Joey Fishkin
Law prof @ UCLA. I study equality and oligarchy.
Most recent book @ https://anti-oligarchy.com
- This is an especially great post from @joshtpm.bsky.social. Newspapers need a better business model than "find a billionaire to subsidize me"—for many reasons, not least (as Josh argues) because they tend to give up. "Find a billionaire buyer" turns out to be the darkness in which democracies die.
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- This graph has been making the rounds and it should. It’s a horror movie in graph form. Will Americans see it, and if so, can we read it? Serious question.
- Reposted by Joey Fishkin::taps mic:: beyond being an absolutely miserable illness, measles can cause immune amnesia. It wipes out your immune systems memory of how to fight every infection, every vaccine you've ever had.
- It’s part of democracy’s immune system to continually check whether you’ve become the tyranny you rebelled against. This judicial order quoting so much Declaration of Independence—well beyond the famous first line—is part of that. Even before the biblical photo caption at the end, quite an order!
- Reposted by Joey FishkinJudge Biery signed the order with a photo of Liam and two bible verses: The first is "But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The second is simply "Jesus wept." Astonishing thing for a judge to do.
- NEWS: Judge Biery has ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Ramos. A thunderous rebuke against ICE’s violent campaign in Minnesota. Read the order below. Link: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
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- Reposted by Joey FishkinNEW: Today, we’re excited to announce the creation of the Nexus Center for Antisemitism Research (NCAR), which will work to improve the quality of research, data, and analysis available to advance the broader mission of confronting hate and promoting Jewish safety.
- Reposted by Joey Fishkin"I'm coming to Boston and I'm bringing hell with me." --Homan in February "Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely." -- Tom Homan in March "I actually thought about getting up and throwing that man a beating right there in the middle of the room" -- Homan in July, referring to a D congressman
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- Reposted by Joey FishkinLegitimately a feat of carefully calculated writing to issue a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement of this length without mentioning either (1) the people who perpetrated the Holocaust or (2) the people against whom they perpetrated it
- Bari Weiss obviously has been given lots of room by her equally novice boss to do what she wants at CBS—for now. What she can't do is get all her professional journalists to keep her various moves a secret. Amazing final line of the NYT's report from her first all-hands meeting:
- Yikes. That is a lot of expertise to lose in a short time.
- Wow. This is devastating. www.science.org/content/arti...
- Reposted by Joey FishkinICE is changing tactics in Maine: "Now, the volunteers in Maine say federal agents have started showing up at their homes and intimidating them or threatening arrest. Some of them, masked and wearing tactical gear, have issued stark warnings not to follow them." www.pressherald.com/2026/01/23/i...
- Reposted by Joey FishkinI interviewed over half a dozen ICE and Border Patrol agents who describe an agency that sounds like Reno 911! “I thought federal agents were supposed to be clean cut but some of them pass around a flask as we are watching a suspect,” one told me: www.kenklippenstein.com/p/ice-unloads
- Reposted by Joey FishkinFollowing the Kent State massacre in May 1970, a Gallup poll showed that 58% of Americans thought the shootings were justified. The night *before* the killings, Ohio's GOP governor described the student protesters this way: "They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America."
- Reposted by Joey FishkinICE has kidnapped another Indigenous person in Minneapolis. This is the fifth member of the Očhéthi Šakówinnto be taken this month. Statement from Standing Rock:
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- Wow.
- Reposted by Joey FishkinTwo weeks ago this guy announced he was providing legal help to the agent who shot Renee Good. That's how quickly the winds are shifting.
- Reposted by Joey FishkinMinnesota National Guard on why they’re giving out coffee and donuts: “It’s a demonstration of safety and security. We’re here to help.” 🥹
- Reposted by Joey FishkinI know it's hard to track all the threats to democracy out there right now, but this is at the top of the list.
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- Fixed it. Someone at the NYT needs to tell the NYT that the NYT has noticed that the Trump administration is "lying to our faces." This has enormous implications, not yet explored, for the editorial direction of the news division of the paper, especially the headline writers.
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- Old thread but same theme. The core underlying problem of our time is federal government lies. If you believe the wildly false statements of Gregory Bovino, each shooting by ICE agents is justified. And ICE agents may believe Bovino! That's why the media failures are so hugely consequential.
