DETROIT—The Justice Department’s case against seven Christian pro-lifer activists who participated in a peaceful protest at a Michigan abortion facility will hinge on the testimony of a former fellow activist who took a plea deal with the government.  On Thursday, the trial for Eva Edl, Cal Zastrow, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Justin Phillips, Joel Curry, and Eva Zastrow continued as lawyers for the defendants and the government argued over what evidence could be presented to the jury. The Biden administration has accused the protesters of engaging in a conspiracy to block women from being able to have abortions by sitting and standing in front of the doors of the Northland Family Planning Clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan in August 2020. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 10.5 years in prison and up to $260,000 in fines. During Thursday’s deliberations, it became clear that Justice Department lawyers would be relying heavily on the testimony of Caroline Davis, a former activist who was involved in the Michigan protest and at several other protests around the country before she was charged with felony conspiracy. Davis took a plea bargain and agreed to testify for the government, and is no longer charged with a felony. The prosecution indicated that it would be relying on Davis’ testimony  to verify several videos that will be played for the jury. Lawyers also indicated they well as use her testimony about a camping trip attended by several of the defendants before the protest, which the government called a “blockade.” Davis appeared hostile when question by attorneys in a similar case earlier this year in a Tennessee court, and admitted that being indicted by the federal government “terrified her.”  Judge Matthew Leitman, who is presiding over the case, appeared to push back on some of the government’s arguments on Thursday, pointing to several inconsistencies in the evidence prosecutors hoped to present to the jury.  Leitman appeared especially critical with prosecutors’ claims that a livestream taken by someone at the Sterling Heights incident was furthering the alleged conspiracy, and ordered that the government rework a graphic showing the amount of phone calls between the defendants.  He said the graphic looked like a “wanted poster,” and was an “effective piece of advocacy” because it was designed in an “incriminating fashion.”  Steve Crampton, a lawyer with the Thomas More Society who is advising Gallagher, said the Justice Department’s claim that the livestream could be used to “inspire others” jeopardized the defendants’ First Amendment rights. Leitman said that the fundamental question of the trial was whether the group intended “to save babies” or break the law, saying that “religion is not going to be put on trial” in his courtroom.  Prosecuting attorneys moved to block the defense from using images of developing babies, but Leitman said he may allow them to be used if they are referenced to during testimony. Several former employees of the Northland Family Planning Clinic are expected to testify tomorrow. Over a dozen family members and supporters of the defendants gathered in downtown Detroit Thursday morning ahead of court proceedings to pray and sing songs like “It is Well with My Soul.” The defendants, all devout Christians, have been open about how their faith led them to take action to help save the unborn. Edl, an 89-year-old woman who survived a communist concentration camp, told The Daily Wire on Tuesday that she wasn’t concerned about the outcome of the trial because “God wins in the end.” Her three children were all in court on Thursday to support her. Republican lawmakers have called for the FACE Act to be repealed as the Biden administration pursues a novel prosecution technique to charge pro-lifer activists around the country with felony conspiracy charges. In some cases, pro-life protesters have been sentenced to years in prison.

'A participant in the water that was down'

Flack is always heaviest when you’re over the target: Vance is right.

