Claims And Issues

JUSTICE FROM THE D.C. APPELLATE COURT.

Did you hear about the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals removing the stay of Chief District Judge Beryl Howell's Order that one of The Former Guy's attorneys must turn over documents in one of the investigations of TFG?

Did you notice that all 3 judges on the D.C. appellate panel are women?

And that 2 were appointed by President Biden, one by President Obama?

We may not have Biden judges or Obama judges if we listen to John Roberts, but you know what?  We have Justice when we do NOT have TFG judges.

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

TODAY'S ORDER DENYING INJUNCTION AGAINST INTIMIDATION IS ALREADY ON APPEAL.

Today, Friday, October 28, 2002, a federal Court Order denied an injunction against voter intimidation in Maricopa County, Arizona.  Download Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans v. Clean Elections USA et al. Doc. 32 Order filed Oct. 28 2022 (D. Ariz. No. 2.22.cv.01823.MTL).

The Court held that the Ku Klux Klan Act requires intent to intimidate.  Id. at 11.  There is nothing in the Ku Klux Klan Act that requires intent, and no Court has ever said so, until today; the intimidation is the point.

The Order is already on appeal the same day.

Please see the previous articles published here and here.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

P.S. to " MEET THE JUDGES WHO RESTORED THE REPUBLIC FOR NOW."

United States Supreme Court (AP / Jacquelyn Martin)

If (some say when) they ask for an emergency blockade of the Eleventh Circuit's decision to allow the United States to continue to investigate criminal violations involving the confidential documents found under a Court-authorized search warrant to investigate criminal violations, and also that part of the Eleventh Circuit's decision to allow the United States to continue to evaluate the damage done to our national security, then it might be worth knowing who the U.S. Supreme Court Justice is who handles emergency applications for a stay of Eleventh Circuit Orders:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Think they'll ask for an emergency blockade of the Eleventh Circuit's decision?

Please read the disclaimer.  © 2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

MEET THE JUDGES WHO SAVED THE REPUBLIC FOR NOW.

Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Atlanta, Georgia (Image Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Website)

On September 21, 2022, a federal appellate court ruled that while its appeal is pending, the United States can use the classified materials it confiscated from the beach resort in South Florida under an authorized search warrant, to investigate whatever crimes may have been committed and to review whatever damage was done to national security.  They also ruled that the United States does not have to submit the classified documents to a special master to review in the meantime.

With their unanimous order, they restored the Republic, at least for now.  Meet the Judges.

JUDGE ROBIN S.  ROSENBAUM is the senior judge among the three judges on this panel.  She has been on the Eleventh Circuit since 2014.  Having turned 56 this year, she is also the oldest of the three judges on this panel.  Judge Rosenbaum is familiar with the inner workings of most of the parties in this case, having worked as a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Florida, as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of Florida, and as a U.S. District Judge in the Southern District of Florida.

A graduate of the University of Miami Law School, she was nominated by President Obama and she was confirmed to the Eleventh Circuit by a vote of 91 to 0.

JUDGE BRITT GRANT was a Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court before she went to the Eleventh Circuit in 2018.  A graduate of Stanford Law School, Judge Grant was confirmed by a vote of 52-46.  She is 44 years old and a Republican by party.

JUDGE ANDREW L. BRASHER rounds out this panel of three Judges.  Judge Brasher turned 41 this year and has been on the Eleventh Circuit since June 2020.  Previously he was appointed a U.S. District Judge in Alabama where he served for about a year before going to the Eleventh Circuit.  A graduate of Harvard Law School, he too is a Republican by party.

Contrary to Mainstream Media and Alternate Media headlines, this decision did not resolve the appeal in favor of the United States, although that is the likely outcome after this ruling.  Also, this panel which decided the motion (called a "motions panel") may not be the same panel of Judges who will decide the entire appeal.  So it's on with the appeal and let's win there!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

By What Right Challenges Their Right to Hold Office. Ever.

(The famous photograph of Abraham Lincoln where the glass broke along the line a bullet would soon travel)

New Mexico and its citizens and its State Courts have all shown the way to challenge the right of insurrectionists to hold -- and run for -- office:  Ask courts to declare by what right those people hold -- or seek -- office under the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3 of the United States Constitution.  (In courts, to ask "by what right" usually means quo warranto or something similar.)

As you may already know, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment was written to bar people engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States to ever hold office.  Then, it meant former Confederates.

Now, it means office holders (and office seekers) even though they did not engage in violence so long as the proof in court shows that they did engage in insurrection, as in the case of Download State of New Mexico ex rel. White v. Griffin Findings of Fact Conclusions of Law and Judgment filed Sept. 6 2022 (N.M. Dist. Ct. 1st Dist. Santa Fe County No. D-101-CV-2022-00473).

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved. 

'The Constitution represents popular opinion.'

(Sun Sentinel Handout)

In Download State of New Mexico ex rel. White v. Griffin Findings of Fact Conclusions of Law and Judgment filed Sept. 6 2022 (N.M. Dist. Ct. 1st Dist. Santa Fe County No. D-101-CV-2022-00473), New Mexico District Judge Francis Mathew ruled that because the defendant violated the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3,  "effective January 6, 2021" the defendant is no longer entitled to hold public office and shall not hold state or federal office in the future.

"Mr. Griffin disregards that the Constitution itself  reflects the will of the people and is 'the supreme Law of the Land.'"  Id., ¶ 67, p. 44.

The Judge who wrote this opinion graduated from Notre Dame the year after I did.  He went on to the University of Notre Dame Law School.  Back in the day, he would have been called "a Double Domer."

Today, he is rightfully called Your Honor.

 Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

IT'S NOT HARD. COMPLIANCE IS NOT OPTIONAL FOR EVERYONE. ELSE?

When any new lawsuit is filed and the party filing it claims relief, lawyers and their clients are bound to follow the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.  Compliance is not optional.

This includes The Former Guy and his new lawsuit that were discussed here the day after that new lawsuit was filed.  So that as many people as possible can understand all this, let me try to explain it here (and hopefully  without sounding too much like a lawyer, if I can).

