𝐉𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐫

Lawyer and amateur musician from Sonoma County, California. Will share cute pictures of his cats on the slightest provocation.

Lawstodon: 𝐉𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐫 (npub1u8p…njj8)">https://www.lawstodon.org/people/𝐉𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐫 (npub1u8p…njj8)

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Last Notes

2026-05-29 01:29:16 UTC

A Streetcar Named DiBella's
#FastFoodMoviesOrPlays
#HashTagGames

2026-05-23 20:41:53 UTC

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He's gorgeous!

2026-05-12 16:53:28 UTC

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I suspect you mean "loss of income." 😊

2026-04-01 16:11:37 UTC

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My Con Law prof said - or rather, through expert Socratic questioning, got one of my classmates to say - that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was specifically intended to exclude members of Native American tribes that were, at least in theory, independent sovereignties. It's hard to believe that there's enough controversy on this point to even justify a cert grant, but apparently at least four Supremes did believe it, so here we are. I don't think the government is going to prevail here, but I also don't think it's going to be unanimous.

2026-03-17 14:12:22 UTC

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I think you might have meant 1846.

2026-03-16 00:28:27 UTC

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I think Ethan Hawke has a shot for Best Actor. He was really good.

2026-01-19 15:14:35 UTC

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Not the main issue here, but he's saying that now, not having won the Nobel prize, he can "think about what is good and proper for the USA." That compels the conclusion that before the prize was awarded, he was prioritizing winning it over the best interests of his country; that is, that he did things that were NOT good and proper for the USA for the purpose of influencing the Nobel committee. If he had acted contrary to the interests of his country in exchange for a personal reward, that would be bribery, which is certainly an impeachable offense; is it any less impeachable if he did it in hopes of receiving a reward that he ended up not receiving?

2026-01-17 01:49:44 UTC

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Agreed about the guts. The judge has to have been aware of the strong likelihood that his home address and the address of his kids' school would hit right-wing social media about five minutes after he issued the ruling. But, at the risk of being That Guy who won't take a win, it's difficult to summon up a lot of enthusiasm for all the good stuff that happens at the trial court level when there are such overwhelming odds of it being ignored by the administration, overturned by the Supremes, or both.

2025-12-20 07:41:07 UTC

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Nobody seems to have picked up on the point that the phrase "patriot game," singular, originally referred to the activities of the Irish Republican Army. It's from a song, "The Patriot Game," by Dominic Behan, the younger brother of the playwright Brendan Behan, which describes those activities with immense approval. The song has been covered by a million people, including Judy Collins, although she left out the verse about killing cops. Here's Luke Kelly, who was less delicate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4FsUXouWzA
Maybe not the message Trump is going for, though in fairness nobody except #folkmusic geeks is going to notice.

2025-12-14 04:30:55 UTC

It's still #caturday where I am, so here's a throwback pic to the day I adopted Misha and Henry. They now both weigh in at around 17 pounds, but they're still just as adorable as they were when the nice foster lady took this picture of us.
#catsofmastodon
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/115/716/034/592/231/004/original/a3f560154556153e.jpg

2025-10-05 14:08:26 UTC

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There are, in fact, three faults located on the UC Santa Cruz campus called Your Fault, My Fault, and McHenry's Fault. They were discovered by UCSC Earth Sciences students, who therefore got to name them. McHenry was the chancellor of the UCSC campus at the time.

2025-09-20 16:25:23 UTC

Molly in her nest by the window.
#caturday #CatsOfMastodon
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/115/237/550/045/490/982/original/d016cc00f7a1ddea.jpg

2025-09-19 18:55:30 UTC

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My representative, Jared Huffman (supposedly-D-CA) voted in favor of the resolution. He put up a whiny little notice on his web site saying, in essence, that he just HAD to vote for it because the bad Republicans had put him in a no-win situation where if he didn't, they'd accuse him of being in favor of political violence. He has apparently been living under a rock for the last two weeks, because it's glaringly obvious to anyone with an IQ bigger than their shoe size that the Republicans are going to keep right on accusing every single person on "the left" of being in favor of political violence for the foreseeable future no matter how they vote. I'm just appalled. Huffman has been pretty good in the past, so I thought maybe he'd be one of the courageous ones. No such luck.

