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In the cold light of morning, I'm still completely amazed by the legal belly flop that @ThomasMoreSoc filed in the DC District Court. It's the legal equivalent of watching the butt fumble, live

EVERYTHING you could possibly get wrong in a complaint, they managed

 Start with the plaintiffs. The ONLY claims in the lawsuit are that the Constitution gives state legislatures the right to set the manner of elections, which they have allegedly (we'll get to this insanity) failed to do.
There's oodles of caselaw saying "since that's a right of the state legislature, only state legislatures, as a body, can bring such a claim"

Are the plaintiffs state legislatures?
https://t.co/KJGEvm8Owp
OK, what about the Defendants? They've sued Defendants from, IIRC, five states (GA, PA, WI, MI, AZ) based on claims that the State Legislatures there didn't pass election rules that the plaintiffs insist the Constitution requires (I promise, we'll get there).
OK, so the State Legislatures weren't plaintiffs. They were Defendants, right? 'Cause, you know, the claim is that the legislatures didn't do what they were required to do?

Again
Let's gloss over the fact that they've joined a whole bunch of independent defendants, sued for independent wrongs, in a single case ....
For those who don't know, you ... uh ... can't do that. If I steal your car, and someone in Wisconsin empties your bank account, you can't sue us both in one case just because we both stole from you; unless it's a conspiracy & we're working together, you need separate suits
But sweet glory, they ALSO named the Electoral College as a Defendant, an "entity" that, with apologies to @scottlynch78, is entirely fictional.
That's like filing a lawsuit against "chemotherapy" or "the foreign policy establishment". As I said last night, pity the poor process server who was handed a summons and told "ok, go serve this on the Electoral College"
On the plus side, they DID make up a physical address for "Defendant Electoral College" - it's the US Capitol Building, where (unless I'm wrong and the DC electors use it) exactly NONE of the temporary members of the Electoral College even meet to vote
They also sued a raft of individual defendants from the various states "in their official capacity" - except Brian Kemp, who was sued in his "original" capacity - meaning that they all have 11th Amendment immunity from being sued
Or, well, they would, if the case ever got to the point where immunity is relevant, which it won't because ...
They sued these defendants in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, where basically none of the defendants reside or do business (except for Mike Pence and Congress, who, OF COURSE, were also named as defendants because when you're this crazy, why not?)
This is a slight problem due to the little-discussed topic of personal jurisdiction, which only a hundred thousand or so cases have addressed, which basically says "no, asshole, you can't sue Ginny Welch of Minnetonka in a court in New York. We have no power over her"
There are exceptions to that rule, of course - we're lawyers, after all, and bright-line, easily followed rules without exceptions would put us out of business - but none of them apply here, and the plaintiffs don't even bother arguing that they do.

More from Akiva Cohen

Akiva Cohen
Akiva Cohen
@AkivaMCohen
OK, #Squidigation fans, I think we need to talk about the new Wisconsin suit Donald Trump filed - personally - in Federal Court last night. The suit is (as usual) meritless. But it's meritless in new and disturbing ways. This thread will be


Not, I hope, Seth Abramson long. But will see.

I apologize in advance to my wife, who would very much prefer I be billing time (today's a light day, though) and to my assistant, to whom I owe some administrative stuff this will likely keep me from 😃

First, some background. Trump's suit essentially tries to Federalize the Wisconsin Supreme Court complaint his campaign filed, which we discussed here.


If you haven't already, go read that thread. I'm not going to be re-doing the same analysis, and I'm not going to be cross-linking to that discussion as we go. (Sorry, I like you guys, and I see this as public service, but there are limits)

Also, @5DollarFeminist has a good stand-alone thread analyzing the new Federal complaint - it's worth reading as well, though some of the analysis will overlap.
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Akiva Cohen
Akiva Cohen
@AkivaMCohen
The judge in this case has now issued an absolutely brutal smackdown that you'll enjoy reading. It comes complete with a well-earned threat of sanctions.


Here's the decision. Some highlights follow

Pretty sure I said this, using slightly different words!


Hey, @questauthority, it sounds like Judge Boasberg was about as pleased about the long "none of this matters but we want to say it anyway" section as we expected him to be


You CANNOT run into court claiming there's an emergency and you need an expedited schedule so you can be heard before 1/6 and then just not bother serving anyone for 12 days
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Akiva Cohen
Akiva Cohen
@AkivaMCohen
Looks like we need to spend some time talking about the Parler lolsuit against Amazon and why it's deader than a Mitch McConnell comedy special. They've brought three claims - antitrust, breach of contract, and tortious interference. None will survive. Here's why

Here's the meat of their intro: Amazon isn't being fair to us. They're holding us to a higher standard than Twitter - they say we allow violent content, but look what Twitter does!


There are a few problems with this approach. First, there's a factual problem: Twitter and Parler take very different approaches to moderation. Hell, *that's Parler's entire pitch.* So "we're the same as Twitter, why are you treating us different" isn't going to fly

ALSO, the hashtag was mostly people saying "these folks are calling to hang Mike


And ALSO also, did anyone notice any prominent right wingers complaining about losing tens of thousands of followers yesterday? You know why they did? Because Twitter has been active in deleting accounts that violate its TOS
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Akiva Cohen
Akiva Cohen
@AkivaMCohen
So Dominion sued Rudy for defamation. How are they ever going to allege actual malice?
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Akiva Cohen
Akiva Cohen
@AkivaMCohen
So, quick rundown of the latest #Squidigation decision: It's very thorough; 36 pages of Judge Parker explaining that Powell and her merry band of fuckups lose for every conceivable reason


First: 11th Amendment Immunity. Basically, states (and their officials) have sovereign immunity; you can't sue them in Federal Court except to the extent that they agree to be sued there. Quick thumbnail of the doctrine here


There are only 3 exceptions to this: 1) Congress says "you can sue your state for this"; 2) the state agrees to be sued; 3) Younger, a case that said "you can sue your state if you are just seeking an order saying 'stop violating my rights'"

In other words, if the state passes a law that says "no talking politics in public" you can sue for an order saying "that's unconstitutional and can't be enforced" but not for damages from having your 1A rights violated in the past

I'm sure you can see where this is going: Exceptions 1 and 2 don't apply; Congress didn't say "no sovereign immunity" when it passed 42 USC 1983 (the civil rights statute the plaintiffs sued under) and Michigan hasn't waived it. That leave Younger as the only remaining option
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Dividend Growth Investor
Dividend Growth Invest...
@DividendGrowth
Charlie Munger on Delayed Gratification:

I've also got the money-sense gene. The first 13 years I practiced law, my income from practicing law was $300,000 total.

At the end of that 13 years, what did I have?

1/


A house. Two cars. And $300,000 of liquid assets. Everyone else'd have spent that slender income, not invested it shrewdly, and so forth.

I just think it was, to me, it was as natural as breathing, and of course I knew how compound interest worked!

2/

I knew when I saved $10 I was really saving $100 or $1,000 ,because of the future growth of the $10.

It just took a little wait. And when I quit law practice it was because I wanted to work for myself instead of my clients, because I knew I could do better than they did.

3/

You only get a few opportunities, and you have to grab them aggressively when they come because even in the most favored life, they're really rare.

I always feel that the opportunities are rare. I only get a few and then I have to seize them aggressively.

4/

Now that lesson I just talked about, it is taught in no business school I know of. But…everybody who has any sense ought to know [that] at the start of life, and practically nobody does.

I just described reality the way it really is.

5/
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TD Cole Esq. \u2696\U0001f1f3\U0001f1ec
TD Cole Esq. ⚖🇳🇬...
@BolanleCole
Tunde Thomas (alias Tunde Gentle), 45, died about two weeks ago from heartbreak. The two kids from his marriage were indeed fathered by a man without scruples or conscience, the current MD of FCMB, Adam Nuru who was his wife’s boss (MD) in FCMB. Tunde’s wife, Moyo Thomas
#thread


(Nee Ojo), a useless an unconscionable adulterer was engaged in an office romance with her MD, a relationship that was well known throughout the organization as the lack of shame and decorum in both lovebirds made them to get carried away and to throw caution to the wind.


FCMB, an organization without proper rules or governance looked the other way while the open and unprofessional romance was going on between the MD and a subordinate staff of the same organization, a married woman.

