Wife just referred to middle daughter’s dress rehearsal as “outfit practice,” and you can tell which parent wasn’t a theater kid in high school.

If Hawaiian Electric gave a damn about incentivizing paperless billing, they’d stop charging a 3 dollar junk fee to pay your bill instead of offering a 1 in 1.5 million chance at an iPad. In the meantime, enjoy paying to mail me recycling bin fodder. Happy Earth Day!

I’m a big proponent of the idea that ceremony ennobles our daily lives, & that wearing something other than “street clothes” is appropriate for formal occasions like trial, but one thing I learned whilst serving in Australia is the best of those bad boys are actual horse hair & they *smell.*

Actual Jawaiian jams are not to my taste, but they were here before I was & folks like them, so I try to stay aloha about it. AI slop Jawaiian jams are truly cursed. Nobody needs a WarTalk outro about the HNL baggage claim office.

Setting side the prudence aspect of targeting civil rights groups - what’s the theory of liability here? My guess is a “novel” use of Computer Fraud & Abuse Act for unauthorized access to Telegram/racist group chats, or Fraud against USG for not disclosing informant payments when sharing intel?

Eternal struggle.

Colorado hiring an AAG - Dudes. Really a shame they couldn’t work fireworks, watercraft, & online gaming into this portfolio.

RLTW!

Unclear whether we’ll ever get an American analogue to Brereton or Haddon-Cave inquiries. I wouldn’t bet on it for the foreseeable future.

Pleased to publish a piece with a very sharp colleague discussing some challenges for the BRS war crimes prosecution. I’m bullish on chances for accountability, & proud of 🇦🇺for having the courage & integrity to reckon with alleged SOF misconduct.

I’m really struggling with this for my dual professions - legal & military. Am I just watching shockingly fast institutional erosion, or was the whole edifice a joke all along & it just took me decades to hear the punchline?

This company seems to be betting the farm on the idea that clients mostly pick lawyers based on fuckability? Extremely Allie McBeal-brained ad campaign.

Last night’s forecast called for thunderstorms, but the reason the sidewalk outside my house was wet this morning is something of a mystery.

Lack of an Archives Act or other requirement to preserve records done on the taxpayers’ systems, ostensibly for the taxpayers’ benefit, boggles my mind.

The Aussies are taking this as a moment for self-reflection on the Profession. We might learn from that.

For US folks, this is a huge deal. BRS is the most famous digger by a long shot. His cams are on display in the national War Memorial. It’s as if Audie Murphy were indicted for war crimes.

“Well, Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day.” “Yes. Lick ‘em tomorrow, though.” ~Exchange between Generals William T. Sherman & Ulysses S. Grant on evening of 4/6/1862 (164 years ago tonight) after battle of Shiloh’s first day. The Union won the battle the next day. Images: Library of Congress.

Under a different admin, I would have more confidence that executive branch lawyers (including JAGs) would advise against attacking civilian objects & that advice would be followed. After 6 months of boat strikes, I have grave doubts as to whether that legal advice is being given or followed. 5/n

Military command investigations usually make the news when they jam someone up, but good ones reveal truth, often as not protect institutional integrity & individuals. 🧵 about a Ranger raid, a war crimes allegation, & a command investigation that showed things are not always what they seem.

The Law of War is ultimately permissive, hewing to the old maxim that sharp wars are brief. It balances military necessity against humanity, & generally privileges necessity. This harshness has been constrained by policy for most of Western living memory, but recent past isn’t always prologue.

Pacifica’s target demographic is people who find a Sienna unaffordable and rental fleets, weird flex.

This program produces 8-10 Native Hawaiian medical providers to serve Hawaiian communities, & this editorial has the nerve to compare it to Jim Crow. Part of a pattern of legal challenges to programs for Hawaiians, including Kamehameha Schools, Hawaiian Homestead programs.

Surfing Goat Dairy really doing what it says on the can.

It should be a smack in the face to anyone who thinks big boy war is anything other than a gargantuan bar fight of incoherent information and dynamite to load bearing walls of the global economy. It is not nimble, quick, or contained.

Veterans are important to politics/gov’t not b/c they “get things done” or have nat sec expertise, but mostly because they can reliably spot charlatans, grifters, & bad actors flying the vet bro banner.

Joining this jihad. “Dual-use” is a doctrinal term, invented as part of Collateral Damage Estimate Methodology. Law of War has only civilian/protected objects & military objectives.

Three plus generations without reinforcing vestigial memory of Total War is a real triumph for anybody not part of the defense force, honestly.

Key Largo, with the original “nuke the hurricane” suggestion.

My fastest mile splits ever recorded were on the flight deck of a Royal Australian Navy amphib - when running towards the bow my (consistent with EMCON & set to private!) Apple Watch clocked me at 19 knots across the South Pacific.

If you’re a law student (or experienced lawyer) you should absolutely take your talents to a local gig for the next couple of years. Even if you’re not a bottom-of-class-LibertyU-eugenics-enthusiast, your hire date will create a rebuttable presumption that you are when the adults come back.

This is what you get when you hire the local cops to do the gutters.

That’s a lot of words to put “professional straw man” on one’s resume.

Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work. "Yes, there’s an exception to policy - the approval authority is two houses of Congress and a presidential signature.”

Gonna go ahead and stop you right there, LinkedIn.

This is the sort of case the False Claims Act exists to facilitate, & it’s really cool to see a distinguished civil rights firm take an “out of area” case to remedy massive military-industrial corruption.

✋ Former USG war crimes lawyer here. Apropos of SecDef's remarks this morning: Denial of quarter—even the declaration of no quarter—is a war crime. And recognized as such by the US Government. From DoD's Manual for Military Commissions.

Hertz customer service really leaning into the uncanny valley, fielding calls with an AI assistant that answers with “Hi, I’m Haley,” refuses to admit it isn’t a person three times like Peter denying Christ, then dumps me off into an offshore call center.

The moral bankruptcy of “they had it coming” for an attack on a civilian place of worship should prompt an examination of conscience & is a reminder that “shame” is starkly absent from our national discourse.

I feel like covering “how to make Microsoft Word suck slightly less” would have been time well spent during my 1L legal writing class, but I suppose inspiring my me in my second decade of practice to self-teach from YouTube is the next best thing.

Watch for my article in the next issue of Proceedings arguing that we must return to the sale of commissions to ensure senior officers are of proper stock.

Judge: attorneys, and particularly those with the awesome power of the US Attorney's office, have a responsibility to be candid

There are very few scenarios where “sweetie” can be effectively (if not professionally) deployed during cross-examination. As a 6 foot white dude, never. A woman public defender embarrassing a cop in front of a jury?

#MarchMovieChallenge #FilmSky 🎥 Someone talking on a landline. Heat (1995)

Hope folks in Colorado realize how lucky they are to have Kyle Clark doing the local news.

Gang, I feel like my Oklahoma home of record and approved retirement give me an opportunity to do the funniest thing ever…

Honor is the Law of War principles that undergirds all of the others.

Back when I litigated a decent volume of courts-martial, vast majority of cases were alcohol-enabled sex assaults, offender/victim coworkers. Fact patterns similar, motions practice predictable. Defense service had a nationwide “motions bank” & the way that worked seems instructive for Gen AI.

There’s a straight line to be drawn b/t many U.S. & Iraqi deaths (esp 2005-08 peak civil war) & Iran’s actions, but a Marine drowning during the initial invasion is not amongst them. Really puzzling story choice.