FT: "... Since attacking Iran in February, Trump’s immediate demands have shrunk from a sprawling list of concessions .. to just one: that Iran allow the Strait of Hormuz to return to its prewar state ..” @financialtimes.com #SuezMoment www.ft.com/content/87b0...

Donald Trump trapped between escalation and an Iran deal on Tehran’s terms

US president faces few good options to exit a war he once said would end swiftly with the Islamic republic’s surrender

ft.com

False equivalence from an equivocating but unequivocal coward.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterday

Tillis: "Everybody has this view that they are as pure as the driven snow and it's the other side that has a problem. I think we both have a problem, folks. If you want to talk about weaponization, take a look at Biden, take a look at Obama, take a look at Crossfire Hurricane ... "

Road safety is straightforwardly a public health issue and we suck at it. And not just republicans. This is a condition decades in the making.

David Zipper@davidzipper.bsky.social · yesterday

​New research shows that the US has been a global laggard curbing crash deaths. If the US had merely matched improvements in 14 peer nations, 500,000+ lives would have been saved from 2000-24. doi.org/10.1080/1538...

Iran War Enters 6th Justification

It's just Bob and a junior associate on the petition. I imagine staffing this disgrace of an engagement was, um, difficult.

George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸@gtconway.bsky.social · last wk.

My goodness. There it is. The once-venerated white-shoe New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell is representing an adjudicated rapist in a case brought by the victim. I never thought I would live to see something like this. Wow. www.documentcloud.org/documents/28...

Patrick Redford's coverage of the Tour de France over the past three weeks was reason alone to subscribe to Defector. Even if you watched every stage, or every NBC Sports highlight, you'll learn something new and interesting by reading his dispatches.

patrick@redford.bsky.social · last wk.

It was an honor and a privilege to cover the Tour de France from Barcelona to Paris. The final story is about how Tadej Pogacar got over his ennui and got his joy back:

LAW DORK: Thursday was the worst day for DOJ. So far. DOJ withdrew its subpoenas issued to New York Times reporters, but the hearing that preceded that decision showed just how degraded DOJ has become.

Thursday was the worst day for DOJ. So far.

DOJ withdrew its subpoenas issued to New York Times reporters, but the hearing that preceded that decision showed just how degraded DOJ has become.

lawdork.com

SDNY withdraws subpoenas directed at NY Times after brutal oral argument before federal judge in which DOJ acknowledged a series of "errors." Same office that lost the Brad Lander prosecution. Used to be the crown jewel of the DOJ.

Inner City Press@innercitypress.bsky.social · 2w ago

3:11 pm Buckley: The Government is prepared unilaterally to withdraw the subpoenas at this time. If under Gonzalez we find it appropriate to seek new subpoenas, we'll come to the court. Judge: Moving forward, we would have the issues that have plagued it so far

LATER WE DID LEGAL RESEARCH.

Chris Geidner@chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 2w ago

The shit-show clown car the SDNY US Attorney's Office is driving around Manhattan these days is unreal.

Reading about DOJ attorneys eating shit in front of federal judges over their decision to be DJT's willing fascist accomplices is my life force these days.

Inner City Press@innercitypress.bsky.social · 2w ago

Judge Subramanian: If these were a regular case I would issue an Order to Show Cause why sanctions should not issue. Why not here? Buckley: Look at footnote 5 Judge: That wasn't sufficient. I am giving you the opportunity to meet it more fully Buckley: Never again

Incredible sleights of hand in one quote. 1) Yes, you can get the pasta 2) your ID to get booze under the SAFE Act would not be sufficient to vote.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Scalise: "For God's sake -- you can't get pasta at Olive Garden without a picture ID! Why not be able to show a picture ID to vote?"

Listen, should people have a constitutional right to unlimited salad and breadsticks? Obviously yes. But until the suits in Washington make it so, any comparison between Olive Garden and voting is unserious bullshit.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Scalise: "For God's sake -- you can't get pasta at Olive Garden without a picture ID! Why not be able to show a picture ID to vote?"

A little tired of the ubermensch nonsense from a guy who would get his wallet run by a husky middle schooler bsky.app/profile/peip...

PEIPolitical 🇨🇦@peipolitical.bsky.social · 3w ago

Miller: "It's not a coincidence that when you look at these violent Antifa demonstrations not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal. They're all deformed in some way in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism." #cdnpoli

This is the guy systematically blocking women and Black officers from being promoted in the military because he regards them as unqualified to lead.

Eric Columbus@ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 3w ago

Reader, I checked and checked again, and this is Secretary Hegseth’s actual account

In a sane world the findings here would be enough for a unanimous impeachment and conviction: the President attempted to steal nearly 2B from the US

Chris Geidner@chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 3w ago

Opinion and order: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

anyway i think the proper takeaway here is that a bare majority of the court thinks the plain words of the 14th amendment mean what they say, that four members believe there is a secret hidden meaning only recently discovered by hack lawyers

Weird how this never applies to the Second Amendment.

