Pennsylvania's auditor general, a Republican, audited 210,000+ new voter registrations under Gov. Shapiro's new motor voter system to see if noncitizens were registering to vote.
They found one. One.
And that was because a PennDOT staffer erred. It was fixed before the driver left the office.
Posts by Nikki Baszynski
Judges can scold lawyers or they can issue opinions finding that agents are not engaged in actions necessary to performing a legitimate federal function, clearing the way for state criminal prosecutions. More should consider (b).
New from me: The first post of a series documenting the brazen lies DHS has told after abuse and violence by ICE and Bordrer Patrol officers.
First up: The bumbling, illegal raid on ChongLy Scott Thao and his family.
“Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object,” a young representative named Abraham Lincoln wrote in 1848. This was “understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.” This quote, incidentally, is immortalized on the House’s website, if any members of Congress are looking for it.
In fairness it’s not like the consequences of having a mad king unilaterally take the country to war on a whim were so incredibly obvious that you could see it coming from the 18th and 19th centuries www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Please share information about #HB249 with people you know online and off, in and outside of Ohio. Lawmakers are counting on people not paying attention.
Giving away the game here that ICE is his own mob he will deploy if his demands aren't met.
Texas keeps failing to release people from jail when their time is over, leaving people languishing there unable to be released www.texastribune.org/2026/03/19/t...
Heavy-Handed Probation and Parole in Pennsylvania Prevents People from Moving Forward | The Keystone State has the highest incarceration rate in the Northeast and the nation’s second highest percentage of persons on probation and parole, reports @patlamarche.bsky.social.
We’re quickly learning that our checks, balances, and separation of powers were always dependent good faith, and therefore incapable of preventing destruction wrought by the very sort of shameless, arrogant, mad president they were designed to contain.
This is a very important report from @davidkurtz.bsky.social, who was in court for this shocking hearing today.
And, Judge Gallagher has, in an order, made clear what she expects tomorrow: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
At @thebarbedwire.com, we’ve been covering Leqaa Kordia’s case since Oct 2025. After a year in custody, including the loss of 50 pounds and a 3-day hospitalization, she has finally been released on a $100,000 bond. Weeks ago, Texas lawmakers called her a “political prisoner” in an “internment camp.”
Sick thing to do to young people fleeing abuse
tomorrow is with one of the biggest election days of the year. there's so much to go over it's hard to know where to start.
so, let me help:
here are the *10* elections i'm watching the most closely, *at the state and local level* (=no federal elections included!)
🧵:
this local election i posted about here is happening in 48 hours.
this one is less interesting for what the outcome will be (it's a Trump +50 district) than the fascinating rhetoric of the campaign (see below), but i'm still very interested in seeing how it ends up.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied. JUSTICE KAGAN would grant the petition for a writ of certiorari. JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE JACKSON joins, dissenting from denial of certiorari. This case asks whether federal law prohibits the poorest prisoners from splitting the $350 fee required to file a federal lawsuit when it allows everyone else to do so. The answer statutorily appears to be no. Because the decision below held otherwise and deepened a split among the Courts of Appeals, the Court should grant the petition for a writ of certiorari.
Petitioners Topaz Johnson and Ian Henderson were incarcerated at High Desert State Prison in California when they filed this lawsuit in federal court. According to their complaint, corrections officers forced them and a third prisoner to stand in filthy cages that reeked of urine and measured 2.5 feet by 2.5 feet. They alleged that the officers forced them to stand in those cages for nearly nine hours with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
By a 6–3 vote, SCOTUS refuses to review a judge-made rule that bars indigent prisoners from splitting the filing fee among themselves when filing a federal suit—even though everyone else is allowed to split that fee. These defendants were allegedly tortured. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...
Our (@psjpbc.bsky.social) next policy briefing is on the use of Sentinel Event Reviews as a tool for changing deadly police policies and practices. March 10th on Zoom. RSVP in comments.
There is a real argument that the Trump administration's ICE excesses are radicalizing judges of all political stripes against him and his admin. Decisions made by ICE (and the agency's general shrug at court orders) have dramatically brought down DOJ's reputation along with it.
Columbia President with NEW details:
5 DHS agents entered a residency with no warrant.
They said they were police looking for a missing kid.
Security camera even captures them showing pictures of the "kid."
A campus officer asked for a warrant & their boss.
They ignored him & took the student.
They beat a blind refugee who speaks no English for failing to obey police commands he could not understand. Then instead of apologizing, they charged him with possession of a “weapon”—HIS WALKING STICK. Then they dumped him miles from home without notifying anyone, after which he was found dead.
Changes to USPS guidelines on postmarks could be an obstacle to people looking to register to vote, especially people who already face barriers to access such as people with disabilities and rural voters.
During last night’s State of the Union address, President Trump repeated his well-worn playbook of fearmongering around crime and immigration.
🎥 Watch to learn more: www.tiktok.com/@verainstitu...
They found him. He died.
Another murder by our immigration goon squads
My latest, with @propublica.org + @nytimes.com:
An Oklahoma law was supposed to help reduce the sentences of domestic violence survivors who fought back -- women who are serving long sentences for killing their abusers. Why are nearly all of them still in prison?
www.propublica.org/article/okla...
A MN protester accused of assaulting ICE officer had case dropped after vids showed no assault.
LA protester accused of assaulting ICE w/ “hat” had case dropped; judge said govt acted in “bad faith”
In Chicago, 92 ppl were arrested for assault/impeding ICE; 0 convicted
DOJ keeps lying and losing:
ICE officers often tell people tracking and watching them that they are breaking federal law in doing so, but legal experts say the vast majority of observers are exercising their constitutional rights. n.pr/4qPmLGr
Introducing Selling Safety! A report that lays bare the ethnically dubious world of marketing and selling police surveillance technology, how effectiveness numbers are manufactured, the role police play in a massive for-profit industry, and new critical questions for reporters and law makers.
By Chris Quinn, Editor, cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer A college student withdrew from consideration for a reporting role in our newsroom this week because of how we use artificial intelligence. It reminded me again how college journalism programs are failing to prepare students for the workforce. I mentioned this in a column before, and readers asked me to explain
A conscientious journalism grad withdraw from a job when she learned the Cleveland Plain Dealer uses AI to write its stories.
Now the editor is castigating her and journalism professors for not being “prepared for the workforce.”
You can’t make this shit up.
www.cleveland.com/news/2026/02...
A child dying of cancer spent her final days fighting to free her wrongfully detained father from ICE custody.
This comes just weeks after a mother from Maryland was denied the right to be at her son’s side as he died from cancer.
Not one dime for this cruelty.
www.cbsnews.com/amp/chicago/...