Claims And Issues

AN OPEN LETTER TO LAWYERS AND THEIR BAR ASSOCIATIONS.

Re:  In Defense of the Rule of Law and the Independence of the Legal Profession.

As a lawyer, I am keenly interested in the Defense of the Rule of Law and the Independence of the Legal Profession.  I am sure that you are interested in these principles as well.

     The New York City Bar circulated a Joint Statement of Bar Associations subscribing to these principles on March 24, 2025: Download NYC BAR L 032425 .

      I did not find the names of my Bar Associations on it as a signatory.   The Joint Statement concludes with the information necessary to subscribe to it:

 Bar Associations interested in signing this statement should email efriedman[at]nycbar.org

      If like me, you find that your Bar Association did not become a Signatory to this Joint Statement in defense of our profession and its independence, forward them the Joint Statement or share this link with them, as you or they may prefer:  https://www.nycbar.org/press-releases/in-defense-of-the-rule-of-law-and-the-independence-of-the-legal-profession.

      For my part, I sent a letter to my Bar Associations today.  I asked them if they had signed the Joint Statement, copy enclosed/link embedded.  If they have not signed it, I asked them why they haven't.

      You do the same, my friend and colleague, for your sake and my sake, for the sake of the legal profession, and for the sake of our country.

Thank you.

 

Died Of Decorum.

This is a tale of two of the people's representatives who attended the performance Tuesday night at the House.

I did not watch it.  I heard about it.

I heard about Representative Al Greene's standing protest, of course.  His standing protest merited a quick exit because he shouted at the Old Guy who, not coincidentally, was performing that night.

Parenthetically, whenever I hear this Representative's name, I think of Al Green the singer.  I can't help it.  I don't think that Al Greene the representative sings.  Maybe he does.  But that's not what this is about, anyway.

Some people have commented since that Rep. Greene's protest violated their sense of "decorum."

That brings us to the second tale of two of the people's representatives who attended the Performance at the House this past Tuesday night.

Democrats sitting in attendance were apparently primed in advance to clap when the Old Guy mentioned things from the past that they liked.  He looked down at Elizabeth Warren, a United States Senator, and called her "Pocahontas."

I think that was poor decorum, to put it mildly.  If anyone else has said that it was poor decorum, I have not heard it.  But this is not about the Old Guy's lack of decorum, among all the other things.

Remember that I did not watch Tuesday night's Performance at the House, so I have to go by reports.  It is reported that Senator Elizabeth Warren smiled and continued clapping when she was called "Pocahontas" from the podium of the House by the President of the United States (no, not Vladimir Putin).

There are many reactions I can imagine, but standing there and smiling is not one I can respect.  I worked for her campaign when she ran for the nomination for president.  I respected her then.  Not now, not after her own performance at the House last Tuesday night.

In my eyes, her own performance that night has forfeit any claim to future leadership, ever again.  She is not the kind of person we need, far from it.  I hate to be the one to break this story to you, but she is definitely not coming to save us.

So this was a tale of two of the people's elected representatives who attended the Performance at the House on Tuesday night this week.  Of the two, Al Greene at least showed courage.  For both of the two, and for all the others who attended, I wonder, though:  Why were you even there?

Why did you attend?  Did you think that it was a good idea to hold little pre-printed signs that supposedly showed "resistance" to the country beyond the TV cameras?

Decorum. 

Jefferson Davis once famously said of the Confederate States of America that on its tombstone would be written 'Died of an ideal.'  The ideal he had in mind when he said that, parenthetically, was what we now call State's Rights.  Georgia apparently refused to integrate some of its militia into the CSA Army because Georgia insisted on its own independence at the expense of the Confederate States.

If the United States of America is on its way to its own tombstone, on its tombstone will be written 'Died of decorum.'

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2025 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.  Interested in many things including Claims and Issues?  Sign up for a free subscription to my Substack newsletter. 

Can you see who they are and what they are doing?

In the end, it's individuals who make the decisions that make the difference.  

(Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Things are not normal.  Sarcastic comments will not do any good.  Realize who they are and what they are doing.  

Realize too who you are.  Your will is yours.

An opportunity hides in the recent and continuing EMails to federal employees that they are no longer employed.  These EMails are mostly directed to probationary employees and each of these EMails reportedly says that the employee is being fired for "poor performance" and because they are not a good fit with the federal workforce.

