Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau left many of us gobsmacked this week when he denounced China for its crackdown on protesters. Many of us denounced Trudeau for his authoritarian crackdown on truckers protesting Canada’s Covid policies. Trudeau used terrorist laws to freeze bank accounts, treat truckers as terrorists, and treat trucks as effective weapons. This is a continuation of Trudeau’s utter lack of self-awareness (and the media continuing lack of objectivity). He previously was praised for his stance against Cuba’s crackdown on protesters.
Category: Politics
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected the use of a special master in the Mar-a-Lago case as well as broad challenges from the lawyers of former President Donald Trump. Notably, the three-judge panel included three Republican appointees, including two Trump appointed judges. While Democratic members and pundits have attacked Trump appointees as activists and ideologues, these jurists have repeatedly ruled against the former president in major cases like this one. Continue reading “Eleventh Circuit Ends the Use of a Special Master in the Mar-a-Lago Case”
Below is my column in the New York Post on the campaign to get Justice Amy Coney Barrett to recuse herself from 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis due to her religion. The demand is entirely without merit but it is illustrative of the unrelenting and unhinged attacks on this distinguished jurist. Previously, Democratic senators demanded Barrett’s recusal from pending cases on similarly frivolous grounds. Barrett remains the obsession for many on the left from campaigns to ban her books to protests at her home. She has done nothing to warrant such continual and personal attacks.
Here is the column:
We have been discussing efforts by figures like Hillary Clinton to enlist European countries to force Twitter to restore censorship rules. Unable to rely on corporate censorship or convince users to embrace censorship, Clinton and others are resorting to good old-fashioned state censorship, even asking other countries to censor the speech of American citizens. It is an easy case to make given the long criminalization of speech in countries like France, Germany, and England. Continue reading “The European Union Moves Toward a Possible Ban of Twitter if Musk Restores Free Speech Protections”
Below is my column this week on the campaign to coerce Elon Musk to restore the censorship system at Twitter. The campaign against Twitter now involves the full allied forces of the anti-free speech movement: the government, corporations, Democratic politicians, the media, and, of course, celebrities. However, it is an alliance that has proven overwhelming in the past but this unstoppable force has met an immovable object in Musk. It is total war in the beltway but Musk has yet to fully deploy his greatest weapon: free speech.
Here is the column: Continue reading “Washington Goes to War Against Twitter and Free Speech”
In a column in the Wall Street Journal, Robin Keller, a partner at Hogan Lovells, wrote about being fired from the firm after a distinguished career of 44 years. Keller was not fired for intermingling funds or violating confidentiality of clients. She was fired because she exercised free speech in an internal meeting on the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. After Keller expressed her support for the opinion and concern about higher rates of abortions in the black community, a participant complained that she could not breathe and others called her a racist. She was later suspended and reportedly fired. Continue reading ““Welcome Consequences”: Hogan Lovells Fires Partner for Voicing Her Views on the Dobbs Decision”
We have been discussing the virtual elimination of Republican and conservative scholars from many faculties despite the fact that roughly half of the country regularly votes for Republicans or conservative causes. Now a new survey by The College Fix of 65 departments in various states found that 33 do not have a single registered Republican. For these departments, the systemic elimination of Republican faculty has finally reached zero, but there is still little recognition of the crushing bias reflected in these numbers. Others, as discussed below, have defended the elimination of conservative or Republican faculty as entirely justified and commendable. Overall, registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans by a margin of over 10-1. Continue reading “Zero Tolerance: Survey Finds 33 of 65 Academic Departments Lack a Single Republican Professor”
Since Elon Musk bought Twitter with a pledge to restore free speech protections, the media and political establishment have maintained an unrelenting campaign to use pressure from corporations and foreign governments to force him to restore censorship policies. Reporters have covered seemingly every celebrity declaring that they are leaving the site or even selling their Teslas in protest. As companies joined the boycott, commentators gleefully announced the “death,” “collapse,” and “demise” of the social media company with some mocking Musk risking billions of dollars for free speech principles. New figures, however, appear to show that the public is solidly with Musk on the free speech issue. New signups at Twitter are at an all-time high with two million new signups per day. Continue reading “New Twitter Sign Ups Hit All-Time Record Despite Cancel Campaign”
