Shambling Corpse of Randy Herman

Good morning all, at 9:30 ET I will be live-posting the DC Circuit oral arguments in JGG v. Trump. The question is whether Venezuelans sent to CECOT under the Alien Enemies Act are entitled to a hearing.

NEW: An army of volunteers and activists across the US have been training for months to face down ICE at the polls on election day. The message they have for the Trump administration? "We're ready" 1/ www.wired.com/story/massiv...

There it is "Republican legislative leaders probably “were not anticipating just how unpopular President Donald Trump would be, and how much that would weigh down their party's fortunes,” said Greene, the political scientist"

(Reuters) - Americans have paid more for their gasoline and diesel at the pump on average during President Donald Trump's second term than they did under his Democratic predecessor, Joe ​Biden, according to the AAA. ⛽️ @reuters.com www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

If one runs a normal election, without all the illegal cheating, then win or lose one doesn't have to worry about going to jail at the end of it. Just saying.

Astonishing: Maxwell was willing to tell Blanche about some of Trump's rapes, and he ordered her not to. "Let's not talk about inviduals." WTF were they there to talk about? There's EVIDENCE on this.

Big if we can do it because the NC GOP control the statehouse through pretty wild gerrymanders that normally give them super-majorities when the state is evenly split. If you break those permanently, NC government gets really competitive, really fast in a way that will be good for the state.

It's really damning. The accusations are numerous and well-supported. But I was really struck by the descriptions of Trump's behavior -- the name dropping, strong-arming, and attempts to buy off silence. His gross rivalry with Epstein. It's all so familiar. It's shit he's been doing his entire life.

I know there's a lot going on but I feel it should probably be more of an above-the-fold story that members of Congress released a thoroughly documented report directly accusing the president of the United States of being a serial rapist.

Spoke to a Democratic member of the NC House. The caucus is very much aware of the possibility that they might flip the house and have a long list of legislative priorities. Republicans are hoping their voters show up on Election Day.

this might rank as one of the most important outcomes of the night if it happens. would give dems the ability to begin to make north carolina a democracy

Look it's 2026 and I know "the president is a rapist" is already baked in to everyone's opinion but the president of the United States is a fucking rapist and I would really appreciate it if the media would treat this like the major earth-shattering scandal that it should be.

the biggest presidential scandal in history but the political media largely acts as if it's not happening. hasan piker has received more mainstream political media coverage over the last 6 months than trump's connections with epstein has

Should we all just go ahead and take next Wednesday off? Nobody's getting any work done, right?

Vote like he's on the ballot

NEW: "Donald Trump was an active participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women during the mid-to-late 1990s," per new House Judiciary Dem report. Report has new allegation that Trump raped a 24-year-old and then promised the victim a visa & NYU admission, demanding she stay quiet.

We pretty clearly need some kind of governmental framework that's global in scope for at least some issues; what exactly the scope and powers are can be debated, but the necessity is obvious at this point.

This report is really good and should be widely read. Among other things, it makes the point that by shielding Trump, DOJ is also allowing many other perpetrators to get away.

Trump and Co. will try to steal the midterms. They're already trying. Gerrymandering, bad faith lawsuits, voter intimidation, and a whole lot of lies. But they don't have a genius secret plan. They're already doing whatever they can think of. And it's beatable. Shouldn't have to, but here we are.

I don't know that there is a definitive line to cross that makes you say, "I live in a police state now" but when masked gunmen can routinely brutalize the public, citizen or immigrant alike, with impunity, you have reached that point.

I found this fascinating and very helpful in understanding the Israel situation

So is Lula going to take action against the American agents that tried to influence the election?

Brazil’s results tonight are a big endorsement for the idea that every country should have a second “are you you sure about that” election a couple weeks after the first one for the important stuff

I love politics. fuck yes

Goddamn, it really seems like he’s done it 🫪 Congrats to my Brazilian oomfs, so thrilled for you Bolsonaro and Vucic losing on the same day, incredible

Some Serbian-Brazilian family is having the best day of their life

turns out that voting is a very good way to kick right wing authoritarians out of power

JS: Can you think of any instance in where the federal government intervened in how a state administers it election DOJ: I'm sorry, I don't JB: If we dismiss this on jurisdiction, does jurisdiction go back to the district court? DOJ: yes 77/

NEW: DOJ just admitted in court that their lawsuit against California is not about outcome determinative issues, it's simply saying that a single non-citizen voting causes the government irreparable harm. That's bananapants.

look, nothing is simple and i have no parsimonious explanation for anything here, but a student protest movement, focused on corruption & authoritarianism, just won a major european election. a big deal.

