The defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News is that rarest of beasts, a viable defamation suit against the media. Then again, it’s not as if Fox News personalities and management didn’t pave the way to overcoming the most brutal of tests, actual malice.

Soon after the election, informed observers at Fox (like those elsewhere) already knew that Trump had lost legitimately. But they chose to conceal this truth on the air, for fear that broadcasting it would anger the channel’s audience and lead to lower ratings: Continue reading →

It’s largely agreed that the Supreme Court is now well aware that it would have been wiser not to have granted cert in Gonzalez v. Google, the case conservatives hoped would enable the Court to rule Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, or as Jeff Kosseff called it, the “26 words that created the internet.”

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

The expectation now, after oral argument, is that there will be no major shift in interpretation, although fears still fester that the Court might say something stupid in its decision that could have disastrous unintended consequences. Continue reading →

In the aftermath of the purely coincidental day when both GLAAD and terminally woke contributors to the New York Times demanded that the paper of record only publish articles and op-eds that adhered to the orthodoxy of transgender activists, the New York Times did something completely unexpected. It grew a pair.

Participation in such a campaign is against the letter and spirit of our ethics policy.

We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums.

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Ross Douthat blamed the cellphone. Icon of the young set, Taylor Lorenz pulled her head out from between someone’s legs to disagree.

Some might argue that there was no time in the history of mankind when there weren’t serious problems to be overcome, but rather than squarely face the problems and strive to overcome them, Lorenz suggests her generation has given up, accepted if not embraced failure, and has lost hope. Continue reading →

Many, though not all, of Trump’s judicial appointments fell below the level of quality, experience, temperament and impartiality that any reasonable person would expect of a federal judge. Many, though not all, saw their appointment as a mission to achieve ends that were radical, the undoing of the past century of jurisprudence that the right wing despised, stare decisis and judicial humility be damned.

Some were decidedly unqualified, bomb throwers in robes relishing the opportunity to wreak havoc on an institution that survives solely on its institutional legitimacy, the publics’ acceptance of its rulings, whether the outcomes were perceived as right or wrong, as coming from an honest effort to apply the law with integrity, without fear or favor. This didn’t start with Trump, and certain ploys, like the refusal to give Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland a hearing, lit a fuse that was almost certain to eventually explode. Continue reading →

As usual, New York is following California’s lead, this time by seeking to turn independent contractors into employees, or else.

A bill before the New York state Senate seeks to reclassify many independent contractors as employees, advancing a standard similar to that of California’s ruinous Assembly Bill 5, or A.B. 5. The proposed S2052 would implement the “ABC Test,” which classifies workers as employees unless the (a) worker is free from the control of the hiring entity, (b) the work performed is outside the hiring entity’s bailiwick, and (c) the worker is “customarily engaged” in the type of work he is hired to do.

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One of the earliest reactions to Title VII of the Civil Rights Law of 1964 dealt with whether customer preference constituted a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ), an exception built into the law to provide an escape hatch for what would otherwise constitute unlawful discrimination.

Was upper body strength a necessary requirement of the job of firefighter such that women were not physically qualified to perform the necessary functions of the job? Must prisons allow female guards when part of the job required they oversee showers, thus denying male prisoners privacy? Could movie producers only cast women in roles of women? Continue reading →

I should probably start this week with an apology. I’m in a mood. This happens to me every once in a while, and the only thing I can really do to get rid of it is motherfuck somebody into next week. My sainted grandmother, God rest her soul, used to call this mood of mine “getting a case of the red ass.“

This week’s target of my ire are dinks. “DINK” is an acronym for “dual income, no kids.” if you ask me, it’s also a shorthand for selfish brats with zero desire to accomplish anything with their lives. Like I said, it’s just my opinion. Continue reading →

As Ron DeSantis is paving his role at the killer of wokeism, does that make him the enemy of education? Paul Krugman says yes, and that the bigger picture is that the right has become the enemy of higher education writ large.

What’s going on here? It’s easy to get drawn into debating accusations about particular courses or institutions, but that’s missing the fundamental context: the extraordinary rise in right-wing hostility to higher education in general.

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With some regularity, I’ve argued why “law is hard.” To put together words with sufficiently precise definitions and limiting principles so as to say exactly what’s intended, and to do so within the bounds of the Constitution, is a daunting task at best. When applied to such fraught concepts as race or gender identity, it’s damn near impossible. In fact, it may well be impossible, as no one has as yet been able to accomplish the task.

It is not, contrary to what shallower minds understand, to say that there are not very real problems arising that a great many people feel require redress, require government intervention by the creation of a law to prevent insidious activists from “sneaking” it into education, discourse and indoctrination. That there are some who see no problem with it doesn’t mean it’s somehow wrong that others see a very real problem, and reject the notion that there is nothing they can do to prevent the infiltration of ideas they deem dangerous, radical or harmful from being taught to their children. Continue reading →