Mark Joseph Stern

Again. This is the author. What are we doing here?

New York Times Opinion @nytopinion.nytimes.com

“Birthrates have fallen almost continuously for nearly 20 years,” Lyman Stone writes. “They have fallen through good economies and bad, through Republican administrations and Democratic ones, through every tax credit and child-care subsidy.”

Opinion | The Population Forecasts Are Grim. They’re Still Too Optimistic.

America is not prepared for population decline.

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

I am stunned that the constitutional question was so close. I thought it would be 6–3 or 7–2. It is profoundly disturbing that four justices would allow either the president or Congress to rewrite the plain text of the 14th Amendment. This is obviously a good outcome, but the margin is alarming.

Tomorrow at SCOTUS is gonna be like:

a. Trans athletes get screwed
b. Another campaign finance law is gutted
c. Birthright citizenship is upheld

... and we're all supposed to focus on (c) and forget about all the atrocious decisions that preceded it. Let's not, please!

Interesting choice by NYT to publish an op-ed bemoaning America’s projected population decline by a guy who’s massively racist against immigrants and compares IVF to “Nazi eugenics.”

The “pronatalists” only want more of a very specific kind of person in this country. It gives the game away.

I’ll put a finer point on it: The actual solution to our birth rate “problem” is substantially increasing immigration. Lyman Stone is a virulent racist and nativist bigot, so he rejects or ignores this solution in favor of pushing heterosexual Christian couples to reproduce more. That’s my response.

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social

Again. This is the author. What are we doing here?

Iconic line from @stevevladeck.bsky.social here in response to Will Baude’s SCOTUS boosterism www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/o...

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

Slaughter is an earthquake: SCOTUS has overturned a 90-year-old precedent that facilitated much of modern governance by granting many agencies meaningful independence from the president. Now SCOTUS crushes that independence ... for seemingly every agency except the Federal Reserve.

Just canceled my DashPass and sent this email to DoorDash. I encourage you to do the same if you support D.C. home rule. [email protected] and [email protected]

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

By far the best thing about the Great American State Fair is that DC statehood activists have infiltrated it (with official permission!) and are lobbying attendees to support their cause. I saw several MAGA tourists receiving the polite but vigorous spiel for DC statehood and it warmed my heart.

The Supreme Court strikes down Trump's attack on birthright citizenship. By a 5–4 vote, it holds that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to children born of unauthorized and temporary immigrants. Roberts and Barrett join the three liberals. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

Shorter Lyman Stone

Went to the Great American State Fair out of morbid curiosity. It’s not a total disaster, just ramshackle and kind of boring. The Temu arch is an embarrassment, as are all the weird MAGA cult displays (including a mock-up Trump passport). People working the event were nice and I felt bad for them.

The Supreme Court's first opinion is Watson v. RNC. By a 5–4 vote, the Supreme Court UPHOLDS state laws that allow the counting of mail ballots that are sent by Election Day but arrive shortly thereafter. Roberts and Barrett join the liberals. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

And by the way, it’s not an ad hominem attack to question whether NYT should publish someone who condemns an entire ethnic group as a “scourge on the republic.” It’s a fair question about why media helps launder and mainstream the views of a bigot who spreads disgusting, unapologetic racism.

We have Slaughter and Cook. By a 6–3 vote, SCOTUS overturns Humphrey's Executor and lets Trump fire heads of independent agencies. But by a 5–4 vote, it refuses to let him fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve.

www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

The food hall features literal emojis printed onto flags but be aware that almost none of these options are actually available. I promised my son pizza on the basis of that first flag and he was disappointed when we discovered there was no pizza to be had. (It’s also all insanely overpriced.)

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

Forgot this one. I’m curious why NYT thinks this kind of vile racism isn’t disqualifying for an op-ed writer. I imagine that if an author said something similarly vitriolic about, say, Lutherans, the NYT would face massive blowback for publishing them.

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

The outcome is thus:

5–4 that the Constitution protects birthright citizenship for the children of all immigrants.

6–3 that Trump's order is unlawful (because Kavanaugh says it violates a statute, NOT the 14th Amendment.) www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

And yes, clearly attendance is WAY lower than the administration anticipated. There was no line whatsoever the whole time we were there despite preparations for a long one. It’s not empty, but it’s very far from full.

A LOT of attendees were DC residents like us who were just curious to witness it.

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

The supermajority's decision in NRSC allows wealthy donors to circumvent limits on contributions to individual candidates by donating much larger sums to political parties, which can now spend the money in direct coordination with specific candidates. An open invitation for quid pro quo corruption.

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

Also just to be clear, most of those working the event were not MAGA. They were normal people helping with security, food, logistics, etc. I don’t judge them and they don’t deserve any hate. A small cadre of disproportionately white volunteers did appear to be MAGA and obviously that’s different!

Reply to @mjsdc.bsky.social

Gift link with no paywall because everybody needs to read this one after the June we just had slate.com/news-and-pol...

A Sitting Judge Just Delivered the Most Scathing Critique of This Supreme Court Term

The Supreme Court has veered so far off track that even the harshest language can feel inadequate to capture the damage wrought by its most recent term.

John Roberts handing down Slaughter and Cook together felt like a weird domination ritual in which he gets to flaunt his power to issue irreconcilable rulings that perfectly track his partisan preferences and we all just to take it because, really, who's gonna stop him? slate.com/news-and-pol...

A lie. Slaughter allows Trump to purge the heads of the MSPB and Office of Special Counsel, which protect civil servants from unlawful firings. When those agencies are paralyzed or corrupted, civil servants’ job protections become worthless. Thomas and Barrett endorsed this outcome just last month.