Max Kennerly

@maxkennerly.bsky.social

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17 years in court as a law-talking guy for plaintiffs, now a mix of stuff. Posts too much about politics.

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Among the many, many issues here, it's clear that ICE has way too much money to play with.

ICE created a fake university in order to defraud, rob, and deport students. The depths of depravity there know no bounds. www.freep.com/story/news/l...

Students at fake university in Michigan created by ICE can sue US, court ruleswww.freep.com An appeals court ruled in favor of students who said they were tricked by ICE into enrolling at a fake university in metro Detroit.

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Fucking @nytimes.com changed the headline and thought no one would notice. The TL;DR: Times runs a stupid "don't vote" piece from an idiotic right wing pundit. Turns out: surprise! The dude voted in both 2022 and 2020, and has written elsewhere about voting in earlier elections.

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July 4 story: This book is one of 50 snuck out of Philadelphia and hidden in the countryside west of Philadelphia as the British approached. It contains one of the first official printings (1777) of the Declaration of Independence. It looks different than you might expect. 🧵

I completely agree with this column: conservatives should not vote. Stay home and feel morally superior about it. 🙏 www.nytimes.com/2024/07/04/o...

Opinion | Why I Don’t Votewww.nytimes.com If casting a ballot is merely expressive, then the same is true of not casting one.

This being a patriotic day, I read "the 7th Minnesota dairy herd" in the same way one reads "the 7th Minnesota Infantry Regiment."

#USDA has added the 7th Minnesota dairy herd to the list of farms with #H5N1 #birdflu infections, bringing its cumulative national total to 140 in 12 states. It still hasn't confirmed Iowa's 13th herd. www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-po...

Biden ending his campaign is one thing; Biden *resigning* would mean: a) endless GOP House "investigations" on Kamala Harris "covering up" Biden's mental state; b) the GOP House and broken Senate both have to confirm the new VP, they won't, and GOP will blame Dems. It's simply not a viable plan.

Biden should, as an "official act," threaten to deport the investors in any company that tries to enforce a noncompete in violation of the FTC's rule.

US judge in Texas partially blocks Biden administration ban on worker noncompete agreements www.reuters.com/legal/us-jud...

US judge blocks Biden administration ban on worker noncompete agreementswww.reuters.com A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday partially blocked a U.S. Federal Trade Commission rule from taking effect that would ban agreements commonly signed by workers not to join their employers' rivals or launch competing businesses.

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There's no longer any ceiling to how wackadoodle Republican lawsuits can go. As @elliemargolis.bsky.social has flagged, the sovereign state of Missouri, being unable to invade or embargo New York, has instead sued it before SCOTUS to try to aid Trump, because ... reasons. ago.mo.gov/wp-content/u...

LMAO, it turns out "X" actually does have a manipulated media policy, which I have only ever seen applied to me.

It was buried by other news, but, as a reminder, at the debate Trump gave a complete bullshit answer about Ukraine, literally copying Nixon's fake "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Zelenskiy Challenges Trump to Reveal Plans for Ending Warwww.bloomberg.com Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Donald Trump should come forward with his plan to quickly end the war with Russia, warning that any proposal must avoid violating the nation’s sovereignty.

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One of the best descriptions of this kind of phenomenon I have seen. When your job/identity depends on making abstract rationalizations, you’re going to keep making them however real world circumstances change

It's a particular type of Lawyer Brain, the Wine Party Lawyer Brain. If your job and/or identity is being Mr. Smarty Pants who comes up with abstractions to explain away current events as fitting some principled form only you can see, then you'll just keep making up those forms no matter what.

People like Fallon start from the premise, "Can I imagine some explanation in which this thing, standing alone, can be fitted into a principled legal system?" I mean, yeah, sure, that can be done for anything. But doing so makes you a collaborator and a propagandist, not an honest & wise scholar.

constitutional lawyers use your fucking brain challenge www.politico.com/news/2024/07...

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Mississippi is the poorest state in the US. Even though the state gets federal welfare funds, it is difficult to get welfare. The money was all getting stolen, and they got away with it. Now the journalists who exposed the story are facing a lawsuit and jail. www.nbcnews.com/investigatio...

She exposed how the nation's poorest state spent federal welfare money. Now she might go to jail.www.nbcnews.com "The rabbit's got the gun now," said a lawyer for former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, who is trying to force reporter Anna Wolfe to reveal her sources.

Yes, it seems to be a non-issue that 78-year-old Donald Trump was incapable of staying awake during his own criminal trial. He's a spring chicken, you see, the very picture of youthful vigor.

didn't read the NYT piece yet but did any NYT reporters see Biden repeatedly falling asleep in public or was that only Trump

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This is predictable but so important: Pasteurizing milk kills the H5N1 bird flu virus that is circulating widely in dairy cattle. It's easy to take a 150-year-old technique that has saved countless lives for granted, but don't fool around with unpasteurized dairy products. 🧪

Pasteurization Kills Bird Flu Virus in Milk, New Studies Confirmwww.scientificamerican.com Flash pasteurization destroyed H5N1 viral particles that were highly concentrated in raw milk, confirming that standard techniques can keep dairy products safe from bird flu

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surged 48%. for a mass plagiarism tool that tells you to eat rocks and glue.

