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Jeannie Albert

@vtgenie.bsky.social
331 followers 229 following 1.2K posts

Progressive, dead head, math professor, musician, cat lover, law nerd/law school dropout, wanderer. Grateful to be in Vermont. Showing up to make things better.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Jeannie Albert
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Suuuuper interesting, I was not tracking this. The judge found the law criminalizing noncitizen voting is a voter qualification statute, and therefore outside of Congress’s power. Surprisingly, this is an issue of first impression! Decision is here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
The best reading of the actual statute that underpins this criminal case yields an inescapable
conclusion: 18 U.S.C. S 611 is a voter qualification statute, and the Constitution does not authorize
Congress to legislate voter qualifications for federal elections. Except for very specific constitutional
provisions (that cannot support this statute; we will go through them, Congress has no power to say
who can vote or who cannot vote in federal elections-that foundational power is reserved for the States,
and limits Congress.
Some legal principles are so fundamental that they form American constitutional bedrock, and
this case reveals a big one: When you're prosecuted based on a law that Congress did not have the
authority to pass, the prosecution cannot stand. That principle in federal law harkens back to cases
like Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 180 (1803), and United States v. Hudson, 11 U.S. 32, 34 (1812), and
has had explicit and unbroken support in criminal cases since Ex Parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371, 376-77
(1879) ("An unconstitutional law is void, and is as no law. An offence created by it is not a crime. A
conviction under it is not merely erroneous, but is illegal and void, and cannot be a legal cause of
imprisonment."). The principle is so fundamental that it even predates our constitutional republic; it
lies at the very heart of our constitutional heritage. See, e.g., Bayard v. Singleton, 1 N.C. 5, 9-10 (1787) (striking down a legislative act as unconstitutional and holding that a court cannot enforce an
unconstitutional law in any type of proceeding). This principle acts as a shield for every person facing
criminal prosecution in the United States, citizen and non-citizen alike. That shield protects the
Defendant here, and none of the Government's arguments break through it.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 29/09/2026
Jack Smith: "Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation ... rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 election, he engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power"
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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
bluesky does not seem to really be talking about this but today Stevie Wonder unleased 4 songs that didn't make "Songs in the Key of Life." music.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
music.youtube.com
Songs In The Key Of Life - The EP
EP • Stevie Wonder
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Brad Lander @bradlander.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
We’ve now reached the point of “black site” hearings – secret, illegal hearings as part of Trump & Stephen Miller’s wretched crusade to detain & deport our immigrant neighbors. Quite literally: hidden tribunals that disappear people.
thecityreporter.nyc
DHS Opens ‘Black Site Docket’ for Immigrants Without Lawyers at 26 Federal Plaza
A reporter from The City Reporter was threatened with arrest while attempting to observe comings and goings from the new courtrooms, which have left advocates mystified and fearing the worst.
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Roger Parloff @rparloff.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
When Trump launched “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” without ICE facilities to accommodate it, inhumane overcrowding was inevitable. Judge Kaplan’s 9/24 ruling shows the results. Diagrams simulating a NYC holding cell in Aug 2025 look like slave ships. 1/5
Hold Room 1(820.78 sq. ft.)
With 87 people
(out of 193 people total)
Lying Down/Sitting
Diagram showing the largest tenth-floor hold room containing eighty-seven detainees in which each rectangle represents one lying-down detainee with the average height and shoulder width of an adult man and each circle represents one sitting-down detainee with the average shoulder width of an adult man. PX303, Ex. 1.
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🌬Breeze @cool-summer-breeze.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is the Stolen Neighbors Quilt. Each of the 11,000 squares represents a person taken by ICE in Minnesota.
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Representative Becca Balint @balint.house.gov · 21/09/2026
For generations, Vermonters and Quebecers have shared families, communities, and deeply close connections.   But even with that in mind, we’re still facing the fallout from stunts that Kristi Noem pulled, and we have small businesses that won’t survive this trade war.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Friday night at @politicsandprose.bsky.social in D.C. we had a great convo with @nikobowie.bsky.social and @daphnarenan.bsky.social about their remarkable new book Supremacy: How Rule by the Court Replaced Govt By the People.
