Lee Kovarsky
@kovarsky.bsky.social
Professor of Law, University of Texas. Habeas corpus, death penalty, some other law stuff, sentient space robots, kids who don't listen to me, and hot sauce.
BIO: https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/lee-kovarsky/
BIO: https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/lee-kovarsky/
Can someone explain to me what happened?
I don’t use blocklists but if someone would make one listing every pointless shitbird who piled on Parker Malloy and made her leave, I would subscribe.
January 6, 2026 at 4:09 AM
Can someone explain to me what happened?
Obviously hasn’t heard of the Article II Territory doctrine, recognized by SCOTUS 6-3 in fall 2026 term.
Way down the list on how insane and evil this is, but... just a point of con law trivia, I guess: the president doesn't have the power to annex territory. Like, even assuming we militarily occupied it. Just on the domestic law angle, it still wouldn't be "part of the US" w/o Congress saying so.
TAPPER: Can you rule out the US is going to take Greenland by force?
MILLER: Greenland should be part of the US. By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? The US is the power of NATO
T: So force is on the table?
M: Nobody is gonna fight the US militarily over future of Greenland
MILLER: Greenland should be part of the US. By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? The US is the power of NATO
T: So force is on the table?
M: Nobody is gonna fight the US militarily over future of Greenland
January 6, 2026 at 12:50 AM
Obviously hasn’t heard of the Article II Territory doctrine, recognized by SCOTUS 6-3 in fall 2026 term.
I love my ember mug, but what is up with the film buildup at the top of the cup?
January 5, 2026 at 9:36 PM
I love my ember mug, but what is up with the film buildup at the top of the cup?
At least I get to root for ARod humiliation during nfl playoffs
January 5, 2026 at 4:37 AM
At least I get to root for ARod humiliation during nfl playoffs
"OMG WHAT IS THE ALLURE OF FUCKING SLIME"
- every parent everywhere
- every parent everywhere
January 5, 2026 at 2:37 AM
"OMG WHAT IS THE ALLURE OF FUCKING SLIME"
- every parent everywhere
- every parent everywhere
Can someone explain why/how the presumption against extraterritorial application of crim law is disabled? For example, I don't understand how a Venezuelan owning a machine gun in Venezuela could be a criminal offense.
And at least some of the conspiracy has to be carried out in US to charge that.
And at least some of the conspiracy has to be carried out in US to charge that.
So a lot of the charges against Maduro are either cocaine importation, which Trump pardoned Hernandez for, or owning machine guns, which is a constitutionally protected right in the US
January 4, 2026 at 6:50 PM
Can someone explain why/how the presumption against extraterritorial application of crim law is disabled? For example, I don't understand how a Venezuelan owning a machine gun in Venezuela could be a criminal offense.
And at least some of the conspiracy has to be carried out in US to charge that.
And at least some of the conspiracy has to be carried out in US to charge that.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG GUYS
BREAKING: The U.S. won’t govern Venezuela, but will press changes through an oil blockade, Rubio says, after Trump claims of running the country.
Venezuela live updates: Uncertainty and legal questions remain after US captures Maduro
The Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and claims that it will “run” the country are raising stark new questions about the legality of the U.S. actions and its future operations in the South American nation.
bit.ly
January 4, 2026 at 5:47 PM
WHAT COULD GO WRONG GUYS
absolutely not
Florida Law Review is now open and accepting submissions on Scholastica!
Submit your article here: https://www.floridalawreview.com/for-authors #LRSubmissions
Submit your article here: https://www.floridalawreview.com/for-authors #LRSubmissions
January 3, 2026 at 6:57 AM
absolutely not
Songs in the key of fuck you
Kennedy Center Christmas Eve jazz concert canceled after Trump's name added reut.rs/3NfgBky
Kennedy Center Christmas Eve jazz concert canceled after Trump's name added
A planned Christmas Eve jazz concert at the Kennedy Center was canceled, with the host of the longtime annual performance attributing the decision to the addition of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump's name to the institution in Washington.
reut.rs
December 25, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Songs in the key of fuck you
I watched Die Hard for the first time in 20 years and I am sad to say that I cannot sit on the fence - it is DEFINITELY a christmas movie.
December 25, 2025 at 4:59 AM
I watched Die Hard for the first time in 20 years and I am sad to say that I cannot sit on the fence - it is DEFINITELY a christmas movie.
"We are here to split the difference and make so it's ok with our investors.
