Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Number 50 at my polling place at about ten after nine.
There is only one race on the Buffalo ballot- mayor. For a long time there has been a notable logjam in local politics which started breaking up when Brian Higgins left Congress to go into show business (in mid-term- thanks for nothing Brian). We have an opportunity for meaningful change which is why I support Sean Ryan.
Friday, June 13, 2025
America has slid into a place where I am no longer comfortable describing it as a democracy. Hauling a United States Senator out of a room in irons. Arresting a judge. Raiding businesses, deporting persons illegally, dictating to academic institutions, governing by executive fiat, deploying troops to an American city to oppress dissent.... And here's the thing: the people who voted for Trump, for the most part, aren't troubled by this at all. They think it's good. Democratic values aren't the values that they care about.
For years I have told my students that American Constitutional Law is aspirational. In a way that's always been a kind of apology, a way of explaining to them that if we want things in our society to improve we all need to work at improving them. Credit where it's due, the judiciary is mostly doing good work in upholding the rule of law, but the people we are up against have weaponized due process, exploiting the rules intended to allow the orderly resolution of disputes to break things while the courts try to do their work. We are six months in, and I am not sure our institutions will survive the damage that is already done.
Thursday, June 05, 2025
