As the history of absentee voting during the Civil War era shows, states have long permitted post–Election Day receipt of absentee ballots. slate.trib.al/d5b5VdY
There is no delay on implementation -- the requirements are supposed to go into effect immediately and impact the next election. Of course, that massive change throughout the country is impossible - so it would result in mass election chaos. Which is likely the goal.
real 'the best time was literally any prior opportunity but the second best time is NOW' vibes:
I wrote about how, in the past few weeks, two federal judges held the Trump administration in civil contempt, and two more threatened the admin with criminal contempt
ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...
Now pro se plaintiffs are catching Pam Bondi's AUSAs fabricating quotes and citations.
news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/...
I lack the words to capture it, but ... it's just endlessly remarkable to me that so many people in our society have chosen trans kis -- TRANS KIDS, the smallest, least significant, most vulnerable demographic slice you could possibly pick -- as a repository for all their fears & insecurities.
CNN's Dana Bash reports on a convo she just had with Trump: "He said there are now five things in this SAVE America Act that he wants the House and Senate to pass. He said, 'No mail in ballots, no men in women's sports, and no transgender operations for youth.' He added those two."
NEW: Federal judges have spent months ordering ICE to give detainees a chance for release in bond hearings.
Now, they're worried that the bond hearings themselves — conducted by Executive Branch immigration judges — are a farce.
www.politico.com/news/2026/03...
Steve-O was on Joe Rogan's show trying to defend trans people and Rogan went off, he called trans people "fucking perverts" and "mass shooters" who have done the majority of school shootings.
Completely unhinged bigotry paid for by your Spotify subscriptions.
Monday night’s #SCOTUS ruling in the Malliotakis cases necessarily expands the Court’s ability to grant emergency relief in cases coming from *state* courts.
As today’s bonus “One First” explains, that’s both a really big deal and one that’s based on a deeply disingenuous portrayal of the facts:
Pam Bondi's attempt to destroy DOJ's ethical guardrails: a conversation on Substack live at 2:30 pm ET with former pardon attorney @lizoyer.bsky.social open.substack.com/live-stream/...
A Florida bill would create a "counterterrorism unit" to “detect and neutralize” people, groups, businesses, and others whose "actions, views or opinions are a threat or are inimical to the interests of this state and the United States of America.”
Already passed a State senate committee 7-1.
NEW: Phillip Williams' US Attorney nomination is on the Judiciary Committee's agenda tomorrow. He should get a committee vote next week.
Williams is a MAGA extremist, former state legislator, conservative radio show host, and opponent of civil rights. nominationnotes.substack.com/p/another-tr...
MURRAY: You called birth control pills 'a disrespect of life.' You also claimed it has 'horrifying health risks.' But there decades of evidence showing it's safe and effective. Should women trust the FDA or you?
CASEY MEANS: Are you aware of what the side effects of what hormonal contraception are?
NEW: Federal judges say many courthouses are plagued by falling concrete, tainted water & erratic elevators. They blame DOGE-inspired cuts at GSA & ask Congress to shunt it aside
www.politico.com/live-updates...
Authoritarianism is rising because our democracy was failing before Trump.
When pro-democracy forces take back power, we can’t just restore the status quo. We need to change a political system that gives oligarchs a veto over working people.
We need a new democracy.
Prior to 2015, if any candidate for elected office had begun a public statement or tweet with this sentence, he or she would have been laughed out of public life.
Now, Americans re-elect them as commander-in-chief. I will never allow myself to become numb to his insanity.
New from @pamherd.bsky.social at Can We Still Govern?:
The SAVE Act is a truly extreme voter suppression bill, but in ways that might surprise you. White Christian Nationalism is driving the bill more than a cynical focus on maximizing GOP vote share. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-save-a...
NEW: DHS left embedded comments in a PDF outlining its plans to warehouse immigrants, identifying the architects and laying bare the gross extent of its regulatory capture. Great scoop by @regret.bsky.social:
www.wired.com/story/metada...
Incredible opinion. It holds that the common ICE tactic of jumping out of an unidentified rental vehicle and seizing suspected noncitizens while masked violates the Fourth Amendment because the *manner* of the seizure is incompatible with a free society governed by the rule of law.
👀The federal judges in West Virginia, where ICE has been pulling over and detaining people on the freeway, are literally screaming about ICE's tactics.
"It is an assault on the constitutional order," Judge Goodwin says. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
JUST IN: 5th Circuit sitting en banc rejects facial challenge to Louisiana law requiring posting of 10 Commandments in schools, but says it could fail if and when enforced. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
SCOOP: The Department of Health and Human Services has been using the term “sex-rejecting procedures” to describe gender-affirming care for transgender and nonbinary individuals.
The term is not clinical or medical. It comes from a Christian Right group.
www.importantcontext.news/p/hhs-is-usi...
Walker’s piece shows how powerful groups are working to reshape language around sex + gender. They work across interests and even countries, normalizing increasingly reprehensible language. But contrary to what The Atlantic would have you believe, none of those interests are trans people ourselves.
Our new episode is out now!
Breaking MS NOW:
DHS has launched a nationwide campaign to investigate and prosecute naturalized citizens who may have improperly voted in past elections — an effort spurring deep concern that the admin's true goal is to intimidate voters from participating in future elections.
NEW: DOJ told a judge in New Jersey that it had violated court orders about 54 times between Dec. 5 and this week — the latest accounting of a phenomenon that used to be rare and is now rampant. www.politico.com/news/2026/02...
“I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.”
- 7 year old imprisoned by ICE for 70 days in a concentration camp in Texas.
Today, after @propublica.org published this story, the camp was raided to confiscate letters from the children.
www.propublica.org/article/ice-...
The world's richest man is broadcasting eliminationist rhetoric about a tiny, vulnerable minority, and virtually no one is going to treat it as a scandal. It's just normal now.
President Trump keeps threatening to unilaterally impose rules (like voter ID requirements) on upcoming elections.
Today's "One First" explains why, whether as a matter of constitutional law, existing federal statutes, or simple, practical logistics, his (ominous) threats are ultimately empty ones:
