This morning at the airport, the TSA officer’s nameplate said “Bivens.” I was so excited/distracted that I nearly walked right through the metal detector with my phone in my pocket.

one of my absolute favorite one shot one kill sniper pieces in the law review canon 9 pages. click through now.

Naming national cultural institutions after the present holders of office is not a feature of the political culture of constitutional democracies or constitutional republics. It is a feature of the political culture of monarchies, dictatorships, and other systems centered on personalist rule.

At a certain stage, one re-reads Pride and Prejudice and hopes to be Mr. Bennet.

For no good reason I can discern, I've been unable to make Venmo payments for nine days, and it's essentially impossible to get any sort of customer service. I like the app, but this is frustrating.

Professor @richardprimus.bsky.social was on the Mitch Albom radio show to discuss the birthright citizenship case now headed to the Supreme Court. Listen: insight.tveyes.com/public/share...

An oversimplified, but not that oversimplified, understanding of the political philosophy behind Trump & John Roberts's unitary executive theory is that democracy means the people vote for one guy, who then gets to decide everything. But real democracy involves a lot more points of public input.

See, this is not ok.

Miami over Notre Dame is legit. That’s how it went on the field. Alabama over Notre Dame, after yesterday, is just wrong.

Now that the teaching semester is done, I just want to say this: my students were awesome. #GoBlue

New @umichlaw.bsky.social #DataforDefenders motions to compel discovery about & suppress evidence obtained through Flock's AI-inspired license plate reader technology. These motions explain why Flock-obtained data is not reliable and needs to be challenged in court. datafordefenders.org

I was so honored to receive @umichlaw.bsky.social’s L Hart Wright Award for teaching excellence this past year. Teaching here is such a privilege. Here are some of my remarks upon accepting the award: michigan.law.umich.edu/news/eve-bre...

We must keep calling out those that cave to the Trump Admin, and the latest is Northwestern. As part of their "deal," NU will pay $75 million, stop vital research, renege on agreements with its students over the war in Gaza, and more. Throwing your students under the bus to please Trump. Shameful.

DOJ says immigration judges, as "inferior officers," may be fired on the basis of sex, religion, race, or national origin. Leaving aside the law, it's *politically* remarkable they're taking this position. washingtonlitigationgroup.org/news/former-... storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Welcome to basketball season. It’s gonna be *lit.* #GoBlue

This is genuinely big news. Shldnt be but is. Republicans are challenging Trump now because he seems weak. No one wantst to back a weak horse. Trump looks like the weak horse.

“Critics have likened Mr. Trump’s approach to extortion, while others agree it’s extortion but aren’t critics.”

This seems like the kind of declaration by a U.S. president that should be mentioned *somewhere* on the front page of CNN or the NY Times, but the fact that it isn't (as of right now) tells us so much both about how this president is covered and the credibility of the U.S. government.

A Dishonorable Strike Indulging all assumptions in favor of the administration’s boat strikes, killing helpless men is murder www.execfunctions.org/p/a-dishonor...

So, @kevinmkruse.bsky.social clearly has the better of this argument. But the real reason to do Thanksgiving dinner as the midday meal is so you can have milchig pie for supper.

I would decline to voluntarily cooperate. No way. Issue a subpoena and fight it out in court.

Again, every elected Democrat needs to put out a video stating exactly what Kelly and the others said. If ever there were a line to draw in the sand, it’s here. The military is not the president’s Praetorian Guard.

If a public official (or any American) were publicly to say "The military should be above the law," it would be speech protected by the First Amendment. I'm pretty sure that "The military must obey applicable law" is no less protected.

The Comey/James dismissals are critically important as examples. They demonstrate that people with resources don't have to cave and give up. Caving and giving up is a choice.

In a time of corrupt power, there is nothing so subversive as a public reminder that people have obligations to the rule of law.

The song is great and all, but am I wrong to think that suns don't actually pull comets from orbits? Isn't the sun the thing that determines the normal orbital path? #AmateurAstronomyRuiningArt

Progress: In December 2024 I drove my EV to Chicago for a conference and couldn't find a place to charge overnight near my Hyde Park hotel. I just made exactly the same trip again, only this time my car charged smoothly in the hotel's self-parking area.

A very good piece. “The fact that many men believe they no longer even have to pretend to respect women in order to participate in public life makes it unlikely that anything will change anytime soon.”

We’ll need to grow 50% more calories by 2050 to feed the world, and we’ll need to do it with less land. People keep telling me, no, we just need to stop wasting food and eating meat, but how’s that going? The math sucks, but the math is the math.

Oh.

Publicly reminding soldiers of the duty to refuse illegal orders, if intended to suggest the illegality of orders, is justified only when there's a reasonable likelihood of actually illegal orders. For a president to support calls for summary execution of political opponents is justified never.

Turns out that the $16MM payoff ABC made to Trump bought them only a few months' reprieve. Weird how that happens.

“No doubt having a rule of law isn’t enough for a society to qualify as a good one. But those inclined to denigrate it should contemplate societies without it.” — Don Herzog, 1989

So was I. @sbagen.bsky.social @dorfonlaw.bsky.social

If he has nothing to hide he doesn’t need a House vote. He can just release everything.

What perfect album came out the year you turned 16?

If I understand correctly, the Texas A&M Regents adopted a policy that says “No system academic course will advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity,” with advance permission from the administration. Some thoughts. (1/5)

Dear Fox Sports: Nobody likes these behind-the-backfield camera angles. Stop it and let us watch. Thanks. @foxsports.com.web.brid.gy

Today is a great day in Law 648, Constitutional Interpretation.

By the way, I’ve recently discovered a great podcast. It’s called The Oral Talmud, with Dan Libenson and Benay Lappe. Highly recommended (for people who like such things). Knowledge of Aramaic not necessary.

Is anyone talking about Richard Primus’ new book? This would be a GREAT way for congress to begin fixing their learned helplessness. Primus analyzes anew the popular application of the enumerated powers in the book. (Hopefully I am grasping it correctly as a layman.) @richardprimus.bsky.social

Thread. This is good news.

Great column by @jamellebouie.net on how a future Congress can wield its "broad array of powers" to restore our democracy. With quotes from excellent books by @richardprimus.bsky.social and my @georgetownlaw.bsky.social colleague @joshchafetz.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/o...

Later today, with the support of @sbagen.bsky.social and @richardprimus.bsky.social, I’ll be moving a Faculty Senate resolution calling on the University of Michigan to reject the federal government’s proposed “Academic Compact.” Join the discussion if you can! docs.google.com/document/u/0...

In which two leading experts focus on a timely question: How should courts deal with an executive branch that asks the judiciary for special favors while behaving rather badly? @williambaude.bsky.social papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

This is a good essay (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/m...

Wow.

There are a lot of important threads in here, but Trump getting one of his billionaire friends to fund the military really gets me. I want the troops to be paid. But a privately funded army, which evades Congress’s power to oversee how the $ is spent, should ring all our republican alarms.