The people who wrote, approved, and sent these EMails did not have to add "poor performance" even from their point of view.  Their view is that they have the authority to fire at-will employees for any reason or no reason at all, so the received wisdom goes even among lawyers.  (That is why at-will employees are called at-will employees, meaning that they are employees who work at the will of their employer.)

However, the people behind these EMails are so arrogant that they went beyond 'not a good fit' and added what they almost certainly did not have to add by claiming "poor performance" as well.

The people behind these EMails want to perpetrate a myth, that they are pursuing efficiency by firing you.  It is not true.

It is also not true that the employees forced to receive these EMails actually turned in "poor performance;" many employees in fact were given superior performance ratings before they were let go by the faceless EMail People.

Think of where the EMail Creatures are coming from.  They are willing to ruin your life, to inflict harm on you who receive their impersonal EMails, in order to perpetrate their myth of "efficiency."  (But not in person.)

For the sake of a lie.

The reported reaction of people who have received these EMails so far has been to dispute their contents, and even to make appointments to see Labor Lawyers.   "They can't fire me like that" summarizes the prevailing reported reaction so far.

Look as well at what they have done to you, where we are, and where we are going with them in charge.  This applies to most if not all of the things that they have done, are doing, and are likely to do next.

If you are going to see a lawyer anyway because you received one of the EMails, take that opportunity to ask your lawyer the question of whether each and any of the individuals in fact responsible for these EMails, might be liable in law for what they have done.

If you received one of these "poor performance so you're fired" EMails, if things are not changed, it will surely be hard for you to get another job.  But beyond that, if you have been falsely fired for "poor performance" then the people, again, who authorized, wrote, and sent such EMails in fact defamed you.  If their EMail falsely accused you of "poor performance" in your job, then in fact it is a lie.  That is not the same question unfortunately as whether in law it means personal liability for those responsible for it.  Ask your lawyer.

The EMail you received may not have identified who sent it.  That would not be terribly surprising, but it would be consistent.  I cannot say whether your jurisdiction allows for early discovery and I cannot tell you whether you have a good case.   Your lawyer should be able to tell you, besides telling you what your chances are of making a good claim against organizations and individuals in your situation, if you can obtain immediate discovery of who sent the EMail, who cleared it, and who authorized it.

 It is a question worth the asking.  Individual liability to pay money, meaning the possibility of adding individual defendants in a lawsuit to pay damages should you successfully pursue them to judgment, seems to me to always be far more likely to make them stop their harmful behavior than would any award against the United States Treasury (or what there is left of it by the time you get a judgment, if you ever do).

None of this may work for you, of course.  The pain of the present is real.  It exists every day today, but it does not decide the future.  It is certainly possible that these EMails have taken your career away if things are not changed.  It is also at least equally possible, however, to change things.  It is also possible to make these EMails become the true story of how the people responsible for them lied to fire you.  Prospective future employers will know the true story then.  

In a larger sense, the only way to stop the Valley Boys and their Billionaire Bosses is to realize who they are and what they do, and to realize who you are.  Individuals determine outcomes:  With or without words, act with conviction and purpose, act positively and persevere.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2025 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.  Interested in many things including Claims and Issues?  Sign up for a free subscription to my Substack newsletter. 

Yesterday was the 25th Day of This. Today we begin the 26th. What comes next is up to us.

I published this article previously on Substack where it has gotten a lot of attention.  I would like to publish it here for you as well.  Together we can get through all of this.  Together may the coming weeks be better for all of us because, in the end, no-one else came to save us but we came to save ourselves.

Constitution Backdrop published by the U.S. Government in 1935.

We have come to the end of a week of looking at the actions that current federal agencies have taken in the last 25 days. Now I wish to focus on the judges, their decisions, and the people in the current federal government. Some have asked the question of what will happen if the current federal government ignores any one or all of these decisions.

One of the earliest roles in my own practice of law was as a defense attorney. I did that for many years. As a defense lawyer, I early on developed the habit of preparing to defend all likely eventualities including the worst possible case. I will not claim that I was perfect at predicting the possibilities, but I learned always to prepare for them.

So for me, the question is not whether these people will refuse to obey Court Orders, the question is what to do when they disobey a Court Order.

