Andrew Raff

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

While there are many reasons to be disappointed in elected Democrats right now amidst the overwhelming amount problems in our current situation here in the US, one of the most disappointing and aggravating is how easily too many of them are willing to abandon support for transgender people.

What does it cost anyone to acknowledge the rights of transgendered people to simply exist as they are? Do you recognize calling someone by their preferred nickname? Can you remember to do that? It should be no harder to avoid deadnaming a transgender person! Does it matter to you how someone dresses?

Caring about restricting and infringing the rights of transgendered people takes far more work than just not thinking about it. If, for whatever reason, you have a problem with transgendered people in general, find better things to do! Not caring about how other people live their lives is incredibly easy. You can take that time to do something useful for yourself, your family, or your community.

Are we really that concerned that mediocre male athletes are going to rework their entire lives to compete against women? While yes, at equivalent levels of competition, elite male athletes are usually going to beat elite female athletes. But how many men really are going to upend their entire life to compete for glory in women’s sports? Across nearly all sports, women’s sports still lags far behind men’s sports in attention, money and support, even where quality of play is just as good – if not better – on the women’s side.

On this Trans Day of Visibility, let’s acknowledge that all people have a right to exist and a right to dignity. Let’s abandon politicians who are not willing to stand up for the rights of transgender people. It really should be the easiest thing to just say, “I support your rights to exist and equal protection under the law.”

Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH and West Publishing Corp. v. Ross Intelligence, Inc.

Ross sought to license a database of legal materials from Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw database, in order to to build a legal search AI. Westlaw does not merely store the public domain case law, but also writes its own Westlaw headnotes, which summarize and analysis points of law.

Thomson Reuters refused to license data to a competition. Rose contracted with a third party, LegalEase, to get training data using “Bulk Memos”.

The court found that Westlaw headnotes are sufficiently creative to each have a valid copyright as an individual work. The court granted summary judgment on the copying of 2243 headnotes, where “actual copying is so obvious that no reasonable jury could find otherwise.” In each of these instances, the court found that the Bulk Memos merely reproduced Westlaw headnotes with minimal changes.

The court rejects all of Ross’s defenses to infringement, including innocent infringement, copyright misuse, the merger defense, and the scenes á faire defense.

In the fair use analysis, the court finds that Ross’s use is commercial and not transformative. Ross uses the copies for the same purpose as Westlaw, to index and search relevant case law. Factor two goes to Ross, because the headnotes have sufficient creative for copyright, but the material is not that creative. The amount and substantiality of the work used also favors Ross, since Ross’s output to an end user does not include West headnotes.

The fourth factor leans in favor of Thomson Reuters. Even with the best interpretation of facts, all Ross is doing is creating a direct competitor to Westlaw. “There is nothing that Thomson Reuters created that Ross could not have created for itself or hired LegalEase to create for it without infringing Thomson Reuters’s copyrights.”

The court grants partial summary judgment to Thomson Reuters on 2,243 of the Headnotes at issue in the case.

Between Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday and all of the other insane rampant consumerism as we wrap up the year, let’s use the Sunday to support independent media.

Here are some of the projects that I subscribe to. I am definitely forgetting some that I do and there are many worthwhile outlets to that I don’t at this time.

*404 Media covers the intersection of technology, culture and the world, with sharp analysis and diligent investigation from journalists formerly at Motherboard. This is the sort of independent journalism that is able to speak truth to power.

*Accidental Tech Podcast are my kind of nerds. While I don’t always care enough about the arcane details of Mac nerdery that Marco, Casey, and John talk about each week, they do find interesting details and usually share their process of learning in thoughtful ways.

*Defector, like Deadspin before it, is a sports blog that’s about more than just sports, and not just because of the high quality of the writing. It covers sports and culture and politics.

