. We hope that you enjoy the Orbiter and will visit often.
Inspired by PlanetPlanet's feed reader and aggregator and by Six Apart's Project Comet initiative, the Jurisdynamics Network presents the Law Blog Central Orbiter. The Orbiter aggregates the latest posts from the blogs digested on Law Blog Central. The posts are presented in reverse chronological order. The Law Blog Central Orbiter even has its own RSS feed, which you are invited to download by clicking here:
May 20, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / A Symposium on Constitutional Interpretation
May 19, 06:54 PM / Althouse / Sunrise.Write about whatever you want in the comments.
May 19, 04:33 PM / Althouse / "The San Diego mosque shooters were 'radicalized online,' cops say — as it’s revealed they wore Nazi symbols and etched racist statements on their gear...""... as they opened fire outside an Islamic Center, killing three people in the process. The two teens 'did not discriminate on who they hated,' law enforcement officials said in a press conference Tuesday, adding they had recovered over 30 guns and a crossbow in connection to the suspects. A liv...
May 19, 04:30 PM / Balkinization / Still Searching for University Democracy
May 19, 02:17 PM / Balkinization / Jan 6th as Bastille Day
May 19, 09:46 AM / Althouse / What duck?Grok insists this interesting character is a "mutt duck," the offspring of a mallard and a "fancy/ornamental duck" that some human took the liberty to release into the local environment. If you like the music Meade chose for this video, listen to more of Stephen Spencer here . He gets the lyrics ...
May 19, 09:15 AM / Althouse / It's not worth my time to keep track of the Trump/Mark Cuban love/hate relationship..."... but here they are theatrically performing the love version of whatever it is they have going, which I'm just going to assume is about self-interest and getting something that looks good done: "I want to thank the leaders of several major pharmacies and generic drug makers who are partnering w...
May 19, 08:58 AM / Althouse / "Devastating to the prosecution’s case was Mr. Fuhrman’s turn as a witness — specifically his repeated past use of a racial epithet that he initially denied having uttered.""That denial was shown to be untrue when the Simpson defense team introduced audiotapes of him using the word dozens of times. Mr. Fuhrman then acknowledged having used such language, but said it was in the context of creating a screenplay that he hoped would become a movie. Other trial witnesses...
May 19, 08:14 AM / Althouse / CNN goes wild over the incredible power of Trump's endorsement.
May 19, 07:57 AM / Althouse / Why would it have been considered good comedy to use naked "full plump butts" to celebrate Hillary's victory?Last night's "Late Show with Stephen Colbert," the first night of the last week of the show, featured various segments from over the years that were never aired. The first one is from election night, 2016, where they were prepared to gloat over Trump's defeat. Unlike the usual show, this thing wa...
May 19, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Rao's "White Power"
May 19, 12:21 AM / Balkinization / Is the New “Weaponization” Compensation Fund Lawful?
May 18, 07:14 PM / Althouse / 3 hours after the rained-out sunrise, the post-rain sun looked quite white.Write about whatever you want in the comments.
May 18, 12:54 PM / Crooked Timber / Occasional paper: St. Anthony’s TurnipMostly I leave Sunday photography to our colleague, the estimable Chris Bertram. Still, this Sunday I was walking the dog in the hills above my town. (“My town” being a modest community of a couple of thousand people in the rolling countryside of northern Bavaria.) [copyright me, yest...
May 18, 11:55 AM / Althouse / "Maybe such freaks should come to power — those who aren’t afraid of anything, who just do things — at least there are visible changes."Said Svetlana Popova-Znamenskaya, who "stayed in Vologda to establish an architecture practice where she restores wooden houses and builds furniture" and has "a showroom with a specialty coffee shop opposite the local Kremlin and the new monument to Ivan the Terrible." Quoted in "He Shut Liquor S...
May 18, 11:08 AM / Althouse / "Our investigators lost critical hours tracking down today’s shooting suspects because Austin’s City Council chose politics over public safety...."Our investigators lost critical hours tracking down today’s shooting suspects because Austin’s City Council chose politics over public safety and prevented APD from using license plate readers and other crime-fighting technology. Those cameras could have helped identify suspect… https://t.co/yp4Z...