Let's do the fucking news!'
Let's do the fucking news!'
CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss sent a memo to CBS News employees today stating:
“No amount of outrage—whether from activist organizations or the White House—will derail us. We are not out to score points with one side of the political spectrum or to win followers on social media.”
“No amount of outrage—whether from activist organizations or the White House—will derail us. We are not out to score points with one side of the political spectrum or to win followers on social media.”
NEW: CBS News Memo and The Epstein Files
In the aftermath of the firestorm at CBS News, top execs have sent a memo to employees. Also, the DOJ says it has discovered over 1 million Epstein documents.
bit.ly
December 24, 2025 at 10:29 PM
"We are here to split the difference and make so it's ok with our investors.
Let's do the fucking news!'
Let's do the fucking news!'
Bari Weiss has a little Vader in her: "less a person than a corporate media construct" at this point.
Amazing to watch her try to act like a radical in a room full of people who know she's Charlatan, Inc.
Amazing to watch her try to act like a radical in a room full of people who know she's Charlatan, Inc.
Bari Weiss just sent this Christmas Eve email to the CBS News staff about "building trust," which includes her tripling down on spiking the CECOT piece "to make sure it's comprehensive and fair."
One CBS staffer tells me: "She really has no idea how insulting she comes across."
One CBS staffer tells me: "She really has no idea how insulting she comes across."
December 24, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Bari Weiss has a little Vader in her: "less a person than a corporate media construct" at this point.
Amazing to watch her try to act like a radical in a room full of people who know she's Charlatan, Inc.
Amazing to watch her try to act like a radical in a room full of people who know she's Charlatan, Inc.
I don't understand why unis can't just devote a few giant rooms with dedicated laptops that the uni provides. folks can bring in books/notes if it's open book, or even use the station to access some pre-configured set of material on the web.
it doesn't actually have to be blue books.
it doesn't actually have to be blue books.
Does anyone else bristle at this framing? WSJ says blue books are “torturing” students with hand cramps, and “nobody likes them.”
Listen, students have been outsourcing everything to AI and cheating their way through college. Blue books should be celebrated as a return to authentic human learning.
Listen, students have been outsourcing everything to AI and cheating their way through college. Blue books should be celebrated as a return to authentic human learning.
They Were Every Student’s Worst Nightmare. Now Blue Books Are Back.
Cheating with ChatGPT has become a huge problem for colleges. The solution is painfully old-school.
www.wsj.com
December 24, 2025 at 6:51 PM
I don't understand why unis can't just devote a few giant rooms with dedicated laptops that the uni provides. folks can bring in books/notes if it's open book, or even use the station to access some pre-configured set of material on the web.
it doesn't actually have to be blue books.
it doesn't actually have to be blue books.
I am becoming increasingly certain there is a future where the fever breaks, and TCW is writing copy for a cereal brand, commensurate with his literary talent.
it requires an absolutely staggering lack of self awareness for chatterton to complain that he has lost elite opportunities because he has anti-woke views.
The Other Way the ‘Super Woke’ Left Discriminates
Race and gender aren’t the only categories that determine who gets special treatment.
www.theatlantic.com
December 24, 2025 at 6:48 PM
I am becoming increasingly certain there is a future where the fever breaks, and TCW is writing copy for a cereal brand, commensurate with his literary talent.
There's a mind boggling irony here that some might miss -
Whren is maybe THE WORST case for the proposition that law enforcement can't discriminatorily enforce. In Whren, SCOTUS held that the 4th amendment didn't bar pretextual stops actually based on race.
supreme.justia.com/cases/federa...
1/
Whren is maybe THE WORST case for the proposition that law enforcement can't discriminatorily enforce. In Whren, SCOTUS held that the 4th amendment didn't bar pretextual stops actually based on race.
supreme.justia.com/cases/federa...
1/
December 24, 2025 at 3:52 AM
There's a mind boggling irony here that some might miss -
Whren is maybe THE WORST case for the proposition that law enforcement can't discriminatorily enforce. In Whren, SCOTUS held that the 4th amendment didn't bar pretextual stops actually based on race.
supreme.justia.com/cases/federa...
1/
Whren is maybe THE WORST case for the proposition that law enforcement can't discriminatorily enforce. In Whren, SCOTUS held that the 4th amendment didn't bar pretextual stops actually based on race.
supreme.justia.com/cases/federa...
