I refuse to live in a world where the only way we retain our humanity is to deliberately make things worse.

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...

Perhaps they're dropping the pool indictment on a Friday so that they can sneak this by? www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/u...

Trump to Appeal Judge’s Ruling Denouncing I.R.S. Lawsuit as Exercise in Self-Dealing

It was the latest sign that the president was doubling down on his fight for aspects of a deal that brings him vast benefits, even though they have jeopardized the confirmation of his pick for attorne...

nytimes.com

Also, the person who said it was vandals was the President. So enough with blaming a different agency. You wanted unitary, you got unitary.

New draft paper on SSRN: "Fact Avoidance," forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review Supreme Court Issue. This Essay identifies a recurring feature where the Court decides presidential power cases entirely on legal grounds without engaging at all with the facts /1 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

What actually triggered people was that over half the population followed the recommendations because they were trying to be good people contributing to the welfare of the nation. People don't like feeling like they're selfish, and you can't help but feel that in that situation.

Andy Craig@andycraig.bsky.social · 7d ago

Aside from its many other problems, the idea Fauci was America's power-abusing covid dictator is somewhat complicated by the fact that he never had the power to do the things they're mad about. His recommendations bound nobody and were not particularly rigorously followed by the actual policymakers.

You do you, bro, but I'm just saying I simply couldn't live with myself if I was this full of contradiction.

Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social · last wk.

JUST IN: Justice Neil Gorsuch tells @RonaldReagan civility conference US democracy is 'very fragile' & 'facing some tough times.' 'We are all in it together, and if we don't stay all in it together, it will crumble,' Gorsuch says, urging students to study history 'warts and all'

This is not (or should not be) surprising to anyone who has been paying attention, but it is nevertheless stunning to have it in court records. It represents, without any exaggeration, a betrayal of the nation (not to mention the millions of Trump voters in many of these ostensibly "blue" states).

tony romm@tonyromm.bsky.social · 2w ago

NEW: In a stunning admission, the Trump administration admitted in court documents that it canceled billions in energy grants to states "based solely" on politics -- and whether that state was represented by Democrats and backed Harris in 2024. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...

Yes, and 99 percent of coal plants failed when there was no more coal on hand... I am truly at a loss for words to describe how obtuse and/or manipulative this message from the Department of Energy is.

It is such a shame that this kind of wealth and power couldn't have found itself in the hands of someone with an ounce of character and foresight.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2w ago

‘I got carried away’: Elon Musk expresses regret about Doge and wading into Trump’s orbit

The problem with writing an op-ed about this kind of thing is that two days later you've got so many great new examples--this, the White House intervening on behalf of Taylor Farms, selling access to advance information from POTUS. It's a dark time indeed. thehill.com/opinion/whit...

Handing agency oversight to Trump is a fatal blow to public trust

Public trust in government has been declining for decades, and Trump v. Slaughter will surely exacerbate the trend.

thehill.com

The Volatile Mermaid@ohnoshetwitnt.bsky.social · 2w ago

I’m sorry what

Slaughter was not just about removal--it was a "conceptual revolution." Taken seriously, it implies one of two futures: an ineffective government hobbled by courts limiting the president's power, or courts holding back and enabling a power grab. What a choice. www.theregreview.org/2026/07/22/b...

This is what happens when you give a corrupt president the power to micromanage agency statements on exigent threats to public safety. Just saying.

Jessica Nix@jessicanix.bsky.social · 2w ago

NEW: As cyclosporiasis cases jumped, the company linked to the outbreak - Taylor Farms - effectively delayed a recall that mounted in consumer confusion. Gift link for @business www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

It's like the political manifestation of Munchausen by Proxy.

Michael Shepherd@mshepruralpolitics.bsky.social · 3w ago

🚨New Book Alert 🚨 Thrilled to announce the publication of my first book: Rural Pain, Republican Gain by @uchicagopress.bsky.social ‼️ Officially released in one month but at the warehouse and ready to ship to you and yours! press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

I'm in the Hill today with @hdamonfeng.bsky.social on how the Trump v. Slaughter opinion undermines public trust in the information conveyed by agencies, which could be catastrophic for society and economy alike. thehill.com/opinion/whit...