May 18, 09:01 AM / Althouse / Equality? Ridiculous!There's no way in the world that 7 of the top 14 novels here were written by women. In fact, there's only one really great novel written by a woman in the past 200 years and that's Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchel. I'd rate it as the greatest American novel of all time. https://t.co/6OJWFjT...
May 18, 06:45 AM / Althouse / The women-empowering-women genre of political ad.This new Spencer Pratt ad may be somewhat innovative in its forthright use of AI: “You are not alone.” Yoga moms, silent majority, and a preference cascade all in one. Whether or not Angelenos elect @spencerpratt as LA mayor, he and his team are revolutionizing politics. pic.twitter.com/l4pwOSmNU...
May 18, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / JACH (Spring 2026)
May 17, 07:38 PM / Althouse / Sunrise in the rain.Write about whatever you want in the comments. The flowers are Golden Alexander.
May 17, 09:41 AM / Althouse / "[T]he foundation of Mr. Colbert’s success was something new to late night: hard-core, point-of-view political comedy.""He had developed it while contributing to 'The Daily Show' on Comedy Central. A broadcast network, steeped in the traditional 'both sides' style of Johnny Carson, was going to expect him to drop that as well as the character. CBS did; Mr. Colbert tried. It didn’t work.... The network says it dec...
May 17, 09:27 AM / Althouse / Who jumps out of bed to answer the doorbell?I'm reading this interview , in The London Times, with Tori Amos: What do you wear to bed? A slip. If I’m alone, I’ll also have, on the floor, a pair of cut-off blue jeans shorts, a Rick Owens bomber (above) and a pair of white Roxy sneakers just in case somebody rings the doorbell.
May 17, 08:59 AM / Althouse / Fear of blue and desperate clinging to "character-defining grey.""The resurfacing will dramatically and permanently transform the character-defining grey , achromatic appearance of the reflecting pool basin. The new colouration will cause the pool to resemble a large swimming pool rather than the reflective civic landscape it was designed to be, distorting the...
May 17, 06:29 AM / Crooked Timber / Sunday photoblogging: Canigou with cherries (2)
May 17, 05:50 AM / Althouse / "His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER."Said Trump, in social media, quoted in "Trump Gets Revenge Against Republican Who Voted to Convict Him" (Bloomburg). In a 3-candidate primary, Cassidy came in third, the other 2 advance to a runoff. Trump's candidate, Julia Letlow, came in first. Conceding, Cassidy said "I find that people of cha...
May 17, 05:38 AM / Althouse / "They know that American society is going to turn against them in big ways because they are the greatest and most illegitimate pirates who ever lived.""Tech is the single most powerful force that was ever arrayed against the humanities. There is a huge difference between knowledge and information, and these asinine people have taught our population that all of knowledge can be reduced to the status of information. Press a button, you got your a...
May 16, 08:46 PM / Althouse / Sunrise.Write about whatever you like in the comments.
May 16, 08:53 AM / Althouse / "Contrast the way UFO belief operates with historical celestial apparitions, such as the aerial phenomena associated with the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal...""... on October, 13, 1917. On that day, approximately 70,000 people reported witnessing a variety of celestial phenomena. The people ranged from devout Catholics to atheists and skeptics who were there to disprove the testimonies of witnesses. But the institutional church influenced the interpret...
May 16, 08:32 AM / Althouse / "The Girlbossification of AI/Reese Witherspoon, Mel Robbins, and Sheryl Sandberg are telling women to use ChatGPT or get left behind."That's a headline at The Cut. I haven't read the article (yet). I just went to AI, asked it to read the article for me, and added the prompt: "I thought 'girlboss' was a dying framework." Grok agreed with me about "girlboss." You're spot on— "girlboss" has been widely declared dead ...
May 16, 05:08 AM / Althouse / "Texas Children’s Hospital will create the nation’s first 'detransition clinic,' fire five physicians and pay the state $10 million...""... under an unusual settlement announced Friday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). The clinic would focus on providing [free] medical care to patients who had undergone gender-affirming healthcare and work toward reversing its effects, Paxton said.... The move follows an investigation th...
May 16, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Weekend Roundup
May 15, 07:31 PM / Althouse / Sunrise.Write about whatever you want in the comments.
May 15, 02:12 PM / Balkinization / Does the Appropriations Clause Have Bite?