The Rules of Civil Procedure that lawyers and their clients are bound to follow in federal court, whether they like it or not, include Rule 8(a):

(a) Claim for Relief. A pleading that states a claim for relief must contain:

(1) a short and plain statement of the grounds for the court's jurisdiction, unless the court already has jurisdiction and the claim needs no new jurisdictional support;

(2) a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief; and

(3) a demand for the relief sought, which may include relief in the alternative or different types of relief.

To break it down into digestible pieces, this Rule applies to every party who states a claim for relief from a federal court, as TFG tried to do in his new case, Southern District of Florida No. 22-cv-81294-AM.  The first thing they have to do is write "a short and plain statement of the grounds for the court's jurisdiction," which the "motion" that was filed in the new lawsuit just did not do. 

The first thing the judge ordered, two days after the motion was filed, was to state why the Court has jurisdiction.

The second thing that they all have to write is "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief[.]"  In this new lawsuit, there are plenty of statements but not one of them is short and none of them is plain.

It is a press release that was filed in the Court file.

It does not show that the pleader is entitled to relief.  It misses by a mile.

Another thing that the judge ordered two days after the motion was filed was to state why the alleged owner of the searched premises is entitled to relief – and what relief is it, exactly, that he is requesting from her.

So, to say once again, it's on to Friday, August 26, 2022.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

IT IS DIFFICULT TO REASON WITH AN AGENDA.

It has been rightly said, including here, that Justice Samuel Alito of the United States Supreme Court actually says that he doesn't care about what State Constitutions, Governors, and Courts have to say about federal elections.  As we shall no doubt see this Fall when the current majority on the Supreme Court takes up the case of Moore v. Harper, in their view and his there are only two deciding views on electing U.S. representatives and senators:  State "legislatures" and of course the federal Supreme Court on which they all sit right now.

This may not be the entire picture, singling out Justice Alito, that is.  He is prominent because Justice Clarence Thomas, who assigns the "major questions" opinions, assigns them more often than not  to Justice Alito.  The opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, for example, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.  Removing a Constitutional right from Americans was short work not only for Alito, but for his followers too.

And that's the point.  So much has been made of the agenda pursued by the previous administration in so many attention-getting areas – making money, overthrowing the Constitution, putting children in cages are examples – that it is often overlooked that the previous administration appointed three Justices to join the Alito-Thomas majority.  I do not mean that this development has not been noticed.  Heaven only knows that the words that have been written about this development probably rival the word count of War And Peace.

No, what I mean to focus on, is the development that the newly empowered majority on the U.S. Supreme Court have an agenda and they will not be moved from it.  Only now, since Dobbs and the stripping of a Constitutional right for the first time in U.S. history, is attention being paid:  They do not listen, and neither do they hear.  They do exactly what they want to do, nothing less.  I would encourage listening to what they say about what they are going to do, except that these same people all said something different in their confirmation hearings when they were asked if they would uphold Roe v. Wade as the law of the land, remember?

"Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THE STRUGGLE IS NOT OVER. IT HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN.

The fight in the next Term of the U.S. Supreme Court will be about whether we, you and I, will be able to vote.  The fight will come in a case called Moore v. Harper.  It will be led by Samuel Alito, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

He has already said that what State Constitutions, Governors, and Courts have to say about it does not matter to him.  He is of the view that State legislatures have the next-to-last word on the time, place and manner of voting for federal representatives and senators.  (I say next-to-last word because Justice Alito reserves the last word  to himself and his colleagues on the federal Supreme Court.)

Lawyers cannot change this by doing what they usually do, what they are used to doing.  Lawyers are trained in legal reasoning when they begin their profession.  This time it will do no good for anyone.

 Lawyers are so  used to legal reasoning that  they can hardly conceive of not doing it.  With people like Justice Alito and his followers that hold the view that your view and your vote does not matter to them, it is difficult to reason.

 When those same people reject precedent so long as they have the votes to make their own view the law, there is no point to legal reasoning.  Parenthetically, the precedent and the reasoning are dead against Justice Alito's views and those of his followers on this one.  See Prescribing Times, Places, Manner Holding Elections Always Subject, Never Absolute, published on Claims and Bad Faith Law Blog on July 27, 2022.  But based on their past decisions such as Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization  clearly the only thing that matters to them is what they want the law to be, not what it is or what is has been until they came along.

We are in a pandemic still.  The disabled and the elderly are especially at risk, not just to the coronavirus but to a whole lot of barriers to everyday living  in general and to voting in particular.  Making our lives and our voting easier, not harder, with drop boxes and mail-in ballots is a good thing for the people, even if it is not so good for the powerful.

When reasoning does not work, the thing to do is not to accept the unreasonable but to resist it.  The Supreme Court famously reads the election returns.  Let them read things like these.

Contact your State representatives and senators.  Tell them your views on voting if they are going to be the next-to-last word on the subject.  Maximize the chances of your being heard so that the next-to-last word comes from you.

Contact also your U.S. representatives and senators.  Let them hear you as well.

 If you say nothing they will never hear you.

Write Letters to the Editor.  Write Op-Ed pieces for your local newspaper, whatever your local newspaper calls them.  The Orlando Sentinel for example calls its Op-Ed pieces written by citizens, "My Word."  Tell them your word.

Write, Lawyers to your own specialized newspapers and journals, places like this one for Florida lawyers:  The Florida Bar News at Mkillian@flabar.org.

Support people in their actions to bring about change that will benefit you and me.  For example, Citizens for Constitutional Integrity is trying to compel the U.S. Census Bureau to follow the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  The Fourteenth Amendment provides in essence that States that construct barriers to voting in federal elections shall have the number of their federal representatives reduced by the same percentage as the percentage of its citizens that have been kept from voting.  The case  is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 1:21-cv-03045-CJN-JRW-FYP.  The EMail address for the Citizens in that case is jared@jaredpettinato.com.  Send them an EMail that you support them in what they are doing.

Find other people to support who are taking action too.  Support them in some way, even by sending an EMail to let them know that they are not alone in this, and that you support them.

Support, Friends of the Court ("amici") for example in the fight launched by Citizens for Constitutional Integrity with the U.S. Census Bureau.  Citizens is alone in that case so far.  There is a Hearing coming up on Citizens' Motion for Summary Judgment in December.  File your request to appear as amicus curiae in the case and let your voice be heard there.

