Today’s state con law newsletter has a short tribute to WA Supreme Court Justice Mary Yu, who will retire this year. Yu’s record isn’t perfect, but she at least began to grapple w/ the reality that ALL life w/o parole sentences are constitutionally suspect: open.substack.com/pub/slri/p/i...

Today’s state con law newsletter has a short tribute to WA Supreme Court Justice Mary Yu, who will retire this year. Yu’s record isn’t perfect, but she at least began to grapple w/ the reality that ALL life w/o parole sentences are constitutionally suspect: open.substack.com/pub/slri/p/i...

New: Sarah MacLachlan, Jewel, and more musicians scheduled to perform at tonight's premiere for Hulu's ABC News doc LILITH FAIR have all pulled out after Disney scrapped the red carpet. First notable talent consequence of the Jimmy Kimmel situation.

And yet in public, on the record…crickets.

So embarrassing.

You know the whole “even if Trump shot someone in broad daylight on 5th Avenue” thing? Yeah this is that bsky.app/profile/kyle...

This post has now been deleted. Suggesting it really was a DM to Bondi, violating presidential Records Act, and basically all national security protocols. But who cares. All the laws are for trampling now.

Not as fun as his Shelby County takedown, but Justice Eddins' opinion is also a tour de force on how state constitutions can and often do provide stronger civil rights than SCOTUS precedent -- looking to distinct text, history, clauses, local values, & interpretive methods bsky.app/profile/mjsd...

I am pleased to report that Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins has dropped another total evisceration of the Supreme Court. He says originalism is a fraud—and the Republican justices are shamelessly making up facts and history to impose radical Christian nationalism: slate.com/news-and-pol...

No, it doesn’t “teeter.”

There is no world in which it is normal for the president to publicly call upon his attorney general to hurry up and prosecute his political foes. It’s like the Watergate tapes but posted on social media. Let’s get a grip on what’s happening here.

well well well well WELL www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/u...

I genuinely cannot believe that Ezra Klein said we should run pro-life candidates in Kansas, Ohio, and Missouri; three states that recently held abortion referendums where the pro-choice side won!

If more policing was truly the best way to keep people safe, then it wouldn’t be so out of the ordinary to “see police in a nice, quiet neighborhood like Walnut Creek.” It’s almost like there’s something else—certain resources, perhaps?—keeping crime down. sfist.com/2025/09/19/d...

is this bad?

It's important to remember when GOP Reps and Sens are yelling about the 'violent left' that they routinely tell reporters and colleagues how theyre afraid to do this or that because their own supporters routinely threaten violence agains them.

ABC is a mega donor to Trump—and fired Jimmy Kimmel because Trump’s FCC said to. Even Ted Cruz agrees that this sets off a slippery slope in censorship. Senate Democrats are urging him to call on the FCC Chair to testify before Congress. Our constitutional rights are at stake.

...

Some more shameful shit from the Democratic Party

It is remarkable how few national Dems have been willing to put themselves on the front lines here.

1/ NEW: The KY supreme court 4-2 struck down Lexington's 'no-knock' warrant ban as preempted by a state reform law that restricts, but does not prohibit, such warrants. Dissenting, J. Keller argued the state law provides only a floor of restrictions: appellatepublic.kycourts.net/api/api/v1/p...

As someone who dabbles in public opinion research, lemme tell you, these are devastating numbers for Trump. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

They just tear-gassed us. They tried to run us over in a van holding a peaceful protester. They shot us with pepper balls. They dragged another protester into the facility.

Ruffalo: I'm reaching out to all of my brothers and sisters in the entertainment industry, to join us...They're coming after celebrities because they know we are the last ones to actually be able to have our freedom to speak. So use your platform wisely, use it generously for this movement. #NoKings

Never stop the ridicule for one second.

Reminder: before you go full-on defeatist about the rule of law, keep in mind it remains often effective on a micro-level. It’s on the macro- that the FedSoc types have killed it. Hard work and good lawyering can make a difference for regular people — though not always, and not all of them.

Where the separate divisions of ANTIFA landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944:

I am honestly devastated that we’re at a point where one of America’s largest broadcasters will air a tribute to a white supremacist while raising money for a white supremacist organization in support of an authoritarian government. This is full dystopia. bsky.app/profile/thed...

ICYMI, this morning's opinion by Judge Kelly (a Trump appointee!) protecting Guatemalan children from deportation after the admin's justification "crumbled like a house of cards" is worth reading. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Robert Redford on Richard Nixon's death. Not much changes, I guess.

We strongly condemn the actions taken by Nexstar and Disney-ABC to pull JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE! off the air.

We strongly condemn the actions taken by Nexstar and Disney-ABC to pull JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE! off the air.

This is the biggest attack on free speech since the McCarthy era but it also has significantly less popular consensus behind it than the second Red Scare. It's being done on behalf of a minority faction led by the most unpopular president in modern history. Organizing against this can win.

Let’s fucking GO.

Oh. My. God. Profoundly twisted framing from @nytimes.com The casual reader of this hed and subhed would have exactly zero inkling that this is likely corrupt or even illegal or unconstitutional. Euphemistic to the point of absurdity.

Let me just say a simple thing. Democrats have no obligation to provide the votes to fund the destruction of our democracy. If you want my vote for a bipartisan budget, there need to be protections to stop Trump's brazen lawlessness.

I would love to be part of the conversation on MSNBC related to the Kimmel story and it's chilling effects on first amendment, but unfortunately I was terminated by MSNBC for stating that "hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which lead to hateful actions".

i think that if the FCC threatened to revoke ABC’s license unless it replaced Jimmy Kimmel with Kevin Hart to diversify the network, Ilya Shapiro would be able to identify the issue here

idk i read in the free press that the real risk to free speech is three oberlin undergraduates who say geometry is ableist. this is pretty confusing to me.

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.

now is the time for every media personality to stand up and speak out, because what this shows is that nothing will save you they’re coming for all of you, unless you’re a true believer your days are numbered and your bosses are eager to comply do something you can be proud of on your way out

Respectfully disagree: 1) in fact it is unusual for a democracy w/ this level of GDP to turn authoritarian & so quickly; 2) the weakness of both institutions (congress & courts) and individuals (Schumer etc) is shocking. Would take less than 10 people in congress or 2 SC justices to stop all this.

Let ABC know how you feel about their bowing to the thugs in power and cancelling Jimmy Kimmel's show: support.abc.com/hc/en-us/req...

If you're still pretending that the Republican Party has the slightest interest in democracy, or the Constitution, you're either a complete imbecile or you're working with them.

A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say. This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand. All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.

Silly Jimmy Kimmel. He should have just called for all homeless people to be killed and he’d still have a job.

This flows from the blinkered, Kleinian view that words have no meaning and policy advocates aren't responsible for the real-world effects that they work to bring about. Sure, Kirk *literally* asked for more gun deaths, but it's somehow unfair to believe him. bsky.app/profile/kyle...

This is a massive, history making abuse of your power. It will define your legacy and one day you will come to regret punishing free speech and trying to destroy democracy.

The president of Barnard College (and a former law school prof!) thinks that mentioning Kirk's advocacy for more gun violence is the same thing as "blaming a victim of sexual assault for going to a party wearing provocative clothing." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/o...

NEW: When SCOTUS upheld partisan gerrymanders, it said 'don't worry, state courts can fix this.' Today, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld a GOP gerrymander under the state constitution, w/ a concurrence pleading for SCOTUS to "step back into the fray" www.sccourts.org/media/opinio...