The Callais decision—which said partisan schemes are more sacred than the right to vote—is a perfect metaphor for the Roberts Court's agenda: Toss out any rights or regulations that get in the way of their friends' priorities, whether it's the Republican Party or their billionaire benefactors

Important to know how much the Voting Rights Act affects things like the number of black & brown people in Congress and state legislatures But I want to reemphasize the (more important to me) point that Black political power produced Black economic power.

SCOTUS defenders insist the court is nonpartisan. But on Wednesday, the GOP appointees literally ruled that helping your political party trumps the rights of Black and brown citizens. It’s hard to imagine a more precise representation of this court’s agenda. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

John Roberts has been trying to kill Voting Rights Act since he was young lawyer in Reagan DOJ in early 1980s. That's most important context for today's Callais decision. Roberts Court has now issued 3 major decisions gutting VRA, turning law into dead letter www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Scientists have linked Roundup to cancer and other ailments, so how did Monsanto convince regulators to approve widespread spraying in America’s forests? www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

SCOOP: Two weeks ago, the head of the CDC delayed publication of a report showing covid vaccine cut likelihood of ER visits and hospitalizations by half. Now that report is no longer allowed to be published in CDC’s flagship scientific journal. My latest. 1/2 www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...

"Blanche v. Lau would flip that principle of innocent until proven guilty on its head, empowering the government to presume guilt—and use it to strip green card holders of their rights."

This is psychotic. The claim is that SPLC defrauded donors and banks by using their money/money associated with fictitious entities holding accounts to pay people to infiltrate the klan. So basically any nonprofit that does investigations requiring secrecy is illegal on this theory

Thirteen U.S. troops died trying to get these people to safety — Afghan interpreters, soldiers, and the families of our service members. Veterans spent sleepless nights during the chaotic withdrawal fighting to keep them alive. Now our own government is going to abandon them.

@nlanard.bsky.social documented it all in his investigation into the Florida congressman. Check it out. 👇️ www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

it is, among other things, incredibly striking to see that roberts was so solicitous of the burden the clean power plan might put on fossil fuel executives, when, a decade later, he is indifferent to the way trump’s moves have thrown hundreds of thousands of lives into turmoil.

About that Clarence Thomas speech... Here's what the justice was really saying. And a guess at why he sounded mad. Spoiler: He might not be getting his way in the Slaughter case. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

About that Clarence Thomas speech... Here's what the justice was really saying. And a guess at why he sounded mad. Spoiler: He might not be getting his way in the Slaughter case. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Imagine meeting someone at a dinner party and being like, "hi, what do you do?" and they're like, "I manufacture litigation to stop black people from going to college."

The way Ed Blum is going after scholarships for people of color right after going after affirmative action Like just in case Black kids still get admitted to college, he wants to make sure they can’t afford to go ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...

Don't forget John Eastman. He certainly is prominent.

ICYMI a SCOOP from @carolleonnig.bsky.social + me for @ms.now: The DOJ plans to release a report seeing to justify Trump’s pardons of 2 dozen anti-abortion protesters convicted of blockading abortion clinics & threatening patients/staff We reviewed it exclusively — & found several oversights⤵️

This is the sort of clip you see in the opening minutes of a deeply dystopian film

Unlike in his first term, Trump has surrounded himself by people who enable his worst instincts and refuse to say no. Not just Bondi, but notably Hegseth too. It makes days like today very different than last time around.

Pam Bondi was the first attorney general to operate unencumbered by any loyalty to the rule of law or any pretense of independence, writes @pemalevy.bsky.social. Instead, she was liberated to act, unabashedly, as an appendage of the president.

Bondi's disastrous tenure at DOJ shows that the unitary executive leads to incompetence, corruption, and failure. A Justice Department carrying out the president’s personal revenge plots is ultimately an untrustworthy institution. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Just so everyone knows, the Solicitor General straight up lied about the 1921 law review article he kept talking about. quick thread:

I think the most clarifying moment in birthright citizenship arguments was when Alito (accidentally?) acknowledged that under his/Trump's definition of the 14th Amendment, almost all children of non-citizens would not have birthright citizenship. His rule would negate the entire project.

Good, efficient summary by @pemalevy.bsky.social @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social: "the legal minds who submitted friend of the court briefs supporting Trump’s EO ... put forward both novel and recycled already-rejected arguments that are not only morally reprehensible but historically implausible."

Incredible moment here in which Alito puts forward a reason to believe Wong Kim Ark mentions domicile so much, seemingly trying to help Trump admin, and Justice Jackson seizes on it as a great reason that this does not undermine birthright citizenship.

