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”
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We started the day with our annual Turley Turkey Bowl — running over 50 years of unbroken tradition. I am cooking our usual two turkeys: one on the grill being smoked and one in the oven. Continue reading “HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!”
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”
Recently, we saw the filing of a hilarious brief by the Onion in Novak v. City of Pharm in which an Ohio man was prosecuted for posting a parody of his local police department. Now the Court has accepted a different parody case involving Jack Daniels where the company is suing the maker of dog chew toys. The case is Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. v. VIP Products LLC. Continue reading “Supreme Court Takes Jack Daniels Trademark Case with Major Free Speech Implications”
We have been discussing how attacking free speech has become an article of faith for many on the left. That includes embracing corporate censorship and recently even good old-fashioned state censorship. It includes banning books and preventing opposing voices to be heard on campuses. Now, MSNBC national security analyst Frank Figliuzzi has called for Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Fox News host Tucker Carlson to face civil liability for their commentary on transgender policies or controversies after the recent tragic shooting in Colorado. It is part of a growing movement in the media in favor of imposing criminal or civil liability on opposing viewpoints — a call that is tantamount to sawing the very branch upon which journalists and analysts sit. Continue reading “MSNBC Analyst Calls for Liability for Boebert and Carlson … for the Colorado Shootings”
We have followed a long line of false claims by President Joe Biden, some of which recently earned him a “bottomless Pinocchio” from the Washington Post. Some of these claims raise serious concerns over their use to change policies or law about election law, border agents, Second Amendment, gun capacity. Others are more trivial but bizarre like accounts of his Amtrak conductor, truck driving past, and other stories have long been the subject of jokes in Washington. Yesterday, added to the latter category with odd claims about poultry in Delaware. Continue reading “Fowl Facts: Biden Uses Pardon Ceremony as Platform to Talk Turkey with Some Curious “Facts””
Below is my column in The Hill on the appointment of a special counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump. All of the three main players — Trump, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Special Counsel Jack Smith — will face immediate challenges in the legal arms race unfolding in Washington.
Here is the column: Continue reading “The Lords of War: The Perils Facing Trump, Garland, and Smith in Washington’s Legal Arms Race”
We have come a long way since the heady days of Professor James Moriarty.
In Missouri, Michael Conley Loyd, 30, pleaded guilty last week to bank robbery. That is not particularly notable, but Loyd wrote his demand note to the teller on the back of his birth certificate and robbed the bank while wearing an ankle monitor. It only got more bizarre from there.
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.
We previously discussed the case of two New York attorneys (Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman) who joined in violent protests in New York, including firebombing a police vehicle. The Biden Justice Department later gave the two lawyers an astonishingly generous plea deal that avoided long prison sentences. Now Rahman has been sentenced to 15 months after asking for no jail time for throwing the Molotov cocktail.
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.
Auburn University has lost a major case involving free speech after a jury ruled in favor of Prof. Michael Stern, a tenured economics professor. The jury ruled that Auburn retaliated against Stern for his public criticism of the school’s treatment of student athletes, particularly their alleged favored treatment in the College of Liberal Arts. Notably, the jury awarded punitive damages against the university, a relative rarity for juries but well deserved in this case. Continue reading “Stern Rebuke: Auburn University Hit With Punitive Damages in Free Speech Case”