Read that again. This Louisiana bill forces homeless people to choose between jail and "treatment"—and if they can't pay for the latter, they will be forced to perform unpaid labor.
The historical precedents are clear: convict leasing, Black Codes, debtor's prison.
Thank you! Your words and engagement mean a great deal.
Which, importantly, moves enforcement back into the hands of ppl who can be sued in fed court for § 1983 violations, who do not have supremacy clause immunity, who are under the jurisdiction of local DAs who may not like them, subject to local anti-mask laws.
NOT PERFECT. But it IS an improvement.
Surcharges are popping up everywhere as companies try to recoup rising costs while blaming outside pressures.
Congrats! Looks awesome.
New article theorizing the relational mechanisms that reproduce criminal legal inequalities. Come for the theory; stay for the review of cutting-edge research showing how social closure, exploitation, and claims-making drive inequality under the law
compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
They didn't overlook Minneapolis.
It has come to my attention that not all of you are aware that this exists. So, here it is. It exists. Dozens of channels of randomized music videos and bumpers. Choose your era and return to your childhood. Bookmark it for when you need to escape back.
wantmymtv.vercel.app/player.html
I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake By A Horse Hello. I am a horse. I work very hard at my job of being a horse. When humans say move the heavy thing, I move the heavy thing. When humans sit on top of me and pull on my head, I carry them where they want to go. The main food the humans give me is hay and oats. But I am thinking it would be nice to have a different food. I am thinking I would like to try cake. Yes, yes. Cake. I know all about it. When humans eat cake, it is in glad times. It is the food for a celebration, such as when a woman becomes 47. I have seen cake on the Fourth of July. When humans have a cake, they stand around it and clap hands and smile and say happy birthday at each other. Sometimes there are beautiful markings on a cake, such as balloons or a pink shape. Sometimes the top of a cake is on fire and a boy must blow on the fire with mouth wind. This is the scariest cake. I do not want this kind. But I will eat any other cake. Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy. Please understand: I do not get money for doing work. I do not get to go inside the house. All I am either doing my horse job or standing in my pen or eating food off the floor. I always do these things. But I have never once gotten cake and I would like it very much. I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children. I am more helpful to the farm. Children do not move the heavy things like me or let anyone ride on them. And yet they get cake. Maybe the humans will realize this. Maybe they will say, "You know who deserves cake? That horse. That horse whose back we are always on." Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and putt my nose at it like hrrfff to make and stomping my hooves to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large. After that, I will nuzzle the cake to …
The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me.
It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."
The Alex Pretti Nursing Scholarship will be endowed after a fundraising campaign with a goal of reaching $50,000.
"Minnesota Physician Moms" has contributed $10,000.
Courthouse funneling: how organizational mechanisms teach tenants to bargain in eviction court N. Hardaway and @mathuclair.bsky.social cup.org/4bNfrXy
I don't see this said enough: the widespread use of generative AI is not only making our jobs as educators harder logistically, but also emotionally. It is genuinely sad to be suspicious of students when you have spent so much time building a pedagogy based on trust and not being a cop. It sucks.
A worried Steve Nash?
There it is -- "The ICE data show, however, that less than one-quarter of those arrested during the operation had been convicted of a “crime” — the agency’s definition of a crime includes misdemeanors, such as unauthorized entry into the country or traffic violations." Appalling.
Thanks to a FOIA lawsuit from @deportationdata.org, Minnesota is getting its first credible numbers on arrests during the federal government's surge here this winter. About 3,800 Minnesota residents were arrested. Most from Latin America (only 106 from Somalia). (1)
At Liberalism dot org, @radleybalko.bsky.social argues that when localities pursue cost savings by moving to flat-fee contracting for public defender services, the incentives come out wrong, and the quality of defense (and of justice) suffers.
