No worries! I’m glad you’ve done this; incredibly useful.

Anyway, this is an awesome resource for lawyers, historians and journalists.

Goddamn, they’ve got the whole Giles v. Harris (1903) Supreme Court record here. I had to piece a lot of this together from different sites for a story did on Jackson Giles in 2022.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer out as secretary of the US Department of Labor | Alabama Reflector The ouster follows multiple reports alleging work misconduct including misuse of funds for travel and more.

Via Ariana Figueroa: Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will step down from her post, the Trump administration announced Monday, following multiple reports alleging work misconduct including misuse of funds and more.

Weird — this is the second time I’ve heard this tip this week.

Show me the money: Businesses line up for $166B in refunds from Trump's illegal tariffs | Alabama Reflector Customs officials estimate 330,000 importers paid the duties. Refunds are expected within 60 to 90 days, according to CBP.

Via Ashley Murray: A tariff refund system went live Monday, marking what small business advocates call a “complex” first step for entrepreneurs to recoup $166 billion in import taxes accrued under President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in February.

Alabama Democrats see opportunities to pick up legislative seats in Huntsville | Alabama Reflector Democrats in Alabama see an opportunity to pick up some legislative seats in the midterm elections this fall, and are focusing their resources in Huntsville-area elections with the hopes of picking up...

How I love Facebook, where we can post this @annabjournalist.bsky.social story -- wide-ranging and deeply-reported -- about Democratic prospects in Huntsville, and get dozens of comments that have *nothing* to do with the piece.

Via Sofia Resnick and Stateline: A controversial rule enacted last year that denies federal Medicaid funding to abortion providers is likely to expire this summer, despite anti-abortion pressure on Republicans to renew it. https://ow.ly/Lnqr50YMHLt

The Onion plans to turn Infowars into a comedy site with satirical echoes of the fringe conspiracy theories that Mr. Jones is known for. Tim Heidecker, one of the comedians behind “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, has been hired to serve as “creative director of Infowars.” He said he initially plans to parody Mr. Jones’s “whole modus operandi.” Mr. Heidecker has been working on his impression of Mr. Jones. But eventually, when that joke gets old, Mr. Heidecker said that he hoped to turn Infowars into a destination for independent and experimental comedy. “I just thought it would be just a beautiful joke if we could take this pretty toxic, negative, destructive force of Infowars and rebrand it as this beautiful place for our creativity,” Mr. Heidecker said in an interview. During a recent trip to Philadelphia, he traveled to the Liberty Bell to film a video in character as the new creative director of Infowars.

Get excited.

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/b...

Editor Brian Lyman writes that Alabama Republican attempts to paint Montgomery as a war zone not only feel four decades out of date, but reflect a party retreating to the past because it can't figure out the present. https://ow.ly/gNoX50YKV63

VERY COOL PERSON: It's four-twenty, you know what that means?

ME: Hell yeah! [starts shoving blackbirds into a pie]

Hoover had no fear of injuring the spiritual responses of America’s financial and industrial leaders, for whom he created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation with a credit pool of five hundred million dollars. Hoover felt that the RFC was salutary because it required firm collateral — it was businesslike; it lent, it did not give away. The theory behind it, Will Rogers said, was that “the money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes it would trickle down to the needy.” But it did not trickle down. There was favoritism in loan disbursement (two RFC board members authorized sizable Loans to banks of which they were directors), which, combined with publicized tax abatements extended to some giants on industry, reinforced the public’s view that the federal government was interested in helping only big business.

Here’s a passage from the Herbert Hoover entry in American Heritage’s 1967 Book of the Presidents and Famous Americans, where this fairly conservative publication makes no effort to hide its contempt for Hoover. Quite a contrast to latter-day efforts to rehabilitate him.

And immensely popular in what was largely a hostile media environment.

A party that can't figure out the present tries to pull Alabama back to the past | Alabama Reflector The Republican effort to paint Montgomery as a war zone feels more suited to 1985 than 2026, and suggests a party that's out of gas.