1/
Niche point but citing Whren for the majestic proposition that law enforcement can't discriminate is the reason Justices have clerks and staff.
Check out the Kavanaugh FN 4; I think it's pretty clear that the Kavanaugh Stop thing has gotten to him:
December 24, 2025 at 2:47 AM
Niche point but citing Whren for the majestic proposition that law enforcement can't discriminate is the reason Justices have clerks and staff.
Last year I did dry January and I am here to tell you I’ll never do that shit again
December 23, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Last year I did dry January and I am here to tell you I’ll never do that shit again
We are like 5 Trump IQ points and 3 Hegseth cocktails away from shooting missiles at the times building.
Trump is now calling the New York Times a national security threat and says they “must be dealt with and stopped.”
December 23, 2025 at 9:22 PM
We are like 5 Trump IQ points and 3 Hegseth cocktails away from shooting missiles at the times building.
Check out the Kavanaugh FN 4; I think it's pretty clear that the Kavanaugh Stop thing has gotten to him:
December 23, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Check out the Kavanaugh FN 4; I think it's pretty clear that the Kavanaugh Stop thing has gotten to him:
if dolphins can communicate are they like jeez wtf are the humans doing.
octopuses are like jfk i can't believe we're beneath these idiots on the food chain.
octopuses are like jfk i can't believe we're beneath these idiots on the food chain.
December 23, 2025 at 6:27 AM
if dolphins can communicate are they like jeez wtf are the humans doing.
octopuses are like jfk i can't believe we're beneath these idiots on the food chain.
octopuses are like jfk i can't believe we're beneath these idiots on the food chain.
the dumbest people alive think the One Neat Trick is to concoct absurd national security rationales for everything and SCOTUS is like "we need infinity prophylaxis for a president to function"
FOX: I can understand people may not want to look at wind turbines and they may not be cost efficient, but what's the national security concern?
BURGUM: The national security concerns as delivered by a classified Dept of War report focus around radar and radar interference
BURGUM: The national security concerns as delivered by a classified Dept of War report focus around radar and radar interference
December 23, 2025 at 4:07 AM
the dumbest people alive think the One Neat Trick is to concoct absurd national security rationales for everything and SCOTUS is like "we need infinity prophylaxis for a president to function"
Some folks have flagged for me that Boasberg thrice cites the forthcoming HLR paper by me and Teddy Rave on habeas class actions.
I wouldn't hold myself out as an expert on the underlying substantive law questions, but Boasberg gets the class action stuff right:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I wouldn't hold myself out as an expert on the underlying substantive law questions, but Boasberg gets the class action stuff right:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
December 22, 2025 at 10:39 PM
Some folks have flagged for me that Boasberg thrice cites the forthcoming HLR paper by me and Teddy Rave on habeas class actions.
I wouldn't hold myself out as an expert on the underlying substantive law questions, but Boasberg gets the class action stuff right:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I wouldn't hold myself out as an expert on the underlying substantive law questions, but Boasberg gets the class action stuff right:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Will repeat that in this story it is not a random faculty or hiring committee member but a *dean*, which means this did not happen.
longstanding theory on this is that people who know the applicant that they don't want to hire has racial resentment offer "wish i could've hired you, but they made me hire a black woman instead!" as a let-them-down-easy cope rather than admit to them that they just didn't want to hire them.
December 19, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Will repeat that in this story it is not a random faculty or hiring committee member but a *dean*, which means this did not happen.
I actually think in this particular case, cognitive bias/pot commitment has more explanatory force than underlying agreement with policy. FWIW
Why would a political writer keep arguing that Dems should go along with Trump’s harsh immigration crackdown, cruelty to trans people, and climate change-worsening stances as politically necessary, no matter what public opinion data shows?
One logical answer is the writer agrees with those stances.
One logical answer is the writer agrees with those stances.
matt & co’s theory of how public opinion on immigration would respond to new information was simply empirically wrong.
at this point the only reasonable conclusion is they refuse to update their priors w/ new data because the data is inconvenient for them
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/the-cost-o...
at this point the only reasonable conclusion is they refuse to update their priors w/ new data because the data is inconvenient for them
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/the-cost-o...
December 19, 2025 at 1:47 PM
I actually think in this particular case, cognitive bias/pot commitment has more explanatory force than underlying agreement with policy. FWIW
rams 'hawks ruined "going to bed early tonight"
December 19, 2025 at 4:58 AM
rams 'hawks ruined "going to bed early tonight"