Something I've been wondering this winter: is the snow by the side of the roads all black and gross from internal combustion engine exhaust, meaning if there are no ICE vehicles on our roads in a decade or two this won't happen? Or is a lot of this pollution from tire debris, etc.?
Yeah they’re called train tracks, not trains tracks
I agree it made no difference to the Supreme Court, but I also don’t think it had any effect on the liberal discourse on gun control. Like most Supreme Court amicus briefs, it was probably just a waste of time and effort.
DC’s highest court splits with every fed appeals court that’s reviewed high capacity magazine bans since Bruen. The full court may vacate this, but the fully and newly Trumpified 3rd Circuit is likely to strike down NJ’s similar law along with its assault weapons ban. So the issues are SCOTUS-bound.
Here's an interview at @inquest.bsky.social with some of the public defenders behind the Bruen amicus brief. It shows their thinking, but I don't think they really grapple with the question of whether a ruling in their favor (which they got) would do anything to solve the problems they identify.
In other words, NY courts have said that just because the state had an unconstitutional requirement for getting a gun license, that doesn't mean people could lawfully possess a gun without a license. This differs from precedents in the 1st Amendment context (licenses that restrict speech).
They've erected a bunch of procedural barriers; for example, until last November, they were saying criminal defendants didn't have standing to raise 2nd Amendment issues unless they'd applied for a gun license and been denied. On the merits, they've said the part struck down is severable...
A bunch of NY public defender organizations filed an amicus brief in Bruen urging the Supreme Court to overturn NY's gun licensing law, which it did. They were criticized at the time for providing cover for a right-wing attempt to roll back gun regulations that would never help their clients.
The 2022 landmark 2nd Amendment case known as Bruen struck down New York's gun licensing regime. Since then, public defenders across the state have raised 2nd Amendment issues in thousands of gun prosecutions. To my knowledge, not a single NY conviction has been avoided or overturned on this basis.
This is notable because the vast majority of legal cases in which gun regulations are at issue are criminal prosecutions. But none of the Supreme Court's landmark decisions expanding the 2nd Amendment have been criminal appeals: they've all come in affirmative lawsuits brought by gun rights groups.
The DC Court of Appeals did something very unusual today: it overturned a criminal conviction under the 2nd Amendment, striking down DC's ban on large-capacity magazines. The Supreme Court and lower courts have struck down many gun laws in the past 15 years, but rarely in criminal cases.
The future continues weird. This is a nice example at the now common intersection of “It’s remarkable that this is even possible”, “You can see the vistas it opens up”, and “Pretty sweet for the company to have people use their service in this very pay-as-you-go resource-intensive way”.
I think this would be a really tough race, but I'd be optimistic about Phara's chances if it were an open seat (which it someday will be!)
What does this mean?
Under federal law, U.S. states cannot unilaterally adopt permanent daylight saving time. The start and end dates of DST are set at the federal level; states can choose to opt into DST, or not, but they cannot choose different start/end dates.
David Eby speaking in a room of kids
BREAKING - B.C. is switching to permanent daylight saving time, making this week's time change the last one in the province. Announcement is live here: www.cbc.ca/player/play/...
This seems almost like the exception that proves the rule (which is that territorial wars of conquest don’t really work anymore)
Putin's invasion of Ukraine has overall been mostly a disaster for him and shown the downsides of actually attempting to do traditional imperial shit where you take and hold territory, I think. vs the trump approach of darting in and breaking shit and grabbing people and then leaving
superb piece. among other things a really useful look into how apartment investing actually works www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/aft...
"Congress should have to vote to authorize wars" is one of those things that's overwhelmingly popular except for among the people who actually have the power to make it happen.
Yeah, I hate the “this administration needs to answer some questions” statements. Definitely not defending that! The only question that needs answering is what they’re going to do about it.
Our constitutional system changes over time even as our difficult-to-amend Constitution stays the same. 100 years ago it was clear the President needed a vote in Congress to declare war. Today the President can go to war anytime with whoever he wants. This change could be devastating for the world.
Our constitutional system was designed to make it hard to go to war. By attacking Iran without congressional authorization, Trump isn’t just starting a destructive & immoral war. He’s building on past precedents to make it even easier for presidents to start new wars in the future. That’s bad!
Have seen some people deriding elected Democrats’ statements that Trump has illegally started a war without consulting Congress as “process complaints,” but I think that gets it wrong. Yes, this unprovoked war is an evil thing they should unequivocally oppose on the merits. But also:
A judge just tossed out Columbia University's disciplinary actions against 22 students over the 2024 Hamilton Hall occupation, finding the school relied on sealed arrest records and held individuals responsible for group actions, violating its own rules.
iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/Documen...
This is framed as “Manhattan DA drops assault charge,” but in fact there never was an assault charge. There was an NYPD press release accusing this man of assault. But that’s a lot like me tweeting that someone committed assault, in that it’s an allegation but not a criminal charge.
Do you know what sort of contempt sanctions they're seeking against Trump?
Judge Quraishi says that if ICE keeps arresting people and detaining them without bond under the legal theory that has been rejected by hundreds of judges, and any of those cases come across his bench, he'll immediately order DHS and DOJ personnel hauled into court to explain themselves.
Strangely enough this tweet is wrong about what the Vichy France slogan was en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travail...
