How to spoil your weekend: Read my new paper, “Putting the Brakes on a No-Drive List” papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers..... Its trying to get ahead of plausibly foreseeable repression. I hope it scares you. It scares me.

This got me to finally read the entire New Yorker article on the Tates and... yeah. I don't see how what they're doing is any different than what everyone has accused Jeffrey Epstein of doing. Except they're *more public* about admitting to what they're doing AND getting young men to join in.

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 4d ago

However horrible you think the Tate brothers are, I promise, it's worse than that. It's insane that Dems aren't making a bigger deal of the GOP embracing these grotesque monsters.

This feels like the encapsulation of Trumpism: people willingly participate in his sham golf tournament, knowing that he will lie and pretend he won, going along with the ruse, only for him to top it off by insulting them.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3d ago

Trump: “The Winning Shot in the Bedminster Club Championship! Thank you very much to all of those who participated. I won with a 70, & am so honored in that, unlike the rest of the field, I’m given very little time to practice, bc I’m focused on many other things. It’s called TALENT, and I have it”

I got some great suggestions yesterday for topics to add to my constitutional design syllabus for the coming semester. (I also want to add a session on constitution-making.) But that means I need to cut some things. So new question: of the sessions in the current draft, which is/are most expendable?

How many good senators are there? About 12? This is why I keep saying we need to abolish the Senate.

rev. howard arson@theophite.bsky.social · 4d ago

i'm sorry what the fuck. gillibrand attends a church which teaches that COVID was God's punishment for permitting gay marriage?

The AI overlords can pry the em dash from my cold dead hands—I’m not giving it up!

Mark Anthony Neal (@NewBlackMan on X)@markanthonyneal.bsky.social · 4d ago

More Typos, Fewer Em Dashes: Writers Are Creating an Anti-AI ‘Literary Counterculture’ Novelists, journalists, and power LinkedIn posters are embracing first-person narratives and idiosyncrasies to avoid being mistaken for chatbots. www.wired.com/story/more-t...

I will be teaching my constitutional design course again in the fall, and I am in the process of tweaking my syllabus. (Here's the draft version: law.uh.edu/assignments/...) Any suggestions for particularly valuable topics or readings?

The fact that the unitary executive theory is so obviously wrong has offered good scholars a rare opportunity to make arguments that are obviously right. Unfortunately, by the same token, it has wasted a huge number of productive hours. I guess that is the story of the Trump years writ large.

Adding this to the list of constitutional provisions that are in deep tension with the unitary executive theory, along with the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Opinion Clause, the Commission Clause, the Take Care Clause, ... At a certain point you have to conclude it's the thrust of the document.

James Grimmelmann@jtlg.bsky.social · 10mo ago

I would just like to point out the insanity of the idea that the President has a Constitutionally mandated at-will removal power over the people who are tasked by he 25th Amendment with determining his inability to carry out his duties.

Read my colleague Jeff Gordon on how the Twenty Second Amendment (presidential term limits) should have informed the Supreme Court's views on presidential accountability in Trump v. Slaughter. balkin.blogspot.com/2026/07/trum...

The fact that the unitary executive theory is so obviously wrong has offered good scholars a rare opportunity to make arguments that are obviously right. Unfortunately, by the same token, it has wasted a huge number of productive hours. I guess that is the story of the Trump years writ large.

What text from outside of legal scholarship sheds the most light on things that lawyers care about? I vote for Robert Dahl’s Preface to Democratic Theory.

I basically agree with this take—including the admiration for Nolan's earlier films that Wilson expresses further down this thread.

EMILY WILSON@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · last wk.

I wrote about the Nolan Odyssey for the LRB. I'll summarize some of my main points below, in case you don't feel like reading all that. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Associate Professor @beaubaumann.bsky.social is quoted in the @nytimes.com about two Supreme Court decisions on executive power.

