Sam Bagenstos

I love that Justin Dart is in here.

I do appreciate the one text trying to sell me pet insurance among the 20 million texts asking for a last-minute donation to this or that campaign. I mean, I appreciate it, but it gets the same treatment as the others.

This is exactly right. When Dems take Congress, they need to impose checks on Trump's abuses by insisting on those checks as a condition of funding.

Trans rights should be protected because they’re people’s rights, full stop. But some people need to be reminded that this is a deliberate attempt to normalize violating the rights of any group the Right decides should be today’s target.

I think it’s a good thing to point out to people that attacks on trans rights are part-and-parcel of the far right program to make everyone’s rights negotiable and subject to revision at a moment’s notice.

RIP Walter Koenig. youtu.be/MdSJFrhb-HM?...

HHS wants a new Medicare code that pays doctors extra only when they attribute a patient’s symptoms to a vaccine. Vaccine critics say doctors are paid to push vaccines. We aren’t. Under this code, we’d be paid to blame them. My new piece in @cidrap.bsky.social: www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...

100% agree.

“The Amish are our control group" pauloffit.substack.com/p/rfk-jrs-co...

DOJ "is asking federal courts, before a single result exists, to bless the reasons it might later give for refusing to accept particular outcomes. For lack of a better term, I’ve been calling it preemptive election interference. And it’s as troubling as it is unprecedented."

This @juliaazari.bsky.social piece is really good. goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/social-sci...

About to spend the day at the soon to be late, lamented RenCen. Or, as I like to annoy people by calling it, the Re-NAY-sance Center.

also yeah, as everyone has pointed out, the punchline is that he is comparing trump to saddam hussein!

i feel like this evan barker person does not understand the joke obama is making, which rests on being familiar with the cheesecake factory and understanding that it is nice but not opulent.

This absolutely did not happen.

Sam Alito: Nothing overtly racial about these statements!

"There is no evidence the French protests have anything to do with immigration. There has been Islamist violence over the years...That’s not what’s happening and no desperate eagerness by Republicans to hijack protests for their flailing campaigns can change that." www.thebulwark.com/p/the-real-l...

The generality principle of the Rule of Law is its most essential concept. A class of people outside criminal law is incompatible with a law-based society.

This is literally the end of the rule of law. If a President can pardon people committing crimes on his behalf - and the Supreme Court says he himself can't be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his job - then the government becomes a lawless entity able to violate our rights without limit.

Of course

Elon Musk is spending hundreds of millions to elect Republicans, an unprecedentedly huge amount from one person, and it’s a lot less than the value of contracts his companies got from this government he paid to elect and worked in. Many reports say “his own money,” few note unprecedentedly corrupt.

Yep. newrepublic.substack.com/p/pete-hegse...

Super important.

If you’re interested in politics, or disability, or the intersection of the two, you have to read @ericmgarcia.bsky.social ‘s newsletter. thepoliticalspectrum.substack.com/p/politician...

The plain fact of it is thus: the Trump administration wants to re-segregate higher education. It is a racist project straight-up-no-chaser. Accommodating any of this puts you on the wrong side of history, makes you a collaborator in this project. ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...

Good for Alanis. Given my age, I'm almost legally required to like her music. But I've been so impressed with and appreciative of her as a person through the years.

I really need to write my think piece on the political economy of the US health system. This kind of thing is just not sustainable, but the power dynamics between the three big players (providers, insurers, pharma/device companies) make it really hard to fix. wapo.st/3VR97ZH

I was so glad to get the chance to vote to re-elect Justices Cavanagh and Hood. We have a terrific Michigan Supreme Court now, and this article shows why it's so important.

We used to live in a world where we didn’t really think about state supreme courts in other states. But now, they’re incredibly important, and nowhere more so than when it comes to the role they play in handling election challenges. joycevance.substack.com/p/five-quest...

We are seeing a hunger disaster unrolling before our eyes. Since Republicans passed the Big Beautiful Bill, 2 million kids have lost food assistance. These are by far the deepest SNAP cuts in history, and each month, we find out it’s even worse than we thought. The worst is yet to come.

Oh FFS, the DOJ filed an emergency appeal in its attempt to purge CA voter rolls because Judge Carter didn't grant them an ex parte TRO by noon, which they construe as a constructive denial. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I feel depressingly old when a "remember some guys" guy is someone who I remember getting called up from the minors when I was solidly a grown-up. Cardinals legend.

The sentiment is despicable. And the sentence is a crime against grammar.

Metaphor police!

The Ebola epidemic that began in the DRC earlier this year has achieved a grim new milestone, turning up in a third region of the African continent, the widest footprint of any Ebola outbreak to date. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/22/h...

Not a surprise from this administration, but both unlawful and incredibly destructive of effective governance. www.washingtonsun.com/administrati...

That John James ad I just saw is trash. But it's nothing compared to what the R candidate is running in Ohio, so.

what happened to all those constitutional conservatives www.axios.com/2026/10/21/w...

Guinea-Bissau Hepatitis study is dead, from one of the researchers. Incredible advocacy work to help stop this from so many, including @firedbutfighting.bsky.social Incredible reporting by so many, especially from @katherineeban.bsky.social in the @rollingstone.com

The number of people enrolled for federal food assistance has decreased by 13% since Republicans overhauled the program last July, to what one analysis says is the lowest number since 2009.

In case you missed it: we're suing NIH, HHS, and DOGE. https://www.cspi.org/cspi-news/were-suing-nih-doge-and-rfk-jr-censoring-research