Michael Perino
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professorperino.bsky.social
Michael Perino
@professorperino.bsky.social
540 followers 900 following 350 posts
Law professor at St. John’s Law and writer (The Hellhound of Wall St.) who still believes in the rule of law and the American experiment
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professorperino.bsky.social
To Preserve Records, Homeland Security Now Relies on Officials to Take Screenshots www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/u...
Solution to avoiding record-keeping requirements by auto-deleting on Signal was not to automatically save messages, it was to ask officials to take screenshots? Not suspicious at all.
The Department of Homeland Security has stopped using software that automatically captured text messages and saved trails of communication between officials, according to sworn court statements filed this week. Instead, the agency began in April to require officials to manually take screenshots of their messages to comply with federal records laws, citing cybersecurity concerns with the autosave software. Public records experts say the new record-keeping policy opens ample room for both willful and unwitting noncompliance with federal open records laws in an administration that has already shown a lack of interest in, or willingness to skirt, records laws. That development could be particularly troubling as the department executes President Trump’s aggressive agenda of mass deportations, a campaign that has included numerous accusations of misconduct by law enforcement officials, the experts said.
November 7, 2025 at 1:32 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
Yes!
November 5, 2025 at 2:26 AM
professorperino.bsky.social
Anyone notice the state seal of Virginia adorning the stage at #Spanberger HQ?
November 5, 2025 at 1:40 AM
professorperino.bsky.social
ICE Is Cracking Down on Chicago. Some Chicagoans Are Fighting Back. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/u...
October 15, 2025 at 10:07 AM
professorperino.bsky.social
Give In or Fight Back? Colleges Are Torn on How to Respond to Trump. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/27/u...
This is both 100% correct but will never happen (and has in fact already not happened).
“The idea that each university has to fight this battle by themselves, that’s truly crazy to me,” said Arne Duncan, one of President Barack Obama’s education secretaries. “And I know it’s hard. I know it’s scary. But any time a university is attacked, there should be 500 university presidents standing up together, or 1,000 boards of trustees standing up together and saying, ‘We’re in solidarity.’ And that would send such a different message.”
September 27, 2025 at 11:53 AM
professorperino.bsky.social
Animal Farm (1946). Orwell knew what was coming. #trump #JamesComey
Napoleon decreed that there should be a full investigation into Snowball’s activities.
September 26, 2025 at 9:23 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
A stunning statement in Ruth Marcus' profile of Pam Bondi. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Her Chief of Staff sees no distinction between the AG representing the US and the AG representing Donald Trump. Somewhere, Louis XIV is cheering. "L'état, c'est moi."
The Justice Department declined to make Bondi available for an interview with me, but it did arrange sessions with several other senior officials, who offered a glimpse of the new relationship between the D.O.J. and the White House. Mizelle, who worked at the Department of Homeland Security during Trump’s first term, is particularly close to Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff. “You have one client, and you have to represent that one client. If you don’t want to do that, then it’s just not the place for you,” Mizelle told me. When I asked him who the client is—the United States or the President—he rejected the premise of the question. “I don’t see a difference between those,” he said. “I think—and I don’t mean this as an attack on you—the very fact that you asked the question shows the fundamental problem in how everybody has always, in the last two decades, conceived of government. . . . The President is the executive branch.”
August 18, 2025 at 10:36 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
Sunset Palais de Justice, Montreal.
August 16, 2025 at 11:56 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
Now that’s a parenthetical!
August 8, 2025 at 1:27 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
Springsteen Isn’t Who I Thought He Was www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/o...
I am a Jersey boy and have always been a Springsteen fan, but as a writer I marvel at the 1st few lines of Thunder Road. He packs so much imagery into so few words. That slamming screen door conjures an entire world.
The screen door slams, Mary's dress sways Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays Roy Orbison's singing for the lonely Hey, that's me and I want you only Don't turn me home again I just can't face myself alone again
August 7, 2025 at 11:18 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
I yearn for the old days when you needed Congress to pass idiotic, economy-destroying tariffs.
August 7, 2025 at 12:04 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
Getting Trump loyalists into BLS is a way to restore trust? We really are living through 1984. Black is white and up is down.
August 3, 2025 at 2:21 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
A beautiful day for a walk along the Hudson River.
August 2, 2025 at 6:46 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
From Science to Diversity, Trump Hits the Reverse Button on Decades of Change www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/u...
Come on @nytimes.com! He is trying to upend traditional interpretations of the 14th & 22nd Amendments? How about rewrite? Ignore? Violate? Upending gives legitimacy to actions that aren’t.
He has upended the traditional interpretation of the 14th Amendment as he tries to deny birthright citizenship to children of many immigrants born in the United States. His allies have proposed upending the traditional interpretation of the 22nd Amendment to allow Mr. Trump to stay in office after his second term. His Justice Department has upended the traditional interpretation of civil rights laws to stop enforcement based on “disparate impact” of policies on different groups. His I.R.S. has upended a 71-year-old rule barring tax-exempt houses of worship from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit.
July 13, 2025 at 2:17 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
Declaration of Independence In Congress, July 4, 1776 He has erected a multitude of New O4ices, and sent hither swarms of O/icers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. • 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. • For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: • For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: • He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
July 4, 2025 at 5:14 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
June 14, 2025 at 9:55 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
Just noting that Trump’s reviewing stand for his vainglorious parade is almost precisely the same spot where he fomented a real insurrection, not the pretend insurrection he claims today.
June 14, 2025 at 9:38 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
#NoKings
June 14, 2025 at 6:25 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
#NoKings
June 14, 2025 at 6:14 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
#NoKings
June 14, 2025 at 6:12 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
#NoKings New Jersey
June 14, 2025 at 5:43 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
Seems like I picked the perfect day to wear my new hat, designed by @spjerzey.bsky.social
June 12, 2025 at 10:41 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
Ominous sky, lower Manhattan.
#photography
#landscape
#clouds
May 25, 2025 at 6:57 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/b... Brutal.
Ron Chernow’s new biography of Mark Twain is enormous, bland and remote — it squats over Twain’s career like a McMansion. Chernow, who has previously written lives of financial titans, war heroes and founding fathers, misses the man William Faulkner called “the father of American literature” almost entirely. He demonstrates little feeling for the deeper and least domesticated regions of Twain’s art, or for the literary context of his era. His book is an endurance test, one that skimps on the things that formed Twain and made him the most lucid, profound, unpredictable and irascibly witty American of his time. Hardy will be the souls who tour this air-conditioned edifice all the way through and glimpse the exit sign.
May 24, 2025 at 2:14 PM
professorperino.bsky.social
Excited to be attending Commencement for @stjohnslaw.bsky.social. Congratulations to the Class of 2025!
May 18, 2025 at 10:01 PM