In a 5-4 decision, the justices upheld the enforcement of the ban on transgender military service members while litigation continues as it returns to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for further proceedings.
Will The Commonwealth Continue To Evade The Natural Right Of Religious Freedom?
“We are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right,” said Thomas Jefferson regarding any enacted premise that would strip Virginians, and indeed Americans, of their religious liberty.
With Animus Towards President Trump, Tim Kaine Will Not Vote To Confirm Judge Kavanaugh To Supreme Court
Following Senator Mark Warner’s refusal to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, Virginia’s other senator, Tim Kaine, will also not support him, revealing an animus towards President Donald Trump – angering many Virginians.
Republican Senator Asks AG: Is Virginia Violating Brown v. Board As School Infrastructure Deteriorates?
“63 years later, does the U.S. Constitution or federal law provide a legal remedy for the failure to satisfy the Brown II mandate on school infrastructure?” State Senator Bill Stanley asks Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring as the consensus to fix crumbling schools throughout the Commonwealth gains widespread, bipartisan acclaim.
Speaker Kirk Cox Formally Files Appeal To Supreme Court Over House Redistricting Plan
The 416-page appeal from the Republican speaker of the Virginia legislature prods the U.S. Supreme Court to consider “paradigmatic” errors made by the district court in their decision to declare 11 House districts unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered.
Meeting Featuring Albemarle County School Board And Protesters Ends As Expected
When the Albemarle County School Board was met by the Hate-Free School Coalition, who has advocated for the banning of Confederate imagery, no productive conversations happened, no positive engagement occurred, and the only thing accomplished was chaos.
Political Ad Promoting Judge Kavanaugh Could Lead To Setting Dangerous Precedent
The Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative political campaign organization, has put out a $1.4 million ad to promote and secure the confirmation of D.C. Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court after the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. In the past few days, the ads appeared in at least four states and to the national audience.
In a CBS News interview, Carrie Severino, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and chief counsel and policy director for the Judicial Crisis Network said Kavanaugh is a “rockstar” of the federal courts.
On Twitter, Severino said:
“Brett Kavanaugh is a home run. Like Gorsuch, Kavanaugh is brilliant, fair and independent, committed to following the law and honoring the Constitution. I look forward to the confirmation of another great justice.”
As an author of nearly 300 opinions during his 12 years on the federal bench, Severino said during the interview that Kavanaugh is “known on the D.C. Circuit as someone who has a real expertise in the important questions of the constitutional limits on government, the separation of powers, and major administrative law issues that come before that court, specifically.”
She went on to say that the judge has taught as Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown law schools, leading him to be nationally-recognized, even insofar as the “Supreme Court is often adopting his opinion in at least 11 different opinions,” Severino said.
The states in which the ad was most-heavily placed were Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia, and North Dakota, all of which are states that President Donald Trump carried in 2016 that currently have a Democratic senator running for re-election. Regardless, of the validity of the ad, and whether one likes Kavanaugh or not, something like this has never happened before – there has never been an ad promoting a Supreme Court justice as a political issue.
The judicial branch of the government, explicitly, must remain apolitical. Everyone understands that a judge has his or her political biases, but rule in cases on an apolitical stance, forwarding the principles of the Constitution, only.
Democrats, rather, progressives, are bloviating that the confirmation of Kavanaugh will usher in the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, ending life on Earth as we know it. None other than the most volatile expression which makes the sentiment up is the belief that Kavanaugh will overturn the landmark case Roe v. Wade (1972), wherein a woman’s right to an abortion was read out of the privacy clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Judge Kavanaugh, however, has stated that he will uphold the notion of stare decisis, respecting the decisions of his predecessors.
As well, the “political lean” of the Court does not really alter with the addition of Kavanaugh. Now that Kennedy has stepped down, Chief Justice John Roberts may have to take a influential role in being the designated “swing voter,” as Kavanaugh is more conservative than Roberts, but nothing changes.
Most constitutional scholars would even say that keeping a fairly balanced court – 5-4 either way – is the best thing to do when replacing a justice.
Still, the fact that a political ad was sent out to pressure politically vulnerable senators to confirm Kavanaugh, most of whom already will vote for him, may lead to setting a dangerous precedent in mixing political campaign issues with the apolitical nature of the Supreme Court. Many thought the highest court in the land was still the island of purity in a quagmire of political muck; but it seems that it too is being pulled closer towards the shores of the briney, breaucratic deep.
UVA’s Speech Supression Policy Challenged By Bible Carrying Alumnus
The University of Virginia (UVA) has garnered it first challenge against its new policy surrounding “expressive activities” on it campus by outside groups after Bruce Kothmann, a UVA alumnus, read aloud from his Bible at the Rotunda. A police officer approached Kothmann as he read from Isaiah 40, and told the UVA alum that such activity was no longer allowed at the public university.
