BREAKING: Supreme Court denies California Republicans’ emergency request to block their state’s newly redrawn House map

honestly can't keep track of all the brilliant, invaluable writers the Washington Post has let go this morning, but I cannot recall in my lifetime a once-great publication so purposefully shooting itself in the face

Awful, idiotic, short-sighted decision. Arts coverage has flourished under Jon’s leadership. Too many fabulous packages to count. What is even left of the Post now? These layoffs are crushing.

My new one @slate.com : I Wrote a Book in Support of Nationalizing Elections. Trump Changed My Mind. slate.com/news-and-pol...

I have confirmed the gist of this report out of federal court in Minnesota today from a source familiar. If you have more information about the District of Minnesota—either the court or the U.S. Attorney's Office—and how they are handling all of this, please reach out. I am at crg.32 on Signal.

One of the things that the Bovino-directed operations in Chicago and Minnesota made clear is that CBP thought they could treat any and every person in the US the same way they treat migrants at the southern border. If it's unacceptable here, then it's unacceptable there.

The front page Hachette Book Group website, which just announced it will publish Sam Alito's book this fall, is all about condemning bans on kids' books that discuss LGBTQ identity—the same books that Alito's majority opinion in Mahmoud v Taylor is scrubbing from classrooms across the country

Buried lede: he realizes that it is absolutely impossible to achieve mass deportation if that process is required, which it constitutionally is.

This is just a guess, but maybe the rise in dramatic prose from district court judges is partly due to a growing belief among those judges that it's pointless to try to persuade SCOTUS and they must therefore focus on other potential audiences.

What DOJ is doing is making its attorneys go before the same judges over and over again with the same deficient argument in habeas petitions challenging immigration detention. They're losing nearly every case and torching their reputations in front of federal judges.

Drink wine if you enjoy it. Not too much. Ideally with friends or family. slate.com/life/2026/02...

So, I am not quite sure what this is, but it’s hard to believe Pirro is talking with Main Justice here. DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is suing over DC’s semiautomatic gun ban and the head of the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, backs a national reciprocity law.

Republicans love adding seats to state Supreme Courts! They've done it three times in recent years. This latest court-packing plan will shift Utah's high court far to the right and possibly flip rulings on abortion and gerrymandering. Democrats should take note that Rs have deemed this acceptable!

The rumors are true: Constitution Garden’s pond is completely frozen over! Ice skaters and hockey players are frolicking. Had to go down with Lucy to see for myself.

It’s about damn time somebody stood up for the little guy—the real hero, the humble foe of bullies and bigots, the voice for the voiceless: Justice Samuel Alito. Glad to see this meek, powerless man finally receive the defense he deserves.

New: The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the birthright citizenship case on April 1. www.supremecourt.gov/oral_argumen...

The Trump administration recognized that Tulsi Gabbard was wildly unqualified/too much of a nutjob for her post running U.S. intelligence, so they've given her some busy work (the busy work is trying to unravel American democracy). www.wsj.com/politics/ele...

My New One @slate.com: "Trump’s Continued Obsession With 2020 Is a Joke. His Raid on a Georgia Election Site Is Not." slate.com/news-and-pol...

Talked about the many scams of modern originalism on @legaldefensefund.bsky.social's Justice Above All podcast! I thought it was a great conversation. Listen here: tminstituteldf.org/what-is-orig...

My New One at @slate.com on the 50th Anniversary of the Buckley v. Valeo Decision: “One Supreme Court Case Is Most Responsible for Our Oligarchy. It’s Not the One You Think.” slate.com/news-and-pol...

The groups and individuals in California that are fighting to block more housing production—many of whom claim to be fighting for progressive values—seem intent on delivering the White House to JD Vance.

A truly beautiful and moving piece by Adam Serwer in The Atlantic describing the everyday heroism of people in MN @adamserwer.bsky.social @theatlantic.com : www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

To put it another way: Courageous jurists on the lower courts have held back Trump from inflicting even more damage on civil rights and liberties. This timeline sucks, but the one in which the judiciary doesn't even try to push back is FAR worse. We insult these judges when we dismiss their impact.

One thing I found deeply moving about resistance in the Twin Cities was the universalism of loving your neighbor, the philosophy driving the opposition to the ICE/BP invasion. I couldn't help but notice the contrast with the blood and soil-ism of Miller and Vance. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The US Holocaust Museum being more outraged by Tim Walz saying that, like Anne Frank, children today are in hiding from armed agents of the state, than they are about the fact that children are in hiding from armed agents of the state, is why Holocaust remembrance culture is in crisis.

The testing ground for Bovino’s Operation At Large was Los Angeles. A California judge initially prohibited ICE/CBP’s most flagrant constitutional violations. SCOTUS overruled her 6–3, handing Bovino a blank check to inflict unspeakable brutality on Chicago and Minneapolis. The 6 bear so much blame.

