From Sanchez v. Almond, decided Wednesday by Judge John McConnell (D.R.I.):
Mr. Sanchez began working at the office of Rhode Island Governor Daniel J. McKee in May 2021 as a "constituent services" staffer. The office is "the first point of contact with the public for the Governor's office" where employees handled calls, emails, letters, walk-ins, constituent problems, requests, and questions about the Governor's positions.
Mr. Sanchez was not a member of senior staff, and did not formulate policy, or policy developments. While the scope of his employment is shaded differently by the parties, they all agree that his duties involved, among other things, helping Rhode Islanders access public benefits and triaging their concerns by referring them to the appropriate departments. The office received roughly 500 calls and 400 emails per month.
Mr. Sanchez's direct supervisor was David Barricelli, who reported to Joseph Almond, Senior Deputy Chief of Staff, who in turn reported to Antonio Afonso, the Chief of Staff in charge of hiring and firing in the Governor's office, including Mr. Sanchez. Mr. Sanchez's performance was never called into question, and he was never disciplined before his termination….
Sanchez was also a Providence City Council member (and his superiors had not objected to his running for local office).
On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel killing roughly 1,200 people and Israel responded with fierce military actions in Gaza, whose population is overwhelmingly Palestinian. That day, the Governor's office issued a statement condemning "the abhorrent acts of terrorism by Hamas against innocent civilians in Israel" and expressed solidarity with Israel.
The same day, Mr. Sanchez posted on his personal social media a call for "respect of all human rights, especially the Palestinian people who faced atrocities for decades[,] and at the same time condemn all attacks on civilians." Ten days later, Mr. Sanchez posted that the United States was "actively aiding in a genocide" and called for "immediate deescalation and cease-fire."
In Johnston v. County of Gila(D. Ariz.), Judge Dominic Lanza rejected, on procedural grounds, plaintiff's challenge to a Gila County Personnel Commission decision upholding his firing from his job as "a legal secretary with the Gila County Attorney's Office"; here's the factual and legal analysis from the Commission decision (see exhibit 10):
On September 10, 2025, at around 2:00 p.m. Arizona Time Appellant posted "Rot in Hell Charlie Kirk" on/via his Facebook account.
Multiple GCAO employees, including some who are not Appellant's Facebook friends and/or who do not personally use Facebook, saw and otherwise learned of Appellant's post on September 10 and in the days that followed. Multiple GCAO employees discussed the post with each other and complained about the post to GCAO's Chief Deputy Joseph Collins as well as to Gila County Attorney Bradley Beauchamp.
Beauchamp believed that the post appeared to condone murder based on the victim's political viewpoints and statements and became concerned that this post and perception would reflect on GCAO in the public's eyes and thereby undermine the public's trust in GCAO's official duty to prosecute homicides without bias and without regard to a victim's views, statements, or affiliations. Several other GCAO employees shared the perception that Appellant's post appeared to condone the murder of someone based on their statements and views and shared the concern that this would reflect poorly on GCAO and undermine public trust.
Multiple GCAO employees reported being offended or otherwise bothered by the post. Appellant's post resulted in immediate meetings and changes to office practices due to concerns of disharmony within the office and the effects it would have on GCAO operations.
Appellant's Facebook account was reportedly set to 'private' which Appellant believed would limit his post to only being seen by his existing Facebook friends and that all his friends had to do if they were upset by his post was 'unfollow' him. Notwithstanding Appellant's Facebook account setting and his belief as to the setting's effect on post-exposures, his post apparently reached multiple witnesses within a short timeframe, including some who either were no t his Facebook friends or did not use Facebook at all….
From Commonwealth v. Outlaw, decided Thursday by Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht, writing for a unanimous court:
In June 2022, Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Roxanne E. Covington was holding a hearing on a motion to suppress evidence in Marquis McClain's criminal case. Seated in the gallery of the courtroom was McClain's acquaintance, Basile Outlaw. After Judge Covington announced that she would be denying McClain's suppression motion, Outlaw stood up and said "the judge is a cocksucker" loud enough for Judge Covington to hear. Judge Covington responded, "What did you say?" Outlaw replied: "Never mind. I'm leaving." Outlaw then exited the courtroom.
A deputy sheriff and a court employee began searching the building for Outlaw. The trial court recessed the suppression matter to allow McClain's defense attorney to confer with his client in the wake of the court's suppression ruling. The court subsequently adjourned, but Judge Covington asked McClain's attorney to "stick around for another moment … just in case." Around this time, Outlaw came back to the courtroom on his own, at which time he was taken into custody for direct criminal contempt.
