1/ People dumping on Scott Bessent for saying SCt doesn’t overturn signature programs: N is small b/c most presidents don’t have signature programs of the relevant type but as a descriptive matter Bessent’s in the ballpark of being right. (Obvious—only?—examples are FDR/NLRB and Obamacare.) ...

New Supreme Betrayal: Constitutionalism After Trump & multiculturalism, trans issues, religion—choose between me and Seidman on strategies: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c... open.spotify.com/episode/0Ah0... supreme-betrayal-how-the-supreme-court-and-constitutional.simplecast.com/episodes/con...

“Exulting in Epstein Files” is today’s “Wallowing in Watergate."

Coming on Friday: a new episode of Supreme Betrayal, dealing with some additional aspects of Constitutionalism After Trump, including muticulturalism, religion, and trans rights! (We’re getting our act together just as we might be running out of ideas!—not really😀)

Trump on tariffs fits the definition of chutzpah (“I killed my parents, have mercy on me, an orphan”): I collected so much money illegally that giving it back would be a disaster. (More formally, the fact that giving it back would be a disaster is a reason for saying it wasn’t collected illegally.)

What I’ve been reading: Ian McEwan, What We Can Know—astonishingly beautifully written though I can’t explain how. It looks like (in part) a novel of ideas, but the ideas are as much characters as the characters are—fully realized, as critics like to say, but existing (only) in imagination.

1/ Wisdom of Chou En-lai (“What do you think of the events in France? Too soon to tell”): Read a 2010 book w/ 19 case studies of constitution making from 1978-2005. As of today probably 1/2 are completely out of date. ...

Interpreting jury nullification in Sandwich Man case: Jury q. to judge re bodily injury/harm suggests they were looking 4 some linguistic hook that wd let them say elements weren't satisfied b/c officer wasn’t really “hurt.” So, not a pure “give me a break this is a ridiculous prosecution” verdict.

Ah, Great Britain—the home of liberty, where you—yes, you (or at least a lot of you)—can apply to be appointed to the Supreme Court: www.supremecourt.uk/about-the-co...

My favorite cross-tabs factoid: In VA, of those who thought that Jay Jones’s texts were disqualifying 9% voted for him. Cue Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

New Supreme Betrayal episode: A conversation with Richard Re about why he describes the Roberts Court as a conservative Warren Court, and a dialogue about critical legal studies and his analysis: supreme-betrayal-how-the-supreme-court-and-constitutional.simplecast.com/episodes/con...

New episode of Supreme Betrayal: Constitutionalism After Trump Part One—against restorationism/Schumerism, some suggestions for institutional reform going forward. supreme-betrayal-how-the-supreme-court-and-constitutional.simplecast.com/episodes/con...

Chevy Chase DC an hour in

Must be missing something abt Johnson's refusal to swear in "Rep" Grijalva to avoid discharge vote on Epstein Transparency ACT. Even if passed by the House and Senate, it would be subject to a presidential veto. Is the thought that any vote against Trump will be like the dam breaking a la Watergate?

Learn how to think (in constitutional terms) about the Jimmy Kimmel kerfuffle in the latest episode of Supreme Betrayal: supreme-betrayal-how-the-supreme-court-and-constitutional.simplecast.com/episodes/the... creators.spotify.com/pod/show/2ao... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Judge Immergut was appointed to the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by CJ Roberts.

Why are the birthright citizenship cases not such a big deal and a big deal? Find out why in supreme-betrayal-how-the-supreme-court-and-constitutional.simplecast.com/episodes/bir... open.spotify.com/episode/0eTv... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...

1/ Latest episode of Supreme Betrayal dropped--conversation with Will Baude about originalism as "our law" and the implications if the constitution is, as ours might be, unattractive: open.spotify.com/episode/1BLi...

1/ A note on a term that's likely to bandied about misleadingly: The ED VA has what's known as a rocket docket but the term was invented to describe time to trial for civil cases, not criminal ones. (Use your favorite search engine to confirm that.) Average time to trial for criminal cases ...

I wonder whether Homan declared the $50k as 2024 income last April. (Still has time to amend the return, I suppose.)

Only time will tell whether John Roberts is a modern Roger Taney (endorsed an evil regime & contributed to causing a literal civil war) or a modern Melville Fuller (Who? precisely; let the Gilded Era's domination by wealth go unchecked but followed by Progressive Era).

Now let's see what's on the menu for TACO Tuesday.

