Tag: in-the-news

From Judge Annemarie Carney Axon (N.D. Ala.) in yesterday’s Spears v. N.Y. Times Co.:

Plaintiff Kai Spears was a walk-on basketball player for The University of Alabama men’s basketball team and developed close friendships with other teammates, including Brandon Miller. In the early hours of the morning on January 15, 2023, Mr. Spears and Mr. Miller visited Moe’s Original BBQ in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Unbeknownst to Mr. Spears, another teammate—Darius Miles—asked Mr. Miller to bring Mr. Miles a gun that he had left in Mr. Miller’s car. So Mr. Miller headed to Mr. Miles, and Mr. Spears started back to his dorm. A few minutes later, gunfire erupted on the Strip, and Michael Davis, Mr. Miles’s childhood friend, shot and killed Jamea Harris using the gun that Mr. Miller had brought to Mr. Miles.

{Two months later, the Times published an article, titled “A Fourth Alabama Player Was at a Deadly Shooting, in a Car Hit by Bullets.” The opening line said that the “fatal January shooting that involved players from the University of Alabama basketball team could have been even more deadly, as surveillance video showed that two players were in a car struck by bullets in the crossfire.”

It added that Mr. Spears was in the car with Mr. Miller at the time of the shooting and that Mr. Miles had asked Mr. Miller to bring Mr. Miles’s gun to the scene. The story said that the University had tried to “distance itself from the shooting” and keep “quiet” other players’ involvement. The article then discussed widespread criticism that Mr. Miller and the University received when Mr. Miller continued to play after the shooting.}

The statements about Mr. Spears were false, and this lawsuit followed….

The court concluded that Spears has the burden of showing “that the allegedly defamatory statements were false in all material respects,” but it concluded that he had introduced enough evidence of that to go to the jury:

At the motion to dismiss stage, the Times argued the article’s statements were not defamatory because the article portrayed Mr. Spears as a potential victim. In addressing the Times’s argument about the statements that Mr. Spears was “in a car struck by bullets” and that the shooting “could have been even more deadly,” Judge Coogler noted that “[r]ead alone, these statements do not appear reasonably capable of conveying a defamatory meaning.” But Judge Coogler added that—when considering whether a news article had a defamatory meaning—Alabama law requires the article to be read as a whole. Judge Coogler explained that the entire article could allow an ordinary reader to conclude “[Mr.] Spears was somehow complicit in the shooting.” ….

Mr. Spears has produced sufficient evidence to meet his burden because a reasonable jury could conclude that Mr. Spears was not “involved” in the shooting. Although Mr. Spears was with Mr. Miller for the hours leading up to the shooting, Mr. Spears had no knowledge that Mr. Miller was communicating with Mr. Miles or that Mr. Miles had asked Mr. Miller to bring him his gun.

On top of this, Mr. Spears did not know where Mr. Miller planned to go or what he planned to do when he left Moe’s. Nor did he know that Mr. Miles’s gun was in Mr. Miller’s car. And of course, Mr. Spears did not get in Mr. Miller’s car and was not at the scene of the shooting when it occurred. At the time of the shooting, Mr. Spears and his friends were on their way back to his dorm. Mr. Spears knew about the shooting only after it happened….

For more on the December 2023 decision in the case denying the motion to dismiss, see this post.

Mary Virginia Buck, R. Matt Glover (Prince, Glover & Hayes P.C.), and Stephen P. New represent plaintiff.

The post Alabama Basketball Player's Libel Lawsuit Against New York Times Can Go to a Jury appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/eAghrUi
via IFTTT

As the new leader of America’s largest third party, Evan McMahon doesn’t plan on playing kingmaker to help Democrats or Republicans get elected.

“The proper approach for a Libertarian candidate to take is to be a libertarian and run,” says McMahon, who was elected the party’s new chair at its convention last weekend. “Not to seek an armistice with somebody who’s going to grow the state, who’s going to bomb and kill children in other countries.”

Most of the time, that would be a rather noncontroversial take. In recent years, however, the Libertarian Party has been controlled by a faction that toyed with the idea that the best way to achieve pro-liberty political change is by cozying up with one of the two major parties. In practice, that meant doing things like inviting Donald Trump to speak at the Libertarian National Convention two years ago.

Instead of playing spoiler, the idea was to use Libertarian voters as leverage to gain a seat at the table (or perhaps a position in the cabinet), even if doing so came at the expense of the party’s own nominees. That has been a controversial approach within the party, which has seen membership and donations decline, and has yielded few positive results—yes, Trump freed Ross Ulbricht, but most of his second term has largely been a libertarian nightmare.

