Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

The revolution will be supervised.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

White supremacy is terrorism.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

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Open Thread: Birthright Citizenship vs the Bigots

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Just so you understand, this is as if you prepared for argument in front of a panel that included Cookie Monster, and Cookie Monster asked you a question about cookies, and you had not thought about cookies in advance.

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— A New And More Reasonable Popehat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 11:16 AM

From what I’m seeing on BlueSky, and in the news, Gorsuch wins Clip of the Day (barring something *exceptionally* stupid from Trump’s network speech this evening)…

here's the clip of Gorsuch on "Roman law sources"

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 1, 2026 at 11:04 AM

Sauer’s argument had a resentful “excuse me, but I was told that you were on our side, and that it didn’t matter that our arguments were stupid” tone.

— A New And More Reasonable Popehat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 11:22 AM

Go Cecilia!

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— Gillian Branstetter (@gbbranstetter.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 11:21 AM

KAVANAUGH: If we agree with you on how to read Wong Kim Ark, then you win. That could be just a short opinion, right?
WANG: Yes
SCOTUS CROWD: *laughs*

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 1, 2026 at 12:05 PM

Succinct explaination from David Cole, at the NYRB:

Who are we? On April 1 the Supreme Court will take up that question when it hears oral arguments in a challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive order of January 20, 2025—the first day of his second term—denying citizenship to children born in the United States to foreign nationals who are not lawful permanent residents. That order has never gone into effect, because multiple courts have declared it unconstitutional. But the Trump administration has appealed and is now asking the Supreme Court to radically narrow the scope of what is commonly known as birthright citizenship.

The issue pits a xenophobic administration against a well-established understanding that virtually all persons born here are US citizens regardless of their parents’ status. No lower court has sided with the Trump administration on the merits of the case. For the Supreme Court to do so would require it to repudiate the Constitution’s text, the Court’s own precedents, and the enduring understanding of all three branches and of the American people. But more than that, it would literally change our identity as a nation that welcomes all who are born here.

The case, Trump v. Barbara, is governed by the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, which provides that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The immediate purpose of this citizenship clause was to overrule the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) that the children of freed slaves were not citizens of the US. The amendment’s drafters sought to make crystal clear that citizenship extended equally to all those born here.

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Open Thread: ICE (Rhinestone) Cowboy

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The Senate confirmed Markwayne Mullin as homeland security secretary on Monday.

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— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) March 23, 2026 at 9:00 PM

Gift link:

… Mr. Mullin, a Cherokee Nation member who was sworn in as Oklahoma’s junior senator in 2023, will take charge of the Homeland Security Department at a pivotal time. Recent polling has shown that Republicans’ advantage on immigration is shrinking and that most Americans believe that immigration agents have gone too far, especially after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January. Mr. Mullin will have to balance the task of mending the agency’s image while also delivering on President Trump’s signature campaign promise of mass deportations.

He will also take the reins at a time when thousands of department employees are working without pay amid a partial government shutdown that has led to scenes of chaos at airports across the country. On Monday, Mr. Trump deployed more than 100 immigration agents to airports in an effort to ease long security lines as the ranks of Transportation Security Administration officers have thinned…

At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Mullin made clear that he was committed to fulfilling the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. But he also tried to strike a more cooperative tone, saying that immigration officers would generally no longer enter homes without a judicial warrant under his leadership. And he said the department would foster closer relationships with jails, suggesting a move away from sweeping operations in Democratic-led cities and states…

A close ally of Mr. Trump and a staunch defender of his policies, Mr. Mullin was sworn in as a senator after a decade of serving in the House. He had a brief stint as a mixed martial arts fighter and took over his family’s business, Mullin Plumbing, at the age of 20.

I would generally say that leaving the senate to take DHS director indicates that he doesn't want to be in the minority senate, tbh.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 24, 2026 at 10:51 AM

There is also the possibility he saw Noem's grift racket and thought "maybe if I just do it a little bit less.."

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 24, 2026 at 10:59 AM

About that… Per the NYTimes, “How Trump’s Homeland Security Pick, a Prolific Investor, Got a Lot Wealthier in Congress” [gift link]

Our outnumbered Democrats went down fighting, and took markers:

I will hold Mullin to every one of his promises.

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— Senator Andy Kim (@kim.senate.gov) March 23, 2026 at 9:08 PM

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Open Thread: Trump’s Government Will Never Stop Persecuting Kilmar Abrego Garcia

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They not busy losing a war??? Leave that man alone!

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— Woke Zero (Original Recipe) (@csilverandgold.bsky.social) March 21, 2026 at 10:37 AM

Per ABC News, “Trump administration seeks to move ahead with removing Abrego Garcia to Liberia”:

The Trump administration is moving forward with its plan to swiftly remove Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia as soon as a court allows.

