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John M. Baker

@jmbmn.bsky.social
388 followers 471 following 571 posts

Minneapolis attorney, advocate for planners, lover of old movies, refugee from Musk's mayhem, who rescues from obscurity fascinating people.

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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
When raising three once-toddlers, our label for the highest form of overacting during a meltdown was "death scene from Camille."
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
In the 1930s through 1954 Iowa voters did an admirable job of voting out incumbent U.S. Senators who failed to protect their interests, regardless of the perks that seniority might have brought. The test for whether to re-elect a nonagenarian shouldn't be whether other nonagenarians are even worse.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Murdoch is doing this to try to save Trump from Trump. If you're not broadcasting it, it's easier to spin it and sanewash it, and to serve up a version of it that is just as misleading as AG Barr's executive summary of the Mueller Report was.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Eddie might have mentioned the MOST famous climactic scene in a movie filmed at Pointe Dume off Malibu - which includes a cameo appearance by the Statue of Liberty. #TCMParty
static.klipy.com
Speedball Planet Apes: Statue of Liberty Reveal
ALT: Speedball Planet Apes: Statue of Liberty Reveal
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Zuma in Malibu? 20 years later, they might encounter Neil Young recording his 1975 album "Crazy Horse" in a studio there. #TCMParty #NoirAlley #Loophole.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
If Trump were emotionally capable of finding reverse gear, this would be a whole lot different presidency.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This year's GOP scripture reading is from the book of John Hay (Lincoln's secretary and Teddy Roosevelt's Secretary of State), explaining why the (future) Lincoln Memorial should stand alone and not be crowded by other structures.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
It sounds uncomfortably close to what Hitler and Albert Speer built as "Flaktrum" towers in their capital city of Berlin, except in those places the guns were pointed up, not down. youtu.be/7UUiDaJeQqw?...
youtu.be
Inside Hitler's Berlin Flak Tower | American Artifact Episode 199
YouTube video by The History Underground
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Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Back in Trump 1, my EP and I used to spitball every now and then on the first question I'd ask Trump. We settled on "how do tariffs work?"
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This pic calls to mind this verse from Stage Fright: "I've got fire water right on my breath And the doctor warned me I might catch a death. Said, 'You can make it in your disguise, Just never show the fear that's in your eyes.'"
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Nichols was picked to direct it in 1964, and (after a casting stage that seemed to include consideration of everyone important or promising) did not begin filming until April 1967. That's why it feels more like something before the hippies and the generation gap. It was dated from the start.
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Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Something weirdly not noted in a lot of the coverage of the extortionate threats to murder the Kennedy Center unless it’s reimagined as a shrine to Trump: There was no dire fiscal crisis until Trump’s goombahs started mucking with it. Its finances were fine. projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/o...
projects.propublica.org
John F Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica
Since 2013, the IRS has released data culled from millions of nonprofit tax filings. Use this database to find organizations and see details like their executive compensation, revenue and expenses, as...
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
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Joe Dudek @joedudekjd.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Son of a gun.
Lucy and Charlie Brown. Lucy is placing the football and says "Don't worry; they wouldn't just silently overrule an entire doctrine on the shadow docket again."
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
If the GOP loses its majority (including tiebreaker Vance) in the Senate, watch for a rush by Justices Thomas and Alito to resign in the hope that young clones can be confirmed before Dems can defeat them.
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 31/08/2026
Laughed out loud at the section of the Supreme Court opinion upholding Trump's ballroom that's like, "And would you doubt the veracity of these SWORN DECLARATIONS that the ballroom is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY from a BUNCH OF PEOPLE WHO ARE IN TRUMP'S CABINET???" www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...
marks omitted)).
Nor is that all. The government has also presented dec-
larations from the Director of National Intelligence, the Di-
rector of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Director of the United
States Secret Service, and the Secretary of State, the Sec-
retary of Homeland Security, and the Secretary of the
Army, among others, attesting to national security and
other harms that would likely arise from enjoining a “sin-
gle, coherent” project that cannot be readily cleaved into
distinct below- and above-ground pieces. See, e.g., App. to
Application 229a, 246a–247a, 397a–398a, 426a–429a,
431a–433a, 437a–439a. The Secretary of the Army, for ex-
ample, represents that “[t]he height and mass” of the
planned above-ground ballroom are “crucial” to shield the
planned underground military installation “from kinetic
impacts,” and that, without such height and mass, “engi-
neers would need to dig impractically deep.” Id., at 247a
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
They are so stupid.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
It's interesting that the diminutive bettor in #Gilda who's involved in the Tungsten monopoly ploy, and tried to shoot one of the leads, is uncredited. He was, in fact, uncredited in his first dozen movies, until a Ford's Television Theatre in 1954 identified him as Saul Martell. #TCMParty #SUTS
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Njal's Saga was an undergrad Narrative Lit assignment that bolstered my fascination with law. Pollack and Maitland was next, and the rest is legal history.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
The phrase "Timothy Eugene Scott" does not appear any book or periodical scanned by Google in its vast database for the most recent period whose data was included in Google Ngram (that its, before 2023).
