William Myers

@themyersproject.bsky.social

360 followers 440 following 81 posts

Political Scientist talking judicial politics, political behavior, and federalism. IRB Chair. Book Review Co-Editor at Publius. Otherwise football, Legos, and board games. Show me pictures of food.

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William, Wil, Bill, or Billy Myers may refer to:

Source: Wikipedia

Political science 39%

Art 13%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Zach Everson @zacheverson.com · 1d

“Housing shortage – Jews to blame," letter sticker, German Reich, 1938

zwangsraeume.berlin/en/context

A stamped letter saying "Die Wohungsnot Schuld Der Juden"

Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo, Jacob T. Levy, William Myers , and 1 more Karen Benjamin Guzzo, Jacob T. Levy, William Myers, Shelley Clark

Matthew M. Brooks @ruraldemography.bsky.social · 1d

Ever wonder about what’s it like to grow up in rural America? So did we! @shelleydclark.bsky.social and I tackle two basic—but essential—questions in our new Journal of Marriage and Family article, just out today. Who do rural kids live with today? How likely are rural kids to grow up in poverty?

Reposted by Jonathan A. Eisen, Mark A. Lemley, Steve Peers , and 25 more Jonathan A. Eisen, Mark A. Lemley, Steve Peers, Alistair Munro, Michael A. Clemens, Rosemary A. Joyce, Joshua Goodman, Shelly Lundberg, Robert C. Richards, David R. Miller, Silvia Secchi, Patrick S. Forscher, Aaron Sojourner, Scott A. Imberman, Amy W. Ando, Anne Norton, Sebastian Karcher, Brian Keegan, William Myers, Jason Lyall, Catherine J. Frieman, David L. Anderson, Simon Lester, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Lorna Hughes, Antonio Fatás, Peter Bergman

Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 2d

For folks (and journalists) who want to search the Oversight Committee email texts, I made a database for searching the 20k text files:

splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app

Epstein Document Search

splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app

Reposted by William Myers, Tabitha Bonilla

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 3d

What’s the difference between compromise and capitulation? Compromise trades concessions. Capitulation pays ransom to stop deliberate suffering, and teaches your opponent that coercion works. There are effective responses to coercive bargaining. What we saw was not one of them.

The Compassion Trap: How the Shutdown Weaponized Democratic Values Against Democracy Itself

When Opposition Parties Stop Fighting Because the Cruelty Becomes Unbearable. And Why They Shouldn't.

open.substack.com

Reposted by William Myers

Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social · 5d

Read every word. This is what the US government is doing to terrorize a major American city. Authoritarianism is here. aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

I Want You to Understand Chicago

aphyr.com

Reposted by Steven S. Smith, Benjamin Braun, Sebastian Karcher , and 1 more Steven S. Smith, Benjamin Braun, Sebastian Karcher, William Myers

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 7d

Did you know gov shutdowns aren’t in the Constitution, any law, or Court ruling?
They exist because of a 1980 OLC memo—a lawyer’s opinion that everyone just went along with. Before 1980, funding gaps didn’t cause shutdowns.

What one memo created, another can undo. How the next D admin can undo it:

Why America’s Government Shutdowns Exist and How to End Them

One Legal Memo Created The Shutdown Era. Another Can End It.

open.substack.com

Reposted by James Q. Wilson, Gavin A. Schmidt, Ian Campbell , and 6 more James Q. Wilson, Gavin A. Schmidt, Ian Campbell, David R. Miller, Sebastiaan Faber, Michael D. McDonald, Erol Akçay, William Myers, Claire L. Adida

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 11d

In Chicago, a woman was driving to get coffee when a DHS vehicle fleeing an angry crowd crashed into her car. Armed agents jumped out of the vehicle, yanked her door open, pulled her by the legs out of her car at gunpoint, held her incommunicado for hours, then released her with no charges.

