Sam Ulmschneider
@samulmschneider.bsky.social
Teaching Constitutional studies, poli sci, political theory, US history topics in Virginia. Own views & comments, these don't reflect my institutional affiliations. Husband / cat person / Madisonian / Lincolnite / Trekkie / strategy gamer / metalhead.
The Constitution was designed to make Congress the most dynamic, strongest, the most popularly legitimated branch and the one most jealous of its institutional prerogatives and powers. Our contemporary Congress, full of people who talk a LOT about the framers and founders, mocks their intentions.
Congress can stop ICE. Congress can block the use of force in Greenland. In other words, in this crisis, Congress can act to support civil liberties at home and free nations abroad. To fail to act would be to be complicit in a dreadful outcome.
January 18, 2026 at 2:24 AM
The Constitution was designed to make Congress the most dynamic, strongest, the most popularly legitimated branch and the one most jealous of its institutional prerogatives and powers. Our contemporary Congress, full of people who talk a LOT about the framers and founders, mocks their intentions.
The new Running Man movie was actually pretty great? I'm surprised I didn't see more praise or at least interest in it.
January 18, 2026 at 2:04 AM
The new Running Man movie was actually pretty great? I'm surprised I didn't see more praise or at least interest in it.
One of the really confounding things to me - a prof I was talking to put it this way and it struck me - is that we have a LOT of immigration laws and they are v complex, but we don’t actually seem to be administering them in any recognizable way on the ground, just doing madcap nabbing/deporting.
January 17, 2026 at 10:37 PM
One of the really confounding things to me - a prof I was talking to put it this way and it struck me - is that we have a LOT of immigration laws and they are v complex, but we don’t actually seem to be administering them in any recognizable way on the ground, just doing madcap nabbing/deporting.
Wohoo best way to end a Saturday already spent at work, a flat tire, my favorite gee golly!
January 17, 2026 at 10:27 PM
Wohoo best way to end a Saturday already spent at work, a flat tire, my favorite gee golly!
I like my students and like my job, yet I can’t help but reflect after another week of overlong days and preparing to spend my Saturday working, that some 9-5 advertising industry office schmuck with just a BA who gets a lunch break most of the time still gets paid something like twice what I do.
January 17, 2026 at 11:55 AM
I like my students and like my job, yet I can’t help but reflect after another week of overlong days and preparing to spend my Saturday working, that some 9-5 advertising industry office schmuck with just a BA who gets a lunch break most of the time still gets paid something like twice what I do.
I deeply resent that Outlook now has an emoji reaction queue which I must monitor in addition to an actual, normal inbox.
January 16, 2026 at 1:04 PM
I deeply resent that Outlook now has an emoji reaction queue which I must monitor in addition to an actual, normal inbox.
First year w a new political theory course this year, spent only two wks on Marxism (by contrast, it was 1.5 wks each on Locke, Rousseau and Hobbes). A lot of traditions feel robbed by the survey format, but Marxism (despite my fundamental grumpiness w/it) will probably get more time next go-round.
January 16, 2026 at 2:57 AM
First year w a new political theory course this year, spent only two wks on Marxism (by contrast, it was 1.5 wks each on Locke, Rousseau and Hobbes). A lot of traditions feel robbed by the survey format, but Marxism (despite my fundamental grumpiness w/it) will probably get more time next go-round.
one of my favorite non-canon Star Trek ship designs has to be the Okinawa frigate. I don't love the name - like a lot of other Trek ship class names, it implies too much about a common heritage with national navies martial traditions of the 20th centuries. But it's an aesthetically pleasing ship!
January 16, 2026 at 2:13 AM
one of my favorite non-canon Star Trek ship designs has to be the Okinawa frigate. I don't love the name - like a lot of other Trek ship class names, it implies too much about a common heritage with national navies martial traditions of the 20th centuries. But it's an aesthetically pleasing ship!
I don't know of anyone writing who had been more conclusively vindicated than Radley Balko and Spencer Ackerman. Their insights about how the militarization of law enforcement and the ethos and institutional culture impacts of GWOT had far-reaching importance are especially difficult to shake now.
January 15, 2026 at 3:08 AM
I don't know of anyone writing who had been more conclusively vindicated than Radley Balko and Spencer Ackerman. Their insights about how the militarization of law enforcement and the ethos and institutional culture impacts of GWOT had far-reaching importance are especially difficult to shake now.
One of the TV shows whose central characters and dilemmas were v. well conceived but, for a variety of self-induced and external reasons, failed to fulfill its potential, is definitely COLONY. Though grounded in Iraq/Afghanistan/GWOT aesthetic sensibilities, its politics and psychology are great.
January 15, 2026 at 2:04 AM
One of the TV shows whose central characters and dilemmas were v. well conceived but, for a variety of self-induced and external reasons, failed to fulfill its potential, is definitely COLONY. Though grounded in Iraq/Afghanistan/GWOT aesthetic sensibilities, its politics and psychology are great.
is there a piece of legislation that has more severely failed the hopes and purposes of its passage than the War Powers Act? I mean, it may not be a matter of legislative design but instead institutional dynamics and evolving party and political systems. But still, what a failed attempt it has been.
