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TwiceHorn

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Everything posted by TwiceHorn

  1. Congressional abdication is not new, if it is at an all-time high. A UT history professor's view.
  2. Justsecurity is a good site, maybe too technical for many, but similar to lawfare blog.
  3. The point being, as I think we all know, that remote work can be a very good thing that makes a lot of sense, especially for government. It's not all "bad Covid policy" or some type of worker laziness. Not directly relevant to the RTO thing, but I am not opposed perhaps to moving more government function out of DC. That makes a certain amount of sense if done in measured fashion.
  4. Good points, thanks. Appears that suit has not been filed. And yeah, I didn't mean to imply that TCPA actually creates an increased burden, but I think whether in federal court or Texas court with TCPA, a defamation suit involving a public-figure defendant places a pretty high burden on a plaintiff to produce evidence of malice without engaging in discovery. And I believe you are correct on federal courts in the 5th Circuit not applying TCPA.
  5. So doesn't this, in practical effect, place a higher burden on UHG to prove malice by Potter if any of the statements she made are false or false-ish.* I have noticed that federal courts give no fucks about placing a high burden of proof of malice at the pleading stage, before discovery is even permitted. Texas courts, until recently, haven't had much ability to dismiss litigation at the pleading stages and, even if the rules provided for it, judges have been reluctant to do so by tradition and practice, much like the early days of summary judgment in Texas. TCPA seems to have created sort of an uber-motion-to-dismiss in Texas state courts. Fun fact, TCPA was drafted by one of my classmates. (most of this post is for the peanut gallery by way of explanation rather than trying to tell you what you already know, but there is a question in there). *ETA: The value, if any, of boutique defamation firms like Clare Locke seems to be in persuasively framing the truth/falsity/opinion issues in defamation litigation to support their clients, that is making what seems like either a clear opinion or a clear fact something else entirely.
  6. On the RTO issue. The Patent and Trademark Office has used remote work for patent examiners, in particular, for decades, long before Covid. It was necessary to attract technical talent to the examining corps, when living in the greater DC area held no appeal, much less on a gubmint salary. It worked quite well as I don't think anyone on the non-office side could tell whether an examiner was teleworking or in-office. I suspect that there are more than a few federal workers like this. Also, curiously, the PTO has opened regional patent offices in Detroit, Dallas, San Jose, Denver and maybe a couple of other places. It hasn't seemed to change much in terms of operation or really location of employees, but I think they do present "telework" hubs reducing remote workers' travel to Alexandria.
  7. An interesting conundrum for consideration in connection with artists like Hendrix that died of drug-related causes. Not just musicians, of course, Prolonged life for a lot of them would have entailed sobriety, which probably would have changed the "character" of their output, if not the quality.
  8. Yeah, that screed was ridiculously false, starting with the "world court" bullshit. Good work.
  9. Well, it appears that Susman Godfrey did most of the heavy lifting in Dominion, much of which was discovery related. It boils down to whether what Dr. Potter said was actually true. It doesn't seem to be a particularly complicated case. Nix Patterson is a solid plaintiff's firm. Not sure how well they'll do at defense. It's not rocket surgery.
  10. Hopefully it's from violent retching and bloody flux.
  11. This is like fucking with the company checkbook when you think certain people should be fired. Like Milton in Office Space. It's just absolutely the wrong way to go about it.
  12. She also looks like she's crowing "Beck ay" in her biggest valley girl caterwaul
  13. Yeah, I went along with Congress being a huge part of the problem, but Trump is the most immoral, self-interested person to hold the presidency in the history of this nation. And we have had a shit ton of immoral, self-interested politicians in this country, particularly in the last 75 years or so. He takes the cake, by a huge margin. He mostly unwittingly exploited the other frailties noted here to blow everything up.
  14. Yeah, but the R mode of communication is increasingly dependent not merely on gross oversimplification, and appeal to base instinct, but actual lies. When countering lies with truth fails, you're in a communication tough-spot.
  15. Yeah, this is what it ultimately boils down to. But Congress should have exercised more power than it has, to serve a protective, checky-balancey role.
  16. His base, no. But, I think we have to admit that Ds lost a "convinceable middle" who aren't very engaged and D messaging didn't hit them right, plus incumbency.
  17. Ackshually, they kind of did. Remember, they didn't contemplate a pure popular election for President. One of the main reasons for the electoral college was to put a firewall of sanity between the office and the electorate. They didn't envision laws against faithless electors and direct election of electors by the electorate (instead of appointment by legislature). With those two things, the electoral college has become mostly useless except as a means of diluting the popular vote. And, that was a compromise with those who wanted Congress to appoint the President, which seemed anomalous when most of us studied it, but in restrospect more resembles the parliamentary system that is more resilient.
  18. Sure it will, and well-deserved. But as far as Ds starting up messaging for midterms and later, they're probably going to have a goldmine of shit to attack.
  19. Well there's some merit to this point. Congress has been pretty ineffectual as far as running the country for decades now. They rightly ceded a lot of authority to agencies, but have abdicated their role in overseeing agencies and their policy agenda. Had they done so, we might have avoided Loper Bright and similar decisions. To some extent that has opened up the "imperial executive" theory (all the executive orders the last four administrations or so), and some of the shit that's come down the pike from SCOTUS. So, yeah, Congress sucks.
  20. Possibly right. I think it might take some more time before the current bullshit really starts to hit people "where they live." One kind of interesting thing is that the "deport criminals" seems to resonate, but maybe not deport law-abiding workers. So that might be a fruitful line of attack. I think immigration and the economy were the big things Ds lost on.
  21. And, I think some of it is going to have to wait a few weeks or months until inflation is unimproved, or worse. A lot of people don't understand the Elmo problem, don't care, or actually think shredding government is good (it might actually be if everyone left wasn't a toady). But when all of Trump's campaign promises turn out to be bullshit, especially the economic ones, they can hammer him with: Trump promised you lower prices and no P2025. Well, you got higher prices and P2025. And a bunch of stupid shit like Greenland, Panama, etc.
  22. Stewart LaJunta Rio Vista Are probably the main boys camps in Kerrville, Hunt, Ingram area.
  23. Also, what's the deal with US v. Haniyeh? AFAIK, that's the case against Hamas leaders. Is there something I'm missing there?
  24. That's fucking disgusting. Those people performed investigative work that resulted in convictions.
  25. Clearance Thomas.
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