Chiraag Bains

completely outside of politics, this is so charming

The Federal Government under Trump:

You will be fired for attending a diversity training or having a pride flag in your office

But maybe not for displaying a symbol of racial terror and annihilation

Trump Loyalists in DOJ Face Criticism as Judges Expose Blunders Judges’ rebukes this week of blunders by top Justice Department lawyers show the pitfalls of installing President Donald Trump loyalists to their roles, lawyers and scholars said.

The repeated mistakes are egregious, but it's important to understand where they're coming from

It's not just inexperience or incomptence

It's putting the president's personal revenge and power grabs ahead of the facts, the law, and justice

A legislature dictating policies to Americans who have no vote in it.

Where have we seen this before...

Evidence that there are still sometimes consequences for incredibly bad lawyering

DOJ's Civil Rights Division sought to pressure Texas to redistrict, as the White House wanted. It did so by demanding an obvious racial gerrymander.

This is what democracy looks like. #NoKings

A portrait of Justice Sonia Sotomayor seated at a polished table, hands folded, her gaze steady and unsentimental. To the left of her face, in stark white type, a passage from her dissent warns against a country where appearance, language, and work mark a person for government seizure. The words conclude with her blunt refusal: “I dissent.” The composition is plain, direct, the language and her expression carrying the weight rather than any ornament.

This framing by the Washington Post... Trump hasn’t chipped away at the wall between DOJ and the White House on enforcement actions — he bulldozed it. And early on. We’re just seeing it in its fullness now because he put it on social media.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Charlie Kirk’s record.

archive.ph/2025.09.16-2...

Also, for context, it’s worth noting that Biden invested $17 billion in HBCUs

Trump Redirects Millions to Historically Black Colleges, Charter Schools

See the forest. Per new @brookings.edu analysis yesterday, "The Trump administration’s broader economic agenda threatens to drastically reduce the financial capacity of Black students to attend college." www.brookings.edu/articles/the...

Yes, this is unconstitutional. It’s also legal malpractice: the Attorney General just served up smoking gun evidence that the enforcement actions DOJ is about to take are in direct violation of the First Amendment.

Expect these words to be quoted repeatedly in motions and briefs

This 1863 photograph of Peter Gordon's back rebutted the lie that slavery was a "benign institution." It galvanized public support for the Union cause.

Slavery's defenders understood the photo's power. They tried to slow its circulation, calling it fake.

In 2025, another attempt to hide the truth

National park to remove photo of enslaved man’s scars The Trump administration is ordering the removal of information on slavery at multiple national parks in an effort to scrub them of “corrosive ideology.”

Trump is scrubbing national parks of material demonstrating "corrosive ideology" like... "how bad slavery was"

If you're surprised, you have not been paying attention.

Pay attention. Something dark might be coming.

The murder of Charlie Kirk could have united Americans to confront political violence. Instead, Trump and his anti-democratic radicals look to be readying a campaign to destroy dissent.

1/ Here's what's happening.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk is utterly reprehensible. All political violence -- which this looks very likely to be -- should be stridently condemned.

Anyone celebrating the killing -- and any opportunists using it to stoke a war on "the left" -- should also be condemned.

It’s transparently pretextual

Transforming the Fed from a sober, data-driven, independent entity into another servile mouthpiece for Trump will not work out well for us

Trump never cared about safety in our city. He pardoned 1600 January 6 rioters, including many who brutalized police officers. This is an attack on DC’s right to self-rule and a desperate attempt to distract from the Epstein files and his job-killing, price-spiking tariffs.

This stay stops a badly wrong turn in the Eighth Circuit, which departed from decades of case law in ruling that voters can’t sue under the core of the Voting Rights Act (…even though the Supreme Court has repeatedly heard such cases)

Understand how calamitous this is. Given that Trump controls DOJ—the only entity the 8th Circuit says can file Section 2 lawsuits—this means the core of the Voting Rights Act is effectively dead in 7 states.

Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Who Threatened Police Joins Justice Dept.

“As violence erupted, his charging document said, he told other rioters who were attacking law enforcement officers, ‘Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!’”

Attack in Boulder, Colorado, burns 8 people at march for Israeli hostages, officials say; suspect in custody A suspect is in custody after what authorities call a "targeted act of violence" at Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colorado. Witnesses said he threw Molotov cocktails at a march supporting Israeli host...

This has to stop. The point of these increasingly public attacks is to terrorize and intimidate. We’ve got to collectively condemn antisemitism and all forms of hate fueled violence.

Fulbright Applicants Rejected Over “DEI” Research Proposals The Trump administration staged an unprecedented intervention in this year’s Fulbright selection process, rejecting finalists whose research deals with race, gender or climate change.

A new State Department politburo is yanking Fulbright grant offers from people whose projects involve diversity or climate change.

Who is behind this? Undersecretary for public diplomacy Darren Beattie, who posted on X in Oct. "competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work."

Outrage and Resistance: Abolitionist Lessons for the Present Crisis The Trump Administration’s open rejection of due process and equal protection echoes some of the darkest aspects of antebellum America, when black Americans were frequently kidnapped and disappeared…

Powerful article from @danfarbman.bsky.social on what we can learn from those who resisted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 @lpeblog.bsky.social

Trump Is Weaponizing the Justice Department to Advance His Voter Suppression Plans The DOJ’s new lawsuit against North Carolina is a troubling sign of what’s to come.

In its first major voting lawsuit Trump DOJ resurrected claims Republican judicial candidate used to try to overturn Democratic victory in NC Supreme Court race. This is extremely dangerous & shows how Trump weaponizing DOJ to advance his voter suppression plans

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

This is not the way to restore confidence in government
www.notus.org/health-scien...

I discussed the 8th Cir’s radical ruling that there’s no private right of action under § 2 of the Voting Rights Act—meaning only DOJ can sue over racial voter suppression. Plaintiffs just sought rehearing by the full 8th Circuit. H/t @democracydocket.com : www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/u...

ICYMI: @vera.org & other grantees are now suing the Trump admin over DOJ's abrupt cancellation of funding for victim services, gun violence prevention, and other public safety programs. Represented by @democracyforward.org and Perry Law. More here: www.vera.org/news/were-su...

80% of Americans want the U.S. to be made up of people from all over the world

86% think schools "should teach American history that includes both our best achievements and our worst mistakes"

from PRRI survey, per @axios.com : www.axios.com/newsletters/...

I wrote this analysis for @justsecurity.org on the Trump Admin's retreat from voting rights enforcement and its efforts to restrict access to the ballot.

The piece details 8 cases DOJ has dropped. It also discusses a new legal strategy to undermine the Voting Rights Act.