"Ben sold out to get richer... that's it, end of!"/"These two bozos have made their fortune from Cookie Dough Icecream. And they think they have the ethical high ground?"

"He sold the company to get very very rich but he still wants control...."/"Mr Cohen you sold out, move on, use the money to campaign for your beliefs in other ways"/"They are bores. If they wanted to keep their progressive policies above the need for maximum profitability they should have retained ownership and never sold their business...."

The commenters are pretty much unanimous on the London Times article titled "Ben & Jerry’s founder attacks Peltz fund influence over Magnum/Ben Cohen steps up his feud with the ice-cream brand’s owner as a partner from the Trian hedge fund joins the Magnum board."

The legal dispute is the opposite of ice cream: "Magnum... has been accused of ousting directors on Ben & Jerry’s independent board, which was established to control its social mission when Cohen and Greenfield sold the business to Unilever for $326 million in 2000.... Cohen.... described the recent Ben & Jerry’s board changes as 'a blatant violation of the legally binding agreement put in place over 25 years ago to ensure the brand’s values would always be protected.'"

"The world’s first modern art museum celebrating migration opens on Thursday in the Dutch port of Rotterdam...."

"Dominated by a giant, futuristic, silver staircase at its centre — to symbolise movement — the Fenix museum is in the eye of a political storm and a populist backlash against mass immigration in Europe and across the Atlantic in the US. The museum is housed in what was once the world’s biggest warehouse next to the port’s famous 'Holland-Amerika' pier, where millions of European migrants left Europe for America in the 19th and 20th centuries.... 'These docks witness the departures of millions, including among them iconic figures like Albert Einstein, the actor Johnny Weissmuller and artists Willem de Kooning and Max Beckmann — and welcomed just as many arrivals, shaping the vibrant, multicultural city that is Rotterdam today,' [said Anne Kremers, the museum’s director]."

From "Tornado-shaped museum invites political storm with art of migration/As Geert Wilders’ government clamps down on immigration, the Fenix museum in Rotterdam aims to show that the movement of people ‘has always been there’" (London Times).

You can see some pictures of the architecture here (at Archipanic). It's ugly from some angles, kind of cool from others, but doesn't seem to relate to the desperation of mass migration. It's coldly abstract and design-y. You may like it if you're the sort of person who wishes Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum had been built out of stainless steel.

It's kind of funny to see Johnny Weissmuller extolled alongside Albert Einstein and Willem de Kooning, but I am not the arbiter of icons, and I wandered off into the Wikipedia article on Weissmuller:

"American Idol" seems to think it's doing Stephen Bishop a favor.

I'd never heard of Stephen Bishop or his "On and On" song, but I found his wife's outrage interesting:

"The crab warned her. The goldfish warned her."

"Haaning's new work Take the Money and Run is also a recognition that works of art, despite intentions to the contrary, are part of a capitalist system..."

"... that values a work based on some arbitrary conditions. Even the missing money in the work has a monetary value when it is called art and thus shows how the value of money is an abstract quantity. Haaning's new work Take the Money and Run is also a recognition that works of art, despite intentions to the contrary, are part of a capitalist system that values a work based on some arbitrary conditions."

Said the Kunsten Museum's exhibition guide, about the 2 completely blank canvases it chose to display, quoted in "A Danish artist has been ordered to repay a museum after delivering blank canvases" (NPR).

The museum had advanced Jens Haaning over $75,000 so that he could recreate an earlier work of his in which he attached actual cash to the canvas. In that earlier work, the money was supposed to represent the wage gap between Danish workers and Austrian workers. Haaning is considered a "conceptual artist," and the new work expresses a concept that the museum made a show of understanding (or pretending to understand).

"Tucker Carlson, two weeks after being ousted by Fox News, accused the network Tuesday of fraud and breach of contract..."

"... and made a host of document demands that could precede legal action.... The aggressive letter from his lawyers to Fox positions Carlson to argue that the noncompete provision in his contract is no longer valid — freeing him to launch his own competing show or media enterprise...."

 
Axios reports.

It would be a loathsome position for Fox News to take: They've fired an important speaker from their platform and then they want to prevent him from speaking anywhere else. Many people want to hear from Tucker Carlson, and Fox would need to argue they've purchased his silence for the next 2 years. 

"The agglomeration of legal talent on both sides of Twitter v. Musk is mind-boggling—as is the amount of money being billed on this case."

"But with stakes ranging from a $1 billion breakup fee on the low end to a $44 billion acquisition on the high end, with lots of room for a settlement in between, there’s plenty of cash sloshing around to cover the lawyers’ fees.... Who will prevail in the end? I agree with the conventional wisdom that Twitter has the upper hand. It seems to me that Musk simply got a case of buyer’s remorse, especially after the stock market (including Tesla’s share price) went south.... [T]he reasons given by Musk for walking away seem pretextual. Yes, specific performance is generally a disfavored remedy in contract law compared to money damages.... [but Delaware] Chancery has not hesitated to order specific performance of billion-dollar M&A deals in the past... [I]f Twitter v. Musk goes to trial, the spectacle will be incredible. I’m not big on scatology, so I tuned out Amber Heard’s testimony about poop on the bed. But Elon Musk testifying about his poop emojis? I’m here for it."

Writes David Lat (at Original Jurisdiction).

When are things melodramatic enough that we feel like watching? If we are lawyers, then maybe contracts worth a big enough amount of money are enough. I will never forget the way a partner — at the "biglaw" firm where I worked before I became a lawprof — overpronounced the "b" in "billions." If it's a "b" and not an "m," you'd better stand in awe. I wanted to work on cases that had interesting issues, and for that, in that place, I got called "an intellectual."

Speaking of "b" and "m," long ago, when I was growing up, the conventional word for the substance that is now called "poop" — when speaking around children and other delicate folk — was "b.m." At least in the region where I lived, the place with the famous Chancery Court, Delaware. People would say, "Oh, no, I stepped in dog b.m." or "This place smells like b.m." 

And as long as we are talking about Elon Musk and melodrama and scampering away from high finance to more lowly things, here's this new headline in the NY Post: "Elon Musk’s dad, 76, confirms secret second child — with his stepdaughter" ("Elon has not publicly commented on his father’s latest baby admission. The pair are still estranged, with Elon describing his dad as a 'terrible human being'...").

"No one escapes the aging process... [But] there is scope for rational debate over when decline sets in, how steep it is, how much variance there is..."

"... among persons within particular age groups, and the degree to which the cognitive effects of aging may, up to a point anyway, be offset by experience of life."

Wrote Judge Richard Posner, in his 1996 book “Aging and Old Age," quoted in "After Posner retired from 7th Circuit, a grim diagnosis and a brewing battle" — a new article at Reuters.

ADDED: It was a big surprise when Posner suddenly retired in 2017 — blogged here — so the additional information that surfaced because of this legal dispute is revealing. We are only learning now that at the time he had received a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. 

From the Reuter's article:

When Posner quit the 7th Circuit after nearly 36 years on the bench with a single day’s public notice, he told the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin that “I was not getting along with the other judges because I was (and am) very concerned about how the court treats pro se litigants, who I believe deserve a better shake.”...

On Feb. 25, 2018, the judge emailed [Brian] Vukadinovich with an offer to share responsibility with him in running the center, which aimed to have representatives in all 50 states to provide pro bono legal help and behind-the-scenes advice to pro se litigants....

The center is the Posner Center of Justice for Pro Se’s (yes, with the apostrophe).

“You would receive a substantial salary in the role I envisage for you, though I can't specify salary yet because the company has as yet no money. Within weeks or perhaps days, however, the company will be reorganized as a 501(c)(3),” Posner wrote, according to an email Vukadinovich forwarded to me. “I ought to be able to raise more than $1 million through donations,” Posner continued. “I will not take any of it for myself, because my wife and I have ample savings and low expenses. I should be able to pay you at least $80,000 a year and I hope more.”

Posner wrote all that a that, 5 months after the  Alzheimer's diagnosis?

Vukadinovich told me he and the judge ultimately agreed upon a salary of $120,000 a year. As it turned out, Posner found fundraising to be more difficult than expected.

In his self-published 2018 book “Helping the Helpless: Justice for Pro Se's: A Company Handbook,” Posner wrote: “My efforts to obtain donations have been strenuous, and include requests sent to almost a hundred lawyers in Chicago, but have thus far yielded only a few fruits (none in the case of my requests to those lawyers!) — not nearly enough to meet the company’s needs.”...

