Lots of tidbits here. This party does not have what it takes.
Appellate lawyer, president of Third Circuit Bar Association, former prosecutor, fellow of American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, Thaddeus Stevens fan. Views here: just mine.
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Lots of tidbits here. This party does not have what it takes.
Let's see, I was a state senate campaign worker, a campaign manager for a mayoral candidate, a campaign organizer for a state NARAL chapter, a deputy finance director for a US Senate campaign, and finance director for a different Senate campaign. All Dems. Also, go fuck yourself.
No fair, someone on the internet is mad at me.
I see that too, but that’d be fairly odd
Help me out. This total stranger is Big Mad at me for: (a) saying voting and donating aren’t enough, (b) stating that Schumer and Martin recruit candidates, or (c) suggesting they’re not the optimal candidate recruiters just now? Seems like (c)?
Possibly. There might be unacceptably high exposure to prosecution down that path? That’s an offhand guess, I haven’t researched it.
For anyone interested, Bouie did respond to my post, which I appreciate. He responded in a different thread. His responses are above this reply, the rest of my reply is below it:
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-...
... but if his position now is simply that Trump lacks legal authority to compel obedience to the EO, then I agree with him.
I agree. Last thing I'd add is that the whole framing of the tweet I took issue with was that it wasn't just that Trump lacked constitutional "authority" (as Marshall said, correctly) but that he didn't have any mechanism to "make" anyone. So I thought the meaning of those posts was clear ...
Your following post reinforced that your claim included coercion, not just formal legal authority. My point is that there are a great many things he can do or say to force them.
You call it quibbling, but I don't know what the "institutional" in "legal or institutional mechanism" means if it doesn't mean non-court-enforceable coercion.
If your basic point is simply that Trump *doesn't have a legal mechanism* to force anyone to do anything on the question of voter ID, I broadly agree. What I took issue with was the assertion that he lacked "legal or institutional mechanisms" to make them.
That is, he "make[s]" his targets do what he wants, whether he has the legal authority to do so or not.
Both true. I was responding to your claim that there weren't "even any particular legal or institutional mechanism[s] by which the president can make anyone treat this as anything other than a weird advisory opinion." I read that going beyond contexts where he has actual legal power to compel.
Exactly. Pollsite intimidation is a realistic risk, but it probably wouldn't even make my top-10 list of most serious dangers to free elections in 2026.
For sure in the election context, no one suppression tactic needs to fully succeed on its own. Strategy succeeds as long as the sum of the tactics lets them stay in power.
And he makes it hard using exactly the sorts of institutional mechanisms Bouie said he doesn't have. bsky.app/profile/matt...
No. The phrase he used is "legal or institutional mechanism." My argument is that legal harassment by the AG is an institutional mechanism to pressure others to comply, and a powerful one.
Okay. Thanks for explaining. But I didn't paraphrase his words away into some other meaning that I made up. I quoted his precise language and explained why I disagreed with that precise language.
Sorry, I don’t follow, care to explain?
I respectfully disagree with Bouie on this. In the attached post, I endeavor to explain why. @jamellebouie.net @joshtpm.bsky.social @evanbernick.bsky.social
J.B. Pritzker is 100% right. Please listen to him, pay attention, and join us in speaking out against authoritarianism and to protect free and fair elections.
(I don’t mean acquitting herself well for a newer judge, I mean running circles around some of her far more experienced colleagues.)
Judge Sooknanan is a newer judge who has been thrust into an extraordinarily challenging situation, and it is a beautiful thing to see her acquitting herself and the federal judiciary so well.
Federal judges shouldn’t need to do this with DOJ, but thank god they are doing it.
bsky.app/profile/matt...
You’re a superhero, don’t pay them no mind.
For good reason
If you’re ever thinking about whether to file a single-page document captioned “status report and response to order to show cause,” my advice is that you not.
Probably right
I think this is going to be a huge story.
Okay, but even on your terms, it seems like you're assuming that it's only harmful if it's impacting a blue state, and I don't follow that at all. There are lots of blue voters in red states and if the admin gets red states to suppress them, that'd matter for keeping control of House or Senate, no?
... suppression. There's public voter suppression messaging to immigrants, to people with convictions. Honestly, I think Bouie's ICE-at-pollsites example, while realistic, wouldn't make my top 10 vote suppression dangers.
... on top of the substantial suppression architecture they already had. That's just voter roll purges. There's stochastic threats to officials, which always used to be investigated by FBI or other feds. There's threats of prosecutions of election officials who don't play along with ...
