iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

This is really good. Felt it in my bones.

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Not true. I see you're a luxury watch dealer. I'm also interested in watches. Let me show you how free and easy migration has allowed you to earn a living. 🧵

Corey Wiley on Twitter writes: "You don’t get it.
Foundational immigration law is morally just and has been established over millennia. Disrespecting these rules and ideals is very offensive to folks who highly value civilized society"

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 09/06/2025

see, the thing *i’m* genuinely worried about is that RFK will effectively ban vaccines

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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 09/06/2025

Hell is empty, And all the devils are here.

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Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

We don’t need to back off the American Gestapo and we don’t need to respect its agents. People exercising state violence are not entitled to anonymity. Nor are the people directing the state violence.

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Adults on Hulu is fun. Fun shows are nice. Like a Gen Z Seinfeld.

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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

I need you all to see the hype video that this person made to sell their 1994 Geo Metro

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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 03/06/2025

Everything suffers and everyone dies, so why not strive to make our time here, together, as warm, as compassionate, as caring, as kind, as good as it possibly can be?

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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 31/05/2025

Internet Roadtrip is my favorite thing on the internet right now—it’s basically Twitch Plays Google Street View. They started in Boston, spent several weeks on a quest to cross the Canadian border, and are now exploring New Brunswick. neal.fun/internet-roa...

neal.fun

Internet Roadtrip

Let's take a streetview roadtrip

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Great 🧵. I’ve rushed my son to the ER for this exact treatment several times. It’s a simple, effective tool that’s a literal miracle for a panicked parent. It was built on generations of science funded by a caring public. To think we are losing that caring public is an unimaginable tragedy.

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

This is wild. I read to my kids all the time. I read around them. I read in front of them, behind them. There are books in every corner of our home. I take books everywhere we go. Reading is one of the great joys of life. Raft a river, skydive out of a plane, read a book to your kids! Do it!

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Sinners is good good. Fun as hell. Worth seeing in the theaters.

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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 25/04/2025

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

All of this is just so goddamn shameful

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Robert Maguire @robertmaguire.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

It's a high bar, but this from @radleybalko.bsky.social might be one of the most fucked up things I've read in the new Trump era. For context, this TX lawyer had just had an informal conversation with a family caught up in ICE raids. Seriously. Read this. radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-courag...

“A couple days later, on March 6, I was working from home at around 11:30 when I got a notice that my VPN had gone down,” he says. “I didn’t think much about it. It can cut out from time to time. About 10 minutes later, I got a knock at the door.”

Two men were outside Jackson’s door, dressed in slacks and polos. They were not wearing badges.

“I first thought they were going to try to sell me something. But as soon as I opened the door they said, ‘Are you Clayton Jackson?’ I think I shook my head or said ‘yeah,’ and then I heard, ‘We have information that you are obstructing an ongoing immigration investigation.’”

Jackson says alarms went off in his head. “My first instinct was to want to know what this was about. That it must be a misunderstanding. So I started to tell them about how I’ve been involved in some pro bono work. Then this voice in my head kicked in and just said, you need to shut the fuck up — don’t say anything.”

The officers never identified themselves. They did ask if they could come inside.

“I said absolutely not,” Jackson says. “I asked for their names and badge numbers. They said they didn’t have to provide that information at this time. So I told them I’d be calling my lawyer and I shut the door behind me.”

Jackson says his mind started racing. “I needed to know who they were, what agency they were with. Then I remembered that I have the Ring camera. Maybe I could watch the video of the incident and figure out who they were from that.”

There was no video. “That’s when I learned why my VPN had gone down. It wasn’t the VPN. Someone had shut off my Wifi.”

About 15 minutes after the interaction at his front door, Jackson’s Wifi was up and running again.

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

This whole order is important. Potentially historic. Read it.

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

*digging through detritus on the passenger seat floorboards* There’s hope around here somewhere.