- What we are living in now is the America that “Fair and Balanced” built. Substituting “balanced” for “accurate” as our understanding of the job of the media turned out to be a license for goalpost-moving lies. We’re now learning there’s no built-in limit to how far the lies can go.
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[Not loaded yet] - MGP has obvious political talent, but what she's trying to do here—make sure half her response reflects a hardcore Fox News worldview, since that's where some of her voters are—results in so much lying that it's literally incoherent. She's trying to hold together an unstable alloy of truth and lies.
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- Reposted by Joey FishkinPutin pioneered this. No opposition is legitimate. Regular, decent, “ordinary” people cannot possibly be against us because only we represent “the real people.” Tell-tale sign of authoritarianism.
- Jake Tapper calls it "another incredibly idiotic story." But it's also a perfect illustration of the fact that the federal government is now being run as a messaging operation, primarily on X (& Fox News). To the president, X/Fox are the only reality that matters. The gov't now acts accordingly.
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- Reposted by Joey FishkinThe TACO cycle: Markets want to price in TACO. But TACO only works if Trump sees stocks tank. So we get a loop: Trump does things → nothing happens (markets already priced in TACO) → that emboldens him to do more → until markets start to think he might not TACO → stocks fall → TACO is restored.
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- For some reason this video really hits me. That’s a good exhibit; it’s unusual to see one so substantive in an open outdoor park. This is the right’s response to Americans taking down Confederate monuments: take down any record of slavery itself. After that they aim to put the enslavers back up.
- The exhibits about slavery at the President’s House in Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park have been removed amid pressure from the Trump admin www.inquirer.com/politics/nat...
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- Reposted by Joey FishkinI met an absolutely lovely academic who asked whether my department back home is affected by ICE -- a question dramatizing how little info is getting out. For the record, the small example I chose: My dept has a carpool to pick up grad students of color who can't safely commute to campus alone.
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- Ok! Huge news for the future of UCLA, the westside, and really all of LA: the @metrolosangeles.bsky.social board just voted, 13-0, to approve the Sepulveda Pass subway, from Van Nuys in the valley to the center of UCLA and on down the westside. It's nice to have some good news at a time like this.
- The full @metrolosangeles.bsky.social board is voting right now on the Sepulveda Pass project. There's a livestream link here. I was happy to see a bunch of UCLA students showing up to make their comments in person even though comments were limited to 30 seconds! metro.granicus.com/player/event...
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- This was a genuinely great speech.
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- Reposted by Joey Fishkin1. ICE has STOPPED PAYING for medical treatment for its 73,000 detainees ICE has not paid its bills to 3rd party providers since OCTOBER and the situation will likely persist for MONTHS, a Popular Information investigation reveals Meanwhile, critically ill ICE detainees are not receiving care 🧵
- I have no information beyond what is public, but the implosion at the National Constitution Center feels oddly evocative of the many failures of our constitutional system—which includes all manner of institutions beyond the courts—to meet this moment, at the moment.
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- Reposted by Joey FishkinLast week I asked BOP officials if they had sent tactical teams to Minneapolis. They denied it (left). Multiple agency sources told me otherwise, and photos from reporters on the ground soon confirmed BOP folks were there. Now BOP is finally admitting it (right):
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- To be clear: he is really not going to succeed in cancelling the midterms. But he is indeed interested in "exploring" this in his usual predatory, aggressive way. One important response is ridicule and pointing out his impotence.
- Trump says a lot of deranged shit, but, per this Reuters article — and the threats of invoking the Insurrection Act in Minnesota this morning — he is very clearly exploring how to cancel the midterms. www.reuters.com/world/us/fiv...
- Among moderate Dems, it seems like “cut ICE funding” would be a solid moderate position right now. Don’t reward this agency’s conduct; instead penalize it. Less of this not more. If they won’t, they are insufficiently nimble — it’s a lack of political skills as much as any ideological issue.
- Reposted by Joey FishkinHoly hell, what an obituary
- Reposted by Joey FishkinImagine doing a PhD in electricity, just so you knew how to blow up nuclear power plants and heavy water-producing facilities. “I learned from them very early that what one does with Nazis is kill them... I am not a pacifist.” A profile in absolute courage.
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- Reposted by Joey FishkinTrump says a lot of deranged shit, but, per this Reuters article — and the threats of invoking the Insurrection Act in Minnesota this morning — he is very clearly exploring how to cancel the midterms. www.reuters.com/world/us/fiv...
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