Paramount Global, parent company of CBS, confirmed on Wednesday it will pay $16 million to settle President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the handling of a “60 Minutes” interview – funds that will go to Trump’s future presidential library rather than to him directly.
Trump originally sued in October, demanding $10 billion over claims that CBS deceptively edited an October 2024 interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris to favor the Democratic Party. He later amended the claim to $20 billion in February.
Paramount’s $16 million settlement, disclosed Wednesday, stems from mediation initiated in April. It explicitly excludes any apology or expression of regret from the network.
In a separate move to increase transparency, Paramount agreed that future “60 Minutes” interviews with U.S. presidential candidates will be accompanied by released transcripts, redacted only for legal or security reasons.
CBS has repeatedly maintained that the editing in question was routine and lawful. The lawsuit centered on CBS airing two versions of Harris’s response on Israel and the Israel–Hamas war—one brief and another more forceful—before and after the presidential race.
Paramount, which previously sought dismissal of the lawsuit as “completely without merit,” opted for settlement to avoid a protracted court battle and to clear regulatory hurdles linked to its pending $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media.
The Trump lawsuit was filed in a Texas federal court under the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices–Consumer Protection Act, asserting that CBS’s editing constituted false and misleading commercial conduct.
Paramount’s decision is part of a growing pattern: Disney-owned ABC News paid $15 million and issued a public apology in December, while Meta agreed to pay about $25 million in January—both in agreements to address Trump’s claims.
The “60 Minutes” controversy triggered internal upheaval: Executive producer Bill Owens resigned in April, followed by CBS News President Wendy McMahon in May, amid staff concerns over editorial independence and corporate intervention.
Analysts warn that such settlements may threaten journalistic integrity by emboldening political figures to deploy litigation as leverage—rolling back hard‑won press freedoms.
Paramount’s board, including controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, reportedly weighed settling for up to $20 million internally, mindful of both merger risks and potential regulatory scrutiny.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who must sign off on the Skydance transaction, has initiated a probe into whether CBS’s edits met the threshold for “news-distortion,” signaling deeper scrutiny of broadcast standards.
With this settlement, Reuters notes, Paramount aims to sanitize its legal slate ahead of merger approval—while Trump continues to pursue additional legal claims against media outlets
Attorneys General from Texas, Idaho, and 14 other states filed suit against the Biden-Harris administration on Friday over a new policy that would allow 1 million illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship without having to first leave the United States.
America First Legal also joined the lawsuit against the policy titled “Keeping Families Together,” which took effect on Monday. The policy, first announced by the White House in June, would allow 500,000 families and another 50,000 stepchildren under 21, already in the country illegally, to apply for lawful permanent residence while paroling in place.
The AGs and Stephen Miller of AFL said that violates the Administrative Procedures Act, among other issues.
“Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the federal government is actively working to turn the United States into a nation without borders and a country without laws. I will not let this happen. Biden’s new parole workaround unilaterally grants the opportunity for citizenship to unvetted aliens whose first act on American soil was to break our laws. This violates the Constitution and actively worsens the illegal immigration disaster that is hurting Texas and our country,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.
AGs from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming also joined onto the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
The suit accuses the Biden-Harris administration — “dissatisfied with the system Congress created, and for blatant political purposes” — of trying to create its own immigration system.
Further, it says “DHS ‘cannot use that power to parole aliens en masse,’ which is precisely what PIP amounts to.” The suit says that the policy “incentivizes illegal immigration.”
Said Miller, “It is brazenly unlawful, a deadly accelerant to the ruinous border invasion, and we will use every lawful tool to stop it.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel sued Iran, Syria and North Korea on Monday, saying their governments supplied the militants with money, weapons and know-how needed to carry out the assault that precipitated Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York, seeks at least $4 billion in damages for “a coordination of extrajudicial killings, hostage takings, and related horrors for which the defendants provided material support and resources.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment on the allegations, while Syria and North Korea did not respond.
The United States has deemed Iran, Syria and North Korea to be state sponsors of terrorism, and Washington has designated Hamas as what’s known as a specially designated global terrorist.
Because such countries rarely abide by court rulings against them in the United States, if the lawsuit’s plaintiffs are successful, they could seek compensation from a fund created by Congress that allows American victims of terrorism to receive payouts. The money comes from seized assets, fines or other penalties leveled against those that, for example, do business with a state sponsor of terrorism.
The lawsuit draws on previous court findings, reports from U.S. and other government agencies, and statements over some years by Hamas, Iranian and Syrian officials about their ties. The complaint also points to indications that Hamas fighters used North Korean weapons in the Oct. 7 attack. But the suit doesn’t provide specific evidence that Tehran, Damascus or Pyongyang knew in advance about the assault. It accuses the three countries of providing weapons, technology and financial support necessary for the attack to occur.
Iran has denied knowing about the Oct. 7 attack ahead of time, though officials up to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have praised the assault. Iran has armed Hamas as a counter to Israel, which the Islamic Republic has long viewed as its regional archenemy.
In the years since the collapse of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Iran and Israel have been locked in a shadow war of attacks on land and at sea. Those attacks exploded into the open after an apparent Israeli attack targeting Iran’s embassy complex in Damascus, Syria, during the Israel-Hamas war, which sparked Tehran’s unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel in April.
Neighboring Syria has relied on Iranian support to keep embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad in power amid a grinding civil war that began with the 2011 Arab Spring protests. Like Iran, Syria also offered public support for Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack. North Korea denies that it arms Hamas. However, a militant video and weapons seized by Israel show Hamas fighters likely fired North Korean weapons during the Oct. 7 attack
South Korean officials, two experts on North Korean arms and an Associated Press analysis of weapons captured on the battlefield by Israel point toward Hamas using Pyongyang’s F-7 rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-fired weapon that fighters typically use against armored vehicles. The lawsuit specifically cites the use of the F-7 grenade in the attack as a sign of Pyongyang’s involvement.
“Through this case, we will be able to prove what occurred, who the victims were, who the perpetrators were — and it will not just create a record in real time, but for all of history,” said one of the attorneys, James Pasch of the ADL, also called the Anti-Defamation League. The Jewish advocacy group frequently speaks out against antisemitism and extremism.
Hamas fighters killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted about 250 during the Oct. 7 attack. Israel invaded Gaza in response. The war has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It doesn’t say how many were civilians or fighters.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of over 125 plaintiffs, including the estates and relatives of people who were killed, plus people who were physically and/or emotionally injured. All are related to, or are themselves, U.S. citizens. Under U.S. law, foreign governments can be held liable, in some circumstances, for deaths or injuries caused by acts of terrorism or by providing material support or resources for them.
The 1976 statute cited in the lawsuit, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, is a frequent tool for American plaintiffs seeking to hold foreign governments accountable. In one example, a federal judge in Washington ordered North Korea in 2018 to pay $500 million in a wrongful death suit filed by the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died shortly after being released from that country.
People held as prisoners by Iran in the past have successfully sued Iran in U.S. federal court, seeking money earlier frozen by the U.S.
The new lawsuit joins a growing list of Israel-Hamas war-related cases in U.S. courts.
Last week, for example, Israelis who were taken hostage or lost loved ones during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack sued the United Nations agency that aids Palestinians, claiming it has helped finance the militants by paying agency staffers in U.S. dollars and thereby funneling them to money-changers in Gaza who allegedly give a cut to Hamas.
The agency, known as UNRWA, has denied that it knowingly aids Hamas or any other militant group.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP writers Courtney Bonnell and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Barred from giving a formal closing argument, Donald Trump still got a brief chance to speak in court at the conclusion of his New York civil trial Thursday, calling the proceedings “a fraud on me” before the judge cut him off.
“We have a situation where I am an innocent man,” the former president said. “I’m being persecuted by someone running for office and I think you have to go outside the bounds.”
After about six minutes, Judge Arthur Engoron — who had denied Trump permission earlier to give a closing statement at the trial — cut him off and recessed for lunch.
The exchange took place hours after authorities responded to a bomb threat at the judge’s house.
Police checked out the threat at Engoron’s Long Island home, which came a day after he denied the former president’s extraordinary request to deliver his own courtroom close, officials said. The proceedings were not delayed.
Trump, the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, has repeatedly disparaged Engoron, accusing him in a social media post Wednesday night of working closely with the New York attorney general “to screw me.”
“At this moment the judge is not letting me make the summation because I’ll bring up things he doesn’t want to hear,” Trump said as he walked into the courtroom, characterizing the decision as “political interference.”
“Forty-four days of trial — not one witness came into this courtroom, your honor, and said there was fraud,” Trump lawyer Christopher Kise said, contending his client “should get a medal” for his business acumen instead of punishment he deemed the “corporate death penalty.”
At 5:30 a.m. on Thursday, hours before the trial’s final day was to begin, Nassau County police said they responded to a “swatting incident” at Engoron’s Great Neck home. Nothing amiss was found at the location, officials said.
The false report came days after a fake emergency call reporting a shooting at the home of the judge in Trump’s Washington, D.C. criminal case. The incidents are among a recent spate of similar false reports at the homes of public officials.
Taking the bench a few minutes late, Engoron made no mention of the incident at his home.
