November 20, 2024

In the News

Concord Monitor: Bow parents claim Pride Flag displayed in school is viewpoint discrimination in pink armband protest lawsuit

By Sruthi Gopalakrishnan

.....A group of Bow parents say the Pride Flag displayed at Bow High School’s music room is an example of the school’s district’s viewpoint discrimination.

The federal lawsuit filed by Anthony Foote, Kyle Fellers and Nicole Foote, and Eldon Rash, a family member of Fellers, accuses the district of violating parents’ free speech rights after they wore pink armbands at a girls’ soccer game to protest transgender players.

Displaying the flag in the music room is the same type of political commentary the parents were trying to express during their recent sideline protest wearing pink armbands, which is a protected form of speech, their lawyers said.

“Displaying the Progress Pride flag amounts to passive sociopolitical commentary on the issue of transgender inclusion and women’s sex-based rights, similar to wearing a pink wristband with the letters XX, although from a different viewpoint,” wrote attorneys for the plaintiff.

Congress

LA Times: Will Congress give Trump the ability to kill organizations like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU?

By Robin Abcarian

.....The House is expected to vote on a bill this week that would give Trump’s treasury secretary virtually unfettered discretion to declare that a nonprofit group is a “terrorist-supporting organization” and revoke its tax-exempt status. Last week the bill failed to garner the two-thirds majority required to pass in an expedited vote. This time it could pass with a simple majority vote on the floor. 

Never mind that it is already a federal crime to provide material support to terrorist groups. But criminal charges, as you know, involve pesky issues like evidence and due process. This would be a purely subjective exercise, executed at the treasury secretary’s whim. 

“The Department of Treasury would not have to file criminal charges, but would subject nonprofits to an administrative process and then the courts,” said Robert McCaw, the government affairs department director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization. “By then, the damage would be done.” 

Donors would not want to be associated with the word “terrorist” and the costs of taking a fight to the courts would plunge most nonprofits into what American Civil Liberties Union Senior Counsel Kia Hamadanchy described as “a death spiral.” 

And that, of course, is the point. 

This bill aims to punish groups that advocate for Palestinian rights. Republicans have already called for the IRS to investigate stripping the tax-exempt status of several such groups. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith recently accused eight nonprofits of subsidizing “illegal activity on college campuses and beyond” and “potentially” providing support to terrorist organizations overseas. 

The Courts

Politico: Court appears unlikely to spare former Fox News reporter in contempt fight

By Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney

.....A federal appeals court panel appears unlikely to rescue a former Fox News reporter facing fines — and potentially jail time — for refusing to identify her source for a series of stories about a woman with ties to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

The case involving reporter Catherine Herridge could become the first big showdown over press freedom during President Donald Trump’s second term.

As president, Trump will lack the power to directly waive the fine or potential jail time that Herridge faces, but he could order the Justice Department to settle an underlying lawsuit filed by the woman, Yanping Chen. Settling the suit would wipe away the fines and any other punishment against Herridge...

Herridge relied on one or more anonymous sources for several 2017 stories about potential national security risks related to a Virginia school that was founded by Chen and attended by many members of the U.S. military whose tuition was paid by taxpayers. Herridge published details about an FBI investigation into Chen, including photos of her in a People’s Liberation Army uniform.

Chen, who says leaks about the probe damaged her reputation, sued several federal agencies over the disclosures. As part of that lawsuit, she issued a subpoena to Herridge to try to force her to disclose her source. Herridge refused.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Apparent AI Hallucinations in AI Misinformation Expert's Court Filing Supporting Anti-AI-Misinformation Law

By Eugene Volokh

.....Minnesota recently enacted a law aimed at restricting misleading AI deepfakes aimed at influencing elections; the law is now being challenged on First Amendment grounds in Kohls v. Ellison. To support the law, the government defendants introduced an expert declaration, written by a scholar of AI and misinformation, who is the Faculty Director of the Stanford Internet Observatory. Here is ¶ 21 of the declaration:

NPR: An ongoing social media lawsuit heats up again after the Supreme Court bounces it back to Florida

By Dara Kam - News Service of Florida

.....A high-profile legal battle over a Florida law placing restrictions on social-media platforms is heating up again, after the U.S. Supreme Court returned the case to a Tallahassee-based federal judge for further consideration.

Industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association filed a revamped lawsuit this month, as they continue a First Amendment challenge to the 2021 law, which targeted tech behemoths such as X and Meta.

But in a motion to dismiss the amended lawsuit filed Friday, lawyers with Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office argued the groups’ lawsuit “is still riddled with holes.”

“They continue to press their blunderbuss, indiscriminate challenge to Florida’s law, attacking nearly a dozen statutory provisions, both facially and as applied. And rather than even one internet platform joining this action, the platforms … continue to hide behind their trade associations,” the state’s lawyers wrote...

The law includes preventing platforms from banning political candidates from their sites and requiring companies to publish — and apply consistently — standards about issues such as restricting users or blocking their content.

Washington Examiner: Federal TikTok ban violates First Amendment free speech rights

By Hannah Cox

.....Earlier this year, my company, BASED Politics, filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its pending TikTok ban.

The ban is a tremendous attack on the free speech rights of content creators, including us, who use this app to voice our opinions and help educate people about prominent public policies and political ideologies. Obviously, the ban would impose a drastic barrier to our work.

The government claims the ban serves national security interests. But the Supreme Court has ruled that national security could only justify suppressing speech to address an immediate threat, and the Biden administration hasn’t shown that TikTok poses such a threat.

The government also argues that the ban is necessary to stop the spread of ideas that are against the U.S. government’s interests. But that’s not a justification: The point of the First Amendment is to stop the government from censoring speech that it thinks goes against its interests. In fact, the Supreme Court specifically ruled, decades ago, that people have the right to receive foreign communist propaganda.

FCC

Reason: Trump's Pick To Run the FCC Wants To Restrict the Editorial Discretion of Social Media Platforms

By Jacob Sullum

.....As Carr sees it, the threat to freedom of expression comes from Big Tech, not from laws and regulations that aim to limit its discretion in deciding which "curated speech products" to offer. "Today, a handful of corporations can shape everything from the information we consume to the places we shop," he says. "These corporate behemoths are not merely exercising market power; they are abusing dominant positions. They are not simply prevailing in the free market; they are taking advantage of a landscape that has been skewed—in many cases by the government—to favor their business models over those of their competitors. It is hard to imagine another industry in which a greater gap exists between power and accountability."

Section 230, Carr argues, is one way that landscape has been skewed. That law, which supporters describe as "the internet's First Amendment," includes two provisions addressing the civil liability of "interactive computer services," defined broadly to include "any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server."

The Media

Daily Signal: Cancel Culture: SPLC Targets the Real-News Partner of The Babylon Bee

By Tyler O'Neil

.....Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon revealed the SPLC’s forthcoming attack in a post on X Tuesday.

“The discredited, scandal-ridden smear factory known as the SPLC is about to publish a hit piece doxxing several of our ‘Not the Bee’ writers who wished to remain anonymous so they could speak freely, without fear,” he wrote. “The SPLC extracted sensitive information from our site, then used that information to contact our writers directly.”

Dillon said the SPLC went digging for the information “because they’re left-wing activists masquerading as journalists.”

“They did it because they lack principles,” he added. “They did it because they’re vindictive bullies who’ve admitted their aim is to ‘completely destroy’ individuals and organizations they disagree with by making them pay a steep price for speaking freely.”

Dillon admitted that since he’s a public figure, he accepts that getting attacked “comes with the territory.”

“What I won’t accept is the doxxing and smearing of our staff because they said some things the SPLC doesn’t like,” he added.

Candidates and Campaigns

U.S. News & World Report: Money Didn’t Buy Trump the Election

By Frank Vogl 

.....For example, in the 2024 Democratic Party primary for one of Maryland’s Senate seats, well-known county executive Angela Alsobrooks faced business tycoon David Trone, owner of the Total Wine & More beverage chain. Trone spent approximately nine times more than Alsobrooks on the race, diving deep into his own personal resources to the tune of more than $60 million. It was the most ever spent in a Senate primary, according to a report in The American Prospect – but Trone lost badly: Alsobrooks won 53.4% of the vote to Trone’s 42.8%.

New Yorker: Why Do We Talk This Way?

By Joshua Rothman

.....It’s taken a while, but now it’s evident that politicians, too, can thrive by producing vast quantities of malleable, interesting content...

A politician who takes this approach becomes a different kind of politician. In order to talk so much, and in so many contexts, he may need to give up on having consistent, focussed, and pre-formulated messages. You can’t go on all those long-winded podcasts unless you’re willing to share whatever’s in your head—and whatever’s in your head might not be accurate, respectable, or logical; it may not represent what you “really” think. Moreover, a politician who makes a lot of provocative, contradictory statements finds himself tied to whatever sticks. Although he can still direct his audience, he must also follow their unruly reactions. Whatever they believe he has to at least consider.

This kind of politics is exciting and surprising. (A word Trump fans often use is “refreshing.”)...

The challenges posed to Democrats by this approach to politics are severe. The new information environment rewards improvisational politicians and punishes message-based ones. It makes nostalgia for the old world—the one in which people trusted experts, institutions, and the media—politically dangerous, because messages drafted by institutions don’t rise above the sea of information. What’s required is a kind of political-content factory. Not a ninety-minute play, followed by a Q. & A., but a chatbot, producing endlessly.

The States

New Jersey Monitor: Campaign finance watchdog approves higher contribution limits

By Nikita Biryukov

.....The New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission approved hikes to campaign contribution limits that will raise donation caps for next year’s legislative and other non-gubernatorial races by more than 5%.

The commission’s unanimous vote will increase the limit on contributions to candidates in those races from individuals, corporations, unions, and some other groups from $5,200 to $5,500 — a nearly 5.8% hike.

The adjustments approved Tuesday are the first made under the Elections Transparency Act, 2023 legislation that approved dramatic increases to New Jersey’s campaign contribution limits and requires the commission to index donation caps for inflation every two years.

Missouri Independent: ‘A little goofy’: Loopholes allow millions to flow around Missouri campaign donation limits

By Rudi Keller

.....After years of no-limit spending on Missouri politics, voters had enough in 2016.

That year, as candidates raked in $65.5 million in donations larger than $100,000, Missourians overwhelmingly adopted a constitutional amendment capping donations to candidates, outlawing direct contributions from corporations and labor unions and banning efforts to conceal where money is coming from.

The motivation, which the amendment embedded in the constitution, was that “excessive campaign contributions to political candidates create the potential for corruption and the appearance of corruption.”

Passage spurred a lawsuit and a rush to grab big donations before the limits took effect. But it didn’t take long for crafty consultants to find ways around contribution limits, forging a trail to unlimited giving by having candidates set up affiliated committees alongside their campaign committees.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Pa. lawmakers say candidates choose to pay $250 late fee to avoid revealing donors

By Ford Turner

.....A Department of State report shows sixty-six candidates for the state Legislature — including 22 incumbents — missed a deadline for filing campaign finance reports just before the Nov. 5 election, a dynamic that has sparked bipartisan condemnation and calls for bigger penalties.

State Rep. Valerie Gaydos, R-Allegheny, pointed out that some campaigns are pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars in short periods of time, and the state-set maximum penalty of $250 for missing a report filing deadline is — in comparison — a pittance.

“That means the general public will have no way of knowing who is bankrolling these campaigns,” said Ms. Gaydos. She said she intends to file legislation that among other things would increase penalties and address delays at the department in posting reports when they are received...

A Democrat who was involved in a high-profile House race on Nov. 5, Rep. Frank Burns of Cambria County, said the paltry $250 fine must be addressed. Candidates, he said, are making a calculated assessment that it is easier to pay the $250 fine than have the public know in the weeks just before the election exactly who is funding their campaigns — a sentiment shared by Ms. Gaydos.

“It is time to start looking at it. We have billionaires funding campaigns almost by themselves,” said Mr. Burns.

Tampa Bay Times: Former Florida senator sentenced to 60 days in ‘ghost candidate’ case

By Charles Rabin, Miami Herland

.....Frank Artiles, a former Marine and Republican state senator convicted last month of orchestrating a ghost candidate scheme that likely stole an election from a Democrat, was sentenced Monday to 60 days in jail, five years of probation and 500 hours of community service.

But it will be a while — if ever — before Artiles, 51, spends time behind bars or begins mentoring military veterans as part of his community work. That’s because after Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Miguel de la O read the sentence, he also agreed to stay the order until after the defense appeals the verdict with the higher court.