. The neo-Nazism was buried, and anyone who pointed to easy access to guns was denounced as a liberty-hating tyrant.
Important to understand that Republicans do not want a functional, orderly, law-abiding immigration system. They want an excuse for the arbitrary exercise of government powers. The more chaotic and inconsistent our immigration structures are, the better for their purposes.
Huh I wonder why Trump fired him oh there's a picture included, nevermind, same as usual
It is, but the difficulty of proof is all the more reason to allow a suit to proceed, liability is unlikely. At core, we're talking about "total immunity" versus "sometimes allowed to try to prove it to a jury." I don't get total immunity for my speech, why should the multi-billion-dollar LLM?
Intentional/negligent infliction of emotional distress is an established 1A exception.
Fear not! Party leadership will hand millions to a couple bros who are very friendly with Silicon Valley eugenicists, and they'll again soothe Dem leadership with the advice that they do nothing.
"Not how children are supposed to look," says the desiccated leprechaun with the worm in his brain, the whale head on his roof, the bear cub in his trunk, and millions in his pocket from killing children with antivax propaganda.
Anyone who looks at America in 2025 and thinks, "maybe we can fix this by throwing trans people under the bus" 1) doesn't have the brains to understand what's going on or how we got here 2) doesn't have the stomach for any of the fights ahead and 3) is vice signaling to their MAGA friends.
Holy moly this @monicapotts.bsky.social story. "The Democratic Party has handcuffed itself with data rather than use it to their advantage." THAT. That, in one sentence, is precisely what I and @waytowinus.bsky.social have been trying to solve for since 2018. 🎯🎯🎯 newrepublic.com/article/1996...
I have found a lot of use for Melinda Cooper’s concept of the anti-social state: a government that exists only to extract wealth and inflict violence, and dismantles all its pro-social and life-enabling functions. www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
all of this makes total sense when you recognize that “freedom” here means the freedom to dominate those you view as your subordinates and “tyranny” is when someone threatens that “freedom” or worse, when those subordinates try to claim power as political equals
Yes. Mass shooters are deeply irrational, hence the act itself, so looking for rational motivation is inherently problematic. Sometimes the 'message' can provide clues how their brain was broken. Here it's a jumble of racism and ironic brain poison, slurs mixed with "skibidi" and "live love laugh."
Simple for me. I think it's okay to give folks money for righteous advocacy - advocacy for the good fights. The problem becomes when there is lack of transparency. If you are afraid or are hesitant to disclose if someone is paying for a specific content - well that's problematic. 2 cents etc.
My posts are all good but nobody pays for any of them, it's a Windfall of the Commons.
Interesting, but this has a banal explanation: Chorus is a 501c4 so has to report such uses to the FEC. It doesn't seem the creators are restricted in supporting/opposing candidates, they just can't use Chorus funds for it. Disclaimer: nobody pays for my good poasts, nobody has ever even offered.😆
I really need to know if the sandwich was a ham sandwich
The US Attorney who declined to prosecute an Israeli government official arrested last month for underage solicitation has a colorful collection of deep-pocketed donors from past political campaigns, including one who fled a fraud case by going to... Israel. prospect.org/justice/2025...
Trump doing this "bad Jew"="Palestinian" bit over and over again is a form of priming. It establishes a frame that draws on both antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism at the same time.. His audience can then start blending those antisemitic and anti-Arab narratives into a conspiracy smoothie
Correct. Basically any "FinTech" you encounter is no different from a bookie, loan shark, etc. They're not banks and they're not regulated like banks.
Thank u, Mr. Trump, for protecting us from the woke scourge of an updated corporate logo.
Classic Trump admin, getting caught conducting a covert influence op on ally's territory with a population <60k.
I was just telling Jay, "I think Chris is too naive and optimistic about the Roberts court, we should constantly correct him on this point." And then everyone in the bar clapped.
Most Dem voters understand what's happening. Most Dems in Congress do not, hence their reliance on the Blue Rose strategy to avoid/excuse/dismiss what's happening.
Qualified immunity is awesome; the more you know about it, the harder it is to communicate the specifics to others. Even the start of it—judges made it up, it has no constitutional or statutory basis—is difficult to a mind not yet broken by travel along qualified immunity's Escher-esque contours.
This is asbestos and lead pipes for society. Flagrantly unsafe and evading licensing requirements. Not to mention such use will compound the overwork that is being used to justify its use. www.govtech.com/education/k-...
No one should base their views solely on thinking the opposite of what someone else says... ... but it's telling that these people and Politico are pushing so hard for Dems to hide from this. They're afraid Dems will utilize public discontent against deploying troops for domestic purposes.
this is why gorsuch is complaining about lower courts defying SCOTUS. a lot of communication between SCOTUS and lower courts is informal, especially in re: shadow docket cases, and SCOTUS has been sending unmistakably clear signals to roll over for trump. and lower courts have responded “make me”
Three failures to indict is indisputable proof of prosecutorial misconduct and should produce an automatic termination of every prosecutor involved plus civil liability for money damages.
You may not like that it takes 100 years to pass some watered down social welfare program because of the constitution but that's also what protects us from dictatorship [some dumb slob does dictatorship in 6 months]
Among all the other things, "The President has screwed things up so badly that the world's other rich countries won't deliver mail to us anymore" really should end it immediately.
yes, many, well into the thousands
Correct. The default Dem position has to be, "I will fire everyone Trump appointed, and everyone hired by anyone Trump appointed, regardless of what any statute or court says." Anything less is a ratification of Trump's actions that leaves the government broken and filled with saboteurs.
SCOTUS created this situation by repeatedly failing its duty to hold Trump to the law, by handing Trump every ounce of their credibility and power. The only question is if they even try to get any of it back, or if they again rubberstamp Trump and encourage him to keep going farther.
Oh yeah? Well what about this ludicrous hypothetical I just concocted in which your only choices are between maximized evil and marginally less non-arson evil but slightly more arson evil?
There's an expansion, but, just off the cuff, look at point 5 about inspections. "USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service," eh? The same one Trump / DOGE hacked to pieces? Yep, that's the one.
I'm a big fan of botching tariff rules so badly the EU can't ship small packages to the US anymore. It's like breaking every tenth toilet across our whole country, widely distributed misery for no reason at all, impossible to even pretend there's a justification for it. Great policy, A+, no notes.
Somewhat climate change, but screwworm mitigation program falls under USDA, and the Secretary of Agriculture is a random hack with no relevant experience whose career is nothing but bouncing around conservative slush funds. Good odds Trump admin once again breaks things they don't understand.
Confirming: Katherine Wells, head of Lubbock Public Health, told me the CDC was under the gag order when measles was first confirmed, so she had to turn to publicly available literature to make a cross-county containment plan: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
This dude was indicted for dozens of felonies in multiple jurisdictions and never once had to post bail
Yes, good. It's an objective fact that electricity prices are rising and will keep rising because Trump / Republicans are terrible incompetent people who are gutting solar and wind, which are the only ways we could possibly meet the growing demand of data centers. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
“[W]hatever happens to him, people should not lose sight of the fact that the [SCOTUS], rather than reining in some of the administration’s most galling conduct, has enabled it. The Court is also responsible for the campaign of terror that the administration is subjecting Abrego Garcia to.”
Rebo is back? 