Kyle Barry

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly selected Larkin Walsh as the new Kansas Supreme Court justice to replace outgoing Justice Evelyn Wilson. The Kansas Supreme Court nominating Commission selected three finalists on June 14, and Kelly had 60 days to choose what could be her last pick on the court. Walsh most recently worked as the senior counsel at Stueve Siegel and Hanson law firm, where she focused on civil rights, consumer protection and labor law. She's also spent time advising federal courts as a law clerk, and was a clerk for Judge Carlos Murguia in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas.

Good news from Kansas: Gov. Laura Kelly appointed civil rights & consumer protection lawyer Larkin Walsh to the state supreme court, which maintains a 3-2 Dem majority.

Walsh was the best of the finalists, but the next vacancy MUST be filled with a public defender eu.cjonline.com/story/news/p...

And yesterday the fucking Arizona Supreme Court used an AI “reporter” to announce that a man’s death sentence was being upheld:

Video shows Department of Justice official urging Jan. 6 rioters to 'kill' cops The Department of Justice hired a former Jan. 6 defendant who was caught on tape urging rioters to "kill" police. The department calls him a "valued member" of the administration.

The Department of Justice hired a former Jan. 6 defendant who was caught on tape urging rioters to "kill" police. The department calls him a "valued member" of the administration.

There is also the matter of Chief Justice John Roberts, who has led the court’s effort to curb, limit and undermine the Voting Rights Act. One assumes that having gotten the court to strike down one part of the law in 2013, he is eager to get it to strike down another, given his decades-long hostility to the law, which has been in his sights since he was a young lawyer in the Reagan administration.

It cannot be said enough that--for all his handwringing over institutional legitimacy, and for all the ideological, culture-war flamboyance of Thomas and Alito--it has always been John Roberts leading the attack on equal voting rights. Via @jamellebouie.net: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/o...

Stanford lays off hundreds, citing federal cuts under Trump In messages to faculty and staff, university leaders cited federal policy changes under the Trump administration as key drivers behind the cuts.

Right after hiring a former Nike CEO to run a middling athletic department. Priorities! www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

I don't say this lightly: The New York Times should fire the reporter and editor who chose to present a leak from the white house as if it was a leak from Harvard.

Don't print lies in the newspaper

NEW: A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze federal funds.

Then the harassment began.

Pizzas sent to his home in the name of Judge Esther Salas’s murdered son, Daniel.

Six credible threats to his life.

More than 400 “vile” calls to his chambers—including this voicemail:

Wow trotting out the “Can San Francisco Be Saved?” headline for the ten millionth time. At this point there may be no lazier trope in all of journalism.

The final recourse in the system — a controversial and rarely used fallback — is what is described in constitutional theory as “departmentalism”: The president may ignore a judicial order that, on the president’s independent interpretation of the law, exceeds the scope of judicial power, as when a District Court were to purport to bar the president from granting a pardon or vetoing a bill. As my Harvard colleague Jack Goldsmith recently wrote, the theory has “a long pedigree in American history.”

Strengthening his already strong case for the #1 overall pick in your "worst living law professors" fantasy draft, Harvard prof Adrian Vermeule today has an NYT oped arguing that Trump must ignore court orders ... to save the judiciary. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/o...

Screenshot of text: [Highlighting begins] But the shooting may put concerns over gun violence back on voters’ minds, and may lead some to further scrutinize Mr. Mamdani, [Highlighting ends] who has relatively limited experience in government and has not handled a high-profile crisis while in office.

One fascinating thing about the most self-serious newspaper in America with its staff of the winning journalistic meritocrats is that it routinely, institutionally publishes completely made-up bullshit speculation about pure abstractions, based on zero reporting, written as if it were plain facts

All the plate carriers, assault rifles, combat tourniquets, and the rest of the tactical equipment can’t make a coward not be a coward.

Author of Texas Abortion Ban Denies He Paid for Abortions Amid Bombshell Allegations from Former Exotic Dancer Capriglione authored Texas’ “trigger ban,” which banned abortion when Roe v. Wade was overturned. He announced he wouldn’t seek reelection.

NEW bombshell allegations from the Texas Legislature today. The author of Texas’ abortion “trigger ban” has been accused by a former exotic dancer of paying for abortions. He has denied the claims and threatened to sue the outlet that ran them. More:

thebarbedwire.com/2025/07/25/t...

