Trump’s falanginst estranged consigliere Bill Barr is voting for Trump, because uncle Joe Brandon is the real threat to democracy, because, um, whoops, look at the time, need to work on that brief about how the Constitution requires the EPA to allow Exxon to pave over Lake Tahoe: Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who previously said that Donald Trump shouldn’t be near the Oval Office, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Friday that he would vote for the former president over President Joe Biden in the 2024 election. “I think that Biden is unfit for office,” Barr said on “The Source” in a w ..read more

So I took my first ever Uber ride this week, quite inadvertently, as the car dealership where I was getting a “free” oil change has eliminated its courtesy van and replaced it with Uber rides. Still, I thought of Erik and felt very transgressive — not slathering ketchup all over a plate of fries transgressive, but bad enough to feel guilty about it. I decided to take advantage of the sociological moment, Tom Friedman style, and started chatting with the driver (60ish with a thick accent). I asked him where he was from. Iran. Did he do this full time. No, only a few days a week for a few hours ..read more

This is the grave of Michael Kelly. Born in Washington, D.C. in 1957, this utter creature of the Beltway, this King of the Blob, this lover of bombing brown people grew up all around what he would become. His parents were both prominent journalists. His mom wrote for the Post and his dad wrote for the Star. He went to the fancy local high schools and then, for some reason, ended up at the University of New Hampshire. I don’t know the story there, maybe he wasn’t a very good student. Nothing against UNH of course, it’s very much like where I teach. And where I teach for some reason is the alma ..read more

Paul has already dealt with one of the many remarkable-in-a-bad-way aspects of the oral arguments in Trump v. U.S. — the Court’s Republican justices refusing to engage with the actual facts of the case under consideration. One thing I’d like to highlight is how specious the arguments made by the Republican justices for near-total* presidential immunity for official acts are. Dreeben pointed out that the due process afforded by the criminal justice system provides checks in the case of a bad faith or political prosecution. Alito — dismissing all of these — at one point suggests that even if th ..read more

Following up on Rob’s post on the deteriorating situation in academia, here’s a fairly small but still symptomatic sign of the times. Email today to CU law students, faculty, and staff: We have heard from a number of you who have expressed concerns about the building being closed on the Saturday before finals – and we hear you. This campus-wide building closure was enacted to ensure the safety and security of our students and buildings in light of the spring football game. However, we recognize that unlike the rest of campus, we have finals starting next week. We also recognize that the shor ..read more

The two big oral arguments that stained the Supreme Court this week make for jaw-dropping reading. (I am once again reminded of the old-line Republican lawyer adjuncting at CUNY who condescendingly told me during the Alito nomination that liberals were catching a real break to get such a sensible moderate and I was completely wrong to evaluate him based on him voting record rather than his dry, technical prose. At least that superficial contradiction has been resolved!). Moyle v. US [transcript, audio] is a chilling look into the dead heart of the American anti-abortion movement as well as th ..read more

Deloitte loaded the gun, the Board of Trustees pulled the trigger. The University of Kentucky’s university senate will be dissolved and moved into an advisory role, changing its role in setting school policies, the board of trustees voted on Friday. The decision comes after two months of debate and objections from faculty, though student and staff groups support the changes. Faculty members have said they worry about the long-term implications of making the university senate an advisory body, with hundreds of faculty attending the meeting on Friday. Nine people spoke before the board in oppo ..read more

Authentic frontier gibberish from vice presidential aspirant Kristi Noem: “I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself “untrainable”, “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog”. “At that moment,” Noem says, “I realised I had to put her down.” Noem, who also represented her state in Congress for eight years, got her gun, then led Cricket to a gravel pit. “It was not a pleasant job,” she writes, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realised another unpleasant job needed to be done.” Incredibly, No ..read more

I have an embarrassing reading habit to confess. A book can sit in my TBR for months, years, decades even, but the thing that will finally persuade me to read it will be the news of a forthcoming film or television adaptation. In the case of Patricia Highsmith’s classic novel of psychological suspense and identity theft, The Talented Mr. Ripley. I have somehow outdone myself. I first heard about the book in my teens, when it was adapted to the screen by Anthony Minghella. And so, with every honorable intention of reading the book before watching the movie, I somehow set both aside for a quart ..read more

A petulant nepo baby being one of the most influential people in American media is really not great: In Sulzberger’s view, according to two people familiar with his private comments on the subject, only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency. Beyond that, he has voiced concerns that Biden doing so few expansive interviews with experienced reporters could set a dangerous precedent for future administrations, according to a third person familiar with the publisher’s thinking. Sulzberger himself was part of a ..read more