... and spurring red states to do what they're happy to do. Those voter roll purges are a treasured part of their voter-suppression playbook, and now they have access to way more data, and better have a monopoly on data, to bullshit something up. And now they have folks like Honey on inside ...
Sorry, wasn't being coy, just hard to give a short answer. But I'll try. I think administration has lots of institutional mechanisms. One big one is it can revive the efforts to strike millions of voters from voter rolls, using litigation (maybe Scotus will bite), witholding fed funds ...
At least one judge is taking deadline compliance seriously.
I see it very differently, I’m afraid. Maybe I’ll try to write something up.
Ah. Misread your original response.
Agree. You’ll never hear me say anything remotely nice about his handling of Mangi’s nomination. But *viewed in isolation* I think the deal was a legit good thing.
You might remember Sooknanan as the Jones Day lawyer who wrote briefs supporting Charlottesville’s removal of Confederate statues, then quit the firm due to its challenges to Pa.’s voting accommodations during covid. Later principal dep AG in civil rights division. www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/m...
(This is like the 3rd nice thing I’ve said about Schumer this weekend, people are going to begin to suspect I’ve been kidnapped)
Notable that Judge Sooknanan’s was one of the 4 dist ct nominations allowed to proceed per Schumer’s sharply criticized deal officially abandoning circuit nominees including Adeel Mangi.
Hope this proves right; fear it won’t.
Journalism for the win
Wow. I want every university counsel who is thinking about cowering before the Trump Administration’s threats, to read this and understand the caliber of attorney that has you shaking in your books. Yet another player in Trump’s army of incompetent thugs. www.propublica.org/article/leo-...
Seems right to me
It also implies full support despite fundamental disagreement. FDR despised plenty about Stalin and the USSR, but he went to the wall to convoy them American tanks, planes, and bullets.
It does imply ceding leadership as a *condition* of unity. Britain wanted Montgomery in overall command at D-Day, but they didn't pick up their marbles and go home when it was Eisenhower.
Nor does it imply abandoning our own commitment to our core values. FDR didn't give up fighting for democracy when he allied with Stalin. He didn't give up fighting for national self-determination when he allied with Churchill.
"Uniting the full spectrum of resistance" does not imply ceding leadership of that resistance. Back to my FDR–Stalin analogy, we allied with USSR against Nazi Germany, but we didn't make Zhukov Supreme Allied Commander at D-Day. Duh.
Focusing on 26 has to mean something fundamentally different than just supporting D primary winners. If the strategy is “let’s just sit back and donate to whoever Schumer and Martin recruit to run” then we are fucked.
A lot of the discourse on here today seems focused on how these ideas should apply to hypothetical nominee Newsom in 2028. But see point #1 in the first post in this thread. My view is we should be way more focused on how these ideas apply to Mamdani today.
👇
In 1930s Germany, the center and the left each opposed the Nazis, but they simply weren’t willing to join together while they had they chance. As a result they joined together in concentration camps instead.
“Profound political disagreements” means people you don’t like & don’t trust. Who reject your core values. Who you hope don’t LEAD us now, and who you’ll eagerly battle with again when and if we get through this. If it wasn’t so painful, fascism would fail more often. bsky.app/profile/dhne...
Pritzker on Trump sending troops into cities: "He has other aims other than fighting crime... he would like to stop the elections in 2026 or frankly take control of those elections. He'll just claim there's some problem with an election and then he's got troops on the ground that can take control."
And I realize a LOT of people here disagree with what I’m saying here. People I respect, like, learn from, and agree with on most everything. Which is why I’m saying it.
I still believe we need leaders committed to fighting. A united front doesn’t mean we settle for Merrick Garland 2.0. To the contrary.
We lose it all if we don’t unite in time.
The full spectrum of resistance includes people I think are terrible. It includes people who support policies I consider monstrous. It includes people I believe bear real responsibility for landing us in this appalling mess. And it includes people who think all of that about people like me.
Agree. FDR didn’t ally with Stalin because he was cool with the Great Famine and the Great Terror. He allied with Stalin because Stalin was fighting the Nazis. bsky.app/profile/cour...
And bsky.app/profile/kjep...
See also bsky.app/profile/jona...
I agree. I hope everyone reads it. I see 2 critical takeaways: 1. We need to focus on now through 2026 (not 2028, not post-Trump state-transformation fantasies) 2. We need to build the popular front, uniting the full spectrum of resistance. We lose it all if we don’t unite in time.
Must read. I don't endorse every word, but it's exactly right about the big picture:
Over the next 15 months, we can expect a coordinated campaign — backed by the full power of the executive branch — to undermine confidence in our election system. Here’s what to expect, and how key actors can be ready to respond: bit.ly/4fRIqtA
If you don’t know about Heather Honey, you should. She’s a national embarrassment, virulent election denier and now in charge of election policies for the US government. www.propublica.org/article/heat...
#CollectiveCourage by the numbers — Erica Chenoweth notes that empirically “no government has withstood a challenge of 3.5% of their population mobilizing against it during a peak event.” Sustained protest movements work because they are impossible to ignore.
And not the fun kind of incredible
:/
A dramatic, extremely worrying moment; over 61,000 people held in ICE detention. That is the highest number ever on record in United States history; roughly 6,000 higher than the previous record set under Trump six years ago, and over 21,000 higher than when Trump took office just seven months ago.
Super important piece on how states can help fill the gaps created by RFK's anti-vax policies. We desperately need RFK out of the job, where he's doing immense damage to public health, but Dem Governors can take effective steps here if they want to. (So can R Governors! Not sure they'll want to.)
It doesn't come close to changing my bottom-line view on whether he should be replaced as minority leader. But credit where due.
100%
I might push back on the framing, the assumption that treatment of past presidents' nominees is the appropriate benchmark. Trump II is different. But I'm not disputing that Ds are doing what they can in this specific context.
You might be crazy, but she appears not to have been nominated yet. www.judiciary.senate.gov/nominations/... www.uscourts.gov/data-news/ju...
I've been mighty critical of Schumer's lack of fight, so it's appropriate to acknowledge this counter-example in forcing Trump's nominations to proceed more slowly.
I've recently been thinking along different lines, about how recent examples of overtly white supremacist lawyers suggest the need for *more* rigorous character and fitness review.
She's a peach
bsky.app/profile/donc...
Op-ed by Mike Davis & Will Chamberlain: "We look forward to litigants’ appeals for Bove’s recusal before the majority-constitutionalist Third Circuit, which will be cemented should Jennifer Mascott be confirmed by the Senate." news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/...
To show leadership, and also to accomplish good things. Even the most timid Dems want to show they're achieving concrete benefits for constituents.
Implying that, were she still in the majority, then remaining a judge would be the best way for her to promote the conservative movement.
It'd be sufficiently yikes if she'd just said she didn't think the best path for building the conservative movement was *remaining a judge.* But what she said was that she didn't think the best path for building the conservative movement was remaining on the court *in the minority*.
Disgraceful.
A sitting judge saying this is just outrageous. To be clear, she didn’t resign, she’s going to serve out her term.
Thanks! I think I read this way back when, but clearly I’d forgotten some of the mechanics.
This is my updated take. If an appointee takes the oath but hasn't yet signed her own commission, is she a judge in service yet? Interesting academic question maybe, but as far as I know it's always simultaneous. bsky.app/profile/matt...
(Obviously the article also discusses a normative question separate from the formal ethics-rules question, but I'm not expressing any view on that here.)
... is "authorized to perform judicial functions," whether they're an "officer" yet or not. See 28 USC 453 (requiring judges to take the oath "before performing the duties of his office").
The judicial code of ethics applies to "an officer of the federal judicial system authorized to perform judicial functions," and I don't believe that an appointee whose commission has been signed and transmitted by the president, but who hasn't taken the oath and signed their commission ...
I'm not an expert on the judical code of ethics, and I'd be interested in seeing views from anyone who is. But my read of it is that the answer to a question posed in the article, whether the judicial code of ethics formally applies to Bove, appears to be no.
My understanding is that an appointee who didn't take the oath and sign their commission would never start serving as a judge. (I'm not aware of that ever happening and feel certain it won't happen here either.)
In other words, what I had thought was one step (nominee takes oath + receives commission) actually is two distinct steps: 1. president signs and transmits commission 2. appointee takes oath and signs commission And delaying step 2 doesn't require delaying step 1.
This is helpful. I take it that precisely what's happened here is that Trump signed Bove's commission on 8/20, and Bove has not taken the oath or signed his commission so he has not started service. bsky.app/profile/donc...
I agree that taking the oath is necessary pre-condition, see 28 USC 453. I wasn't aware that judges could receive their commissions without taking the oath.
There may be some mundane answer to it, maybe to do with setting up his chambers or hiring clerks or the like. Although I would have guessed confirmed nominees don't need a commission for that stuff, or that if they did this situation would come up more often. So, I'm puzzled.