I am tired of the gaslighting and lies. Blatantly claiming to be following the court’s orders when they clearly are not and giving the middle finger to the courts. Are we a nation of laws or are we now a nation ruled by corrupt gang thugs who as one person in the DOJ said “tell the court to fuck itself”. Where has the Republican Party of law and order gone? When the Democrats are in charge the Republicans sue all the time to block things. Look how many times Biden was blocked by the courts in lawsuits filed by Republicans. How would they have reacted if Biden’s administration just ignored the courts like tRump’s admin is doing? Are we at a crisis point yet? Hugs
Sheer scale of the lawsuits threatens to clog the judicial system
About 700 Justice Department attorneys deployed to represent the government in immigration cases
Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found.
The decisions amount to a sweeping legal rebuke of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Yet the administration has continued jailing people indefinitely even after courts ruled the policy was illegal.
“It is appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it is clearly written,” U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston of West Virginia, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote last week, ordering the release of a Venezuelan detainee in the state.
Most of the rulings center on the Trump administration’s departure from a nearly three-decade-old interpretation of federal law that immigrants already living in the United States could be released on bond while they pursue their cases in immigration court.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration is “working to lawfully deliver on President Trump’s mandate to enforce federal immigration law.”
SOARING NUMBER OF IMMIGRANT DETAINEES
Under Trump, the number of people in ICE detention reached about 68,000 this month, up about 75% from when Trump took office last year.
A conservative appeals court in New Orleans last week gave the Trump administration a victory in its drive to lock up more immigrants. Just because prior administrations did not fully utilize the law to detain people “does not mean they lacked the authority to do more,” U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones wrote in a decision reversing rulings that led to the release of two Mexican men. Both remain free, their lawyer said.
Other appeals courts are set to take up the issue in the coming weeks.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said the increase in lawsuits came as “no surprise” – “especially after many activist judges have attempted to thwart President Trump from fulfilling the American people’s mandate for mass deportations.”
The department did not respond to more specific questions about the cases and data findings in this story.
With few other legal paths to freedom, immigrant detainees have filed more than 20,200 federal lawsuits demanding their release since Trump took office, a Reuters review of court dockets found, underscoring the sweeping impact of Trump’s policy change.
In at least 4,421 cases, more than 400 federal judges ruled since the beginning of October that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is holding people illegally as it carries out its mass-deportation campaign, Reuters found.
A chart showing the number of habeas challenges to immigration detention by month
Other cases are pending, have been dismissed because the detainee was released, or were transferred to another judicial district, which would force immigrants to file a new case. Reuters was unable to determine how many cases were moved or re-filed.
Joseph Thomas, an 18-year-old high school student from Venezuela, was arrested during a traffic stop in Wisconsin in late December, while riding with his father, Elias Thomas, on his Walmart delivery route.
The men are asylum seekers who entered the United States in August 2023. Both are authorized to work, their lawyer, Carrie Peltier, said. Peltier said they were stopped for “driving while brown.”
Within a month, judges ordered the release of father and son.
Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz – also a Bush appointee – ruled that Joseph had been detained illegally and ordered his immediate release. In his ruling, he said Joseph was not subject to mandatory detention, and called out a “lack of any evidence that ICE had a warrant when it detained Joseph while he was a passenger in his father’s car.”
U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud, a Trump appointee, ruled that Joseph’s father Elias was eligible for a bond hearing.
“This raises an issue of statutory interpretation that courts in this District have repeatedly considered and rejected, and it will be rejected here as well,” Tostrud wrote in his order.
Joseph is now taking classes online, afraid to return to school.
LANDSLIDE OF LAWSUITS
Habeas corpus – Latin for “you shall have the body” – emerged in the English courts in the 1300s and is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. It provides a legal recourse for people the government has detained unlawfully.
Reuters counted habeas lawsuits by gathering the dockets of every publicly filed federal court case over more than two decades from Westlaw, a legal research tool that is a division of Thomson Reuters.