Supreme Court Turbocharges Presidential Power

A pair of decisions reshaped the structure of the federal government.

nytimes.com

Gmail AI writing advice

5 Questions with Professor @chrisjwalker.bsky.social about his new paper, Preserving Both Agency Expertise and Accountability in the Unitary Executive. 5Qs: michigan.law.umich.edu/news/5qs-wal... The paper on @ssrn.bsky.social: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

5Qs: Walker Makes a Conservative Argument for a Professionalized Civil Service | University of Michigan Law School

The US Supreme Court recently ruled in Trump v. Slaughter that the president has broad latitude to fire commissioners of most federal regulatory agencies. That decision has led to questions about what...

michigan.law.umich.edu

The NextGen bar exam seems to be massively dumbed-down. Am I just becoming an old fogey?

The elderly rubbish of a dictator, without a fraction of Pericles's eloquence.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Trump on fallen US troops: "All of them said very strongly, 'We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.'"

If Ilan Wurman doesn't want people to think he's a racist, then he should stop saying things that sound really racist.

Anthony Michael Kreis@anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 3w ago

This gets straight to the heart of it all.

This gets straight to the heart of it all.

Adam Serwer@adamserwer.bsky.social · 3w ago

Right. That’s how we know it’s a race argument, not an argument about culture. Because what makes you unacceptable is constant, inherited, and unalterable whether you’re born here or elsewhere.

to hear Trump tell it, American elections were completely corrupted while he was president and he was helpless to stop it, then they were cleaned up by Biden ahead of Trump's victory in 2024, and now that Trump is president again they are once again becoming third world caliber

Their elections don't have all this worrying uncertainty about the outcome! The sad thing is that the Republicans on the Supreme Court have been talking about elections this way for some time.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w ago

Newsmax talking head: "I've lived in Beijing. I can say the elections in Beijing are much better than California and the United States."

Substitute "the germ theory of disease" or "quantum mechanics" or just about any other discovery for the highlighted portion and you'll see just how absurd it is to claim that advances in human knowledge justify destroying the infrastructure that made those advances possible.

This (short) thread is worth reading.

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 3w ago

An amazing quote from Lindsey Graham in this Atlantic story. It really captures an essential truth about politics that too few people ever really come to terms with. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

I really do think that there needs to be a movement--every bit as sustained and well-organized as the movement leading to Slaughter--to invigorate the positive requirements of the Take Care Clause of Article II. It's sitting there in plain sight and it means what it says.

Todd Phillips@tphillips.bsky.social · 4w ago

@nicholasbednar.bsky.social and I raised the Vacancies Act issue in an amicus brief. We were ignored. I think the answer is that firing officials such that the agency cannot function is not taking care that the law is faithfully executed, and should be undone, regardless of Slaughter.

Unexpectedly moving declaration by Houston Mayor Whitmire embracing Lorenzo Salgado as a "Houstonian." He vowed to bring to bear Houston's resources to pursue an independent investigation. He appears stunned–like the way many people feel the first time they realize the govt lied about everything.

Headquarters@headquartersnews.bsky.social · 4w ago

Houston Mayor John Whitmire: For the Salgado family, life will never be the same. At no fault of theirs, Mr. Salgado was chased by a unmarked vehicles. Before he could identify himself and speak as a Houstonian, he was shot and killed. We'll use our resources to pursue a transparent investigation.

This is what I think about whenever I encounter someone who believes in "originalism."

Sarah E. Bond@sarahebond.bsky.social · 4w ago

How do we calculate loss of written works? A depressing but important new study notes that "the loss was far greater than scholars once thought. Researchers estimate that up to 60% of medieval literary works and more than 95% of the manuscripts that once carried them have disappeared over time." 📜🖋️

In 1988, Pat Buchanan, unhappy with the direction of the Supreme Court (although at that time 6 of the Justices were GOP appointees), proposed a massive remaking of the Court, called for "selective civil disobedience" against "evil" laws, and sought to "diminish the power of unelected judges."

Thanks, Beau! I should probably do more of this short-form writing—it seems like a more effective way to get the ideas out there.