Good morning, Brooklyn!

Another essay explaining what’s wrong with Blue Sky. (TL;DR: Too many keyboard warriors competing for Fiercest Invective against The Bad Guys Award). Posting it in hopes that my tiny little corner of this place might get better. open.substack.com/pub/conspicu...

Tanner Greer’s analysis of Kirk’s significance to young people on the Right. The viewpoint here is alien to BlueSky. If you react with as little vitriol as this essay contains, then — congrats! — you’ll have shown a level of empathy atypical of social media. scholarstage.substack.com/p/bullets-an...

A clip of my mom in 1976 touting (1) federal subsidies for housing and (2) this new fangled thing called “solar energy.” She’s a Republican, folks. youtube.com/watch?v=Tptf...

“‘They’re dragging your ass on Bluesky’ is a statement that strikes fear into the heart of practically no one.” open.substack.com/pub/noahpini...

A question for immigration law profs like @adambcox.bsky.social : Has there been litigation on the meaning of DHS rule (287.8(c)(2)(iii)) requiring officers to identify themselves as soon as it is practical and safe to do so? Masking seems to be in tension w/ the rule. www.ecfr.gov/current/titl...

“Humorless, scoldy neuroticism, often rationalized by the view that one must be on ‘war footing‘ because the world is self-evidently in crisis.” open.substack.com/pub/natesilv...

Sam Kriss on ChatGPT 5.0: “still essentially just a weighted average of all the fanfiction ever posted online.” substack.com/@samkriss/no...

Having spent dozens of hours digging up a rogues’ gallery of weeds (Russian Thistle, tumble weeds the size of beach balls, globemallow, punture weed loaded with goats’ heads, etc), I am sparing this 6’ Palmer’s Pigweed growing out of a cement block out of sheer respect for its tenacity.

As @zhangtaisu.bsky.social @bridgetfahey.bsky.social and Lin note, there are many areas in which states can provide a check on federal manipulation of data. Jobs and inflation, however, are two areas where this safeguard fails, because states lack the state capacity to generate reliable numbers.

Because the BLS provides information that political appointees can review and reject, Noah and I argue that Congress can always insulate BLS staff from serving at the Prez’s pleasure. But, as Abbe Gluck notes, loose language in Braidwood puts that position at risk. www.scotusblog.com/2025/07/expe...

McEntarfer is the epitome of the apolitical civil servant. She started at the Census Bureau 20 years ago as a labor economist and has worked at calculating jobs numbers ever since. She was confirmed by the Senate 86-8 in 2024, at the height of partisan polarization. www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...

“…you shouldn’t treat the fact that you don’t believe the same dogma as everyone else as meaning you’re immune from dogma.” benthams.substack.com/p/the-freeth...

Insightful essay on why the culture of impatience captured by “TL;DR” is destroying your capacity to think, grow, and feel. It really isn’t TL: Give it an R. open.substack.com/pub/maalvika...?

Evaluation of Minneapolis’ reducing zoning constraints in suggests that deregulation reduced housing costs by 15-23%—even without adding a lot of new units, because density alone may reduce construction costs. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

“Our politics revolve around the idea that scarce resources mean keeping people out. We are utterly unprepared for a world in which perhaps the scarcest resource will be people.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/o...

Do the Coffee Beans Procedure for being a law prof, and you’ll discover that, if you like that job (I do!), then you are indeed crazy. open.substack.com/pub/experime...

This is the quotidian quagmire, multiplied by thousands across the country, too routine and boring to get attention from anyone w/o a nearby down payment at stake, that has brought us the housing crisis.

Andrew Sullivan, an anti-Trump conservative: “This is the Israel we have gone to war for. It is not the Israel of the 20th Century. It is a belligerent, ethno-nationalist country, run in part by ugly racists and those who wish Israel were Arab-free.” andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-conseq...

Aside from being the right thing to do as a matter of policy IMHO, state & local law enforcement’s demanding to see the identity and warrant of these feds would be a great way to set limits on Ableman v Booth and Tarble’s Case (which -again IMHO- is an important thing to do as a matter of doctrine).

Reading Skrmetti this morning, I realize how astute @jdmortenson.bsky.social and Rich Friedman were to include Geduldig in their conlaw casebook — and how much I regret not including that case in my syllabus. That opinion is really amenable to bad-faith nonsense like that found in footnote 3.

I’m aware of the irony in posting on Bluesky an essay about curing attention deficit disorder brought about by social media. Nevertheless…stay on Bluesky just long enough to retrieve this essay and take its advice by stopping your scrolling (as I will do right now). open.substack.com/pub/contempl...

“In science fiction, the typical worry is that machines will become human-like; the more pressing problem now is that, through the thinning out of our interactions, humans are becoming machine-like.” nationalaffairs.com/publications...

