wtf is a FIFA peace prize? that's like being an NFL laureate in physics

This is gonna be like the Darwin Award in 3 years

In her dissent, Judge Pan says the emerging view of executive power by Trump and his backers in the courts "concentrates excessive power in the President and thus paves the way to autocracy." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

JUST IN: A 2-1 panel of the D.C. Circuit rules that Trump may remove members of the NLRB or MSPB regardless of laws meant to shield them from removal without cause. Majority: Rao (Trump), Katsas (Trump) Dissent: Pan (Biden) storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

W @harvardash.bsky.social & @politicsprof.bsky.social, my team @brookings.edu is working on our next edition of the Democracy Playbook It will be a driver’s manual for democracies globally on how to make U-turns Hear more on The Current podcast 👇 www.brookings.edu/articles/ins...

Supreme Court at any time may issue 2 orders on its emergency docket that will greatly affect how Americans live over the next few years: one on legality of national guard troops in American cities and one on whether States like Texas can re-redistrict and get away with it on timing grounds for 2026

Major decision. In D.C., ICE/CBP can no longer arrest immigrants without a warrant unless they find individualized probable cause of a flight risk. "Viewing all immigrants potentially subject to removal as criminals is, as a legal matter, plain wrong." www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

Great explainer for constitutional law and IR folks

So proud that my latest piece, "Labeling dissent as terrorism: New US domestic terrorism priorities raise constitutional alarms," is headlining today's newsletter from @us.theconversation.com ➡️ Read more here: theconversation.com/labeling-dis...

It's a good gig if you can get it, I guess....

“Thousands of very competitive projects in areas like cancer, diabetes, aging, neurological disorders and public health improvements most like went unfunded in 2025. Similarly, at the National Science Foundation, the roughly 3,000 fewer new grants encompassed reductions to every area of science”

keep adding job status updates though #polisky - helps folks to know how the market is moving along www.politicalsciencejobs.org/status-updates

Polls for months have shown a huge lead for Orban's opponent. Now the HU government is doing what it always does before elections: increase social benefits, threaten opponents, rewrite election law. Trump promised to underwrite Orban's election spending spree. dailynewshungary.com/latest-poll-...

Former US military lawyers speak out: "The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both." Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes 1/2

Harvard gets its research funding back through defiance and lawsuits.

Incredible headline.

NEWS: During a hearing in federal court in VA, prosecutors confirmed that the operative indictment in the case against James Comey was never shown to or voted on by the entire grand jury before it was presented in open court. Defense counsel argued that’s a complete bar to further prosecution

Yesterday, Trump defended the Saudi Crown Prince in the Oval Office. He said he had “nothing” to do with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. But I reviewed a call while serving on Trump’s NSC that I believe would be of interest to the Khashoggi family and the American people. Release the transcript.

There have been at least 154 cases in which federal district courts have issued preliminary relief against a Trump administration policy. Those rulings have come from 121 *different* judges appointed by seven presidents (including 15 appointed by Trump) sitting in 29 district courts in 10 circuits:

Really interesting study that challenges the conventional wisdom of the punditry about young men increasingly being drawn to conservatism.

Kentucky GOP Congressman Thomas Massie has secured the petition signatures needed to force a vote on releasing all Department of Justice files on Jeffrey Epstein. www.lpm.org/news/2025-11...

Did you know gov shutdowns aren’t in the Constitution, any law, or Court ruling? They exist because of a 1980 OLC memo—a lawyer’s opinion that everyone just went along with. Before 1980, funding gaps didn’t cause shutdowns. What one memo created, another can undo. How the next D admin can undo it:

"Why American-style polarisation is spreading across the West" Two words: algorithms and incentives. Mostly incentives. Until we modify or eliminate incentives, all we can do is watch as the fabric of society is pulled apart, strand by strand. www.ft.com/content/5060...

At least 15 incumbents lost in the state legislative elections in New Jersey & Virginia, with 6 New Jersey contests still uncalled as of 5:30 pm EST on 11/5. That’s the most general election incumbent defeats in an odd year since 21 were defeated in 2011. All 15 defeated incumbents were Republicans.

An official with the National Transportation Safety Board says the left engine fell off the Louisville UPS plane as it was attempting to take off, before crashing just beyond the runway. www.lpm.org/news/2025-11...

For about two hours last night, Sabit Aliyev and his co-workers were trapped by flames from the UPS plane crash in Louisville. “It was like really loud. This explosion and flames all over. It was.. [the] heat was so bad, you can feel it from a distance,” he said.

I have tasted the sandwich that was lobbed at my bulletproof vest and which you probably spent your hard-earned money on forgive me it smelled delicious so onion-y so mustard-y

Mike Johnson: It’s True. I Am Tuning Out The News Cycle To Focus On Self-Care

On why judicial biographies are almost always bad, unless you collect cliches. washingtonmonthly.com/2025/11/02/a...

@mgraber1.bsky.social reviews Justice Barrett’s book: “By presenting judging as a realm of pure law, insulated from politics, the justices offer a picture so implausible that it makes the opposite claim—that judging is nothing but politics—more credible.”

Huge increase in the cost of coffee = guess I'll just have to cut back on "extras" like groceries and medicine

Why did Indiana University attack and cut its own student newspaper? Well, in a twist of irony any English professor would call clichéd, it turns out IU did it because they were angry about the students' reporting on a FIRE report naming IU as the worst public university for free speech in the US.

1 in 3 US community-service nonprofits lost government funding in early 2025. These organizations run food pantries, deliver job training and offer mental health services. They provide independent living assistance, disaster relief and emergency shelter, among other services

This is a very, very big protest. Heroes Square alone is really big. Orban is really in trouble

Breaking News: North Carolina state senators approved a new congressional map that could give Republicans an extra seat. The state House is expected to pass it.

No Kings in Louisville, Kentucky: I reported extensively on the 2020 Breonna Taylor protests and I don't think I've every seen as many people protesting in downtown Louisville as I did today.

Some Con Law humor...

NEW: A professor at Rutgers University who wrote a book about “antifa” almost a decade ago is trying—and struggling—to flee the US for Europe after a weeks-long online campaign against him by far-right influencers was followed by death threats. www.wired.com/story/mark-b...

NEW: Judge Immergut issues her written second TRO, blocking the Trump admin from deploying ANY federalized National Guard troops from ANY state in Oregon. (Full hearing thread below) storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

If you've done in-person research at any of the following presidential libraries in the last 8 months, can you please follow me/contact me—soon—for a story I'm working on (can be off the record)? Hoover FDR Truman Eisenhower JFK LBJ Ford Carter And either way, can you please share this request? 🙏

Portland ❤️

Sociologist Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social (Princeton University) provides comment in the recent article, “Why Won’t America’s Business Leaders Stand Up to Donald Trump?” @newyorker.com

Huge DOGE oral history from @leahfeiger.bsky.social, @zoeschiffer.bsky.social, @telliotter.bsky.social, @knibbs.bsky.social, @makenakelly.bsky.social, @davidgilbert.bsky.social, @mollytaft.com, @aarianmarshall.bsky.social, @peard33.bsky.social, + @jakelahut.writes.news www.wired.com/story/oral-h...

Newborn Loses Faith In Humanity After Record 6 Days https://theonion.com/newborn-loses-faith-in-humanity-after-record-6-days-1819573929/

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

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.