McMahon wants a clean break with all of that.

“There’s no deals that can be made for a cabinet position when you’re sacrificing our set of principles in our platform. It’s just abhorrent to me,” he tells Reason. 

If you believe the Republican Party is the most effective vehicle for achieving libertarian goals, then “go be with them,” he adds.

McMahon supported the successful effort at last week’s convention to disaffiliate the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, something he says was “necessary” and had been “a long time coming.”

The former New Hampshire affiliate had endorsed Trump in 2024, rather than backing Libertarian nominee Chase Oliver. The state party has also gained a reputation for posting racist, bigoted, and authoritarian content on social media. The affiliate had become “a toxic group that is doing damage to our brand and to our candidates and our affiliates,” McMahon told Reason.

Looking forward, McMahon believes the Libertarian Party needs to do a better job of speaking to disenchanted and frustrated voters on both sides—and bring them into the fold as dues-paying members. He’s set an ambitious goal of growing the party’s base to 66,000 “sustaining members” (those who donate at least $25 annually) by 2028.

Telling some current members to take a hike might make the task even more difficult, but McMahon points to the fact that there are more than 700,000 registered Libertarian voters in the country.

“If you don’t have a strong membership base, you don’t have candidates. You don’t have volunteers to go out and support those candidates,” he says. “You need people who can show up at zoning board meetings, town council meetings, and all the other different levels of government to be a representative of the party.“

McMahon got into Libertarian politics in 2010 after previously working on Republican campaigns in the Indianapolis area. Since making the switch, he’s been a driving force in the Libertarian Party of Indiana, which he has chaired since 2021. He helped run Donald Rainwater’s 2020 gubernatorial campaign, which received more than 11 percent of the vote statewide (Rainwater’s follow-up bid in 2024 scored less than 5 percent, but he got on stage with the major party candidates during the debates). He’s helped start dozens of local Libertarian chapters, both in Indiana and across the rest of the country, as part of the Libertarian National Campaign Committee.

Much of the criticism that McMahon has faced, at the convention and online in the days since it ended, surrounds two issues: His criminal record (which is not in doubt) and his alleged support for aggressive COVID-19 countermeasures during the pandemic—the only evidence of which seems to be a social media post in which McMahon urged people to “#StayTheFuckHome.”

Pressed about both, McMahon is happy to discuss them. The COVID-19 post, he says, was not an endorsement of government-imposed lockdowns, school closures, or vaccine mandates, which he spoke out against as chair of the Libertarian Party of Indiana. It was a call for personal responsibility. The same is true for his habit of wearing a mask in public during the pandemic—something McMahon says he started doing during flu seasons before COVID-19, because he is immunocompromised and trying to protect his own health.

The other issue is more serious and more illustrative. McMahon was arrested in 2003 and ultimately pleaded guilty to burglary and drug charges, for which he served three years under house arrest. He says he does not remember committing the crime—he was blacked out and woke up in the “drunk tank” afterwards—but has taken full responsibility for it. 

In fact, the brush with the law “saved my life,” he says, as it forced self-reflection that led to sobriety and a successful career.

So, I ask the natural follow-up: What is it like to be sober at a convention full of libertarians?

“It is hard, man,” he laughs, before getting serious. “I think that you have the right to put what you want in your body. I just know that I’m allergic to it and that if I do it, my life will be turned upside down.”

A little sobriety—of the political kind, if not the other types—might be the sort of thing the Libertarian Party needs right now. In the wake of the pandemic, the party has been riven by an internal power struggle, allegations of self-dealing by insurgent party leaders, and the flirtation with endorsing Trump (or even Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., my goodness). Membership has declined, and so have donations. At a time when record numbers of Americans are disgruntled with the two major parties, the Libertarian Party has also managed to make itself a less attractive alternative.

Time will tell if McMahon is able to turn things around, or if his election and the controversial ouster of the Libertarian Party’s largest state affiliate are just the beginning of a new stage in the party’s civil war.

Regardless, the Democrats and Republicans are unlikely to become more appealing to the “politically homeless” in the next few years. The opportunity to build a functional third party is still there, and the need for one has never been more urgent.