2025-09-16 17:35:43 UTC

No, #NYT, the charges against Robinson will not "shed more light on motive." They will shed precisely zero photons worth of light on anything other than what the Utah state government and the DOJ want everybody to think the motive was. If the charging document reads "Defendant shot and killed Victim because Defendant was a transgender member of Antifa who had been radicalized by listening to Kamala Harris speeches," that will not mean that any of that is true, it will only mean that that's the government's story. But thanks, NYT, for assuring your massive readership that they can reliably infer the shooter's motives from what the government chooses to write down on a paper they're filing in a court. A lot of people will probably believe it.
#Law #CharlieKirk #TylerRobinson

2025-09-14 15:57:46 UTC

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The Supreme Court case affirming Debs's conviction came out a week after the one affirming the conviction of Charles Schenck, the head of the Philadelphia Socialist Party. The Schenck case is the source of the "falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater" line, Justice Holmes's point being that what Schenck had done was no different from that. What Shenck had done was mail out some flyers to guys who were about to be drafted into World War I, containing such inflammatory statements as "If you do not assert and support your rights, you are helping to deny or disparage rights which it is the solemn duty of all citizens and residents of the United States to retain," and suggesting that the draft was involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.

2025-08-18 23:05:40 UTC

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Here, for example, is Paula Deen's peach cobbler recipe. (Which begins "melt an entire stick of butter in a baking dish." Paula Deen's recipes, while delicious, are emphatically not health food.)
https://www.pauladeen.com/recipe/southern-peach-cobbler-recipe/
The recipe very clearly calls for "1 ½ cups self rising flour." And here, in its entirety, is the third comment:
"I never saw the 'self rising' flour. Thought about adding baking powder, but forgot, since it isn’t in the recipe, and ended up with a sheet of rubber with fruit. What a waste. I am very upset because your directions are crap. Then in the video you added baking powder? Someone else said. What a great disappointment. Rating? -*"
So, her directions are crap because you didn't read them right? Sheesh. But yeah, there's one of these on like every online recipe that has a comment section. Makes me nuts.

2025-08-06 22:34:46 UTC

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Every time I read one of those stories about parents trying to rid libraries of pornographic trash like "And Tango Makes Three," the word "BALLLL - ZAC" goes through my mind. Someone should sell band instruments to the Moms for Liberty.
(Does everybody know the secret trivia item about "Seventy-Six Trombones" and "Good Night, My Someone"? It took me years to notice it.)

2025-07-27 01:05:58 UTC

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A friend of mine, now sadly deceased, used to work as a ranger at Alcatraz, which involved leading tours. He was a big favorite with the tourists, many of whom requested him on return visits. It took the Park Service a while to figure out that this was because he told more interesting stories than the other rangers because he just made stuff up. So they fired him, which was too bad, but I suppose there's something to be said for accuracy.

2025-07-01 20:05:19 UTC

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Can you come up with a scenario where a court order that says "hey, government, you are prohibited from doing the thing *to the plaintiff* that the plaintiff doesn't want you to do" would afford only incomplete relief to the plaintiff? Nothing occurs to me, but this may be a failure of my imagination.

2025-06-15 16:41:53 UTC

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Someplace to store it?

2025-06-15 15:52:30 UTC

I was initially flabbergasted that the band at Trump's parade played "Fortunate Son." That could, of course, have been a screwup by someone who either didn't listen to the lyrics or did but ignored all of them other than "hail to the chief." But I choose to believe that the band's setlist was put together by someone in the actual military who knew perfectly well what the song is about, and included it as a not-so-subtle dig at the whole bone spurs thing.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vqtakzi5bityrtbjj4cfan4l/post/3lrm4ekho5k2b?ref_src=embed&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.democraticunderground.com%252F100220398768
#NoKings #Trump #parade #fortunateson

2025-05-05 05:26:01 UTC

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Does Heinlein's "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag" count as a myth? It's modern-ish, published in 1942, but it's about the creation of the universe, which feels kind of mythical. It definitely involves mirrors.
https://epdf.pub/6xh-six-stories-aka-the-unpleasant-profession-of-jonathan-hoag.html

2025-04-19 16:54:05 UTC

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Sorry, that came out wrong. The "you" I was addressing was Trump. Mastodon puts your ID in front of what I typed, which confuses that point. I'll watch that in the future.

2025-04-19 16:41:29 UTC

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So, you're saying that proving in court beyond a reasonable doubt that the guy is an evil sinister gang member would be a total slam dunk. Do I have that right?
Because in that case, why not, you know, DO that?

2025-04-17 02:31:46 UTC

Lord of the Fries
#JunkFoodMovies
#HashTagGames

2025-04-15 22:49:07 UTC

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I did, and ok, I hadn't seen the transcript. Now she just has to write it on a piece of paper, preceded by "Order to Show Cause re." Soon would be nice.