The MD, Adam Nuru, who was supposed to be the chief


Governance Officer and Chief Image Maker of FCMB spared no thought for the husband of this lady who was bringing up his (Nuru’s) two children while thinking they were his. He also did not think of the organization he was leading while engaging in this foul conduct, the


scandal with which no ethical organization would want to be associated.
Tunde was so in love with & attached to his wife & children that he spent most of his resources on them. He took them to London & Dubai on holidays. He also spared no penny in putting them in the best schools
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Dr.-Elect Anna Timmer
Dr.-Elect Anna Timmer
@VeritasSola
🚨🚨🚨 Antrim audit protective order hearing live now:

The judge just clarified that they will pause the hearing if YouTube goes down... due to the importance of transparency for the public

Deperno basically saying that the public's interest, needing election transparency and confidence, is greater than Dominion's interest in retaining privacy.

Deperno clarifying they don't plan to release any source code or reverse engineer the software

Deperno: at a minimum we need to be able to release this information to the Michigan legislature, oversight committee and... law enforcement. Wow
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Scott Lemieux
Scott Lemieux
@LemieuxLGM
Tonight we have dissents from both Sotomayor and Breyer in the last instance of the Supreme Court waving the matador's cape for Trump's machinery of death without so much as a word of reasoned justification


Trump's DOJ has moved with unseemly haste in order to preempt credible legal challenges, and the Court has happily gone along


"This is not justice"


The Supreme Court did not meet the standard required to grant cert before a judgment by the lower court


The actual reason for the extraordinary haste is that the people have chosen a president who opposes the death penalty, and the 6 bloodthirsty Republican-nominated justices want the executions to happen. But this is not a *legal* reason.
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Steve Peers
Steve Peers
@StevePeers
Latest EU infringement proceedings - includes possible return to EU court to request fines re Polish forest protection and Hungarian law on NGOs; also includes environmental law, racism hate speech law, European Arrest Warrant

Some highlights from the infringement proceedings: details of the Commission allegations about failure to apply EU criminal law on racism and xenophobia, which includes Holocaust denial


The Commission alleges that three Member States have tried to shelter their own citizens from the application of European Arrest Warrants


Conversely the Commission claims that three Member States don't correctly apply EU law on presumption of innocence.


The Commission alleges that Hungary voted against the EU position on drugs policy in the United Nations re cannabis
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Warning: Some images contain violence and are disturbing.

Also warning: This thread is ridiculously long. 75 tweets is insane. I apologize. But this stuff is important. I hope you find it compelling anyway. If not, I understand.

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This day was inevitable. Indian Muslims always lived in La La Land. They bad mouthed real well wishers & slept with the enemy who never considered them as part of them. In Gulf, Indian Muslims were busy with Javed Akhtar & Sonu Nigam. Never interacted with South Asian diaspora

Now when Indian Muslims are thrown to wolves it’s Pakistani & Bangladeshi Muslims with whom they kept distance are the only ones feeling their pain. None of the people who they invited for Eid Milan. Qawali & Mushaira are there for them. Such people invoke wrath upon themselves

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Indian Muslims particularly the elite downplayed communalism in India by saying it will pass or Hindu majority is good. Fringe are bad. They misguiding others. Muslims were always others. Indians were happy to see Muslims sing & dance & eat their food but never considered as own
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Trump is a Russian asset, a mob money launderer installed by his mob whoremasters to sow chaos and weaken the US & our allies.

EVERY SINGLE THING HE’S DONE since taking office is to achieve those purposes—that and to enrich himself personally.

[THREAD]


1/ His entire family is part of this. Melania is a fucking crook. Ivanka is a fucking crook. Junior and Gums are fucking crooks. They will all die in prison, except for Kushner, who, if he really *did* trade US intel for money, should be executed for espionage.

2/ Why do you think Trump installs uniquely corrupt & awful people to Cabinet positions? Pruitt, Zinke, Betsy, Rex/Pompeo, Wilbur "Melting Nazi Face" Ross. They are not there to serve us. They are not there to drain the swamp. They are there to BURN THE REPUBLIC DOWN.

3/ Trump steals. He takes taxpayer money—your money and mine—and lines his pockets with it. He exploits his office to make himself richer. This is all he cares about. Why are Republican citizens, you “fiscal conservatives,” not more angry about this? Riddle me THAT, #MAGA.

4/ Matt Whitaker, the human dildo and “acting AG,” was illegally installed to throw a monkey wrench in the Mueller investigation. That’s why they won’t release his financials. He’s fucking bought and sold. He’s going to prison for obstruction.
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