This is unfair. How are WH influencers supposed to plan their grift if they have to wait until *after* major things become public??

Maybe a nice ex post facto law, just for a treat?

My word is the blatant hypocrisy just astoundingly depressing. Likes & followers above principles & consistency (& human life), obviously.

Quite balmy way to end February here 😬

Dayum. The University of Alabama seemed freer to discuss the real history of America & its present effects under avowed segregationist George Wallace than the UT system today. Sorry & sad state of affairs indeed.

Me when someone asks what I’m trying to do with a particular article: “I would love to have all the things”

I grew up in a fairly financially strapped environment, so I actually have love, tied in no small measure to nostalgia, for McDonald’s. Legitimately, what’s Trump’s excuse?

Well this looks good!

Check out my colleague @joeljohnson13.bsky.social’s fascinating post on how the Supreme Court’s analysis in the tariff’s case should impact the way Court decides the major Second Amendment case that will be argued next week 👇👇 open.substack.com/pub/divideda...

That's NINE "again"s for those keeping track at home of the times the govt has tried to plead workload as an excuse for defying judicial orders.

Teaching Equal Protection doctrine on discrimination against noncitizens today... Not only is a Plyler v Doe unimaginable now (states can't deny public school to undocumented children), so too is the agreement. The decision is 5-4, yet *all 9 justices* are like yeah that exclusion is bad & immoral.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Sure the substance is bad, but it’s “fewer,” right?

This shade from Kagan at Gorsuch’s strange concurrence in the tariff case is perfect.

Feels like we are always trying to export a version of democracy we can’t even manage here. “Political power won’t depend on sectarian labels.” “Healthcare access without regard to wealth.”

RIP con law profs who have to excerpt this thing & explain the rationale(s) to students. Glad I’m teaching Rights and not Structure this semester.

Is this what they mean when they say the executive is getting a tad too unitary?

One partner I worked for insisted the associates do the actual filing themselves & not outsource to paralegals or support staff. Was glad to have learned that skill.

Fraudulent joinder bears only the most tenuous relationship to what we colloquially call fraud

Submissions due tomorrow (2/20)! This is always such a good conference for those whose work intersects with firearms law or the 2A! Plus, who *doesn’t* want to visit the South during the summer?!

HOW ARE PEOPLE CALLING THIS STUFF AN OVERREACTIVE “MORAL PANIC”???

Just sent about 35 emails in a row that began with "Sorry for the delay responding!"

Damnit I have to admit this is a good line in the Administration's just-filed Reply Brief in the pending 2nd Amendment case, US v Hemani: "The Second Amendment demands apples-to-apples analogues, not inspecting Fujis and Honeycrisps for immaterial differences." www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24...

Had a dentist appt yesterday & the dentist asked what I’m teaching in law school these days. I said we covered affirmative action earlier this week & now on sex discrimination. After a moment of v awkward silence, in which he made no reaction whatsoever, he goes, so are you guys worried about AI?

For my new project I'm in that exciting phase where I set what seem like impossible research goals. Right now it is to review all 1,840 law review articles that cite Dames & Moore. Fun stuff!

Imagine being the lawyer who’s gotta stand up in court and say “about 54 times, your honor—give or take”

Okay is this is quite different (bc of all the pure hackery), but when I was a baby attorney, the DC US attorney office was also pretty reticent to tell us the charge for which they were investigating our clients — for that reason, one of my 1st assignments was writing a memo on all the potentials.

Best commentating line of the day, in the Iowa State vs Houston game: “It’s president’s day so why not, it’s Jefferson to Buchanan for the bucket.” (Both Iowa State players.)

Charles and Gelbach on Bruen's Tenth Amendment Problem / lawlit.blogspot.com/2026/02/char... @jacobdcharles.bsky.social @gelbach.bsky.social

For the nerds who think about executive power through a Youngstown lens (and who focus on doctrinal obscurities to avoid screaming about practical realities): in light of congressional failure to approve the SAVE Act, would this be a Youngstown Zone 2 or 3 case?

I don’t know why I’ve never read this before (Trouillot may have some guesses), but wow it is so good. Highly recommend for anyone like me who’s interested in historical knowledge but never had formal training in history.

What a depressing read. Hard to comprehend this level of ego, incompetence, lack of all pretense of concern for others—to say nothing of the country or constitution you’ve sworn to uphold—& cruelty.

CA3 rejects 1A challenge to NJ law that limits sharing of computer code used to make ghosts guns, per Krause. Splitting w/ other circuits: 1A regulates only expressive uses of code, and plaintiffs failed to plead sufficient facts relevant to expressive use. www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/233...

The court here draws on 2nd Am case law to support this holding

Teaching Loving, Korematsu, Yick Wo, Bakke tmw so I’m deep in prep on govt use of race right as I read this—& whataya know…the 14th Am is meant to prohibit exactly what DHS is doing, unless it’s somehow got a very good reason to do it & only if this is the narrowest way to meet that.

Thrilled that my article Private Governance and Originalism will be published in the Stanford Law Review @stanlrev.bsky.social! The article explains why private groups including schools, corps & other orgs create unique challenges (and opportunities) under originalist "history & tradition" tests

Geometry was always my worst subject, but I think even I understood the smart points @slukemorgan.bsky.social is making in this thread about Bruen’s death funnel. ⤵️

Circulating this to my students to justify my bulky reading assignments

Very excited that @gelbach.bsky.social & I will be publishing "Bruen's Tenth Amendment Problem" in the @uchilrev.bsky.social! Our central arg is that Bruen's erasure of unexercised powers violates the 10th Am's preservation of existing State power. Comments welcome! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

This is a super smart take on Bruen. SCOTUS has essentially declared that because a state declined to enact a particular gun regulation in the past, it’s constitutionally barred from enacting that regulation today. Impossible to square with the 10th Amendment.

This is why you co-author with a PhD economist, friends!

Very excited that @gelbach.bsky.social & I will be publishing "Bruen's Tenth Amendment Problem" in the @uchilrev.bsky.social! Our central arg is that Bruen's erasure of unexercised powers violates the 10th Am's preservation of existing State power. Comments welcome! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

It takes a special kind of sicko to be excited to wake up and dive right into a chapter like this. But, hey, that’s me.

Every Scalia opinion we read I feel like I have to tell my students—don’t be like this guy. You can write smart and well without being a jerk.

Just like we can’t let Trump define what it means to be American, we can’t let jerks like this define what it means to be or act like a man. Not only is commenting on a student’s looks wrong, it’s disturbing to suggest that *of course* you must do that bc men would only want one thing from a woman.

Fact check: true

Chemerinsky is right, but he overlooked my favorite case in the post-Heller mess, Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 US 411 (2016), the unanimous per curiam opinion finding a right to have a stun gun. It is inscrutable. Do you have a right to brass knuckles? A mace? The One Ring? An infinity stone? 🤷‍♂️