gosh, this does make us sound pretty cool, doesn’t it
CHIEF JUSTICE TODD OPINION No. 3 WAP 2024 Appeal from the Order of the Superior Court entered June 13, 2023, at No. 1008 WDA 2021, Affirming the Order of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County entered December 19, 2016, at No. CP-02-CR-0016878-2014. : : : : : : : : : : : ARGUED: October 8, 2024 DECIDED: MARCH 26, 2026 In this appeal by allowance, we granted allocatur to consider whether a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for a felony murder conviction violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution or Article I, Section 13 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.1 For the reasons that follow, we determine that a mandatory life without parole sentence for all felony murder convictions, absent an assessment of culpability, is inconsistent with the protections bestowed upon our citizens
under the “cruel punishments” clause of our Commonwealth’s organic charter.2 Thus, we reverse the order of the Superior Court, vacate Appellant’s judgment of sentence, and remand for resentencing. However, as we have done under similar circumstances, we stay our order for 120 days to provide a reasonable amount of time for the General Assembly to consider remedial measures.
BREAKING: The PA Supreme Court holds that mandatory life without parole sentences for all "felony murder" convictions -- a sentence more than 1,000 people in PA are serving -- violates the state constitution's "cruel" punishment ban. This is GROUNDBREAKING: www.pacourts.us/assets/opini...
Just the President of the United States again saying insanely, unapologetically, shamelessly racist shit, and the extremely powerful people around him nodding in agreement.
How far back in time would you have to go to find another U.S. president saying something this bigoted in public?
photograph or a poster on cream colored paper. "Dear President Ambar, we are writing to you on a typewriter that is over 70 years old. This is a machine that we all know well. With it, we misspell words without the crutch of spell check or generative AI and we think intently about every phrase we pound out. As we force ourselves, for once, to slow down, we engage in a cognitive dialogue with ourselves. We do not seek perfection because we know that education is about the growing and challenging of our young minds' potential, not the chasing of institutional 'gold-star' approval. We do not believe that your so-called 'Year of AI Exploration; providing enterprise ChatGPT and Google Gemini subscriptions to every Oberlin student aligns with our college's founding principles. You claim that this year will be one of experimentation, not adoption. But even just one semester of accepted (encouraged even) chat bot use will jettison our student body down a lazy and irredeemable tunnel of intellectual destruction. We are a college grounded in learning and labor, which now risks straying from these rooted ideals. With ChatGPT at the helm, our emails, essays,and discussion posts will be generated for us, not by us. And let's not fool ourselves. This is precisely what these platforms will be used for by our busy, anxious student body. We see your vision for this year as.advancing the college's 'businessification'--an alarming trend also seen in the takeover of our beloved library cafe by a 'bookstore' with no books in stock and an app replacing customer service. In one instance, the college assumes we want efficiency at all costs through automated rather than hand pulled coffee. In the other lies the false belief that we simply desire to turn in an essay, regardless of how little we've written of it." there's more that doesn't fit in the 2000 character limit :(
OH MY HEART...the Oberlin Luddites Reject "The Year of AI Exploration"! 💚
Is it any wonder people feel the system is rigged?
Pie chart showing that almost 88,000 people are confined for immigration reasons in the U.S.
Between 2025 and 2026, the number of people detained by ICE on any given day grew by nearly 60%.
Thanks to Trump's deportation agenda, expanded immigration detention accounts for almost all of the growth in mass incarceration since last year.
I spent the past couple weeks going through hundreds of pages of sworn declarations made detained by children and their parents at Dilley, ICE’s only family detention center. This is what life is like at Dilley, in their own words: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social See this? Self-care, collective care, solidarity, political organizing, and cardio all at once.
bsky.app/profile/iwil...
The US government collected over $1 billion in immigration fees then refused to process the applications. No denials. No refunds. Just silence. This is the largest fee fraud in the history of the American immigration system. Here's what's happening. 🧵
Legal plunder at its finest!
Oh damn, looks fantastic! Thanks for the rec.
Which of his books do you recommend reading first?
Pie chart showing that nearly 2 million people are incarcerated in the U.S.
🚨NEW: Last year, the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. increased again. The driving factor? President Trump’s deportation agenda.
Our annual report, The Whole Pie, gives the big picture of mass incarceration. Here are some key takeaways 🧵
I was with Richard in Edinburgh yesterday and he showed me the cover of your new book. Congratulations! It looks fantastic.