Outlaw was tried and sentenced "to fifteen to thirty days' incarceration"; he served thirty days. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the conviction:
This case began as a case about Plaintiffs' exercise of their First Amendment rights by protesting at a Souderton Area School District ("District") school board meeting. It then became a case about keeping promises. Now, it is a case about which promises this Court can enforce.
When Plaintiffs protested the Souderton Area School Board outside a September 2024 meeting, the government officials for whom their message was intended were not the only ones affected. One school board member was accompanied by her teenage daughter as they exited the meeting. In the parking lot, Plaintiffs Christopher Spigel, Helen Spigel, and Patrick Kitt confronted them. Rather than constraining their critical expression to the adult members of the school board, the protesters directed their ire toward the child, who the District has consistently maintained was frightened by the adult Plaintiffs' conduct.
Here are plaintiffs' allegations as quoted in an earlier decision:
According to the Complaint, in August 2024, Plaintiffs and other District community members learned that then-member of the Board of School Directors of Souderton Area School District (the "Board") William Formica posted lewd comments on social media about Vice President Kamala Harris, disparaging teachers and non-English speakers, and deriding diversity programs. In response, Plaintiff Souderton Area For All ("SAFA") encouraged its members to attend District Board meetings to protest and demand Mr. Formica's resignation.
The August 29, 2024 Board meeting saw high attendance of community members opposed to Mr. Formica's remarks, as well as a rally organized by SAFA to protest. But the Board did not allow SAFA or its members to demonstrate on District property, requiring them to gather on a public sidewalk 80 feet away from where the meeting was held.
At the same time, the Board permitted supporters of Mr. Formica to gather and counter-protest directly outside the meeting's entrance on District property. Due to increased attendance, the Board began requiring meeting attendees to provide photo-ID so that they could prioritize seating for District residents. Several individual Plaintiffs were excluded from meetings as a result of this new rule.
On September 26, 2024, as Board members exited a Board meeting, Plaintiffs Patrick Kitt, Christopher Spigel, and Helen Spigel protested by making cricket noises and accusing the Board of being complicit in Mr. Formica's misconduct through its silence. One Board member was accompanied by her teenage daughter, who was upset and intimidated by the protesters directing questions and accusations to her.
This week, the Court will consider when a death-row inmate may file a second habeas application based on “a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.”
On Wednesday this week, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Guerrero, Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice v. Dexter Johnson. It is a capital case involving the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Maria Aparece that Johnson committed in 2006. The case does not involve any claim Johnson is innocent of these heinous crimes, but rather how to interpret provisions in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA).
AEDPA prohibits successive habeas applications by state prisoners with only two narrow exceptions, including for claims that "rel[y] on a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable." 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(A). The question presented seems to answer itself. The Supreme Court has granted cert to decide whether a claim relies on a "new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable" when the Court announced the rule before the filing of the prisoner's prior federal habeas petition. As Texas persuasively argues in its merits brief, Johnson's Atkins claim (that he should not be executed because, he claims, he is borderline intellectually disabled) does not rely on any new rule of constitutional law. The Court decided Atkins v. Virginia in 2002—long before Johnson filed his initial federal habeas application, before his conviction became final on direct review—and even before he committed the capital murder for which he was sentenced to death.
Instead of a change in law, Johnson's claim relies on a new factual predicate: the publication of a new diagnostic manual by the American Psychiatric Association (the DSM-5), under which he was diagnosed with an intellectual disability. But a claim in a successive application based on a new factual predicate must satisfy § 2244(b)(2)(B), which Johnson's Atkins claim does not, because his new evidence has no bearing on whether the jury would have found him "guilty of the underlying offense." 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii).
Surprisingly, a Fifth Circuit panel accepted Johnson's argument that he could pursue relief on this "new" claim. And the Fifth Circuit en banc denied further review by a vote of 9-7. Judge Ho (joined by Judges Jones, Smith, and Engelhardt) wrote a dissent from this denial, pointing out that "[e]xtraordinary delays like this are, alas, extraordinarily commonplace in our criminal justice system. And they are far from costless. Never mind the expense to the taxpayer. Such delays also force the family and friends of victims like Maria Aparece to wait for justice—for over two decades, in this case."
