Rita Wenxin Wang

I don’t love you and I’m not holding your hand: call your Senator and tell them that the must shut down the government on January 30th until this ends, a thing that Democrats have the hard power to do at this very moment.

Not every Chotiner interview is him making some blowhard look foolish. Sometimes he has experts explaining complex situations in clear terms.

Also good discussion of the comparison to Noriega, which was my first question this morning about all this...

nlginternational.org/2026/01/nati...
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) joins the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) in condemning in the strongest & most unequivocal terms the US bombing of Caracas as well as the attacks on Miranda, La Guaira, and Aragua.

The year is 2003. I’m 17 years old. I’m watching Democrats fail to appropriately oppose an illegal war for oil.

The year is 2026. I’m 40 years old. I’m watching Democrats fail to appropriately oppose an illegal war for oil.

There are several steps before impeachment: I would start with refusing to appropriate Defense and State without testimony from Hegseth, Rubio and Bondi. I mean if I was John Thune I would have encouraged Donald Trump to wait after January 30th. But as we all know, January 6 is a trigger for him.

My attitude on this is that I'm not calling them because I think I can change their minds.

I'm calling them because it is unthinkable to let them do this without hearing how evil and awful they are.

My spite powers me. If I can get just 500 people a day to join me, we could fuck up their day.

Pay attention to which Democrats say stuff like this, and which ones complain that Trump didn’t give Congress enough notice

What I saw as the U.S. bombed Venezuela From within Caracas, our reporter describes the chaos and uncertainty amid air strikes, as the United States captures dictator Nicolás Maduro.

Go to the link to find out how the night unfolded, and how people across Venezuela are living through this moment.

hey remember when a bunch of middle-aged drunk korean lawmakers climbed the locked gates to the national assembly to hold an emergency session after the president gave illegal orders to the military, all of which ended with said president being sentenced to prison

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor I was briefed this morning on the U.S. military capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, as well as their planned imprisonment in federal custody here in New York City. Unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation is an act of war and a violation of federal and international law. This blatant pursuit of regime change doesn't just affect those abroad, it directly impacts New Yorkers, including tens of thousands of Venezuelans who call this city home. My focus is their safety and the safety of every New Yorker, and my administration will continue to monitor the situation and issue relevant guidance. 1:06 PM • 1/3/26 • 47K Views

The Mayor of New York City @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social has released a statement:

Whoever you are in the coming days, don’t be this man, who has not learned a single fucking thing over the past year.

/2 You can measure the spine of a Democrat by whether the ritual denunciation of Maduro comes in the first paragraph or the second or third.

WHAT THE HELL????!!!!!

matthew did a thread on why, when you call your representatives & senators, you can make life easier for yourself

your message does NOT have to be elaborate or detailed or polished

America is not going to be rescued from utter fascism by Democrats, at least not those currently in power.

FOLKS NEED TO REALIZE HOW HUGE THIS IS

For the first time in modern Texas history, Dems have candidates running in every state and federal race on the 2026 ballot.

That includes all congressional seats, every state House and state Senate race, plus statewide judicial and State Board of Education.

Twitter thread in Spanish by José Mario de la Garza, a human rights lawyer in Mexico, translated using Google Translate: 1. Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to "liberate" by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest. 2. The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is “overthrowing a dictator”; tomorrow it will be “correcting an election,” “protecting interests,” “restoring order.” The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.

Cont’d: 3. The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable.

Maduro isn't the problem: he's the face of the problem. Removing him from power would be merely opening the door. Behind him is the machine: Rodríguez, Cabello, the military command, the operators of repression and plunder. If you only change the person at the top and leave the system intact, what follows isn't democracy: it's a reshuffling. And there's something even more difficult: Chavismo didn't just capture institutions, it captured daily life. Economy, media, bureaucracy, employment, fear, favors, blackmail. A country can't be "de-Chavistaized" by decree or by an electoral miracle. The real transition begins when that network is broken without setting the country ablaze. The challenge is enormous, and it's also a moral one: to unite without vengeance, but without impunity. Targeted justice for those most responsible, truth for the victims, guarantees that the rest will dismantle the system, and a plan for people to live again—not just survive. Because freedom doesn't come with a new president: it comes when the state ceases to be a threat.

