Andrew Rudalevige

But the accountability point also often rests on the notion of popular election and electoral mandates. Mandates, as @juliaazari.bsky.social knows better than anyone, are at best ambiguous — and for an actual originalist, non-existent, given a system of indirect election by elites.

"Why is there grade inflation? Why do our courses lack rigor?'

"Also we will immediately throw any graduate student TA or instructor who upsets an influential constituency under the bus, no matter how obviously manufactured their outrage is." 🤷‍♂️

Because of the Afghan resettlement program, we now have a torrent of deranged people inflicting violence on Washington, DC.

by The QAnon Shaman

The Pope has a word with the man in 27E who is listening to an action movie on his iPad's speakers.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!

THE OFFENSE The media misrepresented President Trump’s call for Members of Congress to be held accountable for inciting sedition by saying that he called for their “execution.”

On the left, Trump's Nov. 20 post. On the right, the White House's description of the "offense" that CBS News, The Boston Globe, and The Independent alleged committed by reporting on it.

The developer is a little better armed in this iteration, unfortunately. But if you can guarantee no Kenny Loggins on the soundtrack, I'm in.

I know you already know, but for other folks who don't, Goldsmith was previously head of OLC, is a genuinely brilliant mind on executive authority and separation of powers, and is usually very cautious about making claims this unqualified and direct. That he is saying it so starkly is v significant

Worth telling your social media team that “wasn’t clear” is not required when something is in fact absolutely clear.

Trump entered the Mar-a-Lago ballroom for his Thanksgiving feast to the song “We Are the World,” a song used to raise money to help starving children.

Trump himself has cut aid to address global famine and has fought for the right to cut food stamps from American families.

Sarah Beckstrom seems like she was a wonderful person who had a bright future ahead of her. Such a tragedy.

"If this Nation is to remain true to the ideals symbolized by its flag, it must not wield the tools of tyrants even to resist an assault by the forces of tyranny." (Justice John Paul Stevens, 2004)

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes" When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].

Abraham Lincoln, 1855.
www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/spee...

Annual Conference 52nd annual conference of the American Politics Group: 7th – 9th January 2026, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. Photo by Idean Azad on Pexels.com Dates of Event: 7th – 9th January 2026 Booki…

Still working on that US politics paper? You're in luck!
Our conference deadline is extended to Dec 10
📍 Norwich, Jan 7-9
🎤 Angelia Wilson keynote
🏆 De Gruyter prize (PGR/ECR)
From elections to institutions to foreign policy – all topics are welcome.
Details: ukpsaapg.co.uk/annual-conference/

Opinion | The Ambush on the National Guard The alleged shooting by an Afghan ‘partner’ shouldn’t condemn all who assisted the U.S. and now live here.

WSJ:
"Some will say this means U.S. should never admit such refugees, but the alternative is abandoning allies who assist USA in war to retribution of our enemies..How many will assist us if they believe there will be no exit for them if U.S. leaves"
www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...

A Harpers Weekly engraving from 1869 depicting Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving Dinner as described in the main text of this skeet. There are also images of Lincoln, Washington, and Grant on the wall.

How Republicans commemorated Thanksgiving in 1869--with a multi-racial/multi-ethnic gathering of people at a table with a centerpiece celebrating universal suffrage and self-government, and with an engraving of Castle Garden, the pre-Ellis Island point of disembarkation for immigrants.

Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789 By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation. Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits...

“We most humbly beseech him to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed.”

— Washington, First Thanksgiving Proclamation

www.mountvernon.org/education/pr...

Nothing says happy Thanksgiving like seeing Shaggy sing “It Wasn’t Me” from atop a huge turkey.

Small suggestion - not co-equal, but superior. Article I for a reason! Congress can fire the president - the president can't fire Congress. (Only Congress can do that to itself - sadly, it has.)

Trump wants a bigger White House ballroom. His architect disagrees. The president and James McCrery had argued in recent weeks over the project’s size, with Trump pushing him to expand the ballroom.

No time to read the transcripts of his special envoy selling him (and Ukraine) out to the Russians, but plenty of time for extra meetings on the golden ballroom... I guess Ms Leavitt did tell us that was his top priority.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

This reporter will get vile death threats and may need security just for doing her job. Not acceptable.

ANES Data Release! electionstudies.org/data-center/...

The 3-wave ANES panel is now available. It merges data from 3 election studies (2016-2020-2024), the first time the ANES has collected interviews of the same respondents across 3 presidential elections.

Director, The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute - Baltimore, Maryland (US) job with Johns Hopkins University | 3430267 Johns Hopkins University seeks the next director of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Agora Institute, an effort to address the deterioration o...

careers.insidehighered.com/job/3430267/... Come be my boss as director of the SNF Agora Institute. It is a great place, and a big opportunity to reshape debate.

Analysis | Zelensky must convince Trump to give him a better deal to end the war. He should at long last open an investigation into Hunter Biden.

In which case Ms. Leavitt should agree with those who remind the Pentagon about its responsibility to the law?

The Trump administration inherited an economy that the Economist called "the envy of the world" in a cover story a week before the election and easily could've coasted on that success (again) but instead they set it on fire.

If every order the President has given is legal, why is the Department of Defense (sorry, no Dept of War since 1947) so worked up about a member of Congress stating a truism?

Final Schedule F regulations to describe civil service protections as ‘unconstitutional overcorrections’ OPM officials told agency HR leaders Tuesday that President Trump has Article II constitutional authority to remove tens of thousands of career federal workers in jobs over potential “resistance to po...

The administration's new (though not surprising) invention of a newly extended "unitary executive" logic to wipe out most civil service protections.

www.govexec.com/workforce/20...

New President Gerald Ford praises the civil service and pledges to protect their integrity in a 1974 memo.

In light of the claim that civil service protections are unconstitutional or even just problematic to the presidency (see the next post for a link to the new OPM claim) -- here's Gerald Ford in 1974 in the wake of Watergate.

Michael Beschloss: LBJ's notes for his first Cabinet meeting as President, today 1963:

The claim that UET is somehow textual is truly bizarre, given a text without popular election of the president.