Smoke and flames engulfed the luxury home

The American Bar Association first endorsed adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution in 1972, the year that Congress proposed and sent it to the states for ratification. At its Aug. 6 annual convention, the ABA went further and now claims that the 1972 ERA is already part of the Constitution. The ABA is dead wrong. Congress proposed the ERA in March 1972 with a seven-year ratification deadline. With that deadline looming, and fewer than the necessary 38 states ratifying, Congress passed a controversial resolution in 1978 purporting to extend the deadline by 39 months. No additional states ratified the 1972 ERA and five that already had subsequently withdrew their support. As the Congressional Research Service has repeatedly observed, the 1972 ERA “formally died on June 30, 1982.” Because Congress will likely never propose another one, supporters are desperate to maintain the fiction that the 1972 ERA is, as Miracle Max would say, “only mostly dead” rather than “all dead.” It remained pending before the states, and available for ratification, because Congress did not put the deadline in the right place in its proposing resolution. Or so they contend. Congress proposes a constitutional amendment by passing, by at least two-thirds of both houses, a joint resolution that has two parts: a proposing clause with procedural rules for state consideration, and the text of the amendment. The states have ratified eight constitutional amendments under a ratification deadline, four of them with the deadline in the proposing clause and four in the amendment text. If the location really does make all the difference, it was a very well-kept secret in 1972. Joint resolutions to propose the ERA with a ratification deadline began in the 1940s; 93 percent of time the deadline was placed in the proposing clause. That’s where Rep. Martha Griffiths, D-Mich., the 1972 ERA’s prime sponsor, placed it in House Joint Resolution 208. Congress discussed the most appropriate placement of a ratification deadline in a 1932 House hearing on what would become the 20th Amendment. The reason to do so was purely practical; it would avoid “unnecessary cluttering up of the Constitution.” No one suggested that moving the deadline from one place to the other within the same joint resolution had any legal significance. The House actually made that shift in 1960 with consideration of the future 23rd Amendment. The House Judiciary Committee report did not even note that, for the first time, its ratification deadline appeared in the joint resolution’s proposing clause. No one in either the House or Senate or in any state legislature ever said anything about the fact that the ratification deadline for the 23rd, 24th, 25th, or 26th Amendments appeared in the proposing clause. Nor did anyone raise that question about the 1972 ERA. The ABA’s claim that its joint resolution’s proposing clause “was never even submitted to the states” and that they “voted only on the text of the actual amendment” is embarrassingly wrong on the facts. The National Archives explains that, when Congress passes a joint resolution to propose a constitutional amendment, the Archivist transmits that entire resolution, not simply the proposed amendment text, to the states. At least 25 of the states ratifying the 1972 ERA did so by adopting a resolution that quoted Resolution 208 in its entirety, including the ratification deadline. The ABA report never mentions that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel in 1977 opined that the 1972 ERA “must be approved within 7 years after its submission to the States.” Or that a 1977 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report, co-authored by then-Professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg, concluded that ratification of the ERA by the requisite number of states “must occur within 7 years.” Or that President Jimmy Carter’s Advisory Committee for Women’ 1980 report stated that the requisite number of the states “must ratify the ERA by [the deadline] if it is to become an amendment to the Constitution.” Women’s groups backing the 1972 ERA supported Griffith’s decision to add a ratification deadline, the Women’s Equity Action League calling a “minor nonsubstantive” addition and other groups saying it would “prevent indefinite procrastination” in ratifying it. None of them raised any question about Griffith’s decision to place the deadline in the joint resolution’s proposing clause. Everyone, including feminist leaders, agreed that the 1972 ERA’s ratification was binding and that it expired when the deadline passed with insufficient state support. The National Organization for Women, the Washington Post reported in 1982, “concede[d] defeat” and “officially ended its…battle to win ratification of the [ERA]” when the deadline passed. When asked about the 1972 ERA’s status on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” in January 1986, feminist Gloria Steinem explained that, because it was not ratified in the nine years allotted to it, it now has to start the process over again, and…be passed by the House and the Senate and go through all of the states’ ratification process.” The Biden-Harris administration also disagrees with the ABA. In 2022, the Justice Department defended the Archivist against a lawsuit seeking to force certification and publication of the 1972 ERA as officially part of the Constitution. Its appellate brief argued that “the validity of a ratification deadline does not turn on its precise location within the joint resolution.” The “most telling clue” from the Supreme Court on this question, the DOJ brief asserted, is its dismissal of litigation over the validity of the 1972 ERA’s extended deadline “upon consideration of the [Acting Solicitor General’s memorandum] suggesting mootness.” The case was moot because the ratification deadline, though placed in the proposing