I am begging you to link to things you post about

What an incredible admission of failure to do your job, @senangusking.bsky.social. You didn't do the most basic research? You asked one of the least trustworthy, most partisan Senators in the Senate and just went with it?

Embarrassing.

ICE moves to shackle some 180,000 immigrants with GPS ankle monitors A June 9 memo directed ICE field officers to significantly expand the number of immigrants under round-the-clock surveillance.

who could predict the feds would use all of the mass surveillance and detention tools at their disposal
www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

So…not antisemitism.

King’s decision to cave this early in the second Trump administration—and in service of perhaps the most unabashed extremist judge this White House has managed to cough up—would be disappointing under any circumstances. To do so as some kind of personal favor to Josh Hawley, a thirsty dunce who was defending the January 6 rioters immediately after fleeing in terror from them, is downright embarrassing. Already, Trump has made clear that his primary qualifications for judicial nominees are, in order, personal loyalty to his agenda, skepticism of the 2020 election results, and an unquenchable thirst for fighting culture wars from the safety of the federal bench. If a chat with the wallet inspector is all it takes to persuade Angus King to confirm a Hawley protégé whose ideological agenda he ostensibly opposes, I shudder to imagine what else King could be convinced to vote for with a little buttering up.

I am simply asking Senate Democrats to vote on Trump judicial nominees based on their actual records, and not because Josh Hawley pulls you aside and asks you for a favor ballsandstrikes.org/nominations/...

lmao I just popped onto blue sky for this EXACTLY

City councilors consider pairing mental health professionals with emergency responders  - Salem Reporter Salem city councilors weighed the costs and benefits of creating a program pairing mental health specialists with first responders to answer mental health and homelessness related calls. Such a progra...

I’ve consistently advocated for more providers & health care facilities equipped to address mental & behavioral health crises.

I'm pleased that Salem is exploring pairing first responders & mental health professionals on crisis calls, which is a commonsense policy that makes communities safer.

The clerks where I get my lunch said a man came in last week and asked them where the public entrance to 26 Federal Plaza was. He locked his bike outside, and it’s been there since.

Healthy environment a human right, UN court says in landmark climate ruling Court’s decision expected to be used in future litigation and to support political negotiations by vulnerable states

"Advisory opinions are technically non-binding but are considered authoritative because they summarise existing law...They are expected to be used in future litigation and to bolster political negotiations."

After a long campaign spearheaded by Pacific Islanders

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

NYT HED: E.P.A. Is Said to Draft a Plan to End Its Ability to Fight Climate Change According to two people familiar with the draft, it would eliminate the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse-gas emissions threaten human life by dangerously warming the planet.

ah yes of course the creepy pronatalist, anti-immigration bigots bleating nonstop about "civilizational suicide" are back to actively destroying the Earth www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/c...

Agree that SORRY, BABY is one this year’s best films so far (I think THE best), but a little confused by your summation: did the original Sundance edit not include Agnes’s detailed recounting of the assault to Lydie?

New study: State medical examiners wrongly excused homicides committed by Maryland police officers After the Derek Chauvin trial, the state ordered an audit of autopsies done on people who had died in police custody. The results are disturbing.

New at The Watch:

An audit found 36 deaths in police custody that should have been classified as homicides, but that Maryland medical examiners classified as something else. Their failure to call the deaths homicides precluded any further investigation of the officers involved.

It’s Abu Ghraib all over again.

But inside our borders.

This is such a bizarre angle. Is this really a story about a failure to address a “power vacuum” and “allow new governance structures?” Or might it more accurately be described as a story about “Israel bombed Gaza into dust and is now shooting starving civilians”?

i have been stuck on JD Vance's claremont speech for almost two weeks now because it is structurally identical to roger taney's opinion for the court in dred scott

Should ICE Agents Be Allowed to Wear Masks? It Depends Whom You Ask. Los Angeles’s mayor said Sunday that masked immigration agents helped create a “reign of terror.” ICE’s director said agents could wear masks to “keep them and their families safe.”

NY Times showing how to both sides the secret police abduction squads story

JUST IN: A federal judge rules that the Trump administration must reinstate a policy to provide lawyers to people who are deemed mentally incompetent in deportation proceedings.

It was terminated without a legally persuasive reason, Judge Ali finds. ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/doc1/0451115...

They can be impeached. And, should Bove be confirmed — which he should not be — he should immediately be the subject of an impeachment inquiry should Dems retake Congress. He should not be a federal judge due to his actions at DOJ. That does not change if he is confirmed.