Siri, what’s a four-word euphemism for ‘corruption?’”

I am mystified by the fierceness of Trump's behavior on the Epstein files. So many Trump misdeeds have produced only yawns or disbelief from his base. Sic-cing Pam Bondi on Democrats will only keep the story in the news. Stonewalling just reinforces speculation there is something terrible to hide.

And we thought the snowflakes were in DC

If you think it was a Dem victory to prevent a Trump evisceration of the Government Accountability Office, a reminder: The 15-year term of the current head of GAO, the Comptroller General, ends in December. Not holding my breath for any Trump-appointed successor to hold Trump to account.

When Hakeem Jeffries was asked if Mamdani would be the face of the party, the competent answer would have been, "The Democratic Party has and will continue to have many 'faces.' Our vision for the future will be pluralist, accommodating different policy agendas in different parts of the country."

In @nytimes.com Letters to the Editot:

And thus shall “tosser” in American slang mean the opposite of what it means in British slang!

Love this!

He suffers from Con Dementia.

“Sandwich Man let out his cry: ‘Lettuce stand up or tomato we die!”

Nope, it was Workday. Or maybe Frederick Taylor and the Gilbreths.

Brookings has posted a paper by Bob Litan and me on tomorrow's SCOTUS tariff cases. We think challengers have the better case, long-term economic implications are limited, but that these will be important developments in shaping the trajectory of executive power. www.brookings.edu/articles/leg...

The odds Trump knows the difference between Niger and Nigeria are . . .A kidnapping in Niger tests Trump promise to bring all Americans home www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

Tip to the Senate: You have Art. I, Section 5 authority to object to any further extension of the House’s recess and get them back to D.C. Might be a good move!

This is probably the most important, yet widely ignored story on the prospects for Trump's ongoing evasion of Congress's appropriations powers. GAO's power to declare violations of the Impoundment Control Act may be weak accountability, but it offers at least some transparency. wapo.st/47vmBfM

What if there were a political party with the imagination to create a huge billboard that showed, every day, “Republicans have closed the House of Representatives for X days so they don’t have to vote on the Epstein Files or protect your health insurance!”

This is the paper that thought Salvador Allende’s title was “Marxist President Allende.” They are beclowning themselves.

I believe that, some years ago, a magazine — Time? — ran a poll on whether voters approved or disapproved of a fictional piece of legislation. Sentiment was split. The experiment was redone regarding its repeal and, again, folks had preferences. Easily manipulated if told POTUS’s supposed position!

Article I, Section 9

We’ve all but gone from John Roberts’s view of the President as a “one-person branch of government” to a “one-branch government.”

And Congress has passed no law appropriating the donated funds for the construction. Presidents can encourage voluntary contributions to the Treasury; they can’t unilaterally spend them on their chosen projects.

I’m old enough to remember when Congress was in charge of how federal money gets spent, even voluntary taxpayer donations to the Treasury.

It's puzzling that Trump is asking for $ under the Federal Tort Claims Act for alleged wrongs from the Russia and Mar-a-Lago investigations, including punitives. Under the FTCA, the U.S. is not liable for punitives or on any claim arising from the exercise of a discretionary function of an agency.

The image also captures Trump’s undoubted belief that presidential spouses are expendable—the First Lady’s offices have been destroyed—but palatial gaudiness is essential.

The “libertarian streak” is infinitely preferable to the “Nazi streak.”

Garrett Epps’s dissection of the 9th Circuit’s fecklessness is right on the nose. Ignoring Case Law and the Constitution, Court Greenlights Trump’s Portland Troop Surge  washingtonmonthly.com/2025/10/21/c...

Out: “Is it the heat or the humidity?” In: “Is it the mental illness or the corruption?”

America First = Argentine bailout, Qatari training facility, tearing down the White House, . . .

But at least we now know where the Epstein Files were filed. (Satire.)

(Phony) Populism for Thee, Versailles for Me.

Maybe for the 225th anniversary of the War of 1812, the British can burn the ballroom down for us.

So the @nytimes.com is now doing GOP messaging in its headlines?!!?

I couldn't put this thought better. My only tweak might be adding "of the crudest sort" after the word racism.

America in 2025: In online chats, the aspiring young leaders of the party in charge wish longingly for Jim Crow and Nazism. In public, Brett Kavanaugh wonders whether the time has passed when it’s appropriate to take special measures to assure fair representation for racial minorities.

I should have mentioned Sally Yates as a Deputy AG before Lisa Monaco.

According to this story, MTG credits Trump with appointing the first women to lead DOJ. AG’s Janet Reno and Loretta Lynch, Deputy AG Lisa Monaco, Assoc. AG Vanita Gupta, and SG’s Elena Kagan and Elizabeth Prelogar beg to differ. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Whoops — to be built in Idaho, not Colorado.

*America*

Between bailing out Argentina and approving a Qatari air base facility in Colorado, it’s been a weird week for American First.

A 9th Circuit panel of two Trump appointees and one of Clinton’s who had served on the Oregon Sup.Ct. stayed the order of Trump-appointed District Ct. Judge Immergut barring federalizing the Oregon National Guard, but not her order barring deployment in Portland. cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op...

And interestingly, the federal judge in Chicago who declined to issue a TRO before holding a fully briefed hearing on Thursday is a Biden appointee. Judges acting like judges, you might say. (And of course, the Chicago judge knows she will be reviewed by the Seventh Circuit, not the Ninth.)

Just a helpful reminder that the same Administration that portrays America's most recent actual insurrection as just patriotic protest now wants to blur the line between garden variety crime and "insurrection" or "rebellion" so that it can mobilize military force against its political opponents.

In some case where Trump's venom is relevant, Roberts will say: "The issue is not whether to denounce Trump's statements. It is instead the significance of those statements in reviewing a Presidential directive, neutral on its face, addressing a matter within the core of executive responsibility."

"The 'constitutionally mandated balance of power' between the States and the Federal Government was adopted by the Framers to ensure the protection of 'our fundamental liberties.'" Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 473 U. S. 242 (1985).

I thought the Epstein files would not be a big deal until Trump decided he’d start a civil war rather than release them.

I’m pretty sure the first Article of Trump’s third impeachment will involve abuse of the military.

Under 10 USC 12406, the supposed authority for the Texas invasion of other states, orders to the nationalized Guard are still issued through the “Governor,” meaning, it must be assumed, the Governor of the state in which they are serving. Any other reading raises serious constitutional issues.

It’s kind of wild that the Second-Amendment-Protects-Us-From-Tyranny crowd thinks the 10th Amendment is no bar to sending National Guard troops from one state into another over a Governor’s objections. I had actually thought federalism, rather than guns, was the Constitution’s anti-tyranny strategy.

But (try to) cut off funding for NYC. Argentina First!?

Enjoyed talking to Michael Popok on a new @legalafmtn.bsky.social episode about the Supreme Court’s inaction on ICE racial profiling and the state of separation of powers law in the Roberts Court. youtu.be/HKBxBP_ftrM?... (I don’t title the episodes!)