Best thing I’ve read this morning, from a human rights lawyer in Mexico. Translation is in the ALT-text.

Maggie Haberman Jan. 3, 2026, 12:31 p.m. ET3m ago Maggie HabermanWhite House reporter Trump says that Rubio has spoken to the newly sworn-in Venezuelan president and she has said she would support what they are doing. Jack Nicas Jan. 3, 2026, 12:30 p.m. ET3 minutes ago Jack NicasMexico City bureau chief Trump’s suggestion that Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, would help the United States run the country was stunning because it came just as Venezuelan state television was playing a clip of her denouncing the U.S. military operation. “Faced with this brutal situation and this brutal attack, we do not know the whereabouts of President Nicolás Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores,” Rodríguez said, according to a clip played by Venezuelan state television on Saturday. “We demand immediate proof of life for President Maduro and the first lady from the government of President Donald Trump.” But Trump just told reporters that Marco Rubio had spoken with her with a different result. “She’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Trump said.

JFC.

Clinton appointee Judge Alvin Hellerstein has Maduro’s case. Last spring, he barred the Trump admin from removing Venezuelans from the US under the Alien Enemies Act, which he said had been applied unlawfully

“These people are being thrown out of the country because of tattoos”

LPE 2.0: A New Association to Meet the Times As the Trump administration attempts to suppress critical inquiry and operate outside of conventional legal boundaries, the work of LPE scholars, organizers, and practitioners has never been more…

This has been a labor of love! Read on to learn about the new, democratic, membership-based structure. Join as a member — and come to our first annual conference in Richmond in Feb! 😊

CERTIORARI -- SUMMARY DISPOSITION 25-133 MILLER, JOSEPH, ET AL. V. McDONALD, COMM'R, ET AL. The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for further consideration in light of Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U. S. 522 (2025).

The Supreme Court just set aside a 2nd Circuit decision upholding New York's requirement that all school students, public and private, obtain certain vaccinations, without any religious exemptions. It orders the 2nd Circuit to reconsider the ruling in light of SCOTUS' LGBTQ school books decision.

Jackson: these are political questions that should be left to Congress

[she’s right]

(N.M. Ct. App. 2010). If I were a statewide elected official in Mississippi, and I was told to drop whatever else the people of that good State tasked me to do, to focus instead on interpreting a “uniform” law that apparently has fewer adopters than Bluesky, and to decide whether to follow an intermediate appellate decision from New Mexico at the behest of federal judges in New Orleans, I can tell you this much: I would not think the exercise beneficial to federalis

Judge Oldham's call for the end of certifying questions from CA5 to state Supreme Courts includes this somewhat inexplicable shot at this here website.

www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub...

Nearly 21,000 Charlotte-Mecklenburg students absent from school on Monday, officials say Officials did not make it clear if the absences were connected to the on-going immigration operation in the city.

Over 20,000 students stayed home from school Monday in Charlotte amid ICE raids, representing 15% of enrollment

The district is nearly one-third Hispanic, per WBTV

www.wbtv.com/2025/11/18/n...

@hellgatenyc.com with the sight gag of the night as they slowly swap out the cuomo photo to zoom in on his nipple ring

The Supreme Court’s majority right wing indicated in oral arguments that they think racism is over on the same day that the vice president defended the “I love Hitler” guy, and that the NYT reported that the current administration plans to accept only white, English-speaking refugees.

People missing an important point about folks getting fired for whatever they said about Charlie Kirk: Americans are being conditioned to be snitches on their fellow citizens who don’t toe a party line on what is “allowed” to be expressed. And employers are going along. It’s the new secret police

The repression of trans people is not, by and large, a grassroots outpouring of hatred from the American people. It's something that's been carefully planted and tended over years by a handful of media people and their pet reporters.

Just a big ol' Stryker combat vehicle (mini-tank) perched on a hillside above the border wall.

Looking into Arizona from the border city of Nogales, Mexico.

From proyectopuente.com.mx/2025/06/17/v...