www.liberalcurrents.com/america-if-y.... If you want to see how democratic renewal is done, look to Denmark! Of course, the US is deep into autocratic capture and they are not, so already it’s too late to pull this off. Still, it’s worth looking at how functional democracies stay functional.

Warrantless searches sparked the American Revolution. In the 1760s, Britain made complaints similar to this about policing American merchants & resorted to issuing blanket "writs of assistance" to customs officers to enter ships, businesses, and homes without a specific warrant or even any evidence.

The DOJ is hiding Epstein files So we @democracydefendersfund.org sued under FOIA & are moving for summary judgment It's a democracy 2 step: Art. I Congress leans in while we step forward in Art. III courts Explained on @ms.now 👇

The Dems are demanding that ICE honor the Constitution and the Trump administration is saying that this is out of the question. Think about that. Faithfully executing the law? substack.com/home/post/p-...

Missouri officials directed county election administrators to make voters temporarily unable to vote if they were flagged as potential noncitizens by a federal tool. But in hundreds of cases, the tool's determinations were wrong. With @texastribune.org

The SAVE act will provide deeply flawed proof-of-citizenship data for the upcoming election. It is a thinly disguised platform for purging voters--and of course, if the DOJ gets voters rolls with all of the data, they don't even have to guess or use demographic proxies to target Dems in particular.

"if you face things that threaten the stability of your country, I know that President Trump would be very interested" is an interesting thing to read weeks ahead of elections for which Orban is trailing behind badly.

terrific piece by the terrific Jacob Levy . . . a thoughtful consideration of why academic freedom is so crucial and also so hard to defend.

Rubio to Orban "...Because your success is our success. If you face financial struggles,. . . know that President Trump would be very interested because of your relationship with him and because of the importance of this country to us." Orban's election lifeline. www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

The BBC is an international treasure that should not depend on domestic political disputes. Fund the World Service before its funding dries up in 7 weeks! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

New fusionism: “Citing their work, Brockman predicted in 2005 that the “dangerous idea of the next decade” would be that “groups of people differ genetically in their average talents”.” ht @libankerdc.bsky.social www.thenerve.news/p/epstein-bi...

This is a huge glaring issue right now. Courts generally ARE doing fairly well, even including significant number of Trump appointees. The corruption is concentrated in scotus.

Devastated to learn that Univ of Texas at Austin is closing the American Studies dept. The years I spent there earning my PhD were formative, making me the teacher, thinker, and writer I am today. I've passed on what I learned at UT to thousands of students over the past 20 years. Just awful.

Do former DOGE employees have the type of access to SSA’s database that wld allow them to make changes? I ask bc there seems to be no transparency, & Trump & Musk now want states to purge voters from the rolls by using the “SAVE” system to compare data in the rolls to the data in SSA’s database. 1/

Hungary: Magyar launches anti-Orban election campaign

Brilliant account of what's wrong with our politics -- which is that everyone is working from a model that ceases to reflect reality but that also hides the reality it is not reflecting. substack.com/home/post/p-...

The Dow was at 43,488 when Trump took office. It just hit 50,000. So if you had invested $43,488 in the US, you would now have $50,000. But if you had invested the same amount in the rest of the world, you would now be worth $60,000. Lemme do a expla-youtube-nation www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYL5...

Recruiters and propagandists who previously worked for Russia’s Wagner Group have emerged as a main conduit for Kremlin-organised sabotage attacks in Europe, according to western intelligence officials. The fighter group’s status has been uncertain since a failed rebellion against the top brass of

Wait what? Michael Flynn’s brother, Charles Flynn, is a Senior Advisor at Peter Thiel’s Palantir?? h/t @nadja72638243.bsky.social on X… 1/

This is a crucial tool for stealing the election: Misidentify citizens as non-citizens and demand they be struck from the voter rolls. And, of course, if the USG gets state voter data, they will have party ID among other things to more carefully target their mis-identifications.

White House stands by State Department nominee who complains that "white Americans are increasingly second-class citizens," warns of "white erasure" and says "the Jews love to see themselves as oppressed." @camcgrady.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/u...

A Reuters review found that immigration detainees have filed more than 20,200 federal lawsuits seeking release since President Trump took office, with hundreds of judges ruling more than 4,400 times that detentions were unlawful reut.rs/40gfILP

Makes sense to start thinking about de-magafication now rather than when opportunity presents itself. If the US is going to recover from this period, it’s going to need some root-and-branch change, rather than the usual ‘swing of the pendulum, brush the last lot under the carpet’ approach.

Really interesting post from @asharangappa.bsky.social tackling the imponderably difficult task of restoration at DOJ once the cavalry finally arrives and exploring a process akin to the "denazification" sorting that took place after WWII. open.substack.com/pub/asharang...

