We are about to see one of the greatest brain drains out of red states ever seen. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

Rep. Nanette Barragán to RFK Jr. after he refuses to talk about budget cuts due to pending litigation: "I'm really disappointed that you're here to testify about the budget yet you will not talk about this issue. This is an elimination of Title X funding which is directly to birth control pills."

Pope Leo XIV condemns the Trump administration in new speech: "Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth."

"the decline in [academic freedom in] the United States has been more rapid and pronounced, particularly in the last year. It has deteriorated by 50% from 2015 to 2025 and is now evaluated as moderate autonomy by country experts" academic-freedom-index.net/research/Aca...

"The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history," one of the world's top democracy researchers says in a new report. I wrote about it here for CNN: www.cnn.com/2026/03/18/m...

The US is no longer a liberal democracy, according to the top global watchdog on freedom and democracy. We're falling fast, and are now classed the same as Guatemala, Colombia, and Peru www.v-dem.net/documents/75...

In almost 38 years as a lawyer, I've never seen anything like this. The Trump administration has, in the span of a year, entirely eviscerated the credibility of federal prosecutors. Judge Orders Prosecutors to Testify www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

@maryrziegler.bsky.social, @naomicahn.bsky.social and I just wrote TWO different columns on parental rights. The Slate piece covers SCOTUS's recent shadow docket opinion, slate.com/news-and-pol..., and this Brennan Ctr column is on TX SCOTUS and child abuse. statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

NEW: Texas amended its constitution in 2025 to establish parents' fundamental right to make decisions about a child’s upbringing. Texas justices recently suggested this could invalidate state child abuse laws. Here's what to know about the oral argument. statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

Ran out of characters, but this excellent analysis came from @maryrziegler.bsky.social @naomicahn.bsky.social & @maxineeichner.bsky.social. Check it out! statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

My wife has a lot of family in Poland, and one of her cousins was asking how the US can possibly afford this. The answer is, our public infrastructure and services suck colossally

Happy to share my latest with @naomicahn.bsky.social and @maxineeichner.bsky.social on Mahmoud, forthcoming in the Duke Law Journal and now on SSRN: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

This footnote in the Kagan dissent specifically called out how they avoided this sdp claim in the Skrmetti case but then decided it here in an emergency shadow docket posture here. It's all calvinball where the principal is whatever hurts trans people.

A disturbing and hypocritical ruling on so many levels. Especially the due process holding. The court JUST said there’s no deeply rooted right for women to control their own bodies. But there is a deeply rooted right for parents to know if their kids question their gender at school? Come on.

War is not a morality play. The relevant question isn’t: Are the targets bad people who have done bad things? The relevant question is: Will going to war make things better, achieving something that’s worth the death and suffering it causes?

Killing a bunch of elementary school girls to distract from having raped a bunch of middle- and high-school girls is pretty fucking grim.

🎯🎯🎯

The must-read of the day. Although “war of choice” is actually a euphemism. It’s a war of whim, of ego, of madness. Gift link. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/u...

This Guardian op-ed nails it: “On the right, female athletes are only significant in the shadow of the transgender menace. They are …useful pawns for a political project aimed not at advancing women’s sport but purging transgender people from public life.” www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/f...

This is horrifying. Trump’s paramilitary (aka ICE) is tracking dissenters and menacing them at their homes. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/u...

This op ed nails it. UNC’s new mandate that syllabi be put online is “to prevent students from learning about topics the current administration deems unacceptable.” www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

Happening now: Texas leaders announcing a rollout of a statewide program to put TPUSA chapters in high schools and colleges across the state. Gov. Abbott adds that schools that stand in the way should be reported to the Texas Education Agency.

The best reading of this article: Trump is going to use FDA to restrict medication abortion, but he wants to wait until after the midterms so the Republicans don't experience blowback. But that just makes the midterms more important. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"Professors are indoctrinating students!" #Satire www.texastribune.org/2025/12/08/t...

