😳 “as many lives lost as WW1”

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

With the tragic assassination of a Minnesota Democratic leader, I’m going to underline this point again.

Trump Is Suddenly Bleeding Independents. A Brutal New Poll Shows Why. Immigration was his best issue in the polls. But now he’s sinking on it. Maybe Americans care about the rule of law after all.

@slotkin.senate.gov people loathe Trump’s attacks on DEI—which helps women, POC, the disabled, LGBTQIA people—& universities, science, medicine, working class, poor, immigrants, education, the economy, rule of law. Focus on that +GOP corruption & retribution; drop the shameful GOP line about “woke”

You could swap out Hegseth’s name for Trump, Vance, Bondi, Noem, Rubio, …everyone in this vile administration. These corrupt actors don’t do anything for “the good of the country,” and won’t resign. You can’t appeal to the patriotism of people who have none; fascists don’t leave power voluntarily.

Trump Live Updates: Deportations, Harvard Feud and Ukraine Peace Talks Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented. A group of migrants had been scheduled to be flown out of the country, according to people familiar with the matter.

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04... Thomas and Alito for the win again: always standing strong in support of injustice.

Trump's Individual Claims about Immigrant Targets Are False-But So Is the Larger Premise - emptywheel Thus far, the campaign to fight back against Trump's authoritarian immigration crackdown has focused on individual stories, with some success. But it has yet to account for the fact that his crackdown...

www.emptywheel.net/2025/04/18/t... Excellent must-read. So far no court has suggested or found that the invocation of a national emergency was fraudulent and thus should be enjoined. Not sure any court would go there or can. But they should.

Must-read, incredibly chilling piece by @jennamclaughlin.bsky.social about DOGE’s actions. It beggars belief that R-controlled Congress is allowing rampant security breaches compromising Americans’ privacy, apparent violations of records-keeping and privacy laws, and Musk’s conflicts of interest.

The freight guys have really started freaking out over the past 48-72 hours:

Thoughtful piece by @joshtpm.bsky.social. While I agree that Leo and the Federalist Society purveyors of the fraudulent “unitary executive” theory are the architects of Trump’s “legal” lawlessness, “originalism”, their sham theory used to pretextually to justify whatever they want, has a huge role.

Certainly seems to create a presumption that the firings were illegally based on race and gender. No reasons given means not even a pretextual rationale is on offer, which won’t help the govt’s case if these people sue, which I hope they do.

"If starting the biggest trade war since the Great Depression based on a law that doesn't even mention tariffs is not an unconstitutional usurpation of legislative power, I don't know what is," said GMU/Scalia lawprof Ilya Somin.

Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez. American citizen, detained by ICE in Leon County Florida. His mother brought his birth certificate and SS card. Judge told her, “Sorry, he has an ICE hold, despite not having probably cause for his arrest”

This is it folks. State sponsored kidnapping.

Share this please

Opinion by conservative judge in Fourth Circuit appeals case saying that the Trump admin's position "should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear."

Probably you had to be around in Reagan era to know what a conservative icon J. Harvie Wilkinson III has been. Reagan himself appointed JHW to current position, as Fourth Circuit appeals judge, when JHW was in his 30s.

With clarity similar to Judge Luttig's or Liz Cheney's, JHW brings the heat:

There is no basis to mandamus her. She grounds every piece of the order in the clear language of the SCt ‘s order. Not that that will stop them, but they won’t get a stay pending resolution of a bogus mandamus filing.

DOGE has reportedly gained access to sensitive NLRB data — including info on union activity, workplace complaints, and names of organizers.

Coincidentally, the NLRB has multiple lawsuits against SpaceX and Tesla.

The conflicts of interest just keep getting more blatant.

@joycewhitevance.bsky.social’s piece is dead-on. If I were Judge Xinis, I’d order the govt to list every step it could take to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return that it has not yet, to explain why not, and to disclose who decided not to & when. And I’d remind DOJ attys of their duty of candor.

Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Marco Rubio killed these people.

Republicans are stealing a North Carolina judicial race. They won't stop there. It's January 6 without the insurrection.

GOP court decision overturning Democratic victory in North Carolina Supreme Court race is 5 alarm fire for democracy. It’s January 6 without the insurrection. Make no mistake, if GOP succeeds in stealing election in NC, they’ll use that playbook everywhere www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

It is pathological how insecure in their masculinity guys like Watters are. They really don’t get how pathetic and weak they come across when they say this nonsense.

The pain he says is “necessary” is to finance tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. If both groups were taxed at higher rates and paid them, these cuts would not be “necessary.”

And cuts are different than the tariffs, whose purpose is to make the global economy subject to Trump’s whims.

It’s terrible Trump’s blatant usurpation of the tariff power into a protection racket stabilized the markets. This will help ensure endless jockeying by govts, industries, and businesses to curry favor with him which is exactly the tyranny he wants.

Good response. If the SCt condones this monstrousness we really are 1930s Germany. This is absolute lawlessness and tyranny.

Shame on @cnn.com for not featuring Senator Cory Booker’s historic, record-breaking, inspirational call-to-action filibuster in its “Five Things” this morning.

‘One of the darkest days’: NIH purges agency leadership amid mass layoffs In shock move, four institute directors at the US biomedical agency are removed from their posts.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Waltz and staff used Gmail for government communications, officials say

Cory Booker’s extraordinary soliloquy just now is truly one for the ages and I hope makes a turning point. Thank you @corybooker.com and may your leadership inspire millions to act and to take to the streets on April 5th to retain and reclaim our country, and your craven GOP colleagues to change.

For anyone who has not tuned it yet, I strongly urge you to turn this on. Booker is doing an incredible job with help from his colleagues to raise awareness of the dreadful impacts of Trump/Musk/GOP attacks on our government, and to offer a clear contrast and mandate to reject their immoral havoc.

It’s All Connected:

Welp

We are watching a criminal RICO enterprise in real time.