Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Taylor Kordsiemon @tkords.bsky.social · 4h

Dammit, Raul Labrador. As if the Mormons don’t have enough to be embarrassed about.

Julie DiCaro @juliedicaro.bsky.social · 8h

This is getting wild.

The states of Iowa, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and 14 others have just asked for permission to file THEIR amicus brief in IL v. Trump.

The States of Iowa, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and 14 additional States
respectfully move for leave to submit the attached amicus curiae brief in support of Defendants
and their opposition to Plaintiffs’ requested temporary restraining order and preliminary
injunction. Proposed amici are States with a vested interest in federalism, the relationship between
States and the federal government, and deploying the National Guard. We also each have a vital
interest in supporting the President and Congress in enacting and enforcing valid immigration
laws. Every State has a responsibility to protect our citizens.
The federalization of States’ National Guard units is a matter of profound public
importance, as it directly implicates the delicate balance of power between state and federal
governments—a true cornerstone of Federalism. States generally maintain authority over their
National Guard units, allowing governors to deploy them for state-specific needs, such as disaster
response or public safety. Federalization of state National Guard units without gubernatorial

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Lisa Diedrich @lisadiedrich.bsky.social · 8h

"This current admin is the greatest threat to academic freedom & scientific research since the ebb of McCarthyism. And this compact is just more evidence that it wants to dictate what we teach, what we research, what drugs we develop, & how we express ourselves." Yet not bother to do the reading.

Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 17h

The “compact” for higher ed is an unserious document written by unserious people from a position of spectacular ignorance. No one should take it seriously. Sadly, my bosses are taking it seriously.

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

newrepublic.com

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Taylor Kordsiemon @tkords.bsky.social · 14h

Hard to take DHS seriously when they say citizen recordings are illegal but they’ve got a whole reality TV setup documenting their actions.

Post by Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net):

“ICE is not only chasing Don every random brown person in Chicago, they have a cameraman following them to film this for social media. Cruelty and inhumanity as content.”

The post’s text is followed by a screenshot of security camera footage showing an ICE cameraman filming as officers seize two individuals.

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Taylor Kordsiemon @tkords.bsky.social · 3d

Now we wait one week for SCOTUS to hold that instigating hostile invasions of one sovereign state by another is a core component of executive power under Article II.

Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 3d

Immergut: What I'll do is not modify my original TRO but issue a new TRO that prohibits the relocation or deployment of any federalized national guard to the state of Oregon....

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Taylor Kordsiemon @tkords.bsky.social · 8d

Decided to test competing queries on AI Mode. For Trump, it just lists sources. For Biden, it’s a full write-up.

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Asha Rangappa @asharangappa.bsky.social · 8d

I can’t believe I’m watching interviews of city mayors talking about how they are coordinating with other mayors to discuss how to protect their residents FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

I know we are “used to it” but it is absolutely insane

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Veena Dubal @veenadubal.bsky.social · 8d

WE WON: "This case -– perhaps the most important ever to fall w/in..this district court squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in US..have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally “yes, they do.”"

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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 9d

This is true and also we should never accept that Trump v. United States is a valid precedent. It's not and as many justices should be removed and/or diluted with more seats and/or jurisdiction stripped as may be necessary, and eventually the repudiation of it should be codified by amendment.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 9d

fun fact that while trump v. us says that the president cannot be held criminally liable for using his core powers, this does not extend to his officers

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Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 11d

This rules - @raskin.house.gov straight up called out Roberts to his face.

democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center...

Ranking Member Jamie Raskin
Prepared Remarks for the Judicial Conference
September 16, 2025
Thank you, Chief Justice Roberts, for the invitation.
Forgive my directness here but the times are serious, as you know, our time is short. I have just five minutes and don't want to trespass on Senator Cruz's time.
Sometimes these days I feel as if all the foundational principles are being trampled and lost.
Often, I hear my colleagues in the House, and these are fellow Democrats, get up to protest some Executive usurpation of legislative power and they begin their lament with the plaintive cry, "We are a coequal branch of government..."
And I always feel they have lost the argument right there just by repeating that fifth-grade dogma.
First of all, co-equal is not even a word. It's an embarrassing redundancy like "very unique" or
"irregardless.
"

But there's a reason all legislative power is vested in the Congress and there's a reason it's in Article I.
The Founders had a revolution against monarchy and its constant assaults on liberty. In America, the Framers determined, only the representatives of the people would have power to declare wars, pass budgets, impose taxes and tariffs, and so on. Article lis pages and pages of all the powers vested in Congress. Then you get to Article Il, which is tiny.
The key paragraph says a president shall be removed from office upon impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. If we are co-equal, why do we have the power to impeach, try, convict, remove and permanently disqualify the president and he doesn't have the power to impeach, try, convict, remove and disqualify us?
The core job of the president is plain: "To Take care that the laws are faithfully executed."
That's it. Not abused, not thwarted, not impounded, not redirected, but faithfully executed.
A lot of the cases entering the federal courts are variations on this theme.