It hasn't happened, so far as I know as of this writing. But it may be about to happen. Frankly, it is unclear what response might be made in actual cases, although there are many possibilities. What responses might actually be made is left, as it must be, to the judges and the lawyers who are handling those claims and cases. What follows is my best attempt to highlight at least some of the possibilities before any of them become reality.

It may be a problem for a federal judge in Rhode Island, say, to enforce his Orders against agency officials who are located in Washington, D.C.

One possible response might be to direct the judicial response to officials of the offending federal agency who are located in the District in which the federal judge sits, and so are subject to the given judge's jurisdiction and, frankly, the judge's ability to call upon the U.S. Marshals to bring the official to the judge's Court. That is one possibility.

Another possible remedy might include the lawyers who stand in the judge's courtroom arguing for actions that are unconstitutional, against the law, or ignore the law. In the situation we are imagining, those lawyers have lost the argument. Their client has disobeyed Court Orders. Lawyers have an ethical obligation to be zealous in their advocacy, but it is unethical for lawyers to counsel their clients to refuse to comply with clearly established law. Noncompliance with clearly established law seems to be the case in most if not all of these situations in the past 25 days. You might even say that it seems to be a feature of those cases, not a bug.

It would also seem, then, to be well-taken for those lawyers to have to explain their conduct. After all, they are the ones who presented the arguments in favor of ignoring clearly established law in at least some of the cases. I have never initiated or argued a contempt proceeding for anyone to Show Cause why they should not be held in contempt, but I have seen judges take that step. This might be the occasion for a Show Cause proceeding or proceedings, now.

Judges are not the only ones who can call wayward lawyers to account. There is certainly room for Bar Associations to consider the conduct of some of their members here. I have served on a Grievance Committee and we encountered conduct far less noteworthy than some of the government lawyers’ conduct that has been on display in the past 25 days. The truth of it is instead that there is a seeming vacuum where Bar Associations should be, but are not. Perhaps not as yet.

In addition to Ethical Rules, lawyers are bound by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 which basically means that lawyers are liable to sanctions if they file or pursue claims or defenses that are basically frivolous or made in bad faith. They may also be subject to State anti-SLAPP or anti-Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation laws, although as I say these laws are State laws and their application to lawyers in federal litigation may or may not be problematical, I just don't know. (Anti-SLAPP laws are a protection in many States against being sued in meritless lawsuits for no other reason than causing you to have to spend your money on defense fees and costs.)

I am advocating for Due Process. An Inquisition is not a good response to a coup in my judgment. I would not deny Due Process even to those who would deny Due Process to everyone else.

Even the current government lawyers.

As I understand it, many of the current government lawyers were not employed by the federal government until some three weeks ago, and there are not very many professional practicing lawyers left in the Department of Justice or in U.S. Attorneys' Offices at the time that these words are written.

But even the current government lawyers are entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard as to why they are conducting themselves as they are. That is the point of one possible remedy for a federal government and the lawyers it retains to defy Court Orders.

Thanks for reading Claims and Issues! I first published this article on Substack on Valentine's Day 2025. 

P.S. on Saturday, February 15, 2025:

Here are two letters I want to make available to you to read.  One is the letter that U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon sent to the current Attorney General, Pamela Bondi, before Ms. Sassoon resigned.  Download Danielle-sassoon-02.12.25 letter-to-ag  Ms. Sassoon sent this letter before she resigned because she would not file a motion to dismiss the pending indictment against the N.Y.C. Mayor.  A motion has since been filed, asking for "leave of  Court" to dismiss the charges.  The judge should review this eight-page letter before taking any action.  Some say that this letter is written like a pleading, ready to be filed in court.  The judge would benefit from a reading of this letter in any event.  We as a country benefit from Ms. Sassoon's courage and integrity.

The other letter I am making available for you to read immediately is the enormously well-written resignation EMail letter of Haagen Scotten, Assistant U.S. Attorney, which he sent to one of the lawyers that lost the criminal case against his client in New York State Supreme Court, since promoted to Acting Assistant Attorney General of the United States.  Download Hagan-scotten-resignation 02.14.25 EM letter.