The post The Libertarian Party's New Leader Has No Interest in Playing Kingmaker appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/8hJS7d4
via IFTTT

In January of 2025, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) promised to slash $2 trillion from the federal budget. After 10 months, the initiative, inspired by the dog meme, became a villain in Washington and only saved $215 billion (by its own estimation). 

Now, the spirit of DOGE lives on, this time in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s New York City…kind of.

On Thursday, Mamdani launched a Commission on Government Efficiency (COGE) initiative to make the city government “work smarter, faster, and more effectively for working people.”
He wrote on X, “New Yorkers deserve a city government as careful with their money as they are.”

When asked whether there was anything he admired about Musk’s DOGE, Mamdani told reporters, “just the name and what it should have been.” 

“Government efficiency, these are words that somehow have been understood as if they are Republican priorities when in fact they are the priorities of anyone who believes in the public sector,” Mamdani said on Thursday. “And yet, Elon Musk took that language and used it to cut as many jobs that were as critical as possible for so many of the neediest people across the country and across the world.”

Mamdani added that his COGE would “focus on actually delivering efficiency” instead of serving as a “byword for cutting services.” 

New Yorkers should indeed take him at his word when he says this commission is not going to make dramatic cuts to services: Mamdani’s COGE commission is more of a fact-finding task force than a ruthless bureaucracy slasher. COGE plans to study the city’s charter to find ways to remove bureaucratic red tape slowing infrastructure projects and “to improve efficiency, savings, reserves and budgetary practices,” according to a fact sheet obtained by Politico. The Mamdani administration also plans to hold 10 public hearings on potential ballot questions ahead of November, the outlet reported. 

The COGE launch comes a day after Mamdani “moved to dissolve a charter revision commission appointed at the end of Eric Adams’ tenure,” reported amNY, and COGE would attempt to replace the Adams-era commission. 

Championing efficiency is a good start, but New York City could use a true DOGE-ing. New York spends “75 percent more per capita than the local governments of the ten other cities,” according to City Journal. Last year, under Mayor Eric Adams, the budget was $118 billion. That figure is slightly more than the budget of the entire state of Florida, which has nearly three times as many people as New York City. At that cost, New Yorkers should be receiving $118 billion worth of services, but they are not. According to the Citizens Budget Commission, only 27 percent of New York City residents rated the overall quality of public services as being “excellent or good” in 2025. That figure was 44 percent in 2017. And only 11.5 percent of residents said the New York City government spends its tax dollars wisely. 

Instead of meaningfully cutting back on city bloat, Mamdani proposed a  $124.7 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Meanwhile, when he had to fill a $12 billion budget gap earlier this year, he relied on a series of budget gimmicks and a bailout from Albany. New York City Comptroller Mark Levine has called for the administration to strengthen the budget, warning that it “relies on $2.8 billion in one-time measures and $2.3 billion in short-term pension savings, without solving for the fact that City government continues to spend more than we take in, even in a year of record revenues.”

DOGE was far from perfect in its execution, but its supporters had the right idea: The state should drastically cut the size and scope of the government, which requires eliminating some federal programs. Mamdani’s COGE takes a different approach. Mamdani is not opposed to spending money on city services, whether critics say they are superfluous or not; he simply wants those services to deliver efficiently. If this is the goal, COGE faces a formidable challenge in making a $124.7 billion budget a fair deal for taxpayers. 

The post Elon Did DOGE. Now, Mamdani Is Trying COGE. appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/Nng15G7
via IFTTT

In my last post on the VC, I would like to say a bit about so-called “hate speech” (which I address in the last chapter of my book, arguing that it should be constitutionally protected in public schools). I say “so-called,” because it might be better to drop the term “hate speech” insofar as it implies an extreme aversion to a particular group. However, in this post, I will use the term for convenience.

No single legal definition of hate speech exists. The term is notoriously difficult to define with sufficient precision. As a result, those who support anti-hate speech codes on college campuses, for example, must say more about what to do about invariable vagueness and overbreadth problems than they usually do. That hate speech is constitutionally protected in the U.S. has not stopped university administrators to try to make it much harder for students to express certain ideas with impunity.

I doubt that any anti-hate speech code at a public school could be formulated and applied in a way that would not ban or chill speech that ought to be constitutionally protected. Such codes would be ripe for overreach and misapplication, apart from allowing viewpoint discrimination. It is important to understand that even if a particular word—like a racial slur—has little, if any free speech value most of the time, the fundamental problem is that if the government can ban that word, then it also has the authority to ban other words, regardless of the context and the intent of the speaker or writer.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, lower courts struck down a variety of speech codes on college campuses. In R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia invalidated a Minneapolis anti-hate speech ordinance on the ground that it was underinclusive. For him, the law in question invited government to engage in viewpoint discrimination inasmuch as people could be prosecuted for expressing racist views but not for expressing racially egalitarian views or homophobic views.