Jonathan Zell, who was co-executive director of the Posner Center alongside Vukadinovich [said] Posner disclosed his Alzheimer’s diagnosis to the staff early on... “He said the doctor showed him a CAT scan that showed he had Alzheimer’s, but that ‘It doesn’t affect me.’”

Zell added, “Of course it did.”

Still, he said the judge, at least in the beginning, “could put on a good show” in friendly interactions. Indeed, Posner continued to practice law in 2018....

"So TMZ’s confident declaration that 'there is NO PRENUP' might not be correct. As Bill Clinton famously quipped..."

"'... It depends upon what the meaning of the word "is" is.' Maybe there 'is' no prenup, but there was a prenup, and it just got superseded — fancy legal-speak for 'supplanted' or 'replaced' — by a separation agreement."

Writes David Lat in "Bill And Melinda Gates Are Divorcing; Do They Have A Prenup?/The answer is... it's complicated." (Substack). 

There's a petition for divorce that has a section on "Written Agreements" and then lists only a separation agreement. Lat explains why you can't conclude that there was never a pre-nup agreement.

(To comment, email me here.)

"When she arrived at Stanford in 1979, she had wanted to teach gender and the law, but the dean refused, telling her to pick a 'real subject.'"

"She agreed to teach contracts instead, but changed her mind two years later when the dean retired, and several alumni threw him a party — and invited a stripper. 'I said to hell with contracts,' she later wrote." 

From a NYT obituary by Clay Rosen, "Deborah Rhode, Who Transformed the Field of Legal Ethics, Dies at 68/A Stanford professor, she pushed the legal profession to confront the ways it failed clients and to be more inclusive of women." 

Who was dean of Stanford Law School in 1979? 

Here's a chronology of Stanford Law School deans. 

Imagine a law school retirement party with a stripper — in 1981.

I can imagine a law school dean telling a new professor that she's got to cover a basic required course — like contracts. But it would have been very awkward, even then, to say that "gender and the law" was not a "real subject." As I remember it — and I started teaching law school in 1984 — the standard course name was "Women and the Law," and it would have been considered an upper-level elective. I don't know what it was like at Stanford in the 80s, but at Wisconsin, you could invent your own seminar. We had to teach 4 courses a year, but one of them could always be anything you were interested in. There were many seminars called "Law and ______" — fill in the blank. It was considered funny to refer to these courses as "Law and My Ego." 

Maybe over at Stanford, the joke was "not a real subject." But that was a bad joke to aim at a new hiree, when she was only the second woman on the faculty and the course she wanted to teach was women and the law.

By the way, when I began my search for a law school teaching job, I was advised by one of my law school professors — a female professor — to resist getting slotted into one of the "women's" courses. I was warned. Watch out for these deans who want you to teach, say, Family Law.

ADDED: I do see that the the party for the dean does not seem to have been an official retirement party. It says "a party." Set up by "several alumni." Who knows how long ago these alumni graduated or, more importantly, how important these alumni were to the current faculty? You might wonder why would you say "to hell with contracts" because there was a stripper a law school party — or a stripper invited to a law-school-adjacent party? What's the connection between a particular law school course and that party? 

But I understand. And it fits with the advice I was given to stay out of "women's" courses. Contracts is the classic law school course. A woman, like the woman who advised me, might think the idea is to transcend gender. But if you got a wake-up call and decided, no, things are really retrograde here and I'm not going to pretend there's not a gender problem, you might say "to hell with contracts."

How far will the anti-Trump forces go in crushing their opposition?

‘You’re not entitled your book contract,’ can quickly become ‘United doesn’t have to let you onto its planes’ ‘Marriott doesn’t have to let you stay at its hotels,’ or ‘Visa doesn’t have to let you use its cards.’

And maybe that’s the point.

— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) January 8, 2021

That tweet is a response to the news: "Simon & Schuster Cancels Plans for Senator Hawley’s Book/The publisher faced calls to drop the Missouri Republican’s upcoming book, 'The Tyranny of Big Tech,' following criticism of his efforts to overturn the presidential election" (NYT). 

“We did not come to this decision lightly,” Simon & Schuster said in a statement. “As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints: At the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat.”... 

“This could not be more Orwellian,” he said. “Simon & Schuster is canceling my contract because I was representing my constituents, leading a debate on the Senate floor on voter integrity, which they have now decided to redefine as sedition... We’ll see you in court."... 

