‘Laws giving government officials unbridled discretion to ban speech they find offensive will inevitably lead to arbitrary results…’
Fans support the Fulham Football Club / IMAGE: Fulham1879 FanTV
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) A California soccer fan can now have a personalized license plate celebrating his favorite team after winning his battle against the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.
The California DMV had denied lawyer and constitutional scholar Jon Kotler’s request for a license plate that reads, “COYW,” short for “Come on You Whites.”
The license plate references Kotler’s favorite U.K.-based soccer team, Fulham Football Club, and their white jerseys. But the DMV said the slogan carried “racial overtones” and “connotations offensive to good taste and decency.”
Kotler gave the DMV evidence that the slogan was not racially-based, but still, the state refused his request. So Kotler filed a First Amendment lawsuit, which the DMV settled this week.
“Upon further administrative review, the DMV determined Mr. Kotler’s personalized plate request for ‘COYW’ should not have been rejected and is expediting the approval to get it to Mr. Kotler as quickly as possible,” Anita Gore, a deputy director with the DMV, said on Tuesday, according to CBS News.
The DMV had tried to argue in court that vehicle license plates are representative of the government, but U.S. District Judge George Wu ruled that it’s unlikely “viewers perceive the government as speaking through personalized vanity plates,” and threw out the DMV’s request to dismiss Kotler’s lawsuit.
Kotler’s attorney, Wen Fa, said the DMV deliberately read into the license plate what it wanted to see.
“The DMV’s misguided denial of the ‘COYW’ plate shows that laws giving government officials unbridled discretion to ban speech they find offensive will inevitably lead to arbitrary results,” Fa said.
Kotler celebrated the decision as a win for free speech: “The freedom to speak as one wishes in the face of government opposition to it is central to what it means to be an American,” he said in a statement. “My only regret is that it took a lawsuit to force the state of California to do what the law required of it.”
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden signaled again that he would like former First Lady Michelle Obama to take the second-in-command slot that he held under her husband, former President Barack Obama.
Biden raised the question out of the blue Tuesday during a campaign stop in Muscatine, Iowa, The Hill reported.
It came in response to a reporter asking about a possible Barack Obama appointment to the Supreme Court.
“Yeah, I would, but I don’t think he’d do it,” Biden replied. “He’d be a great Supreme Court Justice.”
The person then followed up: “Second question is—which Obama?”
Biden replied, “I sure would like Michelle to be the Vice President.”
Throughout the campaign, he has seemed particularly fixated on the idea of tapping someone who is a minority and a woman to round out the ticket.
Early on, Biden was criticized for racism and sexism after prematurely declaring he would welcome failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams as his running mate—even though Abrams was, at the time, considering her own presidential run.
He told Axios last month that he would also consider adding Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to the list, even though Warren, herself, remains one of the top four front-runners in the Democratic primary.
Biden qualified his remark by acknowledging the implication in the question that it meant he was “not taking so-and-so seriously.”
Joe Biden, pressed by @mikeallen why he initially left Elizabeth Warren off of his previous list of potential VPs, says she is also a possibility. “The question is, would she add me to her list?” pic.twitter.com/hzrEUGa1mv
Speculation about a potential Michelle Obama run has been widespread, although she has now missed the opportunity to get on the ballot in key states like California.
Some, nonetheless, see scenarios playing out in which her name could be put forth as an alternative at a brokered convention where none of the declared candidates were able to cross the threshold to secure the nomination.
During a September 2019 appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Biden previously intimated that he had asked Michelle Obama to be his running mate before dialing back the comment by claiming that he had been joking.
However, Biden’s former boss has not reciprocated the appreciation for the scandal-plagued front-runner.
Obama has pointedly declined to endorse Biden and was reported to have said privately that the Delaware elder-statesman “really doesn’t have” the magic that led him to victory in 2008 and 2012.
