You ever think about how the Roman Senate kept meeting centuries into the reigns of emperors. Hanging out, shooting the shit, giving speeches, and play-acting that their positions of privilege remained positions of power.

Year-end tally of Trump admin combat actions in 2025: —Yemen—1,000+ strikes* —Somalia—140+ strikes, 1 ground raid** —Syria—78+ strikes, 3 ground raids*** —Iran—3 B-2 strikes —Iraq—1 strike —Nigeria—1 set of TLAM strikes —Caribbean—11 strikes —Eastern Pacific—20 strikes —Venezuela—1 known CIA strike

Please join me in welcoming to the public domain such works as the 1930 Best Picture All Quiet on the Western Front, Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, several Nancy Drew books, some songs you've heard of (Dream a Little Dream of Me; Georgia on My Mind), and more: blog.archive.org/2026/01/01/w...

One thing I wrote about here is how technology has made buses *way* more convenient while techno-futurists were obsessed with flying taxis and self-driving cars.

this new years eve I'm reminded of an old Soviet toast: Here's to another average year - worse than the one before it, but better than the one ahead

Sucks that a former public defender (who are heavily underrepresented on the bench compared to prosecutors) would abuse her employees, but this kind of mistreatment is all too common in clerkships

Judicial clerkships are a relic of the apprenticeship model, with judges accountable to no one having near-absolute power over their young clerks fresh out of law school. It’s a bad sign that even a previous semi-public shaming doesn’t seem to have dissuaded Sarah Merriam from abusing her clerks.

The murder rate dropped by 20% in 2025, the largest U.S. decline ever recorded

fun fact: conviction registries weren’t supposed to be public. initially, they were only for law enforcement. but then lawmakers realized they could just keep bashing people with sex offense convictions to score easy political points. boltsmag.org/illinois-hou...

When I was on CNN's northeast desk, the first job at 6a every morning was to read the local papers. That guided some of what the massive CNN machine followed every day. When those papers die, CNN doesn't hire new regional reporters. What you get instead is more panel shows, more punditry.

Not sure I’ve ever seen a mainstream news story before that wasn’t about homelessness but quoted two separate homeless people on how a current event was affecting them.

the fact that there is free parking at all in manhattan is wild to me

Really think there should be an effort to theorize the broader significance of this common reactionary centrist tactic to pass a law banning something already illegal

These declines are MASSIVE. And the comparative silence in media coverage is absolutely DAMNING. “Why are ppl always so afraid of crime?” THIS is why. When crime goes up, media trips over itself to report it. Falls to pre-war (!!) levels? Just CRICKETS.

Kavanaugh's separate opinions often reflect a desire to be perceived as reasonable & nonpartisan, even while his votes & the opinions he joins look very different. I think he wrote this unnecessary footnote because he sincerely wants ICE to act legally. He's just unwilling to do anything about that.

This is a smart piece by @mtkonczal.bsky.social on why the Trump administration has stumbled over itself and failed so badly at consolidating power, despite its advantages: everything-bagel authoritarianism, or the inability to tell any part of its coalition "no."

Former NYC councilmember @rorylancman.bsky.social moved to the suburbs & is now running for state senate. In between, he's spent his time waging war on my union for calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. If elected in this swing district, he'd have Dem leadership's ear & drag the caucus to the right.

As an appellate public defender, I hate that I have to worry that, if I succeed in winning my clients a new trial, they may be transferred from state prison to the dangerous NYC jails, in which 15 people have died this year. The city should be able to keep people in its custody safe & alive.

somewhat comforting to know that New York was always like this www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

A storied Wall Street law firm that hemorrhaged talent after bending the knee to President Donald Trump has announced plans to merge with a much larger firm in a bid to save its practice. www.thedailybeast.com/storied-law-...

It's ominous & wrong, IMO, that the appeals court refers to this former police officer as "Detective" Brett Hankison. This isn't a matter of courtesy: they wouldn't use "Dr." or "Esq." for a doctor or lawyer appealing their conviction. This is about treating police as a privileged class.

It's true that, in some metaphysical legal sense, the Defense Department & the Kennedy Center are still called that because the laws naming them haven't changed. But the law doesn't control language; the speaker community does. Ultimately it's up to all of us what these things are called.

The Brown shooter seems to have defeated the surveillance state by simply wearing a mask and not carrying a phone. This is what I have called the "security paradox": Most of us don't go out of our way to avoid omnipresent surveillance, but it's not impossible for someone dedicated to do so.

How can it be legal for the @nytimes.com to mention this without even including a link? www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/c...

Just learned the videos of Durham City Council meetings start with hype music over a montage of the city council members as if they are cast members on Saturday Night Live: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv7w...

