jamesporourke.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

A colleague emailed me today to flag the fact that the superb Fourth Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson ended a quotidian insurance opinion with an unusually introspective conclusion.

submitted 1 day ago • 126 comments

People sometimes ask "what are the crimes" and let me tell y'all, as a lawyer, that intentionally copying, altering, destroying, or disrupting government computer systems is super-duper illegal if you don't have a spotless paper trail authorizing it, which none of these DOGE people do.

submitted 17 hours ago • 60 comments

#NYC friends! Next Tuesday the 29th at 6 pm I’ll be talking about my new #translation of #Homer #Odyssey at @rizzolibooks.bsky.social with @cnn.com’s @fareedzakaria.bsky.social —don’t miss it! Signup info below: www.eventbrite.com/e/the-odysse...

submitted 18 hours ago • 0 comments

And I'm thinking the Church risks extinction if it elects a conservative.

submitted 1 day ago • 45 comments

After spending decades accusing Black women of having babies to get payments from the government, they want to encourage white women to have babies to get payments from the government.

submitted 1 day ago • 16 comments

YES: these people have only been “deported” in name. Rather, they have been imprisoned. By all rights, they should be out of US custody, but we are paying El Salvador to imprison them. That is obviously illegal!

submitted 1 day ago • 13 comments

Kind of keen to get behind whichever 2028 Dem talks about MAGA-friendly gulag countries in Axis of Evil terms.

submitted 1 day ago • 7 comments

Repost thys to celebrate the Birthedaye of the lovelye Will Shaksper

submitted 1 day ago • 5 comments

Very, very important piece about a part of the CECOT story that's gone barely discussed. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/inside-...

submitted 2 days ago • 110 comments

Photographer Barry Rosenthal found a unique way to tell the story of the damage we are doing to the Earth's oceans by collecting thousands of pieces of trash scooped up from the coast of New York and arranging them for his "Found in Nature" photo series. barryrosenthal.com/found-in-nat...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Wait but also is this fool inadvertently admitting that gender is a social construct??

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

I feel like we need to keep saying this because it’s so insane: This is a legal U.S. resident who has been detained for over a month now for his political opinions.

submitted 3 days ago • 251 comments

Reflection in a rain-filled pothole, 4th street, Garden District, New Orleans

submitted 3 days ago • 4 comments

Good time to follow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

submitted 3 days ago • 29 comments

Last week, DHS and Secretary Noem's staff and spokespeople suggested that because Mr. Abrego Garcia had $1,100 in cash on him when arrested outside Home Depot seeking day labor, that was strong evidence that he was a member of MS-13. I guess that raises a similar question about her $3,000.

submitted 4 days ago • 720 comments

@jacklgoldsmith.bsky.social on how the Solicitor General will be tested in the coming weeks. Will John Sauer squander the currency traditionally enjoyed by the SG’s ofc before SCOTUS to align his arguments w/the demands of Trump’s political “comms”? I say yes. open.substack.com/pub/executiv...

submitted 4 days ago • 5 comments

Mind-boggling that DHS's official position on this case is genuinely that a US citizen dad from Albuquerque visiting family in Tucson went up to a Border Patrol agent and said "Hi, I'm a Mexican man who entered here illegally, please deport me." Do they think we are dumb?

submitted 4 days ago • 195 comments

Trump is set to fulfill the Project 2025 vision for destroying the civil service: “The point of having a protected cadre of career civil service employees is to preserve expertise within government. It’s clear that doesn’t matter to this administration.” open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

submitted 4 days ago • 83 comments

He would have never been appointed by a president who cared about our military. He’s a disgrace to the people in uniform who serve www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/u...

submitted 4 days ago • 616 comments

I’m just a barefoot distinguished professor emerita, but it does seem like this should be an impeachable offense. At a minimum.

submitted 4 days ago • 6 comments

Fun to read this dissent, which claims the main issue is that the Court moved too quickly, with the full knowledge that without the order, the planes would have left and the dissenters would then argue there was nothing they could do because the petitioners were no longer under their jurisdiction

submitted 5 days ago • 10 comments

When you've lost Ed Whelan—and can you possibly conceive of how hard it is for a conservative President to LOSE ED WHELAN—you are in bad shape indeed.

submitted 5 days ago • 15 comments

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

I assume there’s a lawyer out there prepping the defamation suits?

submitted 5 days ago • 126 comments

The only plausible reason for the Supreme Court to rush out its order at 1 a.m. is that a majority of justices refused to trust the Trump administration's promise that it wouldn't secretly deport migrants without due process. That alone marks a hugely consequential shift. slate.com/news-and-pol...

submitted 5 days ago • 42 comments

I don't understand why the judges in all the cases against DOGE's actions at various agencies don't put Musk and Kliger and everyone else under oath, demand they produce an org chart, employment agreements, etc etc. It's completely opaque and the judiciary is sleepwalking around the critical Qs.

submitted 6 days ago • 20 comments

Just before 1 a.m., #SCOTUS stepped back into the Alien Enemy Act litigation with a (remarkable) ruling that suggests, among other things, that a majority of the justices is tiring of the Trump administration’s Calvinball. For more, see the latest “One First”: www.stevevladeck.com/p/144-the-su...

submitted 6 days ago • 137 comments

A president has no business targeting civil society orgs & let’s be clear—treating Americans as his enemies, not people he has sworn an oath to serve.

submitted 6 days ago • 114 comments

Keep saying the obvious

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

This is an obvious point, but cannot overstated. There is an enormous difference between deporting someone - where they get off a plane as a free citizen in their home country AND FUNNELING THEM INTO A BRUTAL PRISON FROM WHICH THEY HAVE NO CHANCE OF EVER EMERGING!!!

submitted 6 days ago • 1750 comments

80 years ago tonight, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel opened at the Majestic Theatre. Original stars John Raitt and Jan Clayton recreated the entire groundbreaking bench scene for an R&H special broadcast live on March 28, 1954, on all four major TV networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, and DuMont).

submitted 6 days ago • 9 comments

The Light in the Piazza opened on Broadway 20 years ago tonight. I was there on a $20 student ticket, and it changed my life. It remains the show I've seen the most times. Here are three minutes of Vicki Clark's transcendent "Fable"

submitted 6 days ago • 8 comments

Way to stand up to these bullies. www.kivitv.com/news/six-men...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

This "WHO'S NEVER COMING BACK" document published by the White House should be "EXHIBIT A" in any forthcoming hearing where a judge/justice has asked the White House to prove how it is "facilitating" the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

submitted 6 days ago • 1354 comments

I understand that Kilmar Abrego Garcia may have abused his wife but I still don’t believe, given the values enshrined in the constitution and the principles of the rule of law, that he should become Secretary of Defense

submitted 6 days ago • 167 comments