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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 09/04/2025

Vast sin-concealing chaos

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Lots of people demanded shadow hearings from Dems. There's one ongoing on DOJ's attempt to undermine rule of law. www.youtube.com/live/CZ042e1...

youtube.com

Bicameral Spotlight Hearing on Trump’s Pro-Crime, Pro-Corruption Agenda

YouTube video by House Committee on the Judiciary

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

I feel these feelings. You probably do too. Worth a read.

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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

I'll be testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning at 10:15 ET on the "bipartisan problem of nationwide injunctions." (The other witnesses are Sam Bray and Jesse Panuccio.) Livestream link: www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-ac... My written testimony is in the attached images:

Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Durbin, and distinguished members of the Committee:

Thank you for the invitation to testify before the Committee once again. In my testimony, I’d like to make three points about how we got here, and offer four thoughts on the way forward.

First, any discussion about nationwide injunctions has to be put into the broader context of the unprecedented moment in which we find ourselves. Substantively, we have a President running roughshod over existing legal constraints to a degree we’ve simply never seen before. And procedurally, we have a Justice Department engaged in highly partisan and ethically dubious behavior in lower courts that we’ve never seen from lawyers working for the federal government.

Rather than respond to that behavior, we’ve seen unprecedented calls from Congress to impeach federal judges for nothing other than the substance of their rulings, and for the elimination of entire district courts. And even this Committee seems to be of the view that the central problem is the relief federal judges are imposing, not the lawlessness they’re imposing it against.

At the risk of bringing data to a mud-fight, the reality is not that a small handful of hand-picked judges appointed by Democratic presidents are using nationwide injunctions to thwart the executive branch. As of last Friday, the 46 cases in which district judges have blocked Trump policies have involved rulings by 39 different judges appointed by five different presidents and sitting in 11 different district courts across seven circuits. That includes nine cases before district judges appointed by Republican presidents, too. Many of those rulings have included nationwide relief. But not all of them.

Against that backdrop, it seems to me that this Committee should be especially careful to not have a knee-jerk reaction to underinformed calls from the President and his supporters—and to preserve the relationship between judicial independence and judicial accountability, rather than taking any rash steps that might undermine it.

Second, it’s worth underscoring that federal courts have long and routinely issued relief that benefits non-parties and/or has nationwide effect. As Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett pointed out last year, this is the inevitable effect of vertical stare decisis—where lower courts in other cases are bound to follow appellate rulings in the first case. Even Justice Gorsuch, the most visible critic of nationwide injunctions on the Supreme Court, has voted in favor of them at least 11 times since 2020.

More than that, any time that a court invalidates a law on its face (rather than as applied to the plaintiffs), it is necessarily providing relief to non-parties—since the law can no longer be enforced against anyone. That’s not only well settled; there’s no serious argument that it’s beyond the federal courts’ powers.

And even nationwide injunctions themselves have virtues that other forms of relief do not. Consider the pending cases challenging President Trump’s effort to restrict birthright citizenship: Do we really think that parents should have to challenge that policy one child at a time? Would it make any sense at all for the scope of birthright citizenship to differ in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas simply because those three states fall into three different federal circuits? Of course, a nationwide class action could solve that problem, but it does not strike me as a coincidence that the rise in universal injunctions came shortly on the heels of the Supreme Court’s evisceration of nationwide class certification. Chairman Grassley’s bill alludes to class actions as a preferable vehicle, but, tellingly, does nothing to make them more broad…

Third, it is deeply myopic to talk about the rise of nationwide injunctions without talking about the other shifts in litigation behavior that have dramatically increased the impact of such rulings—including the ability of litigants, especially in some states, to file in a single-judge division in which they can literally hand-pick the specific federal judge to hear their case; the selective dilution, in the Fifth Circuit especially, of the standards for Article III standing (which have made it easier for more litigants to challenge more government policies); the increasing conflation by lower courts of the appropriate standards for preliminary and emergency relief; and so on.

