Category Archives: Judiciary

The Supreme’s Trainwreck

Posted on by 2 comments

Every summer professors at the nation’s law schools huddle to discuss what, if any, changes should be made to their teaching curriculum after the Supreme Court term just ended. This year, they are scrambling to deal with the train wreck for constitutional law that was the Court’s 2023-2024 term.

I am not a lawyer. But after fifty years as a journalist, I am spending my emeritus years in part teaching a course titled “Media Law and Ethics for Journalists” in the UCLA Extension program. This is a required course in the school’s journalism certificate program and is available online.

Read more

The Supremes Vote Trump

Posted on by 3 comments

The six members of the conservative supermajority of the Supreme Court cast their ballots for Donald Trump on the last day of the court term, then ran out of town to begin their standard three months’ long vacation.

Read more

Form and Substance

Posted on by Leave a comment

There is no sugar-coating it. President Joe Biden had a train wreck in his first 2024 debate with Former President Donald Trump. Fifty-one million watched. I wrote that I had concerns because Biden had seemed physically feeble during some appearances in the last year. Right as he walked out on the debate stage, I saw those signs, Biden walking slowly and speaking slowly and in a soft scratchy voice. I did not expect to see him ramble and become incoherent, but he did that more than once. At other times he was clear, combative, and effective, defending his administration and listing his accomplishments. But you could not fail to notice the other moments.

Read more

Trump Guilty

Posted on by One comment

Donald Trump is now the first president to be tried and convicted of a crime, a Manhattan jury finding him guilty of falsifying records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star. It is the third time a jury of his peers has found him guilty, the previous two cases involving civil lawsuits for sexual abuse and defamation.

Read more

Birds of a Feather

Posted on by Leave a comment

Last week The New York Times published a photograph it had acquired that showed an upside-down American flag flying on the pole at the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. This incident occurred in January 2021, just days after former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. The flag is associated with Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Alito says he had no involvement whatsoever in the flag flying. The flag, he said. was briefly placed by his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs. Alito also claimed he did not participate in the decision to display the flag. Sounds to me like Alito is throwing his wife under the bus.

Read more

TicTok Turmoil

Posted on by 2 comments

As of February 2023, the social video app TikTok said it had approximately 150 active monthly million users in the United States. This number is projected to increase by over five percent year-over-year, reaching 170 million users in 2024. Extremely popular with younger digital audiences, TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media apps in the United States. The United States has the largest TikTok audience of any country. And that scares the hell out of many, including the members of Congress.

Read more

The Supremes Vote, Again

Posted on by Leave a comment

There is no doubt anymore. The conservative majority on the United States Supreme Court is dedicated to electing Donald Trump to a second term.

The Trump justices made that clear last week as they considered his extraordinary claim that a president has an absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. The idea seems absurd on its face. A fundamental principal of the United States is that it is a nation of law. The framers of the Constitution, having overthrown one monarch, had no desire to create a new one. There is no evidence in the historical record that they believed a president should be immune from criminal prosecution. Two lower courts carefully considered Trump’s claim and rejected it completely.

Read more
« Older Entries Recent Entries »