Pema Levy
@pemalevy.bsky.social
Reporter at @MotherJones.bsky.social Send me secure tips: pemalevy[at]proton.me pemalevy.33 (Signal)
About 350,000 Haitians in the US have lost their legal status in light of a US Supreme Court decision that allows the Trump administration to gut the Temporary Protected Status program. No other state will feel the repercussions of the loss of Haitian TPS recipients more than Florida.
Florida’s nursing homes are bracing for life without Haitian TPS workers
The Supreme Court ended their legal status. Patients will pay the price.
motherjones.com
Perhaps the calculation of Fauci's lawyers was that Republicans' couldn't muster 60 votes to force a vote on the contempt charge? That seems like the only reason to lean toward a contempt prosecution over a perjury one.
Dr. Anthony Fauci was right that Rand Paul and other Republicans are out to get him, but in light of his pardon and case law rejecting "anticipatory perjury" as a basis for fearing prosecution, his invocation of his 5th Am right against self-incrimination was legally dubious. Details on the blog. 👇
I wrote about the inevitable conspiracy theories being spun up around Fauci's diary. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Covid truthers are claiming Fauci’s diary was “scrubbed”
Because of course they are.
motherjones.com
Ironically, Ho abandons his previous defense of birthright citizenship in a speech on "judicial courage" and judicial selection because the new litmus test for a Trump Supreme Court pick is a willingness to end birthright citizenship.
Lawrence Hurley@lawrencehurley.bsky.social · last wk.Judge Jim Ho out there airing his opinions on a bunch of legal questions, including those he thinks SCOTUS got wrong (gay marriage, birthright citizenship, etc): reason.com/volokh/2026/...
1/ Last summer, @acleek.bsky.social and I started getting emails from staffers of a company called American Healthcare Systems. They told us that their hospitals were in financial chaos and that they were struggling to care for patients. So we started digging: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
A for-profit hospital slashed costs. Then a patient froze to death on its roof.
A little-known company grew on promises to save distressed hospitals. Instead, it sunk them into financial chaos.
motherjones.com
“Their 14-month-old daughter, Giovanni, was found crying beside her mother’s body in southern Guatemala.”
Overland couple shot dead in Guatemala after local ICE stop led to deportations
The couple’s 14-month-old daughter was found crying beside her mother’s body in a sugarcane field last week, according to Guatemalan authorities and media.
stlpr.org
“The push to exclude trans girls from girls’ sports has never really been about transgender athletes. There’s a much bigger gender war that they are fighting about inherent, fixed biological difference.”
The Heritage Foundation only wanted to protect women's sports when it was about trans athletes
Not anymore.
motherjones.com
She fueled lies about the Jan. 6, 2021 attack, advocated removing GOP senators who voted to convict Trump + smeared several GOP senators, including Lindsey Graham, who just died last week. Senate Republicans voted to confirm her anyway. Including Graham's sister. www.huffpost.com/entry/live-u...
Senate GOP Confirms Trump Court Pick Who Smeared Them On Social Media
huffpost.com
BREAKING: Federal judge finds that Trump's IRS suit was improper because Trump controlled both sides of the litigation. Judge Kathleen Williams also sanctions Trump's lawyers, issues monetary sanctions, and harshly criticizes DOJ's "untenable" conduct. More to come at Law Dork: www.lawdork.com
Reminder: Memphis is still “under full-blown occupation” by ICE. Task force members have reportedly killed at least two people in four days.
Memphis is “under full-blown occupation” by ICE. Here’s why you may not know that.
Community members face retaliation for trying to spread the word out, a lawsuit alleges.
motherjones.com
Thursday night, President Trump removed all members of bipartisan Election Assistance Commission. We just published an expert backgrounder on the implications and what the commission's professional staff can and cannot now do. By the Institute for Responsive Government's Aaron Blacksberg
What is the Election Assistance Commission With No Commissioners?
An expert backgrounder on the implications of President Trump's removal of all members of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission.
justsecurity.org
The largest part of the Supreme Court's 194-page decision on birthright citizenship is Justice Clarence Thomas's dissent. To Thomas, the 14th Amendment applied only to the freed people after the Civil War. In a concurrence, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson takes on Justice Thomas.
This term, SCOTUS targeted democracy and racial equality in its steady shift toward autocracy The GOP justices disenfranchised minorities, green lit anti-immigrant policies, and demoted Congress to a suggestion-making body. Trump and the court grew more powerful www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
This Supreme Court term was about weakening democracy
The justices shifted power from minorities and Congress to the president and themselves.
motherjones.com
It wouldn't be a Trump financial disclosure day w/out some mystery... like, who is Base Co. LTD, and why did they pay a $2m non-refundable fee to Trump? This from a Korean biz pub back in Feb suggests a construction co &/or liquor conglomerate? dbr.donga.com/kfocus/view/...
