Also because he pompously used “gustatory” and mixed up “anecdote” and I’m guessing “antidote” and he sometimes writes like a dude that operates on that kind of stylistic margin

It would seem to me that this is at least somewhat testable if you look at other countries with similar information environments. My guess is that the effect correlates with wealth inequality.

An amazing scholar, fabulous human being, and dear friend has left us. balkin.blogspot.com/2026/05/rip-...

The diff between the class action mechanism in Keepseagle (K) and here is crucial - I've seen folks (Ted Frank) on Twitter try to suggest the K settlement approval was only to make sure that absent class members weren't shorted their piece of the pie. Yes! Exactly! 1/

Not loving this coverage. The highest profile Texas D (Talarico) said awhile ago that he's not doing anything with her. They aren't really "scrambling" guys.

Fascinating nugget here is that Thomas wants to overturn Atkins, which is the rule that you can't death sentence people with intellectual disability (mental retardation). Nobody else joins. Given the posture of the case, it's possible that there's closeted agreement, but it's a good sign. 1/

I had a new standing idea for a lawsuit here, curious what people think. Could plaintiffs against the government form a class to sue on the grounds that the fund could be used to thwart contempt proceedings? I.e. the fund facilitates noncompliance with court orders?

NGL I really would be fine if nobody ever fucking quoted Orwell again. Let's all just quote other authors, it's enough.

It would be lovely if people in the media could quickly follow up with "that sounds nice but don't poor people incur a disproportionate cost of reduced tax revenue, so is this really a progressive move?"

This this this - my kids are young and "that's so AI" is like their meanest insult.

Here to report that the new Olivia Rodrigo song ("Drop Dead") is ... predictably good.

I mean you kind of do. Because the law professors are (ironically) the ones explaining to the political scientists that you may not be able to sue your way out of this illegality, and that the solution probably needs to to a feat of political and institutional will.

I'm pretty dubious that Officers Dunn and Hodges have "standing" to sue here. To put things in layperson terms, they have to assert reasonably concrete and imminent harm *to them* from the formation of the fund. Allegations here are in paras 94 through 101, with para 95 being key: 1/

This is a patronage fund for regimists. Returning to this reporting, the heuristic that political journalists used to approximate truth - split the difference between two equal extremes - has broken. And most political journalists are simply not sophisticated or careful enough to compensate. 1/

counterpoint: this is not that at all

Seriously call it a regimist payoff fund or an executive compensation fund or something that better captures what this is

It is not a “settlement” guys seriously stop fucking calling it that

IMHO Paxton's weaknesses are very hard to capture in polling - he's just an execrable human being, in ways that repulse swing voters but titillate MAGA. His many crimes and indulgences are coded w/in the R ecosystem as "owning the libs," but are massive general election liabilities. 1/

I have not seen a news announcement but the market movement just now tells me it's definitely Paxton

It's weird that this hasn't penetrated bluesky, but Trump said he's gonna endorse in TX-R primary in the next hour.

Fortress of Gall-itude

It's worth saying that this is 0% enforceable, since this is essentially an ultra-vires contract entered into by DOJ, without court imprimatur. They literally *dismissed the case under Rule 41(a)(1)* so that this was NOT court-stamped settlement

"deal" words, what do they mean

ME: Check this sweetie, he pulls up from 30, like Steph shoots from there HER: I don't understand then why it's such a big deal, you just said that the other Curry person shoots from there

I KNOW THE WORLD IS FUCKED UP BUT DEAR GOD PLAYOFF BASKETBALL IS HERE

OMG guys come on I have to grade finals and there are two nine foot guys out there doing shit in the paint

this is the most LOL that an LOL has ever LOL'd

Not for nothing, but this is pretty clearly *NOT* covered by presidential immunity. Trump would have to self-pardon to avoid criminal liability for this.

Wait! Don’t throw out the suit! The judge will lose inherent contempt power!

I think the state of play splinters into three concepts: 1) The underlying legality of the fund is dubious; 2) The authority of the judge presiding in the suit to which the fund is linked has multiple ways to slow this down; and 3) There are standing issues w/ a third party suit, potentially.

My understanding, which @gregsargent.bsky.social can probably corroborate, is that this is being drawn from an existing victims' compensation fund. If that's true, then I would expect a class action from these victims, who should have standing, quickly.

The court *does not* have to approve the settlement, and DOJ likely knows it will not - that's why the admin maneuvered to get it away from the judge. But not doing it in a way that can be entered as a settlement creates other issues that will be litigated.

there is not 1 MAGA regimist with the cognitive bandwidth to follow that fucking run-on sentence

someone is having what is merely a bad day, and then someone else is losing to james harden in a game 7

As someone who both litigates for clemency and studies it academically, this is not a very good argument at all. (1) There is some cherry-picked commutation comparator involving a cop killing where the person served 15 years and we know nothing about the grounds for commutation. 1/

QUESTION FOR ACADEMICS: what do you say when people ask you how it feels to be "off for the summer?"

chopped unc

My .02 here is that the academic community ought to respond not by tellings trustees/regents/etc. how stupid the ROI paradigm is - a needlessly losing battle if there ever was one - and instead by explaining what the return is and why their metric for that is too cramped.

there is 0 percent chance the musk reads books

I’m puzzled by this, because it’s not historically accurate and the rhetoric serves no practical purpose I can discern. Dare I say that virtually everyone who studies abuses of executive power agrees that this admin is unprecedented- abuse of the pardon power, corrupt self enrichment, etc.

Letting democrats vote is a scheme to undermine Dobbs

FYI everyone is watching this but there is also a motion to vacate a CA5 stay in an execution that's supposed to take place today, and I'd bet a lot that the capital case (Busby) is the hold up.

guys BUILT TO SPILL is playing SB halftime

oh man

Today's delay tactic was 1.5 hours deciding what hakeem olajuwon t shirt I wanted to buy.

There's this old quote from some sportswriter I can't remember that went something like this: "99 percent of the guys in the NBA are assholes trying to convince you that they're good guys. Charles Barkley is a good guy trying to convince you that he's an asshole."

Mordor