Don’t take my word for it, though; in the last three Supreme Court terms, we’ve seen five rulings from the Supreme Court reversing nationwide injunctions issued by hand-picked judges in Texas and Louisiana and affirmed by the Fifth Circuit—because the plaintiffs in all five cases lacked Article III standing. There is no question that nationwide injunctions have been abused. But the abuses are not about the scope of the relief courts are issuing; they’re only exacerbated by it. And, critically, they would not go away even if nationwide injunctions were narrowed or eliminated. Meanwhile, the cost of eliminating nationwide injunctions would be less of an ability to restrain executive branch lawlessness—at a moment in American history in which that power has proven singularly vital.

What, then, is to be done?

First, if the Members’ real concern is that the President should have the authorities that courts are denying to him, it seems like they should consider legislation to provide those authorities, rather than legislation that would prevent courts from fully and effectively enforcing existing legal constraints.

Second, insofar as this Committee wants to focus on procedural reforms, it should focus on reducing the ability of individual parties to manipulate the judicial system (by limiting judge-shopping; requiring random assignments; tightening the standards for relief; etc.), not on limiting the ability of courts to hold the executive branch accountable—especially in an age in which Congress seems less willing and/or able to hold the executive branch accountable itself. In that respect, as I’ve suggested, prioritizing constraints on nationwide relief would be the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

Third, even if this Committee is nevertheless intent on providing reforms for nationwide relief, specifically, it should focus on the standard of review in such cases—not on categorically eliminating its availability in all cases. If, like me, you believe federal courts do have the power to issue relief benefitting non-parties in at least some cases, the question should be why such relief is appropriate in particular cases—and not others. Again, the contrast between the birthright citizenship cases and the cases in which universal relief was predicated on overbroad (and subsequently rejected) interpretations of Article III standing is a useful starting point.

Finally, if the Committee’s true goal is to improve the functioning of the judicial system writ large, and not just to maximize short-term partisan political advantage now that a Republican is in the White House, the Committee could follow the model of other recent court-reform legislation—and have any reforms go into effect on or after January 20, 2029.

Otherwise, the message this Committee would be sending is that its goal is to insulate an unprecedented degree of lawless behavior by the executive branch from meaningful judicial review—a message I can’t imagine this Committee wants to send, and one that the separation of powers, to say nothing of the rule of law itself, simply can’t afford.

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Christopher Bird @mightygodking.com · 01/04/2025

Just so everybody understands, Booker has been speaking cogently about the issues the entire time and Strom Thurmond famously spent hours reading from the encyclopedia, because segregationists were and are dumbshits

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Corey Booker is reading Learned Hand on liberty. But what he is really doing is preaching. Preaching our American civic faith. Hell yeah. The characters that loom large in American history lived our civic faith. Fascist detest that faith. Preach!

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Defector @defector.com · 28/03/2025

"If this country is to go on breaking, to go on becoming a darker, more repressive place than it was the day before, it will be shepherded in that direction by everyone who insists on equivocating."

defector.com

It Is What It Looks Like | Defector

On Tuesday night, a Tufts University graduate student named Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by agents from the Department Of Homeland Security while walking down the sidewalk outside an off-campus…

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

An oldie and goodie. I like it more every time I see it posted.

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

The Residence is great. Cozy murder mystery with upstairs-downstairs comedy in the White House. Uzo Aduba’s consulting detective rules. I’d watch her do this for 10 seasons.

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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

If you accept that non-citizens have no right to due process, you are accepting that citizens have no right to due process. All the government has to do is claim that you are not a citizen; without due process you have no chance to prove the contrary.

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Best thing I’ve bought in a long time was a programmable electric kettle. I probably use it 2-3 times a day, every day. Honestly a joy to have in the house. British people were right to look at us weird for not adopting these.

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Been avoiding Amazon, because it sucks. Ordered some tea online direct from a seller. Not more expensive. Better selection. Showed up hand packed with a nice note and a couple bonus samples. Nice.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 19/03/2025

if you just scan the headline — or if you’re just uncurious — you’ll think this is a “trump bad” piece but if you read it you’ll find that it is my attempt to explain what makes something “anti-constitutional” and why that is distinct from an “unconstitutional” act.

nytimes.com

Opinion | Trump Has Gone From Unconstitutional to Anti-Constitutional (Gift Article)

Where all this goes is still up to us.