Mother Jones@motherjones.com · last mo.While we're all stuck paying ludicrous prices for gas thanks to the president's tariffs, Trump has added billions to his net worth in the year and a half since his return to the presidency. In total, it appears that Trump added about $2.2 billion to his net worth in 2025.
This is my lane. I went through the 194 Trump v Barbara opinion from yesterday section by section, noting what they got right about US migration and citizenship history, and what the dissents get wrong. Please share if you think it is helpful to others.
I Read Trump v Barbara So You Don’t Have To — Anna O. Law
As someone who took 16 years to research and write a new book, Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship , a policy and legal history, I paid keen attention to the oral arguments (April 1) ...
annaolaw.com
Alito and Thomas showing so much disdain for the "feudal" and "medieval" principle of birthright citizenship is so rich. In every other case, they are like, you have to do exactly what they did centuries ago! See Alito on birthright citizenship versus his 13th century authority for overturning Roe.
Birthright citizenship hangs by a thread. The promise of equality under the law, of rights for all born here, of a fair shot for everyone, is one vote away from oblivion. We are one vote away from, effectively, a racial caste system. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
The Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship
A 5-4 decision shows the nation is one vote away from creating a subclass of children.
motherjones.com
Please note that Kavanaugh just told us in the birthright citizenship case that the constitution doesn't have to apply to things that the framers couldn't have foreseen. Just file that away for later.
Chris Geidner@chrisgeidner.bsky.social · last mo.BREAKING: The Supreme Court will consider next term whether the Second Amendment protects the right to own an AR-15 or other semiautomatic rifle. That is one of three new cases the justices agreed to hear next term before leaving for the summer recess. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...
I really want to know if Roberts voted for cert in birthright citizenship case b/c he thought he would show how reasonable the court is as a pr ploy, only to discover he had a bare majority. Or did the dissenters take the case b/c they thought they had a shot to overturn birthright citizenship?
Getting to Thomas' dissent in the Cook case and what a banger. Among many things, he defends Trump's made-up mortgage fraud accusation against Cook as sufficient cause to remove her. This from the justice who let a billionaire buy his mom's house from him and never disclosed it as required by law.
Roberts is always going on about how unitary executive theory is more democratic, presidents are the true voice of the people, accountable to the people. But in the real world, that always falls apart. Here, Johnson is an accidental president b/c the people's choice was assassinated.
Leah Litman@leahlitman.bsky.social · last mo.OMFG. I cannot begin to describe my gasp at how Roberts & co decided to go all in on LOST CAUSE theory & insist that the Reconstruction Congress did Confederate sympathizer President Andrew Johnson wrong by attempting to keep him from destroying Reconstruction www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...
This is a dissent that three others joined. Four people on the court think this is a good argument. But any non-lawyer can read it and see it's bunk. Truly incredible in the worst way.
James Downie@jamescdownie.bsky.social · last mo.Alito's argument – that counting ballots after Election Day means "the electorate’s choice does not occur on election day, and the federal election-day statutes are violated" – is some of the dumbest reasoning I have ever seen. The "choice" doesn't occur at the time of counting!
The Roberts Court is so predictable. Everyone knew they would strike down Humphrey's and replace it with "TBD whatever we feel like, come to us to find out the fate of your agency, we decide everything now." At least it makes prewrites easier. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
The Roberts court just put Trump in charge of independent agencies, vastly expanding his powers
"Today the majority reshapes our Government."
motherjones.com
Sotomayor's dissent warns about this. The majority doesn't admit it now. But Slaughter may be the beginning of the end for a merit-based civil service. Do we want qualified people inspecting our food and making complex decisions about medical care, science, etc...? Or ppl who passed a loyalty test?
Barb McQuade@barbmcquade.bsky.social · last mo.Today’s decision in Slaughter will destroy the independence of the Merit Systems Protection Board, which will have a cascading effect on all federal employees, who have been free from political interference for 150 years. The spoils system is back, baby!
The Supreme Court is reshaping our immigration system from one based on laws to one run by presidential caprice and racist cruelty www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
The anti-immigrant Supreme Court
Three cases from this week alone show the GOP justices are eager to back Trump's nativist agenda.
motherjones.com
Compare Alito's description of Trump's racist statements (on the left) to Justice Kagan's anthology of Trump's racist statements (on the right). These are passages from this morning's opinions in Mullin v. Doe.
Alito in April: States can gerrymander minority citizens' voting rights into oblivion, the 14th Amendment cannot help them. Alito in June: States cannot even modestly limit people's rights to take guns onto private property. This is what the 14th Amendment demands.
The SBC appears to be making a significant course correction in the form of a sharp rightward tack.
The Southern Baptist Convention was going mainstream. Then the Christian nationalists weighed in.
The SBC appears to be making a significant course correction in the form of a sharp rightward tack.
motherjones.com
I did not know about the A-pillar blind spot problem (gift article) www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
The Deadly Rise of Giant Trucks and S.U.V.s (Gift Article)
The vehicles on American roads have grown larger — and they are killing thousands more pedestrians, a Times investigation found.
nytimes.com
