Things to do Other than Gambling at Land-based Casinos – The African Exponent

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Land-based casinos are often considered as holiday destinations for the power-packed enjoyment they offer. But not everyone is aware of this. Yes! Only a bunch of patrons who visit these establishments regularly remain accustomed with everything that is associated with the land-based casinos.

If youre one of the new casino-enthusiasts who is planning to visit a luxurious gambling destination, let us tell you what all you can do there other than gambling! Keep reading!

Attend Concerts and Theatre Shows

Most of the huge gambling houses make it a point to include stadiums or halls to host concerts and theatre shows. The owners run a series of shows from popular bands and acts. Remember, there will be a specific time for when these shows will be hosted. So, check with the management for the days schedule and get to know the timings.

Relax at the Pool or Go to Spa

Swimming pools are also common at the gambling resorts. You can swim and enjoy the cool waters on a sunny day. You can also chill with friends or family and have a blast for a while by the poolside. Alternatively, try to soak yourselves in sun rays and get that much-needed vitamin D for your body.

Furthermore, you can even get a spa treatment to relax your body!

Munch on their Exotic Foods

Land-based casinos often hire experienced chefs to cater to their foods. These chefs are absolutely indulged into cooking and bring to you some of the most exotic dishes for you to enjoy. From local foods to continental delights, these establishments have a lot to offer their guests.

Try out their list of food options for as long as you are there. Sometimes, the food is complimentary, and usually, you pay for it in advance as a part of the entire stay. So, you might as well take advantage of whatever is available to you!

Nightclubs and Bar

The bar is one more thing that is ordinarily seen at the casinos. You can meet up with new people here or even have a blast with your friends. But we suggest you not to drink too much before hitting the casino for the game.

Sip on those drinks and dance to the loud discotheque music at the nightclubs. Make the best of the clubs which are usually open through the night till morning.

Tour the Casino

The prestigious casinos generally show multi-floor establishments. They are designed and decorated like some royal palace showcasing exuberance at every corner. Take a tour of such casinos because it is an experience in itself.

You can usually find artistically-built hallways, corridors, staircases, and so on which are breathtakingly designed to bring a style to the establishment. Moreover, the other added items like paintings, fountain etc. are also worth admiring.

Watch Other Players Gamble

Yes! Watching a live game played at any table is also thoroughly entertaining if you know the game already. However, if you are new to the game, you can learn by watching others play!

Furthermore, if you are new to gambling, we suggest you practice at online casinos before visiting a land-based casino. At totokazino, you can look for some of the best online casinos to gamble at and learn the casino games!

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Things to do Other than Gambling at Land-based Casinos - The African Exponent

Sports gamblers may have to wait until 2022 to legally bet in Louisiana – Greater Baton Rouge Business Report

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Voters in most parishes supported the legalization of sports gambling last Nov. 3, but it may be 2022 by the time bettors are legally allowed to wager in Louisiana on football and other games.

With 55 of the 64 parishes voting in favor of the proposal, legislators will use this springs session to set tax rates and create a plan for betting on sporting events.

The Louisiana Gaming Control Board will then create a regulatory model for gamblers and bet takers to use. Board chairman Mike Noel says he expects the rules to be similar to ones recently approved for fantasy sports betting.

Noel says the State Polices gaming enforcement division will begin taking applications from fantasy sports operators after the rules are published Feb. 20. The gaming board decided last year that it would levy an 8% tax on the net revenue from fantasy gambling to help fund early childhood education. Louisiana was one of only seven states that did not allow fantasy sports betting in 2020.

Louisianans eager to bet on real sports hope that legislators and the board will not take as long to create the rules this time.

Sen. Ronnie Johns, R-Lake Charles, sponsored the bill that legalized sports betting, and he expects lawmakers to have a plan before the Legislature gathers in April for a two-month session.

I will assure you that we will have an agreement between all parties before the Legislature in April with the final proposal, Johns says. There is absolutely a lot of discussion going on right now, among all parties involved.

One key decision will be whether to allow online gambling or limit betting to in-person gambling on casino grounds. If the legislators approve online gaming, the gaming board will have to set up geolocation borders, technology that would keep the apps from working in the nine parishes that did not approve the betting.

Ive personally looked at the mechanism of geofencing, and its a very safe way of regulating gaming and betting, Johns says. The technology has been proven in many other states.

In the two-and-a-half years since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 ruling against state-authorized sports gambling, 20 states have legalized sports betting. Louisiana and five other states have passed legislation and are working toward taking their first bet.

This story was first published by Manship School News Service.

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Sports gamblers may have to wait until 2022 to legally bet in Louisiana - Greater Baton Rouge Business Report

Expat’s guide on gambling in Thailand – The Sports Bank

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Gamblers globally know how rigid Thailand is regarding the countrys gambling activity.

Many Asian countries as Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, and Cambodia have loosened their rules. But unlikely in Thailand, they are very, very strict, and everything is banned while leaving out horse race bets and government lotteries. Even bullfighting and cockfighting with gambling purposes are determined as illegal.

But despite the legislation being so strict, surprisingly, gambling sport has increased dynamically. It is a really big deal now. Many happen to hidingly serve the act at hotels and resorts while the biggest is going on underground.

And an estimation value of all these activities in secrecy generates about 6 USD Dollars each year. Both dwellers and tourists have contributed their part in the estimation, though gambling is strictly prohibited.

The national lottery was functional from the year 2003. Its objective was to cover up the ill practices of private lotteries and, instead, bring something official and fair.

Why local casinos are dangerous for farangs

Farangs, on the first hand, must know that Thailands governments are against gambling of any form, and even the internet versions arent so impressive to them.

There are none mortars opened freely. From the Gambling Act of Thailand, it is noted that engaging in any sort can punish you that can even go up to imprisonment. However, most of the penalties are charged with a fine. Or even both, 1000 Baht and then the jail.

Farangs mostly are fans of casinos & gambling, and Thailand knows it already. As such, being introduced to casinos might take way less time than you think. It is not even a day of arrival, and you already have locals inviting to mortars.

But these mortars are illegally confined. And almost all of them are surfacing in secrecy- resorts, hotels, underground, and dark. Or even the private office and funerals.

Thailand was the only country in the region that had not been colonized by foreigners. Perhaps, this is why foreign influence is not a mere text. As such, poker is not widely seen or played in the nation. As stated by Play Pulse, Thailand origin games have no international appeal. For example, the Hi-Lo dice game is left underrated.

Similar to Baccarat, Hi-Lo needs cards, but the government officials have ceased the manufacturing. Indeed, gambling is so strict in Thailand, and the government leaves no chance to show it.

Can you get in jail for gambling?

Yes, gambling prohibition is so serious that it can get you into some severe problems like jailing. You can also be fined up to 1000 baht or more and less according to how troubling the situation is.

Government is rigid with gambling, yet many netizens still have themselves involved in it. However, Games are contradictory in Thailand.

And no matter how hard governing bodies try to abolish gambling, none of it is effective. Rather, it has been reported that the industry has grown to an unbelievable peak.

Those who are caught gambling have their hands in punishments, while those who successfully sneak are referred to as lucky. This is why hidden casinos still have their spot. Unless and until they are caught and taken action against, the practice isnt stopping.

Even if you are lucky for the night, it carries a lot of risks. Firstly, your name and everyone who was a part is certain to get on the list when the casino head is caught. Do not trust the bookie specifically.

Second, how fair the entity is, is concluding with a big question mark? Winners are charged with no money sometimes, and there is no chance they can complain about it.

How to safeguard yourself from problems with authorities?

The internet is your savior here. Online casinos such as Gclub imitates a very safe platform. They are regulated as such that members are safe and can barely reach an offense against the legislation.

But the games and algorithm Gclub offers are to die for. No rules have been altered, neither are additional elements subjected. With the site, you can explore foreign games like poker, roulette, and blackjack. You can also check vpn-th.com to find the latest information on how to access different sites from Thailand.

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Expat's guide on gambling in Thailand - The Sports Bank

Connecticut Governor Has Tax Revenue From Online Gambling In Budget Proposal – CardPlayer.com

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Last December, a Connecticut lawmaker said that You can bet on sports betting becoming a legal activity in 2021. On Wednesday, the states governor echoed those sentiments and made it seem like all forms of online gambling would be legal as well.

Gov. Ned Lamont released his two-year state budget Wednesday and he allotted $47.3 million in tax revenue from the second year of expanded gambling, according to a report from the Hartford Courant.

Based on comments made by Lamont at the time of the release of his budget proposal, it appears expanded gambling includes both retail and online sports betting, as well as online casino gaming.

Our neighboring states are moving forward with sports betting and iGaming, and Connecticut should not leave these opportunities for other states to benefit from our inaction, said Lamont. My administration has been in active negotiations with our tribal partners to bring the states gaming economy into the digital age. And I am submitting legislation which reflects what I believe to be the best bet in ending this stalemate of inaction in a way which is in the best interest of the entire state.

Both Rhode Island and New Hampshire already offer online and brick-and-mortar sports betting, and New York seems set to expand its sports betting market after recent comments made by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Pennsylvania has also seen increased revenues after legalizing all forms of online gambling.

The tribal partners Lamont was referring to is the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, which runs Foxwoods Resort Casino and the Mohegan Tribe, which is in charge of Mohegan Sun. Currently, nearly all forms of gambling, outside of the lottery and off-track betting, runs through those two tribes.

The pandemic has hurt the brick-and-mortar revenue of those two tribes casinos, which in turn has put a dent in the state coffers. Connecticut is facing a $1 billion deficit at the time of Lamonts budget proposal.

Lamont made comments in December that seemed like he was ready for Connecticut to mirror the models in place in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

If we found out anything in the course of this horrible COVID cycle, more and more of the world is going virtual, said Lamont at the end of last year. More and more of the world is going online. Thats tele-health and tele-learning, but its also iGaming and sports betting. And I dont think you want Connecticut left behind.

With any proposed gambling expansion, those two entities will be at the center of the negotiations. The Courants report says that the governor and the tribes have been in long-running talks about whether the tribes will have exclusive rights, like they currently do, for any form of gambling expansion.

Foxwoods announced a partnership with daily fantasy sports giant DraftKings at the end of 2020, which gives the Boston-based online sportsbook a track to the Connecticut market regardless of any pending agreements.

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GOP leaders have expressed skepticism about expanding gambling in Texas. But supporters see hope in the long run. – 550 KTSA

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Gamblers play slot machines during the reopening of The D hotel-casino, closed by the state since March 18, 2020, as part of steps to slow the spread of COVID-19, in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 4, 2020.Credit: REUTERS/Steve Marcus

Supporters of expanding gaming options in Texas say they are playing a long game this legislative session and remain convinced that the GOP-led Legislature could come around on the issues they are pushing at the Capitol.

The gambling empire Las Vegas Sands, which has mounted an ambitious campaign this year to bring casinos to the state, has acknowledged the challenge in getting lawmakers on board with such a massive policy change especially after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick raised questions this week about whether the issue has enough support to make it far in the legislative process.

But Andy Abboud, Sands senior vice president of government affairs, told reporters Thursday that such skepticism does not impact how the company proceeds this session, and that he is confident the companys nearly 60-member team of lobbyists can change enough minds at the Legislature to at least make meaningful progress.