On Wednesday, Engoron had nixed an unusual plan by Trump to deliver his own closing remarks in the courtroom, in addition to summations from his legal team, after lawyers for the former president would not agree to the judge’s demand that he stick to “relevant” matters.”
That left the last words to the lawyers in a trial over allegations that Trump exaggerated his wealth on financial statements he provided to banks, insurance companies and others.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, wants the judge to impose $370 million in penalties. Trump says he did nothing wrong. He contends outside accountants that helped prepare the statements should’ve flagged any discrepancies and that the documents came with disclaimers that shield him from liability.
The former president had hoped to make that argument personally, but the judge — initially open to the idea — said no after a Trump lawyer missed a deadline for agreeing to ground rules. Among them, Engoron warned that Trump couldn’t use his closing remarks to “deliver a campaign speech” or use the opportunity to impugn the judge and his staff.
“This entire case is a manufactured claim to pursue a political agenda,” Kise said in his closing argument. “It has been press releases and posturing but no evidence.”
Lawyers from James’ office were to deliver their closing argument Thursday afternoon.
Trump returned to court as a spectator Thursday despite the death of his mother in-law, Amalija Knavs, and the launch of the presidential primary season Monday with the Iowa caucus.
Since the trial began Oct. 2, Trump has gone to court nine times to observe, testify and complain to TV cameras about the case, which he called a “witch hunt and a disgrace.”
He clashed with Engoron and state lawyers during 3½ hours on the witness stand in November and remains under a limited gag order after making a disparaging and false social media post about the judge’s law clerk.
Thursday’s arguments were part of a busy legal and political stretch for Trump.
On Tuesday, he was in court in Washington, D.C., to watch appeals court arguments over whether he is immune from prosecution on charges that he plotted to overturn the 2020 election — one of four criminal cases against him. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
In New York, James sued Trump in 2022 under a state law that gives the state attorney general broad power to investigate allegations of persistent fraud in business dealings.
Kise argued the case amounted to the “weaponization” of a consumer protection statute and, urging Engoron to consider his legacy as a judge, warned that a ruling in the state’s favor would have a chilling effect on every company doing business in the state.
Engoron decided some of the key issues before testimony began. In a pretrial ruling, he found that Trump had committed years of fraud by lying about his riches on financial statements with tricks like claiming his Trump Tower penthouse was nearly three times its actual size.
The trial involves six undecided claims, including allegations of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records.
Trump’s company and two of his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., are also defendants. Eric Trump was also in court for closing arguments.
Besides monetary damages, James wants Trump and his co-defendants barred from doing business in New York.
State lawyers say that by making himself seem richer, Trump qualified for better loan terms from banks, saving him at least $168 million.
Kise, however, said the bank didn’t lose out on anything.
He pointed to testimony from bank officials that the former president more than qualified for special services afforded to ultra-rich people, and that the bank adjusted his numbers downward and still loaned him hundreds of millions of dollars.
Kise, praising Trump as “part of the fabric of the commercial real estate industry” for a half-century, pointed to Trump’s testimony that he intended lenders to do their own research and vetting after receiving his financial statements.
The lawyer also argued that the documents understated — rather than overvalued — the former president’s net worth.
Kise acknowledged that some holdings may have been listed “higher by immaterial” amounts, but he added” “there’s plenty of assets that were undervalued by substantial sums.”
Engoron said he is deciding the case because neither side asked for a jury and state law doesn’t allow for juries for this type of lawsuit. He said he hopes to have a decision by the end of the month.
Last month, in a ruling denying a defense bid for an early verdict, the judge signaled he’s inclined to find Trump and his co-defendants liable on at least some claims.
“Valuations, as elucidated ad nauseum in this trial, can be based on different criteria analyzed in different ways,” Engoron wrote in the Dec. 18 ruling. “But a lie is still a lie.”
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Even as social media addiction accelerated under Covid lockdowns, Meta jettisoned internal alarms about mental health dangers. Following Frances Haugen’s 2021 whistleblower testimony, attorneys general from 42 states filed consumer protection lawsuits against Meta.
The “Facebook Files,” a Wall Street Journal investigation based on Meta’s internal documents, showed that the social media company “ignored their own studies revealing Instagram’s photo-sharing and editing app harms girls.” Capitalizing on the need to connect during lockdown, Meta helped propel young women into gender facilities.
When you set up a social media profile, you begin a process of virtualized identity that makes you a target for ad campaigns. Bots track people exploring “gender issues.” As Michelle Santiago Cortés’ observed, “Our algorithmically orchestrated encounters with people … on social media start to feel preordained, as if the fact that the algorithm put something on our path Means Something™.” Meta hid the many adverse effects — including anxiety and body-image dysmorphia — tied to compulsive online behavior such as infinite scrolling.
The “Facebook Files” disclosed built-in Instagram features that made it more harmful than similar youth-targeting apps. In particular, according to internal documents, “Social comparison is worse on Instagram.” Social comparisons on visual platforms, such as Instagram, resemble past research on body image. That research showed that young girls’ body image worsened when they compared themselves to images of cover girls.
The Self as an Object to Edit
What’s worse now is that, according to JAMA Plastic Facial Surgery, selfies and photo editing detach users from their own bodies, “making us lose touch with reality.” A dangerous object orientation toward the body occurs.
Creativity and intelligence cannot withstand making comparisons and spiraling into envy. Even a sophisticated awareness of the objectifying effect of social media will not protect young people from it. A study of youth reactions to their own untouched versus filtered photos showed that their resulting critical awareness is insufficient to avoid social comparisons: “Although the majority of the teens said they actually preferred their original, unretouched photos, every single one chose to digitally alter their image for social media.”
Cell phone users occasionally walk into traffic. Why wouldn’t preoccupation with an unfolding digital presentation lend to disembodied living in your head and ensuing self-estrangement?
The face app visually re-aligns the facial contour, such as the jawline, to achieve a more masculine appearance. While the initial experience is euphoric, the emotional high is not lasting. One Reddit thread makes this clear: “So I just got face app to see what the hype was all about. And let me just say its [sic] pretty awesome, but as soon as I finished one picture I was washed over with so much dysphoria and just felt sad that that wasn’t me.”
Depersonalization Through Photo Editing
Meta relies on AI to filter content. This includes machine learning and rule-based character pattern-matching algorithms, including liking and contextual cues to identify and capitalize on curiosity about gender issues. The best AI in the world cannot filter out image comparisons that undermine an individual’s mood and self-esteem. This is especially true with face apps, which invite the user to dwell in a detached way on her own physical appearance. Moreover, these apps allow users to swap in a dramatically altered appearance of themselves as the opposite sex.
It’s easy to recognize the excessive focus on body image in those who begin to experience appearance incongruence — the feeling that one’s actual appearance does not match one’s true appearance. If it overshadows real life, the “trans alter,” as Eliza Mondegreen calls the virtual performance of self, becomes discordant with embodied existence. In this context, photo editing can take on outsized significance. Psychologists note that “photo-editing may exacerbate disordered body image in vulnerable individuals.” According to its own science, Meta knew its Instagram photo-sharing app “was addictive and worsened body image issues for some teen girls.”
The use of social media, especially Instagram, is as addictive as drug use. Instagram incorporates short, exciting videos to trigger infinite scrolling. “Meta did not disclose that its algorithms were designed to capitalize on young users’ dopamine responses and create an addictive cycle of engagement,” according to a report. The more preoccupied a person becomes, the more likely she is to experience mental health issues such as dissociation.
Transgenderism, the New Aspiration
Even a brief amount of time spent filtering photos leads to an increase in girls’ anxiety, according to researchers. This is because Instagram and other platforms introduce an emotional feedback loop, in which waves of dysphoria are punctuated by spikes of euphoria. In the online world, where bots are ubiquitous, every female who doesn’t accept her sex has access to a virtual trans surgeon. Social media feeds a dynamic of nonstop clicking for more hits of dopamine.
Although they are aware of digital distortion online, teens looking at face apps see plastic surgery results and aspire to physically embody their own retouched images. Dr. Helen Egger, a child psychiatrist, notes that “it’s a dopamine hit, it’s like ‘woah I’m popular, I like this feeling, I want to do it again,’ it can feed on itself.” Social affirmation of face swaps, within a cycle of addictive feedback loops, validates the urgent demand for medical intervention.
The trouble for social media users involves its capacity not only to reflect reality but to project a desired or imagined reality. Sociologist Charles Cooley coined a theory of the looking-glass self to explain how we develop our self-concept through interaction, especially when noticing how we’re perceived by others. In this way, social media is particularly addictive in promising to show us to ourselves in more complete ways than even a mirror can.
At the same time, social media is not a mirror held up to reality at all. It’s an unreal screen for public consumption that spreads acceptance of transgender surgeries. Social media in this sense is not the playful leisure activity it appears to be. Staring into the mirror-like cell phone screen can deepen an out-of-body experience and a preoccupation with one’s sex.
A Trans ‘Rite of Passage’
For girls who deny their sex, Instagram’s face-swapping filters have been attributed to “finally ‘cracking their egg’ — a rite of passage” when a trans identity is apparently firmly established in the mind as a visually concrete identity: “The Snapchat girl filter was the final straw in dropping a decade’s worth of repression,” said Josie, an early-30s man from Cincinnati who claims to be a woman. “[I] saw something that looked more ‘me’ than anything in a mirror, and I couldn’t go back.”
