Chad Oldfather

Last night, elsewhere in Milwaukee, my wife & I showed up at a restaurant without a reservation. They took our number, said they’d call when a table became available.

No trouble, because the only question was whether we’d have to cross a street to find a place just like these.

We did not.

Yes

An array of compact discs, each of which is a new music sampler.

Shoutout to finding new music in the late 80s.

Exploring State Checks Against Federal Overreach Published: August 8, 2025 Updated: January 21, 2026 States have many tools to help counter federal abuses of power. Facing a torrent of controversial federal government actions, states today are pursu...

To learn more about states’ powers in this moment, check out our checks on federal overreach pieces, including on state prosecutions of federal officials and on DOJ’s efforts to access state voter rolls (which Bondi raised in her MN letter yesterday) statedemocracy.law.wisc.edu/research-exp...

Jesus Christ.

Multiple goons had a man on the ground but that wasn't enough brutality for them. One had to pull his gun and shoot someone who was prone on the sidewalk.

They're going to tell us the agent feared for his life and was justified.

@nytimes.com look at what a *news*paper looks like

My first year as a prof I wanted to really emphasize a point so I stood on a table in the front of the room as I made it.

A couple years later an about-to-graduate student in that class told me that he didn’t remember the point I was making but he definitely remembered me standing on the table.

I think this is related to my sense that law professors spend way too much time trying to change the world and way too little time trying to understand it.

I generally agree with this, but I also wonder how much of a convention it actually is. I'd guess that maybe 30-40% of my articles have had a "Part IV" in this sense, and that most or all of my most-cited pieces don't (and to the extent they do, that's not what they're cited for).

An Originalist Case for the Hostile Takeover of Venezuela:

1. Hostile takeovers are a thing. From time immemorial.

2. Art II does not prohibit hostile takeovers of foreign countries.

3. Hostile takeovers have an "executive power" vibe.

4. Art II implies presidents have a hostile takeover power.

The entire thread is worth your time. The portion around and including this post gets at a point I tried to make in my book - the less common ground within the profession about what the rule of law entails, the less likely we are to be able to sustain the rule of law.

Yikes

I wanted to see if it had ever been used elsewhere, so I googled "insensitive to the nuances of human interaction," which a former colleague once used as a way of describing someone as kind of a dick. (It's also applicable to certain interpretive approaches, imo.)

Google AI took it personally.

YouTube video by James McMurtry - Topic Sons of the Second Sons

It might be too subtle for 2026, but this one’s awfully good, in my estimation:

This all seems pretty unbecoming of a FIFA Peace Prize winner

A 2026 amuse-bouche.

Hi, I’m Chatterton Falls, Quetico Provincial Park, Ontario.

I've just started reading this transcript. I'll do a thread (below this post) of parts that stand out to me as I read. The progress will be sporadic, as we're planning to watch some movies tonight (having a wild New Years over here! 🥳)

I also hate it when public radio is like “let’s set the scene for this story with the most chaotic and noisy background audio we can find. Story about a restaurant? Calls for a snippet of someone dropping an entire tray of glassware!”

Not as bad as it used to be, but I still absolutely hate the ABC/ESPN assumption that TV viewers really want to hear a snippet of marching band between every play.

Your mileage may vary, but for me the experience of reading Clifford Geertz is an exercise in mumbling "just spit it out, dude" over and over again.

YouTube video by Bex _ America's Socialist Experiment (Full Documentary)

By my friend/colleague Mike Gousha. Somehow seems relevant this morning.

As described by PBS: “The victories and failures of a unique brand of socialism in Milwaukee reduced corruption, improved conditions for workers and cleaned up the environment between 1910 and 1960.”

When you get the reputation of being the guy with the encouraging words on New Year's Eve, it can start to come through as a little pressure -- what if the situation on the ground is worse than usual? what if people are more scared than they usually are, and with cause? what use are good vibes then?

This, in its broad strokes and also many of its finer ones, is of enormous contemporary relevance and is also hard to improve upon.

“It is too much to argue that that theory does not exist; the trouble is that it does.”

Sometimes students applaud at the end of the semester. Maybe even add a “whoo!”

There’s often an individual note or two of appreciation.

And every now and then one of them gives a little gift that cuts to the core of it all.

If you need me I’ll be over here writing footnotes to Karl, as ever.

When and if sane and honest people ever again control the U.S. government, one of the first things they should do is enact a tax on large accumulations of wealth. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/if-the-market-were-working-well-we

Perfect is a little strong, but these are very, very good.

Can confirm.

From Page Smith’s “As a City Upom a Hill: The Town in American History” (1966), and more true than not-true in my experience.

“Part of the town myth has held that the town-bred boy was somehow purer in body and spirit, more protected from dark knowledge than his city counterpart. The opposite was true. The city probably knows no vice that was not invented by the country.”