According to Axios, Democrat operatives are allegedly facilitating news sites to push campaigns in close states during the midterm elections. The article discusses 51 sites with names such as the Milwaukee Metro Times, the Mecklenburg Herald, and the Tri-City Record. These sites are reportedly being supported by the American Independent (TAI), which was “launched by Democratic operative and fundraiser David Brock — also known for founding the left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters for America.” Continue reading “Media Matters Founder David Brock Tied to “Ploy” of Media Sites Favoring Democrats”
We recently discussed a federal court upholding the Georgia election law as constitutional, rejecting challenges based on voter suppression by a group associated with Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. President Biden has denounced pre-2020 and post-2020 changes to the state election laws as not just “Jim Crow on steroids” but “Jim Eagle,” an awkward effort to suggest something more scary than Jim Crow. However, some of us pointed out that provisions criticized by the President are found in many blue states, including his own state of Delaware. Now, the Delaware Supreme Court has rejected a Democratic universal mail-in voting law as unconstitutional. Continue reading “Has “Jim Eagle” Landed in Delaware? State Supreme Court Blocks Universal Mail-in Balloting”
We previously discussed a federal court upholding the Georgia election law as constitutional this week, rejecting challenges based on voter suppression. That did not appear to change the narrative for Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who is closely associated with the Fair Fight Action group that lost the case. Abrams claimed that the federal court actually found a “racist, discriminating system” and the law is “a voter suppression law that is already harming Georgians this year.” Indeed, while acknowledging the loss in court, the interview makes it sound like Abrams’ group largely prevailed rather than entirely lost their challenge on voter suppression.
I previously wrote about the latest New York gun law passed after the Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen and how it follows a long line of legally flawed legislative measures in the area. It did not take long. On Thursday, federal District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby issued a temporary restraining order against a substantial part of the law, including barring the provisions previously discussed as presumptively unconstitutional. Continue reading “Hochul’s Circular Firing Squad: Federal Court Rules Against New York’s Gun Law”
For years, I have written that I considered President Barack Obama’s action to create Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) to be unlawful. The move was part of an open effort to circumvent Congress when it failed to yield to the demands of President Obama and dispensed with obligations under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Now the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has upheld a lower court in ruling against DACA.
Continue reading ““DACA’s Deficiencies are Severe”: Federal Appellate Court Rules Against DACA”
The 24-9 blowout of the Rams by the 49ers captured a number of missed tackles and plays by the Rams. However, one successful tackle occurred on the sideline when a protester wearing a shirt reading “righttorescue.com” and carrying a smoke flare jumped a security fence and ran down the field. Linebacker Bobby Wagner (with the help of fellow linebacker Takkarist McKinley) forced the protester to the ground. Now, the activist with Direct Action Everywhere has filed a police report and is threatening legal action. However, not only is another court likely to find that there was no right to rescue in a case involving the theft of pigs by animal activists, this activist is likely to establish that the players had a right to tackle.
“Be afraid, be actually afraid.” Those words from former Politico Magazine editor Garrett M. Graff captures the hyperventilation in the media this week. No it is not Vladimir Putin’s threat of unleashing a nuclear war or the word that our national debt has reached a staggering $31 trillion. No, it is the news that Elon Musk may go forward with the purchase of Twitter and . . . [trigger warning] . . . free speech protections might be restored on the platform. The pearl-clutching of various media and academic figures shows how engrained the censorship culture has become in the United States. Continue reading ““Be Afraid, Be Actually Afraid”: Reporters Panic at the Thought of Twitter Restoring Free Speech Protections”
Below is my expanded column in Fox.com on the recent decision finding the Georgia election law constitutional. That was the law widely denounced by President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders as unconstitutional as a “new Jim Crow” law. The media repeated the claim despite some of us noting that the law fit well within existing precedent and even shared conditions with blue states like Delaware. Now that the challenge to election law changes denounced as voter suppression have been entirely rejected, there is little more than a shrug from some of the same figures and outlets.
Here is the column: Continue reading ““Jim Eagle” Has Landed: A Federal Court Rejects Challenge to Georgia Election Law”
Former President Donald Trump is suing CNN in a $475 million defamation lawsuit, according to a complaint filed in federal court in the Southern District of Florida on Monday. The lawsuit faces significant challenges under the governing precedent for public figures. For counsel, those challenges likely seem steeper in a week when Trump unleashed reckless and offensive attacks on Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and his wife former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao as well as journalist, Maggie Haberman. It is not exactly the context that counsel would want when seeking to hold CNN liable for defamatory comments in a difficult legal action. Continue reading “Trump Sues CNN for $475 Million in Defamation Lawsuit”
We have been following cases involving faculty disciplined or fired over the use of the n-word in classes (including courses on racism) or tests. Recently, a GW professor was removed from his class for such a reference. Now, “Down in Mississippi,” a play written by African American writer Carlyle Brown on the birth of the civil rights movement, has been reportedly canceled. Students objected to the use of the n-word in a play that tries to capture the environment of hate and racism of the period. Texas Wesleyan’s Black Student Association declared the reference to be harmful and “triggering.”
Below is my column in The Hill on the start of the new Term for the Supreme Court. The column predicts that critics will likely respond to the expected new precedent by attacking the integrity rather than the interpretations of the justices. I was wrong. The New York Times did not wait for any new decisions and attacked the integrity of the conservative justices as the “judicial arm of the Republican Party.” Does that make the three liberals justices voting together on the Court the “judicial arm of the Democratic Party”? Of course not. Justices are only partisan to the degree that you disagree with their jurisprudential views.
Here is the column: Continue reading “From Affirmative Action to Andy Warhol: Buckle up for a Wild Supreme Court Term”
Our editor Kristin Oren sent these amazing photos of a hike in Colorado today. She and her family caught their first snow on a hike around Mosquito Lake in the Flat Tops near Yampa, CO. The pictures are spectacular and I asked to share them with you.
Judge James C. Ho of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently made headlines when he publicly declared that he would no longer consider graduates of Yale Law School for clerkship positions due to the erosion of free speech rights at the university. In my view, Judge Ho is right on the merits but wrong on the means. I do not believe that these students should be the subject of a boycott for the failure of the faculty. However, the real question is whether such a boycott would even work. The answer is no. Even if the boycott were successful in dramatically reducing the prestigious clerkship for the school, it would likely not produce a change of behavior by the faculty. The sad reality is that many professors long ago jettisoned the interests of their students and their institution in favor of pursuing their own agendas.
Continue reading “Will the Call for a Judicial Boycott Change Yale? Don’t Bet on it”
There is an interesting free speech fight brewing at the University of California Berkeley Law School after nine student groups banned any speakers that support Israel or Zionism. The resolution adopted by the groups bar anyone who supports “Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.” Berkeley Law’s Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a self-proclaimed Zionist, has observed that he himself would be banned from speaking to the groups under this resolution.
Continue reading “Berkeley Student Groups Vote to Ban Any Speakers Who Support Israel or Zionism”