Dayanne Figueroa was on her way to get coffee before heading to work when she encountered a chaotic scene in West Town: heavily armed, masked federal agents making arrests on a residential street.
People yelled as vehicles honked their horn — a sign now used to alert neighbors that immigration federal agents are in the area — and witnesses said federal agents had arrested several landscaper workers presumed to be in the country without authorization.
As Figuero tried to drive through the 1600 block of West Hubbard Street on Friday, Oct. 10, an unmarked vehicle driven by federal agents collided with Figueroa’s as it tried to speed away from a hostile crowd, multiple videos reviewed by the Tribune show.
Seconds after the crash, agents abruptly stopped their vehicle and exited with weapons in hand pointing at Figueroa, a U.S citizen. Agents then forcibly opened her door and pulled her out of the vehicle by her legs without identifying themselves, presenting a warrant or informing her that she was under arrest. As bystanders yelled, “You hit her! We have it on video!” agents ignored the crowd and forced Figueroa into a red minivan and drove away.
Her car was left behind in the middle of the road, her coffee still in the cup holder, and her keys in plain view.

Reposted by William Myers

Julie Novkov @jnovkov.bsky.social · 12d

Hi, fellow faculty teaching undergrads. As we are getting into law school application season, please encourage your students to interact with good data sources. Steer them away from USNWR. They should instead be doing comparisons through lawschooltransparency.com.

LawHub — Law School Transparency

Find the best law school for you using the most comprehensive source of law school data.

lawschooltransparency.com

Reposted by John Kane, William Myers, Maksym Polyakov

Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 12d

Wrote up a little intervention post/explanation for my class about why using LLMs for trying to learn programming (as first time learners!) is bad and detrimental datavizf25.classes.andrewheiss.com/news/2025-11...

In the first week of class, I had you read an article about how ChatGPT is philosophical “bullshit”, as well as this other post about AI and LLMs in this class.

I’ve seen a surprising increase in the amount of ChatGPT-based weekly check-ins and graph interpretations in the exercises. (In the past, I’ve even had students tell me they PDFs of the slides into ChatGPT to generate interesting and confusing things.) Don’t do this! LLMs cannot find three things that you personally found interesting from the readings. LLMs are not you.

It’s a huge waste of time for all of us to for me to spend time evaluating and grading output from ChatGPT. I want to read what you think and do, not what a computer invents.

NoteMy personal stance on AI and LLMs
Many of you have asked about how I think about and use LLMs in my own work (and in the class materials). Please check this short little page where I explain what I do with text, images, code, research, and learning.

In short, I do not use LLMs to create any of the materials for this class, and I do not use them to grade or evaluate any of your work.

I’ve even had several students submit completely made up stuff for mini projects and final projects. In your final project, your job is to take a dataset, make three different plots with it, and combine the plots into one graphic that tells some sort of story. I’ve (really truly) received projects like this:

(a ChatGPT-generated plot of completely made up data from gapminder)

At a very quick glance, that looks like a plausible image. But holy crap it falls apart fast, both comically and tragically. Comically because, like, look at the y-axis in the scatterplot; or the x-axis ticks in the population grown chart that are sometimes spaced every 20 years, sometimes every 10 years, and has 1980 there twice; or the weird blobs in the map.

Tragically—and most importantly—literally nothing in this image is real and none of the annotations make sense and none of the colors make sense and everything here is completely meaningless and devoid of any information. It’s pure philosophical bullshit—an image “produced without concern for its truth.”

That’s what I mean when I say that it’s a forgetful and unreliable resource. Lots of that code is helpful as an illustration of what’s going on. Lots of the explanation is good and fine. But it subtly changed its mind halfway through and didn’t realize it (because it can’t realize it! it’s just a chain of statistically likely text!)

Hopefully you can see where this is dangerous for learning. It can often “teach” you wrong, and you can only recognize that if you know stuff already.

It’s extra dangerous if you then take that example output, paste it into your exercise, and submit it.

I’m not even concerned about the plagiarism aspect of that—code is code and there are only a few ways to write {dplyr} code that will do this, and it’s easy to adapt from real human-based examples online, so I’m less worried about stealing other people’s work here.

