I’m no Supreme Court litigator, but I’m pretty sure “I lied about my debts on the mortgage applications to hide my gambling debts from my wife” is not a legal defense

Scrooge: are you wearing the— Marley: —ponderous chain I forged in life, like one that you already wear? By treating mankind as your business? Yeah, I am.

This means the VA won't cover abortions EVEN in the case of rape, incest, or serious threat to the health of the patient. The DOJ memo was authored by Josh Craddock, one of the chief legal advocates for fetal personhood, i.e. imposing a nationwide abortion ban through the courts.

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I won’t speak for Doerfler and Moyn, but court reform supporters generally do not want to eliminate an independent judiciary! For instance, court expansion & removing courts’ jurisdiction to strike down federal laws would not mess with judges’ ability to enforce the law. 1/2

The right, along the Roberts Court, is trying to nullify the Reconstruction amendments guaranteeing equality under the law, in order to restore the Antebellum Constitution, which envisions “liberty” as an eternal aristocracy of race and class (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

“It turns out that banishing the slur from public discourse was, in fact, important. Because now it’s back and it turns out that it does matter when subtext becomes actual text, when terrible people enable open hatred and bigotry, encouraging others to emulate them, degrading us all.”

Thoughtful response by @stevevladeck.bsky.social One observation, and potentially a basis of progressive consensus, is that the vision offered by me and @samuelmoyn.bsky.social and others is not one of a world in which there are “no checks” on presidential administrations. (1/6)

This reminds me of visiting a friend in the Bay Area during the dot com bubble and being freaked out by all the college aged kids with way too much $$$. But they were just working for pets.com or something, not starting a job-eating wrong answer machine

Congress went home without extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Now, over 20 million people are going to see their health insurance costs more than double. Everything is already expensive. Working families can’t afford this health care crisis. https://wapo.st/3L96AVy

People in DC and elsewhere--you should sign up for the newsletter from @51st.news! It's a great a worker-led nonprofit local news source in DC, and their end of year goal is just to get 3,000 more subscribers, free or paid. Support journalism to stay informed & to help save democracy!

Learned today that the CA Democratic Party is going to add one of my proposals to the party platform: calling for DC and territories statehood votes.

I did this for you @jennyhunter.bsky.social

👀 Utah Republicans are threatening to expand the size of their state supreme court from 5 to 7 so they can get a favorable outcome in their redistricting appeal in time for 2026. Ds across the country can take note especially if Ds get back in control of Cong/WH again. www.abc4.com/news/politic...

A thing Savage never actually provides that is fairly critical context is that white men are about ~30% of the overall population and like 22% of the millennial population. White men are only ~13% of the millennial population in LA

Honestly this could be a relief b/c it will be clearer how to stream it--just pay whatever ridiculous amount YouTube wants to charge. I have wasted so much time trying to get the Oscars with crappy digital antennas and free trials of Tuni or MyScreen or whatever

Legal observers at the Whipple Federal Building witnessed ICE agents swapping out license plates in the ICE staging location. Masked agents who already routinely refuse to identify themselves are now swapping license plates at whim to kidnap our neighbors and tear apart families.

Also, this is exactly the same complaint as the 1990 Jesse Helms anti-affirmative action ad, so it is in fact NOT a very fresh take

The Trump admin, in its quest to eliminate the entire concept of asylum from the law and get rid of all asylum applicants without hearing their cases, wants to deport a Chinese dissident to Uganda, despite the fact that he has a slam-dunk asylum claim.

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens https://theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-regularly-happens-3/

"According to the…annual Harris Poll, for the 1st time, a majority of Americans believe billionaires are a threat to democracy. A remarkable 71% believe there should be a wealth tax. A majority believe there should be a cap on how much wealth a person can accumulate." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/o...

Extraordinary courage from Ahmed al Ahmed, a Muslim, 43-year-old father of two, who bravely risked his life to save his neighbors celebrating Hanukkah. Praying for his full & speedy recovery. And so deeply inspired by his example.

The latest AI-tastic update of Amazon Alexa is putting me in mind of this scene from Office Space

As one of those Democratic attorneys who was camped out in West Palm Beach - taking depositions from inconsolable grandmas swearing they hadn’t voted for Buchanan, I still have trauma. 🥺 25 years ago the right wing #SCOTUS coup begin archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes....

The Supreme Court will rule for Republicans in those cases (Callais, NRSC)—that train has left the station. The only way to stop indefinite minority rule is to elect a President and 51 Senators who will: *end the filibuster *pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act *expand SCOTUS and enact term limits

Semiregular reminder to all my educators out there that if you teach a class at all related to US legal interpretation & politics, you should put The Originalism Trap on your syllabus That goes double for law profs (tho I think high schoolers can read it) www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735353...

NEW: The Trump administration's authoritarian house of cards is starting to fall down. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is "[o]n his way home." Another grand jury rejected DOJ's effort to indict Letitia James. And, Indiana Republicans said no to Trump's redistricting pressure. Tonight, at Law Dork:

Federal agents are arresting American citizens. This isn’t about public safety - it’s about stoking fear. www.mprnews.org/story/2025/1...

Today is the 68th anniversary of the creation of the DOJ Civil Rights Division, and over 200 recent employees have shared an open letter decrying the near-destruction of the division’s mission and expressing the hope to one day rebuild it.

It's sort of poetic to say Hegseth's opposition to beards is about the Vietnam-based "memory of disorder associated with facial hair." But the dude was born in 1980. Servicemembers with beards are mostly Black, Sikh, and Jewish. It's just about racism.

During today's oral argument, the Trump admin and the Court’s conservatives treated agencies as some kind of headless, out-of-control fourth branch of government, accountable to no one But the real problem isn't about a lack of reins It's about who holds them ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/trump...

"There’s really no future without it." YEP.

“Supreme Court reform is now the sine qua non of any reformist program in the United States, any program to re-implant/re-secure civic democracy in the United States” -- @joshtpm.bsky.social talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/court...

Supreme Court oral argument this morning, in sum Sotomayor: you're asking us to destroy the foundation of government (derogatory) Gorsuch: you're asking us to destroy the foundation of government (complimentary)

New from Michael Miller and me at @thejop.bsky.social: Evidence that, in most areas that were affected by the decision, the Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act in 2013 (Shelby County v Holder) increased the racial turnout gap. A thread... www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

(with apologies that I've posted this a few times before. Now that it's published, expect me to be annoying with it -- but as we wait for SCOTUS to potentially harm what remains of the VRA, understanding what happened last time is very important!)

taking the Central Park Rangers in Elf as inspiration

Yup, the Supreme Court is enabling Trump to destroy democracy and run the U.S. government as a criminal enterprise. But "let's hope they change their minds" is not a solution. We're gonna need Supreme Court reform to get out of this mess

Seems appropriate to the current vibe that the available colors for all consumer products are like: bruise 80s elementary school hallway smog surplus army blanket band-aid

Seems appropriate to the current vibe that the available colors for all consumer products are like: bruise 80s elementary school hallway smog surplus army blanket band-aid

Amnesty International released findings from its investigation into the Everglades Concentration Camp (Alligator Alcatraz), which was built by the Florida Division of Emergency Management. They found evidence of torture, among other human rights violations. www.amnesty.org/en/documents...

I'm not exaggerating when I say following @boltsmag.org rn will unlock money for our journalism. A generous reader, @russ41.bsky.social, has offered to donate $1 for every 1-person increase to our follower count. If you're not following @boltsmag.org yet, it'll directly help fund our reporting!

Ooh very exciting!

"Democratic voters have to force their candidates to embrace real, aggressive Supreme Court reform. That means not only coming up with a plan (including, most likely, term limits and court expansion) but being unrestrained in how they talk about these six villains who are destroying our democracy."

This is horrible to post, but I may as well post it. We are essentially shutting down research operations in my group, which is focused on treatments for pediatric brain cancer. I’m a well funded investigator, and there’s no choice. Science can’t function without the stability of NIH

The president fails to realize how deeply Somali Americans love this country. We are doctors, teachers, and elected leaders working to make our country better. We will not let Trump intimidate or debilitate us. My op-ed: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/o...

Icymi: A week before Thanksgiving, the Trump administration deleted the Federal Report on Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women The ‘Not One More’ report recorded indigenous deaths and disappearances, and provided resources and policy suggestions to address the crisis www.jezebel.com/trump-admin-...

For most accommodations (extra time on tests), the solution is everyone should get extra time. For a few things (handicapped parking spots), someone taking it if they shouldn’t can be harmful, but making this a societal crusade will most likely just hurt ppl with invisible disabilities

@hamiltonnolan.bsky.social tells it: “To decide that these bad faith issues must be compromised on in the name of savvy politics is precisely wrong. The compromise itself does the damage. The compromise itself brands you as insincere, weak, a sellout.“