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
I just couldn't take #CloseToMyHeart, period. Evil social worker, adoptive dad who is too close to an eugenicist, and a soap opera quality plot. #TCMParty
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
The musical version of "Remains of the Day" never made it out of London's West End.
static.klipy.com
Stevens: I Understand Fully
ALT: Stevens: I Understand Fully
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Only in the eyes of someone who didn't experience Bob Commings' final seasons. I was there in the summer of 1979 when Coach Fry ditched Commings' yellow helmets with a cursive "Iowa," in favor of the now-iconic "tiger hawk." The rest is history.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Don't dou that.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Someone who knew better than me identified this as Neo-Jacobean. www.google.com/books/editio...
google.com
Nineteenth Century Home Architecture of Iowa City
Newly expanded with over twenty new houses and twenty-five new photographs—plus a map that allows readers to explore Iowa City's historic neighborhoods! This silver anniversary edition of Margaret Key...
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
What can go wrong when someone builds a delicate Queen Anne on a street that becomes sorority row for a major Big Ten university. The creator of Bloom County copied it - but disliked its amalgam of styles in the 1980s iteration of it. www.zillow.com/homedetails/...
zillow.com
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
This is the second story today that suggests Rubio's State Department has replaced the experience foreign-service civil servants he laid off with GenAI bots. Only a bot guzzling stuff from X and the dark web would put the Ivory Coast on the wrong side of Africa and tariff a fictional nation.
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Asha Rangappa @asharangappa.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
For this week's Substack, I wrote about the phenomenon of "gradual escalation" as illustrated by the Milgram experiment, and why we are already well into the high-voltage shocks asharangappa.substack.com/p/will-todd-...
asharangappa.substack.com
Will Todd Blanche Get Confirmed? Ask Stanley Milgram
What the psychology behind "just following orders" tells us about changing course once you've already started down the wrong path.
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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
In his 2004 book, The Anatomy of Fascism, historian Robert Paxton identified the passions that had animated fascistic political cultures over the previous 80 years. These may sound familiar.
eelings t
hem "mobilizing passions":
• a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions;
• the primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether individual or universal, and the subordination of the individual to it;
• the belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies, both internal and external;
• dread of the group's decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences;
• the need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary;
• the need for authority by natural chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group's historical destiny;
• the superiority of the leader's instincts over abstract and universal
reason;
• the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group's success;
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
The SAVE America Act mandates that all voters must bring to the polls specifically a photo ID which has proof of citizenship “on the front of the document.” So REAL IDs don’t count. If the ID does not precisely conform to that standard, you must also bring separate proof of citizenship.
SEC. 3. PHOTO VOTER
IDENTIFICATION
REQUIRED FOR
VOTING IN A FEDERAL ELECTION.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Each
individual voting in an election for Federal office shall present an eligible photo identification document.
(b) PRESENTATION
REQUIREMENTS.—
(1) IN-PERSON
VOTING.—In the case of an individual who votes in-person, the eligible photo identification document shall
(A) be a tangible
(not digital) document; and
(B) be presented at the time of voting.(c) ELIGIBLE PHOTo
IDENTIFICATION DOCUMENT.—For purposes of this section:
(1) IN GENERAL.—The
term "eligible photo identification document" means any document which
(A) is issued by an authority described in paragraph (2); and
(B) meets the requirements of paragraph (3).(3) REQUIREMENTS.—A
document meets the
requirements of this paragraph if the document contains
(A) a photograph of the individual identified on the document;
(B) an indication on the front of the document that the individual identified on the document is a United States citizen; and
(C) either
(1) an identification number issues by the entity described in paragraph
(2)(A); or
(11) the last four digits of the social security number of the individual identified on the document.(4) USE OF ADDITIONAL
DOCUMENTATION.—
(A) USE OF ADDITIONAL
DOCUMENTATION.—A document which fails to meet the requirements of paragraph (3)(B) shall not fail to be treated as an eligible photo identification document if the document is presented together with another identification document that indicates the individual is a United States citizen.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Or, as former presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann put it the "Hoot Smalley Tariffs." www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc1k...
