Jason McDaniel

Putting the probability of a sizable international boycott of the Los Angeles games at about one in three.

Opinion | Trump started a redistricting war. Only Congress can stop it. As the Cold War taught us, détente is better than mutually assured destruction for all the parties.

My New One at @msnbc.com Opinion: “Trump started a redistricting war. Only Congress can stop it.” www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

We are closer to the precipice than people realize. Remember, Cornyn is asking *Kash Patel* and *Dan Bongino* to arrest Democrats. How long until other Rs start asking for Ds to be arrested in other contexts? How long do norms hold at the FBI?

Obergefell isn't a Title VII case for one. For two, the new test post-Bruen and Dobbs is "is the right rooted in history and tradition." Conservatives will argue there's no history and tradition of same sex marriage and therefore it should be returned to the states. It will be 6-3.

fighting gerrymanders can seem hopeless, but there is a solution. big moment right now for people to see districting and the two-party system as inherently linked, and a relic of our archaic electoral rules. congress has the power to ban partisan gerrymandering and establish multi-member districts.

The second (and more troubling) trend is that Obergefell v. Hodges, the now decade-old Supreme Court decision recognizing a right to same-sex marriage, is squarely in the judiciary’s crosshairs. Several nominees were asked whether cases like Brown v. Board of Education, which held school segregation unconstitutional, and Loving v. Virginia, which struck down bans on interracial marriage, were correctly decided, and all agreed that they were. But when asked if the same was true of Obergefell, they all demurred. Tung said only that “the Supreme Court granted such a right.” Mercer described it as “binding precedent,” but said it wasn’t his job to “grade the Supreme Court.” The implication of their careful treatment of Obergefell was clear to anyone listening: These nominees, like those during Trump’s first term who described Roe and Casey as “the law of the land” and “precedent on precedent,” are foaming at the mouth to undermine and eventually overturn Obergefell and relegate same-sex couples to second class status.

A pretty ominous trend to watch: Trump's second-term judicial nominees are providing the same cryptic answers about Obergefell v. Hodges that Trump's first-term judicial nominees provided when asked about Roe v. Wade ballsandstrikes.org/nominations/...

Some signs that elites perceive a strong 2026 electoral environment for Democrats (and relatively fair & free elections)
Don Bacon's retirement
Democrats' apparently successful Senate recruiting of Roy Cooper & Sherrod Brown
Trump & Texas Republicans desperately trying to re-gerrymander Texas.

Context for gerrymandering debate

“How responsive/congruent is state policy with state public opinion” is one of the most studied poli sci questions

Red & blue states both passed more 'extreme' policy in recent decades. Blue state policy shifts were aligned with state opinion. Red states’ weren’t

Agreed. I’m not a fan of constitutional hard ball, but the Republicans are going to keep pushing the anti-democratic envelope until it durably risks their electoral chances.

I’ve heard that Newsom’s proposal includes a trigger, only going into effect if TX or another state proceed with their reapportionment plans. So, doesn’t that put the responsibility onto the Republican Party?

The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine How a single consulting firm extracted $282 million from a network of spam PACs while delivering just $11 million to actual campaigns.

The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand:

$678M raised through those spam tactics

$282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies.

$11M to actual campaigns (1.6%)

The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.

Allow me to explain the ‘Russia hoax’ hoax Military trucks parading in formation through Red Square, Moscow. (National Archives) Let's start deep in the weeds and then walk out. On Thursday, FBI Director Kash Patel — chosen for that role in la...

As promised, a distillation of the "Russia hoax" hoax. Didn't get to everything, since I couldn't, but I think you'll get the point. www.pbump.net/o/allow-me-t...

Cannot stress enough how irrational & uninformed the Polymarket 2028 market is. It seems very white-centric in terms of its investors. I'll go out on a limb & say that none of these top three are going to be the 2028 nominee. Look instead at who Black Democrats support.

Wow. A group of top scholars at Harvard just sent a letter to its president, Alan Garber, warning against surrendering to Trump.

Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt.

Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:

End of the month APSA eJobs update #polisky (there may be a few others listed today, will add later)

July 2024: 93 positions (62 assistant TT positions)

July 2025: 58 positions (40 assistant TT positions)

I exclude non-academic positions / PhD studentships from the total count.

From last week: Why it's good news that Dem WH 2028 is already underway and proceeding normally. goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/its-2028-a...

Trump’s Texas gerrymander Is supercharging a new war on democracy Texas Republicans just unveiled a shocking plan to give their party five new House seats.

Trump’s Texas gerrymander would give Republicans nearly 80% of seats in state where he got 56% of vote

This is direct result of John Roberts & conservative SCOTUS majority gutting Voting Rights Act & refusing to stop blatant partisan gerrymandering www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The TX map was already a pretty aggressive gerrymander. This one relies on some thin margins to make the math work.

High risk, high reward strategy for the Republicans here. Would pick up 5ish seats under 2026 conditions, but that requires Republicans winning nearly 55% statewide. Under 2018 conditions, they could break even or lose a couple seats. A lot of this comes down to how Latinos vote in 26 and beyond

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One of the iron laws of NIMBYism is that all new housing (other than single-family subdivisions) is either "slave quarters"/"tenements" or "luxury housing" for rich people. Often both simultaneously.

Gunman kills 3, injures 3 in mass shooting at Reno resort Authorities say the incident began near the resort’s valet area and may have involved multiple locations on the property.

There’s going to be wall-to-wall coverage of the NYC midtown shooting. This mass shooting, which killed three and injured more, also happened today Gunman kills 3, injures 3 in mass shooting at Reno resort

www.sfchronicle.com/tahoe/articl...

It didn't get 1/100th the attention of what happened in NYC, but in Reno today, a gunman opened fire in the valet parking area of a big casino. He killed three people and injured three others, including a cop. This happens every day in America, red and blue.

It's not the city. It's the guns.

The Impoundment Control Act may be unconstitutional, but only because it cedes too much power to the president. If the ICA is unconstitutional, then the president has no power to impound funds.

Here, Vought doesn’t dispute slow-walking release of NIH grants from congressionally appropriated funds so that they can be cancelled in a couple of months through pocket rescission, thereby bypassing congress to enact huge cuts to NIH research.

So many people struggle to separate these two ideas*
1. What you think is best for {universities, the media, etc.}
2. Whether the federal government should be able to dictate terms to these vital civil society institutions

*cc: Larry Summers et al.

In this piece I specifically call out academics happy with the policy changes mandated by the administration

Government coercion can be used in a number of ways - be careful for what you wish for!

New York’s Kathy Hochul opens the door to redrawing House lines The Democratic governor’s office has spoken with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ team about the issue.

Kathy Hochul opens the door to redrawing House lines in New York: “All’s fair in love and war."

Newsom: They play by a different set of rules . And we can sit back and act as if we have some moral superiority and watch this almost 250 year experiment be washed away. We are not going to allow that to happen. We have agency. We can shape the future

Lawyers from both sides of the aisle decry Trump attacks on judges at California conference It’s time for the legal community to speak up about the increasing threats to judges across the country, a diverse pair of legal scholars said Thursday.

“If any president can violate court orders, can lock any of us up, the word for that is dictatorship.” - Dean Erwin Chemerinsky

www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art... @sfchronicle.com #UCBerkeleyLaw