Monthly Archives: March 2020

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit denied the White Houses request for en banc review of a ruling that Donald Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking critics of the president on .

The Trump administration had appealed for a review of the unanimous three-judge ruling by the 2nd Circuit in July 2019 finding that Trumps @realDonaldTrump Twitter account constitutes a public forum under the U.S. Constitutions First Amendment.

That upheld a 2018 U.S. District Court judges ruling that Trumps blocking of individual accounts on Twitter was unconstitutional, rejecting the argument from the presidents lawyers that Trumps own First Amendment rights would be abridged if he was disallowed from blocking users. The district court ordered Trump to unblock the plaintiffs accounts on Twitter, and barred him from blocking speakers on the basis of political views.

Regarding the 2nd Circuits rejection Monday of the request for a rehearing, two dissenting circuit court judges contended that Trumps use of his personal @realDonaldTrump to conduct official business does not amount to state action. But U.S. Circuit Judge Barrington D. Parker, in a statement, wrote that This argument is refuted by even a cursory perusal of examples of the tweets in question.

Parker cited Trump posts on Twitter in January 2020 about Iran as illustrating the fact that @realDonaldTrump is used as an official communications channel. These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless! Trump tweeted from his personal account on Jan. 5.

The dissenting opinion misconstrues the applicable law and overstates the scope of the panels holding, Parker wrote in part. The critical question in this case is not the nature of the Account when it was set up a decade ago. The critical question for First Amendment purposes is how the President uses the Account in his capacity as President.

The lawsuit against Trump was filed in 2017 by Columbia Universitys Knight First Amendment Institute and seven individuals who said Trump blocked them from the @realDonaldTrump account after they criticized him in comments.

Were pleased that the full appeals court will leave the panels original ruling in place, Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institutes executive director, who argued the case before the 2nd Circuit, said in a statement. The ruling is an important affirmation of core First Amendment principles as applied to new communications technology.

The 2nd Circuits order denying the Trump administrations en banc petition is at this link.

The lawsuit also named White House social-media director Daniel Scavino and former Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders as defendants.

More:
Donald Trump Violated First Amendment by Blocking Critics on Twitter, Appeals Court Affirms - Variety

Its fair to say that the average Indians faith in the judiciary and the Constitution in general is at an all-time low. A few days ago, we learned that former Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, will be a Rajya Sabha MP soon. This is less than a year after he presided over his own sexual harassment allegation hearing just one of the many unpopular decisions he took in the last year of his career, all of which favoured the Narendra Modi government (Ayodhya, the Rafale deal and so on). The most contentious issue in India (other than the governments handling of COVID-19, of course) today, after all, is an act that many of us feel is unconstitutional (violates Article 14, for starters) and yet, the fight against the CAA is led by street protests, not legal challenges.

When did the executive branch begin to bend the judiciary to their (political) will in India and how? Sixteen Stormy Days (Penguin Random House India), a new non-fiction book by Tripurdaman Singh, tries to answer this question and address the long-term effects of the First Amendment to the Indian constitution.

Sixteen Stormy Days, by Tripurdaman Singh

As the author says, How did this magnificent Constitution, the most elaborate declaration of human rights yet framed go from being a charter of freedom & fulfillment of the dreams of Indias people in 1950 to being an impediment in the will of the same people by 1951?

Why did Jawaharlal Nehru push so hard for the First Amendment in 1951, especially in the face of challenges both within the provisional parliament (general elections were still a few months away) and from various High Courts? The answer is both simple and not. The objective was three-fold: the abolition of the zamindari system (the impediment being the right to property), the application of caste-based reservations (the impediment being the right to equality) and the censoring of publications deemed as national security threats (the impediment being freedom of speech).

Each of the three objectives, therefore, involved a clash between political objectives and fundamental rights. This brought Nehru back to the original question: why do we have fundamental rights in the first place? Is it not to protect the most vulnerable among us? Nehru was certainly correct in his over-arching view of things that as long as structural inequities existed in the Indian state (the caste system, for instance, something that persists to this day and is easily Indias biggest social justice issue), fundamental rights could be misused to privilege the powerful over the weak. Zamindari did need to go, caste-based reservations were needed in India (still are).