Above all, organize.  The people in power tend to listen more closely to organizations than to individuals.  The more that voting is accessible, the more people that vote.  The more people that vote, the more they lose and the less they get elected.

We can learn a lesson today from the leaders of the movement that began to take root in the 1950's for Civil Rights in this country.  It took them a long time, but they prevailed for so long that it seemed it would always be that way, yet  right now the struggle seems to have erupted again..  Along the way from then to now, it was routine for them to be told by friends and foes alike that they should wait, that now is not the time, that thoughts and prayers alone were all that was needed.

 "Thankfully, most organizers refused to listen, noting there may never be an 'appropriate' time to make good trouble, nor a time when no risk would be involved.  To never stand for change means change will simply never materialize.  I choose to no longer seethe with anger[.]" Alissa Redmond, NC Bookstore Owner:  Online Trolls Are Trying to Ruin My Business.  I Won't Back Down, CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, July 26, 2022,  https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article263810128.html.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

'THAT INDEPENDENT STATE LEGISLATURE THEORY'S GOT ME IN ITS SPELL

CERTIFYING FAKE ELECTORS I DIDN'T KNOW SO WELL.  ON AND ON IT GOES, DOWN AND DOWN I GO'

The thing about the independent state legislatures theory is that the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected it.  That means it is not just making a comeback with Moore v. Harper and the current residents of the Supreme Court building.

For one thing, the theory has never been adopted by the full Court, it's true, and for another thing, the theory has only surfaced in concurring opinions that have never been accepted by the full Court, it's also true.  See "The North Carolina Legislature" Isn't  On the Docket,  published here on Sunday, July 24, 2022, https://claimsissues.typepad.com/insurance_claims_and_issu/2022/07/the-north-carolina-legislature-isnt-on-the-docket-.html.

However, something that has to be clearly understood or nothing wonderful can come of our story, as Dickens wrote about Marley's death in A Christmas Story, is that in this case, the thing that must be clearly understood at the beginning of our story is that the independent state legislatures theory has surfaced in the case law in the past.  It has always lost before now.

Parties have raised it, and lost raising it.  The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the theory.  It's an unconstitutional theory, leading losers to hope that some State legislatures would certify fake electors in the 2020 Presidential Election, although no State ever did.

Past decisions in which parties have raised the theory, and lost because they raised the theory, are the subject of a future article that will be posted on Claims and Bad Faith Law Blog.  A copy of the article will be posted here as well.

But until then, it must be perfectly understood that the independent state legislatures theory has surfaced in the case law before – and the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected it before.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"THE NORTH CAROLINA LEGISLATURE" ISN'T ON THE DOCKET.

"The North Carolina Legislature" is not the plaintiff in the new Moore v. Harper case.  That is the case in which Justice Alito is going to say that his "independent state legislatures" theory, which he shares with some others, is a doctrine.  (It is not a doctrine.  It has not even made it into a majority opinion on the Supreme Court yet, surfacing so far only in a concurrence or on the shadow docket a time or two, and it has been rejected by name in other concurring opinions.) 

Moore showed up on the shadow docket earlier this year, which is when Justice Alito called the plaintiffs in the case "the North Carolina Legislature."  (Moore v. Harper's shadow docket appearance was discussed in Supreme Power, an  article that was published at the time on Insurance Claims and Bad Faith Law Blog.)  The plaintiffs in Moore are the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, and a handful of state senators.  There are very few of them.  There is no President of the North Carolina Senate among them.  There are no Democrats among them.  By any stretch, these plaintiffs in Moore are certainly not "the North Carolina Legislature."

When Justice Alito wrote to remove a woman's privacy rights whether or not to have an abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, he said a couple of times that the Supreme Court does not like to look at what only a few legislators have to say about a topic.  He wrote, "This Court has long disfavored arguments based on alleged legislative motives."  He also wrote in Dobbs, "The Court has recognized that inquiries into legislative motives 'are a hazardous matter.'”

Justice Alito also quoted a decision that the Court made in 1963:

Even when an argument about legislative motive is backed by statements made by legislators who voted for a law, we have been reluctant to attribute those motives to the legislative body as a whole. “What motivates one legislator to make a speech about a statute is not necessarily what motivates scores of others to enact it.”

So what's different now?  Not a thing.  Except that calling one state representative and a couple of state senators "the North Carolina Legislature" makes it seem like what Justice Alito and his colleagues are about to do in Moore v. Harper, comes in response to a request of  the entire North Carolina Legislature.  It doesn't.  It won't.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved. 

JUDGES RULING THE EASTMAN THEORY INTO LAW.

Justice Samuel Alito needs to be better known than he is.  He is an important member of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Justice Clarence Thomas thinks so; he is the one who assigns the Court's opinions and he assigns a lot of them to Justice Alito.

One of Justice Alito's pet theories (he calls them "doctrines") has to do with state legislatures.  Justice Alito calls his theory about them "the independent state legislatures theory,"  oops, "doctrine."  (It isn't really a doctrine, you know, except to Alito.  Soon it will be, maybe, but not now, not yet.)

Both Mr. Eastman and Justice Alito base their theory on the first part, and only the first part, of what is generally called "the Elections Clause" in the U.S. Constitution.  Here is what the first part says:

The Times, Places and Manner of hold­ing Elec­tions for Senat­ors and Repres­ent­at­ives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legis­lature thereof; …

This is the same theory that Eastman tried to sell to the Grievance Boy in January 2021, that  the states have the power to set the times and places and manner of voting for federal elections.  In Eastman's mind, that means one more step which involves having the states re-run every federal election where the results are not to his liking, starting with the Presidential Election of 2020.  (Note to Mr. Eastman:  The U.S. Constitution does not talk about state legislatures setting the times and places and manner of voting for Presidents; it talks about setting the times and places for voting for Senators and Representatives; read it.)

Justice Alito does not go that far, yet.  He agrees with Eastman that the states have the power to set the times and places and manner of voting for federal Senators and Representatives and, in Alito's mind, this means that state legislatures have this power to the exclusion of state courts, state governors, and federal courts except the U.S. Supreme Court.  That means that Justice Alito reads one provision of the U.S. Constitution all by its lonesome, as though it were the Articles of Confederation, say, or as though it was the only provision in a Constitution that actually embodies federalism and takes no constitutional powers away from state courts.

