Marcy Murninghan

Opinion | No, Trump Can’t Deploy Troops to Wherever He Wants

The federal government does and should have the authority to deploy troops into our cities—even without local consent—*when the circumstances actually warrant it.*

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com, me on why the real issue in Portland, Chicago, and elsewhere is the missing / contrived factual predicate:

Pete Hegseth railed against diversity and equity to his generals. As a Harvard student, he had a much different take. - The Boston Globe Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth once described closing minority achievement gaps as a “laudable goal.”

Pete Hegseth railed against diversity and equity to his generals. As a Harvard student, he had a much different take.
From my colleagues:
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/07/m...

Ex-Justice officials: 'It's our duty to sound the alarm' Scores of officials who have resigned or been forced out of the Justice Department this year are speaking out against its "destruction."

“We believe it’s our duty to sound the alarm about this administration’s degradation of DoJ’s vital work, and its assault on the public servants who do it,” according to an open letter signed by 282 former officials.

It will take years to rebuild our Justice Dept.

www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/e...

Hundreds of ex-DOJ staffers accuse Pam Bondi of putting Trump over the constitution The former staffers warn that the Justice Department is failing its mission in an open letter released Monday.

JUST IN: Hundreds of ex-DOJ staffers demand oversight ahead of Pam Bondi hearing, amid widespread questions about the department's decisions to target Trump's political foes such as former FBI director James Comey.

Why is Stephen Miller, the unelected White House deputy chief of staff, the lead voice of the administration?

Laura Loomer Is Turning Against MAGA Stalwarts As the influential loyalist to President Trump brawls with Tucker Carlson and others, some White House officials have grown concerned about her outsize influence.

As Laura Loomer, an influential loyalist to President Trump, fights with Tucker Carlson and other MAGA stalwarts, some White House officials have grown concerned about her outsize influence on.wsj.com/4mVsQzd

Top prosecutor is rejecting Trump pressure to charge New York AG A key federal prosecutor in Virginia, where James Comey was indicted, is resisting bringing charges against Letitia James.

Breaking MSNBC:

A top prosecutor in Virginia has informed colleagues she plans to decline to seek charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James — resisting intense pressure from Trump, according to two people familiar with her discussions. www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/t...

1A: Antidote to Autocracy A Foreword, By Way of Modest Explanation

open.substack.com/pub/blendedv...

I hope you find this and the series of interest and use!!

Be well!

Important context from @genevievelakier.bsky.social:

Trump ‘Determined’ the U.S. Is Now in a War With Drug Cartels, Congress Is Told

The Peace President invents a war

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

U.S. used a transnational crime unit to secretly target campus protesters A Tufts University graduate student was among those targeted after the Trump administration created a “tiger team” to investigate pro-Palestinian activists.

Excellent that Judge Young's ruling has spurred journalists to dig into the trial transcripts. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

Don't have full confirmation on this yet, but hearing that Guevara was sent to El Salvador this morning, which is just fucking shameful. He was here with legal permission and this was 100% punishment for his journalism about protests.

Government Workers Say Their Out-of-Office Replies Were Forcibly Changed to Blame Democrats for Shutdown Some employees at the Department of Education changed their responses back to the more neutral language, only to have it changed yet again to the partisan response, multiple sources tell WIRED.

NEW! Dept of Education workers say their OOO replies were forcibly changed to blame Democrats for shutdown. When employees changed their responses back to the more neutral language, it changed yet again to the partisan response.

@wired.com @leahfeiger.bsky.social

www.wired.com/story/govern...

Rep. Rich McCormick dismisses a Washington Post poll showing Americans are blaming Republicans for the shutdown: "Polling is not very accurate because the pollsters generally get out of it what they want. I don't trust those polls."

I can’t believe I’m watching interviews of city mayors talking about how they are coordinating with other mayors to discuss how to protect their residents FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

I know we are “used to it” but it is absolutely insane

Bonus 180: "Domestic Terrorism" and NSPM-7 The Trump administration is hoping no one notices that, although federal law *defines* "domestic terrorism," it provides no special authorities against anyone whose behavior *meets* that definition.

