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Jared Rizzi @jaredrizzi.bsky.social · 1h

Democrats are arguing about how to find common ground while Republicans are arguing about how to eliminate Democrats - voters, elected officials, state and local governments - from having any power in any aspect of civic life

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 1h

The Supreme Court's Republican appointees sound ready to transform the 14th and 15th Amendments into a weapon against the very racial minorities they were meant to protect—handing Republicans 15-19 additional House seats in the process. A disaster for democracy.
slate.com/news-and-pol...

Is it racist to remedy racism? That’s the question at the heart of Callais v. Louisiana, which the Supreme Court heard on Wednesday. The case asks whether the Voting Rights Act gives Black Louisianans too much political power—and if so, whether the landmark law violates the Constitution. Unsurprisingly, the Republican-appointed justices seem eager to rule that it does. Throughout oral arguments, they suggested the VRA protects minority voters too effectively, dragging the government into race-conscious considerations that offend the equal protection rights of the white voters who sued in this case. And they floated various ways to gut what remains of the statute by twisting it beyond recognition or striking it down altogether. The result would be a windfall for Republicans, who stand to gain at least 19 seats in the House of Representatives if the Supreme Court frees them to gerrymander Black communities into oblivion. Such a decision would also devastate minority representation in Congress, eliminating up to 30 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2h

Mamdani: "I just want to speak directly to the president. I will not be a mayor like Mayor Adams who will call you to stay out of jail. I won't be a disgraced governor like Andrew Cuomo who will call you to ask how to win this election. I can do those things on my own."

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 2h

Reminder: the House recess isn't because of the budget, the House adjourned before the shutdown because the GOP doesn't want to hold a vote to release government files on a pedophile because everyone knows those files implicate Trump. Republicans are doing this to protect their pedophile President.

Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 2h

Trump's mechanism to pay the troops during the shutdown is by far the most illegal budgetary action he's taken as POTUS, potentially setting the stage to break everything.

It's also needless because Congress would easily pass a troop pay bill if Johnson were willing to gavel in.

Long thread.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/10/national-security-presidential-memorandum-nspm-8/

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Wajahat Ali @wajali.bsky.social · 2h

The Supreme Court is going to gut the Voting Rights Act and help GOP gerrymander and win the 2026 election.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

The Supreme Court Case That Could Hand the House to Republicans

www.nytimes.com

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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 1h

“Trump has been quite upfront about using the shutdown as an opportunity to engage in score-settling. When asked about the first wave of layoffs, Trump said ‘It will be Democrat-oriented...They should be Democrat-oriented.’”

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1h

Federal Judge blocks shutdown layoffs.

DOJ lawyer refuses to defend cuts, merely argues jurisdiction.

Judge: “This hatchet is falling on the heads of employees all across the nation, and you're not even prepared to address whether that's legal?”
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-shutdo...

UPDATE: A federal Judge has imposed a temporary block on RIFs during the shutdown, saying the Trump administration has:

taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning, to to assume that that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them anymore and that they can impose the structures that they like on a government situation that they don’t like. And I believe that the plaintiffs will demonstrate ultimately that what’s being done here is both illegal and is in excess of authority.

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

some colleagues have suggested to me that shame is irrelevant because the people on the "other side" don't know or care what "we" (on whatever "this side") think of them. I have...not gotten that impression

Kurtbert Barlowko @albertburneko.bsky.social · 5h

"disliking me is persecution" describes so incredibly many people's entire outlook these days defector.com/free-press-r...

Free Press Reporter Discovers That Being An Amoral Dickhead Can Cost You Friends | Defector

It can be hard to maintain friendships as an adult. People move to new cities, start families, and experience all sorts of other life events that make it difficult to keep in touch. Sometimes, you end...

defector.com

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ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 5h

Moopppan: "There's no reason to think that the Louisiana legislature would have done anything different if every black democrat was a white democrat."

ACTUALLY THAT DOESN'T MATTER. Because the VRA (section 2) isn't asking about INTENT it's asking about RESULTS.

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ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 6h

The Louisiana argument is essentially that you CAN use race to be racist but you CAN'T use race to ameliorate racism.

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ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 6h

The fight here with Gorsuch and Kav vs Nelson is whether the "use" of race automatically means "discrimination" on the basis of race.

That's interesting to me, because it's basically the white folks telling on themselves. They cannot see a "use" of race that isn't synonymous with discrimination.

