Nicholas Bagley

CDC director being ousted weeks into job Susan Monarez, a longtime federal government scientist, was confirmed by the Senate in late July to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The technical term is shitshow. But it's much worse than that. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

This, from FDR's 1936 convention speech bears repeating, as always, but especially now:

"Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. . . . (1/3)

As the ABA discusses the proposal to double the required number of experiential credits, here's a very informative and timely paper from Chilton, Joy, and Rozema. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

It provides grounds for real skepticism, and so far I have not seen good counter-evidence from the ABA.

A quick 🧵 on this ruling, which as Steve notes, effectively requires grant recipients challenging grant freezes/cancellations in two fora - Federal Claims to recoup wrongfully withheld grants, and District Court to challenge the policy/basis on which the admin is illegally withholding grants ...

A really informative piece.

I don't even know what to say anymore. People are going to get sick, suffer, and die because of this decision and so many others -- all because we handed the keys of the health department over to anti-vax zealots.

This is so great for Ann Arbor.

Ann Arbor friends -- if you haven't yet voted, remember to cast your ballots today and vote YES on Proposals A and B.

Oh god this, yes a thousand times this. I will respect you vastly more if the piece is 15k words, not 30k, I promise.

Part of this is the distortion created by social media. We have lost all sense of prevalence, which we've been misled, often deliberately and spectacularly, into conflating with visibility and virality. This is an existential threat to human problem-solving.

YES. THIS.

The Michigan @aclu.org is looking to hire a senior staff attorney. These jobs don't come around that often, and they've got a great team -- wanted to make sure folk saw it!
www.aclumich.org/en/jobs/staf...

Preventive Care at the Supreme Court | NEJM The Supreme Court recently upheld the power of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to issue recommendations that dictate coverage of preventive services — but only because the HHS secretary can...

The NEJM piece is here (but paywalled): nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Less PrEP, More Fitbits? What Braidwood means for the future of preventive care

"A case that was about PrEP turned into a case that was about every preventive service except PrEP—only to become, in a roundabout way, a case about PrEP again. And maybe also wearables." My latest in the New Eng J Medicine, via @dividedargument.bsky.social: blog.dividedargument.com/p/less-prep-...

A review for a Little Caesar’s somewhere by Kevin S: Stopped into this Little Caesars just trying to get a $6 pizza and ended up in a full on action movie. Just as I grabbed my order, this furious dude barges in yelling about how I cut him off in traffic earlier. Before I can even respond, he throws a punch but then out of nowhere the guy behind the counter jumps over it like he's been waiting for this moment his whole life and just beats the living hell out of the guy. The guy ran off and the cashier just dusted himself off. I said "are you ok man" and he looked me dead in the eye and said "B*tch, this is Little Caesars. We always hot and ready." Five stars. Will absolutely return.

I AM SHRIEKING 💀🤣

Forget the statue at City Hall, this guy is the *real* Spirit of Detroit. 🫡

small world, i went to high school with david. he was prospero in a production of the tempest where i played the doe-eyed ferdinand.

Opinion | I Watched It Happen in Hungary. Now It’s Happening Here.

"I Watched It Happen in Hungary. Now It's Happening Here." (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...

very smart thoughts on the slow-motion decay of the filibuster

Judge Blocks Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order in Class-Action Challenge

Today’s district court ruling shows that Trump’s birthright citizenship EO remains vulnerable even after SCOTUS’s ruling in Trump v. CASA. Lawyers representing babies born after Feb. 20, 2025 and subject to Trump’s order can move forward with a class action.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/u...

HHS abruptly calls off meeting of expert panel on preventive care, raising questions about its future | CNN The US Department of Health and Human Services called off an upcoming meeting of expert advisers on preventive health care, raising questions about the future of the longtime nonpolitical advisory gro...

Our member @nbagley.bsky.social's comments about the Supreme Court ruling on the HHS secretary's ability to pick the members of the US Preventive Services Task Force are cited in this @cnn.com story about the cancellation of the task force's planned meeting today:
www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/h...

The Opposite of Doom

It has been overshadowed because the law is silly and there’s so much other lawlessness, but there is no legal justification whatsoever for the president deeming this not to be an enforceable law, and companies relying on that representation do so at their peril.

So glad Gov. Whitmer is highlighting the effect Medicaid cuts will have not only on the millions of people who lose their health care, but also on *entire regional economies* michiganadvance.com/2025/07/02/w...

🚨🚨 Medicaid contributes more to Houston's local economy than the CHEMICAL INDUSTRY. It contributes almost 2x as much to LA as the MOVIE INDUSTRY. We are talking about DECIMATING local economies when we talk about cutting Medicaid 🚨🚨
bsky.app/profile/robe...

🚨 Medicaid contributes as much to metro Detroit's economy as THE AUTO INDUSTRY 🚨

Another of many examples of SCOTUS needlessly ampliyfing cultural conflict (see chapter 6 of How Rights Went Wrong). Part of what defenders of CASA v. Trump miss is how much broader the Court's docket control is than the Court claims it to be.

@nbagley.bsky.social and me came to an understanding. He understood my point, I acknowledged his intentions. Respectfully. You showed up disrespectful and racist, all after that fact, late, loud and wrong.

I'm glad I disappointed you. Disappointing racists is my favorite thing to do.

+1. I've repeatedly asked to be removed as a "contributor" - a designation I have because I once (in 2015) participated in a moot for an advocate who was arguing in front of SCOTUS & the moot was cosponsored by Fed Soc & ACS.

Thanks, Kate!