We have been advocating for a better use of Article 2 TEU all along and yesterday's Commission v. Hungary is most welcome. "EU values ARE law, after all"!! Orbán's regime helped move EU law in the right direction.
academic.oup.com/yel/article/... @grabowskamoroz.bsky.social @kimlanelaw.bsky.social
The DOJ was created to increase the capacity for federal prosecutions during Reconstruction esp. those to be brought under the newly enacted KuKlux Klan Act.
Now the DOJ is being used to prosecute a storied civil rights organization whose central mission has been to expose & dismantle the Klan.
Remember, Democrats have repeatedly advanced measures to ban partisan gerrymandering and Republicans have voted against them time after time.
This is the game Republicans wanted to play. OK, then.
The Justice Dept’s theory of the case— that the group that single-handedly disassembled the Ku Klux Klan defrauded its donors by concealing that it was using paid informant to do that work and more— has about as much merit as the now-dismissed charges against Jim Comey.
English version of today’s judgment now available on Eur-Lex: eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conten...
Wow. Today the ECJ found Hungary violated EU law with its anti-gay statute, but the most revolutionary part of the decision is that the Court found that Art. 2 TEU, laying out European values, could be used as an independent legal ground in cases before the Court. curia.europa.eu/site/upload/...
An examination by ProPublica shows how thoroughly and expansively the Trump administration has overhauled the federal government into what some fear is a vehicle for making sure elections go his way.
zuck-free link to
Hungary’s Counter-Counterrevolution, by István Rév, 4/16/26.
Something to hope for
And work toward:
@kimlanelaw.bsky.social
"It took time, but I feel like in the last two years, people’s attitude toward each other and toward politics has changed step by step. I just had to follow the events of the Tisza Party.
paulkrugman.substack.com/p/kim-lane-s...
Interview by @pkrugman.bsky.social of @kimlanelaw.bsky.social about Hungary is superb; well worth 30min (on 2x). Thanks to @hertieschool.bsky.social I had the privilege to hear and & meet her in Berlin not too long ago, but this is just INCREDIBLE analysis about #democracy and how it has been gamed.
Breaking WaPo:
The Trump Justice Department is now demanding all ballots from the 2024 election in the Detroit area — a highly unusual move that comes shortly after prosecutors seized 2020 ballots in Georgia and obtained 2020 election records in Arizona.
The wreckage of autocracy goes beyond political
Institutions into who we are. Here is a beautiful contribution that makes this vivid. open.substack.com/pub/thehunga...
Hungarian historian István Rév weaves a tale of ambition and deception, history and counter-revolution to explain Orbán’s rise and fall. Brilliant. www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...
KASUBHAI, United States District Judge: Unserious leaders are unsafe. There is nothing more serious than our leaders' dedication to the rule of law so that we might maintain the integrity of our constitutional democracy. This case highlights a leader's unserious regard for the rule of law. This case demonstrates how disregard for the rule of law does not merely result in an abstract infraction. Rather, and tragically, this case is one of a long list of examples of how a leader's wanton disregard for the rule of law causes very real harm to very real people.
“Unserious leaders are unsafe” is a fucking banger though
“What most distinguishes the present Supreme Court is not merely its conservatism, or even its willingness to roll back settled rights. It is the degree to which the conservative majority appears severed from shared facts altogether.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-supreme-...
If you are as infuriated as you read this as I am, know that Congress not only has the power to fix the abuse of the Shadow Docket but also that the legislation is already drafted. We just need to get it to the floor. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...
Every presidential administration gets accused of corruption—sometimes with good reason, sometimes not. But the corruption of the Trump administration is of a magnitude that is not only without precedent in American history but so large and brazen as to be difficult to wrap one's head around.
a 26 year old half filipino nazi. only in america baby!
Last year, in a conversation with two of his own law clerks, recent law school graduates chosen for their conservative views, Justice Thomas said he intended to remain on the Court until the year 2034. Why that long? one asked. Because that would give him a 43-year term, he replied, according to the clerk's account, explaining, "The liberals made my life miserable for 43 years, and I'm going to make their lives miserable for 43 years."
Thomas isn’t going anywhere voluntarily. www.nytimes.com/1993/11/27/u...
The damage that Trump has done to the federal government now has a number: $165.6 BILLION. www.govexec.com/workforce/20...
DOGE has backfired horrifically and the people who did this to us must be held accountable.
www.govexec.com/workforce/20...
Another example demonstrating that the federal science and research ecosystem is being seriously damaged regardless of what’s ultimately appropriated
Binnall pushed one of the most patently ridiculous failed lawsuits of Trump’s 2020 election subversion campaign, which is quite an accomplishment.
It was filed in Nevada, where the results weren’t close.
The Atlantic will be just fine.
I’m not a lawyer, and I’m exhausted, so I can’t say exactly which part of the constitution forbids it, but if the constitution does not forbid the president from suing the government in his personal capacity and then ordering the government to settle in his official one, it forbids nothing.
Truly remarkable reporting by Sarah Fitzpatrick in the Atlantic.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
A federal judge in Illinois today ruled that the Trump administration improperly coerced Facebook and Apple to remove ICE-tracking apps in violation of the First Amendment. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Here’s my analysis of how challenger Peter Magyar was able to overcome the rigged election system to win in Hungary. www.journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclu...
A tweet from Representative Thomas Massie that reads: I just viewed 2 Top Secret FISA docs. 1) FISA Court opinion that raises serious concerns about FBI implementation of FISA 702. 2) letter by Senator Wyden describing a secret government interpretation of FISA law. The Constitution requires I vote No on FISA 702 reauthorization.
I sent a classified letter to House and Senate colleagues about a secret interpretation of surveillance law that every American should be concerned about.
Representative Massie is right. The Constitution requires EVERY member to vote against a clean reauthorization.
Our team received a report of intermittent app outages at about 11:40pm PDT on April 15, 2026. They worked through the night to mitigate a sophisticated Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, which intensified throughout the day.