I feel vindicated, having told folks that I'd bet (with narrow odds) on Kimmel's reinstatement relatively quickly. (Waited to post this until I saw it on the NYT website.)

Listening to excerpts from Leavitt's briefing today I had this flash: These people don't believe that they have immortal souls that can be endangered by lying. The crosses many of them wear must stand for some other beliefs.

To quote DJT, I am designating ICE & leaders Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem a major terrorist organization. His & my designations have exactly the same legal effect though his is likely to have a larger practical effect than mine (though given that Antifa doesn't exist, maybe not that much larger)..

Wordle 1,551 2/6 ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Three days in a row! This can't last.

Wordle 1,550 2/6 ⬜🟨⬜🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Two days in a row!

I hope political scientists are taking notes for a study of the relative power of The State and Civil Society (first Harvard, now the Ford Foundation) in the United States. I'd take narrow odds favoring Civil Society.

Andthe RSS feed for our episode onTrump's Tariffs: supreme-betrayal-how-the-supreme-court-and-constitutional.simplecast.com/episodes/rec...

Wordle 1,549 2/6 ⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I missed when this went up--Judicial Time: A Research Note: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers..... No law review to which it was submitted was interested in it, but (no surprise) I think it offers a new and helpful perspective on some current matters of interest to both law folks and political scientists.

The Apple Podcast link for our episode on the tariff case: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r...

Returning after our summer break, a new episode of Supreme Betrayal, on the pending tariff decision, going into the weeds and guessing somewhat tentatively that the Court will OK the tariffs (link to Apple Podcasts to come when I figure it out): open.spotify.com/episode/4m2L...

I gave a presentation to a seminar at Miami Law School on constitutional hardball. It's available, along with other presentations to the seminar, here: www.discourse.net/2025/09/miam... FWIW there's a brief discussion of whether the term "constitutional crisis" is helpful (I'm on the "no" side).

Wordle 1,545 2/6 ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I can't be the first to say this but it hasn't appeared in my feed. We really do appear to have a Marxist administration (in this case, Chico not Groucho): "Who you gonna believe, me or your eyes?" (from Duck Soup)

Wordle 1,541 2/6 ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Looks like the Anthropic settlement may get me more than the royalties on a number of the books I've written. Fingers crossed!

Frustration at progressive commentariat on legal issues: I can generate b/t 10 & 20 nonfrivolous legal qs. that have to be answered before u can answer w/ some modest confidence the q., Will Lisa Cook exercise authority as a Fed member in the short or long run? Almost none raised by the commentariat

If someone always says "The murder [carjacking, etc.] rate is too high" the implication is that the policy goal is zero murders/carjackings, etc. No serious person thinks that's attainable. Ask, "What's the optimal murder rate," though, and people other than Gary Becker will laugh in your face.

Today's royalty statement from Princeton U Press shows that 4 copies of The American Law of Slavery (1981) were sold this year--some hapless graduate students, I suppose. (Over 27,000 "units" of my books with PUP have been sold since each one's publication, a surprisingly [to me] large number.)

Dinner in the streets of the rat infested hell hole that is DC

A comment on legal strategy for progressives these days. Bottom line: the legal eco-system is too complicated for any single strategy to emerge so the issue is how to deal with a world in which others are bound to be pursuing strategies you disagree with: urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=htt...

Curious about the legal basis for the ICE removal of the anti-ICE sign in Mt Pleasant DC neighborhood. Substance clearly protected 1st amendment. Failure to obtain a permit?

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. From Tank Man to Sandwich Man. cropper.watch.aetnd.com/cdn.watch.ae... www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4Nu...

Bryan Garner, guru of precise legal writing, has written an interesting book, out this fall, about Oskar Stoessel, who did a lot of etchings of Supreme Court justices and other DC figures in the late 1930-40s. Along with a bunch of other people I blurbed it. Here's a link: godine.com/products/the...

A short piece on getting judicial review right: urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=htt...

New Supreme Betrayal episode, on constitutional criminal procedure, stop-and-frisk, Miranda, and more. We're taking a break for a couple of seeks for vacation and to work out how to explain our disagreements about what legal reasoning is and how it matters for constitutional theory. Links:

The stories on Harris's decision re California gov & presidential race trigger one of my pet peeves: None of the current discussions of who Dems might nominate say anything at all about who might occupy the "progressive" lane (except for the occasional reference to the fantasy of an AOC candidacy).

My meta take on NYTimes on Harvard: The best way to show that Columbia did the right thing is for Harvard to do it too.