I’m concerned that it’s not real data.

It made up values of 1, 2, 3, and 4 for some countries to illustrate grouping and summarizing. That’s good and normal.

None of that is real. Don’t treat it as real.

Reposted by William Myers

Governor Tim Walz @governorwalz.mn.gov · 15d

Amid national economic insecurity, Minnesota just ranked as a top three state in the nation for job seekers.

That includes nation-leading job benefits, worker protections, and a diverse economy.

If you need a job, we want you here.

bringmethenews.com/minnesota-bu...

bringmethenews.com

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, David R. Miller, William Myers

Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.bsky.social · 16d

When he's finally gone, there is going to be this flood of books and tell all interviews from Republicans about how hard it was to be a Republican in Washington during this time and I am going to be galatically furious about it.

Reposted by William Myers, Seth Masket, David Darmofal

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 16d

Here with yellow checkmarks we have five examples of real things that Gavin Newsom and leading California Democrats espouse. Not a straw man.

My take is Democrats should drop these ideas, ideas that do not sound at all like economic populism to me.

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Scott L. Greer, Michael A. Clemens , and 8 more Brendan Nyhan, Scott L. Greer, Michael A. Clemens, Rosemary A. Joyce, Juan Cole, Laurent Pech, Caroline T. Schroeder, William Myers, Mark Rice, Brian Jm Quinn, Dan Immergluck

Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 19d

We have reached the point where the *American Bar Association* cannot find attorneys willing to represent them in litigation against the Trump administration.

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Trump’s orders unnerved many in the industry and appear to have discouraged some large firms from taking on cases they would otherwise have backed, lawyers say. That has dried up a formerly reliable supply of help from large law offices for people and institutions challenging government policies.

The American Bar Association, which joined or filed four lawsuits against the Trump administration, “has experienced difficulty finding previously willing law firms to represent it,” its attorneys wrote in court papers. In one case, the organization said, it was unable to join a lawsuit challenging the administration because it could not get attorneys in time.

William Myers @themyersproject.bsky.social · 20d

Semaj Morgan now tackling teammates. Epic performance. #goblue

William Myers @themyersproject.bsky.social · 22d

I think about this article way too often.

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 22d

The most Republican guy is the guy who owns the used car dealership, a tanning salon, and a boat in a place that has been economically decimated by deindustrialization

See, for instance:

William Myers @themyersproject.bsky.social · 22d

Calling senior federalism scholars.

Simon Hix @simonhix.bsky.social · 23d

We have just advertised a Full Prof position in the Political and Social Sciences department at the EUI (@eui-sps.bsky.social). Here are the details. Please spread the word, and get in touch if you have any questions.
www.eui.eu/Documents/Se...

www.eui.eu

Reposted by Scott L. Greer, Jon Green, William Myers , and 2 more Scott L. Greer, Jon Green, William Myers, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Dan Immergluck

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 22d

The most Republican guy is the guy who owns the used car dealership, a tanning salon, and a boat in a place that has been economically decimated by deindustrialization

See, for instance:

Reposted by William Myers

Kevin Reuning @reuning.bsky.social · 22d

You can also look at the shutdown assistance map here to find local places to donate to myfedbenefitshelp.com/shutdown-ass...

Shutdown Assistance Map - Resources for Furloughed/Excepted Federal Workers - MyFEDBenefits

ShareTweetSharePin0 Shares

myfedbenefitshelp.com

Reposted by William Myers

Kevin Reuning @reuning.bsky.social · 22d

If you are looking to support federal employees, one good place to donate to is the Federal Employee Education & Assistance Fund.