The records, combined with other court filings, offer the most comprehensive view to date of the scale of lawsuits moving through the U.S. justice system and of the defeats for the administration.
Within the span of a few days in January, lawyers filed habeas petitions for Liam Conejo, a five-year-old Ecuadorean boy detained in the driveway of his Minnesota home; a Ukrainian man with a valid temporary humanitarian status who was detained on his way to work as a cable technician; a Salvadoran man married to a U.S. citizen and father of a 3-year-old autistic child who is also a U.S. citizen; an Eritrean hospital worker with refugee status who was arrested after letting agents into his apartment complex and a Venezuelan man who was arrested after dropping off his daughter at school.
None had criminal records.
DIVERTED LAWYERS, VIOLATED ORDERS
The rush of lawsuits is forcing the U.S. Justice Department offices to divert attorneys who would normally prosecute criminal cases to respond to habeas cases.
Using court dockets, Reuters found more than 700 Justice Department attorneys representing the government in immigration cases. Five of the attorneys each appeared on the dockets of more than 1,000 habeas cases.
Partly as a result of that legal logjam, judges have found that the government has left people locked up even after judges ordered their release.
In a court order, issued last month in Minnesota, Schiltz said the government had violated 96 orders in 76 cases. The U.S. Attorney there, Daniel Rosen, said in a filing, two days later that the cases had created an “enormous burden” for government attorneys.
Similarly, U.S. District Judge Nusrat Choudhury, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden in New York, wrote this month that ICE violated two “clear and unambiguous orders” by flying a man to New Mexico for detention while falsely claiming he was in New Jersey and could be brought to a court hearing.
A Justice Department spokesperson, Natalie Baldassarre, said the administration “is complying with court orders and fully enforcing federal immigration law.”
“If rogue judges followed the law in adjudicating cases and respected the government’s obligation to properly prepare cases, there wouldn’t be an ‘overwhelming’ habeas caseload or concern over DHS following orders,” she said.
LEGAL HURDLES
In New York, advocates have waited outside immigration court to connect detained immigrants with lawyers who can file same-day habeas claims – blocking their rapid transfer to a detention center in another state.
On January 16, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken issued an emergency ruling for an Ecuadorean man who was detained at his court hearing, barring the government from moving him out of New York. On January 30, U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter, who like Oetken was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, ordered his immediate release.
Still, many immigrants aren’t able to seek that relief. Some aren’t aware that they can file a habeas case. Others can’t find affordable lawyers.
Judy Rall, the U.S. citizen wife of a Venezuelan detainee who has spent almost a year at the Bluebonnet detention center in Texas, said she was quoted upwards of $5,000 to file a habeas petition, which she could not afford. She and her husband have a pending immigration case based on their marriage, but the government has declined to release him while the case is being adjudicated. He has no criminal record, but the government has alleged, without providing evidence, that he has links to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
This month, her lawyer offered to take on the habeas case for free.
“Our home burnt down, and I had told them I needed him to come help,” she said. “I assume that is the reason.”
Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Kristina Cooke in San Francisco and Brad Heath in Washington, D.C.; additional reporting by Brad Brooks in Minneapolis; Editing by Craig Timberg and Suzanne Goldenberg
Last year I started a list of book conventions and fan gatherings that went completely sideways or didn’t happen because they fell apart during the planning. The title: WTF Cons? I realized in about mid-May that keeping track would be a full time job and I couldn’t keep up with it. There were that many.
Sometimes it’s lack of organization. Sometimes the follow through is so bad the City of Baltimore files civil contract claims against you, as is the situation with Grace Marsceau, the organizer behind A Million Lives Book Festival. You know, the one that made headlines about how much money people lost. There was Sinners & Stardust which came with a side order of Sexual Harassment. There were weekend cons that promised attendees for registered authors and didn’t deliver any; there were gatherings that promised reader events that didn’t materialize. I could keep going but I’d be here for days.
