This piece by Robert Post is excellent. I especially like that he traces the Trump Administration's authoritarian trampling on the First Amendment to, in part, the Roberts Court's extreme unitary executive theory. verfassungsblog.de/turn-against...

I’ve been thinking about what legal consequences might be if UC Regents capitulate to Trump at *state law* level. Not a CA constitution expert, but one could imagine claims relating to: - free speech - right to education - non-discrimination - breach of public trust

I feel like “immigration is crime but bribes are not” is not a winning “law and order” message. This is my own bias but I think Dems need to make “the rule of law” one of their planks, and it will matter to a decent slice of electorate.

Read @citizencohn.bsky.social on what last week confirmed about the chaotic, anti-scientific way RFK is running the health department. open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

The Bluesky-hating is just another attempt to browbeat the left into complying with a right-wing dominated social-media ecosystem.

Younger people won't believe this, but during the Second World War, Disney put out cartoons about how it was your patriotic duty to stand up to fascists, even noting that we'd each have to take a financial hit if we wanted to win that struggle. No, really!

Trump should just announce that it costs $100k to vote in the next election. Why not, at this point?

“The Watergate scandal was unfair to Nixon” is basically the ethos of the unitary executive theory.

Teeters???

It’s also a problem of opinion journalism as well as the academy that people are always chasing the surprising take/unexpected finding, which makes it hard to see what’s in front of your eyes.

Was listening to an nyt podcast on Kimmel firing last night, and Adam Liptak said something like Carr’s actions came “pretty close” to coercion. This tendency to imagine that we are “almost,” “on the road,” etc. to authoritarianism needs to be overcome. We’re in that space. Pretending doesn’t help.

Lord take me now.

Again, unions are one of the few civic institutions standing up to Trump.

Not at all to minimize the very real attack on faculties, but is the quoted claim really true? How would we know?

We’re at a ridiculous moment where the Trump Admin is *extremely brittle* and is only succeeding because the *ultra-rich* and a *court dominated by his co-partisans* are letting terrors happen.

My main thought listening to Trump these days is: raise your kids with love and care so they don’t turn into this sad, angry manchild

I stand with retired mascot Bison.

Another example why capitulation is simply not a practical option with this mishugene president. They are going to keep destroying until they are stopped. So do everything lawful and/or peaceful to stop it.

Stacy Wescott for the Chicago Tribune. Curtis Evans, veteran, Marine Corps intelligence under Reagan, carries a U.S. flag through gas deployed by federal officers as they clear protesters from the entrance of the ICE facility in Broadview, IL on Sept. 19, 2025

I wrote about Jimmy Kimmel, the FCC, and the First Amendment for @msnbc.com.

Democrats don’t have much incentive to approve a budget unless it involves substantial reversal of Medicaid cuts and ungodly ICE spending, reinstatement of civil servants, and iron clad legal commitments on research grants continuing to flow to universities. Time to fight and call the bluff.

It’s really hard to imagine what remotely acceptable “deal” the UC Regents might be contemplating and we still haven’t heard a public word from them. What is going on?

... Khalil was unlawfully imprisoned and couldn't be present for the birth of his child?

What's with the "save" feature on bluesky. Who is "saving" my posts, and why? Why is this a feature?

Right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting owns all these local media stations and many others all across America. This is not journalism, it is scripted propaganda.

Regular folks having exponentially more courage than these craven cowards in the c suites

Biggest story in the world, told in the mainstream press perfectly well: AP/PBS headline: TRUMP'S MOVES AGAINST MEDIA OUTLETS MIRROR AUTHORITARIAN APPROACHES TO SILENCING DISSENT www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

So, a university president fired a professor because they taught a course that discussed there being more than two genders, and now the university president is being fired for not having fired the professor quickly enough, is where we're at. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/u...

People are saying that the President of A&M was fired despite collaborating. So don't collaborate if they're going to come after you anyway. And that's true. But there's more to it than that. He showed weakness. Don't make yourself an easy target for the bullies.

This from Eugene Volokh on Jimmy Kimmel and government coercion is right on point: reason.com/volokh/2025/...

I know it's frustrating when lawyers point out when something the administration is doing is not legal. But responding with "the law doesn't matter anymore" is really unhelpful and defeatist. Clarifying the law is important because it reminds us not to comply in advance and to resist and take action

This is also an independent agency story. If the Court had shown any respect for the independent agency model for the past 15 years, the notion that the President could order FCC to revoke a broadcast license would be absurd.

🔥

Siri, does statutory authority to pursue “the public interest” override the first amendment to the United States Constitution?

Seems like some interested consumers should challenge the Nexstar merger approval with some Neobrandeisian arguments.

Well, the real reason is that Trump wants him fired. Combine that with state capitalism and you’ve got a stew going.

Local TV stations = Trump aligned conglomerates like Sinclair and Nextar.

This is the biggest attack on free speech since the McCarthy era but it also has significantly less popular consensus behind it than the second Red Scare. It's being done on behalf of a minority faction led by the most unpopular president in modern history. Organizing against this can win.

IT'S OFFICIAL: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York State, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and New York City have formed the Northeast Public Health Collaborative. The collaborative will issue their own vaccine recommendations and coordinate public health efforts.

Steve Inskeep just said with regards to tarantula migration, “it’s a thing that happens”

So uhhhhh Is now a good time to talk about how Trump is a usurper or what? eveningconstitutional.net/trump-is-a-u...

Listen to @marcmaron.bsky.social He speaks the truth. We must speak up too. Kimmel was stitched up by an authoritarian regime.

PSA: A "Major Terrorist Organization" (MTO) is not a thing. The Immigration and Nationality Act *delegates* power to the State Department to designate *FOREIGN* terrorist organizations (FTOs) based on certain criteria. It doesn't apply to domestic orgs. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

Man I’m so sad about this country, wtf.

There was a reason that Congress intended for the FCC to be somewhat insulated from presidential control. Democracy requires independent media.

What does Jimmy Kimmel really think about Charlie Kirk? His own words: "Senseless murder." "A lot of extraordinarily vile responses." "Some people are cheering this, which is something I won't ever understand." Why is the FCC is really targeting him? He went on to make fun of Trump for 10 mins.

Jury trial/district courts are one of the few functioning safeguards we have now.