Fearless Leader, @hamlinclaw. Handcrafted appellate briefs since the 1900s. “Ted Frank is good at Twitter.” — Reuters. On my second 🫀.

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I spoke to Reuters about our Seventh Circuit appeal on behalf of drivers trapped in gridlock by pro-Hamas protestors who blockaded the entrance to O’Hare Airport for hours. Argument scheduled for April 9.
📰HLLI in the News @JgreeneJenna of @Reuters covered our lawsuit on behalf of drivers who were trapped in their vehicles for hours after anti-Israel activists blocked access to O’Hare International Airport.
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tedfrank retweeted
I'm fine with airlines overbooking flights. People often don't turn up and this lets more people fly and avoids empty seats. But if airlines didn't, airfares would not be 35% higher. E.g. United says it "overbooks flights, typically by less than 0-3 percent". (1/3)
would you rather pay, say, 35% higher airfares so that once every 500 flights you might not get bumped?
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tedfrank retweeted
this >1,000 word story is the work of four, count 'em four, reporters it has a number of problems let's take a look
Houston police have arrested a person of interest in connection to Friday's fatal shooting of LePaul Warren Jr., a 17-year-old senior athlete at Westbury High School. bit.ly/4hlOawU
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tedfrank retweeted
For Halloween, go as the Purcell Principle. You dress up in your normal clothes, and say that you can't change into a costume because it's too close to the election.
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CBO just released its latest "Distribution of Household Income" report (for year 2023), and the findings are - as usual - a narrative violation. Real incomes up across the board. Income inequality basically flat for decades. Taxes falling for everyone except the rich.
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As the British pulled out, India had to decide what type of country they would become. Many, including Gandhi, wanted a unified secular democracy. However there was a large minority Muslim population that argued in a democracy, their interests would always be crowded out by the Hindu majority. That their religion and culture created a world outlook that was fundamentally different than the Hindu’s. That their interests would be constantly at odds and since they were a minority, unaddressed in a democracy. This problem became irreconcilable and the partition took place. Millions displaced as the two religious groups separated into two new nations. Ethnicity aside the religious differences were too great to create a functioning democracy.
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tedfrank retweeted
100% this. A judge once told me, after I called out the other side’s blatant discovery abuses, that he wasn’t going to do anything because “it takes two to tango”.
If more judges issued orders like this, litigation would be far less stressful and much less expensive. Instead it’s almost always “a pox on both of you” which means the asshole gets an advantage by being an asshole.
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Ahem.
The wisest thing my CrimLaw professor ever said was “the most insane, destructive, badly-thought-out piece of legislation you’ll ever see is a law named after a dead kid.”
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tedfrank retweeted
Chile required all gas stations to put their prices on the internet. The result? Margins went up 9%. Never forget that buyers are not the only people interested in what prices are! 1/
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Brightline is filing for bankruptcy. While certainly there are policy issues around permitting time and construction costs and EPA rules and the like, fundamentally, Brightline made sense as a rail project. But it's going bankrupt because demand for passenger rail just isn't there. The reason America doesn't have European railways is because Americans do not actually want them very much. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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"Also, we do not currently intend to hold you hostage if the United States aids its friend Taiwan when we invade. Not *currently.* TBD."
🚨Just in: Chinese President Xi Jinping made a big announcement at the White House “I am glad to announce an invitation for 100,000 young Americans to visit China for exchanges in study in the coming five years.”
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tedfrank retweeted
JUST IN: Asian-American mother goes to #SCOTUS with emergency challenge to NYC's Stuyvesant high school admissions policy. @PacificLegal argues complex, outwardly-neutral system is designed to diminish # of Asians & boost other minorities. Doc: documentcloud.org/documents/…
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tedfrank retweeted
Curious to learn more about how civil rights law has shaped discourse, customs, and manners regarding race and sex? Preorder Gail Heriot’s Why We Walk on Eggshells! Drops on Day 3 of Fed Soc Month and just nine days before NLC.
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6th Circuit observes that if Kalshi's definition of a swap holds, then *every time* you place a bet outside the contact of a DCM, you are committing a crime. "Kalshi’s proposed 'interpretation of the statute would' also 'attach criminal penalties to a breathtaking amount of commonplace [gambling] activity.' ... as the States note, 'if sports bets are swaps, they must take place on federal markets.' ... That would include 'every sports wager placed in a casino, on an online sports book, or between two friends at a bar.' And it would also include 'sports wagers ostensibly permitted by PASPA.' Indeed, Kalshi’s overbroad swap definition would likely cover all sorts of commonplace gambling activity that does not currently occur on federally regulated exchanges. It 'would likely encompass virtually every kind of wager that could exist, including classic casino games and charity raffles.'"
