John Pfaff

I just threw together a website visualizing this ICE contract data! You can browse through the companies and their contracts, and filter them by state micahflee.github.io/ice-contracts/

The GOP has already made it clear that they plan to use Trump's ill-conceived war of choice as a pretext to try to push through the DHS spending bill by stoking fears of a terrorism risk THEY caused.

In the best of times, FBI statements now would be suspect. But under Kash's FBI? All the more so.

Despite the Dragnet "just the facts, ma'am" view of police press releases that we tend to have (important side note: the LAPD was a major consultant for Dragnet, which they saw a great way to burnish policing's rep), police are political actors, and their press statements should be seen accordingly.

It sucks to have to think this way, but:

Just saw a headline saying the FBI is investigating the Austin mass shooting bc of what they claim are preliminary indicators of a "nexus" to terrorism.

I think papers should be VERY wary of reporting FBI claims along these lines early on, bc of this here.

Will and Graceless.

"Today I was being thankful, embracing how incredibly blessed I am to grow up here, to have this tremendous opportunity," said Ms. Tlaib, who usually attends prayers for holidays. "Sometimes I say, 'Thank her,' because my Allah is She."

I assume (American-born) Tlaib is a Sunni too, given ~all Palestinians are, and regardless this doesn't sound like someone who hews to a fundamentalist take on Islam would say.

Just so tired of this juvenile Republican social media accounts. Close to zero reps should use theirs. It's embarrassing.

I mean, Omar is a Sunni Muslim born Somalia (raised in a moderate anti-Wahhabi family, per Wikipedia).

Not that I'd expect Mace to understand any of the words, or to care even if she did, given I know this is just naked anti-Muslim rage-baiting.

I just can't help factchecking things sometimes.

We are trapped in a War on Terror time loop, except unlike how Bill Murray progressively improves in Groundhog Day, we keep getting worse.

We did the terror prediction market back in 2001, and Congress shut it down on bipartisan lines.

Now we just almost seem to shrug.

That’s great to hear, and congrats!

Same—both figuratively and, after track meets or (far worse) when he came back from week-long overnight cross-country camp, literally.

Any time I try to intercede in sibling disputes they briefly all ally themselves to point out as an only child I apparently have no standing to step in.

I try to point out that my lack of siblings does not blind me to general assholery.

Man, the teen years are … something.

Even on just a normal day, the emotions are bigger, the stakes higher, just everything is … more.

And when there are three teens under the same roof, it’s … it’s, well, something.

When I thought I was done with my sentencing casebook, I was doing one last read through of the 800 page draft and came across:

“In general, Foucault’s theory is [SUMMARIZE FOUCAULT HERE].”

I think I actually cried.

That recent study shows that a few weeks on X pushes ppl to the right.

What does 30 years of exposure to Fox News, etc., do to a polity?

And at mass-exposure levels that were simply never possible before?

Propaganda comes for us all, and we’ve faced a lot of it.

I get the impulse, esp among law types, to think abt the structural failures that have brought us now.

But I wonder, not glibly: how much is just Fox News?

Or Fox News + Sinclair + billionaires in general?

We have subjected to a far-right anti-American propaganda machine for a generation.

It’s the less-appreciated risk of electing DAs: they have less room to go after the powerful, who can and will litigate every step of the way aggressively, in the courts and the papers.

Drains resources, and gets politically messy. May also be risky for ambitious ADAs on the case too.

We talk a lot abt the political system that rewards DAs for being tough on the weak.

But it can also punish them for being tough on the strong.

In the aftermath of the DSK case, papers were openly musing that Vance ended his career barely before it began. They were wrong, but he surely felt that.

This politics part is important.

Years ago, I wrote that a likely, but underappreciated, reason why Manhattan DA Cy Vance went light on Harvey Weinstein the first time was bc that case hit his office right after he’d had been burned in the high-profile DSK World Bank rape case.

A modest proposal:

For the next decade, we replace the bald eagle as our national symbol with this instead. So much of this, at every level of elite institution:

I'm not a political scientist, but I feel like poll numbers tend to go down over time for wars, especially wars like this that are entirely voluntary?

So Trump is starting off in a bad place that will only get worse, right?

The admin is crazy, but the American ppl less so. That's important!

Don’t invite MAGA ppl to your schools, and when your colleagues suggest it on grounds of “intellectual diversity,” go to the meeting and push back.

Summers getting emeritus status is a bad thing. We don’t have to be polite to powerful ppl who do terrible stuff.

No one even vaguely associated with MAGA should have a role in public life again—we should shame them AND anyone who helps rehab them.

So if Harvard’s IOP offers Vance something, shame not only Vance but the IOP ppl too—even if their office is next door to yours.

So elect reform-minded DAs who POLITICALLY want to aim their tools at the rich, not the weak.

And they don’t just have to be criminal.

Like, we need lawyers to run for bar associations on platforms of mass disbarment and sanctions (in states where bar assns control that).

And SO much shame.

I know, I know, I know. I myself have argued that it’s hard to contain punitive expansion: policies adopted to target the powerful ultimately get turned on the weaker at greater scale.

So I’m not arguing for expanding the tools. I’m just saying we need the political will to USE the ones we have.

Back at the bad place, I often disagreed w Keith Humphreys (who is apparently still there but not here, sadly), who argued that prison for ppl like the Sacklers could really serve as a deterrent.

I’ve increasingly warmed to the idea, though. Harsh punishments for the comfortable elite? Maybe.

Now:

There are all sorts of structural things that need to get fixed, but the most obvious and essential requires no structural change, but a cultural one:

An end to elite impunity. Real costs for flagrant misbehavior.

We have all the tools. We just never use them.

We seem to have collectively decided, gradually and mostly out of apathy, that presidents can launch flagrantly unconstitutional wars of choice without congressional approval and there just won’t be any consequences. Would be nice if this is where we start reversing the trend.

i didn't care for schumer's statement, but if you're going to be angry at him, make sure you're much angrier at thune, who bears this obligation even more strongly than schumer and will absolutely ignore his own duty

Additionally, I want to speak directly to Iranian New Yorkers: you are part of the fabric of this city — you are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers, and community leaders. You will be safe here.

He Lionel Hutz’d it:

“No, what I meant was ‘Release the Epstein Files? No, new wars!’”