Dan Farbman
@danfarbman.bsky.social
Law Professor at BC Law, Historian of social movements and local government. Writing a book about Abolitionist Lawyering.
In the stupidest timeline, all this is leading to FIFA staging a global coup and promulgating its worstness into every corner of our lives.
November 6, 2025 at 10:52 AM
In the stupidest timeline, all this is leading to FIFA staging a global coup and promulgating its worstness into every corner of our lives.
Despite a very vocal push against progressives here in Cambridge, we shored up a progressive majority on the city council and elected an amazing slate of progressive and teacher-backed candidates to the school committee. Good news around every local corner.
Keeping an eye on local elections around Boston, where NIMBYs are pushing back against moves to liberalize zoning to create more housing in Cambridge, Somerville, and where I live in Medford. Almost no coverage in local press but similar issues, including objections to bike paths.
Cambridge City Council Election Guide 2025 - Cambridge Day
Guide to the City of Cambridge's 2025 election for city council.
www.cambridgeday.com
November 5, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Despite a very vocal push against progressives here in Cambridge, we shored up a progressive majority on the city council and elected an amazing slate of progressive and teacher-backed candidates to the school committee. Good news around every local corner.
This account is undefeated.
Abduction of Proserpina, by Giambologna, 1579 (from the @NortonSimon Museum in Pasadena), 📸 by @nturchiarophoto
November 3, 2025 at 3:40 PM
This account is undefeated.
It really looks like this guy is trying to turn the White House into mid-1990s McMansion in a “nice” Jersey suburb.
October 31, 2025 at 7:28 PM
It really looks like this guy is trying to turn the White House into mid-1990s McMansion in a “nice” Jersey suburb.
Unsolicited semi-random restaurant review #18:
Rajdhani in Artesia. All-you-can-eat vegetarian Gujarathi thali. Eat whatever they are serving--and make sure you get bread. You will be delighted.
www.rajdhaniofartesia.com
Rajdhani in Artesia. All-you-can-eat vegetarian Gujarathi thali. Eat whatever they are serving--and make sure you get bread. You will be delighted.
www.rajdhaniofartesia.com
Rajdhani Restaurant – Thali Indian Food
www.rajdhaniofartesia.com
October 30, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Unsolicited semi-random restaurant review #18:
Rajdhani in Artesia. All-you-can-eat vegetarian Gujarathi thali. Eat whatever they are serving--and make sure you get bread. You will be delighted.
www.rajdhaniofartesia.com
Rajdhani in Artesia. All-you-can-eat vegetarian Gujarathi thali. Eat whatever they are serving--and make sure you get bread. You will be delighted.
www.rajdhaniofartesia.com
We are so far off the map of "how any of this works" that it seems like just about anything is possible. That's very bad when it's all about grift and nativism and trolling. But it's also as close as we're ever going to come to building a liberatory politics of possibility.
President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him.
Whether he gets paid will ultimately be up to DOJ's second-in-command, who was recently his personal lawyer.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/u...
Whether he gets paid will ultimately be up to DOJ's second-in-command, who was recently his personal lawyer.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/u...
October 21, 2025 at 8:29 PM
We are so far off the map of "how any of this works" that it seems like just about anything is possible. That's very bad when it's all about grift and nativism and trolling. But it's also as close as we're ever going to come to building a liberatory politics of possibility.
At some point the rank incompetence and self-regarding blindness has to have some consequences? Or are we really at the end of narrative?
EXCLUSIVE: One Saturday afternoon in October, my phone lit up with a notification.
I glanced down at the message.
“Anna, Lindsey Halligan here,” it began.
So began my text exchange with the woman who is prosecuting the president's perceived political enemies.
www.lawfaremedia.org/article/anna...
I glanced down at the message.
“Anna, Lindsey Halligan here,” it began.
So began my text exchange with the woman who is prosecuting the president's perceived political enemies.
www.lawfaremedia.org/article/anna...
October 21, 2025 at 9:48 AM
At some point the rank incompetence and self-regarding blindness has to have some consequences? Or are we really at the end of narrative?
Glass half full—lots of folks getting psyched to be part of this founding moment.
open.substack.com/pub/postcard...
open.substack.com/pub/postcard...
October 19, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Glass half full—lots of folks getting psyched to be part of this founding moment.
open.substack.com/pub/postcard...
open.substack.com/pub/postcard...
This billboard is straight out of the 1840s. (Personal Liberty laws passed to prevent the kidnapping of black northerners). We are making the worst parts of our history great again.
October 18, 2025 at 8:01 PM
This billboard is straight out of the 1840s. (Personal Liberty laws passed to prevent the kidnapping of black northerners). We are making the worst parts of our history great again.
MAKE THE DEPLORABLES GREAT AGAIN!!!
Leavitt: "The Democrat Party's main constituency is made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals."
October 16, 2025 at 9:13 PM
MAKE THE DEPLORABLES GREAT AGAIN!!!
Every year in Con Law we talk about how hard it is these days to find hard evidence of intentional discrimination behind government actions that have disparate racial impact. But they are just...texting and lolz-ing it all out there?
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...
‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat
Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.
www.politico.com
October 14, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Every year in Con Law we talk about how hard it is these days to find hard evidence of intentional discrimination behind government actions that have disparate racial impact. But they are just...texting and lolz-ing it all out there?
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...
Among other things, this is so bizarrely formalist. All these orders “resolve” the issues before them in that they dissolve injunctions, allow for racial profiling, allow for impoundment, etc.
You don’t have to be a legal realist to see this…though it doesn’t hurt.
You don’t have to be a legal realist to see this…though it doesn’t hurt.