Huge win for @OhioAG & @AGTennessee against @Kalshi: the unanimous panel holds that sports-event contracts are not "swaps" and so there is not exclusive @CFTC jurisdiction per Judge Gibbons. This deepens the split with the Third Circuit. Supreme Court will be the next stop.
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tedfrank retweeted
NEW: “Cannabis use is associated with increased risk of violence: A systematic review and meta-analysis” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4277…
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Survey: “How many unarmed Black men were killed by police in 2021?” -40% of "Very Liberals": 1,000+ -16% of "Very Conservatives": 1,000+ -Actual number: 11 stevestewartwilliams.com/p/p…
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tedfrank retweeted
Huge win for @OhioAG & @AGTennessee against @Kalshi: the unanimous panel holds that sports-event contracts are not "swaps" and so there is not exclusive @CFTC jurisdiction per Judge Gibbons. This deepens the split with the Third Circuit. Supreme Court will be the next stop.
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tedfrank retweeted
1 joint a day for 20 years was linked to a similar decline in lung function as a pack of cigarettes a day.
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When will it be enough. I keep waiting for the criminal justice reformers to look at the carnage and admit “okay we ran our deincarceration experiment and it didn’t go well after all, mia culpa” and STOP THIS — but the Soros DAs and Judges just keep going. They cannot keep pretending they mean well.
This brutal slaying from yesterday is actually getting attention, as the victim was a highly-regarded pediatric doctor, but the details of the savage scene that unfolded near Pittsburgh, PA - and the ongoing insanity of our "justice" system - must be fully articulated. In the overnight hours between Wednesday night and Tuesday morning, a Black criminal - already out on zero-dollar bail for first-degree felony burglary and third-degree felony theft - broke into the home of a White 46-year-old doctor named Idris Evans and his family. The soon-to-be killer, Black 32-year-old Elijah Hemingway, ascended to the third floor of the home and entered the bedroom of Idris and his wife, Gina, as the couple slept. Kitchen knife in hand, wearing nothing but his underwear, Hemingway attacked Idris and Gina while screaming about himself “being God.” Upon the couple's rapid awakening, a brutal struggle unfolded in the bedroom. The scene was described as extremely violent, with broken furniture, smashed mirrors, and blood covering the floor and walls. As Hemingway repeatedly plunged the knife into Idris and Gina Evans, Gina screamed aloud to awaken their 8 and 12-year-old children, bellowing for them to flee the house. The children did, and escaped unharmed. Gina eventually managed to escape, as well, surviving multiple severe stab wounds and lacerations. Idris, however, bled out and died in his own bedroom where, minutes before, he had been peacefully asleep with his wife, hours from awakening for another day of duty at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. It's too early for autopsy results, so a full inventory of the injuries inflicted upon Idris is unavailable. Elijah Hemingway is charged with criminal homicide, attempted homicide, aggravated assault, burglary, criminal trespass, and possessing instruments of crime. The argument used to successfully expand the no-money bail policy Hemingway was out on was framed in explicitly racial terms, focusing on claims of an inverted reality in which the justice system gives preferential treatment to White defendants. Groups including the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Abolitionist Law Center argued that cash bail was - can you guess - “racist!” They pointed to higher incarceration rates for Blacks, and the need to change that, as though it's not an observable fact of reality across the whole of planet Earth that Blacks commit crime at the highest rates, and are thusly incarcerated at higher rates - all despite the system being OPENLY manipulated in their favor. And, of course, it worked. As it always does. Consequently, Elijah Hemingway was free to wander the streets, wander into the Evans' home, wander up to their third floor master bedroom, and viciously slaughter a beloved White children's doctor. America: DEI until you die. (In an endless onslaught of one-way interracial homicide.)
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tedfrank retweeted
Can President Trump's Department of War designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk? Yes, per Judge Katsas, in a masterful and thorough opinion. In this leading exploration of the intersection of government and Super Intelligence, the government can make that determination here
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I asked Grok for a tourist trap within 5 minutes of I-90, and it sent me to a place in Beloit with free cheese samples and hand-dipped ice cream that had been demolished in 2023. But sounds like it would’ve been cool in 2019.
The Belvidere Oasis on I-90 won an award for the cleanest rest stop restrooms in Illinois, and all I can say is y’all need Buc-ee’s very badly.
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