In a report from The Washington Post, the man came to campus just after his daughter finished her sophomore year. Kothmann, armed with his black leather bound Bible, traveled from his home in Philadelphia to challenge the new policy to limit speech.
Even if he had sought permission in advance, as the policy states, the Rotunda is not one of the places the university has designated for public speech by outsiders.
“To say a single alumnus or group of alumni cannot gather anywhere on the grounds of the university to speak,” Kothmann said, “that seems like an overreaction to ensure a safe environment for students…I want the school to keep being a school that says free speech is important – especially a university founded by Thomas Jefferson.”
Freedom of speech has recently loomed as an aggressive issue at college campuses across the country. UVA is a special case – where several hundred white supremacists clashed with members of Antifa in August on the school’s Lawn and at the Rotunda. It was the beginning of a weekend of violence in Charlottesville that turned deadly and sent shock waves across the world and made many question the merits of the First Amendment in modern society.
Kothmann, a 1989 graduate of UVA, current teaches at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. He was concerned after becoming aware of his alma mater’s new rules, created in the months following the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.
UVA President Teresa Sullivan wrote to the campus community last week about the implementation of the rules that many say have the underpinnings of the suppression of free speech. “The University of Virginia is committed to the constitutional principle of free speech and to the safety and security of every member of this community,” she wrote. “The university has issued a revised policy regarding the time, place, and manner of expressive activity by unaffiliated persons meeting outdoors.”
The term “unaffiliated” also applies to university alumni. Moreover, the policy dictates that people must make reservation at least one week in advance before they wish to speak publicly on campus or handout information, restricts groups to 25 or 50 people, permits only two hours of speech, and designates nine areas on campus where such events are allowed.
The Rotunda at the center of the university, where Kothmann was read his Bible aloud, was not one of those places. He argued that the nine designated sites would not be the most effective places to spread a message, considering they are located in the lesser-traveled areas of the grounds of UVA. Even with unwelcomed speech, Kothmann said, “You answer speech with speech…That’s the antidote to damaging speech.”
As part of a large Jewish family, Kothmann said his family was frightened by the torchlight march with members of white supremacy factions chanting: “Jews will not replace us!” Both him and his daughter, Julia Kothmann, were sent pictures of the August 11 rally while they were vacationing at the beach – shocking both of them.
Julia said she thought of Kristallnacht, when Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues were pillaged in Nazi Germany and elsewhere in 1938, and she thought of the Ku Klux Klan. “It was terrifying, disgusting, revolting,” she said.
Kothmann says he understands the aim of UVA’s policy. He says the university has the right to put some restrictions on the time, place, and manner in which people speak.
“At some point, a group of people assembled to speak is a mob.” However, he said, “I don’t think this is the right policy to make that distinction.”
Some argue that the there is a supposed “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment. Some say, “This isn’t free speech, it’s hate speech.” Some question, “When does free speech stop and hate speech begin?”
Contrary to what many progressives claim and what is seen on mainstream media, there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. Hateful prose, as ambiguous as the term may seem, is protected under the First Amendment.
People are free to excoriate and condemn Muslims, Christians, those of Jewish faith, or African-Americans, Caucasians, or illegal aliens, or natural-born citizens – as people commonly criticize Democrats or Republicans, or KFC or Popeye’s fried chicken.
One can argue, as many do, that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution should be changed to make room for a ban on hate speech, which would include obscenities, much like those shouted during the August rally. However, no term exists, as United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said in his opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) – “I know it when i see it…,” in reference to obscenities via the “Roth Test” that determines if speech is unprotected, which is deemed “patently offensive” and “utterly without redeeming social value.”
The opinion from Justice Stewart, even thought it came from the highest court in the land, is objective, without clear legal concreteness.
Nevertheless, no exception to the First Amendment should be recognized anyways.
A few days after the carnage in Charlottesville ended, thousands of people filled UVA’s Lawn for a candlelight vigil for the three victims of the fatal violence of the rally and the notion that a small Central Virginia town was changed forever. People came from far and wide to spread messages of love, hope, and solidarity in a time that seemed not to represent society in 2017.
They sent a message of love to reclaim the space. This is precisely the antidote to hateful speech – loving speech.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
UVA Teetering On The Edge Of Freedom Of Expression Folly
As UVA is set to implement restrictive rules and guidelines on “expressive activities,” they must not institute an area where freedom of expression is dissuaded, causing a reverse in citizen reconciliation.
Justice John Paul Stevens Dead Wrong About Second Amendment
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is wrong about the Second Amendment and is engaging in judicial activism to provide gun control.