Well see how things feel toward the end of the session, later this spring, Abboud said, noting that gambling legislation could be filed sometime within the next month. I believe that we can change anybodys mind if we do it effectively.

Sands was founded by Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson, who died last month.

A broader gaming conversation has played out over the past few months and as the 2021 legislative session has gotten underway. Aside from casinos, a push to legalize sports betting in the state has gained attention, with several Dallas-area professional sports teams, including the Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Cowboys, mounting an effort to push the issue at the Legislature, as first reported Monday by The Dallas Morning News.

Both gambling and sports betting already faced uphill climbs at the Legislature past efforts have not made it far, and since both would require a constitutional amendment, they would need two-thirds support from the 31-member Senate and 150-member House to pass before going to the voters in the state to decide.

Other wrinkles have also surfaced over the past week. Patrick, the head of the Senate, said Tuesday he did not think sports betting had enough support to make it far in the upper chamber this session. Later that day, a report that Mavericks owner Mark Cuban had decided to stop playing the national anthem at home games this season sparked immediate backlash among Republicans, and soon after prompted Patrick to announce one of his top priorities this session: a bill to require the national anthem be played at all events which receive public funding.

[Cuban] just pulled the rug out from every other sports team in Texas with this stunt, Patrick told Dallas radio host Mark Davis on Wednesday. There were already people saying, Well, why would I approve sports betting, these are people who dont even make people stand for the flag, why would I do this? Again, because it doesnt generate much money for Texas, it generates a lot of money for them.

Patrick has argued that the potentially new tax revenue streams from expanding gaming would only help a fraction of the states budget, and that if casinos want to push their issue, they should sell it on tourism sell it on jobs a point Abboud agreed with Thursday.

For [Patrick] to be cautious about it makes sense, Abboud said. Because unlike other industries, we need legislative approval and we need voter approval Thats why were building a big coalition and [doing] everything we can to communicate the benefits of the jobs.

Patrick also told Davis that if the casino issue is taken to GOP voters in the state, theyre going to do it for big casinos, theyre going to go for the full monty not just sports betting.

Abboud said Sands talks with groups pushing the sports betting issue all the time sports betting is its part of the casino experience, he said and that the two will continue working together and hopefully join forces.

None of this really works if this is a pain in the neck for legislators, Abboud said. So weve worked very hard to get as many of the existing interests here in Texas in the same boat, rowing in the same direction. And we continue to do that, and I think were about there.

Abboud on Thursday said the company has also had productive meetings with other state leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott and new House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont.

If they told us to skip town, we would, Abboud said. But they havent, so were here.

Abbott, for his part, said in an interview last week he wants to get a feel for where members are on the issue. And Phelan has said casinos must be treated as a long-term commitment instead of a short-term fix for the states fiscal forecast. In a statement for this story, Phelan spokesperson Enrique Marquez reiterated that position, saying the speaker has stated consistently that gambling will not plug the current budget hole.

Each Member of the Texas House will bring a distinct perspective informed by their communities when considering proposals to expand gaming and sports betting, Marquez said. Members should judge the merits of each proposal based on whether it has long-term value to the state and their districts.

Still, Abboud is bullish about the companys chances or at least progress this session.

Does it happen this legislative session? We will see, he said Thursday. Does it happen in the near future? It is inevitable.

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GOP leaders have expressed skepticism about expanding gambling in Texas. But supporters see hope in the long run. - 550 KTSA

Inspired by You: Footballers and gambling – The Athletic

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This is part ofa series of articles inspired by questions from our readers. So thank you to Charlie B for prompting this piece by asking about the hidden struggle football players have with gambling/addiction.

Scott Davies was 16 years old, earning 50 a week as a scholar at Readings youth academy, when it started. Living in digs, away from friends and family, he often found himself at a loose end after training, wandering through the town centre, looking for somewhere to go or something to do. Anything to pass the time.

He wandered into a bookmaker. Legally he wasnt old enough to place a bet, but nobody batted an eyelid as he sat at one of the fixed-odds terminals. He doesnt recall how much money if any he walked out with a couple of hours later. What sticks with him is the rush of excitement he felt with each spin of the virtual roulette wheel. The machine gave me a hit, he tells The Athletic. For...

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Inspired by You: Footballers and gambling - The Athletic

Bill Schmick | The Retired Investor: Gambling the vice we love – Berkshire Eagle

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The pandemic has altered the behavior patterns of many Americans. It has also forced states to reexamine their thinking in several areas, especially in taxation and spending. One of the biggest winners in this process appears to be gambling.

Clearly, with most of the nations leisure activities shut down, more and more Americans are looking for something to occupy their time. At the same time, thanks to massive losses in tax revenues, states are scrambling for ways to make ends meet. Sports and other forms of online gambling are an easy answer to shoring up state budgets while satisfying the consumers demand for more action in this burgeoning leisure market.

The trend toward legalizing gambling both on and off the internet has been around for the last several years, but the pandemic has added momentum to that process. Back in 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states have the right to decide the status of sports betting for themselves. As a result, more than 24 states have legalized betting either online or at casinos or both.

Sports betting is only the latest offering in a field crowded with other gambling pastimes. Whatever your poison poker, slots, sports betting, or live casino games you can increasingly access it online. More and more Americans are doing just that.

For those veteran gamblers who enjoyed the excitement of the bricks-and-mortar atmosphere of established gambling casinos, it took the pandemic to lure them onto the internet side of things. They found that online sites offered their own brand of adrenaline rush. Slot machines, for example, tend to be much more fun than the traditional, one-armed bandits of yesteryear. If that is not your cup of tea, you can access live studios where the game and dealers are in real time and the light shows are often dazzling.

Another benefit of online sites is safety. Gamblers can feel safe because there are plenty of reliable websites that have been licensed by the state. They offer a transparent and fair game with high-security protocols. They are also open 24 hours a day, and you dont need to wear makeup or comb your hair to gamble. In addition, there are no lines, social distancing requirements, expensive dinners, hotels, or worries about costly transportation to the casino.

The nations attention was drawn to sports betting last weekend, thanks to the Super Bowl. Wagers on the game were expected to break all records in legal sports betting. The American Gaming Association predicted that as many as 23.2 million people would be wagering bets on the outcome of the game. That would be a 62 percent increase from last years wagers, totaling $4.3 million.

The nations media featured a Texas businessman and owner of a furniture store, Mattress Mack (Jim) McIngvale, who placed a $3.46 million bet on the game and won $6.18 million. It was thought to be the largest bet made at the game.

Mattress Mack placed the bet on his smartphone through DraftKings (DKNG), a public company that is one of the top betting platforms in the nation. The publicity has been good both for the furniture store, as well as for the price of DraftKings. The companys stock price has climbed substantially over the last few months, as investors became aware of just how large the betting public has become.

Worldwide, the online gambling market is valued at $59 billon, according to Statista, a data research firm, and is expected to reach $92.9 billion by next year. That has investors excited. And like so many other areas affected by the pandemic, gambling could become even bigger in the future, with online betting leading the way.

Bill Schmick is registered as an investment adviser representative of Onota Partners Inc. in the Berkshires. He can be reached at 413-347-2401, or email him at billiams1948@gmail.com.

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The Insurrection, Police Accountability, and the First Amendment – brennancenter.org

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The response to my column about what to do with police officers who participated in the Trump rally on January 6 was immediate and intense. And whats clear so far is that the dozens of law enforcement agents who traveled to the nations capital that day to support or witness an insurrectionists cause will long be tagged by it. Some may get charged with a crime. Some may be fired. But even those who keep their jobs will face credibility questions for the rest of their professional lives. They will forever be the cops who traveled miles to gleefully participate in a potentially dangerous event based on a monstrous lie.

The gist ofmy February 1 pieceis that there is really only bad news and worse news for these cops. Either they were insurrectionists, in which case they have no right to wear a badge, or they were too foolish to heed all of the warnings about potential violence in Washington that day, in which case they really have no right to wear a badge. What actually happens to these officers, however, turns both on law and local politics or more precisely, the politics of local policing. It figures that it would be harder for a cop to come home from the Trump rally to a blue country than a red county, right? But well see.

The legal answers will come from the text of the First Amendment. Some cops who are fired are going to sue to get their jobs back by saying they were illegally retaliated against for exercising their free speech rights. They will say that even public employees government employees have certain First Amendment rights. They do! But those civil lawsuits will turn on whether the rights of those cops to attend Trumps rally outweigh the interests their police departments have in ensuring public confidence in the competence of officers, including the officers ability to easily distinguish uncontroverted evidence from baseless conspiracy theories.

Thats how the legal case will play out. Whats a little clearer now is what the politics of it will look like. Law enforcement agents who attended the rally and the ensuing riot will be fired, whether or not they are criminally charged. Those officers who attended the rally but left before the riot will likely keep their jobs unless their social media profiles from before the rally, or their comments after it, make it clear they are a discredit to their departments. But even those cops who attended the rally and left before the riot and dont have Facebook walls full of white supremacist junk arent easily going to be able to shake their link to the Capitol riot.

The two most interesting reactions to my piece dovetail together and are worth mentioning. One law enforcement source told me that police officials in some jurisdictions will be willing, if not eager, to fire or discipline officers who were at the rally but not involved in the riot if their participation that day was part of a broader pattern of support for racist causes or sedition. Another source a few actually wondered whether police officials would be scared to look too closely under such rocks given howextensivethe links seem to be between law officers and right-wing groups. I mean, thats the heart of the problem to begin with, isnt it?

We are seeing a form of this situationunfold alreadyin Franklin County, Kentucky, home to the state capital, Frankfort. Jeff Farmer, a sheriffs deputy, proudly attended the Trump rally and now has come home to controversy. Even before the insurrection and coup attempt in Washington, even before the protests last summer in Frankfort over police brutality, Farmers conduct as a cop had attracted the attention of local civil rights leaders and defense attorneys for what they consider misconduct, ranging from use of excessive force to discriminatory practices.

When word got out that Farmer had attended the Trump rally and it wasnt as though he felt he needed to hide the news Franklin County Sheriff Chris Quire was forced to launch an investigation that has roiled the county. On the one side are Farmers many supporters, on the force and in the community, who say hes a good cop who has done a great deal to apprehend drug dealers. On the other side are those who see in Farmers Trump-infused journey to Washington as further proof that his professional judgment, at a minimum, should be called into question. Cops have constitutional rights,remember, but there is no constitutional right to be a cop.

Nathan Goodrich, an attorney who runs the public defenders office in Franklin County, put it well last week in aninterviewwith Jon Schuppe of NBC News. Goodrich has clients whose lives have been directly impacted by Farmers work. The march was based on a lie stop the steal, the election was stolen, Goodrich said. So much of Deputy Farmers work as a detective is determining when people are telling the truth and lying to him. It raises questions about his ability to do his job as a detective when hes engaged in a rally in support of a belief that so many members of the community believe is utterly without support.

