JP Andrews
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jpandrews.bsky.social
JP Andrews
@jpandrews.bsky.social
Public defender, writer, apple farmer, pickler, dreamer of sailing away. Opinions and typos all mine.
📷 Pics on separate ⚡️acct as jp-andrews.
Reposted by JP Andrews
BWW will take a winter pause and return on 12/3 (swipe to see the BWW for December!). We hope you all will rest and recharge in ways that are meaningful for you. Stay well and see you in December! #publicdefender
November 7, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
If you are called for jury duty you have the power to stand up to the government like this on behalf of your fellow citizens. Don't avoid it; do your civic duty like these people did.
straight-up jury nullification. this guy did it, confessed to it, and the jury instructions explicitly said that if he did it intentionally, it was assault.
BREAKING: JUSTICE DEPARTMENT EATS A LOSS IN 'SANDWICH GUY' CASE AS JURORS FIND DEFENDANT NOT GUILTY www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...
November 6, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
I found this a really illuminating thread on what demonstrations do and why they matter.
In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.
Not a shitpost: #NoKings is feel-good performative activism for comfortable mostly upper and upper middle class white folks and that’s good, actually. Millions of people in the streets protesting a fascist regime is good. It is good for the normie baseline to be massive displays of public dissent.
October 19, 2025 at 2:59 AM
Reposted by JP Andrews
REBUILD is now also providing no-fee therapy to people who have been detained by ICE. Please support REBUILD by donating, and share it with those who may benefit from it.
findmeatherapist.org
Find Me A Therapist
findmeatherapist.org
October 11, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Reposted by JP Andrews
The criminal legal system has always been used as a tool to dehumanize and control people with the full participation of communities who have been convinced that this is the only option for safety. The immigration detention system uses the same myths and tactics. We must choose freedom over fear.
October 5, 2025 at 8:28 PM
San Diego stroll.
September 29, 2025 at 1:55 AM
Reposted by JP Andrews
Justice Eddins has been assailing SCOTUS.

In another decision this month, he said the Roberts Court is "pretend law."

In this decision, he said federal rights protections are "suddenly fluid," he describes Dobbs as "stripping autonomy" and "force births."
September 25, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
If you attend, work for, once went to, or plan to send your kids to a University of California school, write to the presidents and board of regents and demand UC stand up to Trump's attempts to bribe and cower the greatest public unvierstiy system in the world: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/27/u...
Give In or Fight Back? Colleges Are Torn on How to Respond to Trump.
www.nytimes.com
September 27, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
not to brag but @democracydocket.com has this incredibly helpful timeline where you can see how the department of justice voting section has turned upside down since january. if you haven't been following you can get caught up. from @mattdcohen.bsky.social

www.democracydocket.com/timeline-tra...
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has long worked to protect voting rights. But since President Donald Trump returned to office, the DOJ’s voting section has done a dramatic 180. Today, rather than...
www.democracydocket.com
September 25, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
Parents of young children should be organizing relentlessly for free universal childcare because this seems unsustainable. Truly. At the very least, folks should be vociferously backing politicians who run on this.
We’re at $1,800/mo for part-time childcare, have friends that are closer to $5,000/mo for two kids. Add that to uncertainty of student loan repayment plans, and rising costs across everything else…
In Minnesota, it costs an average of $22,569 a year to send an infant to daycare — more than in-state tuition for a four-year public college.
September 14, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
Precisely.
My favorite version of this is: respect can mean "acknowledge my humanity" or "recognize my authority". So when someone in power says "If you don't respect me, I won't respect you" they often mean "If you don't recognize my authority, I won't acknowledge your humanity." And oof. That stuck with me.
September 13, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
better things are possible!!!!
September 9, 2025 at 12:36 PM
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Thread, on how LA and MS are sending NatGuard troops to DC even as homicide rates are higher in many of their own cities, and even as Trump guts federal funding for any and all programs that reduce crime but don't use a gun.

Social control, not safety. Over and over and over and over.
Gutting such programs for crime control, said @johnpfaff.bsky.social means "your focus is clearly not about reducing crime, it’s about intimidation and social control. And this is made all the more clear by where federal troops deployed — not where the crime is, but where the cameras will be." 5/5
September 3, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Big appreciation to unions and workers today and all days.
September 1, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
On Labor Day, we rise together. While billionaires buy up our government, we’re coming together to demand a country that puts workers first.

Find an event near you: www.mobilize.us/mayd...

August 30, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
61 years ago today Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer one of the most courageous activists of the Civil Rights Movement posed the question that echoes today with every migrant round-up by masked officers, as federal troops converge on D.C.,as institutions are threatened:

“IS THIS AMERICA?”

youtu.be/DFC1nc3IXBM
Fannie Lou Hamer's Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Speech
YouTube video by Northwest African American Museum
youtu.be
August 22, 2025 at 4:21 PM
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The Illinois constitution guarantees each defendant a right to effective legal representation, but public defenders throughout the state are facing significant understaffing that undercuts their ability to win their cases.

boltsmag.org/illinoi...
This Illinois Reform May Bring Relief to Overworked Public Defenders
Public defenders have "nowhere to go for help," at the mercy of floundering local budgets and local prosecutors’ policy swings. Illinois is creating a statewide office to change that.
boltsmag.org
August 9, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
A Democratic message that leaned in HARD into uplifting the idea of the commons and re-teaching people about importance of PUBLIC GOODS and the fact that they are GOOD and FOR EVERYONE would be an easy place to mobilize lots of people towards a project of building.
August 2, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
Anyway, folks will end up debating every word. But what's needed is a simple clear message and action. Followed by relentless repeating of that simple clear message over and over and over again. Followed by specifically telling people what to do/what actions to take in support of the message.
August 2, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
This is unfortunate:
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...
I wrote to the president of Harvard. I hope other faculty will speak their conscience, even if it means more struggle ahead.
July 29, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Reposted by JP Andrews
Always enough money for cops, but never enough for the public defenders...

"More than 120 cases, including some for assault on family members and police, were dismissed... fallout from a monthslong dispute over pay that has led public defenders to stop taking new clients"

Reports @apnews.com
July 24, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
Many, many, MANY studies show that the cumulative costs of harassing homeless people—cops, prison, jail, etc—are much more expensive than just housing them and providing income, and that doing those things helps people get to the point where they’re not in crisis any longer.

We choose cruelty.
July 19, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Reposted by JP Andrews
Crockett: Earlier someone was talking about cities being hellholes. Los Angeles contributes almost 20 billion in taxes. That’s more than all states in this country except for four.
July 15, 2025 at 8:47 PM