Federal law doesn't recognize the concept of a "domestic terrorist organization." That hasn't stopped President Trump from trying to use the concept to authorize investigations of (and necessarily suppress) lots of constitutionally protected speech, protest, and advocacy.

Me in today's "One First":

The Supreme Court Will Do Four Things This Term That Tell You Everything You Need to Know In the week before the October 2025 Supreme Court term opens, the impulse among court watchers will again be to do what we always do.

Next Monday's "One First" was going to be about how we should stop covering new #SCOTUS terms through the "big" cases the Court will hear; and instead focus on how the Court is behaving.

Fortunately for me (and you), @dahlialithwick.bsky.social and @mjsdc.bsky.social did it first—and *way* better:

Link:
www.supremecourt.gov/oral_argumen...

I do want to go back to putting this case in the broader context because I think it's important to understand how we got here. Historically, the whole way that the tort liability regime worked for government misconduct was that this Court and state courts

looked to existing common law causes of action and focused on immunity defenses as the way of calibrating the harm that citizens and others faced when injured by government officers against the need to protect officers acting in good faith, back to Judge Hand in Gregoire versus Biddle. The Court struck this balance by fashioning immunity defenses where the fight would be over whether the officer was entitled to immunity or not. And for law enforcement officers specifically, this Court has long rejected the argument that there should be any context in which law enforcement officers, because of the frequency with which they interact with average individuals, because of the nature of their interactions, because of the powers they have to search, to seize, to arrest in this context, to use lethal force, did not justify absolute immunity and instead justified a more narrower, qualified kind of immunity for those most likely to come face-to-face with private citizens. Distilled to its simplest, the government's position in this case is that

officers in what is self-described as the nation's largest law enforcement agency should have a functional absolute immunity at least where foreign nationals are concerned. And our submission is that that is not consistent with how this Court has always understood the relationship between causes of action and immunity defenses in this context. It is not required by any of this Court's Bivens decisions. It does not abide by this Court's suggestion in Abbasi that there are strong reasons and powerful reasons to retain Bivens in this context. And it would eliminate the one deterrence that is meaningfully available to ensure that officers in the nation's largest law enforcement agency are complying with the law.

It's worth asking how differently things might look on the ground right now if #SCOTUS hadn't eviscerated Bivens—and made it all-but impossible to bring damages suits against federal officers (like ICE agents) who violate our constitutional rights.

This is from my rebuttal in Hernández v. Mesa:

Today marks the first day in public media’s history without federal funding. And we’re not going anywhere.

Listeners like you keep our mission alive. Protect one of the last places where America comes together to hear itself.

Stand with us today. Donate at this link: n.pr/46wamAj

One word of caution to those viewing this as a big win for Cook: This will be the fifth argument #SCOTUS has heard on an application since 1971; in each of the previous four (all since 2022), the applicant *won.*

Letting Cook keep her job for now won't stop the Court from ruling against her later.

To Donald Trump:

Stop using military troops and ICE to invade and disrupt American cities.

Stop calling your political opponents “enemies” of the US.

Stop attacking the 1st Amendment.

Our troops and our nation deserve better than you acting as a petty tyrant.

A screenshot of the court filing for a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the US Department of Homeland Security for FEMA funding.

FEMA and DHS funds help states prepare for disasters and recover from emergencies. The Trump Administration wants to reduce that funding in MA by more than 30%.

My office and democratic AGs from across the country are working to make sure communities are protected. We’re suing.

Just a reminder that the Commander-in-Chief of the Louisiana National Guard, who can call them out all by himself if they were actually needed, is … Governor Landry.

Fully MAGA-fied Christianity Politics, especially culture-war politics, now provides many fundamentalists and evangelicals with a sense of community and a common enemy.

“Trump and the MAGA movement capitalized on, and then amplified, the problems facing Christian communities, but they did not create them,” Peter Wehner argues:

My painting PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Since Lindsey Halligan personally indicted Comey she should personally try the case and not hand it off to someone else. She can show us how competent and qualified she is for this job in front of a jury.

Breaking: Jimmy Kimmel to return Tuesday.