clause, was valid and had passed without sufficient state support. The 1972 ERA had expired. In that case, Illinois v. Ferriero, in a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, with two of the judges on the three-judge panel appointed by Democratic presidents, the court affirmed dismissal of the lawsuit. The states suing the Archivist, Judge Robert Wilkins wrote, had cited “no persuasive authority” that Congress may not specify the mode of state ratification, that is, by legislature or convention, in the joint resolution’s proposing clause. Congress has, in fact, done so for every constitutional amendment the states have ratified since 1789. If Congress may do that, Wilkins asked, “why not also the ratification deadline?” To have any chance at credibility, the ABA must show why thousands of federal and state legislators, dozens of women’s groups, scores of other ERA advocates, the Justice Department under presidents of both parties, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, the Congressional Research Service, the Supreme Court, and a host of others all got it wrong. Every single one of them. They all missed what the ABA now claims is the most crucial point – that Congress has authority to set a ratification deadline only when it appears in one place in the proposing resolution, but not when it appears a few inches higher on the page. Ginsburg and Steinem got this one right. The ABA is wrong on the ERA. The post The ABA is Wrong on the ERA appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Louisiana law requiring schools to display the Ten Commandments is constitutional, state Attorney General Liz Murrill argues in a legal brief filed this week. House Bill 71 made Louisiana the first state to require public universities and K-12 schools to display the Ten Commandments after Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, signed it into law on June 17. The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the law, asserting that it violates both U.S. Supreme Court precedent and the First Amendment. “Our brief illustrates just a few of the countless ways in which schools may constitutionally implement H.B. 71,” said Murrill, a Republican. “Because the ACLU cannot carry their burden to show that the Ten Commandments law is unconstitutional in all its applications, this lawsuit must be dismissed.” “I am proud to defend the law, and I very much look forward to seeing the ACLU in court,” she said. The brief, submitted Tuesday, lays out a number of applications of the Ten Commandments law, which it says are plainly constitutional. Those include a poster citing the now-deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s emphasis on foundational documents, including the Ten Commandments; a poster describing Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Ten Commandments of Non-Violence,” alongside Moses’ own Ten Commandments; and a poster featuring the late actor Charlton Heston in his most famous movie role as Moses. Murrill filed the brief in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana. The post Louisiana AG Defends Constitutionality of Ten Commandments in Schools appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) has announced it will cease operations. This decision followed a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s social media company, X, and video-sharing platform Rumble. GARM, a nonprofit led by the World Federation of Advertisers, faced accusations of orchestrating a boycott against X, leading to their inability to sustain operations financially while engaged in legal battles. GARM has faced serious accusations from various stakeholders in the digital content and advertising sectors. Allegations against GARM suggest that it operated like an advertising cartel, effectively controlling which creators and news outlets could secure advertising revenue, leading to widespread demonetization. GARM, initially established with the intention of promoting safer online advertising standards, was criticized for how its actions may have overstepped the bounds of responsible moderation. Critics argue that GARM’s influence wasn’t just about ensuring ethical advertising but extended into selective demonetization, where certain creators and outlets found themselves suddenly cut off from essential advertising dollars. This power to influence who gets monetized and who doesn’t, allegedly put GARM in the position of gatekeeper, deciding the fate of various online entities based on their content and the perceived risk they posed to advertisers. Screenshot Stephan Loerke, CEO of the World Federation of Advertisers, expressed his confidence in an email to members that the legal outcomes of the action against the group would vindicate their compliance with competition laws. However, he confirmed the immediate discontinuation of GARM’s activities due to financial constraints, a sentiment previously echoed in reports by Business Insider. The closure of GARM was met with applause at X, where CEO Linda Yaccarino heralded it as a stride towards fairness in monetization practices across the digital ecosystem. The sentiment was mirrored by the House Judiciary Committee, with spokesman Russell Dye hailing it as a victory for the First Amendment. The committee, under Republican Representative Jim Jordan, had criticized GARM in a July report for attempting to manipulate online advertising in a manner that disadvantaged certain content and platforms. According to Dye, this resolution is a testament to the effectiveness of Chairman Jordan’s regulatory oversight. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post X and Rumble’s Lawsuit Topples Alleged Censorship Cartel appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Vetting Isn't Just Looking For Someone Not Jewish, Democrats

No FARA Charges for Hunter

Pro-Palestinian Activists Fight Western Civilization and Children's Theater but Mostly Children's Theater