The subject of Mr. Hawley’s book... is not about the election or Mr. Trump, but about technology corporations like Google, Facebook and Amazon. Its cancellation was remarkably swift and raised questions about how publishers will approach future books by conservatives who have supported Mr. Trump’s efforts to invalidate the election....

ADDED: Here's Hawley's full statement:

My statement on the woke mob at @simonschuster pic.twitter.com/pDxtZvz5J0

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 7, 2021

I'm not sure what his "First Amendment" theory is, but I'd love to see his explanation. There's a folk meaning of "First Amendment" that simply means "freedom of speech," but Hawley is a Yale Law School graduate who had a clerkship with Chief Justice John Roberts, so we must attribute the highest level of constitutional law understanding to him. I await the explication!

ALSO: Hawley's book about the "tyranny" of Google, Facebook, and Amazon ought to discuss the problem of the repression of freedom of speech, and for all I know, he's got some sophisticated First Amendment theory in there. Send me a PDF of your book, Josh — or just the pages with the First Amendment material. I will give it a sympathetic read!

"After popular Spotify podcaster Joe Rogan had conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his popular show 'The Joe Rogan Experience' earlier this week..."

"... Spotify CEO Daniel Ek defended Rogan's decision. 'We want creators to create. It's what they do best. We're not looking to play a role in what they should say,' Ek said... ... Spotify's policies 'do not entail what guests our podcasts invite on, it's more about the content itself.'...  Jones has been banned from publishing on Spotify since 2018 for 'repeated violations' of the platform's policy on hate speech....  On Spotify's Thursday morning earnings call.... Ek referenced Spotify's content policies as to why the episode is still available to stream. "We obviously review all the content that goes up.... But it's important to note that this needs to be evenly applied, no matter if it's internal pressure or external pressure as well, because, otherwise, we are a creative platform for lots of creators and it's important that they know what they expect from our platforms. If we can't do that, then there are other choices for a lot of creators to go to.'" 

From "Spotify CEO defends Alex Jones' appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast: 'It's more about the content itself'" (Business Insider).

I'm only about 43 minutes into this episode, but I've been enjoying the interaction with Joe. Jones is quite a motor-mouth, and he's an interesting contrast to Kanye West, who did a 3-hour show with Joe recently. West, another motor-mouth, is all about imagining things that could happen in the future, while Jones is about all what might be going on all over the place right now. That is both West and Jones are furiously jabbering about what we blasé humans cannot see. Joe is a great mediator, the normal guy who can channel them to us... whether that's good for us or not. 

Thanks to Spotify for sticking with free speech... and its contractual obligations to Joe. I predict that at some point in the future, Spotify will buy Joe out of his contract, and Joe will walk away with a big bag of money and be independent again. Which reminds me of Glenn Greenwald. Isn't he going to be suing The Intercept for breach of contract? And isn't he going to win? In any case, who cares about The Intercept without Glenn Greenwald? It just seemed like a platform for Greenwald to me. 

"Publishers Fret Over Obama’s ‘Failure to Perform’/Michelle finished her book. Why is Obama having trouble living up to his part of their lucrative contract?"

Headline at American Spectator.

Contracts that come with a reported $65 million advance, such as the one signed by Barack and Michelle Obama in February 2017 with Penguin Random House (PRH), will inevitably include [a "failure to perform" clause].... At the time the Obama deal was made in early 2017, insiders were telling Publishers Weekly that books by both Michelle and Barack would be released in fall 2018. Michelle’s book, Becoming, was released by PRH’s Crown division on schedule in November 2018 and has exceeded expectations. Barack’s book will be released at least two years behind schedule with no publication date in sight....

How to find all the Black Lives Matter murals in Madison.

An excellent presentation of information using Google maps — here — marking the location of the murals with clickable icons to display a photo of the mural.

I got to that via "‘Crisis of expression and creativity:’ Mapping downtown Madison's Black Lives Matter murals" (Capital Times). Excerpt from the article:

When businesses boarded up their storefronts in the wake of ongoing protests against racism and police brutality, Karin Wolf of the Madison Arts Commission was tasked with finding a way to restore vibrancy to the street. Within 48 hours, Wolf gathered a coalition of artists to create murals on the plywood, giving very little direction other than to simply react and express their feelings through art....