Farmers story so far suggests he is hewing to the same line weve seen expressed by cops in several other cases in which theyve been questioned about their roles in Washington on January 6. But Farmers story suggests more, too. During his trip, he documented his arrival with friends on Facebook, and after the siege wrote a post in which he called the rioters idiots and questioned whether they were really Trump supporters. Its that last part that ought to trouble the sheriff and the residents of the county. And if I were Goodrich and company, its that last part Id want to ask Farmer about under oath.

It was beyond a reasonable doubton the day of the riotthat most if not all of the rioters were Trump supporters. That was clear during the rally that preceded the riot, it was clear as the siege was unfolding and we all could see the harrowing images from inside the Capitol, and it was clear in the immediate aftermath of the attack, even before federal law enforcement officials started arresting and prosecuting right-wing extremists involved in the insurrection. For a cop not to see that, or to see it and pretend otherwise, goes to the very heart of what it ought to mean to be a cop: Seek the truth. Follow the evidence. Stay clear of the crap.

I hope that the sheriff is asking tough questions of Farmer in Franklin County. And I hope that Farmer is answering them candidly. The more we hear about the coordination that took place in advance of the riot, the more we hear about all the threats that preceded the rally, the more it becomes clear that no law enforcement agent should have been near that rally that day as a private citizen. Whether Farmer loses his job or not, and today I have no reason to believe that he will, its going to be virtually impossible for him to go back to his pre-riot days. His community will never see him the same way again. Maybe it was all worth it. I would want to know that, too, if I were a public defender.

In the same way that prosecutorskeep lists of police officerstheydont trust to testify, there will now be a new list of cops whose credibility may legitimately be questioned about January 6 if they are ever called as a witness in a future criminal case. Only this list wont be the secret purview of prosecutors and police union officials. It wont be the subject of countless years of litigation. One day very soon (if it hasnt already happened), there will be a crowdsourced, publicly available database containing the names of every law enforcement agent associated in any way with the Trump rally or deadly riot that followed.

That will be a great day. Every cop who believes today that Trump won the election, or who believed it on January 6, should have to answer for that belief all the rest of their days in uniform. They should have to answer it in courtrooms under oath in front of juries. And in conference rooms during sworn depositions. They should have to answer it during public press conferences. It should cast a pall on everything they touch in their professional lives. We talk a lot about police accountability and about how we are going to root conspiracy theories and white supremacy out of law enforcement. Heres one way to begin doing that.

The views expressed are the authors own and not necessarily those of the Brennan Center.

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The Insurrection, Police Accountability, and the First Amendment - brennancenter.org

WATCH: Trump not protected by First Amendment for inciting insurrection, Rep. Raskin says – PBS NewsHour

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Democrats took aim at the Trump legal teams expected First Amendment defense, saying it has no basis in the evidence.

Watch Raskins remarks in the player above.

Lead House Impeachment Manager Jamie Raskin argued in the Senate trial that there is a First Amendment defense against the impeachment charge is absurd.

Futher, Raskin said, The First Amendment does not create some superpower immunity from impeachment.

Thursdays session follows the previous days raw and visceral video of last months deadly insurrection.

Though most of the Senate jurors seem to have made up their minds, making Trumps acquittal likely, the never-before-seen audio and video released Wednesday is now a key exhibit in Trumps impeachment trial as lawmakers prosecuting the case argue Trump should be convicted of inciting the siege.

Trump lawyers are expected to will argue Friday that his words were protected by the Constitutions First Amendment and just a figure of speech.

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WATCH: Trump not protected by First Amendment for inciting insurrection, Rep. Raskin says - PBS NewsHour

Trump Impeachment Trial And The 1st Amendment Debate : Trump Impeachment Trial: Live Updates – NPR

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Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead House impeachment manager, speaks in the Senate on Wednesday. He argued that former President Donald Trump incited the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and that his words are not protected by the First Amendment. Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead House impeachment manager, speaks in the Senate on Wednesday. He argued that former President Donald Trump incited the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and that his words are not protected by the First Amendment.

Lead House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., opened the second day of impeachment proceedings by rejecting the defense's argument that former President Donald Trump's remarks at a rally prior to the Capitol attack are protected speech under the First Amendment.

Raskin said that Trump was not merely a private citizen walking down the street expressing his support for the overthrow of the federal government. The former constitutional law professor said if Trump were, his speech would be protected.

As president, however, Raskin argued, Trump had a sworn duty that set him apart from every other American to protect the Constitution.

"Look, if you're the president of the United States, you've chosen a side with your oath of office," Raskin said. "If you break it, we can impeach, convict, remove and disqualify you permanently from holding any office of honor, trust or profit in the United States."

Raskin likened what Trump did to a local fire chief who is paid to put out fires but instead orders a mob to descend on a crowded theater and set it ablaze.

And then when calls for help go to the fire department, Raskin continued, Trump "does nothing but sit back, encourage the mob to continue its rampage and watch the fire spread on TV."

Raskin noted that the conservative Federalist Society issued a memo before the start of the impeachment trial that said in part: "The First Amendment is no bar to the Senate convicting former President Trump and disqualifying him from holding future office."

Raskin added that not only are Trump's words not shielded by free speech protections, but what he did on the day of the Capitol attack was the act of "inciter in chief."

"When he incited insurrection on Jan. 6, he broke that oath [of office]. He violated that duty. And that's why we're here today. And that's why he has no credible constitutional defense," Raskin said.

Trump's legal team is expected to rely heavily on a First Amendment defense. Tuesday, defense attorney Bruce Castor asked the Senate, "This trial is about trading liberty for the security from the mob? Honestly, no. It can't be."

"We can't possibly be suggesting that we punish people for political speech in this country," Castor said.

As NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reported on Tuesday, some legal scholars argue that the question is irrelevant to an impeachment trial.

"The First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech simply doesn't apply to impeachment," Peter Keisler, a former acting attorney general in George W. Bush's administration, says. "This isn't a criminal prosecution which seeks to render someone's speech illegal."

Trump is entitled to hold whatever opinions he wants and to express them, Keisler says. "But he is not entitled to assert a First Amendment defense against removal or disqualification from office ... because the Founders were in particular worried about ... the ways in which demagogues could become tyrants."

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Trump Impeachment Trial And The 1st Amendment Debate : Trump Impeachment Trial: Live Updates - NPR

Trumps claim impeachment violates the 1st Amendment and Brandenburg v. Ohio, explained – Vox.com

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At the impeachment trials outset, lawyers for former President Donald Trump filed a 78-page brief at arguing that he should not be convicted by the Senate. Trump is charged with inciting an insurrection through various statements that allegedly encouraged the January 6 putsch targeting the US Capitol.

The briefs primary arguments are constitutional. It claims that the Constitution does not permit an impeachment proceeding against a former official. And the brief also argues that Trump is immune from impeachment because the actions which led to that impeachment are protected by the First Amendment.

The first argument is, at least, not entirely ridiculous. While the majority view among scholars is that a former official may be impeached and convicted by the Senate, there are non-frivolous arguments that a former president is beyond the impeachment power.

But the claim that impeaching Trump violates the First Amendment is risible. There are at least three separate reasons why the First Amendment does not protect Trump.

The first is that impeachment is, essentially, a human resources matter. The Constitution provides that Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office. So, with Trump out of office, the only question in his second impeachment trial is whether he should be permanently disqualified from certain federal jobs.

As the Supreme Court explained in Connick v. Myers (1983), the States interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general. Though the governments power to discipline employees (or former employees) for aberrant speech is not absolute, it is broad enough to allow Trump to be disqualified from office.

The second reason Trump cannot invoke the First Amendment is that many of the statements he made, which allegedly incited the January 6 attack on the Capitol, are lies. Trump accused Democrats of trying to steal the election, and he falsely claimed that he overwhelmingly won an election that he lost by over 7 million votes.

As the Supreme Court held in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the First Amendment does not protect individuals from defamation suits if they make a false claim with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. For the reasons explained below, a similar rule should apply to Trump.

Finally, some of Trumps statements such as a January 6 speech where he told his supporters to fight like hell and that youll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong may constitute incitement to imminent illegal action, which is not protected by the Constitution.

Although the First Amendment provides some protection to government employees, those protections are much weaker than those afforded to private citizens, at least when the government seeks to fire or otherwise take a job action against an employee.

Imagine, for example, that a public school hires someone to teach algebra, but this teacher refuses to follow the curriculum and instead spends their class time lecturing their students about 16th-century Japanese art. The First Amendment protects a private citizens right to speak about Japanese art, but the school district could discipline or even fire this teacher for failing to do their job properly even though their only offense was to engage in speech that is normally protected by the Constitution.

Moreover, while the First Amendment provides a relatively robust shield against workplace discipline to rank-and-file government employees, the Constitution offers very little protection to senior officials in political jobs. As a private citizen, for example, Secretary of State Tony Blinken is allowed to criticize President Joe Bidens foreign policy. But as one of Bidens top lieutenants, Blinken may be fired immediately if he makes a disparaging remark about Bidens policies.

As the Supreme Court explained in Branti v. Finkel (1980), if an employees private political beliefs would interfere with the discharge of his public duties, his First Amendment rights may be required to yield to the States vital interest in maintaining governmental effectiveness and efficiency.

Thus, Trumps private political belief that he, and not the lawful winner of the 2020 presidential election, should be president must yield to the States vital interest in maintaining governmental effectiveness and efficiency.

Trumps lawyers, for what its worth, primarily rely on the Supreme Courts decision in Bond v. Floyd (1966), which held that the Georgia House of Representatives violated the First Amendment when it prevented state Representative-elect Julian Bond from taking his seat ostensibly because of statements Bond made criticizing the Vietnam War. (Bond, an important civil rights leader, was one of the first Black representatives elected in Georgia after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; its fairly likely that the real reason he was excluded had less to do with his opinion of the war than the color of his skin.)

The Bond decision is more than a half-century old, and since then weve seen a whole line of cases involving First Amendment protections for government employees, including the Branti case. So its not entirely clear that Bond remains good law. To the extent that Bond is still valid, however, Trumps lawyers argue that cases like Branti only apply to appointed political officials and that Bond provides much more robust protections to elected officials.

Yet even if we accept that elected officials enjoy greater First Amendment protections than political appointees, the Bond case does not help Trump escape impeachment.

In 1960, civil rights activists ran an advertisement in the New York Times alleging that Alabama police used brutal tactics to suppress protests. In response to this ad, an Alabama police official filed a defamation suit against the Times, pointing to minor factual errors in the advertisements text. An Alabama jury handed down a $500,000 verdict against the Times.

But the Supreme Court tossed out that verdict in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), a seminal decision holding that the First Amendment provides strong protections against defamation lawsuits that threaten free speech. Yet, while these protections are quite robust, especially when a defamation suit involves statements about a public figure that regard a matter of public concern, they are not unlimited.

At the very least, someone can still successfully be sued for defamation if they make a false statement with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not, according to the New York Times decision.

Although New York Times was a case about defamation and not about the First Amendment rights of elected officials, the Court relied heavily on New York Times when it decided Bond. In explaining why Rep. Bonds rights were violated, the Court said that the central commitment of the First Amendment, as summarized in the opinion of the Court in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.

Under Bond, the New York Times principle was extended to statements by a legislator.