May 15, 01:39 PM / Althouse / "A judge in Manhattan declared a mistrial on Friday after the jury in Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial was unable to reach a verdict...""... on the charge that the disgraced Hollywood producer raped an aspiring actress in a hotel room in 2013. It’s the second time a jury has not been able to reach a verdict on this charge." The NYT reports. Screen grab from the NYT: The typo has now been corrected, but I honestly thought for a se...
May 15, 01:36 PM / Balkinization / Don't Look Now, but the War Powers Resolution is Working
May 15, 12:54 PM / Althouse / "What I find funny is when people play things straight. I don’t like comedy that winks at you."Said Joe Sedelmaier, quoted in "Joe Sedelmaier Dies at 92; Ad Auteur Behind ‘Where’s the Beef?’/He directed nearly 1,000 comedic commercials, including a much-quoted spot for Wendy’s and one for FedEx featuring a manic speed talker" (NYT).
May 15, 12:47 PM / Althouse / "Around 1980, mainstream psychiatry adopted a medical model.""A new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, U.S. psychiatry’s bible of diagnoses, published that year, enshrined the change. Ever since, troubles of the mind have been viewed mostly as physiological diseases of the brain, with treatments focused largely on pharmac...
May 15, 11:45 AM / Althouse / "President Donald Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate...""... allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. The commission overseeing the compensation fund would have the total authority to hand out approximately $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to settle claims brought by anyo...
May 15, 11:42 AM / Althouse / It's mid-May, the 15th, and we see deep red columbine.Back home, it's time once again to move the avocado tree back out onto the deck. That's a big production, and I played only a small role in the process, but it was a bit more than just taking this picture:
May 15, 09:36 AM / Althouse / Xi is pulling the old chair-rigging power trip.沙发肯定是特制的，习近平座的沙发明显高过川普的沙发，而川普比习近平身高10厘米，中共在这些细节上处处用尽心机。 pic.twitter.com/qP4ifU8im7 — David Tsai/蔡慎坤 (@cskun1989) May 15, 2026 Reminds me of the time Trump confronted David Letterman. It was December 2, 1987: "How come this seat is at such a low level? You know, I'm looking at him. He's got ...
May 15, 08:49 AM / Althouse / "In one scene, a military police officer asks Jesus to produce his identification. 'I don’t have one!' Jesus says. 'I don’t have anything!' In another scene, Jesus walks on water by becoming a duck."From "Frank Stack, Painter Who Secretly Drew 'The Adventures of Jesus,' Dies at 88 For 20 years, he hid his identity behind the nom de plume Foolbert Sturgeon as he chronicled Christ’s encounters with modern-day hypocrites in comic-book form" (NYT)(gift link, so you can read more, including some ...
May 15, 08:20 AM / Althouse / Entertaining... or a dire warning against high-speed chasing?Footage released by authorities in Wisconsin shows a suspect's car go flying over another vehicle as they attempted to flee. The suspect, who is being held on multiple charges, was eventually arrested after a short foot chase, officials said. https://t.co/k49wKvl3pK pic.twitter.com/vkphFcC8s2...
May 15, 08:13 AM / Althouse / Musk, re-enjoying what the camera caught, his supreme coolness.pic.twitter.com/QMgqquoGkS — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2026
May 15, 07:55 AM / Althouse / "Honestly, before this, I had never heard of Spencer Pratt. The thing I am concerned [about] and feel about him is that I feel like...""... he’s exploiting the grief of people in the Palisades , and I just think that’s just reprehensible." Said L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, fighting for reelection and surprised by this upstart, quoted in "Karen Bass is terrible at this" (Washington Examiner). The feeling I get: View this post on Instag...
May 15, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Skorup on the Supreme Court's Korematsu Era
May 14, 07:41 PM / Althouse / Sunrise (and 5.2% moon).Talk about whatever you want in the comments.
May 14, 07:24 PM / Althouse / "Speaking just ahead of Trump, Xi... said a major question for the two countries was whether they could avoid the 'Thucydides Trap'...."I'm reading "Xi asks Trump if U.S. and China can avoid 'Thucydides Trap' at high-stakes summit" (CNBC). (That's the original headline. The headline was rewritten, perhaps to avoid mystification, as "Xi warns Trump: Mishandling Taiwan will put U.S.-China relationship in 'great jeopardy.'") You pro...
