Wow it sure looks like Judge Mark Wolf, a federal district judge in Boston, retired in order to end an inquiry into possible misconduct and then pretended he was retiring so he could speak out against Trump. Via the great @carriejohnson.bsky.social www.npr.org/2026/02/04/n...

Am I the only one who’s had this clip running in his head all day?

If you want to read the transcript of the February 3 hearing where Julie Le had her "this job sucks" meltdown, now you can: drive.google.com/file/d/1FnY2...

Bezos’ cull at the Washington Post seems almost performative. He could run it at a loss indefinitely, he could run it as a nonprofit philanthropic effort, he could sell it. But no.

Say it ain’t so

Front page news in Queensland: the Epstein files

But that would require remembering what they were...

The Justice Department’s boasts on social media of federal charges against protesters and journalists in Minnesota is undermining the Trump administration’s credibility in court, legal ethics scholars said.

RIP www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/...

Yikes

Knight Institute Condemns Arrest of Journalists Reporting on Minneapolis Protests, warns of tightening vise on #pressfreedom. knightcolumbia.org/content/knig...

Supreme Court will hear Watson mail balloting case on March 23.

It's no joke: Supreme Court is hearing birthright citizenship case on April 1.

Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, retweets someone calling Don Lemon one of "today's klansmen."

Even after everything that's happened recently, I feel like some who've been in DC a long time are a bit slow on picking up on how that whole notion of DOJ being even partly independent of the White House is a dead letter.

While it is notable who among the originalist crowd has filed briefs backing Trump on birthright citizenship, it is a small number and it's interesting to see how many haven't. Briefs on the other side haven't been filed yet -- will any of them show up there?

Thanks for the shoutout, @kimberlyeatkins.bsky.social www.bostonglobe.com/2026/01/29/o...

Katherine Jacobsen of the Committee to Protect Journalists reacts to the arrest of Don Lemon: "As an international organization, we know that the treatment of journalists is an indicator of the condition of a country's democracy. The United States is doing poorly."

The Trump Adm is arresting Don Lemon and overcharging disruptive protesters at Cities Church to posture as if it’s protecting Christians. It’s not. DHS is staging disruptive ops at other churches, at least one of which has had to go online. ... 1/4

Trump's 2024 campaign saw some voter angst, in its data, about him getting elected and being obsessed with revenge. He used a Fox town hall, programmed against the final GOP primary debate to say he would be "too busy" for revenge. (He also got the Q in advance.) www.nytimes.com/2024/01/10/u...

ICE’s job is immigration enforcement so why is it using facial recognition to surveil U.S. citizens? www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/t...

One question is why did Trump wait until he was president to file this lawsuit?

🎯

Someone who gave their address as the Travelodge in Dublin, Ireland (where, coincidentally, I have stayed) has tried to intervene in a case challenging Trump's summary deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members.

The CNN story that the former Alito clerk is responding to was purely about Alito's demeanor on the bench, which everyone can see for themselves if they are in the courtroom.

What

2+2=infinity

I thought the whole (suspect) selling point of AI is that people won’t have to work so hard?

A federal judge, in a published order, so very much on the record: “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”

Since we published this, Pam Bondi's X account has started posting mugshots of Minnesotans arrested for impeding ICE/CBP. Sharing a defendant's photo publicly in this way is forbidden under DOJ rules

Sorry, but I don't buy this critique. The press covered Project 2025 in detail, Trump's disavowal was covered with skepticism, and it's not unreasonable to reflect that we didn't know at the time how aggressively and fulsomely they would implement it.

25 states file a brief at the Supreme Court saying they don't think the 14th Amendment birthright citizenship provision means what everyone has understood it to mean for over a century: www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...

Ohhhhh boy.

BREAKING: Federal prosecutors subpoenaed Jeffrey Toobin and Rudy Lee in the Tom Goldstein criminal case over The New York Times article published about Goldstein on December 28. Toobin, the author of the story, and Lee, who did fact-checking on the article, are seeking to quash the subpoenas.

Ron Johnson on Ilhan Omar getting attacked: "Let's talk about how crazy this is. Had that been a Republican member of Congress and an illegal immigrant spraying something at them, in Minneapolis what would probably happen is they would release that illegal immigrant."

Sometimes the app formerly known as Twitter still delivers:

It's already taken the court longer to decide the tariffs case than it did to decide Trump immunity.

As of 4:30 p.m. ET, the U.S. dollar sat at its weakest level since early 2022.

Wait I thought .... oh nevermind

In videos posted on social media, one employee can be heard saying: “This is the Ecuadorian consulate. You’re not allowed to enter.” The agent responds, “If you touch me, I’ll grab you.” www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01...

BREAKING: The petitioner ("T.R." or Juan Tobay Robles) whose non-release prompted Chief Judge Schilitz to threaten ICE director Todd Lyons with contempt has now been RELEASED, according to what the civil chief of the US Atty's office has told his atty and his atty has relayed to me.

Anthropic hired the former head of Google Books to oversee its secret "Project Panama," new court docs show — quietly buying millions of used books in bulk, breaking their spines and scanning them to feed into its Claude chatbot. wapo.st/4rjXAMQ

John Eastman of Jan 6 fame has filed a brief at the Supreme Court backing Trump's effort to curb birthright citizenship: www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...

On Saturday, @theverge.com's creative director @kristenradtke.bsky.social carefully watched a video of a shooting in Minneapolis, twice. Hours later, she found out that the man who was killed was her childhood best friend. www.theverge.com/policy/86856...

A SCOTUS clerk can make $1 million in their first year as a real lawyer, per David Lat davidlat.substack.com/p/crystal-cl...

Reminder that in Egbert v. Boule the Supreme Court specifically said that Border Patrol agents cannot be sued for violating someone's constitutional rights. My deep dive from 2023: www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...

NEW: In response to Alex Pretti's killing, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said that it was "really hard to watch" protesters carrying upside-down American flags. He called protesters "lawless hordes" and said they should go "back to Mogadishu." He also blamed Pretti for (legally) carrying a gun.

As I'm still snowed in, I might have to try this one.