youtube.com
Bachmann Blames FDR For "Hoot-Smalley" Tariffs
YouTube video by TPM TV [Archive]
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Not a single word about how these tariffs violate both our WTO & USCMA obligations. Every time Trump does this, the NYT & other outlets simply write as if we live in an international vacuum, where the US has no obligations under signed, ratified international treaties. It's journalistic malpractice.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
The war was NOT the best years of the D and D of Windsors lives. Goebbels admired the Duke of Windsor and saw him as potentially useful if he conquered the UK.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
This would be a nice moment to remember that the State of New York has its own laws restricting insider trading, and that NYAG Letticia James has power to enforce them. www.davispolk.com/insights/cli...
davispolk.com
State attorney general insider trading cases highlight state law securities enforcement risk
The New York State Attorney General filed civil actions against a former executive for insider trading and against his company for approving the trading...
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
The Times' article treats a campaign of retribution run from the White House itself, used to get even with those who tried to hold Trump accountable, as if it's just another "migraine" of intraagency conflict for Blanche to manage. There is only one legal, ethical answer to give: end it now.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
On the DOJ's appeals from the wins by the 4 braver firms, those firm's attorney used the bended-knee bargains as proof that EOs were never about national security and all about getting Paul Weiss and the others to give fealty to Trump. Maybe the supposed pro-Trump pro bono work never materialized.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
I do not speak a word of Spanish, yet I watched the US-Belgium match entirely on Telemundo because having everything incomprehensible except for GOOOOOOOALL x5 is still better than comprehensible Fox homerism.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
In an Article I echo of what McConnell orchestrated with Article III in 2016, his surviving colleagues can keep any hostile appointee from being seated by refusing to vote to seat him or her.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Thanks to the 11th Circuit for releasing the legal authority this morning for the last sentence of last night's post. Not even a panel with 2 Trump nominees could stomach DeSanis' use of the government-speech doctrine to kneecap academic freedom of public universities. l.threads.com?u=https%3A%2...
l.threads.com
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Hiring faculty will be even more fun to watch. Despite the Center's name & statutory charter, it's started off as a Center for Counterbalancing Intellectualism. The DeSantism view that the government-speech doctrine will empower it to bar "woke" profs from its courses is quite vulnerable to suit.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
The IAGOP made it a statutory mandate, taking effect in '28. Funding the "faculty" may get interesting. Their nominee for governor is behind in the polls, and they may lack a supermajority to override a line-item veto. In the meantime, best/brightest HS grads choose real academic freedom elsewhere.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Matt must really miss his ordinary lifestyle in Ankeny, Iowa. For his own sake, he should return to his roots before the Minus Touch of Trump takes him down, too.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Either Trump can't count to five, or he's imagining a vacancy among them in the near future.
static.klipy.com
Count von Count Counting Numbers on Sesame Street
ALT: Count von Count Counting Numbers on Sesame Street
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Implicitly or expressly, Gorsuch's "just define 'effects'" approach has been the path not chosen by one SCOTUS majority after another. The fluke that he is now the deciding vote in a 4th A case should not give controlling effect to a slate-wiping concurrence that no colleague joined. (See Ramos).
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Gorsuch may have sealed his fate when, in Ramos, he said of a Powell concurrence a dissent said was governing, that "Justice Powell's opinion cannot bind us—precisely because he relied on" a rule "that an unbroken line of majority opinions ... has rejected." Ramos v. La., 590 U.S. 83, 103 (2020).
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
But does the Kagan or Gorsuch opinion govern? It may turn on Marks v. U.S. '77. Despite Gorsuch's lone concurrence casting aspersions on Kagan's use of a "lone concurrence" in Katz as precedential, by ignoring 60 years of holdings Gorsuch's reading of Marks, in Ramos, could make Kagan controlling.
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
One year ago.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Thomas, thankfully writing alone, quotes Thomas's lone concurrence in Lopez. That concurrence is like a parody of originalism.
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Minnesota trebles damages for this too. www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cit...
revisor.mn.gov
Sec. 561.04 MN Statutes
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John M. Baker @jmbmn.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
I fear The Six telegraphed their answer to that (on the other issue the Court's opinion framed, but did not formally reach): Federal officials' lone enforcement tool is to cut off $$ to the recipient public body. No rights are protected, no injuries are redressed, but (at most) fiscal havoc follows.
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