They are providing shutdown grants for federal employees that would be making less than $60k.

feea.org/support/

Support Us - Federal Employee Education & Assistance Fund

FEEA relies on individual and institutional donors to support our work. Learn how you can help, and see which companies and organizations contribute.

feea.org

Reposted by Cas Mudde, David M. Farrell, Steven Van de Walle , and 25 more Cas Mudde, David M. Farrell, Steven Van de Walle, Ruth Dassonneville, Mark J. Brandt, Stefan Müller, Maarten Vink, Catherine E. De Vries, Stuart Elden, Justin H. Kirkland, Rod Dacombe, Jane Green, Ingo Rohlfing, Frédéric Mérand, Tom van der Meer, Nazita Lajevardi, Bessma Momani, William Myers, Maria Abreu, Fiona Moore, Federica Genovese, Stuart J. Turnbull‐Dugarte, Tom Louwerse, Alexandra Cirone, Joost van Spanje, Tarik Abou‐Chadi, Jeroen Van Bouwel, Roman Senninger

Simon Hix @simonhix.bsky.social · 23d

www.eui.eu

Reposted by Kim L. Scheppele, Rita Rubin, Paul Davies , and 5 more Kim L. Scheppele, Rita Rubin, Paul Davies, John L. Cotter, James Goodwin, William Myers, Gerry Hassan, Timothy D. McBride

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 24d

The National Trust for Historic Preservation warned that President Trump’s planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom would “overwhelm the White House itself,” which spans just 55,000 square feet. https://wapo.st/4hmL8rC

Reposted by William Myers

Marty Lederman @martylederman.bsky.social · 24d

ICYMI: In this amicus brief I offer an alternative (to my mind, more straightforward) way to think about why Trump lacks authority to deploy the National Guard in Chicago.

www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...

www.supremecourt.gov

William Myers @themyersproject.bsky.social · 24d

Universities need to figure out how to utilize professional development opportunities to create pathways out of academia for senior, tenured people to make way for the next generation. The older we get, the less likely we see options and that’s creating a stranglehold.

jon ben-menachem @jbenmenachem.com · 24d

This is very bleak for institutional science, but as someone on the job market this cycle, I think it is kind of a blessing in disguise for people who were considering applying to PhD programs next cycle... The academic jobs just don't really exist anymore

Reposted by William Myers

jon ben-menachem @jbenmenachem.com · 24d

Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet, William Myers

Technical appreciator @whatahellofawaytodad.com · 24d

Reminder that Violent J of Insane Clown Posse has the correct response to a lot of the shitty things he said in the early days.

STEREOGUM: People my age, we talk about how we were lucky that we didn’t have social media growing up, and there’s no record of all the dumb shit we said and did. You didn’t have social media, but everything you said and did in those years is on record, and you’ve got to live with it now. That’s tough.

VIOLENT J: And the amount of gay Juggalos out there is really surprising. I think about them doing their research and getting the old records, getting excited about it, and getting their hearts broke or something, you know? I tell my daughter, “For the rest of your life, when your friends ask why your dad said that, say it’s because your dad was a fool. Don’t defend me. Say I was a fool then, but I’m not now.” There’s no excuse. I was going with the flow, and that’s the very thing we preach against — being a sheep. And that’s what I was doing.

https://www.stereogum.com/2083804/icp-interview-juggalos/interviews/weve-got-a-file-on-you/

Reposted by Steven S. Smith, William Myers

cstewartiii.bsky.social @cstewartiii.bsky.social · 25d

CEIR has released an important report on who pays for what in election administration (state or local governments). I'm sure I'm going to use this one a lot.

electioninnovation.org/research/wh...

Who Pays for Election Administration? | The Center for Election Innovation & Research

The Division of State and Local Legal Responsibilities The decentralized nature of election administration in the United States often leads to misunderstandings about who pays […]

electioninnovation.org

Reposted by Cas Mudde, Mark A. Lemley, Brendan Nyhan , and 9 more Cas Mudde, Mark A. Lemley, Brendan Nyhan, Scott L. Greer, Cathy N. Davidson, Sanford F. Schram, Adrian Daub, Brian Keegan, William Myers, Mark Rice, Daxton R. Stewart, Southern Africa

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 26d

Here's a gift link to the New York Times' coverage of the initial Tea Party rallies in April 2009 which inspired the media to treat it like a massive movement.

