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Reposted by Alan Wessman

David Haralson @laughlax.bsky.social · 1h

Ugh

Republicans in Utah love to talk about "The Utah Way" and being different from the national party, but when you look past the talk you can see they're clamoring for unchecked power just as strongly as any other Republicans.

David @dkuofu.bsky.social · 2h

Cox is going to pack the court.

I've said it before—Cox is happy to do almost anything the legislature wants, but he's very conscious of appearances so they have to sell him on some veneer of an excuse he can parrot to the media. In this case? "He's giving the court more resources"

Cox said Tuesday he may now support a dead proposal from earlier this year to expand the number of justice on the Utah Supreme Court. The Utah Constitution says the court must have "at least five" justices.

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David Haralson @laughlax.bsky.social · 1h

I hadn't seen this yet, but hey would you look at that. They want to get around having to draw a fair electoral map, by whatever means possible. They are seriously throwing *everything* at the wall for this, because they know exactly how much gerrymandering gooses up their supermajority.

Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 4h

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Exactly two weeks after the Utah Republican Party endorsed map C in Utah’s court-stipulated redistricting process, the party has filed paperwork to run a referendum to repeal map C and an initiative to ask the legislature to repeal Proposition 4.

www.abc4.com/news/politic...

www.abc4.com

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Maxine Joselow @maxinejoselow.bsky.social · 7h

Before catastrophic floods swept through the Alaska Native village of Kipnuk on Sunday, the EPA canceled a $20 million grant intended to protect the community from extreme flooding. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/c...

Before Alaska Flooding, E.P.A. Canceled $20 Million Flood Protection Grant

www.nytimes.com

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Jeff Yang @originalsp.in · 2h

Korol is a US citizen. Her family hasn’t heard from her since she was taken, public charges haven’t been released—what crime did she even commit? 2nd-Degree Woodwinding?—and there has been no explanation for her “renditioning” across state lines.

We’ve moved into a new phase of Trump lawlessness.

Jeff Yang @originalsp.in · 2h

A musician, Oriana Korol, was peacefully playing clarinet with her protest band outside ICE facilities in Portland, OR.

When the band started playing “Ghostbusters,” ICE thugs suddenly poured outside, slammed her into the mud, arrested her and took her to a jail 9 miles away in Vancouver, WA.

Musician playing ‘Ghostbusters’ outside ICE facility is arrested by agents

‘Taking us citizens out of state to detain them without charge is a new action from the Feds and should be opposed,’ her band said

www.independent.co.uk

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 4h

Trump has a very simple worldview: the Presidency is not a public office, it is his property. He can use it to satisfy his personal or partisan whims, or to enrich himself.

So here, he threatens to reorganize an international competition, cohosted by Mexico and Canada, to settle a vendetta.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 11h

Trump on moving World Cup games from Boston: "We could take them away. Your mayor is not good."

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 5h

The official government account for DHS appears to be run by far-right trolls deliberately trying to provoke a response by using a term openly associated with ethnic cleansing. They will attack anyone who points this out and express faux outrage at the suggestion. They know what they are doing.

Remigration Wikipedia Page.

Not to be confused with Return migration.
Remigration is an originally European far-right proposal of ethnic cleansing via the mass deportation of non-white immigrants and their descendants, sometimes including those born in Europe, to their place of racial ancestry.
It is popular especially within the Identitarian movement. Some proponents of remigration suggest excluding some persons with non-European background from such a mass deportation, based on a varyingly defined degree of assimilation into European culture.

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CavsKermit @cavskermit.bsky.social · 3h

This isn't a crackdown on immigration. They're using tear gas on U.S. citizens engaged in protests protected by the 1st Amendment.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 4h

As the intensity of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has risen, residents of Chicago are increasingly pushing back. Federal agents repeatedly have been observed releasing smoke bombs, tear gas and pepper balls to disperse residents who gather or capture videos.

ICE Is Cracking Down on Chicago. Some Chicagoans Are Fighting Back.

Residents have begun forming volunteer groups to monitor their neighborhoods for federal immigration agents. Others honk their horns or blow whistles when they see agents nearby.

nyti.ms

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Adam Klasfeld @klasfeldreports.com · 6h

Extraordinary NYT story:

Trump’s DOJ pressured out another US Attorney in WESTERN Virginia for finding that a grand jury probe his bosses demanded was unwarranted.

