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Typo of the Day: “Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the election that Donald Trump sought to overturn. It was the election in 2020, not 2024.”

Corrected on Sept. 29, 2026: Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the election that Donald Trump sought to overturn. It was the election in 2020, not 2024.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 17h

(I don’t know what BQE stands for, either)

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 17h

Plan to form a union of Britain, Quebec, and Ecuador. Yeah. Doesn’t make sense. Mamdani isn’t perfect.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 18h

Maybe we could call it the “Bibas–Cannon Continuum”

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 18h

There are “Trump judges” and “judges appointing by Trump.” When I write, I try to reserve “Trump judge” for the toadies.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 18h

The NYTimes scans crowd footage and finds Jack Smith at the Hawkeye game. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/u...

Photo of fuzzy photo of crowd in near-outside seats. A white man with a beard is circled. The text in the photo is:

College Park, Md.
Feb. 3, 2024
The New York Times analyzed footage from the game and identified Smith in the crowd.
Fox Sports

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 20h

Which brings up a fourth point—don’t practice with lying scumbags. If you’re not already a lying scumbag, you’ll need to leave quickly so you don’t become one.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 20h

I’ll add a third point—lawyers who think alike tend to practice together. Try to be aware of what your group think & cognitive dissonance are blurring. Here, the scumbags persecuting Jack Smith forgot that they were trying to frame a basically honest man.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 20h

I don’t buy that this was a staffer mistake. Maybe a staffer was too enthusiastic, but the boss was supposed to be level-headed enough to tell the staffer to produce very specific evidence.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 20h

Two practice points from this: 1) When you think you’ve found a bombshell, you almost always haven’t. The bigger the bombshell, the more carefully you have to check it out. 2) Practice around smart people w/ good judgment who will tell you when they see that you’re about to make an ass of yourself.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 21h

The judges can make pretty good educated guesses, but in the end, they don’t know what the clients think should stay private. Not that the clients should get the last word, but giving them the first shot at it makes sense.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 21h

Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy describing his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton: “this woman”

Screenshot from quote-posted article with “that woman” underlined in red.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 22h

For a Michigan grad, this is a good week to have grown up in Iowa

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 29/09/2026

This Ohio Supreme Court program is excellent. Architecture, art, history, and lessons on how the court system works. Middle & high school students can observe oral arguments if scheduled early enough, and sometimes a justice will put in a cameo. The court even chips in for buses. #AppellatePlaces

courtnewsohio.gov

More Schools Can Visit Supreme Court With Expansion of Transportation Grants

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

*Columbus currently has City Council districts, and candidates have to at least kinda live in a specific district, but members are elected citywide, and one district is now represented by someone district residents voted against.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

But my guess is a lot of us would prefer one measure over the other, but either measure to the status quo. The better system would be to have one vote for change a second vote for while plan we prefer. I’ll vote for the citizen measure. I haven’t decided how to vote on the council measure.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

This is a dumb way to run an election. Now, Columbus City Council is all elected at-large.* The citizen measure would turn Colimbus City Council into a district-only system. Council’s measure would eventually mean 11 district’s and 6 at-large seats. Of both pass, Council’s version prevails.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

If the left, center left, and center can’t figure out how to get along, MAGA wins. It’s that simple. I’ve criticized people on the left when they screw this up. But the Ohio Democratic Party is too-often making the same mistake.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

And as I said in that comment thread, it makes no moral or political sense for the Ohio Dem Party to censor voices that say, “Look how awful Kaptur’s ads are, but her opponent is so much worse, and so is R control of Congress.” These are bridge-the-cap allies who should be fostered and respected.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

This seems like such an atrocious unforced error. Here are two groups with at least some credibility saying, “Look how awful those ads from Kaptur are, but the other side is soooooo much worse,” and the Ohio Democratic Party wants them to shut up?

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

The “life or death” quote in this article is from a gay man who’s the Columbus City Council’s president, and he’s arguing to stick with the D party despite its flaws. And yes, I know, Kaptur, Acton and the Ohio D party seem bound & determined to make that harder.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

Ruining what’s great about this country, and unjust to people who earned the right to be new Americans: “Immigration officials have canceled 13 naturalization ceremonies in the Cleveland area this year, according to [N.Dist.Ohio], including almost every ceremony scheduled between May and October.”

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

The Ohio Dem Party apparently pays no attention to Bluesky. They censored this elsewhere (used the accounts’ passwords), but it’s still here. More seriously, both groups are right that D leadership is behaving atrociously, and that Rs in power would be dramatically worse. bsky.app/profile/ohde...

Screenshot of quote posted skeets:

Post
PRIDE
Ohio Democrats Pride Caucus @ohdemspride.bsky.social
Teleportation Accident (Clone edition)
We stand with Lucas County Democrats and Lucas County Stonewall Dems E
LUCAS COUNTY
DEMOCRATS
P.O. BOX 1494
TOLEDO, OHIO 43603
(419) 210-1733
LUCASCOUNTYDEMOCRATICPARTY@GMAIL.COM
September 22, 2026
Congresswoman Kaptur's campaign recently began running ads with hurtful language and references to
"trans ideology". This is the type of harmful ad we expect from Derek Merrin and the Republicans. We are disappointed and ashamed that the Kaptur campaign stooped to their level by using this incredibly dangerous anti-trans rhetoric.
The ad gets one thing right, Derek Merrin would rather talk about his obsession with trans people than his party's disastrous handling of the war in Iran, or his part in the largest corruption scandal in the history of the state of Ohio. So why let him change the subject? Right now EVERY Ohioan is feeling the pain at the gas pump, in their electric bills and at the grocery store, all thanks to Merrin, Trump, and the Republican Party.
We are confident that Congresswoman Kaptur will once again win re-election, but it will be because of her long record of bringing investment to Northwest Ohio and fighting for working people while Derek Merrin will be nothing more than a rubber stamp for continued Trump chaos.
We stand with many in our community including the Lucas County Stonewall Democrats in calling on the Kaptur campaign to take this ad down immediately.
10:23 AM • Sep 22, 2026 • Everybody can reply
2 reposts 1 quote 10 likes