In Scalia’s view, government must remain neutral towards all viewpoints, even racist ones, so that the “fight” is fair. No viewpoint is better or worse than another from the standpoint of the First Amendment, and it is up to the public to decide which ideas they will embrace and reject. There is no way to regulate hate speech without also censoring ideas. Doctrinally, that fact presents an enormous problem for those who want to alter the constitutional state quo by creating a new category of unprotected speech. It is not evident how to balance the importance of free speech against the importance of protecting victims of hate speech from some sort of harm. Reasonable people disagree about how harmful it is likely to be, which is situational and can vary from person to person, and what can or should be done about it.

Progressives should not be so eager to embrace bans on hate speech when their own chickens could come home to roost. Recently, some European countries have curbed pro-Palestinian protests designed to raise awareness about the violence in Gaza. This response is problematic for a few reasons, including the importance of the expression of the viewpoint that the Israeli conduct is unjust (regardless of whether this proposition is true) so that the public can decide for itself which side, if any, to take.

This generation of college students is more inclined to suppress speech that offends minorities, makes them feel uncomfortable, or undermines their equality. This inclination comes from the right place but the implementation of such a speech code would have a high cost: trying to protect vulnerable students from hurtful ideas, school officials would be able to engage in viewpoint discrimination and punish students who express their sincere beliefs, which of course, may be wrong.

Additionally, censorship may reduce the likelihood that uncomfortable conversations will take place that will enlighten white students who may be racially illiterate. A number of years ago, I was taken aback when I realized how many of my students, who had grown up in this county, did not know why people burn crosses. When a white student wears blackface to school as part of a Halloween costume, school officials and teachers have an opportunity to educate students about the historical meaning of minstrel shows and its present-day implications. Understandable anger or outrage should not replace the need to explain why such a costume is problematic; it is not as if all or even many junior high and high school students (or adults for that matter) know why that is so. At minimum, all students must become used to encountering unwelcome ideas, even the worst ones.

Few people will want to talk about race openly and honestly if what they say could be considered racist speech under an amorphous anti-hate speech code. A few years ago, at the Georgetown Law Center, Professor Ilya Shapiro was investigated (and eventually cleared after several months before he resigned), for making an offensive comment on Twitter about then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown-Jackson and her being a “lesser black woman.” Regardless of whether Shapiro was right or whether he phrased his comment well, he meant that President Joseph Biden should not have promised to put a black woman on the Court during his presidential campaign in 2020. Apparently in Shapiro’s mind, Biden should have picked from a much wider pool of qualified applicants. Surely at law schools and elsewhere, there is a public discussion worth having about the meaning of merit, the judicial selection process, its political dimensions, and the lack of sex and racial diversity on the federal bench. This incident also illustrates why the threat of punishment is the wrong approach in dealing with speech that is offensive or racist. Frequently, people – students included – do not choose their words carefully when they speak extemporaneously, use social media, or blurt out something in the heat of the moment. Any sensible theory of free speech must take people as they are –error-prone, emotional, uninformed, insensitive, and thoughtless– and not how we wish them to be.

As Matthew Kramer observes in Freedom of Expression as Self-Restraint, anti-hate speech laws are “designed to control people’s thoughts.” Although that may be an overstatement, Kramer is right that if we are genuinely committed to respect for the autonomy of each student, then they will make racist remarks and use racial epithets, unfortunately. They will also make mistakes that they may regret. That is the price of letting them come to her their conclusions for better or for worse. A speech code on campus is a blunt instrument. Alternative remedies must be considered before the state engages in censorship. Other non-censorious countermeasures could be equally or more effective (and much more respectful of student autonomy).

One of the most difficult challenges is to figure out exactly what to do about such speech, especially when laws proscribing it will not make it disappear, may be hard to enforce, and may have unintended consequences. It is not evident that the hate speech problem in the United States, because such speech is constitutionally protected, is worse than that of European countries in which such speech is prohibited (although that result may be due to under-enforcement). In terms of reducing hate speech, a ban on it on a high school campus may help to mitigate it, and racial and ethnic minority students may be less likely to directly experience it, but it will not disappear. At most, students who use such language are more likely to be more careful about who may overhear them or with whom they share their real beliefs.

