It’s the FIFA Peace Chair.

Would be hilarious if Trump just went unhinged pro-se while he’s at the Court tomorrow.

Just taught SFFA and was again blown away by how stupid the whole conversation about the "sunset" argument is. Apart from everything else, 20 years is only 80% of 25 years. Kavanaugh's smug sermonizing about it is so depressingly dishonest.

This is excellent. Two meta-comments: 1) The essay is excellently lawyered (analytically clear, organized). I take this as a second-order defense of legal analysis in political struggles. 2) It is also resolutely pragmatic without being moderate. These are vital virtues to hold together these days.

My tepid take on the ongoing Moyn kerfuffle is that the whole feedback loop is exhibit ZZ of how originalism (and by extension its discontents) makes everything worse and stupider. Even when we try to talk about building a strategy for a healthy politics, the quagmire demands its toll of us.

PSA for slacker parents still figuring out camp. 1) It's very dumb that you have to plan for summer camp in November. 2) My amazing summer camp in the Berkshires (Rowe) still has spots for this summer. It's a place that changed my life. Feel free to DM me for more info. rowecenter.org/youth-camps/

This dead right. Not for nothing, Douglass' view is also skeptical of the background nativist logics of borders--for obvious and good reasons. Borders are legal fictions with some, but limited, utility. Other things, lots of other things--including human rights, matter more.

To be fair to her, this is basically dead letter in and out of the courts since Vietnam. In my Realist soul, I’m honestly not sure what it means to insist that “the constitution” requires congress to declare war when none of the branches of government feel at all constrained by that requirement.

Honest question: wouldn’t the chances of regime change be higher if we just dropped the cash?

At least Andrew Johnson could blame whiskey…

Real 1770s vibes here. Never bet against a MA town when intransigence and parochial self-interest are on the line.

In a world run by Biff Tannen, expect lots of people to follow the Biff Tannen model of self-enrichment.

Hi folks. We found a lab mix named Grayson wandering free at the corner of Harvey and Clifton Streets in North Cambridge this morning. He has a "Lab4Rescue" collar and a CT number on his tags.We've tried to connect with his people, but have not yet had any luck. If you know him, let us know!

Every year in Con Law when I get to Cruikshank and the Civil Rights Cases I get bummed again. I should (and do!) know better...but it's such a bummer.

I agree that this is deeply troubling (and depressingly unsurprising). On the flip side, this 37% number is probably lower than the support in THE SOUTH for Reconstruction during Redemption and in the lead up to Jim Crow. So much depends on the strength of politcal forces and how they are arrayed.

Credit where credit is due. There’s nothing Roberts likes more than to pretend he’s just quibbling over box checking while, for example, gutting the VRA.

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.