The kind of utter confusion Brooks is going to inflict on Yale undergrads.

On the time of monsters -- and the dilemmas of translation. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

An article in the NYT today revealed Meta’s plan to take advantage of current political turmoil to sneak facial recognition into their smart glasses without enforcement bodies or privacy advocates noticing. But EPIC has noticed—and is ensuring that enforcers do, too. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." -- Mark Twain

New story up on the Homeland Security Department’s new tactic: flood social media companies with subpoenas to unmask anonymous accounts that criticize ICE or monitor the movements of ICE agents. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...

Great piece showing how a series of small steps add up to the inescapable conclusion -- which is that the midterms are already stolen, I've seen this playbook in Hungary and recognize it here. The answer is not despair but doing what we can to fight back. substack.com/home/post/p-...

“I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject, and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future”

Great news for Liz Magill and for Georgetown Law! www.politico.com/news/magazin...

20+ hrs after the Trump admin was supposed to disburse $200M withheld from the Hudson River tunnel project, “there is no sign of a wire transfer of any money,” the NJ and NY AGs say in a new filing, requesting an emergency status conference this afternoon storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

SCOOP: ICE is asking Social Security for peoples' in-person appointment dates and times, and SSA staff are being told to give it to them. From me + @leahfeiger.bsky.social + @zoeschiffer.bsky.social @wired.com wired.com/story/social...

In a normal time, this would happen. Jared Kushner is on the actual payroll of at least two Middle Eastern sovereigns as he purports to represent the US in negotiations, many of which involve the Middle East. It's the all-time most outrageous conflict. But US media are ignoring it.

Here’s a gift link that explains more: www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

DHS is currently targeting 5,600 refugees in Minnesota as a first step in an expansive plan aimed at reviewing — and presumably restricting — the legal status of refugees admitted since the start of the Biden administration. Read my Law Dork report on Trump admin memos filed in court Thursday:

Meet the YOLO Republicans: Lawmakers with nothing to lose are threatening Trump’s grip on Congress

The extraordinary courage of people who are documenting ICE atrocities in places like Minneapolis, at great personal risk, are also achieving something else: They're changing the public's mind about immigration. We have a rare opportunity here. 1/ (new piece) newrepublic.com/article/2059...

Exclusive: ICE Masks Up in More Ways Than One (and is infiltrating social media) open.substack.com/pub/kenklipp...

The Project 2025 author is using millions of dollars in USAID money for his own security detail. It is estimated that 762,000 people have *already died* as a result of Elon Musk and Russell Vought’s obscene murder of USAID, including more than 500,000 children. Vought is a mass murderer.

Matt Platkin has been a powerhouse state AG, in the forefront of challenging Trump's unconstitutional power grab. Now he'll continue the fight with his own law firm -- bringing key people from his AG's team with him. Great news for the rule of law! newjerseyglobe.com/judiciary/pl...

Now the US will boost the program already started by Viktor Orban to unite the far-right and undermine democracy in Europe. www.politico.eu/article/maga...

Watch this clip of @booker.senate.gov masterfully question white nationalist Jeremy Carl. Even as Carl tries to distance himself from some of his own racist statements, he defends the white nationalist great replacement theory! (3:40 mark.) Very important to expose this. youtube.com/watch?v=7VYq...

This is a vivid, horribly relevant read. “She does not sleep well. And as you lift up her pajama top to check her rash one morning, you see that her breathing is labored, shadows pooling between her ribs when she sucks in air. You suffer an icy moment of realization: This is a medical crisis.”

Yesterday upwards of 300 million people across India held a national strike. Numerous unions and farmers' groups flooded the streets, shutting down large segments of the economy. One of the key demands was a withdrawal from the trade deal struck with the Trump administration.

NEW: In Iowa, when someone's charges are *dismissed,* they still had to pay court fees. So prosecutors pressured ppl into pleading guilty: 'plead guilty, you'll have no fees. (If you win, you'll owe $$.)' Iowa's Supreme Court struck that down in January... but prosecutors want to bring it all back:

Maybe Bondi forgot. Coverups have consequences. #SheShed #Voices4Victory

Keep track of the escalations. The 21-yr-old who's been posting openly white-supremacist, antisemitic graphics for Dept. of Labor just got a giant promotion to run social media for DHS's 222,000 employees. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/u...

Rep. Raskin to Pam Bondi: "You redacted the names of abusers, enablers, accomplices, and co-conspirators — apparently to save them from embarrassment and disgrace…Even worse, you've shockingly failed to redact many of the victims' names…You ignored the law."