Adam S. Rust
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asrust.bsky.social
Adam S. Rust
@asrust.bsky.social
3.4K followers 100 following 650 posts
Lawyer, writes on law things, writings have appeared in Liberal Currents and Balls & Strikes, based in the SF Bay Area.
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asrust.bsky.social
Adam S. Rust @asrust.bsky.social · 27d
Over the next several weeks I am going to live skeet my evening reading of Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" for no particular reason.
Picture of the Library of America edition of Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" with a glass and decanter of bourbon adjacent for no particular reason.
asrust.bsky.social
I have received it. Will @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com get his Katznelson book back? Who's to say?
paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 20d
More like Soarin' Kierkegaard amirite.

This skeet brought to you by my frantic text to @jcrider.bsky.social to find my copy of Feminist Interpretations of Søren Kierkegaard so I can finally give it to @asrust.bsky.social.
October 22, 2025 at 3:48 AM
asrust.bsky.social
Over the next several weeks I am going to live skeet my evening reading of Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" for no particular reason.
Picture of the Library of America edition of Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" with a glass and decanter of bourbon adjacent for no particular reason.
October 15, 2025 at 1:03 AM
asrust.bsky.social
In memoriam, here is my favorite Robert Redford anecdote.
Text: “I interviewed hundreds, maybe thousands, of men,” Nichols told an enthusiastic crowd at the Directors Guild of America Theatre in New York, in 2003, at a screening of The Graduate. He even discussed the role with his friend Robert Redford, who was eager for the part. “I said, ‘You can’t play it. You can never play a loser.’ And Redford said, ‘What do you mean? Of course I can play a loser.’ And I said, ‘O.K., have you ever struck out with a girl?’ and he said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he wasn’t joking.”
September 16, 2025 at 11:55 PM
asrust.bsky.social
Just watched "The Bodyguard" (1992) for the first time a few days ago and I cannot stop thinking about the screwdriver Kevin Costner pours during his dark night of the soul. youtu.be/g1rRXO1qiQs?...
Stolichnaya+Orange Juice=Kevin Costner
YouTube video by Prodopotter
youtu.be
September 9, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Reposted by Adam S. Rust
nicholasgrossman.bsky.social
The best one-line criticism of these sort of Democrats that I’ve heard is “they believe they deserve an A in politics.”
jamellebouie.net jamelle @jamellebouie.net · Sep 7
real problem that democratic politicians fetishize being “responsible” and “the grown ups”
September 7, 2025 at 2:29 PM
asrust.bsky.social
Hemingway taking drive by shots at the legal profession in "A Farewell to Arms".
Highlighted text "I do not think they believed a word of the story and I thought it was silly but it was like a law-court. You did not want something reasonable, you wanted something technical and then stuck to it without explanations."
August 29, 2025 at 8:53 PM
asrust.bsky.social
At a cocktail bar and overheard "I was watching "Cocktail" with a friend who was seeing it for the first time and had to restrain myself yelling out lines like it was a "Rocky Horror" screening" which may be among the most chaotic sentences I have ever heard.
August 29, 2025 at 2:11 AM
asrust.bsky.social
One I want to write a reply brief that is just quoting this letter to editor of a small literary magazine after it published the "Nausicaa" episode from James Joyce's "Ulysses".
"Damnable, hellish filth from the gutter of a human mind born and bred in contamination. There are no words I know to describe, even vaguely, how disgusted I am; not with the mire of his effusion but with all those whose minds are so putrid that they dare allow such muck and sewage of the human mind to besmirch the world by repeating it—and in print, through which medium it may reach young minds. Oh my God, the horror of it . . . It has done something tragic to my illusions about America. How could you?"
August 5, 2025 at 9:07 PM
asrust.bsky.social
Every time.
Boy in therapy identified as Ilan Wurman: I've created a persuasive theory of originalism. Therapist: Is it originalism or is it just conservative judicial activism? Boy as Wurman: Conservative judicial activism.
August 1, 2025 at 9:37 PM
asrust.bsky.social
British Suffragettes were so lit.
Text 1/2: "Νο one exemplified the interchange between radical politics and art more than Dora Marsden, a renegade suffragette who would radicalize Ezra Pound and publish James Joyce's first novel. In 1909, Marsden led a march of thirty women to Parliament and was charged with assaulting a police officer by hitting him with her banner (she claimed it was an accident). After spending a month in jail, Marsden broke up a Liberal Party meeting by throwing iron balls through a glass partition. That earned her two more months in prison, where she went on a hunger strike, smashed her cell windows and tore off her prison clothes to protest naked. When the guards forced her into a straitjacket, Dora Marsden, at four foot ten, squirmed her way out. Liberal Party meetings routinely..." Text 2/2: "became suffragist protest sites. When a young Winston Churchill addressed an audience in Southport in 1909, police officers surrounded the hall so that Churchill could rally support for a budget bill that the House of Lords vetoed. When he argued that the Lords should acquiesce to the House of Commons because it represented the will of the electorate, a voice shouted out from a ceiling porthole, "But it does not represent the women, Mr. Churchill!" The audience flew in an uproar. Dora Marsden had eluded the tight security by hiding in the hall's attic space the previous day and waiting through a night of rain and freezing temperatures. After haranguing Churchill for several minutes, Marsden and two accomplices were dragged off the roof and arrested."
July 30, 2025 at 11:19 PM
asrust.bsky.social
Still think I wasn't mean enough, all things considered.