I have filed an amicus brief in the case, along with counsel of record Allyson Ho and her colleagues at Gibson Dunn, Brad Hubbard, Matt Scorcio, Brandon Wolf, and Marquan Robertson. Our brief provides a fuller account of the cost to victims' families—such as the Aparece family—who must wait for justice in capital cases like this one. Here's the introduction to our brief:
Twenty years ago, in the early-morning hours of Father's Day 2006, Dexter Johnson abducted 23-year-old Maria Chrisalee Lopez Aparece—"Sally" to her family and friends—and her boyfriend, Huy Ngo, at gunpoint. After terrorizing them, Johnson raped Sally in the back seat of her car while his accomplice taunted Ngo. Johnson then marched Sally and Ngo into the woods, shot each of them in the head, and left them for dead. Johnson and his accomplices then took Sally's car joyriding and used her credit cards to fund a shopping spree. Earlier that evening, Sally had been at home making a card for her father, Protasio Aparece, while he worked a sixteen-hour shift as a registered nurse. After her murder, Sally's family found the unfinished card. They placed it in their living room, in front of the fireplace, alongside Sally's ashes—where it remains today. Johnson's vicious crimes inflicted unbearable pain on his victims and their families.
But that was just the beginning of their suffering. Johnson's serial litigation has robbed the families of even a modicum of peace or closure. It has been two decades since Johnson brutally murdered Sally, and nineteen years since a Harris County jury sentenced him to death—but justice still has not been served. This Court should vindicate crime victims' "important interest in the timely enforcement of a sentence," Bucklew v. Precythe, 587 U.S. 119, 149 (2019), and "powerful and legitimate interest" in "real finality," Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U.S. 538, 556 (1998), by reversing the judgment below and ending an ordeal that has compounded the suffering of Sally's family for over two decades.
You can read the full brief for the Aparece family here, which discusses how excessive delays (like the one in this case) break AEDPA's promise of finality in capital cases and how research confirms that excessive delays in criminal cases harm victims' families.
I hope the Court reverses the Fifth Circuit's decision and brings the Aparece family one step closer to justice.
Today, in United States v. Alaska, federal district Judge Sharon Gleason ruled against the Trump administration's lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska Senate election results on the grounds that doing so might be necessary to prevent "voter confusion" caused by the presence of two candidates with very similar names on the ballot. As I have explained previously, Dan J. Sullivan can potentially be confused with Dan S. Sullivan (the incumbent GOP senator). Evidence gathered by the New York Times suggests Democrats may have deliberately recruited Dan J. to run, in hopes of siphoning off votes from Dan S. on this topic.
Today's ruling dismisses the Trump lawsuit on the grounds that the United States lacked standing to bring the suit. Most notably, it failed the standing requirement of "redressability." The remedy requested by the administration - blocking certification until the federal government could further "investigate" the issue, would not actually redress the harm of voter confusion, and certainly could not do so while maintaining legally required secrecy of the ballots. In addition, Judge Gleason emphasizes that the federal government's proposed remedy would likely intrude on the powers of the state government, create more voter "confusion" than it forestalls:
The Supreme Court "has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election…" "Such late-breaking, court-ordered rule changes can 'result in voter confusion and consequent incentive to remain away from the polls,' and thus undermine the '[c]onfidence in the integrity of our electoral processes . . . essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy.'"
The United States maintains that it is "not seeking to alter the time, place, or manner of Alaska's election" [which the Constitution generally leaves under state control]. And yet it seeks a court order preventing the State from certifying the election if certain circumstances occur; a court order requiring the State to segregate and preserve certain ballots; and a court order permitting the United States to conduct an investigation into the intent of those voters who cast ballots for Daniel J. Sullivan. These requests certainly involve the time, place, and manner of Alaska's election, which are the responsibilities of the State, not the executive branch of the federal government. Clearly, if this Court were to order that certain ballots will be segregated and subject to a future and as yet unspecified investigation by law enforcement, it would likely result in voter "confusion and consequent incentive to remain away from the polls."Such late-breaking changes to the election rules are strongly disfavored.
In addition to these procedural problems with the Trump lawsuit, it also deserves to be rejected on the substantive merits. I covered some of the reasons why here and here. See also the excellent amicus brief filed by prominent election law scholar Rick Hasen, which goes into these issues in greater detail. Quite simply, there is no federal law giving the administration the power to block certification of election results based on "voter confusion."