The latest breakdown per Threads seems to be Getting Witchy With It in Salem, MA, scheduled in both 2026 and 2027. The CEO of Anytime Author Promotions, Virginia Johnson, posted a video about Minneapolis, and to say it didn’t go over well is an understatement.
“You’re seeing the extremism of what Minneapolis, of what the news wants to show you.”
Which part is “the extremism,” I wonder?
The part where ICE executed Renee Good? Or the part where ICE executed Alex Pretti? The tear gas canisters lobbed at pre schoolers or the ones tossed at high school students?
The level of privileged, ignorant bullshit this person seems to be fertilizing her professional reputation with is truly breathtaking.
(Also, is she driving while recording this? I can’t tell from the windows but it appears that the car is in motion and she’s driving it. If so, then I ask most sincerely, WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT. And I once saw someone tuning a violin while slowly moving toward the George Washington Bridge at 7am. Pardon my fuddy duddy question but is this a thing? That people do? Record videos while driving?)
I haven’t been able to find any active social media accounts for Anytime Author Promotions, and I haven’t seen a statement. I have reached out to them directly – though I tried to use the comment form on their site to reach out, but I received an error message that my message was unable to be sent.
But when I looked into the company, I was shocked. This isn’t one event: it’s many.
Flirty in Kansas City, MO, Tampa, FL, and Des Moines, Iowa.
Dreaming Dirty in Ann Arbor, MI, Baltimore MD, and Las Vegas, NV.
Getting Witchy with It in Salem, and New Orleans and Charleston.
RAGE in Atlantic City, NJ, and Versailles, Ohio.
Books and Chocolate in Hershey, PA.
Glass City in Toledo, OH.
Book Blast in Dallas, TX and Seattle, WA.
That is a lot of events – fifteen by my counting which is not my greatest skill – many of which are scheduled into 2028.
And sure enough, authors are posting about dropping out and forfeiting their deposits – that’s a song many know all the words to.
So many authors, in fact, that it’s a trending topic on Threads right now – twice. (I have a screengrab but I don’t want to post it because one of the other trending topics is a spoiler for a tv show.)
Revelations about the alleged political alignment of the CEO of Anytime Author Promotions do not appear to be new – only the video is.
Author Maddox Grey reported in November 2024 in another thread that the Anytime Author Promotions Facebook group seems to have a history of using right-coded language and fostering a community that does so as well:
I cannot find this Facebook group, only pages that are sporadically updated, so I can’t fact check this claim.
What a shitty position for folks trying to grow a career to be in. The two largest cons are long gone, along with all the support and reader connections they fostered. There are many other gatherings, but as I mentioned at the start, it’s a risky prospect. They can be replete with inexperienced conference organizers, insufficient budget for events and security, and low turnout among authors, readers, or both. It’s a real crap shoot with time, money, and energy – all of which are in limited supply.
To create a successful event, in my experience, you need buy-in from several key groups. In this case:
Authors, but especially some with established audiences and name recognition. That said, hosting an author with a massive fanbase requires additional security, space, and logistical organization for crowd control and safety for everyone.
Readers who might want to meet those authors and potentially be introduced to new ones, which requires outreach and engagement and, you know, marketing and publicity. Readers also might want or expect a reader-focused event like a party or similar, and not just a book signing and panels. So that means budget allotments for decoration, entertainment, etc.
Host Location, i.e. where will this event be held? Is there an airport with direct flights or easy driving access and parking? Does the space have enough room should items A and B yield a high turnout? What about food – because food costs inside hotels will send your eyebrows right into your hairline.
Then, considering the above, how much will attending cost? How much are table fees? Will those fees cover the cost of the above items? Those margins might thinner than the profit on a mass market paperback.
(I also want to say a word about conference organizing: I used to do this, so I’m not just talking out of my ass here. I have always followed what I call “the mafia rule” when blogging: “Youdon’t talk about the work, don’t talk about the family,” so the most I want to say is that many years ago, I worked a nonprofit which hosted meetings between their membership and US and international officials. Organizing these gatherings both in the US and abroad was my job. So while I’m a little rusty, I’m pretty familiar with the large and small scale logistical coordination of stakeholders and invested parties.)