*Escape Collective is about cycling, both as a sport, as an industry, and a lifestyle. Not only is EC a great website, but they do great podcasting (particularly their on-the-ground daily coverage from the Tour de France (both the TdF Hommes sans Zwift and the TdF Femmes avec Zwift) and host a lovely community.

*Extra Hot Great continues to be a great podcast about TV, from the creators of Television without Pity. Somehow, the heyday of TWoP was about 20 years ago???

*kottke.org is still the paradigmatic link blog and somehow continues to be fascinating and new consistently.

*Law Dork, Chris Geidner is a great writer and astute analyst of the courts and justice.

*Mountain Gazette is a singularly large magazine. Literally. Mike Rogge created this iteration of Mountain Gazette as a large format print publication, and it takes advantage of it with spectacular photography, as well as long-form snow and mountain culture writing.

*The Onion has been essential for years. If it did nothing else beyond reminding us that the American approach to gun violence is “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens,” dayenu. But, revitalized under new independent ownership, they’ve gone and bought the assets of Infowars. I’m happy to contribute to support this work and see what they do.

*Platformer covers the online social platforms and their relationships with the world. It’s essential for understanding how our culture, news, and politics are filtered through the choices and lenses of the various platforms and gatekeepers.

*Search Engine picks up some of the legacy of the Reply All podcast and is thoughtful and interesting without ever telegraphing where it is going.

*The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast from the newly independent Stuart Winchester is the most thorough coverage of the world of ski resorts. The in-depth interviews with ski resort managers give the same attention to detail and thoroughness to the largest resorts and the smallest indepedent mom-and-pop hills.

There are certainly more great independent news media worth your support (and I suspect even some that have earned my support that I’ve forgotten).

Over the last week, I can’t look at the news without thinking about kakistocracy

The Trump transition 2.0 is a very different clown car than the first Trump transition. In 2016, it seemed like Trump never understood the scale and scope of the Federal executive. For him, nothing could require more personnel or skill than running a New York real estate business. In 2024, a universe of MAGA loyalists, opportunists, and true believers are ready.

As with all things Trump, they just keep throwing things out to see what sticks. I think it’s crucial to remember that none of this is a single multi-step plan (do A to then do B to do C to then do D). Rather, they will try all of the things as much and as loudly as possible, see what sticks, and then move on to the next thing.

The “throw all the shit at the wall” tactic works through obstructions and fatigue as much as careful planning. Trump successfully avoided trial in three of the four criminally cases against him by lucking into a compliant ally in Judge Cannon in the federal documents case, which slowed the process down enough to get Trump to the election.

This throw everything at the wall and see what sticks approach is how Trump is trying to fill his cabinet: reward the true believers who stick with him (Elise Stefanik), the friends from TV who will loyally help purge the disloyal (Pete Hegseth), and the heavily compromised whose loyalty can be secured (Matt Gaetz).

Even where the appointments are within the realm of typical Republican quality, like Marco Rubio for State, there are potential Trump loyalty issues underlying them. Elevating Rubio to Secretary of State would clear a seat in the US Senate for an appointment by FL governor Ron DeSantis until a special election in 2026. It appears that the Trumpworld is pushing Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump to fill that seat. While Rubio is not the most independent-minded maverick in the Senate, he’s not going to be as loyal as family.

The two most dangerous appointments announced so far appear to be Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr for Secretary of Health and Human Services and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. Gaetz has experience in the Justice Department only as the subject of an investigation. His appointment seems to be the least palatable to Senate Republicans and unlikely to succeed. But leading with this lead-weighted trial balloon may clear the path for smooth appointments for the even more loyal Todd Blanche as Deputy AG and John Sauer as Solicitor General.

RFK Jr. for Secretary of HHS is likely the compensation for the support as a third-party candidate/endorser. For all of the issues with Big Pharma having influence over policy, I can’t imagine that drastic cuts to basic research funding will satisfy industry. I would be surprised if this goes through.