In other words, when a state legislature does something against the state's Constitution, state courts are constituted to be a check and a balance on the legislature's unconstitutional actions.  Not so in Justice Alito's eyes.  This is what he has in mind for the "independent state legislatures theory" --doggone it, there I go again, I mean  "independent state legislatures doctrine."

Alito bases this theory (or doctrine) mainly on "the Elections Clause."  Here again is the first part of what it says.  I repeat the first part because that is the only part that Justice Alito uses in his Eastman theory:

The Times, Places and Manner of hold­ing Elec­tions for Senat­ors and Repres­ent­at­ives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legis­lature thereof; …

It is an important question how come "the Legislature thereof" is so important if it means a state legislative body, a body which exists if, and only if, the state's constitution says it does?

Justice Alito has never answered this question and, so far as I know, no-one has ever asked him.

No-one has ever asked him what to do with the rest of the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the part which Alito and his followers have never mentioned, I believe:

… but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regu­la­tions.

If the first part is the Eastman or "independent state legislatures" theory, shouldn't this second part of the Elections Clause be called "the independent and supreme Congress doctrine"?  So far as I know, Justice Alito and his followers have never been asked this question, or anything like it.

It's a shame that some judges do not have to answer questions, isn't it?  Or maybe "shameful" is the right word to use.  It's certainly not a doctrine.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Org.

 I always thought that the job of judges was to protect rights.

Until Sam Alito and his followers, I never thought that judges would take established rights away.

There is more to come, I am afraid.  See SUPREME POWER published here on May 25, 2022.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

ANDREW CLYDE IS NOT THE PROBLEM. IT'S MUCH WORSE.

Andrew Clyde moved to North Georgia and was elected to the U.S. Congress in 2020.  Born in Canada, he moved to Indiana and New York before he moved to Georgia.  Mr. Clyde took office in the U.S. House last year.  His district is 79% White and less than 7% Black.  These things are important to our story's background.

    Since he took office, Andrew Clyde first declared the 1/6 insurrectionists a "mob" such that he had to help blockade the House, before he declared that the mob was on a "normal tourist visit" to the Capitol.  A gun dealer by trade, he voted against giving the police a medal,  and refused to shake the hand of a police officer who had protected him on 1/6.  There are many more things that show the quality of his character, but that is enough for now.

    Andrew Clyde, it should be clearly understood or nothing wonderful can come of our story, is currently from Georgia.  He opposed naming a federal courthouse in Florida after a deceased federal judge.   

    It turns out that 2/3 of the House was required to vote in favor of naming the federal courthouse.  Both of Florida's two Republican Senators supported it; all 27 of Florida's Representatives supported it too.  In fact, it seems that at first everyone supported it.  Then a member of Andrew Clyde's staff showed him a newspaper clipping from 1999.

    The newspaper clipping was about a decision authored by the judge, who was Black, when he was on a federal appellate court.  The decision obeyed a previous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court and struck down a measure that would have allowed prayer to be a mandatory part of the official state graduation ceremonies at a school in Jacksonville, Florida.  It seems that Mr. Clyde's real problem, in this situation anyway, was with the Supreme Court's decision interpreting the U.S. Constitution.

    To say again, that was in 1999.   It was a newspaper clipping.

    Now the rest of the story, as they say.  Mr. Clyde showed his Republican colleagues in the U.S. House the newspaper clipping about the Black judge from Florida.  His Republican colleagues dropped their support for the bill to name the federal courthouse.  That left the House short of a 2/3 majority.  The bill failed.

    The Black judge wrote many opinions in his professional career, starting from the time he became the first Black Justice on the Florida Supreme Court, which was before he became the first Black judge on the federal appellate court.  The decision that the newspaper wrote about in 1999 was only one decision from a judge's lifetime on the bench in which the judge made too many decisions to count.

    But this story is not about defending that one opinion.  This story isn't even about Andrew Clyde, not really.  It is about how it came to be that a person in office a little over 1 year, from Georgia, went to Washington and ended up blocking more than a mob on January 6, 2021.   This is the story of how an elected federal official from Georgia blocked a federal courthouse in Florida from being named after a federal judge from Florida.

    We start with the perspective that a person in Mr. Clyde's position had on the task facing him.  Clyde wanted to stop a federal courthouse in Florida from being named after a Black judge from Florida.  To be sure, Mr. Clyde denies that his opposition was born from the judge being Black.

    Still, it is reasonable to ask how many other federal courthouses from anywhere let alone Florida, did Mr. Clyde block from being named after any other federal judges?

    Back to Mr. Clyde's perspective, if we ever really left it.  The pending bill to name the federal courthouse required a 2/3 vote.  The objective was to reduce the vote enough so that it would not get a 2/3 vote.  (As it happened, a majority voted for the bill, 238 to 187, but not 2/3.)  That was the system.

    How the system was gamed also deserves our attention, because it shows how things are run in today's national Capitol.  In this case, a press clipping was enough.  It is very doubtful that many if any of the people who were for the bill before they were against it, actually read the 23-year-old decision.  It is probably even doubtful that many of them actually read the newspaper clipping before they changed their position.

    They moved on the word of what someone told them a newspaper clipping from 23 years ago said about a judicial decision in one federal case.  Even many children need better evidence than that.

    To sum up the story here, the U.S. House of Representatives failed to pass a bill which started with virtually unanimous support, then got majority support, but a majority did not win because of House rules.  Mr. Clyde took advantage of the House rules; he did not write them.  But he or someone else knew them.  To get majority rule, the House rules need to be changed.  Blame the Clydes all you want, but the system needs to be changed.

    It is also a part of the story that some Republican Representatives were persuaded strictly by fear.  They did not even know why they were suddenly against something after they were for it.

    And all because of a 23-year-old press clipping.

    Blame the system all you want, blame all of the Representatives if you want, but here our focus at the moment is instead on the people who are so afraid that they do not know why they are doing what they are doing.  They are not the people we need in positions of authority in this country.  It is no consolation that they are in the minority; as our story shows, they still run things. 

    But maybe, in the end, they did know why they were doing what they were doing, when they suddenly refused to name a federal courthouse after a federal judge who happened to be Black.