As explained in one of my earlier posts about this case, Democrats deserve blame for seeking to deceive voters in this way, even though it is highly unlikely it would cause enough confusion to change the outcome of the election (various aspects of the Alaska ballot and election system reduce the already low odds of that happening). But for reasons summarized in the same post, this kind of thing is far from the worst example of exploitation of voter ignorance. Lies and deceptions about public policy issues are far more significant.
Today's decision may be appealed. But I think it highly unlikely that the appellate court (or the US Supreme Court) will reverse it.
Some excerpts from the long First Superseding Indictment in U.S. v. Hakim(E.D. Mich.), filed Oct. 21, alleging conspiracy to transmit threats in interstate commerce as well as, for two defendants, witness intimidation and destruction of property to prevent seizure (8 of the 12 defendants had originally been indicted in May); the targets included UM officials and businesses connected with them, as well as the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit:
The defendants are a group of individuals associated with the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. After the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, the defendants and unindicted conspirators orchestrated detailed plans to threaten University of Michigan leaders, law enforcement, and businesses with coordinated criminal acts. Their goal included forcing the University of Michigan and other businesses to sever all perceived ties with the State of Israel.
To accomplish this goal, the defendants and their unindicted conspirators, in the Eastern District of Michigan and elsewhere, used encrypted messages, social media, and overseas collaboration platforms to research, target, and attack their victims. Then, they posted pictures of their attacks on social media, along with additional threats and warnings. Their criminal activity included spray painting threats, breaking windows, and throwing glass jars filled with noxious chemicals into family homes. They marked their victims with threatening symbols used by Hamas, including red inverted triangles and red handprints. They used the internet and social media to broadcast their message to ensure their threats and commitment to continuing criminal activity were heard by their victims and others who support Israel….
The defendants and unindicted conspirators coordinated and planned their criminal activity, targeting selected victims using encrypted online group chats, websites, "teach ins" (seminars designed to encourage action), and other meetings. They also initiated an online campaign against their targets by using social media platforms (Twitter/X and lnstagram) that were, at times, connected to student groups at the University of Michigan, including the former Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) (University of Michigan's chapter of "Justice in Palestine") and the TAHRIR Coalition.
"Specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance." An ''emanation'' refers to a ray of light. During a lunar eclipse, the ''umbra'' refers to the darkest part of the shadow formed when the Earth orbits between the sun and the moon. The ''penumbra'' refers to the lighter part of the shadow, where some of the ''emanations'' from the sun are visible.
Patrick Stewart, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. (CBS)
The great British actor Sir Patrick Stewart passed away on Thursday. While Stewart began his career as a stage actor and performed in many Shakespeare plays, he is best known for his portrayal of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Thanks to his impressive performance, Stewart and the character he played became science fiction icons.
Stewart brought extraordinary depth and perception to the role. And the character is an interesting contrast to the more instinctive and aggressive, less cerebral, Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek Series. Perhaps more than any other character, Stewart's Picard epitomized Star Trek's progressive liberal values: Enlightenment rationalism, technological optimism (highlighted by his defense of the rights of the android Data), racial and ethnic equality, and commitment to peace and diplomacy.
In many ways, Picard and TNG promoted these ideas to an even greater extent than the original series. Whereas Captain Kirk was often belligerent and acted on instinct, Picard sought diplomatic solutions to conflict, and tried to avoid doing anything drastic without careful deliberation. In the original series, the Klingons and Romulans are mostly depicted as evil and irreconcilable enemies of the Federation, in TNG the Klingons have become allies and there is hope that there will be peace with the Romulans, as well. In multiple episodes, Picard takes the lead in working to maintain and improve Federation relations with these and other previously hostile alien societies.
There is much to admire in this ideology and Picard's advocacy of it. But, as I have pointed out in a 2016 article (see also this more recent piece), Star Trek's ideology has a dark side, as well: its uncritical embrace of socialism. This is also reflected in the Federation's seeming ideological homogeneity. Picard also exemplifies this negative aspect of Star Trek ideology, with his thinly veiled disdain for private enterprise, and people who seek to make a profit.
As depicted by Stewart, the Picard character also highlights another key tension in Star Trek ideology, this one relating to cultural diversity. Picard is supposed to be French; but other than his noticeable British accent, he seems little different from other human Federation characters. The "Doylist" real-world explanation for this is that Stewart himself was British, and trying to get him to speak with a French accent might have had bad results. But the "Watsonian" in-universe effect of this is to accentuate how the human characters in Star Trek have largely lost their cultural distinctiveness. French, British, and other human cultures have largely blended together, by the 24th century (when the show is set). Star Trek may champion diversity. But, culturally and politically, the human characters are mostly people who look different, but largely think alike on almost all major issues. The few dissenters are generally depicted as either villains or fools.