Liberal democracy remains a towering achievement of humanity and it is worth fighting for.

WAXMAN (CA): We don't believe you have jurisdiction, and you should dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. This is a case in which the only thing that was sought is a TRO, which is not appealable. And no order was entered. Even if it was, it wouldn't be appealable. 56/

JS: if you take a step back, you're not able to explain who the third parties are, and the reliability of the list depends on them, but somehow the district court was supposed to resolve all this in a matter of hours when we don't even know who the third parties are? You don't even know! 24/

"We can't explain how we made this list but trust us it's reliable" is the kind of argument where it would be really helpful if they hadn't completely destroyed the presumption of regularity

Hate (HATE) this argument. Basically because we (the Trump DOJ) fucked up so bad that a court had to do an emergency intervention, now the same DOJ gets to use that as precedent to try and steal the election

JB: but on 10/21, you still asked for relief by 11/3. So how do we have jurisdiction when the district court said they'd give you a ruling. I don't see how we have jurisdiction. 3/

The long-serving strongman leader of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, has conceded defeat in an election that pitted him and his right-wing party against a diverse student-led opposition movement that spent two years protesting his government.

Bolsonaro-friendly mayors appear to be sabotaging public transport on Election Day. Buses aren’t running in Lula-friendly areas, flights and ferries mysteriously canceled. Traffic lights have gone out and people’s power cut in Salvador, indigenous people’s travel restricted

of all of the people in this administration who deserve to go to jail stephen miller deserves to go to jail the most

Sen. Adam Schiff tells NBC that Pete Hegseth and "anyone who has knowledge of what happened" should testify before the Senate on Ukraine's Starlink disruptions. "Somebody is lying here. Maybe they're all lying in different ways, but we need to find out."

Gaslighting 101: The AG is literally calling us crazy for thinking Trump will use the levers of government power to overturn the results of an election, when he has a documented history of doing just that. That’s tyranny.

If still debating whether Donald Trump or Elon Musk willfully crippled Ukraine's missile defense, helping to slay innocent civilians, you are a rube. If the U.S. President had no role, then an oligarch governs national security. If not, the U.S. President serves Russia. Both answers are mortifying.

Apparently, some Houston voters are putting their I Voted stickers on the Lorenzo Salgado Araujo memorial. Stephen Miller is ALREADY trying to scapegoat others for losing whatever races they lose in Texas and elsewhere. This is a vivid testament that for some voters, his murder squad is the reason.

When there’s finally an effort to hold these criminals accountable for the crimes they committed, we‘re going to see a lot of pundits wring their hands and say it’s politically motivated and insist we need to turn the page and look forward and a lot of other cliches that dumb assholes like to use.

here, write it down so it’s easy to repeat: an illegitimate supreme court allowed an insurrectionist barred by the 14th amendment to take office and his pardons aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on

Giving criminal immunity to the person with unfettered pardon power is a recipe for criminal government. And that's exactly what has happened.

Restoring constitutional democracy after we fix the Supreme Court should entail invalidating Trump’s entire term because the 14th Amendment plainly disqualifies insurrectionists from public office. The rule of law can’t survive when a tyrant can immunize all of his minions from federal prosecution

The generality principle of the Rule of Law is its most essential concept. A class of people outside criminal law is incompatible with a law-based society.

Democrats need to state that if this is done, they will have no choice but to turn Trump and his subordinates over to international tribunals for war crimes prosecutions, if Trump makes it impossible to prosecute them domestically. Make subordinates accepting pardons understand the consequences.

This is literally the end of the rule of law. If a President can pardon people committing crimes on his behalf - and the Supreme Court says he himself can't be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his job - then the government becomes a lawless entity able to violate our rights without limit.