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Don Dechert

@dondechert.bsky.social

3.7K followers 12K following 7.3K posts

Lawyer, veteran. Ex-baby historian, current litigator, lapsed social scientist, still playing TTRPGs. Unabashedly pro-cat because cats are awesome. Various thoughts, some well articulated in 🇺🇲/🇩🇪. 📍Chicago, IL, Vereinigte Staaten, Terra

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Don Dechert @dondechert.bsky.social · Dec 27

I'm a lawyer with a lot of interests. I went to law school after getting my MA in social science from U Chicago, which I got after transitioning from active duty Army to the Reserves. I still play TTRPGs (and have soft spot for Battletech). And cats are awesome. Manchmal auch auf Deutsch.

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Ciara Torres-Spelliscy @profciara.bsky.social · 11m

Just toying with your career on accident. What a bunch of dolts. #hhs #firings

Lena Sun @lenasun.bsky.social · 18m

BREAKING: HHS official says in a court filing:
"As a result of data discrepancies and processing errors, RIF notices were issued on October 10, 2025, to approximately 1,760 employees instead of to the 982 employees who were intended to receive RIF notices.” 1/3

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gamera obscura @ohrobin.bsky.social · 1h

Happy Anita Bryant Humiliation Day

A four-panel image of Anita Bryant being pied in her sanctimonious face by gay rights activist Thom Higgins, 1977.

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Don Dechert @dondechert.bsky.social · 34m

Probably, but there's a tendency to take path of least resistance rather than do the right (hard) thing. It's how we saw white papers in US govt go extinct because of wanting to (and failing to) keep the Al-Awlaki white paper secret.

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Pwnallthethings @pwnallthethings.bsky.social · 43m

This is my position. Any public use of force by the state, in my view, should be announced alongside a public statement of the domestic and foreign legal authorities invoked to conduct it. Democratic states and the international community should demand and expect nothing less

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Don Dechert @dondechert.bsky.social · 40m

I foresee a lot of forced retirements if a Dem Admin takes office, because an apolitic military doing "can-do" for horrendous policies aren't going to restore lost trust. Whether it's possible is another story.

Mike Black @mikeblack114.bsky.social · 44m

And every JAG who's kept their head down while concocting excuses instead of stating this should resign their commission in shame and be disbarred; absent that they need to be on the list for housecleaning when the next Dem Admin takes office

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CJ Ciaramella @cjciaramella.bsky.social · 50m

Over at Reason we have a "puppycide" tag for cop-shoots-dog stories going back to 2012. Easiest way to get a normie 4th Amendment-pilled against the cops is to show them this stuff reason.com/tag/puppycide/

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Don Dechert @dondechert.bsky.social · 49m

Do magnetic bookmarks fall under true neutral? (A fellow student in law school used them for her textbools, and I thought it right clever.) Also used reciepts.

Ryan Turnbull @ryankturnbull.bsky.social · 9h

All of them.

Don Dechert @dondechert.bsky.social · 1h

Instances like this just serve to increase my general wariness about AI in legal services and in general.

I'm surprised we haven't had a law review Note scandal yet about a Note written via AI.

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Sam Brunson @smbrnsn.bsky.social · 1h

Freaking hell, man.

404 Media @404media.co · 7h

An attorney in a New York Supreme Court commercial case got caught using AI in his filings, and then got caught using AI again in the brief where he had to explain why he used AI, according to court documents filed earlier this month.

🔗 www.404media.co/lawyer-using...

Lawyer Caught Using AI While Explaining to Court Why He Used AI

The attorney not only submitted AI-generated fake citations in a brief for his clients, but also included “multiple new AI-hallucinated citations and quotations” in the process of opposing a motion fo...

www.404media.co

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 1h

2. A misguided soul wondering if THIS shooting will be the one to bring about sensible gun control.

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Don Dechert @dondechert.bsky.social · 1h

I've not seen if a legal annex in orders counts or covers advice of counsel as one would think in the civilian world. That's another hole in what we know, namely lawyer involvement in the go order and execution. Also, echelons below don't really do legal analysis on orders coming down.

Don Dechert @dondechert.bsky.social · 1h

UCMJ defines it differently.

Any person subject to this chapter who, without justification or excuse, unlawfully kills a human being, when such person—
(1)has a premeditated design to kill;

10 U.S. Code § 918 - Art. 118. Murder

www.law.cornell.edu

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Arin Arcady @rnrkd.bsky.social · 3h

The other reason I've heard is that ic e doesn't have independent capacity to deal with citizen arrestees and so would rely on the US Atty for that district. Here is a profile from Bloomberg of the new US Atty for the Northern District of Illinois.

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Cheryl Rofer @cherylrofer.bsky.social · 2h

If I were a journalist, I would be trying to find the names of people in the chain of command.

Amarnath Amarasingam @amaramarasingam.bsky.social · 3h

The military has now killed 27 people as if they were enemy soldiers in a war zone and not criminal suspects. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/u...

U.S. Military Kills Another 6 People in 5th Caribbean Strike, Trump Says

www.nytimes.com

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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 3h

Everyone agrees that we're currently in a dotcom era-like AI bubble. People disagree what sort of bubble it is.

There are 3 stories one can tell about the dotcom crash: a startup story, a telecom story, and an accounting fraud story.

My take: it's giving Enron
open.substack.com/pub/davekarp...

It's Giving Enron

On the AI bubble, and the various echoes of the dotcom crash

open.substack.com

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Noah Frank @noahafrank.bsky.social · 3h

Dave is spot on. For reasons that should become quickly obvious, I keep coming back to this piece I wrote almost three years ago frequently these days www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article...

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 4h

he did it again.

US strike on boat off Venezuela kills six, Trump says

A U.S. strike on a boat off the coast of Venezuela on Tuesday killed six suspected drug traffickers, President Donald Trump said in a social media post.

www.reuters.com

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Heather Cherone @heathercherone.bsky.social · 8h

Even as an appeals court allowed a federal judge to temporarily block the Trump administration from sending 500 National Guard troops into Chicago, teams of masked immigration enforcement agents staged a series of increasingly aggressive raids across the city’s North Side. @wttw.bsky.social

While National Guard Deployment Remains Blocked, ICE Strike Teams Escalate North Side Raids

An appeals court allowed U.S. District Court Judge April Perry’s ruling blocking the deployment of National Guard troops in Illinois to stand, while halting her order stopping President Donald Trump f...

news.wttw.com

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Dan Walters @profdanwalters.bsky.social · 5h

I know some will say this is just the reality of the world. Nothing matters anymore. Law is for suckers, etc. But this is nuts--it's DOGE getting an academic whitewash.

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Dan Walters @profdanwalters.bsky.social · 5h

I've just been alerted to a "symposium" that is going on over at the Yale J on Reg Notice & Comment blog that seems designed to lend an air of legitimacy to some very extreme ideas about how admin law doesn't apply to deregulation. Surprised they're running this.

www.yalejreg.com/nc/foreword-...

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Don Dechert @dondechert.bsky.social · 5h

Wow. A lot of the iconic movie posters that I think of. Wow.

Culture Crave 🍿 @culturecrave.co · 6h

Drew Struzan has passed away at the age of 78

He created many iconic movie posters

The Thing poster and Back to the Future poster

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Maine's Black Lawyer @lutherevers.bsky.social · 6h

"Trans people have no constitutional right to medical care, but parents have the right to force a public school disclose if their kid might be trans" is such an amazing position.

J. D. @jdetc.bsky.social · 6h

Justice Thomas has been the leading voice against substantive due process for decades. So I am just shocked - shocked! - to find him joining a statement where parents have fundamental rights over their kids' identity in disregard of various customs, traditions, and history.

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 9h

NEW: The Supreme Court will not hear a case over a Colorado school district’s alleged actions discouraging disclosure of students’ gender identity to the students’ parents.

The case was a bad vehicle for considering the issue, even Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch note.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 8h

wow. bezos has destroyed this paper.

karl rove knausgård @uhactually.bsky.social · 1d

Lmao WaPo has fewer than 100K circulation now. It turns out “alienate your liberal subscriber base” is not a good strategy when the Republicans also hate you. www.forbes.com/sites/andyme...

The Washington Post Is Running Out Of Readers Willing To Pay

Once a titan of American journalism, The Washington Post now struggles to reach even 100,000 print subscribers most days.

www.forbes.com

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Maladroithe @maladroithe.bsky.social · 5h

When you’ve pissed off WeRateDogs so much they’re calling you “fucking losers” on Main you have absolutely lost all merit in the court of public opinion

weratedogs v
1/5
BORDER PATROC
ICE AGENTS KILL DOG
DURING UNLAWFUL SEARCH, REFUSE TO RENDER AID, AND LEAVE WITHOUT IDENTIFYING THEMSELVES

weratedogs This is Chop. He was shot and killed by masked assailants in plain clothes who go by ICE.
Unsurprisingly, they did not care enough to help the family as they tried to save him. Even more unsurprising, they did not find any evidence of the migrants they were there to terrorize in the first place.
Do not open your door for these fucking losers. Rest easy Chop
14/10
CBP Office of Professional Responsibility:
202-344-1808
JointIntake@cbp.dhs.gov
El Paso Border Patrol Sector:
915-834-8400
fpfelpaso@cbp.dhs.gov
Rep. Veronica Escobar (El Paso):
915-541-1400
veronica.escobar@mail.house.gov

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 6h

Here is an enduring challenge in my field, foreign policy. For decades, there was a broad and bipartisan consensus of US foreign policy abroad, within which presidents would vary. Things like "treaties will be honored" and "basing commitments will last as agreed to by our predecessor", predictable.

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 1d

“Win every election” is not a viable strategy for preventing authoritarianism

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