August 11, 2025

The Courts

Wall Street Journal: Meta, Robby Starbuck Settle AI Defamation Lawsuit

By Joseph De Avila

.....Meta Platforms has settled a defamation lawsuit with conservative activist Robby Starbuck, who alleged the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot falsely asserted he participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. 

Under the settlement, Starbuck will advise Meta, the owner of Facebook, on efforts to curb what they describe as political bias in its AI tools.

“Since engaging on these important issues with Robby, Meta has made tremendous strides to improve the accuracy of Meta AI and mitigate ideological and political bias,” Meta and Starbuck said in a statement. 

Texas Tribune: Judge blocks Beto O’Rourke from financially supporting Texas Democrats who left the state

By Eleanor Klibanoff

.....Former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke cannot financially support Texas Democrats who left the state to delay passage of a new congressional map, a Tarrant County judge ruled Friday evening.

O’Rourke and his political group, Powered by People, were sued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Friday afternoon. Paxton argued that the group was deceptively fundraising for and illegally helping support Texas Democrats as they fanned out to Illinois, Massachusetts and New York to deny the House the headcount needed to pass legislation.

Congress

Washington Examiner: Cotton asks IRS to investigate tax-exempt Muslim group over terrorist ties

By David Zimmermann

.....Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Tuesday asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a tax-exempt Muslim advocacy nonprofit group, over its ties to terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“CAIR purports to be a civil rights organization dedicated to protecting the rights of American Muslims,” Cotton wrote in a letter to IRS Commissioner Billy Long. “But substantial evidence confirms CAIR has deep ties to terrorist organizations.”

Ed. note: Read about IRS Commissioner Billy Long's removal in The New York Times.

Trump Administration

Lawfare: Evaluating the “Woke AI” Executive Order

By Alan Z. Rozenshtein

.....Alongside last month’s “AI Action Plan”—a broad strategy for promoting innovation while managing risks—last month the Trump administration also issued several executive orders. One of these, titled “Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government,” directs federal procurement of artificial intelligence (AI). It mandates that any large language model (LLM) purchased by the government adhere to two “Unbiased AI Principles”: “truth-seeking” and “ideological neutrality.”

The executive order raises three distinct questions that get to the heart of current debates over technology, law, and politics. First, is the order a constitutional exercise of the government’s procurement power, or does it violate the First Amendment? Second, regardless of its legality, are the principles it champions good policy for government AI systems? And third, what does the order’s strange blend of MAGA rhetoric and technocratic policy reveal about how this administration operates?

The short answer is that the order is likely constitutional, its principles are normatively reasonable (if imperfectly articulated), and its structure shows the compromises necessary when trying to make rational policy under an irrational regime.

Daily Signal: DOJ Investigates Blacklisting of Christian Realtor for Expressing Traditional Values

By Joe Thomas

.....Free speech and free association, two cornerstones of freedom in the United States, both fell under the boots of politically weaponized “wokeness” in Virginia when a Christian Realtor decided he wanted to run for city council in the small town of Staunton.

Free Expression

Alan Dershowitz Newsletter: My battle to buy pierogi might end up in court. Can a Martha’s Vineyard food vendor refuse to sell to me because I’m a Zionist?

By Alan Dershowitz

.....I have been going to the farmers market in Martha’s Vineyard for nearly half a century. I buy corn, tomatoes and homemade products. Until last week every vendor at the market treated me with respect and loved to have my business. I spent about $100,000 on farm and home products over the years, so I was shocked when one vendor refused to sell me their pierogi.

It turns out that this particular vendor, Krem Miskevich, doesn’t approve of Zionism – that is support for Israel’s right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people…

This case is different from the supreme court case involving the baker who refused to design a cake for the marriage of a gay couple. Designing the cake involved artistic input and was therefore protected by the First Amendment. Selling already made pierogi, that was sitting on the counter, is not protected speech. It is like refusing to rent to somebody based on race, religion and other invidious factors. It is also wrong as a matter of morality: vendors who hold themselves out as selling to the public should not discriminate on the basis of political or religious views. If they were to, there would have to be two pierogi stands at the farmers market – one that sells to non-Zionists only; and one that sells to Zionists as well.

New York Times: The U.S. Says Britain Is Chilling Free Speech. Many Britons Point the Finger Back.

By Mark Landler

.....Britain was on a knife edge when Lucy Connolly, a mother and former nanny, tapped out an inflammatory 51-word post on social media a year ago, calling for “all” hotels that house asylum seekers to be set on fire. “If that makes me a racist, so be it,” she added, a postscript that did nothing to spare her the wrath of the country’s courts.

Her post was viewed 310,000 times. Now serving a 31-month prison sentence for inciting racial hatred, Ms. Connolly has become a charged symbol in a debate over whether Britain is suppressing free speech. Last month, an appeals court refused to reduce her sentence, drawing angry protests from her defenders, mainly on the political right.

New York Times: The Head of the A.D.L. on Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism and Free Speech

By Lulu Garcia-Navarro

.....Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s nearly two-year war in Gaza since have convulsed not only the region but the world. Here in the United States, the rise in antisemitic incidents and questions of how criticism of Israel relates to antisemitism have become central to debates around free speech, immigration, national security and, fundamentally, what it means to feel safe and welcome in this country.

Navigating all these debates is Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, or A.D.L…

With outrage over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza growing, and college students soon returning to campuses that have been roiled by the threat of funding cuts and years of tension over what some see as legitimate protest and others as anti-Jewish hate, I sat down twice with Greenblatt to talk about how he and the A.D.L. view this fraught moment.

The States

AZ Mirror: Arizona AG slams Republican county attorney for offer to prosecute Democratic state senator

By Gloria Rebecca Gomez

.....Pinal’s County Attorney wants to prosecute a state Senator from Phoenix for posting the location of federal immigration agents online – but the state attorney general says he has no jurisdiction to do so and that there’s no crime to prosecute. 

“I find it concerning that you express a willingness to use your office to prosecute an elected Arizona State Senator in what appears to be in excess of your constitutional and statutory authority,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes wrote in a letter to Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller. 

Bolts Magazine: Seattle Renews Its Unique Approach to Public Campaign Financing

By Amy Sundberg 

.....Seattle is poised to continue its experiment in public campaign financing. Voters on Tuesday renewed the city’s democracy vouchers program, which provides each adult Seattle resident with four $25 vouchers they can donate to local candidates of their choice. 

The ballot measure, which leads by 17 percentage points as of Friday evening, will generate $4.5 million in property taxes a year to fund the program for the next decade. Had it failed, the tax levy that voters approved in 2015 would have expired, winding down the democracy vouchers.