In the past, the young were tricked into altering their aspirational goals by mimicking airbrushed models. Today, teens fixate on their own filtered image and dream about cosmetic surgery.
In May, an advisory from the U.S. surgeon general warned of social media’s negative effect on anxiety and body-image disorders. In this Meta face-changing ecology, every confused girl on Instagram can instantly see a tougher image of herself, able to withstand the worries that assail her. Something, she feels, has suddenly jelled.
Dr. Faith Kuzma is a retired Assistant Professor of English. Kuzma has written for Salvo, The Canadian Patriot, American Spectator, Psych Reg, and Mercator Net, among others.
A New Hampshire court dismissed Democrat-backed lawsuits contesting the legality of the state’s voter ID law on Wednesday, marking a major win for Republicans and election integrity advocates.
Writing for the Hillsborough Superior Court, Justice Charles Temple ruled that a series of challenges filed against New Hampshire’s voter ID law lacks legal standing because plaintiffs failed to provide evidence showing their ability to vote was impeded by the law in question. In their original lawsuit against New Hampshire’s Republican secretary of state and attorney general, several state voters, along with 603 Forward and Open Democracy Action (two leftist organizations), claimed SB 418 violated provisions of the New Hampshire Constitution.
The Republican National Committee, New Hampshire Republican State Committee, and Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) PAC were intervenor-defendants in the case.
Signed into law by GOP Gov. Chris Sununu last year, SB 418 altered the process by which voters verify their identity when casting their ballot. Under the law, voters who fail to present an approved form of ID would be instructed to fill out an “affidavit ballot,” at which point he or she must then fill out and submit a series of documents proving he or she is eligible to vote. If a voter does not return a copy of the required information within seven days of the election, that voter’s ballot will not be certified.
In his Wednesday ruling, Temple noted how plaintiffs were unable to document any evidence proving their rights were, “or will be,” violated by the law.
“In sum, it seems abundantly clear to the Court that the ‘rights’ at issue in this litigation are the constitutional rights of New Hampshire’s voters, which the organizational plaintiffs maintain have been (or will be) violated by SB 418,” Temple wrote. “However, under long-standing case law, the organizational plaintiffs may only challenge the constitutionality of SB 418 based on an invasion of their own rights. … For the reasons stated above, the plaintiffs have failed to identify the necessary ‘present legal or equitable right’ belonging to them ‘to which the [defendants] [are] asserting an adverse claim.’”
Temple furthermore granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ requests that SB 418 be declared unlawful and an injunction prohibiting its enactment and enforcement.
“Voter ID laws do not harm eligible voters, instead, they identify those people ineligible to vote, including non-citizens,” RITE President Derek Lyons said in a statement celebrating Wednesday’s ruling. “Every case rejecting activists’ attempts to upend state election law helps restore voters’ confidence in the ballot box.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
A group of Maryland parents filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the Montgomery County Board of Education for mandating that students from grades pre-K through eight read storybooks that push “extreme ideology” regarding gender identity and sexuality.
Last fall, the school board introduced new “inclusivity” books that promote controversial ideology around transgenderism and focus excessively on children’s romantic feelings. For example, one book tasks 3- and 4-year-olds with searching for images from a word list that includes “intersex flag,” “drag queen,” “underwear,” “leather,” and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker.
Another book advocates a child-knows-best approach to gender transitioning, telling students that a decision to transition doesn’t have to “make sense”; teachers are instructed to add that doctors only “guess” when identifying a newborn’s sex anyway.
The learning guide to another book about a playground same-sex romance invites school kids to share with classmates how they feel when they “don’t just ‘like’ but… ‘like like’” someone.
Last fall, the Montgomery County school board introduced new “inclusivity” books that promote controversial ideology around transgenderism and focus excessively on children’s romantic feelings. (Courtesy of Becket Fund)
According to attorneys at Becket, a nonprofit public interest law firm, when the school board first went public with the “pride” storybooks, it assured hundreds of concerned parents they would be notified when the books were read and could opt their children out.
Becket says the board repeated that assurance to parents as recently as March 22, 2023. But the very next day, Becket says the board announced that the books would be mandatory for all elementary school students. One school board member, according to the legal group, told concerned parents that opting out “is just telling that kid, ‘[h]ere’s another reason to hate another person.’”
Children’s book tasks 3- and 4-year-olds with searching for images from a word list that includes “intersex flag,” “drag queen,” “underwear,” “leather,” and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker. (Courtesy of Becket Fund)
Becket represents a coalition of religious parents, including Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and others, who say that despite faith differences, they believe the new storybooks are age-inappropriate and spiritually and emotionally damaging for kids, and they want their kids to have alternative reading material.
“Children are entitled to guidance from their own parents, who know and love them best, regarding how they’ll be introduced to complex issues concerning gender identity, transgenderism, and human sexuality,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket.
One book advocates a child-knows-best approach to gender transitioning, telling students that a decision to transition doesn’t have to “make sense”; teachers are instructed to add that doctors only “guess” when identifying a newborn’s sex anyway. (Courtesy of Becket)
“Forced, ideological discussions during story hour won’t cut it, and excluding parents will only hinder, not help, inclusivity,” he said.
Maryland law and the school board’s own governing policies require parental notice and opportunity to opt out of any instruction concerning “family life and human sexuality.”
When he could have stayed on script and let his popularity carry him along, he instead continued taking ever-larger risks and angering powerful people.
Whatever the reason, most people agree that Fox lost more than Carlson. While he can take his massive following and start fresh, Fox can hardly avoid looking like a domesticated conservative media company.
For many, Carlson was the only reason to watch cable television, let alone Fox. He was the one authentic person who challenged the Democrat and Republican party lines. As Daily Wire host Matt Walsh recently noted on his show, Carlson’s monologues were news events in themselves because they resonated so well with many Americans. Besides making him popular, Carlson’s authenticity and independence made him unique and likely irreplaceable.
Some people have compared his departure to that of Bill O’Reilly, who also commanded large audiences, but O’Reilly was a pundit for a different time. His brand differed entirely from Carlson’s. He cheered for the right’s old priorities: fighting terrorists, expanding global trade, and lowering the corporate tax rate. By contrast, Carlson voiced populist, anti-establishment, and non-interventionist opinions.
While O’Reilly is a relic of “Conservatism Inc.,” Carlson is emblematic of what conservative media has become: a wide diversity of voices on a variety of platforms that all oppose the leftist narrative propagated by legacy media outlets. By dumping Carlson, Fox’s leaders are deciding to return to the good ol’ days of Conservative Inc. From now on, news and opinion broadcasts will be safe, filtered, and milquetoast.
In the short term, this might protect Fox from more lawsuits and harassment, but in the long term, this assures that Fox will fade into oblivion along with the rest of cable television as alternative online media takes over.
Rather than treating this as a loss, conservatives should welcome the change. This might push more people, especially older generations, to abandon cable news altogether. Conservatives can leave the insipid programming of cable news for the leftist midwits who pride themselves on being (mis)informed.
Frankly, Carlson could not stay at Fox forever. Though he excelled as a cable broadcaster, his commentary, intelligence, and willingness to explore controversies fit new styles of conservative media too. When he could have stayed on script and let his popularity carry him along, he instead continued taking ever-larger risks and angering powerful people. In many ways, he had a stronger counter-cultural and anti-establishment bent than the typical punk rocker, which admittedly is not saying much these days.
As such, it is fitting that he can move into a medium that allows him to work on his own terms. Not only will this allow him more freedom to express himself and to amplify important voices and arguments, but it will also be more profoundly American.
Whereas state-run media controls information and thought in some foreign nations, Americans can listen to different voices all arguing and competing with one another to grow their audiences. Doubtless, American leftists hope to follow suit and destroy all alternative media and abolish free speech. Quite understandably, they see that only gadflies like Carlson, who dissent from their agenda, hold them back from complete cultural, political, and economic supremacy. This is why they devote extensive energy and resources to controlling all social media and cable media platforms. And it looks like they finally succeeded in taking down Fox.
Fortunately, leftist attempts to censor and control online public discourse have mostly played out like a clumsy game of whack-a-mole. They will silence one dissenter only to have 10 more pop up and say something even more “dangerous.”
Moreover, they cannot help but look like fascists and hypocrites every time they play this game, even angering those in the old guard like Bill Maher who at least try to be principled.
That does not mean their failures should make anyone comfortable with the assault on free speech and alternative media in America. People who are committed to the truth and a marketplace of ideas should continue to call out censorship and corporate monopolies.
Even if Carlson rebounds and Fox collapses, it is still outrageous that he was ousted in the first place. To turn this setback into a win, conservatives must see the intentions behind his exit, support alternative media, and (as Tucker Carlson said in a video after his termination) speak out against the falsehoods as confidently and frequently as possible.
Auguste Meyrat is an English teacher in the Dallas area. He holds an MA in humanities and an MEd in educational leadership. He is the senior editor of The Everyman and has written essays for The Federalist, The American Conservative, and The Imaginative Conservative, as well as the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. Follow him on Twitter.