‘It is clear, regrettably, that the prepublication review process has been corrupted …’
National Security Adviser John Bolton/PHOTO: Gage Skidmore (CC)
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Former national security adviser John Bolton and his book publisher denied that they leaked an advance copy of his unreleased memoir to the The New York Times.
After TheNew York Times reported on an excerpt of Bolton’s book this weekend, Republicans wondered whether Bolton had intentionally leaked a copy of his book to the media to sway Senate votes in order to testify against President Donald Trump.
“You have to keep in mind, for the first time in his life, he was fired,” said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. “That does have an effect on people.”
Longtime Bolton aide Sarah Tinsley, however, said this accusation is nothing more than “unfounded speculation.”
“Ambassador John Bolton, Simon & Schuster, and Javelin Literary categorically state that there was absolutely no coordination with the New York Times or anyone else regarding the appearance of information about his book, THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED, at online booksellers,” she said in a statement, according to the New York Post.
Bolton’s team has instead blamed the leak on the White House, since Bolton sent an advanced copy to the executive branch for internal review to ensure it would not violate confidentiality.
“It is clear, regrettably, that the prepublication review process has been corrupted and that information has been disclosed by persons other than those properly involved in reviewing the manuscript,” said one of Bolton’s lawyers, Charles Cooper.
In a letter sent to Cooper last week, the White House concluded that Bolton’s memoir is not fit to be published.
“Based on our preliminary review, the manuscript appears to contain significant amounts of classified information,” said Ellen Knight, National Security Council senior director for records, access and information security management, according to NBC News.
“It also appears that some of this classified information is at the top-secret level,” Knight said. “The manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information.”
‘The timing of the grant approval and his daughter’s ascent to leadership in the organization … makes it necessary for the agencies involved to investigate …’
Ashley Biden / IMAGE: University of Delaware via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The federal government awarded a $166,000 grant to a Delaware nonprofit led by Ashley Biden, the daughter of current presidential contender Joe Biden, while her father was vice president, according to the Washington Examiner.
In 2015, the Department of Justice awarded a competitive two-year grant to the Delaware Center for Justice while Ashley Biden was the foundation’s associate director, government and tax records reveal.
Shortly after the Justice Department awarded the grant to the foundation, Ashley Biden was promoted to executive director.
Joe Biden has been intimately involved with the grant program, known as the Edward Byrne Memorial fund, throughout its existence.
As vice president, he helped steer $1.7 billion in federal dollars to the program, which is supposed to strengthen local law enforcement. His daughter’s foundation was one of only three jurisdictions that Obama’s DOJ allowed to benefit from the program, the Examiner reports.
Biden’s connection to the grant and his daughter’s ensuing promotion are worth questioning, said Tom Anderson, director of the National Legal and Policy Center’s Government Integrity Project.
“The timing of the grant approval and his daughter’s ascent to leadership in the organization that received it makes it necessary for the agencies involved to investigate whether Biden improperly used his influence to steer this grant to his daughter,” Anderson said.
Ashley Biden’s foundation grew in size and revenue after receiving money from the Edward Byrne memorial grant, documents reveal. The year before, the Delaware Center for Justice had brought in $768,305. After the grant, the foundation brought in $1,517,854.
Critics have pointed out that this is yet another example of Biden allegedly using his political prominence to benefit his relatives:
While Joe was VP/Senator:
His son Hunter got $83k/month from corrupt Burisma.
His brother got a sweetheart land deal from a Biden-friendly lobbyist.
‘Impeachment isn’t about one offense. It’s really about the character and ability and physical and mental fitness of the individual…’
Dianne Feinstein/Photo by Neon Tommy
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., appeared to be leaning toward voting to acquit President Donald Trump in an interview with the Los Angeles Times this week.
But now, Feinstein is claiming the publication “misunderstood what I said,” noting that as impeachment works its way through the Senate she will do her best to “keep an open mind.”
The veteran San Francisco senator has never before been accused of breaking rank to side with her Republican colleagues. As ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, she took a prominent role in the notorious 2018 efforts to derail Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh‘s conformation while denying due process to the accused judicial nominee.
Yet, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that Feinstein told reporters the “people should judge” whether Trump is guilty.
“We are a republic,” she said. “We are based on the will of the people—the people should judge.”
Trump’s defense team has put forth a similar argument, noting that the alleged misconduct fails to meet the high standard for removal since the people themselves will have the opportunity to vote in November on whether they approve of the president’s actions.
However, Feinstein clarified on Wednesday that this doesn’t mean she will vote to acquit Trump.
“We’re not finished,” she said of impeachment.
The LA Times misunderstood what I said today. Before the trial I said I’d keep an open mind. Now that both sides made their cases, it’s clear the president’s actions were wrong. He withheld vital foreign assistance for personal political gain. That can’t be allowed to stand.
After Feinstein challenged the story, the Los Angeles Times stealth-edited its original headline from “Feinstein leans toward acquitting Trump,” to “Feinstein says she’s a maybe on acquitting Trump.”
In her interview with the Los Angeles Times, however, Feinstein did raise concerns about the way the House impeachment managers have presented the case against Trump.
“Impeachment isn’t about one offense,” she said. “It’s really about the character and ability and physical and mental fitness of the individual to serve the people, not themselves.”
The question is whether the Democrats’ case proves that about Trump, she continued.
The idea that the public should decide whether Trump remains in office is actually the opinion held by a majority of the American public.
Quinnipiac found in its latest poll that 48% oppose Trump’s removal from office, and 47% support it. And even among those voters who said they believe Trump did something wrong, a minority supports removing him from office, the poll found.
‘They’re tying themselves in all kinds of pretzel knots to avoid the truth…’
Chuck Schumer / IMAGE: Associated Press
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) As the Senate prepared to enter into its question-and-answer phase of the ongoing impeachment trial against President Donald Trump, all indications were that Republicans would not acquiesce to Democrats’ efforts to spin the narrative and deflect from their own misconduct.
GOP senators planned to home in on several major areas that cast the impeachment discussion in a broader framework of the Left’s partisan political ambitions, as well as past instances of corruption or hypocrisy.
Among the topics that GOP Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rick Scott of Florida planned to raise, according to advance statements from their respective offices:
the inconsistency displayed by Democratic House managers in declaring their efforts ‘legitimate’ and ‘nonpartisan’ despite saying the opposite during the Bill Clinton impeachment in 1999
the role that House Democrats played in engineering the whistleblower complaint that launched the partisan impeachment, as well as their suppression of secretive testimony from Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson
the questions surrounding the Obama administration’s disingenuous efforts to combat Ukrainian corruption while allowing Hunter Biden and others working for the corrupt Burisma company to lobby top U.S. officials
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, meanwhile, sought to get in front of the curve by pressing his own claims that he was rebutting GOP arguments after falsely framing the narrative.
“I want to talk about three lines of push-back that they’re using with tremendous pressure, that President Trump and Leader McConnell are using on Republican Senators, to try and get them to avoid the crucial Friday vote on witnesses and documents,” Schumer claimed in a press conference prior to the start of the session Wednesday.
Republican leaders have sought a quick dismissal of the trial on the basis that the politically-motivated effort does not rise to the standard of impeachment and lacks legitimacy.
While public disinterest—and the boredom of the senators themselves—in the belaboring of stale and hollow claims about “abuse of power” has also been a significant storyline, Schumer falsely insisted Republicans’ chief concern was that the trial would take too long.
“I predicted this. We said—you may remember this, a week and a half ago—they’re going to say ‘let’s wait,’ and then when we wait, they’re going to say ‘it took too long, we shouldn’t have waited,'” Schumer claimed.
“Again, just double-talk to avoid the truth—that’s what they’re doing,” he continued. “They’re tying themselves in all kinds of pretzel knots to avoid the truth.”
Schumer also touched in his second point on the lack of criminal charges, falsely claiming that a legal consensus had “discredited” the “completely phony” arguments put forth by revered Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.
“If the people can’t hold the president accountable for abuses only he can commit, then the impeachment power is meaningless,” said Schumer, who prominently said the opposite during the Clinton impeachment.
He also falsely claimed that Republicans opposed a “fair trial” since the outcome—acquittal—was baked into the cake.
“Talk about being political. Talk about being cynical,” Schumer said, feigning outrage and indignation over the impeachment that was decided in the House on a strictly partisan basis.
Hunter and Joe Biden / IMAGE: Donald J Trump via Youtube
Schumer pointedly tiptoed around the questions about Hunter Biden and his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, refusing to name them but vaguely alluding to talking points that the Bidens’ testimony was irrelevant to the present case.
“We’re not going to be dilatory in any way. We have only asked for relevant evidence,” Schumer claimed.
“It could be reviewed expeditiously,” he added. “Four witnesses, four sets of documents, the men who were in the room where it happened. No more, no less. That’s reasonable, that’s why the American people are so strongly in favor of witnesses and documents.”
Schumer has maintained in several previous press conferences that any sort of agreement to allow Democrats’ desired witnesses, such as former national security adviser John Bolton, in return for consensus on a Hunter Biden subpoena was “off the table.”
However, Hawley indicated that he planned to introduce motions for the subpoena of both Hunter and Joe Biden, Atkinson, House impeachment manager Adam Schiff and the so-called whistleblower, according to Politico.
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) CNN’s Don Lemon offered a half-hearted apology after facing backlash for mocking “the credulous boomer rube demo” of Trump supporters.
“This is personally important for me to address this,” he said on Tuesday’s show. “Ask anyone who knows me, they’ll tell you: I don’t believe in belittling people, belittling anyone for who they are, what they believe, or where they’re from. During an interview on Saturday night, one of my guests said something that made me laugh. And while in the moment, I found that joke humorous. And I didn’t catch everything that was said.”
#BREAKING: @DonLemon addressing the now-viral Saturday @CNNTonight segment mocking and showing such venom toward Trump supporters. Not surprisingly, Lemon deflected: “I don’t believe in belittling people….In the moment…I didn’t catch everything that was said.” pic.twitter.com/oI4eNz7rkR
Lemon claimed he didn’t hear what was said, but in the clip of the now viral segment, Lemon’s panelists can be clearly heard mimicking Southern accents in an attempt to mock Trump supporters.
“‘Donald Trump’s the smart one — and y’all elitists are dumb!’” NeverTrumper Rick Wilson said in a fake Southern accent.
The New York Times’ Wajahat Ali then joined in and said mockingly, “‘ You elitists with your geography and your maps — and your spelling!’”
‘You’re asking me to make the most important decision that I’ve ever made … and I wanna hear everything I can…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia made clear that the vote—most likely on Friday— whether to call additional witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump probably will not be a bipartisan one.
“I want witnesses,” Manchin said Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” shortly before holding a press conference of his own.
“I want people to tell me what you know,” he continued. “You’re asking me to make the most important decision that I’ve ever made in the political arena or as an individual, and I wanna hear everything I can.”
Manchin, who was the only Democrat to vote in favor of confirming Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, is widely viewed as one of the party’s most conservative senators.
He said he was open to hearing from witnesses favored by both sides, including Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden’s ‘consulting’ role as a board member of the corrupt Burisma energy company—for which he received millions of dollars between 2014 and his April 2019 resignation—has been a central component in the impeachment.
While most Democrats have dismissed the idea of a brokered compromise on witnesses and have pushed back against having the Bidens testify, Manchin signaled that he would likely support such an arrangement.
“I don’t have a problem there, because this is why we are where we are,” he said of a Biden subpoena.
