October 2025
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“The United States is now sliding towards authoritarianism”
From my law colleague Curtis Bradley: I’m usually cautious in making assessments like this, but it now seems difficult to deny that the United States is sliding towards authoritarianism. How else can one describe, among other things, using the military to suppress dissent and punish Democratic cities and employing the Justice Department and FBI to…
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What authoritarianism looks like
ICE edition.
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In Memoriam: Andrew Lugg (1942-2025)
Professor Lugg, who spent most of his career at the University of Ottawa, where he was emeritus, was perhaps best-known for his work on Wittgenstein, although also wrote in philosophy of science and on other figures in the history of analytic philosophy. Comments are open for remembrances from those who know Professor Lugg or for…
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Here’s a creative bit of anti-Trump political theater
Here; an excerpt: So for example, let us say that New York, California, Massachusetts and Illinois declare a national emergency. The governors invite a select number of similar-minded anti-Trump states to send delegates selected either by the people or the legislature. The delegates’ job would be to draw up an inter-state compact, a declaration of…
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Journals that publish symposia on recent books?
A philosopher elsewhere writes: “I’m trying to put…comments [received on the philosopher’s recent book] together in the form of a book symposium, which would also include my replies. After learning that PPR no longer publishes book symposia — I’m not sure why — it occurred to me that it might be useful to list journals…
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On dreading the AI future
Philosopher Harvey Lederman comments; a long, but far from exhaustive, excerpt: For the last two and a half years, since the release of ChatGPT, I’ve been suffering from fits of dread. It’s not every minute, or even every day, but maybe once a week, I’m hit by it—slackjawed, staring into the middle distance—frozen by the…
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The police state comes to Chicago
Read this account of the outrageous military-style assault on a residential apartment building.
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Illinois sues to enjoin Trump’s military deployment
The complaint.
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Philosopher (and former FBI agent) Luke Hunt discusses Trump’s abuse of the National Guard for domestic policing…
…on Australian TV. Professor Hunt treads rather too lightly on the political theater dimension of all this, but perhaps that is prudent for a University of Alabama professor!
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Harvard student newspaper profiles Adrian Vermeule…
….but manages never to note that his feeble book Common-Good Constitutionalism (aptly dubbed “Twitter constitutionalism” by some colleagues) is full of jurisprudential claims that are either mistaken or unargued for. Vermeule’s repeated reference to “the classical tradition” is a reference to something that does not exist.
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On AI and the Nobel Prize in Physics
Philosopher Peter Ludlow comments.
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A government-wide impeachable offense!
Law professor Paul Horwitz comments.
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The monster child is federalizing 300 Illinois National Guard for political theater…
…in Chicago. Governor Pritzker’s statement is apt. I assume they will be used to protect ICE detention facilities, and maybe they will parade about near federal buildings in downtown Chicago. What a disgrace and what a waste of the time of Illinois National Guardsmen.
The phrase ‘Does the fact’ naturally invites howls of derision: it’s a fact that every child knows that the Japanese…