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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

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One of America’s most corporate-crime-friendly bankruptcy judges forced to recuse himself

Today (Oct 16) I'm in Minneapolis, keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing. Thursday (Oct 19), I'm in Charleston, WV to give the 41st annual McCreight Lecture in the Humanities. Friday (Oct 20), I'm at Charleston's Taylor Books from 12h-14h.

"I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one." The now-famous quip from Robert Reich cuts to the bone of corporate personhood. Corporations are people with speech rights. They are heat-shields that absorb liability on behalf of their owners and managers.

But the membrane separating corporations from people is selectively permeable. A corporation is separate from its owners, who are not liable for its deeds – but it can also be "closely held," and so inseparable from those owners that their religious beliefs can excuse their companies from obeying laws they don't like:

https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2014/10/13/hobby-lobby-and-closely-held-corporations/

Corporations – not their owners – are liable for their misdeeds (that's the "limited liability" in "limited liablity corporation"). But owners of a murderous company can hold their victims' families hostage and secure bankruptcies for their companies that wipe out their owners' culpability – without any requirement for the owners to surrender their billions to the people they killed and maimed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

Corporations are, in other words, a kind of Schroedinger's Cat for impunity: when it helps the ruling class, corporations are inseparable from their owners; when that would hinder the rich and powerful, corporations are wholly distinct entities. They exist in a state of convenient superposition that collapses only when a plutocrat opens the box and decides what is inside it. Heads they win, tails we lose.

Key to corporate impunity is the rigged bankruptcy system. "Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid," so every successful civilization has some system for discharging debt, or it risks collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/bankruptcy-protects-fake-people-brutalizes-real-ones/

When you or I declare bankruptcy, we have to give up virtually everything and endure years (or a lifetime) of punitive retaliation based on our stained credit records, and even then, our student debts continue to haunt us, as do lawless scumbag debt-collectors:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/#fair-debt-collection-practices-act

When a giant corporation declares bankruptcy, by contrast, it emerges shorn of its union pension obligations and liabilities owed to workers and customers it abused or killed, and continues merrily on its way, re-offending at will. Big companies have mastered the Texas Two-Step, whereby a company creates a subsidiary that inherits all its liabilities, but not its assets. The liability-burdened company is declared bankrupt, and the company's sins are shriven at the bang of a judge's gavel:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

Three US judges oversee the majority of large corporate bankruptcies, and they are so reliable in their deference to this scheme that an entire industry of high-priced lawyers exists solely to game the system to ensure that their clients end up before one of these judges. When the Sacklers were seeking to abscond with their billions in opioid blood-money and stiff their victims' families, they set their sights on Judge Robert Drain in the Southern District of New York:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/23/a-bankrupt-process/#sacklers

To get in front of Drain, the Sacklers opened an office in White Plains, NY, then waited 192 days to file bankruptcy papers there (it takes six months to establish jurisdiction). Their papers including invisible metadata that identified the case as destined for Judge Drain's court, in a bid to trick the court's Case Management/Electronic Case Files system to assign the case to him.

The case was even pre-captioned "RDD" ("Robert D Drain"), to nudge clerks into getting their case into a friendly forum.

If the Sacklers hadn't opted for Judge Drain, they might have set their sights on the Houston courthouse presided over by Judge David Jones, the second of of the three most corporate-friendly large bankruptcy judges. Judge Jones is a Texas judge – as in "Texas Two-Step" – and he has a long history of allowing corporate murderers and thieves to escape with their fortunes intact and their victims penniless:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#shoppers-choice

But David Jones's reign of error is now in limbo. It turns out that he was secretly romantically involved with Elizabeth Freeman, a leading Texas corporate bankruptcy lawyer who argues Texas Two-Step cases in front of her boyfriend, Judge David Jones.

Judge Jones doesn't deny that he and Freeman are romantically involved, but said that he didn't think this fact warranted disclosure – let alone recusal – because they aren't married and "he didn't benefit economically from her legal work." He said that he'd only have to disclose if the two owned communal property, but the deed for their house lists them as co-owners:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24032507-general-warranty-deed

(Jones claims they don't live together – rather, he owns the house and pays the utility bills but lets Freeman live there.)