Kate Riga@kateriga.bsky.social · last mo.

Kavanaugh says that Constitution is an "enduring document" and that new exceptions to birthright citizenship can be added for "modern situations that were unknown or unanticipated by the Constitution’s Framers"

5-4 for what it explicitly says in the constitution is incredible. They were this close to undoing the civil war entirely. bsky.app/profile/mjsd...

Mark Joseph Stern@mjsdc.bsky.social · last mo.

The Supreme Court strikes down Trump's attack on birthright citizenship. By a 5–4 vote, it holds that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to children born of unauthorized and temporary immigrants. Roberts and Barrett join the three liberals. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

ilan wurman is all over thomas' dissent. congrats to the worm man. he did it.

Steve Vladeck@stevevladeck.bsky.social · last mo.

Final #SCOTUS ruling is birthright citizenship. For a 6-3 majority (Thomas, Alito & Gorsuch, dissenting), Chief Justice Roberts *strikes down* President Trump's executive order purporting to limit which individuals born in the United States would automatically be US citizens; preserves status quo:

John Roberts handing down Slaughter and Cook together felt like a weird domination ritual in which he gets to flaunt his power to issue irreconcilable rulings that perfectly track his partisan preferences and we all just to take it because, really, who's gonna stop him? slate.com/news-and-pol...

"It doesn’t replace bike trips, as one of my colleagues observed. It replaces car trips." www.theverge.com/transportati...

How I went from an e-bike hater to a believer

It’s okay to do something just because it’s fun.

theverge.com

Red Hook Pool won't be open for another month, by which point more than 1/3 of the pool season will have gone by. It's going to be 100 degrees on Thursday. What alternative is being offered? A lifeguard at the beach next to Valentino Pier? Something else? Because "sorry no pool" isn't adequate.

Streetsblog NYC@nyc.streetsblog.org · last mo.

For the second straight year, the Parks Department has failed to open the Red Hook Pool on schedule, citing, for the second straight year, an equipment failure that was only discovered two days before Saturday’s long-planned opening day. buff.ly/rLYJm3D

Deeply convinced by the quality of his arguments that Alito spends a ton of time on X. bsky.app/profile/barb...

Barb McQuade@barbmcquade.bsky.social · last mo.

Leave it to Alito to dissent and argue without evidence that voting by mail promotes voter fraud.

Roberta Kaplan, attorney for E. Jean Carroll: "Today's Supreme Court decision affirms once and for all the jury's unanimous verdict that President Donald J. Trump sexually assaulted and defamed E. Jean Carroll. His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed…"

Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1.bsky.social · last mo.

Reuters: U.S. SUPREME COURT DECLINES TO HEAR TRUMP'S APPEAL OF $5 MILLION JURY VERDICT WON BY E. JEAN CARROLL IN 2023 FOR SEXUAL ABUSE AND DEFAMATION

Imagine asking someone unfamiliar with the cases to read this side-by-side with Masterpiece Cakeshop & predict in which case the statements by official decisionmakers were sufficient to make the govt action invalid because of animus.

Scott Lemieux@lemieuxlgm.bsky.social · last mo.

As Kagan observes, the evidence for racial bias in the termination of the TPS program is so explicit and egregious that the majority refuses to cite any of the relevant statements:

Golly, I wonder what "race-neutral justification" Alito has in mind for Trump saying Haitians are "poisoning the blood" of our country

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · last mo.

Trump once again benefits from a Supreme Court that is too cowardly to call the president a racist. Alito won't even print a single one of his statements (because he knows how bad they are) and instead tries to frame them as not "overtly racial," which, to be blunt, is BS.

John Roberts' Constitution forbids any attempt to proactively ameliorate racial discrimination and racial inequality, but permits open racial discrimination as long as there is a facially neutral explanation available, even if it isn't remotely plausible. This, my friends, is "Colorblindness."

The effects of this will take time to percolate but we may be activating leftist enthusiasm in a borough with more people than like 15 US states.

New Kings Democrats@newkingsdems.bsky.social · last mo.

Last night, Brooklyn Democratic voters sent a message. 22 Brooklyn Can’t Wait candidates won their seats — making up a majority of District Leaders in Brooklyn. 1/🧵

in addition to every other problem here, mamdani spends the vast majority of his time in the public eye speaking about hyper-local new york city governance issues. the idea that he is preoccupied with israel at all times is based on nothing other than the fact that he is muslim

brent sewer socialist🚰🌹@therealbrent.bsky.social · last mo.

I hate this guy so much