Tag Archives: lawsuits

The Games Have Begun

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On Tuesday, Yahoo News posted an article about some of the lawsuits filed against President Trump’s executive orders. President Trump won the popular vote and the Electoral College, but that is not going to stop the deep state from trying to limit his power.

The article reports:

The lawsuits started to roll in on Monday within minutes of Trump being sworn into office for a second term. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider.

Here are the Trump initiatives that have been targeted so far:

The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency came under swift legal attack shortly after Trump signed an executive order formally creating the group that aims to slash wasteful federal spending.

Advocacy organizations and public interest groups quickly filed a handful of lawsuits in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against DOGE.

Three of four lawsuits filed argue that DOGE violates the transparency requirements of the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act. DOGE, the lawsuits say, is not a federal department and should be considered a federal advisory committee subject to the FACA law.

…Another lawsuit, filed by several groups including the American Public Health Association and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, contends that DOGE is a “shadow operation led by unelected billionaires who stand to reap huge financial rewards from this influence and access.”

…A fourth lawsuit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity against the Office of Management and Budget, seeks to compel the government agency to hand over records related to DOGE under the Freedom of Information Act.

“These records are important for the public to understand the threats to numerous environmental protections embodied in rules and orders and how, when, and under what circumstances the new administration intends to act on these threats,” the lawsuit says.

Another major target of the lawsuit:

One of Trump’s executive orders targets the constitutional right to birthright citizenship. The order bars federal agencies from issuing documents recognizing the citizenship of babies born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally.

…The lawsuit says the order conflicts with the 14th Amendment’s provision that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

“This principle has enabled generations of children to pursue their dreams and build a stronger America,” the lawsuit says.

Please follow the link to the article for further details. The bottom line here is simple–the battle is not over–it has just begun.

Who Is Paying For The Lawsuits?

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On April 21, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the lawfare that the Democrat party is conducting against President Trump and other conservatives and conservative groups.

The article reports:

As Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s transparently political prosecution of former President Donald Trump began last week, it is important to remember that the former president is not the only target of the Democratic Party‘s campaign to use government power to silence political dissent. 

The Left’s efforts to intimidate conservative activists this month included Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) delivering a congressional subpoena to Federalist Society Co-Chairman Leonard Leo. It was voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee last November without securing a single Republican vote. Durbin has not explained why the subpoena was not delivered for five months.

His attack on Leo comes as another elected Democrat, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb, has also used his office to harass Leo. After a complaint filed by the dark money-funded Campaign for Accountability, Schwalb opened an investigation into Leo’s management of two nonprofit organizations. The Campaign for Accountability alleged that Leo used his control of these to enrich his consulting firm by millions of dollars.

Abusing nonprofit status to enrich oneself is a serious matter. We are sure there are many Washington, D.C., nonprofit organizations that deserve such investigations. But Schwalb isn’t investigating any of them. Nor is he investigating Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research after it blew through tens of millions of dollars in three years without producing anything of value.

One might point out that the Center for Antiracist Research is based in Boston and, therefore, out of Schwalb’s jurisdiction. But so are the two nonprofit groups connected to Leo that Schwalb is investigating. One is in Virginia, and the other is in Texas.

However, there is a connection between the Campaign for Accountability and the Senate Democratic investigation of Leo: far-left megadonor Stephen Silberstein, who has bankrolled Leo’s main inquisitor in the Senate, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and the nonprofit organization leading the investigation against Leo, ProPublica. Silberstein has also worked closely with the Campaign for Accountability. 

The article concludes:

Wealthy Democratic Party donors such as Silberstein are free to fund partisan nonprofit goons such as ProPublica to dig up dirt on political opponents. But when they corrupt elected Democratic officials to use the power of their offices to persecute those political opponents, they cross an ethical line. The Democratic Party must end its lawfare campaigns against Trump and Leo. It disgraces itself until it does so.

Dirty campaigns are not a good thing, but misuse of our legal system should have dire consequences.

Lady Justice Has Totally Lost Her Blindfold

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On Friday, Issues & Insights posted an article about the lawfare that has been aimed at President Trump.

The article reports:

Was the $355 million fine against Donald Trump, for a “crime” that even the judge issuing the ruling admitted hurt no one, a bridge too far?

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul seems to think so, which is why she rushed out to say that other people doing business in New York have nothing to fear: “Law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are businesspeople have nothing to worry about because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior.”

