Not content to win in court, Harvard apparently keeps trying to pay a $500m “work force investment proposal”—but the bribe isn’t explicit enough for Trump

There's a mind boggling irony here that some might miss - Whren is maybe THE WORST case for the proposition that law enforcement can't discriminatorily enforce. In Whren, SCOTUS held that the 4th amendment didn't bar pretextual stops actually based on race. supreme.justia.com/cases/federa... 1/

The Trump administration’s position is apparently it would be “war” to kill Venezuelans on land but not on ships. Famously, no US wars—not WWI, not WWII, not the Gulf of Tonkin or the USS Maine—began with attacks on US ships.

Conservative judges in 2025: "the founders did not understand the First Amendment to extend to aliens." James Madison, the author of the First Amendment, in 1800: "wtf are you talking about."

"It is a more democratic country, not 'nihilism,' that is the best replacement for a higher judiciary that has more and more deprived itself of any publicly accepted rationale for power."

The leading scholars of democratic decline say the US "has descended into competitive authoritarianism" - we "ceased to be a full democracy in the way that Canada, Germany, or even Argentina are democracies" - but caution that it can be contested and reversed www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

Murder: it's illegal.

The thesis of this piece is “the Court has been trying to revive congressional power” by striking down its laws, arbitrarily invalidating its delegations of authority, preventing Congress from putting “limitations on the president’s power,” and rebalancing the government as the Court sees fit. OK.

This man may be the most racist president this country has ever had, and twelve presidents owned slaves

"the combat decisions he has made" Hegseth is setting up Admiral Bradley to take the blame for killing the survivors--which is just the tip of an immense iceberg of illegal acts. U.S. military officials beware: Following orders is not a defense to murder or war crimes.

bluesky branding refresh unveiled

Let's not forget that the only reason we're not talking about Boston @mayorwu.boston.gov's victory tonight is because she won her preliminary election so decisively that her billionaire heir opponent dropped out. ✊

“No Kings” is a great message, but it’s sort of incredible how many things Trump is doing that the English deposed their king for trying to do

Apt that the East Wing housed the Office of Legislative Affairs

No Kings in Boston

“If the justices gut a key provision of the law, there could be a potential windfall for Republicans in Congress. . . . An analysis by The New York Times estimated that the loss . . . could place the House in Republican control for a generation.”

One of the most embarrassing opinions in recent Supreme Court history was Clarence Thomas insisting that when the post-slavery Congress protected “freedmen” they were protecting a “formally race-neutral category”

Honestly, this entire opinion is just jaw-dropping. The first postings I saw on Bluesky were about the first page, which is lovely in its own right and exemplifies one of the less-well-explored roles of a judge in a democracy: to explain what is going on legally to non-lawyers. There's way more.

Judge Young: "This case ... squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally 'yes, they do.' 'No law' means 'no law.'"

BREAKING: WE WON!!! 💥 💥 💥 Federal Judge William G. Young ruled today in our lawsuit against the Trump administration that the policy of arresting, detaining, & deporting noncitizen students & faculty members for their pro-Palestinian advocacy violates the 1st Amendment. Full ruling here:

Our little AAUP chapter went 2/2 vs. Trump! Noem and Rubio…misused the sweeping powers of their offices to target non-citizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their 1st Am protected political speech. They did so in order to strike fear into similarly situated non-citizens…

Ironically, the print version of this oped switched the second column with the third column

Gal Beckerman’s The Quiet Before was a critique of Twitter when it came out in 2022. But it now reads like a defense of Bluesky and why “bubbles” are so valuable for incubating ideas.

We won!! “Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities … Their actions have jeopardized decades of research and the welfare of all those who could stand to benefit from that research.”

AAUP-HARVARD, AAUP, & UAW WON THE HARVARD CASE!!!! storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

the DOJ atty (& 2x Harvard grad) who suggested Harvard showed "wanton indifference to antisemitism" once wrote a paper from the perspective of Hitler & expressed admiration for Mein Kampf stunning reporting from @hilaryburns.bsky.social @talkopan.bsky.social www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/02/m...

1/2 Trump should absolutely not be able to fire Lisa Cook. But this is because he should not be able to fire anyone with statutory tenure protections.

one sign that the “unitary executive” is less the restoration of an older constitutional order and more the imposition of a radical new one is that allowing the president to act untethered from most legal or congressional limits has largely just served to plunge the country into disorder

“We have committed our professional lives to learning and free inquiry, working together with students to advance truth for the collective benefit of society. Unlike our distant governing boards, we will not give up so easily — no matter what kind of deals are signed in our name.”

Trump’s attacks on Harvard are flagrantly illegal. If he’s so willing to defy the restrictions of federal law, it’s beyond me why he’d respect the restrictions of a “legal settlement.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/u...

Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022 anticipating this sort of move. Its cosponsors should be out there explaining why we need more laws like it.

Harvard: “We’re suing you for unconstitutionally retaliating against us.” Trump lawyers: “This demands retaliation!” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/u...

the weaponization of course evaluations in the Brown University deal takes the consumerist model of higher education to new heights. not only is your job contingent on it, but make any of your students uncomfortable and you’ll be investigated by the government

NYT: "N.Y.C. Mass Shooting Was Nearly Impossible to Prevent, Experts Say" Same article: "A federal ban on assault rifles ended in 2004."

One of the ICE agents who arrested Brad Lander was wearing a t-shirt that literally said "rogue."

Just infuriating, devastating, horrifying. Trans kids deserve a world worthy of them, not this vile transphobic cruelty.

Move to hold the agents who assaulted a sitting senator in contempt of Congress. Call for articles of impeachment against Noem. Stop working on crypto legislation. Demonstrate the stakes of what is happening in LA with your actions.

California Sen. Alex Padilla was just forcibly removed from a DHS press conference and handcuffed. "I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary." Video from @Elex_Michaelson on X via Padilla's staff.

In the spirit of this great oped, journalists (inc. Goldberg) must recognize that one of Trump’s patterns is: 1. Do something wildly illegal 2. Identify the name of a law 3. Proceed to ignore every limit in that law The pattern is tricking papers into writing “Trump is invoking a rarely used law.”

Happy fifth anniversary to this tweet from a century ago

Cool paper alert: @rickhasen.bsky.social has recently posted a new paper, Faux Campaign Finance Regulation and the Pathway to American Oligarchy.

In the lawsuit, the university accused the Trump administration of exerting “clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”

This illustrates how the Supreme Court facilitates presidential authoritarianism. By declining to enforce federal laws that bind the president—except for laws it likes—it invites presidents to challenge legal boundaries. Our democracy needs a court that enforces federal law, not one that defies it.

“International students are essential members of the Harvard community. As teachers at Harvard, we have made a moral commitment to educate these students from the day they accepted their offer of admission to the day they receive their degrees. That commitment has not changed, and cannot change.”

The suggestion that it was the observation that law and politics are intertwined that got us “here” is precisely backwards. Rather, the persistent fiction that law is somehow apolitical has been a permission structure for folks to launder their politics through the mystique of law.

Ironically, the federal government has historically gotten away with deporting people without jury trials precisely because they’ve said it isn’t a “punishment” for Sixth Amendment purposes

There’s already an article that makes this precise point! michiganlawreview.org/journal/the-...

I finally got to say “longtime listener, first time caller” with my favorite program.