matthewschafer.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

"History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for."

submitted 9 hours ago • 2442 comments

Breaking: FDA's March meeting to select flu shot strains for 2025-2026 season has been canceled per email sent to committee members, a VRBPAC member told me. drug companies need about 6 months leeway to make shots in time for fall vax campaigns. #healthpolicy

submitted 2 days ago • 446 comments

Wow: City of Clarksdale, Mississippi got a court order yesterday directing a newspaper to delete an editorial criticizing city officials -- without a hearing. Here's the TRO issuing the prior restraint:

submitted 9 days ago • 257 comments

How I'm going to start ending my law review articles...

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

As calls to revisit Sullivan grow, remember what Rehnquist said: Sullivan "altered the rules of the game of American politics, and speech ... making American public officials more accountable, the American media more watchful, and the American people better informed.” lawliberty.org/sullivan-and...

submitted 21 days ago • 2 comments

🚨🚨 WOW: While I'm glad to be cited for a critique of the Bruen test, it's pretty alarming this case holds the Second Amendment precludes criminalizing the possession of a machine gun!! Judge Reeves has been no friend of Bruen, but he's followed it to the letter. www.scribd.com/document/823...

submitted 26 days ago • 7 comments

You could see this coming www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/u...

submitted 35 days ago • 658 comments

Next stop on the intellectual history of press freedom, a 1724 first edition Collins' Discourse on Cristian Religion, one of the most influential defenses of free thinking on the colonists, esp. Franklin. "In matters of opinion, it is every man's natural right and duty to think for himself ... "

submitted 35 days ago • 1 comment

Learned today there was such a thing as the United States Emergency Court of Appeals. Feels a bit like the time I learned there was United States Court for Berlin or a Supreme Court of the Northwest Territory. There should be a law school class that lets you know about all the defunct courts.

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

Agree, this is the most worrying aspect of the opinion, although it's not clear to me whether it has purchase beyond this case. It also is in tension with Grosjean's view that "subordinate [non-speech] concerns" do not save a law where "dominant and controlling aim was to prevent" speech.

submitted 37 days ago • 1 comment

I'm against the ban, also think the Court got it wrong, also think that it's a law passed by Congress and signed by the president and should not (indeed, cannot) be reversed outright by the Executive. A bad day for the rule of law.

submitted 40 days ago • 4 comments

A good take:

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

I'm not sure about this. I think the Court got it wrong. But the Court pretty clearly suggested today's opinion was “a ticket good for one day only.” There's a lot to distinguish in the case. And, the opinion could have been written broader. Not to sound defeatist, but it could have been worse.

submitted 42 days ago • 2 comments

My new (and 10th) book. I’m really pleased with the amazing artistry of LSU Press. They do beautiful books.

submitted 45 days ago • 4 comments

Being bookmarked for rebuilding: "The Getty Center said its buildings are made of fire-resistant stone, concrete, and protected steel while its campus is surrounded by travertine plazas and well-irrigated landscaping designed to slow down the spread of fire." www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/h...

submitted 48 days ago • 1 comment

We talk a lot about different forms of diversity on the bench. The TikTok argument is highlighting the prevalence, at #SCOTUS, of folks who spent at least part of their pre-judicial careers as executive branch lawyers.

submitted 49 days ago • 9 comments

Next stop in the history of press freedom, Magna Charta! This edition from 1680 was meant to appeal to the masses, being written in English not Latin. #rbf What's important is, as Madison said, what the English omitted from it: "The freedom of the press [is] unguarded in the British constitution."

submitted 49 days ago • 1 comment

🚨 Exciting opportunity alert! 🚨 Trinity College is looking to recruit two enthusiastic Graduate Trainees, one to join our Library team, and one to be part of the Archives team. There is still time to apply before the deadline of Sunday 2nd February. For details: trin.cam.ac.uk/hr/vacancies/

submitted 49 days ago • 0 comments

Good news, friends: today Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law Ohio's first anti-SLAPP law

submitted 51 days ago • 12 comments

ICYMI, from me: "New York Times v. Sullivan made 'American public officials more accountable, the American media more watchful, and the American people better informed.'" lawliberty.org/sullivan-and...

submitted 51 days ago • 0 comments

The international version of TikTok is unavailable in China because the Chinese government heavily censors speech. Not sure if this should be the model for US tech policy.

submitted 55 days ago • 7 comments

submitted 56 days ago • 0 comments

Next stop on the intellectual history of press freedom, Sheppard's Actions Upon the Case for Slander published in 1674 when writs for defamation were numerous. It denounced what it called "the evils of the Tongue," among which it said defamation was the most "pernicious and deadly."

submitted 56 days ago • 1 comment

"King Charles should dissolve Parliament," a novel idea nobody in English history has considered before.

submitted 57 days ago • 92 comments

In many ways, the TikTok case is uninteresting insofar as it's near impossible to argue under existing precedent the law is constitutional. Really, the only question is whether the Court will apply that law, pretend to apply it and gaslight us, or actively reshape or revisit controlling precedent.

submitted 57 days ago • 0 comments

The Supreme Court's shift of interpretive authority from agency experts to federal courts is going to produce a lot of this argle-bargle, as judges with zero subject-matter expertise try to hand-wave their way toward a preferred outcome with incoherent legalese.

submitted 57 days ago • 11 comments

The Judicial Conference will not refer Justice Thomas to DOJ over alleged ethics lapses, per new letters sent to complainants. Same for similar complaint made against Justice Jackson.

submitted 57 days ago • 6 comments

I really appreciate Judge Rovner, of the 7th Circuit, calling out the lack of transparent public access to federal dockets. It is still far too difficult for litigants, the press, and the public to access court records! It's a serious problem! media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/Opin...

submitted 57 days ago • 3 comments

In the Wall Street Journal, @mchangama.bsky.social and I explain why a TikTok ban would violate America’s free speech tradition. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

submitted 57 days ago • 3 comments

Gonna get lots of hate mail for this, but the New Year means a new submission season will begin very shortly. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

submitted 58 days ago • 3 comments

NEW: Conflating violence against judges with broad criticism the court faces for its extremism, Chief Justice John Roberts ultimately sent a chilling end-of-year report today. This evening, at Law Dork: www.lawdork.com/p/john-rober...

submitted 59 days ago • 99 comments

👀

submitted 59 days ago • 0 comments

If past practice is any indication, this report will start with some random historical anecdote like... In 1847, a young law clerk in Massachusetts tripped on a tree root on the way to Court. Because of that oak, we now have the rules of evidence...

submitted 59 days ago • 3 comments

In big #GTMO news, the Court of Military Commission Review has left intact a military commission trial judge’s conclusion that Secretary of Defense Austin lacked the authority to rescind the 9/11 plea deals—denying the writ of mandamus sought by the government: utexas.box.com/s/qnno7qkzgf...

submitted 60 days ago • 7 comments

Last month, Liberty Fund hosted a forum of conservative scholars calling for (under the guise of originalism) the overturning of NY Times v. Sullivan, the Court's defining free speech case. This month, it provided space to Lee Levine and I explain how wrong they are. lawliberty.org/sullivan-and...

submitted 60 days ago • 1 comment

Last month, Liberty Fund hosted a forum of conservative scholars calling for (under the guise of originalism) the overturning of NY Times v. Sullivan, the Court's defining free speech case. This month, it provided space to Lee Levine and I explain how wrong they are. lawliberty.org/sullivan-and...

submitted 60 days ago • 1 comment