Two years after Bond, the Court handed down its decision in Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District (1968), which established the modern framework governing First Amendment suits by government employees. Pickering involved a public school teacher, not an elected official, but it provides additional support for the view that government employees do not have a First Amendment right to lie.

In Pickering, the Court held that absent proof of false statements knowingly or recklessly made by him, a teachers exercise of his right to speak on issues of public importance may not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public employment.

New York Times, Bond, and Pickering, in other words, all suggest that a government employees First Amendment rights regardless of whether that employee is elected do not include a right to knowingly make false statements, or to make statements with reckless disregard as to whether they are true or not.

So when Trump riled up his supporters by falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him, he was not protected by the First Amendment.

In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Supreme Court held that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

Thus, while speakers, including Trump, are protected even if they advocate illegal actions, this protection has limits. If such advocacy is made with the intent to incite imminent lawless action, and if such action is likely to result from a persons speech, then that speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

Brandenburg sets a high bar for incitement prosecutions. But Trumps statements immediately before the January 6 putsch were so egregious that they may overcome this high bar. In a speech that he gave right before his supporters attacked the Capitol, Trump told them that if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore, that they need to take back our country, and that they cant show weakness and have to be strong.

Writing in the Washington Post, Harvard law professor Einer Elhauge argues that these statements constitute constitutionally unprotected incitement, even under Brandenburg:

Although Trump tried to protect himself by stating that he was sure that the crowd would peacefully march to the Capitol, that does not alter the fact that he was inciting the crowd to forcibly stop Congress from counting the certified electoral votes once they got there.

Trump thus clearly incited lawless action (obstructing the operations of Congress is a crime) that was imminent (right after the speech, a short walk away). That he wanted to incite such lawless action is confirmed by reporting that for hours he watched the Capitol attack with pleasure and did not take any steps to stop it by calling out the National Guard or by urging his supporters to stand down.

Again, its far from clear that Trump could be prosecuted in a criminal court for his statements Brandenburg makes it extraordinarily difficult for prosecutors to win such cases. But thats not the issue in Trumps impeachment trial.

The issue in Trumps impeachment trial is whether, given the fact that the government has broad authority to make human resources decisions under the First Amendment, Congress may conclude that Trumps statements were so beyond the pale that he should be disqualified from holding high federal office in the future.

Setting aside these legal flaws in Trumps First Amendment argument, theres also a profound practical reason public officials should be subject to impeachment, even if theyve done nothing more than give an illiberal or anti-democratic speech.

Imagine that someday in the future, a new president is elected after campaigning on a fairly mainstream platform. Then, in the presidents inaugural address, they reveal that the entire campaign was a charade: I am a great admirer of Nazi Germany, the new president declares in their inaugural address, and I plan to use my presidency to build a Fourth Reich.

Should Congress really have to wait until this Nazi president takes some affirmative step to implement this agenda before they can be impeached and removed from office?

As George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin writes, the implication of Trumps argument that he cannot be impeached for his speech is that Congress could not impeach and remove a president who openly proclaimed his intention to turn the United States into a communist or fascist dictatorship, because speech advocating despotism is protected against criminal punishment by the First Amendment if uttered by a private citizen.

But Trump is wrong that he is protected by the First Amendment. The government has far more leeway when it makes personnel decisions than it does when it regulates speech by private citizens. And even if Trump had simply spoken as a private citizen, there is a strong argument that his conduct was so egregious that it could be prosecuted as incitement.

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Trumps claim impeachment violates the 1st Amendment and Brandenburg v. Ohio, explained - Vox.com

Q&A: Sociologist with Specialty in Right-Wing Movements on Free Speech and the First Amendment | Newsroom – UC Merced University News

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Social justice movements and conspiracy theories have become a hallmark of our time, but how do we know which inflammatory statements are legally protected and which are not?

Sociology Professor Nella Van Dyke sheds light on the legal and social ramifications of free speech in this Q&A. Van Dyke is an expert on social movements in relation to hate crimes, with recent studies of the movement against sexual assault, college student protest, LGBTQ+ college student experiences and racist hate crimes on campus. Her work has been published in leading journals including Social Forces, Social Problems and the American Sociological Review. She has co-edited two books: Strategic Alliances: Coalition Building and Social Movements and Understanding the Tea Party Movement.

Van Dyke joined UC Merceds sociology department in 2008 and is a founder of the departments undergraduate and graduate programs. She teaches courses in sociological theory, hate crimes, sexuality and statistics.

The Constitution itself does not define free speech, but the First Amendment of the Constitution says 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. Because of this, every person in the United States has freedom of speech.

Because of the First Amendment, most speech is protected in the U.S., but not all types.

Speech that threatens another individual, defames their character in a manner that causes damage, is considered obscene, incites violence or creates a hostile environment is illegal.

The goal of hate speech is to silence and exclude. Hate speech is technically legal, unless it occurs in a repeated way in a location which the individual cannot avoid, thus creating a hostile environment, or, if it is directly threatening to the individual who hears it. Note that hate speech can be used as evidence in a hate-crime case. If hate speech occurs during the commission of a crime, it can be used as evidence that the crime was a hate crime, though the speech itself is not illegal.

There is no question that racist and other bigoted speech is harmful to marginalized students and harmful to the university as a whole. The problem, however, is that hate speech is difficult to define. Some colleges have enacted anti-hate speech policies, but ironically, these have almost always ended up being used against the students they were intended to protect.

If we allow authorities to enact laws against hate speech, they may use these laws against those seeking social justice. For example, during the 1800s, many Southern states in the U.S. made it illegal to speak out against slavery because they said it would incite violence. While it is understandable that many members of our community would like to see hate speech banned either on campus or by state or federal governments, these policies are unlikely to hold up in court, and we have to be careful about how much power we give authorities over us.

The courts are very consistent in their rulings on free speech. Decisions and definitions of what speech is allowed do change over time, but not very quickly, and challenges that go against established precedent are not very likely to succeed.

UC Merceds principles of community call for all of us to treat one another with dignity and respect, and to be civil when engaged in dialogue. Therefore, we should all try to avoid speech that dehumanizes, disparages or hurts another person. In terms of what is legal, we have more freedom. Legally, we should avoid threatening a specific individual with harm, trying to get others to commit crimes or acts of violence, or repeatedly using hate speech around an individual or particular group of individuals. However, we can all do better than that by following UC Merceds principles of community and encouraging others to do so.

Only government entities are required to follow the direct limits imposed by the Constitution. Private actors must follow the law, but not the directives described in the Constitution. Public universities must therefore allow free speech, including hate speech. Private institutions, including businesses and private colleges and universities, can enact policies limiting speech, including anti-hate policies. Private citizens can do what theyd like in private (e.g., at home), as long as they obey the law. When they are acting within an institutional space, they must follow the rules of the space. Thus, an individual at a public university has the right to free speech and cannot get penalized for hate speech (unless it includes a direct threat or otherwise breaks the law), while someone on a private college campus could face disciplinary action for hate speech if it violates the campus speech policies.

As a private company, Twitter has the right to decide what content or users it wants to allow. Therefore, legally it had the right to suspend Trumps account. Twitter states that it banned his account because it determined that his tweets violated its policy against the glorification of violence. Twitter decided that his tweets could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Its also possible that Twitter was concerned about liability because it is illegal to provide resources to those aiming to overthrow the U.S. government and it is illegal to participate in inciting violence.

Social media users can do research on the platforms terms of service and posting policies. Users should be aware that even if they have the right to post almost any content, the platforms have algorithms that decide what content to promote. Facebooks algorithm, for example, promotes content that evokes strong emotions, and therefore has been found to amplify conspiracy theories and fake news. Twitter, Facebook and Tiktok have all recently released information about their algorithms in an effort to increase public trust, and users can find these online. Ultimately, Im not sure anyone can be 100 percent certain that their right to free speech is being fully respected, because these are private companies that are not bound by the First Amendment.

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Q&A: Sociologist with Specialty in Right-Wing Movements on Free Speech and the First Amendment | Newsroom - UC Merced University News

Opinion: Guns shouldn’t trump the First Amendment – The Missouri Times

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According to the logic of a bill currently under consideration in the Missouri House, a churchs religious freedom rights should be overruled since some people may want to show up with a gun. Rep. Ben Baker (R-Newton) argued during a House General Laws Committee hearing Monday (Feb. 8) that a persons natural right to a gun should supersede a religious communitys right to adopt and communicate its beliefs. As a Baptist minister, I find this bill unnecessary, unconstitutional, and dangerous.

Missouri law currently automatically bans concealed weapons from houses of worship unless an individual receives the consent of the minister or person or persons representing the religious organization that exercises control over the place of religious worship. This makes sense. A religious community should be able to define for itself if they desire for individuals to bring guns into their holy place.

But Bakers HB 359 would switch the default position so that individuals with a concealed carry endorsement or permit could automatically bring a firearm into a house of worship unless that religious group posted significant signs at every entry. A church, synagogue, mosque, or other house of worship would not be able to determine its own policy regarding concealed guns without either accepting weapons or posting government-mandated signs on their sacred space.

The Second Amendment should not trump the First Amendment. Some groups hold deep religious convictions that lead them to oppose violence and weapons of any kind. Thus, Missouri legislators should reject a bill that targets those sincerely-held religious beliefs.

Oddly, Bakers bill only attempts to change the status of houses of worship, meaning many other locations would remain places where one cannot bring a concealed weapon without proper consent like a liquor store or a riverboat gambling operation or an amusement park. So, Bakers bill acknowledges by default that limitations on concealed carry do and should exist.

If passed, this bill would give liquor stores, gambling boat operations, and amusement parks more rights than churches to decide about guns on their premises even though houses of worship are protected by the First Amendment more than those entertainment businesses. This targeting of religious communities is wrong.

Theres not even a reason for Bakers bill because people can already bring their concealed weapons into churches. Baker admitted during testimony that he does since his pastor allows it. A member of the committee even said he used to preach from a pulpit with a concealed gun strapped on. If a religious community wishes to allow concealed weapons, they already have that right. And if a house of worship doesnt want weapons in their building, someone who disagrees with that decision is free to worship elsewhere.

The provision in Bakers scheme of allowing a house of worship to ban guns by posting signs actually creates even more problems. Controlling the welcome message that congregations would have to post in prominent locations invites constitutional challenges. In fact, then-St. Louis Catholic Archbishop Robert J. Carlson threatened to sue if a similar bill passed in 2018.

Pastors, rabbis, and religious leaders should not be compelled by the government to place signage in our sacred places prohibiting activity we may not want to allow on our own private property, he said at a press conference with Jewish, Baptist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, and other religious leaders.

Despite the overwhelming opposition from faith communities across the state, this bad bill keeps popping back up. Among the 40 people who submitted official testimony against Bakers bill for Mondays hearing were Baptist, Episcopalian, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers; a Jewish rabbi; a representative from the Missouri Catholic Conference; and several others who identified themselves as a member of a religious congregation. And Ive heard from pastors across the state who find this bill an offensive assault on their rights.

But Baker couldnt name a single denominational group in the state supporting his measure. His faith in guns should not veto the clear public witness of numerous faith leaders. Bakers remedy is clearly worse than the disease that isnt even an ailment.

