As soon as I saw that Judge Edith Jones was on the panel I knew.

Missy fell asleep in my lap and my butt is numb and I'm not sure I even have legs anymore and I want to get up but Missy is sleeping so hard and maybe I can just lean against the wall

The Team Italy athletes coming out to Figaro is 10/10, no notes.

Dana Douglas is not having Edith Jones’s bullshit

One of Team Italy's athletes yelled into the camera "Hi Mom" (in Italian), and that's a good boy.

BREAKING: A 5th Circuit panel has backed ICE's mass detention policy, a decision that clears the way for the administration to lock up people who are in immigration proceedings It's a 2-1 ruling Majority: Jones (Reagan), Duncan (Trump) Minority: Douglas (Obama) s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

The Italian national anthem is gorgeous.

Remember CC's Pizza's "desert pizza"? This is like that, but better.

Fox News Went All Day Without Mentioning Trump’s Obama Ape Video That Even Republicans Criticized www.mediaite.com/analysis/fox...

"Even if Plaintiff did have standing to pursue the claims of individual citizens, Plaintiff’s claims are still doomed." Lawgeeks, this decision is a fun tour of civ. pro., standing, and Title VII on the merits.

Amid the flagrant ethics violations among SCOTUS justices, a U.S. senator is demanding Justice Jackson be investigated for attending the Grammies. In a year in which she was nominated for one. To be fair, Blackburn is really dumb. And hyper partisan. And rarely acts in good faith.

ICE denied having Leonela, 8mo's pregnant, then deported her to Nicaragua days later, without counsel. All while attorneys members of congress actively searched for her. This should alarm everyone.

NEW: In response to DOJ's request for a stay pending appeal of her Haiti TPS order, Judge Reyes questions the "suspect" nature of DOJ's "irreparable harm" arguments, orders DOJ to file a declaration about what actions DHS has taken "in expectation" Haiti TPS would end, and sets a hearing for 2/12.

The obligatory singing of Nessun dorma.

In an opinion dismissing Trump's attempt to get an unredacted copy of Oregon's complete voter registration list, a federal judge cites Bondi's extortion letter to Gov. Walz as support for denying the government a presumption of regularity storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Day 23: more snow!

Some fireworks over in the 8th Cir. over its treatment of post-Bruen challenges to the federal ban on firearm possession by unlawful drug users. Concurring op. on left. Dissenting op. on right. ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/26/02...

This is your semi-regular reminder that unrepentant, unvarnished racism is a valid basis for impeaching a sitting president. See: Andrew Johnson

I mean this was a known thing about him, for decades. Media coverage should be instead focusing on why TPUSA keeps platforming people who are supposedly at odds with their values. This is a story about the constellation of conservative media and what it says vs. what it does.

It's been 150 days of Kavanaugh stops in America, and it just keeps getting worse, so I checked in with the justice to ask him if he's had second thoughts. My request for comment did not elicit a response. The third in a once-every-50-days Law Dork series:

For those who don't know, Luttig was once considered the intellectual heir to Scalia. He was about as conservative a judge as you could find...

This may be the first default judgment I've seen due to fake AI cites. It certainly won't be the last.

Anyway, I wrote about a whole slew of reports saying that DHS is using abusive administrative subpoenas to track down Trump's online critics, show up at their door, and intimidate them... And the "free speech warriors" who insisted Biden was censoring people online are somehow silent.

JUST IN: A federal judge has barred ICE and DHS from using taxpayer information provided by the IRS. Judge Talwani says that DHS' view that noncitizens lack 4th amendment rights — combined with ICE use of administrative warrants — is a recipe for abuse. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

if not gestapo why gestapo shaped, etc.

Of interest to immigration practitioners, the en banc 9th Cir. says there is no categorical rule that traffic delays cannot be an exceptional circumstance warranting rescinding an in absentia removal order. cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op...

Gelernter endorsed Trump 3 times. He's an evolution and climate change skeptic who thinks women should stay home. He was a member of the "race science" Human Biodiversity Inst. After an unflattering profile in the WP, The Atlantic published an indignant piece calling him a "pioneering polymath."

Important: the longstanding Department of Justice manual on election offenses emphasizes respecting states' lead role, not doing voter interviews that might chill voting, and, vitally, not seizing ballots or machines until states have certified a result. But now the manual has gone missing.

"(This is how men behave.)" Put this man in a catapult and launch him into the sun.

BREAKING: Ed Martin was found, per CNN below, by DOJ to have violated GJ secrecy and also apparently lied about it. If the reporting is accurate, both are federal crimes. Will Martin be charged, given how quick a trigger this DOJ has re Letitia James & James Comey? edition.cnn.com/2026/02/04/p...

There are going to be some unusual effects between this and statutory motions to reopen and statutory post-conclusion voluntary departure that might be appropriate for challenge.

When I was a kid, the CIA World Factbook was the go-to resource for citations that the teacher wouldn't automatically reject (Wikipedia, amusingly enough).

This is correct on the numbers. But what happens when Trump's goons seize ballots from just a few places and then declare "oops, we can't rely on the vote count from [likely blue state] bc of irregularities so that states electoral college votes must be discarded"?

As far as I know, this is DHS's first effort to explain their position that I-205 forms allow entry into the home. They rely on the dicta in the 1960 Abel case (before Payton) and re-imagine the plurality opinion in Lucas as if it were the majority (and then overrely on it).

It was also the property of the American public, and they trashed it.

‘One officer told me that I "had no chance of returning to Minnesota" and that "the best thing for (me] is self-deportation." … She offered me $2600 to self-deport. I refused. I wanted to talk to my attorney. They didn't tell me the judge had already ordered my release and return to Minnesota.’

JUST IN: 2 school systems in MN file suit to block ICE enforcement near schools. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I'm not sure what to make of it, but every Somali I represent in immigration court currently (8 of them) have today had their hearings cancelled and their judges reassigned. They're now all assigned to a video judge from Louisiana and scheduled for court hearing in one month. 🧵

NEW: Abigail Spanberger this afternoon ordered that all state agencies leave ICE's 287(g) program. This means that the state police (and some other agencies) will no longer be empowered to detain and arrest people for ICE. Big, big move by the governor within weeks of coming into office.

If you thought "This job sucks, please hold me in contempt" was wild, try reading the next 10 pages of the transcript. Just beggars belief.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court will not stop the use of California's new congressional maps in this year's midterm elections. The court rejected California Republicans' effort to stop the use of the new maps. There were no noted dissents and no opinion.

9th Cir. revives an RLUIPA claim from a Nichiren Buddhist inmate who was disenrolled from the halal prison diet he opted for as the closest approximation of his religious needs bc he purchased some non-halal items from the commissary. cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op...

In a sane world, the decision by Rufo, Vance, & co. to slander and slap a target on the traumatized, hardworking immigrants who revitalized a rust belt city -- and who *were invited* to that city -- would be a stain on their careers that they never live down. They should be reminded of it. Often.

Local police told her told her the South Dakota license plates on the hulking SUV in her driveway belonged to a different model car. “Swapping license plates has become a signature of federal agents” during the surge, despite a warning from Minnesota’s DMV to stop the unlawful practice.

Day 21: doesn't look comfortable to me, but okay . . .

"Look at me! Look at me! I'm so provocative!"

This is good (especially if you're the appellee/respondent). If you've hit everything you need to hit, and there are no additional questions from the panel: "If there are no further questions from the panel?" [beat] "Thank you very much for your time. We urge you to [relief sought]." [sit]

Jeff Besos never really struck me as a Sports Guy.

Has any of the reporting on Julie Le's courtroom comments told us what happened *after* she suggested that she be held in contempt so she can get some sleep? I would like to know what the judge said, what the judge did, whether other counsel had a comment, etc.

Trump's mass deportation plan destroyed the U.S. Attorney's office in Minnesota. Why were they even in Minnesota? Trump saw news reports reacting to the incel influencer who falsely claimed that there was a lot of daycare fraud. Today, @nytimes.com gave that incel influencer a glowing profile.