In total, 84 artists painted 100 distinct murals on the half-mile stretch of State Street... Artists were paid a $250 commission for each mural to cover the cost of supplies. To receive the money, artists had to sign a form releasing the right of reproduction of the piece. Several artists said that they’re also hoping to receive royalties from business owners who choose to keep and display the murals, but are not sure how to navigate that process.

The process was navigated back when you signed away your rights for $250. But I'm not looking at the release. Maybe some artist-loving lawyers will help.

From the beginning, Wolf urged artists to approach their work with a “spirit of impermanence.”

You know, like the way you've already spent the $250. Gone! But there are photographs.

“In an ephemeral project, it’s the documentation that becomes the lasting product,” she said.

You know, the thing you don't own.

Wolf said that moving forward, she hopes people will invest in future art instead of fixating on these particular murals, which were never meant to last forever.

Meade texts "moving forward... how about moving Heg?"

(Last month, protesters moved a statue called “Forward” and another statue of Civil War hero Hans Christian Heg from their place of honor in the Wisconsin capitol square.)

The appellate court — lifting the TRO against Mary Trump's book — said "while parties are free to enter into confidentiality agreements, courts are not necessarily obligated to specifically enforce them."

It noted that NDAs are "alternatively enforceable through the impassion of money damages."

CNN reports.

As you may know, that's what I said yesterday, and so many of you jumped on me in the comments.

But I need to check another source. I can't believe the court wrote "the impassion of money damages." It has to be "the imposition of money damages." Who made the mistake? I hope it's CNN and not the court.

AND: Here's the New York state court opinion. It's the intermediate court, the Appellate Division, Second Department (Brooklyn):

While Ms. Trump unquestionably possesses the same First Amendment expressive rights belonging to all Americans, she also possesses the right to enter into contracts, including the right to contract away her First Amendment rights. Parties are free to limit their First Amendment rights by contract.... A court may enforce an agreement preventing disclosure of specific information without violating the restricted party’s First Amendment rights if the party received consideration in exchange for the restriction... A party may effectively relinquish First Amendment rights by executing a secrecy agreement in which the party receives significant benefits....

Here, the plaintiff has presented evidence that Ms. Trump, in exchange for valuable consideration, voluntarily entered into a settlement agreement...

It bears noting that, while parties are free to enter into confidentiality agreements, courts are not necessarily obligated to specifically enforce them. Whether to issue an injunction is a matter of equity. Confidentiality agreements are alternatively enforceable through the imposition of money damages.

So the error is CNN's.

"Mary Trump’s attorney, Theodore Boutrous Jr., said in a statement that while the judge’s order is temporary, 'it still is a prior restraint on core political speech...'"

"'... that flatly violates the First Amendment. We will immediately appeal. This book, which addresses matters of great public concern and importance about a sitting president in an election year, should not be suppressed even for one day.'... Simon & Schuster said in a filing late Tuesday night that it had already printed 75,000 copies and argued that it would be unconstitutional to stop it from distributing the book. At the same time, the publisher for the first time said that it did not know until recently that Mary Trump had signed a nondisclosure agreement as part of the inheritance settlement."

From "Publication of explosive tell-all book by Trump’s niece temporarily blocked by New York state judge" (WaPo). If prior restraints are indeed a problem here, let Trump collect damages for the breach of contract (if there is one).

"There's never been a film before about a family that home educates its kids. Very few people in the movie world have had that experience..."

"... so I don't think it's a subject that would be treated objectively. It's a runaway, underground, counter-culture kind of thing - that's why it hasn't been done," said Charles Webb, quoted in "What happened next? (the author will let you know after he dies)," a 2005 article in The Guardian, which I'm reading this morning after blogging the NYT obituary for Charles Webb yesterday.

Webb, the author of the novel "The Graduate," signed away the rights to the characters in his story when he sold the movie rights, and the characters were based on himself and his wife. Webb did write a book about their later life, called "Home School." I was able to purchase this book at Amazon by paying a hefty shipping charge to have it sent from the UK. The 2005 Guardian article says that Webb didn't want the book published until after his death, because he had long ago signed a contract that would allow a film to be made without his consent.

Trending words.

That's at Etymonoline (where I was just checking whether commenters, here, were doing folk etymology on the word "window").

