Radley Balko

@radleybalko.bsky.social

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Journalist. Author of Rise of the Warrior Cop. Co-author of The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist.

Substack: radleybalko.substack.com

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Radley Balko

Conservative legal commentators and professors appear to be willing to engage in blatant misogyny when a female justice with conservative leanings but not part of the federal legal pro-Executive branch status quo mob dares to veer from orthodoxy.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Independent Streak Marked Supreme Court Termwww.nytimes.com The junior member of the court’s six-justice conservative supermajority often questioned its approach and wrote important dissents joined by liberal justices.

Reply to

Simon

Completely valid point! As others have pointed out, of all the bad options, a few prominent Democrats coming forward each day to call for him to step down is pretty much the worst possible way to handle this. So naturally that's what they're doing.

Reply to

Dag.

I'd do endless ads that are nothing but video and pull quotes from every member of Trump's first administration who now says he's unfit to serve.

Heard a Democratic member of Congress on cable news counter the dire polling data by pointing out how loud a Wisconsin crowd had cheered at a recent Biden rally. Maybe replacing him now would be worse. I don't know. But it does feel like his defenders aren't grasping the extent of the problem.

I feel like too many people on here are not facing the facts about the extremely desperate and dismal electoral situation Biden is in. If you just take the states where Trump is up MORE THAN THREE POINTS in the polling average (a massive lead), he's already got the Electoral College locked.

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Radley Balko

What this article leaves out is that if you hand your unlocked phone to a police officer, they can legally search it. Unless companies develop a method that allows you to show officers insurance cards and driver license without unlocking the rest of your phone, don't. www.zdnet.com/article/digi...

This state is introducing digital driver's licenses. Here's what you need to knowwww.zdnet.com Your physical wallet is being replaced piece by piece. Here's what you need to know about using digital IDs.

After a series of strokes last year, the subject of this profile, a friend, was left with bad amnesia. He called last week to tell me that someone read the piece to him during his recovery, and it helped him begin to remember his life and identity. Probably the best feedback I've ever received.

Nashville Byline: The Music City Bakerwww.nashvillescene.com The long, curious life of songwriter-turned-baker Bobby John Henry

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Radley Balko

You had me at “exceedingly dry in-jokes for recherché subcultures”

Reply to

Jake Albrecht

Even just a presumption that any missing footage would have benefitted the party opposing the police would probably work.

Reply to

Jessica Pishko

Yeah -- also the more LE funding = less crime stuff.

A Trump edit would have added "CANCER-CAUSING," written in Sharpie.

a dead giveaway that project 2025 was written specifically for—and with input from—trump:

Anyone keeping track of the narratives pushed by law & order centrists during the pandemic that have disintegrated? I've got the shoplifting panic, cops quitting because of protesters, progressive DAs ushering in new age of crime & violence, bail reform = more crime . . . Others?

This narrative has been pushed by heterodox types for years. It never made much sense.

Well, well, well. WELL. That whole “protests made cops feel bad so they all quit” narrative? Looks like it was mostly myth. Excited to read this paper by Ben Grunwald, who compiled a huge dataset on post-2020 police employment. Agg decline was 1%… and bigger local declines not tied to protests.

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Radley Balko

It’s amazing the extent to which our billionaire tech bro overlords are just telling us out loud that they are rooting for fascism. Makes me slightly nostalgic for the days when American plutocrats plotted against democracy in secret.

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Radley Balko

In a normal campaign, this would have dominated the weekend’s news. I wrote about @gregsargent.bsky.social’s scoop about the Christian nationalist GOP nominee for NC Gov calling for murder of his political enemies: ‘Some folks need killing’: www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Opinion | ‘Some folks need killing’: North Carolina Lt. Gov takes Christian nationalism to dangerous lowwww.msnbc.com Mark Robinson’s newly explicit calls for killing perceived enemies show how seamlessly Christian nationalists can glide into promoting real violence.

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Radley Balko

Jack Posobiec is a very influential MAGA media figure. He posted this today. In the 1930s Fr. Denis Fahey was probably most well know for being one of the most outspoken anti-semites in the world...quite an accomplishment for that era.

Reply to

Atticus Goldfinch

And if you aren't on board with them, it's because "Trump has changed you."

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Radley Balko

Not having to give a shit anymore about logic or accuracy is a demonstration of power. Showing the world that their power no longer depends on the law but on something else

These mistakes originalist justices are making aren’t about disputed interpretations of history, with evidence on both sides. They’re pulling quotes out of context to attribute ideas to founding figures that those figures adamantly opposed. (via @andycraig.bsky.social) reason.com/volokh/2024/...

The Supreme Court's Dubious Use of History in Department of State v. Munozreason.com Justice Amy Coney Barrett's majority opinion includes significant errors, and violates some of her own precepts against excessive reliance on questionable history.

Reply to

Ryan Abercrombie

This is a very good point.

Self-described libertarians have been explaining to me on Facebook how my criticism of a Supreme Court ruling that puts the most powerful government official in the world above the law is proof that I'm no longer a libertarian.

Reply to

Tentacle Macrame

It would be the self-pardon and pardons of anyone who could implicate him in the future that would be "official."

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Radley Balko

And speaking of Baltimore, I'm sure my followers are waiting on pins and needles for my latest update on our astonishing fall in homicides. The wait is over! 😏

I once wrote a fact check of a Morgan Spurlock book. He included what he said was a direct quote from the FDA that aspartame causes cancer. I checked the footnote. An FDA newsletter did publish that claim — but *only to specifically refute it*. That’s basically how Barrett quotes Madison here.

Seems possible that Trump’s actions in the classified docs case aren’t “official” under the SCOTUS decision. But if he wins he can end the case, pardon himself, and pardon anyone who who would implicate him. And those *would* be “official acts,” immune from scrutiny. www.npr.org/2024/07/06/n...

Judge pauses deadlines in Trump classified documents case over immunity questionswww.npr.org Trump has argued that him taking classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago home constituted an official act — and that the Supreme Court's ruling means the charges against him should be dropped.

Reply to

Omar Wasow

Project Veritas has been eliminated.

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Radley Balko

I really don’t think most people realize just how hard the boot will come down if Trump and the Republicans win the election. Most people have never experienced the totalitarian surveillance state with the power to reach into their homes and minds at will they are telling us is their plan.

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Radley Balko

very hard to figure out what this use of DEI could mean other than the n word

Subtle. Very subtle.

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Radley Balko

Stephen Miller now following Trump's lead and saying he has nothing to do with Project 2025. 1. His organization is on the Project 2025 advisory board. 2. He recorded a video as part of Project 2025 training tools 3. You can see Mandate for Leadership, the Project 2025 publication in the background

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Radley Balko

This is the best analysis of the Trump opinion I have seen.

New from me: Where is your "institutionalism" now? radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-suprem...

The Supreme Court foldsradleybalko.substack.com Faced with the most potent threat to democracy in more than a century, our most revered institution didn't just fail to hold, it aligned itself with the threat