Converse: My new favorite cover of a Jackson Browne song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvqw...

Anyone have the latest filings and decision in the California case? (Note to @nytimes.com: Please include links!) For some reason, neither Court Listener nor Bloomberg is showing them. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/u...

A vivid lesson for law students and young lawyers: Statutory interpretation--and, in particular, asking "What was Congress up to here?"--can make a real difference! www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/u...

A very important and compelling paper/proposal. Two follow-up questions for Sam: (i) If you're right, why have schools almost invariably complied with "Dear Colleague" letters and agency settlement proposals? (ii) Would your proposal do much to stop the Trump strategy? After all, ...

An annual treat. So many treasures here. trismccall.net/pop-music-ab...

Self-parody reason.com/volokh/2025/...

It's noteworthy, I think, that no attorneys from the Civil Appellate Section appear on this mandamus petition in the Boasberg contempt case. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I'll go way out on a limb here (not) and say that this won't happen. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Probably one of the first judicial opinions to cite Byung-Chul Han, The Spirit of Hope (2024), to describe DOJ's litigating posture. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Hell or High Water is a helluva film--gets stronger on every rewatch. Has David Mackenzie done anything else that comes close?

Now I'm gonna be self-conscious about whether I swing my arms like a "regular American."

Wholly apart from the fact that this is a form of "Original Privately Expressed Intent of One Sponsor of an Earlier Statute with Different Language" Originalism, the more fundamental problem with Lash's effort (and the SG's) to rely upon the Trumbull letter ... [1] papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

I'm not quite sure what this says about me (or him), but I've only listened to one of Thurston Moore's 352 best records of 2025--and it's a single that I found somewhat disappointing. 72558.substack.com/p/350-best-r...

ICYMI: Nuggets score 27 points in final 2:53 of OT. Jokic with 56/16/15, 18 points in 2:46 in OT. Ho hum.

I don't think there's any understanding of the First Amendment under which this ("our Savior") is constitutional. Yet they don't care, and they've eliminated all the attorneys who would've objected. Kudos to the Goldwater and Cato Institutes for condemning it. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/25/a...

Nuggets score 27 points in final 2:53 of OT. Jokic with 56/16/15. Ho hum.

RIP Kirsty and Shane, both taken from us way, way too soon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrAw...

There's every reason in the world why the Trump administration chose not to comment on the 60 Minutes segment--namely, that there's little or nothing in it that they'd try to (or could reasonably) dispute: indeed, they've boasted about virtually all of it.

Alex Abramovich did a beautiful job on this profile of Willie Nelson--and then had the good wisdom and humility to defer to Dylan to capture it far better than any longform writer could (or, more to the point, convey why it can't be captured), in a single paragraph. Glimmers of light in dark times.

I wonder whether Bari Weiss tried to deep-six this opinion on the ground that it doesn't "advance the ball" given what we already know about the CECOT detentions.

I have a sneaking suspicion that no one involved in this farce, especially Trump, has the foggiest idea what "Memorial" means. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/u...

If this is the first appearance ever in the @nytimes.com of both the term "karmic comeuppance" and the phrase "the entire premise became ludicrous," well, ... www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/u...

By this point, the elimination/circumvention of attorneys throughout national security agencies has predictably resulted in open boasting of illegality: Reprisal for "vengeance" is never a legitimate basis for the use of force. That's been well-established ... [1] www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/u...

Great piece.

The most remarkable and disturbing thing about Trump/Hegseth's campaign of murder in the Caribbean has been the almost complete failure of other nations to vociferously object to the U.S.'s patent violation of the most fundamental of legal and moral norms. As a result, ... [1] @justsecurity.org

Can Darlene Love really be doing that at 84?!

NB: When I, a professor of law, profess that an act is unlawful, I am not doing it to inform the lawbreaker, but rather to inform you, the reader. So the question “what, like you think he cares?” is inapposite. The question is whether *you* care. I think you should, which is why I bother.

Trump Relies on Distortions to Support His Pressure Campaign on Venezuela www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/u...

Has any other nation ever imposed economic sanctions on judges expressly based upon the substance of their legal decisions? (Not a rhetorical question: I'm genuinely curious to know.) Hard to imagine any more direct and brazen demonstration of contempt for the rule of law. @kimlanelaw.bsky.social

Anyone know if HHS has ever before superseded professional (& state) standards of care by declaring a treatment "not to be safe and effective," such that practitioners using it "will be deemed not to meet professionally recognized standards of health care" for Medicare/Medicaid (42 CFR 1001.2)?

Supplements/corrections in the National Guard in Chicago case: In my amicus briefs in Trump v. Illinois, on the Applications Docket (No. 25A443), I cited a 1917 memo by esteemed Army JAG Enoch Crowder that appeared to confirm that the statutory term "the regular forces" refers to the Army. [1]

Q for 4th Amendment folks to which I should know the answer: When police say they're "detaining a person of interest" after a mass-casualty event, does that mean they're making a Terry stop? If so, can it last many hours b/c authorities are searching for further evidence? @orinkerr.bsky.social

Kudos to Ginia Bellafante for a master class in understatement. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/13/s...

I've got a surefire idea about how to change the "practices and culture" of the Michigan Athletic Department for the better: Enforce a rule that no coach can be paid more than the highest-paid professor. www.espn.com/college-foot...

When your alma mater loses all perspective ... www.nytimes.com/athletic/688...

Been trying to juggle what I loved and what frustrated me about One Battle After Another. This is a really interesting discussion among writers who (mostly) love PTA but have significant doubts about this film.

Anyone know where one can purchase the inevitable "That's Not a Caveat" t-shirts/bumper stickers? @leahlitman.bsky.social

The fundamental problem here--even if there were some legal basis for using such force to destroy the cocaine headed to Suriname (there's not)--is that Bradley accepted at face value ... [1] @justsecurity.org

Here's a link to the DOJ brief. @justsecurity.org storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Now more than ever, it's a mystery why some thought Nelson's brief (and welcome) interjection would be a "bombshell" after much more thorough debunking of the unitary executive theory had failed to move the needle at all. Such a hopeful assumption misunderstands the nature of the Court's project.

In its supplemental en banc brief in the CTA5 AEA case, DOJ argues that the U.S. is engaged in a *non*international armed conflict with the Maduro government, rather than with the state of Venezuela (in addition to arguing that Maduro controls TdA, which is plainly not the case). @justsecurity.org

And other times ... it's not even necessary to listen to the oral argument.

It's not going to affect what the majority of SCOTUS does but, for whatever it's worth, none of the pre-Seila Law decisions the SG cited--not Hennen, not Parsons, not Shurtleff, and certainly not Myers--held that Congress can't establish "for cause" removal protection for some principal officers.

What's most revealing about Sec. Noem's declaration is what's *not* there: She *doesn't* attest (i) that she concluded Judge Boasberg intended not to prohibit transfer of the detainees to El Salvador; ...[1] storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... @justsecurity.org

The (constitutional) world turned upside down: How blatantly unconstitutional legislative objectives somehow became something states now boast of as a *defense* to gerrymandering challenges. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/u...

You know you're getting old when not one of your favorite records of the year appears anywhere on even the NYT list of the top 50 or so albums. FWIW, my list includes: The Beths Tyler Childers Mekons Snocaps James McMurtry Margaret Glaspy EP Craig Finn Wednesday Rhett Miller Wet Leg Patterson Hood

That's the problem with trial judges today--they're far too susceptible to being influenced by the overwhelming weight of the evidence. [1] reason.com/volokh/2025/...

That explains it: All of these SCOTUS decisions aggrandizing the President are actually a stealth campaign to empower and reinvigorate Congress. Yeah, that must be it. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/o...

"Barbaric behavior tarnishes all who wear, or once wore, the uniform, and lust for cruelty turns a noble vocation into mere thuggery." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/o...