July 26, 2025 at 2:40 PM
asrust.bsky.social
Just ended my time at my current job representing parents who had their kids taken by CPS. Normally people receive a plaque at five years of service. I was two weeks short of five years. My colleagues had my back.
Plaque stating "Adam Rust survived 4.9 years as a DAC attorney."
July 4, 2025 at 2:15 AM
asrust.bsky.social
This was really fun to do.
My Reader's Choice Ballot for NYT greatest movies of 21st century. List is: Evil Does Not Exist (2024) Up (2009) Michael Clayton (2007) Tár (2022) The Act of Killing (2013) Sorry to Bother You (2018) Lady Bird (2017) Inglorious Basterds (2009) Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Zodiac (2007)
July 3, 2025 at 3:37 PM
asrust.bsky.social
Person who has only read the "Imperialism" section in Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" reading the news: "Getting major the "Imperialism" section of Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" vibes from all this."
June 13, 2025 at 3:53 AM
asrust.bsky.social
If you know "Know Your Enemy" you know.
Picture of "Buckley: The Life and the Revolution that Changed America" by Sam Tanenhaus, pictured Instagram pretentious next to an espresso.
June 4, 2025 at 2:35 PM
asrust.bsky.social
Me: What I really want is a book that will help me be thoughtful about the rule of law.

Jeremy Waldron:
Picture of the book "Thoughtfulness and the Rule.or Law" by Jeremy Waldron
June 3, 2025 at 2:17 AM
asrust.bsky.social
Law professors of a certain type will always make my articles against them evergreen.
June 3, 2025 at 2:10 AM
asrust.bsky.social
The cuck/chad discourse existed in 1640s England.
"The Civil War wasn't a class struggle. It was a clash of ideologies, as often as not between members of the same class. The Royalists were anti-Puritan, they stood by the old hierarchies in the Church, notably bishops. They were nostalgic for 'Merry England' before it was ruined by Puritans moping at their books. Parliamentarians claimed they were fighting for God and the constitution; Royalists did, too, but added loyalty to the king and the fact their Parliamentarian enemies were cuckolds. In fact, they delighted in offending their Puritan foes. 'Come out you Cuckold', challenged one of their banners, in par-ticular reference to the Earl of Essex's notorious marital difficulties. Another showed a Cavalier soldier brandishing a sword and an erect penis, with the motto 'Ready to use both'."
May 10, 2025 at 6:46 PM
asrust.bsky.social
This is my favorite Souter fact, which I am glad made his NYT obituary.
Text: "After he retired, Justice Souter sold the family farmhouse and moved to a home he bought in nearby Hopkinton. The reason, he explained, was his large book collection, which the old farmhouse could neither hold nor structurally support. Reading history remained a cherished pastime. “History,” he once explained, “provides an antidote to cynicism about the past.”"
May 9, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Adam S. Rust
adambonin.bsky.social
From Jeffrey Toobin's 2008 book THE NINE, this remains the greatest Justice Souter anecdote I can possibly share. RIP.
. . . It was, for example, a running joke at the Court that outsiders frequently mistook Souter and Breyer for each other. No one could really understand why this happened, because the two bore little resemblance. One day when Souter was making his usual solo drive from Washington to New Hampshire, he stopped for lunch in Massachusetts. A stranger and his wife came up to him and asked, "Aren't you on the Supreme Court?" Souter said he was. "You're Justice Breyer, right?" said the man. Rather than embarrass the fellow, Souter simply nodded and exchanged pleasantries, until he was asked an unexpected question. "Justice Breyer, what's the best thing about being on the Supreme Court?" The justice thought for a while, then said, "Well, I'd have to say it's the privilege of serving with David Souter."
May 9, 2025 at 2:18 PM
asrust.bsky.social
Any book/article recs regarding the history of ideas about law and the monarchy in 17th century England (with special emphasis on debates during reign of James I/VI, the English Civil War, and the Glorious Revolution)?
May 9, 2025 at 3:24 PM
asrust.bsky.social
We are reaching new lows, we no longer have Big Law firms precapitulating to Trump, we have Big Law firms like Gibson Dunn not reaching precapitulating terms with Trump but acting as if they have and cutting off ties with immigrants rights litigation.
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/b...
Some Giant Law Firms Shy Away From Pro Bono Immigration Cases
www.nytimes.com
May 8, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Adam S. Rust
kenwhite.bsky.social
Conduct yourself so nobody ever refers to you as a “celebrity lawyer”
May 6, 2025 at 7:15 PM
asrust.bsky.social
I applied for a job recently that asked about my law school accomplishments in the application process. I graduated in 2013.
uglyjacket.bsky.social colorscolor @uglyjacket.bsky.social · May 2
Lawyers will be 48 years old like: GPA 3.8
May 2, 2025 at 6:40 PM
asrust.bsky.social
From Thomas Erskine's closing argument defending Thomas Paine against charges of seditious libel. His defense of Paine cost Erskine his lucrative position as Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales. The job of being an attorney can come with a cost. Much to consider there.
"I will forever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence, and integrity of the English Bar, without which impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English constitution, can have no existence. From the moment that any advocate can be permitted to say that he will or will not stand between the Crown and the subject arraigned in court where he daily sits to practice, from that moment the liberties of England are at an end. If the advocate refuses to defend from what he may think of the charge or of the defence, he assumes the character of the judge; nay he assumes it before the hour of judgment; and in proportion to his rank and reputation, puts the heavy influence of perhaps a mistaken opinion into the scale against the accused, in whose favour the benevolent principle of English law makes all presumptions, and which commands even the very judge to be his counsel."
April 30, 2025 at 1:09 AM