What's happening in San Francisco is now a national scandal. Mayor Daniel Lurie's decisions on public safety are now national news. No different than Trump. Making decisions on fear & politics. Not reason or data. In the bluest of blue cities. Thread: www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

A fight over a San Francisco nonprofit tests how far Democrats will move on crime

The fate of SF Pretrial, a group that runs diversion programs, reflects the tough-on-crime sentiment emerging even in liberal cities.

washingtonpost.com

What's happening in San Francisco is now a national scandal. Mayor Daniel Lurie's decisions on public safety are now national news. No different than Trump. Making decisions on fear & politics. Not reason or data. In the bluest of blue cities. Thread: www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

A fight over a San Francisco nonprofit tests how far Democrats will move on crime

The fate of SF Pretrial, a group that runs diversion programs, reflects the tough-on-crime sentiment emerging even in liberal cities.

washingtonpost.com

READ: A short story that's happening right now. Something deeply dangerous in SF. A waste of taxpayer dollars. A decision driven by greed. One that will undermine community health & safety. No one knows about it. Please read & share. There's still time to change how it ends.

I get it. It's hard to take your mind off of the daily crises in Washington. Trump's injustices move at breakneck speed. But we can't lose sight of local horrors. In blue states & cities. Inflicted by Democratic politicians. In San Francisco right now is the worst I've seen:

Scott Hechinger@scotthech.bsky.social · 2mo ago

READ: A short story that's happening right now. Something deeply dangerous in SF. A waste of taxpayer dollars. A decision driven by greed. One that will undermine community health & safety. No one knows about it. Please read & share. There's still time to change how it ends.

A short story about deeply dangerous science fiction that wastes taxpayer dollars? I'm hooked!

Scott Hechinger@scotthech.bsky.social · 2mo ago

READ: A short story that's happening right now. Something deeply dangerous in SF. A waste of taxpayer dollars. A decision driven by greed. One that will undermine community health & safety. No one knows about it. Please read & share. There's still time to change how it ends.

I get it. It's hard to take your mind off of the daily crises in Washington. Trump's injustices move at breakneck speed. But we can't lose sight of local horrors. In blue states & cities. Inflicted by Democratic politicians. In San Francisco right now is the worst I've seen:

Scott Hechinger@scotthech.bsky.social · 2mo ago

READ: A short story that's happening right now. Something deeply dangerous in SF. A waste of taxpayer dollars. A decision driven by greed. One that will undermine community health & safety. No one knows about it. Please read & share. There's still time to change how it ends.

READ: A short story that's happening right now. Something deeply dangerous in SF. A waste of taxpayer dollars. A decision driven by greed. One that will undermine community health & safety. No one knows about it. Please read & share. There's still time to change how it ends.

If you’re voting in the CA governor’s race, you should know the current front runner, Xavier Becerra, fought to sidestep the constitutional ban on executing intellectually disabled people —by trying to artificially inflate a Black man’s IQ. Sadistic. More: theintercept.com/2026/05/19/x...

Xavier Becerra Pushed to Inflate a Black Man’s IQ to Execute Him as California AG

Becerra, a front-runner for California governor, has a history of blocking police accountability and seeking to uphold the death penalty.

theintercept.com

READ: A woman was forced to give birth in Brooklyn criminal court 2 nights ago on a courtroom bench. Shackled. All while courtroom personnel gawked. And the judge ultimately refused even to dismiss her case—trespassing on her own rooftop. This is "justice" in America. More:

READ: A woman was forced to give birth in Brooklyn criminal court 2 nights ago on a courtroom bench. Shackled. All while courtroom personnel gawked. And the judge ultimately refused even to dismiss her case—trespassing on her own rooftop. This is "justice" in America. More:

One thing giving me life right now: Last night, my 10-year-old son stole home to win the semi-finals of his baseball game. The catch: He didn't even know he won the game until his teammates surrounded him & started jumping up & down. "I'm so happy!" he told me after the game.

Two weeks ago, @TheNation published my piece arguing Democrats were about to blow a once-in-a-generation political moment on ICE. I was head down and couldn't share it. They blew it — exactly the way I said they would. A thread. 🧵 www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Why Do the Democrats Keep Expanding the Institutions They Claim to Oppose?

The pattern is always the same: The public demands change, but the Democrats cave to political pressure and maintain the status quo, allowing the machinery to grow.

thenation.com

Hi to new & old followers. I’ve been more offline, focusing on supporting advocates, building narrative infrastructure, & staying grounded w/ family during heavy times. When I’ve been on, it’s been to stress: documenting ICE and police actions is core First Amendment expression. Posting more now.

Two weeks ago, @TheNation published my piece arguing Democrats were about to blow a once-in-a-generation political moment on ICE. I was head down and couldn't share it. They blew it — exactly the way I said they would. A thread. 🧵 www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Why Do the Democrats Keep Expanding the Institutions They Claim to Oppose?

