Here’s an example of why you really need the govt agencies focused on protecting people from theft or fraud by major corps. My wife has a jewelry business and sent a piece of jewelry to a customer via UPS. It was insured since it’s a pricey item. The package never arrived. The customer lives in a …

NEW: The head of Social Security keeps sending SSA field offices pretzel gift baskets from his daughter's company. Staff told me that they haven't had the intended effect of boosting morale... but they have raised questions about ethics. More here 👇 www.notus.org/agencies/soc...

"This is a proposal for a formal network of camps," Andrea Pitzer said in an interview, arguing the establishment of such facilities is, historically, "always an attempt to do some kind of end run around the existing legal system."

Endless gratitude to the Brave of US - the survivors of horrific violence who just keep putting themselves out there for all of our sakes. No Promotions for Pedophile Protectors.

I'm sorry, did Bryce Harper not realize that doing a video on behalf of "Brittany, your host at FanDuel" might, you know, be used by FanDuel www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/...

When the regime can't be bothered even to repeat their own lie, it's clear they believe they can get away with whatever they desire. And, honestly, why would they think differently?

"Your horror has been stolen from you" really defines the conditions we're in

the sole purpose of originalists' preoccupation with history and tradition is reproducing historical hierarchies of oppression they are happy to discard history as soon as it doesn't serve that purpose I know I've told y'all this before bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

🧵Now on SSRN: The Birth of the Minority Rights First Amendment examines the antislavery conception of free speech. Scholars who analyzed the 19c legal & popular traditions of free speech came to seemingly contradictory conclusions. I resolve the contradictions. 1/13 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

AHAHAHAHAH www.sec.gov/comments/S7-...

It's official: Dem AGs are suing to block Paramount and Warner Bros.' merger. Not only would this merger hurt competition, it would allow Trump's buddies, the Ellisons, to control what you watch and how much you pay for it from everything from Animal Planet to CBS News to HBO. We're fighting back.

I left mine: I simply noted that four different executive orders (three of which have been determined to be viewpoint discrimination) do not provide the basis for ignoring over forty different statutory frameworks enacted by Congress to provide grants.

What a great story of public health officials doing their damn jobs and saving lives — exactly what Trump, Vought, RFK, and Musk are trying to tear down. open.substack.com/pub/insideme...

Amnesty International put out a major report documenting the influence of UK based anti trans gender critical organizations and their funding. Within hours, GC groups threatened defamation lawsuits and Amnesty was forced to pull it down. Proving the point they're anti rights. Anyways, here it is.

DDC won't protect World Professional Association for Transgender Health against FTC/WD Tex

I want to emphasize what's bizarre here. First, the EU and UK have a lot of objections. Second, Calif is not the only state objecting. Third, the Trump clearance does not suggest there are no antitrust problems for obvious reasons. So the slant that Calif is uniquely irrational is. A choice.

Had a great set of convos but would love to talk to yet more people so the call is still open! Please do ping if you have any questions or doubts! #fandom #boycott #research

After losing in courts across the country, the Trump administration has successfully steered nationwide litigation over gender-affirming medical care for minors to a single Texas judge in a single Texas district court. In "One First," me on how this happened (and why it's allowed but shouldn't be):

My 2¢. "In order to be fruitful, scientific research must be free—free from the influence of pressure groups, free from the necessity of producing immediate practical results, free from dictation by any central board." (Cmte on Science & the Public Welfare, 1945) www.regulations.gov/comment/OMB-...

They're continuing to kill people because this administration has told them that the people they're apprehending -- and those who defend them -- deserve violence, that no amount of violence is too much, and that no matter how egregious the abuse, they'll never be held accountable.

this is “pete hegseth wants an all-white military”

ICE killed someone in Biddeford, Maine this morning, the 11th fatal ICE or Border Patrol shooting since January. Of nearly 200 people detained in Maine's "Operation Catch of the Day," only 11 had criminal convictions. This is an occupation where our bodies fill their quota.