Check out how tiny the crowds were:

Philly: 200
DC: "several hundred"
Boston: 500
Austin: 1,000
Houston: 2,000

Tax Day Is Met With Tea Parties (Published 2009)

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, Charles West, Michael D. McDonald , and 1 more Rosemary A. Joyce, Charles West, Michael D. McDonald, William Myers

Classics & Virtues @classicvirtues.bsky.social · 26d

What a self-report.

Editor at the NYT admits to reading the world through the lense of his X feed, which makes sense of so much that comes from the NYT and other legacy media outlets (where I assume this is also a problem).

Elizabeth @tinymysteries.bsky.social · 26d

This guy was probably pretty excited when Olivia Nuzzi got hired by Vanity Fair.

Reposted by Cas Mudde, Jacob Montgomery, Joseph Schafer , and 9 more Cas Mudde, Jacob Montgomery, Joseph Schafer, Janet Murray, James Goodwin, Anne Norton, William Myers, Victor Pickard, Mark Rice, Greg Linden, Susan D. Amussen, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 26d

Reminder: We spent YEARS reading thousands and thousands of articles on the Tea Party and how it was a true expression of the American people's will, and it never mounted anything nearly as big as Saturday's No Kings rallies. [1/3]

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Anna O. Law, Lisa W. Fazio , and 9 more Joanna Bryson, Anna O. Law, Lisa W. Fazio, Ben H. Ansell, Will Jennings, Juan Cole, Smith, Aaron Sojourner, William Myers, Leah Stokes, Andrew Rudalevige, David Darmofal

Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 26d

Remember April 2009 when about 250,000 people took to America’s streets in Tea Party rallies and the media was like “oh man, the Dems are in trouble?” Approximately 28X as many people took to the streets to protest Trump yesterday. Didn’t even make the NYT front page.

Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · Apr 10

In April of 2009 I observed the Tea Party rally in Salem. As this front page story says, there were a couple hundred people there. This past weekend in Salem there were roughly 2-3000 people at the Hands Off rally. Yet the Tea Party coverage seemed to take that event far more seriously.

StatesmanJournal.com
SERVING SALEM, KEIZER
AND THE MID-VALLEY
"If you don't say anything, you're accepting it."
Mari Jensen, McMinnville resident
OUT OF MY
LOUR
WALLET
CHOICES
LIMIT GOVERNMENT
Oregon Taxpayers United
FREEDOM
gat
TIMOTHY J. GONZALEZ | Statesman Journal
Alan Grosso (center) of Happy Valley joins in chanting under the window of the speaker of the House on Wednesday during the Salem Tea Party protest at the Capitol.
Protesters slam Fed spending
Hundreds gather at Salem Tea Party to rally against bailouts, state-level taxes
BY DENNIS THOMPSON JR.
Statesman Journal
Hundreds of people uneasy over the future of their country gathered on the state Capitol steps on Wednesday to protest federal spending and state-level taxation.
Oregon State Police estimated more
SCRAP THE CODE
than 1,000 people attended the Salem Tea Party protest, which ran from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Organizers placed attendance at more than 2,000 people.
The rally was passionate but peace-ful, although many people carried handmade signs bearing stark and angry messages. A fake wooden pitchfork read "Politicians take note. We the people are about to revolt." Anoth er sign read "200+ years to build the Republic, 3 mos. to destroy it."
Many attendees said they were motivated to protest by the billions in stimulus spending and bailouts that have been doled out in recent months.
Willy Lowman of Falls City wears a label on his head that reads "Scrap the Code" at the tea party protest.
West Salem resident Steve Albin said he
came to protest federal bailouts of banks and automakers.
"They need to fail. That's what capitalism is all about," said Albin, who had a tea bag dangling from the brim
See Protest, 2A
Inside
Protesters take part in Tea Party events across the nation, Page 2A
Supporters to push for immigration reform, Page 2A
• ONLINE: See photo galleries and a video from the protest at StatesmanJournal.com.

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