We have enough real problems for lawmakers to tackle this session without them trying to push guns into houses of worship. So, I pray they will defeat this dangerous bill.

Rev. Brian Kaylor is editor of Word&Way and associate director of Churchnet (a statewide Baptist network of churches).

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Opinion: Guns shouldn't trump the First Amendment - The Missouri Times

What The Politics?! Episode 21: Analyzing the First Amendment – WNCT

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by: Emily Cervarich and Victoria Holmes

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) Former President Donald Trumps second impeachment trial began in the Senate Tuesday afternoon. It comes just weeks after Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States and the siege on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump was impeached by the House on Jan. 13 on a single charge of inciting insurrection. It focused on a speech the former president made to supporters shortly before the D.C. riot, where five people, including a police officer, died in the chaos.

Now, Democratic House lawmakers will serve as prosecutors, in hopes to persuade Senate members to formally convict the former president. If successful, lawmakers could choose to ban Trump from ever holding public office again. A two-thirds majority out of the 100-member Senate is needed to convict Trump. This means 17 Republicans would need to join all 50 Democrats in the conviction.

In this weeks episode of What The Politics?!, we follow and discuss the former presidents second impeachment trial. We speak with a law and First Amendment expert about the rights laid out in the First Amendment and what they really break down to.

We will also explore how social media has played a role in polarization in regards to free speech. As we follow the second impeachment trial, we will examine the points of both legal teams and how they pertain to the First Amendment to find out if there is truly a solid argument for the prosecution.

Emily and Victoria are joined by Clay Calvert, J.D., Ph.D.. He is a member of both the State Bar of California and the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, specializing in First Amendment Law. Calvert is the Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication and Director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at the University of Florida.

As director, he has filed as counsel of record multiple friend-of-the-court briefs with the United States Supreme Court in cases such as Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, Elonis v. United States, and Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach. Calvert received his J.D. with Great Distinction from the University of Pacifics McGeorge School of Law, and then earned a Ph.D. in Communication from Stanford University. Calvert has authored and co-authored over 150 law journal articles on topics related to freedom of expression and the first amendment.

In April of 2017, Calvert presented a talk at TEDxUF called Catching Cops on Camera: A Gray Area. Professor Calvert is also one of the co-author of the market-leading undergraduate media law textbook, Mass Media Law, 20th ed. (McGraw-Hill, 2018). Calverts most notable work is Voyeur Nation (Westview, 2000).

Biography, publications, works, by Clay Calvert: https://www.jou.ufl.edu/staff/clay-calvert/

New episodes of What the Politics?! come every Tuesday. Join the conversation!

We want to hear from you! Send us an email with questions you want to be answered, topics you want to hear and guests youd like brought on. We want you to feel just as much a part of this conversation as we are!

Email either Emily, or Victoria:ECervarich@wnct.com;ViHolmes@wnct.com

OR message us on Twitter: @emily_c_tv ; @VicAntHol

Click here to subscribe onSpotifyand onApple Podcasts.

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What The Politics?! Episode 21: Analyzing the First Amendment - WNCT

Highlights of Day 4 of the Trump Impeachment Trial – The New York Times

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transcript

transcript

Like every other politically motivated witch hunt the left has engaged in over the past four years, this impeachment is completely divorced from the facts, the evidence and the interests of the American people. To claim that the president in any way wished, desired or encouraged lawless or violent behavior is a preposterous and monstrous lie. A small group who came to engage in violent and menacing behavior hijacked the event for their own purposes. This sham impeachment also poses a serious threat to freedom of speech for political leaders of both parties at every level of government. The Senate should be extremely careful about the president, the precedent, this case will set. We heard a lot this week about fight like hell, but they cut off the video before they showed you the presidents optimistic, patriotic words that followed immediately after. Fight like hell, and if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore. Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans, for our movement, for our children and for our beloved country, and I say this despite all thats happened, the best is yet to come. This case, unfortunately, is about political hatred. It has become very clear that the House Democrats hate Donald Trump. This type of political hatred has no place in our political institutions, and certainly no place in the law. This hatred has led the House managers to manipulate and selectively edit Mr. Trumps speech to make it falsely appear that he sought to incite the crowd to violently attack the Capitol. Suddenly, the word fight is off limits? Spare us the hypocrisy and false indignation. Its a term used over and over and over again by politicians on both sides of the aisle. And of course, the Democrat House managers know that the word fight has been used figuratively in political speech forever. But dont take it from me. Its best to listen to them. We are in a fight. We are in a fight. Democrats are fighting as hard as we can. Democrats are standing up to fight. We know how to fight. We like a good fight. Democrats are going to fight like hell. We fight like hell. So why are we here? Politics. Their goal is to eliminate a political opponent. To substitute their judgment for the will of the voters. We will not take most of our time today, us of the defense, in the hopes that you will take back these hours and use them to get delivery of Covid relief to the American people.

Lawyers for Donald J. Trump delivered an incendiary but brief defense of the former president on Friday, calling the Houses charge that he incited an insurrection at the Capitol a preposterous and monstrous lie as they falsely equated his conduct to Democrats own combative rhetoric.

Confident they have enough votes from Republicans to acquit Mr. Trump, the lawyers used only about three of their 16 allotted hours. Their speed allowed senators to complete a period of questioning the prosecution and defense Friday evening and cleared the way for closing arguments and a final verdict, likely on Saturday.

Earlier, the defense team had channeled the former presidents own combative style and embrace of falsehoods to claim, contrary to facts, that Mr. Trump never glorified violence during his presidency and that he consistently called for peace as the rampage at the Capitol unfolded. Showing video clips of Democrats urging their supporters to fight and Mr. Trump venerating law and order, they sought to rewrite not just the narrative of his campaign to overturn the election but that of his entire presidency.

This trial is about far more than President Trump, said Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of the lawyers, as he closed the defense. It is about silencing the speech the majority does not agree with. It is about canceling 75 million Trump voters and criminalizing political viewpoints.

The defenses presentation unfolded after nine House prosecutors spent two days laying out a meticulous case against the former president dramatized with never-before-seen video of the Jan. 6 riot portraying the rampage as the direct result of Mr. Trumps monthslong campaign to overturn the election. Desperate to cling to power, the Democrats argued, Mr. Trump goaded his followers into joining his effort and would do so again, they said, if the Senate failed to convict him and bar him from holding office in the future.

Among the lawyers core arguments were that the Senate lacks jurisdiction to even try a former president now out of office, that Mr. Trumps conduct was protected by the First Amendment and that it came nowhere near the legal definition for incitement.

But standing before a jury of 100 senators, their case was as political in nature as it was legal. Using a favorite tactic of Mr. Trumps, his lawyers also sought to defend his behavior by citing that of others, arguing that he could no more be held responsible for the Capitol assault than Democrats could for the violence that erupted at some racial justice protests last summer.

They also sought to selectively poke holes in Democrats case. Michael van der Veen, one of the lawyers, insisted on Friday that Mr. Trump had only ever been interested in election security reforms, like voter ID laws an assertion that directly contradicted months of public and private actions by Mr. Trump. He said the president intended for the Jan. 6 rally he hosted before the attack to be peaceful, but that it had been hijacked by extremists, including from the far left another claim disproved even by Republicans.

The reality is Mr. Trump was not in any way shape or form instructing these people to fight using physical violence, Mr. van der Veen said. What he was instructing them to do was challenge their opponents in primary elections, to push for sweeping election reforms, to hold big tech responsible all customary and legal ways to petition your government for redress of grievances.

Mr. Castor also pointed to tweets by Mr. Trump while the attack was underway telling his supporters to stay peaceful and support our Capitol Police. But he did not discuss Mr. Trumps actions during the hours when the Capitol was under attack in which managers said he reveled in his success and delayed sending in reinforcements.

We know that the president would never have wanted such a riot to occur, because his longstanding hatred for violent protesters and his love for law and order is on display, worn on his sleeve, every single day that he served in the White House, he said.

Later, during the question and answer session, Mr. van der Veen said Mr. Trump had not been aware that his vice president, Mike Pence, had been in danger, even though a senator he called during the attack told him Mr. Pence was being evacuated from the chamber.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.

transcript

transcript

If we do not convict former President Trump, what message will we be sending to future presidents and Congresses? The consequences of his conduct were devastating on every level. Police officers were left overwhelmed, unprotected; Congress had to be evacuated; our staff barricaded in this building, calling their families to say goodbye. And the world watched us. And the world is still watching us to see what we will do this day. And will know what we did this day 100 years from now. Is it not true that under this new precedent, a future House facing partisan pressure to lock her up could impeach a former secretary of state and a future Senate be forced to put her on trial and potentially disqualify from any future office? In this case, we have a president who committed his crimes against the republic while he was in office. He was impeached by the House of Representatives while he was in office. Mr. Raskin cant tell you on what grounds you acquit. If you believe, even though there was a vote, that theres jurisdiction, if you believe jurisdiction is unconstitutional, you can still believe that. If you believe that the House did not give appropriate due process in this, that can be your reason to acquit. It is clear that President Trumps plot to undermine the 2020 election was built on lies and conspiracy theories. How did this plot to unconstitutionally keep President Trump in power lead to the radicalization of so many of President Trumps followers and the resulting attack on the Capitol? What our commander in chief did was the polar opposite of what were supposed to do. We let the people decide the elections. Except President Trump. He directed all of that rage that he had incited to January 6th. Are the prosecutors right when they claim that Trump was telling a big lie? Or in your judgment, did Trump actually win the election? Who asked that? [Sen. Bernie Sanders] I did. My judgment is irrelevant in this proceeding. It absolutely is. Whats supposed to happen here is the article of impeachment is supposed to be [Sen. Patrick Leahy] The Senate will be in order. Whats relevant in this impeachment article is: Were Mr. Trumps words inciteful to the point of violence and riot? Thats the charge. Thats the question. And the answer is no. If the Senates power to disqualify is not derivative of the power to remove a convicted president from office, could the Senate disqualify a sitting president but not remove him or her? Mr. Castro attributed a statement, the time before last that he was up here, that Donald Trump had told his people to fight to the death. Im not from here Im not like you guys I was being very polite and giving him an opportunity to correct the record. And I thought thats exactly what he would do. But instead, what he did is he came up and illustrated the problem with the presentation of the House case. Its been smoke and mirrors, and worse, its been dishonest.

Senators on Friday afternoon opened their first and last window in the trial to directly question the prosecution and defense. But as they submitted questions in writing one by one, most members of the jury appeared more interested in scoring political points than breaking new ground.

Does a politician raising bail for rioters encourage more rioting? read one early question from Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ted Cruz of Texas and two other Republicans. It was an apparent reference to Democrats who supported bail funds for people arrested while protesting racial violence this summer.

Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of former President Donald J. Trumps lawyers, gave a one word answer: Yes.

Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, asked Mr. Trumps lawyers whether the former presidents big lie was correct when he insisted over and over again that he had won the election. If it was an attempt to force his defense to contradict their client, it did not work.

Who asked that? responded Michael van der Veen, another lawyer for the former president, looking for Mr. Sanders. My judgment? My judgments is irrelevant in this proceeding.