Prediction: The American Farm Bureau Federation will be a mightier and more effective opponent of Stephen Miller’s daft deportations than even the biggest and best organized No Kings protests. truthsocial.com/@realDonaldT...

I’ve been teaching an writing about the 10th amendment anti-commandeering doctrine for more than a quarter century and have always used Art I’s militia clauses as examples of a commandeering power. (Sec 5, 14th amendment is another). So Newsom’s 10th amend argument strikes me as pretty weak…

Just a reminder that the number of federal sworn and badged officers is dwarfed by the number of non-federal peace officers. Seattle’s PD *alone* has close to 1,000. The entire ICE force? ≈ 6,000 *nationwide*. So, no, I doubt ICE will be arresting police chiefs. www.kuow.org/stories/seat...

“Like the containment dome over a nuclear reactor, Bluesky serves the important safety purpose of ensuring that whatever meltdowns occur within produce minimal fallout.” www.joshbarro.com/p/bluesky-is...

Sound advice on how to engage with political opponents that Blue Sky denizens routinely ignore. open.substack.com/pub/karintam...

So absolutely true, even today, eight years later. (I live in Gowanus btw). open.substack.com/pub/blakenel...

A searing condemnation of Netanyahu’s pointless massacre of civilians from someone with zero sympathy for the American campus Left. Sullivan is living proof that opposition to the latter is no excuse for condoning the former. open.substack.com/pub/andrewsu...

Great questions from my representative, Dan Goldman (NY 10).

Is there a way on Blue Sky to get custom-tailored interaction settings— i.e., sort of like starter packs for people to follow (law, land-use, US history, etc) but for comments, etc?

“She has pleaded not guilty, and her lawyers contend she is immune from prosecution for official judicial acts.” This makes a nice exam question pitching national supremacy against state autonomy. I’m inclined to agree w/ Clement, but I wonder what other profs think? abcnews.go.com/US/video-sho...

“‘This is nonsense, they are a group of thugs that are running the state of Israel these days and the head of the gang is Netanyahu - this is a gang of thugs,’ Olmert said.” Olmert is a right-of-center politician: His saying you’re a thug is likely not Left propaganda. www.bbc.com/news/article...

We’re doomed—and not because of generative AI. Generative AI is just the undertaker burying the corpse: our collective literacy died a long time ago. open.substack.com/pub/kittenbe...

“The Fed Reserve is a…quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the 1st and 2nd Banks of the US.” Giving the Fed a pass for *this* reason is wacky originalism, because the BUS’s private status made it suspect to framers like Madison. www.politico.com/news/2025/05...

In Property Law, I didn’t teach document fraud (eg lessees’ sneaking in options-to-buy in leases that working class owners unwittingly sign). But it’s actually an important topic given how much of property law rests on presumed authenticity of underlying documents. www.thecity.nyc/2025/05/19/s...

@williambaude.bsky.social gives a shout-out for Daniel Slate’s article, “Infringed,” in the Journal of American Const’l History. open.substack.com/pub/divideda... Issue is here: jach.law.wisc.edu/infringed/. Slate describes how framers thought govt could restrict a right w/o violating it.

“…her professor had accidentally posted a back-and-forth with ChatGPT. It included the grading rubric the professor had asked the chatbot to use and a request for some ‘really nice feedback’ to give Marie.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/t...?

Here’s why USDOT/Sean Duffy cannot block MTA’s congestion pricing scheme. TL;DR: A deal’s a deal. USDOT cannot rescind on a whim a contract that USDOT made w/ NY. As for Duffy’s threats to cut off grants unless NY surrenders, that’s unconstitutional extortion. www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/can...

CA’s Curse: Treating zoning as pork to be waived for a payoff. “[L]awmakers who say they want to increase housing construction are nevertheless prone to tacking on price controls, labor agreements and other regulations to appease various constituencies.” calmatters.org/politics/202...

5Boros bike tour on Sixth Avenue briefly shows us how wonderful life in midtown Manhattan would be without cars.

The right answer is actually not reassuring. It is: “yes, but, under Mathews v Eldridge, the process due varies inversely with the government’s interest in quick decision-making. In deportation, that interest is at its zenith, so not much process is due.” www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

Judge Liman upholding use of bridge fees to pay for subways: “…bridges [and] public transit systems…may ‘form an integrated, interdependent transportation system bear[ing] a functional relationship to tolls charged in connection with other components.” storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Judge Liman’s 98-page opinion demolishes TANY’s argument that congestion fees illegally burden interstate commerce. TL; DR: No discrimination against out-of-state folks? Then no dormant commerce clause problem. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

If you are surprised that a “natural born” U.S. citizen has been locked up arbitrarily by ICE, you haven’t been paying attention. www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/...

“[The Trump Administration] claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses hold dear.” thehill.com/homenews/525...