Tag Archives: George Washington University

A New Level Of Election Interference

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The mainstream media is not a friend of Americans who love our Representative Republic. Currently the First Amendment is under attack in order to interfere with the November election. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has chosen to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

On Wednesday, The Daily Wire reported:

President Joe Biden and his administration have “made a mockery of the First Amendment,” according to George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, and the Supreme Court’s Wednesday decision in Murthy v. Missouri failed to put a stop to it.

Turley made an appearance on Wednesday on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” where he broke down the ruling and the case for anchor Dana Perino.

“You call yourself a free speech absolutist,” Perino began, asking Turley, “What does this mean?”

“Well, it’s very frustrating for the free speech community because standing is often used to block meritorious claims,” Turley replied. “This is one of the most fundamental issues that we are facing.”

“I wrote about this issue, this case, in my recent book,” Turley continued. “You have one of the largest censorship systems in our history — if not the largest — it’s been called Orwellian by lower court judges. And what the court is saying is that ‘we won’t hear you on this issue because you’re not the right litigant.’”

The article concludes:

Two Republican state officials and five conservative social media users brought the challenge in Murthy v. Missouri, claiming that the White House’s pressure campaigns on social media companies to remove what the Biden administration deems “misinformation” amounted to censorship by proxy.

The Daily Wire is suing the Biden administration in a separate social media censorship case, alleging that the U.S. State Department is engaging with and promoting censorship technology designed to bankrupt domestic media outlets with disfavored political opinions. Last month, a federal judge rejected the State Department’s attempt to get the censorship lawsuit dismissed. The Daily Wire is joined by The Federalist and the state of Texas as plaintiffs in the case.

Judges Are Supposed To Be Neutral

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On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the latest judicial shenanigans in the New York trial of President Trump. It is amazing that this case has not yet been thrown out of court.

The article reports:

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Friday that the judge in former President Donald Trump’s trial crossed “the line” with a suggestion to prosecutors.

New York Judge Juan Merchan suggested that Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg testify after prosecutors from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sought to introduce Weisselberg’s severance package into evidence, according to Politico. Turley called the suggestion “very unusual” when asked about the development by Fox News host Martha MacCallum.

“It reminds me of a judge when I started out as a lawyer who was notorious because he would say, ‘Is the defense ready to present its case,’ and turn to the prosecutors and say ‘Are we ready to present our case?’ This is a little bit crossing the line. You’re not supposed to be making this a mutual effort,” Turley said.

The article also refers to the antics of Michael Cohen:

Turley earlier voiced criticism of Merchan over his handling of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. The judge told prosecutors to inform Cohen not to make public comments about the former president and the case on Friday.

“Cohen is out there, you know, attacking the president, campaigning against the president. People are attacking Cohen. Were you protecting against?” Turley asked. “He’s in the middle of a firestorm of his own creation and so the gag order makes no sense at all, it’s achieving nothing except silencing the leading candidate for the presidency and to have the sudden epiphany that just maybe, Cohen should be instructed not to make these statements is a bit late.”

This case and the way it is being tried is a slippery slope to banana republic status for America. It is politically motivated and should have been stopped before it started.

There is one other observation I would like to make about media bias. Bias can be very subtle. Notice that former President Clinton is referred to in the news as ‘President Clinton.’ Somehow many newscasters have forgotten that President Trump is supposed to be referred to as ‘President Trump.’ He earned that title and is allowed by law to use it.

Unfolding Before Our Eyes

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On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the use of the legal system against President Trump.

The article reports:

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Monday that the “improvisational” nature of the cases against former President Donald Trump caused damage to the image of the legal system and proved Trump was “right” about being targeted by a “weaponized” justice system.

Trump’s attorneys said Monday the former president was having difficulty posting a $454 million bond to cover the judgment in a civil fraud case issued by New York Judge Arthur Engoron in February. Turley said that the cases brought by Democratic Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, special counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis proved Trump’s allegations that he was being targeted correct. 

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny that we have a legal system now that is being heavily distorted by politics and you cannot look at all of these cases and see blind justice, you see the opposite,” Turley told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, a former Trump administration official. “You see a justice that is being weaponized, and in many ways the Democrats fulfill the narrative of President Trump. He is now right. No matter what they thought about it at the beginning, they proved him to be right with this pile-on from Florida to Georgia, to Washington, D.C., to New York and most of the public gets it.”

The article concludes:

“I mean we have to wait to see if New York still has a judge or two that’s willing to say enough,” Turley continued. “When you are forcing someone to come up with half a billion dollars just to get an appeal? Someone has to say enough. This is not what New York is supposed to be.”

If we want to see our justice system restored back to equal justice under the law, we are going to have to elect people who are willing to follow the law. Please keep that in mind when you vote in primary elections and in November.

 

Jonathan Turley Comments On The Hearings

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On Tuesday, Red State posted an article about the hearings yesterday in the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. The article included some interesting comments by Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School.

The article reports:

While Republicans continued to stress the two-tiered justice system in the case of Biden’s classified documents vs. those of Donald Trump, Democrats continually tried to put words in Hur’s mouth that neither he nor his report said. 

So how bad were the Democrats? George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley said the Democrats’ questioning of Hur “seemed almost to border on the delusional.”

During an appearance on Fox News’s “America Reports,” Turley gave a perfect example.

Well, I thought the Republicans did a particularly good job today. Often the Democrats are way ahead in framing of hearings, but at points the Democrats seemed almost a border on the delusional. 

When you had Hur say ‘I did not exonerate the president’ and then Democrats would say ‘OK, so you exonerated the president’ and he would say ‘No, I didn’t’ and they would say ‘Thank you for that, with that exoneration.’ 

So for a lot of people watching, they probably kept on having to sort of reverse and see if they missed something here.

The thing to remember when Democrat politicians play this kind of nonsensical game is that they’re playing solely to their base — low-information voters who don’t give a damn about the facts. 

The article also notes:

Turley continued:

The fact is that Hur tried over and over again to distinguish between his findings, which is that he was not confident he could convict if he did bring any charges, and the statement of Democrats that the president was cleared.

Like most people who aren’t Democrats, Turley remains shocked that no charges were brought against Biden, particularly given the charges against Trump.

But out of this hearing, it came really some quite shocking observations. I mean, at the end, you’re sort of still wondering why he wasn’t charged, including Hur saying ‘Look, we have audio tape of the president referring to the fact that he found classified evidence in his basement.’ Well, okay, that seems like full knowledge. But he kept on coming back to the fact that I think a jury might have been persuaded that this is a nice, elderly man with a faulty memory.

There have been four people that I am aware of in the past few years that have been charged with mishandling classified information. Two of them have had very few consequences–Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. When does this tell us about our justice system?

A Legal Perspective

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On Saturday, Attorney Jonathan Turley posted an article at The Hill about the recent New York verdict against President Trump.

The article notes that Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School. He is well qualified to evaluate the verdict.

The article reports:

In laying the foundation for his sweeping decision against former President Donald Trump, Judge Arthur Engoron observed that “this is a venial sin, not a mortal sin.” Yet, at $355 million, one would think that Engoron had found Trump to be the source of Original Sin.

The judgment against Trump (and his family and associates) was met with a level of unrestrained celebration by many in New York that bordered on the indecent. Attorney General Letitia James declared not only that Trump would be barred from doing business in New York for three years, but that the damages would come to roughly $460 million once interest was included. 

That makes the damages against Trump greater than the gross national product of some countries, including Micronesia. Yet the court admitted that not a single dollar was lost by the banks from these dealings. Indeed, witnesses testified that they wanted to do more business with Trump, who was described as a “whale” client with high yield business opportunities. 

The article concludes:

In “Bonfire of the Vanities,” Tom Wolfe wrote about Sherman McCoy, a successful businessman who had achieved the status of one of the “masters of the universe” in New York. In the prosecution of McCoy for a hit-and-run, Wolfe described a city and legal system devouring itself in the politics of class and race. The book details a businessman’s fall from a great height — a fall that delighted New Yorkers.

It is doubtful Trump will end up as the same solitary figure wearing worn-out clothes before the Bronx County Criminal Court clutching a binder of legal papers. But you do not have to feel sorry or even sympathetic for Trump to see this award as obscene. The appeal will test the New York legal system to see if other judges can do what Judge Engoron found so difficult: set aside their feelings about Trump.

New York is one of our oldest and most distinguished bars. It has long resisted those who sought to use the law to pursue political opponents and unpopular figures. It will now be tested to see if those values transcend even Trump.

If the verdict is not overturned on appeal, it will be interesting to see what its impact will be on the business climate of New York. I suspect that the businesses that President Trump runs in New York City and State bring in considerable tax revenue. New York may have just shot itself in the foot.

Moving Away From The U.S. Constitution

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The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Biden administration has worked very hard to abridge the right of free speech in America.

On Saturday, Townhall reported:

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley had a few choice words for President Joe Biden after he used his first 2024 campaign speech to assault democracy. 

On Friday, Biden spent a significant portion of his campaign speech demonizing former President Trump and fear-mongering Americans by focusing on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protests. 

Turley suggested to Fox News that Biden’s speech was hypocritical by talking about the freedom to vote despite his own party attempting to strip Trump’s name from the 2024 ballot. 

During his speech in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Biden said that defending democracy was a “central cause” of his administration. However, Turley pointed out that the Democratic Party has gone to great lengths to suppress the constitutional rights of Americans and their freedom to choose who they want running the country. 