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

Is “incapacitated” the standard under NY law? Is impairment irrelevant under NY law if it is due to voluntary consumption? My guess is that the answer to both questions is “no.”

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

We can also not elect leaders who are personally as bad as the Iranian leadership, although still subject to some (albeit insufficient) democratic restraints.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

We can’t make peace. We can try for what the US and the West had with the Soviet Union, which didn’t end violence, but which avoided all-out war. Basically, Obama’s approach. That includes not launching stupid wars that involve using war crimes to cause civilian death and destruction.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 28/09/2026

Both can be true: 1) Iran is led by a violently antisemitic (not just anti-Israel) government 2) The people of Iran have legitimate grievances against the West, including that the US/Israeli war that Trump started is horribly wrong on many,many levels & that the US & Israel have committed war crimes

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

All this talk about That Song reminds me of the NYT list of the supposedly best tv shows of the 21st Century, most of which are fake because I haven’t heard of them.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

It’s wrong to say Columbus IS Appalachia, but it’s fair to say that we have a strong Appalachian influence.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

Worse than the geographic mischaracterization of Columbus, is surprise that a powerful Black woman from Ohio could care so much about the arts. Rep. Beatty has her flaws, but disdain for the arts isn’t one of them.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

One example, our local NPR Station, yes, NPR, sponsors a very active Bluegrass series. www.wosu.org/bluegrass-ra...

wosu.org

Bluegrass Ramble Concert schedule

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

Columbus does have a very strong Appalachian influence.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

Plus, it’s only “unlikely” that Rep. Beatty would be a champion of the Kennedy Center if you’re an ignorant, condescending jerk. This is the kind of thing that makes Midwesterners shake our heads at “coastal elites.”

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

I don’t think there’s anything “unlikely” about Rep. Beatty leading this fight, unless you’re completely ignorant of her and her district.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

Wait. Is Columbus considered part of the “Rust Belt”? Maybe it’s self-delusion, but in south-central Ohio (Beatty’s district), we’d mostly use that term for areas further north, like Toledo, Akron, Youngstown, & Pittsburgh that were much more dominated by steel and automotive production.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

(We might have had electives labeled “business” that I just don’t remember.)

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

Late #Caturday. Here’s the floof that sometimes at least pretends to like me, but she might just be hoping for treats.

Long hair black cat lying on a homemade checkered guilt (shades of blue, yellow and white). She’s looking at the camera with look that says, “Give me treats and I’ll pretend to like you for another day. OK, maybe for only another hour. Don’t get greedy.”

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

And yes, we had economics, which was, as I remember it, a mix of micro and macroeconomics. It turned out to be a helpful foundation when I took macroeconomics in college.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

I don’t remember any high school classes labeled “business,” but I took typing in summer school once, which has been extraordinarily useful. Not exactly on point, but we had “home economics” in junior high, which included cooking, sewing, & household finances like budgeting & balancing a checkbook.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

One what I know that I have the perfect job for me—finding fascinating the issue of lower-court jurisdiction while requests for discretionary appeals are pending in higher courts.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

The issue is intellectually fascinating because it involves the interaction of constitutional, statutory, and court-rule language, all interpreted differently across the country.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

One attorney proposal for a law review article—when lower courts can and should retain jurisdiction when requests for discretionary appeals are pending in a higher court.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 27/09/2026

Yes. Absent a stay, lower courts retain jurisdiction after a certain petition is filed in SCOTUS. I had to research this when I had the same issue come up for discretionary appeals to my state Supreme Court, where the opposite is true. Nothing like losing unanimously to seer an answer into your head

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 26/09/2026

The same poll workers who check IDs for registered voters can check IDs to register voters. If more checks are needed, the new voters can cast provisional ballots. If folks are concerned about non-citizens, how many people would say, “Here’s my ID, let me commit a crime that will get me deported”?

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 26/09/2026

Changed the oil, filters, and spark plugs (including the tricky one hidden in the back) of my generator, and did it quickly and without any hitches with everything I needed already waiting for me on a shelf in the basement. For me, this is an organizational and mechanical miracle.

static.klipy.com

Brian Johnson: Shades On in Breakfast Club

Alt: Brian Johnson puts sunglasses on in the breakfast Club

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 26/09/2026

Happy #Caturday from the little bugger who still treats me as an enemy (but who adores my wife so can’t be all bad, I guess).

Short hair black cat looking up out of a box.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 26/09/2026

Kinda relatedly, it took me too long into my career to figure out it was ok to pause during an oral argument to take a sip of water, which I keep within a step of the podium if at all possible. Better that than dry mouth, coughing, or that I’m-dehydrated grating sound a voice can get.

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