Law
February 19, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Nick Sandmann, the kid from Covington, Kentucky who was vilified for misconduct towards a Native American that he didn’t engage in, has sued the Washington Post for $250 million. He filed the complaint in the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Northern Division at Covington. You can read the complaint here. The amount of monetary damages Sandmann seeks corresponds to the amount of cash Jeff Bezos paid
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February 18, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Over the weekend, I linked to Jack Goldsmith’s article on President Trump’s use of national emergency power to come up with the money to build more border fencing. Goldsmith took no position at this early date on the legality of Trump’s move. However, his initial view is that hysteria over it is misplaced and that Trump’s legal position is plausible. John Yoo goes further. He finds that the law is
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February 16, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency and move funds around to pay for more wall building is certain to be challenged in court. The case almost surely will arrive at the Supreme Court. When it does, Trump may not have five votes. Chief Justice Roberts, and conceivably others among the five center-right Justices, may be quite skeptical of this use of executive power as, indeed, are a number
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February 9, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The moral argument against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is, I believe, compelling. Accordingly, there’s a plausible argument that such discrimination should be outlawed. However, there is no credible case that Congress has outlawed it. This hasn’t stopped liberal judges from finding that Congress did so in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Never mind that this Act was passed at a time when
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February 5, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Inside Higher Ed reports that some parents are having their children take DNA tests to prove they are black (or some other preferred minority) in order to enhance their chances of being admitted to the college of their choice. There’s nothing surprising about this trend. Given the massive advantage they confer on blacks, colleges are hard pressed to take the word of applicants that they are in that category if
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February 4, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Nearly two weeks ago the family of Covington Catholic high school student Nick Sandmann retained Georgia attorney Lin Wood to explore a possible libel case for the brutal lies to which the young Mr. Sandmann was subjected as a result of his close encounter with so-called “tribal elder” Nathan Phillips. Wood is a fearsome libel lawyer. See, for example, the January 24 WCPO story “Nicholas Sandmann’s family hires ‘attorney for
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January 27, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Students of ancient history may recall Nina Burleigh as the vulgar defender of Bill Clinton during the scandals that threatened his second term. In 1998 she expressed her willingness to “thank him for keeping abortion legal” in a manner she must have thought he would appreciate. I haven’t thought about Burleigh since those days of old, yet a week ago yesterday Britain’s Telegraph published an excerpt adapted from Burleigh’s 2018
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January 16, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Judge Jesse Furman went a fur piece — over a 277-page decision (embedded below) — in ruling yesterday that the Trump administration cannot lawfully add its proposed citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Judge Furman, by the way, is an Obama appointee to the busy bench of the Southern District of New York who presided over an eight-day trial of the case. I am tuning in to the case late
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December 30, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I’ve gotten to know Harley Feldman through our local chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Harley is a brilliant, soft-spoken guy and successful businessman. Three years ago his daughter Allison was brutally murdered at her home in Scottsdale, Arizona. Allison’s murderer was apprehended this past April. I wrote about the story at the time and am filing this update after meeting with Harley last month. The broad outlines of the
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December 28, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Four NGOs, including Oxfam and Greenpeace, have initiated legal proceedings against the French government, claiming that France has defaulted on its environmental obligations by eliminating, under intense pressure from “Yellow Vests,” the stiff carbon tax it had imposed. The initial filing gives the government two months to formulate a response, after which the organizations can choose to move forward with their lawsuit in administrative court. To an American lawyer, the
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December 25, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that might well have major implications for administrative law. The case is Kisor v. Wilkie, in which a Marine seeks retroactive benefits for his PTSD. Why is this case so important? Because, as David French explains, it turns on the deference, if any, the VA’s interpretation of the word “relevant” in the applicable federal regulations should receive. French explains
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December 20, 2018 — Scott Johnson
On Tuesday Judge Emmet Sullivan made a big splash with his wild talk in court about General Flynn. Michael Ledeen explores the meaning of Judge Sullivan’s wild talk in “The real story of the Flynn hearing.” Michael offers a perfectly plausible explanation, but there is no charitable explanation for Judge Sullivan’s loose talk from the bench about Flynn’s possible treason and selling out his country and all the rest. Apology
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December 15, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
John wrote last night about the ruling by a federal judge in Texas that Obamacare is unconstitutional in its entirety. Judge Reed O’Connor reasoned: (1) because Congress has repealed the penalty assessed against those who decline to buy health insurance, the Individual Mandate can no longer be fairly read as an exercise of Congress’s Tax Power; (2) because the Individual Mandate could only be justified constitutionally as an exercise of
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December 11, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
A federal judge in California has ordered Stormy Daniels to pay $293,052.33 in attorney’s fees as a result of the defamation suit she brought, via her lawyer Michael Avenatti, against President Trump earlier this year. The suit concerned Trump’s tweet that Daniels’ allegation that an unknown man threatened her in a parking lot to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump is a “total con job.” Federal District Judge
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November 30, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Just in time for your weekend listening pleasure, Episode 99 is ready! This week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Timbs v. Indiana, concerning the widespread practice of “civil asset forfeiture,” in which law enforcement will seize your property upon arrest (sometimes even without an arrest and criminal charge) and keep the money or asset for themselves. By coincidence this week I ran into the person
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November 29, 2018 — Scott Johnson
If John weren’t on vacation this week, he would have noted the Daily Beast story reporting that Avenatti brought the defamation lawsuit against President Trump in the name of Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford) without her consent. If true, this represents serious professional misconduct. Stormy Daniels also raised issues regarding the funds Avenatti has raised via crowdfunding in her name. The Daily Beast story rested on this statement from Stormy Daniels:
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November 28, 2018 — Steven Hayward
A week or ten days back we linked to Michael Uhlmann’s speech to the Claremont Institute on “The Struggle Ahead“—the “struggle” being the ongoing political battle to preserve our constitutional order from the predations of the contemporary left that hates the Constitution and its principles. But we were remiss in not including an excerpt from Claremont Institute president Ryan Williams’ introduction of Michael, which offered a summary of some of Michael’s
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