But having key lightning rods who are clearly unsuitable for the roles to which they’ve been nominated might help clear paths to appointments for the even more dangerous. Former Representative Tulsi Gabbard seems to have bonded with Trump as fellow Russophiles.

Aside from nominating flawed candidates, the appointment process is also testing other theories of ensuring loyalty to Trump rather than the United States. First, eschewing FBI vetting.

Most dangerously, the Trump team is floating the idea of making all of the cabinet appointments as recess appointments, so that the Senate does not get to use its oversight power before appointing cabinet members. If the Senate does not simply acquiesce, the Trump team has floated the idea of using the never-invoked Article II, Section 3 authority to settle disagreements between the House and Senate about when to adjourn to force the Senate into adjournment and make recess appointments. A compliant Speaker of the House could be a willing ally in this plan. Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare: Will the Senate even get to vote on Trump’s bizarre national security nominees?

It’s not one thing, or another. It’s all the things, all the time to try to wear us all down and get as much authoritarianism and grift as the system will allow.

Whether Jimmy Carter’s malaise, HW Bush’s recession, and the pandemic chaos in 2020, the one-term presidencies in my lifetime are all defined by economic downturn or the perception of economic downturn. 2024 appears to be no different. And this is not just an American phenomenon, but globally, incumbent parties were resoundingly rejected by voters unhappy with the status quo, both on the left (like the Democrats in the US) and the right (e.g. the Tories in the UK).

Every governing party facinig election in a developed country this year lost vote share:

Here in the US, aside from noticeable inflation, a number of pandemic-era anti-poverty measures were simply allowed to expire.

As a result, US child poverty nearly tripled between 2021 and 2023.

I suppose that it makes sense economic opportunity is something that binds Americans together. That’s why most of us are here, isn’t it? Our United States traces our organizing principles down to a bunch of colonizers who realized that they could just settle here and take advantage of the natural bounty. That grew and expanded. The market for cheap labor started by enslaving people, but even before it was abolished, the dream of prosperity started bringing waves of immigrants into the country seeking a better life with more economic opportunity. Yes, many Americans immigrated here because of the democracy and freedom to escape repressive regimes and be able to speak, practice religion, and associate freely, but generally when we say that they came for a better life, we talk about the economic opportunity. Immigration was the engine that fed cheap labor into the system and allowed generations of immigrants come to America and build better lives for themselves and their children.

In this 2024 election, the more informed a voter was, the more likely they were to vote for Harris. Reuters/Ipsos found a correlation between believing in misinformation and voting for Trump:

Engagement with information is also tied to engagement with campaign activities. This is why the energy, enthusiasm and attendance gap at the candidates' rallies was so stark. More Harris supporters were highly engaged. Trump won the low-engagement voters by a huge margin. They’re not going to hear him speak for 3-hours. But these are the voters who are impacted by the economy and are voting for change. Even though they lived through the first Trump presidency, they still voted for “change” without scrutiny to the basic concepts of candidates' economic plans.

Informed voters are motivated by concerns like democracy and protecting people’s rights to bodily autonomy. Low-information voters are motivated primarily by their pocketbooks. Low-information voters come out for presidential elections but not midterms. So the anti-Dobbs wave that I expected to combine with anti-insurrectionist indignity to drive this election with righteous fury never existed. This is a small fire burning fiercely, but not an uncontainable wildfire. Ezra Klein: The Democratic Blind Spot That Wrecked 2024

In the swing states where the Harris campaign spent the most resources on getting its message out to voters, they performed better than in safe states where they invested fewer resources.

Everyone wants things to be better. We may have honest disagreements on what we mean by better, but if you look at the policy proposals on their own, the more popular policies are not the ones offered by the more popular candidate.

Unfortunately, becoming a well-informed voter was far more difficult than it should have been in 2024. This is all Craig’s fault. Before widespread internet use, the local news business relied on classified listings and advertising to fund journalism. Craigslist and other online job listing and marketplace platforms were all simply better and far more useful than classified ads in newspapers. The media has survived through community-supported efforts, consolidation into larger conglomerates, or patronage from billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Marc Benioff. But, at the same time, conservative activists continue to fund a vibrant and active idealogical echo chamber. Nothing with comparable scale or purity exists on the left. Conservative media continues to cast the mainstream moderate news media like the New York Times, NPR, and the Washington Post as the left-wing media.

Algorithmic social media is also imbalanced. The social network formerly known as Twitter amplifies right-wing messages and misinformation. Meta’s platforms default to minimizing political content and amplifying content that is easier to sell advertising against. Who, except from Bytedance and the CCP, knows what TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes?

The billionaires who funded the Trump campaign got great value. They will not have to contend with a potential wealth tax. Rather, they will get rewarded for their patronage and continue to fund the foundations that support the conservative thinktank and media environment.

One of Trump’s unique political skills is his ability to read an audience and give them what they want, regardless of whether he directly contradicts himself or promises the clearly impossible. However, while Trump offers many contradictory statements, after living through one Trump presidency, I think it is clear what his top priorities will be: rewarding his loyal supporters, punishing his enemies, deporting as many people as possible, and making sure that he gets a cut of the profit, all of the glory, and deflecting blame onto anyone else. The conservative donors and backers will get their tax cuts, they will get their government contracts, and they will get their conservative judges.

Tariffs are not a sound economic policy. But they are an ideal policy in a transactional presidency. Exemptions from tariffs could be used to incentivize friendly behaviors. Tariff policy can be used to punish non-compliant businesses that rely on imports. Of course, none of this is regard to the actual economic impact, which will devastate small businesses across the country.

The transactional presidency will likely apply to all aspects of the executive branch. Trump-friendly states could get disaster relief quickly. Unfriendly states could be left to suffer.

After hollowing-out the administrative state, and appointing hundreds more anti-regulatory Federalist Society judges to the federal courts, abandoning support for other democracies as a core value of international relations*, and four more years of greed writ large on the national psyche, this will never be the diverse, entrepreneurial, and free country that it could be. Where we attract talent from all over the world to make a good life for everyone in this country.

Any failure to make intelligent choices about policy will create disastrous long-term effects. In particular, not addressing climate change will cause more people to suffer from natural disasters. Without intelligent and empowered regulators, an administration willing to provide opportunity to seek profit by working with AI accelerationists seems like the mostly way that AI could lead to problems. However far away true AGI may be, we are much closer to automated decision-making that could have devastating effects if used without thoughtful intent, oversight or understanding. Further eroding the public health system will only hasten the next pandemic and ensure that it is even more destructive than Covid-19.

Defunding education is likely to mean that lower tax states will struggle to fund public schools. Public education was crucial to building the strong middle class of the 20th century. As a result, it’s plausible to see a scenario where high school education is made optional and more teenagers are sent out into the workforce to take the low-wage work that were vacated as a result of Trump’s mass deportations. That’s also good for ensuring a continuing supply of Republican voters in the future.

Trump supporters see a need to Make America Great Again because everyone who is not a billionaire is being left behind by society in some way. But the Trump plans will not help more Americans get ahead. Instead, these plans try to address this pain by inflicting it on others. Instead of feeling better through success, feel better only by knowing that someone else is feeling worse. As people, we should all try to do things to make each other’s lives better that way we all win. Instead of healing the world, they are merely passing pain down the chain to the more vulnerable. Immigrants and transgender people are the most obvious targets for these actions. Local law enforcement will likely feel empowered and encouraged to act with more violence and cruelty, even if such actions contravene the official state and local policy. The most vulnerable among are the easiest targets and will suffer the most.

This is the future that we have chose. May the odds be ever in your favor.

Some other good analysis: emptywheel: Two Elections: “The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check”

Daniel Drezner: My One Post-Mortem About the 2024 Election