January 15, 2026 at 12:55 AM
is there a piece of legislation that has more severely failed the hopes and purposes of its passage than the War Powers Act? I mean, it may not be a matter of legislative design but instead institutional dynamics and evolving party and political systems. But still, what a failed attempt it has been.
Jefferson is deeply problematic as a founder, but of all the founders who had an enduring place in the nation's formative decades, his way with words remains second to none and more permanently impressive than it ought to be.
January 14, 2026 at 2:56 AM
Jefferson is deeply problematic as a founder, but of all the founders who had an enduring place in the nation's formative decades, his way with words remains second to none and more permanently impressive than it ought to be.
One of my favorite things to explain every year is the makeup and electoral mechanics of the bundesrat and Bundestag it’s just so perfectly convoluted
January 14, 2026 at 12:06 AM
One of my favorite things to explain every year is the makeup and electoral mechanics of the bundesrat and Bundestag it’s just so perfectly convoluted
how can the administration think that this withholding-funds game will survive the standards for coercive use of federal funds established in NFIB v Sebelius? Do they really just assume the courts will roll over and play dead again on this issue?
January 13, 2026 at 8:20 PM
how can the administration think that this withholding-funds game will survive the standards for coercive use of federal funds established in NFIB v Sebelius? Do they really just assume the courts will roll over and play dead again on this issue?
reading Tushnet's Taking the Constitution Away From the Courts and boy does it still rock after all these years
January 12, 2026 at 8:56 PM
reading Tushnet's Taking the Constitution Away From the Courts and boy does it still rock after all these years
Reposted by Sam Ulmschneider
The chair of the fed ripping off his shirt and yelling "you know where to find me, bitch" while very clearly signaling to The Money that Trump is breaking The Money
can I have a precedented time again? I've been good
can I have a precedented time again? I've been good
January 12, 2026 at 12:55 AM
The chair of the fed ripping off his shirt and yelling "you know where to find me, bitch" while very clearly signaling to The Money that Trump is breaking The Money
can I have a precedented time again? I've been good
can I have a precedented time again? I've been good
Reposted by Sam Ulmschneider
I can't watch a goddamn football game without the Federal Reserve declaring war on the President?
January 12, 2026 at 12:54 AM
I can't watch a goddamn football game without the Federal Reserve declaring war on the President?
may you live in interesting times is a curse etc...I graduated high school in company of 9/11 and Iraq, graduated college and grad school in the midst of the Great Recession, tried to be a Real Adult during the first pandemic in a century and the collapse of the sixth party system and now all this.
January 12, 2026 at 12:51 AM
may you live in interesting times is a curse etc...I graduated high school in company of 9/11 and Iraq, graduated college and grad school in the midst of the Great Recession, tried to be a Real Adult during the first pandemic in a century and the collapse of the sixth party system and now all this.
for people who claim to think a lot about 1776 and its legacies and lessons, contemporary conservatives seem to fail to recall the degree to which British crackdowns on Boston and Bostonians served to mobilize other colonists and intensify their common identity as anti-British Americans.
January 11, 2026 at 2:57 AM
for people who claim to think a lot about 1776 and its legacies and lessons, contemporary conservatives seem to fail to recall the degree to which British crackdowns on Boston and Bostonians served to mobilize other colonists and intensify their common identity as anti-British Americans.
@kangaroopete.bsky.social this seems like something you would like to own on several levels
Holy shit the Seattle Kraken pride jersey goes so fucking hard
January 9, 2026 at 4:17 PM
@kangaroopete.bsky.social this seems like something you would like to own on several levels
I refuse to get an instagram account or a tiktok, but I really am curious how perceptions and images of today's events are propagating on those platforms. Those platforms are among the most important drivers of contemporary public opinion, perception and knowledge.
January 8, 2026 at 2:19 AM
I refuse to get an instagram account or a tiktok, but I really am curious how perceptions and images of today's events are propagating on those platforms. Those platforms are among the most important drivers of contemporary public opinion, perception and knowledge.
you never know what the detail is that will get you, and this one got me. teared up at my computer, choked up, had to get a tissue, wordless, sputtering for a full minute. A GLOVE COMPARTMENT FULL OF STUFFED ANIMALS.
The murdered woman's glove compartment is filled with stuffed animals.
January 8, 2026 at 1:07 AM
you never know what the detail is that will get you, and this one got me. teared up at my computer, choked up, had to get a tissue, wordless, sputtering for a full minute. A GLOVE COMPARTMENT FULL OF STUFFED ANIMALS.
Just a teacher of American history and government here thinking about American history and government.
January 7, 2026 at 11:23 PM
Just a teacher of American history and government here thinking about American history and government.
Reverend Horton Heat have a special place in my heart bc they're the band which helped me permanently realize that something could, without snapping or straining, be both cutting-edge new and contemporary in its commentary and sound while also having major elements of traditionalish sound and lyric.
January 7, 2026 at 2:21 AM
Reverend Horton Heat have a special place in my heart bc they're the band which helped me permanently realize that something could, without snapping or straining, be both cutting-edge new and contemporary in its commentary and sound while also having major elements of traditionalish sound and lyric.
This is NOT the week for my car to die on me thanks please let me restart the week now, thanks.
January 6, 2026 at 10:16 PM
This is NOT the week for my car to die on me thanks please let me restart the week now, thanks.