“Now, I think that he [Hunter Biden] could clear himself—what I know and what I’ve heard—but being afraid to put anybody that might have pertinent information is wrong, no matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican,” he added.
Manchin said he had not discussed his position with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and was unlikely to put his party allegiance over his loyalty and duty to his constituents.
“I’m Joe from West Virginia, and Chuck’s my friend, but I get along with everybody,” he said.
“All the Republicans—I don’t have anybody I don’t like, and I try to work with all of them,” Manchin continued. “But, by golly, I’ve gotta go home and look West Virginia in the eye and say, ‘Hey, this is why I did it.’ If I don’t have an answer and I can’t explain it, I can’t vote for it.”
Senate GOP leaders have pressed for a quick dismissal without any additional witnesses, maintaining that the politically motivated House case does not warrant any further consideration.
Trump’s defense argued that the charges—lacking a specifically enumerated crime—run contrary to the framers’ intentions and the past precedent regarding presidential impeachments. Both prior efforts—the trials of presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton—ended in acquittals despite clearer evidence of the commission of crimes.
But following the conclusion of opening arguments on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., indicated that he may not have the 51 votes needed for an outright dismissal.
Republicans hold a 53-47 lead in the Senate (with two left-wing independents caucusing with Democrats). However, three GOP senators—Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—all have expressed support for hearing additional witnesses.
Doug Jones/IMAGE: YouTube
The only other Democrat whom Republicans might lean on to consider a quick dismissal without additional witnesses would be Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala. Jones already faces an uphill battle to win re-election in November, with his predecessor, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and his 2017 special election opponent, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, both signaling interest in another run.
Some media outlets, such as Politico, have included freshman Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., in the trio of Democrat undecideds who may ultimately vote to acquit Trump on one or both charges. While Sinema ran a campaign to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake that did not seem to court conservatives necessarily, her narrow victory over Martha McSally underscored her political vulnerability.
Sinema’s voting history has since entrenched her firmly in the moderate camp, but she faces no imminent danger of losing her seat.
McSally, who subsequently was appointed to replace the late Sen. John McCain, does face a particularly close election in November. She is one of a handful of still-undeclared, battleground-state Republicans facing re-election this year who may potentially break ranks on the question of witnesses.
Like other centrists caught in the political crossfire, Manchin decried the hypocrisy of both sides from those whose 180-degree reversals since the 1999 Clinton impeachment trial were prominently showcased in the opening arguments.
“People are confused,” he said. “… Did they think the brilliance of our framers over 230 years ago left that much wiggle room in that you could change your position every 10 or 20 years?”
Likewise, Manchin said, efforts to cherry-pick only the witnesses who favored a specific partisan outcome seemed to run counter to the oath of impartiality that the senators took.
“I don’t know how anybody goes home and says, ‘I just thought I heard enough,’” Manchin said.
“Wait a minute—the most important thing we’ve ever done as a public official … nothing rises to the level of ‘Should we remove a president?’” he added. “And nobody wants to be in that position.”
‘We’re proud to stand with Aundrea who is standing up for her rights against this shameful bullying by union bosses…’
Aundrea Smith / The375Show via Youtube
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Only a month since a new California law effectively curbed the use of independent contractors and empowered labor unions to tap into the emerging gig economy, union thugs are flexing their muscles by threatening a Hollywood “scab”: 12-year-old Disney actress Aundrea Smith.
The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists sought to “discipline” the young performer for appearing in a non-union commercial—despite the fact that she was not a member of the SAG union at the time, reported the National Labor Relations Board.
“The NLRB must intervene to halt this blatant and unlawful abuse of power by SAG-AFTRA union officials against this young actress,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “We’re proud to stand with Aundrea who is standing up for her rights against this shameful bullying by union bosses.”
According to the NLRB, which filed unfair labor practice charges on Smith’s behalf, she joined SAG in April 2019, a month after filming the commercial.