Sotomayor brings up the obvious - and terrifying - truth that if Trump wins, he, or another president, or Congress, could go around stripping citizenship from untold numbers of people based on the immigration status of their ancestors.

Sauer said that even enslaved people trafficked to the US illegally where then expected to stay. I'm pretty sure I read in the amicus briefs that many were actually deported, and that Congress even set aside funds for these deportations. Anyone remember which brief that was?

Alito looks like the first justice to show sympathy with Trump admin's attempt to restrict birthright citizenship. And he does it by buying this very silly argument.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments over Trump's attempt to restrict birthright citizenship tomorrow. Why the government's case is based on a house of cards, with @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The birthright citizenship case isn't just an academic exercise. It's about what kind of a country we live in, and the consequences will be felt by everyone. It will make us a sicker, poorer, fundamentally unequal society. Here's just a few of the ways: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Trump's birthright citizenship order seeks to literally end the American dream. Will people be able to work hard and make a life for themselves, judged by their own abilities? Or will they inherit a permanent second-class status from their parents? www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The birthright citizenship case isn't just an academic exercise. It's about what kind of a country we live in, and the consequences will be felt by everyone. It will make us a sicker, poorer, fundamentally unequal society. Here's just a few of the ways: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Finally finished reading Chiles v. Salazar. I'm struck by how the majority refers to the conversion therapy here as “voluntary counseling conversations” with "consenting clients." This was a case about minors. Are kids really always voluntary and consenting clients? Seems like obviously not.

damn @pemalevy.bsky.social

brilliant by @pemalevy.bsky.social @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social The Wurman amicus “oozes with self-doubt” Wurman public statements wildly overstate research NYTimes called out for indulging hackery for clicks Intellectual fraud on a mass scale www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The Supreme Court will hear arguments over Trump's attempt to restrict birthright citizenship tomorrow. Why the government's case is based on a house of cards, with @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Supreme Court looks to make Election Day great again Absentee voting rules nationwide could turn on the justices’ opinions of ballot collection on Civil War battlefields. @courthousenews.bsky.social www.courthousenews.com/supreme-cour...

Wrote about how MAGA is a rebellion against the reality of interdependence, and how that led the Trump administration to completely ignore the potential fallout of going to war with Iran. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

EXCLUSIVE: New data shared first with me for @ms.now shows the impacts of the temporary defunding of Planned Parenthood through the Big Beautiful Bill — which some Republicans want to make permanent. Nearly two dozen clinics closed & appointments for cancer screenings & birth control plummeted ⤵️

Someone has to build the detention centers. One major architecture firm faced an internal revolt after it signed on. The firm promised it would be the last. The Trump admin can't do this alone. They need the compliance of people in every sector to do it for them www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

“One night at Dilley, their mother heard a strange sound ... She went to check on him and found that he had managed to pull the drawstring out of his sweatpants, put it around his neck and was pulling it tightly, believing at the age of 5 that it would be better to die than remain in detention.” 3/

As a friend of one of these mothers, I just want to say on a personal level, please read this and spread the word: www.newsweek.com/mothers-terr...

This was always going to happen: Trump, and the Supreme Court, turned DOJ into an extension of the president's will. Now, judges trust DOJ about as far as they can throw it. The immunity decision and unitary executive theory breed corruption and ineffectiveness. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

I think this is a Supreme Court audition. Which means that to get the president's attention and hopefully a SCOTUS nomination, Judge VanDyke thinks he should be as vulgar and insulting as possible toward transgender people. Really a testament to where the MAGA movement is right now.

Watching the birthright citizenship hearing. Starting off strong with Sen. Schmitt (R-MO), a former attorney general, pondering whether we should let the president alter the Constitution unilaterally for policy reasons.

So-called Christian Zionists, who believe Israel must vanquish its Muslim enemies to usher in the second coming of Jesus, consider the current war to be a prelude to the End Times.

SCOOP: In a January letter to Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), DHS says 270 DACA recipients have been arrested from January to September 2025. In addition, 174 DACA applicants have been deported, according to ICE records. Those numbers differ from what was shared with Sen. Dick Durbin in February.

I’m sorry what? The admin has someone consulting on one of its cases whom it will not disclose to the public?

NEWS: DOJ is appealing Judge Boasberg’s February order that the people deported to CECOT under the claimed authority of the Alien Enemies Act receive the due process they have been illegally denied since March 15, 2025. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

'UNIMAGINABLE CRUELTY': Judge Gary Brown, a Trump appointeee from NY, thrashes DHS' treatment of a man who came to the US at 9 as an abuse/neglect victim, has no criminal record and became a college grad. "The laws of decency condemn such villainy." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...