Category Archives: Courts

A Step in the Right Direction

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The 6th Circuit overruled a Tennessee federal district court’s injunction, lifting it, and allowing a Tennessee law barring gender-related child abuse “gender-affirming” “care” for minors to go into effect. Per the AP, the appellate court ruled

[i]n a 2-1 ruling, the majority opinion stated that decisions on issues such as transgender care, which is considered an emerging policy issue, is better left to legislatures rather than judges[.]

This is a good start, and a strong step in the right direction. It’s also important to keep in mind the fact that the matter is still in the courts: the appellate court lifted an injunction; it did not uphold the law itself.

This is a preview of A Step in the Right Direction. Read the full post (226 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

“Activist Judicial Opinion”

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“Legal analysts” don’t like the preliminary injunction issued by a Federal district court judge that bars much of the Federal government and many of the individuals in it from telling, or even merely attempting to pressure, social media entities what those entities must permit and must bar from their Web sites.

Legal analysts on both CNN and MSNBC attacked a federal judge who found that the White House likely violated the First Amendment by claiming that his decision was an “activist judicial opinion” that “goes too far.”

CNN legal analyst Ellie Honig:

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Misguided

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A Federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction (meaning the matter must still go through the courts before anything becomes final) barring the Federal government from communicating with social-media companies with a view to influencing what those companies post or allow to be posted on their sites.

Some on the Left are objecting.

Some legal scholars have been skeptical that…courts could intervene without chilling legitimate government speech about controversial matters of public interest.

This is a preview of Misguided. Read the full post (420 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Justice Thomas Demurs

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Last week, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc v

President and Fellows of Harvard College, in which the Court ruled that the use of race in college admissions was unconstitutional.

This post is centered entirely on Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion, and that part of it in which he took issue with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent, a dissent that, IMNSHO, is steeped in racism. Thomas noted that

With the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the people of our Nation proclaimed that the law may not sort citizens based on race.

This is a preview of Justice Thomas Demurs. Read the full post (790 words, estimated 3:10 mins reading time)

Then Do a Better Job in Education and Training

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The Supreme Court has ruled that considering race in university admissions is unconstitutional and must stop.

What interests me in this is the intrinsically racist rationalization in some of the “briefs” submitted to the Court in support of racist admissions criteria.

Leaders of American business and public institutions warned in friend-of-the-court briefs that a ruling against affirmative action would deprive the nation of leaders who reflect the population’s racial diversity.

No, affirmative action selects on the basis of race and sex and so selects on merit only tertiarily. Its elimination does not at all deprive the nation of leaders who reflect the population’s racial diversity.

This is a preview of Then Do a Better Job in Education and Training. Read the full post (307 words, estimated 1:14 mins reading time)

A Thought on Moore v US

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Moore v US is a tax case that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear in its next term, beginning 2 October. The case asks whether mere asset value increases—wealth increases—can be taxed as income, just because of that increase, but before it has been realized—before the asset actually has been disposed of for more than the cost of its acquisition, with that value increase turned into actual dollars on the barrelhead.

The proximate subject concerns a provision in the 2017 tax reform that levied a one-time mandatory repatriation tax on foreign companies.

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Reforming FISA

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One outcome of Special Counsel John Durham’s testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee is an apparently re-energized, at least by many in the Republican caucus and a few Progressive-Democrats, to reform The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That’s all to the good, to the extent any serious reform actually occurs.

The most important reform of this Act, though, is the complete elimination of the secret Star Chamber that is the FISA Court. Federal Judges have long known how to seal records that legitimately don’t belong in the public’s eye, at least in the moment. The court’s proceedings, though, are, and should be, public.

This is a preview of Reforming FISA. Read the full post (291 words, estimated 1:10 mins reading time)

Politely

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DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas lost his appeal from a Federal district court’s injunction blocking DHS from implementing a policy that allows for the release of migrants into the US without court dates. The Appellate Court summarized (within my own summary) Mayorkas’ plaint [italics added]:

As to irreparable injury, [DHS argued among other things]…”The most immediate consequence of the [District Court’s] orders,” according to DHS, “will likely be [the] overcrowding [of] CBP facilities during increases in border encounters,” which would threaten the “health, safety, and security” of USBP officers and aliens.

The Appellate Court wrote in part:

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Rogue Judge

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A couple of teachers had the impudence to demur from compulsory “antiracism training” imposed by their Springfield Public Schools district managers.

In response, US District Judge Douglas Harpool, of the Western District of Missouri, not only ruled against the teachers, he ordered them to pay $313,000 in legal costs for bothering the district, and he did this cavalierly disregarding their arguments and issuing his ruling via summary judgment—which means the court—Harpool—never really took the case up, or took it seriously. He wrote in pertinent part, as summarized by Just the News:

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Typical Arrogance of the “Experts”

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US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryck, of the Northern District of Texas, has ruled that the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone must be withdrawn and the drug pulled from the market while an existing court case makes its way through, and he made his ruling nation-wide.

The Court does not second-guess FDA’s decision-making lightly. But here, FDA acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns—in violation of its statutory duty—based on plainly unsound reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions[.]

No, no, no—leave our precious technocrats alone is the Leftist Lawyer cry. Only Government knows best. How dare anyone challenge Government’s experts. Areta Kupchyk, ex-FDA Associate Chief Counsel:

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