John Gaffney
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John Gaffney
@jfpgaffney.bsky.social
Old guy. Seems that I am busy doing something close to nothing. Incredibly unfazed by immobile escalators.
Reposted by John Gaffney
Exactly. And they will have no idea until we face a true test, and are surprised that we are utterly alone.
There is one striking incoherence in the text: the document is all about America first.

But the very same document lists America’s “network of alliances” & “unmatched softpower” as assets, and speaks about “collective defence”.
If the US does what it describes in the doc, it will lose all that.
December 7, 2025 at 5:59 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
It’s also plainly absurd that someone just happened to discover the true meaning of the common law that just evaded everyone else for 800 years in a few weeks of work. I don’t even know what to do with that.
the idea that a handful of conservative legal scholars have an understanding that should supersede a settlement affirmed my generations of american is astoundingly arrogant, and the idea that trump — or any president — can unilaterally overturn that settlement is just despotism
December 7, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Reposted by John Gaffney
This is where originalism is really spiritually aligned with straussianism—you, the clever contemporary scholar, are capable of uncovering the true hidden meaning that for centuries has eluded all those other chumps
It’s also plainly absurd that someone just happened to discover the true meaning of the common law that just evaded everyone else for 800 years in a few weeks of work. I don’t even know what to do with that.
the idea that a handful of conservative legal scholars have an understanding that should supersede a settlement affirmed my generations of american is astoundingly arrogant, and the idea that trump — or any president — can unilaterally overturn that settlement is just despotism
December 7, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by John Gaffney
On Aug 24, 1869, Ohio Rep. John Bingham, principal framer of the 14th amendment, gave a remarkable speech on “Equal Rights-Impartial Suffrage,” in which he said of those who sought to reject the principal of birthright citizenship, “no greater political atrocity than this can possibly be committed.”
December 7, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by John Gaffney
One Laptop Per Child, 10 years later: "we find no significant effects on academic performance but some evidence of negative effects on grade progression... computer access significantly improved students’ computer skills but not their cognitive skills" www.nber.org/papers/w34495
Laptops in the Long Run: Evidence from the One Laptop per Child Program in Rural Peru
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
December 7, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by John Gaffney
It could take decades to recover from where we are.
My teen, who had dreamt of being an astrophysicist, just told me he wants to go to law school because, “Science isn’t going to be a priority in the US in the future…I don’t want a job where I’ll be constantly worried my funding will be taken away.”

Gutting. How many future scientists have we lost?
December 7, 2025 at 5:49 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
There is one striking incoherence in the text: the document is all about America first.

But the very same document lists America’s “network of alliances” & “unmatched softpower” as assets, and speaks about “collective defence”.
If the US does what it describes in the doc, it will lose all that.
December 5, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
they hate music, they hate art, they hate artists, they hate pop, they hate the video games they play, they hate the movies they watch, like, they're just all the worst fucking people you've ever met, none of them believe in anything
December 6, 2025 at 3:43 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
Predictably there's some very poor legal history being published today. Almost none of it notes that birthright citizenship was already settled federal law before the 14th A was written. From the Civil Rights Act of 1866: "all persons born in the United States and not subject to any
foreign power...
December 6, 2025 at 4:07 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
It happened again: The Trump administration has admitted illegally deporting a man to Guatemala despite an immigration judge's order that he was likely to be tortured there.

A judge has ordered the administration to facilitate his return by next week.storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
December 6, 2025 at 2:54 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
“She showed up as scheduled, and when she arrived, officers were asking everyone what country they were from, and if they said a certain country, they were told to step out of line and that their oath ceremonies were canceled.”

www.wgbh.org/news/local/2... @gbhnews.bsky.social
Immigrants kept from Faneuil Hall citizenship ceremony as feds crackdown nationwide
Trump administration is pausing naturalizations for immigrants from 19 countries.
www.wgbh.org
December 5, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Reposted by John Gaffney
If you want a read about the recent anti-constituonal attempt to denaturalize American children from their claim to birthright citizenship using bad history, @evanbernick.bsky.social, @gowder.io, I wrote about it in the Cornell Law Review Online. publications.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawreview/wp...
December 5, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Reposted by John Gaffney
Pirro said the pipe bombing suspect had "not a lot of social media". She should call me, because I have now found his: Twitter, Tumblr, Soundcloud, YouTube channel, songs he made on YouTube, Steam, and about five fanfic and gaming forum accounts.
December 5, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Reposted by John Gaffney
another chosen grifter has gone through the riley gaines industrial complex
December 5, 2025 at 7:51 PM
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Rep. Grijalva says she was pepper-sprayed by ICE
December 5, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Reposted by John Gaffney
If anyone cares at all, EV battery recycling is now hitting 99% recovery for important metals

Please remind me again what the recycle rate for fossil fuels is

interestingengineering.com/energy/recyc...
New recycling tech recovers nearly pure nickel and cobalt from old EV batteries
Researchers have developed an eco-friendly recycling tech that extracts 99 percent pure nickel and cobalt from waste batteries.
interestingengineering.com
December 5, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
Life during wartime in New Orleans as feds terrorize Latinos who saved a city www.inquirer.com/opinion/new-...

Story by Will Bunch, worth reading.
Life during wartime in New Orleans as feds terrorize Latinos who saved a city | Will Bunch
The first day of long-feared federal immigration raids across Greater New Orleans exposes the Big Lie of mass deportation.
www.inquirer.com
December 5, 2025 at 6:38 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
December 5, 2025 at 6:50 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
Mitch McConnell wrote this in 1970 and I think it’s reflective of the Republican approach to the judiciary in all the years since.
August 20, 2025 at 4:55 PM
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a lovely obituary but this in particular really got me
December 5, 2025 at 5:05 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
As I’ve been saying, he is fundamentally not being serious.

He’s serious about taking your money.
The President of the United States is trying to throw Mark Kelly in prison and Mark Kelly's response is to confirm judges who have committed to putting him in prison
11 Senate Democrats just voted to advance the nomination of a Federal Society judge who used to defend banks and payday lenders:

Durbin
Gallego
Hassan
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
King
Klobuchar
Reed
Rosen
Whitehouse
December 4, 2025 at 7:44 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
The President of the United States is trying to throw Mark Kelly in prison and Mark Kelly's response is to confirm judges who have committed to putting him in prison
11 Senate Democrats just voted to advance the nomination of a Federal Society judge who used to defend banks and payday lenders:

Durbin
Gallego
Hassan
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
King
Klobuchar
Reed
Rosen
Whitehouse
December 4, 2025 at 4:14 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
Democratic politicians need to stop accepting Trump’s white nationalist premise that immigration is bad and proudly and loudly make a positive case for why America’s identity and history as a nation of immigrants is so important.
December 4, 2025 at 1:14 AM
Reposted by John Gaffney
That arc toward justice won't bend itself
January 27, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by John Gaffney
This is the entirety of his bio on the official Vandy roster
December 4, 2025 at 2:59 AM