I guess all those words were of interest because of coronavirus. A lot of people may be wondering if "pandemic" (not on the list) has something to do with "pandemonium" (#5 on the list):

1667, Pandæmonium, in "Paradise Lost" the name of the palace built in the middle of Hell, "the high capital of Satan and all his peers," and the abode of all the demons; coined by John Milton (1608-1674) from Greek pan- "all" (see pan-) + Late Latin daemonium "evil spirit," from Greek daimonion "inferior divine power," from daimōn "lesser god" (see demon).

Transferred sense "place of uproar and disorder" is from 1779; that of "wild, lawless confusion" is from 1865.

I can see why people are looking for "draconian," "hunker," and "curfew." These all seem coronavirus-related. But what's up with "subcontract"? A Google news search produces "Contracts, the law and coronavirus" (Washington Technology):

Disruption to the supply chain especially for IT products, many of the basic components of which come from China, could cause substantial backorders and long delays in meeting government delivery deadlines.... Most commercial contracts do contain a force majeure clause that excuses delay. Those same clauses, however, may or may not have the same protections as in prime contracts. Subcontracts also may not prohibit prime contractors from seeking goods and services elsewhere if a subcontractor cannot fulfill their obligations....

Force majeure! Obviously, that's what we've got.

I thought "palpate" was odd, but I see it in "Coronavirus: Virtual medical visits more prevalent as COVID-19 infections continue to spread" and now it makes perfect sense. Why do you need to see a doctor in person? When is a virtual visit enough? A doctor says to the patient, "Just want you to palpate your neck there for me... Any tenderness? Any lymph nodes?"

ADDED: I suspect that many people — especially with time on their hands and the internet at their disposal — wonder what it really means to "hunker" down? What exactly do you do when you hunker down? Are we crouching and squatting? Does it have to do with haunches... whatever haunches are...? Do I need a hunk to do it? I would like a hunk to do it... So many things to think about.

AND: Speaking of thinking about things... A "haunch" is "a buttock and thigh considered together." I'll consider a buttock and a thigh at the same time. Is it one thing or 2 things? There's a philosophical question for you. If you believe the buttock and thigh are a single thing, then "haunch" is your word. You're a haunchist. That doesn't mean you tend to see things as unified rather than distinct. It has more to do with whether you see the distinctions on a horizontal or a vertical plane.

The best way to campaign is "the face-to-face, handshake, a hug and being able to hold up the children so they can take pictures with you, to ask a question, to do a pinky promise."

Said Elizabeth Warren, quoted in "'Don't tell me it doesn’t matter': Impeachment trial hurts presidential campaigns/Democratic senators seeking the White House will be stuck in Washington rather than Iowa at a critical moment" (Politico).

The pinkie promise! So that's the secret!

Wikipedia:

To pinky swear, or to make a pinky promise, is the locking of the pinkies of two people to signify that a promise has been made.

In the United States, the pinky swear has existed since at least 1860, when Dictionary of Americanisms listed the following accompanying promise:

Pinky, pinky bow-bell,
Whoever tells a lie
Will sink down to the bad place
And never rise up again.

Pinky swearing presumably started in Japan, where it is called yubikiri (指切り, "finger cut-off") and often additionally confirmed with the vow "Finger cut-off, ten thousand fist-punchings, whoever lies has to swallow thousand needles." (指切拳万、嘘ついたら針千本呑ます, "Yubikiri genman, uso tsuitara hari senbon nomasu")....

That's rather harsh! Should Warren be doing this with children? I note the suggestion that promise-breakers go to Hell. Trump recently got raked over the embers for suggesting that a man had gone to Hell:



Are we taking Hell seriously today or not?

I don't have a tag "promises." I'm using "contracts." Warren taught the law school course "contracts," you know. Would you do a pinkie promise with a contracts professor? Better a contracts professor than a religionist. Whoever tells a lie will sink down to the bad place and never rise up again.

Contracts answer: It's not a contract.

A federal judge has ruled that all the money Edward Snowden makes from his books and speeches must be handed over to the federal government.

WaPo reports.

Snowden has been charged with espionage since 2013, when he exposed top-secret surveillance documents in what may have been the biggest security breach in U.S. history. The former contractor sees himself as a whistleblower compelled to reveal sweeping surveillance programs hidden from the American people. But through two administrations, the government has viewed him as a traitor who escaped justice by fleeing to Russia....

“The contractual language of the Secrecy Agreements is unambiguous,” [the judge] wrote. “Snowden accepted employment and benefits conditioned upon prepublication review obligations.”