Even if they didn't own communal property, judges should not hear cases where one of the parties is represented by their long term romantic partner. I mean, that is a weird sentence to have to type, but I stand by it.

The case that led to the revelation and Jones's stepping away from his cases while the Fifth Circuit investigates is a ghastly – but typical – corporate murder trial. Corizon is a prison healthcare provider that killed prisoners with neglect, in the most cruel and awful ways imaginable. Their families sued, so Corizon budded off two new companies: YesCare got all the contracts and other assets, while Tehum Care Services got all the liabilities:

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/prominent-bankruptcy-judge-david-jones-033801325.html

Then, Tehum paid Freeman to tell her boyfriend, Judge Jones, to let it declare bankruptcy, leaving $173m for YesCare and allocating $37m for the victims suing Tehum. Corizon owes more than $1.2b, "including tens of millions of dollars in unpaid invoices and hundreds of malpractice suits filed by prisoners and their families who have alleged negligent care":

https://www.kccllc.net/tehum/document/2390086230522000000000041

Under the deal, if Corizon murdered your family member, you would get $5,000 in compensation. Corizon gets to continue operating, using that $173m to prolong its yearslong murder spree.

The revelation that Jones and Freeman are lovers has derailed this deal. Jones is under investigation and has recused himself from his cases. The US Trustee – who represents creditors in bankruptcy cases – has intervened to block the deal, calling Tehum "a barren estate, one that was stripped of all of its valuable assets as a result of the combination and divisional mergers that occurred prior to the bankruptcy filing."

This is the third high-profile sleazy corporate bankruptcy that had victory snatched from the jaws of defeat this year: there was Johnson and Johnson's attempt to escape from liability from tricking women into powder their vulvas with asbestos (no, really), the Sacklers' attempt to abscond with billions after kicking off the opioid epidemic that's killed 800,000+ Americans and counting, and now this one.

This one might be the most consequential, though – it has the potential to eliminate one third of the major crime-enabling bankruptcy judges serving today.

One down.

Two to go.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/16/texas-two-step/#david-jones

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

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turbinepaints · 1 year

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racism and anti-semitism in lubbock, texas

scumbag school "leaders" in lubbock, texas.

#texas #mess with texas

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macabreblublu · 6 months

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Slasher Mov High AU by @slashermovhigh

Hi! I was 🔵 anon and I did promise you fanart of your big-brained creation and there were so many memes that I couldn’t do just one

My god this whole AU is something I didn’t know I needed but man I’m dependent on it now-

Anyways

Enjoy✨

The bois ordered takeout:

The bois helping out Michael confess his love:

Someone shared their unnecessary opinion:

Local Tired Artist uses his talent for shenanigans

Is it to point out the chaotic environment he is in? His crippling crush towards Carly? More at 9

Hope you’ll enjoy! It’s nothing original but this whole AU is a walking disaster in a good way so nothing serious :’D

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tendie-defender · 6 months

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#Texas #gw bush #don’t fuck with Texas #don’t mess with Texas

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twiststreet · 5 days

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(X)

#civilization is doomed #go ahead and mess with texas #UT Austin

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pixlokita · 4 months

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You know it’s gonna be a good day when you wake up to muffled “oops I did it again” by Britney Spears playing outside on the street

#pix habla #-blinking slowly-#wasn’t it supposed to freeze like heck #last time texas froze it was a huge mess but today people are just having fun #maybe it hasn’t happened yet #oh we got the chimney working this time so that’s perfect too in case electricity stops working #hopefully not

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renee-writer · 3 months

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Don't Mess With Texas

youtube

#youtube #candace owens #don't mess with texas

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vanhelsingapologist · 2 years

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Everyone: now what could quincey be doing out there

Quincey ‘Don’t-Mess-With-Texas’ Morris, crouched behind the yew tree, peering through a scope: sayonara, you piece of shit

#dracula daily #quincey morris #dracula #dracula bram stoker #dracula posting #jack seward #dont mess with texas

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americaisdead · 8 months

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amarillo, texas. july 2020

#tag christof #america is dead #on the road #texas #route 66 #lincoln #don't mess with texas #fujifilm gfx

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collegeboysam · 9 months

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i feel like a key part of the samdean brainrot process as you watch supernatural for the first time is to also search for videos of the conventions happening at the time each season was airing and watch the insane shit j2 would say and do during panels along with interviews gag reels and so on

#you would have peace in between seasons (sort of) but then motherfucking sunday panels would arrive and it was Over for us #finding out jensen moved from LA to texas for a house right next to jared's so they could hang out during their time off was so dean of him #it forever messed with my mental state #their samdeanness irl messed my brain chemicals #samdean

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tmglineaday · 23 hours

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The gray sky was vast and real cryptic above me

#the mess inside #all hail west texas #the mountain goats #tmg

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arksides · 11 months

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As a Lappland Exusiai frienship truther, this whole interaction was an absolute blast for me

#arknights #arknights spoilers #lappland #exusiai #il siracusano #just imagine the mess these 2 could cause #2 genius sharing a single brain cell #honestly if i hadnt read the event if u told one of them threw an entire truck in a courthouse i wouldve had a hard time figuring out which #texas` constant headache inducers

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v33-d1n0 · 7 months

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@digikaa ‘s RvBTober: Day 4: blue team banter! (Sshhhh I know this like 3 days late lol)

I was tired and hungry while finishing this so it’s so ass I’m sorry </3

Also fuvk the timeline EVERYONES here because I say so >:(

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wrenwinchester · 3 months

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Thinking about the year between season 7 and 8, and the line “I fixed up the impala and just drove.” (Then he hit a dog but I’m not talking about that.)

The impala has been through a crap ton, and she was sitting in a storage locker for most of the year, then they send her through a sign and she definitely has damage on her undercarriage from how she landed. It’s not going to be an easy fix, and getting parts is probably going to be difficult actually scratch that, Bobby’s house may have burned down, but the salvage yard is still there and was left to the boys 100% so maybe not so difficult. But Sam would still have to get the car to Bobby’s old place, maybe he even stayed with Jody for a little bit, while working on the car.

Sam isn’t the most experienced with taking care of Baby. That’s Dean’s job, sure he showed Sam how to do touch ups and tune ups, but most of it, Sam wouldn’t know how to do, but there was no way he was going to let anyone else work on his brother’s baby. That’s not a choice, so he spent a couple months, maybe more, pulling pieces out, putting them back in, trying to match parts from other vehicles and finding ones that worked because it was all he had left of Dean, and it needed to be perfect.

Finally, after like 5-6 months, it’s done, she runs and drives, and she sounds as close as Sam remembered to what she was after Dean would modify, or fix something. (It really wasn’t all that close, but she runs and drives,) then, he spends another month driving around, he drives to Vegas for their annual Vegas week, checking every towns first motel in the yellow pages, just in case, along the way. He doesn’t stay in Vegas long, just long enough to play a round of Dean’s favorite game.

Finally, he ends up in Texas, and somehow, thinking about everyone he’s lost, he hits a dog. Up until this point, he’s been checking motels to see if anyone had checked in under the name Jim Rockford. This time, he checked in under the name. Dean could find him.

Sam did what he could. He even took on a few cases before Vegas, but it felt wrong without his brother by his side. (Of course it did, it always did.)

The dog didn’t do much damage to Baby, and the little it did, Sam had fixed within a week. (He’s grown to know Baby quite well, and understands what every noise she makes means. (Sometimes she whines as he starts her, and he just sighs and says, “I miss him too.”))now we’re at month 8, he’s been staying at this motel for a few weeks, working on maintaining the building so it’s safe, and that’s when he runs into Amelia once more after the dog barges in to her room. And they end up talking about loss and loneliness. And Sam feels seen for the first time since Dean died, (he’s still not sure he believes Dean is dead, but also he exploded right in front of him. It’s the easiest way to rationalize everything and stop him from starting another apocalypse to bring his brother back. Because believe me he considered it.) and he feels accepted and she doesn’t push about his past.

