HRC's VP nominee Tim Kaine clerked on the 11th Circuit

Back in 1983-84, Tim Kaine clerked for Judge Lanier Anderson.  Here's a portion of the wiki entry for now Senior Judge Anderson, who assuredly had an impact on Kaine:

On April 18, 1979, President Jimmy Carter nominated Anderson to a newly created seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The United States Senate confirmed Anderson on July 12, 1979, and he received his commission on July 13, 1979.^[1]
On October 1, 1981, the federal government created the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and Anderson was one of a group of judges reassigned to the new circuit.
In 1986, Anderson became the subject of an impeachment drive after a three-judge panel on which he sat ordered retrials for several convicted murderers because, they ruled, pretrial publicity had unfairly tainted their trials.^[4]
In 1999, Anderson penned a noted ruling in favor of the estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. in a copyright fight with CBS over King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech.^[4]
Anderson became a chief judge of the Eleventh Circuit on May 17, 1999, serving in that capacity until May 31, 2002.^[5][6]
In July 2008, Anderson told President George W. Bush of his intention to take senior status effective January 31, 2009. However, word did not become public of his decision until November 2008.^[4] Anderson told a local newspaper that he still planned to work "almost full-time" but that he hoped to take more vacation time—probably four to six weeks a year—to visit grandchildren in New York and Connecticut. And while Anderson could have taken senior status in November 2001, he chose not to do so, he told the paper, because "I was having so much fun, I didn't want to."^[4]
In 2008, Anderson described himself as a judicial "moderate," and added that he "would like to be thought of as a judge who had no particular agenda and who took each case on the facts and applied the law that the Supreme Court laid down," regardless of his own personal view on it. "And I think that’s what I attempt to do, and I think every judge on our court does."

11th Circuit now being ridiculed for its Johnson jurisprudence (UPDATED)

Noah Feldman has this essay in Bloomberg about the Johnson mess in the 11th Circuit, and it's not a pretty picture.  The conclusion, in support of Judge Martin and her frequent dissents on the Johnson orders:

Yet no other court of appeals appears to be engaging in this kind of case-by-case analysis. They’ve been approving the requests automatically and allowing a federal district court to sort out the details.
Judge Beverly Martin of the Eleventh Circuit issued an unusual and stirring opinion this week declaring that the process in her court wasn’t working.
Martin asserted that among the thousands of applications and hundreds of denials, her court has been making mistakes -- mistakes that, by their legal nature, can't be appealed. “A court of appeals is simply not equipped to construct a new basis for a prisoner’s old sentence in this way,” she wrote.
To make matters worse, the Eleventh Circuit gives itself 30 days to rule on each request. The presentence report can be inadequate or misleading, and there are no attorneys involved to explain what it means. And most prior convictions are under state law, which varies from place to place and have technical details that are hard for the court to determine without a lawyer’s help.
What's more, the Eleventh Circuit had rejected petitions for reconsideration before the Supreme Court said its Johnson ruling applied retroactively.
The upshot is that something very like a travesty of justice is happening in the Eleventh Circuit. And as you know if you’re still reading this, the issue is sufficiently technical that it’s hard to draw attention to the problem.
But real people are spending potentially many extra years in prison on the basis of an unconstitutional law. That’s wrong. In the spirit of Justice Scalia, the Eleventh Circuit should change course and start allowing district courts to review post-Johnson ACCA petitions the way the other circuits do.

UPDATED -- You can get some pretty interesting stuff just about every day from the slew of Johnson orders coming out.  Here's Judge Ed Carnes' concluding paragraph from a concurrence today in In Re Emilio Gomez:

And, as the order states, “[s]hould an appeal be filed from the district court’s
determination, ‘nothing in this order shall bind the merits panel in the appeal.’”
Maj. Opn. at 8. Nothing.

Ferguson building being evacuated (updated)

Not sure what's going on over there other than a fire alarm went off and everyone is milling around outside. Will update if any further information becomes available.

Update (2pm) -- Apparently the King building has been evacuated as well.

Update 2 (2:40pm) -- back to business. The buildings have been reopened. The Atkins building was never evacuated. 

Former Miami AUSA and Bachelorette contestant still making news

This time Mike Garofola makes news for dating habits in NYC.  From the New York Post:

Ever since Michael Garofola, 36, moved to New York in October, his calendar has been packed with different women penciled in for dinner or drinks.
As a former “Bachelorette” contestant, Garofola knows he has no problem scoring with women — he goes on up to five first dates a week, which he says usually include a drink or two and nothing beyond a goodnight smooch on the cheek. But in the past two months, he’s been feeling spent by the mating game.
“In New York, everyone has this feeling that they have limitless options,” the Gramercy-based lawyer tells The Post. “We have this mentality of, ‘Why should I settle for Susan, who’s beautiful and smart, when I could turn the corner and meet Jessica, who’s just as smart and beautiful?’”
Garofola meets most of the women he dates on Tinder, Bumble and the League. But while he claims he only swipes right on less than 10 percent of profiles, his good looks still net him more than 100 matches a week — and it’s tiring trying to keep up.
“It can be mentally and physically exhausting, and I start to question the time and money I’ve spent,” he says.

Michelle Obama wins the Republican Convention

First, she gave the best speech of the convention.

But then this.  She is the coolest First Lady ever:



Meantime, Cruz is already running for 2020.  Woweee:



Can't we all just hug it out?