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ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 6h

Nelson and KBJ are finally to the point where they're arguing thta the 15th Amendment doesn't have a *time limit* and the Voting Rights Act is just the mechanism to make the 15th Amendment work.

Brett and Amy don't actually think the 15th Amendment should be made to work so...

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ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 7h

Kavanaugh looking to find the "end point" when the Court no longer has to worry about the intentional use of race to create black districts.
I'd say "WHEN WHITE FOLKS STOP INTENTIONALLY USING RACE TO DECREASE BLACK VOTING POWER" but he thinks white people doing that is cool.

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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 6h

‼️ this was a striking moment, to me

Louisiana was basically like 'here come these Black people always asking for more' and Justice Jackson was like, 'that's not what the fuck they're asking for, they're saying: stop discriminating against us'

ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 6h

Louisiana: "The plaintiffs came in and said 'we want a second majority-minority district."
KBJ: "NO THEY DID NOT. They said our votes are being dilluted."
Louisiana: "That's the same thing."
KBJ: "No it's not. ... trust me on this."
:)

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 5h

This entire argument by Louisiana and the conservatives questions are premised on an erasure of Congress’ enforcement power under the 14th & 15th Amendments.

Literally swinging for the fences to wipe out the premise for the legitimacy of Congress’ power to enact civil rights statutes.

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Meredith Shiner @meredithshiner.com · 7h

This @royalpratt.bsky.social story is essential and horrifying: a 60-year old man with heart problems originally from El Salvador was issued a $130 ticket by ICE in Rogers Park for “not having his papers” proving his legal status on his person.

ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’

Under federal law, registered foreign nationals must carry proof of registration with them at all times. But prior to a second Trump administration, it was rarely enforced.

www.chicagotribune.com

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 7h

NEW — I dug into the story of ICE abducting a 13-year-old boy in Massachusetts and moving him 500 miles across state lines without notifying his mother, local cop's complicity, and how the federal government's justification for such cruelty is already falling apart:

ICE took a 13-year-old they said had a gun. Local cops say he didn’t.

Now he's detained 500 miles away from his Massachusetts home.

www.thehandbasket.co

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Jared Rizzi @jaredrizzi.bsky.social · 7h

Bessent gives a gift with this marble-mouthed line that's even better in the contrapositive: you won't get federal money unless you go along and pretend Trump is a king. At least they're just saying it out loud?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 7h

Bessent: "No kings equals no paychecks"

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 7h

For a fraction of that price you could finish electrifying Metro North and LIRR and save commuters way more time

Streetsblog NYC @nyc.streetsblog.org · 7h

For years, multiple governors pushed for the expansion, even though the DOT noted that spending $1.3 billion to add a third lane would save drivers six minutes during peak travel times by the far off year of 2050.

State Pauses Billion-Dollar Route 17 Expansion in Hudson Valley - Streetsblog New York City

One of the biggest highway boondoggles in the state may finally die a merciful death, thanks to Gov. Hochul.

buff.ly

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 9h

We were actually getting somewhere, too. 😞

@sbmitche.bsky.social
www.library.hbs.edu/working-know...

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Hunter Walker @hunterw.bsky.social · 1d

This story ends with some of the first concrete indications right wing extremists are responding to DHS' ICE recruitment drive. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/in-the-...

In the New Trump Era, the Proud Boys Are ‘Not Apologizing Anymore’

To hear him tell it, Gavin McInnes’ recent return to the site...

talkingpointsmemo.com

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 9h

What would you say if you saw it in another country? What would you say if you had been told in 2015 that this is where we would be?

John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 19h

To be clear:

LA County has declared a state of emergency BECAUSE OF the federal government.

The Feds, LA County is (correctly) saying, have CAUSED the emergency.

This is a striking political moment of internal collapse. Local govts feeling compelled to protect their ppl from … their own govt.

Los Angeles County declares state of emergency over immigration raids

Los Angeles County officials voted on Tuesday to declare a state of emergency over ongoing federal immigration raids.

abcnews.go.com

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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 9h

By allowing for the dismantling of minority districts held by Democrats, a ruling against the VRA could give President Donald Trump and the GOP enough additional seats to lock in the party’s control of the House for a generation. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Fair Elections — and Perhaps Control of Congress — at Stake as SCOTUS Hears Challenge to VRA