National Public Radio yesterday posted an article titled “Twitter has lost 50 of its top 100 advertisers since Elon Musk took over, report says.” The article relies on a report from the liberal site Media Matters for America founded by Democratic operative David Brock. The report lists companies that have publicly pulled their advertising and the article strongly suggests that it is due to the pledge of Elon Musk to restore free speech protections on the social media site. These companies are well within their free speech rights to boycott the company or suspend their support in light of possible changes on content. However, customers also have the right not to support companies that do not support their free speech rights. Continue reading “Companies Join Call to Suspend Advertising with Twitter”
There is a deepening division on the J6 Committee as staffers turn on Liz Cheney over the final report on the January 6th riot. Angry rhetoric is flying with staffers accusing the Committee of becoming a “Cheney 2024 campaign” while both the Cheney spokesperson and Committee spokesperson lashed out at the staff members as “disgruntled” and producing shoddy or biased work. The underlying issue, however, is important and revealing. The Committee’s color coated teams include a “Blue Team” on the failure to prepare adequately for the riot. That part of the investigation is reportedly being dumped or reduced. Members of the “Green” and “Purple” teams are also reportedly irate.
It appears that illegal pot growers are giving thanks this holiday for California lawmakers who legalized pot only to fuel demand for illegal cannabis due to massive taxes. It is the same problem that I wrote about in New York’s program in an earlier Wall Street Journal column. Politicians continue to pile on taxes as if they have no impact on pricing and demand. It just seems like free money if you ignore every economic metric and principle. Even with a recent recognition that they have killed their own market, California lawmakers are being criticized for offering too little too late in terms of tax relief.
Continue reading “Reefer Madness: Demand for Illegal Pot Soars in California Due to High Taxes”
As families gather this year for our annual holiday feast, there remain many things for all of us to give pause and thanks for in our lives. Our friends, family, and faith remain central to this holiday. So is our freedom. Despite economic, political, and social problems, we remain a free and prosperous nation committed to core values of individual rights and self-determination. Indeed, more than any year, there is particular reason to give thanks to the most besieged and resilient part of our constitutional system: the courts. Despite attacks from the left and right, our court system remains a bulwark against political impulse and excess. The Supreme Court in particular has faced unrelenting attacks ranging from a reprehensible leak to an attempted assassination of a justice to calls for court packing. It has stood its ground just as James Madison and other Framers had hoped in their original design of our constitutional system.
I have previously written about how New York has proven time and time again as the gift that keeps on giving for the National Rifle Association (NRA) and gun-rights groups. New York Democrats continue to pass laws that are virtually guaranteed to be struck down and further reinforce Second Amendment rights. The latest provision involves the possible criminal prosecution for possessing a gun on private property if the owner has not approved such possession on the premises.
Continue reading “Federal Court Strikes Down Another Provision of New York’s New Gun Control Law”
For those of us who have written about the Hunter Biden scandal and the family’s influence-peddling operation for years, it is routine to read media stories denying the facts or dismissing calls to investigate the foreign dealings. However, this weekend, the Associated Press made a whopper of a claim that there is no evidence even suggesting that President Joe Biden ever spoke to his son about his foreign dealings. I previously discussed how the Bidens have succeeded in a Houdini-like trick in making this elephant of a scandal disappear from the public stage. They did so by enlisting the media in the illusion. However, this level of audience participation in the trick truly defies belief.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas A. Cox Jr. has ruled in favor of a filing by the Democratic Party and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign to allow early voting to begin on Saturday in Georgia’s Senate runoff election. I previously criticized this filing as an invitation for the court to act as a super legislature in the face of clear statutory language. In fairness to Judge Cox, the opinion below makes a creative case for such a construction. Yet, despite this well-written decision, I still believe that the court is wrong to ignore the plain meaning of the statute.