A small part of Mr. Scotten's one-page EMail letter is worth reproducing here in full, in which he addressed the justification that dismissal of the charges against the N.Y.C. Mayor without prejudice means that the charges can be refiled if the Mayor does not support the current federal government's "policy objectives":

But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials in this way.  If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion.  But it was never going to be me.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2025 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.  Interested in many things including Claims and Issues?  Sign up for a free subscription to my Substack newsletter. 

 

Disrupt Disaster Lies About WILDFIRES!

(Indivisible Disrupt Disaster Disinfo WILDFIRES. 01.17.25)

Write the Report, Jack. You don't have to ask.

Editing.  (LexisNexis)

 

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”

 

Special Prosecutor Jack Smith filed a motion last week to dismiss the criminal indictment in the election insurrection case.

At first, I was not completely sure what kind of motion or motions Jack Smith filed regarding the classified documents case.  Now it's clear that he has filed a motion to dismiss the appeal and the indictment he had going in that case too.

I would like to address Jack at this point.  Directly.

Jack, you said that you did not file motions to dismiss these criminal indictments because you did not have the evidence to prove the crimes.  You said that instead you filed motions to dismiss them because of Department of Justice policy.   Prove it, Jack, by writing a full and complete Report citing all the evidence. 

Prove it, Jack.  You are going to have to prove that you did not file motions to dismiss because you did not have the evidence, Jack.

It is clear that nothing and no-one can stop you from writing the Report, Jack.  In fact, there is nothing and no-one to stop you from writing your Report in both cases you had going.  The appointed trial judge in the classified documents case, the honorable Aileen Cannon, cannot order you to hand the evidence over to her.  There is no longer any appeal pending now, either, so the Eleventh Circuit cannot order you to turn the evidence over to them.

As far as the election insurrection case goes, Judge Chutkan has already approved your dismissal of the People’s indictment.  I do not believe that Judge Chutkan would ever order you to turn the evidence over to her, and besides she has already ruled. 

We the people of the USA should see all the evidence, good and bad, pro and con, in a Report of the Special Counsel. That means you, Jack; you’re the Special Counsel in both of these cases and you have to do at least one Report for both cases or perhaps write two Reports, one for each case.

Otherwise only the criminal defendants will say what the evidence is, and I am sure that you already know this but we cannot count on them to be transparent about it.  They are not the kind of people who would willingly share the evidence that convicts them.  It seems reasonable to expect that the only evidence these people would share would be any evidence that tends to exonerate them.

We can feel confident that they’ll tell their story, Jack, depending on how you release your Report and especially if you do not write one.  How do I know, and why am I so sure? Precedent, Jack. That’s exactly what they did with Bob Mueller’s Special Counsel Report. Mueller did not really get the chance to tell us what was in his Report, the Attorney General did that for him. The Attorney General did not tell the truth, of course.

If you act now, only you can tell us your story, Jack. Your story is our story too.

You may think that if you write a Report based on the evidence it would not go well for you with Merrick Garland or with the Department of Justice for that matter.  Well, Jack, as things stand you are not going to work for the Department of Justice or for any other department, bureau, or agency of the federal government in the U.S. ever again anyway. Unless you are on President Putin’s payroll, you will not get a job as a prosecutor in this country. You might conceivably get a future job somewhere else in the Western World, but not here.

So that’s the way I see it for you, Jack. To my way of thinking, it’s pretty clear. You have no future in this country regardless of how you conduct yourself in the future. Now is the time for you to act, Jack, because soon you will not be able to.

To say again, now is the time to write your Report, Jack, if the American People are ever going to know any of this evidence. To read the documents. To know the testimony from witnesses under oath. The time is now, or never, Jack.

Jack, I would like to end, once again, with a few lines from a poem called The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats. These are the lines, lines that could have been written yesterday or even today:

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

I underlined the thought expressed in the last two lines because I think that the thought deserves emphasis today, Jack.  Yeats said it first, in I think 1919, but the thought applies in 2024

— so far.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.  A previous version of this article was published in my Substack newsletter. 

 

“What Kind of America Do You Want?”

    When did so many Americans get to the point where they no longer believe in the Constitution, in the Declaration of Independence, in the ideals that have served us well for over 200 years?

