Planning weekend podcast listening? The latest @washingtonmonthly.com podcast features my talk with fellow law prof @garrettepps.bsky.social on Justice Kavanaugh's recent opinion justifying the lifting of a stay against ICE raids in LA based on racial profiling. washingtonmonthly.com/2025/09/24/t...

It’s the couches.

In the headlines: “Local Blackmailer Not Satisfied With Early Payment.” Also: “Rain Makes Things Wet.”

On his worst day, Joe Biden was never in the ballpark of this level of embarrassing.

Apparently, you can lose it.

Can't wait until this guy is our mayor.

The key resemblance is that neither would be thrilled with what some followers do in their name.

This is the personal practice of presidential control over prosecution that Bill Barr, John Roberts, and a constitutionally illiterate SCOTUS majority insists is constitutionally protected. Trump Demands That Bondi Move ‘Now’ to Prosecute Foes www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/u...

This essay by a researcher friend on the potential resilience of U.S. democracy is worthy of a careful read - I'm still considering its arguments. But if you're looking for analysis simultaneously sober, cautionary, and yet optimistic, this is worth your attention. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

This essay by Garrett Epps on the 1st Am. and the Kirk murder should top your weekend must-read list. The 1st Am. rightly protected Kirk in his lifetime; it should protect both critics and admirers in his wake. Instead, his "death is being put to sinister use." washingtonmonthly.com/2025/09/19/t...

For your best use today of 90 seconds or so: youtu.be/HMGD1KCYFOw

The Trump FCC is the flip side of Reagan’s. In the name of free speech, Reagan’s FCC ditched the fairness doctrine so right-wing broadcasters would have no obligation to offer liberal views. The Trump/Carr FCC wants to define the public interest to exclude any but right-wing viewpoints.

In case you’re looking for it, here’s the 1987 FCC decision overturning the Fairness Doctrine and “repudiating the notion that it was proper for a government agency to intervene actively in the marketplace of ideas.” Simpler times, no? docs.fcc.gov/public/attac...

In the great scheme of things, the subhead error may seem minor, but the FCC Chair is not the “boss” of the other commissioners. Perhaps civics education could start with news media?Trump’s Ouster of Jimmy Kimmel Is Much Worse Than You Think It Is newrepublic.com/article/2006... via @newrepublic.com

Hoping to use misinformation about political violence for partisan ends is not new. After Arthur Bremer’s failed attempt to assassinate George Wallace, Nixon and allies wanted to plant Democratic campaign literature in Brenner’s apartment. The scheme never came off. www.latimes.com/archives/la-...

I’m old enough to remember when proving the illicit intent behind unconstitutional government-driven discrimination was hard because public officials wouldn’t declare their invidious animus out loud.

When is Putin releasing his copy of the Epstein files?

Facts are stubborn things.

The Roberts Court rejects race-based decision making in affirmative action plans. In ICE raids, not so much. My take on SCOTUS’s latest stay of a lower court injunction: washingtonmonthly.com/2025/09/10/s...

Two thoughts: First, the “couple of little changes” he imagines would have brought victory in every war are presumably nuclear bombs. Second, Kennedy no longer can claim to have spoken the stupidest utterances this week in an official setting. If there were a Nobel Prize for that . . .

Stephen Colbert, 2006: "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

So, to try to keep NYC from electing its first Muslim mayor, Trump would nominate the current non-Muslim mayor to represent the U.S. in the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad. There’s gotta be a joke in there somewhere.

Maybe he’ll try to rename the Department of Labor. (Spoiler: presidents have no unilateral authority to rename congressionally created departments.) Live Updates: U.S. Labor Markets Stalled This Summer, With August Data Adding to Slowdown www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...

Apparently, nothing says, "We hate anti-Semitism" like forcing the resignation of a prominent Jewish university president.

The American Constitution Society has been selected to receive a grant from CREDO Mobile this month. Each month, CREDO selects 3 impactful groups and asks the public to vote to set how much. Visit credodonations.com through 9/30 and vote for ACS to help shape a legal system that works for everyone!

