Important article: “Government Workers Say They’re Getting Inundated With Religion *** ‘This has never happened before,’ one government employee tells WIRED. ‘I have never gotten a message like this from anyone.’” 4/14/26 … 1/

Some notes: Judge Rao (Trump) implies in fn 6 that Judge Boasberg defied a 2-1 order she joined. But Rao omits that 6 of 11 DC Circuit judges later opined that Boasberg was free to resume fact-finding about alleged contempt by DOJ/DHS. At right, Judge Childs (Obama) corrects Rao's omission. 1/4

Dear god. Very, very serious allegations of mass civil rights violations at the State of Florida's Everglades immigration detention center (officially known as "Alligator Alcatraz").

The main reason this theory is terrifying, & why I think people will resist it to the end, is that no one -- no consultant, no pundit, no technocrat -- knows how to control the vibes. What's more, the vibes seem to be shaped by structural forces that intrinsically favor fascism, to put it bluntly.

What trips people up is acknowledging just how much of our social environment is now the internet rather than local communities & thus just how much of our experience is mediated by what we absorb online. Often what we absorb online can be *more* real to us than direct experience. Just look around!

I actually found this the most surprising tidbit—judges calling HLS students to ask about other students? What???

Vance says that stopping funding for Ukraine is one of his proudest achievements in this administration. ​I’m watching this stunningly cruel speech from Ukraine, as Russia continues to kills us every day. Just today, they killed 8-year-old boy in Cherkasy and five people in Dnipro.

"They're also very concerned about the consolidation of the news. They look at what has happened at CBS—and many of them have said, is CNN going to turn into Fox News?" www.status.news/p/hollywood-...

Trump has cut legal immigration more than illegal immigration, as I predicted. While illegal entries have fallen, they continued a prior trend, falling more before he came back. Meanwhile, Trump has drastically cut legal entries, reversing the prior upward trend. www.cato.org/blog/trump-h...

Trump’s claims about the bunker complex under the East Wing have scrambled the ballroom lawsuit. After Judge Leon ordered construction halted next week unless Trump gets approval from Congress, an appeals panel today found they can’t weigh in without knowing what work is security related vs. not.

I had my reservations about Biden's pardon, but Trump's almost immediate decision to tell DOJ to go after Comey, James, Cook, Powell, Schiff, Swalwell, Kelly, and others completely vindicates him in my view

Trump Promises Mass Pardons to Staff Before Leaving Office via @wsj.com “I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval”

Judge Nichols this morning appeared convinced that EOIR is front loading hearings for Somali nationals, pushing most into the first half of 2026. He added that cases may be going to a small number of IJs with "above-average removal rates." Yet he ruled the plaintiffs here likely lacked standing.

Niche tweet, but one interesting dynamic in judicial nominations to circuit courts, not often commented on, is the very different proportion in the last decade of R and D nominated judges who earlier in their careers clerked for the Supreme Court.

Hey, has anyone visited TRAC Immigration and looked up asylum denial rates in US immigration courts? October 2000-January 2025: 56% of cases denied February-November 2025: 75% denied December 2025: 84% January 2026: 91% February 2026: 95% tracreports.org/phptools/imm...

We spent months looking into how the Trump admin has remade the immigration courts by purging judges and pressuring those who remain to accelerate deportations. HT @nicknehamas.bsky.social for steering and @datab.ae, Allison McCann, @haleaziz.bsky.social + many more www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/u...

Platforms still shape what most people see online. A Knight Institute convening explored middleware—tools designed to give users more control over how content is filtered and ranked—and what it would take to loosen platforms’ grip on that process. Read more in @gabriel-tyler.bsky.social's recap.

Stan Woodward, the Trump DOJ's No. 3 figure, wrote the legal brief defending the case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia against vindictive prosecution claims. That in itself, Abrego's team says, is evidence of vindictive prosecution. #AlwaysReadtheFootnotes Background buff.ly/C6Tkv0C

NEW: Trump's bid to escape scrutiny of his White House secrets threatens to bring down the system that governed access to records of every president since Reagan. And its demise could come quickly www.politico.com/news/2026/04...

"The Constitution requires [law enforcement officers] to go outside of the executive branch to another branch of government to have their case assessed, so that there’s some sort of reasoned, neutral inquiry,” @kristyparker.bsky.social told @zjmontague.bsky.social. Read his piece on our new case ⬇️

On those energy grants Russ Vought terminated, totaling about $27.5 million for various Dem regions, Judge Amit Mehta this morning declines to prospectively block DOE or OMB from killing any additional environmental awards. Finds no clear sign of future harm. Original terminations still blocked.

New: I wrote about how the SPLC let union breaking and fear of MAGA drive it away from its own civil rights principles. After I spoke up about Gaza, the SPLC disciplined me and terminated my employment—leading to a discrimination settlement: substack.com/home/post/p-...

NEW: Trump aides gutted offices that aimed to counter anti-American disinformation by foreign powers. Now the US finds itself embattled in an info war with Iran, Russia and China. The State Dept. tells diplomats to use X and work with Pentagon psyops teams. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/b...

A new lawsuit today asks a federal judge to end a recent policy shift at DHS, under which ICE agents have used their own administrative warrants to force entry into peoples’ homes without sign-off from a judge. It brings together three families whose homes were raided and claims clear 4A violations.

