Yes Siri I did mean lawn economics. You wouldn’t believe what the law professors have to say about plantings.

In light of Judge Immergut's ruling, there's a lot of noise today coming from the President's advisers and supporters about courts not having the power to provide prospective relief against domestic uses of the military. Via "One First," me on the rather significant early precedent to the contrary:

65 year old white woman alone at the cafe reading Dissident Practice New York is back baby

A sex-blind admissions policy at selective universities will not go the way that the Trump administration thinks it will.

Genuine question for my center/right friends: does the current political moment feel like (1) a simple correction to Democratic overreach, and so nothing to worry about; (2) business as usual in the new world of US politics; (3) a sign that we need structural reforms; (4) something else?

I had never read this before and I regret it. It’s very good.

Had the pleasure of hearing John talk about this forthcoming book today. Really terrific — check it out!

This Yom Kippur, I start with atoning for missing Kol Nidre

May the old year and its curses end; May the new year and its blessings begin.

Love all the replies that are like: “This is bad they need to follow the Constitution and not make things up.” To which I say: you’re right, I’m sorry. They really should just apply the Separation of Power Clause as written.

I know I know everything is terrible, why focus on any one example. But this statement is both mendacious and designed to chill. A prosecutor reminding ICE to follow the law does not show bias. And ICE does not always follow the law. This is bullshit. It should have no place in government.

It just cannot be emphasized enough, as the differential treatment of Slaughter and Cook illustrate yet again, the Roberts Court’s vision of separation of powers is not the Founders’, nor the Constitution’s, but just their own. This isn’t necessarily bad; it’s just disingenuous. (1/2)

I suspect we are getting two opinions in June: (1) Slaughter v. Trump holding that Humphrey's Executor is overruled and the only exceptions that remain are those recognized at the Founding. (2) Cook v. Trump holding that protections for the Fed are permissible because of the Bank of the US.

Countdown 13, the Scottsboro 9: young Black men convicted of rape in farcical 1931 Alabama trials. The Garland Fund financed campaigns by both sides of the bitter NAACP-Communist Party rivalry, transforming the NAACP-Fund litigation campaign in the process. @simonandschuster.bsky.social

Your history lesson for today. Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/o...

Me as a student: I wrote that prof 2 weeks ago and still haven’t heard back! Academia is so unprofessional. Me as a professor: <opens inbox to 462 unread new messages>

I wrote about this in "The Unaccountability Machine" - when you describe leveraged buyouts to ordinary people, half of them say that it should be illegal and the other half are often convinced that it already is.

The brilliant Tim Shenk with one of the cleanest reads on the future of Democratic Party politics in today’s @nytimes.com; gift link below: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/o...

ca. 250 years go we began a domestic war to define what North America would become. Ken Burns on the Revolution that is still ongoing. Honored (and still pretty surprised) to have contributed. m.youtube.com/watch?v=lruE...

I know it’s fashionable to beat up on Nate Silver but I think that’s wrong. The dude says: go with the numbers because your gut will mislead you. And look! His gut misled him!! But the numbers don’t lie: Mayor of New York is, statistically, a dead end job for any purpose other than being Mayor.

If you don’t want to hear it from me, hear it from @martylederman.bsky.social:

Six Justices shockingly conclude that it's likely the Impoundment Control precludes an otherwise valid APA claim to require expenditure of obligated funds. This argument, which turns the ICA on its head, is so absurd that the Trump DOJ itself wisely disclaimed it a month ago. Utterly lawless.

The ICA likely forecloses relief? If it does, I guess spending laws you don’t like are advisory if you can run out the clock. If it doesn’t, whoops I guess this ticket is just good for DJT. Heads I win, tails you lose?

This is an infuriating and shameful scandal. The Roberts Court is condoning Trump’s law breaking, again, pure and simple. There is no serious path forward for democratic government without Supreme Court reform.

Flattered and humbled to learn this. (The trick, as ever, is to have wonderful coauthors like Ash Ahmed and @levmenand.bsky.social!!)

Just in time for the grant in Slaughter, my latest with @andreascoseriakatz.bsky.social and @janemanners.bsky.social out in the @umichlaw.bsky.social Journal of Law Reform! repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcont...

📖❤️ NEWS: You can now pre-order my book! "Unlocking Justice confronts America’s unfair legal system with data—and humanity." It's accessible, optimistic, and in the spirit of Ida B. Wells, who said “the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” I wrote it for each of you. Also, ⬇️

Certiorari "before judgment" is how #SCOTUS takes up a full appeal *before* the intermediate federal courts have heard it. It used to be exceedingly rare. For instance, there wasn't a *single* grant of such expedited review b/w August 2004 & February 2019. This is the *23rd* such grant since then.

Just to echo what @matthewstiegler.bsky.social has said below in a different key: there is a way in which what the Court has just done (and what it did with the stay in the SB8 case a few years ago) is lawless in a lawyerly sense. The law *now* is, apparently what the Court *will* do. (1/3)

Congress passed a fucking law. The Supreme Court affirmed its constitutionality. This lawless majority hasn't ruled that the law is unconsitutional. It has not overruled its precedent. But these hacks are so eager to impose their will that they couldn't wait. So they didn't.

When I said I needed a deadline to finish this article on Humphrey’s Executor, I didn’t mean it that way

A propos of nothing, I was just remembering when the Jeffersonian Republicans cancelled the Supreme Court term to bring Marshall into line, and when the Radical Republicans stripped the Court of jurisdiction to protect Reconstruction

Disliking rotten food doesn't make you anti-food.

Never change @nytimes.com

$28 for a breakfast burrito at JFK?? What is happening????

Happy Constitution Day

Deviant globalization in action! Paging @nilsgilman.bsky.social

Out today: The Fall of Affirmative Action, by Justin Driver www.amazon.com/Fall-Affirma...

Here's my latest original composition: Fenway Park Scherzo for Organ and Fire Alarm in B Minor.

Yes, folks, please submit for what promises to be an awesome gathering in Richmond — the inaugural Association of Law and Political Economy Conference!

Wow

That view is exceptionally naive. As @narosenblum.bsky.social and I wrote last fall, “basic scientific research [is] a long-term investment, one that only governments have the time horizon to make, and it brings enormous payoffs.” It can’t just be moonshots and looking for unicorn behemoths.

Great piece by @adamtooze.bsky.social in today’s @nytimes.com on the deeper questions related to Fed independence. Come for his history of the Fed as a deradicalizing force, stay for his endorsement of @levmenand.bsky.social’s proposal for a triennial review. Gift link below.

We did the Hart-Fuller debate in class yesterday — every time we study the exchange I find new things in it. And I was shocked at how timely it felt. The references may be a bit dated, but the way they grapple with immoral behavior under color of law is still so illuminating.

Who does Noah Smith think the American Left is?

Felix Cohen is really one of the greats

🚀 Launching with 100 Ideas in 100 Days The Democracy Project at @nyulaw.bsky.social is publishing a daily essay from authors across the ideological spectrum to explore the issues facing democracy today. Read the first three essays: democracyproject.org