As I have previously noted, this ideological homogeneity and uncritical acceptance of Federation ideology gets challenged more in later Star Trek series, beginning with Deep Space 9. DS-9 and later series depict more ideological conflict among humans, and raise serious questions about Federation ideology. But Stewart's Picard remains an iconic depiction of Federation ideals.
As always in assessing actors, we should not assume that the character necessarily reflects the views of the actor. We can and should recognize Picard's shortcomings and those of Federation ideology, without blaming Stewart for them. Indeed, his performance deserves credit for providing a valuable window into these issues.
The more recent Picard series is not as good as TNG. But I would argue the blame for that rests with the producers and their problematic plotlines, rather than Stewart.
In addition to his justly famous Star Trek role, Stewart also starred in the X-Men movie series (which I won't comment on, as I know little about it). His first significant science fiction role was playing Gurney Halleck in the 1984 movie version of Dune.
Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck in Dune (1984). (Universal Pictures)
The 1984 Dune movie is an incoherent mess, and not as good as the more recent Denis Villeneuve version (see my reviews of the latter here and here). But Stewart did a great job with his role, and really brought Halleck to life.
In sum, Sir Patrick Stewart was a great actor, and well deserves his status as an SF icon. He will be greatly missed.
UPDATE: The original version of this post had the date of Patrick Stewart's death wrong (off by one day). I apologize for the mistake, which has now been corrected.
The court concludes that Trump hadn't adequately alleged facts supporting a showing that the Journal published the article knowing that it was likely false.
Those who won our independence believed … that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law—the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) (quoting Whitney v. California (1927) (Brandeis, J., concurring)).
Justice Brandeis's words, as relevant today as they were nearly a century ago, formed the "background" behind the Supreme Court's holding in Sullivan: the First Amendment "prohibits a public [figure] from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood … unless he proves that the statement was made with actual malice[.]" This constitutional protection is not limited to post-discovery motions and trial. Because "[t]he costs and efforts required to defend a lawsuit through [discovery] could chill free speech nearly as effectively as the absence of the actual malice standard altogether[,]" a public figure plaintiff must plausibly allege actual malice at the outset of the litigation.
This Order addresses President Donald J. Trump's second attempt to plead that Defendants … acted with actual malice when they published an article in the Wall Street Journal … linking him to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein …. As with his first attempt, he has failed. Therefore, for the reasons below, … President Trump's Amended Complaint is dismissed with prejudice….
What American cities, with population over 50,000, are named after foreign political figures, but excluding the many named after British political figures? No fair asking Claudius (or his rivals).
I was going to write a post about why, in this election, the right thing for libertarians to do is vote for Democrats for all federal offices, unless either 1) the Dem candidate is DSA, or 2) the GOP candidate is one of those very rare Republicans who oppose all or most of Trump's awful policies. But libertarian political philosopher Dan Shapiro beat me to it, in an excellent post at the Bleeding Heart Libertarian substack. I agree with the vast bulk of what he says. But I have a few additions and caveats that I will append after quoting a few key passages from Dan's post. Before getting into detail, I will note that I generally believe in voting for the lesser evil among those candidates with a realistic chance to win. Thus, unlike Dan, I don't usually vote for third party candidates, even in more normal times. If you're opposed to "lesser evil" voting on principle, we have a disagreement that goes far beyond the present election. But I would urge you to check out my defense of that practice, where I explain why you should even vote for the evil Queen Cersei over the even more evil Sauron, if those are the only available choices.
I don't expect this post or Dan's will change the outcome of the election. They almost certainly won't. But they might still be helpful in thinking through big issues we face in the current political moment.
Here's an excerpt from Dan's post:
Most of my voting life I voted for the Libertarian Party when they advocated classical liberal/libertarian policies. Now those who care about and prioritize liberty and a free society—however they label themselves—should vote Democratic unless the candidate is a Democratic Socialist….
There's been so much criminality and misdeeds in the Trump administration that it's exhausting to cover it all, but keeping "the land of the free and the home of the brave" means remembering the essentials. I provide links when the points I make are not common knowledge and/or might be controversial.