Lam then went on to share the eleven other events they will be appearing at in 2026. So there are other options – many other options.
I think we are accelerating past the point where embracing right wing rhetoric and supporting the actions of the current administration yields ferocious backlash, especially within romance, and especially within communities of marginalized people within romance.
With one video and the resulting social media response, Johnson appears to have damaged the brand of the company and reduced author and reader attendance at most of the scheduled events, if reports on Threads are accurate. That is a big, big mess.
As this seems to be an evolving situation, I’ll update this post if more information becomes available.
circa 1925: Portrait of American-born singer and dancer Josephine Baker (1906 – 1975) lying on a tiger rug in a silk evening gown and diamond earrings. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
When most people think of history’s American spies, they imagine a sleuthy white man, tracking troop movements, planting bugs and obtaining secrets under the radar of the enemy. What’s rarely imagined, let alone taught, is the role Black Americans played in espionage from the Revolutionary War through modern times.
Enslaved and free Black men and women slipped into rooms they weren’t meant to enter, cozied up to marks who underestimated them and quietly ran intelligence networks that relied on invisibility in plain sight. Here are Black spies whose intelligence work shaped history.
Mary Elizabeth Bowser
Screenshot: YouTube “Mary Elizabeth Bowser: Unsung Heroes of the Civil War | Ancestral Finding Postcard”
Dubbed the “baddest bitch in history” by Comedy Central, Bowser became known as one of the Union’s most daring Civil War spies. Literate and underestimated, Bowser worked as an undercover agent from inside the Confederacy’s most vulnerable locations — Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s home, according to African American Registry.
Masking her intelligence by pretending to be bat sh*t crazy, “Crazy Bet,” as she was known, used a rumored photographic memory to collect important military information and pass it on to Ulysses S. Grant.
James Armistead Lafayette
Fascimile of the Marquis de Lafayette’s original certificate commending James Armistead for his revolutionary war service, 1784. From the New York Public Library. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).
James Armistead Lafayette was born enslaved but became a master of deception during the American Revolution. According to America’s Army Museum, he disguised himself as a runaway, infiltrated British camps, delivered key intelligence to the Marquis de Lafayette and fed false information to the enemy. His double agent work was crucial at Yorktown in 1781.
With Marquis de Lafayette’s support, he later won his freedom and dropped his enslaver’s name.
Josephine Baker
circa 1925: Portrait of American-born singer and dancer Josephine Baker (1906 – 1975) lying on a tiger rug in a silk evening gown and diamond earrings. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Josephine Baker was a known boundary-breaking dancer, singer and international icon, but few knew she was also a World War II spy for the French Resistance. Though she spied on behalf of France rather than the U.S., Baker belongs in this conversation about Black espionage.
At the height of her fame, Baker used her celebrity to move through elite European society and collect information on Nazi Germany and other Axis powers, according to History.com. Baker hid intelligence in invisible ink on sheet music and pinned notes inside her clothing, later explaining, “nobody would think I was a spy.”
Her bravery earned her France’s highest military honors.
Debra Evans Smith
Screenshot: YouTube
While working in Records Management, Debra Evans Smith attended the FBI Academy after gaining nine pounds to meet the minimum weight requirement.
When only one percent of Black women were spies, Smith was drawn to counterintelligence. She volunteered for surveillance, learned Russian, and spent four years handling Russian counterintelligence in Los Angeles, conducting interviews and investigations in the language, according to the FBI. For her, the work was never about individual cases—it was about serving the country.
If you’ve never heard of Abraham Gallaway, that’s no accident. According to historian Dr. David Cecelski, Gallaway may have been the most important Southern war hero, but his legacy was erased when North Carolina rewrote its own history in the late 1800s, depicting enslaved people as “docile.” Gallaway’s story did not fit their narrative.
