A federal judge ruled Monday that a nearly complete offshore wind project halted by the administration can resume, dealing President Donald Trump a setback in his ongoing effort to restrict the industry. https://to.pbs.org/4gBPT0k

Certiorari "before judgment" is how #SCOTUS takes up a full appeal *before* the intermediate federal courts have heard it. It used to be exceedingly rare. For instance, there wasn't a *single* grant of such expedited review b/w August 2004 & February 2019. This is the *23rd* such grant since then.

And in other news from Texas: www.texastribune.org/2025/09/22/t...

In the news from Texas: Angelo State University has just informed faculty that "if they make any statement implying that there are more than two sexes or genders (male and female) they will be fired." conchoobserver.com/2025/09/19/a...

Must-read; important to interpret recent events in terms of how Trump could turn the US into a competitive authoritarian state where the government abuses its powers to undermine the opposition even as elections continue to be held

OMG - the judge in Florida just sua sponte struck the complaint in the Trump v NYT case for -wait for it - violating Rule 8. Lawyers, tell the folks at home how hard it is to get the complaint struck outright for something like that in fed eral court. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I experienced this last week & refused, saying I had never before been asked to provide the names of any analysts I was planning to quote to get a comment. Spox replied that maybe they were D donors. (In that case, it was 3 retired top military JAG officers.) I guess that was not a weird oneoff.

The termination letter The Washington Post sent to @karenattiah.bsky.social is insane. They’re claiming that white men are a protected marginalized group

Trump attacks 1A, demands opponents be prosecuted without legal basis, imposes tariffs and visa fees. All very bad, all unpopular, all divide parts of Trump’s base. What should Dems do? Some of us: Dunno, attack Trump? Dem leaders: Could we have a meeting, sir? www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/u...

That's literally false. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that praising someone's death is protected speech, including in Snyder v Phelps (2011), where protesters at a soldier's funeral held signs that said "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" & "Thank God for 9/11" rollcall.com/2025/09/19/s...

FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who intends to monitor bias while wearing the president's bust as a lapel pin, is the poster child for why the Constitution bars the government from meddling in newsrooms' editorial decisions. www.cbc.ca/news/worl...

A U.S. judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's administration from stripping 19 mostly Democratic-led states and Washington, D.C., of food stamp benefits funding unless the states hand over data on millions of people who receive them

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...

The Pentagon is implementing new guidelines that will require journalists to sign a pledge and agree to report only approved and officially released information.

"Tom Homan was investigated for accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents. Trump's DOJ shut it down." @carolleonnig.bsky.social and @kendilanian-nbc.bsky.social report for MSNBC: www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/t...

In the oral argument in the immunity case, Trump's lawyer's answer to the question, "What would be the check on the President just using his officers to break the law?" was, "People will not follow illegal orders." We're about to find out whether that's true.

Against defeatism.

Coast Guard showing you can stop the drugs and apprehend the criminals without committing possible or likely war crimes. maritime-executive.com/article/uscg...

...

".. The government can’t do indirectly, through shadowy threats and mafia-like intimidation, what it is barred from doing directly. .. If Kimmel sues, .. It would be a way of defending a sorely tested bulwark of the free press .." @politico.com www.politico.com/news/magazin...

NEW: Unsurprisingly, Kristi Noem extends the "mass influx" declaration authorizing it to deputize local police for ICE. Buried in the notice is new official data on ICE removals, showing 145k removal from Oct. 2024 to Sept. 8. This is substantially lower than previous figures leaked to the press.

This is what it looks like when ICE violates our First Amendment rights.

A reminder that ABC also paid Trump $15m to settle a feeble defamation suit over George Stephanopoulos's calling Trump a rapist. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/o...

This would be amazing, and the result of concerted pressure by people working inside the NIH to explain how bad things were and get grants out despite politically imposed red tape, and, to their credit, Congress and the media for calling the administration on their bullshit.

The thing with designating a group that doesn't actually exist as a terrorist organization is that they can then say anyone they want is a part of that group.

if you are reading this, you are “Antifa”

This.

PSA: A "Major Terrorist Organization" (MTO) is not a thing. The Immigration and Nationality Act *delegates* power to the State Department to designate *FOREIGN* terrorist organizations (FTOs) based on certain criteria. It doesn't apply to domestic orgs. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

IMPORTANT PERSPECTIVE: What I have not seen anyone discussing is that Nexstar pulling Kimmel, forcing ABC’s hand, comes as Nexstar is leading the way for the industry on trying to get FCC approval for media consolidation. www.poynter.org/business-wor...

JUST IN: Trump administration cannot proceed with overhaul of US health agencies, court rules reut.rs/4gs2YcB

I don’t know when it’s going to pop for a lot of normies that they are living under an authoritarian regime, but the cancellation of popular TV shows that make fun of the administration might do it www.vulture.com/article/abc-...

The family of a Black student found hanging from a tree at Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss., is requesting an independent autopsy to identify the true cause of death. Demartravion “Trey” ...

Jury trial/district courts are one of the few functioning safeguards we have now.

Folks, I don’t know what end is up right now.

If you take what a 9-0 Court said in Vullo seriously, it seems clear to me that Kimmel has not just a plausible jawboning claim but a strong one on the basis of Carr's threats. (Always read Genevieve Lakier 👇)

Mahmoud Khalil lost his bid for a waiver of removability, making him one step closer to deportation. He claims his immigration judge took Marco Rubio's "misrepresentations" about him as gospel, and is asking a NJ judge to step in. Here's some of the immigration judge's ruling:

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr: "There's actions we can take on licensed broadcasters. It's long past the time that...Comcast and Disney say 'We're not gonna run Kimmel anymore...because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibly of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC.'"

BREAKING: Trump says he is designating “Antifa” as a “major terrorist organization.” Such a step being taken this way would be concerning enough, given what it actually is, but, given that Trump sees “Antifa” hiding in every corner of opposition, this could be an extremely alarming escalation.

After Trump’s FCC chair, demanded ABC take action against against Kimmel for his comments on Kirk, Nexstar, the largest operator of ABC affiliates announced it would pull Kimmel from its stations Then ABC said it was taking Kimmel off the air Nexstar is seeking FCC approval for a $6.2B merger

There’s competition, I know. But threatening to pull the broadcast licenses of the affiliates of an entire “big-3” television network unless they stop their evening talk show host from criticizing the president has to be one of the biggest First Amendment violations in U.S. history.

The Ninth Circuit just delivered good news for digital privacy: abandoning a phone doesn't abandon your Fourth Amendment rights in the phone's contents. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

Tennessee is considering whether to stop relying on the American Bar Association to accredit law schools in the state, joining Florida, Texas and Ohio in reconsidering the organization's primary role in U.S. legal education reut.rs/4puflJa

💥Navalny’s memorial at the Russian Embassy in Budapest keeps being destroyed overnight. An opposition politician reinstalled it for the 2nd time. The Russian Embassy now claims, absurdly, that its creators themselves vandalize it as a false-flag to push for a permanent monument.

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.

Detailed story by ABC News (@kfaulders.bsky.social et al) about Pulte, Trump, & Ed Martin trying to force criminal case vs Letitia James. Says document in question in VA was a template never corrected & not seen by loan officers; other docs in file were accurate. abcnews.go.com/US/trump-off...

When our institutions won't stand up, faculties will have to come together to do so.

NEW: Whistleblowers allege that a senior government official, Angie Salazar, made inaccurate statements in a sworn declaration filed in a lawsuit challenging the summary removal of migrant children. Salazar "knew or should have known of the inaccuracies," per letter to Congressional leaders.

NEW: Internal report reveals DHS intelligence portal was accidentally opened to tens of thousands of users for months, exposing sensitive intel about Americans. @brennancenter.org obtained the docs. @wired.com has the story. 🧵 www.wired.com/story/a-dhs-...

This case raised yet another example of DOJ providing seemingly misleading or false info to a judge. DOJ said there is no written “agreement” between the U.S. and Ghana. But public statements by Ghanian officials refer to a “Memorandum of Understanding”: bsky.app/profile/anna...