The saga of U.S. Representative Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) using a newspaper clipping from 1999 to successfully block the naming of a federal courthouse in Florida after a Black judge from Florida was published deep in the New York Times, reported by Annie Karni, House Republicans Abruptly Kill Bipartisan Bill to Honor a Pioneering Black Judge, NEW YORK TIMES, Wednesday, April 13, 2022, at A24, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/12/us/politics/gop-joseph-hatchett-florida.html?searchResultPosition=2.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

DID YOU KNOW THIS ABOUT THE U.S. SUPREME COURT?

That the 6 Justices in the current majority on the Court, the so-called "Gang of Six," are all Catholics?

          Puts their rulings favoring religion and religious practices in a different light, doesn't it? 

          Not to mention their rulings on abortion.

That none of the Gang of Six was ever a trial judge?

          Their experience was all in appellate courts where they saw other lawyers, who made arguments for them to always decide who was right.  So, the Gang of Six are used to making the decision in every case and whatever decision they make, must be the right one, of course.

          Trial judges certainly see other lawyers also, but in trials they generally see witnesses who testify for juries to decide who was right.  Sometimes juries get it wrong, but not often; even when juries do get it wrong, the trial judge is there to administer justice, not impose her or his own decision in place of what the jury decided.

          That's a big difference in their backgrounds.

          In fact, apparently only one Justice was a trial judge before being nominated to the Supreme Court:  Justice Sonia Sotomayor. 

          Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson would make the second Justice on the Court with experience as a trial judge.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

HERE'S A SOLUTION: SUE THEIR SACKLERS OFF.

In December a federal judge rejected a Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy settlement because the Sacklers, individuals who own Purdue, insisted on immunity from being sued for their alleged liabilities in the Opioid Crisis.

Now the Sacklers have somehow come up with another $1Billion to put into the pot while they still insist on immunity.  It is rare for individual owners of bankrupt companies to be given immunity even as the bankrupt companies are given immunity.  It is the companies that are in bankruptcy, after all; here it is Purdue, not the Sacklers, that are in Bankruptcy.  Yet the Sacklers insist on the Bankruptcy Court giving them immunity.   See Jan Hoffman, Sacklers Raise Their Offer to Settle Opioid Lawsuits by More Than $1 Billion / But they continue to insist on protection from civil liability claims over opioids, an unusual and controversial measure that derailed a previous deal, NEW YORK TIMES, posted online Friday, February 18, 2022.

Cynical rich people.  Buying immunity.  Throw another $1Billion at them, that will make them  give you immunity.

Here's a solution.  The Purdue Bankruptcy litigation has an automatic stay of all lawsuits until March 3.  Let it expire.  Then sue their Sacklers off.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

NEIL GORSUCH, THE ONCE AND FUTURE CHIEF JUSTICE?

Neil Gorsuch notoriously does not wear a mask at oral arguments, even though the Chief Justice reportedly asked him to.  And even though he knows that the person he sits next to at oral arguments, Justice Sonja Sotomayor, is seriously at COVID risk because she is a diabetic.

          This story tells on Neil Gorsuch, of course.  The biggest takeaway from it is that he's a lousy person.

          It's in his genes.  His mom was indicted for her contempt of Congress.

          But there's more to take away.  John Roberts, the person with the Chief Justice title, does not even have the authority to get Neil Gorsuch to wear a mask among his colleagues during a pandemic.

          Neil Gorsuch.  What a mensch.

          John Roberts, once the Chief Justice, but no more.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

We can hope, can't we?

As you know, the department of justice's successful efforts to bar the Texas abortion law were led by LISA NEWMAN, ESQUIRE.  See AND LISA NEWMAN SHALL LEAD TEN OF THEM ....

          The doj's success was fleeting, though.  Texas won the initial skirmish on appeal.  A motions panel, which means a panel of judges gathered together to hear motions in all the pending appeals, granted Texas' motion to lift the District Court's injunction of the Texas law in this case.  Technically, the motion panel only granted a motion to stay the injunction in this case, in other words, to keep the Texas abortion law in place, while the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals took the time to decide the motion.  See Download Order 5th Circuit Emergency Stay United States v. State of Texas No. 21-50792 (5th Cir. October 8 2021).

          In reality, of course, this is the Fifth Circuit.  Things are looking grim for the doj.  The department of justice would need to maximize its chances of reaching the judges who sit on the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas.

          So the doj replaced the successful trial lawyer, LISA NEWMAN, on the appeal.  That is not unusual, that an appellate lawyer at a big firm, or in this case at the doj, comes in to handle an appeal rather than the trial lawyer who won the case.  In this case, it should be noted that NEWMAN is from Texas, went to the University of Texas undergrad, and then went to the prestigious University of Texas Law School.  The judges on the Fifth are likely to listen to her.

          Or they would have been.  Ms. NEWMAN has been replaced on appeal with one DANIEL WINIK, ESQUIRE.  He signed the USA's Opposition to Stay already filed on October 11, 2021.

          MERRICK GARLAND, did someone tell you this is a good decision?  Just asking for the country.

          Mr. WINIK is a White male who went to Yale.  Good luck relating to the judges down in the Fifth Circuit.  Not extremely likely that they'll listen to you, Mr. WINIK, but maybe.  Not a winning strategy on appeal, in any case.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

AND LISA NEWMAN SHALL LEAD TEN OF THEM ....

You may have read or heard about the U.S. Department of Justice obtaining a preliminary injunction against the Texas abortion law.

          The United States had ten (10) lawyers listed on the docket of that case.  After a review of the Court file, one of those lawyers clearly emerges as the lead attorney in this successful lawsuit:  LISA NEWMAN, ESQUIRE.

          Ms. NEWMAN signed all the significant motions and pleadings filed by the United States, including the complaint and the emergency motion for Temporary Restraining Order/Preliminary Injunction.  She was obviously entrusted with great responsibilities by the Department of Justice, and the results show the wisdom of that decision.

          It is interesting that Ms. NEWMAN has only been a Trial Attorney in the Civil Division, Federal Programs Branch since October 2020.  Before that, she did many things of distinction:

• She was a law clerk at the Western District of Texas for two years before she went to the DOJ. (She may have either known, or known of, the federal judge in the Western District of Texas who decided this case.  He was on the bench when Ms. NEWMAN clerked in the Western District.)