In line to become U.S. citizens, they were asked what country they’re from. If they were from certain countries, they were pulled out of line. Just horrible. The very antithesis of what America is. Every Republican should lose in 2026 bcuz of this. Every single one.👇 www.wgbh.org/news/local/2...

A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women 🧵

In a decision that I'm sure will have no negative repercussions whatsoever, the University of Arkansas has fired a law prof b/c of public criticism of the prof's comments (on her personal facebook page) about Charlie Kirk: abovethelaw.com/2025/10/law-...

"We need to remind ourselves, constantly, that in the median experience of tyranny, life is largely unchanged. ...If we wait until the abuses become severe and widespread enough to register in our standard analytic tools, it will be too late." www.offmessage.net/p/the-median...

"The Vanderbilt Chapter of the AAUP stands with the national AAUP, the AAUP chapters of the other targeted universities, and members of the Vanderbilt community in opposing the Compact and demanding that our administration do so as well."

“No self-respecting university could ever accept something like this,” said Lee Bollinger, a First Amendment scholar and former Columbia University president. “Trying to protect conservative ideas against being ‘belittled’ — that’s about as violative of the First Amendment interests as you can get.”

with alt text

I genuinely cannot believe that Ezra Klein said we should run pro-life candidates in Kansas, Ohio, and Missouri; three states that recently held abortion referendums where the pro-choice side won!

NEW: The Pentagon told journalists it will require them to pledge they won’t gather any information — even unclassified — that hasn’t been expressly authorized for release, and will revoke the press credentials of those who do not obey. @washingtonpost.com

Biggest story in the world, told in the mainstream press perfectly well: AP/PBS headline: TRUMP'S MOVES AGAINST MEDIA OUTLETS MIRROR AUTHORITARIAN APPROACHES TO SILENCING DISSENT www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

Page One of today's NYT:

In Alabama, a trans civil rights lawyer is facing criminal charges; three civil rights lawyers are fighting sanctions. I spoke to @chrisgeidner.bsky.social about how federal judges came after a team of civil rights lawyers who challenged a transgender care ban www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The Department of Justice has removed a study showing that white supremacist and far-right violence “continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism” in the United States. 🔗 www.404media.co/doj-deletes-...

"...when people say we were "lied to" about what Trump would do to us. We weren't! US farmers knew Trump planned another trade war, and that it would hurt our businesses. And a lot of farmers just voted for him anyway." NO BAILOUTS FOR FARMERS!

What's up with Justice Jackson? She started making her mark and speaking out early, and some of her dissents are so pointed Kagan and Sotomayor don’t even join them. The far right is out for her, and even Republican justices are getting snarky. So what's up? Here’s my take 🧵

“She’s very black and white, right and wrong, no gray area,” he said, “which is not the way to do medicine.” An important @propublica.org story showing how a false sense of certainty by child abuse pediatricians leads CPS to take children from parents based on shaky and oftentimes disputed evidence

I am not exaggerating when I say the Supreme Court’s unsigned, unexplained order yesterday is the worst thing it has done since Trump returned to office. And not just on the merits—it’s also an unfathomably dangerous green light for Trump to flout lower court orders. slate.com/news-and-pol...

I couldn't let that Confessore piece slide. It was such a disgusting hit piece on a vulnerable community in a moment of crisis. I dissected the article and why its framings are dishonest at best and outright lies of ommission at worst. www.thedissident.news/anatomy-of-a...

This explanation of the path to Skrmetti is a must read. If you weren’t (properly) outraged before, you will be.

When you inadvertently say the quiet part out loud. Sexism in the legal profession is far from dead.

This horrific bit from Jessica Valenti's substack: WV prosecutor Tom Truman said if women who miscarry want to avoid arrest, they should “call 911” to tell them that their pregnancy has ended: “Call your doctor. Call law enforcement, or 911, and just say, ‘I miscarried. I want you to know.’”

Naomi Cahn, Mary Ziegler & I just published a Slate piece on an alarming FL case. Republican judges are trying to block abortions-and other health care-for teens without parents' consent. To do that, they've made up history and overlooked the harm it would cause teens. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Horrifying that we’re locking up foreign scientists for no reason. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/o...