I like the No Secret Police Act because it’s a clear example of a state using its own police power to respond to anti-democratic behavior by the federal government. Its constitutionality aside, I do wonder whether carceral responses are as effective as private civil remedies—in tort or otherwise.

On this Sunday, be uplifted and transformed by the power of this Super Mario Gospel Praise Break, by the 8-Bit Big Band. One commenter put it best: “Turn to your neighbor and say, ‘WAHOO!’” youtu.be/LBIo5QuEeaA?...

It’s really all we should be talking about today.

9-year-old: “Dad, look: The leaning tower of pizza boxes.”

A good antidote for this mindset is logging off and attending a few organizing meetings and connecting with people doing anti-oppression work. Will ground you real quick.

Side commentary: You can’t see it, but I’m wearing 5-inch shorts in this. It was a beautiful day in downtown Manhattan.

Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission, has been giving masterclasses on the First Amendment and what her agency can and cannot do under the law to anyone with ears to listen. Here is what she told me about Jimmy Kimmel: www.vanityfair.com/news/story/a...

This is a Rule 8 dismissal, which is not common when you’re represented by a lawyer, but is very common when you’re a sovereign citizen suing without a lawyer. This judge is treating the president of the United States as a pro se litigant.

This is a Rule 8 dismissal, which is not common when you’re represented by a lawyer, but is very common when you’re a sovereign citizen suing without a lawyer. This judge is treating the president of the United States as a pro se litigant.

From the solicitor general's brief in Trump v. Cook: "The government faces irreparable harm 'from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power' over the President’s objection." That line then cites to a ruling implicating one of John Roberts' pet legal theories.

I love the smell in the morning of the Supreme Court implicitly accepting that their pet legal theories could wreck the economy and their stock portfolios. Very legal, very cool, etc.

Just now, 11 state and city lawmakers were arrested by DHS police on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza after a hour of demanding access to the ICE lock up on the same floor. @thecity.nyc

This is the playbook, folks. If you're not paying attention now and doing something about it, then you're going to have to sit down the rest of your life because democracy is being taken away. Do not be quiet in this moment.

Old stomping grounds.

Too much legal news.

they don't have the capacity to compel obedience by the process of law. they don't have the capacity to compel obedience by violence. the only lever by which they can obtain obedience is fear. do not offer it to them.

“…our words have made you rich.” deadline.com/2025/09/sag-...

NEW: Mahmoud Khalil's lawyers today on his loss in immigration court — again, not a real court, an administrative court within the executive branch — and the next step in his habeas case in federal court in New Jersey: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I call this the anti-athleisure fit. Very controversial.

Oh, I want to play: Samuel Alito and I talk about how to keep the Supreme Court nonpartisan.

The Supreme Court, soon: "Under the plain view doctrine, which acts as an exception to the Fourth Amendment, the government doesn't need a warrant when its agents see other nonwhite people in plain view while executing a warrant against other nonwhite people." 🫠

The sky is blue, the Times reports.

My usual reminder: charging instruments like the information in this case are accusations to be proved. They do not independently establish facts.

Happy Pythagorean Triple Square Day. www.npr.org/2025/09/16/n...

Robert Redford playing a gentle incarnation of death, coming for a frightened old woman in The Twilight Zone episode "Nothing in the Dark" (1962). An extraordinary performance then, terribly bittersweet today

The correct response

Here's a short thread about why Judge Gregory Carro threw out the terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione. Ruling: www.nycourts.gov/legacypdfs/p... The short of it: The Manhattan DA didn't present legally sufficient evidence that the alleged murder was meant to intimidate a civilian population.

BREAKING: Justice Gregory Carro has dismissed the first degree murder charge against Luigi Mangione in his state case, finding the DA put legally insufficient evidence before the grand jury. More TK.

The death penalty is political—always has been. But at the federal level, the politics are tempered by a robust body of law, statutes, and rules that have long guided the attorney general's decision-making. For @vanityfair.com, I wrote about how Pam Bondi threw out the rulebook for Luigi Mangione.

“His case reflects a corruption of the legal process from start to finish," Senator Chris Van Hollen told @cristianfarias.com. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Senator Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland, who met with Ábrego García in El Salvador in April, told me that “his case reflects a corruption of the legal process from start to finish.” @cristianfarias.com nails it.

A couple of months ago, I started digging into the Justice Department’s decision to seek a death sentence for Luigi Mangione. One thing I found: Never since Congress reinstated the federal death penalty had an attorney general bent so many rules to get her way. www.vanityfair.com/news/story/l...

I wrote about the Trump administration’s political prosecution and imprisonment of Kilmar Ábrego García for @newyorker.com. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Whenever the Trump administration tells you they cannot return wrongfully deported people, like Kilmar Ábrego García, remember this. (There are many other examples.)

Yes. Plus, the US Flag Code is peppered with "should" rather than "shall" & there are no penalties for violating the code. Also the First Amendment likely comes into play. Flag-lowering is a case study in distributed powers in a federal system, & the story did a pretty good job in describing it.🍻

TENTH AMENDMENT

I appear to be watching K-Pop Demon Hunters.

wrote on charlie kirk for the newsletter this weekend

This is why you need independent antitrust regulators rather than lackeys. But John Roberts keeps insisting such independence is inconsistent with Our Law.

Who will be the first Trump judge who will write a paean to Charlie Kirk in an unrelated judicial opinion?

"Asking us to build factories and invest then arresting and detaining. Is this what an ally does?" -- Protest sign at airport where South Korean workers, including engineers with work visas, were returned www.wsj.com/world/asia/c...

He's right, and it's not just Brazil. Around the world, at least 31 democratic leaders who committed similar crimes have been jailed or banned from office since 2010. The failure to hold Trump accountable in the US was a unique and systemic failure of our institutions and political culture.

It is wildly unusual for lower-court judges to so publicly express frustration with the Supreme Court’s *behavior* (versus, say, a confusing ruling in a specific case). But the number of *different* examples is completely unprecedented—and pretty powerful evidence that something is seriously wrong.

In another era (this morning), I wrote about how institutions are again doing the hard work of validating the administration’s intimidation tactics. www.pbump.net/o/the-climat...

Counterprogramming: Sitting in a deep squat and moving your spine in every direction feels really good.

Timeline cleanse: This baby is living under the shed.

*opens Blueksy* *closes Bluesky*