They wanted a case discrediting the Russia probe — evidence be damned. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/u...

U.S. Attorney Was Forced Out After Clashes Over How to Handle Russia Inquiry

www.nytimes.com

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Senator Ed Markey @markey.senate.gov · 10h

Trump just bombed six more people in the Caribbean, for a total of 27 civilians who have been killed so far by the US military. It’s illegal for the military to target civilians who do not pose an immediate threat. This is murder.

U.S. Military Kills Another 6 People in 5th Caribbean Strike, Trump Says
In a social media post, the president said the people aboard a boat were suspected of smuggling drugs for an unspecified group his team had labeled terrorists.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 14h

Trump administration defying court orders. Add another ground for impeachment to the orogeny of impeachable offenses by this executive.

Reuters Legal @legal.reuters.com · 14h

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration had violated his previous court order by implementing a nearly identical policy that again made state cooperation with federal immigration enforcement a condition for receiving grant funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Trump administration flouted court order on FEMA grant funding, US judge rules

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration had violated his previous court order by implementing a nearly identical policy that again made state cooperation with federal immigration enforcement a condition for receiving grant funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

reut.rs

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 16h

The only Supreme Court case Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch cite to support their mandatory-outing view is Troxel v. Granville, which held that parents' control over their children is an unenumerated right protected by due process.

But Thomas says such unenumerated due process rights do not exist!

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Dave's Notes @ldsfn.bsky.social · 17h

“This was no longer a safe scene, and in that moment, I realized that the scene had not actually been safe the entire time that they were blocking us from exiting, and that we were essentially trapped.”

“I was still in such shock,” the driver later wrote, “that they were not only accusing me of such a thing, but crowding and cornering me in the seat, pointing and screaming at me, threatening to shoot and arrest me, and not allowing the ambulance to leave the scene. This was no longer a safe scene, and in that moment, I realized that the scene had not actually been safe the entire time that they were blocking us from exiting, and that we were essentially trapped.”

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 1d

The entire incident is infuriating and terrifying. She’s a Latina woman who was working a service job. On her way home late at night, with her headphones in, she was detained for an hour by masked federal agents who wouldn’t give her their names.

Maria Greeley, 44, had just finished working a double shift at the Beach Bar on Ohio Street
earlier this month when she said she was surrounded by three federal agents who grabbed her, forced her hands behind her back and zip tied her.
Headphones in, Greeley had been focused on getting home to her two dogs for a walk.
Instead, she said she was detained by masked agents who did not answer when she asked for names. They questioned her for an hour, she said.

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 1d

When Mike Johnson or another national leader repeatedly claims they haven’t seen relevant things in the news, an appropriate reporter reaction would be “Holy cow, how do you not know?!? How can you do your job without knowing what’s happening? What are you doing to fix your ‘not knowing’ problem?”

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 1d

I don't understand why U.S. reporters so regularly seem to let politicians get away with 'I haven't seen that' about stuff a) they obviously know and b) is directly relevant to their job. Did they sign some kind of agreement never to ask a follow-up question?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

REPORTER: We know the president moved forward with mass layoffs. We're also learning there were significant cuts to staff at special education services. Are you comfortable with those cuts?

MIKE JOHNSON: I haven't seen the specifics of that and I don't know

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Jim Oleske @jimoleske.bsky.social · 1d

In her judicial opinions engaging originalism, Justice Barrett has thoughtfully raised key questions about the challenges of implementing the methodology.

In her non-judicial appearance on Fox yesterday, Barrett was decidedly less thoughtful when defending the Court's shadow docket behavior.

Moreover, as I’ve explained at length before, the Court would have no trouble writing such an opinion in a way that doesn’t lock in any future result if and when the case returns on the merits; all it would have to do is rest its analysis on a proper balancing of the equities and a clear statement that it wasn’t conclusively resolving the merits—something it’s had no trouble insisting upon in non-Trump-related cases. As for Justice Barrett’s concern that even a short opinion might “give the impression that we have finally resolved the issue,” it’s the justices who, for the first time, are publicly insisting that even their unexplained rulings on emergency applications are entitled to precedential effect—something that wouldn’t make sense unless the justices have reached some kind of merits-based conclusion. To pretend that isn’t happening borders on gaslighting.

