Supreme Court: Joe Biden couldn’t exercise executive powers explicitly delegated to him by Congress, while Donald Trump can exercise executive pseudo-powers explicitly denied to him by Congress www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/09/scot...

Not unexpected. Still bad. Really bad. #ICC www.reuters.com/world/europe...

Idk how many of you saw this, but I think this is *exactly* the soothing narrative that three or four justices, including the chief, have talked themselves into.

Humphrey's Executor has been on the chopping block for a while. But I'd watch your wallet with Question 2, folks.

This isn’t a university.

🧵Why is the US military conducting lethal strikes in the Caribbean? There are a number of moving parts here as there are different actors within the Trump administration with different interests/agendas. 1/n

They just tear-gassed us. They tried to run us over in a van holding a peaceful protester. They shot us with pepper balls. They dragged another protester into the facility.

This is what I've been worried about since Trump took office: he might save TikTok, but at what cost? Trump is incapable of conceiving of the national interest as independent from his own personal, psychological, and financial interest. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/w...

Just the paramilitary secret police manhandling an opposition political candidate.

Trump's announcement that he will designate Antifa as a "major terrorist organization" is legally meaningless. But it is another step in framing domestic political opponents as "terrorists", a characterization also used for migrants & Latin American criminals. www.crisisgroup.org/united-state...

Is there anyone who would like to write an up to date piece on all the assaults on freedom of speech and the press specifically that the Trump administration has engaged in this year so far? Feels important to keep pushing these. Pitch us at writers at liberalcurrents dot com if you want to write it

Push back against the apathy, against the failure of imagination that leads some to say, "this is not a big deal." I'm really scared for our country's future. Our freedom to speak, and especially to criticize those who govern us, is in grave danger. 2/2

(whispering) IT'S FASCISM

I know people sometimes dismiss posts about how Trump “can’t do this” by arguing that Trump will just ignore the law and do whatever he wants, but I think the fact that there’s no legal infrastructure in place to enable this kind of thing really does matter.

Note: I don’t know where this is going at all. It’s not a “foreign terrorist organization,” which is a thing State does. There is a “domestic terrorism” definition, but it involves no formal designations. This could be one of those things Trump does, that is then followed by a memo: Do this —>

Waking up to learn John Yoo, Ed Whelan, and I appear to agree on a key issue regarding the lethal strikes in the Caribbean. Wild times. My observation: "The President is asserting a license to kill without due process and outside the context of armed conflict.” www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

designating ANTIFA an enemy of the state is telling on yourself

"An immigration judge in Louisiana has ordered pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the U.S., deported to Syria or Algeria for failing to disclose certain information on his green card application" Transparent pretext. www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

Indeed a joke. But also worth noting that Trump can't actually "extend" anything—all he can do is refuse to do his job, i.e., enforce the law. It might sound like a pedantic distinction but it's important! We shouldn't accept the premise that Trump can just delay laws he doesn't like.

G, of course. But slicing Italy into three barely decipherable zones is the act of an evil genius.

Please permit me to remind you that just as the First Amendment protects Nazis, who would suppress our speech, it also protects the New York Times, which has sold out every American right and value for the mess of Park Slope potage that is false equivalency, false neutrality, and access.

As I wrote after the first Caribbean boat strike, no War on Terror drone strike crossed all the lines these two attacks have. Those had some legal authority, occurred in areas the US military did not control—where arrest was not an easy alternative—and the US considered the worst ones mistakes.

Second deadly US strike on a boat in the Caribbean. As with the first -nonthreatening target in an area the US military operates freely -no legal authority, nor attempt to cite statute -no evidence presented -no individuals identified -no articulated strategic goal, nor explanation how to achieve it

another is a self-fulfilling prophecy, for it is that faith that allows us to act in safety; our distrust and fear of one another is also a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it is the latter that those like Miller and Vance who are conspiring to overthrow constitutional democracy want us to feel.

This is so important. If we start to believe them and act like they do have the power, that is actually what gives them that power. Authoritarianism is built out of fear and anticipatory compliance. That's why they threaten stuff they don't currently have the ability to carry out. Cont 🧵

Co-sign

Listening to To Drink from the Night Itself this morning in honor of Tompa. RIP.

Some personal news: I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Thread incoming. substack.com/@karenattiah...

With a terrific team, I just published a large study looking at all court cases involving the Trump administration. Shows basis for courts no longer giving a so-called "presumption of regularity" (a legal doctrine involving a strong benefit of the doubt) to the administration. 🧵

This is known as "chain refoulment" and yes, it's a violation of international law.

While prestige journalists fell over themselves to report instances of left-wing cancel culture in the 2010s, the Right is currently firing university professors for their speech—and unlike the left, they’re using government informers to do so. From @ryanlcooper.com:

people pretend that debate signals and defends a commitment to high minded politics. what it elevates instead is performative dishonesty as a basic mode of politics www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

A short First Amendment 🧵: First, the professor was fired b/c he urged "revolutionary socialists" to organize: “Without organization, how can anyone expect to overthrow the most bloodthirsty, profit-driven, mad organization in the history of the world — that of the United States?”

More thoughts on the strike in the Caribbean. “What is conspicuously absent is any attempt at a legal justification for the premeditated killing of people. And outside of armed conflict, we have a word for the premeditated killing of people. That word is murder.” theintercept.com/2025/09/10/t...

Ideological apparatchiks won this round against academic freedom; that’s the headline. But the subhead should be about the method: made-for-viral video that tells your ideological allies All You Need To Know™️. Can the university and the Enlightenment withstand this oddly powerful propaganda tool?

I wrote this story because the case of the Guatemalan children hasn’t received nearly as much media attention as it deserves. I wanted to highlight the full extent of the government’s depraved conduct. I hope you’ll read and share. Don’t look away. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

chng.it/v648fZ9tKW Solidarity with colleagues at Texas A&M.

Nobody should be fooled by the stated rationale here, which does not conform to any normal expectation for a class’s relationship to the course description.

There is so much that is terrible in what has been reported. But among them is the student’s reference to “our president’s laws.”

US military being used for two overlapping purposes in Caribbean: 1) Performative GWOT on alleged narcos. 2) Saber rattling against Maduro. Don't think Trump actually has stomach for Operation Venezuela Freedom. More performative strikes on supposed narcos possible—hopefully pushback stops that.

So much that is awful here. But the justification the president provides here--that the firing doesn't violate academic freedom bc the professor MISLED students & admin about the content of her class--is one that we are likely to see again.

"The firm guarding sites where aid is distributed in Gaza has been using members of a US biker gang with a history of hostility to Islam....BBC News has confirmed the identities of 10 members of the Infidels Motorcycle Club working in Gaza" www.bbc.com/news/article...

As I was saying. www.justsecurity.org/120296/many-...

Also, as an experiment, people should figure out what the real legal basis of their tenure is. This will be different at different schools -- but at least at private schools, you're looking at contractual guarantees, backed by accreditation standards.

"Corporate law, although always far from perfect, was supposed to ensure that the titans of industry acted lawfully and in the best interests of not only the stockholders, but their companies. Now, it seems, Delaware has opted for backsliding." Don't miss this great new post by Kate Jackson!

One puzzle I’m working through is how authoritarian political movements impact civil society orgs. We’re getting more familiar with what authoritarianism will do to them when in power. It’s a top-down theory of change. But does the underlying political & social movement have an independent impact?

almost hard to remember when the center and right were having a years-long meltdown about free speech on campus because students protested Milo Yiannopoulos speeches