post a banger that isn't in English youtu.be/GO-JCDaZKNI

In the monstrous facts of Prigg v Pennsylvania (1842), Margaret Morgan’s husband was told that his wife and their children were safe for the night and sent home. When he returned to court the next day, they’d been kidnapped by Prigg and enslaved. (SCOTUS ruled the kidnapping was legal…)

I regret to inform you that things are better in Madrid.

In the 1850s, hardline supporters of slavery started developing affirmative theological defenses of enslaving other human beings. This was seen as outrageous and, in turn, supercharged theological opposition to slavery.

Someone sent this link around a while back: Resistance Lawyering by Daniel Farbman :: SSRN papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 established a new office of Federal Commissioner to assist in the process of reenslaving people across the north. In some places opinion was so against the law that it was impossible to recruit commissioners to fill the positions. Same vibes.

MAKE FITZHUGH GREAT AGAIN!!

I'm learning a lot more about Robin Leach than I ever wanted to know.

If you have kids between 8-18 and are looking for an excuse to get rid - er...give them the gift of an amazing experience in the mountains of Western Massachusetts for some part of this summer, consider sending them to Rowe. It's a place that changed my life. rowecenter.org/youth-camps/

My luke-warmest take is that radicalization is a slow process and that it is good in whatever form it takes and whenever it takes. We can't do the work of building a democracy worthy of ourselves by ourselves.

For years, @ksabeelrahman.bsky.social & I have been frustrated with what we call the Part IV Problem in legal scholarship, the expectation of neat & feasible prescriptions to end pieces. Our frustrations are heightened in this moment of authoritarianism, as we wrote today at @lpeblog.bsky.social:

Today, like nearly every day for the past year, is a good day to read Thoreau’s “Slavery in Massachusetts.” “It is not an era of repose. We have used up all our inherited freedom. If we would save our lives, we must fight for them.”

MAKE FEDERALISM GREAT AGAIN!!!

Since the death of Renee Good, I've been thinking a lot about the way that the pro-slavery press covered the murder of abolitionist printer Elijah Lovejoy in 1838. In short, he was blamed for "disturbing the peace" and "provoking violence" by agitating for abolition. History/tragedy/farce, etc.

Local government law at the heart of everything.

Periodic reminder that the confederacy hoped to conquer South America and create a hemispheric slave empire. Alexander Stephens’ ghost’s hands at the wheel of our politics.

The One Little Thing SCOTUS Explicitly Said Was Still Lawful is Not Lawful Say the "Very Best" Lawyers Who Definitely Care About Legality Above All. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/12/m...

Tell me the best stuff you've read recently about legal realism and its application to all the stuff we're living with. Asking for a person updating a syllabus...

If we’re just gonna make the constitution mean whatever we want, can we start making up “legitimate questions” about the Senate and the electoral college? Get in folks! We’re gonna make this old parchment live a little.

Look, I know this weaponization of male academic interest is the oldest story in the book, but it’s just so, so pernicious. It’s awful to the women directly involved, but it’s also awful to *all* women in the academy, who have to live in its shadow all the time.

Please stop making the worst parts of American history “great” again. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Real "compromise" of 1850 vibes today. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.....

In the stupidest timeline, all this is leading to FIFA staging a global coup and promulgating its worstness into every corner of our lives.

Despite a very vocal push against progressives here in Cambridge, we shored up a progressive majority on the city council and elected an amazing slate of progressive and teacher-backed candidates to the school committee. Good news around every local corner.

This account is undefeated.

It really looks like this guy is trying to turn the White House into mid-1990s McMansion in a “nice” Jersey suburb.

Unsolicited semi-random restaurant review #18: Rajdhani in Artesia. All-you-can-eat vegetarian Gujarathi thali. Eat whatever they are serving--and make sure you get bread. You will be delighted. www.rajdhaniofartesia.com

We are so far off the map of "how any of this works" that it seems like just about anything is possible. That's very bad when it's all about grift and nativism and trolling. But it's also as close as we're ever going to come to building a liberatory politics of possibility.

At some point the rank incompetence and self-regarding blindness has to have some consequences? Or are we really at the end of narrative?

Glass half full—lots of folks getting psyched to be part of this founding moment. open.substack.com/pub/postcard...

This billboard is straight out of the 1840s. (Personal Liberty laws passed to prevent the kidnapping of black northerners). We are making the worst parts of our history great again.

MAKE THE DEPLORABLES GREAT AGAIN!!!

Every year in Con Law we talk about how hard it is these days to find hard evidence of intentional discrimination behind government actions that have disparate racial impact. But they are just...texting and lolz-ing it all out there? www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

Among other things, this is so bizarrely formalist. All these orders “resolve” the issues before them in that they dissolve injunctions, allow for racial profiling, allow for impoundment, etc. You don’t have to be a legal realist to see this…though it doesn’t hurt.

Shards of light in a dark time.

During the 1850s there were cities in the north where the Fugitive Slave Law was unenforceable because nobody could be found who was willing to serve as a federal commissioner to hear and decide the cases.

New thing from me at Postcards of the Hanging. On the "judicial revolt" and the question of judicial solidarity. open.substack.com/pub/postcard...

What's old is new again. In September of 1850, black abolitionist leaders in Chicago gathered at Quinn Chapel to make a plan for protecting their community and resisting the federally supported slave catchers empowered by the Fugitive Slave Law. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

So strange when judges applying clear and well-settled law seem to part of “the resistance.” It might be time to start calling resistance to the administration “conservative”…because that is what these kinds of opinions are in outlook and result.

The fact that Kristi Noem was riding in an armored vehicle as part of this federal kidnapping mission is mindblowingly bad. It's like if Daniel Webster had been holding the gun to Anthony Burns' back, marching him to enslavement. chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

This week I went to VMI to participate in a conversation about whether we're in a constitutional crisis. Being at VMI was really fascinating. I met a lot of great folks and learned some stuff. "Debatemebro" makes us all dumber. I hope this wasn't that. steamboatinstitute.org/recap/is-the...

MAKE EATING CAKE GREAT AGAIN!!! people.com/white-house-...

It was just a few years ago that I wrote about judicial resistance and judicial solidarity. I was skeptical for lots of reasons…but man life comes at you fast. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

MAKE THE THIRD AMENDMENT GREAT AGAIN!!

This is a really fascinating development. It remains the case that local police vastly outnumber federal police. Where true resistance and obstruction come into play, the inertia and complexity of local government are going to make things very interesting.

One of the greatest living Americans.

Two things about the Klein/Coates interview. 1) It's thoughtful and humane - which is good. 2) It reveals a real set of questions about role and strategy. Coates has a clear sense of what role he wants to play and what his strategy is within that role. Klein seems much more lost on both counts.

If you haven’t read Dee Brown’s “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” now might be a pretty good time to do that. While you’re at it, check out Vine Deloria’s “Custer Died For Your Sins.”

@evapayne.bsky.social is the best and so is her book! Read it now.

MAKE CHECKS AND BALANCES GREAT AGAIN!!!