2025-04-15 22:41:04 UTC

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Well, the question of what, exactly, it would take to get Judge Xinis to utter the C word remains unanswered. The judge I worked for all last year was the nicest and mildest-mannered guy I've ever met, and he would have had someone escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs about two jerk-arounds back if this had been before him.

2025-04-12 01:28:21 UTC

Lawrence Ferlinspaghetti
#PoetFoodAndDrinks
#HashTagGames

2025-03-17 17:05:34 UTC

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However, a single judge in a single city can direct that a commonly-used pharmaceutical product that's been approved by the FDA cannot be sold anywhere in the country, and that's just fine with the likes of Ms. Leavitt.

2025-03-05 19:20:40 UTC

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I passed through there once on my way to a camp on the shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene. My big hint about the local politics was that there was an "Ammon Bundy for Governor" sign in pretty much every yard. Say what you want about the politics, though, Lake Cd'A is one stunningly gorgeous piece of scenery.

2025-03-05 15:57:50 UTC

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Any bets on which city will be the first to name a park Black Lives Don't Matter Plaza? I'll go with Coeur d'Alene.

2025-03-01 15:12:26 UTC

Just a glamor shot of Misha. I got really lucky with the lighting on this one.
#caturday #catsofmastodon
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/114/087/813/370/598/103/original/ed635251219342fc.jpg

2025-02-20 07:08:22 UTC

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That's a characteristic Belgian Malinois thing, apparently. Trouble is, the not-letting-go behavior sometimes extends to when they're ordered to let go. My county recently paid out a $3 million or so settlement to a guy whose leg was pretty much destroyed after sheriff's deputies deployed a dog -- after, I should add, the guy was already proned out on the ground -- and the dog wouldn't release even when his handler gave the command like six times, and even after he activated the shock collar. They're just extremely bitey when they get excited.

2025-02-11 02:03:29 UTC

Found a Pinochle
#CardGameASongOrPoem
#HashTagGames

2025-02-07 19:09:50 UTC

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Not without standing. You have to have suffered an actual injury, what the Constitution calls a "case or controversy"; you can't just sue because there's a law you don't like, which I think may be what you're asking. This comes up a lot; this is why, for example, the lawsuit by the doctors who were unhappy about the existence of mifepristone got thrown out. Mr. Wynn has standing because he sued the Associated Press and his lawsuit actually got dismissed on the basis that he couldn't meet the actual-malice element announced by Sullivan. He didn't just decide he doesn't like Sullivan, though that's almost certainly the reason he filed the initial lawsuit in the first place. But at this point he's suffered a cognizable injury.

2025-02-07 16:53:43 UTC

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This is even bigger than an attempt to reverse Sullivan: they're also asking the Supremes to apply the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial in civil cases to state courts. Without getting into a big Con Law thing, that's one of the very few Bill of Rights rights that has not been "incorporated," i.e. held to apply to states by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. That's super geeky and technical, but IMHO if the court were to do that it would be an even bigger deal than reversing Sullivan.
Full petition is linked below, if anyone's interested. It's not completely nuts; Mr. Wynn seems to have decent lawyers. The central issue is whether it's reasonable to require a plaintiff to prove actual malice at the anti-SLAPP stage of litigation, which happens very early in the process before much, or any, discovery has been conducted. It only takes four votes to grant review. Thomas and Alito for sure, and this might be interesting enough to get Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on board.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ji0h6ww48w1yj7ingk39t/Wynn-cert-petn.pdf?rlkey=forziz9zp2myuin3t2l69ikg0&dl=0

2025-02-04 17:08:37 UTC

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"Cannot" in the sense of "if he does, about two years from now some judge will say that it was against the law, and about a year after that an appellate panel might or might not agree, and another year later three Supreme Court justices will also agree and the other six might too but probably not, and meanwhile there will be no Department of Education." Somehow, this fails to comfort me.

2025-01-27 23:27:59 UTC

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I have to wonder if DOJ will be investigating the deputy.

2025-01-25 06:04:40 UTC

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Try this web site:
https://www.justtherecipe.com/
There's a Chrome extension that does the same thing, but this will work with any browser.

2024-11-28 19:03:17 UTC

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I can't believe he's actually going to impose the tariffs. There must be dozens of CEOs of major corporations pleading with him not to, and he listens to people like that. My guess is that at some point he'll just declare that Sheinbaum has said "Oh, sir, please don't do tariffs, have mercy, we'll do whatever you say," and from now on there won't be any more migrants or fentanyl and it's all because he's such a super-fantabulous negotiator. Nothing will change, of course, but since the migrant invasion and the connection between migrants and fentanyl were total fiction in the first place, why not just compose some more total fiction about why they stopped?