The pattern is always the same: The public demands change, but the Democrats cave to political pressure and maintain the status quo, allowing the machinery to grow.

thenation.com

Lying in a legal briefing would get you disbarred as a regular lawyer. But when you’re an unelected, lifetime appointee with powers to write decisions that completely undo & remake the Constitution, the decision gets to stand & you get to keep your lifetime position. Outrageous.

Lying in a legal briefing would get you disbarred as a regular lawyer. But when you’re an unelected, lifetime appointee with powers to write decisions that completely undo & remake the Constitution, the decision gets to stand & you get to keep your lifetime position. Outrageous.

This Mother’s Day, nearly 150,000 mothers will spend the day apart from their children. 58% of all women in U.S. prisons are mothers. 80% of women in jails, including many who are incarcerated awaiting trial simply bc they can’t afford bail. Read: www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2023/03...

Bari Weiss & her CBS overlords are losing just as they deserve to.

Rex Huppke@rexhuppke.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Stephen Colbert, with grace and humor, is making his network overlords look like the most pathetic cowards imaginable, and that’s what they are. The last two nights have been a masterclass in courage and precise examples of how everyone should deal with this stupid administration.

Baltimore County Council bans immigration detention centers. 6-0 vote. wbaltv.com/article/balt...

Council blocks construction of ICE detention center in Hunt Valley

The Baltimore County Council took swift action Tuesday night to block the construction of an ICE detention center in Hunt Valley.

wbaltv.com

Every cable show and political podcast is featuring stories about Colbert being censored and James Talarico’s entire arc, previous speeches… MyTikTok feed is similarly chock full.

barbra streisand is wearing a purple dress and holding a bunch of grapes on her shoulder

ALT: barbra streisand is wearing a purple dress and holding a bunch of grapes on her shoulder

media.tenor.com

This is such a poetic way of putting it.

Scott Hechinger@scotthech.bsky.social · 6mo ago

For nearly all those I once served , the presumption was risk, disposability, and guilt. For the powerful, it is ordinarily complexity, credibility, and patience. That asymmetry is not abstract. It is structural. And once you’ve seen it up close, it’s impossible to unsee.

As someone who did public defense work, I can confirm everyone would have been hauled in by end 2019, maybe a 3 day trial at most... and sentenced before summer 2020

Scott Hechinger@scotthech.bsky.social · 6mo ago

For nearly all those I once served , the presumption was risk, disposability, and guilt. For the powerful, it is ordinarily complexity, credibility, and patience. That asymmetry is not abstract. It is structural. And once you’ve seen it up close, it’s impossible to unsee.

For nearly all those I once served , the presumption was risk, disposability, and guilt. For the powerful, it is ordinarily complexity, credibility, and patience. That asymmetry is not abstract. It is structural. And once you’ve seen it up close, it’s impossible to unsee.

Reminder that Justice Kavanaugh’s rewriting of the constitution to allow police to engage in blatant racial profiling was based in part on his “belief” that police would exercise restraint. I don’t think he really believed that. www.propublica.org/article/immi...

More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days.

The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens. So ProPublica did. Our tally — almost certainly incomplete — includes people who were held for days without a lawyer. And near...

propublica.org

“Americans who oppose ICE raids.” This is more than half of everyone in the United States. Both left and increasingly right. Raiding cities isn’t enough. They’re coming after our viewpoints.

A man was choked on the floor of a Charlotte restaurant by Border Patrol agents — and thousands of Americans invented a knife to justify it. My newest oped on on the lies Americans tell themselves to excuse state violence. zeteo.com/p/ice-migran...

The Lies Americans Tell Themselves to Justify State Violence Against Migrants

I posted a photo of Border Patrol agents pinning a man to the ground in a headlock – and the internet made up every excuse in the book to defend the assault.

zeteo.com

Of course Brett Kavanagh didn't believe that. It was 100% intentional. He knew exactly how this would play out.

Scott Hechinger@scotthech.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Reminder that Justice Kavanaugh’s rewriting of the constitution to allow police to engage in blatant racial profiling was based in part on his “belief” that police would exercise restraint. I don’t think he really believed that. www.propublica.org/article/immi...

Reminder that Justice Kavanaugh’s rewriting of the constitution to allow police to engage in blatant racial profiling was based in part on his “belief” that police would exercise restraint. I don’t think he really believed that. www.propublica.org/article/immi...

More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days.

The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens. So ProPublica did. Our tally — almost certainly incomplete — includes people who were held for days without a lawyer. And near...

propublica.org

Policing lying under oath IS a felony. It’s perjury. But prosecutors rarely charge police. They rely on police & police department cooperation for their cases. And fear that if they hold police accountable, they’ll lose that critical partnership. So lying continues & expands.