It’s one thing to agree to change its discriminatory ways, even if progressive dogma proclaimed discrimination was the new anti-discrimination and Columbia bought into it as a good woke institution. But if the point was to get Columbia to protect Jewish students from discrimination, what does paying $200 million to the government in exchange for getting $400 million in federal research grants back fix?

Columbia University will pay a $200 million fine to settle allegations from the Trump administration that it failed to do enough to stop the harassment of Jewish students, part of a sweeping deal reached on Wednesday to restore the university’s federal research funding, according to a statement from the university. Continue reading →

Remember when you thought that becoming an assistant United States attorney would be the sort of thing that would provide you with great experience, a secure future and the opportunity to do something you believed to be good for society? That was before the duo of Bondi and Blanche took over. Consider what they did to former First Assistant Desiree Leigh Grace in the District of New Jersey.

Trump’s appointed interim United States Attorney, parking garage lawyer Alina Habba, maxed out her 120 days on the job without confirmation. Considering she had no qualifications for the job whatsoever, no experience whatsoever, and kinda sucked really badly as a lawyer, it’s hard to understand why she wasn’t swiftly approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee invoking the Hegseth Rule. The only thing standing in her way was the two New Jersey senators who were vehemently against her appointment, which was not so easily ignored lest the Senate courtesy not be extended when the winds shifted. Continue reading →

After twitting a fake video of President Obama being arrested while sitting with Trump in the Oval Office, President Trump tried to make it real.

Of course, this conveniently comes as the Epstein Files remain secret, even though the Martin Luther King, Jr. files are suddenly, inexplicably, revealed. But pretextual or not, does Tulsi Gabbard have a point? Continue reading →

If you hear the name Brett Hankison, it probably won’t ring a bell. Breonna Taylor, on the other hand, will start alarms ringing after she was killed by police who raided her house at night looking for a person who wasn’t there, starting a series of events that ended in Taylor’s death.

The series of events that played out on March 13, 2020, was essentially classic, a timeline that was certain to occur and, eventually or worse, end in the death of either innocent people or cops. This time, it was Breonna Taylor who was killed. Continue reading →

The playbook is getting old. Trump gets outraged and sues the media. He’s never won a defamation case against a media outlet, and he’s not going to win this one either, but media outlets have used his suits to pay bribes or protection money, such as the Paramount payoff. But Rupert Murdoch, intrepid owner of News Corp., which owns those left-wing, commie, radical, lamestream, failing, third-rate media outlets, New York Post and Wall Street Journal, not to mention Fox Corp., owner of Fox News, from whence Trump’s cabinet “best people” derive.

But Murdoch knew very well what Trump would do if the birthday picture/message was published. Trump says he called him and told him, although it took little stretch of the imagination to guess that the most litigious president ever would be litigious. And Murdoch either approved it or, at the very least, did nothing to prevent it. Murdoch knew what he was doing, and Rupert Murdoch is no fool. Continue reading →

In the good old days, the purpose of a union was to represent a collective bargaining unit with regard to compensation and the terms and conditions of employment. This was the rationale for compelling employers to bargain in good faith with unions, and compelling employees to pay dues or agency fees. After all, why should employees enjoy the benefits provided by the union without paying the cost? This was true if the union was the United Auto Workers or its local public defender affiliate, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys in New York City.

Then the union forgot why it existed and decided instead to turn hard left with a resolution condemning Israel, having nothing to do with its reason for existence. Four LAS lawyers sued, alleging discrimination and retaliation for their challenge to the ALAA resolution. Southern District of New York Judge J. Paul Oetken held that while the retaliation prong of the suit could proceed, the discrimination cause could not as the union’s anti-Israel resolution was protected speech. Continue reading →

He’s like a walking, talking reminder of Trump’s monumental failure during his first term. Trump appointed Jerome Powell to be the chair of the Federal Reserve, and now Powell won’t do what Trump wants, with Trump calling his own appointee a “very stupid person.” The problem is that Trump wants the Fed to cut interest rates to 1% rather than the 4.25-5% it’s been since January.

Lowering the fed rate would lower the cost of borrowing money, both for the federal government and private borrowing. Lower rates make people happy, and they tend to thank the president for making them happy. But the Fed’s job isn’t to make people happy or to make the president look good. It’s to use the setting of interest rates as a tool to moderate inflation and unemployment. That’s the actual point as set forth in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Continue reading →

In a post about a fairly pedestrian New Jersey case in which the Supreme Court held that a statute creating a private cause of action for disorderly conduct for the offense of revealing an expunged arrest against a local paper that refused to remove a published report when, months later, the arrest was expunged, Eugene Volokh concludes with a quite stunning proposition.

I should add that I think that there’s some room in libel law for requirements that a site on which an arrest report is posted should also report that the arrestee was exonerated, if the site is informed of that, or else face liability for reporting what is now a half-truth. (See this article and this one.) But even if courts were to accept that libel theory, that can’t justify a statute such as New Jersey’s, which purports to categorically forbids revealing the existing of an expunged arrest even when the publication reports on the expungement as well.

Can a “truth” be turned into a “half truth” after the fact? Does it create a duty, after the fact, to revisit the publication to correct, modify, alter what was written to reflect what happened subsequently? Continue reading →

The Supreme Court grants cert in a death penalty case, agreeing to decide the question of whether the defendant was denied effective assistance of counsel. At the same time, the Supreme Court denies a stay of execution, with the execution date set for the next day. On the surface, it makes no sense. After all, regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, the defendant will be dead. No matter how much authority one places in the Court’s order, the defendant will still be dead, thus rendering the Court’s decision a fait accompli or a nullity. Either way, it makes no sense.

So why, oh why, did the Court deny the stay pending its hearing and determination of the case? The Court offers no explanation. No rationale. It just says “stay denied.” “What,” you reasonably ask, “are they doing?” Continue reading →

Whether you like Rosie O’Donnell or not is completely irrelevant. Keep it to yourself. O’Donnell was born in 1962 in Commack, New York, just down the road from me. For better or worse, she is an American, and she will, as a matter of law, remain an American unless and until she chooses to relinquish her American citizenship. She can move to Ireland. She can call Trump names. She can militate against his worst impulses and best, and yet the law holds her to be an American. Of this, no one but an absolute ignoramus can dispute.

Shortly before 10 a.m. on Saturday, Mr. Trump said on Truth Social, “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”

The president called Ms. O’Donnell a “threat to humanity” and said she should stay in Ireland, where she moved to in January after Mr. Trump won a second term.

Continue reading →