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Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark @vtattorneygeneral.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This morning, I joined Congresswoman Becca Balint, Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, and State Senator Ruth Hardy in Middlebury for a Youth Town Hall to hear from young Vermonters about issues shaping their communities. Our democracy is stronger when the voices of all generations are heard.
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Senator Andy Kim @kim.senate.gov · 18/09/2026
Karim Daoud was detained by ICE on the same day he went to pick up work authorization documents. He was then held in the Elizabeth Detention Facility for over 9 months. It is a testament to his community that he is home with his children today.
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Democracy Docket @democracydocket.com · 15/09/2026
BREAKING: In a major win for voters, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to reinstate its mail voting restrictions ahead of November’s pivotal midterm elections.  www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
democracydocket.com
Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to revive mail voting restrictions ahead of midterms, in huge win for voters
Read more here.
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
🚨BREAKING: Washington DC federal court BLOCKS Postal Service mail-in ballot rule. First court to prohibit USPS from taking steps to allow voluntary compliance with anti-voting rule. A victory for ELG and our clients DSCC, DCCC, DNC, DGA and Leaders Schumer and Jeffries!
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Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
There's a stark contrast between today's serious NY Times story about Trump's anti-press campaign and yesterday's cutesy Katie Rogers story about the MAGA cult convention. NYT's editors clearly haven't decided how much to worry about the growing dictatorship. At this late stage, that's appalling.
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Shooti @bambooshooti.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
#ResistanceRoots Mary Hunter Austin was born on this day in 1868 in Carlinville, Ill. She was a writer, feminist, environmental conservationist and champion of Indigenous rights. Her life was shaped by the high desert landscapes she loved and battles over our most precious resource: water. /1
Mary Hunter Austin, by Charles F. Lummis, ca. 1900. Austin’s early writing is celebrated for its rich, mystical prose documenting the flora, fauna and Indigenous people of the high desert. Her environmental activism and Indigenous rights advocacy were driven by a mix of personal isolation, a lifelong rebellion against social conformity, and deep immersion in the landscapes and cultures of the American West. Rather than viewing issues in isolation, she developed a unified philosophy that rejected human dominance over both nature and women. Today, she is recognized as a pioneer of ecofeminism, nearly a century ahead of her time. Her later work explores how the exploitation of nature and the marginalization of women are rooted in the same societal power structures.
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Good news! www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
democracydocket.com
Court refuses to reinstate Ohio GOP’s voting restriction during appeal
The judge also rejected Ohio’s argument that the injunction came too close to the election and risked disrupting election administration. He instead warned of the opposite risk: eligible citizens losi...
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 09/09/2026
NEW: Our analysis found that from 2020 to 2025, the rate of deaths involving ectopic pregnancies nearly doubled compared with the previous six-year period. The uptick was steeper in states with abortion bans.
propublica.org
Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths Have Nearly Doubled. It’s Worse in States With Abortion Bans.
With prompt and appropriate medical care, experts say, people shouldn’t die from an ectopic pregnancy. Women in Texas and Oklahoma have sued over delays in care, which, coupled with our new analysis, ...
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ljconrad @ljconrad.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
🎁🔗: The 92-Year-Old Mathematician and the Teenage Apprentice www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/s...
nytimes.com
The 92-Year-Old Mathematician and the Teenage Apprentice (Gift Article)
Joan Birman thought her major discoveries were behind her. Then came an email from a young neighbor — a girl who knew little but wanted to learn.
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Reminder that we still don't know what happened to the stolen docs flown on a plane to Bedminster where Trump was hosting a golf tournament with the Saudis.
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Merrymac Farm Sanctuary @merrymacsanctuary.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
We lost another visionary this week in Gloria Steinem. Many knew her for her powerful work in feminism, but did you also know she was a fierce animal advocate? She fought against the concept of speciesism and believed that protection and freedom belong to all living beings.
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Adam Cohen (My Personal Views Only) @axidentaliberal.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
The heroes Trump called “small potatoes”: Cody Khork Noah Tietjens Nicole Amor Declan Coady Jeffrey O’Brien Robert Marzan John Klinner Ariana Savino Ashley Pruitt Seth Koval Curtis Angst Tyler Simmons Tyler Feehan Isabella Gonzales Angel Rampersad Michael Swinton Gabriel Edwards Benjamin Pennington
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Representative Becca Balint @balint.house.gov · 03/09/2026
Rest in power, Gloria Steinem.
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⏱📋David Steinberg⏱📋 @zzyzx.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Some shots from today. Will be expanded as the drive continues. I had to pull over to take this photo in Ellensburg. That’s the red part of the state. Interesting.
Billboard:

IS THIS THE
AMERICAN DREAM?
Can't afford groceries.
Rural hospitals closing.
Farm workers deported
VOTE DEMOCRATIC FOR A BETTER
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Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
When you claim renewable energies aren’t workable—but you attach solar panels to all your dystopian Flock surveillance cameras.
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
we have immigrant concentration camps, diarrhea lettuce, zillion dollar gas, suicidal soldiers, measles resurgence, national park land sold to the highest bidder and teachers crowdfunding school supplies, but the real problems facing our country are a muslim senate candidate and an influencer
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VTDigger @vtdigger.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
“The idea that we have to make an argument that it’s important to feed kids, I mean, what kind of country is that?” asked Sen. Peter Welch at the School Nutrition Association of Vermont’s annual conference last week.
vtdigger.org
Sen. Peter Welch calls for making it easier for Vermont schools to buy more food directly from local farms - VTDigger
Welch and others gathered at a school nutrition conference to find ways to strengthen the connection between Vermont’s local food system and school nutrition programs.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
We are a broken nation. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians were living and working legally, paying taxes, and contributing. Haiti remains wholly unsafe. But Trump hates Haitians, and the White House wanted videos of Black people in chains, so they stripped them of status and turned on the cameras.
Homeland Security 7
@DHSgov
X.com
Haiti TPS has been TERMINATED.
Those with terminated TPS are in our nation Illegally. They have two options: LEAVE IMMEDIATELY or be DEPORTED.
DHS.GOV/CBРНОМЕ

Underneath is a screenshot of a video showing two Haitian men in chains being led to the aircraft. I didn’t post the video, but it’s vile.
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Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Angus: He has said on multiple occasions that he thinks he should be able to arbitrarily move the border… That's the Great Lakes. So you arbitrarily move the border, that's an invasion.
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Stacey Burns @wentrogue.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Jennifer Nelson’s entry to this year’s Minnesota State Fair crop art
A localized version of Guernica with a loon at the center and a person holding an ICE OUT sign 

“My piece was inspired by Picasso's Guernica, a work that was his response to the Nazi's bombing of the Basque town. I thought there was a fitting parallel between these incidents about the high price paid by ordinary people when aggressive regimes try out new tactics of war, as well as a fitting juxtaposition of the darkness of living such an experience and the light we shone through it in our own resistance and care for one another. The patterns near Renee Good and Alex Pretti’s mouths are actually their last words in Morse code: ‘I’m not mad at you,’ and ‘Are you okay?’” 

Jennifer Nelson
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Shane Burley (Blue Sky Edition) @shaneburley.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
This reinstatement happened for one reason: a union contract. She was brought back against managements wishes because she won the highest level of the grievance procedure, arbitration. This is how you can take the power back from people like Jeff Bezos: form a union.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 25/08/2026
This is truly heartbreaking. Dolly Parton was an extraordinary person and an irreplaceable champion of the working class. We are a better country because of her.
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Micah @rincewind.run · 25/08/2026
dolly parton taught millions of children to read dolly parton raised millions of dollars for cancer research and disaster relief dolly parton stood by the lgbtq community her entire life dolly parton personally helped fund the moderna vaccine if there was a right side of something she was on it
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I had to say thank you.
meditationsinanemergency.com
In Praise of Dolly Parton, 1946-2026, Our Goddess of Kindness
We will always love her, and there will never be another like her, this artist who came out of deep rural poverty in the 1960s to become not just a staggeringly great performer and songwriter but phil...
