RI Smith

RI Smith

@rismith.bsky.social

Lawyer writing about law, genealogy, and bad ethics. He/him

1.9K followers1K following22.1K posts

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Lee Atwater defined the Southern Strategy. Trump is defining the Moron Strategy

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Trump: "Somalia -- 98% of the people here now from Somalia don't work. They don't have to work because they steal so much. They all have a Mercedes Benz. Low IQ and they live better than you do."

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Mr. Luckey, your time has come.

Amy Feldman@amyfeldman7.bsky.social

*NEW* Colossal Biosciences’ Ben Lamm and Anduril’s Palmer Luckey team up on a new startup to genetically engineer war dogs for the military. Warhound comes out of stealth at $1.2B valuation For @forbes.com with @iainmartin.bsky.social and @mhunterhart.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/amyfel...

forbes.comBillionaires Palmer Luckey And Ben Lamm Spin Up Startup To Genetically Engineer Military DogsBen Lamm of de-extinction startup Colossal has teamed up with Palmer Luckey’s team at Anduril to create a dog that’s optimized for military use. The new “warhounds” will be cloned and gene edited.
RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Remember, calling JD a couch fucker and Republicans weird was behaving just like the Republicans.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

JD Vance: "Now the media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and call Amy Acton a liar"

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

I asked Claude to code a way to cropdust someone over the internet and it asked me if everything was OK. It's harshing my vibecoding.

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Literally no one in SC politics is surprised by this story.

ProPublica@propublica.org

We’re back with our second story about how Trump’s purge of the FBI killed a sweeping bribery probe in D.C. This time, we take you to South Carolina, where two powerful politicians escaped scrutiny: Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. James Clyburn. THREAD 👇

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Well, that's not a game of chicken my client or boss would ever win.

Roger Parloff@rparloff.bsky.social

Judge Reyes is ordering Woodward to refile submission from last night with as many DOJ attys willing to sign it. J: DOJ attys: raise your hand if you youj're willing to sign it. Woodward: not an appropriate request. J: right now, for rule 11 purposes, which other attys willing to sign this brief /6

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

It's too good. The internet wasn't prepared for this level of ownership.

Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social

SCOOP: 'Tommy' from the now-viral exchange with Abdul El-Sayed is Thomas Teepell, a former staffer for Republican Senator Josh Hawley with close ties to Christian Nationalist Sean Feucht. He's the son of a former Bobby Jindal staffer whose consultant work was instrumental in getting Hawley elected.

thehandbasket.co'Tommy' from viral El-Sayed video is former Sen. Hawley staffer with Christian nationalist tiesThomas Teepell is the son of a former long-time Bobby Jindal staffer who's close to Sean Feucht.

RI Smith reposted

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

That's the one thing the Bama QB doesn't do well, panicking and turning the ball over in hilariously dumb ways

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social
Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social

Tucker Carlson: "If you look at pornography enough or bestiality videos all day, after a while... it's kind of an attractive horse, I get it."

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Showing the two year old Cars for the first time after he's spent the last three months playing with the toys and I've never been as happy in my life as he is now

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

The Baileys are ambilavent about brown people.

Truthout@truthout.org

Chuck Schumer — one of the most powerful Democrats in the country — has not issued statements to the press or through his social media channels about the administration’s attack on Ilhan Omar, which critics have described as a five alarm fire for the state of democracy in the U.S.

truthout.orgChuck Schumer Hasn’t Said a Word About Trump’s Attempt to Deport Ilhan OmarEthics lawyers say the raid violated the Hatch Act. Schumer has been silent.
RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Being convicted for fraud and serving no jail time is worse than being shot in the back of the head.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Kristi Noem: "That man has given up more for this country than anybody in history, has taken more persecution, his family has suffered, yet they keep stepping up and serving and doing the right thing"

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Talk to your kids about law review before it's too late.

RI Smith@rismith.bsky.social

Now that you're a law student, I feel obligated to correct "Matter of" to "In re." so that you can never care about it again once you leave law school.

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

It's a shame that Uecker isn't here to see Milwaukee's bats come alive. Though, I imagine that he'd joke that his batting was just that bad.

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

You aren't allowed to record my...press conference?