My state assemblymember, @joannesimonbk52.bsky.social, has watched over the past decade as her district shifted left & 3/4 neighboring Brooklyn districts elected DSA members. She's scrambled unsuccessfully for other offices, & now it looks like her progressive primary challenger has finally arrived.

We have $ for a dozen ICE agents to hang around for hours trying to arrest 2 roofers working in MN. Meanwhile, the agency that investigates and prosecutes violations of Americans' right to organize is shedding staff again. Now down to like 1 agency staff per 145,000 workers.

What a great example of poor institutional design. If you're an Indiana state senator who wants the gerrymandering scheme to fail, you have a better chance of defeating it by withholding your vote than by voting no.

This morning, in the largest expansion yet, hundreds of new union baristas are walking off the job in 34 cities. That means there are now: 🗣️ 3,800 baristas ☕️ across 180 stores 📍 in over 130 cities on an open-ended ULP strike! We’re 👏 only 👏 getting 👏 stronger

It's been truly remarkable to see the grand jury system actually act as a real line of defense. Especially since--as I bet most non-lawyers don't know--the only legal person in the GJ room is the prosecutor: no defense, no judge. There is NO place more favorable to the state. And they keep losing.

If we just did an up-down referendum on whether to take a mulligan on the past 10 years as a whole, what percentage of world nations do you think would go for it at this point

It seems like the American right has turned even more toward Christian nationalism over the past five years, so it's interesting that neither the country as a whole nor any demographic subgroup has become any more religious.

NYC under Eric Adams spent millions paying cops & city employees to raid & destroy the belongings of people who have no place else to go. Not a single person was housed as a result, according to the city's own data. These sweeps end now in NYC, but let this disaster be a warning to other cities.

Congressional Republicans have found plenty of big-ticket ways to interfere in D.C. this year. This week they found another one. A House committee approved a bill to prohibit D.C. courts from deferring to city agencies on how to interpret local laws: 51st.news/chuck-brown-...

NYS has a shortage of court interpreters, so I was shocked (but not surprised, otherwise there wouldn’t be a shortage!) that my friend said he took just the initial English test today and was told to expect his results in 7-9 mos., at which point he’ll have to do the Arabic test and wait again

Many red states have passed anti-trans laws in the last couple years, but only North Dakota did it while multitasking to this extent. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Interesting split in this politically charged case: of the 9th Circuit's 13 Republican appointees, only the 2 most flamboyantly right-wing Trump I appointees, plus the sole Trump II appointee, dissented from denial of rehearing.

Mayor-elect @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social plans to create a new department of community safety to provide a better alternative to armed police response for things like mental health crises. This @vitalcitynyc.bsky.social article looks at what that department might look like.

Seems like nothing but bad news from across the pond these days. Has this Labour government done anything but step on rakes and prepare the ground for Nigel Farage's dictatorship?

I have to give it up for these public defenders. This is what zealous advocacy looks like. Cc @donzeko.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

I would love to read some explanation of why cities like NYC & DC, which blossomed with streeteries during the pandemic, have made it so difficult for this popular & profitable innovation to continue. Is it pressure from NIMBY neighbors? Reflexive conservatism from city governments? Something else?

She has it exactly backwards. The domestic deployments to date are a much weaker case for being so manifestly illegal as to justify refusal; that's a high bar. The boat strikes are outright unambiguous murder, everyone in that chain down to the one pulling the trigger has had a clear duty to refuse.

When you get arrested, the police take your belongings. Getting it back can be awfully hard, as the @southsideweekly.bsky.social shows in this great look at how it works in Chicago. Imagine what this process might look like if the city cared about safeguarding & returning property.

The modern private prison industry started in Tennessee in the 1980s and spread to the rest of the U.S. & a few other countries. But private prisons themselves weren’t new; this is what they looked like in 18th century England, as described by Australian historian Robert Hughes in “The Fatal Shore.”

In 1582, a papal bull introduced the Gregorian calendar, still used today by most of the world. Because it’s 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, countries introducing it simply skipped a third of October, and if you scroll back far enough in the iPhone calendar app you can see it change

Will no one set this modern folk song to the music it deserves?

Sandwich Guy thanks everyone for their support, “emotional, spiritual, artistic or financial.” Intones, “Let us not forget that the great seal of the United States says…‘ out of many, one.’…You all have a right to live a life that is free.”

This is great news for sandwich guy, of course, but it's also a big news story that other future jurors will see, helping to spread and legitimize the idea that they don't need to convict on charges that seem unjust. Jury nullification (if that's what happened here) is self-propagating in that way.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if there is no prior record of a single federal misdemeanor charge ever going to trial and acquittal