Four months later, in August 2019, she learned of the federal labor laws that prevent compulsory union membership and resigned her own membership.
The labor act also prevents unions from fining or punishing non-members and of making union membership a condition of employment.
NLRB said that, earlier this month, the Communication Workers of America union was forced to settle a similar case involving an AT&T employee after CWA refused to recognize the employee’s resignation from the union.
Despite Hollywood’s difficult history of blacklisting nonconformists, the preteen’s career in the industry appears, thus far, to be thriving.
IMDB.com listed her as one of the stars of an upcoming horror film titled “The Clearing,” as well as having a recurring role in the Disney Plus television series “Diary of a Future President.”
‘The DNC should be ashamed of itself, because it really is a slap in the face to folks who were asking for reform…’
Sen. Bernie Sanders reacts to Trump vowing not to let America become a socialist country. / IMAGE: Screenshot via Yahoo News
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Top allies of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a leading contender in the Democratic presidential primary, slammed the Democratic National Committee and its chairman, Tom Perez, for putting former Hillary Clinton advisers in prominent positions on the committee.
The DNC announced this week that former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta will both have seats on the DNC’s rules committee.
The Sanders campaign sought to have Frank removed from this role in 2016, describing him as an “aggressive attack surrogate for the Clinton campaign,” but the DNC rejected Sanders’s request.
Likewise, Podesta was intimately involved in the DNC’s attempt to stonewall Sanders’s 2016 campaign. One of his hacked emails from 2016 revealed that he asked a Democratic strategist where to “stick the knife” in Sanders, who was running against Clinton at the time.
The fact that the DNC chose both Frank and Podesta prove that the Democratic establishment has learned nothing, said Nina Turner, the national co-chairwoman of the Sanders campaign.
“The DNC should be ashamed of itself, because it really is a slap in the face to folks who were asking for reform, and if the DNC believes that it’s going to get away in 2020 with what it did in 2016, it has another thing coming,” Turner told Status Coup.
“It’s very disappointing to see Chairman Perez build a list of this magnitude,” Turner continued. “It also shows a lack of understanding about what the grassroots asked for post the 2016 election. It is an embarrassment.”
The DNC is intentionally choosing a “very small number of appointments of allies to Sen. Sanders, said Yasmine Taeb, a DNC member who attended the 2016 convention as a Sanders delegate.
“The appointments also include individuals that are outright hostile to Bernie Sanders and his supporters,” Taeb added. “It’s not the message the DNC should be sending to the grassroots right now when we’re all working aggressively to defeat the racist in the White House.”
The DNC, however, has defended its decision to appoint Frank and Podesta, arguing that those two delegates represent a very small fraction of the 187 members who will eventually serve on the committees.
“Our rules require the DNC chair to make a small fraction of appointments to three standing committees for the convention, and these appointments reflect the rich diversity of our party,” DNC national press secretary Brandon Gassaway said in a statement. “The remaining appointments will be made based on each state’s election results.”
Both Podesta and Frank are white males, although Frank adds “diversity” as a member of the Jewish and LGBT identity groups.
This DNC decision is just the latest example of the Democratic establishment’s uncertainty in regard to Sanders and his growing momentum among progressives.
Former President Barack Obama has pledged to step in, should it appear that Sanders will get the nomination. And Clinton, herself, was criticized for recent comments that “nobody likes” Sanders.
Several establishment groups are also scrambling to create an “organized effort” to prevent Sanders from winning the nomination, according to Matt Bennett, co-founder of the Democratic group Third Way. But some fear that an intentional effort to stonewall Sanders could unintentionally make him a martyr.
“People were laughing at Trump when he came down the escalator and they kept laughing at him for way too long, until ‘holy crap’ he’s winning primaries,” Bennett told Politico. “What I fear is one will emerge too late, as with what happened with Trump.”
