A federal grand jury has indicted Cal State University Channel Islands professor Jonathan Anthony Caravello for throwing a tear gas canister at federal agents during a raid at a Glass House Farms marijuana facility in Camarillo, CA. In addition to a large number of arrestees, the authorities found at least 14 child workers. Caravello has been defended by faculty at the university, but now faces charges under 18 U.S.C. 111 for “assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees.” Continue reading “Cal State University Professor Indicted for Assault on Federal Officers”
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he may strip comedian Rosie O’Donnell of her U.S. citizenship. He has made the threat previously, despite having no authority to do so. In the United States, political critics cannot be stripped of their citizenship, and pursuing such a course would be a fundamental denial of constitutional protections not only under the 14th Amendment but also under the 1st Amendment. Continue reading “No, the President Cannot Strip Rosie O’Donnell of Her Citizenship”
So an Alaskan bush pilot walks into the Supreme Court with a six-pack of beer. Sounds like the start of a good joke? Well, for Ken Jouppi, it is no laughing matter. Jouppi and his counsel at the Institute for Justice have just filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to appeal a decision from the Alaska Supreme Court that held the state could seize his $95,000 Cessna U206D airplane over a six-pack of beer found in a passenger’s bag of groceries.
It has been 157 years since the last ship taking convicts from the United Kingdom landed in Australia. Now, in a crushing historical irony, Australia is contracting with the small Pacific island of Nauru to resettle foreign-born criminals who the courts have ruled cannot be imprisoned indefinitely. The court rulings show how our allies are facing the same dilemma in dealing with people who enter the country illegally and then oppose efforts to deport them for years in litigation. Continue reading “The Return of “Transportation” Sentencing? Australia Seeks to Ship Illegal Aliens to Small Pacific Island”
Former University of Arizona professor Daniel Grossenbach is suing the school over alleged retaliation over his views on gender policies in his children’s school district. Grossenbach, who taught ethics as an adjunct instructor from 2020 to 2023, was a contract faculty member (as opposed to tenured faculty) and was terminated after a cancel campaign over his voicing objections to the policies. The lawsuit presents a familiar free speech controversy in higher education, where conservatives or libertarians are targeted for their views outside of universities, while those on the left are rarely subject to such campaigns. Continue reading “Former Arizona Ethics Professor Sues University for Alleged Termination for Speaking Out Against Gender Policies”
A recent article in The Atlantic contained a notable account of the final meeting of the Spring 2024 semester for Harvard’s college faculty. As part of his annual report, then-Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana could not keep a straight face when reporting that the average grade at the school was now 3.8. As Khurana chuckled at the lunacy of an average of an A, the rest of the faculty joined in the laughter. It appears that, after years of runaway grade inflation, Harvard’s grading system has become a bad joke even among its own faculty. Continue reading ““Harvard’s Faculty Burst Out Laughing”: How Harvard’s Grade Inflation Became a Bad Joke”
Below is my column in The Hill on the spate of lawsuits against OpenAI over injuries associated with ChatGPT. These lawsuits could offer a long-needed review of OpenAI and its corporate practices. What is most needed is congressional action to examine not only the dominance of these AI systems but also the conduct of corporations like OpenAI.
Here is the column:
The Chicago Public School system has long been in a state of decline, with poor student scores and massive budget deficits. Teacher pensions in Chicago have threatened to bankrupt the state after politicians yielded to demands from the powerful teachers’ union. Despite the budget crisis, however, school administrators are burning through money on woke programs and resulting litigation. The latest example is the over $2.6 million in damages that will be paid to students who were forced to participate in a Transcendental Meditation program during classes. Teachers ignored the religious objections to the Hindu-based program, and the school subsequently litigated the case, incurring even greater costs to the system. Continue reading “Mantras and Money: Chicago Schools Agree to Pay $2.6 Million Over Transcendental Meditation Sessions”
This week, Elizabeth Baxter, an intern with the department’s environmental division, became the second Justice Department employee to be fired by Attorney General Pam Bondi for abusive conduct toward federal officers. Baxter shouted profanities and flipped off a member of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., on her way to work. The termination raises legitimate free speech issues, but Baxter may have crossed the line by recounting the abuse at work. Continue reading “Second DOJ Employee Fired Over Abusive Treatment of Federal Officers”
Within minutes of the shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic Church Mass on Wednesday, politicians and pundits were calling for new gun control measures and blaming conservatives for the deaths of the children. These are the same calls that have emerged after past shootings for everything from a ban on “assault weapons” to a total ban on all guns. What the public is not being told is the limited range of options under existing constitutional precedent.
Continue reading “The Rhetoric and Realities of Gun Control”
In 1985, Sol Wachtler, the chief justice of New York’s Supreme Court, famously said, “Any good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.” Perhaps, but it appears that indicting someone for throwing a ham sandwich may be tougher than it would appear. A grand jury has reportedly refused to indict Sean Charles Dunn, 37, shown on video shouting obscenities at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents standing near 14th and U streets on Aug. 10. and then striking an officer with a wrapped sandwich. Continue reading “Grand Jury Refuses to Indict Sandwich-Throwing Former Justice Employee”
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) appears to be doubling down on crazy in Minneapolis this week with calls to pack the Supreme Court and other extremist priorities. For voters who have repeatedly shown that they want to move to a more moderate center, you are left like Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets when his character, Melvin Udall, who declared, “Sell crazy someplace else. We’re all stocked up here.” Continue reading “As Good As It Gets? DNC Moves to Sell Crazy to an Over-Stocked Nation”
We have previously discussed the lack of a credible defense for Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, who has been charged with facilitating the escape of an undocumented man being sought by federal officers in her courthouse. Indeed, despite having high-powered lawyers such as Paul Clement, her recent social media posts seem more like a pitch for jury nullification. One bright spot for Dugan was that she was assigned to U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, a liberal Democrat who has run for prior office and has been accused of bias on the bench. However, Judge Adelman just delivered a blow to the defense by rejecting Dugan’s claim that she had judicial immunity in taking her actions.
In the advertising world, there is an old adage that there are times when you take a pitch and “run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.” That expression came to mind yesterday when President Donald Trump signed an order to punish flag burning. The President may be hoping that the Supreme Court might salute and reverse long-standing precedent declaring flag burning to be protected speech under the First Amendment. If so, he is likely to be disappointed. The proposed prosecutions would be unconstitutional and, absent an unlikely major reversal of prior precedent by the Court, flag burning will remain a protected form of free speech. Continue reading “Running it up the Flagpole: Why the Trump Order on Flag Burning is Unconstitutional”
Axios has a story out this week that disclosed that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) continued to pay off the debts from former Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. Over $15 million has already been paid out by the DNC, which is reportedly struggling to raise money in the aftermath of a failed campaign. Axios described it as a “private agreement” that was not disclosed to donors, who unknowingly contributed to the Harris campaign rather than the campaigns to retake the House and Senate. The question is whether such private agreements are lawful if not disclosed to donors. Harris shocked many in burning through over $1.5 billion in her brief 15-week campaign. Donors were irate over wasteful and excessive spending by Harris and her campaign. That has contributed to the poor fundraising figures reported from the DNC.