Born enslaved in 1837 near Wilmington, N.C., he escaped at 19. Gallaway became a “master spy” for the Union Army during the Civil War, providing military intelligence from within the South and establishing a spy network. He also became a state senator, according to 6 ABC. Today, his story is preserved at the North Carolina Museum of History.
Mary Louvestre
Mary Louvestre (sometimes spelled Touvestre) was a free Black woman who would not take no for an answer. Working as a seamstress in Virginia, she stole documents about troop movements and walked to deliver them to Union officials in Washington, D.C. When officers brushed her off, hesitating to meet with her, she kept going back until they listened.
Darrell M. Blocker
Darrell M. Blocker spent 32 years in U.S. intelligence, retiring in 2018 as the most senior Black officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and earning the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal. A second-generation intelligence professional, Blocker’s work took him to dangerous territory in places like Iran and North Korea, according to the International Spy Museum.
Having lived in 10 foreign countries, he has held titles including Deputy Director of the Counterterrorism Center and managed the CIA’s Ebola response.
A portrait of Harriet Tubman, African-American abolitionist and a Union spy during the American Civil War, circa 1870. (Photo by HB Lindsey/Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
Harriet Tubman was more than the Underground Railroad’s “Moses.” She made power moves in the Union Army, using her reputation to recruit Black scouts. Tubman gathered intel no one else could. According to Brandeis University, she became the first woman to lead a U.S. military raid in 1863, which freed 750 people and sealed her acumen as a true strategist.
George E. Hocker, Jr.
YouTube: “2025 Mary’s Woods MLK Jr Celebration”
George E. Hocker, Jr., a Washington, D.C. native, joined the CIA in 1957 while studying at Howard University. Working as a file clerk to fund his education, he stopped short of aspirations to work as a spy because CIA leaders told him Black people were not intelligent enough or able to “blend in.”
He believed them … until the 1963 March on Washington inspired him to pursue his dream despite racism. During the Cold War, Hocker gathered intelligence in Africa and later went to Latin America, risking his life on dangerous assignments. Hoker never lost sight of the fight at home, stating, “While I was fighting for my country’s interests abroad, my fellow Black Americans were facing war zones of their own at home,” as quoted in Newsweek.
Robert Smalls
Robert Smalls, 1887. African-American politician, publisher, businessman and maritime pilot. Born into slavery, he escaped, and commandeered and piloted a Confederate transport ship which became a Union warship. His example and persuasion helped convince President Abraham Lincoln to accept African-American soldiers into the Union Army. From “Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising” by William J. Simmons. Creator: Unknown. (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)
Born into slavery in 1839 in Beaufort, South Carolina, Robert Smalls rose to become a skilled pilot on the Confederate transport CSS Planter by his early twenties. In a bold act of courage in 1862, he seized the ship, picked up his family, and navigated past Confederate forts under the guise of a captain, delivering the vessel safely to Union forces. Smalls went on to become the first African American to command a U.S. naval vessel, and after the war, he purchased his former enslaver’s house, reclaiming a space that had once symbolized his bondage.
OK, people may be getting tired of doing these posts and I am sorry for that. I got up at 4 am and that was after being awakened by Tupac smacking my hand repeatedly. Ron reminded me when I cry out or growl in my sleep Tupac gets upset. I have felt tired all day. I forced myself to eat a brunch of three thick bacon strips cooked extra crispy, two sausages, three toasts, and four fried eggs. But that was all I ate all day. I have no hunger. Plus it is early and I have cued up so much to post. But I am struggling to stay awake and function to do it. Taking the advice of so many here I am going to go to bed a bit early. I hope being as tired as I am, I can sleep. But as many of you keep telling me the news will wait and I am not the only news source. Tupac has already gone to bed and I need to join him. Hugs
Despite what the Chritian Nationlist demand to be true young people in the prime of their lives will have sex. So yes they do. More power to them. Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 