Patrick Schmidt
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pdwschmidt.bsky.social
Patrick Schmidt
@pdwschmidt.bsky.social
Political scientist @MacalesterCollege: American law, comparative and historical constitutionalism, architecture, and...just curious about everything. Moot Court coach. Rarely refuses an opportunity for a dad joke.
This from reddit:
January 18, 2026 at 7:22 PM
This is a great thread. Here are some critters from the Minnesota Zoo (admittedly, suburban Apple Valley) and lovely Macalester College in St. Paul.
January 18, 2026 at 5:45 AM
I had to look up the news, and wow, People wasn't going to go with any feigned "respect for the deceased" stuff.
January 13, 2026 at 4:46 PM
January 13, 2026 at 3:17 PM
A look at one thing that can happen when conservative governments build bullshit arches.

(Photos I took in Skopje during the "Colorful Revolution" of 2016.)
December 31, 2025 at 5:13 PM
How I'm walking out of 2025.
December 30, 2025 at 4:32 AM
You mean, Vanity Fair, that famously reliable news organization, may have been mistaken?
December 19, 2025 at 2:53 AM
The tree is ready.
December 14, 2025 at 11:24 PM
December 5, 2025 at 6:22 PM
November 27, 2025 at 9:13 PM
One way to research this CNN article would be to interview the half dozen people I saw, earlier this month, drinking beers at the Quaker Steak 'n Lube in Cleveland-Hopkins Airport at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning.
November 25, 2025 at 5:04 PM
I'm so amused by the shit that Google AI produces that I haven't turned it off.

Here, a search for "all-girl high schools in St. Paul" turns up as the "main" result...a school that closed in 1971. :-)
November 21, 2025 at 3:37 PM
I think they released a new movie in the Halloween franchise? Something about a clown who terrorizes fishermen. At least, I saw this movie poster:
October 26, 2025 at 4:16 AM
Here's an example today in which @ktoropin.bsky.social decides to start with Hegseth's bad-faith explanation and go on to frame the rest of the article in terms of Tren de Aragua and a drug crackdown. This is the media-as-gullible-tool kind of stuff. Wake up.
October 24, 2025 at 5:45 PM
The image that he's holding immediately reminds me of the 1789 Estates General. Any similarity to Versailles must be purely coincidental.
October 22, 2025 at 9:41 PM
October 7, 2025 at 6:57 PM
"Hey, it's your friend, Jair. If I'm in prison, you should be, too. We can hang out together."
October 3, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Medbeds? I want a bacta tank, thank you very much.
September 28, 2025 at 4:12 AM
The bluntness here will draw some attention, but to be fair, Antonin Scalia told us this about Clarence Thomas twenty years ago already.
September 26, 2025 at 3:10 AM
Smdh at the historically illiterate things that get published, such as this WaPo headline. As if a state legislative leader hadn't been killed just months before! Not to mention the deep, continuing history of American political violence. See the thread below for a corrective.
September 12, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Get this: The Supreme Court Historical Society writing competition for teens (13-19) on the theme of "The Rule of Law" has a trio of judges, including the 5th Circuit's James Ho.

Wouldn't it be wonderful for him to get to read very thought-provoking entries? Poetry allowed (50 to 1000 words)!
September 11, 2025 at 1:40 PM
The NYT writer of this story about the tragic murder of a child in Texas apparently had a sheltered childhood, and knew only to give credit to TikTok for popularizing a game that was popular in my neighborhood in the 1970s.

And, for the record, it's "Ding Dong Door Ditch".
September 2, 2025 at 9:12 PM
"I see, soldier, that you fought valiantly in the great Chicago campaign."
August 24, 2025 at 3:28 AM
If the Right can't stop Cracker Barrel's wokeness, who knows how bad it could get?! Perhaps they'll even lose Colonel Sanders from the chicken bucket.
August 22, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Yes, it's bad text. But we're beyond a little tinkering now. Texts without norms produce nothing.
August 21, 2025 at 2:57 PM