If you follow the courts, you will certainly have come across Olympus Spa v. Armstrong. On March 12, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc in this case, which began in 2020 when a transgender woman in Washington State alleged that a traditional Korean spa, which requires patrons to be entirely naked, refused her (or is it him?) entry because she (he?) had not yet undergone so-called gender-affirming surgery.
The acceleration of history and the increasingly rapid advancement of the postmodern project, aimed at the transcendence of humanity by itself, makes consideration of the fundamentals of the progressive project necessary, but also inevitable. Among them is its dedication to the hectic search for hitherto unsuspected “human rights” and their instant realization in the name of “natural law,” a subject the French historian and political philosopher Pierre Manent has studied in depth and brilliantly illuminated in a number of works, most recently Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Recovery of Practical Reason.
My name is Hamit Coskun and last year I was convicted in a British court of religiously aggravated public order offense. My “crime”? Burning a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. Moments later, I was attacked in full view of the street by a man. I was hospitalized. Then I was arrested and convicted in Westminster Magistrates Court. I managed to get that conviction overturned, with the help of the Free Speech Union and the National Secular Society, but now the Crown Prosecution Service is appealing my acquittal, with the case being heard tomorrow in the High Court. Now I am in discussions with the White House about claiming asylum in America in case the decision goes against me.
United States District Court Judge Cameron M. Currie, sitting by designation in the Eastern District of Virginia, yesterday dismissed the federal indictments against former FBI Director James B. Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James. At the crux of the court order is the judge’s finding that President Donald J. Trump’s administration unlawfully appointed Lindsey Halligan, the US Attorney who signed the Comey and James indictments. Taking the now familiar TDS cheap shot, the court order opens with a description of the US Attorney as “a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience.” Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi appointed Ms.
Has Donald Trump “weaponized” the justice system to go after his political enemies? The answer is no. “What about former FBI director James Comey?” you ask. “What about New York Attorney General Letitia James?” Both went after Trump hammer and tongs. Now both have been indicted by the Trump Justice Department. Are those not textbook cases of “weaponization,” of “retribution,” of using the power of the system to punish people who have punished you? Hold on. I write this in mid-October. By the time you read it, I suspect that the list of indictments will be much longer.
Kaley Chiles is a Christian therapist who places the Bible at the center of her practice. To many of her patients, religious faith is often more important than Freud. They see Bible readings, prayer and a focus on spirituality along with traditional principles of psychotherapy as essential elements of any treatment plan. While outside the mainstream of psychoanalytic practice, Chiles’s technique combining traditional psychotherapy with Biblical precepts for years had been deemed non-controversial, if confined to more conservative regions of the country. But that all began to change in 2019 when the state of Colorado enacted legislation banning so-called conversion therapy for minors, a technique that aims to help gays change their sexual orientation.
Former FBI director James Comey is in the news again for all the wrong reasons. He’s been indicted for allegedly lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation, which he denies. Comey’s arraignment is scheduled for October 8. Having covered every FBI director since 9/11, I’m reminded of Comey’s difficult relationship with the facts. In May, he was interviewed by the Secret Service after he posted a photo on Instagram that spelled out “86 47” in seashells. According to Merriam-Webster, eighty-six is slang for “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” The dictionary says it originated in the 1930s, but these days to get “86’d” is widely interpreted as a threat of harm. Of course, President Trump is the 47th Commander in Chief.
Let the retribution begin. A federal grand jury in the eastern district of Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC, has indicted former FBI director James Comey for lying to Congress about leaking classified information to the press. During his four years at the FBI, Comey became a linchpin of the movement among Democrats in Congress and their legacy press supporters to oust Donald Trump during his first term. Trump never forgives and he never forgets.
Sean “Diddy” Combs’ legal team is facing a daunting task. More than 50 witnesses – including A-list stars – are set to testify against him for throwing “freak-off” parties where victims were allegedly sexually abused and drugged. Crystal clear surveillance footage shows him beating up his girlfriend. And it will all play out at trial in the Southern District of New York where the conviction rate hovers above 90 percent.
Last week, I walked across Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee, watching students laugh, read and relax in the sun. Today, that same lawn is a crime scene – the latest gun-free zone targeted by a coward intent on terrorizing innocent lives. The son of a sheriff's deputy shot two dead and injured six others in a campus rampage. Last year, Governor Ron DeSantis appointed me to the Florida Board of Education, where I serve the 3 million students who attend our K-12 schools and state colleges. It’s time to get real: gun-free zones do not protect our students – they turn them into defenseless, easy targets. At FSU, the shooter used his mother’s legally-owned service weapon. No law could have stopped him.
Human beings are animals that often operate by proxy. Here’s a familiar example from the world of — well, I was going to say “the law,” but what I have in mind is not the law but its perversion, so let’s say “the legal bureaucracy.” Everyone has heard the phrase “the process is the punishment.” It covers a multitude of sins. In its core signification, the phrase describes an increasingly common situation in which the machinery of the law is deployed to harass, enervate, stymie and otherwise hobble someone the regime does not like but whom, for the time being anyway, it chooses not to incarcerate. Sometimes it is easier to bankrupt and demoralize an opponent into submission.
We live in tumultuous times. Donald Trump’s adversaries blame much of it on him — his hyperbole and personal attacks, the unrestrained actions that cross the bounds of propriety — even, perhaps, of the Constitution. Trump’s supporters see the same things and celebrate. They appreciate the brickbats he throws at a judicial system they think is mobilized against him. They love his denunciation of Washington bureaucrats and lobbyists who, they believe, run the country for their own benefit, and not very well at that. Both sides are right that Trump is a destabilizing figure, but there are deeper issues at play, most notably the significant social changes upending norms that have long governed American politics.
It saddens me to admit it, but the evidence is too overwhelming to dismiss: Democrats are significantly more cunning than Republicans. I say “Democrats,” but that is an imprecise, even a misleading, designation. Party affiliation is not now, if it ever was, a really accurate predictor of ideological coloration. What I mean are those people, most of whom happen to belong to the Democratic Party, who have been bitten by the bug of extremism, who are fired by revolutionary fervor, who regard every opponent, every contrary opinion, as a “by-any-means-necessary” fire alarm. It is an attitude that has stirred their creativity, also their vindictiveness. Hercules had to undertake twelve supposedly impossible labors. Donald Trump is fast catching up.
After consecutive Supreme Court terms with major rulings on abortion, guns and affirmative action, the justices don’t have anything on the docket now that will roil the culture wars. (The Trump ballot case to be argued as this goes to press will be a small blip.) Instead, this year our black-robed philosopher-kings are doing battle with the administrative state — which Steve Bannon promised to “deconstruct” when Donald Trump took office last go-round. That shouldn’t be surprising; notwithstanding the media trope that Trump “stacked the court” to overrule Roe v. Wade, it was instead potential nominees’ commitments to reining in the bureaucracy that was White House counsel Don McGahn’s focus.
On the day I arrive at the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, DA Ray Tierney is off meeting with an unnamed witness in the Gilgo Beach serial killer case. In February 2022, more than a decade after police first recovered the remains of eleven victims, then-Suffolk County police commissioner Rodney Harrison announced the creation of a joint task force dedicated to solving the case. The task force, which included investigators from the DA’s office, quickly zeroed in on a suspect as they chased down a tip from a witness that hadn’t been properly investigated the first time around. Fifty-nine-year-old Rex Heuermann was arrested in July on murder charges and police have linked his DNA to several of the bodies.
The Supreme Court is entering the home stretch of its session, with just days left before it goes into recess for the summer. Some of the most significant decisions have yet to be issued, teeing up a big week. Here is what some of those cases are. Moore v. Harper This case tackles whether a state’s supreme court can rule on gerrymandering cases. The plaintiffs are testing the independent state legislature theory, which argues that state legislatures have the prerogative in redistricting, and that state supreme courts cannot get involved in the process. North Carolina’s supreme court has since switched its original decision against the state legislature, meaning that the US Supreme Court might drop the case instead of issuing a decision. Students for Fair Admissions v.
Ah, Seattle, that environmentally obsessed city where all is decorous, the sidewalks immaculately swept, the parks rigorously trimmed, proverbial for its shimmering lakes and charming rows of variegated tents housing those of no fixed abode — and recently, too, for a municipal government with much the same level of restraint as a bus being driven downhill by the Marx Brothers. Readers may be familiar with the strange phenomenon of a civic treasury that marries heady rhetoric about its prudent stewardship of public money with a cynical disregard for the suckers who actually foot the bills.
The Republican Party’s fumbling response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade has caused some in the party to plead for a surrender. Disappointing midterms returns, a string of lost referenda and party in-fighting has led some right-wing commentators to tell the pro-life movement — in no uncertain terms — to get with the program and move on. But at least one presumed presidential hopeful didn’t get the memo. Last week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed the “Heartbeat Protection Act” into law. Observers were quick to write his political obituary; it’s an aggressive move in the one of the most pro-choice red states. But it confirms his reputation as a principled conservative willing to expend political capital to achieve meaningful victories.
The immediate reaction to the indictment of Donald Trump by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has been a run to support the former president from his fellow Republicans, including those who are or soon might be competing with him for the GOP's 2024 nomination. But underlying this unanimity of disgust at the flagrant disregard for historical precedent, and the inflation of glaringly weak charges by Bragg, there is an obvious split in the right's response to this new stage of lawfare against Trump — one which could become more obvious in the coming months. On the one hand, you have the right-of-center Americans who are just plain shocked at this development.
When a federal appellate judge speaks at a major law school, he should expect tough questions from a learned audience. He should not expect to be shouted down. When he tries to speak but is heckled, jeered and disrupted, he should expect a university administrator to step in, read the students the riot act and restore order. He shouldn’t expect that administrator to sympathize with the disruptive students and let the trouble continue, as the feckless bureaucrat at Stanford Law School did. Her shameful behavior is hardly unique. It’s characteristic of mid-level bureaucrats hired to push “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” at universities across the country. They show very little concern for free speech, alternative views or robust debate.