There may be more tactful ways of expressing racist sentiments but doing so in a more “civil” manner is not necessarily much of an improvement. Doctrinally, people are allowed to express pernicious stereotypes and make outrageous claims; it is not the role of government to censor them. Alternatively, “good” speech can counteract “bad” speech, with good or bad often being in the eye of the beholder.

Students may want to engage in such speech yet do not do so for fear of being suspended or expelled. We should not necessarily want a racist student punished for what they say or write; we should want them refuted. The expression of racist ideas can have some educational value, then, when educators can turn an incident into a teachable moment. So, yes, to answer one VC reader’s query in the comments section, a student should be able to use the “n” word without the possibility of being disciplined. But that is not to say that they should use the word. To have a legal or constitutional right to do this or that does not entail that it is fine to exercise such a right whenever they happen to want to do so. It is to say that it is their choice and that others are free to respond with their own counter speech.

The post Hate Speech at a High School appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/QIcoB68
via IFTTT

A short excerpt from the long opinion in Does v. Democratic People’s Republic of N. Korea, decided yesterday by Judge Timothy Kelly (D.D.C.):

In January 1968, North Korea chased down and captured the U.S.S. Pueblo in international waters, killing one of the ship’s crew and taking the rest hostage. For the next eleven months, North Korea beat, starved, interrogated, and tortured the survivors to extract false confessions from them. Before the year was up, North Korea got the admission and the apology that it wanted from the United States for supposedly violating North Korean territorial waters. And the hostages, having served their purpose, were released.

This case is the latest of several in which some of the Pueblo’s crew members, their families, and their estates sued North Korea under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and state tort law. North Korea failed to appear, and Plaintiffs moved for default judgment. For the reasons below, the Court will grant their motion and award long-overdue compensation to these victims of state-sponsored terrorism.

As to the statute of limitations, the opinion says this:

The FSIA’s statute of limitations imposes a cut-off date for lawsuits: the later of (1) 10 years after April 24, 1996, and 10 years after “the cause of action arose.” This timing provision is not jurisdictional, so it does not implicate the Court’s power to decide the case. And “by defaulting” and failing to “raise [this] affirmative defense in responding to a pleading,” North Korea has forfeited this timing-based defense. Moreover, district courts lack “authority to raise sua sponte the FSIA terrorism exception’s statute of limitations when it has been forfeited by a defendant” like North Korea “who is entirely absent from the proceedings.” So even though Plaintiffs’ complaint, filed in January 2023, might struggle to overcome the FSIA’s statute of limitations were the issue raised, the issue has not been raised, and the Court will not—cannot—address it unprompted.

The awards, which amount to $404.55M, are listed in this order; I don’t know whether there are any North Korean assets that plaintiffs could access to collect on the awards.

The post Court Awards $400M Default Judgment Against North Korea to Victims of 1968 Attack on U.S.S. Pueblo appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/qu7s3rS
via IFTTT

In a normal, pre-Donald-Trump political world—you know, when pastors didn’t pray around golden statues of political leaders and presidents didn’t plaster their names and faces on public buildings, passports, and currency like in a tin-pot dictatorship—lawmakers could agree on some basic parameters of decent behavior. Democrats and Republicans may fight about everything, but they could unite in their opposition to self-dealing outrages.

That’s no longer true. There is seemingly nothing Donald Trump or his family could do that would spark denunciations from the GOP. That’s especially obvious after Trump exacted vengeance in Tuesday’s primaries on the handful of Republicans who would sometimes raise concerns about the administration’s threats to the Constitution. I still remember when sucking up was a loathsome character trait, but now it’s a Republican art form.

In pre-Trump days, Republicans would laugh at Bagdad Bob-style third-world toadyism. Yet this week, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry went to Greenland as Trump’s special envoy. “Greenland was not on a map, until Donald Trump put it on a map,” he gushed. Ick. I also remember when Louisiana governors, however ill-behaved, were independent-minded and clever. Edwin Edwards on a foe: “He’s so slow that it takes him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.”

While derriere-kissing behavior is embarrassing, the latest news from Washington, D.C., is shocking. Trump had sued the IRS for $10 billion for the leak of his tax returns, and now the agency that he runs has settled with the president and his family. The terms of the agreement are not surprisingly tilted heavily in Trump’s favor and should make any self-styled advocate for limited government blush, but you know that isn’t the case.

