Time to strengthen the Shield of the Americas

Don't get me wrong: I'm relieved that this case is shaping up as either 8-1 or 7-2 against the Trump executive order. But the case is a gift to the Supreme Court. By rejecting an outlandish position, it will earn credibility as apolitical, even as the Overton window moves far to the right.

Trump is dedicated to the "perpetually breaking news cycle", and compared to how Biden handled the press I think it's a relatively successful tactic.

These numbers make me wonder if any generic R presidential candidate would've won in 2024 (covid/Biden fatigue) and they made a short-sighted decision running Trump.

I really enjoyed writing this review of state interest group scholarship with Tom Holyoke for SPPQ (not to say writing isn't usually "fun"). In our view there's good research emerging in recent years on interest group mobilization, how lobbyists matter and interest group effects on policymaking.

An unaccounted for part of the economy is how much young people virulently hate AI, despite how aggressively it's being forced on them. They realize it's making their friends dumber and ruining the world and they want nothing to do with it. From the Penn student paper: www.thedp.com/article/2026...

Today in Nerdy Dad, I discovered the karaoke song from "Project Hail Mary" (which was great) is a Harry Styles song with 2B streams.

Has the <<Shut Down Government Services to Make Something Worse for Americans™️>> tactic ever worked for the governing party in a Congressional impasse?

This is how James Clark McReynolds wound up on the Supreme Court. He had been Wilson's AG, but was such an unmitigated asshole that Wilson was dying to be rid of him. As a result, America got AG A. Mitchell Palmer and the first Red Scare, while McReynolds led the anti-New Deal coalition on SCOTUS

Before you skeet “the media doesn’t want you to know about”, Bluesky should make you click through the front pages of three major news sites

I'm a bit surprised Thune just doesn't let them lose on the floor.

I'm willing to bet every US president since the 1970s was presented with a plan for bombing Iran, and we're seeing why they all avoided that choice very quickly.

It seems like editors are being swamped by AI-assisted manuscripts of low quality. What if we required submissions to top journals to have been presented at a discliplinary conference as a rate limiting factor?

If any democrat votes to confirm they should be primaried

I care deeply about WPR/AUMF process, but this is the far more important angle for Congress.

State politics always delivers

The eastern seaboard states (including all of New England) should do the same.

Still up on the official White House website: www.whitehouse.gov/articles/202...

So, again, I think it is probably good electoral strategy for Dems to be more combative. But hard to say that their current strategy "absolutely sucks" when you look at ... pretty much every election since January 20, 2025.

Interesting strategy here: what we know from study of authoritarian regimes is that members of the secret police respond to the material incentives. If you make credible commitments to weakening those incentives (abolish ICE, blocking other career pathways) it could discourage recruitment.

this is bad

Not what I would use the revenue for, but I admire that Moreno is willing to vote on, you know, the power of the purse.

Referee reports should never be submitted as pdfs

Nice little reminder that the catalyst of FDR's court-packing plan was a SCOTUS willing to rule child labor laws unconstitutional.

Watching the Bluesky Elite settle into the position “you are not allowed to criticize left-wing electoral abstentionism, even now” makes me realize that one of the best things to happen to progressives would be Bluesky dying completely

I think the first Trump admin's bumbling nature gave Trump more of a floor, as many of his less popular ideas were never enacted. Not so much this time around.

The NYT can do better than this headline

📣 Call for Nominations: Jack Walker Outstanding Article Award ⏳ Deadline: February 27 📧 Email nominations to: @jmcrosson.bsky.social @rdassonneville.bsky.social @garlicksauce.bsky.social @shamiragelbman.bsky.social @luciamotoliniac.bsky.social

Not invincible.

Who could've seen this response coming? Oh yeah, anyone that's read my book.

For 0 dollars most academics will use their trademark depth of policy knowledge and actual experience doing academic research to tell you things that are more true than false

Yes. Could be changed by simple legislation.

Uncommon Mike Johnson W

honestly, we gotta get him to keep talking like this

YIMBY is a generational cause.

See, only wussy Democrats call it a quarantine to avoid an act of war (while successfully averting nuclear catastrophe, but I digress). So they will definitely call it a blockade.

TikTok coverage seems to have become somewhat numb to this, but worth remembering that the President simply refusing to enforce a *crystal-clear* law of Congress for over a year to instead broker a deal on his own terms, & Congress just shrugging, is very much not how this was supposed to work

Biden trying to ban tiktok in an election year wasn’t the only reason Democrats blew the 2024 election, but if put it in the top 10.

This has got to be the OpenStax version, no? I wonder if the original copyright holders have grounds to sue if the work was not being used properly.

The thought of that tiny child being snatched by big strange armed masked men and thrown in a car or a plane or whatever all alone with no idea what’s happening to him and no one to take care of him. Heartbreaking isn’t a strong enough word. There is no word that’s strong enough.

Now the actual military has to dress like it’s not the military cuz federal law enforcement agencies dress too much like the military

while it would be nice to assume the GOP will simply run itself into the ground forever, the people who will make the best tactical decisions over the next few years will be the ones who understand Republicans do in fact need to win elections in the future and will rework the brand accordingly

meta-discursive comment: the incentives of social media where making an incorrect naive prediction is seen as much more embarrassing than making an incorrect cynical one are very bad.

If you want to submit nominations for the career achievement award or emerging scholar award for APSA’s state politics and policy section get them to me, Caroline Tolbert and Justin Phillips. 2/16 deadline.

Roast pork with provolone and long hots.

Forget TACO, we need an acronym for whatever it is Josh Hawley is doing this Congress.

Thank you for the birthday wishes. In lieu of gifts, if you give money to a candidate in 2026, please give it to one who can plausibly change the veto point of a legislative chamber.

We don't need a Google Scholar AI. We need Google Scholar to (1) fix the cite option, so that it always has the correct BibTex cite. (2) put the cite option on every mention of the paper (in author bios, standalone pages, etc.).

I like how every major institution has one IT guy, who probably doesn't even work there anymore, who decided one day: "we're going with (first inital-last name, last name plus first and middle initials, etc.) for email addresses and everyone has to live with that for the rest of their digital lives.

The cost of 3 years of ACA subsidy expansions is just about what Trump and congressional Republicans increased the ICE budget by in the OBBBA.