High-priced attorneys for Hunter Biden dispatched letters on Wednesday to the Delaware attorney general and the Department of Justice pushing them to launch investigations into a slew of individuals who had shared information allegedly retrieved from the laptop abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. But yesterday’s transparent attempt to sic top state and federal law enforcement officials on those exposing the Biden family pay-to-play scandal is already backfiring, with Biden’s clarifying the letters are not an admission that the laptop was Hunter’s.
In two detailed, 14-page letters penned by Winston & Strawn attorney Abbe David Lowell, the Hunter Biden attorney requested the attorney general of Delaware and the Department of Justice investigate whether John Paul Mac Isaac, Robert Costello, Rudy Giuliani, Stephen Bannon, Jack Maxey, Garrett Ziegler, and Yaacov Apelbaum committed state or federal crimes. “There is considerable reason to believe” those individuals violated various laws “in accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating Mr. Biden’s personal computer data,” Hunter’s attorney opened his Wednesday missive.
The lengthy letters then detail each of the individuals’ purported actions that Lowell claims provide “considerable reason to believe” they committed various state or federal crimes, which the Winston & Strawn attorney then identifies and analyzes.
Starting with John Paul Mac Isaac, the owner of the Delaware repair shop where the laptop was left for repairs, Lowell asserts, “Mr. Mac Isaac has admitted to gaining access to our client’s personal computer data in Delaware without Mr. Biden’s consent.”
“Mr. Mac Isaac has admitted to copying that data without Mr. Biden’s consent, and Mr. Mac Isaac has admitted to distributing copies of that data from his place in Delaware,” the letter to the Delaware AG continues.
Given that Mac Isaac has maintained from day one that the “computer data” he copied was contained on a laptop abandoned at his repair shop by an individual he believed was Hunter Biden, yesterday’s letters to the Delaware attorney general and the DOJ appeared as an apparent admission by Hunter that yes, the laptop was his.
But when asked whether Hunter “now acknowledge[s] he or someone on his behalf dropped off his laptop for repairs at Mac Isaac’s store,” Lowell told The Federalist, “These letters do not confirm Mac Isaac’s or others’ versions of a so-called laptop. They address their conduct of seeking, manipulating and disseminating what they allege to be Mr. Biden’s personal data, wherever they claim to have gotten it.”
In an exclusive interview with The Federalist, Mac Isaac’s attorney Brian Della Rocca seemed flabbergasted by the continued obfuscating by Hunter Biden’s legal team. “Is Hunter denying that he was in Delaware in April of 2019 then? To this day, he has not denied being in Wilmington at that time,” he said. “Nor has he ever denied dropping off the laptop with John Paul. Is he denying doing so now?”
“John Paul has not, nor will he ever manipulate the data on Hunter’s hard drive. That is just not who he is,” Della Rocca told The Federalist. And it would be easy to confirm the authenticity of the data, Della Rocca explained, stressing that “the data on the drive he has can be compared to the laptop, which is in the possession of the FBI, to show he has not made any changes to the information.”
Della Rocca also condemned the letters’ attempt to suggest Mac Isaac lied to law enforcement officials.
“Mr. Mac Isaac has insisted that he did not make a bit-by-bit copy or clone of the hard drive,” page eight of the Biden attorney’s letter maintained, continuing:
Nor could he make such a copy because the hard drive was soldered to the laptop’s mother board, and he could not stay logged into the waterlogged laptop long enough to copy the entirety of the hard drive because the waterlogged laptop would periodically turn off. Instead, Mr. Mac Isaac chose what he wanted to access and copy from Mr. Biden’s personal data that Mr. Mac Isaac unlawfully obtained. Thus, any representation by Mr. Mac Isaac to law enforcement that what was in his possession was the entire hard drive would have been a knowing false statement. Moreover, the absence of a true clone of the hard drive created the opportunity for mischief—namely, the addition of files to this “hard drive,” the manipulation of files on this “hard drive,” and the destruction of files from this “hard drive.”
Mac Isaac’s attorney told The Federalist this passage represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the process for retrieving data from a damaged MacBook Pro 13. “Due to the damaged condition and poor stability of the MacBook, John Paul had to manually recover the user data,” Mac Isaac’s attorney explained. “John Paul was able to recover the entire contents (220GB) [of] the folder named, RobertHunter.”
“Per Hunter’s request, no attempt to recover the remaining system files or applications was made because they did not include personal data,” Mac Isaac’s lawyer stressed. Della Rocca added that “the only law enforcement agency to which John Paul has provided a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop was the FBI,” and that the FBI also took custody of the laptop at the same time, making it possible for the FBI to compare what Mac Isaac recovered from the “RobertHunter” folder on the original laptop. “There would be no difference,” Mac Isaac’s attorney emphasized.
The accusation that Mac Isaac accessed Hunter Biden’s personal data without his consent is also “absolutely false,” Della Rocca told The Federalist.
While Della Rocca did not elaborate, the signed repair contract stated that if the laptop was not retrieved within 90 days of “notification of completed service,” it would be treated as “abandoned.” Hunter Biden’s attorney did not respond to The Federalist’s inquiry on whether it was his position that Hunter Biden had “not abandoned the property under the repair contract,” with the Winston & Strawn attorney instead stressing the letters do not confirm Mac Isaac’s “versions of a so-called laptop.”
The repair contract further provided that the owner of the equipment agreed to hold Mac Isaac “harmless for any damage or loss of property.”
Yet, here we are, with “another privileged person hiring yet another high-priced attorney to redirect attention away from his own unlawful actions,” Della Rocca scoffed. “This is entirely a P.R. move,” he added, telling The Federalist he first saw the lengthy letters from Hunter’s attorney when CBS contacted him for comment.
The public relations move, however, is already backfiring, with the general public interpreting the letter as an implicit acknowledgment that the laptop from hell was Hunter Biden’s. And things may only get worse, if the FBI is forced to confirm that, yes, the damning documents publicly circulating are authentic copies of the material contained in the MacBook’s “RobertHunter” folder.
Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled against Masterpiece Cakeshop baker Jack Phillips, arguing he violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act by refusing to bake a cake for a gender transition celebration.
Critics of the ruling point to Phillips’ earlier “win” at the Supreme Court, which narrowly ruled in his favor, as the reason the baker continues to be targeted by activists. In 2017, former Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion that some have argued essentially said Phillips could have lost his Supreme Court case if it hadn’t been for Colorado officials openly disparaging Phillips and his Christian views.
That narrow decision has allowed Phillips to continue to be persecuted, critics say. At the Washington Examiner, Quin Hillyer argued that the Supreme Court’s “search for the narrowest possible result merely invited further, seemingly endless rounds of new litigation.”
The latest lawsuit against Phillips comes from an activist attorney, Autumn Scardina, in Colorado who called Masterpiece Cakeshop on the same day the Supreme Court announced it would take his prior case – in which he was accused of discrimination for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. The attorney requested Phillips create a custom cake that was pink on the inside and blue on the outside to celebrate a gender transition. According to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represents Phillips, the attorney also called back to request a cake depicting Satan smoking marijuana in order to “correct the errors of [Phillips’] thinking.” Phillips declined to make either cake because of the messages they depicted. The activist has now sued.
“Naturally, Colorado’s courts ignored the patently offensive request for a Satan cake and instead again held Phillips responsible for illegal discrimination based on gender, his religious objections notwithstanding,” Hillyer wrote. “Today’s affirmation by the appeals court of the lower court’s ruling takes ample advantage of the loophole left open by the Supreme Court while cherry-picking from other Supreme Court religious liberty decisions to reach its desired, anti-Phillips conclusion.”
On Twitter, prominent conservative PoliMath also blamed the Supreme Court for the ongoing legal struggles of Masterpiece Cakeshop.
“The result of John Roberts pushing for the narrowest possible ruling in the earlier Masterpiece case is that they continued persecuting Jack Phillips for years,” PoliMath tweeted. “They will continue to do this to him until he dies.”
The result of John Roberts pushing for the narrowest possible ruling in the earlier Masterpiece case is that they continued persecuting Jack Phillips for years
The appeals court on Thursday argued that Phillips only refused to bake the cake after learning the client was transgender and wanted to use the cake to celebrate his birthday and gender transition.
“Thus, it was Scardina’s transgender status, and her desire to use the cake in celebration of that status, that caused Masterpiece and Phillips to refuse to provide the cake,” the court wrote, arguing the cake “expressed no message.”
But ADL argues that “Phillips works with all people and always decides whether to take a project based on what message a cake will express, not who is requesting it.”
“Over a decade ago, Colorado officials began targeting Jack, misusing state law to force him to say things he does not believe. Then an activist attorney continued that crusade,” the ADF said in a statement. “This cruelty must stop. One need not agree with Jack’s views to agree that all Americans should be free to say what they believe, even if the government disagrees with those beliefs.”
The Biden administration pressured Facebook to censor Fox News host Tucker Carlson for criticizing the Covid shots, according to newly released White House emails.
President Joe Biden’s administration actively pressured Facebook to censor Fox News host Tucker Carlson for criticizing the Covid shots, according to internal White House communication records obtained by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana.
In an email dated April 14, 2021, then-senior adviser to the president’s Covid response team, Andrew Slavitt, voiced dissatisfaction to a Facebook official that a video of Carlson questioning the left’s universal demand that people get the Covid jab was “Number one” on the platform, to which said official responded that they’d look into the matter. Later that same day, the Facebook representative informed the White House that while the “Tucker Carlson video does not qualify for removal under [Facebook’s] policies,” the company would label the clip with “a pointer to more authoritative COVID information” and work to limit its reach on the platform.
