Maddy Buck

I wish the internet were like chairs. The chair I got a decade ago doesn’t overnight start sharing everything it knows about me just because I kept sitting on it…(context: the backlash against Meta’s ever changing data use policies that Americans can’t opt out of)

“If the person is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

Every time I see a photo of Dario Amodei, I think it’s Matthew Rhys…

Watch this with Trump at his side, remember the dissents in the birthright citizenship case — www.lawdork.com/p/six-opinio... — and understand there are no limits, no places they wouldn’t go.

Sam Alito: Nothing overtly racial about these statements!

This is a great interview, especially if you like comics, the New Yorker, or have read Maus… podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

Trump believes he should be the only one who gets to decide who is an American

One thing I couldn’t stop thinking about as the justices argued about the video tape law applied to today is how any times I’ve heard that existing law can be used to address harms from AI. Ok, I see the logic. But how many justices will be like “nope that law says nothing about AI!”

Yes! Especially the Democrats in her district who have been running people against her for years…

DOJ: an emergency justifies this court moving up its hearing for a temporary restraining order to interfere now with California's vote counting. www.courtlistener.com/docket/74967... Also DOJ: don't move up CA's motion to dismiss because there's no emergency. www.courtlistener.com/docket/74967...

Loved participating in this conversation with three inspiring women -- @dahlialithwick.bsky.social, @staceyabrams.com, and @ilyseh.bsky.social -- and many powerful stories from listeners about knitting the people back into the Constitution, one stitch at a time.

Ah!!! The Overton window going in a good direction for once! It's possible!!!

THIS! Look at that Overton window! (And check out Strict Scrutiny @strictscrutiny.bsky.social HOT SCOTUS REFORM SEPTEMBER series which covered many different reforms - jurisdiction stripping, term limits, lower court reform, specialized courts, & more!

For example, a textualist reallllly shouldn't care about this. So why bring it up?

I'm a week late (drawing is slow, guys!) but I just love Justice Jackson's reminder last week (Salazar v. Paramount) that legislative history doesn't have to be uncool...and Paul Clement's little attempt to win her vote, just in case... This is how conversations change, isn't it?

Love it! Also, the book to read if you're feeling like everything re: SCOTUS is hopeless. The conversation can change, it's changing!

Ooh thank you for the marketing idea. You heard him, folks: The Originalism Trap is *the* rival of Alito's book Learn why his opinions deserve to be dunked on, how they became the law of the land anyway, and what we can do about it! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735353...

This has been weird to me since I learned in law school that legislative history was apparently uncool (but it makes so much sense?). I just am not convinced that complicated textual arguments are considered in a vacuum. itsmaddybuck.substack.com/p/does-a-law...

Just going to be straight here — no pun intended: I am the only journalist who has been covering this issue in depth, was often the only journalist at hearings, and was the only one explaining what DOJ was actually arguing here. Support my work if you can: www.lawdork.com/subscribe

“Fast forward that VHS tape to 2026. The views that canceled Judge Bork are now shared by most of the Supreme Court, there is only one Blockbuster in existence, and videos are mostly watched online, often for free.” itsmaddybuck.substack.com/p/does-a-law...

Got to make the tiniest appearance on this podcast this week as “the artist who draws the Constitution” alongside the knitter who knits it. Dear knitter, I would love to see a photo of that knitted document!

Anyway: the idea that her citizenship can be undone beyond the statute of limitations because someone else committed a crime (even if true) is not something that we should tolerate.

I loved going to Blockbuster…never thought I’d see the experience described to me in a Supreme Court brief…

This!!

Every movie, song, and book that you love was made without the technology that people who don’t make art are now insisting is necessary for making art.

In a dispatch from an international tax conference in Vienna, Prof Neil Buchanan explains how, post-Loper Bright, with tax statutes worded in highly underdetermine ways and with tax regs now receiving no deference, tax law has become wildly unpredictable, making much business planning impossible. 👇

Kind of a buried lede in the results of this Supreme Court approval rating poll from Marquette: Overall support for Supreme Court expansion, which even Democratic politicians were dismissing as "radical" just a few years ago, is now at 53 percent today.marquette.edu/2026/09/marq...

Btw I am calling it “abstract redactionism.” #abstractredactionism

Less recently read

Recently read.

They later removed many of the redactions. Yet I still found a few examples of abstract redactionism remaining. I especially love the ones with bits of yellow…

On the first read of the OpenAI Copyright Infringement Litigation facts, they were so redacted that I decided they were not legal filings, they were abstract art.

Imposing 18-year term limits for justices would improve the Supreme Court by ensuring no single person has generational power, by giving each president two appointments per four-year term, and by lowering the stakes of the confirmation process. bit.ly/47DWAuZ

I’ve been reading the filings in In Re OpenAI, copyright infringement litigation. They have unearthed some memorable, dismaying quotes. I wrote them up in my newsletter this week: itsmaddybuck.substack.com/p/openais-vi...