James Fallows Tierney

Nice analysis of AI’s current writing style.

The current Supreme Court has forfeited all legitimacy.

Democrats (and everyone) need to address that reality.

John Roberts > Roger Taney.

Court needs to expand. And have fixed terms—like *every* other supreme court in developed world. And have ethics rules, like all normal organizations.

tomorrow Regents gather to act on the Chancellor’s proposed devastating budget cuts

It is not too late to call or email to President Gold (402-472-8636 or president@nebraska.edu) and the Board of Regents (corpsec@nebraska.edu or 402-472-3906) to tell them to OPPOSE these cuts

This clip, it haunts me. How long must this pain go on.

Thank you Maybell!!!

This paper is so great, y’all!

Trading Acres with Shoemaker and Tierney Podcast Episode · The Legal-Economic Nexus · 11/26/2025 · 38m

New from @jessicashoemaker.bsky.social and me on the Legal-Economic Nexus podcast: talking about our forthcoming Yale Law Journal article Trading Acres on how law promotes the financialization of farmland.

a young boy is holding a bowl with a spoon in it in front of a group of children . ALT: a young boy is holding a bowl with a spoon in it in front of a group of children .

Please release the crosstabs

Yo, this is a good survey, whether or not IRB exempt

As we wrap up another semester, my public opinion students have put together a great survey. If you have 5 minutes to spare, my students and I would thrilled if you'd take it: virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Picture of "The Price of Democracy." From the framing of the Constitution to the decades-long backlash to the civil rights movement, the battles most pivotal in defining our democracy have hinged on one issue: taxes. "Taxes are not just the lifeblood of government. They are the wellspring of democracy. That is the revelatory message of Vanessa Williamson's propulsive, panoramic history." --- Jacob Hacker. "I love this book... The Price of Democracy makes a convincing case that we must take back the power of taxation to restore our democracy." -- Heather Cox Richardson

Hey Chicago! I have a book event coming up at Seminary Co-Op bookstore on December 6th! I am thrilled to be joined by legal scholar Aziz Huq. Come say hello!

"The Price of Democracy"
Seminary Co-op
5751 S. Woodlawn Ave
Saturday, December 6th at 3pm

www.semcoop.com/event/vaness...

Agree: change is that the "institutionalists" have stopped pretending

-Thomas/Alito: They're the equivalent of "Trump +35" safe House district

-Gorsuch (in Garland seat) equiv of "Trump +22"

-But Kav, ACB, and mainly pious 'just call balls and strikes' Roberts wanted to be seen as open to facts

(finding out that there is an exploit compromising the end-to-end encryption on my toilet) well that’s just great.

Hard right turn over Rikers Island at 500m

They should do MyChart Wrapped

Rubio defended the strike on Wednesday while visiting Mexico, arguing that the typical interdiction procedures that the U.S. Coast Guard conducts to arrest drug smugglers didn’t work in these cases. “These drug cartels, what they do is they know they’re going to lose 2% of their cargo,” Rubio said. “They bake it into their economics. What will stop them is when you blow them up.”

The new USG explanation for directly targeting the shipwrecked is because they could've helped salvage some cocaine?

But recall:

Rubio said (on Sept 3) the objective was to kill the people, not to seize/eliminate cargo, because cartels had already priced in the loss of cargo.⤵️

Trading Acres with Shoemaker and Tierney Podcast Episode · The Legal-Economic Nexus · 11/26/2025 · 38m

New from @jessicashoemaker.bsky.social and me on the Legal-Economic Nexus podcast: talking about our forthcoming Yale Law Journal article Trading Acres on how law promotes the financialization of farmland.

Also this is the tragedy of nursemaids historically; their own children go hungry to subsidize the ice cream, etc

Everyone involved needs therapy, confession, whatever floats their boats

Fresh breast milk ice cream ayfkm? This is just a kink

There are lots of people who want to be farmers, but that’s because they lack land access. These people are tripping

What happens when ChatGPT cites to a real case but misstates what the case stands for? That doesn't fly for Judge Behm in Michigan. The court says that while a litigant could make the same error based on faulty reasoning, LLMs can't, because they can't reason.

And while a litigant might get away with similar overstatements because they could, perhaps, reason their way to showing how a case's stated holding might extend to novel situations, an LLM does not reason in the way a litigant must. To put it in a slightly different way, LLMs do not perform the metacognitive processes that are necessary to comply with Rule 11. When an LLM overstates a holding of a case, it is just piecing together a plausible-looking sentence

h/t @robertfreundlaw.bsky.social

holy shit, an accurate legal critique of LLMs. LLMs don't reason because they're just stitching together plausible-looking sentences indifferent to the content

oh wow you mean rounding up day laborers outside home depot or extorting universities into donating to his library hasnt improved your material conditions? what about how trans kids cant play jv volleyball anymore, did that help you at all? who could have known

so it begins

(This is to say no)

"Captain Gains" on Capitol Hill Shang-Jin Wei & Yifan Zhou WORKING PAPER 34524 DOI 10.3386/w34524 ISSUE DATE November 2025 Using transaction-level data on US congressional stock trades, we find that lawmakers who later ascend to leadership positions perform similarly to matched peers beforehand but outperform them by 47 percentage points annually after ascension. Leaders' superior performance arises through two mechanisms. The political influence channel is reflected in higher returns when their party controls the chamber, sales of stocks preceding regulatory actions, and purchase of stocks whose firms receiving more government contracts and favorable party support on bills. The corporate access channel is reflected in stock trades that predict subsequent corporate news and greater returns on donor-owned or home-state firms.

令 1 1 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 Year Figure 2: Estimated dynamic quasi-difference-in-differences coefficient, di, of equation(3), with vertical dashed lines representing 90 percent confidence intervals. The point estimate of the year in which the lawmaker became a congressional leader (Year 0) is normalized to zero. BHAR over the 250 days following each trade is the dependent variable and calculated using the Fama-French five-factor plus momentum as the benchmark model.

After becoming a congressional leader, a politician’s stock portfolio beats out those of peers by 47 (!!!) percentage points a year through trades timed around bills and firms that later get government contracts

www.nber.org/papers/w34524

via @florianederer.bsky.social

External to what?

Wealthy Ranchers Profit From Public Lands. Taxpayers Pick Up the Tab. A ProPublica and High Country News investigation found that government programs supporting grazing on public lands prop up a wealthy few while harming the environment. The Trump administration is supe...

NEW: A ProPublica and @highcountrynews.org investigation found that government programs supporting grazing on public lands prop up a wealthy few while harming the environment.

The Trump administration is supercharging the system.

A photo of a sign for “crisp crab Rangoon burrito” from Amigos/Kings classic.

The food option I want most in my neighborhood is breakfast burritos.