there's a few offers accepted on here along with interview & flyout updates - thanks to the comrades who keep folks in the loop

Wow! A new low for Ken Paxton. His deranged press release claims that there cannot be any legitimate purpose for legal defense for people facing deportation — effectively saying that removal defense is not legitimate and only “radicals” would want people to have lawyers. Horrid stuff from him.

short version: they mask bc state security force defections are *the* mechanism through which nonviolent protest is successful. it's a repressive regime that has learned from the past 20 years of other repressive regimes who have all become increasingly skilled at stymieing nonviolent movements.

Katie Wilson, Seattle's progressive challenger to incumbent mayor Bruce Harrell, has now pulled ahead by less than 100 votes after the most recent ballot count

Chait, 2021: Eric Adams's victory has a lot to tell us about what's electorally viable. Chait, 2025: Zohran Mamdani's victory has nothing to tell us about what's electorally viable.

It will be interesting to see if he can maintain this high-energy, extremely-online transparency while actually governing. It would be fascinating to see someone actually use this style of media to bring people in to gov't itself, to make them feel involved in administration.

The ADL has decided to treat fascists as allies and progressives as enemies. For a group that is tasked with protecting American Jews, that is a world historic fuck up. I will never forgive these people for their moral decrepitude.

I’m coining the phrase “the centrist two-step.” Step 1 is declaring that the left needs to focus on kitchen table issues instead of social issues to win back voters and step 2 is insisting that all left-wing approaches to kitchen table issues are impossible to deliver on.

Yes, defend SNAP, but making econometric arguments about it saving other costs or increasing productivity is losing the plot. As Elaine Brown said, "Because we are so used to the capitalist construct, it doesn’t occur to us that we have a human right to eat; because if you don’t eat you will die."

🧵This horrific story is being reported all over Latin America, but not the US. Randall Gamboa, a Costa Rican, was deported from the US in such a critical health condition it required an ambulance flight. He then died upon his return to Costa Rica after being detained for 8 months by DHS.

Just want to thank folks contributing to the #psjminfo job status update section of the site. It's a small thing, but I know people appreciate knowing the status of jobs. www.politicalsciencejobs.org/status-updates

The Cuban regime has created a narrative of victimhood as a smoke screen for its gross incompetence and corruption. I should know, writes Carolina Barrero. I once believed it, too.

A very disturbing video has emerged from today’s ICE/CBP operations in Avondale. An officer pushes a woman to the ground, prompting bystanders to react angrily and throw what appears to be a rock at a moving unmarked vehicle. This seems to be the new normal in Chicago.

Breaking: The Department of Justice announced it will "monitor polling sites in six jurisdictions [in New Jersey and California] ahead of the upcoming November 4, 2025, general election to ensure transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law." www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justi...

I love that this is literally just we realized we weren't connecting with Black people so we tried talking to more Black people and Black people like us much better now

What stage in the slow, painful death of the rule of law is this

Just completed my last job application of the season. Let the chips fall where they may.

New statewide policy requires that all syllabuses be posted online. I've had my class materials online *for years*, but that doesn't count—it must be a PDF. So with the magic of #QuartoPub and Typst and some Lua filters, I made my course website syllabus build to a PDF automatically!

34 people killed in 50 days. Their guilt or innocence unknown, for an alleged crime that doesn't carry a death sentence. That's a lot of death. adamisacson.com/boat-strikes/

I’m going to say it again: members of Congress need to draft articles & talk publicly & loudly about the case for treason. Trump told generals on camera in person: the campaign in U.S. cities is a WAR. The military needs to hear it laid out for them, how serious this is. Write for them, not the GOP.

Another initial interview on Friday and fly-out #2 next week. Got an R&R from Comparative Politics, too. Things are *happening*

Today my doctoral diploma arrived, and tomorrow I have my first flyout. Yeehaw

The call for papers for the 11th Emerging Scholars Conference in Public Law at UT Austin is now open! This year’s theme is "Bastion of Democracy: The Role of Courts in Navigating Democratic Governance." The deadline is Wednesday, October 15. Submit your abstract here: lnkd.in/gxyZ6SCRhttp...

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply." me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

Big news from the Comparative Constitutions Project! We just released an open-source #NLP tool for researchers: the "Segments-as-Topics" (SAT) method. Perfect for analyzing #constitutions #courtrulings and other text corpora. Video tutorial below! 🎥 www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm_0...

The context here, of course, is that the “local broadcasters” Carr is egging on are actually huge conglomerates with a pending merger before his office that would give them (and him) vast control over all broadcast television stations

Today I learned that John Brown wrote a provisional constitution in May 1859, less than six months before leading the raid on Harpers Ferry digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcont...

This crusade against free speech is a disgrace. You cannot stop ideas by firing the people who speak them. You can, however, temporarily hide them from yourself.

Utah was the first state to allow open carry on campus. A would-be assailant could walk right onto campus armed as they please and nobody could’ve done a thing about it.

A top 50 US university yesterday fired an instructor, a department chair, and a dean because a course made some reference to transgender people without the brief official course description in the catalog saying “trigger warning: gender.” In conclusion, those intolerant lefty kids, cancel culture.

Protestors in Nepal are now demanding "Amendment or complete rewriting of the Constitution with active participation from citizens, experts, and youth." www.indiatoday.in/world/story/...

A social media ban has triggered a crisis in Nepal and led to the resignation of the prime minister. #AJStartHere with @sandragathmann.bsky.social explains what’s going on ⤵️

Nepal rolls back social media ban after deadly protests rock capital

Final #polisky eJobs count (including 8/30-8/31): May-August 2024: 319 total positions (219 open to assistant TT) May-August 2025: 228 total positions (140 open to assistant TT)

Wrote a (very) short blog post about writing with OCD. Needed to get this off my chest. mattjmartin.com/blog/2025/in...

Looks like I'm getting my COVID booster in Vancouver at APSA this year lol

oh shit, a state prosecutor may actually do the thing

The nightmare that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is experiencing is only possible because both Democrat and Republican politicians have built up the machinery of deportation across the course of decades. Donald Trump is now using that machinery to consolidate autocratic power. crimethinc.com/borders

I'm on the 2025-26 academic job market in political science! I recently completed my PhD and am now a postdoctoral researcher at the Comparative Constitutions Project. My research examines constitutional design, public participation, and Latin American politics using mixed methods. mattjmartin.com

Really pleased to announce that my paper "The Path of Law: Legal Uncertainty and Cases of First Impression in the U.S. Courts of Appeals" has been accepted at the APSR. The paper can be found here: anthonytaboni.com/wp-content/u...

ICE's 287(g) Program Explodes to 900 Agreements Under Trump Local law enforcement agencies across the country are signing up to participate in ICE's mass deportation efforts. Florida and Texas lead the way. Most aggressive "task force model" now dominates. austinkocher.substack.com/p/ices-287g-...

Some of the most gratifying and constructive exchanges I've had in academia have come from simply cold-emailing people to tell them how much I enjoyed their work.

NEW: McCarthyism returns to immigration law, as @USCIS announces that it will begin screening applicants for immigration benefits for "Anti-America ideologies or activities." The term has no prior precedent in immigration law and its definition is entirely up to the Trump admin.

Junior faculty and grad students in political science, history, law, and Native American Studies, come take a class with us at the New York Historical Society (and via Zoom) on Native Peoples, American Colonialism, and the U.S. Constitution. To apply, Institute for Constitutional History: 1/2

"’We're taking America back, baby,’ one of the masked men says in the video posted to ICE's official X account.” www.wusa9.com/article/news...