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James Brandt

@jamesbrandt.bsky.social

Managing editor @lpeblog.bsky.social. Freelance academic editor. Posting from the land of enchantment.

1,607 Followers  |  292 Following  |  411 Posts  |  Joined: 01.07.2023
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Posts by James Brandt (@jamesbrandt.bsky.social)

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Trump Has Been Sued 198 Times for Withholding Funding. It Hasn’t Stopped Him. (Gift Article) Immigration demands for highway dollars, D.E.I. rules for homeless grants: how Trump has tried to wield spending to get his way.

An important piece showing that losses in court haven’t stopped Trump from seizing Congress’s spending power and targeting dissenters and “blue states.”

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

04.03.2026 11:30 — 👍 214    🔁 127    💬 5    📌 6
screenshotted excerpt from the interview linked in the post

the question, written in bold, is: "What did the CDC’s definition of AIDS look like at this point, and how did it systematically exclude women like the ones Terry was representing?"

Screenshot includes the first two paragraphs of Aziza's answer, which starts as follows:

At the time, the CDC defined AIDS through symptom lists tailored to the so-called “four Hs”: homosexuals, Haitians, heroin users, and hemophiliacs. Gynecological conditions were excluded. As a result, many women whose HIV had progressed to AIDS—often through invasive cervical cancer or recurrent pelvic inflammatory disease—were unable to work but did not qualify for benefits. Instead they would have to file for disability benefits. But the disability assessment process was so slow that some women were approved only after they had died.

Terry realized the problem wasn’t just bureaucratic delay—it was the definition of the disease itself. At the same time, activists within ACT UP, particularly Maxine Wolfe and the Women’s Caucus, were recognizing that women were being systematically ignored in the epidemic. Terry’s legal advocacy and ACT UP’s activism converged in a coordinated push to force the CDC to revise its definition of AIDS.

screenshotted excerpt from the interview linked in the post the question, written in bold, is: "What did the CDC’s definition of AIDS look like at this point, and how did it systematically exclude women like the ones Terry was representing?" Screenshot includes the first two paragraphs of Aziza's answer, which starts as follows: At the time, the CDC defined AIDS through symptom lists tailored to the so-called “four Hs”: homosexuals, Haitians, heroin users, and hemophiliacs. Gynecological conditions were excluded. As a result, many women whose HIV had progressed to AIDS—often through invasive cervical cancer or recurrent pelvic inflammatory disease—were unable to work but did not qualify for benefits. Instead they would have to file for disability benefits. But the disability assessment process was so slow that some women were approved only after they had died. Terry realized the problem wasn’t just bureaucratic delay—it was the definition of the disease itself. At the same time, activists within ACT UP, particularly Maxine Wolfe and the Women’s Caucus, were recognizing that women were being systematically ignored in the epidemic. Terry’s legal advocacy and ACT UP’s activism converged in a coordinated push to force the CDC to revise its definition of AIDS.

this answer from @azizaahmed.bsky.social in an interview about her book, Risk and Resistance: How Feminists Transformed the Law and Science of AIDS, just blew my mind

lpeproject.org/blog/how-fem...

03.03.2026 17:43 — 👍 58    🔁 18    💬 2    📌 0

Everything you always wanted to know about 'Temu Lina Khan' but were afraid to ask.

03.03.2026 18:17 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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Market Governance in Trumpworld Over the past year, the much-touted right-wing embrace of anti-monopolism has been reduced to a distant memory. What has emerged instead is a personalist form of market governance…

Today, Luke Herrine (@lookheron.bsky.social) offers a whirlwind tour of market governance in Trumpworld.

While most agencies have embraced a pro-monopolist, pro-corruption reorientation, the lone exception is the FTC. Why is this? And what does it suggest about market regulation under Trump 2.0?

03.03.2026 17:52 — 👍 10    🔁 6    💬 0    📌 2
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How Feminists Transformed the Law and Science of AIDS Veena Dubal interviews Aziza Ahmed about the exclusion of women from early AIDS definitions, the feminist lawyers and activists who transformed the government's response to the epidemic…

Thank you to the most brilliant @veenadubal.bsky.social for being my conversation partner about my book on the @lpeblog.bsky.social and to the masterful @jamesbrandt.bsky.social for his support. lpeproject.org/blog/how-fem... @bulaw.bsky.social

02.03.2026 14:17 — 👍 41    🔁 21    💬 1    📌 1
a photo of Justice Powell from his time on the Supreme Court

a photo of Justice Powell from his time on the Supreme Court

Depending on who you ask, Lewis Powell Jr. is either: an ideological mastermind of the Right who led the corporate counter-revolution OR the Supreme Court’s quintessential “swing justice" upholding liberal positions in some of the Court’s most high-profile cases (from affirmative action to abortion)

03.03.2026 14:49 — 👍 26    🔁 14    💬 1    📌 4
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Market Governance in Trumpworld Over the past year, the much-touted right-wing embrace of anti-monopolism has been reduced to a distant memory. What has emerged instead is a personalist form of market governance…

I’ve got a spicy essay on @lpeblog.bsky.social arguing Trump2 so far has been like 1979 deregulation returning as farce

lpeproject.org/blog/market-...

03.03.2026 13:48 — 👍 14    🔁 10    💬 0    📌 3

Entry 8,735 in the ongoing series: “The Regrettable History of Law & Economics.”

02.03.2026 16:37 — 👍 15    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0

"I think responses [that ask only for the Administration to 'explain itself'] are pathetic. This isn’t a mystery that needs to be solved. This is not the case of the missing casus belli."

28.02.2026 20:03 — 👍 585    🔁 129    💬 0    📌 8
Black ink drawing, silhouette of a utility pole and power lines

Black ink drawing, silhouette of a utility pole and power lines

Black ink drawing, silhouette of a utility pole and power lines

Black ink drawing, silhouette of a utility pole and power lines

Black ink drawing, silhouette of a utility pole and power lines

Black ink drawing, silhouette of a utility pole and power lines

Black ink drawing, silhouette of a utility pole and power lines

Black ink drawing, silhouette of a utility pole and power lines

This weekend I put up some of my original Power Lines Drawings for sale at my store. This is the first time I've offered original drawings from this series for sale

marcusmerritt.bigcartel.com/category/pow...

24.02.2026 00:40 — 👍 284    🔁 57    💬 4    📌 2
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Weekly Roundup: Feb 27 Sophina Clark on work-spreading as a non-reformist reform, Jason Jackson on the moral orders of capitalist legitimacy, and Amy Cohen on a potential post-moral turn in American capitalism. Plus…

The week in review: Sophina Clark on work-spreading as a non-reformist reform, @jasonbjackson.bsky.social on the moral orders of capitalist legitimacy, and Amy Cohen on a potential post-moral turn in American capitalism.

Plus, the best of LPE from around the web 🧵

27.02.2026 15:18 — 👍 5    🔁 4    💬 1    📌 0

"What looms now on the horizon is perhaps a post-moral turn that no longer asks its privileged market actors to represent their interests as about advancing a shared future."

26.02.2026 16:16 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Or just traveling on public roads!

25.02.2026 17:21 — 👍 6    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Really honored to have my new @harvardpress.bsky.social book be part of an @lpeblog.bsky.social symposium! I am deeply grateful to @lpeproject.bsky.social colleagues for the opportunity, and to my respondents @maggor.bsky.social, @abalasub.bsky.social & Amy Cohen for engaging with my work. 🙏

25.02.2026 04:39 — 👍 14    🔁 11    💬 1    📌 0
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Moral Orders of Capitalist Legitimacy In today’s seemingly deglobalizing economy, policymakers across the world are in a quandary over how to regulate foreign firms. Should policymakers prevent foreign firms from attaining dominant market...

Today, @jasonbjackson.bsky.social kicks off a symposium on his new book, *Traders, Speculators, and Captains of Industry: How Capitalist Legitimacy Shaped Foreign Investment Policy in India.*

Economic policymaking, he argues, is best understood as a state-led project of moral ordering of capital.

24.02.2026 16:06 — 👍 12    🔁 9    💬 1    📌 1

Can we, the long-houred professionals, shorten our workweeks so that all might work? Can we accept that our work, so important to us, might, in an ideal world, not exist at all?

23.02.2026 16:46 — 👍 13    🔁 4    💬 1    📌 0
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Weekly Roundup: Feb 20 Victor Pickard on the American media polycrisis and Mariana Pargendler on Brazil’s forgotten legal innovation. Plus, a fellowship in constitutional law and history, a new report on workplace democracy...

Week in review: Mariana Pargendler and Olívia Pasqualeto on Brazil’s forgotten legal innovation to protect workers, and Victor Pickard on the American media polycrisis.

Plus, as always, the best of LPE from around the web 🧵

20.02.2026 20:35 — 👍 7    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0
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Tracking the Economic Effects of Tariffs

The Budget Lab findings from 2/18/2026: "Implied passthrough of tariffs to imported consumer goods prices ranges from roughly 31–63% for core goods and 42–96% for durables, depending on methodology."

That sounds like it represents a fair amount of pass through!

20.02.2026 18:03 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
Post image

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

19.02.2026 19:40 — 👍 1804    🔁 608    💬 16    📌 25
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The Real Cost of Affordable Housing | JW Mason Understanding the debate over distressed buildings, multifamily rental incomes, and the rent freeze

If you haven't read this fantastic piece by @jwmason.bsky.social on the complexities & the path forward for making housing affordable in NYC co-published by @nycpolicyforum.bsky.social & @phenomenalworld.bsky.social
@phenomenalworld, really you should!!

nycpolicyforum.substack.com/p/the-real-c...

19.02.2026 16:03 — 👍 16    🔁 11    💬 1    📌 2

This overlooked history "teaches us that limited liability is neither natural nor universal, that legal innovation doesn’t flow only from North to South, and that seemingly technical corporate law doctrines are deeply entangled with questions of distribution, power, and sovereignty." 🔥🔥

19.02.2026 15:26 — 👍 6    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0

And this chart, which shows public media spending as a proportion of GDP, was made before Congress defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting last year.

17.02.2026 17:44 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I don’t think most people realize just how little the United States has traditionally spent on public media.

17.02.2026 17:44 — 👍 17    🔁 8    💬 2    📌 0
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The American Media Polycrisis: Cascading Layers of Capture In countries facing democratic backsliding, attention often centers on state capture of the press. Recent U.S. media failures, however, demand a wider lens. Authoritarian encroachment here rests on…

I have a new @lpeproject.bsky.social essay out that offers a framework for teasing apart three discrete and cascading layers of “media capture” that produce censorship, exclusion, and democratic failure in our information and communication systems. lpeproject.org/blog/the-ame...

17.02.2026 13:04 — 👍 30    🔁 16    💬 0    📌 0
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Weekly Roundup: Feb 13 Vincent Joralemon on the flawed legal architecture behind drug pricing, Eamon Coburn on the anti-worker character of "no taxes on overtime," and Emmanuel Mauleón on the gradual erosion of law…

The week in review: Vincent Joralemon on the flawed legal architecture behind drug pricing, Eamon Coburn on the anti-worker character of “no taxes on overtime,” and Emmanuel Mauleón on the gradual erosion of legal protection preceding recent events in Minnesota.

Plus, the best of LPE in the 🧵👇

13.02.2026 16:43 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0
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Could Be The Move on Instagram: "Paperback Book in the Back Pocket. - Move via: @owenvstheworld - Sophisticated Guy Reading the Book: @willdonnellon" 193K likes, 566 comments - couldbethemove on September 20, 2023: "Paperback Book in the Back Pocket. - Move via: @owenvstheworld - Sophisticated Guy Reading the Book: @willdonnellon".

Nothing better than the trusty paperback. Did you ever see this?

www.instagram.com/reels/Cxbgqj...

12.02.2026 20:29 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

"The question, then, is not whether violence has intensified, but why it can now appear without disguise. Practices long concentrated at the border and in communities deemed expendable have traveled inward, meeting people who once believed law would shield them."

12.02.2026 18:55 — 👍 7    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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Whistling at the Edge of Law The whistle is sounding in Minneapolis. The question before the legal profession is whether we will hear it, amplify it, and act accordingly, or instead insist that the ground eroding beneath our feet...

a beautifully written and powerful piece from University of Minnesota Law professor Emmanuel Mauleón on the stakes of how the legal profession responds in this moment.

lpeproject.org/blog/whistli...

12.02.2026 14:07 — 👍 45    🔁 32    💬 2    📌 4
We have whistles. They have guns. The asymmetry is real, and the danger is not rhetorical. But the history of state repression does not turn on weapons and violence alone. It turns on whether isolation succeeds and fear fragments those subjected to it, or whether coordination
interrupts that process. A whistle cannot revive lives lost, but it can prevent disappearance. It generates witnesses, produces visibility, and transforms individual vulnerability into collective agency. It functions not as a substitute for law, but as a refusal to wait for law to secure what it has already failed
to protect. This is not a call for refinement or recalibration of immigration enforcement following months of federal occupation in Minneapolis. It is a call to name failure plainly. When ICE's ordinary operations require protection from law rather than obedience to it, abolition is not a radical slogan but a natural conclusion.

We have whistles. They have guns. The asymmetry is real, and the danger is not rhetorical. But the history of state repression does not turn on weapons and violence alone. It turns on whether isolation succeeds and fear fragments those subjected to it, or whether coordination interrupts that process. A whistle cannot revive lives lost, but it can prevent disappearance. It generates witnesses, produces visibility, and transforms individual vulnerability into collective agency. It functions not as a substitute for law, but as a refusal to wait for law to secure what it has already failed to protect. This is not a call for refinement or recalibration of immigration enforcement following months of federal occupation in Minneapolis. It is a call to name failure plainly. When ICE's ordinary operations require protection from law rather than obedience to it, abolition is not a radical slogan but a natural conclusion.

Hey, read this. lpeproject.org/blog/whistli...

12.02.2026 13:53 — 👍 219    🔁 93    💬 1    📌 7

The uses and abuses of artificial intelligence.

11.02.2026 22:27 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0