2024-11-04 15:12:09 UTC

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My wife is an election elf, a.k.a. poll worker. I'll be baking a lovely barmbrack, a.k.a. Irish-style fruitcake, for her and her fellow elves tomorrow. They'll be on their own for cocktails, though.

2024-10-17 01:20:44 UTC

Another One Bites the Catnip Mousie
#Mashup80sSongsAndCats
#HashtagGames

2024-10-15 04:59:17 UTC

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They were pro-craftsman, but not so very pro-craftswoman. The Luddites were hand-loom weavers who were being driven out of business by mechanized weaving. But mechanized SPINNING, turning fleece into yarn, was much easier, and had been around for decades before the clever engineering types figured out how to do weaving. Spinning was also a cottage industry, but one composed mostly of women; we still have the word "spinster," which originally meant a woman who could support herself by spinning even if she wasn't married. The mostly male hand-loom weavers thought mechanized spinning was great, because it meant cheaper raw material for them and it didn't put anyone important out of work, just women. But then when they automated weaving, oooh, evil evil evil machines, smash them all with big hammers.
Or so my English history prof told us back in my college days.

2024-10-05 16:19:34 UTC

Trail cam shot of a cute little black and white kitty demonstrating why we have a chip-sensitive cat door.
#caturday #catsofmastodon #notmycat
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/113/255/715/618/965/004/original/8a6437bd7af3fb81.jpg

2024-10-04 23:53:42 UTC

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Cool, thanks! That's quite different. I have learned something new and interesting today!

2024-10-04 23:48:36 UTC

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Sorry, I probably didn't say that well. The reason that the government can't appeal criminal acquittals in the U.S. is because doing so would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. (Green v. U.S. (1957) 355 U.S. 184, 188 is the usual citation for that, but a million courts have said so.) It's not that the appeal as such would be double jeopardy, it's that the Double Jeopardy Clause would prohibit the government from re-trying the defendant. Hence my slight surprise that it's different in Canada.

2024-10-04 23:40:24 UTC

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CAN the Crown appeal a not-guilty verdict? They can't here -- I mean, the government can't. Fifth Amendment, double jeopardy. Different in Canada?

2024-08-31 00:33:12 UTC

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He's lovely! That's how we got our beloved Molly: the former tenants of a house where some of our friends were living had moved away and abandoned her. Molly attached herself to my wife and did the "I am your cat now" thing so emphatically and repeatedly that we eventually went for it.

2024-08-27 23:09:15 UTC

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How about Thomas Moore, the guy that wrote "The Minstrel Boy" and "The Last Rose of Summer" and "The Harp That Once Through Tara's Hall"? He predated Claribel by a bit; very early 19th century. I don't know if he got paid royalties, but, no pun intended, his songs and poems did introduce him to literal royalty; he was apparently buddies with George IV back when he was Prince Regent.

2024-08-08 19:00:00 UTC

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Actually, I disagree. I did watch it before starting law school, and it scared the crap out of me, but while it might have been a somewhat accurate portrayal of Harvard in the 60s, it was utterly unrelated to Hastings in the 90s. In my experience, every professor was scrupulously polite to the students, and utterly devoted to being an educator. My contracts prof was one of the nicest guys I've ever known. I can think of precisely one incident where a prof humiliated a student, and frankly the student had brought it on himself: we were supposed to leave a voicemail on the prof's office phone if we weren't prepared on a case, and the guy hadn't done that, and got called on, and the prof wasn't happy and let him know it. But other than that, I can honestly report that based on my experience, "The Paper Chase" is purely fiction. Agreed about it being entertaining, though.

2024-08-08 18:46:57 UTC

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Harris went to the same law school I did, Hastings. She was a firebrand activist type during her law school years -- significantly, the president of the Black Law Students' Association, a point TFG might have overlooked. And she had an internship with the Alameda County DA's office, where she ended up getting her first job, starting in the summer after her first year. All these extracurricular activities do tend to cut into one's bar exam prep time. Plenty of law students, especially ones that aren't study nerds (like I was), need to experience the bar exam once before they understand what they're up against well enough to pass it. No dishonor in that whatsoever. Jerry Brown also took it twice. So did Benjamin Cardozo, of whom a lot of people have heard only because there's a law school named after him, but he was a super-famous judge and wrote quite a few opinions that remain standard law-school fare to this day, including every law student's bête noir Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad.