My new one @slate.com with @cooke-m.bsky.social: "Republicans Are Suing to Kill California’s Pro-Democratic Gerrymander. They Have a Huge Problem." slate.com/news-and-pol...

This is almost literally what the English Civil War was fought over.

Justice Kavanaugh: “If the person is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.”

🚨NEW: For the first time in history, the single largest group of people arrested in the interior and sent to ICE detention is people with NO criminal record. As of yesterday's data release, 40%(!) of those arrested in the interior and detained by ICE had no prior conviction or pending charges.

a lot of normal people just think a case happens organically but there’s so much ground to be gained by informing the public that this is how their state governments spend their tax money

All scientific grant funding must now be approved by a political appointee and "demonstrably advance the President's policy priorities." I wonder where innovation will happen in the future? It won't be in the US arstechnica.com/science/2025...

A senator saw racism, threats to democracy were tearing America apart, so he spoke out, even after colleagues warned he'd be attacked. Charles Sumner was nearly caned to death in 1856, but he lives on as a hero. Today, fear is winning in Congress. My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/lisa...

Love this @jamellebouie.net interview with Zaakir Tameez on his biography of Charles Sumner. Great to see George Downing's contributions highlighted. I'm writing about a moment of convergence involving Sumner, Downing, Frederick Douglass, and Andrew Johnson. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/o...

Abrego is the *only* prisoner ever released from CECOT, so this is the sole account we have of the horrifying conditions in the prison in El Salvador where Trump has sent over 260 people from the US.

Reading this … it is just nauseating. And clear why they didn’t want Abrego Garcia to return or be free - to tell this story. Thinking about the men there - including Andry Hernandez Romero, who Michelle Goldberg wrote about months ago: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/o...

The cruelty in today's politics feels horribly corrosive. Bringing up that hard-working immigrant families — undocumented, yes, but not violent criminals — are being ripped apart based on immigration status doesn't bring compassion or even pause, but gleeful cheers.

Amazing how hard it is to write: “Police shoot at journalists.”

note that this completely inverts the public justification for the deportation scheme. they claim they’re deporting criminals, but they deported Kilmar without knowledge of a crime, and now that they supposedly found one they’re bringing him BACK.

So after years of bluster, incl yesterday on the courthouse steps, Lindell joins the long list of others (Giuliani, Lake, Fox News) who, when offered the chance to present evidence - in court - of their claims of alleged election fraud, conceded and ran away.

yes this is famously how free societies treat their universities

Normatively it should not matter but practically it does, so it’s worth reiterating: all this woman did was write an op ed in a student newspaper. That’s it. She didn’t lead violent or disruptive protests, she didn’t advocate for violence, she co-wrote an op ed calling for divestment. That’s it.

Sen. Van Hollen: "I don't think it's ever wrong to fight for the constitutional rights of one person because if we give up on one person's rights, we threaten everybody's rights...Anyone who is not prepared to stand up and fight for the Constitution doesn't deserve to lead."

I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump admin must facilitate the return of SMART Union Local 100 apprentice Kilmar Abrego Garcia. They need to quit wasting time and bring our union brother home NOW!

If the President can ignore court orders and send anyone he wants to a prison overseas, we are all at risk. An insult to the Constitution and to our values as Americans. Abrego Garcia must be returned now.

i'm watching a group of conservative law professors insist that there is a grand debate over birthright citizenship that somehow escaped generations of scholarship and only popped into existence after a right-wing president announced an effort to nullify the 14th amendment.

Abrego Garcia's wife: "I will not stop fighting until I see my husband alive. Kilmar, if you can hear me, stay strong. God hasn't forgotten about you. Our children are asking when you will come home ... they miss their dad so much."

The American President pardons guilty insurrectionists but allows innocent men to rot in foreign prisons.

just reupping this, on the Oscar-winning movie about how life under authoritarianism can feel almost normal until people start getting disappeared.

I had been doubtful that we were going to have a "this is the crisis moment" with Trump, as opposed to "everything about this is a destructive catastrophe." But the Abrego Garcia case is the crisis moment. 1/

"The two-page memo, which was obtained by The Associated Press, does not allege any criminal conduct by Khalil" "Rather, Rubio wrote Khalil could be expelled for his beliefs." Free this man immediately. apnews.com/article/mahm...

The ICE arrests are meant to terrorize dissenters and crush the intellectual freedom that’s the whole point of universities—and the tactic is having its intended effect. Thanks to these professors for fighting back. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Riddle me this: How do you not mention the Civil War at of all places Arlington National Cemetery?

Killing off our research facilities and talent pipelines is perhaps the biggest, dumbest self-own in American history.

if you find yourself reluctant to support the guy at Columbia because you find some of the politics he espoused distasteful or even abhorrent, you should know that this is exactly the reaction that they hoped for in choosing him as a target for unlawful detention based on political speech.

NEWS: Last night, the Department of Homeland Security detained a Palestinian who helped lead the Columbia encampment. Agents told him his visa was revoked. He said he had a green card. They were confused—then said that was revoked too. His attorney demanded a warrant. Agents hung up instead.

Yes. If DHS can barge in, say your visa was revoked, be told you have a green card, say it's revoked too, and then disappear you so that neither your lawyer nor your family can find you, then all the guardrails are gone. There is no policy, practice, or law protecting anyone.

It's getting tiring to keep saying this, but for posterity's sake I will: any previous administration would have been instantly sunk by this. Before January 20, 2017, this would have been the most stunning corruption scandal in the history of the American justice system. Now, it's...a Thursday.

"The department plans to buy armored Tesla vehicles. Elon Musk, who is leading efforts to cut government spending, has won more than $13 billion in government contracts in the past five years." one news story that really brings together a lot www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/u...

There has never been a larger gap in my (admittedly quite short) professional life between how lay folks and law profs are talking about what is happening in government right now. So much of what Trump is doing is just blatantly illegal — often in several ways at once.

Today is Fred Korematsu Day in seven states + NYC. It really ought to be a national holiday, but for reasons ironically not dissimilar to his story, I don’t think it will be any time soon.

Misread this as referring to Paul Verhoeven at first and thought he had a very interesting, if far-fetched, new movie coming out

I'm a believer in smart policy, but all the finger-pointing in the LA firestorm about hydrant flows and LAFD budgets seems like arguing about the adequacy of Hiroshima's 1945 building code standards. It's a way to evade the big questions.

After the Brown v. Board decision, white people across the South opened hundreds of private schools. 70 years later, most of the ones still open in Alabama’s Black Belt remain overwhelmingly white. In this town, one school keeps kids divided. By @jenniferberryhawes.bsky.social (Pub. May 2024)

folks, we love a good statutory interpretation joke, don't we

State supreme courts have a long way to go when it comes to transparency. @bridgetlavender.bsky.social & Julie Murray @aclu.bsky.social discuss the findings of their excellent new report in @statecourtreport.bsky.social. statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

all of the nation’s economic, political, social, and spiritual issues could be solved by placing University of California graduates in charge

Having early exams and a protracted paper writing period is by far the ideal end-of-semester schedule

for my constitutional law and history freaks out there, this book is sick as hell yalebooks.yale.edu/978030022321...

A few important fact to remember: S. Korea lived under some form of military dictatorship from 1965-1988! Brazil lived under a military dictatorship from 1964-1985! Democracy is not an abstraction to these folk, it's a vulnerable thing that they want to protect.

Very jealous of the clerk who now has to explain these diss tracks to a federal judge