I’ve now aged out of this but navigating the pestering attention of older men in my field—which varied from manipulative flattery when they were trying to sleep with you to contemptuous retaliation when they realized they couldn’t—was an exhausting and demoralizing tax of my early professional life.

Former UN special rapporteur Richard Falk was detained by 🇨🇦 customs agents and, for four hours, was asked a series of questions about his participation in the conference, his involvement in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and his position on Israel. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Sometimes you have an experience like this and years later see the man thanked for his mentorship by another man in the preface to the latter’s book, and it really burns

This is so so disturbing. Trump is now pardoning January 6th rioters for unrelated crimes, just to reward them for their violence to keep him in power. The Republican Party is in the full time business of endorsing and incentivizing political violence. So scary.

1/ Egalitarianism should begin at home. I link to this article by @bencasselman.bsky.social in light of the communications between Larry Summers and Jeffrey Epstein that have just been released. The released emails and the fact of friendship are vile. www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/b...

It’s a rainy morning in California, but our future is bright! ☀️ We are reveling in this incredible win for academic freedom and higher education. www.latimes.com/california/s...

This memo is almost an admission of legal *vulnerability* for those carrying out bombings. “It signals fear that what they’re doing is illegal and that they could possibly be subject to criminal action under US law and international law,” Rep Adam Smith tells me. 4/ newrepublic.com/article/2032...

Alan Dershowitz is one of those claiming Epstein was not a pedophile because he pleaded guilty to one count of having sex for money with a 17-year-and-10-month-old person. "That’s not a pedophile." See this important response from Julia Brown, the brave reporter who broke the news on this

Inspired by and grateful for the brilliant colleagues who have been fighting this case

Trump et al "have engaged in coercive and retaliatory conduct in violation of the First Amendment and Tenth Amendment. It also shows that they have flouted the requirements of Title VI and IX and cancelled funding in an arbitrary and capricious manner while ignoring required procedural safeguards"

Too few people are talking about the fact that for eight years (2011-2019), while Jeffrey Epstein was raping young girls and trafficking them to hundreds of other rapists from his home base in Palm Beach, Florida, the Florida district attorney was Pam Bondi. Connect the dots.

David Richards, the legendary Texas civil rights attorney who litigated White v. Regester, has passed away at age 92. www.statesman.com/news/article...

A huge district court victory for the University of California. District courts find facts. This one found "overwhelming evidence" that the Trump administration has pervasively violated the First Amendment in its efforts to coerce and intimidate the University of California. News story here—

my takeaway from this letter is that glenn youngkin, rector sheridan and their flunkies on the board are deeply dishonest people who are engaged, with the trump administration, in a mob-style shakedown against the university of virginia

Former UVA president Jim Ryan, who resigned over the summer due to pressure from the Trump Administration, just shared this 12-page letter with the Faculty Senate, detailing his experience with the Board of Visitors and DOJ. It's a surreal--and troubling--read. drive.google.com/file/d/1Is6x...

University PRESIDENTS have become isolated and arrogant (Fixed the headline. The story can stay and amply illustrates the new headline.)

2023: "They're taking advantage of a 16-year-old MINOR!! I have a daughter close to that, if you come near her as a 31-year-old man, we're going to have a SERIOUS PROBLEM!!" 2025: "He was not a pedophile; he was into the barely legal type. Like he liked 15-year-old girls... that is what I believe."

So now, the public is (predictably) herding *away* from Trump, toward a more sympathetic view of immigration and ... here are Dems, stuck with the panicked reactionary stances they took on the advice of the Moderate to Win bros, unable to properly ride & harness this shift.

The thing about the "moderate to win" crowd is that they pose as Data Guys but very clearly have an animus toward the left that skews their analysis. When Trump won, they were all pathetically eager to say, "ah, the country is anti-immigrants xenophobes now, top to bottom, what can you do?"

My hope is, we've learned enough from last time that in 2029, we'll create a truth & reconciliation commission to learn & publicize all that happened. Likely a lot we don't know. Could be congressional hearings, or an independent institution. Needs to be carefully structured for maximum attention.

NEW: @propublica.org investigated the Chicago apartment raid where kids were zip-tied and citizens detained for hours. They find: - NONE of the arrested were criminally charged - NO evidence the building was "filled with TdA terrorists." - ZERO legitimate reason for DHS to rappel from a Blackhawk.

Something absolutely perfect about Larry Summers riffing about the scourge of woke cancel culture being unfair to predatory men in a friendly email to his pal JEFFREY EPSTEIN.

Congrats again, everyone

I think this helpfully confirms the notion that the end of the filibuster was a big motivator for the eight Dems.

Heaven forbid the Republicans get rid of the filibuster…

My god (sorry I’m late on a bunch of this stuff. But wow!) According to this NYT report, the head of the FBI and the Attorney General are holding meetings *in the Situation Room* with GOP lawmakers they are trying to pressure to rescind their votes to release the Epstein info. This is madness.

the decision to really just abandon moderation and let it rip suggests that this is what meta wants for its platform. this is the final, idealized form of the product

So, in the alternative, the SG argues that even if the Court holds that I'm right that "the regular forces" means the standing military, the courts nevertheless must presume Trump has already determined that the military would be "unable" to ensure law execution ... [4]

The apotheosis of the "judiciary must defer to the POTUS" argument (?): In the case involving the National Guard in Chicago, I've argued--and now Illinois/Chicago do, too--that b/c "the regular forces" in 10 USC 12406 means the standing armed forces (esp. the Army), ... [1] @justsecurity.org

The sheer number of people Trump pardoned — 1,500+ — and the magnitude of violence many (most?) of them committed means it is statistically likely that a fair number will be revidivists, potentially for more egregious crimes. The pardons should be a top story EVERY DAY

I haven't seen enough reporting on the fact that this funding deal provides that when the government shuts down again in January, there will not be any gap in SNAP benefits (because Agriculture is funded through September 30). (Also no furloughs at the VA—already there weren't many, but still.)

High end wealth inequality allows for shit like this

Fascinating. So Congress knows how to write a bill allowing people to sue federal officers?! www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...

In the century leading up to 1975, nearly 6000 freighters went down in the Great Lakes. The Edmund Fitzgerald was the last. The last. In 50 years, not a single commercial freighter has been lost in the Great Lakes. Why? It's NOAA. Of course it's NOAA.

Trump to air traffic controllers: "For those that did nothing but complain, and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid, IN FULL, shortly into the future, I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU. You didn’t step up to help the U.S.A. against the FAKE DEMOCRAT ATTACK"

Finished Lowenstein's "Ways & Means" on the financial and tax reforms that won the Civil War for the Union—brilliant book that manages to make bond sales gripping & shows how many US institutions (land-grant colleges, Union Pacific, etc) we owe to wartime reforms www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Schumer's a coward. Shaheen & co. soiled themselves. Yes, yes to all of it. But why don't Murkowski, Tillis, & company even get asked questions? Why do we have zero expectation of them? Journalists don't even bother trying. We have accepted Murc's Law as a constitutional provision. It's maddening.

Hey y’all, this right here ⬇️

One has to wonder what the informational inputs are of senators who decided to cave.

So it’s just hard to explain this as a strategic decision at all. Instead it looks like what they learned was their own unwillingness to see people harmed by the shutdown and their own lack of leadership, not anything about strategy

The fact that many Democratic Senators are profoundly trapped in an unreal matrix of DC-media assumptions is a disaster on an epic scale. But it’s also an opportunity. You have to wait years to primary most Senators, but you can fight to change those assumptions now. Let me explain…

Consider a future Dem majority with a progressive agenda setter and no filibuster. The proposal will be one that makes people like CCM et al indifferent between the proposal and status quo. With the filibuster, the setter needs a few rep votes and so proposes something closer to CCM’s ideal point.

It’s absolutely unfair and we are stuck with this until, minimum, 2029.

look I know being an engaged citizen IS the work of democracy but it is also the work of elected officials not to create situations where everyone has to be mobilized all the time to prevent them from allowing some kind of Dickensian horror on a Sunday night while you're in between loads of laundry

This is the thing Senate Democrats need to be told slowly and loudly thousands of times between now and January. Every public event, every day’s phone call record. (That PLUS how some who only donate in general elections are now researching your potential primary opponent to give them $$$.) ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Everyone is saying it. Literally everyone

My family has been without half our income for 40 days. It has been.. very hard. We are willing to feel that pain so people can have health care next year, or to undo these illegal recissions. We are not willing to have been put through this for NOTHING.

I agree partway with @joshtpm.bsky.social. Basically, he suggests (my gloss), you have to recognize how unbelievably bad things were just a few months ago. Yes, today's vote was a massive and pathetic cave. But for these Senate Dems, it actually represents progress. True! However—

Bar discipline is one of the most important fora for this fight. It's really important to make it clear to the next generation of would be Eastmans and Chesebros that if they do this stuff they probably will not practice law again.

Anyway a great way to radicalize people is for them to realize that you just abandoned their chance at being able to access and afford health care because you didn’t like waiting in line at the airport.