As The Dispatch‘s Jonah Goldberg explained, “Realizing that the courts might find this too cute to countenance, the Justice Department and IRS—both, again, run by Trump—compromised by creating a $1,776,000,000 fund (that “1776” before all the zeros is a play on the country’s 250th birthday) that Trump will control. Its primary function would be to compensate the January 6 rioters, all of whom he has already pardoned.” Trump isn’t particularly smart, but he is cunning. (And you thought it was self-dealing when unions negotiate for pay deals with the politicians that they elected to office.)

Further details of this “anti-weaponization” deal are more brazen. As the BBC noted, the deal “blocks the IRS from reviewing tax filings that Trump, his family and his businesses made in the past.” It’s a self-pardon for any financial problems and, as others have noted, largely puts the Trump family above the nation’s tax laws. In free societies, no one is above the law, whereas in despotisms the despot and his cronies can do pretty much anything they choose. As a Peruvian dictator once said, “For my friends everything, for my enemies the law.”

So where are Republican lawmakers? Some of them feigned ignorance of the details of any of this well-reported deal. Others expressed some concern, per the Deseret News, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R–S.D.) saying that he’s “not a big fan” of a slush fund that could pay millions of dollars to people who attacked the Capitol and its police officers. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) says he wants to ask more questions. It won’t be long before all elected Republicans—including those now expressing “concern”—become big fans of the deal.

Already, per the news report, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R–Iowa) is doing the whataboutism thing by comparing it to a deal made under the Biden administration—a laughably weak comparison. The case he references involves a $2 million settlement the administration made with former FBI officials, not to a president who “negotiated” a $1.8-billion slush fund with get-out-of-jail-free passes for his family.

One writer referred to Trump’s governance as “patrimonialism,” meaning that he treats the United States and its government as his personal property. That certainly helps explain Trump’s desecration of the White House and other D.C. monuments, as he imposes his Early Saddam Hussein style on everything largely free from congressional oversight. But that’s an overly generous description.

The key to Trump’s success is that he throws so much stuff against the wall that it leaves his opponents constantly flat-footed. Consider this doozy of a news story that, in that long-forgotten sane world, would be intolerable. From The New Republic: “At least two companies tied to Don Jr. and Eric Trump have won large government contracts.”

Why do Republicans roll over? “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle,” wrote Carl Sagan. “It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” And now the nation will probably never get back to normal because a spineless GOP can never admit that it’s been conned.

The post Republicans Shrug at Trump's Outrageous Corruption appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/CvpNthO
via IFTTT

From H.C. v. Contreras, decided yesterday by California Court of Appeal Justice Mark Snauffer, joined by Justices Bert Levy and Donald Franson:

Bethany G. sought a protective order protecting H. C., her minor son, from H. C.’s father, Rudy C. Numerous witnesses testified at a hotly contested hearing after which the parties filed closing briefs. Rudy’s brief, submitted by counsel, contained fictitious caselaw and misstated the law. Counsel for Bethany directly and swiftly pointed the errors out to the trial court.

The trial court declined to issue the requested order, but its ruling erroneously relied on a nonexistent case and a serious legal misstatement—the very same shortcomings Bethany had already noted. As explained below, we reverse for further proceedings….

After the evidence was presented, but before the trial court ruled, Rudy’s counsel filed a closing brief. Most pertinent here, the brief contains the following portions:

“2) Insufficient Evidence of Harassment or Disturbing the Peace

“Under Family Code § 6320, abuse can include harassment or disturbing the peace of the other party. However, California courts have held that the behavior must be persistent, egregious, and intended to disturb the victim’s peace. In Enrique M. v. Angelina V. (2005) 15 Cal.App.5th 788, the court emphasized that disturbing the peace should be understood as conduct that ‘destroys the mental or emotional calm of the other party.’

“In this case, the alleged incidents presented by Bethany do not rise to the level of severe, ongoing behavior required to meet the standard of ‘harassment’ or ‘disturbing the peace.’ The incidents presented lack the frequency, intensity, or impact required under the statutory definition and supporting case law, rendering them insufficient to constitute harassment or disturbing the peace.

“3) Failure to Demonstrate Reasonable Fear of Immediate Harm

“Family Code § 6203 also requires that abuse must place the petitioner in reasonable apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury. Petitioner has failed to demonstrate any legitimate, immediate fear of bodily harm that is objectively reasonable under the circumstances.”