Baltimore Banner@thebaltimorebanner.com

Republican Rep. Andy Harris incorrectly told a reporter they were breaking the law as the reporter and others recorded an exchange with him last night. Harris had just wrapped up a debate with Democratic challenger Dan Schwartz.

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Arguing that no one cares whether Israel's president ignored warnings about "the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust," was perhaps not the best framing to convince journalists that it's not newsworthy.

Oliver Darcy@oliverdarcy.bsky.social

Bari Weiss' handpicked foreign editor referred to the allegations facing Benjamin Netanyahu as a "sideshow" and told correspondent Holly Williams she was "wrong" to try to mention them in her story, per leaked audio I obtained of Tuesday's heated internal meeting. www.status.news/p/bari-weiss...

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Sorry, I shouldn't have been that accurate. I meant *them*

Molly Roberts@mollyroberts.bsky.social

KG: At time I was told to address trees bc some obvious dead/hazardous trees. JR: Passive tense. Who asked to focus on trees/not structure? KG: Didn't say exactly that. The White House -- excuse me, the Washington Office NPS. Mr. Frank Lands.

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

"Politicians should make themselves known to be completely full of shit in the elections so that the people voting for them are supportive of them reversing course when they are elected."

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

The joys of having to shop at one specific grocery store that is inconvenient to everything else once per month because it's the only place that can reliably fill my Vyvanse prescription.

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Yale Law must be proud

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Q: How do you define socialism personally? JD VANCE: I think in reality what it actually means in the American context is you want to replace American workers with foreigners workers, and you want boys to play in girls' sports

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Haggling with some small town schmuck to go and photocopy pages from a deed book in his town so I don't take the redeye to Cincinnati, rent a car, drive an hour, photocopy them myself, drive back, and get back on a plane.

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

That's not how it works. Under 2 U.S.C. § 25, first the members-elect vote for a speaker-elect, so Johnson only matters at all if Republicans hold Congress. But the statute doesn't give the speaker-elect any power to pick who to swear in, he just has to swear in all members present.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Sen. Thom Tillis says he expects there will be pressure on Mike Johnson to not seat the new Congress if Democrats win

RI Smith reposted

HELL Kennedy
@helenkennedy.com
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Trump: "I could've done very bad things to Hillary Clinton. I could've done very very bad things to Joe Biden. I could've done very bad things to Barack Hussein Obama ... I can do whatever I want, if I want."

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

SpaceX already can't find a use for a majority of its datacenter capacity other than leasing it to its competitors. But Elon went down a Khole last night and drew a picture of an arrow pointing to space, so you should give him $40 billion.

Sean O’Kane@okane.fyi

SpaceX is basically daring lenders to pony up $40 billion so it can buy Nvidia chips on what sounds like a cocktail napkin www.ft.com/content/d3f5...

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

Well, he might be a wife beater but the good news is that he's unrepentant

Kyle Clark@kylec.bsky.social

NEW: GOP Gov nominee Victor Marx told backers on a Zoom call last night that he doesn't regret slamming his wife into a door to teach her a lesson about self-defense. "I'd do it again," Marx said. Marx says she fake cried and physicality is just the nature of their relationship.

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

I love watching the NFL so that I can get equal parts people standing around waiting for the next play and republican super pac ads.

RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social
theonion.comCollege Basketball Star Heroically Overcomes Tragic Rape He CommittedColorado star Jacob Ross faced the biggest obstacle of his life when he committed a shocking and sudden rape. But he found the strength to return to his game like nothing had happened.
Awful Announcing@awfulannouncing.bsky.social

Looks like the NFL is moving past talking about Deshaun Watson's past. awfulannouncing.com/nfl/al-micha...

awfulannouncing.comAl Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit offer simplistic evaluation of Deshaun Watson's comeback in ClevelandPrime Video announcers Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit offered a simplistic evaluation of Deshaun Watson and his comeback in Cleveland.
RI Smith
@rismith.bsky.social

When you're trying to explain to your wife how exciting it is that you've successfully abstracted property records from 1780-1820 for a town that went through three counties and a clerk of court who couldn't make proper indexes.

RI Smith reposted

Brian Finucane
@bcfinucane.bsky.social

Replying to @bcfinucane.bsky.social

Is this declaration accurate? If so, why is the memo so tightly controlled? (We can guess) If the declaration is accurate, seems to complicate the ability of US military personnel to claim they were relying upon this OLC memo.