It’s an obvious but still important reality right now that putting people on your network who represent or defend the current administration means choosing to amplify people who will knowingly, aggressively, and frequently lie to your audience.

This paper argues that there are exactly two biological sexes: Male, Female, Both, and Neither.

"public funding for book culture is exponentially higher in Spain than it is in the United States. The Spanish government sponsors book fairs, gives subventions to small presses, funds travel for Spanish authors, and pursues a range of other initiatives both domestically and internationally." 😭😭

Trump pulled Patel off a tarmac as he was taking the FBI plane to see his girlfriend sing in Chicago to order him to investigate the NYT for reporting on how, even after a $1 billion upgrade with public funds, the plane Qatar bribed Trump with is still inadequate. It's matryoshka doll corruption.

“The idol diminishes us before it ever comes alive.”

1. Yikes 2. Those texts are the kind of thing I‘d make up on an exam if I wanted to bypass students’ speculation about possible legit motives 3. It seems (separately) bananas that university admins apparently thought they might be able to edit the exhibition themselves?? www.npr.org/2026/07/12/n...

My coauthor Jay Falk's postdoctoral fellowship was terminated by the Trump administration for documenting the hummingbird example in this paper.

1/2 As the world surges ahead with intelligent technology, Republicans have setup significant legislative roadblocks to the U.S. solar industry, deliberately using unreachable deadlines and supply line constraints. Republicans are kneecapping American cutting-edge solar development.

Brooklyn craft beer packaging goes hard

I love how this makes it seem like they stopped monitoring RFK Jr

If Jared Kushner paid €110m to buy an island in Albania that has no fresh water from a guy who did not own it, it would help explain why his negotiations with Iran on behalf of the US have not been entirely successful

indescribable amount of policing

US Marshals fugitive task force looking for reflecting pool vandals I guess

well this report from Kennedy Center whistleblowers is wild

This is the Cabinet agency senators Durbin and Klonuchar want to empower. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

what they learned from minneapolis was not “don’t do this again” but “keep it quiet next time”

NY Tmes exec editor Joe Kahn said in 2024 that the issue of democracy's survival was not a top priority in his newsroom's coverage. Now Trump is sending federal agents to NYT reporters' homes to deliver subpoenas over coverage he doesn't like. I wonder if democracy is a priority for Joe now.

A values system that views Pete Buttigieg’s time at McKinsey as disqualifying, but Graham Platner’s time at Blackwater as not, has beclowned itself regardless of the subsequent scandals.

Not sure I can count the ways in which this is unconstitutional, not least that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law." Minimum, I'd be asking for the required regular "account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money."

A few days before Christmas 2016, a grey Land Rover paused in front of a bank of mirrored windows at this checkpoint on the border between France and Switzerland. What happened next revealed just how looted art worms its way into museums. A 🧵 about my article: hyperallergic.com/why-do-so-ma...

A side-note to this thread, and a direct rebuke to anyone who says “Eh you must just be a bad teacher”: One reason it’s all so demoralizing is that Andrew’s teaching materials are exemplary. Just incredibly good. Go look at them. When someone like him is despairing, things are real bad.

One of the weirder signs of dying empires is "are they actually dead? Who knows?" cases of political figures. Product of concentration of power in rickety systems. All-timer: viziers covering up the death of the first Qin emperor by hauling around a bunch of rotten fish with his decaying corpse.

Nazirazzi

So ICE has thugs wearing “media” vests and masks filming protesters, something that is totally normal in a democracy www.ctinsider.com/news/article...

I SCREAMED, oh my god, unmute this now

Kaiser Permanente nurses who answer advice and triage calls say their duty of care for patients is being increasingly threatened by workplace surveillance. calmatters.org/economy/tech...

Trump has tried to ban mail-in voting, demanded voter data, tried to ram through the SAVE Act, and gutted the VRA. And now: fired the entire Election Assistance Commission ahead of the midterms. This is a coordinated assault on our democracy. Massachusetts is watching, and we are not backing down.

This paper is great. I think one of the failings of American law professors is not doing enough to advise our student-editors that good legal scholarship needn’t be prescriptive.