Doug Coulson
@dougcoulson.bsky.social
1.4K followers 950 following 2.7K posts
Rhetoric professor at Carnegie Mellon. Lawyer, bold wordsmith. Exploring how legal language shapes justice, identity, and power. Latest book Judicial Rhapsodies: https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/b2773z23s
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Reposted by Doug Coulson
lincolnproject.us
Argentina. Qatar. Trump is selling out America, piece by piece. Where did America First go?
Reposted by Doug Coulson
decervelage.bsky.social
Although Karloff and Lugosi are still household names, few sadly remember Todd Slaughter, England’s first cinematic horror icon.
Reposted by Doug Coulson
aricohn.com
Some weirdo on Twitter has been absolutely melting down for like 36 straight hours because I posted:

When this is over, do not forget what ICE did, and what ICE is. And do not make room for them in society. Make sure they know that they are, and will continue to be, reviled and beneath contempt.
Reposted by Doug Coulson
clayjak.substack.com
and if you’re a doj lawyer making bad faith representations to federal judges everyday you deserve to be disbarred
kenwhite.bsky.social
Also: if you work for ICE, even if you’re not one of the ones arresting citizens or tackling 15-year-olds or zip-tying kids together and segregating them by race, you’re part of the mechanism making it happen, and you should suffer long-term social and post-regime-change consequences.
aricohn.com
Some weirdo on Twitter has been absolutely melting down for like 36 straight hours because I posted:

When this is over, do not forget what ICE did, and what ICE is. And do not make room for them in society. Make sure they know that they are, and will continue to be, reviled and beneath contempt.
Reposted by Doug Coulson
jamellebouie.net
really striking the degree to which not a single person working in the trump administration appears to be interested in serving the american people
Reposted by Doug Coulson
bogleg.net
This would be very French and very effective.
piperformissouri.bsky.social
Soybean farmers should dump their beans on Capitol Hill…
Reposted by Doug Coulson
wyattprivilege.bsky.social
Trump to China: obey my command or I will destroy the United States
Reposted by Doug Coulson
Reposted by Doug Coulson
ndrew.bsky.social
every single tech idea is like “soon our robots will be capable of playing catch with your kid, freeing you up to spend more time working on your employers’ spreadsheets”
Reposted by Doug Coulson
phillewis.bsky.social
A lawsuit alleges a Black postal worker died after officers ignored clear signs he was suffering from a massive stroke, believing his medical emergency was drugs

The suit says guards left him helpless on a jail cell floor in his own urine for hours
KARE 11 Investigates: Postal worker died after police mistook stroke for drug impairment
Kingsley Bimpong was jailed instead of hospitalized; video shows guards ignored his suffering for hours.
www.kare11.com
Reposted by Doug Coulson
Reposted by Doug Coulson
andreapitzer.bsky.social
The autocrat's toadies destroy functioning governance and launch crisis after crisis in order to create a nation that runs on patronage in which he's the only one able to do anything for anyone.
Reposted by Doug Coulson
berlinbridge.bsky.social
I remember sitting in a room listening to Scholz advisor Wolfgang Schmidt blather that Germany couldn’t possibly send Ukraine tanks because there’d be German iron crosses painted on them and then Russia would say Germany was at war with Russia.
We’ve come a long way.
We can and must go further. 🇺🇦🇩🇪💪
Reposted by Doug Coulson
davidcorn.bsky.social
I am old enough to remember when Trump said he would lower grocery prices on Day One.
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
A rare admission from the administration that policy choices have knock-off effects.

In this case: immigration crackdowns raise your grocery bill.

@washingtonpost.com
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
Reposted by Doug Coulson
walterolson.bsky.social
New from me at Cato: I go through the numerous and massive First Amendment and academic-freedom violations of Trump's proffered "compact" with universities and then talk about the mechanism by which it would be enforced, by way of what I describe as a "retroactive push-button guillotine."
Universities Must Defend Their Independence by Rejecting Trump's "Compact"
The Trump administration has proffered a “compact” to universities that would require them to surrender their independence and academic freedom. How many First Amendment violations can we identify in ...
www.cato.org
Reposted by Doug Coulson
mjsdc.bsky.social
I think we need to be crystal clear about how Trump's creation of a nationwide police force—loyal only to him—threatens to create a feedback loop of lawlessness in which our constitutional right to dissent may vanish. slate.com/news-and-pol...
It is now beyond debate that one of Donald Trump’s key goals is the creation of a national police force that is loyal to him alone. To that end, the president has repeatedly federalized the National Guard—often over governors’ objections—and deployed troops to invade blue cities whose residents oppose his administration. He has also transformed Immigration and Customs Enforcement into a kind of secret police that targets, with especially sadistic brutality, journalists, protesters, and others exercising their First Amendment rights. Trump’s multifaceted attack on the Constitution creates a feedback loop of lawlessness: He first erodes the structural limits on his authority, then exploits his newly unchecked power to trample the people’s freedom to dissent.
Reposted by Doug Coulson
mjsdc.bsky.social
Washington Supreme Court Justice Mungia has an extraordinary opinion condemning "the underlying racism and prejudices that are woven into the very fabric" of SCOTUS opinions about Native people.

