Yahya Sinwar’s and Hamas’ greatest assets are Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, and their Kahanist followers (aka racist Israelis). Likewise, Hamas and Oct 7th are manna from heaven for Smotrich/Ben-Gvir. The two extremes feed off each other.

A disquieting 🧵 from Stephen E. Sachs about the weird mix of people at Gaza protests — idealistic but ignorant students calling vaguely for the end to “the Occupation” while rubbing shoulders w/ advocates of Arab supremacy and ethnic cleansing.

RIP 12 FAR Cap. Each one of these buildings in this fine 🧵 is a fitting tombstone to mark the burial of this ‘60s travesty.

Curious to see whether Trump can succeed w/ the federalism strategy where Stephen Douglas failed. He needs political cover w/ both evangelicals and suburban voters in battleground states. Is “States’ rights” too threadbare nowadays to provide that shield? washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/…

The so-called “builder’s remedy” (in lawyer-speak, mandamus) has gotten a lot of attention lately as a way to overcome local resistance to housing. But maybe imposing damages or fines directly on recalcitrant officials would be even more effective? gothamist.com/news/a-wealthy…

Now that holiday travel is coming to a close, I feel it is safe to repost one of my favorite articles about the dysfunctions of our urban government vetocracy. politico.com/news/magazine/…

Encouraging thought on the limits of populism. “Project 2025” imagines that the GOP can change policy by replacing a few thousand GS-15s with/ Trumpistas. But running the fed gov’t requires much deeper technical competence than that, right Noah Rosenblum ? open.substack.com/pub/tracingwoo…

Few graphs better indicate the gerontocratic character of our government than this CBO display of the part of the budget that is funded by regressive payroll taxes, mostly paid by the non-elderly, funding Social Security Old Age and Medicare— i.e., people over 62.

Without taking a position on the normative question of “what counts as ‘plagiarism,’” IMHO writing boilerplate summary of existing research or legal doctrine is a tedious chore that I’d just as soon turn over to ChatGPT 4. freebeacon.com/campus/this-is…

This is embarrassingly close to my entire life, not only on Chess.com but also during the first few hours of discovering a new knock-out legal argument.

Now taking 5:1 odds that SCOTUS denies cert tomorrow on 335-7 LLC and 74 Pinehurst LLC, two “physical takings” challenges to NY’s 2019 rent stabilization statute. scotusblog.com/case-files/cas… But I’ll withdraw the offer if David Schleicher Ilya Somin tell me petitioners have a prayer.

My father, Jody Bednar, has uncovered the latest and greatest statutory interpretation issue.

Like many others, I am too emotionally wrecked by Hamas’ vicious pogrom to think about Middle Eastern policy or politics. But sometimes calm, decent policy pieces are a balm in dark times. Matthew Yglesias and Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 have provided two such pieces: slowboring.com/p/radicalizati…

Boring Prediction: The irony of GOP candidates’ denouncing Hunter for violating gun control laws will have zero effect on quantity or ferocity of said denunciations. apple.news/AqPMeSJCkTJWni…