Look, it’s always Emperor

That is certainly a paragraph of English.

I served Bill Nye the science guy hot chocolate when he would come into the movie theater. I’d hand him the hot coco and he would hold it up and instead of saying “cheers” he’d say “yay science”

fwiw, one of my white whales is trying to get @therealmsz.bsky.social and me tickets on one of the trains that go through here, so full credit to Mamdani.

Again,

I like the first amendment exactly at its current contours, except that I’d like to impose prior restraints on Liberty’s Mutual’s ads during football.

The NYT included @badlawyerpod.bsky.social in a story. This is the wildest thing ever.

I’ve been reading this hiking/food journal of a walk through the Caucasus- it’s really so good! (Expensive, though) Reposted to fix a typo

Merry Christmas, Christmas enjoyers! This year I introduced everyone to a British Christmas pudding, but I’m sad to report it only met with mixed approval!

My sister sent me this picture from the car wash in the town I’m from.

A delightful #AppellateTwitter OG moment. I do miss those carefree days full of onesies and puns and nerd swag. We had a good thing going.

My most instagram bluesky post

One of my theories is that Houston-inside-the-610-loop is a small town, and my latest piece of evidence is that I ran into 3 lawyers of my vintage at the bougie tchotchke store.

Board game stores: a sort of modern day sanctuary.

I don’t think Kid is gonna be a lawyer, but OTOH he just asked me how you enforce a djinn’s promises.

My colleague Eric Boettcher and I wrote an amicus brief on behalf of Tyson Timbs (yes, of Timbs v. Indiana) in a case John discusses: Jouppi v. Alaska (is a six pack of beer enough to confiscate a plane?)

Good.

That's some weird stuff.

Two things are true. 1. American prisons are horrible, filled with human rights abuses and outright torture. 2. CECOT is others of magnitude worse.

OK, the normal way Bivens works is you only have a claim if the victim's name is Bivens, but what if the federal agent's name is Bivens.

If you're sued for actions while running a company, the company might have to pay your bills - that's "advancement." That can... add up. Which is why JPMorgan now owes Quinn Emmanuel $43 million. And $529 in gummy bears for the 147 lawyers. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/b...

Amazing

Tremendous.

It remains a problem that the president is a malicious toddler.

It's not a crazy archive story, but I spent a summer in grad school in the French diplomatic archives and got friendly with an employee. I noted to them how often I saw diplomats with luggage. "Pressing the claims of France throughout the world! Impressive!" He laughed. "Vacances!"

Grief chronicles: my mom said that the rule in our community is to serve only bitter coffee when people come over to sit with you. She looked at me and said “Dad would have hated serving people bitter coffee.” We’re not serving people bitter coffe

That they’re suppressing a show as limp as 60 Minutes says a lot.

Good thread about chili. If you’re making the ground meat variety, I’ve found grinding my own coarsely or buying chili-grind actually makes a big different for my own enjoyment.

Omg. It’s one of those great restaurant reviews

Motion to extend weekend until Christmas.

This is also why I can’t take these people seriously, every time I hear it I’m imagining what a good brine would be.

THAT LAST 10 MINUTES OF FOOTBALL

Laugh/cry: very young me at a naturalization with my judge. They are the best.

I’m sorry, the influencer I mix up with Rand Paul tried to fight an actual professional heavyweight?

Delaware Supremes give Musk a huge win.

A second en banc case in as many days where Judges Oldham and Ho find themselves on separate sides. This is Oldham complaining about Ho’s concurrence

There's a lot going on in this denial of rehearing in a pro-employee Fifth Circuit decision, but I want to emphasize that Judge Ho continues to say expressly that he wants to rebalance en banc more in favor of what he calls "cultural" over "commercial" issues (so that, in his view, they're even) 1/

Right, yes. As I say to people around here, New York's the outlier, not Houston (I'd rather something in the middle, but it is what it is).

There is just some really really bad stuff happening in online streaming spaces.

Duuuuuuuuumb Sorry for not offering better analysis

Courtesy of @stnylan.bsky.social, here's a delightful couple of paragraphs from a British appellate panel www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKP...

A remarkable DOJ filing in a lawsuit over the deadly DCA crash: "The United States admits that it owed a duty of care to Plaintiffs, which it breached, thereby proximately causing the tragic accident on January 29, 2025, as specifically set forth below." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I know what this means but in the moment I imagined it meant “not in captivity”

I wanted to do a Ph.D in military history in 2002, and my advisors all said "you'd better not" and it had nothing to do with my skin color or other people's skin colors or wokeness or anything else like that.

Really happy to note one of the products of our recent hiring efforts: Kyle Beckrich has joined our appellate team. Kyle clerked for SDTX and CA5, and then has been arguing appellate cases for DOJ in DC and Dallas since. It's really great to have more firepower.

While I was away from the office, we got a really nice win from SCOTX on a technical issue of Texas construction law. Good to see! www.txcourts.gov/media/146175...

I can't read the whole article, but that clip just isn't true.

As this administration crumbles, as it will, eventually, he's going to get crazier and more dangerous.

Pulled up one of my old briefs to get some case law from it. And I found a typo. The opportunities for embarrassment in this profession never end. #appellatesky

Just to be clear, this ban would have prevented me from coming to the US, had it existed in 1983.