Bethany, also through counsel, replied to the brief, pointing out the citation to Enrique M. v. Angelina V. (2005) 15 Cal.App.5th 788 did not exist. {Bethany’s counsel has identified a case, Enrique M. v. Angelina V. (2004) 121 Cal.App.4th 1371, which involved a father’s request to modify a custody order and is otherwise inapplicable to the present case.} Counsel also noted Family Code section 6203 did not require proving “legitimate, immediate fear of bodily harm that is objectively reasonable” before a restraining order may issue.

The trial court {Judge Irene A. Luna} issued a written ruling in Rudy’s favor. It contains the following pertinent portion [which is nearly identical to the brief submitted on Rudy’s behalf -EV] ….

Here, in our view, the trial court committed at least two clear legal errors. First, the trial court cited and relied on a fictitious case, i.e., Enrique M. v. Angelina V. (2005) 15 Cal.App.5th 788. The error is underscored by the fact Bethany brought the fictitious citation to the court’s attention. The court ignored Bethany’s warning, and relied on it in its ruling. The trial court clearly incorporated this part of Rudy’s brief into its ruling because the ruling is a verbatim reproduction—save for changing “Bethany” to “Mother”—including a spacing typo.

Second, the trial court’s ruling reproducing Rudy’s brief misstated section 6203, the section defining abuse under the DVPA. Section 6203, subdivision (a) provides four independent circumstances constituting abuse:

“(1) To intentionally or recklessly cause or attempt to cause bodily injury.

“(2) Sexual assault.

“(3) To place a person in reasonable apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury to that person or to another.

“(4) To engage in any behavior that has been or could be enjoined pursuant to Section 6320.”

The trial court nonetheless ruled section 6203 “requires that abuse must place the petitioner in reasonable apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury.”

The ruling misstates the law. Section 6203 is written in the alternative and not the conjunctive. Each subsection alone can constitute abuse. Immediate bodily injury is not a prerequisite to issuing a protective order.

“We have no difficulty concluding that it is an abuse of discretion for a court to rely in material part on fictional case authorities in rendering a decision or making an order. Reliance on fake cases is fundamentally incompatible with an informed exercise of discretion controlled by genuine principles of law. It seriously undermines the integrity of the outcome and erodes public confidence in our judicial system. It can also hinder meaningful appellate review.” …

When faced with nonexistent case law and misconstrued statutes brought to its attention, the court incorporated the objectionable material into its final ruling. The court’s ruling is without doubt an abuse of discretion and our confidence in the outcome is sufficiently undermined to justify reversal. For all future proceedings in this matter, we direct the matter be assigned to a new trial judge.

With respect to Rudy’s counsel’s actions, “Business and Professions Code section 6068, subdivision (d), states it is the duty of an attorney ‘[t]o employ … those means only as are consistent with truth, and never to seek to mislead the judge or any judicial officer by an artifice or false statement of fact or law.’ California Rules of Professional Conduct, rule 3.3(a)(1) and (2), prohibit an attorney from ‘knowingly mak[ing] a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail[ing] to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer’ or ‘knowingly misquot[ing] to a tribunal the language of a book, statute, decision or other authority.’ A person’s knowledge may be inferred from the circumstances.”

The judgment is reversed. The matter is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion….

Amanda G. Hebesha, John P. Kinsey, and Stephanie Hosman (Wanger Jones Helsley PC) represent Bethany G.

The post California Judge "Cited and Relied on a Fictitious Case" Submitted by Lawyer, Even Though … appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/e6MOrxt
via IFTTT

Robby Soave and Christian Britschgi discuss the brewing Texas showdown between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. Then, they break down Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R–S.C.) proposal to give boomers a property tax break and Pope Leo XIV’s latest encyclical on artificial intelligence. Finally, they wrap up with some lighter debates over The Legend of Zelda, Nicolas Cage movies, retro-futurism, Jill Biden’s latest remarks, and whether President Donald Trump’s political influence will ever fade.

0:00—Heretics and hypocrites in Texas

14:30—Talarico takes back his former wokeness

19:10—If you can’t take it, don’t dish it

32:25—Coal mines are cool?

34:00—Mace’s boomer luxury communism

39:20—The pope’s views on AI

47:40—Why does anyone play video games?

58:59—Nicolas Cage is a good actor

1:05:57—Retro-futurism

1:10:26—Jill Biden’s latest remarks

1:18:36—Will Trump’s influence ever fade?

