Paul Gowder

Shocked, shocked I say

everyone should start loading up a lot of sleep to get thru the night on November 3

One benefit of holding leaders accountable for crimes is that if Flávio Bolsonaro tries to overturn this election, he knows exactly where he’d end up. In prison, next to his father.

Today was the best day for global democracy in quite a while.

Their evil truly knows no bounds www.wsj.com/opinion/vikt...

LULA

“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened up a Cheesecake Factory” — Obama

no amnesty

Increasingly Healthy Pope Asserts He Will Soon Be Strong Enough To Battle God https://theonion.com/increasingly-healthy-pope-asserts-he-will-soon-be-strong-enough-to-battle-god/

My new one @slate.com: Baked Alaska: The DOJ Just Telegraphed Trump's Biggest Election Target: slate.com/news-and-pol...

Memo to the CTA: breaking four entire train lines through the whole of downtown for “maintenance” for an entire weekend is not a thing you announce ONE DAY IN ADVANCE www.transitchicago.com/travel-infor...

🚨BREAKING: Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday said the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) might launch more California-style lawsuits to block states from counting ballots for the midterm election. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

"trump saves ukraine from musk" is a hell of a twist

Doing a panel this morning about the decade since the Malheur occupation, and I just realized it was exactly 10 years ago today that the jury in the first trial, involving the Bundys, was given the case and started deliberations. I wrote this earlier this year: www.pdxmonthly.com/news-and-cit...

OLC, OIRA, ICE. Time to rediscover the subtle art of rat fucking institutions that are designed to screw you and yours.

I see that there is a wapo story a few days ago about the office of legal counsel so this is my cue to remind you that the best time to have abolished OLC was the day after it was formed, the second best was the day after torture memos, and the third best is today.

Humanitarian as in vegetarian

> something to insist that I remove without hurting the rest In a draft contract that's something I tell my students is a "Combat Barbie clause" — a distractor. diamondlanerules.org#nl-combat-ba... (my course materials).

if you were wondering whether Alito's book is an embarrassing crock of shit, I can now officially answer your question with a resounding yes ballsandstrikes.org/legal-cultur...

WIRED contacted officials in all 50 states and Washington, DC, to uncover the extent of a harassment campaign ahead of the midterms.

Protestors Criticized For Looting Businesses Without Forming Private Equity Firm First https://theonion.com/protestors-criticized-for-looting-businesses-without-fo-1843735351/

Pete Hegseth wasn't allowed to perform a cold-blooded execution live on the Internet. So I did it for him

The answer to this question is really very simple: Trump has taught them that corrupt and shameless grasping after power by any means necessary will not be punished, so they’re reassessing the guy who actually got punished for it the first time www.nytimes.com/2026/10/19/o...

Thank god for Girl I Guess, single-handedly making voting not take like 5 hours for the Chicago left

Historian of abolition here, Happy raid on Harper’s Ferry Day! John Browns body lies a moldering in the grave, his truth is marching on!

🤣 🤣

Pleased to share a draft of my essay, "Rules for a Recidivist Republic," forthcoming in the Chicago-Kent Law Review. The argument for Trump's executive order wasn't new. It was a rehash of nineteenth-century parlor tricks, defeated by Radical Republicans' design. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Yes—and this has the added benefit of informing the public that SCOTUS justices are, in fact, political actors bsky.app/profile/ther...

Could court expansion lead to tit-for-tat expansions by Republicans later? Maybe. But that’s clearly preferable to the status quo, which is a world where people view these 9 individuals as wizards with some sort of Divine Right over our judicial branch.

Part of reform may involve being willing to disobey some decisions

This David Bateman article on "democracy-reinforcing hardball" came out in Comparative Political Studies but here it is ungated (it's important) www.davidalexbateman.net/uploads/1/1/...

Slavery was and is a real thing that has brutalized hundreds of millions of people over the course of human history, if someone tells me a fucking chatbot is enslaved I'm immediately throwing hands. It's not cute, it's not intriguing, it's an insult to real people who suffered and suffer now.

Weird discovery thanks to apple randomness: this song is absolutely trippy but it kinda slaps? www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAEe...

I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.

strategic political capture of the court has, for 40 years, been a one-way ratchet. among other things, this has inculcated a sense among conservatives that they can act with virtual impunity. showing them that their opponents will play hardball is a necessary first step toward a better status quo.

Of all the people who should have just quietly slunk into a hole somewhere

The largest single Republican donor owns the platform X and uses it to spread false rumors about Democratic candidates. Here's why Bluesky has an intellectual diversity problem.

This is a great piece (as per usual) from @adamserwer.bsky.social, on a topic near and dear to my heart. Yes, it's easy to say "Republicans are hypocrites," but this is far, far worse. Texas is the laboratory for the authoritarian Right's attempts ("onerous and clumsy" as they are) to remake high ed

cry havoc