• She got both her B.A. from the University of Texas, and her law degree from the University of Texas School of Law.

• To say again, the fact that ten lawyers followed Ms. NEWMAN'S lead is a testament to her legal skills.  The current department of justice would be well-advised to look to her lead again in other cases.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

CRUELTY FLOURISHES IN ANONYMITY. SO DOES DESTRUCTION OF CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.

Cruelty flourishes in anonymity.  Vindictiveness is easier in a lynch mob when a person acting alone would not want to have others single out an individual person's behavior.

          It is like that when judges practice issuing unsigned orders without bothering to write opinions let alone sign them.  We have had a rash of unexplained, unsigned orders of late, and two examples came in the same case.

          Many commentators have pointed out that hiding behind unsigned opinions is cowardly.  That is not the subject of this article, and we will say no more about that here.

          Many commentators also write that it is hypocritical for judges to rule in favor of outcomes they desire, without taking responsibility -- or credit or blame, as the case may be -- for the outcomes.  That too is not the subject of this article, and we will not mention it here again.

          The first of the two examples of the practice comes from Texas.  A panel of judges appointed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a trial judge not to hold a hearing.  The three people on the panel did not write an opinion, and did not sign their order.  They simply cancelled the hearing that another judge had ordered.

          The second of the two examples from the same case also comes from Texas.  Five of the justices on the U.S. supreme court let an infamous anti-abortion Texas law go into effect because there were doubts about the law's constitutionality.  This result was the opposite of what justices would do most of the time in such cases, even if the justices in question personally favored the constitutionally questionable State law.  In this case, though, the five did not even write an opinion, and they did not sign their order.

                                   (SarahBeth  Maney/NewYorkTimes)

          Yet we know who they are; that is not the point.  The Fifth Circuit panel in question was headed by Edith H. Jones, who has never stopped being a leader of her (minority) party.  She was joined by two others.  The Five supreme court members in question are named Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas.  So we know who they all are.

          But that is not the point.  The point is that they were supposed to behave as judges, and they did not.  They behaved as power brokers, wielding power for a minority view at that.  Perhaps that is why they stopped being judges and became power brokers.

          Both examples display that the core purpose of anonymity seems to have been a cloak for the elimination of previously recognized constitutional rights.

          In the Fifth Circuit example, the unsigned order eliminated Due Process by the expedient of cancelling a hearing; no-one has the opportunity to be heard when their hearing is cancelled.

 (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)

          In the supreme court example, the unsigned order eliminated the constitutionally recognized right of a woman to be free from government interference in the early stages of her decision whether to give birth.  I am personally in favor of life, but I am not in favor of vindicating life by eliminating other people's rights.

          The Epistle of James was a part of last Sunday's services in my Church.  James' Epistle is translated in different ways when he wrote about people acting like judges and preferring people with fine clothes over poor people in their churches.  One translation has it that people acting in that way were acting like judges, "and corrupt judges at that."  Another translation has it that people acting in that way were "judges with evil designs."  Jas. 2:4.  Both translations fit these examples.

          There is a proper place for short rulings by panels of judges that are not signed by the individual judges on the panel.  These are called "Per Curiam" decisions, meaning that they are decisions issued from the court as a whole.  They are reserved for decisions that are so clear that no opinion is  necessary and no individual signature is required.

          They were never meant to be issued when decisions are not clear.

          They were never intended as places to hide.

          To borrow a Biblical phrase that seems apt, they were never meant to disguise evil designs.

A version of this article was previously published on Claims and Bad Faith Law Blog on Wednesday, September 8, 2021.  Reprinted here with permission.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THEY'RE NOT JUDGES, THEY'RE "REPUBLICANS." (That's One Name For Them.)

(New York Public Library Collection)

The U.S. supreme court ruled 5 to 4 that a Texas law overturning Federal law could go into effect without a fight.  The 5 did not give their names.  But we know who they are.  Three were appointed by the former regime.  They all call themselves Republicans.

(New York Public Library Collection)         
Three federal judges in Texas cancelled a hearing scheduled by another judge to hear all sides in a case.  The three federal judges did not want to hear from all sides, apparently.  They did not sign their names.  But we know who they are.  Two were appointed by the former regime.    All three call themselves Republicans. 

 (Pacific Standard)          A judge in Michigan gave some people access to Dominion Voting software.   (In a break from the apparent practice, he signed his name to the opinion he wrote.)  It is not clear how, but somehow, the Dominion Voting software ended up on the internet ready to hack. The judge in Michigan calls himself a Republican.

          There is a pattern here.  Present-day media have not written much about it, but there is a pattern here. 

          They're not judges, they're "Republicans."  (That's one name for them.)

          They're not like any Republicans I have ever known.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THE VENEER OF JUSTICE SAM ALITO.

A veneer is defined as a thin layer covering up something else.  See the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definitions.

          In their latest venture into the tension between businesses and consumers, the U.S. Supreme Court 6 came down together, hard, to restrict people from suing under statutes that legislatures make available to people to sue.  The Supreme Court 6 say that is not constitutional.

          The veneer comes from Justice Sam Alito, one of the Supreme Court 6.  He says that people do not have a leg to stand on when they sue in federal courts unless those people can show their injuries and damages up front, from the get-go.  Many legal scholars parse Alito's words to see if he and the other 6 are being consistent in what they call standing "doctrine."

          The only thing we need to know, as a people, is that standing is a veneer.  The real doctrine is to deny people their rights under statutes that give them their rights -- at least as long as the Supreme Court 6 are on the job.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

BARR's department 'ISN'T OVER, IT ISN'T EVEN PAST.'

MARK R. FREEMAN, Esquire has been a busy lawyer since 2014 when we started paying his salary with our federal taxes.  He joined the justice department that year.

          There are reports that in January 2020 he argued against the former guy's White House Counsel testifying under a subpoena from the U.S. House of Representatives.

          He definitely argued in January 2020 against unsealing the Mueller Grand Jury testimony and documents so that the House could see it all.

          It is unclear when he became the Director of the Appellate Section of the Civil Division at the department of justice, but he holds that position now when MERRICK GARLAND is the Attorney General.

          In June 2021, MARK FREEMAN argued in a Reply Brief with his name on it, that the United States should be substituted for the former guy in E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit.  The doj did not have to appeal at all.  It will be remembered that Ms. Carroll sued the former guy for defamation when he called her a liar among other things after she said that the former guy raped her.