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American Constitution Society @acslaw.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

“We lawyers must join together by the hundreds of thousands to call an end to Trump’s attacks on judges and the legal system.” ACS joins DC attorney Steve Salky in calling on the legal profession to rise and defend the rule of law. www.acslaw.org/inbrief/let-...

acslaw.org

Let Us Join Together to Defend the Rule of Law | ACS

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eve6 @eve6.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

I feel the same way about ai music. Maybe it will be able to make something that approximates a good song at some point but the second I learn it was created by a thing that can't experience loss or joy or whatever it immediately becomes uninteresting by definition

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Re-segregation is national and societal suicide.

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Roxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

This is exactly right. They don’t get to enjoy concerts or restaurants or anything while they destroy the country.

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Jesspooka Kant 🎃 @jessdkant.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

I can't remember the last time I saw an article just focus on this. Not that they've bent the truth or misrepresented a few facts a little, but that every single solitary thing that the GOP says on the topic is a stone cold lie with absolutely no basis in reality. ftw.usatoday.com/story/sports...

They're lying to you about transgender women and girls in sports
Michelle R. Martinelli
For The Win

They’re lying about transgender people in this world. They’re lying about what LGBTQ+ inclusion in society really means, and they’re lying about trans people in sports. They’re lying about a “transgender cult” and “transgender insanity,” about teachers indoctrinating kids with “transgender ideology” and about “making mice transgender.”

Right-wing activists, anti-trans bigots, many politicians, the president — they’re lying to you about many things but especially trans women and girls in sports. They’re lying about transgender athletes supposedly ruining women’s sports, and they’re lying about this being a ubiquitous “problem.”

They are deliberately and strategically lying about trans folks’ lives, about trans athletes and about their own disingenuous motivations for pushing these lies. They don’t care because they keep doing it.

Worse, it’s working.

They're lying about trans people, especially trans women and girls in sports, probably, in part, because the actual data doesn't support their arguments.
Yet several states have their own bans against trans athletes competing in sports consistent with their gender identity, despite expert estimates of fewer than 100 trans high school athletes nationwide. In 2022, Utah's Republican governor, Spencer Cox, vetoed an anti-transgender bill - it was eventually overruled by the legislature - and outlined his rationale. Along with the high suicide rates for trans youth, he noted that of 75,000 high school athletes in the state, four identified as trans and just one student was playing girls' sports. A whole state bill targeting four athletes, but really, one.

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Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Trump: COLUMBA IS AWFUL Columbia: [slaps student] Trump: COLUMBIA IS ANTISEMITIC Columbia: [kicks student in groin] Trump: NO MONEY FOR COLUMBIA LOL Columbia: [punches brown student in nose] Trump: WE WILL CLOSE COLUMBIA Columbia: [reaching for another student] okay this time it will work

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ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

I’m sick to death of people saying we’re “descending” into fascism. The fascism is ALREADY here. THIS IS WHAT IF FEELS LIKE. And if you’re not feeling it, it’s probably because you’re one of the “good Germans.” @michaelharriot.bsky.social explains

contrabandcamp.com

The 'Threat to Democracy' Is Over

It's time to admit that the fascism we feared is already here.

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

They’re targeting families with children in active cancer treatment. “Just two weeks ago, another undocumented mother in California caring for her 21-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen undergoing treatment for bone cancer” If we were still a free country, I would say what I think…

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Kylie Cheung @kylietcheung.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

cool that the White House is basically just the Tesla marketing department at this point and our taxes are paying for cybertrucks and bailouts for Elon's tanking business, all while he tells us we don't deserve social security and medicaid

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Cactus Kewler @brawndo.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

My own faith is complicated. But not on this issue! Treating anyone the way many Americans are treating trans people is a fucking sin.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

It’s striking how effectively republicans tied mainstream dems with random internet communists, despite the two groups hating each other, while the vice president and shadow president are clearly in a million group chats with literal nazis and people hardly notice

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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

They love killing kids. Getting kids sick for no reason then watching them die

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