As part of its agenda, the Congress wanted to abolish the zamindari system as soon as possible. Obviously, faced with the overnight evaporation of their power, the zamindars of Bihar in particular fought back hard, helped by allies like Rajendra Prasad, Indias first President. On 12 March 1951, the Patna High Court struck down the Bihar Land Reforms Act, saying that it violated Article 14 of the Constitution (which pertains to the equality of all citizens in the eyes of the law).

In a searing indictment of the Congress party and the Bihar governments manifest authoritarianism, the judges denounced the Act as an unconstitutional law enacted in the belief that the right of the plaintiffs to challenge it and ask for relief from its operation has been taken away. The courts decision shook the government and the Congress party to its core. It shattered the illusion of the current regime having inherited the absolute power of the Raj. The Bihar Land Reforms Act bit the dust. An entire pillar of the Congress partys social agenda stood virtually crippled.Singhs research is thorough. He excels in the blow-by-blow accounts of those crucial weeks when Nehru tried to bring his allies and his opponents around to his point of view. (Realpolitik is a thorny affair at the best of times, one that Singh is clearly familiar with). Immediately after the Patna High Court ruling, Nehru had a fairly strong-worded statement for the press:

If the Constitution is interpreted by the Courts in a way which comes in the way of the wishes of the legislature in regard to basic social matters, then it is for the legislatures to consider how to amend the Constitution so that the will of the people as represented in the legislature should prevail.

Most students of history and/or political science will, I am sure, find the back-and-forth between Nehru and BR Ambedkar, or between Prasad and Nehru, compelling reading. This is among the reasons why Singhs work is such a valuable resource. To his credit, the book is also accessibly written, for the most part, only slipping into legalese at a few places every now and then small blemishes in an otherwise thoroughly professional job.

I was also impressed by the fact that Singh, despite his Bharatiya Janata Party affiliations (his father Mahendra Aridaman Singh re-joined the BJP in 2017; at various points through the 90s and 2000s, he had been a part of the Samajwadi Party and Janta Dal as well), isnt interested in painting Nehru as an outright villain (although predictably, his book has been gleefully reported on by right-wing publications with a history of Islamophobia and publishing falsehoods like Swarajya magazine, complete with headlines blasting Nehru). As the author himself pointed out in a recent interview, he saw Nehru as a hard-nosed politician (and not as the saboteur of fundamental rights in India, despite his stand here). Hopefully, this sense of nuance also reaches Singhs colleagues in the BJP soon.

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Sixteen Stormy Days: Tripurdaman Singh's account of the First Amendment to Indian Constitution makes for... - Firstpost

Below is a statement from F. Vincent Vernuccio, senior fellow for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and policy advisor for Workers for Opportunity, on the draft of the Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act, which is expected to be introduced by U.S. House Democrats later today. The act is a counterproposal for the current stimulus package.

Today, House Democrats introduced an over 1,400-page bill loaded with provisions that tie funding to a grab bag of policies that have nothing to do with the coronavirus or helping the economy. The bill is a giveaway to unions and seems to prioritize labor reforms Democrats have failed to pass in Congress. Airlines that take stimulus funding would have to give unions a seat on their board, for example. They would also have to sign away their First Amendment rights and not talk to their employees about unionization. There's even a $15.00 minimum wage mandate for companies seeking relief, for both employees and independent contractors and a bailout of union pension funds.Congress needs to be focused on the health of Americans and limiting the damage the virus is causing.

Negotiations are ongoing about the economic rescue package but the health and economic safety of Americans should not be used as a bargaining chip. The Mackinac Center and Workers for Opportunity believe it should be focused on mitigating the direct effects of the virus on businesses, workers and citizens. To learn more about Workers for Opportunity, a project of the Mackinac Center, visit https://workersforopportunity.org.

Go here to read the rest:
Keep Federal COVID-19 Package Focused on the Virus and Its Effects - Mackinac Center for Public Policy

WEHOville has reached out to West Hollywood City Attorney Mike Jenkins to ask him to instruct City Councilmember John Duran to stop blocking some West Hollywood residents and WEHOville from access to his Facebook account.

In its request on Sunday WEHOville cites a federal court decision in 2017 in Knight v. Trump that Donald Trump, in denying his critics access to his Twitter account @realDonaldTrump, was violating the First Amendment of the Constitution. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today denied the Trump administrations request for a review of the ruling by New Yorks Second Circuit Southern District Court, meaning it remains in place.

