Matt Szafranski
@mszafranski.bsky.social
1.7K followers 1.2K following 13K posts
Attorney; Editor-in-Chief, @WMassPI.com; #Spfldpoli when you need it; #MaPoli when you want it. "Retweets" ≠ Seal of Approval. Likes = ??? Fasten your seatbelt, please. "You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on." -Samuel Beckett Always Eccles. 1:9
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Reposted by Matt Szafranski
thefred.bsky.social
It's not an opinion that Weiss does not do reporting. It is a falsifiable fact.
Reposted by Matt Szafranski
thefred.bsky.social
No, you don't gotta hand it to him for possibly getting the third Biden cease fire eight months late after tolerating a mass starvation campaign and demanding a little ethnic cleansing and enormous bribes as a treat, and only because Netanyahu surprise bombed the chief bribe facilitator.
mszafranski.bsky.social
I think this overstates Bari. She has been over-rewarded but I wouldn't call her overachieving. She's done nothing to be a better writer, editor, interviewer or thinker. I suppose, if we're measuring in our con artistry…
eliasisquith.blog
it’s just remarkable how much of what’s wrong with this country can be put at the feet of overachieving dorks motivated by bottomless self-regard and ressentiment.
Reposted by Matt Szafranski
adamjschwarz.bsky.social
Trump calling for Netanyahu to be pardoned as a consequence/unofficial sweetener of ending the Gaza War makes total sense when you realise that Netanyahu crafts national policy based on personal interest.

So Trump's call for a pardon for Netanyahu should be considered a form of corruption itself.
mszafranski.bsky.social
This almost abrogates anything Trump did to deliver this.
adamjschwarz.bsky.social
Trump calls on the Israeli President to pardon Benjamin Netanyahu:

"Cigars and champagne - who the hell cares about it?"

Netanyahu is currently on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, including allegedly accepting 700,000 shekels (approx. $210,000) worth of luxury goods in bribes.
mszafranski.bsky.social
Wil be a hell of a thing if Trump II's overreach is so bad, we dfen reclaim frogs from the right.
msbtterswrth.altgov.info
Hot off the presses! If you need a bigger size to print your stickers let me know!
The Portland frog as a founding father, surround by the words "give me ribberty or give me death"
mszafranski.bsky.social
Almost too obvious with the cruelty is the point.
juliedicaro.bsky.social
So Kilmer Abrego-Garcia will not challenge a deportation to Costa Rica, who has agreed to for him residency, but DHS won’t agree to send him there because it’s not cruel enough.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...
For weeks, Mr. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who is married to a U.S. citizen, has made clear that he would not challenge his deportation if he were sent to Costa Rica, which has promised him legal residency and guaranteed that he would not be sent back to El Salvador.

But the Trump administration has refused to deport him to Costa Rica, and in an earlier hearing this week, Judge Xinis pressed the administration to consider the option or clarify why it was unacceptable.
mszafranski.bsky.social
One annoying thing about modern media is nobody bothers to pose statutory questions like this. A simple "how is this allowed?" is all it takes and yet…
kdbyproxy.bsky.social
Not that Trump/Vought/Hegseth gaf, but among other ways in which the law says this may NOT be done:
A) The part of 8005 I've underlined in green says money transferred to another account is "available… for the same time period" as that other account; that other acc't expired on Sept 30.

1/
Reposted by Matt Szafranski
wmasspi.com
On Monday, the #Springfield City Council approved GoNetSpeed's requests to open up public ways to install equipment. Was it a glimpse back to a council past when members united and showed real strength? #mapoli #spfldpoli wmasspi.com/2025/10/take...
Take My Council, Please: Had to Have High-Speed Hopes for a Living… — Western Mass Politics & Insight
The Springfield City Council approved 17 applications GoNetSpeed had filed for work that would affect city streets throughout the city.
wmasspi.com
mszafranski.bsky.social
That's some low quality bullshit there.
atrupar.com
WELKER: Are you looking at invoking the Insurrection Act?

VANCE: We have to remember we are talking about this bc crime has gotten out of control

W: Crime is down in both Chicago & Portland

V: Crime is down bc they are so overwhelmed at the local level they are not even keeping stats properly
mszafranski.bsky.social
This interview seems pretty disastrous for Vance and all Stephanopoulos is doing is pressing them after a deflection. Too many interviewers can't be bothered.
atrupar.com
STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn't insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50k as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024. You did not answer the question. Thank you for your time.

VANCE: No, George, I sai--

STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll be right back
mszafranski.bsky.social
You could just not issue the stays or order full briefing.
atrupar.com
Amy Coney Barrett defends heavy use of the shadow docket: "If we wrote a long opinion, it might give the impression that we have finally resolved the issue, and in none of these cases have we finally resolved the issue."
Reposted by Matt Szafranski
michaelcaley.bsky.social
it's mentioned in the article, but I think it's crucial:

the Posting To Policy Pipeline depended on links

good posts could build you an audience, but always in conjunction with links to more substantial work and then the actual developed policies were written up longform

and the Elon killed links
Reposted by Matt Szafranski
mszafranski.bsky.social
Another alternative is create a unit in the Marshals since ideally we're wiping away these "judge" and putting in Article I judges or requiring Article IIi to get involved.
mszafranski.bsky.social
You need a far smaller "ICE" if you just make detention far rarer than it is now and you put attention on visa overstays. A neo-INS can handle that and justly removable noncitizens.
Reposted by Matt Szafranski
thefred.bsky.social
It is important to remember that they are incredibly lazy, doing far less work than they used to.
mszafranski.bsky.social
Fun story. My conlaw prof (a former dean) told us he was talking to "Tony Kennedy" who said they were taking fewer cases so the opinions they did write were better. My professor tells us he deadpanned to Tony "I don't know if [the opinions] are getting better but they're certainly getting longer."
Reposted by Matt Szafranski
elisewang.bsky.social
For those not fluent in Catholic: refusing the Monstrance is not denying prisoners the Eucharist, it is refusing Christ himself, since Christ is present in the Monstrance.

If Portland’s blow up animals are the right language for Portland, this is the right language for Chicago.
richraho.bsky.social
Chicago priest Fr. Larry Dowling describes procession to ICE facility: “No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ.”
Reposted by Matt Szafranski
blackazizanansi.blacksky.app
Im still wondering what goes through the mind of someone who joined ICE just for the benefits when they're told to rip a mother away from her screaming children or to kidnap a child from school...
mszafranski.bsky.social
"Push the lib-owning button, now! …No, not like that!"
nicholasbednar.bsky.social
"One source told me that some of the reversals came after the Trump administration realized that they had accidentally terminated critically important staffers working on current measles and Ebola outbreaks."
mszafranski.bsky.social
I mean, she's an immigrant, too, so this tracks.
rbreich.bsky.social
Cartoon by John Deering.
mszafranski.bsky.social
They could do that. Hold more arguments and read more briefs now. But they're too busy receiving awards on the Amalfi or having uncomfortable but happy family reunions to do all that work.
andycraig.bsky.social
The credibility of the Court, of any court, lies in how they're supposed to explain their reasoning, how they act as the outcome of an adversarial process. When they stop doing that, their standing with the general public collapses, sure. But as we see, their authority over lower courts also erodes.
mszafranski.bsky.social
This is pretty straightforward because we need to amend the FTCA and we can just set it to be retroactive. May be some ex post facto questions if we lift Westfell Act protections retroactively but this is debatable.
jbenmenachem.com
In addition to destroying ICE and DHS, we should probably start thinking about a reparations framework. If they keep records on which officers conduct arrests, we could make individual officers liable to pay damages to their victims.