What she should have said is: “if they are different from Donald Trump and his political views.”

Because nothing about this case, or the multitude of other unprecedented legal attacks against the former president — the attempts to kick him off ballots, the two bogus impeachments, the Russia hoax, the endless stream of media mis-reporting — has anything even remotely to do with “upholding the law” or “protecting Democracy.”

These attacks are all a message to anyone who would dare to run as a conservative. Do so, and we will stop at nothing to destroy you.

Because there was no actual ‘victim’ in this ‘crime,’ the money collected will go to the State of New York. Isn’t that special? A state struggling with expenses can simply take money away from one of its leading businessmen.

The article concludes:

What’s been happening since has been a public display of the left’s new, scorched-earth strategy for dealing with the political opposition. It started in the run-up to the 2020 election. As Time magazine so glowingly reported in early 2021, there was a “cross-partisan campaign” to defeat Trump, or as Time put it, “protect the election.”

Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears. They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction.

Since then, the left has added lawfare to its arsenal, which has now reached peak absurdity for the simple reason that Trump refuses to give in. But make no mistake, scalping Trump will only whet the left’s appetite for more scalps.

And who will be there to stop them?

This is where we are:

First They Came  by
Pastor Martin Niemoller

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.

Growing Up And Taking Action

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On September 19th, PJ Media posted an article that illustrates one current result of the transgender movement.

The article reports:

An unnamed woman who once identified as transgender filed suit last week against the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Nebraska Medicine, and three doctors for “negligence and lack of informed consent” after she had a “gender-affirming” double mastectomy at the age of 16 in 2018.

Now a young woman, the plaintiff will never nurse her children, assuming she is still able to bear them after four years of testosterone treatments that “caused significant mental and physical harm.”

All because the medical industry — I used to call it “healthcare” — decided that surgery and hormones were the answer to a troubled teenager’s emotional and mental health issues and, according to the lawsuit, bulldozed her into their preferred “treatment.”

The obvious question here is, “Why in the world did her parents allow her to do this?” I know some parents have said that their children threatened suicide if they did not let them transition, but since when did parents give in to blackmail by their children?

The article concludes:

Until recently, transgenderism was a condition suffered much more often by men than by women. But in recent years — in no doubt due to social contagion and a medical industry eager to leap on new profit sources — there has been an explosion in emotionally troubled (and often abused) teen girls who believe they’re suffering from it.

“Could it be that this is a fad,” Bethany Mandel asked in the New York Post last June, “driven by social media, that tells young people — particularly girls — that transgenderism is cool, far more common than it really is, and changing your gender is a snap?”

Yes. And it’s pure evil that the medical industry is lining its pockets by preying on it.

But as my old internet acquaintance Emily Zanotti noted on Twitter last week, “Oh, man. I never really thought about it but the lawsuits on this are going to be *nuts* in a few years. If these kids start getting million-dollar judgments… woof.”

I’ve long been a critic of how overly litigious American society is, but when it comes to the medically sanctioned emotional and physical abuse of minors, I hope this segment of the medical industry is sued out of existence.

This segment of the medical industry should be sued out of existence.

States vs. The Federal Government

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Just the News reported  yesterday that twenty-seven states have joined the lawsuit filed against the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate.

The article reports:

The mandate, which is being enforced by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), will require employers to ensure all their employees are either vaccinated by Jan. 4 or are tested weekly and wearing masks. If the businesses do not follow the mandate, they could face fines of up to $14,000 per violation.

All but one of the states that filed lawsuits, Iowa, have Republican attorneys general. Kansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana are the only three of the 27 states that have Democratic governors, and Iowa’s governor is a Republican.

Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly criticized President Biden’s vaccine mandate on private businesses on Friday, saying, “While I appreciate the intention to keep people safe, a goal I share, I don’t believe this directive is the correct, or the most effective, solution for Kansas.”

It is interesting that the push for vaccine mandates is occurring as the rate of infection from the coronavirus is slowing. In most parts of the country both the number of people contracting the virus and the number of people dying from the virus are decreasing.

The article lists the courts involved in the various cases:

Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah all joined a lawsuit in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which issued a temporary block on the vaccine mandate, citing the potentially “grave statutory and constitutional issues” raised by the plaintiffs. South Carolina is under the jurisdiction of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Utah is under the 10th Circuit.

Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia jointly filed their lawsuit in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Idaho is under the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Kansas and Oklahoma are under the 10th Circuit, and West Virginia is under the 4th Circuit.

Indiana has announced that it is filing its suit in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming have filed their lawsuit in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. Alaska, Arizona, and Montana are under the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, New Hampshire is under the 2nd Circuit, and Wyoming is under the 10th Circuit.

Alabama, Florida, and Georgia are suing the Biden administration in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

It will be interesting to see how many of these courts reach the same conclusion.

Can My Pencil Be Held Responsible For Failing A Math Test?

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On Wednesday, The Western Journal reported that New York Governor Cuomo has signed into law a measure that allows guns to be considered a public nuisance and opens the floodgates for lawsuits against gun manufacturers. Holding gun manufacturers responsible for gun violence makes about as much sense as holding car manufacturers responsible for drunk driving.

The article reports:

“The only industry in the United States of America immune from lawsuits are the gun manufacturers, but we will not stand for that any longer, Cuomo said in a news release.

According to NBC News, the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005 carved out immunity for gun manufacturers if individuals misuse their products in a criminal manner.

Governor Cuomo issued a press release about the bill:

…“Under this new legislation, gun manufacturers cannot endanger the safety and health of the public through the sale, manufacturing, importing or marketing of the products they sell. The products can be considered a public nuisance even if the gun manufacturer did not purposely cause harm to the public,” the release said.

The release explained that anyone, from members of the public to corporations to the state attorney general, can now fire away at “bad actor gun manufacturers.”

Cuomo’s release said federal protection of the firearms sector “has created a perfect storm of lax controls and inability to hold bad actors to account.”

This is beyond ridiculous. The problem is not the guns–the problem is criminals. Suing every gun manufacturer you can think of won’t do any good as long as your no-bail laws keep letting criminals out of jail to commit more crimes.

The Biden Administration’s Policies Could Be Very Expensive For Taxpayers

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Townhall is reporting today that a Canadian company is suing the Biden administration over the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The article reports:

Weeks after TC Energy officially terminated the Keystone XL pipeline because President Biden revoked a key permit, the company announced it is seeking billion in damages from the U.S. government.

On Friday, the company behind the project filed a Notice of Intent with the State Department, Office of the Legal Adviser, “to initiate a legacy North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) claim under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement to recover economic damages resulting from the revocation of the Keystone XL Project’s Presidential Permit.”

TC Energy is seeking over $15 billion due to the U.S. government’s “breach of its NAFTA obligations.”

In pulling the order, Biden said that “leaving the Keystone XL pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my Administration’s economic and climate imperatives.”

The article concludes:

“Since his first day in office, President Biden has made it his mission to undo all the progress of the previous administration, with complete disregard for the Constitutional limits on his power,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “His decision to revoke the pipeline permit is not only unlawful but will also devastate the livelihoods of thousands of workers, their families, and their communities.”

There are also 21 states suing the Biden administration for the cancellation. Unfortunately, if these lawsuits are successful, American taxpayers will be paying the bill.

Pushing Back Against Damaging Decisions

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Sara Carter is reporting today that 21 states have filed a lawsuit to sue the Biden administration over the cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

The article reports:

21 states, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, submitted a complaint Wednesday to a Texas federal court arguing that the President does not have the authority to cancel the permit.

Revoking the permit is a “regulation of interstate and international commerce” that should be left to Congress, the complaint said.

Some of the states included in the lawsuit have Democratic governors, including Kentucky and Kansas, however, all of the states have republican attorneys general.

The proposed 1,200-mile pipeline would have carried oil from Canada to the U.S.

“This pipeline was set to go through six counties in extreme Eastern Montana… five of those counties are already designated as high-poverty counties,” Montana AG Knudsen told Fox News. “The project was set to become the largest property taxpayer in all of those counties… That’s out the window. Just shy of 4,000 jobs, that’s out the window.”

The article concludes:

Kundsen called Biden’s cancellation of the permit “an empty virtue signal to his wealthy coastal elite donors.”

“The power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce belongs to Congress – not the President. This is another example of Joe Biden overstepping his constitutional role to the detriment of Montanans,” he added.

Opponents of the pipeline argue that the U.S. should not be importing carbon-intensive tar sands oil. Native American tribes have also shown opposition for the pipeline, saying the Trump administration ignored their treaty rights when approving the pipeline.

