This Social Worker Wants To Help Kids With Special Needs. Louisiana Won’t Let Her.


John Stossel is seen next to photos of Ursula Newell-Davis | Stossel TV

Is your business “needed”?

Bizarrely, in many states, if you want to start a business, you first must convince bureaucrats that your business is “needed.”

Four years ago, Louisiana blocked social worker Ursula Newell-Davis from helping kids with special needs. Bureaucrats said she hadn’t proved her business was needed.

“Why does the state of Louisiana have the right to stop me from doing what I love?” she asks in this update video.

Good question. Newell-Davis has a master’s degree and a social work license. For two decades, she’s helped kids with special needs.

One, Kamal, told us he struggled to make friends, until Newell-Davis “helped teach me how to talk to people.”

Kamal’s mother is grateful: “She explained to me things that I didn’t understand about my kids. It allowed me to go back into the community and work.”

Newell-Davis helped many families. But four years ago, she tried to help more kids by doing short-term respite work.

Louisiana wouldn’t let her.

“You have these skills, you could help people,” I tell her. “What do you think is going on with these regulators?”

“Louisiana wants to limit how many agencies they have to regulate,” she replies. “Make it easy for the state.”

Anastasia Boden of the Pacific Legal Foundation is helping Newell-Davis sue Louisiana, arguing that its regulation is unconstitutional.

“Louisiana gives you no clue about how to prove you’re needed,” says Boden. “That would be difficult for even the best entrepreneurs. Nobody can prove with any certainty that they’re needed.”

Right. I can’t prove Stossel TV is “needed.” Is McDonald’s needed? What about the local phone store?

“The only way to find out is to open up your doors and try,” says Boden.

But Newell-Davis isn’t allowed to try, even after giving regulators what they demanded: She rented office space, paid fees, and wrote seven pages about why her work is “needed.”

Louisiana decided that wasn’t good enough.

That’s what usually happens. The year Newell-Davis applied, the state turned down 75 percent of applicants. The health department says it limits “the burden on regulators.”

“That’s just not a legitimate excuse,” complains Boden, “that government doesn’t have enough money to administer people’s constitutional rights.”

Stossel TV reached out, but state officials wouldn’t talk to us about their rule.

Thirty-five states and Washington, D.C. have (appropriately named) “CON” laws requiring entrepreneurs to get a Certificate of Need before opening certain businesses.

This creates nasty side effects. Try not to get injured in Kentucky. The state’s CON law for ambulances results in longer wait times for transportation.

But Louisiana is the only state that applies this nonsense to social workers doing respite work. The result: “Consumers in Louisiana are less satisfied with their care,” says Boden. “It might be easier for the government, but that’s not benefiting consumers.”

If these laws don’t benefit consumers, why do they stay on the books?

“Hospital [and] medical associations give money,” explains Boden.

“They don’t want the competition,” I ask.

“Of course not! But the result is to deprive people of economic opportunity and to make care worse,” says Boden.

Now, four years later, Boden’s latest lawsuit winds its way through America’s bureaucratic courts, and bureaucrats still won’t let Newell-Davis do respite work.

But good news: Newell-Davis now helps people with special needs by employing them at her new fried chicken restaurant.

At least Louisiana’s government doesn’t get to decide if a new restaurant is “needed.”

What Louisiana’s bureaucrats do is just wrong.

So often, government just gets in the way.

COPYRIGHT 2026 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

The post This Social Worker Wants To Help Kids With Special Needs. Louisiana Won't Let Her. appeared first on Reason.com.

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

Do You Trust the Government to Control AI?


Donald Trump holding an executive order | Sipa USA/Newscom/BiancoBlue/Dreamstime

This week brings starkly different artificial intelligence visions from President Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.). Thankfully, only the former has the force of law.

Couched in the language of giving power to “the American people,” Sanders’ plan actually presents a frighteningly authoritarian vision in which the federal government gains significant control over private AI companies and the future of output.

In contrast, the White House’s AI vision is—at least this week—admirably restrained.

Trump Rejects Pre-Approval Scheme for New AI Models

Trump’s executive order on “Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security,” issued yesterday, mainly focuses on shoring up the “cyber defense” of federal systems and establishing processes to detect and patch vulnerabilities. It also instructs the National Security Agency and officials from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to “develop and maintain a classified benchmarking process to assess the advanced cyber capabilities of AI models and determine the threshold at which an AI model” is deemed a “frontier model.”And it would institute a voluntary program through which AI developers could share new models with the federal government for both assessment and cybersecurity purposes.

But—this is important—it explicitly states that nothing in it “shall be construed to authorize the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement for the development, publication, release, or distribution of new AI models, including frontier models.”