May 14, 07:03 PM / Althouse / "Applicants are not entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise.""They cannot, in any legally relevant sense, be irreparably harmed by a court order that makes it more difficult for them to commit crimes." Writes Justice Thomas, dissenting from the Supreme Court's grant of a stay in Danco Laboratories v. Louisiana , pending its disposition of a petition f...
May 14, 05:55 PM / Law & Humanities Blog / ICYMI: Robert Barsky, Clamouring for Legal Protection: What the Great Books Teach Us About People Fleeing from Persecution (Bloomsbury, 2023).
May 14, 10:20 AM / Althouse / "Reviving a political dynasty is best not left to chance.... But just hours into his Day 1 launch, the candidate abruptly announced a change of plans...""... according to three people familiar with the events. Forget dialing for dollars — Mr. Schlossberg said he needed a nap. He then effectively disappeared for the day, leaving his team reeling.... [A] group of fellow Democrats, family friends, union leaders and others with direct knowledge ...
May 14, 10:08 AM / Althouse / "Right now they’re eating a lot of sedges, which are a plant with high moisture content in it, because they’re trying to get their stomachs working again.""It’s not like they’re ferociously hungry and are looking to eat the first person that comes by." Said Andy McMullen, founder of Bearwise, "an organization specializing in bear safety training," quoted in "Black Bear Fatally Mauls Uranium Contractor in Northern Canada/The attack, at a remote uran...
May 14, 09:30 AM / Legal History Blog / The National Bankruptcy Archives
May 14, 08:56 AM / Althouse / "I understand that the job market is rough, but what is it with this lemming-like behavior where so many young people feel they need to be in NYC?""It shows a real lack of imagination. NYC is not that great; there are alternatives." "Move. Go elsewhere. Find meaning and joy in your life outside of NYC. It exists. This is a big country." "I must be the one confused …. it seems. Average student debt of $38k but move to the most expensive city...
May 14, 08:35 AM / Althouse / Well, by all means, cater to their sensitive feelings."N.Y.U. Students Object to Speaker Who Calls Their Generation Coddled." That's a NYT headline, and of course, I suspect it of being intended to provoke the kind of sarcasm I put up there in the post title. The person the students "object to" is Jonathan Haidt, who's been selected as the speaker a...
May 14, 07:39 AM / Althouse / "Bitching about a season of TV that's not even written yet....gotta love the internet."Says one comment in a Reddit thread about the HBO series "Rooster," after a line of dialogue in the first season finale episode that suggested a new narrative for one of the secondary characters. Somebody else says: "Wouldn’t be the first time a studio monitored fan reactions on Reddit and took t...
May 14, 06:04 AM / Althouse / "The US and China 'should be partners and not rivals,' President Xi has said, as he and President Trump exchanged warm words during bilateral talks in Beijing.""Trump praised his host as a 'great leader' and 'friend,' predicting that their countries would have 'a fantastic future together.' However, Xi warned the two nations could come into conflict if the Taiwan question is 'mishandled.' He told his US counterpart that 'the Taiwan question is the most ...
May 14, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Forbath and Fishkin on the New Deal, Oligarchy and the Supreme Court
May 13, 08:48 PM / Althouse / Sunrise.Write about whatever you want in the comments.
May 13, 04:23 PM / Balkinization / The Ominous Texas Ten Commandments Case
May 13, 03:26 PM / Althouse / "A group of Miami residents sued President Donald Trump, Florida officials and trustees of Miami Dade College on Tuesday over Trump’s planned presidential library...""... claiming that the college’s decision to hand over a coveted parcel of land for the project constitutes an illegal benefit for the president. The litigants — who include a current Miami Dade College student — allege that the land transfer violates the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause...