Handing agency oversight to Trump is a fatal blow to public trust

Public trust in government has been declining for decades, and Trump v. Slaughter will surely exacerbate the trend.

thehill.com

I simply can't wait to hear what kinds of convoluted, and heretofore unheard of, reasons for an exception the Court and its bar dream up.

@nicholasbednar.bsky.social and @tphillips.bsky.social argue that President Trump's removal of the three remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission defeats his duty to faithfully execute the law and exceeds his removal power under the Take Care Clause.

Faithful Execution and the Removal Power

President Trump is exercising his removal power in ways that defeat his duty to faithfully execute the law.

lawfaremedia.org

No wonder they think civilian universities are off the rails; even military academies are too lefty for them. This just goes to show you how little credibility the entire movement has as a genuine complaint about ideological diversity.

David Burbach 🇺🇸@dburbach.bsky.social · 3w ago

The report contends the academies are educating new officers to be 'philosophers and bureaucrats' but by the math the biggest change would be a radical reduction in the number of engineering and science grads in favor of military history and "leadership".

England France third place match taking place in Florida. get your Seven Years' War jokes ready

This series always has some great essays. www.theregreview.org/2026/07/13/s...

The Supreme Court’s 2025-2026 Regulatory Term | The Regulatory Review

Scholars examine the Court’s most important regulatory decisions of this past term.

theregreview.org

Even more alarmingly, 23 percent of people who think Trump is using his office for personal gain strongly or somewhat approve of his job performance--implying, of course, that they view the graft as entirely appropriate, or as irrelevant to job performance. Not sure what you do with that...

Catherine Rampell@crampell.bsky.social · 4w ago

60% of Americans say Trump is using his office for personal gain, and only 27% say he isn't. yougov.com/en-us/articl...

It's really stunning to read JD Vance, a grown man and second in line to lead out country, admitting that he sees the world and our country's political divides in terms of a battle between literal angels and demons.

Stephen Nuñez@socio-steve.bsky.social · 4w ago

After the assassination last year of Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and the vice president’s close friend, Vance’s “instincts told him that there was a larger plot behind the murder,” Haberman and Swann write. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/o...

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.

This is a really important asymmetrical impact of Trump v. Slaughter. Effectively, future Democratic presidents who want agencies to function will face a Hobson's choice. slate.com/news-and-pol...

The Supreme Court Just Helped Trump Hamstring the Next Democratic President

Donald Trump has another weapon he can wield on his way out the door.

slate.com

Somebody guard soccer David Bowie.

Love seeing my friend and co-author Gabe Scheffler do the yeoman's work of rebutting, point-by-point, the strategies of "obfuscation" being employed by the Trump administration to cover up the fact that they gutted Medicaid.

Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · last mo.

New at Can We Still Govern: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed on July 4, 2025. It is the blueprint for Trump's second term. A year on, Gabriel Scheffler explains three major lies at the heart of the law's Medicaid provisions. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/one-year-o...

1/2 I've posted a revised version of my paper on unitary executive theory and democratic accountability, now with a discussion of Slaughter and Cook at pp. 5-6. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

I've looked at Slaughter closely and Justice Sotomayor is right that the majority does not take the time to reassure us, as it did in Free Enterprise Fund, that its formalistic reasoning will not eventually reach the civil service. That retreat into silence is incredibly disconcerting.

Today is a breaking point for me. There is just no way this country can continue to leave the functionality of its institutional machinery to the throes of the fever dreams of five or six amateur political theorists.

There's really no denying it anymore.

Josh Chafetz@joshchafetz.bsky.social · last mo.

No legislative veto. Hampered oversight. No agencies outside of presidential control. No attempt to meaningfully enforce the power of the purse statutes. This is the Court’s doing.