However, pipeline supporters argue that the project would bring in revenue for the states and thousands of jobs.

A victory in this lawsuit would be a victory for the American economy and a step toward continuing America’s energy independence, which is a national security issue.

 

The Truth Eventually Comes Out

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John Solomon posted an article at Just the News today that details some of the recent court decisions involving questionable practices that were instituted during the 2020 election.

The article reports on activities in a number of battleground states:

The latest ruling came this month in Michigan, where the State Court of Claims concluded that Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s instructions on signature verification for absentee ballots violated state law.

…In neighboring Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court handed down a significant ruling in December when the justices concluded that state and local election officials erred when they gave blanket permission allowing voters to declare themselves homebound and skip voter ID requirements in the 2020 elections.

In a case challenging the practice in Dane County, one of Wisconsin’s large urban centers around the city of Madison, the state’s highest court ruled that only those voters whose “own age, physical illness or infirmity” makes them homebound could declare themselves “indefinitely confined” and avoid complying with a requirement for photo ID.

…Meanwhile in Virginia, a judge in January approved a consent decree permanently banning the acceptance of ballots without postmarks after Election Day, concluding that instructions from the Virginia Department of Elections to the contrary in 2020 had violated state law. An electoral board member in Frederick County challenged the legality of the state’s instruction and won though the ruling came after the election.

The article concludes:

Several more legal challenges remain in states, as well as two audits/investigations of voting machine logs that are pending in Georgia and Arizona. And while there has been no proof the elections were impacted by widespread fraud, there are still significant disputes over whether rule changes and absentee ballot procedures in key swing states may have been unlawful.

In addition, the Thomas More Society’s Amistad Project on election integrity is pursuing litigation over whether hundreds of millions of dollars donated by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and routed to local election officials in several battleground states may have unlawfully influenced the election, according to the project’s director, Phill Kline.

“We’re expanding our litigation,” Kline told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Wednesday. “I still have suits that are active in Michigan and Georgia on this, and you’ll see us take new action in Wisconsin. And we will renew action in Pennsylvania. And, and our involvement in Arizona will take a little bit of a different tack, but will involve this. The Arizona legislature is going to do an audit and we want this within the scope.”

There is some value in the lawsuits being pursued–hopefully they will put states on notice not to be involved in similar actions in the future. Assuming that we manage to stop HR1 in Congress (a law that will end any common sense regulations on voting), these lawsuits provide a template for filing whatever lawsuits are necessary to preserve election integrity in the next election. The lawsuits just need to be filed well in advance of the election (as soon as election laws are violated).

Unacceptable Behavior Has Consequences

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The Epoch Times is reporting today that the law firm representing Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar has withdrawn from the case and been replaced. The article notes that an associate of the law firm Kirkland & Ellis left an abusive voicemail for Linda Kerns, an attorney representing the Trump campaign.

The article reports:

The move to switch legal representation comes after Linda Kerns, a lawyer leading the Trump campaign’s efforts to dispute the election results in Pennsylvania, complained to a federal court that she received an abusive voicemail from a Kirkland & Ellis attorney, with Kerns saying the message “by any measure falls afoul of standards of professional conduct.”

In a response, Kirkland lawyer Daniel Donovan said he thought the call was “discourteous and not appropriate” but disagreed with how Kerns had described it.

He said the company associate was “acting unilaterally, in his personal capacity, without the knowledge or authorization of undersigned counsel or the firm.”

Kerns has been placed under official protection after allegedly being subjected to various forms of harassment, with a Nov. 18 filing (pdf) saying she was “the subject of threats of harm, to the point at which the involvement of police and U.S. Marshals has been necessary to provide for her safety.”

She wrote on Nov. 16 that she had “been subjected to continuous harassment in the form of abusive emails, phone calls, physical and economic threats, and even accusations of treason—all for representing the President of the United States’ campaign in this litigation.”

At this point, I would like to note that when terrorists at Guantanamo were tried for their crimes, they were represented by American law firms. No law firm representing the terrorists was harassed or threatened. At that time Americans understood that lawyers represent clients. That is their job. Ideally they do it fairly and well. There is no excuse for the mistreatment of those representing the Trump campaign in these legal cases. Nor is there an excuse for the lists being created by the political left naming those who need to be punished because they supported President Trump. This is not acceptable behavior in a free society.