          A federal judge denied Bill Barr's motion and that's why there is an appeal.  If the motion had been granted, the United States would become the defendant and Ms. Carroll's lawsuit would be barred because you cannot sue the United States for defamation.

          FREEMAN's brief on the appeal continues to argue that the former guy was performing his official duties when he allegedly defamed Ms. Carroll.

          If the appeal is successful, then Ms. Carroll's lawsuit will be barred.  That is the reason for MARK FREEMAN's brief.  Ms. Carroll's lawsuit will be barred if it is successful.

          Despite media reports, there really is no reason to think that there is a new Attorney General in town.  The same policies are being advanced in -- and rejected in -- the Federal Courts.  See previous articles here, here, here, and here.

          There are many stories in the doj.  This has only been one of them.

Merrick Garland photo:  Tom Brenner/New York Times.

Bill Barr photo:  Doug Mills/New York Times.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

DEPARTMENT? YES. JUSTICE? NOT SO MUCH.

 

Media reports display an increasing number of disciplinary proceedings against lawyers caught in the former guy's black hole.

          One of the former guy's lawyers is suspended from practicing law in New York.

          And then the same former lawyer is suspended from practicing law in Washington, D.C.

          Elsewhere, other former lawyers of the former guy are neck-deep in sanctions hearings, it is reported.

          In the meantime, lawyers still in the department of justice have continued to conduct an operation designed to keep one of Bill Barr's memorandums a secret so that the public cannot see it.  That memorandum reportedly has to do with why Bill Barr decided not to prosecute the former guy.

          Some say Barr's decision was made before the memorandum was written, parenthetically.  But that has little to do with our concern today.  Or does it?

          As reported here earlier, the federal judge presiding over the memo-as-secret litigation found that lawyers in the department of justice had been "disingenuous" and that their testimony was "not worthy of credence" in the course of representing the former guy's former attorney general's position. 

            The department's response?  Did they investigate the behavior that draws sanctions in other places?  Did they at least reprimand the lawyers and perhaps even chide them for bringing the department into disrepute?

          No.  The department appealed the judge's order to make the memo public.  They obviously hope that if the judge's order is overturned then they can say that the judge's findings of misconduct are overturned as well.

          You and I know it does not work that way.

          The judge's findings remain.  What the lawyers did, they did.  And what they did was misrepresent things to the court, that's what the findings are, not simply opinions and allegations.  Findings.

          And making misrepresentations to the court has got the attention of bar associations across the nation.   No bar association has ever condoned this sort of behavior.  To the contrary.  The bar associations that have already looked at lawyer-as-misrepresenting-to-the-court have suspended the lawyers in question from the practice of law in their courts.

          Why is this not so in the department whose name is justice?

          I served on a grievance committee myself for years.  Bar associations only rarely discipline lawyers and even when they do, the discipline they impose is hardly every suspension or disbarment.   This is not to say that any such discipline should be visited on the lawyers whom a federal judge found to be "disingenuous" and whose testimony the judge found "not worthy of credence."

          I do ask again, why is the department of so-called justice not even investigating?

          Why is the department instead spending its time in distracting public attention by appealing to keep Barr's secret memorandum, well, secret?

Bill Barr photo by Alexander Drago / Reuters.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

MORE CYA FROM INCREDIBLE, "DISINGENUOUS" DOJ: APPEALING JUDGE JACKSON'S ORDER.

CYA.    That stands for more than "Career Young Attorneys," I think.

            If MERRICK GARLAND's Department of Justice is so different from Bill Barr's justice department, then why is MERRICK GARLAND's DOJ still fighting Bill Barr's battles?  And in the process causing a federal judge to find that lawyers in MERRICK GARLAND's DOJ submit affidavits that are "not worthy of credence," all the while the DOJ is "disingenuous to [the] Court"?

            The case of the disingenuous memo and incredible affidavits is a good example. 

            A group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sued to disclose a memorandum that Bill Barr's justice department wrote about the Mueller Report. 

            JULIE STRAUSS HARRIS, Esquire is the DOJ's Senior Trial Counsel.  Both under Barr and now under MERRICK GARLAND, HARRIS has led the defense against CREW's attempt to make the justice department disclose the memo.  She has signed and submitted the government's pleadings in this case from the beginning in 2019, according to PACER, the electronic docket.

            Judge Amy Berman Jackson is the presiding judge in CREW's lawsuit.  HARRIS told Judge Jackson many reasons that the memo should be kept quiet.  Among other things, JULIE STRAUSS HARRIS told Judge Jackson that the memo should be kept secret because Edward O'Callaghan, one of the memo writers, made invaluable "prosecutorial recommendations" to Attorney General Barr.  Download Judge Amy Berman Jackson REDACTED FOR THE PUBLIC Opinion of May 3 2021 in CREW v. Department of Justice.  Judge Jackson quotes JULIE HARRIS STRAUSS at p. 24, n. 13.

            The problem is that Mr. O'Callaghan could not actually make any prosecutorial recommendations.  In Judge Jackson's words, "there was no prosecutorial decision on the table."  Id.

          Not only was AG Barr "being disingenuous ... but DOJ has been disingenuous to this Court with respect to the existence of a decision-making process that should be shielded by the deliberative process privilege."  Court Order of May 3, 2021, at 26.

            Judge Jackson went on to find that the affidavits submitted on behalf of the DOJ in this case "are so inconsistent with evidence in the record, they are not worthy of credence."  Every affidavit submitted for the DOJ in this case was submitted by JULIE HARRIS STRAUSS.

            Judge Jackson ruled that the memo should be fully disclosed.  Nonetheless, she herself quoted only part of it to the public, apparently pending further action by the DOJ.

            DOJ appealed.  JULIE STRAUSS HARRIS signed the notice of appeal.  Download CREW v. DOJ Doc. No. 31 Notice of Appeal filed 05.24.21 (D.D.C. No. 19-1552 (ABJ)).  HARRIS appealed the Court Order in which, to use Judge Amy Berman Jackson's words in her Order, the Court found the DOJ to be "disingenuous" and the affidavits submitted by HARRIS "not worthy of credence," i.e., incredible.