"We must clearly, loudly, and unequivocally state that was wrong.”
www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf...
MUNGIA, J. (concurring)—I concur with the majority’s opinion.1
 And yet I
dissent. Not from the majority’s opinion, but I dissent from the racism embedded in the
federal case law that applies to this dispute.
FEDERAL INDIAN LAW IS A PRODUCT OF THE RACIST BELIEFS ENDEMIC IN OUR SOCIETY
AND OUR LEGAL SYSTEM
While it is certainly necessary to follow federal case law on issues involving
Native American tribes and their members, at the same time it is important to call out that
the very foundations of those opinions were based on racism and white supremacy. By
doing this, readers of our opinions will have no doubt that the current court disavows, and
condemns, those racist sentiments, beliefs, and statements. Since the founding of our country, the federal government has characterized
Native Americans as “savages”: They were “uncivilized.” They had little claim to the
land upon which they lived. At times, the federal government attempted to eradicate
Native Americans through genocidal policies. At other times, the federal government
employed ethnic cleansing by forcibly removing children from their parents’ homes to
strip them from their culture, their language, and their beings.2
Federal Indian case law arises from those racist underpinnings.
The majority correctly cites to Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1, 8
L. Ed. 25 (1831), which is one of the foundational cases involving tribal sovereignty.
That opinion is rife with racist attitudes toward Native Americans. Chief Justice John
Marshall, writing for the majority, describes a tribe’s relationship to the federal
government as one of “ward to his guardian.” Id. at 17. In effect, the opinion presents
tribal members as children, and the federal government as the adult. That theme would
follow in later opinions by the United States Supreme Court—as would the theme of
white supremacy.
Cherokee Nation began with the premise that Native American tribes, once strong
and powerful, were no match for the white race and so found themselves “gradually
sinking beneath our superior policy, our arts and our arms.” Id. at 15. The white man
was considered the teacher, the Native Americans the pupils: Meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United
States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.
Id. at 17.
This characterization of superior to inferior, teacher to student, guardian to ward,
was repeated in later United States Supreme Court opinions.
In Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 23 S. Ct. 216, 47 L. Ed. 299 (1903),
often characterized as the “American Indian Dred Scott,”
3
the Court used that rationale to
justify ruling that the United States could break its treaties with Native American tribes.
These Indian tribes are the wards of the nation. They are communities
dependent on the United States. Dependent largely for their daily food.
Dependent for their political rights. . . . From their very weakness and
helplessness . . . there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power.
Id. at 567 (quoting United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 383-84, 6 S. Ct. 1109, 30 L.
Ed. 228 (1886)).
Our court also carries the shame of denigrating Native Americans by using that
same characterization: “The Indian was a child, and a dangerous child, of nature, to be
both protected and restrained.” State v. Towessnute, 89 Wash. 478, 482, 154 P. 805
(1916), judgment vacated and opinion repudiated by 197 Wn.2d 574, 486 P.3d 111
(2020).
3 See A Returning to Cherokee Nation, Justice William Johnson’s separate opinion was
less tempered in how he considered the various Native American tribes:
I cannot but think that there are strong reasons for doubting the
applicability of the epithet state, to a people so low in the grade of
organized society as our Indian tribes most generally are.
Cherokee Nation, 30 U.S. at 21. Native Americans were not to be treated as “equals to
equals” but, instead, the United States was the conqueror and Native Americans the
conquered. Id. at 23.
In discussing Native Americans, Justice Johnson employed another racist trope
used by judges both before and after him: Native Americans were uncivilized savages.
[W]e have extended to them the means and inducement to become
agricultural and civilized. . . . Independently of the general influence of
humanity, these people were restless, warlike, and signally cruel.
. . . .
But I think it very clear that the constitution neither speaks of them as states
or foreign states, but as just what they were, Indian tribes . . . which the law
of nations would regard as nothing more than wandering hordes, held
together only by ties of blood and habit, and having neither laws or
government, beyond what is required in a savage state.
Id. at 23, 27-28.
This same characterization was used by Justice Stanley Matthews in Ex parte KanGi-Shun-Ca (otherwise known as Crow Dog), 109 U.S. 556, 3 S. Ct. 396, 27 L. Ed. 1030
(1883). Justice Matthews described Native Americans as leading a savage life.
Reposted by Doug Coulson
ifccenter.bsky.social
Artfully combining modern and archival footage, dramatic readings from George Orwell’s diary, and interviews, Raoul Peck’s ORWELL: 2+2=5 is “a vital film,” raves The Hollywood Reporter

A fulsome and eerie portrait of modern literature’s greatest oracle. Now playing!
ifccenter.com/films/orwell...
Reposted by Doug Coulson