Google says its greenhouse gas emissions have surged 48% in the past five years due to the expansion of the data centers that underpin its AI efforts (Financial Times) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

My favorite part is how she doesn't even pretend the "lefty straight man" is a friend. It's just some guy—probably a barista or some employee at a media company—she cornered and then subjected to a deranged rant while he tried to escape.

Sorry wouldn’t normally put her on the timeline but this might be the most insane thing j k rowlings ever written

One thing that annoys me about the Democratic consultant class is how they act like they're brass-knuckle streetfighters and yet don't have the stones to run nonstop ads about Trump's extensive connections to Jeffrey Epstein. It's all true! It's documented! There are photos!

Trump later appointed this federal prosecutor as his first U.S. Secretary of Labor. www.kare11.com/article/news...

Florida prosecutors knew Epstein raped teenage girls 2 years before cutting deal, transcript showswww.kare11.com Florida prosecutors heard graphic testimony about how Epstein sexually assaulted teenage girls two years before they cut a plea deal, according to transcripts.

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Judicial palate cleanser from me: The dissent in Commonwealth v Noel, 857 A.2d 1283 (Pa. 2004)

OK on a day like today I think we all need to read my absolute favorite judicial opinion ever as a palate cleanser.

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THE EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS FOR IDIOMS: Romania vs Netherlands 🇷🇴 A slang Romanian version of “every cloud has a silver lining” translates to “a kick in the ass, a step forward” vs 🇳🇱 A very old (16th century) way of saying “it is what it is” in Dutch is “who knows why the geese go barefoot?”

Under the law, even the latest SCOTUS case, Trump's actions at issue in the state court proceedings were clearly not "official acts," and so he's not immune. Nonetheless, my professional opinion is, "idk what will happen, good odds SCOTUS leaps in to save him yet again."

Lawyers in my mentions are the most in denial about what happened at SCOTUS today. They're coming up with all kinds of perfectly logical reasons why Trump's state cases wouldn't be taken up by SCOTUS eventually.

Correct. A prudent, law-abiding President who appoints qualified agency personnel to enact thoughtful regulations is going to see their agenda inevitably fail. A malicious, arbitrary President who runs around barking illegal commands at people will be rewarded.

So based on decisions from just this week, the President, as long has he has the gloss of officialdom, can basically do anything without legal restraint, whereas the President, acting via duly appointed agencies authorized by Congress, is more restrained than ever? What a coherent jurisprudence!

It's a bit problematic how Biden has (a) narrow, limited power to have his agency draw up a student loan forgiveness process consistent with the statutes passed by Congress; but (b) complete immunity to tell everyone at Dept of Edu, "mark those loans as $0 or I'll put you in a pine box."

to put a sharper point on this, the President’s power to pass an executive order regulating emissions is severely hampered. his power to use the DOJ or the military to regulate emissions is nearly unlimited

Yup. The Constitution includes a narrowly-defined legal immunity for members of Congress in a specific circumstance. Not one word about Presidential or Supreme Court Justice immunity. Those parts were made up out of thin air.

Not that anyone particularly cares about original meaning, but think folks should still say it out loud: For all of the things that are unclear in the founding documents and unknowabilities of what the Founders intended, "the President can kill anyone or commit a coup" was *never* legally arguable

The GOP SCOTUS ruling on Presidential immunity, summed up.

If Biden drops out, there are two options: (1) the incumbent Vice President, who is already on the ballot; (2) someone else. (1) Has strong arguments for being the consensus candidate. Maybe they work and Dems rally. (2) Does not. Not any of them. Guaranteed chaos, infighting, and bitterness.

If the Democrats do push Biden out, I predict there will be no consensus on a replacement candidate, leading to infighting and, ultimately, a realization that the Democrats have a stable full of flawed candidates that cannot gather national support, particularly in a short time window.

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🧵 I’m sorry to do this to you, but there’s a Part 2. I waited to share this part because I worried most of you'd not be able to handle all of this at once. But you’ve had a week to recover, so let’s dive into how Apple execs are giving themselves bonuses as a reward for illegal dumping! ⬇️

🧵 In 2020, I nearly died from mysterious industrial chemical exposure at my apartment. Later, I discovered my employer was dumping toxic waste into our windows from their Skunkworks semiconductor fab next-door. I tipped off US EPA, who then raided them in 2023. EPA sent me the report on Friday. 💀 ⬇️

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One consequence of the SC ruling on homelessness is that it further centers jails (esp rural jails) as THE social service provider in communities. That's... bad. AND it means that sheriffs make policy decisions abt who gets these services. Their individual attitudes matter for these decisions:

Public Officials and a “Private” Matter: Attitudes and Policies in the County Sheriff Office Regarding Violence Against Women*onlinelibrary.wiley.com Objective This article examines sheriffs’ attitudes and their offices’ policies concerning violence against women and assesses the connection between their attitudes and policies. Methods Using da...

Tour de France started today, don't forget to pick which team you want to root for, such as "Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe," "Team DSM–Firmenich PostNL," "Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale," or "Flippenspiel–Orf79 Bloppin."

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Watching the Tour de France, which I actually really like as it’s a pleasant French travel documentary with lots of cool aerial shots concealed as a sporting event