This is why domestic "shuffle" flights between ICE detention centers have skyrocketed, much moreso than ICE deportation flights. When you are moved to a different jurisdiction, you have to refile your habeas petition all over again. They want to wear people down so they'll give up on their cases.

Playing the grinch at the 250th. washingtonmonthly.com/2026/02/05/p...

Spot on, from @petridishes.bsky.social: "For a while...we, as a nation, thought to ourselves: Life is too short for everyone to inspect their own food. Let the government handle this. But then along came the Trump administration to wonder: What if we didn’t?" www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

Floored by this story. A man wrote a pollite email to a federal prosecutor objecting to the deportation of an Afghan seeking asylum. DHS responded with an administrative warrant to get the man's info from Google, then visited his home to intimidate him.

The last time he started talking like this, his allies minimized the risks and we ended up with January 6. This time we must take him literally and seriously. These comments are a five-alarm fire for democracy. In a functioning republic, he would be impeached and removed from office today.

Steve Levitsky, the co-author of How Democracies Die, on the dangerous place we have reached as Trump escalates: “Orbán doesn’t arrest journalists,” he said. “And in Hungary if you walk the streets of Budapest or other Hungarian cities, you will not find heavily armed masked men abducting people."

I have NEVER EVER read a judicial opinion that is as pissed off as this is. Wow wow wow

GEORGIA — @ossoff.senate.gov : “This is a SEISMIC event. This should have people across 🇺🇸 absolutely shook. This is an FBI raid on the Fulton County elections office… this is a shot across the bow at the midterm elections.” (H/T @atrupar.com )

Whoa. D.Minn's chief judge Patrick Schiltz dockets a list of "96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases." www.courtlistener.com/docket/72120...

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...

Alex Pretti’s coworkers take a moment of silence this morning

New resource: We're tracking all 25 DOJ lawsuits seeking states' sensitive voter data, including status, key decisions (2 dismissals + 1 tentative dismissal so far), and upcoming hearings. Check it out here: go.wisc.edu/93o421 Read our deep dive on the legal issues here: go.wisc.edu/070765

The @thegreenbag.bsky.social Justice Scalia bobblehead, as you probably know, has him stabbing a pencil into a Lemon per his Lamb's Chapel concurrence. (And, of course, "this wolf comes as a wolf," per Morrison v Olson.) greenbag.org/v8n4/v8n4_ex...

“As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air...lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.” #WilliamODouglas

It would take a two-word amendment to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to subject ICE agents and other federal law enforcement officers to the same liability for constitutional violations that local and state officers currently face. If Congress actually cared about what it's seeing, it could pass that overnight.

Archaeologists: D.C. Capitol May Have Once Been Used For Legislating https://theonion.com/archaeologists-d-c-capitol-may-have-once-been-used-for-legislating/

BREAKING: Minnesota investigators say they can't access evidence after fatal ICE shooting and the FBI won't work jointly on probe. Follow for live updates.

Big setback for the White House as 5 GOP Senators join all Democrats in voting to start debate on a war powers resolution re: Venezuela. Murkowski AK Young IN Paul KY Collins ME Hawley MO

This one is resonating today. #Andor

FOLKS NEED TO REALIZE HOW HUGE THIS IS For the first time in modern Texas history, Dems have candidates running in every state and federal race on the 2026 ballot. That includes all congressional seats, every state House and state Senate race, plus statewide judicial and State Board of Education.

You're welcome.

Sen. Jack Reed: "I must remind everyone that we follow the law of war, and because of that, we expect other countries. So that when our service members are in distress, they're not shot up in the water or if they're wounded, left to die. If we don't do it, then we can't expect other countries."

The leading scholars of democratic decline say the US "has descended into competitive authoritarianism" - we "ceased to be a full democracy in the way that Canada, Germany, or even Argentina are democracies" - but caution that it can be contested and reversed www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

"Secretary Hegseth’s zeal to have the military punish Senator Kelly is a worst-case scenario of this problem." National Institute of Military Justice Statement Against Secretary Hegseth’s Threats to Punish a Senator (disclaimer: I'm a NIMJ Distinguished Fellow) www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/u...

It's not just social media. Looks like visitors to the US from Europe and other countries that are part of the visa waiver program will have to submit an enormous amount of data about themselves and their families, including DNA, if proposed new rules are accepted

In a normal administration, this would be a career-ending, weeks-long scandal

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/...

wtf is a FIFA peace prize? that's like being an NFL laureate in physics

This is gonna be like the Darwin Award in 3 years

In her dissent, Judge Pan says the emerging view of executive power by Trump and his backers in the courts "concentrates excessive power in the President and thus paves the way to autocracy." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

JUST IN: A 2-1 panel of the D.C. Circuit rules that Trump may remove members of the NLRB or MSPB regardless of laws meant to shield them from removal without cause. Majority: Rao (Trump), Katsas (Trump) Dissent: Pan (Biden) storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

W @harvardash.bsky.social & @politicsprof.bsky.social, my team @brookings.edu is working on our next edition of the Democracy Playbook It will be a driver’s manual for democracies globally on how to make U-turns Hear more on The Current podcast 👇 www.brookings.edu/articles/ins...

Supreme Court at any time may issue 2 orders on its emergency docket that will greatly affect how Americans live over the next few years: one on legality of national guard troops in American cities and one on whether States like Texas can re-redistrict and get away with it on timing grounds for 2026

Major decision. In D.C., ICE/CBP can no longer arrest immigrants without a warrant unless they find individualized probable cause of a flight risk. "Viewing all immigrants potentially subject to removal as criminals is, as a legal matter, plain wrong." www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

Great explainer for constitutional law and IR folks

So proud that my latest piece, "Labeling dissent as terrorism: New US domestic terrorism priorities raise constitutional alarms," is headlining today's newsletter from @us.theconversation.com ➡️ Read more here: theconversation.com/labeling-dis...

It's a good gig if you can get it, I guess....

“Thousands of very competitive projects in areas like cancer, diabetes, aging, neurological disorders and public health improvements most like went unfunded in 2025. Similarly, at the National Science Foundation, the roughly 3,000 fewer new grants encompassed reductions to every area of science”

Polls for months have shown a huge lead for Orban's opponent. Now the HU government is doing what it always does before elections: increase social benefits, threaten opponents, rewrite election law. Trump promised to underwrite Orban's election spending spree. dailynewshungary.com/latest-poll-...

Former US military lawyers speak out: "The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both." Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes 1/2

Harvard gets its research funding back through defiance and lawsuits.

Incredible headline.

NEWS: During a hearing in federal court in VA, prosecutors confirmed that the operative indictment in the case against James Comey was never shown to or voted on by the entire grand jury before it was presented in open court. Defense counsel argued that’s a complete bar to further prosecution

Yesterday, Trump defended the Saudi Crown Prince in the Oval Office. He said he had “nothing” to do with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. But I reviewed a call while serving on Trump’s NSC that I believe would be of interest to the Khashoggi family and the American people. Release the transcript.

There have been at least 154 cases in which federal district courts have issued preliminary relief against a Trump administration policy. Those rulings have come from 121 *different* judges appointed by seven presidents (including 15 appointed by Trump) sitting in 29 district courts in 10 circuits:

Really interesting study that challenges the conventional wisdom of the punditry about young men increasingly being drawn to conservatism.