    Maybe we need look no further than eliminating civics from our school curricula. Maybe we now have a population that does not understand the Constitution. A population that does not understand the concept of three co-equal branches of government or the separation of church and state. A population that has not learned from history but is willing to make the same mistakes that lead to ruin for other countries. A population that cannot or will not think for itself but is spoon-fed, told what to believe even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

    This is not the America I know and love. Please wake up, America!

Excerpted from a Commentary by retired Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince.  You can read the entire Commentary written by Chief Justice Quince in many venues because it has been republished in many places, including on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 in The Orlando Sentinel.

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DR. FAUCI AND THE REAL STORY OF THE GREATEST GENERATION.

On this the 80th Anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, the Greatest Generation demands that the real story of Dr. Fauci be told.

          Newspaper columnists and cable talking heads have wondered why Republican Members of Congress and other Republican officials and talking heads attack Dr. Fauci over the handling of the Pandemic.  Dr. Fauci is not responsible, that's why.  The attacks on him are a distraction of course.

          They do not attack the head of the CDC at the time.  He was appointed by Their Furor.

          They do not attack Dr. Deborah Birx, who ostensibly was an adviser of some sort to Their Furor.

          And of course they do not attack the person most responsible:  Their Furor. 

          Here it is, caught on tape.  Take a look in case you too have forgotten.  I have not forgotten.  And I am not distracted.  And I am not resigned.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"IT'S HARD FOR ME TO IMAGINE HOW THAT WAS ACCIDENTAL ...."

John Lewis had it right when he said that Their Furor was an illegitimate president.  That was John Lewis's reason for not going to the 2017 Inauguration.  He was so right.

          They should not have let Their Furor anywhere near the Oval Office, but they did, and here we are.  Now we are hearing that he was so busy being president that he did not have time to commit crimes, no matter what the evidence shows.

          "He was President of the United States."  "He was running the country."  These are supposed to be reasons that he should not be convicted of his crimes.

          His lawyers argue to a jury that he should not be convicted of a crime, but they do not emphasize his innocence.  Instead, they emphasize that he was the "leader of the free world" at the time and so should not go to prison.

          What the Judge said when he heard the lawyer's improper argument to the jury (so improper that the lawyer did not try to defend it), applies to the entire situation we are in:  "It's hard for me to imagine how that was accidental in any way."

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"FAKE NEWS," DAVID PECKER, AND THE GREAT PROJECTION.

"Fake news."  We've heard about that for some 9 years now.  Yesterday we all learned – if we did not know already – where it came from.

          It's totally projection.  

          David Pecker testified yesterday that his publication, The National Enquirer, would make up good stories about one candidate and would make up bad stories about the candidate's opponents.  They would publish "fake news" (Mr. Pecker called it "embellish" the news) to help The Guy, and to hurt anyone else that The Guy fingered.  Sometimes they wouldn't even wait for the finger, they would make up the negative stories themselves, like they did about Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, and Hillary Clinton.

          "Fake news."  David Pecker.  And Projection.  When you live in a world where everything you publish is fake news, calling everything else "fake news" even though you know it isn't, comes naturally.

          "Fake news."   When you write it yourself, you may delude yourself that's what  everyone does for a living, not just David Pecker and you.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.      

JOURNALISTS: DON'T YOU GET TIRED OF BEING USED?

The Hur report said that President Biden lost his memory.  It said that he couldn't even remember what day his son died.  Now we have the transcript.  Mr. Hur actually congratulated the President on having a photographic memory.    As for the date that the President's son died, the President not only remembered, he prefaced saying the date with, "Oh, God ...."  That lends credibility with a jury, which any honest trial lawyer knows.

          It turns out that the report was false and the transcript was true.  The news media says that it is shocked!  Shocked!

          Just a few years ago the same people, or at least the same kind of people, said that the Mueller report exonerated the Occupant of the Oval Office at the time.  Then we got the report.  Mr. Mueller actually wrote that the Occupant had participated in criminal activity but that Mueller would not charge a sitting president, following Department of Justice policy.

          It turns out that the press conference was false and the report was true.  The news media said that it was shocked!  Shocked!

          Journalists, don't you get tired of being used?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

HEARSAY.

Katie Britt is infamously a U.S. Senator, among other things.  In her own words, she describes herself as a housewife.  She has been the subject of much reporting for her performance in trying to rebut President Joe Biden's State of the Union message last week. 