My column this week. State Republicans last week said if elected governor, Tommy Tuberville would send the National Guard into Montgomery. It would be an expensive and thoroughly impractical move, less a viable policy than a reflection of a political party that's out of ideas.

Great story here from @annabjournalist.bsky.social about the elections shaping up in Huntsville, where population growth and demographic shifts give Democrats hope and a strong local presence gives the GOP some advantages.

Via Jonathan Shorman: The National Guard’s top general told Congress on Friday that it would follow the Constitution and the law when he was asked about the possibility President Donald Trump would order troops to polling places for the midterm elections. https://ow.ly/Ksle50YLlx4

Markets now just wholly operating on Greater Fool Theory.

There are several suggestions in the book (which I wished Halberstam probed more) that for all the talent at the Post at the 70s, it was kind of miserable place to work, thanks to Bradlee’s star system.

‘All the President’s Men’ at 50: Times Journalists Look Back

I just read David Halberstam’s “The Powers That Be,” which says that the film romanticizes Ben Bradlee’s role in the story, often at the expense of the local editors who actually championed it.

Via The Trace: Six states have banned extreme risk protection orders, also known as red flag laws, meant to quickly — and temporarily — take guns from people at imminent risk of hurting themselves or others. https://ow.ly/fgfw50YLfBj

A FWIW: This was a system used by electric car manufacturers in the early 1900s.

It’s very hard to see how the country can continue as a democracy without major SCOTUS reform. The best case scenario here is blue states ignoring the decisions of a blatantly partisan court, and that’s a terrible scenario for uniform application of the law.

When colleagues warned the chief justice that he was proposing an unprecedented move, he was dismissive. “I recognize that the posture of this stay request is not typical,” he wrote. But he argued that the Obama plan, which aimed to regulate coal-fired plants, was “the most expensive regulation ever imposed on the power sector,” and too big, costly and consequential for the court t to not act immediately.

This is legislating from the bench. Far more than any nonsensical charge of the Warren Court doing that. This is the U.S. Supreme Court, an unelected body, declaring the environmental policy for the nation. This is the self-declared umpire announcing a forfeit. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...

The terrible lows (and handful of peaks) in the 2026 Alabama Legislature | Alabama Reflector A session that lacked a driving focus from leadership led to some positive pieces of legislation but a lot more damaging ones.

My column from Monday. Whatever the Alabama Legislature did for good or ill this year, there was one constant theme: a sense of aimlessness from leadership. Lacking an agenda, the House and the Senate often found themselves carried along by events and issues that proved divisive in the state GOP.

Via Anna Claire Vollers and Stateline: More than a third of state ballot measures that voters will be asked to consider this year relate to democracy, with questions on voting rights, election processes, redistricting and similar issues. https://ow.ly/3hom50YLfKb

Via Jennifer Shutt: Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly’s legal team is urging a federal appeals court to uphold a ruling that allows the former Navy captain to keep his retirement rank and pay while his First Amendment case against the Pentagon moves forward. https://ow.ly/Gybm50YLhNM

Via Stateline: The U.S. Forest Service’s plan to close scores of research stations could threaten the nation’s wildfire readiness, many foresters fear, and erode decades of work to understand timber production, soil health, pests and diseases, watersheds and wildlife. https://ow.ly/eqMY50YLc9f

Criminal justice groups praise Alabama Legislature's parole reforms | Alabama Reflector The bills allow the parole board more discretion to revoke parole, lets applicants participate in hearings and requires consideration of rehabilitation efforts.

Via Ralph Chapoco: The Alabama Legislature this year approved several bills giving parolees the right to participate in hearings and requiring the Board of Pardons and Paroles to consider their efforts at rehabilitation and reform.

US House Dems at ag hearing excoriate Trump cuts proposed for farm and food aid | Alabama Reflector The president’s budget request would make deep cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gutting programs to help feed hungry people and support farmers in need.

Via Jacob Fischler: The president’s budget request would make deep cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gutting programs to help feed hungry people and support farmers in need.

It is true that one of the crew members is ill. *Slightly* ill. But the other two pilots, they're just fine. They're at the controls flying the plane, free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment.