What Is 'Legal'? Tabs, Thurs., June 12, 2025

Morning news roundup and things to read!

Tabs gif by your friend Martini Glambassador?

“[T]hings are evolving so quickly that explanations quickly become outdated, so one has to try to anticipate the administration’s next wildly illegal move.” Lisa Needham on how illegal is all of this? Very! (Public Notice) AHA, but her point is INVALID, because they wrote “THROUGH: THE GOVERNOR” on their memos. CHECKMATE, LIB. (Bluesky / CourtListener)

Facebook banned Rebecca Solnit for this — as always! — excellent piece.

Here it's also useful to make a distinction between property damage (which protesters in the USA in our era have done from time to time) and harming living beings (which is largely something done by law enforcement in these demonstrations). Property destruction can be dramatic theater (suffragists in early twentieth-century London broke all the plate glass windows on a stretch of shopping street; no living beings were at risk), can be actual protection (the firefighters taking an axe to the door to rescue the people from the blaze), or acts of intimidation (the husband breaking the furniture to convey to his wife he can break her too). All I've read about so far in L.A. is property damage by protesters, while we've seen many kinds of violence and intimidation from the heavily armored and armed thugs serving the Trump Administration's war on immigrants.

And on, of course, from there! (Meditations in an Emergency)

Nation has other plans for child’s 79th birthday party. TFN runs down all the networks showing local programming, “Elsbeth,” and “Yes Chef!” instead of that dildo’s stupid wanking parade. (The Fucking News)

He’s weak he’s weak he’s weak he’s weak. (Greg Sargent at The New Republic)

Please don’t shoot the journalists. (AP) Exquisite photos aqui. (AP)

Cool cool cool AI slop “protester” “videos.” (Politico)

I should probably just keep this link down with the perma-ad-spot and donate buttons, we’ll be getting so much mileage out of it. But in this case I want to note that I am utterly convinced I am Mrs. F, and I am inordinately vain about it. “Who Goes Nazi?” by Dorothy Thompson. (Harper’s)

From the comments, this Tuesday night Jimmy Kimmel monologue is excellent.

This is great: the designers of LA’s Grand Park and its hot pink benches, and how proud they are that their creations are being used to protect the citizenry. (Fast Company)

I hope this Seattle police chief continues to be cool! (KUOW)

I hope Florida rots in hell. Florida child welfare agency calls ICE on teen in foster care: “After being separated from his mother, who was later deported, the boy traveled from Texas to Pensacola, where he sought work. He entered foster care after he was found living in a shed with no source of food, shelter or income, records show.” (Miami Herald)

Elon Musk sued Lego for the illegal act of “didn’t advertise on X.” And Trump’s FTC helped! (Wall Street Journal)

Here’s a great news: Tenants in Kansas City went on rent strike and won! (In These Times)

Here’s a terrible news: Bye FEMA, bye! (NBC News)

I had never heard of Gertrude Berg — like a 1940s Oprah — who invented the sitcom, or her sitcom, “The Goldbergs,” about Jewish immigrants. And then came the blacklists. (New Yorker)

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