A society cannot function for long at this level of “Nobody knows what’s going on.” We are not forced to wonder what’s happening in a figurative sense where we struggle to grasp the whys or hows; we literally cannot figure out what happened, after it happened, if it did happen. Circling the drain.

first time in history where in the official narrative the passive voice was used for those attacking the cops and not vice-versa

This year, instead of lowering costs for you, Donald Trump has worked hard to make himself, his family, and his billionaire buddies even richer.

Most people are ignorant on most things, being ignorant is fine. It’s the active, assertive pride in being ignorant as an organizing principle that’s really the awful thing. It is bad to be stupid. You should not be proud of being stupid.

So, if I'm reading this correctly, recent USPS reforms are making it logistically impossible for the agency to postmark all letters on the date received, and services that rely on postmarks to prove deadline adherence shouldn't do so anymore.

New criminal law hypothetical just dropped

Court rejects politician's slogan TM claim

Artists! The US Copyright Office has changed the rules, starting in Feb. we can register up to 20 published 2D works of art in a single application, making it way more affordable! Important as registration is needed to fight theft in court or the CCB. #art #artists www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/g...

Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable group. “Big tech has made their choice.” www.404media.co/google-has-c...

Remember last summer when I warned that no, not all of the damage to the healthcare system by Republicans had been delayed until after the midterms? This is yet another example of what I was talking about. cc: @simonwdc.bsky.social

This frustrates me so much. There were teams across government trying to do just this! I’ve worked with them! I’m married to one of them! Yes it was slow but it was happening! But it was literally the first work stopped by DOGE and it’ll take ages to bring it back online.

So...um... you named your company after a character who pretty famously missed two people sneaking into his home despite having an extensive security system. A system which included 24/7 monitoring and active military personnel.

We raise similar objections in Generative Misinterpretation. Using AI for empirical interpretive tasks is much trickier than it looks, and while there may be good solutions to some of the challenges, no good will come of ignoring them. 5/5 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

No one can see “what types of ideas you’re communicating” just by looking at the syllabus b/c they don’t get the classroom discussion & full context. I often assign readings that have been influential that I think are completely wrong. Putting it on the syllabus is not an endorsement of the ideas

Over the years, I've wondered if I should do a "Top 10 of the Year" list for design patents (like other people do for different areas of IP). But there were never enough DP developments to fill a list. This year in #ScheduleA, though, there's been so much going on that I struggled to pick just ten.

Holy hell this is absolutely fire

A Hampton Inn in Asheville just canceled my family's reservation because our address (incorrectly) showed Asheville—and the hotel bars locals within 50 miles. When I asked why, they said, "because of our homeless population," adding that most hotels here have similar policies. This is outrageous.

I submitted my most recent draft to ChatGPT and it said my writing was the most wonderful law review article that has ever been written and that I was incredibly handsome.

Blog Post: Too Many Courts Are Letting States Take Wrecking Balls to the Internet (Roundup) 📉 blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/202...

This is the world Justice Kavanaugh sanctioned in his foolish & unnecessary concurring opinion to the Court’s order in Noem v Vasquez Perdomo. His hopes of cleaning up that blunder with a plaintive footnote in last week’s concurring opinion in Trump v. Illinois, demonstrates his staggering naïveté.

It’s very weird—and telling—to treat politics as something unimportant that’s wrong for people to act on, while treating a jazz concert as an issue of public concern so serious it calls for legal action.

Elite free speech discourse has culminated in state action to compel labor

I once asked Karen Decrow, president of NOW (1974-77), what she thought of STOP ERA President, 3x congressional candidate, author, lawyer, and avowed anti-Feminist Phyllis Schlafly. Karen laughed and said: “I always said if I had a daughter, I’d want her to be a housewife just like Phyllis.”

"lesbian heated rivalry wouldnt work in hockey it'd have to be ballet instead" okay hear me out for a second. stick with me. how about this: what about Two Cakes

"These deportation forces have been told by the president and his advisers to cast a wide net, that immigrants are 'animals,' that the activists defending them are 'domestic terrorists,' and that the officers themselves have 'immunity' from any form of accountability."

