Any day now it’ll be “A lot of people are saying the 14th amendment wasn’t even ratified. I’ve got some very smart people looking into it.“

Wait what? Looking fwd to the Oakland show this summer

when he’s good, he’s really good. We need him to be really good tonight

Teardrop - the slow keyboard part

One of the world’s best roads

He almost certainly benefitted from his law school's diversity program. They don't get many applicants from his demographic as he would have described it in his essay. Guessing that was an early draft of Hillbilly Elegy and that'd be catnip for the committee

Birthright Citizenship - the Civil War casts a long shadow Thoughts on the Supreme Court oral argument

My reaction to the oral argument on Birthright Citizenship. I kept waiting for one of the Justices to ask, “So those children held in ICE custody—is it your position they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States?”

Then why are we here?
brianjayjohnson.substack.com/p/birthright...

Massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration Budget proposal would also curb federal payments for scientific publishing.

For the second year in a row, President Trump is proposing to cut the budgets of major U.S. science agencies. Under the proposal, military spending would increase 44%. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Anyone have a gift link ?

That's definitely an editor with a sense of humor winking at the NYT house style. And it perfectly matches the article's tongue in cheek style. Respect ->

Both could be true, though. Maybe it's just a failure of imagination. When was the last time the reality behind the scenes wasn't even weirder and more extreme than what you might have guessed?

It's also an argument that was made by the government in Wong Kim Ark. It didn't work then and shouldn't work now.

I wrote about California's 1867 election and birthright citizenship because it's timely, but also because more people should understand this history. I've been asking around and no one even knows CA rejected the 14th Amendment. I didn't -- until I started researching this. Thanks @calmatters.org

To keep your interview at a manageable length, you had to fast forward through this history as you moved from the amendment to Chinese Exclusion. I wrote it before I heard the interview but it works as an extension of what you said for any of the listeners who want to hear more.

Opinion | How California immigrants, 19th century racism shaped US views on birthright citizenship The 14th Amendment and some Congressmen's racist views on immigrants shaped prior Supreme Court reasoning that people born here are citizens.

BTW I spent the winter reading everything I could about California's rejection of the 14th Amendment, which I only learned very recently. I wrote about the 1867 election as evidence of the original public meaning. calmatters.org/commentary/2...

It was a great interview - can't wait to read the book!

"The original public meaning of the 14th Amendment should be clear to any originalist judge. It was clear enough to end the careers of the amendment’s supporters and to trigger a backlash that shaped the country’s immigration policy for generations to come.”

I wrote that some of the justices would say they look to the "original public meaning" of the text. California’s largely forgotten 1867 election reveals the answer.

Wong Kim Ark's departure statement, in which white citizens attest to his birth in San Francisco

I published a Commentary in CalMatters about how California’s 1867 election proves the originalist meaning of the Citizenship Clause ahead of tomorrow’s Supreme Court oral argument about birthright citizenship.

calmatters.org/commentary/2...

Americans Are Now a Target in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown A WSJ investigation tracked the U.S. citizens caught in the crosshairs of an aggressive federal campaign to detain and demonize dissenters.

Gift link:
www.wsj.com/us-news/immi...

Does she get to keep the costumes?

This guy again. He was also convicted for poaching a rare strain of steelhead trout

I mean the starting five was Santos, Post, Moody, Pat Spencer, and Podz. I love all those guys - they have a lot of heart - but the Hampton Five they are not

How the National Park Service Is Deleting American History

A sign at California's Muir Woods National Monument explaining that redwoods soak up planet-warming greenhouse gases has been removed by the Trump administration. One of many ways the National Park Service is now silencing science and history: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/23/c...

Only a small segment of the public votes on “issues,” or even thinks about the world that way. Those people are over-represented in the media (and also among professional advocates and campaigners).

Love that dude. He was playing so well too

Acceleration of enshittification cycle.

It was supposed to get better first.

The Endangered Species Act Meets the Klamath River Basin - Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West Jacques Leslie is the author of Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment, winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for its “elegant, beautiful prose....

New ESA and Klamath from @jacquesleslie.bsky.social
dornsife.usc.edu/icw/2026/01/...

Turns out Common Sense still has a lot to say—about tyrants and gangsters, representative government, religious freedom, wealth, political equality and the universal rights of humankind. And that famous quote. I created an excerpt sheet open.substack.com/pub/brianjay... but read the whole thing

In a band named for the Hofstadter article which you raally should read harpers.org/archive/1964... and Peter Holsapple on guitar, the effect is like a Beltway Jenny Lewis fronting the dBs. Right up my alley.