J. Kagan dissent: "Our emergency docket should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars.Still more, it should not be used,as it also has been,to transfer government authority from Congress to the President, and thus to reshape the Nation’s separation of powers."

A good explainer on the First Amendment and what happened with Jimmy Kimmel

Against defeatism.

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 a Rule 8 dismissal, which is not common when you’re represented by a lawyer, but is very common when you’re a sovereign citizen suing without a lawyer. This judge is treating the president of the United States as a pro se litigant.

"What's happening now is what happened in Hungary and Turkey, which is using regulatory threats and lawsuits as a way to capture the media, and to capture the information ecosystem. We should be all very, very concerned," says @krforde.bsky.social. newrepublic.substack.com/p/kimmels-su...

Harvard, like all Americans, can’t be punished by the government for speaking freely – and a federal court decision upholds decades of precedents saying so: buff.ly/1Fv1tui

The Supreme Court has amended its November argument calendar and will now hear the Trump tariff case on Wednesday, Nov. 5! www.supremecourt.gov/oral_argumen...

Federal judge overturns part of Florida’s book ban law, drawing on nearly 100 years of precedent protecting First Amendment access to ideas buff.ly/jNEQcJu

“I recently spoke by phone with @lilymasonphd.bsky.social , a professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins S.N.F. Agora Institute and an expert on political violence.” @ichotiner.bsky.social Where Political Violence Comes From www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

my favorite robert redford story is that mike nichols considered him for dustin hoffman's part in THE GRADUATE. during their conversation nichols asked redford something like, "have you ever struck out with a girl?" and redford's response was basically, "i don't understand the question"

In anti-discrimination law there’s a theory of liability called “cat’s paw,” which says naive or unaware employers can be held liable for taking unlawful adverse action at the discriminatory behest of others and I think university counsel should read up on it. Or hire me to read it to them.

Not as great as The Onion's Parma Novak v. Parma brief in 2022 (defending the use of satire under the First Amendment), but .... pretty funny.

Some thoughts on my @cato.org colleague Alex Nowrasteh's excellent analysis of data on political violence in US, plus related problem of politically motivated death threats (which I suspect are much more common, and have some personal experience with): reason.com/volokh/2025/...

At least three teenagers were in critical condition after being shot Wednesday afternoon on the grounds of Evergreen High School. The suspected shooter was among the three. coloradosun.com/2025/09/10/e...

Betina was an amazing grad student and continues to be a force for good in world -- such a well deserved honor!

“The country was now at war, and everyone knew it was the start of a new chapter in our nation’s history." A firsthand account of the panic of 9/11 by a former top White House aide to President George W. Bush:

Chief Justice Roberts has issued an “administrative” stay allowing President Trump to remove the last Democratic member of Federal Trade Commission while the full Court decides whether to freeze lower-court rulings that had held that her firing was unlawful:

Good explainer about War Powers, executive power, and the use of lethal force in international waters www.justsecurity.org/119982/legal...

I have the same exact authority as the President does to rename the Department of Defense. I will be issuing an order tomorrow naming it “Anthony,” after @anthonymkreis.bsky.social.

👀 Extraordinary criticisms from [both D & R including Trump nominated] fed judges upset w MAGA #SCOTUS "increasingly overturning lower court rulings involving the Trump administration with little or no explanation, with some worried the practice is undermining the judiciary at a sensitive time."

Apologies! You have reached the end of your free trial period of America

BREAKING: Judge Breyer rules that President Trump's deployment of the military to Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act, says Trump is using military as a "national police force with the president as its chief." Injunction granted. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

BREAKING: Social Security Administration chief data officer and whistle-blower Charles Borges has resigned after bombshell report that SSA put highly-sensitive data at risk. He sent out an email to colleagues moments ago. Here is the text of his email shared with me:

White House declares $4.9B in foreign aid unilaterally canceled in end-run around Congress' funding power.

used to be you could get an indictment against a ham sandwich. now you can't even indict a guy who throws a ham sandwich. folks, www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...

