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Reposted by Dahlia Lithwick

Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 6h

For one, the federal government cannot constitutionally commandeer state officials to do its bidding.

But more importantly, the president does not see his political opposition as legitimate but rather as a target for a carceral and militaristic state. It is deeply undemocratic and authoritarian.

Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 7h

I will not back down.

Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power.

What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?

Donald Trump Truth Social Post: Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also.

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Reposted by Dahlia Lithwick

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 7h

Weaponizing the Justice Department. Happening right in front of us. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

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Julie Cohen ❌👑 @filmmakerjulie.bsky.social · 12h

Look what’s chalked all over the sidewalks of Bloomfield, NJ.
Free speech is a power we should use while we can.
Chalk is cheap.
#NoKings October 18.

Chalk on sidewalk: yellow crown with a pink X thru it.

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Julie Cohen ❌👑 @filmmakerjulie.bsky.social · 1d

Gifting this one: interesting, important read on how the USA shook off authoritarianism of 1920s. Yes cataclysm is part of it.
But bolstering the WEB Duboises & Sidney Hillmans of today?
Pushing Grand Experiments for democracy?
BRING IT ON.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/o...

Opinion | How to Save the American Experiment

www.nytimes.com

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CNN @cnn.com · 12h

Thirty paintings created by the bushy-haired, soft-spoken Bob Ross will soon be up for auction to defray the costs of programming for public television stations suffering from cuts in federal funding. https://cnn.it/4h0nDET

Bob Ross paintings to be auctioned to support public TV stations after federal funding cuts | CNN

Thirty paintings created by the bushy-haired, soft-spoken Bob Ross will soon be up for auction to defray the costs of programming for public television stations suffering from cuts in federal funding.

cnn.it

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Reposted by Dahlia Lithwick

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 20h

Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children

Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.

southsideweekly.com

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Joyce White Vance @joycewhitevance.bsky.social · 1d

New (& important) from @dahlialithwick.bsky.social @mimirocah1.bsky.social Rachel Foster & me slate.com/news-and-pol...

The National Failure at the Heart of the Jeffrey Epstein Story

It is a great challenge to pay sustained attention to any one of the onslaught of moral or legal indignities unfolding in this moment.

slate.com

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Nancy Gertner @ngertner.bsky.social · 1d

open.substack.com/pub/harrylit...

Portland Judge’s Vital Lesson: Deference Is Not Blind Obedience

Judges can’t defer to determinations “untethered to facts.”

open.substack.com

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Heather Cherone @heathercherone.bsky.social · 1d

Pritzker is also furious: “Should National Governors Association leadership choose to remain silent, Illinois will have no choice but to withdraw from the organization.”

Gov. JB Pritzker’s letter to the National Governors Association

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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 1d

These programs weren't set up this way simply for the benefit of recipients. They are by design also a subsidy for American agriculture. That's the longstanding red-blue, rural-urban political deal of it. Like how they're getting nuked by the trade war, they are cannibalizing their own coalition.

ProPublica @propublica.org · 1d

Records obtained by ProPublica indicate that food banks across the country were expecting more than 27 million pounds of chicken, 2 million gallons of milk, 10 million pounds of dried fruit and 60 million eggs that never arrived.

Trump Canceled 94 Million Pounds of Food Aid. Here’s What Never Arrived.

ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the millions of pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the administration’s cut...

projects.propublica.org

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Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 2d

I truly don't understand what people thought was going to happen

Mary Dudziak @marydudziak.bsky.social · 2d

Has Trump’s second term posed a greater or lesser threat to the rule of law than you expected? @nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/m...

Has Trump’s second term posed a greater or lesser threat to the rule of law than you expected?
Circular graph showing over half answered: much more than I expected, about a quarter: more than I expected, about an eighth: similar threat to what I expected, small sliver: much less threat than I expected.

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Dahlia Lithwick @dahlialithwick.bsky.social · 2d

with @mjsdc.bsky.social and @imillhiser.bsky.social on the term ahead

SCOTUS Is About To Make Trump’s Dreams Come True

From voting rights to trans rights, presidential powers and beyond, the new Supreme Court term is a win-win for the court’s conservatives, and Trump.

slate.com

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Dahlia Lithwick @dahlialithwick.bsky.social · 2d

Trump's invasion

This weekend marked a major escalation of his campaign of terror.

open.substack.com

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rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 2d

Ohhhh not staying the order is *really interesting*. The tidal shift we're seeing in the past two or three weeks in how much judges are *completely done* with the presumption of regularity and refusing to play Calvinball is fascinating

Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 2d

DOJ: I would just reiterate request for stay pending appeal and admin stay and note request in order.

Judge: I am denying both requests for stays.

[HEARING ENDS]

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David Gilbert @davidgilbert.bsky.social · 2d

Over the weekend, Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller repeatedly attacked judges, calling them part of an "organized terrorist attack" on the US government....

On Saturday, the home of a judge who ruled against Trump, went up in flames

time.com/7323442/sout...

House of South Carolina Judge Criticized by Trump Administration Set Ablaze

Authorities are investigating a fire at the home of a South Carolina judge who had reportedly received death threats in what could be the latest incident of political violence across the country.

time.com

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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 2d

Folks we are watching the adjudication of some of the most important constitutional issues of federalism, executive discretion, and judicial review since the 19th c

www.oregonlive.com/politics/202...

Judge issues new broader order barring any National Guard from relocating to Oregon

Judge asked federal government lawyer: 'Do you believe this is an appropriate way to deal with a judge’s order that you disagree with?'

www.oregonlive.com

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 3d

I thought I'd put the administration's proposed "compact" with universities in context, so I wrote the blog post below.

It's especially for journalists covering this story!

Many details about how the compact itself works and why the administration has retreated to this strategy.

Balkinization: The Art of Replacing the Law with the Deal

A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics

balkin.blogspot.com

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Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 2d

Bonta: Just minutes before the hearing, we got word that the Texas National Guard has been federalized.

We asked the judge to issue a broad order — one that applies to every National Guard unit in every state — stating that none of them can be deployed to Oregon.

She issued that order

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Walker Bragman @walkerbragman.bsky.social · 2d

When there is no one left to invade, we’ll invade ourselves.

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Mueller, She Wrote @muellershewrote.com · 2d

Harmeet Dhillon (DOJ) publicly targeted this judge on Twitter a couple weeks ago.

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 2d

SOUTH CAROLINA… “Judge Goodstein was walking on the beach when the fire started. Her husband, Arnie, was in the house with children and perhaps grandchildren. The family had to escape by jumping from a window or balcony...” www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

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Katie Phang @katiephang.bsky.social · 2d

BOOM 🔥:

Judge Immergut issues a second Temporary Restraining Order prohibiting the relocation, federalization, or deployment of ANY NATIONAL GUARD FROM ANY STATE into the state of Oregon.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 5d

NEW: By a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to cancel Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan migrants.

KBJ, dissenting, says she "cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference" while "lives hang in the balance."
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

I view today's decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. This Court should have stayed its hand. Having opted instead to join the fray, the Court plainly mis- judges the irreparable harm and balance-of-the-equities factors by privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power over countless families’ pleas for the sta- bility our Government has promised them. Because, re- spectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent.

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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 5d

BREAKING: The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 100-page opinion -- says it is unequivocally, lopsidedly easy to determine that the Trump administration's view of birthright citizenship is wrong.

www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

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Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 5d

NEW: Judge Crenshaw finds that the Trump admin's criminal prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia may well be vindictive—and greenlights discovery and an evidentiary hearing. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

MEMORANDUM OPINION
By way of context, a federal prosecutor is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all. The obligation to govern impartially concerns, above all, the state's exercise of coercive power-meaning its power to deprive its subjects of life, liberty, or property... As a representative of the state, a prosecutor's exercise of coercive power must be impartial ... [in] that prosecutorial power may not be exercised vindictivelymeaning that the prosecutor may not punish a defendant for exercising a protected statutory or constitutional right.
United States v. Zakhari, 85 F.4th 367, 384-85 (6th Cir. 2023) (Kethledge, J., concurring) (citations and quotations omitted). This context frames review of Defendant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia's ("Abrego") motion to dismiss his indictment for vindictive and selective
prosecution. (Doc. Nos. 104-05). The Government opposes the motion (Doc. No. 121), and Abrego has replied (Doc. No. 127). Abrego's motion is not ripe for decision because he seeks discovery and an evidentiary hearing because there is some evidence of vindictiveness here. For the reasons that follow, the Court holds that the totality of events creates a sufficient evidentiary basis to conclude that there is a "realistic likelihood of vindictiveness" that entitles Abrego to discovery and requires an evidentiary hearing before the Court decides his motion. United States
v. Andrews, 633 F.2d 449, 457 (6th Cir. 1980) (en banc), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 927 (1981).

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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 6d

Next Monday's "One First" was going to be about how we should stop covering new #SCOTUS terms through the "big" cases the Court will hear; and instead focus on how the Court is behaving.

Fortunately for me (and you), @dahlialithwick.bsky.social and @mjsdc.bsky.social did it first—and *way* better:

The Supreme Court Will Do Four Things This Term That Tell You Everything You Need to Know

In the week before the October 2025 Supreme Court term opens, the impulse among court watchers will again be to do what we always do.

slate.com

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