Fmr FBI Special Agent, lawyer, @JacksonYale. Tiger(ish) mom. Legal and national security analyst. Editor @just_security. Steam mop influencer. Views mine. https://asharangappa.substack.com
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Massie: "The Speaker of the House just offered a fig leaf to my colleagues. They're gonna vote on a non-binding resolution today that does absolutely nothing ... they're allowing the DOJ to curate all of the information that the DOJ is giving them ... the perpetrators are being protected"
CNN, MSNBC, and Newsmax are currently covering the Epstein survivors press conference on the Hill. Fox News and NewsNation are not.
Shockingly, it turns out that when CBS handed $16 million over to Trump's "presidential library," it didn't placate him in the least. Kristi Noem has now used precisely the same scam, a phony accusation of deceptive editing, that Trump used to extort CBS last time! newrepublic.com/article/1998...
"those 11 drug trafficker are no longer with us" Drug traffickers as such are not lawful military objectives.
The US military will conduct a flyover of the White House and wider DC at 11am tomorrow (Wednesday). Epstein’s victims will be holding a press conference on Capitol Hill around the same time.
Mobile billboard rolling thru downtown Washington DC
Trump will do all he can to “fix” the 2026 and 2028 elections to secure MAGA victories by every method he can muster, however blatantly illegal and unconstitutional, whatever the courts might say. If every eligible voter shows up, we can overwhelm his schemes. Otherwise, our way of life is doomed.
This is like watching a Victorian time traveler befuddled at trying to work an iPhone. Just completely lost and confused by all the intervening context of the different era he's now in.
Ryan Routh is the Florida trump assassin.
#BREAKING: Fifth Circuit (Southwick & Ramirez, JJ.) holds that President Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act against Tren de Aragua is unlawful, and blocks AEA removals in the Northern District of Texas (over a lengthy dissent from Judge Oldham): www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub...
Thread… I’ve grown up in Chicagoland since the 1980s. As Trump plans to ransack our city & region with illegal military occupation, here are 3 facts he & most of corporate media won’t bother to address—because doing so would undermine Trump’s entire fascist narrative to enable autocratic rule. 1/5
Correct. That’s part of the legal rationale. Where the threat is imminent and capture is infeasible
In the aftermath of Emmett Till's lynching, white supremacists called for federal troops to invade and occupy Chicago. "If the federal government intervenes in the interests of law enforcement anywhere, it should start in Chicago, crime capital extraordinary." h/t @larryglickman.bsky.social
I feel like there might be a story worth investigating about why this cop retired at 35
But yes it’s hard to rein in a president’s use of the armed forces, if that’s your point
I think you’re wrong, Tom. The post 9/11 terrorism cases almost all hung their hat on the AUMF. This Court may be different but it’s just not accurate that it did not matter then
Great
The news cycle continues to feel like marinating in sewage
Pritzker today: "When did we become a country where it's okay for the US president to insist on national television that a state should call him to beg for anything? Especially something we don't want. Have we truly lost all sense of sanity in this nation that we treat this as normal?" Amen.
A few years back I wrote an article with Ben Schneider about how organizational culture can be the product of ASA (attraction, selection, and attrition). This feels like a central part of how you end up with a lawless paramilitary loyal only to the authoritarian ruler and his nativist ideology.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
But the congressional authorization was key. That is absent here. I don’t think defensive war powers under Article II would encompass this kind of action (even in Awlaki the legal justification goes into labored detail about the “imminence” of the threat)
Well, I'm no JAG, but yes, I think illegal, for following reasons: 1. Civilian vessel 2. Not self-defense 3. No attempt at interdiction (i.e. disable engines) 4. Int'l waters 5. No PID on folks in boat (could be civilians) 6. No declared state of war or hostilities so unclear authorization
when you’re upset at the cool kids for not inviting you to their lunch table
Anyone who participates in what appears in context to be a proposed military occupation of Chicago “because crime” will be doing something that is illegal and is obligated not to do that. That’s all I’ll say.
Tom, that was undergirded by congressional authorization for the use of military force (and was also an internal DOJ legal argument, not a court decision). I personally find the Obama reasoning incredibly problematic
I agree
You think one state suing another, in a court, under provisions of the Constitution is “civil war”?