Poli sci folk, if nothing changes in the next few years, what are the plausible outcomes in the US? I've got authoritarian consolidation, some sort of civil war or national separation, an early-1900s style federalist settlement, and small-d democratic resurgence.

Every bit as good - and alarming - as people are saying. Read it!!

Bob Clark, VP of marketing for Herr Foods, Inc., said the company was surprised to see it was mentioned in the press. “While we can’t speak to the details of the story,” he said, “we can confirm that our Sour Cream & Onion flavor is money.” www.thecity.nyc/2025/08/21/w...

Saw someone upbraiding someone else for having a hobby while the world is on fire, and, my friends: 1. The world is ever on fire, this is today's conflagration; 2. If you don't find time for rest and joy the fire will consume you; 3. Don't let people shame you for being an entire human.

I can NOT believe that our new academic year is already starting again this week. 🤯

The White House is taking new steps to undermine every international student at our universities. It has approved a new rule restricting student visas to 4 years max. That's not long enough for PhD students, or about half of undergrads, to finish their degree. Likely to enter force within days.

UPDATE: Missing sections of the Constitution Annotated website have been restored. Upkeep of Constitution Annotated and other digital resources is a critical part of the Library’s mission, and we appreciate the feedback that alerted us to the error and allowed us to fix it. constitution.congress.gov

I almost didn't believe it... Do I have to teach Art. I Sec. 9 and Sec. 10 now now that they're removed from the congressional website? constitution.congress.gov/constitution/

Conservative legal luminary Jack Goldsmith points out that Justice Barrett's opinion in the universal injunction case rests on an error: For the purposes of historical analysis, she looked at the wrong statute and got the relevant date wrong by nearly *a century.* papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Worth remembering: The Constitution explicitly gives the power to set tariffs to Congress. They could stop this nonsense by the end of the day.

imagine being the night watchman here

Heres my analysis of what Trump is doing to US universities. He is attacking every source of higher ed funding and holding academic freedom hostage for ransom. verfassungsblog.de/trump-univer...

“I told them I was an American citizen. I questioned why they were using those tactics on me. I asked about my constitutional rights. An officer outright said out loud that I have no constitutional rights at a point of entry,” says Wilmer Chavarria, a school superintendent in Vermont.

MORE: Whistleblower Aid says that one of its clients “has lawfully disclosed evidence to the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General that corroborates the thrust of the whistleblower claims regarding Emil Bove and other senior DOJ officials actively and deliberately undermining the rule of law.”

The launch of an important new public resource. The Anti-Corruption Tracker: Mapping the Erosion of Oversight and Accountability www.justsecurity.org/117267/anti-... The Tracker is a living document that will be continually updated. A screenshot below gives you a sense of the Chart and its data.

Never before in the Nation’s almost 250 year history has America’s present and future depended more on the free press than it does today.

Americans aren't used to aspirational autocrats holding all of the levers of government - so we need to look to other countries to see the dangers. Justin Wolfers does a masterclass on what happens when autocrats think they know more about the economy than experts.

Been a busy year in the data mines.📊 Just published my mid-year roundup: 29 data visualizations on the state of US democracy, tracking everything from judicial resistance to billionaire influence to why Dems have a mobilization crisis, not a moderation problem. All charts free to use:

🧪 Science folks: Senate appropriations is actively discussing **right now** about building in provisions to restore terminated NSF grants. Call your senator now about why this is a good idea, especially if one of your senators is on this list: www.appropriations.senate.gov/about/members

With this vote, Congress makes ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in history, with more money per year at its disposal over the next four years than the budgets of the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons combined.

THIS FROM KATE SHAW @kateshaw.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/o...

Well, I have a new favorite Onion article for my office door... theonion.com/supreme-cour...

“and every June you’ll have to spend a day rapidly reloading the page to see how many of your rights have expired” -the Founders probably