Facebook’s efforts did not meet the administration’s demands for greater censorship, however. In response to the representative, White House Director of Digital Strategy Robert Flaherty questioned how Carlson’s video didn’t violate Facebook’s existing policies and pressured the company to turn over information on the efficacy of its censorship practices.
“How was this not violative? The second half of the segment is raising conspiracy theories about the government hiding that all vaccines aren’t effective,” Flaherty claimed. “Moreover, you say reduced and demoted. What does that mean? There’s 40,000 shares on the video. Who is seeing it now? How many? How effective is that?”
“Not for nothing but last time we did this dance, it ended in an insurrection,” Flaherty added in an apparent reference to the platform’s handling of claims pertaining to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and subsequent riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
But the Biden White House’s habit of using Big Tech to silence dissenting voices on Covid-related information didn’t just stop at Carlson. A separate batch of emails released by the Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general reveals a concentrated endeavor between the administration and Facebook to reduce the “virality of vaccine hesitancy content,” even if such posts contained factually accurate information.
“As you know, in addition to removing vaccine misinformation, we have been focused on reducing the virality of content discouraging vaccines that does not contain actionable misinformation,” a Facebook representative told Slavitt in a March 21, 2021, email. “This is often-true content, which we allow at the post level … but it can be framed as sensation, alarmist, or shocking. We’ll remove these Groups, Pages, and Accounts when they are disproportionately promoting this sensationalized content.”
In addition to Facebook, Twitter was also a major player in the collusion efforts between the federal government and Big Tech to further squash free speech online. In an email dated August 11, 2022, Flaherty admonished Twitter for allowing posts contradicting White House claims to circulate on the platform, writing that “if your product is appending misinformation to our tweets[,] that seems like a pretty fundamental issue.”
Flaherty separately accused Twitter in a December 2021 email of “Total Calvinball” and “bending over backwards” to tolerate disfavored speech after the company refused to comply with demands from the administration to censor a video.
“This case is about the Biden Administration’s blatant disregard for the First Amendment and its collusion with social media companies [to] suppress speech it disagrees with,” said Missouri AG Andrew Bailey in a statement. “I will always fight back against unelected bureaucrats who seek to indoctrinate the people of this state by violating our constitutional right to free and open debate.”
The bombshell emails come as a result of an investigation launched last year by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and then-Missouri AG and now-U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt to uncover collusion efforts between the federal government and Big Tech companies to censor Covid-related posts they deemed misinformation. In addition to obtaining communication records unveiling such corruption, the investigation has scored numerous legal wins allowing Louisiana and Missouri to depose high-ranking administration officials such as Anthony Fauci under oath about their role in these efforts.
According to a transcript of Fauci’s November testimony, the man claiming to “represent science” somehow couldn’t recall relevant information about his role in the federal government’s disastrous Covid response “at least 174 times.” The deposition ranged from topics such as Fauci’s bid to smear authors of “The Great Barrington Declaration,” to his role in attempting to “discredit any theory” that Covid resulted from a lab leak in Wuhan, China.
Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
A sign outside a classroom taken in 2016. | REUTERS/Tami Chappell
A group of parents and teachers have sued a Virginia school district over a policy requiring teachers to use the preferred pronouns of trans-identified students. The plaintiffs, whose names have been redacted, filed a lawsuit last week in the Circuit Court of Rockingham County against the leadership of Harrisonburg City Public Schools.
At issue is the school board’s decision to add “gender identity” to the school district’s nondiscrimination policy. The policy forces teachers to use students’ preferred pronouns and withhold information about students’ gender identity from their parents if the student requests they do so. The lawsuit claims the policy “compels teachers to violate their religious convictions about gender and honesty” and “violates parents’ rights by interfering with their ability to direct the upbringing and education of their children.”
“Plaintiffs … are HCPS teachers and parents who object to HCPS’s policy on free-speech, religious-freedom, and parental-rights grounds,” the complaint reads.
“Plaintiffs deeply care about their students and children. They see the growing number of children struggling with gender dysphoria and want those children to experience love and support. But like many, Plaintiffs recognize that a policy of immediate social transition and unquestioning affirmation without parental involvement for every case of gender dysphoria in minors is harmful, not to mention contrary to science.”
The plaintiffs are represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal nonprofit that has filed similar litigation against other school districts.
“Public schools should never hide information from or lie to parents about a child’s mental health,” the complaint reads. “And schools should never compel teachers to perpetrate such a deception.”
ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Bangert said in a statement that he believes parents “have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing, care, and education of their children.”
“Teachers and staff cannot willfully hide kids’ mental health information from their parents, especially as some of the decisions children are making at school have potentially life-altering ramifications,” Bangert stated.
“As the clients we represent believe, a teacher’s role is to support, not supplant, the role of the parent.”
HCPS posted a statement on its website stating that the school board “maintains a strong commitment to its inclusivity statement.”
“In specific student situations, the focus is always to foster a team approach that includes and supports the unique needs of the student and family on a case-by-case basis,” stated HCPS.
“We are dismayed that this complaint is coming to us in the form of a lawsuit in lieu of the collaborative approach we invite and take to address specific needs or concerns, an approach that we believe best serves the interests of our students, staff, and families.”
HCPS adopted the policy after the Virginia Department of Education mandated school divisions adopt similar policies to a model policy that it supported during the 2021-2022 school year. Other school districts adopted similar policies. In addition to the HCPS lawsuit, ADF oversees litigation against Loudon County Public Schools in Virginia over a similar measure known as Policy 8040.
According to the Loudon County policy enacted last year, school faculty and staff must use the chosen name and pronouns of a student who identifies as “gender-expansive or transgender.”
“School staff shall, at the request of a student or parent/legal guardian, when using a name or pronoun to address the student, use the name and pronoun that correspond to their consistently asserted gender identity,” read the policy.
“The use of gender-neutral pronouns is appropriate. Inadvertent slips in the use of names or pronouns may occur; however, staff or students who intentionally and persistently refuse to respect a student’s gender identity by using the wrong name and gender pronoun are in violation of this policy.”
Last year, the Loudoun County Schools suspended teacher Tanner Cross after he voiced objection to what at the time was a proposed Policy 8040 during a school board hearing. He said the policy would “damage children” and “defile the holy image of God.” He argued that affirming students’ preferred pronouns is “lying to a child.”
After a judge ordered the school district to reinstate Cross, the school district argued that it had received complaints from students and parents who “expressed fear, hurt and disappointment about coming to school” in light of Cross’ comments. Loudoun County Schools said addressing those concerns was “paramount to the school division’s goal to provide a safe, welcoming and affirming learning environment for all students.”
The Virginia Supreme Court rejected the school district’s appeal of the court’s order to reinstate Cross.
The Texas Supreme Court has ruled against Facebook as the social media giant tries to use a controversial federal law to dodge liability for its platform being used by human traffickers to recruit victims. The ruling allows three survivors of human trafficking who want to sue Facebook to move forward with their cases, according to Forbes. Facebook had argued it was not responsible for what its users say under Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act.
Section 230 has become a controversial piece of law, with critics saying it gives social media companies too much power. Forbes reported that in 2018, Congress carved out exceptions to Section 230 so that lawsuits could be brought against companies that violate human trafficking laws. In his opinion, Justice Jimmy Blacklock noted those limits.
“We do not understand section 230 to ‘create a lawless no-man’s-land on the Internet’ in which states are powerless to impose liability on websites that knowingly or intentionally participate in the evil of online human trafficking,” he wrote.
“Holding internet platforms accountable for the words or actions of their users is one thing. … Holding internet platforms accountable for their own misdeeds is quite another thing. This is particularly the case for human trafficking.”
“Section 230, as amended, does not withdraw from the states the authority to protect their citizens from internet companies whose own actions — as opposed to those of their users — amount to knowing or intentional participation in human trafficking,” the ruling said.
The case involved three women who, according to the ruling, “allege they were victims of sex trafficking who became entangled with their abusers through Facebook.” One was 15 years old when she was befriended by a Facebook user who told her he would help her pursue a modeling career.
“Shortly after meeting him, Plaintiff was photographed and her pictures posted to the website Backpage (which has since been shut down due to its role in human trafficking), advertising her for prostitution. As a result, Plaintiff was ‘raped, beaten, and forced into further sex trafficking,’” the ruling said.
The heartbroken family of Secoriea Turner — an 8-year-old girl who was shot and killed by spray gunfire during Black Lives Matter protests in Atlanta last year — has filed a lawsuit against the city, its mayor, and other officials. In the complaint filed in Fulton County State Court on Monday, Turner’s grieving parents alleged that city leaders failed to protect their daughter amid the violent riots that rocked the city in the aftermath of Rayshard Brooks’ death.
The complaint cited numerous failures by city leaders, “including that they were negligent in their duties by failing to remove armed vigilantes who had gathered alongside peaceful protesters at the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed,”according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“We are forced to live through this day by day,” Secoriea’s mother, Charmaine Turner, said during a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “We deserve justice. Someone needs to be held accountable.”
“There is no dispute that this little girl was innocent — that this family was innocent, did nothing wrong. On their way home, and they lost their little one,” attorney Shean D. Williams of the Cochran Firm, which is representing the family, added.
Secoriea, who was a rising third-grader, was tragically killed on July 4 when she and her mother encountered a group of armed rioters who had blocked a street near where Brooks was killed. Police said the rioters opened fire on the vehicle as it tried to drive around the blockade, sending eight bullets into the car and striking Secoriea in the back. News of her death made national headlines, especially after the young girl’s parents delivered an impassioned rebuke of the killers following her death.
“They say black lives matter,” the girl’s father, Secoriya Williamson, said during a news conference. “You killed your own this time. … You killed a child. She didn’t do nothing to nobody.”
"They say Black Lives Matter. You killed your own." Secoriya Williamson, father of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, addressed the public during a press conf. today after his daughter was shot and killed last night while riding in a car w/ her mother in Southeast Atlanta. @11AliveNewspic.twitter.com/odowRbSXsq
“She was only 8 years old,” the girl’s mother said before breaking down in tears. “She would have been on TikTok dancing on her phone, just got done eating. We understand the frustration of Rayshard Brooks. We didn’t have anything to do with that. We’re innocent. My baby didn’t mean no harm.”
According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, the complaint requests that the family receive financial compensation “in an amount to be determined” and a jury trial “on all claims so triable.”
The crime occurred during a wave of elevated violence in the city. In the aftermath, residents have been calling on city leaders to take aggressive action to protect the public.
Reported By Jack Davis | Published April 28, 2020 at 8:01am
URL of the originating web site: https://www.westernjournal.com/judge-rules-illinois-governors-stay-home-order/
We certainly are going to act in a swift fashion to try to have this ruling overturned,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. (Joshua Lott / Getty Images)
A judge has ruled that Illinois Republican state Rep. Darren Bailey can be exempt from Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order in a decision that Bailey said should open the floodgates for others to sue for their freedom. Clay County Circuit Court Judge Michael McHaney on Monday issued a temporary restraining order that allows Bailey to disregard Pritzker’s order. The judge ruled that Bailey “has shown he has a clearly ascertainable right in need of immediate protection, namely his liberty interest to be free from Pritzker’s order to quarantine in his own home.”
The ruling said the legislator has shown “he will suffer irreparable harm” without the temporary restraining order being issued and has “a reasonable likelihood of succeeding” on the merits of his argument.
Bailey had said Pritzker’s order was “in excess of the authority granted him” under Illinois law, according to Fox News. The legislator had argued that although Pritzker had the right to impose restrictions for 30 days, he did not have the legal standing to extend stay-at-home laws past that date.
On Monday, Pritzker loosened the restrictions Bailey had attacked but also extended his overall stay-at-home order through May 30, according to the Chicago Tribune. Bailey encouraged his constituents to follow his lead in challenging the governor’s restrictions.
“This is just me, but anybody can follow suit,” he said, according to WMAG-TV.
“If people want to, if anyone wants to file any kind of similar suit in their home county or in their circuit, they can certainly do that,” Bailey said, according to the Tribune. “What I’m doing is challenging the constitutionality of the governor, of what he’s been doing.”
Bailey said the issue was not whether staying at home would be sound health policybut Pritzker’s use of his power.
“He is going to lose his power. This is the right thing,” the lawmaker said. “This is the law of the land, and I will contend that areas of the state would be better served through local control.”
Bailey said the economic damage from the state’s stay-at-home order might be worse than the disease it was issued to address.
“Our governor has created a second pandemic that I believe is going to be more far-reaching than the COVID-19 situation,” he said.
Bailey, whose district covers southern Illinois, said he gets calls from constituents who are “overwhelmed, scared to death, not of the COVID-19 virus, but of their livelihoods.”
“Still today, we’re getting calls of people that cannot get through to unemployment, and that’s what’s taking a toll in some of these more rural districts,” the legislator said. “That’s what the governor needs to be focused on.”
Pritzker attacked Bailey for his actions.
“People are in danger as a result of this ruling, of the judge’s ruling of the suit that was brought by Darren Bailey,”he said, according to the Tribune.
“We certainly are going to act in a swift fashion to try to have this ruling overturned, certainly put a stay in place,”the governor said. “I mean it’s, frankly, it’s insulting, it’s dangerous, and people’s safety and health has now been put at risk.
“There may be people who contract coronavirus as a result of what Darren Bailey has done now.”
“The message is clear, we are not Chicago and we already distance ourselves just by our rural life styles. Why should we be punished with the loss of jobs and closing our businesses when the coronavirus emergency isn’t the same for us?” he said. “This one-size-fits-all mentality needs to be reviewed and take into account our diversity from urban to rural areas of the state.’
“The governor’s executive orders to social distance and stay home to work when you are able has had a flattening of the curve for the cities and that’s good.’
“But in our area, the low numbers of cases reinforces the fact that we do not need the heavy hand of government to tell us to use our common sense. It was the actions of people who wouldn’t stay home in Chicago for St. Patrick’s Day celebrating that triggered these executive orders, not the actions of teachers or farmers or small business owners in southern Illinois.”
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
At what point does this become harassment of Jack Phillips for his religious views?
A new lawsuit has been filed against Masterpiece Cakeshop according to CBS 4 Denver. This is the third time that baker Jack Phillips has been sued for “discrimination” for refusing to bake and decorate cakes that are against his traditional, Christian views.
The latest lawsuit has been filed by Autumn Scardina, who has a bit of a history with Phillips.
Scardina, a local transgender woman and, (according to Newsweek, a lawyer,) had been contacting the bakery run by the devout Christian to request cakes that would be deliberately offensive. Jack Phillips believes that Scardina has done so several times.
The first instance was the day of the Supreme Court decision that was 7-2 in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop. That lawsuit was filed by Phillips against a Colorado “Human Rights Commission” that punished him for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
That day, Masterpiece Cakeshop received a request for a birthday cake for Scardina, but with a catch. The cake was to be pink on the inside with blue frosting to celebrate Scardina’s transgender identity. Scardina’s lawyer called the cake a simple birthday cake on Thursday, but previous reports indicate that the cake was to celebrate a gender transition.
Another request on the same day (which Phillips believes was also Scardina,) was from a “member of the church of Satan” requesting a cake to celebrate Satan’s birthday.
“I’m thinking a three-tiered white cake. Cheesecake frosting,”the customer wrote in the June 4 email, according to Phillips’ lawsuit filed in Denver’s federal court on Tuesday. “And the topper should be a large figure of Satan, licking a 9” black Dildo. I would like the dildo to be an actual working model, that can be turned on before we unveil the cake.”
The email continued: “I can provide it for you if you don’t have the means to procure it yourself,”according to the civil complaint.
Philips “politely declined.”
“Cheesecake frosting” in itself is a bizarre request, but the rest of it is just over the top cray-cray.
Newsweek queried other local bakeries and found that all but one would refuse to bake the Satan cake.
Weeks after the three-tiered “Satan licking a dildo” cake request, two people entered the shop asking for a cake with a pentagram on it. When Phillips asked for a name one individual said, “Autumn Marie” which leads Phillips to think that this is a form of harassment.
Phillips said that these types of requests for cakes are increasing.
Last September, Phillips received an email requesting a cake for Satan’s birthday to include “red-and -lack icing” and “an upside-down cross under the head of Lucifer,” the complaint states.
Phillips answered back saying he was not going to bake it because it would have “expressed messages in violation of his religious beliefs,”according to the complaint.
Then came another order by telephone.
The complaint suggests that Phillips took note of the “caller-identification screen” reading “Scardina.”
In that call, the complaint states, Phillips “believes that the caller was Autumn Scardina” who wanted a red-and-black theme cake with “an image of Satan smoking marijuana.”
It is unclear what baked item is the center of this third lawsuit, but it seems to be pretty clear the types of items that Scardina has requested in the past.
CBS 4 Denver reports that the latest lawsuit was filed on Wednesday on behalf of Autumn Scardina by attorneys Paula Greisen and John McHugh. Clearly, Scardina is upset that the previous lawsuit was dismissed.
“The second round was dismissed, frankly, without our input,” Greisen told CBS4. “They disregarded Ms. Scardina and the merits of her claim.”
The newest lawsuit claims Phillips discriminated against Scardina and used deceptive and unfair trade practices.
“The dignity of all citizens in our state needs to be honored. Masterpiece Cakeshop said before the Supreme Court they would serve any baked good to members of the LGBTQ community. It was just the religious significance of it being a wedding cake,”Griesen said. “We don’t believe they’ve been honest with the public.”
The previous lawsuit filed by Scardina as well as this one cites that during the original litigation regarding the same-sex wedding cake, Jack Philips said that he would make “any” cake for an LGBT client except for a wedding cake. This is completely disingenuous, as Phillips has repeatedly stated that there are several types of items that he will not make because they violate his religious convictions.
A formal statement was later distributed on his behalf by Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Jim Campbell, whose firm represented Phillips in the Supreme Court case:
“A new lawsuit has been filed against Masterpiece Cakeshop that appears to largely rehash old claims. The State of Colorado abandoned similar ones just a few months ago. So this latest attack by Scardina looks like yet another desperate attempt to harass cake artist Jack Phillips. And it stumbles over the one detail that matters most: Jack serves everyone; he just cannot express all messages through his custom cakes.”
This latest lawsuit requests a trial by jury and would bypass the state of Colorado, which the Supreme Court decision found had been harassing Phillips for his religious views via the “Human Rights Commission” decisions against him.
Watch the news report:
This should be interesting. The Supreme Court had skirted the main issue of opposing rights, but it seems that activists want a clear decision on the ability to suppress religious views when it is convenient. This is a very important case where religious freedoms are concerned.
ClashDaily’s Associate Editor since August 2016. Self-described political junkie, anti-Third Wave Feminist, and a nightmare to the ‘intersectional’ crowd. Mrs. Walker has taken a stand against ‘white privilege’ education in public schools. She’s also an amateur Playwright, occasional Drama teacher, and staunch defender of the Oxford comma. Follow her humble musings on Twitter: @TheMrsKnowItAll
There is a reason so many American families supported Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, despite the left’s best attempts to derail it. Liberals didn’t take into account two things when they orchestrated a campaign to falsely accuse the judicial nominee of sexual assault.
The first is that there would be a majority of Americans across the country who care deeply about the justice of presumed innocence over presumed guilt; the other is that not all women who make accusations of sexual assault are telling the truth.
For those of us who are parents of daughters, our concerns are for their safety and protection, of course.
For those of us who are parents of sons, our concerns are for their safety and protection, of course.
The latter is the focus of another drama that is playing out in Zelienople, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh. And it might also be the outcome all parents of sons feared would escalate if Democrats succeeded in undoing the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.
According to WPXI News in Pittsburgh, Michael J. and Alecia Flood, the parents of a high school-aged boy identified only as T.F., filed a civil lawsuit on Monday in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh against the Seneca Valley School District in Butler County, District Attorney Richard Goldinger, and the parents of five teenage “mean girls” who falsely accused the boy of sexual assault.
The suit alleges “that school officials and Goldinger’s office didn’t take any action against the girls even after learning their accusations were false,” according to WPXI.
The parents who filed the suit say the “mean girls” conspired to falsely accuse their son of sexual assault, which resulted in several unfair consequences.
The girls “conspired in person and via electronic communication devices to falsely accuse T.F. of sexual assault on two occasions,”WXPI reported.
T.F. was reportedly fired from his job at the Zelienople Community Pool where he was employed at the time of the allegations and “forced to endure multiple court appearances, detention in a juvenile facility, detention at home, loss of his liberty, and other damages until several of the girls reluctantly admitted that their accusations were false.”
“The suit also alleges that the boy was subjected to months of bullying from other kids at school,” according to Breitbart.
The Harrisburg Patriot-News reported one example of bullying listed in the suit the boy suffered: “The lawsuit said students last year placed masking tape with the word ‘PREDATOR’ written on it on his back without his knowledge during choir practice.”
In the original 27-page complaint filed against T.F., the teen girls accused him of two different instances of sexual assault — one at the Zelienople Community Pool and another at a private home.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted the Floods’ attorney Craig Fishman on Thursday as saying, “The system right now is biased against men.”
As a father of two adult daughters, according to the newspaper, Fishman said he supported the advancement of the #MeToo movement, but said in this case, things had gone too far.
“They discriminated against the boy based solely on his gender,” Fishman told the Post-Gazette.
And isn’t that what is going through the minds of many parents of boys?
If they could take down a highly qualified Supreme Court nominee with mere accusations that had no basis in physical evidence or fact, it would certainly be a cake walk to ruin lives with false accusations against boys, men across the country. What a frightening possibility.
The left went too far in believing it could rally in the court of public opinion the advancement of an agenda that collapses the constitutional principles and the presumption of innocence.
An enthusiastic grassroots Tea Party activist, Lisa Payne-Naeger has spent the better part of the last decade lobbying for educational and family issues in her state legislature, and as a keyboard warrior hoping to help along the revolution that empowers the people to retake control of their, out-of-control, government.
GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore wants to take on the establishment… and that has ruffled quite a few feathers among both Democrats and Republicans. In a turn of events that has skeptics asking questions about extremely suspicious timing, Moore has suddenly been accused of having inappropriate relationships with young girls some 40 years ago.
These allegations have emerged with only a month left in the Senate race, and after the outspoken anti-establishment Republican was doing well in the polls.
Moore has categorically denied the claims and pointed out that he has been in the public eye for decades without a scandal. Others have questioned the inconsistencies and implausibility of the accusations.
The out-of-nowhere allegations do seem like a dirty political ploy — and a story from the late “gonzo journalist” Hunter S. Thompson shows that it could be from the same playbook that Democrat Lyndon Johnson used on his opponents years ago.
In the now classic “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72,” Thompson recalled how Johnson, the wheeling-and-dealing Texan who by many accounts sought power at any cost, started crass rumors about his opponents in order to win elections.
“This is one of the oldest and most effective tricks in politics,” Thompson wrote, according to the U.K. Independent.
“Every hack in the business has used it in times of trouble, and it has even been elevated to the level of political mythology in a story about one of Lyndon Johnson’s early campaigns in Texas,” he continued.
“The race was close and Johnson was getting worried. Finally he told his campaign manager to start a massive rumor campaign about his opponent’s life-long habit of enjoying carnal knowledge of his barnyard sows.
“‘Christ, we can’t get away with calling him a pig-f****r,’ the campaign manager protested. ‘Nobody’s going to believe a thing like that,’” wrote Thompson.
“’I know,’ Johnson replied. ‘But let’s make the sonofab****h deny it.’”
The message is clear: For the smear campaign to work, a rumor doesn’t actually have to be true — it doesn’t even matter if it is.
In fact, sometimes it’s advantageous for dirty politicians to purposely spread an accusation so outlandish and filthy it can’t be believed — as long as it grabs people’s attention.
By simply forcing an opponent to address the rumor and defend against it, the game shifts and the candidate is instantly associated with the accusation, true or not.
It must be pointed out that the claims against Moore happened so long ago that they’re almost impossible to prove or disprove. That may actually be by design: If the story is fabricated, so many decades have passed that Moore can’t show it to be false. The allegation sticks.
Of course, this age-old tactic doesn’t always work. Sometimes, the boy cries wolf too many times, and the public realizes that they’re being fooled.
In the case of Moore, the candidate hasn’t given in to calls to drop out from establishment Republicans like Mitt Romney and Josh Kasich. Instead, the retired judge has doubled down on his denials, and pledged to sue media outlets for libel.
Every person, regardless of politics, should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Moore’s enemies seem suspiciously eager to toss that standard aside and destroy a man before he can win… But it would be wise to remember the Lyndon Johnson playbook, and realize that not everything is as it seems.
ChristianMingle.com, an online dating service for Christian singles, must start allowing people to seek out same-sex relationships under a judge-approved settlement. (ChristianMingle.com) more >
ChristianMingle.com, an online dating service for Christian singles, must start allowing people to seek out same-sex relationships under a judge-approved settlement. ChristianMingle only required new users to specify whether they’re a man seeking a woman or a woman seeking a man. Two gay men filed class-actions claims against the site’s owner, California-based Spark Networks Inc., claiming that the site’s limited options violated California’s anti-discrimination law, The Wall Street Journal reported.
State law requires businesses to offer “full and equal”accommodations and services to people regardless of their sexual orientation.
For now, ChristianMingle will only ask a user whether he or she is a man or woman. Spark Networks agreed that within two years, it would adjust other features to give gay singles a more tailored experience, the Journal reported.
The terms approved by a state judge Monday also applied to other Spark-owned sites that had operated in the same fashion, including CatholicMingle.com, AdventistSinglesConnection.com and BlackSingles.com, the Journal reported.
Spark agreed to pay both men $9,000 each and $450,000 in attorneys’ fees. The company didn’t admit any wrongdoing as part of the agreement, the Journal reported.
“I am gratified that we were able to work with Spark to help ensure that people can fully participate in all the diverse market places that make our country so special, regardless of their sexual orientation,”one of the lead plaintiffs’ attorneys, Vineet Dubey of Custodio & Dubey LLP, said in a statement.
A Spark representative said the company was “pleased to resolve this litigation.”
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has made headlines for months claiming that the GOP primary process was a rigged game favoring establishment insiders.
This week, a discovery about the federal judge overseeing two of three big lawsuits against Trump and the defunct real estate training program that bore his name has the billionaire’s supporters claiming the legal system has been rigged against him, too. And whatever the real story is behind the now-defunct “Trump University” and its practices, the news about Judge Gonzalo Curiel should raise flags for anyone— especially when the disposition of the lawsuit could make a real difference in the election of the next American president.
Curiel was appointed to the federal bench in 2012 by President Barack Obama, the same president who elevated Sonia “the wise Latina” Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. U.S. District Court Judge Curiel is also a noted member of a Hispanic advocacy group called “La Raza Lawyers of San Diego” — an activist organization that recently awarded a law school scholarship to an illegal alien, according to the Daily Caller.
Of course, federal judges have to be appointed by the president, and it’s not Curiel’s fault that president happens to be Barack Obama (about 69 million misguided Americans who voted for Obama the first time can be blamed for that). And as an American citizen born in Indiana, the California jurist has a right to be a member of any group he damn well pleases.
But for a judge with such a public profile opposing Trump’s stand on illegal immigration to be presiding over a major legal case with the potential power to damage Trump’s campaign has to raise questions.
And there appears to be little doubt about where Curiel stands on illegal immigration — he seems to have no problem with it. He was on the La Raza Lawyers of San Diego’s selection committee that chose to award an illegal immigrant with a scholarship.
Trump and his legal team say Curiel should step aside from the Trump University case.
“We’re in front of a very hostile judge,”Trump told a campaign rally in San Diego last week. “The judge was appointed by Barack Obama, federal judge. Frankly, he should recuse himself because he’s given us ruling after ruling after ruling, negative, negative, negative.”
Curiel’s “La Raza Lawyers of San Diego” tried to downplay its political side in a statement to the Daily Caller on Wednesday.
“Our organization has not been involved in organizing any of the anti-Trump rallies, much less encouraged our members or anyone to participate in any illegal activity,”the statement said. “We help empower Latino attorneys, judges and law students, and provide services to the greater local Latino community.”
Leave aside the obvious untruth here (since giving a scholarship to anillegal alien doesn’t just “promote” illegal activity, it pays for it). The idea that Donald Trump can get a fair shake from an activist judge with a current membership in a legal group that supports illegal immigration is more than a little hard to believe.
But as Trump noted, this judge was appointed by Barack Obama, a president whose disdain for law, the United States Constitution and the judiciary showed through when he used a snarling State of the Union address to attack the Supreme Court itself back in 2010. And his ends-justifies-the-means approach has only gotten clearer with every day, and every executive order, since.
That means it’s not just hard to believe for a lot of people that Trump will get a fair shake in court. It’s impossible.
Obamacare has been challenged in court since it was launched, with charges that it is unconstitutional, violates religious rights, invades privacy and unlawfully orders consumers to purchase a product.
Now, a new lawsuit by four Christian institutions argues the Obama administration is using the law to attack religious groups that oppose the White House’s promotion of abortion.
The plaintiffs allege “the purpose” of Obamacare’s mandate that employers pay for abortion-causing contraception and abortion “is to discriminate against religious organizations.”
The complaint cites then-Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius comparing Obamacare opponents to “people who opposed civil rights legislation in the 1960s” and asserting that upholding the law requires the same action as was shown ‘in the fight against lynching and the fight for desegregation.’”
Attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom are representing the Association of Christian Schools International, Samaritan Ministries International, Taylor University and Indiana Wesleyan University in the case against Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and others.
The Supreme Court already has ruled the abortion mandate cannot force business owners to violate their faith.
So the White House has offered an “accommodation” in which the abortion-causing drugs and abortion services can be provided to the employees without any paperwork that connects the transactions to the employer.
The Christian organizations contend, however, the Obama rules still impose a burden, or duty, on them.
“They believe that God has condemned the intentional destruction of innocent human life. They hold, as a matter of religious conviction, that it would be sinful and immoral for them intentionally to participate in, pay for, facilitate, enable, or otherwise support access to abortion, which destroys human life,” the complaint explains.
“They hold that one of the prohibitions of the Ten Commandments (‘thou shalt not murder’) precludes them from facilitating, assisting in, serving as the conduct for, or enabling the use of drugs and devices that can and do destroy very young human beings in the womb. The health benefits they provide to their employees reflect these convictions.”
The case alleges the Obama administration is violating the Administrative Procedure Act, the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the Free Speech Clause, the Establishment Clause, the Free Exercise Clause and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Further, evidence suggests religious believers who object to abortion-causing drugs are deliberately being targeted, the case claims.
“The Final Mandate forces the plaintiffs to facilitate government-dictated education and counseling concerning abortion that directly conflicts with their religious beliefs and teaching,” the lawsuit states. “Facilitating this government-dictated speech directly undermines the express speech and messages concerning the sanctity of life that the plaintiffs seek to convey.”
Further, the government’s demand “advances no compelling governmental interest” and such drugs already are commonly available through “numerous alternative mechanisms.”
The government easily could provide the “benefits,”the lawsuit said, or “the government could simply exempt all conscientiously objecting organizations, just as it has already exempted the small subset of nonprofit religious employers that are referred to in Section 6033(a)(3)(A)(i) or (iii) of the Internal Revenue Code.”
After all, the government already provides a multitude of other “exemptions,”it said.
The government, through its actions, already admits that the mandate is not part of any “compelling interest.”
So why is the demand being pursued?
“The Final Mandate was promulgated by government officials, and supported by non-governmental organizations, who strongly oppose religious teachings and beliefs regarding marriage, family, and life,” the case states.
“Defendant [former HHS Secretary Kathleen] Sebelius, for example, has long been a staunch support of abortion rights and a vocal critic of religious teachings and beliefs regarding abortion and contraception,” the complaint continues. “On Oct. 4, 2011, six days after the comment period for the original Interim Final Rule ended, Defendant Sebelius gave a speech at a fundraiser for NARAL Pro-Choice America. She told the assembled crowd that ‘we are in a war.’
“She further criticized individuals and entities whose beliefs differed from those held by her and the others at the fundraiser, stating: ‘Wouldn’t you think that people who want to reduce the number of abortions would champion the cause of widely available, widely affordable contraceptive services? Not so much,’” the complaint states.
“On July 16, 2013, Secretary Sebelius further compared opponents of the Affordable Care Act generally to ‘people who opposed civil rights legislation in the 1960s,’ stating that upholding the Act requires the same action as was shown ‘in the fight against lynching and the fight for desegregation.’”
That attitude leads to the conclusion that the administration is intending to discriminate against religious organizations, the complaint says.
“It cannot be plausibly maintained that the fate of the entire enterprise rests in any measurable way on forcing these four plaintiffs to facilitate access to four drugs and devices – which represent one-fifth of the one of the 143 required items,” the case says.
“In any event, the government has already conceded that it has no interest in imposing the mandate upon religious employers like the plaintiffs,” it says.
So Washington’s “accommodation,” which “does not sufficiently diminish their ethical objection to complicity with sin,” still “conscripts the plaintiffs into the government’s scheme, hijacking their health plans and using them as conduits for the delivery of life-destroying drugs and devices to members of their religious communities.”
The government still demands that the Christian groups identify to the government their insurance policy administrators, play a “central role in facilitating free access to abortifacient services” and make them victim to “a shell game that attempts to disguise the religious organization’s role as the central cog in the government’s scheme for expanding access to contraceptive and abortifacient services.”
The case was filed in federal court in Colorado.
“The government should not force religious organizations to be involved in providing abortion pills to their employees,”said ADF Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor. “The best way to respect everyone’s freedom would have been to extend the existing religious exemption to religious non-profits in addition to churches. The administration has failed in its duty to uphold the freedoms guaranteed to every American under the Constitution and federal law. These religious organizations had hoped to avoid this action, but the cause of religious conscience and liberty compelled them to take this step.”
Added ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot: “All Americans should oppose unjust laws that force people – under threat of punishment – to give up their fundamental freedoms in order to provide insurance. That’s no different for these Christian organizations, which simply want to abide by the very faith they espouse. The government is forbidden from punishing people of faith for making decisions consistent with that faith.”
It was a federal judge in Florida who ruled that the government’s latest revisions to the mandate still “don’t do enough to protect people of faith.”
The ruling came from Judge James Moody Jr. in a suit by Ave Maria University, which charged the Obamacare requirement violates the faith on which it operates.
The judge said: “Defendants do not dispute that Ave Maria is a nonprofit Catholic university purposed with ‘educat[ing] students in the principles and truths of the Catholic faith.’ … One such element of the Catholic faith that Ave Maria holds and professes concerns the sanctity of life. Ave Maria ‘believes that each human being bears the image and likeness of God, and therefore any abortion – including through post-conception contraception – ends a human life and is a grave sin. Ave Maria also believes that sterilization and the use of contraception are morally wrong.’”
He said the “rule” that was intended to provide an “accommodation” to faith members was not a satisfactory solution.
“After dozens of court rulings, the government still doesn’t seem to get that it can’t force faith institutions to violate their beliefs,”said a spokesman for that legal team, assembled by the Becket Fund. “Fortunately, the courts continue to see through the government’s attempts to disguise the mandate’s religious coercion.”
WATCH A LOCAL NEWS REPORT FOLLOWUP THE ORIGINAL STORY;
Updating our previous story about a fifth grader told by his teacher he could not read his Bible during free time, school lawyers for Broward County Public Schools have now gotten involved and changed their story.
They now say that the time in question is not free reading time, but instead Accelerated Reader Program time. During this period, students can only read certain approved books, and the Bible is not among them. Hence, Broward County Public Schools will continue banning the Bible.
However, Liberty Institute lawyer Jeremy Dys investigated the program. He reports that contrary to the school’s claim, almost all of the Bible’s 66 books are approved for the Accelerated Reader Program.
The boy’s lawyers are demanding the school lift the ban by May 19 or face a federal lawsuit for violating the First Amendment.
Liberty Institute’s letter to Broward County Public Schools can be read in its entirety below:
“Clicking on the image below will take you the Breitbart.com web site. Scroll down the article to this image, and you will be able to read the lawsuit for yourself. I could not find any other way for you to be able get informed of the details of this story.” JB
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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