May 13, 09:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Queering Private Law Conference
May 13, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / The Fine Script: Legal Marginalia, 1100-1700
May 12, 06:06 PM / Law & Humanities Blog / Call For Papers: Law and the Humanities World (1 & 2 September, 2026, Lucerne)
May 12, 12:09 PM / Law & Humanities Blog / Martinico on Frames of Injustice: Comics as Constitutional Critique/Marcos de Injustica: Los cómics Como crítica Constitucional
May 12, 10:41 AM / Legal History Blog / LHB 15,000
May 12, 10:10 AM / Balkinization / Pardon as Contract
May 12, 09:30 AM / Balkinization / Birthright Citizenship and Apophatic Interpretation
May 12, 09:19 AM / Crooked Timber / The text is not the productAcademics, especially in the humanities, produce texts, and they teach students to produce text. This is a standard assumption, often taken for granted, and maybe not too surprising in times in which productivity is a supreme social norm. Think of the relief – by students and faculty alike – when...
May 12, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Mazzone on the Removal under the Confederate Constitution
May 11, 09:30 AM / Balkinization / The Ten Commandments Case: Constitutional Erastianism
May 11, 03:11 AM / Crooked Timber / From The People’s Bank to the Banker’s BankLast week Australia’s central bank (Reserve Bank of Australia, RBA) raised interest rates. Again. Political economists have been talking for decades about the RBA’s tendency to redistribute wealth from the bottom upwards. But now it seems most people understand that the latest interest rate rises...
May 11, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Todd and Thunder's "United States Attorneys for the District of Columbia"
May 10, 03:05 PM / Balkinization / Balkinization Symposium on Stephen Skowronek, The Adaptability Paradox-- Collected Essays
May 10, 03:47 AM / Crooked Timber / Sunday photoblogging: Pézenas, maison consulaire
May 9, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Weekend Roundup
May 8, 09:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Zhang on Statutory Interpretation and the Constitution
May 8, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Pope on Class and the Original Meanings of the 13th and 14th Amendments
May 7, 11:57 AM / Law & Humanities Blog / Gindis and Medema on Henry Manne, Pareto in the Pines, and the Origins of the Law and Economics Movement
May 7, 11:36 AM / Law & Humanities Blog / Stevens on Private Law and Statute
May 7, 08:14 AM / Balkinization / A Miscarriage of Justice?
May 7, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Gindis and Medema on the Origins of the Law and Economics Movement
May 6, 09:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Alan Rodger Postgraduate Visiting Researcher
May 6, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Federal History 18
May 5, 03:00 PM / Law & Humanities Blog / Clark on The Knowledge of the Law Is Like a Deep Well: Coke and Bonham's Case in Context
May 5, 02:52 PM / Law & Humanities Blog / Simonson and Ahmed on Legal Satire in an Age of Political Repression
May 5, 09:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Scooter Libby Trial at DCCHS
May 5, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Claussen and Meyer on the Foreign Commerce Power
May 4, 01:39 PM / Balkinization / Requiem
May 4, 09:45 AM / Legal History Blog / Funes Reviews Funk's "Law's Machinery"
May 3, 02:30 AM / Crooked Timber / Sunday photoblogging: Canigou and cherry trees
May 2, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Weekend Roundup
May 1, 12:33 PM / Balkinization / The DOL's 401(k) Rule Gets the Goals Right but the Guardrails Wrong
May 1, 11:00 AM / Legal History Blog / Blackman on Special Counsels before Watergate
May 1, 09:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Rudolph on Colonialism and Blackstone's Family Wealth
May 1, 09:06 AM / Law & Humanities Blog / Stern on Detective Fiction
May 1, 12:30 AM / Legal History Blog / Petipeti on Continuity in Congolese Constitutional History
April 28, 07:03 AM / Crooked Timber / Occasional paper: Blue Angels, Devil HandsThat’s the actual name of the paper. Isn’t that great? Here’s a prologue: a post I wrote a while back about the Portuguese Man-o’-War. (It’s kind of long — I was new to CT back then, and still figuring stuff out). To summarize: the Portuguese Man-o’-War...
April 26, 03:41 AM / Crooked Timber / Sunday photoblogging: l’Abbaye de Valmagne
April 24, 03:43 AM / Crooked Timber / On Reinforcing Cynicism in the Academy“I admire the many federal prosecutors across the country who have chosen to resign rather than carry out illegal or immoral orders. To my knowledge, no department head, dean, or other administrator at Texas A&M has taken any meaningful action to defend academic freedom.”—Martin Peterson Toda...
April 22, 04:02 PM / Balkinization / Ten Commandments webinar