Here's the remarkable thing: Americans have brought over 300 cases in federal district courts against the Administration so far for usurping legislative powers, defying federal laws, or violating the rights of the people. This summer, researchers found that plaintiffs were winning an astonishing 77% of the cases in the district courts. Moreover, they found that President Trump was losing about equally before Republican-appointed judges (72%) and Democratic-appointed judges (80%).
The numbers in the federal circuit courts of appeal are similar, with plaintiffs against the Administration winning overwhelmingly and again without a sharp partisan valence to the appeals courts' voting. A good example is the birthright citizenship case where four district court judges, two appointed by Republican presidents and two appointed by Democratic presidents, all struck down the President's purported negation of birthright citizenship. Then, on appeal, three circuit courts again all ruled against the Administration.
But everything is flipped when the cases come to the Supreme Court.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 11d

WOW. This entire story is HORRIFIC. This is FOIA of a body cam from the raid in upstate New York the same day as the Hyundai plant. It catches a Border Patrol agent on camera only bragging about denying medical care to migrants detained at the border under Biden — who he says are all "animals."

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David Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · 11d

The agent admits he treats immigrants like "they're animals" and that he tells his kids that they are animals "all the time"

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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 11d

There is no measured way to say what I am about to say.

If the Supreme Court agrees with the Trump administration to end birthright citizenship, we must end this current Supreme Court.

I do not say this lightly.

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Taylor Kordsiemon @tkords.bsky.social · 11d

In light of the Trump Admin’s new birthright citizenship appeal at SCOTUS, I’m re-upping this thread on their butchered analysis of Wong Kim Ark.

Three decades after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, the Supreme Court ruled in US v. Wong Kim Ark that people born in the United States – in that case, the son of Chinese immigrants – are entitled to US citizenship, with a few narrow exceptions. But the administration argued in its appeal that the precedent has long been misunderstood.

The Wong Kim Ark decision recognized citizenship for people born in the United States who enjoyed “permanent domicil and residence” in the country, US Solicitor General Sauer argued.

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Taylor Kordsiemon @tkords.bsky.social · 16d

Although as others have pointed out, the second question is very concerning and potentially goes beyond just overruling Humphrey’s.

Second question: Whether a federal court may prevent a person’s removal from public office, either through relief at equity or at law.

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Taylor Kordsiemon @tkords.bsky.social · 16d

I’m open to contrary opinions, but I don’t see much benefit in allowing “percolation” in the lower courts when those courts pretty much just have to apply the controlling case without respect to whether that case was correctly decided.

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Taylor Kordsiemon @tkords.bsky.social · 16d

I have zero love for SCOTUS and wholeheartedly agree that it uses procedural mechanisms in bad faith to further its right wing agenda.

But granting cert before judgment when the question is whether to overrule precedent that controls the outcome in a particular case doesn’t seem crazy to me.

Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 16d

Certiorari "before judgment" is how #SCOTUS takes up a full appeal *before* the intermediate federal courts have heard it.

It used to be exceedingly rare. For instance, there wasn't a *single* grant of such expedited review b/w August 2004 & February 2019.

This is the *23rd* such grant since then.

Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 16d

#BREAKING: Over dissents from Justices Sotomayor, Kagan & Jackson, #SCOTUS grants a stay in the Slaughter case (allowing President Trump to remove the last Dem member of the FTC), *and* grants certiorari "before judgment" to decide whether to formally overrule its 1935 ruling in Humphrey's Executor.

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Taylor Kordsiemon @tkords.bsky.social · 28d

Could have done without the “I just want to remind people that we still have the death penalty in Utah.”

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AmeriKraut @inchargeofthegirls.bsky.social · 29d

america is such a young country.

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 29d

The Post and Matt Viser are suggesting that 22 yrs ago someone impersonated Donald Trump in response to a request from Ghislaine Maxwell to Trump and created a fake card to embarrass him 22 yrs later when he would be President. I'm not going to dignify this nonsense with anything but laughter

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Taylor Kordsiemon @tkords.bsky.social · 29d

WaPo obviously unfamiliar with the definition of speculation.

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Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · Sep 8

If, per Ezra Klein, funding Trump's government without attempting to rein him in amounts to "complicity" (and it does) then there's only one alternative approach: attempt to rein him in. There is no door number three. www.offmessage.net/p/there-is-n...

There Is No Third Door

The only alternative to "complicity" is withholding votes for lawbreaking.

www.offmessage.net

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Molly Knight @mollyknight.bsky.social · Sep 8

what a humiliating way for don jr. to find out his dad sends birthday cards.

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Chris Sprigman @cjsprigman.bsky.social · Sep 8

If I were a Democrat in Congress I'd be introducing legislation to suspend the Supreme Court's upcoming term (it's happened before, in 1802). The suspension would be to give us time to figure out what to do with this dangerous, anti-democratic institution.

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Taylor Kordsiemon @tkords.bsky.social · Sep 8

It’s never a good thing when this essay I wrote comes to mind.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · Sep 8

The Supreme Court just ruled this meme is constitutional.

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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · Sep 8

The Supreme Court right now:

❌ Using race conscious admissions in colleges to account for systemic and societal racial discrimination.

✅ Using race explicitly to determine who masked federal agents will snatch off the street to throw into concentration camps.

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