I would add to the spicy take take that the 13th Amendment prevents forms of subordination in property law (slavery) and in contract law (involuntary servitude). The 13th Amendment does as much work as the 14th Amendment.

one of my spicy takes, for example, is that limits on strikes are unconstitutional under the 13th Amendment, because if we have a right to be free from forced labor, we must necessarily have a right to stop working and negotiate the conditions of our labor

The Republicans are a multiracial, intergenerational coalition, too, substack.com/inbox/post/1....

I have stressed: (a) the Trump Administration did win a sizable amount of moderate and low income workers of color in 2024; (b) it made the difference, for instance, in Pennsylvania; and (c) now he has to keep that coalition. Deciding to violently attack members of your own coalition is…not smart.

Politico, et al: President Trump did not win a “decisive victory”; he actually only won the popular vote, 49.6% to 48.3%. The “decisive victory” was in the Electoral College, which imposes a super-majority requirement, at the behest of enslavers during the founding. www.politico.com/news/2025/11....

Mamdani: Hey, JD Yemeni Bodega Guys and Ethiopian Aunties are Heritage Americans too.

Snaps finger: Look at me and stay focused BlueSky, I don’t want anyone here on BlueSky saying, well last night shows me that one candidate is future; the lesson: run candidates everywhere that suit their community. You make A way, not THE way.

Adios radleybalko.substack.com/p/virginias-...

All YIMBY ballot measures are currently winning in NYC by 10-point margins at least

To me, this is the big news out of Virginia: the higher ed institutions are about to find a spine.

Look, all you have to do is read Bill Pulte’s letter to realize the real scandal is probably in how he has ginned up two sets of claims—Lisa Cook and Leticia James—using a mix of private and public records no ethical attorney would use to criminally refer to DOJ.

We are not doing this, folks. Democrats need to run the race in whatever social and political context they find themselves within and we need to let run that race. Purity is for religion not politics.

Meanwhile, yesterday, open warfare broke out amongst the Republican Party over whether it was bad to be a virulent anti-Semite. It is always better to be the future in the these United States.

It is Monday: so, we did get our weekly Politico article of mad Republicans, yelling at the Democrats for the shutdown: www.politico.com/news/2025/11.... You know, you might have to negotiate with Democrats or get rid of the filibuster, right? These are the choices, folks; that is it.

I like to call Speaker Johnson Magic Mike b/c he has has one trick: tinkering with House rules to stop Democratic time. Whether it has been holding votes open for 17 hours or calendaring certain rules, or keeping the House in permanent adjournment: he is like ta-da I just made the House disappear!

Sometimes it is genuinely terrifying to read something by the current theoreticians of the MAGA movement and think to myself:

WHO IS THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE PRESIDENCY??? #WITAOTP

When you are a lonely patent Habermasian, you intuitively understand how innovations in media and public’s drive political shifts. I don’t like Elon Musk at all, but we look back at his purchase of Twitter and then his interference in the 2024 election as a key factor in President Trump’s election.

What happens in Unitary Executive Theory when you have an anti-mandate?

In reality, it is a complex process for paying out SNAP, which is why 30 days ago, the Department of Agriculture published a notice that it was going to rely on contingency funds. That notice was withdrawn (likely on Vought’s orders), and now, it will take some time to rev up the machine again.

This is the consistent message of most Democrats I've covered this year, but Obama (duh) is better at selling it. I dislike the "they can't just be anti-Trump" CW. He's president, of course they'll run against him. Much odder that Rs are still doing Biden and 2016 election probes.

I repeat: why we think there was an electoral landslide is b/c Pres. Trump “won” the Electoral College, an anti-majoritarian device put in place by enslavers and upheld by the 3/5th clause until 1865. Unlike the National media, Susie Wiles can count, which is why the Trump Admin is gerrymandering.

While I don’t gainsay what Vought and Miller want, the holy trinity of President Trump is: decoration, retribution, and then corruption. Decoration really brings him joy.

You don’t mess with food policy unless you are very good bureaucrat. Herbert Hoover—who came to the Presidency, based on his successful management on food relief—failed to respond to the food crisis of the Great Depression. President Trump is no President Hoover.

Rinse, repeat. Decoration, Retribution and Corruption: the primary goals of the Trump Administration.

The only constituency the filibuster benefits is moderate Republicans, so ML Leader Thune shot down Pres. Trump real quick, www.politico.com/news/2025/10.... Part of this dynamic is the only set of people President Trump hates more that Democrats is country-club Republicans.