          I want to look at just one part of her performance, when she told a story of a person who, as she told the story, she herself had spoken with.  Ms. Britt said that the victim told her that she, the victim, had been put into sex trafficking by cartels when she was 12 years old.  Ms. Britt at least implied that the victim was an undocumented immigrant.

          Contacted by CNN, the victim herself corrected the story in an appearance of her own on television:  While it was true that she was involved in sex trafficking, it was not at the border and immigration policies had nothing to do with it;  she was repeatedly raped in the brothel where she worked.  The attacks upon her did not happen in the United States; they happened in Mexico.  They did not happen during President Biden's administration; they happened during George W. Bush's administration.

          I have not seen my question addressed in all the reporting since:  Did Katie Britt contact the victim of her story before she told her story?  Ms. Britt says that the victim herself told her this story.  If she did, I wonder why the victim herself would say, as she does,  that using her story for politics was "unfair" if she had been contacted in advance about using her story for politics.  So the likelihood seems to me to be that, at the least,  Katie Britt did not confirm any of this with the victim but that CNN contacted the victim to confirm any of this.

          There seems to be a moral here, and it is this:  It is always a best practice to engage your brain before you engage your mouth.  Here, that would have meant verifying the story before telling it – such as by contacting the purported victim, unless you intend to lie,  and asking her if all the details they told you to say are accurate.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"IT'S THE DICTA, STUPID."*

*With apologies again to Mr. James Carville, who famously said during one of the successful Clinton campaigns, "It's the economy, stupid."

Dicta is a word that lawyers use to describe the opinions of judges that go beyond what they need to say to decide the case that confronts them.  To paraphrase Black's Law Dictionary, a standard text for many lawyers, dicta are opinions of judges concerning matters which are not necessarily involved in nor essential to determine the case presently before the court.

          In the course of enticing all justices to agree that a candidate of a certain persuasion should remain on all ballots, 5 judges went beyond that case to declare how and why candidates in future cases should not remain on the ballot (which most legal scholars say is self-evident from the Fourteenth Amendment and which did not need to be rewritten).

          When the U.S. Supreme Court took this case, they limited their review to whether they should affirm or reverse the Supreme Court of Colorado.  The Colorado Supreme Court, you will recall, had held that the Fourteenth Amendment barred this particular candidate in this particular case from the Republican primary ballot in Colorado.

          That is what the U.S. Supreme Court said that they would review.  That narrow question.  Of course, as lawyers know, the question of affirmance or reversal on the facts of the particular case is everything that a reviewing court can ever determine without issuing an advisory opinion.

          Here is what the 9 said they ruled on together.  You may or may not agree with it, but you can certainly read it for yourself.  They don't want you to read it for yourself, you know.  Every good trial lawyer, and any lawyer or person for that matter, knows that when they don't want you to look at something, you should look at it.  Read this for yourself:

          A group of Colorado voters contends that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits former President Donald J. Trump, who seeks the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party in this year's election, from becoming President again. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed with that contention. It ordered the Colorado secretary of state to exclude the former President from the Republican primary ballot in the State and to disregard any write-in votes that Colorado voters might cast for him.

* * *

Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.

Trump v. Anderson, ___ U.S. ___, ___ S. Ct. ___, 2024 WL 899207, at *1 (U.S. March 4, 2024).

          The U.S. Supreme Court was previously pretty consistent in stating the view that it is or was limited under Article III of the Constitution to the existence of a controversy, and that, unlike State Supreme Courts, the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts lacked the power to issue advisory opinions.

          Based on preexisting precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court is accordingly prohibited by the Constitution from issuing an advisory opinion on what action Congress should take to enforce Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.  So there were very strong grounds before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in this case that it would be limited to deciding whether the Supreme Court of Colorado was right or wrong in this particular case.  Period.  End of report.

          Instead, the joint opinion of the 5 rewrote the Fourteenth Amendment to the satisfaction of the 5.  But this is not how all 9 think about the issue they decided, and it is certainly not the view of the other 4 who decided the narrow question of whether this particular candidate in this particular case would remain on the ballot.

          So the command of the 5 to Congress on how to implement Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates is dicta.

          That is what it is.  Meaning no offense but stating it clearly:  "It's the dicta, stupid."

