Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 10h

Matt Stoller being very Matt Stoller, calling someone else a "classic left poseur snob"

Matt Stoller being eviscerated by @dieworkwear.bsky.social

Gautam Hans @gshans.bsky.social · 10h

In prepping to review Anthony Kennedy’s ne book, I kept wondering why we don’t have a SCOTUS of, say, 45 with 9 randomly chosen justices for each case… kind of like default en banc. Cert requires a majority of the whole court to grant. They can ride circuit the rest of the time to fill their days.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 10h

if we are going to have a supreme court that is as powerful as it is, i basically think justices should be forbidden from public comment on their work as well as any supplemental source of income while they are on the bench. (they should also ride circuit again but that's a bit separate.)

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 18h

The substance of what she's saying is bad and unconvincing, but more fundamentally, I really don't think Supreme Court justices should be going on book tours where they publicly comment on their work and respond to criticism of it. Either put it in a written opinion or hold your peace.

7

Reposted by Gautam Hans

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 11h

federal agents stealing children and sending them south. where have i heard about that before?

Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 13h

ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago

31
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.

200 4.5K 12K

Gautam Hans @gshans.bsky.social · 18h

ICYMI, my review from last month of ACB’s new book for @ballsandstrikes.org: ballsandstrikes.org/legal-cultur...

2 3

Reposted by Gautam Hans

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

really striking the degree to which not a single person working in the trump administration appears to be interested in serving the american people

230 1.8K 10K

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Deborah Pearlstein @debpearlstein.bsky.social · 1d

Of all the news in this NYT survey of sitting federal judges - incl 47 of them think the SCt is mishandling its emergency docket - maybe the biggest is that 65 sitting fed judges (37D, 28R), folks circumspect for a living, responded to a NYT survey. Stunning. And a sign that something is very wrong.

Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders

www.nytimes.com

10 250 750

Gautam Hans @gshans.bsky.social · 1d

Jameel and the entire KFIA staff remain important, inspiring leaders and litigators amid this crisis.

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 1d

This is a perilous moment for democracy in the United States, but I couldn’t be prouder of the Knight Institute’s work right now, and I don’t take for granted that we have the freedom and resources to do it. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

This free speech group at Columbia is taking on Trump when the university won’t – and winning

The Knight Institute is defending free speech at a school now synonymous with compromising on it

www.theguardian.com

3 6

Reposted by Gautam Hans

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 7d

Listeners' Choices Online is now online. I hope you will choose to listen to it!

james.grimmelmann.net/files/articl...

james.grimmelmann.net

2 5 7

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2d

My first thought was “wow I hope this guy didn’t give out his name because he could absolutely be charged” and yup, he is correct to stay anonymous.

This man’s account is shocking. His neighbors’ situation is shocking. The entire Chicago raid is shocking.

On the other side was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for his help.
"I wasn't planning on letting her stay, but I didn't know what the hell was going on," the man said of his Venezuelan migrant neighbors. But he quickly relented. The little girl was inconsolable and hid under his bed.
"I didn't want them to take her," said the man, who didn't want to be named because he fears he'll be targeted by federal authorities for his actions.
"I gave her my bedroom, and I just told her,
'Just stay there. Don't open, don't, shh, just stay quiet," he recalled telling the mom and daughter as he choked back tears.

190 2.7K 8.2K

Gautam Hans @gshans.bsky.social · 2d

In for a penny in for a pound I guess.

1

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Lee Kovarsky @kovarsky.bsky.social · 2d

One thing people miss (that Linc captures) is that it’s not clear at all that Roberts is trying to help Trump in some crass political way.

It’s instead the endless sanitizing of T’s conduct so that Roberts doesn’t have to confront that his normative view of the presidency is a governance disaster.

Hopefully Hypervigilant (a.k.a. Libby Milliken) @hpfllyhyprvglnt.bsky.social · 2d

www.harvardmagazine.com/legal/suprem...

What Trump Means for John Roberts's Legacy | Harvard Magazine

Executive power is on the docket at the Supreme Court.

www.harvardmagazine.com

10 14 60

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 3d

What if the guy who inspires fear of reprisal for not winning does not actually deserve the Peace Prize?

headlines describing Norway shitting itself for when Trump does not win.

21 32 250

Gautam Hans @gshans.bsky.social · 3d

“When I speak, especially when I speak with emotion, I am characterized by those same rivals as being a monster, as being at the gates—language that describes almost a barbarian looking to dismantle civilization.” As another bearded brown man with feelings—I get it. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

What Zohran Mamdani Knows About Power

The thirty-three-year-old socialist is rewriting the rules of New York politics. Can he transform the city as mayor?

www.newyorker.com

4

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Rick Hasen @rickhasen.bsky.social · 3d

I believe that should be REEKING

Politico @politico.com · 3d

REAKING: New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Trump foe, is indicted by Trump’s DOJ.

She has been charged with one count of bank fraud by the same U.S. attorney who brought charges against James Comey.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Trump foe, is indicted by Trump’s DOJ

She has been charged with one count of bank fraud by the same U.S. attorney who brought charges against James Comey.

www.politico.com

7 39 300

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 3d

Any university that agrees to this outrageous “compact” is a full participant in Trump’s assault on democracy. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

3 41 130

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 3d

And one more thing: It’s good to see a Hungarian who isn’t Orbán make international news.

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 3d

‘His books concern people on the margins, at the edges of empire or of their sanity, and the great powers and promises that exert their centripetal pull.’

Jennifer Szalai on László Krasznahorkai’s Hungarianness, from 2012

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...

Jennifer Szalai · Where Forty-Eight Avenue joins Petőfi Square: László Krasznahorkai

www.lrb.co.uk

1 10

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 3d

Nothing remotely resembling an insurrection is happening anywhere in the country. Any violence associated with protest has been isolated, mild, and, in nearly every case, instigated by federal law enforcement. If we let Trump get away with calling dissent an insurrection, our republic is over.

BREAKING: Trump Admin 'Seriously' Considering Using the Insurrection Act, Reports NBC

President Trump is "seriously" considering invoking the Insurrection Act in order to more easily deploy National Guard troops to major cities as part of crime crackdown, NBC reported on Wednesday

www.mediaite.com

120 1.3K 3.5K

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 4d

repost this if an editor has ever saved you from yourself

violent alien @blipstress.bsky.social · 4d

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

59 1.1K 3.8K

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 4d

he's going to come after you either way, so you might as well act with integrity

38 1.1K 5.3K

Gautam Hans @gshans.bsky.social · 5d

Entrepreneurship Clinic / Civil Litigation Clinic / Movement Lawyering Clinic

Rebecca Tushnet @rtushnet.bsky.social · 5d

Unfortunately I might go with Associate Professor / Adjunct Professor / Full Professor / Assistant Professor

Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 5d

Associate Professor / Full Professor / Assistant Professor

Reposted by Gautam Hans

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 5d

glad to be born at a time when i got to see what life was like before the internet and will be dead before AI completely destroys humanity

170 940 8K

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 5d

I was struck by that line too. I reviewed Walter’s book “How Civil Wars Start” when it was published way back in 2022. her analysis was incisive; I was hoping it wouldn’t be prescient:
www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/b...

2 5 14

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 5d

“We’ll schedule it as soon as she wants”?

She’s been demanding it for weeks but Republicans keep blocking her.

They really really really don’t want the files to come out

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5d

RAJU: You swore in 2 GOP members during pro forma session. Why not swear in Grijalva? Does it have to do w/her signature on Epstein petition?

JOHNSON: It has nothing to do with that. We'll swear her in when everybody is back

R: Why not now?

J: Uh - we'll schedule it, I guess, as soon as she wants

33 240 1.1K

Reposted by Gautam Hans

onekade @onekade.bsky.social · 5d

New: Records obtained by the @aclum.bsky.social show police across the state are conducting dragnet surveillance of motorists and sharing their location information with cops in states that have banned abortion and gender affirming care, and those that work w/ICE data.aclum.org/2025/10/07/f...

Flock Gives Law Enforcement All Over the Country Access to Your Location – The Data for Justice Project | ACLU of Massachusetts

data.aclum.org

1 18 24

Reposted by Gautam Hans

Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 5d

The conservative Supreme Court justices sincerely believe that discrimiantion against Christians is the most urgent civil rights crisis of our time, and they are going out of their way to take and decide cases that allow them to correct these injustices

The Story of This Supreme Court Term Is Already On YouTube

How conservative activists are building a shared cultural understanding about who deserves the law’s protections, and who does not.

ballsandstrikes.org

4 29 110