Violating the norm of peaceful transfer of political power
January 6: Trump is the only presidential candidate in the US who refused to concede that he lost. He told a crowd to "fight like hell," and the mob then stormed the Capitol to try to overturn the results. The House impeached him for "incitement of insurrection," and 57 senators, including seven Republicans, voted to convict—short of the two-thirds required. After his campaign of lies and deception and pressuring election officials to falsify the results failed to overturn the election, he later pardoned all the perpetrators of the violence.
Violating the rule of law, shredding due process, torture
ICE: masked secret police who kidnap people and send them to hellholes in El Salvador, where they were subject to constant beatings, sexual abuse, and torture; to the Central African Republic, in the midst of a brutal civil war with severe human rights abuses; to Florida's "Alligator Alcatraz," where large numbers of detainees were held in cages the size of phone booths; and to Fort Bliss, Texas, where guards grabbed detainees' testicles while beating them. There've been zero consequences for this; indeed, Trump says they are "immune."
Not only were the deportations done without any notification to families or lawyers, but ICE has disappeared from databases those they seized so lawyers and families can't find them.
There is now "expedited removal" for anyone undocumented, which means no hearing before a judge. (And this is even though immigration judges are—wrongly—a part of, and not independent of, the executive branch.) Indeed, Trump fired any immigration judge who disagreed with him or whom he perceived as not being deportation-friendly enough, and replaced the Board of Immigration Appeals, which has denied appeals for almost all deportation orders.
The administration removed TPS (temporary protected status) for immigrants fleeing violence and is deporting them to the very countries the State Department has declared unsafe—e.g., Haiti.
ICE apprehended immigrant parents after they dropped their kids off at school (see here, here, and here), as well as apprehending children and toddlers and using them as bait (the Liam Conejo Ramos incident)….
Violating the ban on using the military for policing
Trump sent Marines to LA, and National Guard troops to Chicago and DC. This violates a basic norm since the Founding and violates Posse Comitatus, a statute banning the military from policing.
As mentioned, ICE murdered, assaulted, and wounded protestors and ICE monitors.
The administration targeted people for their political views and for writing op-eds. Rochester resident David Streever sent a critical email to the director of ICE, and five months later, federal officers tracked his movements and staked out his New York City hotel as he returned from an overseas trip….
There is much more, including explanations of why the Democrats (with the notable exception of DSA types) are far less bad than this, despite their considerable flaws. I myself have written about the evils of the DSA here, explaining why they are comparable to MAGA nationalist Republicans. In addition to the harm individual DSA members might cause if elected to office, it is important to reduce their numbers as much as possible, so as to minimize the chances that socialists could take over the Democratic Party, as MAGA nationalists have done with the GOP.
I have a few additions to Dan's arguments.
First, it is essential to consider the enormous scale of Trump's harmful and unjust immigration and trade policies. When it comes to setting issue priorities, scale matters a great deal. Even under normal administrations, immigration restrictions threaten the economic and civil liberties of American citizens (to say nothing of those of immigrants themselves) more than any other federal policy. Trump's vast expansion of exclusion and mass deportation has made things a lot worse. The liberty and well-being of millions of people are at stake.
Dan raises the issue of whether non-DSA Democrats might be worse than the Trump-era GOP on economic liberty issues. This becomes an easy issue if you recognize that immigration restrictions and tariffs are also violations of economic liberty. Due to their massive scale, Trump's actions in this area easily outweigh the very real economic policy flaws of non-DSA Dems. And then we have such things as his acquisition of federal government stakes in numerous private firms, something that even the most left-wing recent Democratic presidents didn't attempt. It's a dramatic example of how MAGA nationalists have dangerous economic policies similar to those of socialists.
It is also important to remember that a Democratic Senate could block Trump's horrible executive and judicial nominees. I don't want to see any more Pete Hegseths and RFK, Jrs. In Trump's first term, he had some good judicial nominees. In the second, he has mostly bad ones (Emil Bove is a particularly egregious example). From a libertarian perspective, I'd rather have a standard liberal nominee fill the next Supreme Court vacancy (despite all the flaws such jurists have) than the type of right-winger Trump II is all too likely to nominate. Such a person would probably be selected for his willingness to turn a blind eye to executive abuses of power, trample civil liberties, and bulldoze constitutional obstacles to MAGA nationalist policies, such as federalism and separation of powers. There may well not be any Supreme Court vacancies, of course. But lower court nominations will arise, and they matter too.
