Attorney General Merrick Garland continued to refuse to address questions over his refusal to appoint a Special Counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation despite new evidence tying President Joe Biden to the controversial business deals. The New York Post is reporting that President Biden agreed to cover more than $800,000 in bills of Hunter, including legal fees tied to the foreign deals. While President Biden’s denial of knowledge of Hunter’s deals has been repeatedly contradicted (including by Hunter himself), White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki declared that President Biden stands by his denials. However, she declined to explain new information showing that a key business partner in these deals visited the White House over a dozen times, including at least one meeting with then Vice President Biden.
There is a major victory for free speech out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit this week. An appellate panel ruled that the discriminatory-harassment and bias response team policies at the University of Central Florida (UCF) likely violate the First Amendment. The policies have many of the common ambiguous terms discussed on this blog from other schools as chilling free speech. The decision in Speech First v. Cartwright also contains an unenviable reliance on UCF’s own counsel for proving that his client is curtailing free speech.
MSNBC host Ari Melber had a revealing moment on Monday that seemed almost a clinical (if not comical) example of transference. Melber warns that Elon Musk might actually use Twitter to “secretly ban” or “turn down the reach” of a political party or candidate. That is apparently worse than Twitter openly banning candidates and suspending accounts of conservatives for years. Melber is warning the left that Twitter could be used against them . . . the way it has been used against their opponents. He emphasized “this thing matters a ton.” That is a ton more than it mattered for the last six years.
Harvard University is under fire this week after canceling a talk by philosopher Devin Buckley on British Romanticism. That is usually not a protest-inspiring subject. The Lyrical Ballads of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge do not usually trigger riotous reactions. However, Harvard decided to cancel this talk not because of Dr. Buckley’s world-renowned expertise but because of her political views and associations. She is a member of the Women’s Liberation Front, a feminist organization that has opposed transgender policies as inimical to women’s rights. That was enough for Harvard, which shattered any pretense of free speech and viewpoint diversity on its campus. Wordsworth once wrote that “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” In this case, powerful feelings proved the end to good poetry. Continue reading “Harvard Cancels British Romanticism Scholar Due to Her Views on Gender Issues”
I have been writing (here and here and here) on the controversy over the decision of the Fairfax School Board to change the admissions requirements for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology to achieve diversity goals. Now, the United States Supreme Court has denied a request for emergency intervention in the case. However, the decision is not the end of the case. The Court may still review the admissions changes and three justices are already signaling that they would like to do so.
Continue reading “Supreme Court Declines Emergency Relief in Thomas Jefferson High School Case”
Below is my column in the Hill on the trial of Depp v. Heard, which seems to get more bizarre by the day. The trial proves Oscar Wilde’s rule that “nothing succeeds like excess.”
Here is the column:
Libs of TikTok has been much in the news recently after a column by the Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz and a suspension by Twitter. Lorenz was on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” on which Brian Stelter praises her writing and said that “I can’t wait to see what you’re working on next.”
However, it was one of the key justifications for the piece that stood out in the interview. Lorenz said that Washington Post targeted the host because she might be a foreigner. Since the Russian collusion stories, the media has been whipping up a fear of how “foreigners” are secretly influencing our society, politics, and culture. It increasingly seems like “They might be foreigners” is now the rallying cry for the left to justify every excess.
Wikipedia editors are under fire this week for removing the entry for Rosemont Seneca Partners, the investment company connected to Hunter Biden and his alleged multimillion dollar influence peddling schemes. The site bizarrely claimed that the company was “not notable.” The timing itself is notable given the new disclosure that Hunter Biden’s business partner, Eric Schwerin, made at least 19 visits to the White House and other official locations between 2009 and 2015. That included a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden despite Biden’s repeated claim that he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings. Schwerin was the president of Rosemont Seneca. Continue reading ““A Magnet for Conspiracy Theories”: Wikipedia Kills Entry for Hunter Biden’s Investment Company”
Below is my column in the Hill on the recent decision of a federal judge to allow a challenge to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) from appearing on the ballot as an insurrectionist. In my view, the underlying claim is meritless. The theory, supported by figures like Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe, runs against the clear language and history of the Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Here is the column:
Canada’s University of Waterloo is in the news this week after advertising for applications of a science position but limiting consideration to “qualified individuals who self-identify as women, transgender, non-binary, or two-spirit.” Continue reading “University of Waterloo Limits Science Position to “Women, Transgender, Non-Binary, or Two-Spirit” Persons” 
We have previously discussed how universities have used security fees and concerns to effectively block conservative speakers. Dartmouth College, however, is embroiled in a bizarre such controversy after it not only pushed a speech from an in-person event to an online event, but then demanded the school’s chapter of College Republicans pay a $3,600 “security fee” for an online event. The claims made by the College are now being challenged not only by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), but also by the Hanover Police Department.
We previously discussed how a New York judge struck down the new voting districts pushed through by Democrats as unconstitutional gerrymandering. That was followed by another blistering decision striking down the Democratic plan for Maryland as “extreme partisan gerrymandering.” Now an appellate court has also found that Democrats were trying to rig the next election and the five-judge panel ruled against the plan. The Democrats also recently lost a redistricting fight in Wisconsin after their map was found to be “racially motivated” and unconstitutional.
Continue reading “New York Appellate Court Declares Democrats Engaged in Unlawful Gerrymandering”
There is a bizarre report in The Daily Beast that former Trump Counsel Michael Cohen is laying down an Ultimatum for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.: indict Trump or I’m leaving you. Cohen warned that, if Bragg does not use the current grand jury to indict Trump, he will no longer cooperate. It is a curious threat since he could be called before a grand jury and would have to invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination to refuse further testimony.
The defamation trial of actor Johnny Depp against his former wife, Amber Heard, has all of the makings of a Hollywood hit except for the absence of a single redeeming character. The comedian Henny Youngman may have been right that “the secret to a happy marriage remains a secret,” but the Depp trial shows that it is clear how to have a miserable marriage. It includes things like mutually taping each other, throwing objects of varying sizes, and rivaling each other in the competition of conspicuous consumption. Continue reading ““Nothing Less Than Everything”: The Depp Trial and The Litigation of Mutual Destruction”
We recently discussed the collapse of the Whitmer kidnapping case after a jury acquitted defendants in Michigan. Now, one of the lead prosecutors is leaving the case, according to a motion filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Roth. That adds questions about how the case will move forward after the earlier loss.
Continue reading “Top Prosecutor Drops Out of Whitmer Kidnapping Case”