The executive order does not try to control how federal law enforcement behaves. It urges federal officers to observe the policies that are mandatory for CPD. The city’s lawyers correctly understood that state and local officials, unfortunately in this instance, cannot issue regs that bind the Feds.

My friend Oren Perez, formerly the law dean at Bar-Ilan University, shared with me a statement on the situation in Israel that was signed by 200 faculty at BIU and over 50 scholars at other Israeli universities. It no doubt speaks for many others beyond the academy and beyond Israel's borders.

Perhaps they should try indicting the sandwich. Prosecutors Fail to Secure Indictment Against Man Who Threw Sandwich at Federal Agent www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...

Imagine if anyone with the word “socialist” in their party affiliation suggested this policy. Corporate America’s Newest Activist Investor: Donald Trump www.nytimes.com/2025/08/23/b...

Uh, for whom exactly are you working? “January 6” ring any bells?

I think all coverage of the Lisa Cook story should refer to her as Dr. Lisa Cook to remind readers how triggered Trump is by women of color superior to him in intellect (which is, I know, the least of her accomplishments).

When in its pursuit of the so-called unitary executive will the Supreme Court formally change its name to Council of Revision?

“Diversity” entered the lingo of affirmative action after Justice Lewis Powell’s opinion in the Bakke case named “diversity” as the sole compelling interest SCOTUS would accept as the basis for AA in higher ed. He also wrote the infamous memo that launched the age of anti-left corporate activism.

Did they find the Epstein files?? Trump Administration Live Updates: F.B.I. Searches Home and Office of John Bolton, a Former Trump Adviser www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...

They should have gone with PWMCTV, in honor of, "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV!"

One of my quotes in today's @theguardian.com: “Sabotaging independent sources of knowledge, flooding communications media with disinformation, and rewriting history’s narrative to conform to ideology rather than fact are hallmarks of authoritarianism.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/u... At the corner of Pernicious and Insane stands a president taking cues from Russia (!!!!) on the logistics of electoral democracy.

Cutting off this research is more than misguided. It’s evil. There is promising research under way regarding mRNA and pancreatic cancer, one of the most deadly. One friend fighting it said, “Kennedy is literally trying to kill me.”

Rick Bright is exactly right about the devastating harm that we’ll all experience thanks to Trump and RFK’s decision to throttle mRNA vaccines. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/o...

Make a band a food: Bread (They did it for me.) Red Hot Chili Peppers (Ditto.)

Just before that, Putin said to his translator, in Russian: “Pretend to translate what I am saying as something this idiot wants to hear, just like we rehearsed.”

A useful reminder that empathy without compassion may mean only a talent for manipulation. (Gotta love the fact that the interviewee coined the phrase, “tactical empathy” because he knew throwing in “tactical” would make empathy acceptably macho for male agents. That’s empathy for ‘ya.)

Putin’s opening line was probably, “If you need help releasing the Epstein files, I can always give out my copy.”

“New” segregation? Took a cross-country trip to open Brooks’s eyes to class segregation?? And he wants us to emulate the education reforms of MS, AL, LA, and TN — a/k/a, ## 47, 48, 45, and 35, as the needed strategy? I am missing something. America’s New Segregation www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/o...

Flattery, Lobbyists and a Business Deal: Crypto’s Richest Man Campaigns for a Pardon www.nytimes.com/2025/08/09/u... Shouldn’t it say, “Corruptly Campaigns?”

Can't wait until AI does originalism.

The Beatles did rooftop better.

Privileged to be quoted in an excellent @theguardian.com story on the debasement of the Justice Department under Trump. As a DOJ lawyer from a distant decade, it's hard not to feel it personally. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The show he’s living in is Fantasy Island

Just wait until the rigorously nonpartisan House Government Oversight Committee gets ahold of Trump’s wantonly malicious and arbitrary firing of an experienced government official just doing her job. . . oh, wait . . .