In a series of filings on Friday, administration officials asked a judge to dissolve a preliminary injunction that bars them from re-detaining Abrego Garcia and deporting him…

Although Abrego Garcia has said he’s willing to be sent to Costa Rica, Acting Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons said in a memo filed in court that he has “decided to disregard” that request and intends to send him to Liberia if Abrego Garcia is ordered removed from the U.S….

Lyons also said the administration had already negotiated Abrego Garcia’s removal with the government of Liberia and that abandoning that agreement “could cast doubt on the diplomatic reliability of the United States.”…

In a sworn declaration, a top ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations official said the government has gone as far as to have the contractor that handles removals to Liberia draw up a “mock itinerary,” which showed Abrego Garcia could be on a flight to Liberia within five days of the government’s request.

The government is asking a federal judge to rule on its motion to dissolve the order barring his removal by April 17…

This sorry petition is being heard by Judge Paula Xinis, who has not been sympathetic to the Trumpists’ previous arguments. It’s not my carcass on the line, but frankly, the presentation here seems to be a very thin broth scraped up to reassure President Stephen Miller that all due force is being shown against this heinous attempt to treat ‘illegals’ as though they were fellow humans. And I most sincerely hope Judge Xenis sends them back to him sufficiently humiliated that Team Trump decides to focus on less hardened targets.

God willing so many of their fuckass lawyers will be in jail for contempt that they won’t have any left to file motions to harass this man.

— Woke Zero (Original Recipe) (@csilverandgold.bsky.social) March 21, 2026 at 10:38 AM

He wants to leave and go somewhere that will treat him nice but instead they want to foist him on some country he doesn’t want to be in just to be mean. These people are evil!

— Woke Zero (Original Recipe) (@csilverandgold.bsky.social) March 21, 2026 at 10:41 AM

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DHS Open Thread: Backtrack!… BACKTRACK!

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"WH encourages Republicans to go ahead and try to close the barn doors a few months after the horses went out"

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— Daniel Gilmore (@gilmored85.bsky.social) March 10, 2026 at 3:16 PM

It's hard to say. Detention numbers are down significantly. We can't say exactly why for now (I have theories, as do others) but if the Homan/Lyons wing has convinced the White House that the Miller/Noem mass deportation pushes were bad politics, they may have finally found the brake pedal.

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— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) March 10, 2026 at 3:03 PM

They won’t stop trying to do mass deportations, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that talking about mass deportations is not nearly as popular as Stephen Miller assured them it would be. Blair is Susie Wiles’ underhenchman:

DORAL, FL — White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair privately urged House Republicans on Tuesday to stop emphasizing “mass deportations” and instead focus their messaging on removing violent criminals, according to sources in the closed-door briefing.

Why it matters: Mass deportations were central to the GOP’s 2024 campaign message.
– Nearly half — 49% — of Americans say Trump’s mass deportation campaign is too aggressive, including 1 in 5 voters who backed the president in 2024, a Politico poll from January found.

State of play: Blair delivered the message during a policy listening session with House Republicans at their annual retreat in Doral, Florida.
– He encouraged members to focus on deporting violent offenders rather than defending the broader concept of mass removals.

The advice signals a recalibration by the White House — and reflects growing concern among some Republicans that Democrats are successfully framing Trump’s immigration policy as overly sweeping and indiscriminate…

ICE detention peaked at roughly 73,000 people in custody in mid-January. Since then, my sources say total in detention has fallen to sub-63,000. That is a significant drop, reversing the trend back to where things were in early November.
I am deeply skeptical of any major changes, to be clear.

— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) March 10, 2026 at 3:05 PM

Meanwhile, the KKKlown in Chief, last night:

It's been well over 10 years now, and nobody close to him has even bothered to tell him that's not what seeking asylum is.

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— ⓘ 𝕆ligarch f*ckery detected (@adelpreore.bsky.social) March 10, 2026 at 12:20 PM

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(Qualified) Good News: ICE is re-evaluating the future of Camp East Montana, its largest detention facility

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DHS says it is re-evaluating the future of the largest immigrant detention center in the country just seven months after it opened at the Fort Bliss army base outside El Paso, Texas.

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— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) March 5, 2026 at 12:38 PM

As with ‘Alligator Alcatraz’, Camp East Montana was a horrific concept badly implemented, and shutting it down would be good news — if (when) it actually happens. Even this grudging announcement means the monsters squatting in the Oval Office are beginning to understand that Stephen Miller’s concentration-camp wet dreams are both hard to implement and liable to cause future legal trouble for its implementers:

… The tented facility known as Camp East Montana has had a troubled history starting with a fatal construction accident and three detainee deaths in less than six weeks, one of which was ruled a homicide. There have also been outbreaks of both tuberculosis and measles.

