Texas - WTF is this even - a very short reassurance thread:

1: The Texas "lawusit" against four other "battleground" states in the United States Supreme Court is legally stupid.* It is so legally stupid that I was reluctant to believe that even Ken Paxton would file it.

*My patience level is not ginormous today. Please don't try to explain to me why you think it isn't stupid for whatever other reasons because I'll be making liberal use of the airlock. Thx.
2: Yes, one state can sue another at the US Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court gets to decide whether to take the case. One factor that they will **undoubtedly** look at is the factor of "injury."
Texas is claiming two things. First, that the states have a special interest in who becomes Vice President because of the tiebreaker. Second, that their electors are injured if their votes are "diluted" by electors from states that, in Texas's view, didn't obey their own law.
There is very little argument presented for "injury." Even less - barely a paragraph - was presented for how the defendant states caused that injury.

For lawyers, this is a signal that this is a performance of politics by "litigation" and not a serious effort.
Nonlawyers - who are the audience for this drek - may be impressed by the arguments about how other states violated their own laws.

Lawyers - at least competent ones - will zero in on the alleged injury and the evidence that the injury was caused by the defendant states.
Why? Simple.

Courts care about how the person bringing the complaint was allegedly harmed by the person being sued. If there's not a harm you can sue over and/or you can't show how the person you are suing caused that harm, You Have No Case.
This applies to states, too.

The motion for leave to file doesn't seem to allege an actual injury that courts address, and doesn't really allege how the state in question caused that injury.
Simply put, @JohnFetterman has a better ability to bring a court case against @DanPatrick to recover 2 million dollars in Sheetz gift cards for showing proof of election fraud than the state of Texas has to bring a case against Pennsylvania over the election.
This lawsuit is Texas taking a dump on the rest of the Republic and I'm angry as all hell that those- those people have chosen to do this.

I am not worried in the least about the case.
PS - Akiva looks to be at least as pissed off as I am, and he's being pissed off in more detail.

https://t.co/QRIBlW6qf6
And it's being picked apart here in even more exquisite detail.

I'll let them take it. I looked at the injury section and then deleted the download.

https://t.co/ipbla8ose4
Seriously:
The Republican Party, as a whole, is a clear and present danger to the viability of the Republic.

More from Mike Dunford

Happy Monday! Dominion Voting Systems is suing Rudy Giuliani for $1.3 billion.

As Akiva notes, the legal question is going to boil down to something known as "actual malice."

That's a tricky concept for nonlawyers (and often for lawyers) so an explainer might help.


What I'm going to do with this thread is a bit different from normal - I'm going to start by explaining the underlying law so that you can see why lawyers are a little skeptical of the odds of success, and only look at the complaint after that.

So let's start with the most basic basics:
If you want to win a defamation case, you have to prove:
(1) that defendant made a false and defamatory statement about you;
(2) to a third party without privilege;
(3) with the required degree of fault;
(4) causing you to suffer damage.

For Dominion's defamation cases, proving 1 and 4 is easy. 2 is, in the case of the lawyers they're suing, slightly more complex but not hard. And 3 - degree of fault - is really really hard to prove.

A false statement of fact that is defamatory is a slam dunk element here - all the fraud allegations against dominion are totally banana-pants. They are also allegations which are clearly going to harm Dominion's reputation.
Election Litigation Update: DC - the "let's sue the Electoral College" case.

This is a bit surprising, given that as of last time I checked nobody had been served and no appearance had been entered. I suspect it's an effort to make sure the case isn't "pending" on the 6th.


And, sure enough, still no proof of service on ANY defendant, still no appearance from defense counsel. And this is denying the motion for preliminary injunction but does NOT dismiss the case - which is potentially ominous for plaintiff's counsel.


This isn't a "happy judge" kind of first paragraph. Not even a little bit. Nope.


Y'all, this isn't even directed within a few hundred miles of my direction and I sill just instinctively checked to make sure that there's room for me to hide under my desk if I have to - this is a very not happy, very federal, very judge tone.


Also - the judge just outright said there's a bunch of reasons for dismissal. And not in "might be" terms. In definite fact ones. But the case isn't dismissed yet.

If I was plaintiffs counsel, I'd definitely be clearing under my desk right now, and possibly also my underwear.

More from Court

so @tedwheeler did you hear? today we are discussing "public whippings" thanks to @JamesBuchal

its a great chance to study the history of public beatings.
understandably, women feel threatened. https://t.co/jck05JGM4B
#PDX #tourism


FIRST OREGON WIFE-BEATER TO RECEIVE WHIPPING POST PUNISHMENT
https://t.co/3SJOODbuLf
PORTLAND. Or., June 7—The whipping post law passed at the last session of the Legislature was Into execution for the first time today, the victim being Charles Mcdlnty, convicted of wlfe-beatlng

whip was a braided blacksnake, made of rawhide, with four lashes. ..hustled to jail, stripped to the

waist, manacled, and his hands tied to the door high above his head. The whipping was as severe as the powerful deputy was capable of administering. Blood drawn on the 4th blow.

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The YouTube algorithm that I helped build in 2011 still recommends the flat earth theory by the *hundreds of millions*. This investigation by @RawStory shows some of the real-life consequences of this badly designed AI.


This spring at SxSW, @SusanWojcicki promised "Wikipedia snippets" on debated videos. But they didn't put them on flat earth videos, and instead @YouTube is promoting merchandising such as "NASA lies - Never Trust a Snake". 2/


A few example of flat earth videos that were promoted by YouTube #today:
https://t.co/TumQiX2tlj 3/

https://t.co/uAORIJ5BYX 4/

https://t.co/yOGZ0pLfHG 5/