Jay Willis
@jaywillis.net
I write about courts, democracy, media, and the raccoon family living in a tree behind my house. Bluesky’s ONLY fantasy football guru. EIC @ballsandstrikes.org, more writing at jaywillis.net.
Going out of town for a long weekend and I packed six lidocaine patches and a fully charged theragun. I honestly don’t think I knew either of these things existed ten years ago. Yes I’m 38, why do you ask
January 16, 2026 at 3:28 PM
Going out of town for a long weekend and I packed six lidocaine patches and a fully charged theragun. I honestly don’t think I knew either of these things existed ten years ago. Yes I’m 38, why do you ask
This week’s installment of “the conservative legal movement exists to put a polite-sounding sheen on gutter bigotry” is the right-wing influencers melting down about Amy Coney Barrett denying “biological truth” by using the phrase “trans girls” at the Supreme Court this week
Conservatives On X Are Pretty Sure Amy Coney Barrett Is Woke Now
The author of the perhaps the most aggressively anti-trans Supreme Court opinion in recent memory is getting branded as an ideological traitor who ignores “biological truth.”
ballsandstrikes.substack.com
January 16, 2026 at 3:25 PM
This week’s installment of “the conservative legal movement exists to put a polite-sounding sheen on gutter bigotry” is the right-wing influencers melting down about Amy Coney Barrett denying “biological truth” by using the phrase “trans girls” at the Supreme Court this week
To give you a sense of where the conservative movement is these days, over on X, right-wing influencers are losing their minds over the Supreme Court's trans sports ban cases because Amy Coney Barrett is "ignoring biological truth" by, uh, using the phrase "trans girls" during oral argument
Conservatives On X Are Pretty Sure Amy Coney Barrett Is Woke Now
The author of the perhaps the most aggressively anti-trans Supreme Court opinion in recent memory is getting branded as an ideological traitor who ignores “biological truth.”
ballsandstrikes.substack.com
January 15, 2026 at 9:59 PM
To give you a sense of where the conservative movement is these days, over on X, right-wing influencers are losing their minds over the Supreme Court's trans sports ban cases because Amy Coney Barrett is "ignoring biological truth" by, uh, using the phrase "trans girls" during oral argument
Reposted by Jay Willis
I wrote about The Tantrum State and living in it. Personally I do not care for it very much. defector.com/fascists-are...
Fascists Are Pathetic | Defector
Two days before a shouting cluster of its agents surrounded the car of a Minneapolis mother and shot her to death last week, ICE was demanding answers from the Hilton hotel group on X.com. “Why did yo...
defector.com
January 15, 2026 at 2:33 PM
I wrote about The Tantrum State and living in it. Personally I do not care for it very much. defector.com/fascists-are...
There are cases in which "politics," by itself, doesn't explain what the Supreme Court is doing. But the trans sports ban cases are not complicated. The GOP has spent years cranking out anti-trans propaganda, and the conservative justices have absorbed it, because they are part of that movement.
How the Conservative Movement’s Anti-Trans Crusade Brought the Supreme Court to Heel
Six years ago, the Court issued a landmark decision protecting the civil rights of trans people. Republicans set about making sure that that would never happen again.
ballsandstrikes.org
January 15, 2026 at 4:19 PM
There are cases in which "politics," by itself, doesn't explain what the Supreme Court is doing. But the trans sports ban cases are not complicated. The GOP has spent years cranking out anti-trans propaganda, and the conservative justices have absorbed it, because they are part of that movement.
Reposted by Jay Willis
it happens every six months or so but nice to see the internet realizes kevin o’connor is a dumbass with a smooth brain who sits in elon musk’s mentions hoping to be noticed
January 15, 2026 at 12:31 AM
it happens every six months or so but nice to see the internet realizes kevin o’connor is a dumbass with a smooth brain who sits in elon musk’s mentions hoping to be noticed
Allowing lawyers to have internet access was a mistake
January 14, 2026 at 8:50 PM
Allowing lawyers to have internet access was a mistake
Reposted by Jay Willis
you're already seeing a backlash to amy coney barrett just for calling trans women "trans girls" instead of "trans identified males"
This sounds crazy now, but in 2020, even the conservative-controlled Supreme Court was behind legal protections to trans people. Republicans were calling Neil Gorsuch a traitor. Josh Hawley said the conservative legal movement "over." Then the backlash started. ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...
January 14, 2026 at 5:39 PM
you're already seeing a backlash to amy coney barrett just for calling trans women "trans girls" instead of "trans identified males"
Reposted by Jay Willis
credit where it's due, this is one of the funniest ideas i've ever heard
I am introducing the Quick Recognition (QR) Act, which requires ICE and CBP officers to wear uniforms featuring QR codes. When scanned, the code would generate a digital ID displaying the officer’s name, badge number, and law enforcement agency.
ICE should be unmasked both physically and digitally.
ICE should be unmasked both physically and digitally.