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Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 1d

Special education isn't a "nice thing to have." It isn't "charity" or doing something to make us feel better. It is a right. The right to a Free Appropriate Public Education is codified in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, signed by a Republican president.

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 1d

U.S. Department of Education fired nearly everyone in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in a wave of new layoffs that began Friday, according to the union representing the agency's employees. www.usatoday.com/story/news/e...

Education Department wipes out special ed office in shutdown layoffs, union says

The Education Department laid off nearly everyone at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

www.usatoday.com

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 1d

Do they by and large truly believe that, or is that more likely a common pretext that they employ to power their antecedent objectives of seizing and wielding wealth and power?

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Well-Regulated Onion @onionbroth.bsky.social · 1d

The other thing is that Barrett and others are not acknowledging that they don't have to be giving this relief at all. Emergency relief like this is supposed to be an extraordinary remedy yet they're doling it out in high profile cases with no consideration of factual findings in lower courts.

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Well-Regulated Onion @onionbroth.bsky.social · 1d

If they're not ready to give a fulsome opinion on what the law is, they can simply leave lower court orders in place like they do for almost every legal dispute that takes place in this country.

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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 1d

Today’s “One First” looks at how #SCOTUS and its defenders have responded to criticisms of the Court’s behavior in Trump cases either by knocking down straw men or by attacking the critics—without meaningfully defending what the Court is actually *doing*:

www.stevevladeck.com/p/183-the-mi...

After all, maybe one can defend the Court granting emergency relief more often than ever before and in cases with far greater real-world (and structural) impacts. And maybe one can defend the Court altering (if not completely scrapping) the traditional balance of the equities in these cases. But does that defense extend to the Court doing so especially in cases in which President Trump is a party—and no others? And does it extend to the Court doing all of this without usually providing written explanations of what it is doing—or why? And even if the answer is somehow “yes,” does it also extend to the Court doing all of this, not usually explaining what it’s doing or why, and nevertheless accusing lower courts who fail to read the justices’ minds of “defying” the Court?

I have a very hard time believing that anyone can genuinely make it through even three of those sentences with a coherent defense of what the Supreme Court has done over the past seven months—let alone all five of them. I’d love to see such an argument, if it exists, but I haven’t been—and won’t be—holding my breath.

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Jay Rosen @jayrosen.bsky.social · 2d

I have always loved @propublica.org's mission statement. It speaks to method as much as mission, and does not shrink from describling their journalism as a moral undertaking. www.propublica.org/about/

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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 2d

*sigh*

Absolute idiots. If you see somebody doing this, stop them. If you come across the fliers encouraging it, trash them. It's not a prank, it's not a protest, it's a literal violent crime endangering the public.

OHSU says emergency flights will be diverted amid planned 'laser party' in South Portland

OHSU said air ambulance vendors are not going to land at the hospital helipad Saturday; instead, they'll land at other airports and transfer patients via ambulance.

www.kgw.com

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 2d

I really wouldn’t be shining lasers at helicopters if I were you. It’s illegal and could cause an aircraft to crash - and that could kill a LOT of people, in the air and on the ground.

And the ICE goons appear to be *salivating* at the chance to claim people that they arrest were doing this:

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 2d

Curtis, who is my senator, doesn’t believe this. He says it because to say otherwise in the Republican Party is to speak heresy, and Curtis values orthodoxy over duty.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Sen. John Curtis: "I think we have to put a lot of trust in President Trump and his instincts."

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Rowdy @r0wdy.sk33t.expert · 2d

This should be one of the requirements for opening the government. The longer the shutdown continues, the more Dems should add to the list.

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 2d

Sens. Schumer, Merkley, Murray, and Peters are calling for the resignation of OMB Director Russell Vought.

"By impounding billions of dollars … and aggressively pursuing the illegal use of pocket rescissions, Vought has done everything in his power to gut the federal government piece by piece."

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