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

CHURCHILL, CHAMBERLAIN, AND THE STORM GATHERING IN THE U.S. NOW.

Winston Churchill was famously a voice in the wilderness warning about Hitler.

          The newspapers and radios which were the media of his day heaped praise on Neville Chamberlain and not on him.  The newspapers and radios applauded Neville Chamberlain for continuously attempting to compromise with Hitler.  Until it was too late and World War Two came.

          The current situation in the United States is not the same as the situation that faced Winston Churchill.  It is not too late.  It is still possible to affect the outcome.

          That brings me to the decision released on Monday of this week in the Fourteenth Amendment case.  The best legal minds of the day said that the justices would apply the Fourteenth Amendment as it was written.

          The result was unanimous but the "reasoning" on offer was anything but.  Five turned on 4 after the 4 attempted to compromise for a unanimous result of not enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment as it was written.  The 5 outvoted the 4 and wrote their own amendment, still while not enforcing the Fourteenth as it was written.

          It is clear, or it ought to be clear, that this decision was not the product of the best legal minds of the day.  If it was not the result of legal minds, it was the result of political minds and raw power, not reasoning.  5 did not prevail by the strength of their reasoning, which is the only way that the decisions of judges are legitimate in a free society.  5 simply outvoted 4 after the 4 compromised for unanimity.

          The best legal minds of the day are clearly not on the U.S. Supreme Court.

           At this point,  only foolish people expect a different result from them.  To rephrase Ben Franklin, the future is ours, if we can keep it.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY ...

... is no longer celebrated by itself.  It is a part of Presidents' Day of course, and it has been that way for a long time.  But to borrow a phrase from Edna St. Vincent Millay, I am not resigned.

          Nor am I resigned to lumping Abraham Lincoln's Birthday into the self-same Presidents' Day where we unload George Washington's Birthday as well – and for that matter, where we unload every single president including the ones that don't deserve to be celebrated.

          So here's to Old Abe and to the Father of His Country.  Long may their memories and examples live with us – both of them separate and identifiable for their honor, their integrity, and their character.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

'FOR EVIL TO WIN, GOOD MUST KEEP QUIET.'

Some people representing some States sued to stop the federal government from allowing corporations to consider economic, social, and governance (ESG) issues in all States.  Honest.  Take a look at what they themselves wrote if you can't believe it:  Download State of Utah v. Walsh Complaint Doc.No. 1 filed 01.26.23 (N.D. Tex. Case No. 2.23.cv.00016)).

          They filed their lawsuit in Amarillo, Texas in federal Court.  There is only one federal judge there, so they filed there.  Not surprisingly, they got the judge of their choice.  Not even drug dealers in major cities can do that.

          Speaking of drugs, this is the same Amarillo judge who 'ruled' for the entire country that the Food and Drug Administration did not have the power to regulate drugs – back in the day, over 20 years ago.  Nothing is too far away to be overturned with this crew, it seems.  Not in time, and not in the rest of the United States; nothing is too far away for them to reach.

          Not having stopped the federal government yet, the litigious people are asking their Amarillo judge to forbid the federal government permanently from ever allowing corporations to consider environmental, social, and governance issues of concern to their shareholders.   Honest.  OK, take a look at what they wrote for yourself: Download State of Utah v. Su Motion for Summary Judgment Doc. No. 92 filed 05.16.23 (N.D. Tex. Case No. 2 .23.cv.00016).

          In Florida, another branch of this crew is 'investigating' a teacher who showed her class a Disney movie.   Honest.

          Parenthetically, the teacher resigned even before she showed the movie.  The 'investigation' by the Florida department of education began anyway when one member of the local school board, who had a child at the school where the Disney movie was shown, started the investigation.  One.   Honest.

          It has not been reported whether or not the one complainer has stock in a Disney competitor.  It does not appear that she has been asked as yet.

          Meanwhile, in Montana, Governor Headslapper signed a bill passed by the learned Montana legislators that bans Montanans from looking at Tik Tok on their cellphones or on computers at home or in the office.  (The governor once slapped a reporter who asked him a question he did not want to answer, so he slapped him instead.)  Honest.

          And so it goes.

          A wise person once said that all it takes for evil to win is for good people to remain silent.  I do not want to be silent.  Do you?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.