andrew

andrew, 1 year ago to random

It's telling that this was nowhere near front page news.

"Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a measure that would have allowed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to be added to the Constitution.

Senators voted 51 to 47 to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed, falling short of the 60 votes needed.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) were the lone Republicans to vote with every Democrat. “

#lawfedi

Senate GOP Blocks Equal Rights Amendment | https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3975654-senate-gop-blocks-equal-rights-amendment/

andrew, 1 year ago to random

“In the worst case scenario, an electric car with a battery produced in China and driven in Poland still emits 37% less CO2 than petrol.”

How much CO2 can electric cars really save? https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/how-clean-are-electric-cars/

andrew, 6 months ago to legal

Semi regular reminder to #lawfedi #lawyer and #attorney or other #legal adjacent professionals or academics: we are over here at https://esq.social running a #Mastodon instance for you.

Our Local Timeline is hopping. Come join us!

@law

andrew, 12 days ago to random

IRS Direct File is a major win for the #Biden administration that doesn’t get a lot of attention.

Giving taxpayers an option to remove themselves from the marketplace of scammy for-profit preparation services is a major victory for all parties.

Other than the scammy for-profit preparation services, I guess.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewleahey/2024/05/30/irs-direct-file-expands-to-all-50-states-for-2025/?sh=35669f5b825f

andrew, 8 months ago to Law

Hey #lawfedi folks, haven't sent out the bat-stodon signal in a bit. We're over here at esq.social, an instance open to any #law or #legal-adjacent professionals, or those that maintain an interest.

If you're on a general-interest instance and have any designs on moving to a Local Timeline that speaks your language, give us a look. We'd be excited to have you.

Any questions or help required, shoot me a message. We have about 500 users, ~120 of which are regularly active.

@law

andrew, 5 months ago to Law

Hey #lawfedi friends, every day a new person in #law or #legal adjacent fields joints the #fediverse and isn't aware of Lawstodon - the legal community directory for #Mastodon (and eventually the fediverse more broadly).

Feel free to add yourself, claim your profile, etc. I have been using it when I send recommendations for folks looking for practitioners in specific practice areas and it works a treat!

@law

https://www.lawstodon.org

andrew, 4 months ago to law

In this week's column, I argue for the general application of executive compensation thresholds for all corporate tax breaks.

As it stands, out of every corporate tax break dollar between 17 and 25 cents goes directly into executive compensation packages.

Our tax code is push-pulling on the issue of income equality, and we're all losing.

#lawfedi @law #tax

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/use-tax-policy-to-combat-skyrocketing-executive-compensation

andrew, 4 months ago to random

Trying to use Twitter/X to do something simple like see how bad the roads and sidewalks are in #Philly is now entirely impossible. Every common term is coopted by a crypto spammer, search is useless.

andrew, 10 months ago to medical

In this weeks Week in Insights, I look at Finland's progressive traffic ticketing system as an example of what is possible for #tax #policy.

"Finland runs a ‘day fine’ system that divides a driver’s daily income by two and applies a progressive rate to the fine, leading to whopper speeding tickets such as a former corporate director’s $103,000 payout for a 25 km/h violation. No drivers can simply ‘price in’ the cost of being ticketed.”

#lawfedi @law

https://news.bloombergtax.com/financial-accounting/week-in-insights-tax-progressivity-can-go-further-than-we-think

andrew, 10 months ago to twitter

The story that #Twitter has been paying far-right looney tunes directly is huge and shocking and all of that ... but in a larger sense, Twitter has been paying Nazis to share their shit views indirectly for quite a while now.

Deplatforming works. Many of these clowns don't exist without Twitter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/13/twitter-creators-payments-right-wing/

andrew, 10 months ago to FF

For #ff or #followfriday, some #lawfedi folks I haven't listed recently:

@drustevenson for admin law

@heidilifeldman #lawfedi royalty and #law and #philosophy prof

@jackiegardina Dean and co-host of #podcast Sidebar

@neil IT/telecom/tech law and great follow

@RuthFlaherty #IP / #copyright prof

@CarolineMalaCorbin #conlaw prof and great feed

I'm sure I'm missing many but there will be more Fridays (one hopes)!

andrew, 2 months ago to privacy

Leveraging my #privacy and #ai friends. A super talented and capable undergraduate student graduating at the end of the quarter reached out to me asking for career routes forward, prior to (or perhaps instead of) law school, that would allow for the exploration of #dataprivacy, #compliance, and AI #policy.

I know about IAPP and their training and certification programs, but didn't immediately have any additional resources off the top of my head. Thoughts? Tips? Thanks!

@law #lawfedi

andrew, 10 months ago to Law

Hey #law and #legal folks in the broader #lawfedi world. If you're on a general-interest instance and you have any desire to hop over to one geared towards legal professionals -- you have options!

