Robert Black
@hurricanexyz.bsky.social
Constitutional scholar, general law nerd, Izzet mage, bear lover, Mets fan.
Trans rights are constitutional rights!
Uphold Yang Wenli Thought
He/him
https://www.eveningconstitutional.net
History
54%
Political science
16%
Pinned
Introducing: Constitutional Perspectives!
Announcing a new project here at The Evening Constitutional!
As I wrote shortly after last November's election, one of my ambitions for this site is to create a library of materials explaining Americ...
eveningconstitutional.net
I have an announcement!!
Introducing a new project at The Evening Constitutional: Constitutional Perspectives!
This is a series of explanatory essays aiming to be of use for readers with any level of prior knowledge of constitutional law
eveningconstitutional.net/introducing-...
Introducing a new project at The Evening Constitutional: Constitutional Perspectives!
This is a series of explanatory essays aiming to be of use for readers with any level of prior knowledge of constitutional law
eveningconstitutional.net/introducing-...
Also lol, we saw him a bunch in concert around like, 2003, and he had this opening act that we gave the name "the weird people." I have no idea what they, like, were lol, some kind of... mummer troupe?? But they were extremely weird and extremely cool
His discography is genuinely so much *weirder* than he's typically given credit for!
Also sometimes he would write, like, Rinse the Raindrops
Yeah it's bad
Yeah, it's the moderate option and that's good
Just hoping they remember to make some cheese and milk and eggs in their labs 🤷♂️
My hope for the world
What in god's name
Do they actively WANT to lose elections??
Do they actively WANT to lose elections??
Thanks!
(Is that a setting that I can control? Or just a new bluesky feature?)
(Is that a setting that I can control? Or just a new bluesky feature?)
Responsiveness!
He wasn't controlling the cave caucus imo, which is bad, because it's his job to do that
(Different kind of bad, though)
(Different kind of bad, though)
They're a little too sharp for me to think they're disingenuous
Meth labs of democracy, as Jon Stewart used to say
Ha ha yes state legislatures are not uhhhhhh models of... anything, really
I think I think that (1) there's no particularly good reason for limiting congressional power in the way the 1789 Constitution does; but (2) states with a measure of autonomy do turn out to be a useful bulwark against tyranny! Who knew!
Thank you!!
Also salient because the question of, uhhhh, are we gonna keep the Union together is more salient than it's been in a while!
Also salient because the question of, uhhhh, are we gonna keep the Union together is more salient than it's been in a while!
Anyway, this concludes the Level One discussion of the structure of government. The next lesson, hopefully coming later this week, will turn our attention toward the Bill of Rights, and the division of power between the government as a whole and the People as individuals.
Hope you enjoy!
Hope you enjoy!
There's also a deeper point, here. If what knit the American People into a single nation is the Constitution, then the blood and soil nationalism of someone like J.D. Vance simply must be wrong:
The dominant theme, as I see it, is *nationhood.* A huge part of the work of the Constitution is knitting the states together into a single nation. The Union is a free trade zone, and a freedom of movement zone. It's a currency union. It's a single actor on the world stage.
This piece is mostly about what they call "horizontal" federalism, rather than "vertical." In other words, not so much about the division of power between the state and federal governments, but about what it means for the several states to exist in union with one another
Federalism, Part II: The Union
Welcome back to Constitutional Perspectives!
Today I'm continuing my discussion of federalism, one of the great defining structural features of the American constitutional system. Last time, I gave y...
eveningconstitutional.net
Good evening!
New at The Evening Constitutional, the latest installment of my Constitutional Perspectives series. Today we're talking all about the federal union!
eveningconstitutional.net/federalism-p...
New at The Evening Constitutional, the latest installment of my Constitutional Perspectives series. Today we're talking all about the federal union!
eveningconstitutional.net/federalism-p...
Whoa -- Sen. Durbin went to up Leader Thune during the vote last night to tell him that on the shutdown vote and ACA promise that "8 of us are sticking our neck out that you're going to keep your word. I hope you will. He said 'I assure you I will,'" Durbin says just now
Yeah, I think this was a Durbin thing
Whoa -- Sen. Durbin went to up Leader Thune during the vote last night to tell him that on the shutdown vote and ACA promise that "8 of us are sticking our neck out that you're going to keep your word. I hope you will. He said 'I assure you I will,'" Durbin says just now
Kinda sorta
Believe it or not, I was already aware of that
Yeah lol
Maaaaaan if this is true it's like, worst of all possible worlds
"We just can't play politics with people's lives!" okay but you literally were doing that, and it was working, and then you decided enough of that already??
"We just can't play politics with people's lives!" okay but you literally were doing that, and it was working, and then you decided enough of that already??
Ehh, they kind of are though
In that Trump is just gonna dissolve the Congress?
Yeah absolutely, to all of this