“ICE is always looking at ways to improve our detention facilities to ensure we are providing the best care to illegal aliens in our custody,” an agency spokesperson said in an email.

She added that the contract for the facility “was inherited” from the Defense Department. “DHS undergoes rigorous audits and inspections of our facilities to ensure they are meeting our high standards. DHS is reviewing this facility and contract. No decisions have been made related to contract extension, termination, or award,” the spokesperson wrote.

The detention center houses almost 3,000 immigrants as of mid-February and the vast majority, 82%, have no criminal histories, according to ICE data…

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Amazing Read: “He made a fake ICE deportation tip line. Then a kindergarten teacher called”

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New: A comedian set up a fake ICE tip line as a joke. Then 100 calls flooded in: neighbors ratting on neighbors, a teacher reporting a kindergartener. Fans say the viral TikToks revealed deportation's "banality of evil." Conservatives say he should be in prison wapo.st/4kM4qbF

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— Drew Harwell (@drewharwell.com) February 20, 2026 at 7:02 AM

Some of our fellow citizens may just be… irredeemable. Gift link:

Ben Palmer, a stand-up comic in Nashville, has built a following online with his signature style of elaborate deadpan pranks, stumbling his way onto court TV shows and pyramid-scheme calls to poke fun at the latent absurdities of American life.

Then in January of last year, he had an idea for a new bit: He’d set up a fake tip line that people could use to report anyone they thought was an undocumented immigrant. It was darker than his other stunts, but it felt topical, the kind of challenge he wanted to try. At the very least, he thought, he might get a few calls he could talk about at his next show.

Instead, his tip line has received nearly 100 submissions from across the country: people reporting their neighbors, ex-lovers, Uber drivers, strangers they saw at the grocery store. One tip came from a teacher reporting the parents of a kindergarten student at her school.

“I mean, they seem like nice people or whatever,” the woman told Palmer on the call. “But if they’re taking up resources from our county, I’m not into illegal people being here.”

What began as a comedy routine has become one of the most viral pieces of social satire during President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign. The kindergarten video has been watched more than 20 million times on TikTok and exploded across Facebook, Reddit and YouTube, where one commenter called it “one of the most creative, nonviolent and effective acts of resistance” they’d ever seen…

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said it was “aware of a fraudulent YouTube page falsely representing ICE” and that the agency “strongly [condemns] any actions intended to mislead the public or impersonate official government entities.”

But neither Palmer nor the websites claim to represent a government agency, and the sites’ privacy policies include disclaimers at the bottom saying they’re intended only for “parody, joke purposes and sociological research.” (Palmer spoke on the condition that The Washington Post not name the websites, so as not to ruin the bit.)…

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TGIFriday Morning Open Thread

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Morning respite:

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A federal judge has accused the Trump administration of terrorizing immigrants and recklessly violating the law in its efforts to deport millions of people living in the country illegally.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) February 19, 2026 at 7:30 PM

… Citing the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, the judge said that the White House had also “extended its violence on its own citizens.”

“The threats posed by the executive branch cannot be viewed in isolation,” U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California said in a scathing decision issued late Wednesday.

Sykes said the administration had violated her December ruling that found it was illegally denying many detained immigrants a chance for release. She ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to provide them with notice that they may be eligible for bond and then give them access to a phone to call an attorney within an hour.

She also threw out a September ruling by an immigration court that the administration had cited for continuing its mandatory detention policy…

Under past administrations, people with no criminal record could generally request a bond hearing before an immigration judge while their cases wound through immigration court unless they were stopped at the border. President Donald Trump ’s White House reversed that practice.

With access to bond hearings cut off, immigrants by the thousands filed separate petitions in federal court seeking their release. More than 20,000 habeas corpus cases have been filed since Trump’s inauguration, according to federal court records analyzed by the AP.

Judges have granted many of those petitions, but then later found the administration was violating their orders to release people or provide them with other relief.

A federal judge in Minnesota took the rare step Wednesday of finding a Trump administration lawyer in contempt of court over the government’s failure to comply with an order to return identification documents to an immigrant the judge had ordered released.

A federal judge in New Jersey this week ordered the administration to explain what procedures are in place to ensure court orders in his district are followed consistently and on time. U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said Tuesday that Trump officials failed to meet court ordered deadlines for bond hearings in immigration court in 12 of roughly 550 cases since December 5…

Matt Adams, an attorney for plaintiffs in the lawsuit before Sykes, said he was hopeful her latest ruling would do away with mandatory detention.

“Certainly in the normal course of things, the immigration judges would return to granting bond hearings,” he said.

INBOX: Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia will deliver the response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday.
She is the second of "The Badasses," the national security Democratic women who won seats in 2018, to deliver the response. Elissa Slotkin did last year

— Eric Michael Garcia (@ericmgarcia.bsky.social) February 19, 2026 at 2:17 PM

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