The post James Talarico vs. Ken Paxton, the Pope on AI, and Caves appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/NY6pBwU
via IFTTT

The event is free, but you need to register at the event page. From the page:

On June 2 at the Library of Congress, Eugene Volokh, one of the country’s preeminent First Amendment scholars and a Federalist Society member; Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney at the ACLU who focuses on free speech; and Mary Anne Franks, professor at the George Washington University Law School and a leading thinker on the relationship between free expression and equality—in conversation with moderator David Lat, founder of Above the Law and Original Jurisdiction—will dig into the questions that the headlines have missed.

If you’re in D.C. Tuesday, please do come by; should be a lot of fun.

The post Panel on Free Speech at the Library of Congress This Tuesday (June 2), 5:30 to 7:30 pm (Moderated by David Lat) appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/TZjJXrz
via IFTTT

The U.S. government has made it illegal to pay Iran a toll to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. On Thursday, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority, forbidding anyone who deals in U.S. dollars from doing business with the Iranian government body collecting the payments.

“The U.S. Treasury will aggressively target any actors involved—directly or indirectly—in facilitating tolls for the Strait and any willing partners will be penalized,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent declared. “All nations should reject outright any efforts by Iran to disrupt the free flow of commerce.”

It’s easy to miss it, but this action is a dramatic and strange inversion of Washington’s economic strategy. OFAC’s usual job is to stop the free flow of commerce by enforcing trade embargoes and financial sanctions on foreign enemies. The Trump administration in particular has gotten fond of using sanctions (and tariffs) to pressure friends and foes alike. 

U.S. sanctions were historically so effective because almost all of the world’s trade touches the U.S. financial system, directly or indirectly. Even non-American banks would refuse to deal with sanctioned customers for fear of being sanctioned themselves. In recent months, the Trump administration escalated from paper sanctions to physical attacks on Venezuelan and Iranian shipping. But the message was the same: Trading with these nations is not worth the risk. Making an example out of one business would scare the others into compliance.

Now Iran is playing this game in reverse. After the U.S.-Israeli attack in February, the Iranian navy declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and began attacking foreign ships in the Persian Gulf. Throughout the war, the Iranian government developed more systematic control over the waterway, banning ships from hostile nations, charging others ransom to cross through a mine-free safe lane, and cutting side deals with friendly nations.

Proponents of U.S. sanctions often liked to say that they were forcing international business to choose between Iranian markets and the U.S. dollar. With the tollbooth, Iran is presenting foreign countries with their own choice between U.S. support and petrochemical supply chains.

And the U.S. Treasury is reacting in the way that foreigners have historically reacted to U.S. sanctions. In the 1990s, the European Union passed a “blocking statute” that banned its companies from obeying non-European sanctions. (The rule turned out to be basically unenforceable.) China passed its own blocking statute in 2021, and invoked it for the first time this month, ordering refineries to continue buying Iranian oil in the face of U.S. sanctions. The ban on paying Hormuz tolls is in the same vein.

Bessent said that the sanctions were a warning aimed “in particular” at Oman, the Arab monarchy that sits opposite Iran on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has publicly offered Oman a share in the Hormuz tollbooth, and Omani officials were privately in talks over implementation, The New York Times reported last week. The “toll” would be renamed a “fee for services” to be less provocative, according to the Times.

The Trump administration wasn’t buying the rebranded toll. “Oman will behave like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up,” President Donald Trump warned at a Wednesday cabinet session. After Bessent and Trump’s threats, Bessent told reporters that Oman has “no plans for tolling the strait.”

Trump threatening Oman with physical violence in response to a trade restriction is another ironic echo of the U.S.-Iranian conflict. Iran has demanded U.S. sanctions relief—specifically, access to Iranian dollars currently frozen in foreign bank accounts—as a condition of ending the war. More than the paltry revenue it generates, the Hormuz tollbooth is valuable to Iran because it allows the country to forcibly undermine the U.S. sanctions regime. Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said last month that the toll scheme would make foreign sanctions “practically ineffective.”

That is the future of economic sanctions. They were once a game of cat-and-mouse between U.S. regulators, who scoured the banking system for forbidden transactions, and foreign merchants, who tried to hide their trade behind increasingly complex layers of paperwork. Now sanctions are a direct extension of warfare—and U.S. opponents are learning to manipulate business risk to their advantage. The future for free global trade looks bleak.

The post Iran Is Turning America's Sanctions Playbook Against It appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/Lyg1eM5
via IFTTT