Is it perfect? No. It “wisely stops short of calling for mandatory government licensing, but leaves plenty of room for future regulatory overreach,” said Jessica Melugin, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) Center for Technology and Innovation.

“The explicit commitment from the White House that this review process will remain entirely voluntary and should not be expanded into a quasi-licensing regime is the correct call by the Administration and should be applauded,” said Cato Institute policy analyst Juan Londoño. “However, the lack of clear specifications on which criteria should be used to determine what constitutes a ‘covered frontier model,’ and the government’s involvement in decisions about which ‘trusted partners’ can access these advanced models, gives the executive a great deal of discretion” and “could open the door to potential weaponization against companies that have any sort of conflict with the administration.”

The order “hints at a growing government role in identifying ‘frontier’ models, selecting certain ‘trusted partners,’ and coordinating deployment and information sharing,” notes CEI’s Wayne Crews, suggesting that “AI’s greatest danger is not technological misalignment but political misalignment – or what we dub ‘misalignment by design,’ the growing fusion of government priorities and private-sector innovation.”

Sanders Wants Government in Control

Fusing government priorities with private sector priorities is the whole point of Sanders’ new proposal, which would “give the public a 50% ownership stake in the largest AI companies in America,” Sanders explained in a video posted to X on Monday.

“The foundation of AI is our collective human intelligence,” said Sanders (twice) in the video. Because of this, the collective is owed a cut of AI company stock, he suggests.

(It’s unclear how the stock thing would work with AI companies that have no publicly traded shares, such as Anthropic and OpenAI.)

Sanders said he’ll soon introduce the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would “give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in America.” Through “a one-time 50 percent tax not on profits, but on stock,” the measure “would give the American people a direct role in determining the future of this technology.”

That may sound nice enough—but neither you nor I nor any other member of the general public will have any control here, and the direct benefits part is iffy. By “the public,” Sanders of course means the federal government—people like Sanders, and Trump, and others who tend to think that they know what’s best for everyone, what innovation is permissible, and what civil liberties like privacy and free speech should sometimes be sacrificed in the name of security.

“The American people” would not have a direct role in determining the future of this technology; bureaucrats and politicians would.

We would have government appointees—unelected representatives—sitting on AI company boards and voting on AI company decisions.

Some might say that’s better than a bunch of tech bros deciding it entirely on their own. In neither scenario does your average person get control, sure. But unlike the government, private companies cannot mandate that these technologies across the board be developed in ways that let the government spy on everyone or control the range of permissible speech. Unlike the government, private companies cannot say, sorry, no one is allowed to experiment with potentially lifesaving or otherwise beneficial new uses, or, conversely, everyone must let their models be used for mass government surveillance and military robot weapons, and so on.

Sanders said his AI Sovereign Wealth Fund would result in “direct payments to the American people.” But he also says it would “help guarantee healthcare, education, and housing as human rights.”

Even if you can get over the government just seizing a significant portion of private companies—I can’t, but certainly some will (alas) be unbothered by this—this calls into question how much your average person would directly financially benefit.

The money will be handed out to the American people—but also used for whatever programs that politicians feel like funding?

Maybe that means massive new government spending programs. Maybe it means more bombing of Iran and more drug wars. Who knows? It’s certainly not unheard of for authorities to use wealth fund money for whatever whims those in charge have.

“Sanders frames ‘tech oligarchs’ as modern-day robber barons,” notes Reason‘s Tosin Akintola. But “he proposes an idea commonly used by real oligarchs and authoritarians across the world to prop up illiberal regimes, illegally funnel money, and wield unchecked power over their citizens.”

OpenAI and Anthropic have themselves floated sovereign wealth fund ideas. But “Sanders’s plan differs in scale and compulsion,” as Blockspace points out. “OpenAI’s proposal involved taxes on AI profits and voluntary participation. Sanders is proposing a mandatory transfer of half of each company’s outstanding equity to federal control, paired with governance rights that go well beyond a passive investment.”

In The News

Florida’s attorney general is at it again. If there’s a tech panic, James Uthmeier is ready to capitalize on it. Social media, online games, forum boards—all have come under fire from Uthmeier. Now it’s his turn to go after artificial intelligence. On Monday, he took a page out of the “social media addiction” playbook and sued OpenAI for allegedly cultivating psychological and emotional dependence on ChatGPT. The complaint also faults OpenAI for not employing stringent age-verification measures. If politicians like Uthmeier get their way, we’re soon going to be carded at every juncture of phone and computer use.

Read This Thread

More Sex & Tech News

• “Hackers say that they used Meta’s AI support chatbot to break into a host of high-profile Instagram profiles by asking the support bot to change the email address associated with the target account,” reports 404 Media.

• Police cannot legally harass and “rescue” women who are voluntarily engaging in prostitution, India’s Supreme Court said.

The post Do You Trust the Government to Control AI? appeared first on Reason.com.

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

Was Lincoln More Radical Than We Remember?

At the start of his presidency in 1861, Abraham Lincoln supported a constitutional amendment that would have kept the federal government from banning slavery in states where it already existed. In just a few short years, he helped secure passage of the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery throughout the United States and all its territories.

Today’s guest is Senior Editor Damon Root, whose new book Emancipation War delves into one of the most fascinating chapters of American history. Root and host Nick Gillespie also discuss the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, Root’s previous book on Frederick Douglass, and how the Supreme Court is likely to rule in Trump v. Barbara, the birthright citizenship case that will be decided in the next few weeks.

Root writes a twice-weekly newsletter for Reason on legal issues, called Injustice System. Sign up for it here.

Previous appearances:
“Damon Root: Why Frederick Douglass Loved the Constitution (and You Should Too),” December 8, 2020
“Willett, Bolick, Sykes: Three Great Picks to Replace Anthony Kennedy,” June 27, 2018
“The Libertarianism of Frederick Douglass,” February 8, 2018
“Obamacare at the Supreme Court: Damon Root on King v. Burwell,” March 3, 2015
“Battle for the Supreme Court: Judicial Activism vs. Restraint,” November 5, 2014
“3 Supreme Court Decisions to Watch,” January 24, 2012

0:00–Lincoln wanted to preserve slavery in 1861
8:38–The Northwest Ordinance and precedents for banning slavery
11:27–Frederick Douglas and slavery in the U.S. Constitution
14:07–Salmon Chase
18:40–Lincoln’s generals who emancipated slaves
23:37–How Lincoln evolved on slavery
29:47–The Civil Rights Act of 1866
37:13–The 13th Amendment, citizenship, and national identity
39:30–Reconstruction
45:00–The Supreme Court
49:57–Birthright citizenship

The post Was Lincoln More Radical Than We Remember? appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/MRIU3nX
via IFTTT

Step Aside Private Credit: Partners Group Is First Private Equity Fund To Gate Investors

Step Aside Private Credit: Partners Group Is First Private Equity Fund To Gate Investors

The private credit gating-gate is spilling over to private equity. 

Partners Group Holding AG has capped withdrawals at one of its evergreen private equity funds amid heightened redemption pressure, as the investor anxiety that hit private credit vehicles is now spilling over to other asset classes within private markets, Bloomberg reported.

The Swiss firm, one of Europe’s largest listed alternative asset managers, said its $8.6 billion Global Value SICAV fund was limiting redemptions to 5% of net asset value per quarter after withdrawal requests surged to an estimated 9.8% in the second quarter, according to a letter to investors seen by Bloomberg News.

Amid the surge in redemptions targeting private credit funds, a spokesperson for Partners Group told Bloomberg that there’s been a pick-up in redemption requests from private wealth clients across the firm’s evergreen portfolio. Such clients, who are typically “far more skittish than institutional investors”, make up about a fifth of assets under management across its platform and a particularly large proportion of Global Value’s investor base.

Partners Group is one of the pioneers of evergreen funds, which operate indefinitely and typically allow investors to withdraw at least a portion of their investments quarter-by-quarter rather than locking up the capital for a set period. It has more than 30 such funds across five asset classes with more than $56 billion combined AUM, the spokesperson said.

“There are some idiosyncratic factors for this fund in particular, but indeed you do see investors broadly, after having redemption pressure within private credit for a number of quarters, now starting to redeem other asset classes,” Chief Executive Officer David Layton told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday. Most of the redemptions in the Global Value fund are coming from Asia and Australia, he said.

Macroeconomic shifts and geopolitical conflicts have strained private markets in the last few years, with industry-wide volatility starting in private credit vehicles spilling over into private equity, Partners Group said in the letter. “These flow dynamics have recently accelerated” and impacted the fund, it added.

Partners Group “believes that redemption limitations are an indispensable feature of private markets investing to protect long-term investors in an inherently illiquid asset class,” it said in the letter. “Acting in the best interests of all investors in an evergreen fund means balancing the needs of those seeking liquidity while preserving investment capital for long-term investors who want to capitalize on market opportunities.”

In April, the company said it saw “positive fundraising momentum” for its private markets strategies in the first quarter, as it sought to distance itself from mounting concerns over the health of the private credit market.

The gating by Partners Group comes despite the fund’s liquidity standing at around 15% of net asset value. “In addition, the fund has access to an undrawn credit facility equal to 15% of the fund’s size,” the letter said.

Shares of the asset manager, which oversees about $185 billion across private equity, credit, real estate, infrastructure and royalties, tumbled as much as 18.2% in Zurich trading on Wednesday, the biggest intraday loss on record. They are down about 30% for the year. Shares in EQT AB and CVC Capital Partners Plc, two firms that are also know for such strategies, both fell more than 5%. 

The redemptions are the latest challenge confronting Partners Group, which a few weeks ago denied allegations of systematic asset over-valuation made in a report by short-seller Grizzly Research. 

Private credit funds have largely been in focus in recent months, suffering large outflows amid broader worries over debt quality and also rising concerns that many are overly exposed to software companies facing the risk of being upended by artificial intelligence. With investors scrambling to yank billions of dollars from such funds, some of the biggest money managers that have capped redemptions recently include Apollo Global Management Inc., KKR & Co., BlackRock Inc. and Blue Owl Capital Inc. Last night, we reported that Cliffwater was the first fund to report 2nd quarter redemption requests, which surged to 17%, up from 14% in Q1. The company imposed a 5% gate for the second consecutive quarter.

“The disease is spreading across private markets asset classes,” said Pierre-Yves Gauthier, CEO and head of strategy at AlphaValue. “There is presumably a case to trim earnings expectations on contracting AUMs.”

The 19-year-old Partners Group – which last enacted some liquidity restrictions during the pandemic – remains open to subscriptions and distributions for the full year are expected at 15%, one percentage point less than in 2025, the firm said.

In April, Grizzly Research targeted Partners Group saying it was shorting the stock, citing alleged valuation inconsistencies in evergreen funds, where it estimated as much as 40% of investments may be significantly mis-marked. Grizzly said it had identified discrepancies between reported valuations and underlying performance. In response, Partners Group, based near Zug, Switzerland, has said valuations are validated by third parties and broadly termed Grizzly’s claims as “frivolous, defamatory and highly misleading.” 

Layton said the short-seller report “certainly doesn’t help,” but it was hard to tell how much of a role it has played. “We don’t think it is significant but certainly it is one of the factors that’s leading to increased redemption pressure in this fund in particular,” he told BTV. 

Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/03/2026 – 09:20

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/gfXNOjw Tyler Durden

SpaceX Reportedly Targets $135 IPO Price As Morningstar Says Valuation Should Be Halved

SpaceX Reportedly Targets $135 IPO Price As Morningstar Says Valuation Should Be Halved

Last week, Elon Musk called Bloomberg’s “SpaceX Said to Cut IPO Value” story “false,” marking the latest clash between Musk and the MSM over coverage of his companies.

Reuters has released a new report, which, based on sources, says SpaceX is planning an IPO at a price of $135 per share, aiming to raise a record $75 billion by selling about 555.6 million shares at an estimated $1.75 trillion valuation.

SpaceX’s roadshow is expected to begin Thursday, with a potential Nasdaq debut under the ticker SPCX on June 12. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA, Citigroup, and JPMorgan are leading the deal.

Sources said the IPO is “structured as an all-primary offering,” which means the proceeds will go to SpaceX rather than existing shareholders. Musk will reportedly be subject to a 366-day lock-up period.

At a $1.75 trillion valuation and projected 2025 booking revenue of $18.67 billion, SpaceX would trade at roughly 94 times trailing sales. The company also reported a $4.94 billion net loss in 2025, compared with a prior-year profit, with Starlink internet as the major profit engine.

Beyond Reuters’ reporting, there was a separate report from Morningstar analysts stating that SpaceX’s valuation should be less than half of the $1.75 trillion figure, and closer to $780 billion.

Morningstar equity analyst Nicolas Owens wrote in a note that his team “doesn’t see Grok as one of the leading AI labs today,” adding:

“We think the company has been significantly overvalued and investors will have opportunities to buy the stock at more attractive levels after the IPO.”

Polymarket odds for “SpaceX IPO closing market cap above ___ ?” currently stand at 89% for a market cap above $1.8 trillion.

SpaceX IPO closing market cap above $1.8T?
Yes 89% · No 12%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

Related:

SpaceX is preparing a record-setting IPO that would test public-market appetite for Musk’s empire, space, and AI. This listing is expected to pave the way for other mega IPOs, such as those of chatbot makers OpenAI and Anthropic.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/03/2026 – 09:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/PDAa1R3 Tyler Durden

Iowa Shock


Zach Lahn | Zach Lahn for Governor/Facebook

Primary results trickle in: We have nothing useful out of California yet—current mayor Karen Bass has advanced in her bid for reelection, but it’s not clear who she’ll be up against in the general, possibly Spencer Pratt; Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra are leading the results for governor. What we do have is an interesting upset in Iowa.

Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, lost his primary in the race for governor to Zach Lahn, a conservative farmer who was endorsed by former U.S. Rep. Steve King (R–Iowa), who has personal beef with Feenstra.

“Iowa leans red and backed Trump by 13 percentage points in 2024, but Democrats think they can make the race unusually competitive this year with a strong candidate and a backlash to Trump’s second term,” reports The Washington Post. “The Republican nominee for governor will face Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.” There is, of course, always the temptation to extrapolate from a single political outcome; it remains to be seen how normal American voters will react to Trump-endorsed candidates. Is Trump still a kingmaker? When November rolls around, we’ll learn more.

As for this race, Feenstra kind of phoned in his campaign, and Lahn was able to work the MAHA (“Make America Healthy Again”) angle—an RFK-esque brand of Trumpism, but somewhat distinct from full MAGA. So Lahn’s victory in Iowa probably shouldn’t be read as a total repudiation of Trump.

“Feenstra’s defeat makes him the highest-profile candidate endorsed by Mr. Trump to lose a Republican primary race in years—perhaps since Luther Strange, an appointed senator in Alabama, fell to Roy Moore in a 2017 special election primary,” notes The New York Times. “Mr. Moore went on to lose the general election to Doug Jones, a Democrat.”

Scenes from New York: Yesterday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani went down to Rockaway Beach (coincidentally, my old stomping grounds) to announce he’d be expanding the city’s daycare program to cover 2-K—that is, “free” preschool for 2-year-olds—in addition to 3-K, which is already universally provided. (Nothing is ever free; more on that later.)

A limited number of spots (2,000 total) will be available for toddlers in School Districts 6, 10, 18, 23, and 27, so: Washington Heights, Inwood, Fordham, Kingsbridge, Canarsie, Brownsville, Ocean Hill, Ozone Park, and the Rockaways. These are all poorer neighborhoods in far north Manhattan, the Bronx, east Brooklyn, and south Queens. These spots will mostly be full-day, so from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the program is slated to expand over the next four years to cover the remaining roughly 48,000 2-year-olds who might want a spot.

Of course, the real Mamdani goal is not just to expand to 2-year-olds, but to cover every child in New York City from 6 weeks of life onward—at extraordinary cost to taxpayers. What this ends up being, in many cases, is a handout from the well-off to the well-off; but note how Mamdani’s 2-K announcement tries to subliminally plant the idea in New Yorkers’ heads, by prioritizing the poor neighborhoods, that actually it’s just a necessary resource for the city’s struggling working-class families.

More of my reporting on New York’s childcare system and the socialists’ dream of universal everything:

QUICK HITS

  • Florida tries suing ChatGPT’s maker, OpenAI. “Sam Altman and ChatGPT have chosen the AI race over the safety and security of our kids. They have chosen profit over public safety, and we’re not going to stand for it here in Florida,” said the state’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, at a press conference earlier this week. I don’t anticipate this going especially far.
  • Huge advances in pancreatic cancer treatment: “Daraxonrasib hit every marker important to doctors and patients. The drug doubled survival time and kept tumors from growing for twice as long compared to conventional chemotherapy,” reports Bloomberg. “Even better, people taking the drug had about five more months before their quality of life deteriorated compared to those on chemotherapy. And because daraxonrasib is a pill, patients are spared the burden of going to a facility and being tethered to an IV pump. For a cancer known for its brutal progression, those things—being able to receive care at home, having more quality time—truly matter.”
  • There’s a bed bug infestation at the USDA:

  • I’ve noticed this too:

The post Iowa Shock appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/oHC2EqK
via IFTTT

Influencer’s Nondefamatory Service Review Could Be Aiding and Abetting of Defamatory Comments

From Auto Junction Inc v. Kaluzhin, 2024 WL 7050639, decided Oct. 8, 2024 by Arizona Superior Court (Maricopa County) Judge Melissa Iyer Julian, but just posted on Westlaw several days ago—I’m skeptical about the aiding and abetting analysis, but wanted to flag the case in any event:

In this case, the only alleged defamatory statements Defendant made were included in his YouTube video where he stated that Auto Junction “don’t give me my money,” “they don’t give me my bucks.” As Defendant’s reply brief points out, these statements are not defamatory because they are not substantially false. Indeed, Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint admits that the contract between Plaintiff and Defendant provided for a delivery price of $1,150.00. Because the vehicle was delivered late and with only one set of keys, Auto Junction paid what it considered to be the “reasonable value” of the delivery, but did not pay the full contract amount. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s defamation claim fails as a matter of law.

The crux of Plaintiff’s Complaint, however, is not that Defendant made defamatory statements himself. Instead, the Complaint asserts that Plaintiff encouraged his many followers to post false, negative reviews about Plaintiff’s business. The damage to Plaintiff’s business was accomplished by those false negative reviews posted by Defendant’s Youtube followers. As a result, Plaintiff also asserts a claim against Defendant for “aiding and abetting” defamation.

In order for a plaintiff to prevail on an aiding and abetting claim, proof of the following elements is required: “(1) the primary tortfeasor must commit a tort causing injury to the plaintiff; (2) the defendant must know the primary tortfeasor’s conduct constitutes a breach of duty; and (3) the defendant must substantially assist or encourage the primary tortfeasor in achieving the breach.” “Advice or encouragement to act operates as a moral support to a tortfeasor and if the act encouraged is known to be tortious it has the same effect upon the liability of the adviser as participation or physical assistance.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 876, cmt. d (1979). An illustration to section 876 of the Restatement (which Arizona follows) elucidates the kind of encouragement necessary to create aiding and abetting liability under Illustration 4: “A and B participate in a riot in which B, although throwing no rocks himself, encourages A to throw rocks. One of the rocks strikes C, a bystander. B is subject to liability to C.”

The Court finds that Plaintiff’s Complaint and the evidence submitted in response to the pending Motion establishes that Defendant’s conduct was intended to encourage his followers to attack Plaintiff’s business publicly. Plaintiff presented evidence that these third-party reviews were false and defamatory and are therefore unprotected speech.

While Defendant’s encouragement in the video does not reflect a direct request that his followers post negative reviews of Plaintiff’s business, the Court finds that Plaintiff’s Complaint and the evidence submitted in response to the pending Motion are sufficient to infer that Defendant intended that result and knew it would be achieved by the statements made in his video. See Wells Fargo Bank v. Arizona Laborers, Teamsters & Cement Masons Local No. 395 Pension Tr. Fund (Ariz. 2002) (knowledge for purposes of aiding and abetting “may be inferred from the circumstances.”). Accordingly, the claim that Defendant aided and abetted the defamation of Plaintiff’s business is not subject to dismissal as a matter of law, either under the anti-SLAPP statute or for its failure to allege the elements of an aiding and abetting claim….

But the court also concluded that the claim was foreclosed by the statute of limitations, and the Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed on that ground this February. Here are more details on Kaluzhin’s post, from the appellate decision:

[Kaluzhin’s] video showed a verbal altercation between Kaluzhin and an Auto Junction representative. At the time, Kaluzhin had about 150,000 YouTube followers. {As of 2024, Kaluzhin had about 1 million YouTube followers.} To support its claims, Auto Junction highlighted a portion of the 2019 video where Kaluzhin addressed his followers and stated:

Hey, gang, they don’t give me my money. Here is the name of the dealership center: Auto Junction Benz & Beemers. The huge appeal… huge appeal to you, guys… Phoenix, dealership center… they don’t give my bucks. How is it possible to screw people like this?! …

You must show what crazy subscriber you are, who stand… stand for the truth. This is the very case to stand for truth. Go ahead, my… my crazy ones. Nobody can take money from an average driver. Nobody can…

The record shows that reviews began on or about November 1, 2019, from various sources. Some reviews included only a rating while other reviews included comments. The following are some of the comments Auto Junction received:

You will delete reviews for a long time. Until you return to the driver his earned money….

Awful customer service. Rude people. Don’t buy anything here! …

Scammers! …

the owner rude pig. He dont wanna pay for delivery everytime. stay away!

Kaluzhin’s videos are apparently in Russian, and plaintiffs argued on appeal that “his fanbase is largely made up of persons in Russia and surrounding areas in Western Asia and Eastern Europe.” His YouTube channel appears to be https://www.youtube.com/@i_am_americanec.

Note that on Feb. 7, 2022, Judge Sara J. Agne issued a TRO blocking defendant “from posting or allowing to remain posted the video on YouTube dated 10/28/2019 with the link as follows https://youtu.be/Bpdmys6EMW8, as well as any online reviews on any internet platform to include but not limited to YouTube, Google, Yelp, Car.com, BBB.org, or Trustpilot, concerning the Plaintiff and/or encouraging others to post online reviews about the Plaintiff.”

By the way, the court didn’t discuss 47 U.S.C. § 230, perhaps because it wasn’t raised by the defendant. It’s not clear whether § 230 have offered Kaluzhin a defense against the aiding and abetting theory.

 

The post Influencer's Nondefamatory Service Review Could Be Aiding and Abetting of Defamatory Comments appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/ha3jQze
via IFTTT

No Sealing of Expired Harassment Restraining Order

From the May 26 decision in Hayne v. Akoto, by Minnesota Court of Appeals Judge Elizabeth G. Bentley, joined by Judges Keala Ede and Lisa Beane:

On July 2, 2025, over a year after [a 2022 harassment restraining order against her] expired, Akoto moved to have the record of the case sealed under Rule 4, subdivision 1(e), of the Minnesota Rules of Public Access. In that motion, Akoto asserted that the public accessibility of the HRO records “continue[d] to cause significant harm to [her] personal and professional life,” and that it had negatively impacted her “ability to obtain housing, employment, and to rebuild [her] reputation and relationships.” … The district court denied Akoto’s motion [and a follow-up filing that] attached exhibits purporting to show that she is underemployed and has had to live in poor conditions because of the public accessibility of the HRO records….

[T]here is a presumption in favor of access to court records. A party seeking to restrict access has the burden of presenting “strong countervailing reasons” or “most compelling reasons” why the records should be sealed. Then, “[a] balancing test is applied to determine whose interests should prevail. Those interests supporting access, including the presumption in favor of access, are balanced against the interests asserted for denying access.” …

The district court properly applied this balancing test. It explained that it applied the balancing test and concluded that Akoto’s arguments did not outweigh the presumption in favor of public access. More specifically, the district court expressed that there were no compelling circumstances that could rebut the presumption here and that “[a]ccepting [Akoto’s] arguments would essentially require the Court to seal every [HRO] when requested by a party.” The district court did not misapply the law….

Reviewing the record as a whole, we also see no indication that the district court acted contrary to logic or facts in the record. Akoto does not argue that the district court relied on clearly erroneous facts. Rather, she appears to ask this court to reweigh her privacy interests and the alleged reputational and professional harm she has experienced as a result of the accessibility of these records. But “the role of an appellate court is not to weigh, reweigh, or inherently reweigh the evidence.” …

The post No Sealing of Expired Harassment Restraining Order appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/RQdC7Yj
via IFTTT

More on Birthright Citizenship and Intellectual Diversity Mandates

I have two articles just released in their final form.

One, with James Heilpern, examines how “subject to the jurisdiction” was used in legal texts in the United States through the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. Making use of treaties, statutes, congressional debates, and judicial opinions, the article considers whether that language, which was used in the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause, had an established legal meaning that would have been known to the legal community in 1868. If so, what might that meaning be?

From the conclusion of that article:

The task of this Article is a narrow one. We do not investigate the specific intentions of the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment or examine their specific purposes in including the Citizenship Clause. We simply ask to what degree did the drafters of that Clause use familiar legal terms and what would have been the ordinary meaning of those terms as used in a legal text. The evidence is overwhelming that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” would have had a natural and obvious meaning to mid-nineteenth century American lawyers. These were ordinary legal terms that regularly appeared in legal discourse.

Moreover, the evidence is overwhelming as well as to what the substantive content of that language would have been in 1866. In the legal language of the mid-nineteenth century, “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States simply meant governed by the United States. That governing authority might have been exclusive or shared, and those subject to that governing authority might have owed a duty of allegiance or they might merely have owed a duty of obedience. Those governed by the United States might be subject to American jurisdiction on a more permanent basis or they might only be subject to that governing authority on a contingent and temporary basis. Those governed by the United States might only be subject to its authority for limited purposes or they might be governed by it more comprehensively. When lawyers wanted to restrict the scope of jurisdiction, they used appropriate modifiers to do so. Using the language of the Fourteenth Amendment to express any idea other than “within the governing authority” would have been creative to the point of absurdity.

That article is now available from the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy here.

The second examines Indiana’s statutory intellectual diversity mandate, known as Senate Bill 202. The law requires that professors teaching in state universities in Indiana demonstrate, among other things, that their courses include an intellectually diverse set of materials in order to retain their jobs. It charges the board of regents to use the tenure process to enforce this requirement. As written, the statute poses a multitude of difficulties for academic freedom and the intellectual enterprise of university teaching.

From the article:

SB 202 might identify a real concern about American higher education, but the
solution it offers is not only ineffective but problematic. SB 202 creates a vague set
of tenure criteria that can easily be misused to target politically controversial
professors. The result is unlikely to improve the quality of classroom teaching or
genuinely foster a climate of free inquiry on university campuses, but it might lead
professors to cater to the loudest cavilers in an effort to insulate themselves from
capricious reprisals.

That article is based on the Addison C. Harris Lecture at the Maurer School of Law and is now available in the Indiana Law Journal here.

The post More on Birthright Citizenship and Intellectual Diversity Mandates appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/YXN16wi
via IFTTT

Pre-Judgment Attachment in Libel Cases

An interesting remedy that I’ve seen a few cases; here is the most recent one, Hussain v. Quraishi, decided May 20 by Judge Matthew T. Wax-Krell (Conn. Super. Ct. Tolland Jud. Dist.) (plaintiffs Hussain and Garcia are the owner and practice manager of plaintiff VCare Family Practice LLC, which owns the medical office Shifa Clinic):

… Quraishi worked as an independent contractor at the Clinic doing IT work. In 2017, the plaintiffs began having issues with Quraishi, which ultimately led to Hussain applying for a civil protection order against Quraishi, which the Court granted on October 12, 2018.

After that, Quraishi stopped harassing the plaintiffs, but in July of 2025, for reasons unknown to the plaintiffs, Quraishi began posting on Facebook repeatedly about them.

In the Facebook posts, he accused them of various crimes and fraudulent actions, including, among other claims, fraud and identity theft, Medicare and Medicaid fraud, and using a deceased doctor as their medical director.

As a result, on July 7, 2025, Hussain applied for a civil protection order against Quraishi, which the Court granted on July 21, 2025. On that same date, Garcia applied for a restraining order against Quraishi (they had briefly dated in 2015), which the Court granted on July 16, Quraishi was ultimately arrested for violating the restraining order.

Despite the entry of the civil protection order and the restraining order, Quraishi continued posting about the plaintiffs throughout July of 2025 and then from November of 2025 through April of 2026. These posts included more allegations of perjury, witchcraft, identify theft, Medicare and Medicaid fraud, theft of intellectual property, counterfeiting of documents, filing false statements to the police and the courts, and fraudulent billing.

The plaintiffs deny all of the allegations made by the plaintiff [presumably intended to say “defendant” -EV] in his Facebook posts….

For purposes of obtaining a prejudgment remedy, the plaintiffs do not have to establish that they will prevail, only that there is probable cause to sustain the validity of their claims. Under this standard, the court concludes on the evidence presented that there is probable cause to sustain the validity of the plaintiffs’ claim against the defendant.

Quraishi’s Facebook posts contain serious allegations against the plaintiffs, particularly given their professional roles in operating a primary care clinic. He accuses them of fraudulent billing, Medicare and Medicaid fraud, and countless other fraudulent actions. Quraishi’s Facebook posts are detailed extensively in the plaintiffs’ exhibits.

In addition to the allegations against the plaintiffs, many of Quraishi’s Facebook posts contain inflammatory, threatening language directed at the plaintiffs. For example, Quraishi wrote on Facebook “Hussain, I’m not just coming for you … I’m going after your family line. And my not yet born children will continue if they must … In this situation I’m like Liam Neeson’s character from the movie Taken … ‘I have a very special set of skills.'” In another post regarding Hussain and Garcia, Quraishi wrote, “I would’ve gone full Liam Neeson on you[ ] … I’ll let the 5 US Federal Agencies handle you and your whole coven.”

In another of his Facebook posts, he wrote that Hussain “is a high level criminal in a medical masonic mafia and he should be placed into either (1) the original Alcatraz prison in San Francisco; (2) the new alligator Alcatraz in Florida.” In another Facebook post, Quraishi wrote “the whole world is going to watch you … burn in the hottest inferno hell has provisioned.” In yet another Facebook post, Quraishi wrote “a gay male nurse and smelly jew bribed a little piggie.” In another Facebook post, Quraishi accuses the plaintiffs, as well as three Judges of the Rockville Superior Court of “racketeering.”

Garcia testified that Quraishi has 822 followers on Facebook, and that his posts may have been seen by more people if any of his followers shared his posts with others.

Garcia also testified that Quraishi’s Facebook posts have affected her and the Clinic. She testified that the staff is scared, and that she has to review Facebook to see Quraishi’s state of mind before she goes to work. She testified that they are particularly vigilant at the Clinic, where they have cameras “all over,” and the staff is monitoring who comes in. She testified that she has worked very hard to get where she is, and that it is upsetting to be accused of what Quraishi has accused her of in his Facebook posts. She believes that the posts have harmed her personal and professional reputation. Patients and family members have called the Clinic to ask if they have seen what Quraishi is posting about them….

The court concluded there was probable cause that plaintiffs will prevail on their claims for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and false light invasion of privacy, and, therefore granted a prejudgment remedy:

Based on the defendant’s Facebook posts, there is probable cause that a judgment in the amount of the prejudgment remedy sought, or in an amount greater than the amount of the prejudgment remedy sought, taking into account any defenses, counterclaims or set-offs, will be rendered in the matter in favor of the plaintiffs….

The plaintiffs shall be authorized to attach and/or garnish any or all of the following to the amount of $300,000.00.

  1. To attach the defendant Mansoor Quraishi’s interest in 2 Davenport Road, West Hartford, Connecticut; and
  2. To attach and/or garnish such other assets, property or obligations held by or on behalf of the defendant Mansoor Quraishi as may be identified by defendant’s disclosure pursuant to the plaintiffs’ motion for disclosure of assets….

The post Pre-Judgment Attachment in Libel Cases appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/fYALCx3
via IFTTT