As time ticked by, the former presidents lawyers and the House managers began sniping at each other, too. Mr. van der Veen complained the trial was the most miserable experience Ive had down here in Washington, D.C. and accused Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead manager, of doctoring evidence.

Mr. Raskin was not pleased. Counsel said before, This has been my worst experience in Washington, he said. For that, I say were sorry, but man you should have been here on Jan. 6.

A short time later, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, who was presiding over the trial, gently warned that all parties in this chamber must refrain from using language that is not conducive to civil discourse.

The exception came from a small group of Republican senators openly contemplating conviction. Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana all seemed interested in what Mr. Trump knew about the unfolding riot, when he knew it and what he did about it.

Mr. van der Veen said he could not precisely say when Mr. Trump learned about the attack, but he blamed it on the Democratic managers for building their impeachment on hearsay on top of hearsay on top of hearsay rather than a thorough investigation.

We have a tweet at 2:38 p.m., so it was certainly sometime before then, he said.

When Mr. Romney and Ms. Collins pressed the lawyers on Mr. Trumps specific knowledge of the threat to his vice president, Mike Pence, the answer was clearer, but it appeared to contradict the word of Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, who told reporters this week he informed the president that the vice president was being evacuated from the Senate chamber during a contemporaneous phone call.

The answer is no, said Mr. van der Veen. At no point was the president informed that the vice president was in any danger.

Democrats scoffed, and argued that any weaknesses in their evidentiary record was the fault of Mr. Trump, who refused an invitation to testify.

Rather than yelling at us and screaming about how we didnt have time to get all the facts about what your client did, bring your client up here and have him testify under oath, Mr. Raskin said.

transcript

transcript

The House managers spoke about rhetoric, about a constant drumbeat of heated language. Well as Im sure everyone watching expected, we need to show you some of their own words. I just dont know why there arent uprisings all over the country. Maybe there will be. There needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there is unrest in our lives. Weve got to be ready to throw a punch. We have to be able to throw a punch. Donald Trump, I think you need to go back and punch him in the face. Please get up in the face of some Congresspeople. People will do what they do. I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay a price. If you had to be stuck in an elevator with either President Trump, Mike Pence or Jeff Sessions, who would it be? Does one of us have to come out alive. Im just going to keep the fight up. What we have to do right now is fight as hard as we can. We have to rise up and fight back. And so, were going to fight. And were going to continue to fight. I am going to be fighting fighting like hell. Keep fighting, fighting, fighting we kept fighting, and we did. So were going to keep fighting. Never, never, never give up this fight. Im a citizen fighting for it Means not only fighting As a leader who fought for progressive change As a lawyer who fought for people his whole life As well as other fights, and Im proud to have Tim in this fight.

Former President Donald J. Trumps defense team offered their own video presentation on Friday a montage of remarks by Democrats urging supporters to fight a rhetorical drumbeat aimed at countering the impact of the footage of the real fight at the Capitol, images of blood and broken glass, presented by the prosecution on Wednesday.

The strategy by Mr. Trumps lawyers was to prove that Mr. Trumps call for his followers to fight like hell in a speech shortly before members of the crowd stormed Congress on Jan. 6 was no different than anti-Trump remarks made by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Representative Maxine Waters of California, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and other members of Congress.

To make their point, the team played a lengthy mash-up of bellicose statements from Democrats including President Bidens claim on the campaign trail that he would have beaten the hell out of Mr. Trump in high school.

The presentation, featuring quick-cut editing and the type of ominous music often heard in negative campaign ads, a sharp contrast to the raw footage, sometimes silent, of the attack that was compiled by the House impeachment managers from security cameras and cellphone video, and accompanied by a minute-by-minute timeline.

The defense teams montage concluded with images of Democrats praising the protests against police violence in cities across the United States last summer, juxtaposed with video of rioting, even though every senior Democrat denounced violence.

I showed you the video because in this political forum, all robust speech should be protected, said Michael van der Veen, one of the presidents lawyers.

When you see speech such as this, you have to apply the First Amendment evenly. Blindly, he said, adding, She is blind, lady justice.

It reflected the argument being promoted by Trump defenders on conservative media outlets like Fox News, and was part of an effort to offer a more defiant defense pushed by the former president, who was dissatisfied with the earlier efforts of his team.

It is not clear that the approach had its desired effect, however.

During the presentation, senators in both parties were overheard chatting and laughing by observers in the chamber. Democrats emerged enraged at what they saw as an argument built upon false equivalence.

Show me anytime that the result was our supporters pulled someone out of the crowd, beat the living crap out of them and then we said: Thats great. Good for you. Youre a patriot, Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said after watching the video.

Yet the approach might have succeeded in giving Republicans caught between their disdain for Mr. Trumps behavior and fear of his hold over the party enough cover to justify an acquittal.

The Twitter/CNN/MSNBC bubble will mock & dismiss this defense, but it is going to work with Republican voters and it will give much needed cover and justification to Republican Senators to acquit, said Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman and frequent Trump critic, on Twitter during the defenses arguments.

As the Capitol was being infiltrated by a mob last month, what did President Donald J. Trump know about Vice President Mike Pences whereabouts and when did he know it?

That was a question multiple senators were intent on learning more about Friday evening, during a period in the impeachment trial in which senators questioned the House impeachment managers and Mr. Trumps lawyers.

At issue was not only when Mr. Trump took any steps to help end the riot, but also a tweet he posted that day at 2:24 p.m. as rioters had breached the Capitol and Mr. Pence was being rushed out of the Senate chamber.

The vice president didnt have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, Mr. Trump tweeted.

Senator Mitt Romney asked early in the question-and-answer session: When President Trump sent the disparaging tweet at 2:24 p.m. regarding Vice President Pence, was he aware that Vice President Pence had been removed from the Senate by the Secret Service for his safety?

No, Michael van der Veen, one of Mr. Trumps lawyers, said bluntly. At no point, he continued, was the president informed that the vice president was in any danger.

The Democratic House managers, who are serving as prosecutors in the trial, argued that Mr. Trump had to know what was going on at the time of his tweet. The whole world knew it, all of us knew it, said Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas. Live television had by this point shown that the insurgents were already inside the building, and that they had weapons and that the police were outnumbered.

The answer also appeared to contradict statements from Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama. Mr. Tuberville told reporters this week about a cellphone call he had with Mr. Trump as the Senate was being evacuated. Well, I mean, I dont know if youve ever talked to President Trump, he said. You dont get many words in, but, uh, he didnt get a chance to say a whole lot because I said, Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, Ive got to go.

The timestamp on Mr. Trumps tweet about Mr. Pence lacking courage shows it was sent about 10 minutes after Mr. Pence was evacuated from the chamber.

The Democratic House managers noted Mr. Tubervilles remarks in their answer to Mr. Romneys question. Later in the evening, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, brought them up again, asking if Mr. Tubervilles account shows Mr. Trump was tolerant of the intimidation of Vice President Pence.

Both sides largely reiterated their arguments.

But Mr. Trumps lawyer also argued that whatever Mr. Trump knew about Mr. Pences whereabouts was irrelevant to the charge against him, incitement of insurrection. Other legal analysts might be dubious of that argument. If Mr. Trump was aware of his vice presidents imminent danger, it would conceivably bear on Mr. Trumps intentions.

On the eve of a verdict in Donald J. Trumps Senate trial, one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him confirmed on Friday night that the top House Republican, Representative Kevin McCarthy, told her that the former president had sided with the mob during a phone call as the Jan. 6 Capitol attack unfolded.

In a statement on Friday night, Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, Republican of Washington, recounted a phone call relayed to her by Mr. McCarthy of California, the minority leader, in which Mr. Trump was said to have sided with the rioters, telling the top House Republican that members of the mob who had stormed the Capitol were more upset about the election than you are.

She pleaded with witnesses to step forward and share what they knew about Mr. Trumps actions and statements as the attack was underway.

To the patriots who were standing next to the former president as these conversations were happening, or even to the former vice president: if you have something to add here, now would be the time, Ms. Herrera Beutler said in the statement.

Her account of the call between Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Trump, first reported by CNN, addressed a crucial question in the impeachment trial: what Mr. Trump was doing and saying privately while the Capitol was being overrun.

Ms. Herrera Beutler said that Mr. McCarthy had relayed details of his phone call with Mr. Trump to her. She has been speaking publicly about it for weeks, including during a virtual town hall on Monday with constituents, and she recounted their conversation again in the statement on Friday.

A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy did not reply to a request for comment. Spokespeople for the House impeachment managers did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The Republican leaders response to Mr. Trump in the weeks since the attack on the Capitol has fluctuated. On the day of the Houses impeachment vote, he said Mr. Trump bore some responsibility for the attack because he had not denounced the mob, but he has since backtracked and sought to repair his relationship with the former president.

By Ms. Herrera Beutlers account, Mr. McCarthy called Mr. Trump frantically on Jan. 6 as the Capitol was being besieged by thousands of pro-Trump supporters trying to stop Congress from counting Electoral College votes that would confirm his loss.

She said Mr. McCarthy asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot.

Mr. Trump replied by saying that antifa, not his supporters, was responsible. When Mr. McCarthy said that was not true, the former president was curt.

Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are, he said, according Ms. Herrera Beutlers account of what Mr. McCarthy told her.

Hours after the assault began, Mr. Trump tweeted a video in which he asked those ransacking the Capitol to leave. Go home. We love you. Youre very special, he said.

A core argument of Mr. Trumps defense, made by Michael van der Veen, one of his lawyers, is that Mr. Trump cannot be convicted of inciting an insurrection because everything he said was protected by his rights to free speech under the Constitution.

Mr. van der Veen who is a personal injury lawyer, not a civil liberties lawyer dismissed a letter signed last week by 144 constitutional scholars and First Amendment lawyers from across the political spectrum, who called a free speech defense of Mr. Trump legally frivolous and not grounds for dismissing the charge against him.

Nonetheless, Mr. van der Veen argued, Mr. Trumps speech deserves full protection under the First Amendment. He cited Supreme Court cases holding that elected officials can engage in political speech.

Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times, addressed the argument in a live analysis.

Its true, of course, that elected officials have First Amendment rights, Mr. Liptak wrote. Its also true that government officials may be fired for making statements that would otherwise be protected political speech. An impeachment trial may present that second sort of question.

Mr. Liptak quoted from the House impeachment managers brief that addressed the First Amendment argument advanced by Mr. Trumps lawyers: Under President Trumps view of the First Amendment, even a sitting President who strenuously urged States to secede from the Union and rebel against the federal government would be immune from impeachment.

FACT CHECK

Donald J. Trumps lawyers, mounting their defense of the former president on Friday, made a number of inaccurate or misleading claims about the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol, Mr. Trumps remarks and the impeachment process itself. Here are some of them.

Michael van der Veen, one of the lawyers, misleadingly said that Mr. Trump did not express a desire that the joint session be prevented from conducting its business but rather the entire premise of his remarks was that the democratic process would and should play out according to the letter of the law. But Mr. Trump repeatedly urged former Vice President Mike Pence to send it back to the States to recertify and noted that he was challenging the certification of the election.