            To sum it all up, CYA in this case describes trying to save a lawyer's reputation after she has been called out by a federal judge.  If the judge's Order does not stand, the thinking goes, then maybe the lawyer's reputation can be restored.

            If you or I had submitted false evidence to the judge, or if the judge called us disingenuous, the holes we would crawl into might not be deep enough to restore our reputations.

            All this poor lawyering or lapsed judgment or earned humiliation, whatever else all this may be, is all being paid for by you and me, the federal taxpayers.  All at our expense.

            And all the while, Mr. Barr is still in charge of the justice department.

Bill Barr photo by Alexander Drago / Reuters.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

JUDGES WILL OFTEN TELL THEM TO STOP, SO ASK!

 

(Gridview_imagefull/Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services)

Recently some courts have ruled against equal laws.  It seems to me that these rulings depend more on the fact that the people who sued (to get taxpayer money paid to them instead of that money being paid to other people) asked the judges to tell the defendants to stop, instead of asking for damages.  I have said this before.   

            More judges are ruling like this and so I say it again:  These rulings depend more on the fact that plaintiffs, meaning the people who filed the lawsuits, asked the judges to tell the defendants to stop, instead of asking for damages.

            A federal judge in Florida told the State to stop when the judge issued a preliminary injunction stopping the State from imposing fines and limits on people who petition to put proposed State constitutional amendments on the ballot.

            This ruling came right after another federal judge in Florida stopped the State from imposing penalties under a new Florida law that would require social media companies to let politicians say whatever they want to say on their websites.  The new Florida law would have allowed Florida to impose penalties up to a Quarter of a Million Dollars.  A day.

            Courts in Maryland are telling the State to stop withholding unemployment benefits from unemployed people during a pandemic.  These lawsuits have been heard at all three levels of courts in Maryland, from the trial court to the intermediate appellate court to the State's highest Court.

            Comfortable people did not file these lawsuits.  The people who filed them include individuals, and they include groups that did not exist before such as "the Unemployed Workers Union" and "the Baltimore-based Peoples Power Assembly."  Significantly, the plaintiffs apparently did not include political parties or established civil rights organizations or other entrenched interests.  These lawsuits were brought by people in Maryland who are affected by the Maryland Governor's  attempted order to force them to take jobs, any jobs.

            The Maryland trial judge was the first judge in these Maryland cases to hold that the State must stop what they were trying to do.  The trial judge issued a "temporary restraining order," effectively another name for a preliminary injunction.  One of the trial judge's reasons is instructive.  It should be followed in other States where governors are trying to block unemployment benefits and so force unemployed workers to take any job that the governors' campaign contributors condescend to give them.

            The Maryland trial judge ruled in part because the State governor "appeared to lack the authority to end the federal program early.  He added that the plaintiffs' stories of economic hardship reminded him that 'the impact of the pandemic has been cruelly uneven.'"  Katherine Shaver, Court Rejects Hogan Request to Block Order Preventing End of Enhanced Federal Unemployment Benefits, WASHINGTON POST, online Monday, July 5, 2021 (emphasis added).

            State governors may lack the authority to end the federal program early.

            Ending the federal program early may violate equal protection of the laws.

            These concepts are not limited to the pen of a trial judge in Maryland.  They apply in every State.  State Constitutions are based on them.  The Federal Constitution guarantees equal protection of the laws in all the States.

            Judges will tell them to stop.  So ask judges to tell them to stop.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

TWITTER SHOWS WHY SOMETHING'S NOT A SECRET IF IT'S GOOD.

The former justice department reportedly used a grand jury subpoena to Twitter to try to identify who was criticizing Devin Nunes on Twitter.  See Charlie Savage, Trump Justice Dept. Tried to Use Grand Jury to Identify Nunes Critic on Twitter, New York Times, online Monday, May 17, 2021.

    In response to this revelation, Washington informants tell the newspapers that the former justice department really tried to use a grand jury subpoena instead to go after critics of Mitch McConnell.

    Regardless of who they were going after in the former regime -- and we can expect many, many more stories of subpoenas and other things to come out as time goes by -- I want to take a look at the secrecy Order that a United States Magistrate Judge apparently signed giving her or his "okay" to using a grand jury subpoena without telling anyone about it.

    A little background for people who may not be familiar with the Courts.   A U.S. Magistrate Judge is not a judge.  She or he is chosen by actual Judges to help them.  Think of a U.S. Magistrate Judge as a kind of Assistant Judge.  Among other things, they review subpoenas.

    Back to the secrecy Order in this case.   I wrote that the U.S. Magistrate Judge "apparently signed" it.  The only copy we have so far is not signed.  Her or his identity is a secret.  Perhaps they are ashamed.  But in any event, their identity is a secret, so far.  Ironic, when you think that the reason for the Order itself is secrecy.

    When this unknown, unidentified Magistrate was presented with a request from the former regime to keep the subpoena a secret, the Magistrate not only granted their request but ordered Twitter "not to notify any other person of the existence" of the subpoena.

    That is why we only recently found out about the existence of the subpoena, and about the existence of the secrecy Order as well.  Not even people trying to take over the justice department for their own interests could have hidden that better.

    Oh, wait ....  Here is the Order:  Download UNSIGNED SECRET TW O.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

AND THEN AGAIN, MAYBE NOT ....

(Los Angeles Times)

Please read the disclaimer.  This blog post ©2020 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

MAYBE ....

(Jabin Batsford / Washington Post)

Maybe it will be good to have Judge Amy Barrett on the U.S. Supreme Court. Maybe she will recognize the rights of the poor in spirit, and the rights of the poor.

Maybe she will protect the meek and gentle of heart so far as the law will allow.

Maybe she will write opinions designed to comfort those who mourn, even when she feels herself compelled by settled law to rule against them.

Maybe she will be one who hungers and thirsts for what is right.

Maybe she will be merciful. And unafraid to show it.

Maybe she will join the pure in heart, even if they do not include many of the people who put her on the Court.

And maybe she will protect the rights of peacemakers even in the face of confrontation.

Maybe ....

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2020 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THIS MAY BE A TIME ....

(Thomson Reuters West)

This may be a time when a small group of arrogant people can anoint a Justice to the highest Court in the land.

But they have no right to call what they do, justice.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2020 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.