They buy a house 9 months after Dean’s death. Sam just wants to call his brother and tell him, but he wouldn’t get the message.

He meets her Dad month 10, and life is moving on. He has a job, and maybe he could have the normal life he always wanted. The one Dean wanted too. Maybe he could go back to college, and he starts looking into things.

Month 11 is when Amelia’s husband is back from the dead, he wasn’t ever actually dead, but it doesn’t matter to Sam. He’s been in her position before. A loved one coming back from the assumed grave is a big deal, not as big as a loved in coming back from an actual grave that you put them in yourself, but it’s enough.

Everything comes crashing back to reality. He starts looking for Dean again, but more so just looking for signs of him from his home with Amelia. Amelia who now has to decide between her husband, and the broken man she grew to love.

Then, a full year has gone by since Dean’s death. Three hundred sixty-six days (it was a leap year) without his older brother. Not really knowing what happened, not really sure he wants to find out, so he doesn’t ask questions, he doesn’t push, he doesn’t even ask about Kevin and tries not to think about him, even though he has nightmares about Kevin being stuck with Crowley, he can’t handle even the idea of anymore pain.

But then, he gets a call from Dean.

There’s not a doubt in his mind that it’s his brother, though maybe he should, and he leaves in the middle of the night. Yes he loved Amelia, but Dean is his brother, and nothing is more important than his brother. He leaves without a second thought, if his brother was alive, life wasn’t so topsy-turvy.

Dean wasn’t supposed to be the one that died first. He gave his life for Sam. Sam should have died in that abandoned town all those years ago, but Dean traded places. (Sam should probably consider the fact that Dean was supposed to die instead of their dad all those years ago, but he doesn’t. Dean wasn’t dead then, he was just mostly dead.)

Sam would be the one that died for real first. He had to be.

His relief upon seeing his brother’s face for the first time in a year could have collapsed him on the spot, he was truly alive, then guilt came crashing over him.

#dean winchester #supernatural #sam winchester #spn #the winchesters #the winchester brothers #there’s more to post season seven Sam/preseason eight Sam than meets the eye #y’all forget he was grieving and that the imapala was messed up and Sam doesnt really know a whole lot about cars #like come on it was thirteen months by my guestamation I’m betting it took him at least three to fix the car #then he drove for a while. they don’t tell us how long #he may not have scoured the lore #but I guarantee that Sam winchester looked for his brother in everything he did #he went to Vegas for him #I believe deans even why Sam was in Texas in the first place.#stop blaming sam winchester for not even trying #he was traumatized #it’s not like he watched his brother and best friend explode and #decided to just drive down to Texas to hit a dog and get hitched.#man was grieving

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lelandmylove · 13 days

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EVERYONES INVITED TO MINE AND TESS WEDDING EXCEPT LELAND AND JULIE. NO EXES AT THE FUNCTION

Me and the bad bitch I pulled from being silly

Vel version below😋

TESS WITH HER HAIR DOWN BECAUSE ITS CUTE AND SO IS SHE😋🫶

The bride and the ugly ass groom

Not a fan of the dress tbh but it’s the best I could do😢

#YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY TIMES I HAD TO GO AND REDO TESS #LIKE FROM HER DRESS TO HER POSE IT WAS SUCH A MESS I WAS SO FRUSTRATED #EVEN HER FACE AND HAIR #BUT IN THE END I DID IT #YAYAYAYAYYAYYA #texas chainsaw massacre #tcsm #tcsm game #oc art #leland mckinney #julie crawford #OC TESS #okay I eepy now

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the-republic-of-texas · 19 days

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Howdy y'all!

I'm TEXAS the biggest*, the best and the friendliest state in the United States of America. I'm known for my diverse landscapes, bright starry skies, and rich history.

Y'all are always welcome here!

(unless you're California...)

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*okay so technically Alaska is bigger, but who cares?

@official-the-united-states

#TEXAS #remember the alamo #don't mess with texas #pinned post #pinned info

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