Far from promoting insurrection of the United States, the presidents remarks explicitly encouraged those in attendance to exercise their rights peacefully and patriotically, Mr. van der Veen said. Mr. Trump used the phrase peacefully and patriotically once in his speech, compared to 20 uses of the word fight.

Mr. van der Veen also claimed that one of the first people arrested in connection with the riots at the Capitol was the leader of antifa. That was a hyperbolic reference to John E. Sullivan, a Utah man who was charged on Jan. 15 for violent entry and disorderly conduct. Mr. Sullivan, an activist, has said he was there to film the siege. He has referred to antifa a loose collective of antifascist activists that has no leader on social media, but he has repeatedly denied being a member of the movement, though he shares its beliefs.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said there is no evidence that supporters of the antifa movement had participated in the Jan. 6 siege.

Mr. van der Veen equated the Jan. 6 siege to the protests at Lafayette Square in front of the White House last summer, and presented a false timeline, claiming that violent rioters repeatedly attacked Secret Service officers and at one point, pierced a security wall, culminating in the clearing of Lafayette Square.

There was no breach. Law enforcement officials began clearing Lafayette Square after 6 p.m. on June 1, to allow Mr. Trump to pose, while holding a Bible, in front of a church near the square. Additional security fencing was installed after those events, according to local news reports and the National Park Service.

Similarly, Mr. van der Veen compared Mr. Trumps complaints and political language about the 2020 election with concerns about the integrity of the 2016 election, arguing that the entire Democratic Party and national news media spent the last four years repeating without any evidence that the 2016 election had been hacked. But American intelligence agencies concluded years ago that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election. The Republican-led Senate agreed last year that Russia disrupted that election to help Mr. Trump.

David Schoen, another lawyer, misleadingly claimed that the House held on to the article of impeachment until Democrats had secured control over the Senate and Representative Clyburn made clear they had considered holding the articles for over 100 days to provide President Biden with a clear pathway to implement his agenda.

In fact, Democrats had considered delivering the article to the Senate earlier, almost immediately after it was approved, but Senator Mitch McConnell, then the majority leader, precluded the possibility of an immediate trial in a letter informing Republican lawmakers that the Senate was in recess and may conduct no business until January 19. Mr. Clyburn made his suggestion of withholding the article even longer, after Mr. McConnell had sent his letter.

Mr. Schoen also accused Democrats of presenting a manufactured graphic, referring to a New York Times photo of Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead impeachment manager, looking at a computer screen. The screen featured an image of a tweet Mr. Trump shared stamped with an erroneous date. Left unsaid was that the image was recreated because Mr. Trump has been banned from Twitter and House managers could not simply show the retweet itself. Mr. Schoen then acknowledged that House managers fixed the incorrect date before presenting the graphic during the trial.

Mr. Schoen complained once again that the impeachment did not afford Mr. Trump due process a point Mr. Trumps lawyers and supporters had previously argued during his first impeachment, and a point law scholars had dismissed.

There are no enforceable rights to due process in a House inquiry, and while those rights exist in the Senate trial, they are limited, said Frank O. Bowman III, a law professor at the University of Missouri and an expert on impeachment. Former President Andrew Johnson, for example, was impeached by the House before it even drew up the articles.

Fani T. Willis, the top prosecutor in Fulton County, Ga., is targeting former President Donald J. Trump and a range of his allies in her newly announced investigation into election interference.

Ms. Willis and her office have indicated that the investigation, which she revealed this week, will include Senator Lindsey Grahams November phone call to Brad Raffensperger, Georgias secretary of state, about mail-in ballots; the abrupt removal last month of Byung J. Pak, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, who earned Mr. Trumps enmity for not advancing his debunked assertions about election fraud; and the false claims that Rudolph W. Giuliani, the presidents personal lawyer, made before state legislative committees.

An investigation is like an onion, Ms. Willis told The New York Times in an interview. You never know. You pull something back, and then you find something else.

She added, Anything that is relevant to attempts to interfere with the Georgia election will be subject to review.

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Highlights of Day 4 of the Trump Impeachment Trial - The New York Times

Comment: Trump’s lawyers have it wrong on First Amendment, too | HeraldNet.com – The Daily Herald

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By Noah Feldman / Bloomberg Opinion

The extended trial brief filed by Donald Trumps lawyers advances three defenses: that Trump did not incite the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol; that the Senate cant try a president who is no longer in office; and that the First Amendment protects Trump from being impeached for words that, they say, dont meet the requirements for criminal incitement conviction laid down by the Supreme Court.

The factual defense is highly unconvincing, as anyone who watched Trumps speech on Jan. 6 and saw the attack can attest.

The argument that the Senate lacks jurisdiction over a president who is out of office is disproven by history and Senate precedent.

The free speech argument is also wrong in a basic sense: The First Amendment prohibits Congress from making any law abridging freedom of speech. But this doesnt apply in impeachments any more than the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial would apply to the Senate impeachment trial.

Yet the First Amendment defense requires deeper engagement than the other two, if only because it is less absurd. If it did apply to impeachments, the Supreme Courts incitement jurisprudence contained in the famous 1969 case of Brandenburg v. Ohio probably would have protected Trumps speech.

The major component of Trumps argument is that the First Amendment applies to elected officials. As the lawyers put it only a little ungrammatically, the fatal flaw of the Houses arguments is that it seeks to meet out governmental punishments impeachments based on political speech that falls squarely within broad protections of the First Amendment.

To support their argument, Trumps lawyers cite Wood v. Georgia and Bond v. Floyd. Both are important Supreme Court cases, but neither proves that the First Amendment should apply to impeachment.

The 1962 Wood case arose when a local Georgia judge impaneled a grand jury and charged it to investigate supposedly suspicious block voting by African-American citizens. (Think of it as a precursor to todays false allegations of election scams, but in the context of the civil rights movement.)

While the grand jury was sitting, the local sheriff denounced the whole charade, telling the press that Whatever the Judges intention, the action will be considered one of the most deplorable examples of race agitation to come out of Middle Georgia in recent years . This action appears either as a crude attempt at judicial intimidation of negro voters and leaders or, at best, as agitation for a negro vote issue in local politics. The judge responded by holding the sheriff in contempt of court.

In an opinion by Chief Justice Earl Warren (not Justice William Brennan, as Trumps lawyers say), the court held that the contempt order violated the sheriffs free speech rights. The statement hadnt interfered with the sheriffs performance of his duties, the court explained, and added, The role that elected officials play in our society makes it all the more imperative that they be allowed freely to express themselves on matters of current public importance.

This decision was about a judicial act the contempt order that would have imprisoned the sheriff. It had nothing to do with impeachment. It certainly shows that public officials possess First Amendment rights. Trump does, too. But that means only that he cant be criminally prosecuted for protected speech, not that he cant be impeached for inciting the Capitol attack.

The Bond case, in 1966, involved an attempt by the Georgia legislature to refuse to seat the civil rights activist Julian Bond when he was elected to that body. The legislature claimed that, because Bond opposed the Vietnam War and the draft, he could not have sincerely taken his oath to support the Constitution and laws of the United States. In another opinion by Chief Justice Warren (also misidentified by Trumps lawyers as Justice Brennan), the court explained that free speech applies not only to the citizen-critic but also to an elected legislator.

The ruling that the Georgia legislature could not keep Bond from taking office does not suggest that the First Amendment prohibits impeachment for Trumps incitement. The Georgia legislature wasnt impeaching Bond. It was making up a reason to exclude him from serving in the first place; conduct outside the bounds of its authority.

Apart from the moral outrageousness of comparing Donald Trump to Julian Bond, the citation seems meant to create a supposedly liberal argument for applying the First Amendment to Trump. (Maybe thats also why Trumps lawyers wanted to invoke Justice Brennan, even though he didnt write either of the opinions.)

That effort is unavailing, or should be. A robust commitment to free speech doesnt require protecting from impeachment a president who uses words in an attempt to destroy the democratic process.

Had Trumps lawyers been more forthright, they might have argued that, although the letter of the Constitution allows Trump to be impeached, the Senate should apply the spirit of the First Amendment to the case, and therefore take into account the Brandenburg definition of incitement. That argument would at least have been constitutionally respectable.

Even then, the House managers would have a good answer: that Trump violated the spirit of the Brandenburg rule by encouraging the attack on the Capitol. The former president probably couldnt be punished criminally for what he said on Jan. 6. But for the high crime of trying to break democracy, he can and should be barred from running for office again.

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and host of the podcast Deep Background. He is a professor of law at Harvard University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter. His books include The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.

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Trump acquitted in Senate impeachment trial that hinged on free speech fallacy – MSNBC

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On Saturday, the Senate voted 57-43 to acquit former President Donald Trump on the single article of impeachment for inciting the insurrection at the Capitol. Without polling the senators individually, we cant know exactly what prompted the 43 Republicans to vote against holding Trump accountable. But in the weeks and months ahead, we may hear free speech used often as an excuse for acquittal.

Impeachment lawyers for Trump closed their defense by arguing, in large part, that his speech on the Ellipse on the morning of Jan. 6 is protected First Amendment speech. They conclude, as a result, that he cannot be impeached. This is incorrect. The First Amendment isnt a defense to impeachment proceedings, like it could be to criminal charges. Even if it did, Trump wouldnt be entitled to it.

The First Amendment isnt a defense to impeachment proceedings, like it could be to criminal charges. Even if it did, Trump wouldnt be entitled to it.

The First Amendment can be offered as a defense to prosecution in a criminal case. If youre indicted and an element of the alleged crime includes an exercise of your First Amendment rights, then you may have a defense that prevents your conviction. But that defense only goes so far.

Thats what happened in Brandenburg v. Ohio, a 1969 case where an Ohio Ku Klux Klan leader was convicted on state charges of inciting violence. A small group assembled at a farm, after inviting members of the press to film them. They claimed to be members of groups from across the country who would march on Congress at a later date because We're not a revengent organization, but if our president, our Congress, our Supreme Court, continues to suppress the white, Caucasian race, it's possible that there might have to be some revengeance taken.

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction, noting that there was a difference between advocating the need for violence in the abstract and preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action. A conviction could only be had, the court concluded, if the advocacy for violence was directed to incite or produce imminent lawless action and was also likely to incite or produce such action.

So, when the government prosecutes a citizen for a crime, mere advocacy is not enough, that is conduct that falls within the First Amendment. Incitement to imminent lawless action breaks through the barrier of free speech and subjects the individual to criminal prosecution.

But, and heres where Trumps First Amendment defense falls apart, impeachment is not a criminal proceeding. Trump was not charged with a federal crime, nor was he subject to imprisonment upon conviction. Impeachment is meant to do something else, it is meant to hold a president accountable when he fails to uphold his oath of office. Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 65 that impeachment concerns those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

The article of impeachment against Trump did not charge him with a violation of the federal criminal code. Instead, it charged that he "willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged and foreseeably resulted in lawless action at the Capitol, a high crime and misdemeanor. Presidents can engage in behavior that while lawful is so egregious an abuse of the public trust as to be impeachable. If a president decided to wear a Camp Auschwitz shirt like the one worn by a member of the mob that attacked the Capitol, it would be legal for him to do so. But it would also warrant immediate impeachment.

