Occam’s Aftershave

It's somehow both wildly underreported and just out in the open that the vice president is either a neo-Nazi or, at a bare minimum, a neo-Nazi fellow traveler.

My memory is quite the opposite. “No kings” has actually worked out really well for the American economy for centuries.

It’s the arrival of a would-be king that has shut everything down.

How I Expect the Supreme Court to Kill Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Callais (If It Does So): Not By Direct Overruling but By Pretending They Are Simply Reinterpreting the Meaning of Section 2... I’ve written of good reason to believe the Supreme Court is going to sap Section 2 of its power in the Louisiana v. Callais case, being argued on Wednesday. I won’t rehash those arguments here. Instea...

But here we are. Because the Court won’t want to take the political hit of striking down Section 2, my expectation is that the case will get the Alito Treatment: it will use statutory interpretation to sap Section 2 of its power without formally overturning it. electionlawblog.org?p=152471

The idea that the Court may use the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution to bar a remedy that helps minority voters is both ahistorical and repugnant.

Unearthed invitation shows Trump will host a lavish $1 million per person fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago this Friday.

This will take place on the 17th day of his government shutdown.

‘College Group Chat’: JD Vance Dismisses ‘Pearl Clutching’ Over Young Republicans Leak to Attack Jay Jones Liberals hit back at Vance's blunt dismissal of racist, antisemitic and misogynistic messages leaked from a Young Republicans group chat.

Fascinating. Politico notes that when notified of the texts, many state-level Republicans fired or condemned these cretins. Now Vance emerges to excuse the racism, and calls the reaction to it "pearl clutching."

He seems determined to purge the party of its last enclaves of decency.

Almost like we founded the entire country on opposing this exact sentence.

LIVE BLOG: Supreme Court Hears Case That Could Gut the Voting Rights Act Read more here.

🚨NEW: Louisiana v. Callais Oral Argument LIVE BLOG🚨

Starting at 10am, the Democracy Docket team will be offering live coverage of today's blockbuster SCOTUS redistricting argument. Follow and bookmark. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Members of Congress growing concerned over lack of information from administration about Venezuela strikes, sources say Republicans and Democrats say the administration is failing to share basic information with Congress about the intelligence, rationale and goals of its war on drug trafficking.

This administration’s policy of serial open murders on the high seas is starting to make some members of Congress mildly uncomfortable. www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...

It's rare in a case of this high profile that the court gives time to one lawyer from one side, and THREE lawyers from the other side.

*Technically* both sides are supposed to have equal time, so like, the 3 lawyers arguing for racism are supposed to share time. But it doesn't work out that way.

Haaahahaha. Kagan says "in Milligan, we rejected a number of arguments. It seems to me that you just made every one of them." Then she started to list them.
... she's still listing them. :)

Louisiana guy "If you look at the black population in Louisiana, they're all over the place."

Again, the fundamental argument for why Louisiana (which has 6 congressional districts and is 1/3 nonwhite) should over-represent white folks is because black folks are "too spread out."

Kagan: "It's not about intentional discrimination because Section 2 isn't about intentional discrimination, it's about effectual discrimination."

Again, this should be the winning argument. It won't be.

Now the Solicitor General for Louisiana. Ben Aguinaga.

Louisiana defended its maps (and Section 2 of the VRA) when the court was argued last year, but now that the court is interested in getting RID of Section 2, Louisiana has changed sides.

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

Brett Kavanaugh is basically arguing tha there have been "sufficient remedies" for racism.

This seems like a good time to bring up the @politico.com about how young Republicans have *remedied* racism.

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

One of my only remaining joys is that every single time Amy Coney Barrett makes a stupid argument, Ketanji Brown Jackson gets a chance to follow up and illustrate her stupidity.
And this will happen again, and again, for the rest of Barrett's life.

This claim is difficult to square with the 14th & 15th Amendments, which were not enacted in a race-neutral manner. They were explicitly designed to combat racial discrimination and protect the rights of newly freed Black Americans.

these people have the self-reflection of a vampire

Meet The Master Race Insane GOP Telegram Chat Rips Off The Mask

The leaked messages of Young Republican Telegram channels wasn’t a “slip of the mask.” This is the face of today’s rising class of MAGA GOP leaders. Check out Rick Wilson's latest on Substack: https://bit.ly/494wFyw

There's a fun little colliquay where Alito is flatly mischaracterizing what happened at the lower court and Nelson and now Sotomayor or trying to correct him. But Sam is resistant to facts that show he's wrong so, for the second time this morning, he's just ignoring the facts.

Remember, according to the Republican Justices, it's okay to gerrymander for party advantage, not racial advantage. It's an unknowable distinction, but one that allows the Republicans to okay racist gerrymandering under the guise of political gerrymandering.

Unless and until some kind of compelling legal and moral argument is presented as to why this is a legitimate use of deadly force, this is just…mass murder.

#DeleteTikTok

Barron Trump tipped for top TikTok job US president’s 19-year-old son could be appointed to the app’s board

Trump said he deserved a cut for brokering the TikTok deal, and at once there was agreement that his son Baron would have a top executive slot... though he hasn't asked for it, and has no apparent qualifications to hold it. This is how Trump 2.0 works. www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025...

❤

The is literally nothing more American and patriotic than declaring: No Kings.

Tommy Robinson says Elon Musk is paying his legal costs as trial begins Far-right activist is accused of refusing to comply with counter-terrorism police request at Channel tunnel

Note that Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are doing _exactly_ what Trump falsely accuses George Soros of doing. They fund and finance the operations of terrorist groups in the UK and Germany among other countries. Soros is strictly involved in bona fide philanthropy. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

The 400 richest Americans are now worth a record $6.6 trillion.

The entire bottom 50% of America is worth just $4.2 trillion.

Read that back.

When 400 people control more wealth than half a country’s population, we have a very serious problem.

There is absolutely zero chance that a man who took $50,000 in cash in a paper bag from an FBI agent on camera would have been appointed to any position by any other president.