Once you’re an American citizen, you are in fact free to spew venom or shower praise on your American ancestors, no matter how much the pathetic legal hacks rationalizing the MAGA madness might contort themselves. There’s no two-tiered citizenship here and anyone who insists otherwise can get bent

Some time ago we asked the community to submit questions to our #OTW volunteers for #InternationalVolunteerDay. Thanks again to everyone who participated! You can now check out some of our volunteers' responses at otw-news.org/yckpbhwb

when you see it…

ATTN: contracts casebook authors

the only part of the Oklahoma scandal I'm still following is whether anyone so far has given the instructor involved a new job. If it happened the other way ("cancelled by the woke left") she'd already have a six-figure campus speaking tour and a corner office at Heritage.

Great points in this thread: We don't usually think of 1965 immigration act as on par w/New Deal and Civil Rights, but it was a major liberal achievement and Miller's real project is to undo it. As @larryglickman.bsky.social says this connects w/goal of undoing other great 20th century achievements:

The U.S. government just banned five people from entering the country because it doesn’t like their speech. This ban, according to the State Department, is necessary to protect free speech. If that sounds insane to you, congratulations on your reading comprehension.

More seriously, as most readers here know I helped draft the CA billionaire tax initiative text and you just can't get out of it by setting up a couple of LLCs in Florida. We have thought about how to block these fake paper moves for 4 years.

No signed opinions in argued cases before Jan 1 this Term and in the 2022 Term. Used to get at least 1 in Dec & not infrequently a few in Dec and a few in Nov. Conditions on the Court appear to be such that JR can’t even be a good manager. Pretty clearly an effect of the shadow/emergency docket.

This is extremely dumb for a variety of reasons but perhaps the most obvious is that the Romans didn't apply their adoption law to grants of citizenship. I cannot communicate how basic an error he is making here. Staggeringly elementary, a thing you learn in Roman Civ 101.

Amazing: “But the Kennedy Center is not the current owner of trumpkennedycenter.org or trumpkennedycenter.com — because back in August, comedy writer Toby Morton registered those two domain names, expecting Trump and his allies to add Trump’s name to the D.C. landmark.”

This administration lied about the people it sent to an overseas torture prison. It lies about the people it’s deporting. It lies every day to gain political advantage. Not a chance in hell they won’t lie about huge swaths of people they suspect might vote for the other party.

This piece is a great illustration of how the long-term effect of Trump’s destruction of US institutions won’t be felt in a dramatic market collapse, but rather in permanently worse economic conditions, and lower prosperity. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... So long, American exceptionalism

kobayashi nobu

If universities were like police departments, faculty would be unfireable.

A few days ago, I wrote up some thoughts on generative AI and the work of historians: “At best, we’re talking about software that’s very good at making sentences seem sentence-shaped.”

We are all nobody in the book world when we start out. That's what "starting" means. And no one "breaks in" by attending a single in-person convention. Anecdotal evidence suggests I might be the Princess of Genova, but no one's lining up to crown me.

The most common question I receive is how everyday citizens can help in the fight for democracy. My advice, take the first step, start with something small and see what works for you. Here are ten things all of us can do. www.democracydocket.com/opinion/10-t...

Highly recommend this Central District of California decision in Cloobeck v. Villaraigosa rejecting allegations of trademark infringement over political use of the phrase PROVEN PROBLEM SOLVER in connection with the 2026 California gubernatorial election: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Can someone please respond to Stephen Miller with this message from Frank Sinatra?

DOGE was A LOT less likely to cancel contracts from companies that donated money to Republicans than companies that donated to Democrats.

Skimming through this new complaint like: "What is this? Pam Bondi's version of the Epstein files?" Doe v. Roe, Docket No. 1:25-cv-15664 (N.D. Ill. Dec 25, 2025).

ICE detain father shopping on Christmas Eve—then steal his family's groceries. Then 3 agents divvy up his paid for food—taking what they want for themselves. "Can I just get the wife's number to call and let her know?" woman asks. "No, guess he should've complied," agent says. Yakima, Washington