Lethal force against a civilian vessel in international waters is a war crime if not in self-defense. If not in self-defense, only non-lethal actions, such as warning shots or disabling fire, are allowed. "Not yielding to pursuers" or "suspected of carrying drugs" doesn't carry a death sentence.
The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction for disputes between states (meaning they can actually file the lawsuit there, rather than have it go up on appeal). This would be a good time for Illinois to utilize it.
Via "One First," my quick stab at the legal authority President Trump will likely claim allows him to deploy un-federalized Texas National Guard troops to Illinois; why such a deployment without Illinois's consent *ought* to be unlawful; and the options Illinois will have for litigating that issue:
As commander in chief, Trump has had a consistent penchant for performative military action against "terrorists." When his administration began designating criminal entities as terrorists, it was clear where this was headed. And of course the de rigeur video of the latest performance.
One of which being the minor detail that deploying them off federal property in the territory of one state under another state's authority without the permission of the government of the first state is quite literally an invasion
Even if they are federalized, I don’t think Trump could send one state’s NG into another without that governor’s consent (?). He is trying to transpose the D.C. playbook
If it’s under Title 32 authority, the Texas guard remains under state control. That would mean that one state is deploying armed forces into the territory of a non-consenting state. And that’d clearly be a violation of the principle that states are co-equal, territorially limited sovereigns.
Can't wait for Roberts to dump "Equal Dignity of the States" even faster than he abandoned "Major Question" doctrine.
Senate Democrats: DO NOT FUND the government when the current continuing resolution expires at the end of the month. SHUT IT DOWN unless DC is funded, the troops are withdrawn from our cities, elections are protected, the Epstein files are released in full... SHUT IT DOWN.
The president is sending the military to control American cities and if you're a reporter who's framing that illegal power grab as "pushing the boundaries of constitutionality" or "acting boldly to fight crime" or whatever, please go find another line of work where you won't get us all killed.
I don’t know who needs to hear this but the National Guard of one state can’t invade another state. They are separate sovereigns
trump has repeatedly voted by mail over the years while suing to keep others from doing the same
I’m sorry this guy sucks
this now brings us up to six (!) grand jury refusals to charge (that we know about), plus two cases filed as part of the dc surge dismissed on the us attorney's office's request
The judge for some reason apologized for not knowing that SCOTUS shadow docket orders are considered precedent, which is something no one else knew either until a couple of weeks ago.
Vance follows a coterie of online Nazis on X, has described Curtis Yarvin as a major intellectual influence, and openly attacks immigrants in blood and soil terms. The response of most of the political press? "Doesn't look like anything to me."
NEW: Massie tells CNN that there is significant pressure from the White House to BLOCK the release of the Epstein files.
The Trump admin is now moving to effectively double the number of immigration judges by citing flimsy legal authority to deputize hundreds of totally inexperienced military lawyers to take these jobs. Notably, immigration law is infamously complex, often described as second only to tax law.
If 2pm presser is about Venezuela, my prebunk/theory: Trump's military provocations on Venezuela are a way to create a factual basis to sustain his Alien Enemies Act deportations. And, he may try to use it to expand his original executive order to all Venezuelans, not just TdA
It's a gift link
“I keep seeing these memes where Indians are bragging about taking our tech jobs,” said Ely, 36. “So I said, ‘Oh yeah? Well I’m going to work with these guys that are going to arrest you, slam your face on the pavement and send you home.’” wapo.st/3VrzEJg
WWII ended 80 years ago today, as Japan surrendered on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
Dude, lighten up or get blocked
Concern over low birth rates was what the theocracy in Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale used to come to power.
Platner: No one cares that you pretend to be remorseful as you sell out to lobbyists. Symbolic opposition does not reopen hospitals. Weak condemnations do not bring back Roe V Wade. Maine deserves better than Susan Collins.
Yes. Zero twinkle.
Yes! Cared too much about shit
I actually think this is what the country needs right now
Sort of like a Mystery Science Theater 3000 but for Bond films
🤣
Just too broody. I don't want to be Bond's therapist. I just want to hop in the sack with him and then have him leave the next morning
he's hot tho
*great
This is a really gret juxtaposition, thanks
wtf are you talking about Tom
Yeah Dalton also has pretty factor so that makes sense. You need at least a slightly rugged look
Like I want to see a Bond movie, not School Ties
He's too pretty
Yes!!
😴
I wasn't saying that Moore was "normal," just more within an attainable fantasy for men
😂
Totally. Like I am not going to see a Bond film to hear about his emotional baggage
Don't you think that with Moore, more normal men could picture themselves as Bond? Craig sort of puts it out of reach. I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong
Maybe that's the part that needs updating. Is it woke to have a less hairy chest? (And Moore did have a semi-dad bod. But he was very handsome and debonaire so it still worked.)
I mean I’d be fine with the whole film but I get that he has to also wear a tux. Which is also hot.
And no shirt. For at least half the film.
Yes! It’s like everything is so over the top…including his misogyny and terrible sexual puns
Moore may be the best of the comic Bonds - Connery was droll, but I just watched MOONRAKER for the first time as an adult, and hadn't realized how ridiculous it was supposed to me, and Moore just rode with it
Roger Moore is Gen X's Bond.
I appreciate this take. Honestly I don’t care as long as he’s hot and doesn’t have his shirt on for at least half of the film
I love me some Daniel Craig 😍 but he is kind of too emotional and broody as Bond IMO
More framing like this, please www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/u...
I liked Roger Moore as Bond
But even in that interpretation, isn't it sort of like the casting in Hamilton? Like contradictions and ironies, etc. could be the point 🤔
So are we in a Weekend at Bernie's situation right now?
Some astonishing omissions by Eric Loomis in his Times oped on labor 👉 www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o... Not that unions & all of us don't need to do more--we do But the essay ignores the substantial efforts that unions have undertaken that I chronicle here👇1/x open.substack.com/pub/contrari...
Washington's speculation about Trump's health is at a fever pitch. We've seen multiple reasons this summer to ask questions — and the media doesn't seem to care. What's really going on? www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/it-s-time-...
this is the guy that the modern right wing considers one of their finest intellectuals
People are melting down at a Tribune article about CHSD 230 considering adding Arabic to its language learning electives. I wasted time in the comments, which I normally avoid doing since it's useless and awful, but it led to possibly the funniest thing anybody's ever said to me about France.
Already bad when people in your country try to get you rounded up and kicked out. A foreigner doing it, and stoking the sentiment, including with bigoted lies at scale, because his wealth and media control enables it, is insane. It’s already caused considerable harm, and appears to be getting worse.
It is insane to me that the richest man in the world is using his global megaphone to call for millions of British people to be rounded up and deported (including my family) and somehow this isn’t even news.
A plane carrying Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU's executive arm, suffered from jamming of GPS navigation while flying over Bulgaria. The authorities believe that Russia was behind the operation, European officials said on Monday.
I have an opinion piece in the New York Times today on how the labor movement has failed to step up to the moment in countering Trump, even as Trump unilaterally strips public sector workers of collective bargaining. Labor will die as a movement if this continues. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...
QAnon memes were not a small part of what mobilized Trump’s January 6th mob. Ignoring this is a dangerous mistake and we are making it twice.
This morning 9 former CDC Directors, whose tenures date back to 1977, published this warning in the NYT: RFK Jr is a danger to public health. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...
This should be a bigger story. A government official had the YouTube channel of a private citizen shut down bc he didn’t like what that citizen was saying. This administration’s version of free speech is a joke.
Brennan Center experts Sean Morales-Doyle and Lawrence Norden forecast how the Trump administration will undermine confidence in our elections in the months leading up to the 2026 midterms: bit.ly/4fRIqtA
#CollectiveCourage: Hundreds of economists from across the country have signed an open letter calling on Congress to uphold Federal Reserve independence. If you’re an economist, you can still sign on: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oGrUv-_CoeulsLZDt_lyNTPbm9wYCAfiTLm7KMiwgzA/edit?tab=t.0
Once more for those in back: They were never going to be able to implement a mass deportation program without prioritizing people like this. Criminals and gang members are too hard to find and apprehend. Regular folks who show up to work, church, and their scheduled immigration appointments are not.