Amy Coney Barrett defends heavy use of the shadow docket: "If we wrote a long opinion, it might give the impression that we have finally resolved the issue, and in none of these cases have we finally resolved the issue."
October 13, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Among other things, this is so bizarrely formalist. All these orders “resolve” the issues before them in that they dissolve injunctions, allow for racial profiling, allow for impoundment, etc.
You don’t have to be a legal realist to see this…though it doesn’t hurt.
You don’t have to be a legal realist to see this…though it doesn’t hurt.
Shards of light in a dark time.
October 9, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Shards of light in a dark time.
During the 1850s there were cities in the north where the Fugitive Slave Law was unenforceable because nobody could be found who was willing to serve as a federal commissioner to hear and decide the cases.
Jury Refuses To Indict Chicago ICE Protesters In Latest Revolt Against Trump Overreach talkingpointsmemo.com/where-things...
Jury Refuses To Indict Chicago ICE Protesters In Latest Revolt Against Trump Overreach
A grand jury Tuesday night declined to indict two protesters in the...
talkingpointsmemo.com
October 9, 2025 at 2:32 PM
During the 1850s there were cities in the north where the Fugitive Slave Law was unenforceable because nobody could be found who was willing to serve as a federal commissioner to hear and decide the cases.
New thing from me at Postcards of the Hanging. On the "judicial revolt" and the question of judicial solidarity.
open.substack.com/pub/postcard...
open.substack.com/pub/postcard...
Priests, Not Prophets
Judicial Resistance, Conservatism, and the Question of Solidarity
open.substack.com
October 8, 2025 at 1:29 PM
New thing from me at Postcards of the Hanging. On the "judicial revolt" and the question of judicial solidarity.
open.substack.com/pub/postcard...
open.substack.com/pub/postcard...
What's old is new again.
In September of 1850, black abolitionist leaders in Chicago gathered at Quinn Chapel to make a plan for protecting their community and resisting the federally supported slave catchers empowered by the Fugitive Slave Law.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
In September of 1850, black abolitionist leaders in Chicago gathered at Quinn Chapel to make a plan for protecting their community and resisting the federally supported slave catchers empowered by the Fugitive Slave Law.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
October 6, 2025 at 6:29 PM
What's old is new again.
In September of 1850, black abolitionist leaders in Chicago gathered at Quinn Chapel to make a plan for protecting their community and resisting the federally supported slave catchers empowered by the Fugitive Slave Law.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
In September of 1850, black abolitionist leaders in Chicago gathered at Quinn Chapel to make a plan for protecting their community and resisting the federally supported slave catchers empowered by the Fugitive Slave Law.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
So strange when judges applying clear and well-settled law seem to part of “the resistance.” It might be time to start calling resistance to the administration “conservative”…because that is what these kinds of opinions are in outlook and result.
BREAKING: The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 100-page opinion -- says it is unequivocally, lopsidedly easy to determine that the Trump administration's view of birthright citizenship is wrong.
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
October 3, 2025 at 8:43 PM
So strange when judges applying clear and well-settled law seem to part of “the resistance.” It might be time to start calling resistance to the administration “conservative”…because that is what these kinds of opinions are in outlook and result.
The fact that Kristi Noem was riding in an armored vehicle as part of this federal kidnapping mission is mindblowingly bad. It's like if Daniel Webster had been holding the gun to Anthony Burns' back, marching him to enslavement.
chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: 'I feel defeated'
The Department of Homeland Security said federal agents with Border Patrol, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested 37 people in the raid.
chicago.suntimes.com
October 2, 2025 at 7:43 PM
The fact that Kristi Noem was riding in an armored vehicle as part of this federal kidnapping mission is mindblowingly bad. It's like if Daniel Webster had been holding the gun to Anthony Burns' back, marching him to enslavement.
chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
This week I went to VMI to participate in a conversation about whether we're in a constitutional crisis. Being at VMI was really fascinating. I met a lot of great folks and learned some stuff. "Debatemebro" makes us all dumber. I hope this wasn't that.
steamboatinstitute.org/recap/is-the...
steamboatinstitute.org/recap/is-the...
"Is the U.S. experiencing a constitutional crisis?" - The Steamboat Institute
Here’s what our audience had to say before and after the debate:
steamboatinstitute.org
October 2, 2025 at 1:57 PM
This week I went to VMI to participate in a conversation about whether we're in a constitutional crisis. Being at VMI was really fascinating. I met a lot of great folks and learned some stuff. "Debatemebro" makes us all dumber. I hope this wasn't that.
steamboatinstitute.org/recap/is-the...
steamboatinstitute.org/recap/is-the...
It was just a few years ago that I wrote about judicial resistance and judicial solidarity. I was skeptical for lots of reasons…but man life comes at you fast.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
September 30, 2025 at 6:04 PM
It was just a few years ago that I wrote about judicial resistance and judicial solidarity. I was skeptical for lots of reasons…but man life comes at you fast.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
MAKE THE THIRD AMENDMENT GREAT AGAIN!!
September 30, 2025 at 5:06 PM
MAKE THE THIRD AMENDMENT GREAT AGAIN!!
This is a really fascinating development. It remains the case that local police vastly outnumber federal police. Where true resistance and obstruction come into play, the inertia and complexity of local government are going to make things very interesting.
Broadview Police have opened an investigation into an attack from federal agents on a CBS crew at Broadview, per BPD Chief Mills.
September 29, 2025 at 2:40 AM
This is a really fascinating development. It remains the case that local police vastly outnumber federal police. Where true resistance and obstruction come into play, the inertia and complexity of local government are going to make things very interesting.
One of the greatest living Americans.
September 28, 2025 at 8:34 PM
One of the greatest living Americans.