Because an impeachment proceeding is not a criminal prosecution, the First Amendment doesnt provide Trump with a defense here. A group of over 100 constitutional law scholars from across the political spectrum analyzed the issues and concluded that any First Amendment defense raised by Trump would be legally frivolous because a president can be impeached for lawful acts. Trump might be able to raise a First Amendment defense if he were subsequently prosecuted criminally, but it is no defense to the charge leveled against him in impeachment: that he violated his oath of office.

Trumps lawyers contorted two Supreme Court cases, Wood v. Georgia and Bond v. Floyd, to suggest the First Amendment applies to impeachment. While these cases involve elected officials, they dont involve impeachment and fail to lend any support to the argument Trumps arguments.

Thats really the end of the inquiry. If you want, you can stop reading here. But because lawyers like to argue in the alternative, ruling out all the possibilities, well take it a step further, for the sake of argument.

Thats really the end of the inquiry. If you want, you can stop reading here.

What if the First Amendment did apply to impeachment proceedings? Would it provide Trump with a defense in that case?

Here, the answer is still no. Even if the First Amendment applies to impeachment proceedings, Trumps conduct on Jan. 6 goes beyond what it protects. There are limits. The First Amendment doesnt protect yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. Nor does it protect an imminent incitement to lawless behavior. Trumps exhortations to the crowd on Jan. 6 fall into that later category of unprotected speech and could form the basis for impeachment, even if First Amendment protections were extended to those proceedings.

Thats because his speech fails the test in Brandenburg v. Ohio. Trumps rally ahead of the Capitol riot was unlike that case, where a conviction was reversed because the allegedly inciting speech happened before a small group of people on a farm and was about possible future action. Trump, after spending months undercutting peoples confidence in the integrity of the election, told his followers Jan. 6 would be wild and the chance to takeback what he claimed was a stolen election before Congress could certify it for Joe Biden. Then, on Jan. 6, he assembled thousands of people, including groups like the Proud Boys with a reputation for violence. And after telling them they were going to have to fight like hell if they wanted to keep their country, he unleashed them on the Capitol. As Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Penn., one of the House impeachment managers said, there was only one fight left at this point: physically preventing Congress from certifying the vote.

The context and course of conduct overwhelmingly establish that Trump both intended to incite imminent lawless action and that his conduct was likely to incite such action. That means his speech falls outside of the First Amendments protection. Had he not intended to produce lawless actions, his reaction would have been horror over the attack on the Capitol, not delight followed by a reluctant and half-hearted entreaty hours later to the mob to go home. Trump encouraged an imminent attack on the Capitol by a mob that was primed to carry it out. So even if the First Amendment could apply to an impeachment setting, it would not apply to Trumps case.

Lead House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a constitutional law professor before he became a member of Congress, noted during the proceedings that the First Amendment does not create some superpower immunity from impeachment for a president who attacks the Constitution in word and deed while rejecting the outcome of an election he happened to lose. Trumps lawyers efforts to turn it into a superpower fell well short of the mark. Their tortured reading of legal precedent may have played well to their audience of one and his supporters, but Republican senators do the country an extraordinary disservice by making it permissible for a president who has lost an election to engage in conduct designed to hold onto power by invoking the First Amendment.

Our country will be barely recognizable if future presidents can lie about the integrity of our election process, claim they won after the courts and independent state election processes confirm they lost, and then assemble a mob and instruct it to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power. And the senators who bought Trumps First Amendment fallacy have given future presidents permission to try to succeed where Trump failed.

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Assisted dying: How has it worked in other countries? – The Irish Times

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What is proposed?

The Dying with Dignity Bill 2020 is being considered by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, having been referred to it by the Dil.

The Bill allows for voluntary euthanasia and assisted dying.

Under the terms of the Bill, a person must have capacity to make their own decision and be terminally ill. They do not have to be nearing death, and do not have to have significant and ongoing decline, or be facing intolerable suffering.

Two medical practitioners must approve their eligibility. The Bill provides for the establishment of a review committee.

Euthanasia: the general term used to refer to steps deliberately taken with the intention of ending a persons life.

Voluntary euthanasia: where a lethal substance is directly administered to an individual at their own request.

Assisted suicide: providing someone else with the knowledge or means to end their life, at their request. The main distinction that is usually made between euthanasia and assisted suicide is with regard to who performs the final, fatal act the individual themselves or someone else.

Assisted dying: used to refer to both voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Switzerland: Assistance with suicide is considered a crime and open to prosecution only if selfish interests are involved. Right-to-die organisations are involved in the process of assisted suicide.

Since it is open to Swiss citizens, foreigners resident there and those who travel from other countries, Switzerland has become an international destination for assisted dying.

The Netherlands: Requests can be made by people from other countries, but a physician must assess whether the patients suffering is unbearable and wont improve, and that their request is voluntary and well considered. The law does not distinguish between physical and psychological suffering, and it allows for euthanasia on a person with dementia in limited circumstances. Euthanasia now accounts for 4.2 per cent of all deaths, a more than threefold increase since 2003.

Finland: An expert working group is examining regulatory needs concerning end-of-life care, and patients right to self-determination, including terminal care and euthanasia.

Canada: Assisted suicide has been legal since 2016. There were just over 1,000 cases in 2015, and over 5,600 in 2019.

New Zealand: It held a referendum on the End of Life Choice Act, to authorise the administration of a lethal dose of medication to competent adults with a terminal illness likely to end their life within six months, should they request it. More than 60 per cent voted in favour. The Act will come into force this year.

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Assisted dying: How has it worked in other countries? - The Irish Times

Guntersville veterinarian responds to allegations of profiting from animal euthanasia – WHNT News 19

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GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. A Guntersville veterinary clinic doctor is refuting allegations of improper euthanasia received by News 19.

One person emailed News 19 stating they took seven kittens to Guntersville Animal Hospital & Surgery Center over the summer after finding them abandoned on the side of the road.

They said all but two, which appeared to have some sort of eye infection and congestion, appeared to be in perfect health.

The person chose Guntersville Animal Hospital & Surgery Center in hopes the kittens could be adopted.

They explained that when they called the veterinarian office about six hours later, they were told the all of the kittens had been euthanized.

The complainant said they were later made aware that the veterinarian clinic directly profits from the euthanasia of animals inside the city limits.

The rumor comes after we began investigating Marshall County Animal Control after complaints from former shelter volunteers regarding Animal Control Officer Kevin Hoks falsifying documents to show a lower euthanasia rate than there actually is.

Dr. Chuck Young told News 19 that Guntersville Animal Hospital & Surgery Center workers are paid for services rendered for euthanasia, but do not make a profit from it.

He explained via a written statement that out of the 455 animals picked up in 2020 by Animal Control, there were 57 that they brought to them.

He explained that 27 were adopted and 30 were put to sleep after being told by Hooks that they were debilitated, sick, aggressive or court-ordered animals.

It equates to a 6% euthanasia rate, according to Young.

He told News 19 they put those animals to sleep to minimize their suffering.

Young also addressed documentation that several animals were not held for the mandatory seven-day hold at Guntersville Animal Hospital & Surgery Center.

Young explained that during their time there, the animals became significantly sick and were euthanized.

He told News 19 he recently spoke with a former Marshall County Animal Shelter volunteer and believes her concerns to be legitimate and should be heard out by the county.

He added that he does think there should be adjustments in the Animal Control department.

See full statement below:

The county administration came to GAH several years ago, just as they have done with other hospitals in the county asking if we would be willing to help with animals that were debilitated, sick or aggressive. We have done that to the best of our ability, only doing what they asked of us regarding these animals. Out of 455 animals picked up in 2020 there were 57 that they brought to us, of those 27 were adopted and 30 debilitated, sick, aggressive or court ordered animals were put to sleep. If these were the only numbers counted in the county out of the 455 then that is 6% rate. Anyone that took the time to look at the euthanasia rates for counties across the state would realize these numbers are actually better than most. The county does not bring the healthiest most adoptable animals to us as they always pick up or get the worst cases turned over to them thus there are always going to be some that for humanities sake need to be put to sleep to minimize their suffering. Some of these animals that were being temporarily held for the 7 days got significantly sick during this time and had to be put to sleep at that point. We have never put any animal down before it was mandated without a justifiable reason. It is not fair for any animal to have to go through this degree of suffering when we have the ability to alleviate it. Veterinarians across the US perform euthanasia every day to minimize all types of animal suffering and it is no different in these cases when a patient has no owner, is sick and no one willing to take care of them. And even if they did many of these cases could not be turned around regardless of the medicine or money after a certain point. All of us here just as in other hospitals have dedicated and spent our lives helping heal and take care of animals and do not look for reasons to euthanize any animal. It should be perfectly clear to anyone how hard we work to get animals adopted by going to our website shelter page as well as our facebook page, which we update daily trying to get every animal placed. And it is not hard to see how passionate we are about adoption and finding as many as possible their forever home given all the happy adoption customers we have on a daily basis. Our nurses that take care of the shelter are distraught that anyone would think that they would intentionally hurt any animal or be complicit in anything inside that category. None of us were consulted or asked our side before any of this came out. We give complete tours of our entire facility for anyone to see how every patient is cared for. I am not sure what the county will do if we or the others stop helping them because of the negative publicity over this issue or what will happen to animals that are sick, debilitated or suffering but we cannot afford to damage our professional carriers or reputations over this issue when the counties requests are an incredibly small fraction of a percent of what we do and any money that was received mostly covered expenses. If shelter work was profitable, they would be everywhere, its a hard job and most do not want to do it especially when it comes to these decisions. We have not been to other public or private facilities in our county and cannot speak for how things are done or kept but as anyone can attest thats been here, everything is kept immaculately and done absolutely by the book, and anyone that says otherwise we would challenge to come see. On top of this all our records are turned over to the county for them to be used at their discretion. We have no idea if the total euthanasia numbers are below 10% for the county as we do not see that information, but they would need to be below the 10 percental for them to be considered no kill. If they are not then they should be considered low risk as well as making sure they reflect accurately where each animal went and what happened in each circumstance. In addition, this information should be made available to the public. If there are any fiscal or structural changes that could or should be made in county protocol hopefully those can and will be made to make for a more transparent process. We would like to think that no one in any setting, shelter or otherwise, would ever enjoy watching debilitated, sick or aggressive animals suffer without intervening, even if it means letting them go peacefully with help but with that being said we do not want any animal that is potentially adoptable not to have the opportunity to find a home. We do everything on our side of the fence to make that happen and hopefully the country will as well. We do not mind trying to help them deal with animals but do not want to be accused of things in the public sphere that are well outside of our control when we were only doing our best to help for the sake of the animals. We have just talked with Mary Harris and Natalie Burwick in the past several days about these issues and we understand they do have legitimate concerns and should be heard in regards to their questions and recommendations regarding the county. They as well understand we did not intentionally cover any of these numbers up and have relied on the county giving us accurate information regarding each animal as well to publish it. We above all hope that the county will be able to get the funding to open a facility in the future and will try to help in any way we can with making that happen.

Read the original here:

Guntersville veterinarian responds to allegations of profiting from animal euthanasia - WHNT News 19