The leftmost flag is not an erupting volcano. It is called "The Blue Hill Banner." There is a full description on the Commission's website.
Moral psychology & experimental jurisprudence. Interested in mental state attributions, risk, punishment, personal identity, criminal law & procedure, constitutional & statutory interpretation, statistics, etc., etc., etc. christianmott.com
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The leftmost flag is not an erupting volcano. It is called "The Blue Hill Banner." There is a full description on the Commission's website.
A lot of people are posting that this EO will destroy various industries. It seems more likely it will be used to harm specific companies and institutions that refuse to bow to the regime. E.g., the tech CEOs that have donated to and flattered the President will likely see their companies spared.
Sounds like you studied the optimally efficient amount.
Of course it was unconstitutional. The only interesting question is whether any court will ever be in a position to say so (cause of action, immunity, &c.). Just like with partisan gerrymandering, we should understand that public officials are violating their oaths even if a judge never says so.
Referring to this reporting:
Doesn't it matter that reporting suggests his show really is just suspended and ABC is still considering whether and when to bring it back? Seems like Carr's threats are keeping Kimmel's show off the air on an ongoing basis.
When it's convenient, people love to pretend that testimony isn't evidence.
Just realized that the 1996 amendment to 1001 substantially limits its application to false statements to the legislature. It only applies in "administrative matters" or "any investigation or review." If a hearing does not fall into those categories, then the lack of an oath would matter.
You're right: The perjury statute does require an oath. 18 USC 1621(1). But 1001 also seems to apply. Here's a case in which both were charged: perjury for false testimony to a congressional committee and 1001 for false written submission. Nothing in 1001 says it's limited to writing, though.
Does swearing in these witnesses make any real difference? Per 18 USC 1001, it is a crime to make a materially false representation in any matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch, regardless of whether the person has been sworn in. Is there some other reason it would matter?
The way this year is going, it feels like that day should be coming up pretty soon.
As a result, if Massachusetts law governed Trump's suit and he weren't a public figure, then this paragraph of his complaint might actually be relevant!
Some law trivia: Massachusetts actually allows libel suits based on true statements (preempted by 1A for public figures/matters of public concern), but only if there is "actual malice." MGL ch. 231, sec. 92; see also link, n.2. The standard is met by making the statement with "hatred or ill will."
I once made the same hopeful prediction about Elon Musk and Twitter. It turns out that having control of a network that big confers enormous power, no matter how terrible the product.
Though the relevant triple for 2025 is 27^2 + 36^2 = 45^2 So we'll have to wait until the 1296th day of the 729th month of 2025.
Do you think they're going to overturn it completely? The shadow docket orders suggest they might say it's still good law but unfortunately all the independent agencies now wield "considerable executive power," so it doesn't apply to them.
SCOTUS's Fed exception will be pretty meaningless if provably false allegations are sufficient to establish the facts underlying a determination of "cause" for removal. Hard to imagine SCOTUS going with either of the district court's rationales, though.
That Seal Team 6 hypothetical from Trump v. US seems less and less hypothetical by the day.
Almost like there should be some sort of proceeding to determine whether a claim is true before it can be cause for the President to remove someone from their position.
It's the courthouse for the New York Appellate Division, First Department. Not sure the building has a name. Here's a short history.
Just awful.
Some people apparently agree with the proposition stated in Trump v. US that the President has exclusive and preclusive control over the investigation and prosecution of crimes. But even those people should recognize, at this point, that there was value in leaving that (purported) fact ambiguous.
The four dissenters in the Federal Circuit wrote a credible opinion saying that the tariffs legal. It might be wrong, but it is credible. Strikes me as more likely than not that the Supreme Court will agree with the dissenters.
In the end, I managed to catch the bat in a container and carry it outside, but I don't recommend. Hopefully your landlord, animal control, or someone will eventually help. Good luck!
When I lived in New Haven, I once discovered a bat in my apartment. After several hours trying to get it to fly out the window, I called Yale facilities and asked if they had a net I could borrow. They laughed and told me I should just open a window and let it fly out.
Per this February 2020 NYT story on signed Trump memorabilia, Trump has two different signatures.
Would suspending the term keep SCOTUS from issuing shadow docket rulings or just from hearing and deciding argued cases?
Yes, it was Judge Reinhardt. Heather Gerken called it his "mantra" in her tribute in HLR.
The cases on reasonable suspicion say that the suspicion must be *particularized*. Purely statistical evidence, of the type Kavanaugh now says is sufficient, is not particularized. Strange that Kavanaugh does not try to address this point, which Sotomayor makes in the dissent.
Kavanaugh concurrence is pretty unconvincing 1. He seems to suggest that purely statistical evidence is sufficient for reasonable suspicion. 2. He says plaintiffs lack standing under Lyons because it's speculative to think they'll be stopped again. But if (1) is now true, it's not at all speculative
News for librarians and those in academia. Please spread the word.
Or interconnections. Indeed, if they're worried about this, they should support the Unified Smart Grid.
SCOTUS is making itself the President of the judicial branch. I.e., just as the President used to have to wait for independent agencies to turn over to influence their decisions, SCOTUS used to have to wait for cases to come to it in the normal course and (mostly) live with TROs/PIs it didn't like.
I can't tell if this is satire
You might if you think the Supreme Court is inclined to say that robbery is legal.
Simply cannot stress enough that the US economy was the envy of the world in January. We're headed towards an entirely self-inflicted recession.
Partial to this one:
Sounds like the type of action for which a President should be impeached, removed, and prosecuted. (Though the last action is now impossible.)
Rand Paul: "The reason we have trials & we don't automatically assume guilt is what if we make a mistake and they happen to be people fleeing the Venezuelan dictator? ... off our coast it isn't our policy just to blow people up ... even the worst people in our country, they still get a trial."
Unless the Court starts doing what Samuel Estreicher suggested for the NLRB and severing the parts of the independent agencies' organic statutes that make their executive power "considerable," rather than their tenure protections.
But obviously the government doesn't have the right to kill without process anyone it could charge with a crime.
Of course it does. I only meant that there may have been an actual crime -- not just a thought crime -- that the government could have prosecuted. E.g., if there's evidence (not shared publicly) that the boat contained controlled substances and the people on board intended to bring them to the US.
If the boat were headed for US territory, there could be an alleged offense that's not a thought crime: conspiracy to import controlled substances (21 USC 963), which some cases have said can apply extraterritorially. But, of course, there are many other reasons this action was still deeply wrong.
Seems like we're about to see the same phenomenon with independent agencies, to which Congress delegated wide-ranging powers on the assumption they would not be subject to the President's control through the removal power.
Seems like the point is to put Trump in front of a camera, rather than the content.
He won the Powerball.
An awesome conference online organized by the moral psychology research group! With the first Stich Award to honor my mentor Steve Stich. Paul bloom is the awardee.
What's the chance that an LLM trained on Trump's tweets is currently in charge of the country?
The Pentagon pizza index is really spiking right now. But that may have more to do with the holiday weekend and the Virginia Tech game...
I do think it was him walking to the car yesterday and today. Doubt he played golf, though.
He has previously been photographed golfing while wearing the shoes he was wearing while leaving the White House in yesterday and today (i.e., the shoes with the black sole and stripe).
I'm not buying the broader conspiracy theories, but I would not be surprised to learn that photo with Gruden is from last weekend.
Interesting that he doesn't claim it is from today in the post. He could be talking about playing with Gruden last weekend! Also, note that his shoes in this picture are all white. Photos from yesterday and today show him wearing shoes with a black sole and stripe. (Though he could have changed.)
I was very skeptical of this spinoff of The Office (full season dropping 9/4), but this sneak peek is pretty funny and Domhnall Gleason is great in everything.
Who was the interview with? Time to get them on the phone.
Impressive!
He's only 76! (He was appointed when he was 36.)
I was honored by the @psychscience.bsky.social DEI Committee's invitation to help curate this collection of outstanding articles addressing a range of issues related to anti-Black racism. I also couldn't have asked for a more thoughtful and thorough partner in @johnjost.bsky.social. Please share!
Though Trump hasn't sent the nomination to the Senate yet, it seems, so he could still change his mind.
Pick was recently announced, and it's not Bradley.
I ran a search on CourtListener and it seems like there is a distinction, since Federal Circuit opinions use both "additional views" and "concurring." Here's an opinion with additional views, a response to the additional views, and a concurrence.
There might not be a vacancy on the 7th Circuit in the near future. Judge Sykes is retiring, but Trump has already nominated a different replacement. The only other judge over 65 is Judge Easterbrook, and I doubt he wants Trump to replace him. (Also, Easterbrook is in a Chicago seat.)
So the Trump administration's position is that "deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter" before holding office is cause for removal? Does the House know?
I had thought it was a Kozinski coinage, but he may have just popularized the term in this piece. Either way, that could lead to a partisan division in usage.
What a picture. Speaking of pikas, I was sad to learn that Pikachu is supposed to be a mouse rather than this majestic creature. (Per wikipedia, pika = "a sparkling sound"; chu = "a sound a mouse makes." I.e., it's only a pika when it lives in the mountains, otherwise it's just a sparkling mouse.)
Bill Cassidy is a credulous fool.
If you read enough criminal cases, you get the impression that a major factor protecting us from crime is that many people are very bad at it. AI seems to be changing that.
12,000 reps, but all elected by lottery voting.
Love to see polls on this! One flaw in proportional representation systems is that they can create weird incentives for strategic voting if the number of representatives is low. So, we should ratify the Congressional Apportionment Amendment at the same time (yielding ~6,700 House members).
Trump won this district by 11.5 points.
SCOTUS, characteristically, thought that denying DOGE this information would cause an irreparable harm.
This is very helpful. Thank you! I'm guessing we'll get a lot more information when Cook files her lawsuit.
I am less familiar with the alleged facts of this case. But I could imagine lack of knowledge if, e.g., someone signed a document without reading it closely, read the document but misunderstood it (perhaps after receiving bad advice), or believed they would or had also signed a Second Home Rider.
I'm seeing it in the statutory text ("knowingly and willfully"), DOJ's criminal resource manual, and several more recent cases I checked to make sure the manual is still up to date.
1001 requires knowledge of falsity and would not be violated by someone who made a mistake in filling out some forms or who misunderstood the forms (which was the original, now-deleted question).
Yeah, my understanding is that mortgage fraud is usually charged under 18 USC 1341, 1343, 1344 or 1014, the first three of which require intent to defraud and the latter of which requires scienter.
Reminiscent of the Carter case from Massachusetts.
SCOTUS is effectively rewriting the statutes to make a delegation to the President that Congress never tried to make. But there is an alternative.
SCOTUS's current severability approach raises serious concerns. Congress delegated powers to those agencies under the assumption they would be independent. We don't need to wonder whether Congress would have delegated the same powers to an agency under the President's control -- they chose not to.
SCOTUS assumes they should sever the for-cause removal protections. But why not sever whatever executive powers tip the agencies over the line into "considerable"? Sometimes finding the line may be hard, but it shouldn't be for the FTC and NLRB, which were (it seems) once constitutional.
This article makes a really interesting point: SCOTUS has (it seems) decided that MSPB, FTC, NLRB, etc board members cannot have for-cause removal protections because they wield "considerable executive power." But it is underdetermined what courts should sever to render the agencies constitutional.
What federal statute could providing this care violate? I understand the doctors not wanting to risk their liberty, but they could have sought a declaratory judgment.
Would be very in character for them to split the issue into (1) the underlying factual determinations about what the officer did; and (2) whether those facts amount to "cause" under the relevant legal standard. Can see them saying one of them is reviewable and the other is not.
Yes, the stakes here are large. Very large.
Will the market react this time?
Now that school is starting for lots of folks, it's time for a new release of Speech and Language Processing! Jim and I added all sorts of material for the August 2025 release! With slides to match! Check it out here: web.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/sl...
This might be a poor vehicle for such a challenge, since Judge Xinis's July 23 order in Abrego Garcia's specific case also prevents the government from removing him until Wednesday (assuming he was indeed informed of the potential third-country removal on Friday, as reported).
Judge Xinis specifically ordered the government (including ICE) not to take Abrego Garcia into custody. This is a violation of that order. (She also required 72 hours' notice of any third-country removal, excluding weekends and holidays, but it may be that the intend to detain him until Wednesday.)
Maybe the reason people don't vote for Democrats is because they keep recycling the same old tired ideas. No, it's probably because Cory Booker once used the phrase "birthing people" while everyone was glued to C-SPAN watching Senate proceedings.
I am certainly not saying Waymos shouldn't be allowed on the road (the equivalent of being denied a driver's license). So the question you ask is a bit orthogonal to my point. I am questioning whether this record is sufficient for policymakers to push for greater Waymo adoption.
AALS should consider adding some more A-words to the start of its name, to yield a more appropriate acronym: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALS
What should the policy response be? Annual vehicle travel in the US is 3.19 trillion miles, so Waymo's safety record is based on 2/1000% of a single year of driving. Maybe they have used a representative sample of all driving, but I don't think so. Seems like a promising tech that needs more testing
The 'we' here is the root of the problem. The White House in general, and JD Vance in particular, should have no role in directing criminal investigations.
The Trump administration is actively making electricity even more expensive. Shout it from the rooftops.
I wonder if he's considering seeking asylum in Canada.
Maybe the Third Way should focus more on policy and less on language policing.
This is it. Trump is trying to end the independence of the Federal Reserve.
Don't be so hard on yourself: there are seven cows in the picture (plus three more). Cf. Thompson v. US, slip op. at 1 (US 2025).
Maybe places like Harvard can afford to take that risk but hard to imagine smaller institutions doing so.