Duran, who is up for re-election on Nov. 3, uses his Facebook account like Trump uses his Twitter account. He posts regularly about city issues, with his posts usually opening with Dear WEHOANS. His Facebook page is followed by 2,587 people. But several residents have said Duran has blocked them from access to his account after they fell into a disagreement. Larry Block, owner of the Block Party store and a candidate in the Nov. 3 City Council race, is one of a few willing to be identified publicly by WEHOville.

Duran has blocked WEHOville from access to his Facebook account following its coverage of allegations that he made sexually inappropriate remarks to young members of the Gay Mens Chorus of Angeles, whose board he once chaired, and used his title of mayor of West Hollywood to solicit sex on Grindr. (Duran has denied the GMCLA allegations). However, Duran does link his posts to a reporter from the Los Angeles Times and to two friends of his, Karen Ocamb of the Los Angeles Blade, and Paulo Murillo of WeHo Times, whose limited coverage of the accusations against Duran by young GMCLA members has been mostly positive. Duran has sometimes mentioned WEHOville in his Facebook posts, but not by name. He most recently described WEHOville as the reckless sensationalistic blog. He also has pushed several WEHOville advertisers to stop, which to date has had on impact on WEHOvilles limited revenue. Local residents who Duran hasnt blocked often copy some of his more controversial statements that they deem newsworthy and forward them to WEHOville for coverage.

In a post on the Knight First Amendment Institutes website, Jameel Jaffer, the lawyer who argued the Knight Institute v. Trump lawsuit brought before the U.S. District Court for New Yorks Southern District in 2017, described the reason behind it and why it applied to the personal social media accounts of public officials

Public officials social media accounts are now among the most significant forums for discussion of government policy, said Jaffer, who is executive director of the institute. This decision will ensure that people arent excluded from these forums simply because of their viewpoints, and that public officials arent insulated from their constituents criticism. The decision will help ensure the integrity and vitality of digital spaces that are increasingly important to our democracy.

Duran has faced other criticism of his Facebook account, where he identifies himself as the inventor of homosexuality. For many months after he gave up his position as mayor in March in response to controversy over his alleged sexual misconduct with young members of the Gay Mens Chorus of Los Angeles, Duran continued to claim that honorary title on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Several City Council members and local residents objected to that, one of whom wrote a letter to the City Attorney that resulted in Duran dropping that title from his profiles in July 2019.

Read the original here:
WEHOville Asks John Duran to Stop Blocking It and WeHo Residents on Social Media - WEHOville

COVID-19 does not threaten the lives or security of the vast majority of US citizens, yet the majority are the primary target of the draconian actions by state and local governments across this nation; not for any crime they committed or for any threat to the rule of law, but because of their human nature.

No US citizen, except those who have taken an oath otherwise, can be compelled by law or force, or be coerced into assisting others, even if the others are endangered to the point of death. The right to conscience is sovereign.

Every US citizen has a First Amendment right to peaceful assembly.

Every US citizen has the right to engage in legal commerce.

So, all government-enforced curfews, quarantines, isolations, business closings, and all acts of government to restrict the movements and activities of free Americans or to suppress our constitutional rights are null and void. And the silence from US citizens and business owners is terrifying.

The precedent has been set. The people have acquiesced.

Not to a federal attack on their rights, but to state and local attacks. No one should be surprised now when government comes for the rest of our rights. And they will come.

Our Second Amendment right to bear arms will be next on the chopping block, and the clarion call will come loudly from local and state governments, causing a groundswell to take the goal of gun confiscation to the federal level. This will happen. And it will happen before the November election.

No longer empowered with the rights to peaceful assembly and legal commerce, having lost the battle in 50 states to keep our right to bear arms, the people themselves will have made their right to petition the federal government for a redress of grievances no longer worth the ink or feather quill that once proclaimed it. And then, to what sovereign power on earth must the federal government yield?

Our rights gone. COVID-19 still here.

To my East Grand Forks government and to the Minnesota state government, on the usurpation of my God-given rights to keep my own conscience, to peaceful assembly, and to commerce, I declare:

I do not acquiesce.

See the article here:
Letter: Government actions going too far on virus - Grand Forks Herald