Jacob T. Levy's avatar

Jacob T. Levy

@jacobtlevy.bsky.social

7455 followers 599 following 4986 posts

Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory, Chair of Political Science, Associate member of Philosophy, Coordinator of Research Group on Constitutional Studies, McGill. Senior Fellow, Niskanen Center.

Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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This is excellent.

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Walter Olson's avatar Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social
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Now up: my thoughts on Trump v. U.S. In my view the Court majority went much too far in creating a zone of formal and practical presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. "This is not what the Framers wanted. It is not what we should want either." www.cato.org/blog/court-w...

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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It's good to have some of the treasures from the bad site restored over here. (I remember this one from 2022.)

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Philip Bump's avatar Philip Bump @pbump.com
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If the right is fighting a "second American Revolution," as Heritage's guy put it, it's worth identifying what they are rebelling against. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

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Robert Mann's avatar Robert Mann @bobmann.bsky.social
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"Jeff Landry’s shameful attack on higher education: In trying to remake the state Supreme Court, Louisiana’s governor is undermining Northwestern State University by making it a pawn in his political games," new by me. open.substack.com/pub/robertma...

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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While DOJ independence was already a dead letter for purposes of a second Trump term since Attorney General E. Trump or J. Turley or whoever will have been chosen expressly because he's willing to take orders, also worth noting that Roberts blessed POTUS telling AG whom to prosecute.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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I have no idea what the right answers are but "live with it" in this context means an increased risk of losing effective control of the Senate, with all that entails about judicial confirmations. (It's a risk not a certainty, but it means betting on Sinema and Manchin both playing nice.)

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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I'm not against doing the research, I guess, but I haven't been able to come up with "good stuff I wish the president could do if not for the pesky fact that they're crimes."

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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That's why, as I said, this would be bullshit.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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"I think they're wrong and the president shouldn't be a dictator. But if you're stuck with a dictator, do you want one who's going to use his dictatorship to overthrow elections and commit financial fraud, or one who's going to forgive student debt and fight pollution?"

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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It would be bullshit and I'm not in favor of bullshit. But I wonder about a whole raft of executive orders, including ones that have already been struck down, accompanied by the very loud messaging "the Republican Supreme Court majority says the presidency is above the law, so..."

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Pwnallthethings's avatar Pwnallthethings @pwnallthethings.bsky.social
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One big policy per week, announced in 5-10m televized mini-speeches. Tell everyone the theme and the time two days in advance. Take back the narrative

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Kevin M. Kruse's avatar Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social
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They don't even need to imagine! The individual literally named in the case is one of the worst people on the planet. He's got a track record of doing or attempting some of the worst shit imaginable. This isn't some distant hypothetical!

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Popehat's avatar Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social
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“The dissent is indulging in extreme hypotheticals” says the justice in a case of a president trying to use fraud and force to overturn an election

9 replies 48 reposts 296 likes

Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Is refusing to follow out the branches of a decision-tree, what, "neurotypical-coded"? No thank you.

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Seth Masket's avatar Seth Masket @smotus.bsky.social
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Somehow the solution to Lucas’ feeble and ham-handed political commentary was to make our political system even dumber to the point that Lucas looked smart

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Daniel Drezner's avatar Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social
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Brainstorming ways to convince lefties to vote for the Dems right down the line and I think the most persuasive message I've ginned up is, "Do you want George Lucas' prequel trilogy to be hailed as Actually Good and Prescient?!"

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Quebec kvetch: if *you're* calling *me* unsolicited for some BS reason (like the deeply dissatisfying experience of a customer experience satisfaction survey) I'm perfectly within not just my rights but basic politeness to keep speaking English at least until you've explained the call's purpose.

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Ian Boudreau's avatar Ian Boudreau @iboudreau.bsky.social
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Already feels bad, like the Trump years did, when there was no way to escape knowing horrible new things multiple times a day

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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The president pro tem. What they can’t do is add an additional tie breaking vote.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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(Right; I was going with the view that the Jones perjury isn’t a “high crime and misdemeanor.”)