In a Senate where, the Republicans enjoy 53 seats and the Democrats have a 45 seats, getting rid of the filibuster benefits the Democrats because it places more pressure on, for instance, David McCormick of Pennsylvania to vote against the Trump Administration.

Perfect response from @neguse.house.gov here. Watch this.

A key obligation of the Infrostructure is the government’s responsibility to provide reliable information. The current theory of the Trump Administration is that we can use the imprimatur of government organs to launder propaganda. Doing so, though, can decrease the legitimacy of the agency.

The point of shock and awe is to paralyze your enemy, enabling you to seize ground while they stand there in disbelief. That’s what Trump, Vance, and the GOP are attempting. paulwaldman.substack.com/p/shock-and-...

This is totally true. A colleague of mine just told I have already written Infrostructure: The Great (W)reckoning in furious spurts on BlueSky. That said, as a Habermasian, @davekarpf.bsky.social is dead on how the concentration of media shaped the election in 2024 in ways that harmed the Dems.

And why do I stay talking about agricultural issues: www.politico.com/news/2025/10.... Unlike manufacturers, farmers benefitted free trade. And I love the article ends on the real villain: Big Beef.

Shorter version: go watch Matewan! www.criterion.com/films/29461-....

The path of collective organizing in the United States is strewn with an attempt to organize within a multi-racial democracy. The problem, though, is not the multiracial commitment but the real tensions that come from maintaining the multiracial organization when it becomes convenient to ignore it.

Indeed, the great tragedy of the Populists was that it started out as a way to organize agricultural interests against the consolidation of great capital and often explicitly multi-racial in its goals, but the 1920s had foundered because it abandoned its multi-racial commitments.

Everyone, who wants to understand how labor unions work, and work best when organized as a multi-racial collective, needs to read @dieworkwear.bsky.social’s thread. JD Vance’s closest analogue is Tom Watson, who led the Populists in the 1890s, but by his death, was a full on nativist.

Stephen Miller did not go to law school.

let no one say that law professors aren't having impact right now

Sometimes, I feel this whole Administration is an AI hallucination.

It went kind of dark there in the end, but an interesting read. What I will say is I have a great deal of skepticism that orality is ignorance, ok? I am also in weird place because I have never felt more that law school, where you read and read, mainly due to fear, is a net good.

I am not a criminal lawyer at all but it did seem odd to James’ niece had testified to a grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia but Halligan got an indictment in Alexandria, Virginia? For the criminal law peeps, is that normal? This grand jury switcher-ro also seems to be why she contacted Anna Bower?

To repeat Prez. Trump’s goals are: decoration, retribution, and corruption. He likes the government shutdown because it helps him pursue all three goals.

Just as the Founders faced a challenge in creating an executive that was not a King, it faced a challenge in how to make a Court democratic. For Chief Justice Marshall, it was the ability of that Court to demonstrate its reasoning publicly through an opinion.

Despite the Supreme Court’s weird fetization of the President, the most democratically accountable body is the House of Representatives because of the frequency of elections: The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.

And literally the hobbits are sent out because the hard men of Gondor were too corrupt to wield the ring! Boromir, who tries to take the ring, is FROM GONDOR. Elon, if your nerd card wasn’t already revoked, when you decided douchedom was a currency, we revoke your nerd card now.

President Trump’s refusal to spend money as Congress appropriated it is why the government is shutdown. No-one in Congress trusts anyone in his Administration to negotiate a “deal” at all. Why play Calvinball?

Am I reading this correctly: the firms that opposed Trump's intimidation tactics have suffered no consequences, whereas the firms that struck deals gave away $900 million while jeopardizing any work with clients who have interests at odds with the government? There's a lesson in there somewhere.

It is grimly hilarious that not an insignificant amount (a majority, perhaps) of law professors get together to mock a Supreme Court decision that has not even issued because President Trump is absolutely 💯showing us all unitary executive theory needs to die. We don’t need the Arc de Trump, ok?

Hey, everybody, get the Indivisible folks to run the DNC. They seem organized. I am also interested in getting the skinny on why Ken Martin beat Ben Wikler, a decision that kind of baffled me. Wikler built a Democratic response in the highly gerrymandered Wisconsin.

"Four administrative patent judges .... say they fear that USPTO leadership is undermining the mission of the PTAB's founding law, the America Invents Act, and are doubting that they have a future at the agency."