These decisions of course all operate on the presumption that there will never, ever be a congressional majority to do anything like court packing, jurisdiction stripping, or impose any kind of consequences for rank lawlessness. Those bills aren’t at this point even part of the public agenda.

Why would Democrats agree to any budget deal when all of it can be overturned by executive fiat?

What is left of “balancing the equities” when there is one factor that now automatically receives all weight in the equation?

How most presidents avoid upsetting the racial status quo—and why those who do pave the way for lawless, norm-violating successors. Backlash Presidents by @juliaazari.bsky.social is out now. Learn more about this incisive book and order yours: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... #PoliticalScience

If you want to learn more about the conditions of possibility for policy defiance in US federalism, I cannot recommend this book — and the symposium it spawned — enough.

Very excited to see the symposium on Green Rush (with @leehannahwsu.bsky.social ) published in Publius! The editor's introduction can be found here: academic.oup.com/publius/arti... @philiprocco.bsky.social Thanks to everyone involved! All reviews are posted below.

This is unambiguously correct. There is no good reason that the President should control the appointment of the leader of GAO, one of the few oversight agencies that is still functional. Congress should take control of their own agencies. substack.com/home/post/p-...

The public’s capacity to hold the military & its civilian ldrs accountable is a core principle of democratic control of the military. If Pentagon reporters can’t do their jobs, citizens won‘t have info they need to do their part Which may be the point here. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

There's a tremendous amount of insight in this post from @himself.bsky.social on power as coordination. As he notes, absolute power is a contradiction in terms, because someone who's absolutely unconstrained can make no commitments and so can't give orders. www.programmablemutter.com/p/repost-abs...

Several Republicans are introducing a bill to change the Fed's dual mandate—maximize employment while maintaining stable prices—to a single one, prices only. If that were the rule, the Fed shouldn't be cutting rates. Does DJT know about this? financialservices.house.gov/news/documen...

You know things are rough when the AAUP's advice on how to use social media is just "set all your accounts to private."

As early as 2016, what really worried me about Trump was, in any event, the possibility that countervailing institutions and American civil society were simply too compromised, too rudderless, or too incapable of collective action to defend themselves.

I don’t know when it’s going to pop for a lot of normies that they are living under an authoritarian regime, but the cancellation of popular TV shows that make fun of the administration might do it www.vulture.com/article/abc-...

In this AAUP-UC suit, there’s a powerful case to be made that much of what Trump is attempting via hijacking federal grants amounts to unconstitutional coercion under 10A jurisprudence (and is frankly a far more bright line example than many others). www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

Flashback

Loyola Marymount University claims religious exemption with the NLRB, claws back recognition of NTT faculty union The sudden decision of the LMU Board of Trustees has left many NTT faculty in shock; the union plans a response.

classic autocracy--to claim emergencies where there are none, to claim that political opponents are terrorists when they are not.

WTF is this? Normalizing authoritarianism repression as an electoral strategy www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Not being allowed to say that the government is becoming authoritarian would be a pretty good sign that the government is already authoritarian.

Just pointing out the incoherence of ‘we must replace BLS leadership because of falling response rates’ and ‘we aren’t going to let you stem falling response rates by following up when they don’t respond’. (Census collects data for BLS too.)

Extent of the threat to the integrity of the 2030 Census in the House funding beggars belief. Not only did the Committee narrowly approve eliminating undocumented persons from apportionment counts (in violation of the 14th A), it also handcuffs Bureau’s ability to do nonresponse followup. 1/2

Implicit in Trump's posts is the message that if Wisconsin and South Dakota hadn't voted for him, he would be far less inclined to give them federal disaster aid. He is weaponizing and politicizing everything.

I, for one, don’t think that fearmongering and willfully spreading misinformation is the right way to engage in politics, setting aside the targets of that engagement.

1. We do not know the motive of the shooter. The man who shot at Trump was after attention. 2. The man who murdered MN legislators WAS motivated by politics, and I didn’t hear any Dems calling for reprisals against all Repubs. 3. It’s easy to start a cycle of violence. Not easy to end one.