January 14, 2026 at 5:03 PM
credit where it's due, this is one of the funniest ideas i've ever heard
In 2020, the Supreme Court decided a single case that strengthened legal protections for trans people, and the conservative movement's response was to whip up an unhinged moral panic to ensure that Their Justices would never make such a grave mistake again
How the Conservative Movement’s Anti-Trans Crusade Brought the Supreme Court to Heel
Six years ago, the Court issued a landmark decision protecting the civil rights of trans people. Republicans set about making sure that that would never happen again.
ballsandstrikes.org
January 14, 2026 at 5:16 PM
In 2020, the Supreme Court decided a single case that strengthened legal protections for trans people, and the conservative movement's response was to whip up an unhinged moral panic to ensure that Their Justices would never make such a grave mistake again
I have the most Bluesky question imaginable to ask: Are there any podiatrists on here who can answer a basic question about how supportive insoles are supposed to work
January 14, 2026 at 3:43 PM
I have the most Bluesky question imaginable to ask: Are there any podiatrists on here who can answer a basic question about how supportive insoles are supposed to work
Reposted by Jay Willis
There is basically no anti-trans law that John Roberts cannot explain away as something else
John Roberts Wouldn’t Recognize an Anti-Trans Law If It Slapped Him in the Face
The chief justice who doesn’t think banning healthcare for trans kids discriminates against trans people is ready to look the other way again.
ballsandstrikes.org
January 14, 2026 at 12:40 AM
There is basically no anti-trans law that John Roberts cannot explain away as something else
Sam Alito's repeated, sneering "what is a woman, oh can anyone just claim to be a woman" questions at this Supreme Court oral argument suggest that his brain is, if possible, even more pickled in right-wing media than I thought
January 13, 2026 at 4:35 PM
Sam Alito's repeated, sneering "what is a woman, oh can anyone just claim to be a woman" questions at this Supreme Court oral argument suggest that his brain is, if possible, even more pickled in right-wing media than I thought
I know this isn't highbrow enough for the traditional Supreme Court press corps, but I would absolutely read 5,000 words about how nine justices make it through marathon four-hour oral arugment sessions without any of them getting up to pee
January 13, 2026 at 4:12 PM
I know this isn't highbrow enough for the traditional Supreme Court press corps, but I would absolutely read 5,000 words about how nine justices make it through marathon four-hour oral arugment sessions without any of them getting up to pee
In the Supreme Court's trans sports cases, Brett Kavanaugh's only question so far has been about whether a decision upholding Idaho's ban would extend to other states, too, and Idaho's lawyer said no, and Kavanaugh sounded satisified, and I think that's probably the game right there
January 13, 2026 at 3:40 PM
In the Supreme Court's trans sports cases, Brett Kavanaugh's only question so far has been about whether a decision upholding Idaho's ban would extend to other states, too, and Idaho's lawyer said no, and Kavanaugh sounded satisified, and I think that's probably the game right there
NEWS: I have located the insane emails that I sent to the guys on the intramural basketball team before fraternity league games in 2006
January 13, 2026 at 12:47 AM
NEWS: I have located the insane emails that I sent to the guys on the intramural basketball team before fraternity league games in 2006
Probably once a quarter I get a Facebook password reset email I didn’t request, and there is part of me that’s like “uh-oh, someone is trying to hack my account,” and also part of me that’s like “please….free me……”
January 13, 2026 at 12:15 AM
Probably once a quarter I get a Facebook password reset email I didn’t request, and there is part of me that’s like “uh-oh, someone is trying to hack my account,” and also part of me that’s like “please….free me……”
The more I think about it, the more remarkable it is that Amy Coney Barrett really wrote with a straight face in a Supreme Court opinion that trans people in America have been subjected to "relatively little" discrimination. Barely-disguised trolling.
This Is the History of Anti-Trans Bigotry Amy Coney Barrett Doesn’t Want to Talk About
Barrett thinks transgender people have been subjected to “relatively little” discrimination. This amicus brief aims to set the record straight.
ballsandstrikes.org
January 12, 2026 at 4:35 PM
The more I think about it, the more remarkable it is that Amy Coney Barrett really wrote with a straight face in a Supreme Court opinion that trans people in America have been subjected to "relatively little" discrimination. Barely-disguised trolling.
Game is kinda boring so I toggled over to check the news, which is how I found out the Fed chair is releasing proof of life videos because the insane president is trying to put him in prison for not doing what the insane president wants
January 12, 2026 at 3:40 AM
Game is kinda boring so I toggled over to check the news, which is how I found out the Fed chair is releasing proof of life videos because the insane president is trying to put him in prison for not doing what the insane president wants
The hand signal for intentional grounding is really underrated. One of the most powerful ref gestures, in my view.
January 11, 2026 at 3:22 AM
The hand signal for intentional grounding is really underrated. One of the most powerful ref gestures, in my view.
Elon Musk needed three years to transform Twitter from maybe the world’s most important news source and a vital tool for real-world change into a weird right-wing AI slop machine generating on-demand bespoke nonconsensual porn. A real innovator in the space!
Why Elon Musk is laughing off Grok’s flood of deepfake AI porn
When you own the regulators, creating sexualized images of women and children isn’t a bug—it's a business model.
www.fastcompany.com
January 10, 2026 at 3:40 PM
Elon Musk needed three years to transform Twitter from maybe the world’s most important news source and a vital tool for real-world change into a weird right-wing AI slop machine generating on-demand bespoke nonconsensual porn. A real innovator in the space!
Checking in on the Washington Post editorial board’s take on the new RFK-approved food pyramid, and I really cannot believe how lazy these people are www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
January 10, 2026 at 4:12 AM
Checking in on the Washington Post editorial board’s take on the new RFK-approved food pyramid, and I really cannot believe how lazy these people are www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Not many people know this, but Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza is actually an alumnus of the University of California, Berkeley
January 10, 2026 at 1:59 AM
Not many people know this, but Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza is actually an alumnus of the University of California, Berkeley
really good
January 9, 2026 at 9:51 PM
really good