Robert L. Tsai
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robertltsai.bsky.social
Robert L. Tsai
@robertltsai.bsky.social

Author of DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE (@WWNorton.com), amzn.to/45LFzNg | Next: BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF COAL COUNTRY (NYU) | Prof & Harry Elwood Warren Scholar, Boston U | constitutional law & politics, legal history, democracy | https://linktr.ee/roberttsai .. more

Political science 53%
Law 24%
Pinned
Just a photo of me with my 2024 spring child

“Nonjusticiable political question”

Trump’s theory of inherent presidential authority is basically: I do what I want eat shit

RIP International Law

You too! Hope to catch up sooner or later

Likewise!

We wrapped some wontons to celebrate the new year

Bless you! Happy New Year
Just making sure that 2025 is definitely over

Good news for now. But…

Yes: “Amar ignores their radically different historical contexts and ends up miscasting Lincoln. He wasn’t an ‘originalist,’ faithful to their original meaning: He was creatively reinterpreting them to meet the time’s needs.”
Do Liberals Need to Practice Originalism, Too?
A new book argues that careful study of the Constitution’s history could support a liberal agenda.
newrepublic.com

How many of these crises are manufactured—legally and empirically? bit.ly/2OViemI

How many of these crises are manufactured—legally and empirically? bit.ly/2OViemI
bit.ly

“The handful of other presidents who had comparatively momentous first years were responding to a true national crisis…. The United States faced no such emergency in January, but Mr. Trump has routinely governed through emergency powers.”
Trump Promised Radical Change in His Second Term. Here’s What He’s Done So Far.
www.nytimes.com

Good point

“income inequality increased over a 33-year period ending in 2022, with the share of wealth held by families in the top 10 percent at around 69 percent, while the share held by families in the bottom 50 percent at just 3 percent.”
A Wealth Tax Floated in California Has Billionaires Thinking of Leaving
www.nytimes.com

Xmas morning 🎄

Appreciate it. Likewise!

Thanks! Being able to walk is something we learn early and then take for granted. I was shocked how much everything changed (including how the world looked from a wheelchair)

I learned to walk again after being hospitalized for 6 weeks

☺️
“Like Prime, but with human beings.”
NEW: By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court blocks Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Chicago to assist immigration agents. A majority holds that he likely lacks authority to do so. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Yours is an entirely defensible position

“A Gallup poll this year found that 52 percent of Americans favored the death penalty, the lowest since the early 1970s.”
Their Death Sentences Were Commuted by Biden. They Could Face Execution Again.
www.nytimes.com
BREAKING: The Trump administration is suing D.C. over its ban on semi-automatic (AR-15) weapons.

DOJ's Civil Rights Division under Harmeet Dhillon is seeking a court ruling that D.C.'s law "prohibiting registration of the AR-15 by law-abiding citizens violates the Second Amendment."

“If the standard for airing a story becomes ‘the government must agree to be interviewed,’ then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.”
Read the full email Sharyn Alfonsi sent her team about CBS pulling their segment on the Trump admin’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants
Read the full email Sharyn Alfonsi sent her team about CBS pulling their segment on the Trump admin’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants

Mark Graber’s introductory essay on “Caste as Practice, Analogy, and Metaphor” digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/
In the summer of 1950 most US newspapers ran an AP story about how race had become the main issue in the upcoming Georgia governor's race. Segregationist Herman Tallmadge, governor from '47 to '55 and then a Senator until 1981 made a name for himself by refusing to "apologize for being a white man."