Jonathan Turley stated:

He lost me in the specifics. He talks about democracy being on the ballot but the ballot isn’t very democratic, his own party is trying to strip ballots of Donald Trump’s name to prevent people who want to vote for what appears to be the leading candidate for the presidency from doing that. So when he’s talking about the freedom to vote and have your vote count, his party is actively trying to prevent that and saying, really, you’re not just voting for me, just think you’re voting for democracy. For those people, they really feel like, if we vote for you, do we get democracy back next time? Are we going to have all of the candidates on the ballot? I don’t think that effort will succeed. It’s worth noting when he talks about the freedom of speech, the Biden administration I have written before, is the most anti-free-speech administration since the administration of John Adams. I mean, his administration has carried out what a federal court called an Orwellian censorship program with the help of social media companies. 

If you want your rights preserved as they are enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, you cannot vote for a Democrat in 2024.

Does The Will Of The People Mean Anything?

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about the question of asking people if they are citizens on the 2020 census.

The article reported:

Americans by a wide margin agree with President Trump that the upcoming 2020 census should ask a citizenship question.

The latest Economist/YouGov poll found that 53% feel it should ask the question versus 32% who don’t.

The survey asked: “Do you think the federal government should or should not ask people whether they are American citizens as part of the 2020 census?”

  • Should ask 53%
  • Should not ask 32%
  • Not sure 14%

The Supreme Court has rejected including the question in a form the administration proposed but left the door open to another version. And Trump is considering changing the version.

…And it can be done, according to legal expert and George Washington University Law professor John Banzhaf.

“There are several rationales — including one based upon the Constitution itself — which could well still persuade the courts to permit a citizenship question on the census, especially if the explanation were included in the executive order now being considered, rather than in some new declaration by the Secretary of Commerce,” he said in a review of the court’s decision.

Why does this matter? The census is used to determine the number of Representatives a state has in the House of Representatives. Theoretically these Representatives represent American citizens living in their districts. The number of Representatives a state sends to Congress also helps determine the number of votes a state has in the Electoral College.

So if people who are not citizens and may be here illegally are counted in the census, what happens? California, whose population is losing American citizens to other states and gaining illegal immigrants will either retain its current number of Representatives or gain some. States with lower non-citizen populations may be underrepresented in Congress and in the Electoral College. In a sense, when you count non-citizens in the census, you risk taking representation away from Americans. Counting non-citizens will also skew the Electoral College.

Political Healthcare

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Healthcare isn’t supposed to be political, but paying taxes or having the right to free speech isn’t supposed to be political either. As more and more information comes out about the use of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to muzzle conservative voices before and during the 2010 and 2012 elections, we need to think about whether or not we want the IRS in charge of America‘s healthcare.

On Thursday, I posted a story (rightwinggranny.com) detailing some of the abuses of the IRS in recent years. These abuses include sharing confidential information with political operatives, unequal treatment of organizations applying for 401C status based on political philosophy, and audits triggered by contributions to conservative candidates or conservative causes. As someone who was audited for the first time ever in 2010 after supporting the Tea Party and some conservative candidates, I take the idea of government intimidation seriously. The audit went on for almost a year, and at the end of the year, not a penny was changed. (It pays to keep good records!)

At any rate, a government that controls healthcare for all Americans is a potential danger to all Americans and to the freedom that we enjoy as Americans. Some observers are beginning to make note of this.

Robert Moffit, a senior fellow in the Center for Health Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, posted an article at Triblive yesterday detailing what ObamaCare is really about.

The article states:

Beginning Jan. 1, government officials will require you to buy a federally approved health plan or pay federal fines or tax penalties. They will define and redefine, at their pleasure, the content of your health benefits package, meaning the medical treatments and procedures you must have; the kind and level of preventive health care services you must have; the level of coverage you must have; the level of cost sharing, deductibles and co-payments that are acceptable — to them, not you.

Writing in the October 2010 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine, Sara Rosenbaum, professor of law at George Washington University and a supporter of the law, perhaps best described ObamaCare’s transformative effect on private insurance: “It will take on certain characteristics of a public utility.” In other words, private insurance will be “private” in name only.

Is this really what we want? The current administration (especially the IRS) has not shown itself to be an impartial enforcer of laws. There are no guarantees that future administrations will be any better–they might be worse. Does it bother you that your doctor now will ask you if you have guns in your house or ask for intimate details about your sex life? Do you want this information in a government data base where confidentiality is not assured? Do you remember the newspaper in New York that published a list of gun owners in an area?

The potential for abuse in ObamaCare is greater than the potential for good. As voters, we probably cannot get rid of ObamaCare right now. However, we can educate people and focus on the 2014 mid-term election. Unless ObamaCare is gone after the 2016 election, it will be here to stay, and that is up to the American people.

 

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