Finally, I'm more hawkish than the average libertarian, and I think it's important to counter Trump's policies of undermining the Western alliance, and coddling mass-murdering dictators like Vladimir Putin and (to a lesser extent) Xi Jinping. We should care about defending liberty worldwide, not just in one country, especially since the two are interconnected. The Democrats (except for a few far-leftists) oppose this awfulness and could use control of Congress to help curb it.
In these and other areas, a Democratic-controlled Congress could not fully stop Trump's abuses. The executive has accumulated too much power for that, often in constitutionally dubious ways. But congressional control of nominations and purse strings can do much to constrain the executive at the margin. And electoral repudiation of Trump's abuses can reduce the risk that future presidents will imitate them.
I do have a few caveats to attach to Dan's otherwise compelling points:
First, Dan doesn't differentiate between elections for federal offices and those for state and local ones. I do. Beating the GOP in federal races is vital for countering Trump's awful agenda. At the state and local level, other issues are dominant, and Republicans are often better than Dems on the crucial issues of housing, state-level taxation, and state and local economic regulation. Which party is better on these and other state and local issues will vary from state to state. For example, red state Republicans are much better on the crucial issue of housing deregulation than blue state ones (who often back exclusionary zoning against Democratic reform efforts). Thus, it might make sense to vote for Republican candidates in some state and local races, but not others, depending on the issues involved.
Second, when it comes to the DSA problem, there can be difficult questions about what to do with Dem candidates who are not actual DSA members, but seem closely adjacent to them. Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is a notable example. He says he's not a socialist, but also is closely aligned with socialists like Bernie Sanders, and "influencer" Hasan Piker, the guy who - among other things - praises communist mass murderers like Mao Zedong.
In this post, I'm not going to try to adjudicate each individual candidate and race. I will merely say that if you're trying to figure out whether a non-DSA member is actually a socialist, two noteworthy indicators are 1) whether he or she supports government control of all or most of the economy and 2) whether they praise socialist despots abroad, such as Mao, Fidel Castro, and others. If the answers to one or both questions are "yes," that's a strong indication they might be socialists, and therefore not worth voting for, except perhaps against the very worst Republicans.
There is a similar calculation in identifying the few Republicans who have opposed Trump's worst policies. Here, key indicators are whether they have opposed his tariffs, his mass deportations, his kowtowing to Vladimir Putin, and his attacks on civil liberties. Sadly, Republican candidates with consistent strong records on all or most of these issues, are few and far between, though Republican criticism of the tariffs and policies towards Russia have picked up in recent weeks.
Finally, as Dan would agree, voting for Democratic candidates does not imply supporting everything the Democratic Party does, or abstaining from criticizing Democrats on the many occasions when they do bad things.
Elsewhere, I have argued that libertarians, in the current political moment, should seek an alliance with "abundance liberals." But alliance is not the same thing as total agreement. And the Democratic Party obviously includes various factions who are much worse than the abundance types. We should keep that in mind, even as we recognize that right now the Republicans are much worse.
The Attorney General of West Virginia has used the State's power to compel two citizen organizations to open ten years of their files: their drafts and internal arguments, the groups they have funded, the people who serve on their boards, the coalitions they have joined, and what they have told the agencies they petition. Neither organization markets goods nor services relevant to the subpoenas. The Attorney General identifies no consumer who was cheated, no sale, and no purchase made in reliance on anything either group said.
What these organizations do is argue in public about what coal, oil, and gas do to West Virginia's waters and climate. The State's chief legal officer, who has publicly condemned that advocacy, now demands to know how they reached their views and who stood with them.
The First Amendment forbids a State from using its investigative power that way, and I will not allow it while this case is pending.
The country was founded on the premise that a citizen owes the government no account of his opinions or of the people he holds them with. The Attorney General has demanded that two citizen organizations hand the State their working lives.
The State wants a decade of what they published, down to a note sent to a single person outside the organization, along with the unreleased drafts and the internal arguments over what to say. He demanded the names of the organizations that fund them and what each gave, and he has now withdrawn that demand. He still wants the groups they paid, the board members they share, the coalitions they joined, and the comments they filed with the agencies they were petitioning. Because the demand period runs to the date of compliance, the subpoenas reach new communications written while they remain outstanding. No demand identifies a consumer, a sale, or a statement anyone relied on. The subpoenas go into how these citizens arrived at their positions on public questions and who helped them get there.
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