in my capacity as a YLS alumnus I agree we have to throw in the towel on this
in my capacity as a YLS alumnus I agree we have to throw in the towel on this
USCIS, the agency that issues green cards and other work permits, plans to hire armed law enforcement officers to investigate fraud and other violations. It's the biggest move yet by the benefits agency to embrace a new role as an enforcement arm of the Trump administration immigration crackdown.
Chinese hacking group âSalt Typhoonâ conducted a yearslong cyberattack affecting more than 80 countries. The attack could have stolen information from nearly every American, and the access and data obtained could enable Chinaâs intelligence services to track targets worldwide. Gift link:
As opposed to the KPD's "after Hitler, our turn" strategy of attacking the SPD as the more dangerous facsists, which worked so well. But sure, go off my guy. Far left not hating liberals even more than actual fascists and thereby enabling fascists in the process challenge (Impossible)
New analysis finds the US now has more unemployed people than job openings.
Like being a bond investor guy and not being worried about Fed independence or being an econ data guy and not being worried about BLS/BEA capture.
This is a damning anecdote from Rep Jim McGovern. He tells me that during debate over Trump's big budget bill, House Rs privately admitted to him that it would screw over their own constituents, yet they had to vote for it anyway. Read all of it. He wrecks them: newrepublic.com/article/1999...
Ok then.
I disagree, but either way maybe wait until after the popular front ousts the fascists, tovarisch.
"Roommate of Law Student with OnlyFans account says she's wary of getting into porn."
Itâs not up to Russia to decide if Western troops can be sent to Ukraine as part of any peace deal ending the war, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said today.
Massie (R-KY) is just on fire: "I don't know if that's precedented in this country to have a president call legislators to say that they're engaged in a hostile act, particularly when the so-called hostile act is trying to get justice for people who've been victims of sex crimes." #TrumpEpstein
For some folks I believe it's just lazy thinking â for others, it's a deliberate choice. They care less about the people they decry as "centrists" than they do about delegitimising centrism.
Which is a perfectly reasonable stance! It just doesn't stop there for way too many IMO.
As opposed to leftists, who are famously not fractious and tempramentally all sweetness and light.
The guy that ordered 8 fighter jets to perform a low altitude fly-over in an effort to drown out Epstein survivors is the same guy who wants you to believe he's innocent.
Chicago sees fewest summer murders since 1965, even as Trump cites high crime chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/09...
đ¨EXCLUSIVE: Federal judges tell NBC News the Supreme Court has got to do a better job of explaining emergency rulings, with frequent decisions in favor of Trump at least appearing to validate harsh criticism of the judiciary at a time of rising threats: www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...
Hell, man, I long for the day when we were the worldâs policeman, instead of the worldâs biggest outlaw.
âI came to clean house. Now drink this bleach, itâll help with your mitochondrial challenges.â
Trump has always admired Duterte and has always wanted to murder drug dealers. He is now doing that, and Vance's answer to the question about authorities means they don't even care and view themselves as above the law.
Please donât name it Team Calvinist.
...where liberals tend to also incline more towards Doing Things That Might Fix Problems than on Stopping Things That Might Make Problems Worse And/Or Cause New Problems.
Oh, and also American liberals tend to be devoted to the notion that rational discourse can make the world a Better Place, largely by fostering cooperation. This really shows up more strongly in IR theory but the mindset clearly applies to domestic politics...
...and Burkean conservatism tends to attract people of relatively moderate temprament (whatever their ideological leanings might be). Institutionalists, one might say.
Plenty of liberals do â it's just not the dominant mindset. Partly because of an excess of "guns are icky and anyone who likes them is compensating for a teeny weeny" sentiment; partly because liberalism has been the Burkean conservative position in American politics for over a century...
McConnell and Garland more than anyone share the blame for that failure. And their names should live in eternal infamy.
Because too many people couldn't wrap their brains around the notion that the old rules of politics no longer applied. They thought he was done, washed up, a Loser â not the leader of a massive and still-intact personality cult. And so they didn't think they needed to finish him off.
if the Biden Irrelevancy had one clear lesson it's that you can't retake democracy from those who would destroy it and then spend years slow-rolling the arrests of those responsible while failing to explicitly change the rules to keep them from power
From a purely structural standpoint I'd say since FDR
...alas I'm not certain what incentive structure would accomplish that.
Even that won't work right, because without effective oversight of the Administrative State you're just playing 3 card monte with the accountability problem. We need to change the political incentives for Comgress in a way that encourages seizing responsibility, rather than avoiding it...
Maybe it's because I'm a particularly rabid Never-Trump type, but I wish to God there was anitger term folks used besides "centrist" to describe the folks who aren't willing or able to fight the rĂŠgime more resolutely. "Institutionalist" maybe? It's not really a left/right ideological axis thing!
This clip is the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case but for drug traffickers. It's a demonstration that the law won't constrain the U.S. gov't from doing what it wants, and you may die in the process if they so choose.
Sansa is Win
Spotted at Great Lakes Naval Station: some unmarked vehicles being used by recently arrived Customs and Border Protection agents. The photographer reports seeing a small staging area with all agents in uniform. Great Lakes police had to be called bc one locked his keys in his car.
TRUMP WEAK! BOW TO KHAN IN SHAMEFACED OBEISANCE! SAD!
Wait did @jbpritzker.bsky.social totally bitch slap Sickly Don and now he's going to skip Chicago and take it out on New Orleans? (And no NOLA is a Democratic city that doesn't deserve this either. But in federalism terms this is like getting scolded by yr boss and going home and kicking yr dog.
I did not take me long to figure out, in my career in journalism, that an ambitious ass-kisser will never go broke telling power exactly what it wants to hear.
People don't read. I've been on social media - and in classrooms! - for years warning that "terrorism" now means "anything a president says it is." Like, I was probably giving that lecture while this fellow was in high school. But thanks! Now I'll consider the possibility that Trump is lawless.
The problem is that MAGA world thinks it's awesome that people in lab coats with advanced degrees are freaked out.
They'll be all over the Loop. The combination of specific landmarks and general scenery/vibes will be irresistible for a performative show of force
This is one of the best ads I've ever seen.
It tastes like someone bottled low tide. And yes, the above is brilliant. Many thanks for bringing it to the attention of all and sundry.
replacing Batman fight onomatopoeiae with old midwestern brewery names
Best part of the Harvard ruling from today is when the judge repeatedly quotes Trump boasting over and over again that what heâs doing is exactly retaliation
I get the sense Coloradoâs strain of granola fascism is very similar to Californiaâs. Socially liberal in many ways but willing to sell out every other principle as long as some artificial dye gets removed from fucking Froot Loops.
NEW: US Treasury watchdog finds that of the 7,315 IRS workers terminated by DOGE, just 43 were documented underperformers. Almost 50% of the fired employees had been appraised as working at or above expectations. www.icij.org/news/2025/09... via @icij.org
Rand Paul: "The reason we have trials & we don't automatically assume guilt is what if we make a mistake and they happen to be people fleeing the Venezuelan dictator? ... off our coast it isn't our policy just to blow people up ... even the worst people in our country, they still get a trial."
You know that boat the administration blew up? A former law enforcement official told the NYT the boat seemed to be carrying not drugs but *âmigrants * www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/u...
You can start getting ready for CBS News guided by Bari Weiss of the Free Press. This is from Dylan Byers. [Paywall likely] "I am told David plans to give Bari a role at CBS News that would, among other things, task his fellow Millennial with guiding the editorial direction of the division."
Great how we're now in a world where it's unclear whether we should take the word of the US government over that of the Venezuelan one.
Letâs see what the Magic 8-ball says
1/ I worked at DoD. I literally cannot imagine lawyers coming up with a legal basis for lethal strike of suspected Venezuelan drug boat. Hard to see how this would not be "murder" or war crime under international law that DoD considers applicable. Read expert analysis by @bcfinucane.bsky.social⤾ď¸
*rockwell standing guy* I think we should know what legal authority we are using to blow up a boat before blowing up a boat
One more time: one of Trump's key lessons from the first administration is that he needed lawyers who would never say no. The whole administration never says no.
It doesnât matter if you feed your kids organic foods, MAHA moms. It doesnât matter if you lift every day, bro. It doesnât matter how many supplements you consume. When polio, diphtheria, measles, mumps, and whooping cough come a calling, all that matters is if you are vaccinated or not.
susceptible to at-will deportation by the president. Since the AEA, as interpreted, makes anyone subject to at-will deportation by the president, and since foreigners have some due process rights as even the Chinese exclusion-era court acknowledged (sorta), the AEAâs gotta be unconstitutional. QED.
effectively unlimited power to deport anyone with a foreign passport to a torture prison, unilaterally. He just has to tell the right lies first. This is ultimately toothless. And utterly inconsistent with due process: if foreigners have any due process rights at all, then they cannot be
Venezuelan sovereignty over the places where they live? There has to be *some* âfinding of factâ that a court can review. Otherwise he can outright claim that they marched in wearing uniforms and only took them off to deal drugs when ice came for them. Those are slightly ridiculous examples but
Ok, so a mini-thread on the alien enemies act case out of the 5th circuit. While itâs a good opinion, it also reveals the danger of this statute as itâs been and being interpreted, and why the AEA ultimately ought to be struck down. đ§ľ
This is the first example of a new political tool that weâre going to live with for the rest of our lives: public officials who deny the existence of video evidence on the grounds that it was AI generated. Impossible to know who is telling the truth unless actual evidence emerged. And even thenâŚ
Over 150 Cubans were deported last week in the eighth flight bound for Cuba this year. Hear directly from them about family separations, being wrongfully charged, and more. open.substack.com/pub/extremea...
I wrote about journalists who look away. From Maxim Gorky's shameful behavior in 1929 at Solovki and the death of George Polk in Greece in 1948, I move on to our current national crisis, which grows a little more urgent every day, despite those who continue to act as if nothing is happening.
The President is a well known liar. Willing to lie, brazenly and repeatedly, over something as significant as the outcome of a national election. Anyone working for Trump now must also be willing to join in the âbig lieâ. Therefore, we cannot trust anything the Admin says. Neither can our allies.
And once they've pulled that off, they'll try to figure out why younger voters are souring on the Democratic Party these days. Maybe pay $50 million to some consultants to come up with some candidates the kids like. No, different ones.
DNC stans may say this is ageism, but given what's going on in this country right now you can't just win an election and do nothing. We have several years of unprecedentedly hard work ahead to try to undo this fascist slide. Someone who takes office at 79 is not going to be able to commit to that.
Pete Hegseth Committed A(nother) Crime But We Can't Throw Him in Prison www.emptywheel.net/2025/09/03/p...
âPushing the boundariesâ đ¤ˇââď¸đ¤Śââď¸ bsky.app/profile/mcop...
Trump sent strategic bombers and STEALTH JETS to bomb frigging crops. We were bombing FLOWERS and any civilians who happened to be picking them. And then as now it was mostly just to produce Content for FoxNews. His own Air Force Sec admitted it was an expensive joke. www.bbc.com/news/world-u...
Sign of the insane times we live in, the fact that the governor of Illinois has a mole inside the federal government is nbd.
i genuinely believe that our intelligence services will never be the same again. i'm a Cold War kid, and all I can think about is that this is a Russian wet dream come true
why would you think these are mutually exclusive
i do think people â national security reporters in particular â should think a little bit about what it means that pritzker apparently already knows what the plan for the texas national guard in chicago is, regardless of whether it actually happens or not.
Breaking: Governor who is a self-proclaimed stateâs rights advocate allows his National Guard to be used to invade another state.
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
If only there had been some way they could have hired more immigration judges, rather than firing a bunch. Crazy thought, I know...and it would have deprived them of the opportunity to take one more step towards normalizing martial law.
That last is part of why we're in the mess we're in as a country â we made laws that empowered "conventional" Presidents in ways that were easily corruptible by "unconventional" ones, and anytime someone pointed that out the response was "surely the American people will never elect a demagogue".
Doesn't stop me from being a professor who explains things, even to people who cannot distinguish normative arguments from empirical statements
Itâs an imminence front. A put on.
PS: The behavior of Congress after the post-9/11 AUMFs - "for it before I was against it," and "didn't think Bush was serious, just wanted him to have leverage" - means that these things are worthless and Trump will basically return us to pre-1973 practice.
Congress could stop all this, but has never really tried. The War Powers Resolution is a terrible piece of legislation, and probably unconstitution on separation of powers grounds. But the bigger problem is POLITICAL: Congress - neither GOP nor Dem- has ever wanted the responsibility. /5x
I disagree. We need a Congress to pass laws and take responsibility. Afghanistan did not go on for 20 years because presidents are *that* powerful, it went on because Congress didn't want the responsibility - and the American people didn't want to be bothered.
But still they should be required to assert it out loud
And the American people who elected that Congress. I was a pretty hard-assed "go after terrorists everywhere" guy, but I didn't like the Patriot Act and I still think Homeland Security should be disestablished and disbanded.
Our friend @emptywheel.bsky.social wrote at length and with typical close analysis how Newsom turns Trump's methods against him while Pritzker says what Democrats want to hear. It's true, but Newsom's way is bad politics. There is a difference between making noise and drawing lines.
I agree with you completely, but itâs fascinating that stating the facts and their obvious import scans as an escalation. Itâs like turning on the lights and confirming that yes, there is an alligator in the bathroom.
That Pritzker press conference was... surreal, and I think marks a significant moment of escalation in the constitutional omni-crisis. This was the governor of a state saying plainly the Union itself is being torn apart and his state is being militarily invaded by an authoritarian regime.
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...
Believing in the ideology of this guy (or JD Vance) basically requires believing that Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson were wrong, and I think they are significantly underestimating how difficult it will be to get Americans to think that!
(I actually read a biography of John Winthrop like 10 years ago and from what I remember of it they thought the Church of England and the Presbyteries were both corrupt whores of Babylon and pretty much wanted to create a Protestant Reformist theocracy, so they were not exactly tolerantâŚ
New, from me: The EPA is breaking. *About 1 in 4 employees out *Core research unit closed down *Employees suspended and fired for writing letter for dissent *Trump judicial appointees OK'd cancelling of $20 billion climate change program donmoynihan.substack.com/p/your-gover...
Not really clear what would happen if a president tried to federalize the NG for a mission like this and the governor refused to comply. Thatâs crisis territory.
Judge Breyer has now ruled that these troops did in fact do prohibited law enforcement activities and also that the prezâs justification for their mobilization was pretextual (fancy legal term for âclaimed something was happening that wasnât actually happening, to wit, a rebellionâ)
So, sending troops to Chicago or Baltimore would be much more complicated than either LA or DC. đ§ľ
Pritzker: "I refuse to pretend that any of this is normal ... I refuse to fall into the pundit trap that demands we sacrifice vital constitutional rights if it's being done in the fake guise of fighting crime."
also, what do you think people conclude when they hear you say Donald Trump is a "wannabe king" who is "attacking the American people" (both true things Jeffries has said) and also that you want to find common ground with him? Probably that your criticisms are insincere or that you're weak or both