First Amendment
November 15, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The New York Times has run four stories on the FBI raids predicated on the alleged theft of Ashley Biden’s diary. The FBI has executed two raids on James O’Keefe and others associated with Project Veritas in the case. O’Keefe says Project Veritas was never able to authenticate the diary and that it had nothing to do with its theft, if that is what it was. We can infer that
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November 13, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The New York Times has now published its fourth story on the investigation of James O’Keefe and Project Vertitas in connection with their possession of the diary of Ashley Biden. The otherwise questionable authenticity of the diary can be inferred from the involvement of the FBI. It has somehow become a federal case in the Age of Biden. Today’s story is “Project Veritas Tells Judge It Was Assured Biden Diary
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November 12, 2021 — Scott Johnson
James O’Keefe et al. were raided under a federal search warrant procured by the FBI. Although O’Keefe was instructed to remain mum, the authorities promptly leaked news of the raid to the New York Times. All this in the matter of Ashley Biden’s diary. Among the items seized in the raid were O’Keefe’s cell phones. Fox News reports that a court order has enjoined the Department of Justice from extracting
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November 9, 2021 — Scott Johnson
James O’Keefe appeared for a segment with this attorney on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show last night. I have posted the video immediately below. We have wondered what possible federal crimes might have given rise to the search warrant on which the FBI’s abuse of O’Keefe was justified. O’Keefe’s attorney actually cites the crimes specified in the search warrant, but Hannity quickly moves on. I don’t watch enough televison news
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October 18, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
In the lead story in its local news section, the Washington Post reported last week that the Justice for J6 rally in D.C. cost government agencies that assisted Capitol Police at least $790,000. The Post seems bothered by this expenditure. So I infer from the fact that the paper rarely reports on the price tag of marches and protests by leftists or, for that matter, their rioting. Whatever one thinks
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September 21, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
In this post, Scott wrote about Saturday’s “Justice for J6” rally in Washington, D.C. He collected tweets reporting on the substantial, and seemingly predominant, police presence, including that of undercover feds. I was struck by a statement by CBS’s Margaret Brennan, the moderator of Face the Nation. According to this tweet by Nicholas Fondacaro, Brennan said “the strong show of security” by police and the feds “kept the crowds away.”
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August 31, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Tanner Cross teaches physical education at an elementary school in Loudoun County. He is a devout Christian. Loudoun County has enacted a wide-ranging policy in favor of students who claim to be of a gender other than their biological sex. The policy permits students to use restrooms and locker rooms, as well as to compete in sports, on the basis of the gender with which they identify, rather than their
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August 8, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Justice Department has dropped a case it had filed on behalf of a Vermont nurse who was forced to participate in an abortion that violates her religious beliefs. Fox News reports on this case here. Roger Severino provides important context here. When a Republican administration abandons a lawsuit brought by its Democratic predecessor, the mainstream media invariably cries foul. Perhaps for this reason, Republican cabinet members often persevere with
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July 30, 2021 — John Hinderaker
The dark night of censorship isn’t just threatening, it is already here. The most recent case–one of hundreds, if not thousands–is that of Dave Rubin, a popular conservative commentator with a large following on Twitter. Rubin tweeted this: They want a federal vaccine mandate for vaccines which are clearly not working as promised just weeks ago. People are getting and transmitting Covid despite vax. Plus now they’re prepping us for
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May 7, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Trump Justice Department aggressively protected religious rights and liberties. In this post from December 2019, I described five cases in which the DOJ, under the leadership of Eric Dreiband, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, filed papers in defense of religious freedom. One of them was a case from Indianapolis, Indiana. In that case, the DOJ sided with the Archdiocese of Indianapolis which had been sued for firing a
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April 26, 2021 — John Hinderaker
I think the first time I was really aware of Kamala Harris was when, as Attorney General of California, she launched a strike against conservative nonprofits. The State of California demanded access to donor information that is protected from disclosure by federal law. Harris pretended that California wanted the donor information not to disclose it, but to use it to investigate charitable fraud, but everyone believed that her real purpose
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March 30, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
A unanimous panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a professor can pursue a claim that his university violated his First Amendment rights by punishing him for refusing to use feminine pronouns to refer to a male student who identified as female. The professor declined the student’s request on religious grounds. The professor had proposed several compromises as a way of balancing his religious-based concerns with
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February 22, 2021 — John Hinderaker
America’s major tech companies have chosen sides. Thus the news that big tech employees contributed more to Joe Biden’s campaign than any other sector of the economy: Employees at Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, donated at least $15.1 million to President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, according to Open Secrets. The donations eclipsed the amount given from employees in the banking and legal sectors, according to The
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December 29, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of the Agudath Israel and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, holding that Emmy Award-winning Governor Cuomo’s COVID-19 inspired numerical capacity limits on their religious services violate the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. The November 25 Supreme Court order (5-4) granted an emergency injunction constraining Cuomo from enforcing the limits pending review by the Second Circuit. The Supreme
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December 16, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth ruled that a church is entitled to preliminary relief against an order by Nevada’s governor that treats the church worse in terms of coronavirus restrictions than numerous secular entities such as casinos, bowling alleys, retail restaurants, and arcades. The decision, by a panel of the court, was unanimous. The church, Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley, had been losing on this issue in
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November 27, 2020 — Scott Johnson
At the College Fix Greg Piper has posted a mind-boggling account of the oral argument of the appeal in the First Amendment case brought by Shawnee State University Professor Nicholas Meriwether against university administrators. Piper introduces his long account this way: A public university’s lawyer bumbled his way through oral argument last week on whether his taxpayer-funded client can force a philosophy professor to address a male student with female
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November 26, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Near midnight last night the Supreme Court granted temporary injunctive relief from the strictures of the edicts setting capacity limits in houses of worship in certain designated hotspots. The Court’s per curiam ruling in favor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America, limited as it is, nevertheless represents a shift in the Court’s center of gravity on the application of basic First Amendment principles to
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