One of those options is here at https://esq.social.

We have a great Local Timeline and we're always looking for new additions. Let me know if you need help, have questions, etc.

@law #lawyer #attorney

andrew, 10 months ago to BBC

The #BBC getting on #Mastodon seems like when #NPR jumped on #podcasts. In a word, big.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2023-07-mastodon-distributed-decentralised-fediverse-activitypub

andrew, 7 months ago to law

In this Week in Insights, I looked at San Francisco's new vacant residential property tax (Proposition M).

“The taxes raised by Proposition M will be earmarked for a “housing activation fund” that will provide rent subsidies for seniors and low-income households, as well as a program to acquire and renovate unoccupied buildings to create affordable housing."

#lawfedi @law

https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report/week-in-insights-san-franciscos-vacancy-tax-will-be-major-test

andrew, 20 days ago to github

Reduced my thoughts on Copilot+ PC, as announced, to a piece for Forbes.

TLDR: Also we should think about compliance with things like subpoenas and how completely can anything ever be deleted with such a system.

The more I think about it, the less this seems like a well thought-out product for pros. Dreamed up by coders that already have had their life’s work sucked up by GPT through #Github.

#attorneys #accountants @law #microsoft

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewleahey/2024/05/22/copilot-pcs-could-be-a-privacy-nightmare-for-professionals/
https://esq.social/@andrew/112484905475208847

andrew, 10 months ago to random

PSA: When you say you support x group but ["sometimes they take it too far" / “they need to grow a thicker skin” / "they need to be patient”] another truer way to rephrase your statement is to just go ahead and say you don't support them.

andrew, 6 months ago to movies

“When intertwined with public funding through state and federal tax incentives, the practice of movie and television write-downs represents a troubling exploitation of taxpayer funds. Coupled with rapidly expanding state tax incentives, it represents a multibillion-dollar Rube Goldberg machine that culminates in a nickel being pulled from your pocket, strapped to an Acme rocket, and fired directly into the bank accounts of movie studios.”

#lawfedi @law #film

https://news.bloombergtax.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/movie-tax-write-downs-help-studios-profit-at-publics-expense

andrew, 6 months ago to legal

Hi! Are you a #lawyer or other #legal professional? Cool, but also, condolences.

We here at https://esq.social want to help. We're a purpose-built #Mastodon instance to provide a home base on the #fediverse for all you looney tunes.

Join us, won't you? We're nice and we've been around for a year -- which is like a decade in fediverse time.

We also have a #Slack-like platform called #Element with about 30 folks popping in and out. I’ll put that link in the next toot.

#lawfedi @law

andrew, 1 year ago to fediverse

I've been kicking around pitching an idea for a course, tentatively titled “Introduction to Legal Writing for Public Consumption."

I'd like to marshal the fedihive mind and borrow the brains of folks much smarter and more experience than I -- does that sound like a law school course, or a journalism school course?

My experience of law school was that sort of writing wasn't even considered. Does that make this idea a feature or a bug?

#lawfedi #lawprofs #fediverse @law

andrew, 11 months ago to random

A sign that you’re doing a bang up job with the company you acquired is that every competitor immediately smells blood in the water and releases a product for which the only differentiator is it isn’t run by you.

andrew, 7 months ago to random

MS Word is apparently about to turn 40 years old. I’m under 40 and feel like I’ve been using Word for longer than 40 years.

andrew, 7 months ago to fediverse

I've been busy (in a good way) working on my classes, so I haven't sent out the #lawfedi bat signal in a bit.

We have a number of projects operating on the #fediverse for #law and #legal professionals or #academics.

First and foremost there is this #Mastodon instance (esq.social) which is always open and taking new members.

For the rest, check https://lawfedi.org for a pretty good sense of where you can find "the conversation" in the broader fediverse.

andrew, 5 months ago to TeslaMotors

The handwringing over #Musk's alleged drug usage seems to signal a complete loss of the plot.

The reason investors should be concerned is the extent to which such use might impair his cognitive functions and cause him to act irrationally.

How would they describe his actions to this point?

You saw the horse galloping down main street and now you're becoming concerned because you noticed the stable door is open.

#elon #tesla #spacex

andrew, 15 days ago to legal

Apropos of nothing, I'm heartened by the degree to which huge swaths of communities I'm attached to (thinking #lawfedi / #legal, #technology, #policy, #podcast, etc.) have seemingly rejected the siren call of going all-in on #Threads as a Twitter/X replacement.

I know many have been sailing under their own flag for quite some time, but we're hurdling towards two years and it feels like something that can persist.

To that end, https://esq.social if you're interested in a #law instance.