The Supreme Court could say the president’s allegedly illegal actions must be put on hold while the Court reviews it. Instead, they repeatedly say Trump’s abuses must be allowed to go forward while in dispute. That’s entirely a choice. There’s no basis in law. Made the opposite call with Biden.

I'm just gonna keep reposting this inane BS from Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence on the roving immigration patrol case from LA.

I had overlooked the Court's 2nd QP: "Whether a federal court may prevent a person’s removal from public office, either through relief at equity or at law." This is a wildly broad framing. A negative answer would effectively moot the Fed carevout in Wilcox & overrule, e.g., Powell v. McCormack.

Honest question. Are there other examples in history where the top US Attorney in a jurisdiction was not ever trained as or had experience as a prosecutor?

This thread is funny, but I want to point out that Souter would have seen this as a plus. One of the many reasons to love him.

By any reasonable measure of judicial activism, this is pretty plain evidence that the late Roberts Court is very activist.

Certiorari "before judgment" is how #SCOTUS takes up a full appeal *before* the intermediate federal courts have heard it. It used to be exceedingly rare. For instance, there wasn't a *single* grant of such expedited review b/w August 2004 & February 2019. This is the *23rd* such grant since then.

This

SCOTUS, June 2026, rejecting a challenge based on non-delegation and major questions: "Those doctrines only apply to agencies. When the delegation is to the executive directly, the original understanding does not bar it. See our recent cryptic shadow docket case. Blah blah blah yippie ki-yay."

Possible useful teaching case on the new business rule (and why we don’t need it). District Court reverses $100 million verdict, not b/c of the new business rule but because damages just weren’t provable with reasonable certainty. www.contractsprofblog.com/2025/09/cour...

With malice toward my opponents, with charity for my minions, with firmness in the grift as God gives us to see the grift, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to pour salt on the nation's wounds, to pardon him who shall have done my bidding, & to do all which may line my family's pockets.

So @kevinmkruse.bsky.social is too biased to quote, but Shirley, a GOP lobbyist and consultant, can lie wantonly and be called a “presidential historian?”

One good thing today: Belichick got thumped again. (I say this as a UNC alum)

This. Gregg Nunziata is/was as establishment a GOP lawyer as there is/was. GC for Senator Rubio, Senate Judiciary staff, DOJ. When he is telling you this is the worst DOJ ever, listen.

There's definitely still law. But the rule of law cannot exist if law is subject to the whims of the President.

Again Bouie from the top rope

tapping sign so hard I may break a finger

🚨🚨🚨🚨Without explanation, BLS has indefinitely delayed a key data release used to calculate inflation. Annual Consumer Expenditures data is used to determine the weighting of specific goods and services in the Consumer Price Index for the year ahead. www.axios.com/2025/09/19/b...

this is absolutely wild the court *sua sponte* dismisses the case for violating Rule 8(a) so that means the court, all on its own, looked at the complaint and said it's too long, too scattershot, too arbitrary to even count as a complaint. *never* seen this happen to a private party with counsel.

This is just a distraction

rEceSSiOnS aRE gOoD ACtuAlLY

Charlie Kirk on Pope Francis:

LOL. "In addition to the legal issues at hand, Merryday bemoaned the writing.... The judge said a new complaint may be filed within 28 days and must be under 40 pages long." www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

“For the large majority [of the Harper’s Letter signatories,] Trump’s reign of terror has apparently been less objectionable than the irritating undergraduate and entry-level scolds of the 2010s.”

Current jam. Forgot how much I like this. www.discogs.com/master/68789...

I extensively covered Putin's crackdown on the Russian media as a freelancer for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in the early 2000s. It's true, they used corporate media owners or shareholders to impose editorial changes on unfriendly outlets. A story I wrote in 2003: www.rferl.org/a/1344358.html

What’s worse: 1) how T eats pasta 2) that T is eating while King is talking 3) British pasta

Stochastic terrorism in action

And what do you say, Sammy A? Are Kimmel and every other target of Trump's pretextual retribution and repression campaign, also "victims [who] simply wanted to speak out on a question of utmost public importance"?

Happy Constitution Day

Someone needs to alert the Trump White House that the Trump White House is in direct violation of the Trump White House's Executive Order on free speech: www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

One thing is certain: All those mergers have increased the efficiency of censorship and authoritarian control. #Satire

Some killings you're allowed to joke about.

I can't recommend this essay enough: "Ultimately, thinking historically is about asking better, more probing questions. It is a disciplined curiosity that fosters an appreciation for the complex interplay of individual agency, structural forces and pure chance." www.noemamag.com/the-lost-art...

I have no cancelled subscriptions left to give.

One can make this point without the “in our entire history” nonsense. Slavery? Red Scares? Our current speech trajectory is bad. We have also had other bad times for speech. Maybe we can take some heart from that, and a strategy or two.

Look, they do not have the capacity or competence to do this at the scale they want you to fear they do, and your fear is precisely their greatest force multiplier. Everybody who is cowed into silence by their threats allows them a smaller pool to focus on.

i have said this before but when “getting rid of race in admissions” for the administration means “you can’t even try to reach out to underrepresented communities and encourage them to apply and if you do it is illegal discrimination against white people” then the actual goal here is segregation

Florida is out there DOGEing Democratic local governments while the actual corruption and injustice is happening in the state insurer system they themselves created. 90% win rates? inconceivable unless rigged. (Story quotes a 55% win rate in courts before mandatory arb was imposed.)

NEW: In a moment of peril, Florida lawmakers allowed Citizens Property Insurance, its insurer of last resort, to take disputes before judges whose salaries it funds. The company has taken 1,500+ insurance disputes to mandatory arbitration, where it wins more than 90% of final hearings.

We’re all dead and in hell makes a heck of a lot of sense when you think about it.

Sunday cooking: riso al forno

Rankin v McPherson is not going to survive our current moment. supreme.justia.com/cases/federa...

Have been listening to Akhil Amar’s podcast the past couple weeks. Overall pretty meh about it. Too much promotion of self and acolytes, too little analysis (I enjoy his analysis generally). But he jumped the shark when he called Bari Weiss a friend and promoted a piece he has in FP.

reposting with alt text because this feels incredibly significant. the right-wing disinfo machine means a lot of the people grieving Charlie Kirk never heard any of the things he said that would have tarnished his brand as Guy Who Just Wants to Have Dialogue Across the Aisle

“Kilmeade practices political commentary the right way,” said Ezra Klein. ”He is not himself killing the homeless, but rather suggesting the policy as a matter of reasoned debate. His moxie and fearlessness forces everyone to ask the hard questions.”

Huh an awful lot of rhetoric shifted from Old Testament to New Testament over the past few hours