California could lose over two dozen rural hospitals across the state because of the GOP budget law. ESB's Liz Pancotti told Chico’s KHSL-TV this is on top of the wave of shutdowns and service cuts the state has already endured.

“I left the hipster coffee shop in LA and people were whispering about A Preface to Democratic Theory”

Remember, Trump has been in office more than 7 months. His economic team has not come up with ONE suggestion for improving economic data. He is upset that the economy is in bad shape because of his policies, he couldn't care less about the quality of the data.

Wut

It is entirely clear that until courts actually start levying contempt charges against Trump officials, all of these funding blocks will continue.

"this really comes down to whether Democrats actually believe they can win a shutdown fight politically...That’s a little curious, since Democrats have won every shutdown fight of the past 30 years, whether they were the party in power or out of power." prospect.org/politics/202...

My latest for MSNBC: CMS is adding new prior authorization requirements for traditional Medicare, implemented with AI. Prior auth is a key vehicle for coverage denials that then drive administrative burdens of appealing, which seniors are less well equipped to navigate. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

This 2020 throwback illustrates POTUS's attitude toward economic statistics. He will eagerly attack them or promote them, whatever's politically convenient for him today. Truth has NOTHING to do with it.

Ex ante, one would think this kind of thing should be top-of-fold news.

POTUS has steered the U.S. towards a stagflationary ditch. He wants to hide the evidence, so he fired the BLS commissioner last month. His nominee, Dr. EJ Antoni, is unqualified & unfit, prompting the Senate HELP Committee to take a hard look. May go down. Plan B: replace Wiatrowski+ w/loyalists

Found 31 things I've written on here. Certainly joining in the filing!

Great analysis here from @ryanlcooper.com. As I show in my book on the 2020 Census, states have significant power resources to bring to bear to counter authoritarianism, if they can be mobilized and (more importantly) horizontally coordinated. prospect.org/politics/202...

Once again tapping the sign catalyst-journal.com/2025/07/why-...

The Dem Senate leadership's unbelievable negotiating position is that they will give Trump everything he wants except that they demand: an extension of Obamacare subsidies so that they expire right after the midterms, not before. This sounds like political malpractice on several levels.

It is a testament to the power of PR as a gestalt—perhaps the only gestalt that remains in the ruins of the party sphere!—that Democrats now apparently believe they must search for yet more messages as opposed to a political formula or program. urbanmilwaukee.com/2025/09/01/s...

Never too late to join us in @aaup.org

This is a really good piece by @jhvassallo.bsky.social. Definitely stuff to argue with here, but it's a really nice statement of the big-picture issues. Can Democrats Offer a New Vision for Labor? www.liberalpatriot.com/p/can-democr...

USDA quietly said Friday it will, after a century, end the Farm Labor Survey (FLS), the only wage survey of ag employers. FLS is a critical input to setting local minimum wages for H-2A visa workers to try to avoid harm to U.S. workers' wages. #LaborDay #EconSky www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/Not...

So, sending troops to Chicago or Baltimore would be much more complicated than either LA or DC. 🧵

Still remembering when it was evidently a bright line violation of the 10th Amendment to require Medicaid expansion…

Excellent thread here

@ddayen.bsky.social sums it up here: Dems have a choice this month: "They can blind themselves to everything happening in the government...Or they can open their eyes and recognize that pretending the same old politics can deliver the same old results is madness." prospect.org/politics/202...

1/DC occupation/Trump policies causing a sudden stop to regional economy. These policies are not creating a sense of safety but far reaching harm to families, workers, and the nation. www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-n...

A example of what I talk about in Counting Like a State. There is a diverse repertoire of actions that states can take to protect federal data under assault. Not just lawsuits, not just mobilizing census participation, but refusal to cooperate with these schemes. kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700639687/

In the 2x2 of federalism subjects that are both (increasing in relative) importance but yield few annual publications, I’d put interstate compacts towards the top. Right up there with the National Guard.