NEW: US intelligence assessments say Iran isn't willing yet to engage in substantial talks with the US over ending the war. That could complicate any US plans for an endgame. Iran thinks it has the upper hand, and doesn't trust Trump after earlier attacks. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/u...

I count 47 opinions Tuesday from DC District Court. Kind of insane. Never seen anything like it. Due to combination of 2025 litigation surge against Trump admin & fed courts 3/31 bookkeeping deadline to report stale motions ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/Opin...

1. SCOTUS is going to have a hard time ruling for Trump on birthright. He did himself no favors today. 2. Our birthright citizenship rule is a universal one, designed to prevent Trump from doing what he's trying to do now -- deciding who's American and who isn't. 3. SCOTUS? Still a major problem.🧵

Fun fact: If you ever find yourself thinking, "wow there sure are a lot of federal court rulings today," the odds are decent that the day is March 31 or September 30 www.uscourts.gov/data-news/re...

People make fun of Judge Leon's style, but I like his last ¶, about requiring Congress to approve his ballroom: "And the American people will benefit from the branches of Government exercising their constitutionally prescribed roles. Not a bad outcome, that!"

In Washington, Judge Leon orders construction be halted on Trump’s White House ballroom, to be built in place of the demolished East Wing, saying work must come to a stop until the project receives a go-ahead from Congress. @zjmontague.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/u...

I'm in Bloomberg today on the social media cases. My point: there's no way for online services to determine which kinds of content and experiences will trigger psychological harms in each of their users. User generated content is a major legal risk. news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/s...

Via @zjmontague.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/u...

BREAKING: Judge Richard Leon rules that construction on Trump’s East Wing Ballroom must stop until Congress authorizes its completion. Story tk

Seems like most of this is the occasional (less than weekly) use that would include built-in AI-related tools that are included in Westlaw or Lexis. That's a LONG way from regular use of drafting-related AI tools. As always, the meaning of "use" and "AI" does a lot of work here.

We obtained the Dilley detention center’s 911 call logs. Among them are pleas for help for toddlers having trouble breathing, a pregnant woman who passed out and an elementary-school-aged girl having seizures.

Four-byline alert: 🚨 “.. A broker for Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, attempted to make a big investment in major defence companies in the weeks leading up to the US-Israeli attack on Iran, according to three people familiar with the matter.” www.ft.com/content/744e...

'IS THIS A CATCH-22? IS THIS KAFKA?': Judge stews over Pentagon press changes that NY Times says defy a court order to restore access for journalists www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

As the number of people in detention climb, so have the deaths: The 33 fatalities in 2025 were the most in a single year on record since the Department of Homeland Security started operating in March 2003. Reporting w/ Allison McCann and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/u...

Safe to say a bunker under the ballroom didn’t really come up in the case before Judge Leon, who is supposed to rule on the legality of that project by tomorrow.

JUST IN: Federal prosecutors in Chicago deride claims of selective/vindictive prosecution in the "Broadview Six" conspiracy case as "the product of fevered paranoia and delusional speculation, not to mention grossly disingenuous and thoroughly irresponsible."

In its Board newsletter yesterday, the AMA addressed the hubbub around its comment on the ASPS gender-affirming surgery position statement. I wrote about it in STAT's morning newsletter, which, hey, you could subscribe to if you don't already: www.statnews.com/2026/03/27/n...

Protesters gathered across the U.S. on Saturday for “No Kings” rallies against President Trump. They chanted defiant messages and carried signs that condemned the war in Iran, threats against voting rights, the White House’s mass deportation push and more. See more from the protests. trib.al/1Ty7Y49

Two very good points : 1. Bluesky all too often substitutes attempts at social punishment (insults, ad hominems, obscenity) for any kind of argument or substantive engagement 2. this kind of endless policing of ideological purity does bubkes to build the kind of constitutional coalition we need.

JUST IN: Trump campaign committee wins suit over alleged unwanted text messages. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The jazz drummer who Richard Grenell threatened to sue for $1 million for pulling out of his Christmas Eve Kennedy Center show filed an anti-SLAPP motion today. Filing says he never signed a contract and a settlement the center proposed required him to do the show again and not bring up Trump.

BREAKING A federal judge GRANTS a preliminary injunction protecting Anthropic from the Pentagon’s retaliation. Background www.allrisenews.com/p/anthropic-...

In something you don't see everyday, the Apple gave the FBI the real name and email address of one of its customers using Apple's 'Hide My Email' feature. This lets you generate random email addresses to protect your privacy www.404media.co/apple-gives-...

Much like a pub karaoke singer plugging a three-time Grammy winner’s discography, I highly recommend supporting the work being done by the folks at @courtwatch.bsky.social

“The latest demand also reveals a stark double standard: US officials have repeatedly browbeaten Europeans into concentrating on defending their own continent so that Washington can focus its attention elsewhere. Now, Trump is asking them to deploy to the Middle East” www.politico.eu/article/donl...

With these two new ones today, that's now half a dozen lawsuits converging on Trump's various D.C. restoration and national grandeur projects. The two cases focused on the Kennedy Center have now also both been assigned to Judge Christopher Cooper.