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Jon Ossoff @ossoff.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Apparently, in the White House, the truth hurts.
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John Collins @logicallyjc.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Todd Blanche: “I am not sure of the uproar of having a Border Patrol or ICE agent at a polling location. What's the risk?” Uhm, maybe because it’s illegal? Federal statute 18 U.S.C. § 592 prohibits deploying “troops or armed men” to locations where elections are held. An AG should know this.
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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
We deliberately bought a model a few years older so I could have goddamned physical controls for the A/C and not have to operate it through a touchscreen menu while driving.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
It's demoralizing living in a nonstop Abuse-a-thon: we've had to learn the sordid details of so many men's abhorrent behavior; I mean this summer has been Graham Platner, Andrew Tate, Jared Leto, Max Miller, plus the horrific L.A. rape-murder of the child by the rapper, to name a few lowlights.
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Jeannie Albert @vtgenie.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
YES
010
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Just so everyone knows, this is a tried-and-true mainstream media tactic. For progressives/leftist candidates, every election is a “crucial test” and any loss would serve as proof to the media that the latest left-side moment is at its end. Any win, though, just means it’s time to find a new test.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
We spent early July watching Graham Platner's campaign implode because of abuse; now it's a Republican's turn. Let all this be a reminder of how pervasive violence against women and children is across the political spectrum.
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NPR @npr.org · 01/08/2026
NPR asked an aspiring scientist in Philadelphia to interview an adult who is living his dream about his career in conservation science.
n.pr
We asked a first grader to interview his hero: A bird scientist
NPR asked an aspiring scientist in Philadelphia to interview an adult who is living his dream about his career in conservation science.
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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
8 years ago.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
The Fauci hearing was a disgrace. Here are some reminders of how it really went down in 2020. Never forget.
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
🚨BREAKING: In a decisive win for voters, the Kansas Supreme Court rejected Secretary of State Scott Schwab’s (R) final emergency effort to revive a strict Election Day receipt deadline for mail-in ballots right before the state’s primary. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
democracydocket.com
Kansas Supreme Court deals final blow to GOP bid to throw out late-arriving mail ballots
The ruling is a conclusive defeat for Schwab’s last-minute campaign to enforce a Republican-backed law that attempted to eliminate the grace period and required mail ballots to arrive on Election Day ...
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
From latest Navigator poll, word cloud of responses from Trump voters who say they regret their vote
Biggest word in center is WAR adn then ECONOMY, PROMISES IRAN PRICES in smaller font
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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Running out of body bags, using forklifts to transfer corpses into makeshift morgues, a mortician conducting 200 funerals in a month when he usually does 30, crematories running at double capacity… And these senators just want to memory-hole it all www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/n...
nytimes.com
‘We Ran Out of Space’: Bodies Pile Up as N.Y. Struggles to Bury Its Dead (Gift Article)
The coronavirus crisis is overwhelming New York’s system for burying the dead.
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Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Sen. Ron Johnson lecturing Dr. Anthony Fauci about medicine is the epitome of idiocracy.
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Micah @rincewind.run · 24/07/2026
it’s especially ridiculous to tell a part of the coalition that is having significant success motivating people to get involved in politics that you don’t want them to help with an existential political battle
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Micah @rincewind.run · 24/07/2026
the problem we have right now is that the Trump coalition is smaller than everyone else but it is concentrated in ways that make it extremely powerful politically and so we do, in fact, going to need everyone else to beat it that’s what the big tent means
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Hagai Palevsky (he/him) @dialhforhagai.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Saw my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior Senator from Kentucky. He had a Chinese menu in his hand and was walking through the streets of Soho in the rain
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Oversight Dems @oversightdemocrats.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
The Trump administration staged a brutal takeover of the Kennedy Center and its board, instituting hyper-political messaging and programing. As Ben Folds put it: when you politicize art, you've got propaganda. Oversight Dems are fighting to restore the Center and its art.
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