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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If you can't inquire into the motive of the uses of presidential powers, you're going to have a mighty difficult time establishing "corruptly" beyond a reasonable doubt (Roberts' weaselly footnote about the public record notwithstanding).

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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"Corruptly" is an element of that offense! And it standardly involves the use of *official powers* "corruptly." Indeed for a president it's mostly what Roberts characterizes as *core* powers: fire the FBI Director, fire the AG, hold out the prospect of pardons (and then actually pardon) witnesses.

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Quinta Jurecic's avatar Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social
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let's do the seal team six hypo. president orders st6 to assassinate a political rival bc rival is a threat to national security. possible this is absolutely immune under pres's commander in chief power. if it's not, then it gets presumptive immunity (which may be absolute anyway)

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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The Roberts decision effectively constitutionalizes the ideas of the nutbar Turley-Dershowitz- Giuliani wing that even mainstream conservative legal commentators made fun of in the Trump years, like that there’s no such thing as presidential obstruction of justice.

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Brendan Nyhan's avatar Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social
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Reminder that POTUS can direct the DOJ not to prosecute the trigger puller and, failing that, pardon anyone who carries out his order and still faces federal charges. Utterly lawless.

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Don Moynihan's avatar Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social
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You can have concerns about Biden's age, but still be absolutely appalled about editorial choices that convey the issue as more important than the Supreme Court offering a pre-emptive thumbs up to a criminal presidency

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Word search for bolster . That paragraph.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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yeah, sorry— working on a laptop, which fits badly with people reading on devices.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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(Discipline of employment, of course. Part of the point is that you've still got the heart of a political theorist.)

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Yes, quite right. But some of your disciplinary colleagues seem to have *not yet* discovered, or to have built up *so* much mystifying obfuscation to stop themselves from thinking about it that they can't remember it even when they should.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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I won't keep grabbing passages, but there's *also* material in those essays that about why the degree of independence of the prosecutorial and policing agencies— DOJ, FBI— from the political executive is one of the hardest and most important problems. Roberts casually threw DOJ independence away.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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At the risk of being tiresome in reposting my own writings on the separation of powers and executive accountability, since prominent scholars are now in the news saying "habeas corpus will still be OK"— Montesquieu's insight was precisely that it won't be.

dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG....

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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POLITICAL SCIENTISTS: “I was remembering it on a daily basis”

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b-boy bouiebaisse's avatar b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie.bsky.social
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the world in which the president is throwing his opponents in jail is not a world where you can just ask a judge to let you out

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Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

Sophia McDougall's avatar Sophia McDougall @sophiamcdougall.bsky.social
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Please, everyone. It would be politically seismic, hope dawning on the broken wasteland the Tories left behind, and most importantly of all it would be so fucking funny.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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But sometimes you need a little bit of that.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Hey, you know what was a really good webcomic for a long time, though we're presumably never getting that final chapter?

Strong Female Protagonist.

It's very Obama-era-earnest— or at least our main POV character is, sometimes undercut by events.

strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-1/page...

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Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

Corey Rayburn Yung's avatar Corey Rayburn Yung @coreyryung.bsky.social
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I'm still in the Democrats need to chill the fuck out and let Biden recover camp. But, the increasing number of media stories about Biden's brain being silly putty may make that impossible. At which point, the idea that Biden is too old to win becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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And Magneto’s character arc! By the end of the Australian era, maybe by the middle of it, yea, sure, clutter. But proud for pound I’d take the five years after DPS above the five years up to and including it.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Got to disagree. The subsequent decade included the Brood, the introduction and development of Kitty Pryde, a huge long-term arc for Storm, the creation of the New Mutants, the defining character arc for Wolverine as he moved *past* That One Panel, the Mutant Massacre.

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Revan's avatar Revan @docrevan.xyz
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*Sees someone who is not able to complete a thought coherently but is extremely loud* This man is young and virile, truly a paragon of strength and cunning. *Sees someone with some joint issues with a stutter* This man is dying, it’s too late for a doctor, I’m calling the undertaker.

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Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy