Matt Graham

Birthright citizenship under the common law, a thread:

I have done this many times on social media, in print, and in media interviews, but not to be accused of taking others’ not seriously enough, by plainly stating the law and history of birthright citizenship, I’m taking the time here:

Pentagon Unveils New GenAI Platform, It Immediately Starts Flagging Pete Hegseth's War Crimes - Above the Law The Defense Department's new ChatJAG turned out to be better than the human chain of command.

LOL... Pentagon released a new AI military chatbot and it immediately pointed out that Pete Hegseth is a war criminal.

abovethelaw.com/2025/12/pent...

This should be the biggest story in the country right now. The sitting US President was extorting state lawmakers from his own party by threatening to withhold public money if they didn’t gerrymander for him.

I don’t know how else to say it…

Heritage Action @Heritage_Action President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders: if the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state. Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to blame.

unreal (but very real, of course)

MINNEAPOLIS: “All I did was step outside as a Somali American citizen, and I got chased by a masked person, assaulted, kidnapped. It was inhumane. If this is what’s happening to a 🇺🇸 citizen on camera, imagine what could happen to your loved ones.”

Boxing up the NSF at Eisenhower Av for the forced relocation. Boxes have “Details Matter” signage.

NSF

- Forced reorg

- POs down ~ 40% (DRP, most rotators not renewed, retirements)

- Forced move (and we have to pack and clean) to a building with no furniture, little to no conference space for panels, inadequate 🛜, …)

I personally love the boxes they gave us for packing.
“Details matter” 🙃

Congress quietly strips right-to-repair provisions from 2026 NDAA despite wide support "I don't know how to interpret this, other than to say that industry prevailed in their influence over Congress," Greg Williams said.

😔 federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/202...

U.S. Moves to Drop Charges in International Soccer Corruption Case

Days after FIFA awarded Trump a fake peace prize, DOJ moves to drop charges in FIFA corruption case www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/n...

Reviewers and editors: please don't allow general statements about the effect of chatbots based on studies of one single chatbot. Generalizability 101.

Wow... NYC's congestion pricing has led to big drops in PM2.5 and real improvements in local air quality.

Okay so can we exempt non seniors from Medicare and Social Security taxes?

there is no available evidence that donald trump understands what a tariff is, what a trade deficit is, and what the national debt is.

Tweet from Homeland Security with ICE agents wearing Christmas gear. The caption says "YOU'RE GOING HO HO HOME."

we all got cowed into avoiding "virtue signaling" as if the public affirmation of socially agreed upon ethical principles was somehow cringey instead of a significant part of what a "society" even is. now all there's left is vice signaling, and it's reshaping society.

Can speed cameras make streets safer? Quasi-experimental evidence from New York City | PNAS Each year, approximately 40,000 people die in vehicle collisions in the United States, generating $340 billion in economic costs. To make roads saf...

Our new study provides rare causal evidence about NYC’s speed camera program. We find large reductions in collisions (30%) and injuries (16%) near intersections with cameras. www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... @astagoff.bsky.social ky.social @brendenbeck.bsky.social nbeck.bsky.social 🧪

If people can't answer this question without the partisan cue ("signed into law by Obama") they don't have an opinion of the ACA.

Aside from the existence of the President and VP, the only provision of the Constitution limiting Congress's authority to structure the civilian executive branch is the Appointments Clause. That's it. All the rest is made up.

Opinion | It’s a strange ‘charity’ that pays fired football coaches $228M The government should not treat university athletic departments like food banks.

“12 universities are on hook for a record $228M in buyouts to 15 fired football coaches, & much of this will be financed by tax-deductible donations from alumni.

It’s unlikely that when Congress created charitable tax deduction a century ago it envisioned it as a tool to subsidize college football”

‼️ New working paper ‼️

We find bipartisan appeals credibly signal policymaking intentions—on an issue-by-issue basis

We show how and why bipartisan lawmaking persists amid congressional conflict: progress often comes through issue-specific pathways rather than broad consensus between Ds and Rs

🧵👇

Money Doesn't Buy Elections. It Does Something Worse. Campaign ads barely move the needle. The real influence is hiding in plain sight.

Study after study shows campaign ads barely move the needle. So where does money’s real power come from? I ranked the five ways money corrupts politics—from least to most corrosive. What I’ve learned from 15 years of tracking political money:

We should just use standardized test scores + grades to admit students into college.

Everything else is way too easy to game, allowing the extremely rich to dominate access to prestigious colleges. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I've been saying this for a long time, but the data makes it clear.

Indiana state House Republicans have passed a new congressional gerrymander intended to turn their 7-2 majority into 9-0.

It’s unclear whether they have the votes to pass it in the Senate, where many Republican holdouts have been swatted or received bomb threats from Trump supporters

Great new resource for your experimental methods syllabi!

Saving this one next year’s syllabus

Yet another fun thing going into my Research Design course next year.

huge service lift, this.

Survey experiments' popularity in political science is getting attention. What is good and bad about them? How can one maximize their benefits and mitigate their downsides?

Greg Huber and I wrote up our thoughts:
Paywalled: doi.org/10.1016/bs.h...
Free: m-graham.com/papers/Huber...

Agents in Key Largo, Florida ripped this woman wearing medical scrubs out of her car as she screamed she is a US citizen. Agents cuffed her and put her in one of their cars.

She was eventually let go, per David Goodhue of the Miami Herald, who also took this footage:

Killing Shipwrecked Survivors is Not Just Illegal—It Endangers U.S. Servicemembers If the United States chooses a path where killing defenseless survivors becomes acceptable, American servicemembers will pay the price for that choice.

Must read by @marknevitt.bsky.social on why killing survivors at sea is a moral & strategic disaster for all of us:

"If America chooses a path where killing defenseless survivors becomes acceptable, American servicemembers will pay the price for that choice."

www.justsecurity.org/125998/boat-...