Two weeks ago, I visited the small conservative town of Roxbury, NJ to cover a protest over a warehouse slated to become an ICE detention center. It was a visceral experience, seeing the warehouse with my own eyes and the community it will impact-- read more about it in this week's newsletter!

Aileen Cannon’s Campaign for a Supreme Court Seat Just Reached a New Low This week’s Executive Dysfunction.

Read my full take in Slate's latest edition of Executive Dysfunction--- which I will be writing every week! (2/2)
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Back in 2024, I was tracking each of Trump's legal battles for Slate, so this week when Judge Cannon banned DOJ from releasing the final report on the classified documents case...I had some strong thoughts (1/2)

If Democrats Fold on Their ICE Demands, It Will Be a Disaster They have a big list of shutdown demands to rein in ICE. Will any of them actually work?

I've been covering politics and the law at Slate for the past three years & I'm channeling all that experience into a new project. I will be authoring Slate's new legal newsletter Executive Dysfunction! My inaugural post went live today, check it out and subscribe!
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Congress Showed ICE Leaders Images of ICE Brutality. It Went About How You’d Expect. Congress finally got a chance on Tuesday to confront Homeland Security officials.

“That subject is clearly not compliant.” We learned on Tuesday that DHS officials will defend literally anything. slate.trib.al/x7eoR9j

The Real Reason Trump Chose Georgia as His First Strike on the 2026 Vote On Monday, the New York Times reported a bizarre and shocking update to news of an FBI raid last week on a Georgia election office.

I peeked under the hood of Georgia's voting system and what I found suddenly makes the FBI's raid of Fulton County's election office even more alarming--- my latest for @slate.com:

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ICE Will Come to Your City, Suburb, or Town. Here’s How to Prepare. Residents of Minneapolis have advice for the rest of us.

What's happening in Minnesota will not stay in Minnesota. And state senator @erinmayequade.bsky.social is warning Americans what they can expect and how they can prepare for when ICE invades their neighborhood.

My latest for @slate.com: slate.com/news-and-pol...

The Slate Union is extremely happy to announce that we have a tentative agreement on a contract! This was a hard-fought effort, and the result is a stronger, better-compensated union.

My latest story features a great conversation with Gabe Roth of @fixthecourt.com where we analyze Emil Bove's long game 👀

Republicans Are Ripping a New Giant Hole in the Social Safety Net After punishing hungry people during the government shutdown, the GOP has a new plan to make life harder for the most vulnerable.

“One way to think about the One Big Beautiful Bill is that it could end SNAP in some states, and it certainly ends SNAP as a national entitlement that is there for people in good economic times and bad.” @laurenhlb.bsky.social spoke to @Slate.com’s @shirinali.bsky.social about the OBBBA’s SNAP cuts:

Trump’s “Election Observers” Are a Sign of Something Much Worse on the Horizon None of the election monitors will have much to do. That doesn't mean they’re not damaging.

Richard Hasen: “This is not normal. I do think we have to take seriously the possibility that people are going to have to get around federal troops if they want to be able to vote.” slate.trib.al/PYLBU0T

I Went Door-to-Door With Zohran Canvassers. What People Said Surprised Me. It made me appreciate how messy, fluid, and emotional American politics is.

I tagged along with some canvassers to see what people make of Mamdani in a Queens neighborhood that shifted 12 points toward Trump in 2024. slate.trib.al/jmkjo2j

My latest story with @coribush.bsky.social! A great conversation about tough changes Democrats have to embrace and how to fight with integrity 💪

One Man’s Story Shows Just How Out of Touch Brett Kavanaugh Is And there are too many other stories like this one.

The reality bears no resemblance to Kavanaugh’s rosy description of immigration arrests. slate.trib.al/V6DcEcp

At event in DC, Sen. Chris Van Hollen keeps it going with Hakeem
Jeffries over not endorsing @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social: if you can’t back the kind of campaign he ran, “don’t ask those young people to show up for other Democrats across the country — that’s the message that will be sent.”

Democrats Caved to Keep the Government Open in March. Now They’re Changing Their Tune. Here's how they're looking at it now.

👀
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She Was a Charlie Kirk Disciple. She Knows How Democrats Can Win Back Young Republicans. Stout’s political transformation is instructive for those in this moment wondering how to bridge what seems like an unfathomable political divide.

Caroline Stout (@babybluetx.bsky.social) knows Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA better than most---she used to work there. For @slate.com, she told me what it was like and what Kirk's death means for the future of the far-right:
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my latest: on how the H-1B visa became a symbol of the MAGA coalition's divides, why Trump is charging hopeful immigrant workers an extra $100k, how this plunged Silicon Valley into panic mode, and what this means for Trump's already-fraying relationship with Modi—who's inching closer to China(!)

If you haven't yet read Justice Sotomayor's dissent in yesterday's Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, it is worth taking a few moments to do so tonight. As she notes, the Court's use of the emergency docket to greenlight ICE's use of racial profiling is troubling in part because it is entirely unexplained.

Trump Is Bringing Back One of the Most Reviled Policies of His First Term, in a New Form It forces parents without legal status to make an impossible choice.

Family separation is back...
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The Two-Pronged Attack on a Muslim Judicial Nominee How the smearing of Adeel Mangi became a bipartisan exercise.

This is why the Bove seat was vacant, and there’s a real throughline from the forces that defeated the previous Democratic nominee to where we are today.

www.newyorker.com/news/the-pol...

He’s Backing Losers and Infuriating the DNC. It Might Be Exactly What Democrats Need. David Hogg has had an interesting summer.

David Hogg may be imperfect, but he's on to something:
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Sonia Sotomayor Puts It Clearly: None of Our Rights Are Safe The high court has opened Pandora’s box.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not hold back on her colleagues' majority decision today on birthright citizenship. Her dissent was nothing short of scathing, so we highlighted some of the most cutting lines:
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man, Brad Lander is really that guy bsky.app/profile/jool...

Even Donald Trump Is Starting to See the Absurdity of Stephen Miller’s Deportation Targets Trump’s mass deportation plans will continue to go up in smoke, whether he likes it or not.

The delusional presidency
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There’s an Alarming Part of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” You Probably Haven’t Heard Much About Two historic changes in the Republican budget bill haven’t gotten that much attention.

Buried in the news of Republican's Big Beautiful Bill: Major immigration policy. Not only would ICE be given a massive budget increase, but asylum seekers would have to pay $1000 in order to submit an application (it currently costs $0)

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What It Would Look Like If the Trump Administration Got Its Way in the Birthright Citizenship Case The Supreme Court could create a patchwork of citizenship rules that echoes a dark time in the nation's history.

“Babies born on the same day could be citizens in one state, but stateless in the other,”—- the reality of what the Trump admin is asking SCOTUS for

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Is Trump Carrying Out His Mass Deportation Promises? The Numbers Might Surprise You. The administration's extreme methods might obscure this reality.

Immigration updates for the week:
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Voters Are Frustrated. Will Democrats Be Able to Do Something With It? I went to two Democratic events in GOP-held congressional districts to see what new message the party is putting out.

The Democrats' new town hall strategy is certainly interesting, but will it work? I went over to New Jersey and Pennsylvania to find out for myself and one thing was clear: Americans are *very* fed up with Dems.

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Trump Is Talking About Finding Ways to Send U.S. Citizens to Salvadoran Prison The idea once again involves America's new partner in lawless deportations.

As if the past few weeks of breaking news wasn't bleak enough, this week a pro-Palestinian activist was lured to an immigration office for a citizenship interview, only to be arrested upon arrival.

My latest edition of Who Gets to Be American This Week:
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