DOJ told a federal judge that it contained and investigated the scene of Pretti's murder. But from this report, it looks like all federal agents left the scene completely unattended within a few hours—a major breach of protocol that contaminated potential evidence. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Life on the ground in St. Paul right now, from Council Member @mollycoleman.bsky.social—including a dispatch from "day care patrol," now a feature of everyday life, when parents try to stop ICE agents from kidnapping toddlers and teachers. slate.com/news-and-pol...

The terror that ICE and CBP have inflicted on the children of the Twin Cities is, by itself, a crime of scandalous proportions that will forever stain this country's moral fabric, and all those responsible should never know another day of peace. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

Such a waste. The Post was hiring so aggressively for five or ten years that they had one of the very best stables of journalists in the country. Now hollowed out and about to get slashed completely

A witness claimed the defendant used a laptop to research homemade silencers. Her testimony tied the defendant to a homemade silencer used in a crime. Prosecutors concealed a forensic report showing no searches about silencers on that laptop. So lower court orders new trial. Today SCOTUS reverses.

Absolutely reprehensible that AG Bondi is offering ICE stand down in exchange for access to voting rolls. Outrageous and disgusting. It shows ICE is in Minneapolis is not for law enforcement purposes. Instead it’s a way to stir up shit in blue states and extort them.

A federal judge effectively ordered the U.S. government not to cover up evidence that it illegally executed a civilian, at the request of local prosecutors seeking to investigate federal agents for murder. Don’t want to overstate things but it feels reminiscent of the run-up to the Civil War.

Reminder: If the Supreme Court upholds Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship, some of the ICE officers currently brutalizing Minnesotans may be reassigned to apprehend newborns from the hospital for immediate deportation. Just read the Trump administration’s own memo. slate.com/news-and-pol...

To put a finer point on it: Republicans have embraced the “insurrectionist theory” of the Second Amendment—the notion that you have a constitutional right to stage an armed rebellion against the government if it becomes tyrannical. Now they’re lining up to say ICE can shoot any armed protester?

I have spent my entire adult life being lectured by Republican politicians and conservative legal movement types about how important it is to preserve the sacred constitutional right to self-defense of *specifically this person* and then secret police murdered him in the street

The Republican position now appears to be that you have a constitutional right to openly carry a gun in public, unless you do so while expressing a view that the government dislikes, in which case the secret police can shoot you to death on the spot.

Here is the newly-unsealed State Department memo confirming -- finally -- that the detention of Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk was based on an op-ed. No antisemitic activity. No support of terrorism. An op-ed in a student newspaper. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Trump is weak, Bondi is weak, Miller is weak. The administration is filled with cartoon bullies who crumple when they face real opposition. Minnesotans get it. Denmark gets it. Lower court judges get it, and the best have moved into DGAF mode. When will SCOTUS get it? slate.com/news-and-pol...

What happens when SCOTUS disempowers lowers courts from enforcing basic constitutional rights at the behest of an authoritarian president committed to implementing white nationalism.

Don't forget the Supreme Court's role facilitating ICE's brutality and racism in Minneapolis. SCOTUS lifted an injunction that limited racial profiling in immigration enforcement on Sept. 8. The federal assault on Chicago began the next day. Then came the Twin Cities. SCOTUS greenlit these horrors.

nine years old

This is a really important project. The voters of North Carolina deserve to learn Justice Earls' extraordinary story in advance of her reelection contest this fall. Her victory in November will be key to saving the NC Supreme Court from the grips of a corrupt and ultra-partisan MAGA majority.

remarkable how much contempt this white house has for the nation’s historical and artistic treasures

Will be on @ms.now shortly to talk about these somewhat comical arguments.

Right: A lot of federal employees who were fired by "Article II" emails, and have no prospect of a fair hearing because SCOTUS has allowed purges of the Office of Special Counsel and the Merit Systems Protection Board, wonder why this standard does not apply to them. bsky.app/profile/stev...

Roberts and Barrett are skeptical that the equities favor letting Trump fire Lisa Cook. Roberts is openly hostile toward the government's claim that courts cannot reinstate Cook at all. On the flip side, Gorsuch seems skeptical of the idea that Cook deserves notice and a hearing before removal.

I don’t expect this to come up at oral argument today, but the Lisa Cook case is emblematic of the many Black women leaders who have been slandered, investigated, or dismissed without cause—and who have not been given an opportunity to clear up their names in a public forum. Until today.

The justices sound pretty irritated with Solicitor General Sauer; Chief Justice Roberts even told him to stop interrupting KBJ when he kept talking over her questions. He is ... not an effective oral advocate, especially in comparison to his predecessor Elizabeth Prelogar.

I hope these fears prove overblown, but right now I am extremely concerned about the Justice Department accusing state leaders of domestic terrorism because they refuse to assist racist immigration crackdowns. Seems like a prelude to something even worse. slate.com/news-and-pol...